After Eurilda ran a good distance through the brush, and was scratched by thorns, and branches broken in her haste, she was pulled down quicker than she could think; strong hands seized both arms, another clapped over her mouth, and something sat on her legs, as well. With her right cheek and eye pressed into the dirt, she cast about with her left eye and saw the arrogant face of Quhinei atop her.
When the Councilor-General saw Eurilda's glance, she shushed her, then uncovered her mouth tentatively. No, realized the giantess—this was one of the Councilor-General's seed-sisters, not the Quhinei, but a Quhinei. When Eurilda didn't cry out, Quhinei let go, signaled the others to do the same, and then they shuffled into the trees.
Eurilda rose to one knee, shaken and scuffed by their man-handling, but not seriously hurt. Then she saw the cavalry, dozens mounted on kiuvathi with lances and shields in hand and swords and sheaves of javelins hanging from their saddles, and a few with cwamtu. While most were going ahead down the road, a half dozen remained, of which two dismounted, traded lances for swords, and foraged into the bramble.
When Eurilda crawled into the brush, Quhinei hissed "quickly." Until Eurilda knew better, she would think of this Quhinei as The Captain. "We must run." When The Captain whispered orders in the dryad tongue, it was like a susurrus swimming in the weeds, and the others drew swords and hid. Quhinei pulled Eurilda so fast through the branches that they snapped back and whipped them until they stepped onto a hidden path. When they heard grunts and crossed swords, Eurilda imagined that fortune may favor the ambusher over the ambushee, but The Captain's troops were few, and those on the road within shouting distance were many. As an angry yell drowned out the clashing steel, the giantess surmised that Inglefras's soldiers had the same thought, and she sprinted past The Captain.
While she would prefer every dryad to drop dead, or failing that, would be pleased never again to see dryads, Eurilda schemed to pit one army against the other, so when the sound of fighting died, she waited for The Captain to take her to the regrettable company of dryads.
"Where is Lieutenant Leitara?" The Captain panted as they slowed to a jog.
"We were separated at the gatehouse." This was true enough, though the giantess did the parting, cleaving a hole in Leitara.
The hidden road carried them to a slow, shallow stream, where the path widened after they crossed, the embankment torn by boots and kiuvathi tracks to the water.
The rhythm of fast drums preceded their arrival to the Councilor-Generals' army, where a few stragglers armored and armed themselves to follow a mass exodus of soldiers marching toward the sound of clashing steel, kiuvathis' screams muffled by the earth beneath their bellies, and the barrage of clay shells bursting from cwamtu.
Flaming tents and puffs of Nahurian blasting powder peppering the air with an acrid smolder blinded Eurilda with smoky tears. A kiuvathi dragged its stirrup-tangled, dead rider through dew-damp grass and trampled dozens under its six knobby feet. Blinking back the burning tears, Eurilda dodged the runaway beast, only to be stuck on one detail she had missed —like a breastplate, one ugly toenail warded the feet of the kiuvathi. She could not tear her eyes away from its gnarled ugliness, even as the beast edged back to within a terrifying perimeter of her, and even when its underbelly maw idly munched its rider's head. She tore herself from the nightmarish sight and staggered toward the Councilor-Generals' corp of elite javeliners.
The elite javeliners' wiry, fibrous arms flung javelins with hammer force through shield and breastplate, knocking their targets flat or pinning them to the hapless ranks behind them, but neither the devastating missiles of these doughty warriors, nor the deafening blasts of the cwamtu cannoneers, were more than pins or needles to the two-hundred tons of cavalry—at least fifty kiuvathi, spikes mounted over the eye spots on their shoulders, and mounted with Tree-Women armed with barbed lances—that sheared through them as the giantess ran for the tents of the Councilor-Generals.
On making it to the encampment, Eurilda leaped inside her stockade and, in miniature, knelt on the window sill. When Inglefras's soldiers reached the end of their offensive, the massing troops of the Councilor-Generals pushed them back toward Wywynanoir, and in the shifting, pitched battle, the giantess received an unwanted education in dryad anatomy, as one, slashed in the middle, held in guts with a viny, vegetal sheen, and another, beheaded, showered splinters with green blood from the shattered spine. When a cwamtu blasted a Tree-Woman only a yard from her hiding place, the charred dryad spread the sumptuous odor of cinnamon, and Eurilda craved breakfast. After the cwamtu blasts thinned out Inglefras's infantry, the Councilor-Generals' cavalry charged, and soon the rebels were stacked on kiuvathi shoulder spikes and riven by dryad lances.
"Excuse me." The politeness jarred with the unfolding, violent tableau. "Are you the sorceress Eurilda?"
"I am," the giantess said, but choked back the rest when she turned to see Leitara, though demoted from Lieutenant and clad in ordinary fighting garb. While this Leitara's braided tresses were cherry red, and her hands callused and scarred, the resemblance was striking, and her heart hammered, though the other Leitara could not have conveyed its dying realization of Eurilda's treachery to her seed-sister twins.
"Come with me," said Leitara's seed-sister. "You are requested by the Councilor-Generals."
"Though you could drag me there in my famished state, drag me first to food, or my master, who can banish hunger." She did her best to laugh, but she was so ravenous that it simply came out as a faint, ugly growl.
"We'll find you something on the way." Eurilda followed her through the Councilor-Generals' camp to a tent packed with casks of food, water and brandy. Though all the staff had run into the fray. Leitara's seed-sister filled a bowl with cold cooked grains, greens, and dried fruit, as well as a sour-smelling dressing darker than gravy. Eurilda couldn't help but think of the bowl the other Leitara prepared, though the palette of this one was more savory than sweet, and wondered whether the Lieutenant's time as a cafe worker was personal experience or cataloged memory compiled from the dryad in one of its past lives? So that Leitara and this Leitara both prepped their dishes by a rote skill acquisition that neither could take personal pride in, though perhaps the entire dryad organism felt a collective pride. If so, Eurilda needn't thank Lieutenant Leitara or her seed-sister for their culinary creations, but instead tender her appreciation to the Tree-Mother. This rankled Eurilda's strong belief in individuality, as she was coming to believe that the Tree-Mothers infiltrated the Tree-Women with ghost memories in a kind of parasitism of the lives of its offspring. If the Tree-Women were individuals, they would never know it, because they advanced the interests of the Tree-Mothers from birth to death. While she guessed this opinion would only sound tenable to those that preferred propaganda and tracts to literature, the idea fit congruently into her skewed mind.
Eurilda ate the savory dish standing up. As the cold cooked grains had clumped, she downed it by the chunk in seven quick bites. When she finished, she looked for any other eatables in reach, and seeing that Leitara's seed sister left the bag open, she set down her bowl and in the same motion took a fistful of dried fruit.
"Does this suffice?" asked Leitara. "As I found you sooner than expected, if we leave now, we could say that we just left the battlefield."
"Why do you care?" asked the giantess around a mouthful of dried fruit. "They won't whip your tree for your tardiness."
"I've been apprised of your views. You're saying I'm a non-entity. We may not have personhood as you see it, but Dryad law allows not only for the personal responsibility of the Tree-Mother, but for the individual responsibility of the Tree-Women. And I'd prefer..."
"You? What you? A perfect copy of you can be duplicated with only a little effort. There's no accountability without personality."
"Even if I wanted to hear more, there's no time. Let's go," said Leitara's cherry-haired seed-sister.
While Eurilda had intended to visit the Councilor-Generals and bear word to Otoka, this brief conversation changed her mind—or perhaps a full belly put her in her right mind, so that she felt a desire to postpone these meetings and set the stage for the long-delayed conversation she dearly wanted to have.
Eurilda shrunk herself to the size of an acorn, ducked under the tent, then ran, gradually growing, while maintaining a weight of a few ounces, so that her strides not only became progressively longer, but each step hurtled her farther, and in less than ten seconds, she was a quarter mile away from the food tent. She peeked her head under tents until she found one with no Tree-Women, only cots, chests, and a still-smoldering fire.
Eurilda slid her pouch from her belt, placed it on a chest between her sword and its scabbard, then pulled out the mniaturized Khyte and laid him face down on the soft fabric. With her right hand, she propped the sword on edge, and with her left, she raised the side of the scabbard to wall him in. Then she used the flat of the blade like a spatula to flip him onto his back.
Khyte rolled to his knees, vomited a white, rheumy mass streaked with yellow and red onto Eurilda's enchanted pouch, then stood up, knees awobble. "Eurilda?" he gasped, spitting a few putrid chunks. "It's not too late."
"You don't know where we are," she said. "Do you?"
Khyte's eyes seemed to be adrift in his surroundings, as if he was lost or dizzy. "I don't care. I'm preoccupied by who I'm with, and the how and the why."
"The why?" After Eurilda laughed long, and a little too loud, she quieted herself, then risked a look at the tent flap, which hung still. "Having also considered the why, I'm satisfied that it could only be you."
"What could only be me? I haven't denied I'm the father, Eurilda. And when Inglefras wanted to deny your motherhood, I fought for your rights."
"You're too kind. Someone here on Ielnarona was also kind enough to conspire with the cannibal factions on Uenarak to assassinate my master and precipitate our flight through the Doorway. Someone who knew that which neither Otoka nor I did not, that many of his apprentices often journeyed to Ielnarona, giving us an easy route to the Dryad World."
"Did not Frellyx tell you I am of two minds about this wedding? Did he not reach out to you on my behalf?" While Khyte was flustered and red-faced, that might have been the spider venom.
"Though I'm flattered, I would never have come for a hope if that was all the elf had to offer. But it never came to that—your true agenda was coiled in the letter."
"I bear no ill will toward you or Otoka. If my purpose was not plain, I need you, Eurilda."
"Yes, you do need me, but not the way I'd like to be needed. There's only one way of getting that out of you while getting to the bottom of this."
"Eurilda, I am the father of our children."
"Yes, though you're Hravakian, I'm Uenarakian, and our substances neither should have united nor produced offspring. Not only are you an undeniable miracle, you're the best swordsman I've known, both meanings intended; however, you're no giant. I could make allowances for everything but the inborn failure of your kind. I should have known you'd betray me, though it was from needing me."
When Khyte tried to jump down from the chest, Eurilda blocked him with the scabbard, then herded him back with her sword point.
"Though I don't mean to kill you," said Eurilda, "I need to be certain about your motives." She pinned him under the scabbard, then cast a spell she had never attempted, the truespeak. Also known as the lesser geas, truespeak compels honest speech. Those enchanted by truespeak must answer any question the sorcerer poses, both correctly and to the best of their ability; additionally, the sorcerer may secure these answers by making them unspeakable secrets. During the long, ugly spell, Khyte squirmed under the grinding pressure of the scabbard and the increasing, frenzied pain of the coalescing enchantment.
But as she finished, she heard a voice behind her. "That fool was no agent of the cannibals, Eurilda," said Otoka the Wise. "Put him down, and apologize." Otoka was hale and ruddy, as if he was not flattened by a curse only days ago, and in dryad armor of lacquered wooden leaves, he seemed even heartier.
"Why, master? He poisoned you."
"He was not the cannibals' agent," repeated Otoka, "but my own."
The dumbstruck giantess considered the extent of Otoka's claim. How long had Khyte served Otoka?
"Come, my apprentice," said Otoka, "the Councilor-Generals wait for us. And you," he said, gesturing at Khyte, who regained his size and was surefooted enough to step, rather than fall, from the chest.
Since they were silent on the way to the Councilor-Generals' tent, Eurilda used the walk to disentangle the truth from the claim that knotted up her preconceptions. Though she felt Khyte's gaze, when she looked askance, his eyes were averted.
Tree-Women ran into the fray.
When the tent was in sight, Eurilda asked, "Was Frellyx your agent as well?"
Otoka laughed. "That fool? While I have known Frellyx for hundreds of years, I wouldn't dare give him an important job, for fear he would put his own spin on it. I may have encouraged certain ideas to ensure that he was my ready ally, and I may have suggested to Khyte that he send the letter with Frellyx, as I wanted to be sure that it arrived."
"You sent the letter?"
"Not that I wrote it and uninvited you to Khyte's wedding. I merely imbued the invitation with a spell."
"Why would you do that to yourself?"
"Do what? I am fond of naps at midday, and to sleep through a few days was a fine opportunity. Everything was by design."
"What design? It makes no sense."
"Perhaps the Councilor-Generals can enlighten you." Otoka opened the tent flaps.
Eurilda's heart and breath stopped, and her hand found its way to her sword hilt--not that this killer's instinct, as untrained at sword craft as she was, would serve her well against either puissant goblin—Huiln and Kuilea, son and daughter of kindly Lord Hwarn. Nor could she prevail by force of arms against Frellyx, who was also in attendance though he commanded an enemy search party less than an hour ago. The table was rounded out by Otoka, Teuren, Quhinei and a spindly-limbed, pot-bellied bald man, whose opulent azure robes, and the mask of makeup with which he affected the golden-green tones of a Tree-Woman, seemed familiar. Around the old man's neck was the backwards F which meant service in the language of dryads.
Eurilda was most affected by the sight of Kuilea, for in their previous meeting they went from contemptuous acquaintances to friends with only loving, losing, and loathing Khyte in common, and that commiseration their common language; when Eurilda then betrayed the goblin woman, it gave her every reason to become a bitter enemy to the giantess.
The painted old man spoke first. "Otoka. Eurilda. Though we may not have long, judging by the nearness of the battle, it may be years before we are all at the same table, and this opportunity must not slip past."
"Excuse me," said Eurilda. "Huiln and Kuilea I know, and Teuren and Quhinei I know, though I don't remember which is which." The giantess couldn't resist a dig at the snooty Councilor-Generals. "But I don't know you."
"We've met, though you don't remember it. I'm Sarin Gelf."
Eurilda then remembered Khyte's Cuvaernian friend, a fat merchant that made a few lewd remarks about the giantess, and whom she had mostly forgotten, except with a vague recollection that Sarin paid handsomely for treasures. "You're much thinner," she said.
Sarin Gelf smiled and nodded. "Thank you for noticing. Please sit."
Cwamtu discharges, battle cries, and screams echoed much nearer than before.
The old man waved a hand at Eurilda, Khyte, Huiln, and Kuilea. "I had wanted to take you four into our confidence at last, as lack of understanding makes it harder for you to enact our will, but it can't be helped. There's no time. By all indications, Inglefras will win the field and we will retreat--from the sound of it, in the next few minutes."
"You must go to Alfyria," said Otoka.
"Why would we do this?" asked Khyte. Eurilda realized that he also had not yet acknowledged either goblin.
"It's just a message," said Otoka.
Eurilda laughed. "Just one? Is there a sinister message enspelled in this one as well?"
"More to the point," said Frellyx, "I thought you decided upon Hravak?"
"We appreciated your recommendation," said Teuren, "but despite your misgivings about your fellow elves, the humans are too disorganized to be our allies."
"Frellyx," said Khyte, "what is happening?"
"The ending moves of a very long game," answered the Alfyrian, "though I lost interest long ago and have often tossed the board aside to focus on my preferred diversion of these past few years, you."
"Don't call me a diversion," said Khyte. "And no disrespect to either Councilor present, nor Otoka the Wise, nor the money-eyed Sarin Gelf, but why should I go along with this?"
"Councilors-General," corrected Teuren. "You will go in search of answers which only the Alfyrians can provide."
"You will help because you must," said Otoka the Wise, looking not at Khyte but at Eurilda with a sideways glance. Alarmed by what the look insinuated, the giantess plied her sorcerer's sight. She had peered into the young barbarian once before, when she suspected the made-to-order Khyte the tool or toy of a rival apprentice. Though he wasn't perfect, he was the ideal man for her, and she had scoured his spirit silently with her sorcerer's sight. When she lost him to ordinary fear—terror of, he said, how much more she was than he, both physically and mystically—she had not thought to verify that with her mystic vision. Now she knew what to look for, how to find these wizardries sorcerers only discuss with their those on an equal footing on the plane of power. And she found them, enchantments as old as their relationship, yet still vigorous: a greater geas strung to his spine and brain stem, and a deep illusion covering the well of his consciousness. While no doubt there before, these enchantments were known skulkers that easily hid from more studied sorcerers.
This meant truespeak had surely not anchored in Khyte, as the greater geas already had its hooks in him. She could only look to the spell's source to get her answers—to Otoka the Wise, who had decided this young barbarian would endear himself to her on one of her offworld travels.
Surely Khyte's affection for her was predicated by the greater geas clouding his mind. An urge to weep nearly swept over her even in this impromptu council of master manipulators and their stooges. Though Eurilda liked to think of herself as a wise sorceress, spinning destinies into realities like Lyspera the Spider-Goddess, able to adjust the fabric of existence to suit her whim, she was humbled by the long-ranging lessons of Otoka, who had not only anticipated her every action, but planned responses. She brought herself back from the bottomless brink of her self-esteem by the understanding that he could have only guessed at what she might do, and she could only live her own life by living a better one that he could not predict.
Eurilda struggled with what she must do; she wanted to reject outright their request to carry this message. It rankled when she realized Otoka knew that she would obey, though she no longer carried the geas, because she would take any opportunity to be with Khyte, to discover whether he had ever loved her, or whether his affection fulfilled a forgotten sorcerous suggestion.
"Our father is Inglefras's hostage," said Huiln. The goblin had not looked in Eurilda's direction. "We can only assist if his safety is assured."
Teuren said, "as he is a valuable hostage, it is unlikely she will kill him."
"I like the sound of unlikely," the goblin said, "but it is not a guarantee. I am no child looking to be reassured; I want a contract demanding a certainty. Better yet, a prisoner exchange—give Inglefras that one"—though he pointed at Eurilda, he still did not meet her eyes—"in exchange for Lord Hwarn."
"Where we are going," said Frellyx, "a giant is less of a liability than two goblins, even if one is considered mad by his own people."
The ground shook, rattling the tent poles, sending the tent fabric quivering, and upending the chairs, along with Huiln and Kuilea. Though the rest were startled, Eurilda and Otoka knew that sound from their day to day life.
"And you must go now," said Otoka the Wise. "Apprentice, do I still command you?"
"Forever." Though Eurilda felt it to be no lie, she guarded her thoughts that she would one day make him answer. Loyalty was groundless if founded on deceptions, but her great master was so meaningful that she would make all his crooked lines straight, even if it took fifty years to collect the necessary power. Fifty years, or forever.
"Take this old man with you, and keep him safe." Otoka pointed to Sarin Gelf.
"We're not taking him up the Alfyrian Ladder," scoffed Frellyx.
"He must not be taken by Inglefras."
"We're to be married in a week," said Khyte. The giantess was taken aback. If Khyte was one of the conspirators, he was clueless; not only did he not know he was in the heart of the Councilor-Generals' army, but he still loved Inglefras. Had Eurilda buried his mind when she shrunk him to a terrifying degree, then pinned him under a gigantic blade?
Or..."Was everything you said a lie?" Eurilda asked Frellyx.
"Khyte did need you, and he still does. You would not have come if I said Khyte knew not that he needed you, as there's no pity in your breast. You want to be recognized in everything."
When the ground-thumping pounded nearer, Frellyx said "follow me" a moment too late, as the canvas buckled and ripped and the tent pinched together, billowing around them and blinding them with its folds before being torn away. Tent spikes whistled at the end of swirling tent cords, smacking them like whip tails, and Eurilda doubled over when one struck her torso, still sore from childbirth despite Otoka's mending.
After the two red-robed giants pulled down the Councilor-Generals' war tent, one staggered from a cwamtu blast, grabbed at the spreading stain on his garment from which monstrous entrails peeked out between his fingers, then fell towards Khyte and Otoka the Wise.
When Otoka raised his hand, he swelled to twice the size of any giant on the battlefield—and there were hundreds, many garbed in the cowled and starred robes that signified the cannibal assassin cult. After the falling giant bloodied Otoka's robes and slid to the ground a corpse, he intoned a spell and a shimmering glistened around him, a coat of lightning-mail from which rebounded the giant spears, dryad javelins, and clay cwamtu shells that were directed upon him.
Eurilda pushed Khyte and Sarin Gelf after Frellyx, Huiln, and Kuilea, who had already taken to their heels toward the main camp. At one point she turned to see cherry-haired Leitara following.
When Otoka's raised hand half-turned, the clouds followed his finger-tips like trained birds, squatting over the field of battle less than a few tree lengths away. Jagged lightning sprang from the soil, from the clouds, and from the air between, as if lightning bolts bloomed from nothingness, as if lightning slithered from invisible serpent holes. Though the crackling bolts targeted Inglefras's troops, they did not sidestep the Councilor-General's armies, and many died not from being on the wrong side, but from not being quick enough. Eurilda ducked under one of these rolling coils of lightning.
When a column of Inglefras's kiuvathi cavalry charged the giant wizard, Eurilda gave them credit for bravery, for lengthy shadows cast by the illumination of his own spectral, skeletal lightning gave Otoka a death's head. When the Tree-Women were within three lance lengths, Otoka smote the ground with his staff, and circles of fire, one within the other, expanded outward to immolate those leading the charge. Ten in a row were burned to ash, while those on the left and right flank managed to pull aside from the waves of flame.
"Eurilda! Forget him!" shouted Frellyx.
They sprinted away from the battling armies and outside the camp's perimeter, where dryad magic had filled the Councilor-Generals' trenches with a deep brown earth, which was then torn and trodden.
"Where are you taking us?" asked Sarin Gelf. Though the old man seemed flushed, he was not sweating from the non-stop running, which should be hard for one of his advanced age.
"Is this not the way to Glesingren?" asked Eurilda. "Is that wise?"
"No," said the Alfyrian, "giants and dryads mobbed the Wise. No offense to present company." After bowing his head to Eurilda and Leitara the cherry-haired, the elf set a gentle pace. "Though Glesingren is splinters, that decayed Tree-Mother still marks a Doorway."
Though Sarin Gelf proved more doughty than he looked, and kept up for a good twenty minutes before lagging back, when his eyes seemed to roll back into their whites from his exhaustion, Eurilda decided to honor what may be her master's final command, enlarged to her full height, picked up Sarin Gelf in one hand, and Khyte in the other, then strode from the rear of their group to just behind Frellyx. While the young barbarian had no trouble matching their pace, having him in hand brought back old times, when she took comfort in holding the power of life and death over he whom she loved. And if she could not rise above Khyte's betrayal, he remained a bargaining piece to get back her children.
As they neared Glesingren, countless downed branches, broken jaggedly from the boughs above, were trodden into shards and splinters.
"Do you still play the fool, Frellyx?" Eurilda asked.
"No. Giants traipsed this path many times, and dozens may guard the catacombs."
"Where is the Alfyrian Ladder you discussed with my master?" said Eurilda.
"Above the Orange Hotel."
"Ugh. It may as well be on Nahure."
Sarin Gelf said, "we're not going back to Wywynanoir? I'm not looking forward to that reunion..." When his voice trailed off, Eurilda realized her closed hand wasn't allowing him to draw any replacement wind.
"Try your luck with the giants." Eurilda relaxed her hold.
"I'd prefer that," said the old man. "with giants in both directions and dryads behind us. Don't you recognize me, Eurilda?"
"You're Sarin Gelf. Not only were we introduced less than an hour ago, I remember waiting once while you hammered out a deal with Khyte."
Sarin Gelf chuckled. "I should have known you'd be so perspicacious."
"Are you mocking me?" asked the giantess. "I wouldn't do that if I were you."
"As much as it's the last place that any of you want to be," said Khyte, "if there's an Alfyrian Ladder concealed in Wywynanoir, I will help you escape, Eurilda, if that is what you wish."
"You know what I wish," said the giantess, squeezing him by reflex, and relaxing her grip when she saw the discomfort she caused Khyte. Holding a whole person was much different than holding a hand.
"If there is no other way," began Sarin Gelf, then stopped, seemed to mull it over, then continued, "I know a hidden passage into Wywynanoir. Unfortunately, though few know this passage, Inglefras definitely does."
"How would you know what she knows," said Eurilda a little irritably, still nagging at herself why Gelf looked so familiar; now recollecting an indefinably elusive point of recognition in her memory of their first meeting. "You..." she started, then set down Khyte and Sarin Gelf. "What are you?", she asked. "Why are you so familiar, when Tree-Women have no uncles, cousins, or fathers?"
"The name Sarin Gelf, and the idea of that person, was a joke born out of the desperation of my subterfuge on escaping my tree-mother's influence. While I am now Sarin Gelf, I was once Inglefras."
"We are doomed," said the cherry-haired Leitara. "We travel with an abomination, and luck does not favor the unnatural."
Eurilda laughed, and said, "W wouldn't have traveled to other worlds except through the unnatural happenstance of the first traveler, who mounted a Baugn by curiosity or accident. But you must voice this pigheaded view, unless you admit I am right—you are individuals, dryad, and the truth is that at the end of your five years, you have a choice: bow before your tree and dissolve into the dirt, or run as far as you can. This one ran to Hravak to pretend humanity—for how long?"
Sarin Gelf said, "I was a seed of Inglefras when Wywynanoir was first built."
"That's over a hundred years," said Leitara.
"Don't sound so overawed," said Frellyx. "Otoka the Wise is over three hundred, but two hundred years my junior, and many Tree-Mothers are even more ancient."
"Tree-Women do not live so long. You prolonged your life with sorcery, like Alfyrian kinulcra." Leitara said.
"While I have dabbled in many sciences, from mathematics and astronomy to arcane treatises and abstruse, alchemical trivia, I have taken none of the elves' age-denying elixir; nor have I extended my life through sorcery. This is what we are meant to be—those of us that do not germinate to propagate our ancient way of life, or accede to be folded back into our tree. Not that I judge the selflessness of my sisters—just that it is not for me. I like growing absurdly old, remaining hale and hearty, and watching the worlds spin."
"When you say there is no need for you to die," said Huiln. "I applaud that sentiment, and would like to steer this conversation back to the matter at hand so that we can apply it to ourselves. Not that I am uninterested, but I simply say time and place, my friends, or rather, friends and Eurilda." His cold look made Eurilda feel smaller than any diminishing enchantment.
"There is no need for any of us to die," said Khyte. "Appeal to my beloved's goodwill, and Inglefras shall pardon you." He looked at Eurilda with pleading eyes.
"What are we going to do about Khyte?" Kuilea asked the question they all were thinking. The Drydanan was besotted by love, or some nameless thing even stronger, and they could not trust him.
"There's no need," said Sarin Gelf tenderly, in a gentle voice that bordered on feminine. "Khyte, my friend. Take us back to Wywynanoir."
Khyte seemed to become as brave and certain as the day Eurilda met him, then led them back down the trail.
"Khyte, we want to avoid the battle field, so we're taking the Qucuri River."
"That will only take us to the gatehouse," said the giantess, "and we can't go through there. I've tried."
Sarin Gelf said, "A branch of the Qucuri wanders through a cave to a hidden dock."
"There is no such thing," said Leitara the cherry-haired. "It lies, and we must uncover its true purpose."
"No such thing? It?" Sarin Gelf's exaggerated wince was a bit too theatrical, and the giantess rolled her eyes.
"If there was," said Leitara, "it dried up in the decades since the ancient walked on Ielnarona."
"Ancient?" sighed Sarin, "If so, then the Councilor-Generals must shelter us from the cannibal contempt of the giant/dryad alliance."
After some argument, they tried Sarin's plan, and followed the Qucuri toward Wywynanoir's walls. Without Sarin to point it out, they would have passed the tributary, which was shielded by thick foliage concealing a mildewed gate. Since there was no other way to open the gate, Eurilda swelled into giant size, fell to her knees to cut down the likelihood of being spotted, then pulled the wood back until it buckled into scrap. After returning to her diminished form, Eurilda levitated the fallen wood, and Frellyx cast a spell that sent the tall grasses slithering, binding them into a raft.
While the raft wended downstream, Eurilda reflected not only on the unrequited love and unsatisfied murder-lust she harbored against Khyte, but also her loathing for all of her present company. While she had momentarily fancied Frellyx, he had become odious, less from chasing her through Wywynanoir than from befriending her enemies and charming her allies. Huiln she hated the least, as she was to blame for his animosity, having left him with a knot on his head to be rounded up by Merculo. She wondered if this was guilt, but as she had no way of identifying that foreign feeling, she supposed it to be sublimated curiosity as to how Huiln wandered free on the Dryad World not six months later.
Eurilda shuffled next to the goblin, and before he could pull away from her, unrolled the scroll found in Glesingren's splinters so that they could both see the dryad writing.
"What is this?" asked Huiln.
"I was hoping you could tell me."
Huiln pored over the scroll for several minutes. After he read it from front to back, he seemed to read it back to front, then up and down and down and up. "It's in a familiar hand, that of my favorite dryad scribe, the infamous Culiliana. A hundred years ago, she wed an Alfyrian ambassador in a secret ceremony, then fled to the Elven World to live as an iconoclast, not unlike our friend Sarin Gelf, except she preserved a womanly identity. I have read four books she transcribed, as well as two she wrote while an expatriate on Alfyria. One of the tragedies of the printing press is that soon people will not have favorite scribes. I love the stylishness of Culiliana's flourish, both the whorl of her Os and Qs, and the way her Is and Ls tower over a line, and I appreciate the way she often embellished her script with commentary or illustrations cribbed in the margins. Though her style continued to flower on Alfyria, they doted too much on her memoirs, and she never returned to serious literature. The dryads wasted her talent as a scribe, when she should have written histories, poetry, and plays. On Nahure, we would have treated her as a king." The goblin so warmed to his monologue, that by the end of it, he was as flushed as one who had confessed his rhapsodic love.
"Hopefully better than Khyte treated Merculo. What does it say, Huiln?"
When the question interrupted Huiln's reverie, at first he only glared, then looked away when he could no longer hold his stare into the sorceress's eyes. "I couldn't say."
"Name your price."
When the goblin slightly but perceptibly reddened, the giantess suspected what kind of coin he would accept. "The scroll is unreadable unless I can crack the code."
"What code?"
"While the letters are dryad, and I know the handwriting, the words are nonsense."
"There's a hidden meaning?"
"If so, I do not know the key." After turning the scroll left, right, and upside down, Huiln added, "I will decipher the meaning on Alfyria." When Eurilda said nothing, he slid the scroll into the tube, then tucked it into his backpack.
After some time poling downstream, the raft carried them west of Wywynanoir to a small pond lapping a cave blocked by stones.