Opening Gambit
Part One
Weatherbird walked over the long grass, trying to stay in the shifting sunlight. Her companion followed close on her heels, trying to match her steps. The forest floor was a patchwork of shadows, and wherever the light did not touch, mushrooms in every fantastic shape and shade proliferated.
Before them loomed the great outline of the Evertree, twisted by magic, aglow with the power of the many souls that dwelled within it – both the willing and the unwilling. To Weatherbird’s eyes it seemed a perverted copy of the Grandfather Tree, the banyan that formed the nucleus of the Great Holt. This ancient oak tree also covered a vast territory, with multiple trunks and thick creepers descending from its branches. But it was a parasite’s mimicry. Instead of growing outward, the Evertree now expanded itself by drawing all the surrounding trees into its root system. Satellite oaks had been wrenched from their soil, or bent like archers’ bows, their branches forced into symbiosis with the Evertree. In other places great curtains of weeping willow suggested the Tree was learning to meld with kin of other woods. Colonizing fungi grew everywhere, flat-topped toadstools and strange fruiting bulbs. Deep in the center of the monstrous colony was the heart-root, as large as the Palace itself, formed of the entwining trunks of the original Evertree.
Weatherbird was used to dealing with twisted magic: stagnant remnants of some decayed spirit, dangerous hybrids of Firstcomer magic and Abodean wildlife. This stank of a larger and more polluted echo, of old Chesral, or the darkness that had slumbered under Blue-Mountain-That-Was, or even the corruption of Howling Rock which had threatened to engulf everything in sterilizing death. But this – this wasn’t some tragic accident, or magic twisted by deep time and untethered emotions. This was purposeful.
This was the work of one she had called friend and colleague. One she had known for thousands of years, yet it seemed now she had never known him at all…
Shapes were emerging from the shadows, green figures that moved with a disquieting stiffness. They reminded her of the hinged shadow-puppet shows the humans liked to perform in High Hope.
She raised her voice. “I am Weatherbird of the College! I come not to fight you, only to speak with you.”
“Speeeeeeeak….” the willow branches seemed to whisper.
“I seek the one who was, in life, called Savah.”
“She is heeeeeeere… come and seeeeee….”
The shapes drew nearer. Naked, crudely formed, each differentiated by the grain of wood, the color of clinging lichen, the arrangement of leaves and moss in imitation of hair. Weatherbird could almost make out the features of their wooden faces.
She held out her hand. “No closer!”
The shapes stood their ground. They formed a half-circle around her. She tried not to look at their faces, the features she dimly remembered from the Scroll of Colors, and before that, her distant childhood.
“Savah. I will speak with her alone.”
The shape with the braided strands of moss for hair turned and pointed. The other shapes stepped back, offering Weatherbird a clear path of view to the nearest satellite tree, one of the deformed and cannibalized willows.
A slender wooden hand parted the curtain of trailing leaves, and Weatherbird was hit with a memory ten thousand years old. Suddenly she was back in Sorrow’s End, watching the Mother of Memory step out from behind a moth-fabric curtain.
Unlike the other constructs, the Savah-shape was graceful, elegant. She seemed less grown than carved from a single piece of fine-grained hardwood, and she moved as if that wood was made liquid. Like the other shapes, she stood proudly naked, with only the vaguest suggestion of feminine curves. Her skull was elongated, almost reminiscent of a Firstcomer’s, and from it rose tapering antler-like branches in the shape of the great sun crown, polished and trailing a long veil of wildflowers.
“Savah!” Yurek cried. Weatherbird held up an arm to keep him from flitting to her side.
“Hold,” she warned the ghost. “Remember your pledge.”
With difficulty, the spirit held his ground. “Savah,” he called instead. “Come back to me.”
The Savah-shape shook her head slowly. An elegant hand beckoned Yurek forward.
“Speak, if you can!” Weatherbird charged. “If the Tree will let you.”
“You wrong us,” a new voice spoke. It was one Weatherbird knew well.
She would not turn. She would not look on his face. But she could see him, out of the corner of her eye, approaching the half-circle. He was taller in death than in life. She had always suspected he longed to stand eye-to-eye with Timmain. Now he could.
“The Circle has no quarrel with you, Pool, so long as you keep the peace.”
“There is no peace but here. Pool has found it, he who was in such pain. He who was so lost. Like so many others. The Wolfrider’s Way had failed them… in life and in death. Now they follow the Green Way. Perhaps you will too.”
“My own Way suits me fine.”
“Does it? Always you have leapt into the fray, into conflicts… into chaos. Into discoveries, yes, but always heedless of the dangers, the costs. A blind, blundering animal, a slave to base instinct and selfish desires. Here there is no conflict, no danger. Here this is only renewal, and growth. Think of all you could find here… if you only opened your mind.”
“Savah! Let her speak for herself. Let us hear she is here by choice, and we will abide by her wish. But if you are harvesting unwilling spirits to your Green Way, then–”
“Then what?” the Pool-shape challenged.
“Then you are a threat we cannot tolerate.”
The Pool-shape laughed. “And yet you have! You have been ‘tolerating’ it since the day we awakened to our greater purpose. When we reset the balance following Sunstill’s death. When Pool healed us and gave us our new vision. When we took back the forest from chaos. When we welcomed the lost children home. When we joined with the White Mother.”
Unwillingly, Weatherbird’s gaze went to the Pool-shape’s glowing green eyes. “Timmain – where–?”
“Each time, you knew of it – you must have! We know you, Weatherbird of the College. We know you as Pool did. And we know you do not approve. We know you have called us ‘foe’ in your heart since you learned of us. Yet you and your squabbling kindred have done nothing. Why? Is Savah’s departure from those lifeless rocks the only disappearance worthy of your attention?”
“Savah! Tell us your own will!”
The Savah-shape slowly shook her head.
“Is it because in your own hearts, you know our Way is the only true one?” the Pool-shape continued relentlessly. “Or is it because you know you haven’t the strength to oppose us?”
“Savah, please,” Yurek begged.
The Savah-shape’s wooden lips parted, and a thin whisper of a voice escaped them, as soft as the wind hissing through leaves.
“Go… go now…”
“Not without you!” Yurek cried.
“Please…”
“You have your answer,” the Pool-shape said. “Or do you wish to linger?”
Weatherbird heard a hiss like a sudden breeze. Her right hand stole to her left, fingers fastening over the web of skin between thumb and forefinger.
“Do you wish to see what we can offer?”
The whistling sound wasn’t coming from the wind blowing overhead, but from the blades of grass at Weatherbird’s feet. She glanced down and saw the roots slithering towards her like snakes.
“Go now!” the Savah-shape shrieked. “Save yourselves.”
Weatherbird pinched her hand hard, just as the first rootlet coiled around her ankle. The world of the Evertree shrunk to a single dot of green light in a vast sea of blackness.
* * *
Weatherbird awoke on the stone slab, fighting for breath. Tass hovered over her protectively. “Easy, easy, you’re back.” Her gentle touch bade her cousin relax on the slab. Weatherbird’s tanned skin was clammy with cold sweat, and her gaze was wild, unfocused.
“Weatherbird!” Tass said, more firmly now. Slowly Weatherbird’s gazed fixed on her.
“The Tree,” she whispered.
“You spoke to it?”
“It has Savah.”
“We knew that,” Tass reminded her patiently.
“It has Timmain!”
“So Bluestar told us. Remember?”
“It nearly… nearly – I have to call the Circle,” she said. She tried to sit up, and again Tass held her down. “I have to tell them!”
“What’s the watchword?”
“Wh-what?” Weatherbird blinked in confusion.
“The watchword, cousin. Tell me.”
“I don’t – we don’t have time for this!” Weatherbird cried, shoving Tass’s hands away and pushing herself upright on the slab. “We have to – have to–”
“Sorry, cuz.” Tass held up hands and channeled both physical and psychic shield into a shockwave that blasted Weatherbird back onto the slab. A green light flashed in her eyes as she cried out in pain. Her back arched and her muscles seized, then she went still, dead weight, limbs akimbo.
“Weatherbird?” Tass pried open an eyelid. Her eyes were violet again.
“Unh… puckernuts,” Weatherbird murmured.
“There we go! Welcome back.”
“Drukk… it came back with me, didn’t it?”
Tass nodded. “Just as you feared.”
“What did it say?”
“It wanted you to call the Circle.”
Weatherbird swallowed. “High Ones… if it infected the Circle there’s not telling what–”
“You’re not going back there,” Tass ruled, as she helped her sit up.
“No. I dare not. But the Circle must be told. We must start preparing.”
“Preparing what? What can we do? We’ve already discussing this–”
“Then we must discuss it again! The Tree’s preparing for war. And if it’s already eyeing the Circle, then no one on Abode is safe.”
Tass chewed her lip. “We should warn Homestead.”
Weatherbird laughed without humor. “What, tell Haken? Oh, he’d love to hear about this!”
“He could help.”
“He’ll help himself! Use this chance to settle scores with Timmain.”
“If Timmain has been taken by the Tree–”
“Then she needs to be rescued, not thrown to Haken’s tender mercies.”
“Bluestar sure didn’t think she was in need of rescuing.”
Weatherbird waved her hand dismissively. “He only saw her for a moment. He can’t know–”
“The Tree has a High One in its army! Don’t you think we should have one of our own?”
“Homestead must not be told!”
“My daughter is on Homestead!” Tass cried.
The anguished words hung between the cousins for a long moment. At length Weatherbird said, “Then she is safer there than she’d ever be here. Leave her be in peace a little longer. If the Tree is as hungry as I think, she’ll find out about it soon enough.”
* * *
As had become his routine the last month, Bluestar climbed to the top of the Egg every morning, to look for the golden eagle. Timmain had not returned since that one enigmatic visit, but the young elf couldn’t shake the feeling that she was watching them.
Autumn was coming to the Painted Mountains. From his vantagepoint on the summit, Bluestar could see the lowland forests turning auburn. Higher, the conifers had darkened, their needles hardening up from the morning frosts. At nearly midday on top of the world, the air was still, but cold. Bluestar could see his breath.
He didn’t feel like the long climb down the Egg’s First Shell. Instead he walked to the edge of the summit and jumped into the open air.
He fell no more than a few feet before he telemuted to the closest moss-covered ledge he could see. His feet barely grazed the rock when he flitted again. And again. He knew the path by heart, and he blinked in and out of the world, bouncing from outcrop to outcrop like a mountain goat capable of leaping a hundred feet in one span. Ten displacements later, he landed on the floor of the canyon that cradled the Egg, startling a quartet of crows into flight.
The air was more temperate here, and Bluestar unfastened his parka, flush from his exertions. A guilty look in all directions and he breathed a sigh of relief. No witnesses. The last time his parents had caught him flitting vertically, the storm that resulted had only ended when Bluestar solemnly promised never to do it again save in dire emergencies.
Of course, all three of them knew what he meant was “I promise never to get caught doing it again.” But Weatherbird and Cheipar would hold him to that, and then last thing he wanted was to have Waterleaf set as his watchbug again.
He hiked up towards the main door to Second Shell and the interior of the Egg. Along the way he passed a few familiar faces at work: Hajii, the tanner, setting out her latest hides to dry; Scree, the troll, idly picking at a seam of gypsum exposed by the Egg’s latest self-shaping rotation.
“Hey, what did I tell you?” Bluestar called.
“It’s in stable rock!” Scree hollered back. He indicated an invisible line with his pick axe. “Everything east of here is part of First Shell. I got my contract!”
“Well, you fill in anything you scrape out. Someone so much as twists an ankle in your potholes–”
“Aye, aye. You’re not your papa, Bluestar. Don’t try to be.”
Bluestar hiked on, trying to not to let the troll’s words get to him. And why shouldn’t I try? he thought. He wasn’t a cub anymore. It was high time his words were given more weight.
A subtle vibration in the air interrupted his brooding. He recognized it instantly; almost the same hum as the Palace itself, but pitched slightly off-key.
“The Ark!” Bluestar cried aloud, as he jogged the rest of the way up the sloping canyon.
It was, of course, only a pod – teardrop-shaped and the size of a large oak trunk. Bluestar joined the small crowd around it just as the door opened.
First out was a tall Glider with curly blond hair, teetering a little on her coltish legs. The spectators drew back with a disquieted murmur when the second elf, scarred and shapechanged, joined her. Finally, out limped a delicate elf-girl on the cusp of adolescence, her eyes wide, her brown face drawn and ashen.
“Naga!” Bluestar called, pushing forward.
“Bluestar…” her voice was a sickly rasp. Her lower lip trembled; she looked on the edge of tears.
He ran up to embrace her, and he felt how she sagged against him, as if she needed him to hold her up. She had grown since he’d seen her last – her head now topped his by several fingerspans, though the harsher gravity of Homestead was likely to keep her well below Glider-height.
“I never thought I’d get you over here, snakes!” he laughed. “What finally got you off Homestead?”
She shivered, and he drew back to look up at her. Her dusky lips moved without sound. She was drawing in short, shallow breaths.
“Naga? What’s wrong?”
**I’ve been banished,** she sent miserably, just as her eyes rolled back in her head and she fainted dead away in his arms.
* * *
A session with the Egg’s healer, and a mug of hot tea brought Naga around. Anemia combined with altitude sickness, Toss-Stone reassured her panicking father. The price to pay for passage from Homestead’s thick atmosphere to the thin air of the Painted Mountains.
An hour later, Naga squirmed uncomfortably on the cushioned couch in Aurek’s sitting room, listening as Beast struggled to explain the reason for their visit.
“She… her magic – I don’t understand it. Mel did – well, she used to. It’s getting stronger. Harder to tame. And she’s having nightmares. And it was Sylas’s idea…” Beast jerked his head towards the bald High One sitting across from him. “I don’t like it. I’ve never liked it. But I thought… well, she likes Bluestar!” he stammered, almost defensively. “And… and – and Weatherbird is here, and we trust her! And Lord Haken said…”
“Oh, just tell them, Papa!” Naga snapped irritably. “I’m not allowed back in Haven! I’ve been exiled! Like I’m some sort of rebel. Like I’m dangerous!”
“You’re not dangerous!” Beast insisted, wrapping his scaled arm protectively around her. “You’re not! You’re just… magic-sick… or… or something,” he finished lamely.
“She has been manifesting significant powers of late,” Sylas clarified. “And we are disturbed by her increasing lack of control.”
“I’m trying, Sylas!” Naga wailed.
“I know, child. But you’re worrying us all.” He turned his attention back to Aurek. “It started with firecasting in her sleep. She speaks of night terrors, but she cannot explain them afterwards, other than a desperate fear. I have tried to guide her through her dreams to the source, but… something is blocking my vision. Something… within her. You understand, Aurek. Something that blocks my vision!”
Aurek nodded. “Grave indeed, Navigator.”
“Her mother suspects it’s tied to her age. And we have tried several methods to calm her psychic metabolism – her ‘bloodsong,’ in common parlance. But it is no use. It is as if she is burning up inside. The reflexive psychic attacks started soon after.”
“Psychic attacks?”
“Shockwaves,” Naga murmured, shame-faced. “I said I was sorry! And I barely even hurt her.”
“Her?” Aurek asked.
“Maleen,” Beast muttered.
“She startled her granddaughter from behind by taking her by the elbow. Naga retaliated.”
“I didn’t mean it!” Naga howled.
“And she should have known better,” Beast protested. “She knows you’re twitchy right now!”
“Be that as it may, it has us all concerned,” Sylas said. “Even the peace-hounds…”
“They growl at me now,” Naga admitted miserably. “Even Three.”
“The beasts were bred specifically to identify dangers to the community–”
“Oh, they all know that, Sylas!” Naga snapped.
“Coming here was my suggestion,” Sylas continued, unfazed. “This world has a draining effect on magic.”
“They brought me here to cripple me. Look at me – I can’t even heal a headache!”
“It is my hope – and Haken’s, and your mother’s, child! – that this impediment will allow you to regain some equilibrium.”
Bluestar could not help but note the disdainful curl to Beast’s lip. “Melati didn’t come with you?” he asked needlessly.
“They… need her back in Haven.”
“She didn’t want to come,” Naga contradicted. “She’s afraid of me too!”
“No, she’s not, snakelet,” Beast insisted. “She’s afraid for you! That’s different.”
By Naga’s sullen scowl, she didn’t believe a word of her father’s protests.
“But I’m staying here with you. As long as it takes for you to get better. You’re just tired, that’s all. Sylas and your mama have been pushing you too hard. Your magic is running too hot, and… and it’s too easy to run hot on Homestead. It’s cooler here. You can slow down. You can breathe.” Seeing his words were having little effect, he looked at Bluestar beseechingly.
“It won’t be so bad, Naga,” Bluestar piped up. “And now I can finally show you all around the Egg. And High Hope.”
“No humans!” Beast declared.
“Maybe we could go down to the Great Holt,” Bluestar tried next. “Or… I know! We’ll hitch a ride over the Cinder Pools, where I first met your parents. Beast, I bet the old cave is still there, right? Come on, don’t you want to see it, snakes?”
“I want to go home,” Naga said miserably.
“And we will,” Beast insisted with forced cheer. “As soon as you’re better.”
* * *
Bluestar saw Naga and Beast settled in a guest room within Second Shell. As settled as was possible, given Beast’s restless pacing and Naga’s lingering altitude sickness. She wouldn’t even try the creamy soup Toss-Stone brought, but instead curled up on her bed and hugged her stomach until she fell asleep.
“It’s terrible!” Bluestar told his parents, when he joined them at supper. “She’s never been sick a day in her life. Toss-Stone can only help her so much. And Naga… like she said – she’s crippled here! She can barely even send!”
Weatherbird tsked. “I imagine she could if she’d just make a little effort.”
“I thought the Ark would stay at least for a while – they could make the air thicker in there for her. But they’ve already flown off to the Great Holt – Tamsin wants to see her parents, Sylas said.”
“I’m sure she’ll feel better in the morning,” Weatherbird remarked.
“And she won’t eat anything!”
‘Well, that’s half the problem, I’m sure.”
“Poor Beast. He’s a shambles!”
“Mm. Fussing over her just the way she likes it.”
Now it was Cheipar’s turn to cluck his tongue softly. Weatherbird glanced up. “I’m only saying she’s not a little cub anymore. He’s doing her no good by treating her like one.”
Cheipar rolled his eyes and mouthed, “Thirteen.”
“And look what our Bluestar had to his credit at thirteen.”
Bluestar was hardly listening. He had his own bone to gnaw. “I just… I just don’t understand why Melati didn’t come too.”
Weatherbird shrugged as she dabbed at her soup with a thick slice of bread. “I do. Eight-and-six years on Homestead – she couldn’t handle our air and our stone any better than Naga.”
“It’s more than that. Something’s happened…. Beast – he’s furious with her. He won’t admit it, but I can see it in his face. He thinks she’s abandoned Naga too.”
“No doubt if it were up to him she’d still be back on Homestead. But I think Sylas and Melati have the right idea, to be honest. If a torch burns too hot to carry, then you must learn to dampen the fire.”
“There’s a difference between dampening it and snuffing it right out!”
“She’ll rekindle it soon enough, you’ll see.”
Bluestar shook his head. “I don’t think Beast will ever forgive Melati.”
His mother smiled patiently. “All lifemates quarrel now and then. Especially when they become parents. You may not remember… but your father and I had our share of snarls over what to do with you!”
“This is different! This is… Beast and Melati!”
“And how are they different?”
“They’re…. they’re the greatest lovemates’ howl in the history of Abode!” he sputtered. “And you–” he cut himself before he could say more.
Cheipar and Weatherbird exchanged amused glances.
“And we?” she pressed.
“You’re my parents,” he finished lamely.
Cheipar waggled his eyebrows at Weatherbird rogueishly. Bluestar pushed away from the table in frustration. “You’re embarrassing, is what you are,” he added in exasperation, as they fell into silent laughter. “I’m eating in my own room!”
Of course they wouldn’t understand, he thought peevishly as he took his half-eaten bowl of soup and retreated with as much dignity as he could muster. Weatherbird thought all children should be as fearless as her own, and Cheipar was so loyal he couldn’t fathom a rift between lifemates.
They didn’t know Naga as he did. They hadn’t visited Homestead every year, watching her grow up in the loving protective bubble of her family. They didn’t know Beast and Melati has he did either, having seen them at their most united, and now clearly at their most fractured.
Beast had always been the more demonstrative parent, but Bluestar knew Naga had never lacked her mother’s fierce love and pride. He stirred his soup listlessly, brooding over what Beast and Sylas had said… and everything they hadn’t. Firestarting in her sleep… errant shockwaves… none of that seemed enough to justify Melati turning from her own child.
Naga had said Melati was afraid of her. Why? He mulled it over in his mind, until he found himself smiling ruefully.
“Father would probably tell me I’m asking the wrong question,” he said to himself.
Only then did he remember Sylas’s remark about something blocking his vision into Naga’s mind. The fearful edge to the Navigator’s words.
Fear, in the voice of one who had literally seen all there was of the Multitude. What could possibly frighten him?
Elfquest copyright 2018 Warp Graphics, Inc. Elfquest, its logos, characters, situations, all related indicia, and their distinctive likenesses are trademarks of Warp Graphics, Inc. All rights reserved. Some dialogue taken from Elfquest comics. All such dialogue copyright 2018 Warp Graphics, Inc. All rights reserved. Alternaverse characters and insanity copyright 2018 Jane Senese and Erin Roberts.