Of Truth and Beasts

A chill spread through Wynn. Not because it looked like Vreuvillä could smell what the majay-hì had. Not because the woman might suspect what Chane was. It was that touch that left Wynn shocked in disbelief.

The only reason Wynn could memory-speak with Shade through a touch was because of the taint left by a mistake with a thaumaturgical ritual. Even the an’Cróan and their Anmaglâhk couldn’t do this with majay-hì.

But had Vreuvillä just done so?

“From Calm Seatt?” the woman repeated, and glanced at Shade. “With a majay-hì? I do not think so.”

Wynn tried to recover. “Shade came for me. She’s from what is called the Elven Territories on the eastern continent. Its people are called the an’Cróan—Those of the Blood.”

Vreuvillä closed within reach of Shade. Shade remained quietly watchful, though the woman of the woods didn’t looked down again.

“So, you have met our wayward kin of old?” Vreuvillä said.

“Yes. Several of them are ... my good friends.”

Vreuvillä’s large eyes narrowed. Little enough was known throughout the Farlands of the xenophobic an’Cróan. But almost no one on this continent had ever heard of them until Wynn had returned. Yet Vreuvillä knew of them and their ancient link to her own people.

What else might this woman know of older ways and times? Perhaps things the guild could never uncover from lost scraps of the Forgotten History.

Vreuvillä took a long breath and instantly turned up the broad gully. “Come with me.”

Wynn was still shaken, but she grabbed Chane’s arm. His whole body was trembling.

“Can I help?” Ore-Locks asked, though his offer sounded forced.

This entire venture had been his suggestion, but he now appeared to regret it.

“No, I’ve got him,” Wynn answered.

Chane might be sick and disoriented, but he was still aware enough to act. Wynn didn’t know what he might do in this state if Ore-Locks touched him.

The pack parted as Shade led the way, but majay-hì paced them on all sides. Ahead, the paired silver and mottled bark brown ones flanked Vreuvillä all the way to the great fir’s draped entrance. The woman slipped inside without even glancing back.

When Shade reached the entrance, she hesitated, eyeing Vreuvillä’s escort at guard on either side. Wynn pushed past, pulling Chane inside the tree. She grabbed a stool she spotted nearby.

“Sit and rest,” she said, guiding him to the seat. Perhaps with the forest out of sight, he might calm down.

Ore-Locks stepped in, followed by Shade. When the hide flap closed over the entrance, Wynn looked about.

Vreuvillä crouched before the flickering embers of a freestanding clay hearth at the rear. With a stick, she lifted a char-stained kettle out of the flameless coals.

The interior was bark covered, like the guild’s redwood structure, but the walls here were lined with living protrusions at all possible levels. Those shelves were filled with ceramic pots and jars. The chamber wasn’t as big as the tree from the outside, and Wynn saw another opening at the back draped with a wool cloth.

Someone had guided this tree’s growth, like the Shapers of the an’Cróan. But it was not as old as the greater trees in the city. Wynn turned back as Vreuvillä reached up to retrieve a gray porcelain jar with a wooden stopper.

As before, Ore-Locks remained silent, and Chane seemed beyond speech.

Vreuvillä crouched before the hearth, pulling a bit of yellow root from the vessel and dropping it in a rough wooden cup. She immediately doused it with the kettle’s scalding water. She rose and came at Wynn, but thrust the mug out at Chane.

“Drink it,” she ordered. “Some humans are too human for the forest ... though I have never seen one so affected.”

If Vreuvillä thought Chane was a mortal, Wynn had no intention of altering that assumption. But she doubted the root tea could do anything for an undead.

“He’s my guard ... and companion,” she explained. “He would not stay behind.”

“At least he is not another white-robed schemer.”

Wynn hadn’t come to discuss Chuillyon, but she couldn’t help asking, “Why do you dislike him?”

“Dislike?” Vreuvillä hissed.

Her head dropped forward but her narrow gaze remained on Wynn. Strands of silver-laced hair shifted across her left eye and exposed the tip of one tall ear.

“Sages and their orders!” she said; it seemed to rise from her throat like one of Shade’s rumbles. “They title themselves masters, domins, and premins to seek stipends from their kind, for their own purpose. The whites, so-called order of Chârmun, are a consumption in their midst ... as if they bear any love or reverence for the one tree in all things. But do they teach? Do they bring the people back to what is sacred? No. They hide and manipulate among ...”

Vreuvillä’s voice caught as she looked Wynn up and down, studying the gray robe.

“Even among your kind,” she finished. “That heretic and his sycophants are deviants, fallen from the true way of the Foirfeahkan. They serve themselves, with Chârmun and its children as their tools.”