Oos shrugged prettily and looked at her feet.
“I’ve become an accomplished musician, Unar. I’ve travelled the twelve towns of Understorey, playing with Marram, while Ylly and Hasbabsah tended the sick. Though I’m sure you noticed Hasbabsah is gone.” Yes. Unar remembered Leapael’s voice. Great-Grandmother is dying. “We couldn’t go to Gannak, because of the history that Marram has there, but you’ll see when you go outside, Unar. It’s only in the summer that the great trees stand apart. In the dry season, there are ropes and bridges connecting all of these people in a vital, beautiful web. They have so little, but they all work together. And what is the Garden but the place where the goddess resides? All this time, we’ve had her here, with us. We’ll miss her.”
“The Garden is more than that,” Unar muttered, dunking her hair in a bucket and shivering as she worked out the soapleaf lather with her fingers.
“What is it, then?”
“I don’t know.” But she did know. It was the place where Aoun waited.
I will not weep.
*
AUDBLAYIN OPENED the barrier for the diverse little party.
Leaper climbed the fastest, scuttling up the vertical surface like a skink. The snake-tooth spines seemed large on his lithe body, compared to Bernreb’s, but Unar supposed hers were proportionally the same. Third in line after Leaper and Bernreb went Issi, with a swiftness and stamina that made Unar think, with another pang, of Edax. Seventeen years since he had died, and who still mourned him? Aforis, perhaps. Perhaps even the goddess Ehkis. The old acquaintances of a deity might seem fireside tales, but the heroes of tales could be as close as kin if the tales were told with conviction.
Issi would want to meet her real mother, Unar supposed. She wasn’t sure she could remember the way to the House of Epatut.
Fourth was the goddess Audblayin herself, less sure of her climbing skills than the others. Or maybe her mind was on the task ahead, of claiming her rightful place while keeping her father and siblings from harm.
Fifth, and last, came Unar. To be higher than a goddess was disrespectful, after all, and she would have to be careful not to touch Audblayin anymore. It might have been an aftereffect of her long sleep, or simple reluctance to confront her failure again, but she climbed through the barrier almost wishing it would close on her.
Magic rushed into her lower belly as she returned to Canopy, swirling invisibly around her, welcoming her like an old friend. Audblayin gasped and went limp, hanging from the tree like a piece of fruit, until Unar climbed up to her and kissed her cheek.
One final touch.
The aroma of quince and wood fern was overpowering.
“Wake up, Holy One,” she said.
Audblayin’s lashes fluttered.
“What’s wrong with her?” Leaper called down the trunk of the great tree.
“Nothing,” Unar called back. She lowered her voice. “Can you keep climbing, Holy One?” She knew what was wrong. She had gone to merge with the tallowwood, only to find Audblayin already merged with it.
“I think so,” Audblayin said faintly, and struck out with her forearm at the tree. She followed up with the opposite knee. “It hurts her, when we climb.”
“She doesn’t mind,” Unar said, hovering, waiting to catch Audblayin if she fell. “Pain reminds her that she is alive.”
They reached the platform in front of the Great Gate before noon, as Audblayin had wished. The carved doors themselves were open. Aoun stood outside them with a shaven-headed Gardener, now a white-robed Servant, whom Unar vaguely remembered.
Aoun carried the lantern of his office in smooth fingers that had never been scarred by fighting. His handsome face carried a little more flesh around neck and jaw, he wore a short, tidy beard and his eyes seemed slightly more hooded, but the steadiness, the solidness of him, had not changed.
“Are you the Gatekeeper?” Bernreb asked him.
Unar made a choking sound.
Aoun looked at her and frowned, slightly. He opened his mouth as if to speak, said nothing, and pressed his lips closed again.
“Only devotion to wickedness,” the shaven-headed Servant said, her eyes wide, “could have kept you so young, Gardener Unar.”
But Aoun directed open astonishment towards Audblayin, now, and his hand holding the lantern trembled.
“It’s not wickedness, Iririn,” he breathed. “Audblayin has come home. It was she whom Unar brought to me in the middle of the battle. Wasn’t it, Unar? But I didn’t know her. I didn’t take her.”
“It’s well that you did not,” Audblayin said, as the two white-robed Servants sank to their knees. “New life does not need love to grow, but I have felt it, stronger this time than ever before, and I will grow it too, wherever I can. There will be no more slaves in the Garden. Adepts will serve by their own free will or not at all. Stand up, you two who have pledged yourselves to me. I go to see the king, and I require formal robes and a suitable retinue.”
“Of course, Holy One.” Iririn jumped up and went into the Garden. Unar thought she might vomit with envy at the way the wards parted for the woman.
“Aoun, my Gatekeeper,” Audblayin said, and another spasm went through Unar’s body at that. Aoun belonged to this woman, body and soul.
She would never use that body for what I would use it for, Unar thought, her treacherous body aching in a way she had never thought it would ache again.
“Holy One,” Aoun said, his composure recovered.
“This is my middle-father, Bernreb. I wish him to be my Bodyguard. He cannot enter the Garden. He cannot go to the night-yew tree. I wish a house to be built for him, here, outside the wards.”
Aoun inclined his head.
“I’ll send a message begging the wood god for his assistance with this task, Holy One.”
“There’s no need. The Godfinder is suited to the work. I will move away so that you may speak together. She will be allowed to use my power.” Audblayin gave Unar an unreadable glance. “For this undertaking alone, Unar. Do you understand?”
“I understand, Holy One,” Unar said. Oh, she understood. She was not to try to force her way into the Garden. She was not to try to extract any secrets from Aoun. Like Bernreb, she would loiter outside the wards, but that didn’t mean she was not bound to serve and obey.
She laughed, darkly, as the goddess turned away, leaving her with a man who still made her skin prickle and her hands clench to keep from touching him.
“What is your desire, Gatekeeper?” she asked distantly, pleasantly. “What design shall I sculpt for you with the limited magic I am to be permitted?”
“Unar.”
“Yes, Aoun?”
“How is it you haven’t changed?”
“But I have changed, Aoun. Just not where anybody can see.”