Merlyn's Arc

Chapter 5 of 19

The stones stood where Thorin said. Merlyn felt them before he reached them, twelve tall shapes ringed in cold grass. His fingers found the nearest one and traced the marks. Old runes, worn soft by rain. In the center, the ash-tree waited, its bark alive under his palm. Beside him Kjell, Thorgar, and Gunnar spread out, boots crunching. But Merlyn's master's book had warned of a guardian, and the passage naming it had crumbled to dust. He did not know what watched. "Something guards this place," Merlyn said. "The book named it. I could not read the name." Gunnar set a hand on his hammer. "Then we watch the trees." Merlyn walked to the ash and drew his own hammer. He pressed his blade to the living wood. If the guardian would not show itself, he would force its hand by cutting. The grass moved. A small shape rose from the roots, no taller than a child, its hair a knot of leaves and green shoots. Two eyes burned orange in its face. It stepped between Merlyn and the tree and did not flinch. "Take your iron off my bark," it said. Kjell moved his hand to his axe. Merlyn lifted an open palm to stop him. He knew a keeper when he heard one. This was no beast to fight. "You tend it," Merlyn said. "I do." The keeper touched the trunk. "This tree cut its water last year. Two saplings downhill died for it. I left a tree once, thinking it dead. I was wrong. I will not be wrong again." The orange eyes did not blink. "You want its heart-wood. Cutting it living kills it." "I need it living," Merlyn said. "For my eyes." He touched the leather over his blind sockets. "My father died blind. His father too. This wood is the price to end that." The keeper was quiet. "Your want does not matter to the tree." Merlyn knelt. He pressed both palms to the roots and let his tattoos glow. He read the tree the way he read a seal, feeling for its lines. He found the drought-scars, the shut channels, the crown dying from the top down. "It is sick," Merlyn said. "The roots strangle each other. Left alone, it dies whole. Let me cut the dead crownwood. Free the rest. The tree lives. I get my heart-wood from the part already dying." The keeper stared at him. Then it climbed the trunk and pressed an ear to the high branches. It came down slow. "The dead wood chokes it," the keeper said. "You read true." It stepped aside. "Cut only what I mark. No more." Merlyn struck. His hammer bit the dead crownwood the keeper marked. A pale chunk fell into his hands, still wet with sap. Living heart-wood, taken without killing the tree. He had the last piece. But the wood was not the whole price. The rune still demanded a life, and no boar would pay it now.