A Thousand Kisses Deep

By M. E. Eadie

In a world where poetry and art can come alive, a force is released in the world, a force created by a mad tyrant. A poem is made and awakens in the form of a young girl. In time she discovers that she was part of the madness, part of the tyrant that once tried to rule the world. History is repeating itself and the girl, named Shadow, is destined for greatness or madness.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Adambooks
• Release date: Dec 3, 2010
• ISBN: 9780981001661

M. E. Eadie

Michael lives on an island in the Ottawa River with his six children and wife. Formerly a visual artist, he has turned his attentions to writing. The cover of "A Thousand Kisses Deep," is his own art work.He binds, by hand, his hard cover books. In his opinion it adds to the emotional value of the book.He invites any conversations on the matter of art.

Book preview

A THOUSAND KISSES DEEP

By

M. E. EADIE

* * * * *

PUBLISHED BY:

ADAM BOOKS on Smashwords

A Thousand Kisses Deep

Copyright 2006 by M E. Eadie

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

Table of Contents

Prelude

Part 1

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Part 2

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Interlude

Part 3

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Postlude

Prelude

Art is not just a device to entertain, it is the vessel of our immortality. You think I am referring to one’s name, then you are wrong. I am referring to much, much more.

--Shadow, Discourse on Immortality --

Part 1

Chapter One

All nature seemed to be in upheaval. The sky, black and ominous, was punctuated by the red glow of burning fields, trees, and cities. It seemed that all creation must inevitably burn. Even Gabraell, hidden beneath his tower burned, but with a different type of flame, an immortal, inner flame and it was this desire, to live forever that had driven him mad.

Driven by desperation, he moved slowly across the cavern, and then stopped before a dark pool. The smell of conflict, rich and redolent, was on Gabraell’s once resplendent and ornate black cloak which hung about him in rags. The coppery scent of blood followed him like a dog. The placid liquid of the pool waited for him. Its inactivity was deceptive, because beneath the surface was life, the very life of all things creative, life that did not end.

Hovering over the pool, he stared down into the liquid, the earth’s very blood. The image of his face, even teeth surrounded by tense muscles, eyes sunken into two black pits in his head, stared back at him in terrible trepidation. It was the face of failure, but defiance flashed in his eyes. The fools that refused to believe would learn the truth, his truth. They would pay; they would all pay -- especially Ouril. Love and usury had combined so much that he couldn’t remember which held dominion. Maybe he was the one to pay.

The voices in his head began to stir.

A large thrumming sound, a ligament in the earth breaking, caused the entire chamber to shake. He stumbled away from the pool, arms thrust out in an effort to regain his balance, which he finally obtained when he fell against the rough stone wall of the cavern.

Breathing deeply, he brought his hands slowly up to his eyes, inspecting his trembling fingers. There was something insubstantial about them, how the red light thrown from the braziers seemed to shine through them – his hands were here, yet not here. He breathed deeply, trying to calm his frantically beating heart. Closing his eyes, he sought the serenity of thought…

And then the voices, fully cognoscente of what he was doing, began to scream.

The origin of the voices had once been the pool, so he thought, but they had quickly taken root in his mind, so much so that they now seemed part of him. Were they angry at what he was doing, or pleased? He couldn’t tell. The screams were both of agony and of pleasure. It didn’t matter. Like a man who was well into his descent, he had reached the point of no return. In the beginning, the voices from the pool had whispered its secrets to him, showed him the locations of the hidden manuscripts, and taught him how to make things. Art itself imitated life. The art he was shown actually created life. So, why should they be angry? He was only trying to create the ultimate expression an artist could engage in, he was just trying to seek immortality through his art.

Gabraell breathed deeply and began. His hands moved in sure but hesitant motions as he struggled to keep them from shaking. He emptied the contents of a simple leather pouch into his palm, and stared at the few grains of soil that remained. Since Valance had removed the Sacred Tree, it was all he had left. The voices started to scream in his head again and he almost dropped the infinitesimally small particles of earth. While Earth’s Blood provided the spirit of creation, the earth from beneath The Sacred Tree, sheathed it in physical form. It had taken him years to find the tree, now it was gone.

Valance! Valance the traitor, the usurper, the coward: the first to undo their fellowship. He had no right.

In the begining when they began to experiment at making, Valance was the first to ask questions of morality. Should art be made to come alive? Surely it was wrong to unlock the potential of art, so that that art became imbued with as much life as the giver. Who was then real, the art or the maker? It would be too easy to misuse the creation, to turn it to the benefit of the creator. Nonsense! Valance walked away. His friend abandoned him. Slowly, the others of the fellowship left: Oisin, Filiomdrial, Beodin. At least they were honest in their treachery. Finna, and the twins, Osca and Ouril, had stayed, but in the end they too would betray him. Ouril … she should have been with him -- forever. He had stolen her from Beodin, but her fear had wedded her to flight. Now, he was alone. He remembered the beginning. It had been such a small making, just a little white flower embossed on a ceramic tile, but when it came to life and refused to fade, the entire world of reality began to shake.

Cradling the precious dark earth within his cupped hands, he tentatively moved back to the pool. Even though there was only a little earth left, its scent was full of anticipation, rich with the mushroom smell of humus. It was life and death, because making things that endured and lived had a terrible price, but Gabraell had paid it willingly, joyously. Instead of aberrations snuffed out by the winds of time, his art did not fade; it lived, and took on a destiny of their own. His mind flicked over a burning world, the voices screamed and he winced because of the pain. The price paid to have art come alive was sanity. Art could only live, truly live at the price of sanity. The only good artist was a mad one. The degree of life of the creation was connected with how much was willing to be paid. The more sophisticated the creation, the bigger the piece of the creator. All greatness required sacrifice.

As he approached the pool, the voices screamed a shrill chorus, rising above the flames of his mind to peak and swirl into the black smoke of despair. They hovered above him, ominous and dark, threatening to break his resolve, but he held on. He fought through the shrill sounds of his growing madness holding on to the perceived sanity of his purpose.

When the screaming stopped, his steps faltered. Not prepared for silence, he found it almost a greater barrier than the screams. Then, like the whisper of wind, a sibilant voice spoke to him.

You must hurry before it’s too late, too late, too late.

The echoing stopped and he stared at the surface of the pool. Who are you? he snarled.

You must hurry, your brother is coming, coming, coming.

Shut up! snapped Gabraell acerbically; hands jerking expressively and he dropped a crumb of earth. No! he fell to his knees and desperately clawed the dust with his one free hand.

You must hurry, whispered the voice.

Yes, I must hurry, panted Gabraell feeling the truth in the words, feeling his brother’s great leather wings pounding the hot, fetid air outside the tower into a swirling hurricane.

The earth rumbled again and a rock, followed by a plume of smoke, crashed down in front of him breaking apart. He swallowed, but the saliva stuck in his throat, gagging him. Opening his mouth he let some cool air pass his swollen tongue.

No time to drink, he mumbled madly. No time. Time! Yes, time! Then he had a lucid moment and almost stopped.

There was great risk in the making of this poem, much more than any other; but when there was no hope -- desperation overcame risk. Of all the arts only this one fitted. The art of poetry was the only medium to condense meaning, passion, and purpose into the smallest, most poignant space.

He could feel the earth’s agonizing breath constricting around him, trying to abort him from his destiny. Closing his eyes, he tried to imagine the once proud white tower above his head and not the broken toothed ruin of stone. He would use those images, those words to regain himself, to bolster his purpose:

Oh, how beautiful the morning of your face

Where the sun whispered rays of hope,

And tasted the sky with delightful embrace.

Out of the ashes like a swan fallen from heaven

You shall rise again endowed with the greatest

Pearl of life -- immortality.

The words hung clarion in his mind and he took succor from them. Then shocks, like two mountains colliding, moving the earth, brought him back to his plight. He looked apprehensively at the ceiling. The very elements were in flux, raveling apart like worn cloth. He could almost feel the furnace-heated breath of his brother.

Danaell, this way comes.

He stood on the lip of the pool. Gabraell opened his cupped hand and let the earth fall into the dark liquid beneath his feet. Although nearly weightless, the earth carried a hidden mass that displaced large teardrops of Earth’s Blood on contact. Those drops jumped from the pool and hung suspended in the air along with Gabraell’s breath, before falling back down and breaking the tension of the surface. Concentric rings rippled outwards, rimmed against the edge of the pool, and then returned smoothly to the point of origin.

Tremulous lips quivering with anxious fear, he began to speak the words that would make his poem live. Salty sweat beaded out on his skin running in rivulets, soaking his clothing and matting his hair. He had never felt so dirty. Insane laughter from the voices assaulted him again threatening to engulf him, to pull him back down into the abyss of madness, but he clung to the words, clung to their beauty and goodness as a man dying of thirst clings to the illusion of cool water massaging his parched throat. Being overwhelmed by shadow, he no longer could claim goodness or beauty, but he was not entirely devoid of those qualities. They were still there, in residue, and he was determined to make use of them. Without them he would be so empty. So empty! The wand he pulled from his cloak and now held in his free hand flared to life, its tip burning orange-red. At the same time the earth heaved upwards again and a shower of dirt and rock descended from above. A small fist sized stone struck him on the shoulder. He ignored the numbness, the wet blood and torn tissue, refusing to stop the issue of the poem.

He concentrated on the words, focused on them, gathering all the pain into them, all the bliss, all his hope, before letting them slip into his vocal cords and out his mouth. His throat rasped in both agony and sublime ecstasy. The potential of power beyond imagination made him quiver in fear and in excitement. For a moment, the lucid terror of what he was doing froze his mind and the words stopped.

No one sane would do this, he thought. Then the mad cackling chorus inside his head forced the words back to his lips, and they began moving again. The terrible and beautiful words moved outwards, embracing the fire, widening to include the air around his wand’s flame. It turned from a reddish-orange to a brilliant blue. As he finished the last stanza, he thrust the flame into the Earth’s Blood. The flame did not extinguish. It burned on, illuminating wonders.

Gabraell gazed downwards into the pool’s bottomless depths, mysteries revealed to him for the first time; he gasped in wonder and awe. The blood from his shoulder ran down his arm and dropped into the pool. Prisms of color swirled about in patterns, but as the blood sank the colours threaded apart. Within some of those dancing colors he could discern faces or partially formed limbs, possibilities of things to come, of things waiting to be created. Dark and globulous, his snaking blood still fell, shunned by the swirling patterns, left alone to fall into the endless depths. A snarl gripped his face. Shun me! Shun me? The vision suddenly snapped shut and he could only see the opaque surface of The Earth’s Blood, and a mad face. His eyes were wide and lidless. He could see no more.

The words of his poem died on his lips. He had failed. His poem had not worked.

It was calm outside, unnaturally calm, and he felt his brother’s heart beating in red precocious fury. He jerked his head upwards and stared at the ceiling. The calm mocked his inner agony. The earth was finally at peace, but inside his head the voices screamed. He canted his head, listening, his soulless eyes waiting. A small black spider scuttled across the roughly cut wall at the far end of the chamber, spindly legs working quickly to carry it to safety. Gabraell’s eyes remained expectantly on the centre of the wall.

Welcome, brother, he said, dry lips mouthing the bitter, rasping words.

The rocks imploded, dissolving into a cloud of dust, simply disappearing before the searing heat, which blasted into the cavern afterwards. Failure bubbled behind his teeth and Gabraell lost his grip on both his body and mind letting the wand slide out of his nerveless fingers.

No! His despondent cry echoed as he threw his body towards the pool and thrust his arm into the liquid to recover the wand. He recoiled screaming at the searing touch of the Earth’s Blood. Panting in pain he watched the flame from his sinking wand descend quickly, becoming a mere speck of light before it entirely blinked out. But, just before it did so, a black tendril reached out and slipped into the light made from the wand.

From the brilliance of a sun to that of a moon, to that of a star, to that of -- nothingness.

He cursed himself. The Poem was complete –- and -– nothing! There was no expected change of state, no enlightenment, none of what should’ve been. All that remained was a tired, pathetic, defeated madman. And he began to laugh a hysteric, desperate, broken laugh that clawed painfully at his raw, dry throat.

A heavy sound of boulders rolling against each other, being crushed into dust sounded at his back. A blast of withering heat enveloped him accompanied by the labored breath of a great beast filling the chamber in amplified tones. It took a step, and the earth shook. Another step and the walls threatened to cave in. A booming rumble issued from the throat of the thing behind him, the thing that had once been his bother.

And still, Gabraell laughed, shoulders slumped forwards, defeated; he braced himself with stiff arms and stepped to the pool’s edge forcing down the laughter.

So, it ends, he muttered. He glanced indifferently at the dark blood on his hand, and then down into the Earth’s Blood.

Where is the light of my hope? Where are you? He sucked the blood off his hand, tasting it with his tongue, letting it fill him with bitter life. A deep breath replenished his lungs with hot scorching air. Slowly, turning, he faced his younger brother.

Out of the settling dust, the creature’s eyes glowed with piercing light; its wedge-shaped snout became more distinct, tendrils of steam fuming from its nostrils. Its jaws were open slightly. A great massive leg moved forwards, tendons cording, muscles stretching and contracting. The earth shook again as a bank of steam rolled into the cavern. The beast’s knees nearly buckled as it swayed.

Speak brother. If you can, said Gabraell full of sorrow.

Ga – bra -- ell! The sound was the agony of a mountain before it explodes, roaring out in almost incoherent syllables.

Gabraell calmed his breathing. He drew himself up, stiffened his neck and looked into the blinding eyes of his brother and pondered…they were both nearly done. Danaell’s right leg was missing and his sides bristled with countless spears and arrows. Blood smeared the beast from head to tail. Who would die first?

It had been Gabraell’s folly, to try to make his brother as invulnerable as possible. He remembered the night when he had slipped into his brother’s bedroom. He had used some Sacred Earth, mixed it with a vial of Earth’s Blood and smeared it onto his brother’s peaceful, childlike forehead. Then he had sung him a song, a song full of dragons, of might, of doom. They had been his brother’s favourite mythical beasts, dragons, and Gabraell made him into one. His brother had once made beautiful music. He had been a singer, a musician of no small skill, that was his art, and after the change, his music became the screams of those he destroyed.

Hello, Danaell. You used to like ballads -- remember? Is this a ballad? Or is this a death dirge? It doesn’t matter, because I have failed. Who will sing our song?

The beast staggered, blood was forming a dark pool as it slumped down onto its wounded side. Ga – bra -- ell! it pleaded.

He saw the steam wisps escaping from the creature’s nostrils, the deep intake of breath, and knew that Danaell was about to die or vaporize him in flames. He felt the mad laughter come and like an enormous wave it picked him up and carried him into its ocean. It was all poetic irony and he laughed until his own body collapsed to the ground. A moment passed and he was surprised to be still alive. Looking up through his filthy hair that dangled before his face, Gabraell stared into the twin golden orbs and knew his brother’s mind. Me? You want me to change you back? He sobbed out a sighed. I don’t know how. I don’t even know if that is possible. This is new science, combining the Earth’s Blood, Sacred Earth and Art. Besides, I’ve just used up the last bit of earth. He sagged. I have no more. Not that it was put to any good use, he paused, musing. It’s too bad it made so many upset, but not to worry, not to worry. After all, everyone’s dead now, aren’t they? Just you and I. Oh, yes, some might still be alive, but they are of no consequence: Not for you; not for me.

A sharp needle of screams seemed to bore into his brain and he collapsed pressing his hands to the sides of his head. When he opened his eyes, all the dead seemed to be waiting for him, pale, twisted faces staring hollowly out at him from every rock crack in the chamber. They were the faces of the tormented, and they accused him. Stop looking at me! He screamed at them.

Gab – ra -- ell! begged his brother.

Gabraell with great effort stood up and opened his arms as if to embrace the hulking form in front of him. There were tears streaming down his face. When we were children, you always wanted to be a dragon. For what it is worth, I apologize. The faces in the wall screamed again and Gabraell fell to the earth howling. Make them stop! he wailed.

Danaell rolled onto his side and the cavern almost collapsed on them both. A peculiar sound, like rocks being crushed into dust filled the small chamber. After his own screams subsided, Gabraell realized his brother was crying.

Gabraell watched the twisted and distorted faces swarming about the cavern. Even when he closed his own eyes, they were there, scratching against the crimson red insides of his eyelids. But now, somehow, as he stared at his brother, he managed to shut them out. The creature’s scales glittered iridescently, changing colors with each failing breath it took. Beautiful, thought Gabraell, and so powerful. He made that power, created it from what his brother had been. There was ownership in that. Falling down he whispered at the dying creature. Don’t go, Danaell, don’t leave me, please.

Then the dragon began to flicker, becoming more transparent, and within was the form of a dying young man, Danaell. A white hand reached out. Somehow the hand broke free from the dissolution of the dragon, reached him and with a ghostly finger touched a tear on his face.

Help me, pleaded Danaell hoarsely, and then the dragon died.

The empty silence roared into Gabraell’s mind with full, unleashed fury. The form of the dragon melted leaving only the naked corpse of his younger brother on the floor.

Nooooooo! It was a primordial howl that burst from his agonized lips as he scuttled backwards, stood up and found himself standing precariously on the edge of the pool. Losing his balance he flailed out wildly with his hands at the twisted faces buzzing about him now, but could not ward them away. He stepped backwards, and stepped into the pool. For one moment realization and rational thought took possession and a look of sublime relief replaced his madness as he slipped down into the Earth’s Blood. He was gone.

In the silence of the room, a red light pulsed with life. On the rough face of the rock, beautiful scripted words were carved, engraved by the muttered words of Gabraell’s making. They were words of his poem and they were alive.

Chapter Two

Where the coolness of the river touched the lush valley air, a blanket of mist formed. To the people of Rhundahl it was called dragon’s breath and it rolled forth, carried by the river’s ponderous force, down through the city, down to the warm salt water of the sea. There, at one of the seven cities, at the conquered port of Ni-Erde, where the masts of the great fleet punctuated the sky, the misty breath dissipated out onto the azure breast of the Serpent’s Sea.

Upon ruins Rhundahl was built. Upon these dragon bones was a great city founded. Its red sandstone structures –- with its high pointed spires of the competing University and Dragon Houses -- seemed to glow in the promise of pre-dawn. The concealing mist could not hold back the overabundance of fields and orchards that hugged the city like a jeweled shoulder. And, adding to its beauty, its wonder, engineers had diverted the river’s flow into a thousand canals that wound their way through the city, a thousand bands of opaque white-turquoise ribbons bracketed by a thousand beautifully articulated bridges. And above all, carved out of a mountainous ridge, the dragon’s crown: the castle of the Duke who was the ruler of Rhundahl. Separate from the University and the Dragon Houses he ruled over them – theoretically. Tradition and the will of the collective Houses granted him his power – as long as he was sane.

The city in the valley, surrounded by sheer mountains, and protected by the formidable conquered navy of Ni-Erde, was virtually invulnerable. Never, in the city’s long history had any enemy assailed it successfully, but it was built on ruins and this, when recalled, was a point of great unease for the Dragon Lords. Destruction had once come; it might come again.

A prophecy echoed down through the centuries. Mostly forgotten now, it still reverberated in sibilant tones from hidden scrolls, from the ruins. It hissed its warning up into the world of light, and said;

When the Breath of the Dragon fails, a ruin comes again.

The mighty Shos, the historians, the teachers, waited, examining the heavens, trying to divine a propitious sign, but none would come because of a flaw. They were looking in the wrong place. While they looked to the stars, the sign would come in the dawn, on the most ancient bridge, a bridge that predated Rhundahl itself: The Bridge of Sorrows.

The bridge was ancient, the oldest in Rhundahl. One story dated the bridge even before the city’s founding. When the intrepid adventurer Rhun and his followers had discovered this place, it was a place of desolation, of ruins crumbling beneath the weight of time. Except in one location, time had no dominion. In all the broken, decaying carnage there stood a single, elaborately ornate, but fearsome bridge, only fearsome because of the statues there. Four terrifying beasts, seemingly of another world, eyes of onyx, guarded the approach on both sides of the river. Then in the center there were two other groupings of statues, on the East that of the Queen and her male retinue, and on the West that of the King and his female escort. From both groupings exuded a terrible longing and consuming sadness. The Bridge of Sorrows, Rhun named it: figuring the statues must have been witnessed to the terrible calamity that caused the surrounding desolation. And Rhun, being who he was, decided it poetic to create a new city from the bones of the old.

Now, from that same bridge, ageless in beauty and fear, from the gracefully arching centre, the face of the Queen appeared. The face, hauntingly beautiful, gave the feeling that an imprisoned soul, frozen in lonely melancholy, was trapped inside. A shoulder, a hand, the nape of a neck, formed and dissolved as the heavy tendrils of mist caressed the woman’s stone face with a shroud of wetness. The heavy drops ran together in lines to pour off her face in tears, running unbridled down her cheeks.

Standing sentinel about her was her guard. Stoically they stared outwards, broad shoulders draped in long gowns of stone. Even though they bore no weapons, there was a sense of potent violence in their hands, their eyes, in the very lines of their face.

In contrast the Queen’s hands were folded on her lap, facing upwards, palms empty, in calm resignation. In a way, the hands looked as though they were rocking the air itself. Maybe this was why she appeared sad, head slightly bowed forwards, because her hands were empty. The water flowed from her eyes, down her cheeks like the water down the face of the mountains. Except this morning, deep in the hidden mystery of the slight upturned end of her lips, there was a hint of joy.

The mist breathed again, covering everything on the bridge, and when it parted, the Queen’s hands were no longer empty, but filled with a bundle of dark cloth. The river rushing against one of the bridge’s piers swirled away as the piercing cry of an infant sliced apart the muffling silence of the mist and filled The Bridge of Sorrow with life.

*

Seahla, head covered with a black shawl, gave the impression of a bent, aged crone, or an old beggar woman, but she was none of these. Under the disguise of old age, she could slip in an out of the city easily. A wisp of hair, made gray with ashes, hung down beside her cheek accenting her jaw. Even though she was still relatively young, premature lines etched wrinkles on her forehead and the corners of her eyes and mouth. They were lines of sadness, sadness in seeing so much pain. She was a healer and Rhundahl was sick.

She came in the night, unexpected and disguised, descended on the ill, administered to them and then left with as few words said as possible. It was best that way. Whom she would visit wasn’t something she decided on; it was more the fulfillment of a dream, a distinctive vision. There was no question about finding the person, because every time, events would link together like a puzzle, audibly snapping into place; and the person would be there. But tonight there had been no one, until she neared The Bridge of Sorrows.

Cautiously she approached the bridge, not just because of the growing dawn and the danger it represented, but because of what she felt inside. It was there, a subtle impression on her mind telling her that something infinitely important was about to happen. Then, a sound like the muffled mewing of a cat hung in the air and divided the mist. She moved swiftly forward, feet padding quickly over the wet paving stones. A preternatural calm shivered its damp pluvial way into her body and if she hadn’t felt the need to heal, if that need hadn’t been upon her, she would have fled. Fled, because the mist, the dragon’s breath, had stopped flowing and everything around her was eerily clear.

The muffled wailing was closer now. There was a note, a heart rending desperation in the cry, which touched and melted away her fear, causing the loneliness that had become her life to evaporate. In the private, secluded eye of her own mind, she knew this was what she had been waiting for. It lurked there, in the background of her healing, of her desire to help others, to take care of them, but it wasn’t until this moment that she realized that this was her purpose. She searched desperately, her eyes trying to locate the sound’s origin. There! On the Queen, she focused. Skirts swirling about her legs, maternal instincts overwhelmed her; she rushed, almost blindly, towards the crying infant. The gasping sobs were continuous now.

Surely it would alert the Wardens! That was the last thing she wanted. A woman alone, lurking about in the pre-dawn, nothing good would come of it -- if she were caught…familiar with their work, she had healed or attempted to heal their victims. With the body, she could work near miracles, but the mind was a much more fragile affair. She shuddered remembering the vapid, almost soulless eyes of some of the victims. Quickly she stepped past the stone men and stooped before the Queen.

Head bent low in submissive filial subservience, she looked up. As though there had always been a connection, a thread of sadness that bonded her to the frieze, she knew they were, in a way, sisters.

Quickly, but still reverently, she reached for the bundle of noisy cloth in the Queen’s hands. The bundle moved: a chubby arm winning free. Swaddled in a dark purple, almost black cloth, she clasped the child to her breast and the squalling stopped. She cradled the babe’s head in the crook of her arm and gently pulled back the wrap covering the face. She gasped. The child’s eyes, as dark as night, pierced her with shafts of intelligence, of understanding, a depth of her own soul reflected. It was as though she was being examined and not found wanting, was accepted. Black hair framed the little one’s face.

Shadow, she whispered. The nose, the mouth, the cheeks -- the little hand reached out, grasping one of her fingers -- so perfect. You’re like a shadow. You’re as perfect as a song. I’m here now, she whispered again, words of adoration, lips close to smooth perfect skin. She rocked the babe in her arms and in the rocking some of the years of bitterness, estrangement, melted away and she felt fluid, round and full of comforting mildness. The Queen’s face seemed a little less imperial, less stern. She looked almost content. With your leave, she whispered gazing into the enduring graven face of the Queen and then backed away, head bowed.

Harsh voices leapt at her out of the mist. The dragon’s breath was now flowing again, coursing about the bridge, concealing them. She hissed her fear, shifted the large leather bag of herbs dangling from her shoulder, and gently positioned the child for better movement. If she had to run… She pressed the infant to her bosom one last time and cast an anxious look over her shoulder. No dark forms in the mist, none yet, just the voices, but they were drawing closer. Away from the statues, she began to move silently, toward the forested slope on the other side of the bridge. If she could make the forest she would be safe. Not until she crossed the dry floodway and began to climb the river’s ancient bank, was she able to feel even a modicum of ease.

Slowly, she was entering the forest, a realm that Rhundahl, or those who lived there would prefer didn’t exist. But it did and in existing provided her with a refuge, a warm place in which she could rest. She brushed one of the trees without much regard, which was all right, because the trees, this close to the river, were still asleep.

Soon they would be safe from the Wardens and the pain they could cause -- the pain that never healed. Was it only five years ago? She couldn’t remember, but her flight now was similar to what it had been then, except that this time she was clothed and in control. No one would ever take that control from her! No one! She had Valerie to thank for her rescue.

After the Wardens finished with her, they had just left her, naked and huddled on the far side of a bridge. What they did wasn’t seen by her people as being wrong. It was her fault, being where she was at the wrong time. They left her for dead. In this state, she was unable to return home; her family would have killed her. It was the Rhundian way: a woman who was soiled brought shame on the family and the only way to remove the shame was by her death. Most often it was a brother or father who did the killing. No matter which, death was a certainty, so she fled in the direction nobody would go, the forest.

Like the Bridge of Sorrows, the forest was full of a spirit of its own that predated Rhudahl. In fact, it was so crowded with secretive things, things that brooded in dark and ancient ways that it terrified the Rhundians. Its mere existence triggered some atavistic remembrance that threw them beyond terror. It was so substantial, rising up like a border, a curtain of fear, that none could pass through it. Few tried, and the few who did, returned gibbering and foaming at the mouth, crazed. It was three times bigger than Rhundahl, exploding out of the earth, covering the foothills before the mountains in a total verdant canopy. Many of the trees were over one hundred feet high and well over a hundred years old, or so she thought. In reality, they were much, much older. Had the Rhundians been able to pass the border they would have reduced it to hilly pasture and orchards, as was the case on the other side of the river, but it defied domesticity.

None of the great minds at the University could puzzle it out. They could only find one reference to it, and that reference was so chilling it was seldom quoted. The forest was a prison and within the prison were the things that had almost destroyed the world. They closed the pages, wings of a white bird being bound, and decided the most prudent course was to ignore the forest.

It was towards this annihilation that Seahla had run five years ago, and it was there that she now went. While the people of Rhundahl avoided the great forest like a nightmare come to life, she embraced it as a long lost part of her self and reveled in it.

Along the border, Valerie had found her shivering with blue lipped exposure, but nonetheless, quite sane. This fascinated him. He would watch her and find out why this had happened.

When she woke up, she was in a warm bed, covered in blankets while a gaunt, bearded man, with a long nose stared at nothing in particular because he was blind. His clothes were ragged, but there was a certain noble straightness in the way he held his frame. The age, because she thought he was very old then, explained the milky white cataracts that covered his eyes. But as she quickly learned, he could see, in a way that was beyond her understanding. He was blind, but could see deep into the mind, into forces and shadows that gave him better sight than most.

When the first healing summons occurred, she had not known what to do. Valerie, looking at her in his odd oblique way, had just grinned and shrugged. She had to answer it; it was what she had to do. She had to heal.

Word traveled in the gutters of Rhundahl and the poor and unfortunate would light candles and place them in their windows in the hopes that she would come. She would come, not because of the candles, but because of the impressions of the many hands pressing gently on her consciousness. These hands would pull and shove and guide her to where she needed to be, and once there, they would show her what to do. She always thought back on those events when she came this way. It was hard not to. In this pre-dawn, those invisible hands had given to her the miracle in a child on The Bridge of Sorrows.

There were never any paths into the border, because she was cautious to come and go at different locations. Seahla strode confidently up to the invisible barrier that caused everyone else to go mad. She paused to shift the sleeping baby to the other arm, and stared up at looming cathedral-like trees. She understood so much now, but then, five years ago, she knew so little. After the momentary hesitation, she entered the barrier and felt its slight thickness on her consciousness as it reached out and touched her, allowing her to pass. Once, when she didn’t know, she had asked Valerie about it. He had looked pensively, then shrugged and told her that she should stop bothering him and go ask the forest; it would know.

And she had asked; and the forest told her; and what she learned changed her life, forever. With her sensitive ear to the forest floor, the plants whispered their secrets to her, indeed the entire world of nature whispered to her and she listened in mildness and acceptance. Things here lived -- and thought. She knew all things lived, it was the way of creation, but in the forest, beyond the border, the trees, actually answered back. The sentient things had names, personalities, and they understood her, and she them, or so she thought.

They said they were guards, set to protect the world against the destroyers. In this cryptic way they spoke, and much of it she didn’t understand, but what she did comprehend were the wind-whispers about the different healing qualities to various plants and where to find them.

Never completely at ease with the trees -- she felt they were at times purposely cold, indifferent –- as if in preparation for some odious task they would have to eventually perform. She assumed that the destroyers were Rhundians.

As she entered the forest, she felt the familiar awareness of the trees opening up like a flower exposed to morning light; the rustling of the leaves; the little eyes in the night; their very perfumed breath expiring into the air. The trees seemed to be especially excited, or were they anxious? Maybe it was because she too was excited, but as she passed beneath a tree, a branch extended toward her and brushed gently against her shoulder. She stopped, looking up into the canopy.

Little Sprig, the trees whispered forcefully into her mind, a collective wind combing through needles, sounding specific but coming from all around. Let us see the bud, the bud, let us see the dark bud! Startled by the sheer force and urgency of the demand, she hesitated before pulling back the midnight purple cowl from the infant’s face.

The trees gave a huge agitated ripple and then were deathly silent. Suddenly, the ground beneath her feet began to vibrate. Rustling, leaves flickered frantically, trunks began to sway and the roots throughout the forest contracted as though they were preparing for a massive flood that was about to be unleashed. She too became ridged, expectant of some great ill. Spinning around, staring upwards, she instinctively clasped the child closer, perhaps too close because it woke up and began to whimper.

What? her mind screamed in shear terror, what is the matter?

The child! The child! cried all the foliated guardians. Send it back! Before it destroys us all! A large root tore free of the earth and wavered before her, long tendrils of earth hanging down. Place the child on the ground, below the root, and leave!

Seahla pulled the babe in closer, using her body as a shield; and it began to cry, sensing not only the distress of the one carrying her, but of the forest’s violent intent. It was as though a huge decomposing wave of judgment was hanging over them, determined to fall down on the child and crush the life out of her. The forest waited for Seahla to obey. She rebelled.

Instead she fled through the trees. They wanted to execute the baby. The trees did not use spoken language, but their thoughts were full of the need to extinguish the life she protected, but she would not let them.

Few places in the forest opened up to the clear sky above; the Rounds; the Lake of Dread; and Valerie’s cottage. In the past he had shown her these places and then had made her swear an oath never to enter the Rounds or visit the Lake. The Rounds were not only unreliable, explained Valerie, because they kept moving, dependent on the seasons and the shape of the moon, but also because of those who dwelt in them. Valerie had warned her about Finna, Ouril and Osca. They were capricious beings at best. If she gave in to temptation and stepped into their Rounds, he would not be able to help her, and he would have to banish her from the forest, or worse. There were others, who might help, but Valerie had only alluded to them and they had not shown themselves to her. Of the huge shaggy bear-like creatures that occasionally visited Valerie, she knew nothing, except they carried both a feeling of great intelligence and unbridled violence. Tarqes, Valerie called them tarqes, Beodin’s Tarqes. All things considered, her only hope was to reach the cottage before the trees stopped her.

The mad, impassioned dash through the trees was full of limbs grasping at her, roots extending to trip her and the tumultuous, earthen sounds turning the ground into furrows behind her. The trees were moving, if that was possible, and she dared not to glance behind because if she did they would have her. The fear that gripped her heart was not for her but for the little helpless babe she carried. She covered the face of the wailing child -- her child! It was an illusion, but this was one she would not be denied. Her life converged upon this point, past and present and even the sense of what the future would become. All of this now depended on her ability to keep the little babe alive. Being abandoned and left by her own family and the hostile social system in which she lived, she would be cursed if she was going to abandon this one! No! she snarled at the trees she passed, you can’t have her! She saw the branches and limbs recoil as if afraid to touch her, but then they gathered and came after her again.

One of the many roots on the narrow path managed to wrap around her ankle, tripping her. Turning while she toppled, she was able to protect the babe by landing hard on her