Chalam Othworld's Arc

Chapter 3 of 3

Chalam's cracked staff had steadied the boy once. It would not do it twice. He turned the wood in his hands that night and found the split running deeper. The boy needed his own staff, one that could soak up a binding's roar without breaking. Chalam had no wood strong enough. He knew a man who might. He found Rowan Fisk at the edge of a quiet grove, kneeling over a fallen branch. Rowan had been raised by dryads. He knew which wood held enchantment and which bled it out. He was pulling bark loose with his thumbnail and smelling it. He did not look up. "Rot," Rowan said. "Out of season. Something's killing these trees." He dropped the bark. "You didn't walk all this way for my company." "I need a staff," Chalam said. "One that won't crack under a binding. For a boy who hears too much." Aldric Thornwick stepped from the trees behind Rowan. Chalam's old friend held a rolled map under one arm. He spoke plain, as he always did. "I told him you'd ask. I also told him what happened to your last staff." "Then you know why I need a better one," Chalam said. Rowan stood. He studied Chalam a long moment. "The dryads could make one. Yew for power. Ash for hold. It would take days, and they don't work for coin." He nodded at the grey trees. "They're sick. Whatever's rotting these groves, it's spreading. Ask them for a staff, you're asking them to spend strength they don't have." Chalam looked at the dying wood. He thought of the boy curled in the dirt, hands over his ears. A staff would save the boy. But taking one now might cost the dryads a tree they could not spare. A dryad came through the trees then. Her skin was grey bark. Leaves hung from her like a dress. She carried a bunch of flowers, though the grove around her was brown. She looked at Chalam, then at the branch Rowan had dropped. "You want wood," she said. Her voice was soft. "We are losing wood faster than we can grow it." "I'll trade," Chalam said. "Not coin. Help. This rot has a cause. I know binding magic. Rowan knows your craft. Find what's killing your groves, and I'll give you that. First." The dryad watched him. Then she reached into her leaves and drew out a slim length of pale wood, half-carved already. "We began this before you came. Yew and ash, bound together." She held it out. "It is not finished. Finish it, and it is the boy's. But you finish our trouble first." Chalam took the wood. It hummed faint against his palm, alive. The boy would have his staff. But not yet. Now Chalam owed the dryads a cure for a rot he did not understand, and the sickness was spreading through the trees while he stood there.