Mistress of Masks Page 9

  But before he could find another sweet-bean sprout to practice on, the peacefulness of the glade was shattered by a deep trumpeting sound.

  All the younglings looked up from their exercises. “It’s a watchman’s horn,” one sandy-haired youth cried. “There must be trespassers coming this way.”

  A buzz of excitement spread among the pupils, but Mentor Kesava raised his hand to quiet them. “This is no concern of ours,” he said. “The Watchers of the Wood will deal with the strangers. But I do think it would be wise if we abandoned our exercises for the rest of the day and retreated to the trees.”

  But before anyone could move to follow the mentor’s orders, the sound of raised voices drifted through the trees, and a second later a pair of strangers burst out of the underbrush and into the glade.

  “Would you just do as they ask Orrick?” one of them was demanding of the other. The speaker was female, a slender redhead dressed in a traveling costume of cloak, loose tunic, and green tights, with a hunting belt around her waist.

  By contrast, her scowling companion was a big mountain of a man. Tall and muscular, he looked as sturdy and immovable as a tree and a good deal more dangerous. Between his size and the fairness of his hair and short beard, he seemed like a foreigner. But wherever he was from, he held the great sword in his hand as if he knew how to use it.

  The two strangers had no sooner appeared in the glade than a group of Watchmen came running after them, light-staves raised and at the ready.

  “You are commanded by the authority of the Watchers of the Wood to surrender your arms,” ordered the watchman whose leaf-patterned helm and breastplate marked him the captain of the troop.

  The big stranger didn’t look impressed. Neither did he drop his weapon.

  “I will not give up my sword to a lot of tree-dwelling, stick-wielding primitives,” he growled.

  His female companion urged, “But these people may be able to sell us the horses and supplies we need to make it to the baselands. Besides, as these woods are apparently riddled with Drycaenians, we’ll need their goodwill if we’re to pass through their lands.”

  “Horses you say?” Mentor Kesava interrupted, stepping into the situation. He motioned the Watchers to lower their light-staves. They respectfully complied but kept the weapons ready.

  “Horses are not easily found in these parts,” said Kesava. “May I ask who wants them?”

  The pair of strangers exchanged a glance, the man frowning while the eyes of the female argued with him. Geveral couldn’t decide which of the two was in charge.

  But it was the woman who spoke up. “I am Eydis Ironmonger, and this is Orrick of Kroad. We’ve been to Shoretown and are just returning from the coast.”

  “I am intrigued to meet you both,” responded Mentor Kesava. “We do not often receive visitors from beyond the forest.”

  “With this manner of welcome, I can believe it,” growled the barbarian called Orrick.

  The mentor pretended not to hear. “My name is Kesava, or Mentor Kesava to my students. What may we do for you here in Treeveil?”

  The one named Eydis said, “We travel toward Asincourt on an urgent matter. Time is of the essence to our mission, but we find ourselves improperly equipped for the journey.”

  “If you would like to conduct trade in Treeveil,” said the mentor, “I invite you to accompany me to the treetops. But first you must surrender your weapons, for none are permitted in our village.”

  “That,” said the barbarian, Orrick, “won’t happen in this life.” He hefted his sword to confirm his refusal, and at the motion, the Watchers lifted their light-staves.

  “I would not advise challenging the Watchers of the Wood,” Mentor Kesava said easily. “Their quarterstaffs may appear crude, but the crystals affixed to the ends hold captured charges of lightning. The porous wood of the staff protects its bearer, but nothing would shield an adversary foolish enough to make contact with a metal surface such as a steel blade.”

  Orrick scowled. “And they say dryads are opposed to violence.”

  Mentor Kesava smiled regretfully. “Do not confuse the Drycaenian race with our dryad ancestors. To survive in the modern world, our people have learned to adapt to its ways. Sadly that necessitates allowing for the defense of our villages and families. But do not fear too greatly. Our staves contain low levels of lightning. They would temporarily immobilize you but cause no lasting damage. I should know. I tested them on myself during their construction.”

  Eydis asked, “Are you then the mage of this tree village?”

  Kesava inclined his head. “It is my honor to be one of the mages of Treeveil. Our other mage handles the day-to-day management of weather and crops, while it is my duty to test our younglings for magical abilities. The gifted ones are tutored by me until they’re ready to be sent away for further education.”

  Eydis said, “If you are a mage, you must have a great deal of influence with the village heads. Would you consider interceding for us?”

  “In what way?” asked Kesava.

  “We find ourselves in desperate need of horses but have little coin on hand with which to purchase them. If we could obtain the beasts on loan, we would make it worth your while when next we pass through these parts.”

  Mentor Kesava scratched his mustache. “That sounds like a risky proposition,” he said. “How could we be assured you would ever return to repay your debt? Perhaps you are looking to take advantage of a lot of… what was it? Primitive tree-dwellers?”

  Orrick narrowed his eyes, but Eydis laid a hand on his arm as if to forestall a dispute. “We could pay something now,” she told Kesava. “With the rest to come within the month.”

  Geveral waited for the mentor to dismiss the offer. Instead, Kesava frowned thoughtfully. “I might know someone just reckless enough to take up your offer,” he said. He called over his shoulder, “Geveral!”

  Geveral started at the sound of his name and hurried forward. “Yes, Mentor?”

  “What would you say,” Kesava suggested, “to taking these two home with you? I suspect your brother might be interested in doing business with them. He’s looking to sell that white mare of his, is he not?”

  “He is,” Geveral agreed. “But Snowflake is—”

  “Very good,” Mentor Kesava cut him off. He told the strangers, “It seems your stopping at Treeveil may work out to your benefit.”

  Geveral had been about to say that Snowflake was so old she was unfit for any use but pulling mushroom carts in the southern glade. But when the two travelers focused their attention his way, he realized he didn’t want to disappoint them. Not the barbarian, Orrick, despite his coldly dismissive gaze. But especially not the woman, Eydis, who offered him the bare hint of a smile. Until that smile, he hadn’t realized how pretty she was. And because she lacked the finer features and pale skin of the Drycaenians, she seemed exotic too. How could he resist the opportunity to spend a little time in the company of a pair of exciting strangers from beyond the forest? Perhaps they would have stories to tell and news from the coast.

  “If you will both come with me,” he said politely, “It will be my pleasure to lead you to my home.”

  “But the weapons stay here,” Mentor Kesava reminded them. “They will be waiting when you return. You have my word on it.”

  Eydis whispered something into the ear of her barbarian friend. Whatever it was, it did nothing to dissolve the scowl on his face. But it did persuade him to hand his sword over to the Watchers. Eydis followed suit with her small belt knife.

  “Excellent,” said Kesava approvingly. “You are now most welcome to enter our humble village.”

  * * *

  Geveral felt the curious gazes of all the students in the field following them as he led the visitors to the principal stairway ascending into the treetop village. The Watchers posted there let them pass unmolested when Geveral explained Kesava’s instructions.

  “You must think us a very unfriendly people,” he said to the st
rangers, as they climbed the stairs. “We don’t mean to be. We just don’t get many unfamiliar faces around here.”

  When he received no response, he realized they were distracted by their surroundings. Having been born here, he sometimes forgot how different Treeveil must seem to outsiders. For one thing, it was hundreds of feet above the ground. And while the spiraling stairway they followed was firmly anchored to a vast tree, many of the offshooting walkways were more precariously positioned. For every wide platform perched on sturdy tree limbs and surrounded by strong railings, there were even more rope bridges suspended between trees. These creaked and swayed lightly in the breeze so that on crossing them, even the stalwart barbarian called Orrick looked uneasy. The red-haired woman, on the other hand, looked about her with bright inquisitive eyes.

  Aside from its unusual height and construction, the village wasn’t so different from any other. There were squares for public gatherings, and small businesses were usually run out of people’s homes. And everywhere one looked, tidy cottages nestled among the thick branches, sheltered by the leafy canopy overhead. The suspended walkways between homes and public platforms were wide, and the torches positioned at intervals would be lit after dark so citizens could move about safely even at night.

  Geveral took a circuitous route to bypass the heart of the village and led them down an off-branching walkway to his house. He was suddenly intensely aware of the comparative dinginess of the thatch-roofed cottage he and his brother, Dalvin, called home. Funny, he had never noticed before how the door hung crooked on its hinges. Or how they still hadn’t gotten around to repairing that broken window with the temporary sheet of canvas pinned over it to keep out the wind. Even the crumbling flowerpots lining the narrow porch held nothing but dead leaves and stems. Looking at it with fresh eyes, he realized it really was the worst-kept cottage in the village. A hovel.

  “You, uh, should look out for these steps,” he mumbled as he led the others up to the porch. Why hadn’t he ever bothered repairing the broken boards? He made a mental note to do that soon, before somebody got hurt.

  “Dalvin,” he called, pushing the front door open. It squealed on rusty hinges, something else he really should fix.

  “You don’t lock up?” the barbarian, Orrick, asked.

  “Nobody locks their doors in Treeveil,” Geveral said. “It’s a safe community. We seldom have strangers here, and nobody carries arms, except the Watchers.”

  He ushered them inside, out of the evening air, and called again, “Dalvin, we have visitors.”

  The interior of the one-room cottage was illuminated by orange flames leaping in the open fireplace and the light of several candles burning at the table. A dark-haired, disheveled figure was slumped on the bench there, head cradled in his arms, an empty pitcher of ale at his elbow. Half the candles around him had burnt down to pools of wax.

  “By the First Mother’s eyes, Dalvin! Are you trying to burn the house down?” Geveral asked. “Come on, wake up.” He shook his brother roughly by the shoulder, but to no avail.

  This was not happening. Not tonight. It wasn’t enough Dalvin had earned his reputation as the village drunk. He had to embarrass the family in front of strangers now?

  “I don’t think you’re going to wake your brother anytime soon,” Orrick observed dryly.

  “He’s had a hard day,” Geveral defended, unsure whether he wanted to support his brother or strangle him. “This doesn’t happen often.” A blatant lie, but the visitors didn’t need to know that. “Here,” he added. “Help me get him over to that big chair where he can sleep it off. He’ll be fine once he wakes and we get some savrii into him.”

  Between them, he and the barbarian dragged the unconscious Dalvin over to the fireplace and dropped him into a deep chair. While they moved him, the woman, Eydis, poked around among the pots and ladles above the fireplace. She found a kettle and filled it with water, hanging it on the hook over the fire. Geveral took over from there, dropping in a strainer and adding the sweet-beans.

  While they waited for the water to boil, Orrick paced the room, seemingly unable to light anywhere. But Eydis joined Geveral, kneeling before the fire.

  “This may seem a strange question,” she said to him. “But I must ask if we have ever met. Your name and face are familiar to me, but I cannot place them.”

  Geveral was grateful for a distraction from the awkward silence. “I’ve never been beyond the forest,” he said. “So I do not see how our paths could have crossed.”

  She shrugged, changing the topic. “So is it just you and your brother living here alone?”

  “For the past three years,” he said. “Ever since we lost our mother to the blood-fever.”

  “And your father?” she probed.

  “I never knew him,” Geveral admitted uncomfortably. “He left a long time ago. Dalvin remembers him, I think, but he gets prickly when I ask too many questions.”

  “I imagine the memories are painful for him,” she offered.

  “Maybe.”

  But at least Dalvin had memories, he wanted to point out. At least he knew what their father looked like, which was more than Geveral could say for himself.

  He stretched his hand over the kettle, conducting a faint flow of magic into the fire to heat the water more quickly. Even such a small trick cost him effort, but it was satisfying to see the flames leap a little higher.

  “There must be a draft in here,” Eydis said.

  “It’s no draft, it’s me,” he corrected. “This is one of the few magical feats I can pull off. It’s one of the first tricks Mentor Kesava taught me when I entered his tutelage.”

  She looked impressed. “Can you do other tricks like this?”

  “I know of many but cannot execute them,” he admitted. “My skills are weak. Stunted.”

  She appeared unaware she had unearthed a sore spot. In fact, her eyes shone. “A stunted nature mage,” she mused aloud. “The stunted will grow and the dryad will summon storms of light.”

  “If that is a poem, it’s the worst I ever heard,” he said. “It doesn’t even rhyme.”

  She waved that aside. “It’s no poem, it’s a prophecy. These words came to me in a vision while I meditated in the Pool of Tears at Silverwood Grove. The Mother spoke to me there and showed me many things. Parts of her message slip in and out of my memory like a fuzzy dream. But that piece comes back to me now.”

  “So you’re an oracle?” Geveral asked.

  She cast a glance over her shoulder, toward her pacing friend. But Orrick was out of earshot.

  “Something like that,” she said vaguely. “I am on a quest for the First Mother. It is that which brings Orrick and me to Treeveil. We thought we came to your village for supplies. But now I see the Mother’s hand in our coming and wonder if we were not meant to find more.”

  “Well, you won’t find a great dryad mage in Treeveil, if that’s what you search for,” Geveral said. “Even Mentor Kesava cannot summon anything worthy of the term ‘storm.’ Only gentle mists to water the crops in the glade. Manipulating weather requires a great deal of power.”

  “I’ll bet you could do it,” she said, her tone strangely eager.

  “Me?” His laughter was uneasy. “I hate to disappoint you. But even after many years under Kesava’s tutelage, I can barely raise dew over a small patch of earth. My powers are… inconsistent. Unpredictable. So if you’re hoping to find a summoner of storms, he is not me. Nor anyone else in Treeveil.”

  “I think you are wrong,” she said. “Why should your name and features be so familiar to me unless they are an emerging memory from my vision in the Pool of Tears?”

  Before he could answer, their conversation was interrupted by a moan coming from the depths of the nearby chair.

  “Sounds like Dalvin is coming to,” Geveral observed. He removed the strainer and beans and sloshed the fresh savrii into a tin mug he grabbed from atop the mantel.

  “Mmmmph… My head…,” Dalvin groaned. “What in
the Mother’s name is that pounding noise?”

  “Nothing,” said Geveral. “Only Orrick’s boots pacing the floorboards.”

  “Whose boots?” Dalvin slurred.

  “Never mind. I’ll make introductions later,” Geveral said. “For now, pour a little of this down your throat and get rid of the ale head. We’ve got visitors, and you’re in no fit state to talk business.”

  “Business? What sorta business?” Dalvin sniffed suspiciously at the mug Geveral pressed into his hand. “You didn’t make this, did you? ’Cause your savrii tastes like dog’s bile.” He cast a suspicious glance over the rim of the mug at their guests. “Who’re the strangers?”

  Geveral said, “These are Eydis and her friend Orrick. Strangers on their way to the base of the mountains.”

  Dalvin ignored Eydis, fixing a suspicious eye on Orrick. “A Kroadian, eh?” he asked. “Didn’t think we allowed murderous barbarians around here.”

  Geveral headed off any trouble. “They’ve stopped in Treeveil for supplies, and Mentor Kesava invited them to stay and trade. He thought we might sell them Snowflake.”

  Dalvin snorted and raked a hand through his greasy hair. “Since when does that old meddler tell me what to buy or sell?”

  “He’s only trying to help,” Geveral argued. He stepped closer and whispered, “I think he knows we’re in need of the coin.”

  “We need nothing,” Dalvin said. But his eyes were greedy. “What would you pay me, Kroadian, for a good horse?”

  Eydis cut in. “We aren’t prepared to make an offer until we have seen the animal. She must be in good condition, able to carry our supplies as far as Asincourt.”

  Geveral looked at the floor while Dalvin lied. “Of course she’s in excellent condition. Would I try an’ sell you a bad horse, woman?”

  He tossed his mug, now empty, to Geveral. “C’mon. I’ll take you down to the southern glade right now and we’ll have a look at ’er.”

  “But it’s almost dark out,” Geveral protested as his brother lurched unsteadily to his feet. “Shouldn’t we wait until morning so they can see her in daylight?”