Treespeaker (29 page)

Jakan awoke, his mind hazy. Above him, there was darkness. Around him, the rough walls of the tree blurred in and out of focus. When he shook his head to clear his vision, strong arms lifted him to stand. Jakan swayed for a moment and then steadied, as awareness of his surroundings grew. His head cleared and he did a mental scan of his body. What had happened? Only minutes ago his legs had struggled to hold him up. Now they felt stronger than they had for twenty years. His whole body buzzed with an energy he had not sensed since his youth.

Jakan lifted his arms in front of him, inspecting the back of his hands. His skin looked supple and the greying hair had regained its gingery hue. He rubbed his face. The wrinkles he was accustomed to feeling were gone. He took a deep breath. His lungs sucked the air with gusto.

The Fahshan, standing behind the glowing stone, stepped forward and took Jakan’s hands. “The Judgement is over.” Her green eyes twinkled.

“What happened?”

“You were deemed faithful.” The Fahshan squeezed his hands and let them go. “You and Arrakesh are bound once more.”

“But I blamed him for all that’s happened. I’ve doubted him so many times.”

“And blaming and doubting, you have still gone on, trying to do his will. Though you couldn’t see why he sent you away, you went.”

Jakan’s heart skipped a beat. “I won’t die?”

The Fahshan shrugged and cocked her head to one side. “One day, of course, but not now.” She turned and walked to stand once more behind the Keshfah, lifting her hands over the stone. It glowed, the colours swirling. “For your faithfulness, Arrakesh wills that you should receive a gift.”

The Fahshan cupped her hands and raised them above the Keshfah. A beam of light rose from the stone into her hands then sank. The Fahshan lowered her arms and walked toward Jakan. In her palm lay a replica of the Keshfah, about the size of a duck egg. “This is yours, to use as you need.” She took the stone in her fingers and held it out to him.

Jakan didn’t move, but stood and gazed at the swirling pink and yellow amongst the white. Why was he being given this? What should he do with it? Still overwhelmed by the new energy he felt within himself, his mind struggled. All this, yet he still could not sense Arrakesh. Beldror’s magic still blocked him.

With a sound of amused impatience, the Fahshan lifted Jakan’s hand and pressed the stone into it. A tiny quiver of energy ran up his arm as she squeezed his fingers around it.

“Be warned, Jakan. This Keshfahzan is yours and yours alone. Anyone else who touches it will be judged as you were. But it won’t judge you again. It will only give you strength. Take care of it.”

Jakan blinked and gave a slight nod. His hands trembled slightly as he opened his pouch and slipped in the stone. For its size, the lightness of it was remarkable. As he straightened up, the Fahshan laid her hand on his shoulder .

 “You have faced much hardship and undergone many challenges to do Arrakesh’s will, Jakan. But it’s not over yet. May Arrakesh go with you.”

Jakan looked about him, at the glowing Keshfah, at Kel and back to the Fahshan. “I still can’t speak to Arrakesh.”

Sadness welled in the Fahshan’s eyes and she shook her head. “If Arrakesh could break the spell Beldror put on you, he would have done it long ago. But he is with you. You will speak with him again.”

Jakan rubbed his face and nodded, disappointment making his movements slow. “Thank you. For everything.” He felt Kel’s hand on his arm urging him to leave. With a nod at the Fahshan, he turned and followed, leaning back a little in shock as Kel disappeared through the rough wooden wall. Taking a deep breath, he stepped forward. The wall disappeared and his foot landed on the leafy ground outside the tree.

The cold night air made Jakan gasp. Inside the tree had been warmer than he realised. In the moonlight he could see Kel ahead of him
.
 Further on, Cree and Varyd crouched beside a rock. They stood as they saw him. Varyd went to move towards him, then stopped, gaping at Jakan.

As his eyes became accustomed to the semi-darkness, Jakan became aware that there were others watching him. More morshu and other strange creatures he had seen only as tattoos at the throats of his fellow Arrakeshi peered at him from the shadows. He stepped sideways as a scorpion-like beast with a leaf covered tortoise shell scuttled forward to gaze up at him. Jakan stared back at it, sad memories returning of the trajha tattoo at Jalena’s throat.

“Jakanash of the Fifth Tribe,” the trajha hissed from somewhere beneath its shell, “you have undergone the judgement and rejuvenation that we all must undergo to continue the protection of Dralgo. You are as one with us. Welcome.”

Jakan bowed his head at the trajha, then turned with a questioning look to Kel.

“The creatures of Dralgo have been here many centuries, Jakan. We are rejuvenated by the Keshfah.”

“Did Gredanfyt go through this, too? Did he take a Keshfahzan with him?”

Kel nodded. “There have only ever been two created.”

So that was why the rest of Gredanfyt’s story had been secret, but what had happened to that stone? Jakan fingered the pouch at his waist and moved toward Varyd, who still stood like a statue beside the rock.

“You look twenty years younger.”

Jakan gave a wry smile. “Then I look as I should.” He grasped Varyd’s shoulder. “Thank you, my friend. You saved my life.”

“Arrakesh saved your life.”

Jakan’s face burned as Varyd’s words highlighted his own lack of trust. How many times had he doubted Arrakesh, felt abandoned by him? Yet still, he had brought him here and saved him. Why? None of this made sense.

Replaying his journey in his mind brought a sudden realisation and he stepped back from Varyd a little. “You broke the hold Beldror had over my mind when I tried to kill you. Can you break the hold that blocks me from Arrakesh?” His heart thudded as he waited for an answer.

Varyd put his hand to his mouth and dropped his gaze from Jakan. Jakan’s heart fell.

“Varyd?”

His friend winced. “It’s not so simple. I could break it, but not here, not now.”

“Why not?”

Varyd sighed. Kel and Cree moved closer as if waiting for his answer too. He coughed to clear his throat. “Every spell is woven between two points and has two ends. The spell that made you try to kill me was woven between you and me. For me to unravel it, an end had to be loose. Your desperation not to kill me loosened it. All I had to do was unwind it. This other spell between you and Arrakesh is not so easy.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I can’t unravel it for two reasons. Firstly, if the two points of the spell are too far away from each other, there is a danger that the spell will recoil and tangle so badly that it can never be undone.”

“But Arrakesh is here.”

Varyd shook his head. “In a way, but you need to be in the forest.”

Jakan swallowed. “What’s the second reason?”

“You…” Varyd looked away again, gazing at a sapling growing at his feet. “You don’t need it desperately enough, Jakan.”

Jakan stared at Varyd, his breath coming in short gasps. “What? Of course I do. It’s torture not being able to commune with him.”

 “Think, Jakan, you’ve come all this way, gone through so much without being able to speak to him. You’ve managed to discern his will without your Treespeaking skills. Until you want to do something that you can’t do without direct communion with him, the real need won’t be there.”

Jakan clutched his head in his hands. He knew the truth of Varyd’s words, but he didn’t want to accept them.

He lifted his head and looked at the stars through the leaves of the trees above him. So be it. Arrakesh must know what he was doing. He had led him this far. He must continue to trust him.

 “We need to get back to Arrakesh,” he said.

“Tomorrow.” Kel put a hand on Jakan’s shoulder. “You need food and sleep. Tomorrow Cree and I will take you there.”

The last thing Jakan felt like doing was sleeping, but he nodded and followed the morshu towards their home.

***

A mixture of exhilaration and nausea raced through Jakan as Kel rose from the ground into the morning sky. So much power surged through the wings of these creatures as they fanned the air in slow sweeps. He watched in wonder as the trees below shrank away then disappeared behind them.They flew back up the stream towards Arrakesh.

“What if we’re seen?” he shouted to Kel as tiny, doll-like figures moved along the road beneath them.

Kel shook his head. “We can’t be seen. That is the magic of the morshu.”

Jakan relaxed a little and watched in fascination as the terrain he had crossed in days passed so quickly beneath them. On Cree’s back some distance away, Varyd looked at ease, as if travelling on the back of a huge winged creature was something he did every day.

Within hours, Jakan caught a glimpse of the Forest of Arrakesh in the hazy distance and a lump of joy came to his throat. A second later, it dissolved into a cold trickle of dread that shimmied down his back. What would he find when he got there? He did not want to think of what could have happened while he was gone. His fingers clung more firmly to Kel’s feathers and he forced himself to concentrate on the sound of the huge wings to calm himself.

At last they came close enough to Arrakesh to see the waterfall. Jakan leaned over Kel’s shoulder to catch a glimpse of the Hudd’s farm. He frowned. Something was wrong. In the courtyard he could see a cart, which he recognised as Hekja’s. There was no other sign of life. Normally, at this time of day there should have been activity around the yards and in the fields – Roduph and his sons working, Tashi playing or helping her mother in the yard. Nothing stirred.

Jakan shifted his posture on Kel’s back. “Kel, I want to go down to that farm.”

The beat of Kel’s wings slowed as he turned his head. “Down, now? But we are going back to Arrakesh.”

“Please, it’s important.”

Without a word Kel wheeled to his left in a slow arc until he was almost wing to wing with Cree. He told him Jakan’s request. Without a word Cree turned towards the buildings and started a slow descent. Kel followed.

***

Jakan’s sense of foreboding grew as he entered the courtyard with Varyd and walked towards the door of the Hudd’s cottage. The chickens in their pen ran to the fence squawking their hunger. In the barn, the horses shuffled and snorted in impatience to be out. Taking a deep breath, he knocked.

A full minute passed before Roduph opened the door. His gaze passed from Jakan to Varyd and back without recognition. Jakan’s heart quickened as he saw Roduph’s face. It was as grey as the shirt he wore and etched with worry. His eyes held no glint of his usual good humour.

“Roduph?” Jakan reached out a hand and laid it on Roduph’s arm.

Roduph gazed at Jakan with a bewildered look. “Jakan. You’ve returned.” The comment held no welcome, no surprise. He looked at Varyd.

“This is Varyd,” Jakan explained. “What’s wrong?”

Roduph didn’t answer, but stepped back to allow the two men to enter. A cold hand took hold of Jakan’s heart as he walked into the darkened room. In the corner, Merida sat hunched in her chair, rocking herself to and fro and showing no interest in her visitors. Near her, Brod sat on the floor. He raised a hand to his mother’s knee and muttered something to her as he saw Jakan, but she did not respond in any way. At the table Evyn slouched on a seat, throwing a handful of pebbles down and picking them up, over and over again. There seemed no reason to his actions. The noise of it irritated Jakan, but the boy’s family seemed oblivious.