Foxbrush shuddered as he passed on through the orchard. Now and then, when he looked up, he thought he saw the flit of wings and the glow of bulbous eyes. Perhaps they were merely evening birds and lemurs. Perhaps they were fey folk, drawn out in the gloaming murk, ready to mock him.
“He can save Southlands?” they might ask each other. “What a laugh!”
“What a laugh,” Foxbrush whispered. How hollow and foolish all his grand plans sounded. How hollow and foolish he was! He tried to put his hands in his pockets, found he had no pockets, and stood a moment, awkwardly wondering what to do with his arms.
Suddenly his nose began to tickle. He rubbed it but could not drive back the force of an oncoming sneeze. It burst out of him with an explosive roar, and he wished very much for a clean handkerchief . . . any handkerchief at all, for that matter. Rubbing his nose with the back of his hand, he cast about for a fig leaf as a substitute.
“You were thinking of me.”
Foxbrush startled and fell back against a tree trunk, one hand still pressed to his nose, staring about. He knew that voice, or thought he did. “Where are you?” he gasped.
“Right here, darling. Didn’t you see me?”
And Nidawi the Everblooming stepped out from behind the very tree against which he’d taken shelter, sweeping around to stand before him. She was mere inches from his face, one hand pressed into the tree on either side of his head, leaning in and smiling the most secret and brilliant and dazzling of smiles.
“You were thinking of me!” she said again. “I heard you. You thought of me and something I said to you, and I heard it, so I came at once. I knew you wouldn’t be able to get me out of your mind! Are you ready to marry me now?”
25
SUN EAGLE AND DAYLILY passed through the Wood in silence and once more came to the gate. They entered the Near World and stood in the gorge, looking up to the tableland above. Daylily, dulled by now to the comings and goings, still looked unconsciously for the bridge she knew should be there. For this was the gorge near the Eldest’s House, or rather, near where it would one day be.
“Come,” said Sun Eagle, and they began the long climb. Worn and trembling, more disturbed than rested by her sleep in the Between, Daylily lagged behind Sun Eagle. He reached the top and waited there for her to catch up. A certain gnarled fig tree seemed to watch him, and he eyed it back and made certain it could see the Bronze upon his chest. It did nothing, and though Sun Eagle suspected a Faerie dwelled therein, he chose to ignore it for the moment.
In time, they would deal with them all.
Daylily reached the top of the gorge trail and sat, breathing hard and looking into the jungle. It was unusually quiet. In the deeper reaches, birds and monkeys called, but here not even the buzzing of an insect disturbed the air.
“They know who we are,” Sun Eagle said, answering Daylily’s unspoken question. “They know the master has come to this realm, and they are afraid. As they should be.”
When Daylily was rested enough, he made her get to her feet. This time, when they progressed into the jungle, they took the man-made trail. “Our brethren are spreading throughout the Land,” Sun Eagle told her. “Every tribe and every village will see us and thank us and fear us for what we do. It is good work.”
“Good work,” Daylily echoed. “But what about . . .”
There flashed through her mind an image. She saw herself holding a child, carrying him toward a yawning black door. Who was that child? Where was he now?
Ask if you dare, snarled the wolf.
So the wolf was alive. Just as she’d feared.
Yes, I’m alive. You’ll never be rid of me. Ask this Advocate of yours what happened to that child. Ask what happens to all the children!
“I’ll do nothing by your order,” Daylily whispered fiercely. “I am not your slave.”
You are a slave, but not to me, the wolf growled, then subsided for the time being. Silence fell upon Daylily’s mind, interrupted only by the shushing of the wind overhead.
For a moment, oddly enough, Daylily thought she heard a voice in that wind. Foxbrush! Foxbrush! it called as it wafted overhead. Where are you, Foxbrush?
Daylily frowned, an unpleasant taste rising in her throat. Why should she think of that name now? Of all people, Foxbrush was the very last she wanted to remember. Her spurned groom, her unwanted lover. She shuddered and quickened her pace behind Sun Eagle. He glanced back and read things in her face she did not intend to reveal. He could not read all, for he knew so little of her. But he read enough.
“You must let go of your past,” he said, “if you hope to survive in this new life.”
Her eyes flashed, and she was again, however briefly, the cold Lady Daylily of Middlecrescent, who could freeze a man’s blood with a glance. “Who are you,” she said, “to tell me what I must or must not let go? What right have you to judge?”
His face remained impassive before her tight-lipped wrath. “I am your Advocate,” he said. “I have every right. And if you wish to be an Advocate yourself one day and take on an Initiate, you will do as I say.”