A single word spoken. His name. —Penderrin— Only it wasn't spoken in the way that humans spoke. It didn't come from a mouth or even from an independent source. It came from the stroking of the tree roots against his skin, his magic extracting from that touch a communication meant solely for him.
— Penderrin
The tanequil was speaking to him. He had been wrong about how communication with the tree would happen. It wasn't up to him to initiate contact; it was only up to him to be open to it. The tree would speak to him when it chose to. Trying to reach the tanequil on his terms was not going to work.
He lay against the earth, waiting for something more. But there were no further whispers, and he realized that the tiny fingerling roots were no longer stroking him. He rose to a sitting position and looked down. They were gone, all of them. He sat on a patch of sparse grass and bare earth from which no roots protruded and no sign of the ancient tree was in evidence.
He took a few moments to accept that the situation was not going to change, and then he rose and stood looking at the tree, trying to decide what to do next. Why had it stopped trying to communicate? Did it require something more from him? He couldn't think what else he could do that would help. To allow communication, he had opened himself up to the tree, reached out with his senses, engaged the magic that was his birthright, and it had happened. What more was there for him to do?
He circled the tree, squinting in the glare of the sunrise as the light fell across his face. The forest was silent and untroubled, a vast hall in which even the smallest sound could be heard. It was a sacred place, and he was a supplicant come in search of healing and direction. He stilled his mind and opened his thoughts, reaching to make a fresh connection, his eyes on the tree as he replayed in his mind the still–fresh whisper of his name.
Nothing happened.
After a time, he sat down again, taking up a new position on the other side of the tree, with his back to the sun. He watched the way the light played over the branches and leaves, illuminating fresh parts of the tree as the sun lifted out of the mountains into the sky. He tried speaking to the tree, tried engaging it with his magic, with his thinking, even by touching the earth in the hope that he might draw out the root tendrils. He did everything he could imagine that might stimulate the tree's consciousness.
Nothing worked.
Frustration washed through him. What had he done before that he was not doing now? Why wouldn't the tanequil continue their conversation? Perhaps, he thought, it was a question of patience. Trees had infinite amounts, and for them conversations might require a much longer period of time. Perhaps one word at a time was all that it could manage, and he must wait awhile for the next.
He didn't like that conclusion. He thought there must be a better one, a more sensible one. He went back to how things had begun, how he had been sleeping, dreaming of home, of the Ard Rhys …
He caught himself. Of the Ard Rhys, in danger, threatened because he could not help her, because he was incapable of acting. And then he had come awake in the sweat of his own fear and the roots of the tanequil had been reaching out to him. Responding, perhaps, to that fear, to his need to do something to help his aunt?
He lay down again on the earth, closed his eyes, and summoned pictures of his aunt in peril, jogging his memory, even though it was painful to do so, bringing to mind fresh images, fresh fears …
Almost immediately, the feathery touching begin again, a stroking of his skin that communicated a combination of reassurance and admonition. He remained still, giving himself over to the experience, but at the same time keeping his fears for his aunt at the forefront of his thoughts, the spark that he hoped would generate something more from the tree.
Hypnotically consuming, the stroking absorbed him. Lulled and calmed, he took a chance, speaking a single word in his mind.
— Tanequil—
— Penderrin. What do you require of me?
The boy was so surprised by the response that he almost locked up, his mind going blank momentarily before he was able to construct an answer.
-A darkwand, so that I can reach my aunt, so that I can save her from the Forbidding
— A darkwand formed of my body, of my limbs. What will you give me in exchange?
Pen hesitated, surprised by the question. He had not thought to give the tanequil anything. The King of the Silver River had not mentioned anything about an exchange of gifts. Or was this something else? It might be that the tanequil was looking at a different sort of exchange entirely.
— What do you require?
— What you ask of me. A part of yourself
Pen took a deep, steadying breath, trying to stay focused on his aunt, on the Forbidding, on the journey he must make.
-What part of myself?
As quickly as that, the stroking ended, the root tendrils withdrew, and the connection between them was broken once more. Pen lay where he was for a time, refocusing his thoughts on his aunt, stirring his emotions, and waiting for the words to come anew. They did not. He was left alone with his thoughts, his mind echoing with the words the tree had spoken and the silence that had replaced them.
Preoccupied with the crossing itself and with what waited, he had not thought to bring anything to eat with him when he crossed the bridge from Stridegate. He rose finally and went looking for food. He searched the forest about him, never moving too far from the tree, keeping the orange–tinged emerald canopy always in sight. But although he looked everywhere he could think to look, he found nothing save a tiny spill of water that trickled out of a fissure in a rock wall. He drank that, the water tasting of metal and earth.
He was about to return to the tanequil for another try at communicating with it when Cinnaminson appeared unexpectedly out of the trees, her face flushed with excitement as she rushed up to him.
«Penderrin,' she gasped, «it was incredible!»
«Where have you been?» he asked, taking her by the shoulders. «I was worried about you.»
She wrapped her arms around him and hugged him as if she had been gone for weeks, rather than hours. He could feel the soft hiss of her breath in his ear as she laughed. «Did you miss me?»
He nodded, confused by her strange excitement. «Are you all right?»
She pushed back from him so that they were face–to–face. Her smile reflected a child's wonder as she reached up to touch his cheek. «Pen, I saw everything. The aeriads showed me. I don't know how they managed it, but they let me see it all. They took shape and flew all around me, like tiny rainbow butterflies, changing colors and shimmering so brightly they seemed like pieces of the sun. It was so wonderful! Then they changed to become like me—girls, no older than I am! We danced and played! We laughed until I could hardly stand up! Do you know how long it has been since I laughed?»
He stared at her, shocked at the transformation. She had always been effusive, but she was alive now in a way he had never witnessed. It was as if she were being reborn into the world, made over by her encounter with the aeriads. He was surprised to find that he was vaguely jealous.
«Did you find out what they really are? Where they come from?»
She nodded. 'They told me. They call themselves spirits of the air—aeriads—but they are much more. They call themselves seedlings, as well. They think of themselves as creatures of the tanequil, his children.» She stopped herself. «Their children,' she corrected. «I don't understand this part, but they think of the tanequil as both mother and father. The tree is both man and woman to them, able to be one or the other or both as needed.» She shook her head. «I'm still learning.»
Pen thought about the tanequil's voice in his head. Masculine, he reaffirmed, not feminine. Where was the mother side of the tree, then?
«Are you hungry?» she asked suddenly.
He nodded. «Starved. I've been looking for something to eat.»
She took his hand. «Come with me.»
She led the way through the trees, navigating the maze of ancient trunks as if her sight had miraculously been restored. There was no hesitation, no deviation. She seemed able to see even better than she had before, her strange gift enhanced perhaps by the magic of the place and its creatures.
She took him to a cluster of berry–laden bushes near a clear, spring–fed pool. The berries were rich and sweet, and he ate them hungrily, then drank the cool, clear water of the pool, which was nothing like the metallic