Page 9

8

MEMORY TREES

T hey strapped their water horns and various weapons back on their bodies, preparing to set out again. I did a quick check to make certain my dragonspice was secure and laid a hand on my chest for a dose of quick comfort from the key lying against my skin. Hidden safely beneath layers of thin gauzy cloth, it wasn't unlike the feel of Demius' hand resting on my shoulder. Only now, there was no accompanying weight. No large crackling set of bones needing my support.

Now it was me, wishing I could lean on him.

Tearloch caught me staring at the black gloves on his hands but offered no explanation. He and Sweetie set off at a quick pace. I started after them, then stopped, realizing that I was about to cross a new threshold.

"What is it now?" Tearloch put an impatient hand on his hip and waved his other hand to indicate the quiet canyon around us.

I lifted my shoulders. "It's just...I've never been here before."

"This canyon is not your home?"

"I've never stepped here before. Was never allowed past that junction."

"Never allowed?" His brow creased and he shook his head. "No one to stop you now though, eh? So, let's shake our tails. I want to leave these crawlers behind."

I took a deep breath and moved my feet. After all, I'd been begging Demius for half my life for a trip to the city. And now I was going. No permission needed…

I forced my boots to keep moving while the rest of me accepted the reality—Demius had already given his permission. He'd known he wouldn't be alive to grant it. "You shall never have need to ask again." He’d known he would die and said nothing .

Why?

Eight days , Demius had said. Give me eight days to prepare . He’d known what would happen to him, to me, and I suspect he’d known the blue dragon would come as well. And for the first time since I’d lit my home on fire, I wondered if leaving had been a mistake.

If Demius had known all this and still spent the last days of his life re-reading the Book of the Ordeal, a book he knew by heart, then perhaps I shouldn’t have left that tome behind.

Was our collective fate written inside? Or the instructions on how to defeat a blue dragon?

I shook off the thought as I trudged down the red dirt-covered path. It didn’t matter what Demius chose to do with his remaining days—it mattered what I did with mine. And I’d already decided that my mission was to track down the man called Huxor. My greatest desire was for revenge. After that, let the blue dragon come…

The slightest ping of guilt came only from the fact that Huxor’s two brothers were mere steps behind me, and I knew they’d be offended if they could read my thoughts. To put a little distance between us, I hurried forward to have a word with our leader.

"How long does it take to get to the city?"

Tearloch's head snapped around and he missed a step while gaping at me. "You mean you don't know?"

"I was never given the same answer twice. So no, I do not know for certain. Anywhere from two days to a quarter moon."

Sweetie choked.

Tearloch bit his lips together, trying to hide a smile. They were laughing at me, but I didn’t care. I just wanted someone to tell me the truth.

Tearloch cleared the mirth from his throat. “We should leave the canyon behind before nightfall. The city is a day beyond that. We should reach Sunbasin well before the sun goes down tomorrow.”

"So, two days from home. Just two little days…"

"Yes."

"Well, at least sometimes he told me the truth."

"Your master? Lied to you a lot, did he?"

"I cannot say." I shrugged my shoulders and slowed so they had to choose between staring at me and keeping their pace.

* * *

Without saying another word, I somehow earned a great many strange looks from the group over the next few hours. They obviously wanted to ask questions. My face made it clear I didn't want to hear them, let alone answer them.

My existence seemed odd? Well, theirs seemed just as odd to me. One man wore gloves at all times, followed by a flock of friends. They never spoke of a home of their own, and I wondered if they didn’t have one. I understood why they hunted their evil friend and that Sweetie’s state was new to him. But what had the big man done to earn the sorcerer’s ire?

There were many questions I wanted to ask, but I was a stranger, and I wouldn’t pry…for as long as I could help it. Questions invited questions, and I intended to keep my own counsel. Demius always warned that I should never give away information. What knowledge we had was earned, and others would need to earn their own.

I always considered his attitude a bit selfish, but I assumed he had good reason. I practiced patience and trusted in his promise that Time would reveal all things.

But now that the blue dragon had come, Time had better shake its tail.

* * *

Not long after the sun passed its zenith, we stopped to rest and drink. They all pulled different food stuffs from their packs, and Minkin offered me a familiar piece of dried meat and a flat bit of bread. I was embarrassed that I hadn’t thought to pack any food myself, and I declined. I wouldn’t want her regretting her generosity later, when she reached for her last morsel and found her bag empty.

After all, I wasn’t travelling with them out of friendship, but because I was using them to find my prey. And my awareness of it kept my stomach quiet.

“Go on,” she said. “Take it. Unless you can make a meal of your dragonspice, eh?”

I laughed. “Oh, I wouldn’t recommend it. I’d hallucinate for days. Probably kill me.”

Reluctantly, I accepted her offer and to ease my conscience, I shared my water horn full of fresh water from the spring at the junction. In my periphery, I saw Tearloch remove his gloves and dribble water over his hands before shaking them dry and replacing the black leather. And again, I bit my tongue, not wanting to ask so no one would ask anything of me.

At the westernmost end of the canyon, I was almost surprised when the endless supply of red rocks began to give way to other terrain. The ground began to level, and I was speechless when I realized how far I could see in most directions.

Our path joined with a road that had more green things growing alongside it than grew in the entire canyon put together, though the red dirt was still plentiful. Also plentiful were the people traveling on that road.

Though he seemed to keep a constant stride, Tearloch adjusted his pace—and thereby ours—to keep us well behind the group ahead of us and just ahead of the group behind. I noticed many folk felt comfortable speaking to their fellow travelers, but we deliberately remained apart. And Sweetie’s horns just made that preference easier.

If a group wished to pass us, they did so quickly, some with a polite nod, some with wide eyes, some with their heads turned away. But all of them mute. As the day wore on, travelers grew further and further apart until there were times when we had the road to ourselves.

The evening brought cooler air and the entertainment of a sun setting ahead of us. The sky turned orange, then red and eventually bled into the clouds and made the land nearly the same shade as the world I'd lived in all my life. But there were great dark mounds in the distance that grew in density. Trees like I'd never seen before. Trees with so many leaves on their branches you couldn't see what lay on the far side of them.

A breeze passed through the boughs, made them sway, and when it reached us, it blew only clean, cool air beneath the layers of my clothing. I automatically reached for my scarf and pulled it across my face, to peer through the spaces between threads. When I realized none of my companions followed suit, I pulled it down again, squinted against the flow of air, then relaxed when no sand flew into my face.

But then...

The air had flavors to it. It smelled...sweet and somehow green , like it carried some fruit I might have tasted in my dreams.

Tearloch caught me sniffing and looked concerned, as if he worried my mind might be turning. I didn't care.

"What is this?" I sniffed again and again and was relieved when he did the same.

Then he shook his head. "What?"

"It’s incredible?—"

"Memory trees," Sweetie grumbled. "She's smelling the memory trees down in the glen. Fates be damned, she's never smelled them before."

“I have,” I protested. “I just can’t…remember when. This smell couldn’t have blown all the way up the canyon, could it? Not this strong.”

Tearloch smelled the air again, turned in all directions. "Surely not. It must be something else."

Sweetie stopped to scowl into my eyes for a breath or two, as if trying to detect a lie in me, then he resumed his march. "We'll know soon enough, won't we?"

As if trying to hide the new horizon, the sun hurried away, leaving us in the near dark. I reached for the glow stone in my pocket when the hard dirt path suddenly softened beneath my feet. I would have fallen onto my knees had Tearloch not reached out a gloved hand to catch me around the waist and put me upright. His hand lingered while I sought my balance, and a little shiver ran up my spine from our unexpected proximity.

That sweet fragrance filled my head, sneaked into my mouth, and made me almost giddy.

Sweetie stopped and stomped on something I couldn’t see, then he picked up a small branch with crushed leaves and waved it in front of me. "Is this what you smelled?"

A fresh wave hit me, made my mouth water. "Yes!" Then I lowered my voice for fear of predators. "Yes." I stared at the darkness below my feet. Clusters of leaves lay strewn about on a bed of grass. “Do they grow so close to the ground, then?”

“New leaves,” Sweetie said. “Must have been a great wind to have blown them so far from the trees.”

“Days ago,” I said with a nod. “A storm roared through the gorge. My master said it brought portends, though he didn’t tell me what they were.” I picked up another cluster of leaves and crushed one of them between my fingers. “I could stay here forever, smelling these. And to think they are so common!”

Tearloch scowled and took a casual step away from me. "How is it you know the smell, yet have never been out of your canyon? You’ve never seen them, yet you know they are common?"

I laughed again, this time at him. "I can read, you know."

"Read?"

"Yes. You know, books?"

"Books are discouraged. Reading is discouraged."

“Demius says that happens from time to time, when civilization declines into ignorance, that ignorance is a cycle. Can you read?”

“Of course. But I’m not foolish enough to speak of it.”

“Then I thank you for the lesson. I will mind my tongue.”

My response only brought his brow lower. “Bain, Dower, find us something we can cook. We will shelter in the trees for the night. If your brother is in Sunbasin, he has already lost himself in the crowd.” To me, he said, “Get your fill of this perfume while you can.” He started walking again. We all fell in step.

My entire body was weary, but my excitement made my steps light—Sunbasin was only a day away! And I could hardly wait to see a crowd of people so large that a man could hide from his enemies within it.