Crown of Renewal (Legend of Paksenarrion) (53 page)
Read Crown of Renewal (Legend of Paksenarrion) Online
Authors: Elizabeth Moon
Arianya put down her mug of sib and poured water instead.
When he had eaten, he leaned back and touched the tree; it shivered, then settled. “We come now to your problem. You do not have any remnant of a kuaknomi weapon still in your body, but you do have that poison still keeping your body from healing itself. Both my tree, the spruce, and this fir are apt for dealing with such toxins; both are clean trees, as most conifers are. Close your eyes and breathe deeply.”
Arianya did so; the fragrance of conifer forest filled the room and her head. When she woke—she had not noticed falling asleep—night had come outside. Across the room, Sprucewind, eyes closed, lay back in a chair with one hand holding a limb of the little seedling … a little seedling surely taller than it had been. Sprucewind’s arm had silvery green needles on it again. And the desk was piled with empty bowls.
Sprucewind woke as she watched; he withdrew his hand from the tree, and the tree shivered as if he’d shaken it by the trunk. The needles sank back into his arm; the skin smoothed out, changing texture and color. He blinked a few times, then his gaze sharpened. “Ah … we have made some progress.”
“What did you do?” Arianya asked.
“I am not sure I can explain,” he said. He hummed; a large moth flew in the window, landed on his hand, then flew out again. “Iynisin poison is distilled of their hate for all living things. They began with trees, but hatred grows, and they came to hate all green life—and all who love it—and then all other life. Their poison affects different kinds of life differently and kills slowly, so as to warp and ruin whatever the high gods intended before death comes. To the Sinyi, their closest kin, it brings a quicker death than to humans. In humans, in
whom awareness of self is strong, it attacks that awareness, so they are not as aware of themselves and it makes them irritable, even angry.”
Arianya shifted in her chair. She had, she knew, been irritable.
“So first I had to find your heartwood—your real self—and begin … filtering? … yes, that is the word … the poison from you. I think it is not a thing that wound healing, the kind you know about, can do. For me it takes myself and a tree of reasonably close kindred. I let the poison pass through me—”
“Doesn’t it hurt you?”
“Yes, but not as much. In a forest it would be easier; I could have the aid of all the trees of my tribe and some of the others as well. But you see—it went from me to the tree, and the tree, small as it is, transformed it to nourishment.”
Arianya blinked, trying to think her way through that. “How?” she said finally.
“I am not sure.” He spread his hands. “Too much will sicken us—both the tree and me—and at some point would kill us. But in small amounts—a drop at a time—it can be done without more than effort and a little discomfort.” He tipped his head and gazed toward the pile of bowls. “I do need to eat a lot.”
“All you want,” she said.
“And you need to eat a lot, too. I will call on your kitchens again, and then I must sleep for a while. You must sleep in here, with the tree to guard your sleep. Tomorrow we begin again. Healing of iynisin poison cannot be rushed, but I think a few days will be sufficient.”
Not until the last day was Arianya able to stay awake during the treatments. The Kuakan kept his hand on hers; she watched it stiffen, the skin drying, turning greenish gray before the fine needles of a spruce came up, furring the back of his hand, even as his fingers took on the appearance of twigs. On his arms, the bark was browner … and his face, too, seemed drier, more like bark. She felt a peculiar sensation along her bones, where the ache had been, and then—a sick orange-brown color shriveled the needles of his hand on hers, leaving the barklike skin exposed, then moved up his arm, even as fresh needles sprang from below the others.
Where he touched the young fir, one branchlet’s needles turned the same sick orange-brown and fell off; the branchlet darkened as if scorched … then recovered, even as the Kuakgan’s hand recovered. One small pulse at a time, each perhaps half the length of his hand long.
Arianya wanted to stop, but his grip on her hand was firm as a tree’s root. She watched … and his hand abruptly turned a brighter green than before and a green streak ran up her own arm. Her mouth tasted of green—of fir and spruce needles she had nibbled as a child, of every herb in the garden—and for a moment she felt alive in a way she never had. Then it faded as he released her and sat back, his eyes gleaming.
“It is finished,” he said. “All the poison is gone. Look at the tree.”
The tree now stood as tall as the pot, every needle crisp and full. Sprucewind’s expression was rueful. “It needs the earth and the root touch of others,” he said. “You will need to find a wagon to haul it somewhere firs grow. It must not die … for then the poison will be released again.”
“Did any of your—any Kuakgan—know Gird?”
He tipped his head to one side. “I don’t know, Marshal-General. I doubt it; we avoid conflict if we can. And this was magelord country, wasn’t it? They weren’t fond of us, though less hostile than elves.”
Arianya felt a nudge—more like a buffet—on her shoulder. “Then I think it is past time we met the people who prefer avoiding conflict to starting it. Not like the elves, who withdraw completely, but … like trees in a grove, touching branch to branch and root to root.”
“There is some jostling for power,” Sprucewind said. “Trees may be slow, but they do have territorial ambitions.” He smiled.
“We have a common enemy,” Arianya said. “We ought to make common cause where we can.”
New Marshals usually had time between being confirmed in their new rank and being assigned to a grange. Arvid reverted
to his earlier schedule, going up the hill every day to help out in the archives, where piles of new material had come in from Kolobia as fast as those in Kolobia could bring it.
All the magelords had been literate, and those in the main stronghold had produced far more writing than anyone realized until they brought it back. Recipes from the kitchen, lists of supplies, little sketch maps, a list of words in a language no one had seen before, recipes for herbal remedies, records of projects begun and finished, with dates referring to a calendar they didn’t know … all in a jumble, large and small pieces of paper, cloth, skin, bundled together, as much as those obeying the elves’ orders to leave could manage.
Arvid intended to sort out anything having to do with legal matters, since he was still studying the Code with Deinar, but he was fascinated by the hints at the individuals who had lived there as shown by their writings. A cook’s notes on edible local plants, how to recognize them and how to use them. “NOT this” with a drawing of something with three slender pointed leaflets and “THIS” underlined twice with a plant having two slender pointed leaflets, with a sketch of someone bent over and throwing up by the three-leaflet image.
A little book, pages sewn together with linen thread, detailing the watch-list for—he riffled through it—more than a year. So they had a militia? They were guarding against … what? And how, then, had they been surprised? Each line was initialed … A, S, or RM. He looked more carefully. A must be Aris … no other name given. S would be Seri. RM? He found a page with a line through it and a scrawled “Rosemage” at the bottom with a stylized drawing of a rose, very like the Tsaian Rose.
In the pile in front of him, he spotted another, similar book and pulled it out; half the pile slid off the desk where he worked and scattered itself on the floor. Sighing, he picked it up and put it back on the desk before opening the book.
The stylized rose, drawn larger, was on the first page. On the next page, the fine, dense writing began.
I came to him a woman deeply wounded and a killer
.
He blinked. Was this a tale or something real?
He was as I had been told, a peasant. Lean from hunger but broad in frame; if a horse, he would have been bred for draft. I did not please him, being mageborn. But this matters nothing for what I have to tell. Let my past be gone, my killings and my savings. For only those who were there know how Gird died, since the tale has grown wings and flown away from the truth. And of us, one has lied
.
Arvid looked around the room. Others were busy on other piles, sorting steadily by some rule of their own. He went back to reading. For all the dramatic language of the first page, once the writer got into it, the story of Gird’s last day was told plainly, baldly, with only a few interpolations from the past. It resembled the official version only in that Gird was alive at the beginning, did something heroic, and died.
No demon. No monster. No valiant defense with a cudgel. A quarrel that began with a mageborn girl and a peasant-born bully, a quarrel that gathered a mob, that would have ended with the girl dead and the mob hunting more mageborn prey, as they had in the last days of the war. This “Rosemage”—the woman who wrote the book—and Luap trying to calm the mob without success. Gird’s arrival; the crowd for once not listening to him.
A sultry day, threatening storm
, the woman had written.
“The city stank; the crowd stank; such weather brings out bad smells. And their anger, like a storm gathering. Mine as well, for their stupidity and malice.”
Gird had said words the woman had not written down—
Words I never heard before, words that might have made the world itself. From his face, Gird himself did not know what they were, only that he must say them. Then the rage to kill lifted, the evil thoughts; I felt this in my own heart, for I had
been angry with those peasants. I could almost see it, the mob’s thoughts in a dark cloud hovering over us all. It seemed Gird saw it, too, for he looked up, not at the mob, as he spoke. They did not see; I asked witnesses later, and they did not see. Then the cloud thickened, and Gird took it in … I saw it happen, though none other has written it. I saw fear on his face, then duty accepted, and his mouth stayed open and the darkness went in, all of it. How he did so I do not know. The gods aided him, Arranha the priest says, but even he cannot explain. Only when the dark cloud was gone and Gird had fallen, having taken the evil into himself and then died, the day freshened and the mob’s anger was gone. We felt sorrow but also relief
.
I do not know the words. I do not know how it was done. But I know Gird’s own Luap lied about it in the story he wrote, as he has lied about many things. Gird knew he could not stay true, but no one else believes. He has that much of the royal magery of his father to charm those around him, yet without truth there is no authority. Gird did not want this division between the peoples; he had seen the far land and chose to remain here. I cannot trust his Luap, but yet none of the peasant-born trust me, and I cannot say they should. Perhaps, lacking the man who most believed that peace was possible between us, it is best to withdraw while Gird’s peace lasts. It will not last forever
.
Arvid chewed his lip.
That
was going to upset people if this became the official version. Mob violence in Gird’s day? The people refusing his guidance in an era when everyone thought no one questioned him? And some sort of “cloud” instead of a demon?
He read beyond that part of the book to see what he thought of the writer’s character. A blank page, then writing in a slightly different ink, this time reporting on a meeting of magelords planning to relocate to Kolobia. The same plain, terse writing: who said what, what the plan was, followed by a list: clothes, weapons, tools. The book continued to a point after the move to Kolobia, where the old priest of Esea died. The woman had suspected treachery but could
not prove it and ended the little book with “Something is very wrong, but I cannot understand what it might be. A’s power of healing weakens. Were we brought to this place only to fail and die? Then I shall die well, in memory of the old man.”
Did she mean the old priest or Gird? Arvid read the passages again and still was not sure.
He thought about showing it to the senior scribe, but really—it was a matter for Marshals. Even High Marshals. Even the Marshal-General, who was recovering now from whatever the Kuakgan had done. The Kuakgan was still in Fin Panir, wandering out to the few scrubby trees on the north sides of hills and coming back to talk to the Marshal-General. But the Marshal-General looked much better, more relaxed even in the midst of all the furor about mages.
With the books in hand, he gave the watch list record to the senior scribe and suggested that others might be found. “I found something of interest to the Marshal-General,” he said, “and I’m taking it to her.”
“Has it been cataloged?” the scribe said. “If not, let me put it on the list.”
It went on the list as 765-B, and the scribe wrote that on the goatskin cover.
“There, Marshal. Now we’ll know how it fits in.” Arvid thanked him and took the book upstairs.
He had seen the Marshal-General only in passing since the night of his confirmation; she had looked healthier and more relaxed, but he did not expect her to get up from her desk and give him a strong hug. “Marshal Semminson,” she said. “Or do you prefer Marshal Arvid?”