She had come! Astride her quarter-Fey horse, her aura blazing gold, sapphire and green, so potent, it burned the very mist away. He extended his hand. She turned her head; she saw him!
The hungry mirk gusted, riding an unruly, unfelt wind. Rebecca rode on, leaving him alone inside the mist.
* * *
They stopped beneath a ralif tree. Sian reached into her flat saddlebag, and paused, sending a sidelong glance to Becca.
"If you will allow your servant to wait upon us?" she murmured.
Becca felt her face heat, and ducked her head. "Certainly," she murmured. "Nancy—if you please?"
Her maid flashed to the Engenium's side, receiving from her hand a flat loaf, a packet wrapped in seaweed, a bottle, and two wine glasses that could not have survived the gallop at which they have traveled this last hour and more.
"Against the trunk, if you will," Sian murmured, and Nancy flittered away as if her burdens were nothing, while the Fey woman pulled a rug from the saddlebag, and stroked Brume's neck.
"Forage, friend," she said, and sent another glance to Becca, "and the little lady, as well, if you allow it?"
"Certainly," Becca said again, and turned to stroke Rosamunde's nose. "Forage with the gentleman, bold one, and rest."
Rosamunde blew lightly against her hair, and turned her head, as if she considered Brume and weighed his merits as a guide in this place. The big horse flicked a tall gray ear and moved off.
After a moment, so as not to seem too eager, Rosamunde followed.
Becca turned and walked to the base of the ralif, where the rug was already spread, and the loaf laid out, the seaweed packets opened to reveal dried fish, and wine in two glasses held in Sian's long fingers.
"Come," the Fey woman said. "Sit. Eat. Rest."
"Thank you," Becca said and put her hand against the trunk, using it to steady herself as she sat clumsily, her dress ruched untidily under her. Again, she envied Sian her trousers and shirt—and sighed as she received her glass.
"Our journey is almost over," Sian said, sipping her wine. "This evening, you will sleep among your own kind."
Becca lowered her glass, the wine untasted.
"I had thought—your pardon. Have you reconsidered the Queen's directive, then?"
"Not at all. However, there is no reason that you cannot be as comfortable as possible, problem that you are."
Becca tasted her wine, the first sip taking the dust out of her mouth, the second bright and fruity and cheering.
"You will send me back to—back across the keleigh, then? To my own people?"
"She sends you to her tame Newmens," a growly voice said from too near at hand. Becca gasped, and started, her fingers happily tightening on the glass, so that she did not lose it.
"What," she gasped, "are you doing here?"
The Brethren shook its horns. "You are here," it said.
"Indeed, I am, but there is not the least reason that you need to be where I am!" Becca said hotly. "Your wound is dressed and will be perfectly fine, so long as you take some care."
"Care," the creature crooned, its voice unnervingly like hers in tone and timbre. "Take care."
Becca turned to Sian, who had broken off a piece of the flat bread and helped herself to a morsel of fish.
"Send it away!"
Elegant brows rose. "The Brethren are their own creatures; they come and go when and where they please, an' does it displease someone else, why! all the better." She raised her head to consider the creature under discussion. "Is that not so?"
"The Fey are easy to displease," it answered, and Sian, astonishingly, laughed.
"Why, so we are, indeed! So we are."
Becca looked for place to put her glass down, and found a flat rock by her knee. Next to it was a large leaf with a broken bit of bread and some fish laid out and ready to eat. She hesitated, wondering if Sian had—then saw a flutter of wings as Nancy darted past, across the picnic, beyond the margin of the rug, where the Brethren crouched in the taller grass, its heavy head bent.
It looked up as Nancy approached and Becca felt her heart rise into her throat. One swipe of that hard, leathery hand would shatter Nancy like a snowflake, and yet she approached fearlessly, holding out a leaf like that at Becca's side, also bearing bread and fish.
The Brethren growled, too low for Becca to be certain that there were words spoken, and accepted the offering, daintily for so wild and rough-looking a creature. It took a bite of bread while Nancy hovered over its shoulder, rapt, and entirely careless of her danger.
Becca took a breath and turned resolutely to Sian.
"Tame Newmans?" she asked, her voice sounding tight and breathless in her own ears. "With collars and compulsions and obedience layered in, Engenium?"
Sian looked up sharply, crimson limning the high arc of each cheek. "Certainly not!" she snapped. "That is not the way thinking beings treat each other!"
Becca raised her hand to her throat, staring into the other woman's outraged eyes.
"Is it not?" she asked icily. "The greatest artificer among the Fey; son of an ancient house of artificers; a man of letters, who sits on the Queen's Council—"
"Altimere is not only of an old house," Sian interrupted. "He is old. His views and attitudes were formed before the war. Only Sanalda is older." She moved her hand, seemingly forgetful of the bread and fish she held. "He is brilliant, studied, mannerly, and very, very powerful. But he is not civilized! Altimere is the author of the keleigh, and if you suppose that to be civilized, you are a naif, indeed!"
"I rode through the keleigh," Becca reminded her, "in company with Altimere. I must say that he did not behave very much as if it were his creation. In fact, he seemed to be quite sensible of its dangers. If he were its master, surely he would know how to pass through unscathed and untroubled?"
"Author is not master," Sian said, and sighed sharply. "I did misspeak, a little," she admitted, reaching for her glass. "Altimere was one of three persons strong in kest and learned, who together crafted the keleigh. Which worked a wonder for what it was made to do, but soon overgrew itself."
"Gobble, gobble, gobble," the Brethren said in its growly, eerie voice. "Fey. Brethren Newmens." It made loud, smacking noises, and Becca felt her stomach tighten.
"What reason could there have been to tamper with such terrible forces?" she demanded.
Sian looked away . "Terrible reasons," she said softly. "The Fey stood on the edge of annihilation; many of the Elders—our best and strongest philosophers and artificers—had already fallen before the enemy. They were desperate times and desperate answers were crafted." She nodded at Becca's untouched lunch.
"Best have that," she said. "We'll ride without pause once we're underway—and we must soon be gone." With that, she rose, effortless, and walked off.
Becca looked down at her untouched meal. She did not feel like eating—anything, really, much less dry bread and fish. On the other hand, it would not do to faint, and shame herself before Sian and her "tame Newmans."
She picked up a bit of bread and some fish and nibbled on it.
The fish was salty; the bread sweet. Together, they conspired into an unexpectedly pleasing taste, waking the appetite she thought had languished.
In short order, the portion laid out on the leaf was gone. Becca reached for her glass—and jumped as a low voice growled into her ear.
"I can show you the way."
The glass escaped her fingers; jewels flashed in her side vision, and Nancy caught it, slipping it back into her grasp most gently. Becca paused to be sure of herself, lifted the glass and sipped before turning to stare at the Brethren
"Can you, indeed," she said icily. "And I suppose you can kill the Engenium, too?"
Nancy sped in a tight circle, whether in exuberant anticipation or horror, Becca could not tell. The Brethren shook its horns, and growled.
"I can show you the way," it repeated.
Becca sighed and sipped her wine, dampening her dry mouth.
"What is your name?" she asked.
The Brethren leaped up, snarling, tail lashing, blunt fingers curled. Becca gasped, raised the glass and threw what was left of the wine into its face. It roared, but before it could attack—if, indeed, it meant to do so—a flurry of color darted at its face. The Brethren batted at its tiny tormentor; improbably, Nancy dodged each blow, darting in again, and again.
"Enough!"
Sian's shout shook the air; loosened leaves and cones tumbled out of the tree and into Becca's hair. The Brethren froze, then leaped across the blanket and ran. Nancy dropped down, wings beating furiously, and patted Becca's face with cold, tiny hands.
"Are you well?" Sian asked, crouching down at Becca's side, her arms resting on her thighs.
"Well," she acknowledged and shook her head irritably. "Leave over, Nancy; I'm perfectly fine."
Her maid dropped down until she was perched on Becca's knee, her posture one of continued worry.
"What did you do to anger the Brethren?" Sian asked.
Becca sighed. "I asked its name."
"Oh." Sian stared at her. "Well, you wanted to be rid of it." She rose, shaking out her sleeves. "Time to mount up." She moved away, leaving Becca sitting with her back to the tree.
"Well," she said determinedly, and rolled clumsily to her knees. The dress was bunched inelegantly and she wavered for a moment, almost falling—and her elbow was caught in a strong grip. Steadied she rose to her feet, shook the bits of leaf and bark off of her skirt and inclined her head.
"Thank you, Nancy," she said, with what dignity she could muster. The little creature mimed a mid-air curtsy and began to zip away.
"Nancy—"
The wings hesitated. Nancy twirled 'round to face her.
"It was extraordinarily brave of you," Becca said, bending down to meet honey-yellow eyes, "to leap to my defense. I wish, however, that you not risk yourself. Something like that—Brethren—could break you with a touch of its hand."
Nancy tipped her tiny head to one side, mimed another curtsy—and was gone in a flash of wings, which was, all things considered, not the answer Becca had been expecting.
"At your leisure, Rebecca Beauvelley," Sian called from the back of her mount.
Becca sighed sharply and went to mount Rosamunde.
* * *
Meri walked, and occasionally stumbled, but he did not fall.
He moved inside almost total darkness, his steps lit only by the feeble glow of his own kest. The trees he walked among gave off no slightest glow, and yet—they were not dead; they had not so much given up their essence as been separated from it.
A stick turned under his foot, and he very nearly lost his balance. His mouth was dry, but the water skin was long empty. Perhaps his luck would turn, he thought murkily, and he would fall into a stream.
Soon, he thought, he would have to stop. He was worn and feeble, his legs trembling with strain. It was not a decision he made willingly, but it was apparent that if he did not rest soon, he would fall—and where he fell, he would lie.
Best, he thought laboriously, to pick his spot, than leave it to chance.
As for choosing his spot—that was trickier. Every time he placed his foot, he struck a stone, or a stick.
He was so tired.
Ahead, a smear of light beckoned, green and fresh. Meri blinked, squinting his shorteye. He had walked so long among these frozen, unnatural trees—was his vision creating a dream of tree-aura, to comfort itself?
But, it appeared not. The aura grew brighter as he walked, as if it were not one, but several. Meri felt his heart lift, and he walked more quickly. A breeze sprang from somewhere and kissed his hot cheek. Above, dancing beyond the reach of high limbs, were stars.
Meri threw himself into a ragged run toward those bright and welcome auras. A cry broke from his lips as he flung himself to his knees at the base of a pine, and pressed hands and forehead against the aged trunk.
Sleepy, half-absent comfort flowed into him from the tree, and he bit his lip to keep from sobbing like a sprout. When he had control of himself, he looked up and about him.
Behind, there was darkness; before him was the glow of a elder, somewhat sleepy, but wholly natural wood. To his right was a stand of larch, glad in the vermilion robes of age, their aura a thing of icy menace.
He had walked full circle, Meri thought, sagging back against the pine, and was back near the Newman village.