The Cursed Towers (24 page)

It was a familiar jeer, but for once it failed to send terror beating through Lilanthe's sap. She drew herself up. "How can some one so young be so mean?" she said. "It is true I am a tree faery, but I am no less than ye for that. Beware what ye say, lassie, for one day ye shall be walking in the forests and ye shall find the trees whose shade ye seek are no friends o' yours. Ye shall see the trees walking, and ye shall hear their terrible song and wish that ye had had more respect for those no' o' your kind. For the creatures o' the forest were here long before ye humankind came to our shores wi' your axes and your evil fires, and we shall be here long after your bones are food for our roots." Silence had fallen over the busy square, and all faces were turned Lilanthe's way. The children looked afraid, and one or two were snivelling, their sticks fallen forgotten from their hands. The tree-shifter shook back her mane of leaves defiantly and made her way through the silent children to break open the wicker cage. The nisse darted into her hand and quivered there, its broken wing trailing. Lilanthe cradled the faery tenderly. "Look at this puir wee thing!" she cried. "Look wha' ye have done to her! She should be flying free through the forest wi' her kin, sipping nectar from the flowers and teasing the squirrels."

"She be naught but a wicked faery who steals grain from the sacks and snatches bread from our hands," one of the women cried.

"I ken the nisses are cheeky wee things," Lilanthe replied, "but is this kind, to stuff her in a cage and let the children beat her wi' their sticks? All this land was once forest, rich wi' nuts and seeds for her to eat. Now it is all fields and there is no forest left for those who lived here first. She would starve if she did no'

eat your grain and bread! Is that the way to thank those who are your hosts, who let ye take their land and believed ye when ye offered the hand o' friendship? Do ye think any o' us faeries would have let ye live if we had known what ye would do to us and ours? Once we were many and ye were but a few, and hungry. We thought the fruits o' the forest were plentiful and made ye welcome to take what ye needed. Instead ye cut down our homes and raped the land wi' your plows and axes, and infected us wi' your wasting sicknesses, and brought those greedy rats that fight the creatures o' the forest for what is rightfully theirs! And even that was no' enough; ye had to make it a sport to hunt us down and ye watched us burn on your fires for amusement! Ye wonder why we hate ye!"

Lilanthe stopped, panting, her cheeks burning. Niall the Bear and his men stood behind her, hands on their swords, but no one in the town square looked belligerent. They stood silently, their eyes downcast in shame. A few were resentful, but all had heard the town crier read out the new righ's decrees and had heard the penalties for those who defied them. Lilanthe stared around her, the anger draining out of her and leaving her perilously close to tears. Seeing nothing but rejection on the faces of the crowd, she turned and hurried back to the inn, the little faery safely cupped in her hands. The nisse pushed her tiny head out through Lilanthe's fingers and jeered mockingly at the villagers in her high, shrill voice. Lilanthe did not have Isabeau's healing skills, but she bound up the torn wing as best she could and gave the faery water to drink and bread to chew on. The tree-shifter's cheeks were wet with tears wept for the pain the little faery had suffered and for her own loneliness and sorrow. She knew the nisse could never fly again with the fragile fabric of her wing so damaged, and so she crooned to her gently, in pity. The nisse was exultant, however, and chattered nonstop in her own shrill language.
Let us sting stab
those warm-blooded giants, let us piss in their waters and hurl poison berries into their food, let us
goad them weeping and wailing into the sea!

"Nay," Lilanthe said wearily. "We canna do that. The humans are here to stay. They have been here a thousand years now and have sunk their roots as deep into this soil as your kin or mine. And no' all are evil or ignorant. I have friends who are human."

The nisse squealed in disapproval.

Lilanthe said, "Better that we teach them to love and respect us, than let them taint us with their evil ways. Tree-changers are peace-loving creatures. All we wish for is to roam the land as we please, tasting the soil and celebrating the passing o' the seasons."

The nisse grinned wickedly, showing needle-sharp fangs. Lilanthe smiled despite herself. "I hope ye can forgive those foolish bairns, for indeed they did no' understand what they did. Happen they will think a wee now, and no' be so cruel next time."

The nisse was crouched on the table, licking her delicate little hands with a long, forked tongue and wiping her face clean. She trilled in derision.

"That is my task," Lilanthe explained softly. "I travel on behalf o' the Coven o' Witches, to win the faeries and humans to peace and understanding. I go in search 0' the Summer Tree, hoping I can win the forest faeries to our cause and convince them the Coven means them only good." The nisse cocked her head and looked up at Lilanthe speculatively. Her eye was as bright as a green flame. Lilanthe broke off a few more crumbs for her, and she snatched one up, cramming it into her mouth.
I
know where the Summer Tree blooms blossoms. The juice of its flower will heal my wing
so I can fly fleet once more.

"Will ye take me there?" Lilanthe cried, her freckled face lighting up in hope.
Broken-winged I cannot soar swoop so far. So I will take you, as you shall take me. We must fly
fleet, though, for the Summer Tree flowers only once, when the Celes-tines sing hum the sun to
life. Only once a year the Summer Tree blossoms and blooms, and then its flowers wither wane on
the branch and I must wait weep another year.

Lilanthe nodded. "Very well, we shall ride out tomorrow. Fear no', we shall find the Summer Tree now that we have ye to show us the way. It may take us a while, but in the end we shall find it."
Palace of the Dragons

"See how the eagle uses the movement o' the wind to fly? See, he barely moves his wings, yet he soars hundreds o' feet above the earth. He understands the forces o' air and uses them. That is what ye must do if ye are to fly," Ishbel said.

She and Isabeau were sitting on a rocky ledge, watching an eagle soar through the air. Far below them the green meadows of the Cursed Valley undulated, cut in two by the blue snake of the river that wound away from the loch. On all sides the sharp pointed peaks rose, stretching as far as the eye could see. The snowy glacier swept away to the north, so bright in the sunshine it hurt the eye to gaze at it. With envious eyes Isabeau watched the eagle hover, wondering what it felt like to drift so effortlessly above the world. Suddenly the bird folded his wings and plummeted to earth. Moments later he rose with great strokes of his wings, a coney in his claws.

"How am I to learn to understand the wind, though?" Isabeau asked, watching longingly as her mother floated a foot off the ground, her legs tucked beneath her. Isabeau held Bronwen in her lap, the child tugging at her brighi red-gold hair which hung in a plait over one shoulder. In the meadow behind them, Lasair cropped at the lush grass, while Feld lay in the shelter of a tree, reading a book.

"I do no' ken," Ishbel replied. "It is partly instinct, I suppose, and partly experience. Ye must watch the wind, and listen to it, and feel it with your skin."

"How am I meant to watch the wind?" Isabeau asked in some exasperation. "Air is invisible. It is no' like the earth, which ye can touch and smell and taste." She crumbled a sod of soil between her fingers, lifting it to her nose to inhale its rich, peaty odor. Bronwen reached out her grubby little hand, grabbing a clump of dirt and trying to eat it. Isabeau smiled and cuddled her closer.

"Ye can touch and smell and taste the wind too," Ish-bel replied. "Can ye no' feel it against your skin?" Isabeau sat still for a moment, trying to understand what her mother meant. "I suppose so," she said slowly. "Though it's so still today, I canna feel much."

"That is one thing," Ishbel replied. "It is still and warm, yet still the eagle finds currents o' air to fly with. Where is the wind coming from?"

Isabeau noticed how the stems of the dandelions bent and swayed in the meadow below them, how the leaves of the trees turned up their silver undersides. She felt a faint movement in the hairs on her bare arm. "From the south," she replied hesitantly. "Maybe the southeast."

"Good," Ishbel said. "Now look at the clouds. Look at their shape, their dimensions, their height, color and texture. Clouds are water carried by air. They will tell ye how the wind blows too. See how small and low the clouds are? It shall no' rain today. Now smell the wind. What does it smell of?"

"Grass," Isabeau said after a moment. "Warm grass." She remembered her lessons with Latifa the Cook, and how she had made her identify foods from smell and taste alone. She shut her eyes and concentrated. "Hemlock leaves, from the tree down there," she said after a while. "Clover, and dandelions, and harebells too, I think. Soil, rich soil, filled with rotting vegetation. Water. Still water, though, no' rain."

"Very good," Ishbel said. "Breathe it deeply into your lungs. Taste it. Get to know every variation o' taste and texture. Ye will soon know if the wind blows steady and strong, or if it is a capricious breeze, and hard to fly with."

"This reminds me of what Seychella told me about whistling the wind," Isabeau said. "She told me I needed to understand how the wind blows to be able to work the weather."

"I remember Seychella Wind-Whistler," Ishbel said rather dreamily. "She was Tabithas's apprentice when I was Meghan's. They thought she could one day be a great weather witch, like in the auld days. Whatever happened to her?"

"She was killed by a Mesmerd," Isabeau said grimly. "Do ye no' remember? She was one o' the witches at my Testing. She was killed when the Red Guards attacked. Ye flew away. I thought ye must die, the way ye stepped off the cliff, but ye just floated away, as easy as the seeds o' those dandelions."

"I remember," Ishbel said softly. "I am sorry to hear she died, though."

"Can ye work weather?" Isabeau asked. "Many o' the things ye say mirror what she said, but she could no' fly. I asked her."

Ishbel shrugged. "I have never really tried to use the forces o' air in that way. Weather magic has as much to do with the element o' water or fire. Ye might have some skill with the weather but I do no' think your Talent is to fly. I am sorry I canna teach ye more."

"You were able to teach Iseult," Isabeau said, her voice tight.

"She had the Talent," Ishbel replied. "She was just too used to using her own strength and vigor, rather than the forces o' air. Ye have power, I can sense that, and I know Meghan always thought so too. It is different from mine, though. Ye seem strong in all the elements, while I could never manage to manipulate fire or earth."

Ishbel looked down at her hands. On the heart finger of her right hand she wore a blue topaz, showing air was the element she was strongest in, and the moonstone ring Lachlan had given her at his Testing was on her middle finger. On her left hand she wore a sapphire and an opal, indicating that she had passed the Sorceress Tests of Air and Spirit.

"Ye must have been very young to win your sorceress rings," Isabeau said.

"Aye, I was. I was no' yet twenty, and as ye know, ye usually must wait until ye are twenty-four before ye are allowed to sit any o' the Tests o' Elements. My Talent was so strange and so strong, however, that the Coven made an exception. Some o' the other witches were no' pleased, but Meghan insisted." Isabeau sighed and stretched, admiring the flash of the rings on her own hands. She too wore a moonstone ring on the middle finger of her right hand—that was the first ring any witch won—while on her left hand she wore the dragoneye stone the dragons had given her when she was born. The sight of it reassured her, and she stood. "We had best keep on climbing if we are to reach the Great Stairway by dawn tomorrow," she said abruptly.

Feld, Ishbel and Isabeau had set out the previous day to climb the mountain, Bronwen in a sling on Isabeau's back as usual. Somehow the young apprentice witch did not feel comfortable riding on Lasair's back now she knew he was really her father. So she walked, her arms filled with a great branch of sweet-scented roses, their white petals frilled with red. This was the rose-tithe, the payment the MacFaghans had to make to the dragons in return for their friendship and forbearance. One of the decaying tapestries hanging in the great hall showed Faodhagan the Red giving the queen-dragon a rose he had carelessly plucked and tucked in his buttonhole. The gift had so amused and pleased the queen-dragon she had allowed the cheeky human to live, and so the friendship between the sorcerer and the dragons had begun.

For centuries the rose-tithe had not been paid, but Feld had only been allowed to stay in the valley if he revived the ancient custom. When Iseult lived at the Towers, it had been her duty to cut a bunch of roses and carry it to the dragons' palace every midsummer, and now it was Isabeau's task. She had picked the roses while they were still tightly furled, then sprayed them with iq water to try and prevent them from wilting during the
long climb to the Cursed Peaks. Their sweet, faint scent
wafted around her as she clambered up the rocky path, and she wondered if she could distill the perfume for her candles and bath oil.

The way grew steep, but the view was so spectacular that Isabeau was content to climb slowly, occasionally pausing to wait for Feld, who often stopped to examine a flower or stone, or to read a passage from his book, which he carried under one arm. Feld was wearing a long coat of velvet, which Isabeau had brushed and darned for him, and had replaced his worn slippers with a pair of equally shabby boots. His long, striped scarf was wound around his neck, the ragged ends dangling down his back, while his beard was looped through his belt. On his head he wore a moth-eaten cap pulled low over his ears, and his gray hair stuck out from underneath it like straw spilling from an overstuffed sack. Behind his spectacles, Feld's eyes were vague and kind and, like a child's, always on the lookout for something new and wondrous. Ishbel did not walk with them, but flew about as aimlessly as a sparrow, sometimes alighting in a tree to wait for them, sometimes dropping down to walk with the stallion. Lasair picked his way ahead of them up the path, breaking into a gallop when the way led into a meadow, wheeling around to call to them from the top of a hill, his bright mane flying. They camped that night in the overhang of the cliff, Isabeau lighting a fire with a snap of her fingers and cooking them a nourishing stew from the supplies in the pack the stallion carried for her. Lasair lay down in the grass beside them, and Isabeau leant against his comforting bulk gratefully. Just around the bluff was the massive stone archway that marked the beginning of the Great Stairway. The stone dragons that spread their sculpted wings on either side of the archway were chilling reminders of what Isabeau had still to face. She tried hard to think of the coming confrontation with excitement and confidence, reminding herself again and again that the MacFaghans had always been friends to the dragons. Deep inside her was a niggling fear the great creatures would find her unworthy of their regard, however, maimed as she was and a failure.