“You look like a fool!”
“That is no way to talk to a lord of the forest,” he said severely.
There was a flash of black-and-white as the magpie joined them at last, cawing his agreement with Marius. He settled on a gnarled branch and looked at them with beady eyes, as good as saying
well? Anything left for me?
She scrambled up and found a piece of grain bread, balancing it on the branch for him.
Then she went back to Marius and they were happy as two beings could be until night fell.
She woke feeling chilly. Marius had done the impossible and gotten up without waking her, no doubt for the usual middle-of-the-night reason. She missed the feeling of safety he gave her. Sleeping next to a centaur was a delicious experience—all warmth and massive muscles.
Linnea gazed dreamily at the sky through the branches and leaves of the orchard’s trees. One night later, there was a little less moonlight, and because of that, the stars seemed infinite in number.
Oh.
There it was. Above her. That blue flame. Bigger. It vanished when she sat up quickly, her heart racing. It was real. She had not been imagining it.
It took a while for her pulse to return to normal. She forced it to, casting her mind back her mother’s tales of will-o’-the-wisps. They only harmed those who had hurt them in some way. Their power was negligible.
The flash of blue had to be one.
A cool night breeze brought mist, stealing slowly around the base of the trees. It is only mist, she told herself. The lowlying drifts of it came closer by imperceptible degrees, fragrant with night-blooming flowers and the sweet exhalation of the earth itself.
Linnea sank back down, enspelled without knowing it, and fell asleep again.
The blue flame reappeared, dancing in the breeze. It bounced along the edge of the bed of crushed grass Marius had made, growing larger as the breeze picked up. And hotter. The mist kept its distance. It was formless but sentient. It had no love of flame and this one had dragged it up from the valleys below. Fire spirits were wily creatures, seldom seen on the isle. This spirit was wilier than most, having knowledge of paralyzing spells.
The flame separated into two small arms, two little legs, flowing hair, breasts, belly, buttocks, and a curious but beautiful face. The sprite grew no bigger, because the breeze died down.
Hella, fully formed but half the size she’d been with Lord Vane, inspected Linnea from head to toe as she slept.
So this is my rival.
The Lord of Fire was not around to hear her speak or soothe her anger. He had no way of knowing she’d flown this far or even that she could. He was used to her coming and going.
Hella herself scarcely knew what had possessed her to try and find these two. She’d been lucky to stumble against them on the beach at night, brushing Linnea’s shoulder without seeing her at first.
She had not meant to burn her the first time. The second, well…Marius had called Linnea a goddess. She’d wanted to gag.
Tired and feeling cold, Hella gave in to the volatile rage that seethed in her fiery heart. Even the way Vane had said Linnea’s name had irked her immeasurably. In their off-and-on eons together, she had never heard him speak with such tenderness in his voice of any woman. Certainly not her.
Few words, but loaded with foolish emotion that was utterly unlike him, the good-for-nothing-but-one-thing, gorgeous, black-haired, heartless bastard.
She tapped her bare foot on the grass, starting a flame. She rolled a rock over it to put it out. Stamping on it would only make the flame leap higher.
The uncrushed grass that had survived Marius’s wallowing rebelled against this further mistreatment. Strong, deep-rooted stems reached out to grab her ankles. Startled, Hella kicked and stamped, triggering more small flames. She ran in a circle around Linnea and a circle of blue fire leaped up.
She could no longer control it, but she had never intended to—god of fire!
That great oaf Marius was thundering out the bushes right at her! Hella leapt into the air and spiraled upward, dodging his hooves. She looked down.
Marius trampled the burning grass around Linnea, bellowing with fury, waving his hands to dispel the encroaching mist. The formless cloud collected itself and retreated into the night. He was roaring a name she knew only from the tale Gideon had told Lord Vane.
“Ravelle! Ravelle!”
The centaur vowed vengeance upon him in words so bloodthirsty that Hella sped away. She didn’t see him bend down to lift Linnea in his arms.
Unharmed. Still sleeping.
He kept vigil over her for the rest of the night, holding her in his exhausted arms away from the ground, staring into the dark trees and undergrowth until his eyes were red and strained.
First Philonous, his friend for life, and now her—neither would have been in such peril if not for him. And she was the love of his life. Something he had not told her—it scarcely seemed possible that she was indeed his, even after their enchanted coupling. Danger swiftly brought them close, and he’d foolishly thought he’d taught the demon a lesson. There was no end to Ravelle’s spite or his ambition. The peaceful island of forests would serve him well as a base for conquest, its inhabitants no more than bumbling rustics, its trees and green growing things easy to cut down in vicious swaths.
Marius did not regret his attack upon Ravelle—he only regretted not finishing him off the first time he’d had a chance. To see Linnea, so beautiful and vulnerable, on the verge of violation, had pushed him over the edge. To keep her safe by his side had been his only thought ever since.
He was to blame for stepping away from her tonight. To have come back and see her lying in a circle of fire, a demon’s loop to draw her to the Outer Darkness in spirit had her flesh burned, had shattered him.
There were other bursts of fire within the orchard during the night. Cruel imps, dancing for joy among twisted branches. For all he knew, the demon had drawn a larger circle around the first, preparing to take him and Linnea. His arms ached as she stirred slightly, moaning. Did she sense what he could not see? The darkness was all-encompassing.
A feeling of waiting menace pulsed in his veins, grabbed at his jugular, and took over his brain. Revenge. He would have it.
His nostrils flared, whiffing the air for demon sweat or shit or blood. Nothing. Where was the horned one? He wanted to get his hands around that leathery, stringy neck and make Ravelle’s death last a long, long time.
It was odd that he could neither smell nor see any trace of him. Had one of his filthy underlings and not Ravelle started the circle of fire and dragged the lethal mist in from the netherworld to smother her? The close ranks of trees in the old orchard could hide beings that were smaller than the demon.
He dared not set Linnea down or leave this place. Fitfully, he slept standing up, conserving his strength for the dash he would make to Quercus’s safe house on the morrow. If she did not wake, he would strap her to his back somehow and thunder away.
Marius was half-crazy with fatigue and rage when the sun did him the favor of coming up. He wanted to shake his fist at it. “Make her open her eyes!”
He held her up like an offering, praying for mercy on her behalf. The warm rays stole across the limp woman in his arms and Linnea tensed but did not waken. A rush of frantic love filled his heart as he thought wildly that she might not wake at all. Whatever poison had been in the mist had seeped into her brain before he’d lifted her, filled her lungs as she lay sleeping.
“My love…oh, speak to me!”
She murmured his name in reply. Her eyes stayed closed. He had to get her to Quercus once more—if the gruagach would help—
Linnea was still breathing. He looked at her kirtle, her skin—were there hidden burns that festered? No, the flames had not touched her. She responded, if only a little, to the sounds she heard. There might be hope.
All thoughts of rejoining the lords of the Arcan Isles fled from Marius’s mind.
He bellowed in the direction of the gruagach’s cottage, hoping she would understand and come quickly. Soon she appeared between the rows of trees. Her hands, strong from milking cows, clung to a cane. Did she have sufficient strength in the rest of her aged body to maneuver Linnea?
He softened his voice as she came closer. “She has been injured—it is demon’s work—you must bind her to my back! Make haste!”
The old gruagach unwound a leather girdle with intricate straps from around her waist as Marius shifted Linnea’s position. She lay in his arms as if the subtle poison had begun to paralyze her. Tears welling from his eyes, he pressed a desperate kiss to her forehead, hoping against hope that her eyes would open.
Linnea did not respond this time.
Quickly, together, they moved her around to Marius’s back and the crone made short work of tying her securely. He would have to run with utmost care, bent forward to hold her, rolling into each stride so as not to jar her.
Without a word of farewell, he fled the orchard. The gruagach stood in the crushed grass, looking after the centaur and his burden, shaking her head sadly.
Q
uercus examined the still sleeping Linnea, grave concern in his eyes. She lay in an alcove of the oak, upon soft leaves of the plant called lamb’s-ears piled as deep as a man’s arm—or a centaur’s. With the healer’s blessing, Marius had plowed up a large section of Quercus’s medicinal garden to make her a bower. Sobbing as he turned over the earth and rooted out hundreds of plants, he prayed the bed would not be her last in this world.
“Will she live?”
“I cannot say, Marius. I will try different antidotes, but without knowing what the poison is—”
“I could not capture mist in a bottle,” Marius said heatedly.
The wise tree spirit laid a comforting hand on his shoulder. “I am not blaming you. And as we can both see, she breathes and she lives. There is certainly hope.”
“Not for Ravelle.” Marius reiterated his vow, in gruesome detail, to kill the demon on sight.
“Ssh. Do not speak so in front of an invalid,” the healer chided him.
“But she cannot hear. She no longer responds to the sound of my voice.”
Quercus shook his head. “We do not know for sure that she cannot hear, Marius. There may be swelling within the skull or some other unseen injury that must be treated.” He added after a pause, “If I can.”
Marius clenched his fists as if he was trying to keep himself from shaking the wrinkled old fellow.
Quercus shot him a stern look. “You must control yourself. Anger is no healer. There is hope, as I said.” He looked again at the unconscious Linnea. His concern for her was clear in his old face. “But I will not offer false hope. Besides my herbs and my alchemical potions, I recommend a tincture of time.”
A frustrated roar burst from Marius’s lips.
“Hush!”
Marius hung his head. But he looked at Linnea from under his eyelashes one more time. If that roar did not make her react, it was possible that nothing would. She did not move. He wanted to roar again, with fiercer rage this time. A roar that would burst the trunk of the old oak asunder.
“It is a good thing that you are not a healer,” Quercus said dryly. “Come away. She must rest quietly and I will not allow you to disturb her.”
“Is she sleeping, then?” Marius asked frantically, following him away from the alcove in the oak. “Is that what you would call the—the state she is in?”
“It is not sleep, exactly. More like a form of suspended animation. She rests in a state beyond time as you and I know it.”
“For how long?”
“I don’t know.”
The old tree spirit and the impetuous centaur, as old but eternally youthful, stared at each other until Marius quieted down, smearing away tears he was not ashamed to shed in front of Quercus. The healer went to his shelves and began to take down scrolls and treatises.
“Did you examine the injuries to her shoulders?” Marius said.
“I did. They are indeed burns, as you thought.”
“She thought she’d been bitten by an insect.”
Quercus selected a scroll and unrolled it, placing smooth river stones here and there to keep it open. “No, although your poultices would have served for such minor injuries as well. They were made correctly.”
Marius inclined his head in a nod. “Sometimes I listen to you, Quercus.”
“That is a good thing.”
“If we can do nothing but wait—”
“That is the wisest course to take in these cases,” Quercus informed. “I have few clues to go on, unfortunately. But as far as those, I will study my scrolls while she sleeps.” He glanced at the one in front of him but Marius grew immediately restless, tapping his foot. “You are a more difficult patient than her. What’s on your mind? Ask me questions if you like.”
Marius hesitated, not wanting to sound foolish or fearful. But he’d held Linnea in his arms for hours last night and there had been no way to comb the remains of the circle of fire for bits and pieces that Quercus could analyze to help her now. “I did not smell Ravelle last night,” he blurted out. “Because of what happened to Philonous, I assumed it was the demon. But I could be wrong. I know that there are different treatments for different evils.”
“So there are.” The healer clasped his hands behind his back and paced the floor for six strides exactly, three going, three coming, before answering. Marius knew it was how he composed himself before replying to a difficult question.
“Beginning with the burns,” Quercus said when he stopped, “I studied my scroll on the subject while you sat with her, after you’d settled her on the bed of lamb’s-ear leaves. The marks on her shoulders are small and round, like the burns of a sprite. The kind that live in fireplaces.”
Marius raised his eyebrows. He could think of nothing to say to that for a moment. “But we were out in the open—well, an orchard—and had been a-wandering in the woods. She seemed to need to be amidst the green. As did I.”
“Noted. But were you two near any fireplaces before that?” Quercus asked. “Perhaps Linnea was tending to one and poked too hard among the coals. She might have inadvertently hurt a hidden sprite.”
“Ah,” Marius said. “Let me think. No, there were no fires lit in Simeon’s stronghold. When we left it, we built a small fire on the beach of this isle as a signal to Esau and another in the morning before we went back into the forest.”
“Ah. Well, then, it is a puzzle as to how she got those burns.”
“Ravelle’s imps, I thought.” Marius said.
“So you told me. I respectfully disagree.”
“But they are no bigger than sprites and as evil as he is. If Ravelle did not make the circle of flame around her, they might have—”
Quercus raised an eyebrow. “Speculation, given the evidence. Tell me everything that happened from the time you set foot on the Forest Isle.”
“We landed and in time I led her to the sacred meadow. You know the place.”
“Of course I do. A little paradise. Primeval. Unspoiled. Some say it is where love began in the world.”
Marius was almost overcome with emotion to hear him say so, even in his absent way. “Oh, Quercus—we made love for hours there—I cannot count the ways—”
“No doubt it did you both good,” Quercus said thoughtfully. “Happiness is an antidote to evil, to be sure. Your lovemaking could have protected her from the poison of the mist, in fact. I will have to look it up. Your seed may be extraordinarily potent in that regard.” The old healer gave him an approving look. “But tell me of the other happenings, if you please. The unusual ones.”
“Well,” Marius went on more slowly. “There was a blue fire that appeared very briefly once or twice near us. At night. It went away. Could that have been—”
“A fire sprite,” Quercus sighed. “Just as I thought.”
“The circle of fire?”
“That is new to me. I do have a scroll on demon-circles and other black magic.” Quercus paced again and glanced into the alcove at Linnea. Marius went to look in too, unable to keep away for long. Her soft breasts rose and fell under the woven cloth that covered her.
“May I see the scroll? I trampled the fires so quickly—I was half-crazy with rage—but I do remember it,” Marius said. He would never forget. Tongues of flame, darting upward from the crushed grass. A living noose of death for a gentle girl who had never harmed a soul.
“Of course.” Quercus took an odd device from a hook on the wall, a tube of wood that had been fashioned with infinite patience and connected to a smaller tube with a hollow vine. “Let me listen to her heart.”
His face was a study in wrinkles as he concentrated on what he heard, but he did seem pleased. “Steady and strong. An excellent sign.”
Marius’s regard for the healer shone in his eyes. “Is it?”
The tree spirit put the device back on the wall. “Yes. However, she is not out of the woods yet, as we say.” He gave a chuckle, pleased with his little joke.
It broke the tension. Marius smiled. “Would it be all right if I sat with her for a while? Never mind the demon scroll for now—I just want to—”
Quercus patted him on the shoulder. “I understand.”
He left Marius standing there, looking down at Linnea, lost in slumber. Her color was better although she was still motionless. Something about the atmosphere of Quercus’s home within the heart of the old oak was doing her good.
Marius perched on the edge of the bed. He smoothed the cover over her, feeling clumsy but not caring. Her motionless hands rested at her sides and he picked up one and kissed it as softly as he could. Then he set it down between her breasts, over the scar of Ravelle’s wound, over her beating heart.
Steady and strong.
No words had ever made him happier.
He turned his head at the sound of Quercus returning. The tree spirit’s gaze was piercing and Marius was hard put to meet it.
“She will not recover without you, Marius. If you must be a hero, think about that.”
“What do you mean?”
Quercus extended a spindly arm and drew Marius away from the alcove to the other side of the space. They sat at a small table next to a window that looked out over the treetops, tossing and nodding in the balmy breeze.
“Let me explain,” Quercus began. “You thirst for revenge against Ravelle, but if you lose the battle, Linnea will be alone forever.”
Marius cast a yearning look back to where Linnea slept. He could not say that he would be beyond all caring after his death. His soul would always long for her. Their union on this earth was meant to last forever.
He curled his thick fingers into his palm until they hurt, thinking.
“The circle of fire injured you more than it did her.”
“It was meant to kill her, Quercus!”
“Perhaps. Perhaps not. There is often more than one explanation for things and—”
“It was not done as innocent sport, you fool!” Marius had no trust in Quercus’s reliance on pure reason. “Investigate, deduce, eliminate—bah! I prefer a punch or a kick!”
“And how many times have I bandaged your knuckles and mended your split hooves?” Quercus inquired dryly.
“Often.”
“But this time, my impetuous friend, you have someone else to consider besides your enemy and yourself.”
“Linnea would want me to do my utmost to destroy Ravelle,” he growled.
“She cannot tell you what she wants.” Quercus glanced toward the alcove and back at Marius. “Your mind is enflamed with hatred. I can understand why, but—”
“Should I extend the hand of brotherhood to Ravelle?” Marius’s tone was scathing. “Only if I can break his fingers one by one in the next instant. And then I would tear him limb from limb—”
Quercus sighed and gave a little shake of his head. “You told me that the other lords of Arcan had convened to decide what to do. Accept their help and do not run away from it. You are not alone in this difficult time and acting as if you are is unwise. You are too willing to risk all, Marius.”
“What else can I do?” he muttered.
“Love her. Stay with her while she heals. What if she cannot walk when she awakes, Marius? Be her hero then.”
Marius fell silent, his thoughts troubled.
“I cannot do it all myself if you rush off on a rampage. And if you never come back, well—enough said on that subject. There is yet time to consider the best course of action.”
“You sound like Simeon,” Marius scoffed. “He thinks too much, as does Gideon.”
“Then you should listen to them.”
“I did!” Marius said angrily.
“Then think of her. Without you, she will pine away like a flower without the sun.” “Ravelle has struck twice. There will not be a third time if I can help it,” Marius said under his breath.
“So. You are determined to kill him?”
Marius’s face was set in hard, stony lines. “Yes.”
“Banishment to the Outer Darkness is not enough?”
“No. He doesn’t stay there. It is time someone did what is necessary to rid our islands of his evil.”
“And will the other Arcan lords be in your way?” Quercus inquired acidly. “You can simply kick them aside, I suppose.”
“I would not do that, but Simeon and Gideon are too cautious.”
“And Vane?”
Marius grunted. “The great lord of fire has his good points, although he is a sot and a rogue. He cannot be trusted, in my opinion.”
Quercus made a wry face. “So that leaves you and only you, eh?”
“Yes.”
“You are very sure of yourself.” Marius said nothing, and the old healer heaved another sigh. “Well, I have said my piece. Ravelle is a formidable adversary.”
“I will take my chances. His legions have not yet appeared on the island. For now he seems to act alone, except for his evil imps.”
“Alone? Hm.” Quercus fiddled absentmindedly with a second mushroom that had begun to grow where his left ear was. “I would think he would know better by now. But his powers were far greater than those of his kind and he has always ruled by force. Still, his arrogance makes him vulnerable.”
Marius sensed what the healer would not say out loud.
So are you, Marius.
He only shrugged in reply.