It began with a light.
Not the harsh light of the treefall meadow. Not the bright multi-coloured lights of night in Wyrdwood. This was different, a suffused glow in the distance, a warmth within the gloom. The broad, dark-green-leaved bushes crowded the light, and grew thickly, some no higher than Cahan’s knee, some far higher than his head.
They approached carefully, warily, using the bushes as cover until they had a better view. At first the light was like a hearth fire seen from outside a house after a cold day in the field, it promised warmth and welcome, drew them in. Though Cahan knew Wyrdwood well enough to know such feelings could not be trusted. Then it became brighter, more intense as they neared. No longer the glow of a fire, more constant, and rather than flickering or shining it seeped out into the air as if it were alive.
Closer.
Night fell. The abrupt darkness of Wyrdwood. As if in response the light changed again, almost painful to look at now. Cahan heard a hum, a sharp and painful noise, cutting into his head. Then it was gone, and once more the light was soft, gentle and warm. Some property of it blocked out the spectacular lightshow of the forest. He wanted to walk towards it, and within him the cowl ceased its shifting and aching that had been his constant companion. In the light he found a peace his life had been sorely lacking. He felt, for the first time he could remember, no fire within.
Had it not been for Udinny, standing and blindly stumbling towards the light, just as she had when they encountered the golwyrd, he would have done the same. But her actions disturbed him. He remembered the dangers of the forest. How nothing here was his friend. Grabbed her arm. Pulled her back.
“No,” she said, “my home. I want to go home—” He covered her mouth, for a moment she fought. Then her eyes cleared and she stopped struggling. He let go. “Was it a golwyrd?” she said. “I fell for it again?” Cahan shook his head.
“No,” he whispered, “this is something different. Stronger.” He felt the draw of the light, the offer of peace within it, but the distraction of Udinny had broken the spell and he could stand against this feeling now. “Be ready to grab me if I act strangely,” he said to the monk. Then he looked around the side of the bush towards the glow in the forest. Felt the same peace, the retreating of the furious heat of anger that lived deep within him, but he did not feel like he would lose himself this time. It felt more like a test. He slipped back behind the bush. “I think it is safe to go nearer. If you feel drawn, tap my arm.” Udinny nodded her face stricken, as though she had suffered some deep and profound loss.
They moved closer; he was impressed by how silent the monk could be when she put her mind to it. When they were near enough to see the glow directly, a lance of fear passed through his body, as white and cold as if he were pierced by an icicle. The brightness obscured most of what was before them, but it showed enough. Three figures in the night, sharp-edged, impossibly tall, heads topped with branching horns.
“Iftal help us,” said Cahan. “The boughry have him.”
“Boughry?” She looked at him, frightened.
“Look,” he said, moving a branch so she could see, as that was easier than explaining.
“Osere below!” Her eyes opened wide. “We should get away.” To tangle with the boughry was death, and a strange and slow death at that. Why the boughry did the things they did none knew. They skinned people alive and left them screaming, hung from trees in Woodedge. They hacked off limbs and left bodies squirming. Put out eyes and returned the blind to their villages. And no matter how mortal the wound, those taken by the boughry lived longer than they should, died only slowly. It was not foolish to be frightened of the boughry. When the monks of Tarl-an-Gig talked of old gods, and the terrible things they did it was the boughry, the Woodhewn Nobles of Wyrdwood people thought of. They were not of the people, and their ways could not be understood. He moved a branch aside once again, looked harder, trying to pierce the light.
“The boy is there,” he said, “the boughry are gathered round a taffistone with him before it.” He breathed deeply. They should go, he knew that. Maybe not too long ago he would have turned around and done that. But in his mind he saw the face of Venn, braver than he was, giving up their freedom for his life. In his hand he felt the remembered shape of a toy crownhead. And also something of his journey with the monk would not let him leave: it had changed him and he did not understand how or why.
Maybe it was that the monk thought him brave, when all his life he believed he was only angry, scared or selfish.
He looked around, expecting in this moment of danger to see the grey shapes of the reborn women. At the same time, knowing they would not be there. Not because of the warning given to him when he was hurt and sick in his house. But because this was not their place, something else ruled here and they were not welcome.
He took a deep breath.
Sometimes there was no real choice. He could act or run away, forever pursued by a guilt more persistent than any dead, grey warrior.
“Wait here, Udinny.” He let out a low whistle to call Segur and the garaur came bounding over, its jaws slightly open as it panted. Cahan ruffled its fur, then picked it up and put it in Udinny’s arms. “Hold on to Segur and do not let it go, no matter what. If the boughry take me, then you run and take Segur with you. Do you understand?” She nodded. “Tell the Leoric we did our best but the child was dead, the body eaten by beasts.”
“Not that the boughry took him?”
“It is kinder not to let her know.” Udinny nodded, then glanced back towards the glow.
“Can we not wait for them to leave?” said the monk. Cahan licked his lips and tried to still the hammering of his heart.
“No, Udinny. Who knows what they may do to the child. I have heard no kind stories of the boughry.”
“But still, you will go to them.”
“The forest has led us here, Udinny. It has played tricks, slowed us and sped us on. I must believe that is for a reason, not simply to make me a game for its darkest creatures.” Wise-sounding words, but they both knew by now that Wyrdwood could not be understood. Had others thought the same, before meeting their end with the boughry? The monk stared at Cahan, the spikes of her hair wilted by their journey, her face drawn and sad.
“Ranya brought us here, Cahan,” she said, “it is for a purpose, not simply to sacrifice us. I believe that.” She reached up to take hold of his arm but he moved away, looked towards the light once more.
“Do not worry for me, Udinny.” He put a hand on her shoulder, tried to look more sure of himself than he felt. “I am better able to handle these creatures than you may think.” Beneath his skin the cowl woke.
You need me.
She looked at him, smiled to herself.
“You mean your cowl, Cahan Du-Nahere.” He stopped then, completely still.
“You knew?” She nodded.
“I met many with cowls when I lived in Tilt,” she said softly. “The Rai often visited, there is something unmistakable about cowl users that you learn to recognise.” She smiled to herself. “You are different from the Rai in many ways, gentler, but it is still there.”
“And yet you never asked me to use it to save us from danger.”
“You did not volunteer to, and I presumed you had your reasons. Ranya says follow your path, but do not force others onto it.” He let go of Udinny’s shoulder, and touched her on the forehead, leaving a small muddy mark in the centre of it. He did not know why.
“Ranya guide you, monk,” he said.
“And you too, Cowl-Rai,” she replied.
“That title is…”
“A mark of respect, once, in the old books,” said the monk, “and, renegade that I am, that is how I use it, in respect.” For a moment, he wondered how much she knew. Then decided it did not matter as, for the first time in as long as he could remember it did not feel bad to hear that title from another’s mouth. He gave her a small nod. Then turned and crept out past the edge of the bush they had hidden behind, moving from bush to bush towards the light. The boughry remained obscured; he saw only shadows cast by the light. Glimpses of movement.
Silhouetted in the light emanating from the large, egg-shaped taffistone, was the boy Issofur. Sitting on the floor, playing with the leaf litter and laughing to himself.
It was tempting to listen to the voice of the cowl in that moment. Cahan felt very alone. He could let the life of the forest flow into him. Here in Wyrdwood, near the taffistone, he could feel life flowing around him in a way he never had before. Strength and power and life filled the air. It was as if the great trees were conduits for it. He could open himself and the cowl to the energy flowing around them and they could go together against the boughry in fire and water and power. He could take apart these creatures. Burn them away with a thought. What better reason to use the cowl than to save a child? What better reason to become the fire?
He wanted it.
He hungered for it.
It burned within him, a core of anger and fury and resentment that was so much a part of him he could not imagine life without it. An end to fighting his past, and for the best of reasons.
You need me.
And yet.
And yet and yet and yet.
What had he said to Udinny when first they entered the wood? That to move against the forest was to wake its ire. Harm not and you will not be harmed. And, throughout their journey, he had been unable to lose the feeling that they were led, slowed and speeded as needed. In pursuit of the boy, yes. But led. He had talked of the forest as something alive.
Was this a test?
Like the light?
You need me.
For what and why he did not, could not, know.
The boughry moved before him, sinister shadows within a strange light. Great rays of it pierced the air.
You are the fire.
In and out.
In and out.
He laid down his staff.
Stood.
Walked out before the Woodhewn Nobles. Held his arms out to show he brought no weapon. Imagined he heard Udinny gasp behind him as he walked forward. Became another shadow within the boughry’s light.
“Woodhewn Nobles of Wyrdwood!” he shouted. It felt like screaming into the fiercest circle wind.
Then it didn’t.
Life stopped around him. The constant noise of the forest paused. The light, up until then its rays shifting and spinning, became still. He saw the boughry, truly saw the boughry, for the first time. Three of them, standing around the taffistone. Impossibly thin. Taller than him by half of his own body, and he was tall for the people of Crua. Each of the boughry, head and hands aside, was covered by a long robe and whether the robe was moss, or some material or even part of their body, he could not tell. Their hands were bundles of twigs, yet smooth and supple, like the willwood hand he had seen on the jailer in Harn-Larger, in what felt like a lifetime ago. The boughry had no eyes, or ears or nose, instead they had skulls, long and slim like those of crownheads. Instead of curling horns, branches strewn with moss grew from the skulls. Not one of the boughry was symmetrical. Each the same but different from the other, as each reaching branch on their heads was different from its counterpart. One boughry was bright, as if made of light, another was gauzy, barely there like the finest of mosses hanging from a tree bough. The third was tall, and thick and strong, like a trunk. The air around the forest nobles smelled of loam and leaf and flower, thick with the fecundity of the forest. And though they towered above him, and though he had heard so many dark stories of them, he felt no threat. At the same time he knew he was not safe. He was in the presence of something more powerful than he could understand. His idea of pulling power from the air and destroying them had been childlike and naive. They were as immutable as the cloudtrees, and just as old, maybe older. If they wished to crush him, they could do it without a thought.
“Crua,” a voice in his head: crackling leaves and cold breezes. “What brings you before us, Crua?”
It was not a question, though it also was. It had something of rote to it, like a litany, like the words he had heard the monks intone before the altar of Zorir when he was a child.
“The boy,” he said. “His mother asked me to find him, and to return him.” The boughry, as one turned to look at the child, as if they had not noticed him until that point.
“Have you killed and burned in our realm?” This time it was a question. “Have you left the paths and taken without permission?”
“Not knowingly,” he was shouting again, caught in the gale of their attention. His hair whipping round his face. “Or meaningfully.” Silence. The light began to turn again. The atmosphere hung heavy with danger.
“You would take that which we have claimed.” Rocks falling down a cliff edge, water escaping a wetvine. “And to what reward?” He did not know if they meant what reward he would get, or asked for something in exchange. He hoped they did not require some gift, he had nothing to give.
“I receive only goodwill for this,” he said. The boughry considered him, the smooth domes of their foreheads focused on him. “And offer it in return.”
“A worthy champion,” said the voice in his mind. “But what is taken must be replaced.”
“Then I…”
“Take me.” He turned. Udinny stood behind him.
“Monk,” Cahan hissed, “I told you that—” She stepped forward, addressing the boughry, not him.
“I have lived a life,” she said, loud, but he could hear the fear there, “the child has not. I have followed the path, hoping for purpose where I have had none.” She stepped forward again. “I see now, there is no purpose without sacrifice.”
“Udinny…” He tried to step forward, found himself unable to move. With a hiss like a branch breaking the nearest boughry, the one that was like gauze, moved. One moment near the taffistone. The next in front of Udinny, towering over her. Its form shimmering as though seen through great heat.
“You know of what is done to those we take?” the boughry’s voice as brittle and foetid as a rotting log. Udinny nodded.
“You offer yourself of your own free will?” said the voice of another, sharp as an icicle hanging from a tree.
“I do. My lady Ranya led me here. I will continue to walk the path.” Did he imagine it, or at the mention of Ranya did the whole forest shiver? Did even the cloudtree shake a little? He was not sure, he knew only that he shook. That he shook for Udinny, for what might happen to her. That he shook in fear for himself as he stood before creatures far more powerful than he. That he shook in fury, as even his tongue had been stilled and he could not demand they take him.
“We accept,” came the voice in his mind. Udinny turned to him, gave him a small, sad nod and small, sad smile. Then she turned back to the boughry towering above her. He did not know what he expected. Death? Blood? Screaming?
There was none of it.
The boughry stretched out its hand and touched Udinny on the forehead, on the spot of dirt he had left there. In that moment she changed, she did not look frightened or lost or sad. She looked full of wonder. “We know your name,” came the voice, “and we will call.” The light of the taffistone went out. The boughry vanished and the utter darkness of the forest enveloped them.
“Cahan?” His heart leapt at Udinny’s voice.
“You are alive?”
“Aye, you also?”
“Aye.” Then the child let out a cry and the forest lit up with its explosive display of life. He saw Udinny before him, the child in her arms. He found himself unable to do anything but laugh, full of sudden and fierce joy, so glad that the boughry had not taken this woman who, he had only realised on the point of loss, he called friend.