style="font-size:15px;"> ‘Ha! Hawley was too cheap to go to a good house. Took alley girls, is what I heard. Not my idea of fun, standing up and thrusting while some poor girl knocks the back of her head against a brick wall.’
‘I’m for bed.’ Kort’s voice betrayed his amused disgust with them both. ‘Good luck, everyone.’ As he stood, Natred did, too. I began stacking my books, as did every other man at the table.
Tomorrow, I knew, would determine my entire future. It burned in my heart that even if I scored perfectly on every test tomorrow, one of my fellows could bring me low. I looked round at them and for a moment, I knew hatred for Colonel Stiet and the Academy and even my fellow cadets.
Later, as I lay in bed, I closed my eyes and tried to grope my way toward sleep, but could not reach it. Eyes closed, body relaxed, my mind hovered in the place between wakefulness and rest. I felt I dangled, helpless, over an abyss and that I had no power to save myself from falling. The feeling was doubtless responsible for my nightmares about the tree woman.
Yet my dream began not with terror, but comfort. I was in my beloved forest, at peace. Sunlight broke through the canopy overhead and dappled my skin and I smiled as I looked at it on my bared arms and legs. The rich smells of humus rose around me. I picked up a handful and considered it. It was a layer from yesterday’s leaf, down to the black loam that had flora five years ago. Busy little insects toiled in it. A tiny worm coiled and uncoiled desperately on my palm. I laughed at his fears and restored all to the forest soil. All was well. I said as much to my mentor. ‘The world lives and dies as it should today.’
The tree woman nodded to me, making shadows shift over my flesh. ‘I am pleased that you have come to understand that the dying is a part of the living. For too long, you clung to the notion that each life was significant and too important to perish for the whole. But now you see it, don’t you?’
‘I do. And it comforts me.’ And it did. At least it comforted the part of me that sat on the forest floor at the feet of the great tree, his back to its rough bark. That part of me saw no woman, only felt and heard her speaking to me.
Yet the part of me that stood in the shadowy space between dreams and waking was horrified at my behaviour. I consorted with the enemy. There was no other way to look at it. My worst fears were confirmed when I heard her say, ‘It is good that you have come to the understanding. It will make it easier for you.’
‘Did you ever have doubts when the magic first claimed you?’ I asked her.
I felt her wistful sigh in the gentle rustling of the leaves above me. ‘Of course I did. I had plans for my life, and dreams. Then came a time of drought. I thought that we would all die. I made a spirit journey, just as you did. A choice was offered to me just as it was offered to you. I chose the magic and the magic chose me. The magic used me and my people survived.’
Unbreathing in the shadow, I heard my traitor self ask her, ‘The magic will use me, also?’
‘Yes. It will use you as you use it. It will give to you and, in the process, it will take from you. You may mourn what is taken. But the loss will make you stronger and truer to your task.’
My dream self made a gesture with his hands. I sensed it signified acceptance. I felt impotent fury that this other self would passively accede to such a fate. And in my fury, I was somehow separate from him, and could observe him. He filled me with contempt. He leaned back, naked and smiling in the gentle balm of the sun. His skin was evenly browned, as if he had never known a scrap of clothing. He had dirt under his fingernails, and his bare feet and ankles were permanently grimed. He was a man turned into a beast of the forest. Yet, he was pleased with himself, content in whatever life this was he lived. I hated him, hated myself and my weakness with a terrifying passion. Then, as he shifted, I felt a thrill of fear strengthen me. I had thought that dream self was my twin, but now I saw he was not. What I had taken for a head as shorn of hair as my own was actually a bald pate. At the crown of his skull, sprouting like a rooster’s tail, was a sheaf of hair. I knew with sudden certainty that his crop of hair would exactly match the missing piece of scalp on my scarred head. This was the stolen self that Epiny had spoken about with Spink.
The tree had continued to speak to my dream self. ‘It is good that you are prepared, for soon I will reach out to you with the magic. I have considered long whether it was wise for me to take action on my own. Usually, when the magic takes a vessel, the magic soon acts through the vessel, and the events that will make all right for The People are set into motion. But you say you have done nothing; that the magic has not acted through you. Of this you are certain?’
I watched my dream self. He sat silent a moment and then shrugged eloquently. He did not know. I sensed that he had reached for me, perhaps trying to know my thoughts and what this self did in the real world, yet he could no more truly comprehend who and what I was than I could understand him. Perhaps Epiny’s summoning had broken my dreams and made me aware of him. His topknot of hair, I now saw, was braided at the base and tarred with something that made it stand up from his scalp. A bit of green vine wrapped it like a schoolgirl’s ribbon. It looked silly to me, as foolish as one of Epiny’s hats.
The tree sighed, a heavy rustling of wind through her branches. ‘Then, act I shall, though I am full of misgiving at taking this upon myself. Old as I am, wise as I have become through the many seasons, I still do not see as the magic sees. The magic sees to the end of all permutations. The magic knows which falling grain of sand will escalate into a landslide. I see more clearly than any living member of The People. But even so, I tremble at what I will do.’
Indeed, a curious shiver did run through the tree, a quivering of the leaves that seemed independent of any stir of air. My dream self folded his hands and bowed his head in submission. ‘Do as you must, Tree Woman. I will be ready.’
‘I will do as I must, never fear! The dance is no longer sufficient. We trusted to it, but it is failing. Our trees fall and with every tree that dies, wisdom is lost. Power is lost. The forest is what binds our worlds together. As the intruders cut the forest, they are like mice nibbling at a rope. The bridge between the worlds grows weaker. The magic feels itself weakening, and knows it must work quickly. I feel it as I feel the sap of spring that rushes through me. I know we must make a bridge of our own. So, there is no time for you to thrash and blunder your way. There is no time to let you make your own mistakes. Tomorrow, you must pass the test.’
Test. Was that the word that woke me once again to my second, observing self. Suddenly, I knew that I existed as my true self in another place, and in that true self, would face a real test tomorrow. In the curious way of dream logic, knowing that the scalp-locked self before me was a stolen part of me suddenly gave me power over him. I spoke with his mouth. ‘This is a dream. Just a dream. You are not real, and this self is not real. I am the real Nevare. And tomorrow, I will pass the test that will let me go on to be a soldier for my people.’
The bark of the tree opened. Creepers sprouted from the cracks and wrapped me. She seized me and held me fast. When she spoke, I knew she spoke to my real self. ‘You speak more truly than you know. Tomorrow you face a test. You will pass it and make the sign and you will then fight for The People.’
‘Let go of me! Leave me alone! I am a horse soldier, as my father was before me. I serve King Troven and the people of Gernia. Not you! You are not even real!’
‘Aren’t I? Aren’t I? Then wake up, soldier’s son, and see how real I am!’
And she flung me away from her. Suddenly I was falling, falling into the crevasse I had so perilously crossed on the flimsy bridges. Her creepers bound my arms tightly to my sides. I tried to scream, but I was falling so fast I could not get my breath.
I’ve
