The Witches of Eileanan (25 page)

The second time she followed a path for days, only to come out on a plateau looking down onto the forests of Aslinn far below. She cursed and swore, but had no choice but to turn and retrace her steps—she had come too far east if she could see Aslinn. She needed to head back and down to the south to find the way out of the Sithiche Mountains, the single break in the range called, appropriately enough, the Pass.

Isabeau should have known her way. She had made the journey down to the highlands of Rionnagan every year since she was a babe in arms. She had been confident that she knew the way and indeed, all she had to do was bear southeast and wait for the lie of the land to take her into the fertile valleys and forests below. But in a year the landscape can change—storms and landslides make their mark, trees grow and fall, and even the animals of the forests change their paths as hunting grows scarcer. More importantly. Isabeau acknowledged reluctantly, her guardian had been with her on all her other trips and so Isabeau had not been responsible for choosing the path or the night's camp site. And despite Isabeau's knowledge of the languages and customs of the creatures of the forests, she was having more trouble with the wild animals than she had ever experienced when with Meghan. She reminded herself that Seychella had said all the creatures of the land were stirring. But that did not really explain why her previous journeys from mountain peaks to valley villages had always been so pleasant and easy, but was now the most arduous and difficult of her life.

Soon after she regained the track, the talisman she carried inside her shirt began to burn and tingle. For most of one day she ignored it, but the heat became too much to bear the further south she traveled, and so she took it out and stowed it in her pack where it could not burn her.

The track ran along the side of the fast-running bum which she hoped was the start of the great Rhyllster. If so, it would lead her straight down to the Pass and into Rionnagan.

Isabeau was hurrying down this track, trying to ignore the discomfort of the burning talisman which now scorched right through the leather of her pack, when suddenly a young woman dropped out of the trees right in front of her. "Sssh!" she hissed, and put her finger against her lips.

Isabeau immediately stifled her exclamation of surprise, but looked about her quickly for a possible route of escape. There was none: on her right, the bank dropped steeply to the rocky bed of the burn; to her left was a great stony bank, without foothold or handhold.

"Go back!" the girl said. She was dressed in a dirty green smock and long hood, and she had the greenest eyes Isabeau had ever seen, and the most freckled face. Her feet were bare and black with mud.

"Why?"

"Soldiers ahead. They will see ye. Quick, follow me!"

She darted past Isabeau and down the ridge, until she found a place where they could clamber up the bank.

After only a moment's hesitation, Isabeau followed her. The stranger leaped up the bank like a deer, and held out her hand to Isabeau to help her. After a breathless scramble, they were safe in the forest, though the green-eyed girl set off immediately on a wild race through the trees. They followed the line of the ridge, came at last to where it loomed over the burn, and there they flopped to catch their breath and watch the long line of soldiers marching up the track. There must have been more than a hundred, most on foot but some riding massive horses, with burnished helmets on their heads. If not for the stranger, Isabeau would have walked straight into them.

"They go to hunt the dragons," the girl said.

"How do ye ken?"

"I heard them talking."

"What's your name? I'm Isabeau. I have no family name, I fear."

The girl chuckled, and said, "Me neither. I'm Lilanthe. They call me Lilanthe o' the Forest. What do they call ye?"

Isabeau hesitated. She was now Isabeau the Apprentice Witch, but she could not tell this stranger that, so with a sigh she said reluctantly, "Isabeau the Foundling."

"Ye and me both, I fear," Lilanthe said gaily. "Nameless an' homeless, both o' us. Ye can be Isabeau o' the Forest too, if ye want."

"Isabeau o' the Mountains."

"Isabeau o' the Stones and River!"

"Isabeau o' the Sky!"

They smiled at each other and ran forward through the forest. That day they made the best time and had the most pleasant traveling that Isabeau had had all week. Isabeau had often craved a companion her own age to explore the woods with, and share secrets with. She had been alone all her life, the creatures of the forest and a bad-tempered old witch her only companions. It seemed Lilanthe felt the same.

"I have always wanted a friend," she admitted. "Someone who likes me all the time, an' never misunderstands me."

The next few days were more like a game than a real journey. They ran and sang and giggled and told stories.

Lilanthe was traveling to the south as well, though she only laughed and said she was exploring the river when Isabeau asked her why.

"Do ye no' have anyone to miss ye?" Isabeau asked.

Lilanthe laughed again and shook her head. "I'm free as a bird.'" she cried, and ran down
the hill with her arms
spread, leaping over boulders and brambles and swerving as if tilting her wings to the wind. Isabeau followed, hallooing and laughing, her arms spread wide.

Knowing Lilanthe, like Meghan, was able to sense what lay ahead and so be able to avoid it, Isabeau was not afraid of being caught. As they traveled, she wondered why it was that she could not do this. Everyone had said she had power, but she had failed the Trials of Spirit, and would now be a prisoner of the Red Guards had it not been for Lilanthe. Again and again she tried to send out her mind, or sense what the other girl was thinking, but always her mind was a blank. Her excitement over Jorge the Seer's splendid prophecies faded into depression, deepened by her anxiety for Meghan. As if it was not dangerous enough for her frail old guardian to have set off to find the dragons, without having a hundred soldiers on her trail too! Isabeau wished she knew how to scry through fire or water or her witch rings as Meghan so often did. She could have warned Meghan about the soldiers. But Isabeau had never been taught to scry, and for the first time she wondered if this was because Meghan knew she had no ability in this direction. But a witch without the witch sense was no witch at all, and the further south the two traveled, the more subdued Isabeau became. Lilanthe's confession that she had been watching and following Isabeau for several days did nothing to make her feel better, though she realized Lilanthe could track virtually anyone through the forest and remain undetected. She seemed able to blend into the trees at any time, startling Isabeau by dropping out of branches or materializing behind a clump of flowering may when moments before Isabeau would have sworn there was no one there.

For four days they traveled together, and talked long and deep about their lives. Both were orphaned—Lilanthe's mother had died when she was a baby and she had been brought up by her father. Despite her openness on any other subject, Lilanthe would not talk about him at all, and shuddered a little when Isabeau tried to press the point, only saying, "Well, he's dead now, so it does no' matter."

Although neither mentioned it, both knew the other must have magic. Isabeau guessed Lilanthe was a wood witch like Meghan, for she seemed to understand the language of the birds and forest creatures as well as Isabeau did, and her woodcraft was superb. She was able to tell what had passed through a place merely by a sound or a smell or a warmth where there should be none.

On the fifth morning, Isabeau woke before dawn, though the stars in the sky were so bright, and the light from the setting moons so red that she could see round the clearing quite easily. She glanced across the gray coals of the fire, but Lilanthe was no longer lying in her bedroll. The blankets lay in a heap, and Isabeau could see the twisted material of her smock. But there was no sign of Lilanthe.

Isabeau was not perturbed, realizing her traveling partner must have slipped into the woods to relieve herself. Feeling the urge herself, Isabeau found a convenient shrub, then afterward wandered down to the pool in the center of the clearing and washed her hands and face. The sky was beginning to lighten and she sat and watched the pale colors ripple across the water.

Deep in thought, Isabeau rested her eyes on a beautiful weeping greenberry tree on the other side of the water. Trailing its long leaves in the water, the tree had a slim white trunk that bent and flowed in the breeze. It was easy for Isabeau to fancy the tree was really a shapely young woman just waking and stretching from sleep. Those long supple branches could be arms; the green tendrils her flowing hair, tangled with leaves and flowers. The knots in the bole could be eyes, just about to open. In a moment she would raise her trailing arms and rub at them.

Somehow, when the tree did raise its arms and stretch and the long eyes opened, and she realized it was Lilanthe, Isabeau was not surprised. There had been a moment when her mind's fancy and the truth of what she was seeing had merged, and everything fell into place. Why Isabeau never saw Lilanthe sleep; why she seemed so much part of the forest. She must be a tree-changer! Though Isabeau had always thought tree-changers looked far more treelike than human, and Lilanthe had certainly looked very human.

Her blue eyes met Lilanthe's green ones, and a look of despair and sorrow dashed across the other's face. With a cry she pushed back her hair, indisputably green in color and as thick and long as Isabeau's. Then she rose and ran, in a mad dash that saw no boulder or bramble in her way, nothing but the blur of tears in her eyes. Having run into the woods upset that way herself several times, Isabeau knew she had to follow her. She ran back up to the camp site, thrust her belongings and Lilanthe's into her pack, kicked dust over the fire and ran after her friend.

She chased Lilanthe into the forest for more than ten minutes, easily tracking her by the sound of muffled sobbing. Suddenly, though, all sound creased. There was no bird song, no chitter of donbeags or squirrels, no scamper of coneys. Isabeau came to an uneasy stop. There was no sign of Lilanthe. Isabeau took a few more cautious steps and then a few more, but saw or heard nothing.

After searching fruitlessly for several minutes, she sat down and realized she was hopelessly lost, not having noticed which way they had run. The forest all seemed the same; even the snow-capped mountains towering so close behind were all the same, the distinctive shape of Dragon-claw having long ago been left behind. Most of all, though, Isabeau was worried about Lilanthe. She had obviously done her best to appear human, hiding the betraying green hair beneath a long-tailed hood, and pretending each night to roll herself for sleep in her blankets. The unmasking of her true nature had obviously upset her deeply. Perhaps it was because she knew of the Rìgh's decree against the fairies? Perhaps she was afraid Isabeau would turn away from her because she was an
uile-bheist,
maybe even denounce her. Isabeau got to her feet and again searched over the ground she had covered, but this time she did not search for a naked girl with green eyes, but for a slender white greenberry tree.

She found her almost immediately. Lilanthe must have realized Isabeau was not going to give up, and so had transformed herself back into a tree. Isabeau sat at her roots, in the shade of the beautiful long branches, and ate lunch. While she chewed her potato bread and cheese, and drank water from her flask, she mused aloud. "What could I have done to upset Lilanthe so badly? I must have said something. Maybe my face showed how surprised I was to see that she is a tree-changer, when all this time I thought she was human like me. I hope that's no' it, because Lilanthe was my first real friend and I'd so hate to lose her." Having not elicited any response, Isabeau sighed deeply and went on. "Maybe she's afraid I will no' like her anymore, which makes me so angry I want to shake her till all her teeth fall out."

The pale branches seemed to quiver, but that could have been the breeze. Isabeau began to wonder whether she was sitting under the right greenberry tree. "Maybe she's afraid I will denounce her to the Banrìgh's Guards. If only she knew. Why, she could denounce
me
at any time and I do no' go running off into the forest or make her go chasing after me through this bloody tangle o' thorns!"

Isabeau finished her cheese and plucked a dried apple from one of her canvas bags. The leaves swayed and a bumblebee came blundering through to sip from the tiny green flowers gathered along the stems. Isabeau sighed again, and then said with a quaver in her voice, "I'm so frightened . . . How could Lilanthe lure me off into the deep dark forest like this and leave me here all alone? I'm lo-oo-oost!" Although she was afraid she had overdone the break in her voice, cool white arms were suddenly sliding round her neck and Lilanthe was there again.

"Fool!" she said, laughing through her tears. "As if ye could no' find your way back again, after that trail ye left behind ye!"

"Och, thank Eà, Lilanthe, I was getting so sick o' chasing after ye! Why did ye run off like that?"

"I'm a tree-shifter!" Lilanthe suddenly exclaimed. "Not a changer. I'm half human. My da was one o' ye."

"Was your mother a tree-changer then?"