Forest Mage

“Well, you should have done something more!”



“Perhaps I could have, if I’d had time. But on my way home, your friend Hoster’s men shot me.”



“He thought you were a murderer,” she said. She sounded angry and embarrassed.



“I still can’t believe you trusted that man!” I retorted. She stopped and looked up at me, and her eyes suddenly filled with tears.



“You should just say it and get it over with, Nevare. It’s my fault that you’re in that cell facing death. I betrayed you. I’m so sorry! So sorry.”



“Oh, Epiny, I didn’t mean it that way! You didn’t betray me. All you did was what you thought you should do, keep faith with a man you trusted. And maybe by his own lights, he was a good man. If he believed me such a monster and a threat to the women of the town, then maybe he was justified in sending those men after me. It’s all about what we believe, isn’t it? Not just Gernians and Specks, but even down to individuals like Hoster and you. All we can do is what we think is right, driven by what we know, or what we think we know.”



“Nonetheless, I feel it was my fault. And that was why I had to go to the forest today. To do whatever I could, at any cost, to free you from that cell.” She was no longer meeting my eyes. She trudged on. The forest brush was getting thicker. She pushed her way through.



“Epiny, you don’t have to do anything more.” The ringing of axes came louder now. I could see the sunlight at the edge of the clearing ahead and smell the drifting smoke of the burning slash piles. The work crews were close. “Just get yourself safely home. And if there is any way you can get those berries to me, please do that. And then stay away from whatever happens next, knowing you’ve done your best.”



“Would you go back on your given word, Nevare?” Her hair had tangled in a bush. She stopped and made an exasperated sound as she pulled it free.



“Of course not!”



“Then how can you suggest that I do that? I told Lisana that I’d do whatever I could to save the ancestor trees. I intend to keep my word.”



“Epiny, I don’t think that Major Helford is going to give you any more credence than Colonel Haren gave me. Less, because you’re a woman.”



“Such a comforting thing to say to me, Nevare!” I could sense her anger coming to a boil and felt helpless to stop it. I feared that when it bubbled over, we would all be scalded.



“Epiny, what can you do?”



She halted. We could hear men’s voices ahead of us. I felt a sudden bolt of fear. I’d brought her here assuming that the work crews would offer her help. What if they didn’t? What if they abused her?



“I shouldn’t have brought you this way, Epiny. Most of the men on these crews are prisoners. And their guards don’t strike me as much better.”



“Actually, I think this is the best way you could have guided me, Nevare. It will give me the opportunity to see how they are working, and where, and what they are using. That is information that will help me stop them.”



She was patting her hair back into order and brushing at her skirts as she spoke. She was tidying herself, I realized, before she walked out to meet the work crew.



“Epiny, what can you possibly do to stop them?” I asked in a low voice.



“I was thinking explosives,” she replied brightly. “I’ve heard they’ve been using them to fell trees. Perhaps they’d work to make them stop felling trees.”



“Oh, the good god’s mercy on us all! Epiny, let that idea go. All you’ll do is succeed at hurting yourself or others. Where would you get explosives, anyway?”



She turned and gave me a sly smile. “Have you forgotten? My husband is in charge of supply.”



Then she lifted her hand from mine. All around me, the forest sparkled unbearably and then dissolved into floating dust. A moment later, I was staring up at the ceiling of my cell. I groaned and covered my eyes.



CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE



COURT-MARTIAL



T hey woke me early on the day of my trial. I was given a basin of warm water and a rag to wash myself. When I thanked the guard, he told me gruffly, “It’s for the benefit of the court, not you!”



The water was filthy long before I finished. Just the caked blood from the side of my head had turned it a rusty brown. I wished for a mirror, then was glad I didn’t have one. My hair and my whiskers had grown out. I hadn’t changed my clothing since the day I’d awakened in the cell. Grave earth still smudged my knees, and my own blood stained my shirt and jacket. The cuffs of my trousers seemed to have picked up some very real burrs and thorns on my dreamwalk. I’d lost weight, but not in the way of a man who had worked it off. My flesh hung slack on my body; my face sagged. I suspected that many people would flock to my trial expecting to see a monster. Thanks to my confinement, I would look the part.