Asher Converse's Arc

Chapter 3 of 30

The roof held. Now the debt came due. At dawn Asher found Tucker outside the grain house, leaning on the wall with a coin walking across his knuckles. "I owe the wizard a walk into the grove," Asher said. "I don't know the first thing about tree-folk." Tucker pocketed the coin. "Sick trees. Sick tempers. They don't like strangers with axes." He looked Asher over. "You'll want someone who's talked his way past worse. Lucky for you, I've got the morning free." "You're coming?" "I steered you into this. Seems fair I see how it ends." Tucker almost smiled. "Besides, I like watching a man work." Asher armed himself. He took a short axe for the wood and a knife for his belt. They met Chalam at the edge of the grove. The wizard stood in his open blue robe, staff in hand, the split running up the wood like a wound. The boy was not with him. "Left the boy behind," Chalam said before Asher asked. "My staff's cracked. Near a binding, it can't shield him. He'd have dropped where he stood." He said it plainly, as a fact against himself. They walked in. The rot was worse than Asher expected. Bark peeled in gray sheets. A smell like wet ash hung low. Then the tree-folk came out of the trunks, slow and thin, watching. One raised a branched hand and would not let them pass. Chalam lifted his staff. The dryads stared at the crack in the wood and stepped back. Fear moved through them. "They don't trust a broken staff," Chalam said. "They think it brought the rot." Asher set down his axe. He held out empty hands. "He didn't bring your sickness. He came to find it." He nodded at the peeling trunks. "You've lost trees faster than you can grow them. He can read what's killing the roots. But he can't read it if you turn him at the gate." The tree-folk did not move. Asher pulled the gold chain from his throat and held it up in the gray light. "This mattered to someone once. I carry it because a promise is worth carrying. He made you a promise. Let him keep it." The branched hand lowered. The dryads parted. Chalam knelt at a dying root. He opened his satchel and took the first vial, then the second. He pressed powder to the bark and watched it turn black. His face went hard. "This isn't sickness," he said. "It's a binding signature. Something under this grove was sealed here. The seal is failing. That's what rots the roots." Asher looped the chain back over his neck. "So the tree-folk get their answer." "They get worse," Chalam said. "Whatever was buried is waking. And I know the hand that reaches these sites before me." He stood. "I'll need men who can fight. And a place to gather them where no one asks questions." Tucker looked at Asher. "You've got an empty tavern."