Chapter 53

Three things that can bring joy or disaster: The attention of friends, the comings and goings of neighbors, the ways of new love. Choose wisely.

Aphorisms for a Quiet Life by Ruddtha Redstone, Chairman of Toolets Manufacturing, Sunderland

In the green wood of Cullin’s Forest, a large black raven circled round, and landed on a maple branch. He noticed a man under the tree, looking up at the sky.

“So what are you looking at?” Morvran the Raven asked.

Cullin sat at the edge of his forest, near the boundary between his realm and the King’s Highway, but also close to Pixie Hollow. He ignored the raven for the moment, wrapping himself deeper in his mossy green cloak.

“I mean, you’re spending a lot of time here lately. Birch Woman was wondering if you even cared about the forest any more. ‘It’s been so long since he came to watch me dance,’” Morvran said, doing a passable imitation of the Birch Woman’s voice.

“Bah,” Cullin said, leaping to the ground. “She’s just mad that after she punched Rusty that the fauns have been afraid to be her audience.”

Morvran followed, landing on a branch near Cullin’s head height. He picked at a leaf, then let it go. “And I visited the nymphs down at Willowrock yesterday. They gave me lots of snacks and told me you haven’t checked on them in a month.”

“Not true. I was there three weeks ago, telling them to leave the Old Oak alone. They were teasing him again.” Cullin started to walk along the boundary between Pixie Hollow and his forest.

“You know he loves all that attention,” Morvran replied. “I don’t know why you make such a big deal about it.”

Cullin turned and looked at the bird. “You know why. It’s not good for him. He gets all excited when they rub up against him and his sap runs too fast. I had to heal another split in his wood after their last visit.”

“And Fanke was complaining that her man Salvange was off visiting ‘that Huldra woman’ again.”

Cullin sighed. “What the Woodwoses do with their personal life is beyond my scope. It’s enough I give them sanctuary from all the other fey that pester them. Daoine Si don’t like Wild Folk like them. Although I could talk to Uldra, I guess.”

Morvran gave a little so what caw. “Maunzi the Bush Grandmother told me she wanted to meet Mistress Gan. Something about trading herbal recipes. Said you’re hiding Gan from everybody.”

“I am not. I can’t help it if Maunzi can’t leave the forest. She should send Gan an invitation. I’m sure Leila would be happy to carry it to Pixie Hollow. Those two are thick as thieves any more.”

“Shared interests do that,” Morvran replied. He pecked at the branch he was sitting at. “They like the same books.”

“Bah,” Cullin said. “Stupid romances.”

“That’s enough of the news,” Morvran said, leaving his branch to land next to the Tree Shepherd. “So you never told me - what were you looking at?”

“A pair of Dragonkin flying. You didn’t see them, O Raven who seems to know everybody else’s business?” Cullin tugged his hat down.

“Dragonkin? That’s unusual,” the raven said. “Mostly expect them to travel by no space.”

“Not everything is at we expect it,” Cullin said. “But I have work to do myself.” And invoking his power over the forest, Cullin was gone.

“Damn, I hate how he does that. I wonder where he went this time.” Morvran rose into the air and started looking.

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Umber looked down at the ground below him. There was a vast forest to the south of where he was flying, with only a few breaks of meadow and water carved out. It filled the valley of the Glint river, up to a tall ridge of rock on one side and a tall stand of mountain on the other end.

“That’s Cullin’s Forest. It’s what stands between Allynswood and Meridae,” Lana said. “Don’t ever leave the King’s Highway if you have to travel through it. The Tree Shepherd who guards it is very protective of it, and requires permission to enter it.” Lana veered to the left, circling away from the vast wooded expanse.

“And I thought the area around Goblin Market was green,” Umber said, following her lead. “I’ve never seen so many trees.”

“It brings it home just how different from Harani this part of Ynys Afel is. We know it, but until we see it from the sky, it’s not really real, you know?” she said. “That’s why I wanted you to see it.”

“I’m kind of amazed,” he replied.

The ground below them began to change as they left the forest behind them. The river glinted in the sunlight of this perfect spring day, and the woodland gave way to many patches of farmland, many with workers in the fields. On hillsides, cattle grazed, or sheep. In places, there were horses in pasture. In most places, people lived clustered in villages. Only a few farmhouses were isolated, although small structures, shepherd’s shacks and the like, were scattered in the hills.

A thin line of travelers were strung out along the King’s Highway, a group of walkers, here, a cart or two there, a few people on horseback scattered among them. None of these were in caravans, which said something about the safety of the area. Most were traveling north, towards Goblin Market, only a few heading south.

“Not many people on the road to Meridae,” Umber noted.

“Why should they? The Dragon Web makes that a waste of time. It’s longer and harder to ride or walk, and you have to deal with a really irritable land fay. I bet most of the people heading south are going home, or perhaps are peddlers. I know there’s one named Piter that even trades with the Tree Shepherd. Now that takes some guts.”

“What does he do, eat tresspassers?”

“Worse,” Lana says. “He throws stinking mud at people. If you get hit, the smell can linger for weeks.”

Umber guffawed at that one.

“Don’t laugh. I got to smell some of it once...a woman in town was trying to find a way to get it out of her husband’s work smock. It was three weeks after the event, the mud was all washed off. In fact it had been washed at least six times, in everything she could think of. And it still smelled like a rotting gryphon blended with a tub of dung that had been perfumed by a skunk. I think she ended up burning the smock. And it was over a week before she’d let her husband come in the house. Really, really foul.”

“Then how does anybody in the forest get to deal with the few traders that venture out?” he asked.

“I hear there are places set up. If someone wants something, they leave a token. The trader touches the token, and then the Tree Shepherd arranges the sale or brings the person to where they can do it. Or something like that. Piter wasn’t very clear.”

As they flew, a large isolated spire of red stone began to rise on the horizon and they headed for it.

“Guess what the locals call that?” Lana asked, her smile impish.

If he hadn’t been flying, Umber would have shrugged. “I don’t know. Red Rock?”

“Exactly. You’re quite smart, my handsome young Dragonkin,” Lana said, with a nod of her head. “Most of the place names around here are not very imaginative. It’s about the halfway point between Goblin Market and Cullin’s Forest. If there wasn’t already a village not very far from here called Halfway, that’s what the locals probably would have named it. It’s locally famous for its spring of good water. Some say you can even use it to tell your fortune. But there’s a clan of Pixies that live near it, so the locals might water their horses and oxen while on the road, but none really like to linger there. Who knows what the Pixies will do?”

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“Huh,” Umber said. “I met a Pixie yesterday. She said I look like a lizard.”

That made Lana laugh, a bright, cheery sound. “A lizard, eh? Tells you what she knows, my lovely bright eyed Gray friend. At least I know she won’t be in competition for your attention. How did you meet her?”

“She was traveling with a woman I met who moved into one of Lady Elaine’s farms. They’re old friends, I believe.”

“Ah, you must be talking about Gan Thistleberry. Everybody’s been talking about her at the station. To think that she chose to live in a place with a Pixie colony! And the word is that it’s working out just fine.”

“It takes all types,” Umber said.

Lana nodded. “It does indeed. Now, unless you want to take a rest and try out the spring, let’s go there next.” She pointed to a mountain that rose up behind the area of Goblin Market. “There’s the place that’s most like the mountains at home I’ve found around here. That’s the place I thought we’d have lunch.”

“I don’t need to stop,” Umber said.

“Good,” she replied, and circling around the spire of red stone, and headed towards Lana’s goal.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>> <<<<<<<<<<<<<<

Cullin moved to the far side of his forest, where it began to rise up to the Whiteheart Mountains. It was a land of small rivers and hidden valleys coming out of the limestone the mountains were named after. He stood on a rise, overlooking a narrow valley that had a cascading stream running down the center of it. It was lush with vegetation – willow and alder near the stream, oak and birch and beech elsewhere, with scattered pines further up the slopes. From where he stood, he could see a place where the stream broadened out behind a beaver dam. Some bullrushes had pushed up along its edges.

“It’s a lovely place, is it not, my valley?”

Cullin turned around. In front of him stood an ancient fey woman, perhaps the oldest he’d ever seen, older even than Lady Sulis who was born long before the Sundering. Short and thin, her hair was pure silver white, hanging loosely down her back and across her shoulders, uncombed and a little wild, but her eyes were clear sapphires. She had lived long enough to grow grandmotherly in appearance, that itself took millennia for the Daoine Si, but he was not even sure if she was one of them, only she had been here in this valley before Lady Sulis had given him the guardianship of the forest, and she looked just as old then as now.

Around her neck she wore string after string of amulets over a robe that seemed to be strings of leaves and vines over an inner robe of white wool, and in her hand she clutched a staff topped by a large crystal point with glowed with power. Bags stuffed with various things, some seeming to be weighty, some far less so dangled from a belt made of silver shaped like twisted vine.

“Did you know I was coming?” Cullin asked.

“Nay, even Auld Annie can’t keep up with the likes of you, young Tree Shepherd.” She lifted a basket she had in her other hand. “Twas up here collecting herbs that don’t grow down below in my valley. Though,” she continued, “I am not shocked to see you. The forest has been...restless recently. What has disturbed your soul?”

“Change.” Cullin sighed.

Auld Annie gave him a gentle smile. “All things change, son. Even in this forest of yours things change. Winter gives way to Spring, Spring to Summer, Summer to Autumn. Trees sprout from their seeds, grow towards the heavens, and then fall when the gales blow. It is the way of the world. There’s naught you can do to stop it.”

“Like I can’t stop Maunzi the Bush Grandmother from complaining every time you step out of your valley to collect herbs. I suspect she’ll be sending me word any time now.”

“She does that still?” Auld Annie shrugged. “I’ve been combing these hills for herbs before she was a sprout. Before her dame before her was a sprout.”

“I’ve told her that, and that Lady Sulis reaffirmed your right to do it, too. Doesn’t seem to matter.”

“Bah,” the old Fay said. “She’s just jealous of my herb lore. She tries to lead the forest people to believe nobody knows more herb knowledge or can make better medicines than she does, but she knows I have more formulae and a deeper knowledge about the ways of growing things than she’ll ever have. I’ve caught her redhanded trying to copy my grimoire, and since that day, she’s been complaining to everybody who’ll listen about what a mad, untrustworthy person I am.”

“You should have told me about it,” Cullin said.

“Why bother? I outlasted her dame before her, and I’ll outlast her, too. Time will bring all the peace I need. But you, son, you look in need of peace yourself.”

“Someone new moved into Pixie Hollow,” Cullin said.

“And they weren’t run out by that host of Pixies living there?” Auld Annie tilted her head. “They certainly gave the last person there a run for his money.”

“No. She’s a wise one, and the Pixies love her.”

“So that’s change one, and from the sound of it, a good one.”

Cullin pushed his hat back a little, revealing his eyes to the old Fey. “And Leila loves her, too.”

“Leila can read the heart of anybody, and if she approves, then you have no reason to fret, son.” Auld Annie shrugged.

“Then Lady Sulis came by and asked me to take her under my protection. She believes Gan is under the hand of Fate for some purpose. She didn’t know what for, but that it was important.”

“Ah,” Auld Annie said. “You don’t know how to juggle keeping an eye on Pixie Hollow and your forest both. I take it that Lady Sulis hasn’t told this Gan anything about what her magic showed her?”

“I don’t think so,” Cullin said.

“Auld Annie cannot rebalance you, young Tree Shepherd, but I would remind you that it’d be a rare thing for Lady Sulis to leave you as her only protector. She’s always been a thorough one, even when she was a child. Set your priorities. Talk to that Leila of yours, and see what she thinks. Enlist that stupid crow of yours, maybe.”

She reached up and rested a hand on his shoulder. “Here, take my blessing. May it help you see light where you need to see it.”

As she rested her hand on him, a strong flash of Fay magic, old and mighty and deep with power washed through him, and for the moment he floated in an ocean of peace.”

The moment was broken by a shrill voice.

“I knew I sensed you, you old hag. What are you doing in my herb lands?” Maunzi the Bush Grandmother came bursting into the area the two of them stood. She was short, shorter than Auld Annie. Her hair was an old green, and her dress was made up of moss. She lifted up her staff threateningly, then saw who Auld Annie was talking with.

“My Lord, I apologize,” she said, lowering her staff and bobbing her head.

“Maunzi, did I not tell you that Auld Annie has a right to be here?”

“Yes, my Lord,” she said, sighing. “But she takes all the best herbs and leaves us the trash.”

“You call this all the best?” Auld Annie said, thrusting her basket under the Bush Grandmother’s nose. “I barely took anything. Go look for yourself. Sorry, young Tree Shepherd. This old woman has better things to do than listen to this woman bark.”

She made a gesture with her hand, and all of her, basket and staff included began to glow with a silvery light. It got too bright to look at, and then faded. When Cullin could look again, she was gone.

“Maybe I just should have put up with Morvran’s chatter,” he said. Taking a deep breath, he used his power, and went elsewhere.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>> <<<<<<<<<<<<<<

“Welcome to Zaran’s Peak,” Lana said, folding her wings. “Queen of the Whiteheart mountains.”

Lana had led them to a flat platform of rocky ground on the dryer side of the mountain. The edge dropped off in a sheer drop that would kill anybody who didn’t have the gift of flight. They were up high, but not above the tree line, but what trees there were were few and constrained by the rocky soil and the lack of moisture. Above them, the mountain continued to rise, rocky and wild. There was a little snow on the upper reaches, in gulches and shaded areas still, but it would be hard to call it white capped. Spring grasses and a few wildflowers grew where there was enough soil to support them. Otherwise, bare rock outcrops covered the landscape.

“This is where you go when you want to get away?” Umber asked.

Lana nodded, finding a stone to sit on. “Isn’t it wonderful?” She reached into her carry pouch and began pulling out items. First was a cloth for their picnic lunch, a bright cloth in red and white checks. Next was a small touch stone stove, and a pot to heat water.

Umber watched her with some amusement as she laid out a feast of meat pies, fruit, soup and sweet cakes.

She caught his look as she prepared. “Flying like this is hungry work.”

There was something in her movements, the little aside glances she sent his way, the way her ruff showed her happiness that dazzled him, and he took a deep breath at the sight.

“The tea will be ready in a minute,” she said, checking her little pot.

“I’m not in any rush.” He gazed at her steadily. “The scenery is so lovely.”

She saw how his eyes were focused on her, and her ruff glowed even brighter. Dropping her head a bit, she patted the area next to where she was sitting. “You can come over here, you know.”

Umber got up and sat next to her. She handed him a cup of tea. He looked at it, staring into its depth, uncertain if it was an obstacle or a life line. Not certain what to do, he took a sip. After a moment, he found his tongue. “How did you find this place?”

She grabbed the tray of meat pies and offered him one. He took it, looked at it for a moment, his mind distracted by having both hands full.

“Oh, my first few months here, I got horribly homesick. Not that I wanted to go back to my family so much, but like you, all the green got to me. I started flying on my days off.” She picked one of the meat pies and took a bite. “I flew everywhere for a while, almost to the Inner Sea, almost to Meridae. I stopped on the King’s Highway while crossing Cullin’s forest, and met the peddler Piter, who told me never ever to land in the forest and why. Eventually I started exploring the mountains. They’re so green on the Goblin Market side, but over here, on this side, it’s drier, and feels more like home.”

Umber finally figured out where he could put his tea mug and began to eat his lunch. “I missed seeing how big the sky was back at Goblin Market. Everything feels so closed in there.”

“Exactly! You do understand it all. I like that about you, Umber Madrona. You understand.” She inched a little closer to him. “I’ll tell you a secret.” She almost breathed into his ear, sending tingles down his spine. “I’ve never shared this secret spot with anybody else. Only you. I was waiting for someone who would really understand.”

Umber gulped, and quickly grabbed his tea, taking a swallow. He turned his head to look at her. “I feel...honored. That you would share something this wonderful with someone like me.”

“You are special, too,” she said, resting a hand lightly on his shoulder. “Don’t let people like that awful Thornfield make you not believe in yourself. I see wonderful things in you.”

Suddenly, as if it had a life of its own, his arm wrapped around her, and snugged her close to his side, and she rested her head against him, contentedly.