But still whole, she was telling him. Still alive in human form.
“Cinnaminson,” he said, an idea coming to sudden life, a plan to implement it taking shape. “I need to see you again before I go. I need to say good-bye. It isn’t enough just to hear your voice. It doesn’t feel real to me. Can you take me to where you sleep?”
There was a long pause. –You cannot have me back, Pen. Mother Tanequil will not let me go. Not even if you beg–
She recognized his intentions all too well, but his mind was already made up. He was terrified of what he might find if he did it, half certain that she was already reduced to bones and dust, that her vision of herself as still being whole was a subterfuge fostered by the tree. But he couldn’t leave without knowing, no matter how devastating the truth. If there was a way to set her free again, to take her with him . . .
“I won’t do anything but make sure that you are safe,” he lied. “I just need to see you one last time.”
–This is a mistake– she trilled, her voice rising amid those of her sisters, sharp with rebuke. –You shouldn’t ask it of me–
He took a deep breath. “But I am asking.” He waited a moment. “Please, Cinnaminson.”
The voices of the aeriads hummed, a long sustained chord that matched the sound of wind whispering through the leaves of trees, soft and resilient. He forced himself to keep silent, to say nothing more, to wait.
–I am afraid for you, Pen– she said finally.
“I am afraid for myself,” he admitted.
A pause followed, and the humming died away.
–Come with me, then, if you must. If you can remember my warning–
He exhaled softly. He was not likely to forget.
On the far side of the ravine, Khyber Elessedil stood at the foot of the stone bridge, listening to the soft moan of the wind. She had been standing there for the better part of an hour, using her admittedly unskilled Druid senses to scan the forest for sign of Pen and Cinnaminson. It wasn’t the first time she had done so, but the results were the same. She might as well have been casting about the Blue Divide for a sailor lost at sea, for all the good it was doing her.
One hand clutched the Elfstones. She kept them close on the theory that they might at some point prove useful in her search. They were doing her about as much good as her Druid skills.
Frustrated, she turned away. She hated feeling so helpless. Ever since the safety lines tied to Pen and Cinnaminson had dropped away as if severed by an invisible blade, she had known that the fate of her friends was out of her hands. More than once she had considered trying to cross over herself—and she wasn’t afraid to try, in spite of the warning on the stone—but she didn’t want to do anything that would jeopardize Pen’s efforts to secure the darkwand.
She looked back into the gardens, her dazzlingly colorful prison. Trapped in all that beauty and unable to enjoy it, her concentration on Pen and on the island and on the Druids tracking them and on time running out—thinking about it all made her want to scream. But there was nothing she could do.
Nothing but wait.
She stalked over to where Kermadec sat talking with Tagwen, trading stories of the old days, when Grianne Ohmsford was new to the position of Ard Rhys and they were just beginning in her service.
“Do you think there might be another way across?” she asked abruptly, kneeling next to them, her voice urgent. “Another bridge or a narrows we might vault?” She exhaled sharply. “I don’t think I can stand waiting another minute without doing something.”
Kermadec stared at her impassively. “There might be. If you want to take a look, you can. I can send Atalan or Barek with you.”
She shook her head. “I can manage alone. I just need to do something besides stand around.”
Tagwen frowned into his beard, but didn’t say anything.
“You won’t lose your way, will you, Elven girl?” the Maturen pressed. “I wouldn’t want to have to come looking for you.”
“I can find my way.”
“If you discover anything, you will come back and tell us?” Tagwen pressed suddenly.
“Yes, yes!” she snapped. “I’m not going to do anything rash or foolish!” Her irritation got the better of her for a moment, and she took a deep breath. “I just want to see if that ravine goes all the way around or if there are other places to cross. I won’t attempt anything on my own.”
She didn’t know if they believed her or not, but if they did, they ought to be less trusting. She fully intended to attempt a crossing if a place to make one could be found. She should have gone with Pen and Cinnaminson in the first place, but she had allowed her instincts to be overruled.
She stood up, giving them a bright smile. “I don’t expect to be gone long. I probably won’t get much beyond what we can see from standing right here, but it will make me feel better to have tried.”
Their eyes fixed on her, as if searching for the truth behind her words, neither replied. She turned away quickly and started off, choosing to go south, where the gardens opened out toward a thinning woods and a set of hills. She could see the ravine as it snaked its way into those hills, disappearing finally into the horizon. In truth, she didn’t have much hope that she would succeed in her quest. She mostly hoped that the distraction would help with the waiting.
She was so intent on her efforts to get clear of the others that she failed to detect with her normally reliable Druid training the shadowy form lying in wait directly ahead. She missed it entirely as it slipped away at her approach and circled back around toward the bridge.
Pen Ohmsford followed the low, vibrant humming of the aeriads as they led him on through the trees and back toward the dark cut of the ravine. The light casting his shadow before him as he walked, he could measure the direction they were taking from the slant of the sun’s thin rays through the heavy canopy. He tried to hear Cinnaminson in the mix of aeriad voices, but he could not detect a noticeable difference in any of them. She was being assimilated into their order, and he could not stop himself from thinking that if he did not reach her soon, there would be no way to separate her from the others, even if her body was still intact.
Thinking of her body at rest beneath the earth in the cradle of the tanequil’s roots made him wonder about the condition of the bodies of the other aeriads. For their spirits to survive in aeriad form, their bodies must be kept whole, as well. But how was that accomplished? He was feeling less and less certain about what it was he was going to find. He was starting to think that his request was a mistake.
Yet he kept on, drawn by the humming, by the promise it offered that he might still find a way to bring Cinnaminson back to him. Both hands gripped the polished length of the darkwand, the only weapon he possessed aside from his long knife. The darkwand was a talisman of magic meant to be used to breach the wall of the Forbidding. But it had come from the wood of the tree. Could it be used to penetrate the tangle of the tanequil’s roots? Could it be employed in some way to free the Rover girl?
It was wishful thinking, seductive and empty of promise. There was nothing to suggest the darkwand would do him the slightest bit of good in his effort to bring Cinnaminson out of the ravine. But it was all he had to rely on, and so even in the face of the patent improbability of it helping him, he held out hope that it would.
Time slipped away. He was beginning to lose his sense of direction as the tree limbs tightened overhead and the light faded to a dull wash. But the voices stayed strong, the humming steady, and so he persevered, his determination unshaken. Now and again, he thought to call out to Cinnaminson, to reassure himself that she was still there, but he restrained himself from doing so, knowing that it suggested a weakness in himself he did not want to acknowledge.
Eventually, the ground began to slope, then to drop sharply, and the dark crease of the ravine loomed ahead through the trees. As the trilling of the aeriads intensified, Pen felt his hopes sink further; there was unmistakable joy and expectation in those voices.
Tightening his grip on the darkwand, he followed the singing to a narrow trail that led downward. The brush and trees a concealing wall, the trail was invisible from anywhere but where he stood. He descended slowly, tracking the trail’s switchbacks, keeping close to the ravine wall so he would not slip. One glance down revealed that if he was to do so, he could fall a long way.
As he went deeper, the light grew ever more faint, until everything was shrouded in gloom. Spots of iridescence given off by organisms growing on the plant life began to shimmer softly in the enfolding darkness. The ravine had the feel of a maw, its dark, wet earth sprouting jagged rocks that jutted like teeth.
I am a fool to come here, he thought.
Yet he continued, unwilling to accept that the danger he faced might be too great or the consequences of his effort too terrible. Would Cinnaminson lead him to his doom, even in her newly adopted form? He could not make himself believe so. No, he decided after considering the possibility. She would keep him safe. She would take him to Mother Tanequil. She would do as he had asked, and he would have his chance to free her.
Then the trail ended, and he was at the bottom of the ravine. A vast tangle of roots stretched away before him. The smallest of them were closest, some no larger than strands of human hair. The largest were farther back, barely visible through the enfolding darkness and the pale wash of diffused sunlight, and many were thicker than his body. They lay in twisted heaps, loose and coiled, half-emerged from the earth in which they had buried themselves.
Pen drew to a halt, uncertain about what to do next. All around him now and no longer moving forward, the aeriads hummed and sang. He glanced about for help, but there was no help to be found. He had gotten as far as he was going to get without doing something on his own, and he had no idea what that something should be.
“Cinnaminson?” he called softly.
Ahead, the tree roots shifted, and in their slow grating and scraping he heard the sound of his own death. Like snakes, they were coiling and uncoiling in anticipation of wrapping about him, of squeezing him until there was no breath left in his body. He felt himself begin to shake as the image eroded his courage, and he tightened his grip once more on the darkwand.
“Cinnaminson!” he called again, louder.
As if in response to his cry, the tree roots parted where their wall was thickest, and he saw revealed in the pale trickle of sunlight and tiny flashes of iridescence the bodies of dozens of young girls. Thousands of tiny roots wrapped about them, cradling them in nests of dark, earth-fed fiber, their ends attached to the exposed skin where clothing had rotted and fallen away. Their eyes and mouths were closed, and they appeared to be deep in sleep, locked in dreams that he could only imagine. They must have been breathing, but he was too far away to be certain.
Then he saw Cinnaminson. She was off to one side in an area in which the tendrils had not yet grown so thick, and her body was still mostly exposed and unfettered. She slept the sleep of the others, and most probably dreamed their dreams. But her place among them was newer, her coming clearly more recent.
He didn’t stop to think about what he should do. He simply started toward her, compelled by his determination to get close enough to touch her and, by doing so, to wake her and then to free her. He didn’t know how he would manage it or even if he could. He only knew he had to try.
–Pen, no– Cinnaminson cried out, her voice separating suddenly from those of the other aeriads.
Instantly, the tanequil’s roots began to shift, the rasp and scrape of fiber on earth and stone so menacing that Pen froze in midstride and brought the darkwand up like a shield. The wall had re-formed in front of him, barring him from getting any closer, telling him in no uncertain terms that he had transgressed. Tendrils stroked the exposed skin of his hands as the tree roots closest to him lifted out of the earth. In his mind, he could hear a hiss of warning, a sound so soft it was like the rustle of sand on old wood.
–Don’t come any closer– It was the sound of a serpent’s tongue sliding from a scaly mouth. –Go back to where you came from–
–Please, Pen– he heard Cinnaminson whisper. –Please, go away. Leave me where I am–
He wanted to ignore the warning, to go to her, to reach out to what was still real and substantive about her, to free her of that nightmare. The tanequil had given her the boundless world of an unfettered spirit, of the aeriads for whom it provided such freedom, but it was feeding on her, as well. He could tell that much just from looking. Did she realize that? Did she understand what was happening to her?
But he sensed, even as he asked these questions, that it didn’t matter what she knew or how she might respond to knowing. What mattered was that she was content. She was the tree’s captive, a slave to the roots that formed its feminine half, and they were not about to let her go for any reason. If he tried to take her, he would be killed. Then no one would know what had happened to her and no one would ever come to set her free.
He closed his eyes against what he was thinking, against his feelings of frustration and helplessness. He should do something, but there was nothing he could do. He had lost her all over again.
–Good-bye, Penderrin– he heard her say to him.
Her voice rose and fell to blend with the voices of the other aeriads before finally disappearing into them completely. Then the voices faded entirely, and she was gone.
Cinnaminson.
Aware of the sudden silence, he stood staring into space. Even the tree roots had gone still. Their tangled lengths lay limp and unmoving before him, a wall that he must breach. But he lacked the means to do so. He looked down at the darkwand, wondering anew if it might provide him the magic that was needed. But the purpose of the talisman was to help him gain access to Grianne Ohmsford, not to Cinnaminson. The darkwand could breach the wall of the Forbidding, but not the wall of the tanequil’s roots. Nothing had happened to suggest otherwise. No magic had surfaced when his passage through the roots had been denied. No magic had emerged to help him.
His throat tightened as he realized that there was nothing more he could do. He would have to abandon his hopes of freeing her. He would have to leave her where she was. He would have to take the darkwand and travel to Paranor. He would have to attempt to cross over into the Forbidding and rescue the Ard Rhys. Cinnaminson had given herself to the tanequil so that he might do so. What was the point of her sacrifice if he failed to take advantage of it?
But it meant risking the possibility that he might never have a chance to come back for her.
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Good-bye,” he said softly to the darkness.
Then he turned away, walked back to the trail that had brought him down into the ravine, and began to climb.
TWENTY-SEVEN
The hand shook him gently awake, and Drumundoon’s familiar voice whispered, “Captain, they’re coming.”
The Federation army. Preparing to attack.
Pied Sanderling opened his eyes to dawn’s faint glow on the eastern horizon, scanned the maze of hills and ravines that surrounded him, and waited for the buzzing in his ears to quiet. Every muscle and joint in his body ached, but he couldn’t very well complain. He was lucky to be alive at all.
He closed his eyes again, remembering. The explosion of fire, rocking the Asashiel, sweeping away railguns and deck crew. The plummet of the craft toward the earth as he clung to his safety line and called in vain for Markenstall. The impact of the airship as it slammed into a grove of wide-limbed conifers, breaking them apart, leaving him hanging from their shattered boughs. Miraculously, in one piece. No broken bones or severed limbs and no cuts or slashes deep enough to bleed him dry while he waited to be found.
And found he had been, almost at once, by Elven Home Guard in retreat from the airfield, who had watched his vessel fall out of the sky. His own troops, who had recognized him instantly and cut him down, pleading with him not to die, begging him to hold on until they could get help. He had been half-delirious then
, burned and shocked, fighting demons that he imagined still flew overhead and hunted him as a hawk would a mouse seeking refuge where there was none to be found.
He had come around eventually, sometime during the long nighttime retreat through the cut to the hills north of the Prekkendorran, getting his first good look at the ragtag condition of his valiant Home Guard. Obedient to his orders, abandoned by Elven army regulars, they had stood alone against the hordes of Federation attackers that had swept across the airfield. The Home Guard had tried to hold their position, a hopeless task that, in the end, had failed. He had learned this much from Drumundoon, who had found him somehow during the night and stayed with him. He had learned, as well, that the Elven sector of the Prekkendorran was lost and that the Free-born allies, besieged on three sides, were in danger of being overrun. The battle was still being fought, a mix of Bordermen, Dwarves, and mercenaries fighting under the command of the charismatic Dwarf Vaden Wick. But disheartened by the death of their King, broken by the swiftness of their defeat, the Elves had abandoned the field.
“We need you, Captain,” Drum had hissed at him, bent close so that only Pied could hear. “We need you desperately.”
Pied could not quite understand why his aide was saying that. There was no longer anything he could do. He was a Captain of the Home Guard relieved of his command, reprimanded and humiliated by his King in a way that left no doubt about his future. Nothing could change that, especially with Kellen Elessedil dead and the Elven army scattered to the four winds.
But that was just the point, Drum had said. Kellen Elessedil was dead, and so was everyone who had heard him dismiss Pied as Captain of the Home Guard. The whole incident might never have happened, and in truth it would be best if everyone thought it hadn’t. Look at how matters stood. Stow Fraxon, who commanded the Elven army regulars, was dead, killed in the Federation assault during the night. All of the airship commanders were dead. Most of the other commanders were scattered or lost. Of all Elven army units assigned to the Prekkendorran, only the Home Guard was still intact, and only Pied Sanderling was still with his command.