The Farwalker's Quest (16 page)

“It's all right, little goat. The trees can eat sunlight. You and I must have something more solid.”

Humbly, she thanked him and soaped her hands before going back to her bread.

“I knew you were coming, you see.” Ash cackled. “The cherry tree in our courtyard began blooming night before last. An old tree, she is. Never blooms anymore except for visitors she wants us to welcome. She said there'd be two, but I wouldn't have guessed two so small. Are ye newly named Tree-Singers, then?”

Zeke deflated. His eyes dropped to his lap. “No.”

Her hands wrapped on her warm cup, Ariel pondered his face. “One of us is,” she said. “Zeke.”

Tears glistened on the boy's lashes. “Not anymore.”

Ash's eyes, which swam in a gray liquid of age, fastened on Zeke.

“Ah, so you're that one, then. I heard of the burning. A bad business. But the trees don't blame you, boy.”

“Then why won't any hear me?” Zeke moaned. “I've tried and tried. Not many would answer before, but most of them listened. Now they won't even do that.”

“You told me you heard voices, though,” Ariel ventured.

Zeke's tears slipped loose. “I did! I would have lost you completely without them. But when I tried to figure out which tree was speaking, none would say anything more. When I sing, they all turn away!”

Ash rested his hand on Zeke's shoulder. The boy pulled his tears back under control. Ariel's heart throbbed, the pain of his
loss awakening hers. No wonder he hadn't wanted to ask a tree for directions.

“We'll speak of that later,” Ash told Zeke. “For now, eat.”

Once they'd slowed in stuffing themselves, Ash Tree-Singer began asking questions. He didn't seem troubled that they'd come in the night or slept with the goats. What he wanted to learn was who followed and how far behind them the hunters might be.

“Finders,” he mused when he'd heard. “I wonder. Two, did you say?”

Ariel repeated the names. “Do you know them?”

“Don't believe I know any Finders at all,” Ash replied. “But what I know hardly matters. It's what our trees know that concerns me.” His twisted fingers absently petted the tabletop as if he were placing pieces of an invisible puzzle.

“What if they come while we're here?” Zeke asked.

“I don't think they will,” Ash answered. “They won't catch you until—” He broke off, shaking his head. “They won't catch you.”

Ariel heard it again in her head, that one word: “until.” If a Tree-Singer said it, you were hearing the truth. But Ash had said two things, or none. At once her breakfast weighed too much in her middle.

“Can't we stay here and hide? Please? They're awful! They tied me and—” Now Ariel's eyes filled with tears.

“My dear, you've misunderstood my creaky old tongue. Your path stretches long before you, indeed. I won't tell you a fib about that. But you will not spend another day with two Finders. That I can promise.”

Ariel's chest began heaving with trapped sobs anyway. The swings of fear and relief were too much to bear.

Ash fluttered to comfort her. “Madrona?” he called.

Another green-clad Tree-Singer appeared, a woman a bit younger than Ariel's mother.

“What mother? You have none,” whispered a stone lodged in her heart.

Ariel cried hard to drown out that whisper. Madrona fussed and then lifted her up, carrying her like a baby toward the doorway. The separation from Zeke prompted a quick flash of fear, but it gave way under Ariel's grief. She leaned into the soft bosom and wept.

Madrona settled on a stone bench in a courtyard and stroked Ariel's hair. Pink blossoms drifted past. Gradually, the soothing embrace lulled Ariel once more into slumber.

She dreamed again of the young man from the goat pen. He circled the cherry tree, head bowed, his gray tunic not unlike what the Tree-Singers wore. As he passed, his eyes flashed up to catch Ariel spying on him. Looking troubled, he extended a hand toward her, palm up.

“I can,” he said.

“Can what?”

Her own voice awoke her. She lay stretched by herself on the bench, where apparently Madrona had left her.

Shivering, Ariel sat up. Cherry blossoms fluttered about the garden like lazy snowflakes. Petals landed on the bench beside her. While she watched, they shivered and twitched until they had aligned themselves into the shape of a hand.

She jumped to her feet, a scream caught in her throat.

“There you be. Awake again, then?”

Ariel whirled. Ash and Zeke stood in the courtyard archway.

“I've asked my friend Elm to heat water for baths,” Ash went on. “Does a warm tub sound pleasant?”

Barely listening, Ariel glanced back at the bench. Her motion had disturbed the delicate petals, but they resettled, the shape too perfect to be accidental.

“Look!” She waved Ash and Zeke nearer and pointed to the hand outlined on the bench. “Is that a Tree-Singer trick? It's scary.”

Ash took one look and chuckled. “Ah. You seem to have caught the interest of Misha,” he said. “One of our ghosts.”

“Told ya,” Zeke muttered, when she shot him a wild glance.

“A lost soul, I suppose,” Ash continued, “from times long ago. We used to catch sight of him often, drifting through the halls or this courtyard. He's been quiet for years, though. I rather thought he'd moved on.”

“I could hear him whisper last night,” Zeke said. “But I couldn't make out many words.”

Ash tilted his head. “I knew you were unusual, Zeke. I suppose since you needn't sleep there again, I can tell you—the goat pen was once used as a tomb.”

Ariel clutched her own arms to stop her skin from crawling.

“He can't harm you,” Ash hastened to add. “He's just curious about you, I'll guess—someone new, and young like him. If you sit quietly, you may even see him.”

Not sure she wanted attention from a ghost, Ariel gnawed her lip.

Ash patted her shoulder. “If you're scared, ignore him and he'll go away. He can't hurt you, I promise. No specter can.”

Ariel hoped he was right. As Ash led her and Zeke back
through the dim, ancient hallways, she scanned gloomy corners and the rafters overhead to make sure they were empty.

“There was a time when Misha would get into mischief,” Ash told them. “Handprints would appear on clean robes or squashed into meat pies—much to the torment of our cook, Juniper.”

“Is everyone here named for a tree?” Ariel wondered. “Everyone alive, that is?”

“Indeed,” Ash replied. “When Tree-Singers come here to stay, they take new names. There has been an Ash at this abbey for time forgotten. Many Cedars and Willows and Elders as well.”

“Anybody named Horse Chestnut?” Ariel giggled. Zeke elbowed her, scowling. “I'm sorry,” she added, trying to pull the grin off her face.

Ash winked. “You're forgiven. I think Horse Chestnut might be a bit awkward as a name. Though it's a beautiful tree.”

Promising to call them when their bathwater was hot, he left them in a small room with two beds and a window overlooking the mountains. Zeke immediately flopped on one bed.

“Did you know about this place?” Ariel asked him.

“I thought it was somewhere Tree-Singers went when they died,” he admitted. He shared some of what he'd learned from their host while she'd napped. The abbey had stood there, according to Ash, since before the Blind War, and maybe the war before that. The halls once had been full, but only a dozen Tree-Singers lived there now, and new arrivals came rarely. Madrona, the youngest, had taken a vow of silence.

“He told me she saves her voice only for singing to trees,” Zeke explained sadly.

Watching his face, Ariel asked gingerly, “Did he make you feel better about … you know?”

Zeke stared out the window. “He told me I would never be a Tree-Singer again. He said I had something more important to do.”

Ariel's breath caught. “You might be the Farwalker, Zeke! Not me—you!”

Zeke shook his head. “I asked about that. I will know my new trade when I find it—that's all he would say.” He eyed her. “But I still think it's you. A wildcat couldn't have followed that trail last night once the moon set. And you're the one who led us to the path in the first place, too. I don't think that was luck.”

Although he hadn't convinced her, she pondered Zeke's words until Madrona fetched them for their baths. Ariel had to admit she had found the way to the abbey almost as if something had guided her feet. But that didn't seem like a skill that could be traded for something to eat. Villagers exchanged news and goods with their neighbors, and most were too busy feeding their families to go farther afield, with a guide or without one. Besides, what news could she bear, if not the news that her mother was dead? No one cared. A Farwalker today would be unneeded, footsore, and hungry.

Dogged by these disquieting thoughts, Ariel sank gratefully into her tub. Madrona washed her hair and her back. The woman's soft touch summoned memories of home that stabbed into Ariel's heart. Tears leaked again onto her cheeks. Whisking them away, she pressed her hands tight to her chest, for that's where the leak seemed to have sprung. Madrona smiled kindly and pretended not to notice.

When the Tree-Singer left her to soak, Ariel noticed the looking glass hung on the back of the door. As if awaiting her gaze, handprints appeared in the steam coating its surface. Now that she could put a name to the ghost, it no longer spooked
her so badly. It must be lonely, she thought, drifting without friends to speak to, good things to eat, or the comfort of a warm fire or tub. It sounded as forlorn as a Farwalker's life.

“I'm sorry you scared me before, Misha,” she said. “I wish I could see you. Besides in a dream.”

The hands in the mirror fogged over. She wondered if she'd said the wrong thing.

Disappointed, Ariel looked toward her toes at the far end of the tub. Steam still rose from the water around her. It did not, however, simply float toward the rafters. Even wet, the hairs on her arms rose. A misty bolt of lightning hung white in the air.

She drew her knees up to her naked chest and grabbed the glass bead on her necklace, needing something to clutch, if not hide behind.

“You know about the telling dart?” she breathed. “Or were you a Farwalker once?”

A breath puffed from behind her, whiffing the symbol away. She whipped her head that direction. She glimpsed nothing but space all around her—until her eyes fell on the misty mirror again. Drawn as if with a finger, the same symbol shone there. Handprints stamped around it. Ariel marveled.

She emerged from her bath into an oversize green robe. She snickered to see Zeke dressed the same. Ash sat with the pair near a fire, serving up warm milk and sweets. Ariel's stomach, still full from breakfast, gurgled with pleasure at more.

“Eat up, saplings,” Ash told them. “I certainly don't begrudge you a roof and a bit of hot water and cheese.” His smile became strained. “But I really think you should be on your way as soon as you can. Tomorrow, perhaps.”

Ariel nearly spewed her mouthful of milk. She whimpered.
“So soon?” Scarl and Elbert were likely still hunting for them, and probably not far away. If the men had found Orion, they might be galloping now toward the abbey. Even tracking on foot, they could have closed to within pouncing distance, if they'd pushed hard. Ariel had no doubt they had—if only to catch her and kill her for vengeance. She could imagine Elbert's face when he'd realized she was gone. It must have looked like a storm driven over the sea.

“On our way,” Zeke repeated, pinning Ash with a stare. “On our way where? We're not going home, are we? You don't think we are.”

While Ariel gaped at her friend, an uncomfortable look slid into the old man's wrinkles. “Don't believe that, boy,” he said. “You will find rest. I just think you have a long journey ahead first.”

“What do the trees say?” Zeke demanded, his rude tone making Ariel cringe. “If something bad is going to happen, we might as well know.”

“You're wrong there,” Ash replied sternly. “Foreknowledge is far more dangerous than ignorance. But that's not the point. The trees tell us some things. They can't tell us the whole, they wouldn't if they could, and I can't imagine your father ever told you they did.”

Chastened, Zeke dropped his stare. Ash crinkled his face kindly at Ariel.

“Trees feel the ebb and flow of the Essence, not each separate spark,” he explained. “The world leaves it to us to stir sparkles ourselves, and it's precisely that striving that keeps the tide bright. Since no part of the world is detached from the rest, without brave efforts by all, the brilliant fire would go dim.”

Ash would say no more about it. He told them Madrona would wash their clothes and fill Zeke's pack with food and warm blankets. They should eat their fill and rest while they could.

Desperate to wipe the dread from Zeke's face, Ariel told him, “Never mind. We'll be okay. I'm not scared.” But she was.

Even the first bed in almost a fortnight did not comfort Ariel. Too soon, morning had come, forcing good-byes. As she and Zeke crossed the high meadow toward the spires above, he walked backward, gazing down at the abbey.

“I wish we could have stayed there forever,” he said.

Ariel glanced over her shoulder. The stone roof and chimneys seemed to melt into the sheltering bluff. If she hadn't just stood inside it, she would have thought the whole place a mirage.

“I'd rather go home,” she said, although she no longer knew what that word meant.

Heaving a sigh, Zeke faced forward again.

Avoiding his anxious expression, Ariel studied the route ahead. She spied a creek tumbling down toward them, and her heart lifted to meet it. According to Ash, they should be able to follow its course to a saddle in the hills—their best hope of crossing to the other side. From there they could find the shore and head down the coast, keeping the sea on one shoulder until they got home.