Chapter Thirty-Eight
Becca woke into sunlight, snug and comfortable in her yellow-covered bed, with the feeling that someone had spoken her name. She stretched, carefully, expecting twinges and complaints from bruises and outraged muscles. Astonishingly, there was no pain, only a sleepy feeling of well-being, already beginning to dissipate as memory grew sharper.
She raised fingers to her lips, which had been torn and bleeding, and encountered only smooth, soft flesh. The fingers themselves showed a network of spidery white scars where there had been raw blisters only the night before. Her hair was clean—but the Gossamers would have bathed her, after all, rather than sully the bed with blood, and fluids, and mud.
Flinging the covers aside, she slid out of bed and went to stand before the mirror, staring at the brown-skinned woman with her down-tilted eyes and slanting brows, her hair neatly braided for sleeping, swathed in a pure white nightdress, sleeves deep with lace, and the ribbons tied in demure bows. Around her throat, the diamond collar sparkled coldly. Becca raised her hand, then allowed it to drop before her fingers made contact. What was the use? The thing would only protect itself—exactly as Altimere had built it to do.
Color flashed, quick as butterfly wings, behind her left shoulder, and then Nancy was before her, hovering with her little head cocked inquisitively to one side.
"How long," Becca asked her, "have I been asleep?"
Nancy hesitated, then spun full around—once, twice . . . thrice.
Three days? Becca took a deep breath. Very well. She knew that Altimere had sometimes caused her to sleep . . . longer than simply one night through. But even three days would not have been enough to heal the harm she had taken at the hands of Aflen and his—
Bile rose in her throat, and the room seemed to slide sideways, sunlight shattering into glimmering motes. Becca doubled over, retching, snatched at the vanity table, missed, and was caught in a strong, gentle grip.
The Gossamer eased her onto the bench, and kept her shoulder in a light grip until the fit passed and she was able to straighten. A glass appeared, water sparkling in its depths. She received it gratefully and drank.
"Nancy," she said, her voice not at all steady. "Is Altimere home?" Her maid fluttered before her, shaking her head, no.
No. She was alone and in her own will. Or, if not entirely in her own will, near enough.
Near enough.
She held the glass out; a Gossamer swept it out of her hand as she rose.
"Please dress me, Nancy," she said, her voice calm and low. "I am going down to the garden."
How quickly things grew here! Becca leaned over the half-wheel, fondling the lush lemon-colored leaves of the duainfey. Her fingers tingled, the pain so minor as to be a caress.
Duainfey, which bestowed clarity of thought—and surely clarity of thought was a virtue, though she sought other of its virtues.
For here, right here—these sweet, bright leaves were the answer to everything. An end to grief and guilt. An end to being a stranger to her own thoughts. An end to dishonor.
An end.
Carefully, not wishing to harm them, she took a leaf from each plant, and carried them with her to the stone seat by the elitch tree.
Gardener, what seek you?
"I seek an end to pain," she said dreamily, turning the leaves over on her lap. So pretty, like filigreed gold.
"And yet an end to pain is too often an end to joy," another voice spoke from beyond the elitch. "Both must be embraced, to achieve a balanced and fruitful life."
Becca laughed, raised the first leaf and took it into her mouth just as Sian the Engenium stepped out of the flowers.
"Good day," she said solemnly. "I hope you will forgive my intrusion. My garden shares a gate with this one. I saw you were out and thought to share news that perhaps might interest you."
"I will soon be beyond news," Becca told her. "If you wish to tell me, however, I will listen for as long as I may."
There was a small pause. The first leaf lay on Becca's tongue; she sucked it like a mint leaf, and almost smiled. She had feared that she would not be able to tolerate the taste, but in truth it was quite pleasant.
"That's fairly said," Sian said at last. She stepped forward until her shadow fell across Becca's face. Today, she was dressed in sharkskin leggings and wide-sleeved shirt, a leather cord binding her forehead. She frowned down at the two remaining leaves on Becca's lap.
"What manner of plant is that?" she asked. "It burns the air between us."
There was a sort of . . . shimmer about the Engenium's slim form, a misty, pleasing blue-green. Doubtless an effect of the leaf, but pretty, nonetheless. How odd that Sonet had not written of this—but, then, perhaps Sonet had not known. Those in need were unlikely to describe the hallucinations of release, after all.
"The herb is called duainfey," Becca said. "It is from—from beyond the keleigh. In one of its preparations, it is said to bestow clarity of thought."
Her mouth was damp and sweet; she felt relaxed. She curled the leaf with her tongue and swallowed it, allowing that the touch of it was more satisfying than much she had swallowed of late.
"Certainly, clarity of thought is to be desired," Sian said seriously, and Becca smiled politely.
"You had news of interest, you said?"
"Indeed. Aflen, the Queen's first counselor, is gravely ill. The healers have remanded the case to the philosophers. The philosophers pronounce it a crisis of kest and say they can do nothing."
"A crisis of kest," Becca murmured. "I have heard that one might die, if one is . . . too weak . . . or too open . . . to guard one's kest."
"Have you?" Sian looked at her with interest, but Becca only raised the second leaf, nibbling it daintily.
Sian cleared her throat. "My news continues—Flonyth is likewise ill, which is perhaps not surprising. He and Aflen are never apart, so it is not wonderful that whatever afflicted one should also strike low the other. They share not healers, however, and Flynyth's healer claims his to be an affliction evermuch like those of the war, where great magics oft were loosed with little thought."
Amusement tinged the taste of the leaf; Becca wondered briefly if she appeared harelike as she nibbled the leaf down to stem. No matter; Flonyth and his thoughts were being solved even now. She licked her stinging fingertips, and glanced up into the Engenium's serious face.
"The third piece of news, however—that I own to be odd."
"And that is?" Becca asked composedly.
"Venpor has returned to the elements from which he sprang."
"Good," Becca said, calmly. "There was no joy in him."
There was something . . . very strange . . . happening with her vision, and there could no longer be any doubt that it was attributable to the leaves she had eaten. She knew a momentary sadness, that she had not thought to bring out ink and paper, and so note down these effects, for the education of future herbalists.
Sian was most definitely overlaid with turquoise mist. Indeed, the whole of the garden seemed to be blooming on two levels—the simple, familiar level of earth and leaf; and another, which seemed to exist as interwoven beams of light, the weaving of one strengthening the pattern of all.
Becca blinked, and looked down at the third leaf, pierced now with strands of silver light. Perhaps she would be able to taste the light. She rubbed the leaf between her fingertips, felt the green ribs bruise and break, as the wax coated her fingers. Almost, she was at an end, and it would seem duainfey was kind. An unexpected blessing, that, after so much pain and betrayal.
"Forgive me," Sian said slowly, "if I overstep. But I wonder that you care to wear that collar."
"I do not care to wear it," Becca said serenely, still studying the third, the last, leaf. "However, it is only I who may remove it, and I have already failed twice."
A small pause. "Do you intend to risk a third attempt?"
"I intend to risk nothing, any longer," Becca said. "This kind leaf—" she raised the last of the three "—will insure that."
"In fact," said Sian, "you mean to die."
"I do."
"And would you die with such a thing binding you?" Sian's voice was distant, gentle—concerned.
Becca laughed, the leaf burning in her fingers. "Can he call me back from the dead to do his will?"
"It may be that he can," Sian said slowly. "Altimere has worked marvels aplenty in his time. There are those of us who would not say there is anything he cannot accomplish."
Becca stared up at Sian through the misty air, the pleasant taste of the leaves she had eaten going to ash in her mouth "No," she whispered.
"The only way to be certain is to have it off," Sian said. "You dance on the points of daggers, Rebecca Beauvelley: Bound forever if you fail thrice; bound beyond forever, if you embrace doom before you win free."
Becca swayed where she sat. Could it be possible? And yet—Sian surely told the truth; she could taste it in the hot air.
"What shall I do?" she cried.
"Deny it. Reject it. Remove it."
"I have tried, I tell you, and failed. I have not the strength to deny it, much less remove it."
"Then you must find it," Sian said coolly.
"Find it?" Becca demanded, with no little heat. "Where will I find such strength?"
Fie, Gardener, you need no one else to tell you the answer to that riddle. And, now that you have clear sight, it is time for us to return that which is yours. You will find that we have kept it safe, and husbanded it well.
There was a bolt, as if of vivid green lightning. Becca cried out where she sat, pierced to the heart, the garden gone to motes of light, Sian a standing stone among them—
She took a breath, and lifted her hands, the left rising more slowly than the right, but rising. Pain flickered; her muscles shook, as if she pushed against mud. She turned her head, and clearly saw the inky flow of some—anti-light—staining her fingers. She bit her lip and shoved her hands upward those last few inches, until she touched it.
The collar. It felt thick and heavy on her neck now, and as she touched the bottom it seemed to tighten in warning. But there, before, the threat of death had meant something. Now she was merely a kind leaf away from release.
Unexpectedly, she chuckled with the irony of Altimere's failure to measure her resolve.
And there! Altimere's strength had always been her ignorance and need, and her failure to heed the careful traps he had allowed her to build to imprison herself.
Deny it.
Her fingers against the collar, Becca took a hard breath.
"I, Rebecca Beauvelley, in my own voice and by my own name, deny Altimere of the Elder Fey use of my body, my mind, and my intention."
Three seasons, suggested the voice in her head.
Another breath, and the words, again, her voice shaking, her resolve firm. The collar warmed, melting the leaf-wax from her fingertips. She pushed her hands upward until all ten of her fingers were pressed to the bottom of her thrall.
A voice, firm, insistent: "That is but two, Rebecca Beauvelley."
Her hands rose higher; the clasp adamant beneath pressing fingers—
The collar grew uncomfortably tight. It would fight to keep her for Altimere. It was, after all, what he had made it to do.
Becca hooked the fingers of her left hand between the collar and her throat, her breath coming ragged now, as it tightened again.
A third time she spoke the phrase to deny it, and if the collar did not loosen, neither did it tighten.
Reject it.
"I, Rebecca Beauvelley," she said, her voice thin, "have no need of this necklace. There is no beauty in it, nor power. It is not mine to hold, nor is it my greatest desire. I wish it gone."
Words. Mere words. What did she think she might accomplish with such puny statements? She felt despair, and swayed where she sat.
Three seasons, insisted the trees.
She spoke again, the words coming in gasps, her head reeling from lack of air or the effect of the leaves. They came slowly, but she said them, and with each word her fingers clawed into her own flesh.
The words said, she relaxed—and the collar crushed her hands into her throat, drawing on the will to pain . . .
She laughed, wheezing.
"Foolish construct! I . . . mean to . . . die."
"Again!" Sian shouted.
The words. The ideas. Altimere, who loved her and who had given her this collar as a symbol of his devotion and care.
"Lies . . ." Becca whispered
Reject!
Her tongue was not so mobile now; her mouth was dry, and her eyes. Altimere was not here. The necklace was a trap to bind her—she saw it clearly. It was woven with deceit and the will to fail, so that once she had it on, she would never be able to remove it.
The breeze shifted, bringing the scent of the garden to her. She struggled for breath, moved her thick tongue, shaping the words, the words, the—
"I wish it gone!"
Caught! Her fingers were numb and trapped, her crippled arm screamed for surcease from its agony, and her throat was full of dust and panic!
Remove it!
Painfully, she dragged down on the collar with her left hand, freeing her good right hand. Burning fingers sough the catch, touched it, pressed—
The click was audible, and the release so sudden she fell back and would have toppled from the bench if Sian had not reached out and grabbed her shoulder.
Becca looked down.
The collar lay in her lap, touching the bruised and broken leaf. Even as she watched, the duainfey withered and crumpled into ash. The necklace . . . the necklace melted, bold diamonds expanding into rugged lumps of coal, the fine golden links twisting into common rawhide cord.
Revulsion filled her soul, the stink of blood so thick she could scarcely breathe; Elyd dying beneath her; Sanalda with a knife in her throat; Altimere petting her, warming her with sweet words of praise.
She was free. Altimere no longer controlled her.
And the hand on her shoulder belonged to a Fey, who lived by dominating those weaker than themselves.
"Now!" Sian said, and Becca heard the frenzy for possession in her voice. "Now, I can help you!"
There was a dagger on Sian's belt. She must act, before she was enslaved again.
Becca lunged, got her hand 'round the hilt—
And sleep fell upon her like a wave.
The nest was well-made; snug for a Ranger grown, but, Meri thought, sliding his pack from his shoulders, t'would do.
"Dinner will be in the common," Jamie told him. "I'll come fetch you." He had then gone off to do whatever duties a child of his village might have, leaving Meri to settle in to his new camp.
He should, he thought, easing down into the woven grasses, go at once to the trees—and he would, after he had taken a moment to savor the simple fact that he was alone, unassaulted by the unnatural brilliance of those terrible auras. The boy—had been almost restful, his aura nothing more than the delicate, washed hues of a Wood Wise born—and wasn't that a tangle! A child of a Wood Wise and a Newman? One could scarcely decide whether to be horrified on one's own account, or laugh aloud and wonder what the High who had deplored breeding with Wood Wise and the Sea Folk would say to this misalliance.
Meri smiled and settled back, closing his eye for just a moment . . .
Diathen the Queen looked from the draggled, sleeping Newman to her cousin Sian.
"I had thought the tale was that he had brought her from beyond the keleigh."
"It is the tale," Sian said slowly, "and I believe it. The aura—is much like those others I have seen among the Newmen."
"And what shall I do with her, now that she is mine?"
Sian shifted her shoulders. "That depends on what she might tell you, does it not, O Queen?"
Diathen laughed. "How have I landed in your black books, Sian?" She waved a hand. "No, do not speak. Let the poor child sleep for now."