Perhaps it was the noise that disturbed her. It wasn’t a manmade noise. The camps under the canopy were quiet. If she turned her head, she could see the dark, motionless lumps of sleeping men and staked tents, a few glowing lamps, and the occasional movement of a sentry. No, it was the wind that provided its own racket. Without anything to really slow it down, the wind stampeded across the desert, roaring and howling and kicking up dust before it. It swept over the hill where the Tree grew, blowing through the grass and brush and pushing through the Tree’s canopy. The roots of the ancient tree went too deep for a mere blustery wind to disturb it. After all, it had survived the great storm of the early summer. But the Tree still moved and creaked and slowly swayed in the night wind. Its leaves rustled and shook; its branches rubbed and banged together; the trunk groaned like an old man in the impudent rush of the wind. It sounded to Linsha like an entire forest of vallenwoods rather than just one tree.
She looked up into the treetop at the dancing, swaying branches and tried to think about Danian’s words. What had he meant when he told her the tree sometimes granted visions? What sort of visions? Were they prophetic visions or visions given in response to some sort of prayer? The barbaric tribes of the Plains were very spiritual people, heavily dependent on their connection to the natural world around them. They believed everything had a lifeforce that was attached to everything else. It was little wonder they looked on this Tree with nothing short of adoration. But could it truly give answers? Would prayer help?
Linsha was not very good at prayer. She had grown up in a world that had lost its gods just before she was born, and while her parents raised her with the belief that someday the gods would return, she had not found much use in praying to deities who weren’t around to listen. If the rumors of this One God were true, maybe she would learn to pray, but until then she would have to make do with simple speech. She had told the story of Crucible to the gathering in the presence of the Tree. If it truly listened, then it already knew what she needed. There wasn’t much point in belaboring it.
Her hand slid up to her neck and found the gold chain with the dragon scales under her tunic. Her fingers closed around them, and she drew some comfort from their reminder of her friends. The wind roared and rushed around her. Her eyes slowly slid closed.
She wasn’t aware of sleeping, but after a while she became conscious of the fact that a light was shining red through her eyelids. Thinking it was dawn, she sat up in her blanket and stretched her neck and arms. She was still sore and stiff, and she didn’t feel rested at all. Reluctantly, she opened her eyes… and choked on a cry. Her eyes blinked with sudden tears. She crawled to her knees and knelt on the blanket, her heart pounding.
The light she’d thought was the sun actually emanated from a huge metallic dragon crouched on her belly only feet away from the edge of the Tree’s canopy and Linsha’s blanket. Her large expressive eyes gleamed down on Linsha with pleasure. Her sleek head and polished horns glowed with a pale translucent gold light of their own.
“Iyesta!” Linsha whispered in delight.
The dragon inclined her head to Linsha until her gleaming nose almost brushed Linsha’s head. Giving a slight nod, she lifted her neck and plunged her nose into the leaves of the Tree’s canopy. Gently the apparition snipped two leaves from the vallenwood and let them fall to Linsha’s side.
“How?” Linsha begged. “How do I help him?”
“Will you stay and help me?” Linsha cried.
There was no answer. The wind roared and the light vanished, leaving Linsha rubbing her eyes and crying in the darkness. She groped frantically for the leaves, found them, and held them tightly in her hands. With tears running down her cheeks, she leaped to her feet and limped out from under the tree into the open where the chill wind tore at her clothes and whipped her hair around her face. She turned around and around to search for any sign of the big brass dragon and saw what she expected. Nothing. The night hung densely dark under the clouds. There was no hint of a golden light, no sign that Iyesta had truly been there. The sentries still paced on their rounds, the horses dozed in their picket lines, the men and women of the gathering continued to sleep undisturbed. The vision of Iyesta had been hers alone.
Her face still wet with tears, Linsha took the leaves and crawled back under her blanket. She wasn’t certain what Iyesta meant for her to do with these leaves, but they had been granted to her for a reason, and until she understood more, she was not going to let the leaves off her person. She curled around them and lay still, listening to the voices of the wind and the Tree.
The next thing she knew it was dawn and Varia was waking her.
22
“Are you going to make a habit of this?” Linsha said to the owl sitting on her chest.
Varia trilled a bit and clicked her beak. She peered into Linsha’s face, so close the woman could see the tiny feathers on her eyelids. “You didn’t sleep well?”
Linsha pulled her blanket tighter around her shoulders and closed her eyes again. “No. I had the oddest dreams.”
“I have news that is not a dream. Sir Remmik and his Knights did not go far. They are camped in a small ravine only an hour’s ride away.”
Linsha’s eyes creaked open. “What? They left yesterday afternoon. They should be miles away by now. If they were returning to the Tarmaks.” She sat up to think. “Did they look all right? Was something wrong?”
“They looked much the same to me… but-” The owl broke off. She looked down at Linsha’s lap. “What are those? Are those leaves? You’re not supposed to pull things off the Tree!”
A big grin lightened the worry lines on Linsha’s face. She picked up the leaves and held them up to the cold light of dawn. “Zivilyn be thanked. It was not a dream! These were a gift from the Tree!”
“The Tree?”
Linsha lifted the leaves in the palm of her hand. They were still as green and fresh. “Iyesta said I could use them to help Crucible.”
“Iyesta…” the owl said in disbelief.
“Well, a vision of her. It must have been. She picked the leaves from the Tree and gave them to me.”
The owl’s eyes widened to dark circles. “What are you supposed to do with them?”
“I don’t know.”
Varia looked relieved. “As long as you did not pick them.” Then her demeanor changed again, and she fluffed her feathers and shifted her weight from one foot to another. “Linsha, there is a Knight waiting out there at the farthest guard post. He wants to talk to you.”
“So why doesn’t he come into the camp?”
“Because he only wants to talk to you. I overheard him talking to the sentry who would not leave his post to bring a message until his relief came. So the Knight is just sitting out there waiting for someone to get you. I thought I’d better warn you.”
“Who is it?”
“Sir Korbell.”
Linsha cast a quick glance to the east where the clouds had rolled away during the night. The sun’s rim already warmed the distant horizon and cast its level light under the skirt of the Grandfather Tree. People were stirring in the camps and smoke was beginning to rise from cooking fires.
“When do the guards usually change?”
“Around now.”
Linsha nodded, her mind already made up. “Then let’s go see what he wants.”
“Linsha, don’t go alone,” Varia said. “I don’t like this. Sir Korbell is one of Sir Remmik’s bootlickers. Take Sir Hugh with you.”
