It came. I was thrust back against the wall, breathless, as all leaf came into the room, all tendril, all bark, ramifications of trunk and twig, fortresses of root, everything in one, in itself, enormous yet contained, all smells, all light, rain and sun, mist and moonlight, stargleam on pond, dawn on marsh, noon on brook, sparkle and splash. Murmur of wind was there, and howl of storm. Quiet of evening was there, and rattle of hail on high limbs against the sky. Moss, fern, tracery of forest, lip of blossom, whir of wing, cry of beak, all, all, all.
Field mint and bergamot, rose and startle-flower, lady lily, zeller flower, Healer’s balm, sweet grass.
Rustle in the underbrush, crash of fleeing prey, howl of predator, shriek of watcher, hum of unconcerned bee creature in the hollow of a stump. All. Wings folding, unfolding like gems; rise of fish from the deeps to make the single, opening ripple that reached, reached, reached outward. Night, morning, noon. High cry of the hawk on gold, low croak of the froggy marsh walker, joined, joined, music, melody, from top to bottom of being, speaking, saying—what?
“Well done ...”
Below hearing. Above hearing.
“Well done ...”
I could not breathe, did not care, died and did not care. Upon my breast the fragment burned within its locket, a heart of fire upon my own. Then it went away all at once, and I lay on the floor where I had fallen, sucking in air like a beached fish. A forest is a very large thing to come into a room that size.
Perhaps I had not really believed in the old gods, not until then.
And yet, though it had been huge, immense, beyond comprehension in its size and complexity, still I had had the feeling it was not a whole thing. A thing made whole, yes, but not a whole thing. There was more, elsewhere. After much thought I decided it was rather as though my foot had spoken to me, a good useful foot without blemish or ill, and yet only a foot for all that. Not a person entire.
And what I thought I meant by that, I was not certain an hour later. On my breast an arrow of fire remained, the skin red and burned. It left a scar there when it healed, but there was never any pain.
On the morning after that, as though carefully timed for my task’s completion, the old dams came singing down the road in the wagon, all five of them, with a cheerfully plain girl of about twelve sitting on the seat beside Cat Candleshy. “Sister,” Cat said, “greet Dodie, who joins us upon the way.”
I knew we were soon to be seven once more.
18
I said hello to Dodie, politely. She greeted me a good bit more eagerly than that, and I looked her over, approving of her. A slightly uncomfortable silence fell.
I broke it. “You took a long time finding me,” trying to keep a whine out of it.
“Well, chile,” said Murzy, “we had word you were doing well enough. Coming to grips, you know, the way we all must. Seemed best to leave you at it.”
“But now,” said Margaret, putting her arms around me and her cheek next to mine, turning the full blaze of Beguilement on me so that she glowed with it like a little furnace and me with it, warming, “we must be with you to celebrate your sixteenth year.”
That was surprising, but of course a year had gone since we’d had cakes and wine in Xammer. More than two years since Joramal had come to Stoneflight Demesne. Three years since I had been to Schooltown. Ah. The thought caught me all at once and I breathed in with a sob, as though I’d been hurt.
“Why, chile, chile, what is it?” Murzy was hugging me and listening to me breathe as though something were broken inside.
“Will you want me still?” I asked. “The Dervish says one can be Wize-ard even without Talent, but oh, I did want something ...”
“Bartelmy!” muttered Cat.
“All the sensitivity of an icicle,” murmured Sarah. “We should have known.”
“Oh, shush,” said Murzy. “Bartelmy is what she can be. Now. You’ve had a hard time, chile, but that’s no excuse for feeling sorry for yourself. Of course we would want you, Talent or no. Once a seven, always a seven, ‘til death breaks us. That’s the way of it, and that’s all.”
“However,” interrupted Cat, “there is no question of that. You have a Talent, according to Bartelmy. A very strong, unusual one. And, quite frankly, I am surprised that a girl as intelligent as you should not have realized it. No!” She held up her hand as Margaret started to speak. “Let her figure it out for herself. It may give her several hours or days—or, by all the old gods, weeks, if her current silliness continues—of honest bewilderment. Which is always good for the soul. Now, let us have supper.”
So we had supper. Smoked fowl and bread and candied fruit from Xammer. And wine. And nuts as a gift from tree rat, and fresh fruit as a gift from bunwit. To all of which I paid no attention at all, lost in wonder what my Talent was that Bartelmy should have known of and I not.
My preoccupation did not stop the celebration. There were gifts. A pair of gloves hand-stitched. “Tess made them,” said Murzy quietly. “Before she died. It was she who birthed you, she who took word to Bartelmy that the woman would not keep her bargain and relinquish you. She grew to love you dearly, Jinian. Remember her kindly.”
There was a strange
