you choose the bridge?’ She knelt at the edge of the cliff, leaning over me but still out of my reach. I could smell her odour, old woman and humus mingled in a sickening richness.
‘I … choose … life!’ My heart was pounding in my ears. I could barely find breath to get the words out. I could claim that I did not know what I was saying, but a part of me did. The tree woman was not speaking of death and life as I knew it; those words conveyed something else when she spoke them. I suppose I could have dangled there longer, and demanded that she explain herself. I feared I made a coward’s choice, choosing my life at some hideous expense that I could not yet comprehend. At the time, with blackness at the edges of my vision, demanding the exact terms of her bargain did not seem an option. I would live first, and then do whatever I must to make it right.
In the vast distance, I heard Dewara shout. ‘Fool! Fool! She has you now! You’ve become hers! You’ve opened the way and condemned us all!’ The words came tiny but clear to my ears. I thought my fear was as fierce as it could get, but Dewara’s warning sent a fresh rush of dread surging through my body. To what had I agreed? What would the tree woman’s victory mean to me?
Yet there was no triumph in the tree woman’s voice, only acquiescence to my wish when she spoke. ‘As you have asked it, so shall it be. I take you up. Come and join us.’
I had expected that she would grasp my wrists and pull me up. Instead, she reached down and I felt her fingers touch the top of my head. My father always kept my hair cut short, no longer than the tops of my ears, as befitted a soldier son, but in my time with Dewara, it had grown out. She gripped me by the hair on the top of my head. Even then, she did not pull me up, but seemed to twine my hair in her fingers, as if getting a better grip on it.
Dimly, I became aware that Tree Woman was speaking in a raised voice. She ignored me, and sent her words over the abyss to Dewara. ‘Was this your weapon, Kidona man? This boy from the west? Ha. The magic has chosen him, and given him to me. I will use him well. Thank you for such a fine weapon, Kidona man!’
Then her voice went very soft. I think I only heard it in my mind. The words reached me as I struggled to keep my grip. She pulled relentlessly upward on my hair now, but it did not seem to lift me.
‘Grab my wrists!’ I begged her, but she did not heed me. She spoke calmly, giving me instructions. ‘To you, the magic will give a token. Guard it carefully and keep it by you. And from you, I take a token of my own. It will link us, soldier’s boy. What you speak, I will hear. I will taste the food you eat, and in turn I will fill you with my sustenance. All you are, I will share and learn.
‘To you I will give a great task; you will stop the spread of the intruders. You will turn back the tide of encroachers and destroyers from our lands. Of you I will make a tool to defeat those who would destroy us.’ As my mind reeled with pain and I attempted to understand, she lifted her voice again. ‘He serves my magic and me now, Kidona man. And you gave him to me! Go back and tell your leather-skinned folk that! You gave your weapon into my hand! And now I take it!’
Her words made no sense to me and I had no time to ponder them. My panic increased as I felt her grip tighten on my hair. She pulled suddenly upward and I felt my hair ripping out of my scalp. The pain shot down my spine. I twitched like a gaffed fish. Deep inside me, something important gave way and was dragged out of me, like a strand of thread drawn out of a piece of weaving.
Suddenly her face was so close to me that I could feel her breath on my lips. The only thing I could see were her grey green eyes as she said, ‘I have you now. You can let go.’
I did. I fell into blackness.
Somewhere close by, my parents were arguing. My mother’s voice was very tight but she was not crying; that meant she was extremely angry. Her words were clipped, the corners sharp. ‘He is my son, too, Keft. It was … unkind of you to keep me uninformed.’ Obviously, she had rejected a much harsher word than ‘unkind’.
‘Selethe. Some things are not a woman’s concern.’ From the timbre of my father’s voice, I knew he was leaning forward in his chair. I imagined his hands braced on his thighs, elbows out, his shoulders hunched against her rebuke, his stare intent.
‘When it comes to Nevare, I am not merely a woman. I am his mother.’ I knew that my mother had crossed her arms across her bosom. I could almost see her, standing arrow straight, every hair in place, spots of colour high on her cheeks. ‘Everything that concerns my son is my concern.’
‘Where he is your son, that is so,’ my father agreed blandly. But then he added sternly, ‘But this concerned Nevare as a soldier son. And where he is a soldier, the boy is mine alone.’
I felt that I had passed through many dreams to reach this place and time. But this was not a dream. This was my old life. I had found my way home. The moment that realization came to me, the other dreams faded like mist in the sunlight. I forgot everything in my haste to rejoin my life. I tried to open my eyelids but they were stuck fast. The skin of my face felt thick and stiff. When I tried to move the muscles of my face, it hurt. I recognized the feeling, from many years ago. I had been badly sunburned and my mother had coated me entirely with agu jelly. I took a deeper breath and smelled the herb’s tang. Yes.
‘He’s waking up!’ My mother’s voice was full of hope and relief.
‘Selethe. It was just a twitch. Nerves. Reflexes. Stop tormenting yourself and go get some rest. He will either recover or he won’t, regardless of whether you wear yourself out by keeping watch at his bedside. Your vigil does neither of you any good, and it may become neglect of our other children. Go and busy yourself about the house. If he awakens, I will call you.’
There was no hope in my father’s voice. To the contrary, it was heavy with resignation. I felt he rebuked himself as well as her. I heard him settle back, and recognized the creak of the reading chair in my chamber at home. Was that where I was? At home? I tried to remember where I had thought I was, but could not summon a memory of it. Like a dream examined by daylight, it had faded away to nothing.
I heard the rustle of my mother’s skirts and her light footfalls as she walked quietly to the door. She opened it, and then paused there. In a lowered, husky voice, she asked, ‘Will not you at least tell me why? Why did you entrust our son to a savage, to a man who had reason to hate you personally as well as with the tenacity of his vicious race? Why put our Nevare in harm’s way deliberately?’
I heard my father breathe out threateningly through his nose. I waited, as he did, for her to leave. I knew he would not reply to her accusation. Strangely, I recall that I wondered more about why she did not leave than I did about how he might answer her questions. I suppose that I believed so firmly that he would not reply that I did not think any reply was possible.
Then he spoke. Quietly. I had heard the words before, but somehow there, in my mother’s house, they were more freighted with meaning. ‘There are some things that Nevare can’t learn from a friend. Some lessons a soldier can learn only from an enemy.’
‘What lesson? What thing of value could he have learned from that heathen, other than how to die pointlessly?’ My mother was perilously close to tears. I knew as well as she did that if she broke, if she sobbed, my father would banish her to her rooms until she had regained control of herself. He could never abide a woman’s tears. Her voice was tight as she said, ‘He is a good son to you, willing, obedient and honest. What could he learn from a savage like that Kidona?’
‘To distrust.’ My father spoke so softly that I could barely hear him. I could scarcely believe that he spoke at all. He cleared his voice and went on more strongly. ‘I do not know if you can understand this, Selethe. This once, I will try to explain it to you. Have you ever heard of Dernel’s Folly?’
‘No.’ She spoke softly.