Ironwood

Deraun was always nervous in the quiet, and knew that this made him speak too much. Yet, unused for months, his tongue was desperate for sounds, and he licked his lips before he spoke.

“Yes sir, I did my ten years in the king’s army, and retired with full benefits.” The store-owner had not asked him about any of this, but Deraun felt compelled to tell someone. Masters knew, he hadn’t had a decent conversation with anyone since leaving Shaohad. The store-owner did not oblige him with a response.

Deraun licked his lips again, and pat his stomach anxiously, drawing attention to the faded yellow sash around his waist that had been given to him at his retirement. The store-owner grunted, a token symbol of respect to the king’s army. Deraun did his best to grin, despite the sudden sweat on his brow, and continued.

“I bought myself a woman, and got rights for a plot of land. On my way there to build myself a ranch.” Deraun had been planning the venture for his entire service in the army, and was desperate to explain the idea to someone. He had been a clerk, and something of a pariah for his station, so no one in the infantry had wanted to hear about it.

The store-owner didn’t so much as look up from behind the counter. He was too busy squinting at a ledger, trying to get a sense of his inventory. The store was only one room, with a supply shed in the back. If the store saw a hundred gold rings a year then Deraun was a damned silk-throated Talliman, and Deraun doubted that the inventory could be so complicated. He was being ignored.

“You’ll be wanting fennel seed.” The store-owner said at last, as if he hadn’t hear Deraun’s previous order. “Ain’t worth much as a crop, but nothing much else grows around these parts.” The store-owner wrote something down on a clean sheet of paper and handed it to a boy standing behind him. The boy ran out the back door with a look of purpose. Deraun watched him go, and grimaced. This was not going at all as he had planned.

“No sir, I’ll not be needing any fennel seed. I think you heard me wrong.” Deraun figured there was no need to be rude, yet. “I sure as Meranor’s Sin ain’t no farmer. I’m going to raise cattle, and make a new life as a gentleman. Got myself enough money for a hundred head, just as soon as I get a place built to live and settle my family.”

The store-owner snorted. “You can’t raise cattle in these parts. We ain’t got the water or the land to keep ‘em. Don’t you know where you are?” Deraun thought this question was especially snide, but the store-owner continued without stopping. “This whole part of the coast is shard rotted. You try breeding anything as big as cattle here, all you’ll get is Mu’s. You couldn’t sell a Mu to a starving man, let alone turn money on it. Trust me, you want the fennel seed. It’s the only way you”ll be able to scrape out a living.”

Deraun gave his most patient smile, and blushed so intensely it felt like his face was going to burst. You had to be patient with folks, if you wanted to get on with them, and Deraun desperately needed to get on with someone. “I ain’t building here. I just needed to stop for supplies. Easier on the oxen if I get the heavy goods on the last leg of the trip.” Deraun was proud of himself for having figured this out. It represented the kind of logistical sense needed to run a cattle ranch.

The store-owner looked up from his ledger and blinked. He was flummoxed. “Where you going, mister? I know you had to come from north country because there ain’t nothing to the south of us… folks east of here got all the cattle they need, and you look like you’d know that. Where’d you say you was heading?”

“South.” Deraun punctuated this by tapping a gold ring on the counter top. Flash a little gold, that’d get his attention. “I’m going to put up roots down south. I’ll have all the land to myself that way.” The store-owner’s face went white as his apron, and his pen stopped abruptly.

“How much further south?” the store-owner asked, wringing his hands.

“Another fifty rods, or so. I’ll stop as soon as I can find myself a place with good water.” Deraun knew that if you wanted to have a big herd you needed lots of water. If you didn’t have enough water all the money in the world wouldn’t save you. He’d read it. He’d read a lot of things while the regular infantry was out spending their drink on women and wine.

“You blooming fool. What in the Masters’ name would you go and do a dumb thing like that for? The Ironwoods are down there!” The store-owner took a step back from the counter, as if he was no longer sure that Deraun could be trusted. His eyes darted from side to side, as if seeking a weapon.

“You got yourself scared over that old superstition?” Deraun laughed in a manner he thought was reassuring, but he could already feel the conversation unraveling. This was not going the way he wanted at all. He had never had an easy way with people, and was upset to find such blatant opposition to his plans.

In a last effort to restore decorum, Deraun pulled his collar down to reveal the white scarf tied around his neck. “Witnesses don’t hold with none of those old stories. We’ve got Alarell looking after us. The Shaen won’t touch a Witness.”

“Mister, you’re crazy! Everyone knows you go any farther south than this, and you’re in a heap of trouble. Those trees will jump out and eat you whole while you’re sleeping. Whatever they are, they ain’t Shaen, and won’t nothing protect you from ‘em. Call down the name of Alarell all you want, I tell ya, you’re crazy!”

Deraun, affronted, ran his hands over his mouth as if to hold back his own insults. He was surprised to find he was more angry than hurt. “Listen here, I need nails, saws, and tools. Now can I get those here or not?” The serving boy kicked open the back door and came in carrying two sacks of seed over his shoulders. He looked from the store owner to Deraun, sensing the tension, and frowned.

“You want me to load up your wagon, mister?” the boy asked. Deraun put the coin on the counter. The gold gleamed.

“Can I get my order, or can’t I?” His voice was soft, inviting no further conversation.

The store-owner looked at the gold coin and bit his lower lip. With great effort he turned away from the coin and back to Deraun. His eyes were wet with sincerity. “Mister, please you gotta listen. You take your family down there… and you’re all gonna die.”

“Nails, saws, and hammers.” Deraun slammed his hand on the counter for emphasis, and left.

*****

Talori was teaching Sett a game played with strings when Deraun got back to the wagons. They sat in the jockey box facing each other, their fingers connected by what looked like a hundred different strands. Although Talori was a small woman, Sett’s young hands were dwarfed by his mother’s. Although he was the husband, and knew it was wrong, Deraun was always nervous when he needed to talk to Talori.

“Not much of a game for a boy, is it?” said Deraun.

Talori did not so much as turn her head away from Sett. Deraun frowned. There was no interacting with Talori. She was as stubbornly silent as the day he had first taken her out of Shaohad. She’d held her the same stoic silence in all the months it had taken to come south from Shaohad. “He’s young yet. A game of Strings won’t hurt him.” Deraun looked over his shoulder to see if anyone had overheard.

“Why aren’t you wearing your scarf?”

“It’s hot. It was making my neck sweat.” Deraun walked up to his wife, and calmly slapped her across the face. Not hard. Deraun knew it was a weakness, but he was gentle to a fault. Yet there wasn’t much more important to him than his faith.

“Go and get it. Get Sett’s too. We’re Witnesses now. We’ll wear the scarf just like the nobles do.” Talori stared at the front of the jockey box. Her eyes were red. She made no move to leave. Deraun sighed. He had thought they were over this. Then, he had also figured she would have learned her place by now. He had been the same way with his pets as a child, too lenient and then having to come down twice as hard when they kept refusing to obey.

“Listen here, Talori. I’ve never hit you when you didn’t have it coming. How many women can say they have a husband like that?” Talori refused to meet his gaze. Refused to see his attempts to be reasonable.

“Talori, please pay attention!” Deraun grabbed her by the chin pulled until she was forced to meet his eyes. “We’re going to have a hard enough time out there, without you holding onto all these old ideas of yours. I’m your husband. I bought you fair. That means you’ve got to learn to do what I say.” Talori stared at him, unblinking.

“Say you understand.” It was an order, although Deraun hoped one day she would obey without threats.

“I understand, Deraun.” Talori murmured, before tearing her head out of his grasp. She picked up Sett and took him to the supply wagon. Deraun kicked the dirt and struck the side of his wagon with an open palm. The woman would learn to obey one way or another. He was about to curse when he noticed the serving boy standing behind him.

The boy couldn’t figure out whether he needed to load the supplies in the supply wagon, where there was no room, or the Road Boat, where they seemed out of place. Deraun cleared a place for him in the supply wagon, and the two set to work. When they were done, Deraun pressed a copper ring into the boy’s palm.

“You looking for work?” The servant boy stopped, uncertain that he was being addressed.

“Yessir, I ‘spose I’m always lookin’ for work.”

“I’m going to need some ranch hands. You interested?” Sett wouldn’t be big enough to do much else but feed the chickens till he was a few years older, and Deraun wasn’t eager to set him to work anyway.

“I ‘spose I could do that, sir. Where abouts you setting up?”

Deraun told him.

The boy took off running and Deraun had to close the back of the wagon himself.

He contented himself with knowing that in a few years time he would be a gentleman, and then the people of this town would learn their place.

*****

It took five days of travel to find a spot with enough water.

After they stopped the wagons by the lake, Deraun waded out with a stick until the water was up to his waist. He felt ahead, and smiled when he realized he could not touch the bottom. After he dried and put his clothes back on, Deraun paced off the width and length of the lake, which took the rest of the day. After riding in the wagon so long, walking filled him with an uncontainable vigor, and he whistled as he worked. His years as a clerk had given him a head for numbers, and the volume he calculated was more than he had hoped.

When he was done, he gathered Sett and Talori by the supply wagon and gave them each a piece of hard candy he’d been saving to celebrate.

“That lake will water a thousand head of cattle. That’s twice what I was hoping to find.” Deraun pointed to the thriving meadows all around them. “We’ll let them graze here, we won’t even hardly have to fence them in because they’ll want to stay close to the water.” Deraun had spent years planning for the ranch and his eventual rise to nobility. He’d spent that time figuring out all the particulars of his new life. He was so excited that not even Talori’s characteristic dourness could hold him back.

“We’ll cut down some of the trees over there…” He picked up Sett so the boy could share in the vision. Deraun pretended not to see Talori wince as he put his hands on Sett, and began to point from place to place. She’d learn to accept it in time. The boy was his son now, and it was about time they both accepted that fact.

“Like I was saying, Sett, we’ll get some of them trees over there and cut ‘em down, and we’ll build ourselves a cabin. Nothing big, least not for now. But that’s evergreen wood, and it’ll last us till long after the cattle to come. We get the cattle here, hire a couple of hands to help out, grow the herd every year, and we’ll be rolling in it in no time. Then we’ll see how superstitious these south folk are when they see a handful of gold.”

They lit a fire that night, and Sett, excited by Deraun’s exuberence even if he did not understand it, convinced Talori to take out the fiddle. It was the only thing Deraun had allowed her to keep of her former life, as he found music to be a chaste habit for a virtuous woman. Talori played long into the night, and when she thought Deraun had fallen asleep she played a song to make the land weep.

Deraun thought about telling her he was awake, but it seemed too much effort for too little an infraction. He had the rest of her days… let her have her one song.

*****

Felling trees proved to be a combination of exciting, unpredictable, and dangerous. The saws he’d bought had been made with a handle at each end for two men to work back and forth, and Talori wasn’t strong enough to work the other end. By himself it was more than twice the work, but he managed. By the end of the first day, he’d felled five trees, giant evergreens more than ten staffs high, that crackled as they fell. Still by the wagon, Sett jumped every time one hit the ground.

After the trees proved too hard to move, Deraun had Talori use a smaller saw to cut off the branches. When they still proved immovable, Deraun was forced to cut the timbers to length. The oxen had a hard time pulling even those lengths. By the end of the day his muscles felt like jelly, and his hands were blistered, but he had a quarter of the lumber he needed. He grabbed Sett from Talori and walked with the boy down the length of the timbers. He did it partly because Talori was too possessive of the child, but mostly because he needed someone to talk with. Even if Sett didn’t respond, it wasn’t because it was his choice to be silent.

“Everything there is in the whole wide world, has got three things to it, Sett.” Deraun held up three fingers and let Sett grab each one. “It’s got a length, a width, and a height. If you know those three things and use ‘em all together then you can know how much of something you got. The way I see it, a man’s got to know what he has if he wants to know himself.”

He took Sett and showed the boy how to count off lengths using his hands and feet. It would be a while yet before Sett could learn to add and multiply, but Deraun aimed to see him counting backwards and forwards by twos and fives and tens before the turn of the season.

“I’m going to teach you how to count, Sett. Numbers are what separates the nobles from the common folk, see? Numbers are what pulled me off the field, so I wouldn’t have to die with all the footmen. Numbers put me behind a desk so I could count things nobody else could count. Numbers are what made me save up my pay and invest it, so I could have money when I got through in the army. See boy? Numbers are what gave me enough money to get a highborn lady and you, and I aim to see you learn them.”

After supper, Deraun took Sett with him under the wagon for bed, and taught him to count on his fingers. “Best way to remember is to figure each of your fingers has got a name.” Deraun named Sett’s fingers one through ten, and made the boy repeat each name. On their second visit to the number five, Talori began to cry from inside the wagon.

“Well, if you’d eaten your supper you wouldn’t be feeling this way, now would you?” Deraun spat.

Talori said she hadn’t been hungry, and then ask for Sett to come inside the wagon with her, claiming it was cold. Deraun rolled his eyes, but finally relented. He was glad to see that Sett was reluctant to leave.

“Tomorrow, we’re going to start learning about Alarell, and Meranor’s Sin. You hear me, Sett?” Sett nodded, and disappeared inside the wagon.

*****

“How many stars are there in the sky, Sett?” Sett flashed his hands open and closed many times. He had caught onto counting quickly. “And for all those stars, how many suns are there?” Sett held up one finger. Deraun rubbed his hands in Sett’s hair. The boy was smart, and it made him proud.

“So it was with the Haestan. Do you know who the Haestan were?” Sett shook his head. “You’ve heard of the Masters though, right?” Sett nodded. “Haestan is what educated people call the Masters. So it’s very important you remember that name if you want people to think you’re smart. Haestan, not Masters. Can you remember, that Sett?”

Sett nodded again.

“Well there were many Haestan, but not so many as there were stars in the sky. There was Talos the wise, and Braynoch the bold, and Talarell the shrewd, and many others. Many names, Sett, but there was only one true god among them and his name was Alarell. Can you say that name?”

“Alarell.” Sett smiled.

“Good, now go fetch me the planer and I’ll tell you the rest. You know what the planer is, yes?” Sett ran to fetch it. Deraun had cut the logs into planks, and was just finished tamping down the ground for the foundation. He’d be laying the foundation next. He’d read a book on building once long ago, and taken the words from the pages to heart. Sett came back moments later, and Deraun set to work as he spoke.

“Alarell was first among the Masters, but he was more than that. He was a god. Do you know what god means, Sett?”

Sett did not.

“God is in everything. God is in the hills, in the sky, and in the sun. God is in you, and in me and everything that lives. God is what protects us from the Shaen, and what came back to us on Standing Day. The most important thing I can ever teach you is that God’s name is Alarell. So you remember that, okay? Alarell. It’s the most important name you’ll ever know, more important even than your own.”

Sett said “Alarell.”

Deraun touched his scarf and then touched Deraun’s. Since he had taken over dressing Sett in the morning, the boy refused to leave the house without it. It made Deraun proud. “Alarell died a long time ago to protect the world, and through his sacrifice, became God. He came back five years ago, and now he’s waiting out there somewhere in the world until his human body grows into a man. This cloth means we’re going to stand by him when that happens and be Saved. That’s what it means to be a Witness.”

“Alarell.”

“Yes,” Deraun smiled, “Alarell. That’s the most important name you’ll ever learn.”

Later that night Deraun found Talori holding her pagan medallion, and showing it to Sett. He thought he’d forced her to leave it behind when he’d bought her, and was angry that she’d kept it secret from him. It was engraved with the image of Elem, who was so loved by the heathen Angardi. Angry as he was, Deraun only hit her a few times. Enough to let her know he was upset, but not so many that he caused lasting damage. Then he grabbed her by the arm and walked her to the lake and forced her to throw the medallion into the water.

She did it only when he raised his arm to slap her again.

Deraun held Sett close and spoke soothing words to him, as his mother fell into a fit of hysterics by the lake.

“Aren’t you glad you have me as a husband?” he said, when it was all done and she was crying in the wagon. “If you didn’t have me, you’d be sent to Ewil Brenven when you die, sure as cows piss on flat rocks. You may hate me, but I saved your soul tonight.”

He twisted her arm until she agreed she was thankful. He kissed her on the cheek and they set off to bed.

Sett watched and said “Alarell.”

From then on, Talori slept alone in the wagon.

******

Deraun filled the spaces between the timbers with moss and mud, as he had read. For the roof, he collected long grasses, and left them inside the the unfinished house to dry so they would be ready when the time for thatching came. The days were warm and the work was comfortable. He had left Shaohad a few weeks before spring so that he would have time to build his cabin properly before winter set in. Ten years he had been planning his life, and it showed in every action he took.

The only thing that bothered him at all was that Talori was eating less and less, although it was offset by the fact she had become much more placid in recent weeks. He confronted her about it when he completed framing the house.

“You sick, Talori?” He put his hand to her head, looked into her eyes, and then made her stick out her tongue. When he could find nothing, he made her pee in a bucket. It was clear and smelled sweet. The only thing he noticed was a slight discoloration in her skin. She was as pale as a Samaeraeli jester.

“Do you feel dizzy, Talori?”

“No, Deraun. I feel fine. Just not hungry is all.” She was meek when she said this, never taking her eyes off her shoes.

She didn’t look fine. Deraun thought Talori looked about as miserable as a woman of her breeding could. Whatever she had, it was no doubt serious.

“You getting tired?”

“No. I feel fine. Just not hungry.”

“We’re taking you to a Doctor when we go to town tomorrow. I’m going to send for those cattle now, the ranch will be long ready by the time they get here, anyway. Time I see about hiring a few men on here to help out. How’s that sound?”

Talori said nothing.

Deraun pulled her close and kissed her.

“Don’t worry, you’ll be fine.”

She gave no struggle when he came to her later that night.

Deraun was pleased. She had fought him tooth and nail after their wedding.

*****

The Doctor refused to see them.

He was pleasant enough at first, even going so far as to invite them in for tea, which is all these southlanders ever drank. Then he asked where they were from. They were on the street again in a few minutes with a firm warning never to come back, lest the Doctor fetch the constable. Deraun had been furious. He was still furious.

“Alarell bleedin’ at Ragnad!” He cursed, and several passersby stopped to look at him. Talori stood to the side and stared nervously at her hands. She had begun twitching on the wagon ride north to town.

“Masters damned country bonesaw wasn’t worth a piss anyway. You hear me, you damned bumpkin bonesaws!” Deraun shouted back at the Doctor’s house.

Talori said something.

“What?” Deraun screamed, still furious.

“I said I feel fine, Deraun. Nothing’s wrong with me. Let’s just… let’s just go home… darling.” She looked like she was on the verge of sicking up. Deraun should have been angry at her for speaking her mind in public, but it was the first time she had ever used an affectionate term with him, and he couldn’t find it in himself to be angry.

“No, Talori.” Deraun held her close and let the southlanders think of that what they would. “We’re going to get you some help, even if the bonesaws in this town is a superstitious old fool.” Deraun spit on the ground in front of the Doctor’s office.

“You looking for some help?” A boy asked. He looked like a beggar.

“Is there another doctor in this town?” Deraun asked.

The boy shook his head.

“We ain’t got no doctor, but Mender Grunna is just as good. Better, my ma says.”

“That an herb woman?”

“She gives herbs sometimes. Sometimes she has people do other things. She lives out of town though, and you’ll have to travel a bit to see her.”

Deraun asked where and the boy gave a rough explanation. Mender Grunn lived a few miles south on their way back to the cabin. Seeing as how he knew of no other option than to travel another week north, Deraun thanked the boy, gave him a handful of coppers and set about the rest of his business.

Deraun left his letter of order at the local inn. With it, he left money for the letter to be carried by the next traveling merchant north to Shaohad, where he had arranged for his bank to disperse the funds to the cattle ranch that was going to send him a hundred head. He also included in the letter an offer of work for whatever qualfied ranch hands would like to join him on the ranch. They’d be pricey no doubt, but Deraun figured he’d have more luck luring easterners to work for him than he would getting a single southlander.

Talori shook in the wagon seat. The trip must have taken its toll on her, for she looked worse in the town than she ever had at the cabin. If she’d had a fever, he would have thought she’d been struck down with the Pale. Deraun put his arm around her to still her trembles.

“Don’t worry, Talori. We’ll get you seen to, you’ve my word on it.”

She almost sobbed with gratitude.

*****

Mender Grunna had nine cats. They were all black, and the ones Deraun saw up close had purple eyes. One hissed at him as he made his way to the door, and another clawed at Sett before Deraun took a step as if to kick, and it ran away. After that, Sett grabbed ahold of his leg for safety. Deraun had never liked cats, and told Sett he was no coward for fearing them. The door swung open before Deraun had a chance to knock.

“Who’s out there botherin’ my cats?” Mender Grunna was a squat woman, toothless, and apparently blind. Her cataracts were an almost milky white, yet she stared into Deraun’s face as if she could see fine.

“I was told you know medicine.”

“Medicine I know, you I don’t.” Mender Grunna let her eyes travel from Deraun’s face down to his toes and back again. “You from town? How come you didn’t go to the bonesaws?”

“Never mind that, I’ve got money. I need you to look at my wife.”

“I don’t work for strangers.”

Mender Grunna made as if to close the door, but Deraun hefted his coin pouch in one hand, and the sight of it made Mender Grunna hesitate. After Deraun brought out a gold ring, Talori was inside almost instantly.

Mender Grunna ran her through all the usual tests Deraun had seen doctors perform. She put her finger in a jar of Talori’s piss and licked it, she made Talori rinse her mouth out with water and breathe into her face, she looked in the mouth, ears, and eyes, and she held her hand against Talori’s head. Some things she did Deraun had never seen anyone do before, like poke all over Talori’s body asking if there was any pain. She spent an especially long time kneading Talori’s breasts between her hands, and Deraun almost said something but she stopped abruptly.

“She ain’t got no fever. No lumps either.” Mender Grunna announced. “What’s wrong with her aside from not eating? If she’s got blood sick, there’s nothing I can do for that. She’s young yet to get blood sick, but I’ve seen it before. You feel tired?”

Talori shook her head.

“How much is she eating?”

“Maybe one meal every few days. No more than that.”

“How much weight has she lost?”

“None.”

Mender Grunna turned to Deraun very slowly. Her brows furrowed around her milky white eyes. Her toothless gums seemed to twist into a smile of contempt. “You’re him, ain’t you? You’re that fella that done set himself up by the Ironwoods?”

“I don’t see how that matters.”

“I bet Doc Bearao set you right out on your asses when he found out who you were.” Mender Grunna snickered.

“Do you have a point?”

Mender Grunna ignored the question, instead she stared very intently at Talori and began to murmur. She was counting. One two three four…. five six seven eight…. nine ten eleven twelve…. she stopped at forty-eight. She turned then to Sett. She counted again. This time she stopped at forty-seven, and spent an especially long time humming to herself before shaking her head. She spared Deraun only a second, murmuring forty-six under her breath as if that were a number which meant he mattered not at all.

“Do you want your wife to get better?” Mender Grunna asked all of the sudden.

“Yes.”

“Move. Move right now. Don’t even go back to your cabin. Get in your wagon and turn around. The way you throw money around, I’ll reckon you’ve got enough to make a life again somewhere else. Maybe not as good a life as you want, but your wife will be with you at the end of it.” Mender Grunna bent down to feed one of her cats.

“That’s all superstition.”

“No. Maybe not all the stories are true, but it ain’t no superstition. The Ironwoods are no good. Not for the likes of you, me, or the boy. You turn around right now and your woman may have a chance.”

“I was a clerk in the army. I saw the death benefits list from the expedition teams the king sends down there. No more than one man in a hundred falls ill, and that’s damn regular.”

“It’s regular to get sick for no reason, at all? How many live when they leave?”

Deraun pursed his lips. “People die from sickness all the time in the army, and less in the Ironwoods than you’d ever believe. Numbers tell the truth. Now I paid you a gold ring, are you going to help us or aren’t you?”

Mender Grunna did nothing for a moment, then she shooed her cats to the side as she made her way to a cupboard and pulled out a jar with red crushed petals. She put it down on the table where Talori sat.

“Boil this into a tea. Drink it at meal times.”

“Firewand?” Deraun guffawed. “I paid you a gold ring for a jar of Firewand? It ain’t worth….”

“It’s good for more than giving to pretty girls, and I don’t need someone fool enough to do what you done telling me my business. Hope that you got her to me soon enough, or you and the boy are going to be in a heap of trouble.”

Deraun left the hovel, furious he had spent so much.

Talori drank the tea that night, and for all the following days.

For a while, she was better.

For a while.

Then the winter came.

*****

With the cabin built, and nothing to do but wait for spring to return and the cattle to come, Deraun was miserable. He knew he was miserable, because even Sett was beginning to be afraid of him. He showed up with less and less enthusiasm for their lessons, and Deraun couldn’t blame him. He hardly knew himself anymore. It was in the cold nights that he realized what was making him feel this way.

He was lonely.

He had spent the last ten years of his life planning for his future, setting aside every copper he could, never going out for drinks with the men… and he was miserable. All those years of toil and sweat, and all his money had bought him was misery.

Talori was the problem, he decided. She still didn’t love him. She didn’t even like him. It had, ironically, gotten worse after she got better. They never conversed unless the matter at hand was of mechanical importance. She’d ask if he’d chopped wood, and he’d ask her if dinner was ready… but they never spoke beyond that. They never discussed their feelings, and when Deraun made love to her she just laid there and refused to move.

He found her one day beating some clothes with a stick. She was still miserable at most chores, but Deraun hoped that in a few years she could live as a proper lady again. Maybe then she would be happy. Deraun came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her middle. She felt good against him, until she stiffened.

“I love you, Talori.” He whispered in her ear. “Call me crazy, but I do. I wouldn’t have bought you otherwise. I wouldn’t have agreed to take Sett on as my own son if I didn’t, but you’ve got to learn to love me back. Do you understand? This is it for you.” Talori began to tremble.

“When I found you, you were disgraced. You got yourself pregnant by some man who hadn’t paid thin red copper for you. Your father killed him for his troubles, should have killed you too by rights, but I took you. I bought you as my own when anyone else would have let you die in your shame. I bought you and took you as my wife, and took your boy as my son. So tell me Talori, tell me what I have to do to make you love me.”

She said nothing.

Deraun let go of her and went to the place in the wagon where she kept her fiddle. He took it in hand, walked it to the edge of the lake and threw it with all his might. Talori screamed and ran toward it as if a part of her body had been cleaved off. She ran out until the water came up over her chest and only then did she stop, for she could not swim. She came out after hysteria wore off, and she realized the instrument was gone forever. She was shivering, although it was never really cold in Nyria.

“I hate to do things like this, Talori but you have to learn. You have to learn to love me.” He patted her on the cheek. “Now get yourself dry before you catch your death of cold tonight.” Deraun took Sett by the hand and led him to the cabin. Deraun saw Talori over his shoulder, staring after him and Sett, and thought that she looked very much alone.

*****

Talori refused to move, even after Deraun and Sett were gone.

“You were supposed to take me away,” she whispered, imagining that she spoke to the fiddle.

Four years ago she had felt something she had never before hoped existed. She had been in love, and known the joy of bearing the fruit of that love. He had been her music teacher, an outlander, and they were going to run away to together. They were going to live as man and wife in Alarunde with his family. But he was dead now. Her father had seen to that, and now her son was no longer her own. Talori opened up the jar of Firewand, and up-ended it. She let the wind and the lake take the petals.

She turned to face the south. She could feel it even a few hours after her tea, and knew that it would grow stronger the longer she went without it. She only despaired that Sett could not feel the same connection. Could not hear the same promise of safety.

Talori was smart. She had said nothing when Mender Grunna winked at her. She had kept her face so plain and so straight, that Deraun had not even suspected. Mender Grunna had said that the Ironwoods were bad for Deraun and Sett.

She had never said a word about Talori.

She imagined she spoke to the trees, and she imagined they replied that they were pleased with her decision.

*****

They enjoyed a relative peace throughout the fall. Deraun convinced himself that the change came over Talori because he’d freed her from all the burdens of her past.  He watched her gardening from the fields sometimes, soaking up the sunlight like a creature of nature. She had taken to growing her own firewand, and as it grew like a weed they had never been back to see Mender Grunna. Deraun and Sett spent the fall building a chicken coup and putting up fences where they were needed. Sett called him father now, and the two were inseparable.

What pleased him most was that Talori took to moaning when he came to her. Little by little, the tragedy of winter was forgotten and a new love readied itself to blossom in the spring.

Deraun told her one night how he could never have children of his own, and that was why he knew that Alarell had set her in his path. He had never told his shame to anyone before. It humiliated him even then to confess he was as sterile as a boy, but Talori’s love drug it out of him. It worked for both of them, didn’t she see? Him, childless and unwed. Her, disgraced and with child. Him, a low-born man with ambitions to become a gentleman. Her, a high-born woman brought low by circumstance. And all right when he was set to retire. Alarell himself had put them together. Talori purred when Deraun ran his hand through her hair. Deraun did not know her dead love used to do that to her, or that when he came to her it was his face she saw.

And every night, when Deraun thought she went out to pick flowers for her next day’s tea, Talori took the petals and threw them in the lake along with whatever food she had managed to hide at meals. She wasn’t hungry anymore, and if she ever felt the slightest pangs of weakness she had only to stand in the sunlight of her garden for a few moments for it leave her. The trees told her that this was natural. They told her she was almost ready. After going off the tea, her skin had paled as it had previously, but now it was darkening with the return of spring.

Deraun thought it was the sun.

Talori knew it was not.

*****

“Meranor surrendered the gates of Fan Nadarem. You ask a Talliman, a Lariniman, or even a damned Red Union Man and they’ll all tell you that for truth. It was Meranor that gave up the gates of Fan Nadarem. It was Alarell’s own mother that lost the war, doomed the Haestan, and brought the Abandonment down upon us. A woman, Sett, even if she was one of the Haestan.”

Deraun balanced Sett on his knee. The boy was playing with a count-slide, under Deraun’s watchful eye. He had bought it for the boy’s birthday, and the two spent many afternoons doing sums while Deraun gave the boy lessons.

“She did it because her heart was weak. All women have weak hearts Sett, beautiful as they are, and that’s why Alarell made men to protect them. A woman loves mercy, and a man has the sense to kill when killing needs be done. You understand?”

“Yes, daddy.” Deraun beamed whenever the boy called him father, and he kissed the boy’s cheek.

“That’s what Meranor’s Sin means. It means you’ve got to know who your enemy is, no matter how much killing turns your guts, and that’s why it’s the job of men to look after women because they all got that same weakness. You and me, Sett, we gotta look after your mom. Make sure she doesn’t get herself into trouble.” Sett had heard this many times, and loved the story more with each telling.

Deraun had never counted himself a great story-teller, but for some reason Talori began to tear up. She walked over to Deraun and kissed both he and Sett on the forehead.

“I told you,” Deraun smiled, “I told you, you’d learn to love this life.” The words felt good with the coming of the new season.

“Yes,” Talori replied, “Yes, Deraun. I have learned to love what I am becoming.” She walked to the door, and opened it. It was cold outside. Talori paused there for some reason that Deraun could not understand.

“Deraun, when you told Mender Grunna that no one had ever died in the Ironwoods, what did you mean?”

“Are you feeling scared?” Deraun shared a smile with Sett. Women were foolish but lovely creatures.

“No, just curious.”

“The army doesn’t pay death benefits without a body. The men that go down to the Ironwoods sometimes take the chance to desert. They just vanish in the middle of the night. That’s why I said I knew it was all superstition. If you look close enough, most things are.”

“I feel foolish now for asking.”

“Never mind that, there’s no harm in asking. First day of spring is tomorrow. Cattle are coming any day now. How’s your garden?”

“It’s beautiful, Deraun. Everything’s come alive in the spring.” Talori returned for a moment to brush her hand down the side of Sett’s face. “Everything’s come alive in the Spring.”

She looked from Sett to Deraun again, and, as if it pained her said “I’m glad you two love each other as well as you do.” She hugged Sett close to her.

“I’ll be back with my tea. No need to wait up.”

Deraun kissed her cheek one last time, and never saw her again.

*****

They weren’t trees. Whatever they were, no matter how much they looked like trees, they weren’t. They weren’t even plants. Talori doubted they were even alive in the same way she was alive. There were so many she didn’t have to bother stopping to see any particular one of them in the dawn’s light.

The green on their leaves was copper. Rusted copper that had been left out in the elements too long. Talori had seen the same thing happen to loose coins left in gutters. Their bark was iron, tin, and every other kind of metal you could think of. The rust gave the trunk and branches a brown appearance, that seemed correct until you came close and realized the color was too uniform. Talori did not know how she knew that they were growing, but she did. Slowly, over the course of decades. Bit by bit, but they were growing. They weren’t trees, probably weren’t even alive, but they were growing.

She stopped after she judged she had walked two miles, and lay still on the forest floor. That, at least, was dirt and as commonplace as anywhere else. She had been walking ever since she left to tend to her garden. She had figured she might have to go back and wait until Deraun was asleep, but she had looked in through the cabin’s single window and seen him sleep peacefully in the rocking chair, as she had left him, with Sett slumbering on his lap. She had considered for a moment running in and taking Sett with her, but she dared not. She would risk herself in this strange place, but not her child. So she walked through all the night, knowing without knowing how she knew, exactly where the trees would be. Now it was dawn, and her legs throbbed.

She noticed, as she sat there, that only trees at the very beginning of the forest looked at all alike. Further in, they were as different as any two specimens of nature could be. Some of them shot straight up into the air for over fifteen staffs, smooth and round about the middle like a wheel. Still others were hunched close to the ground, and covered with spikes. Talori looked at one of the spike trees, and observed that the spikes looked very much like swords of differing length, and that if she plucked one off it had a place very near the stem that would fit perfectly in her hand. It was the same everywhere she looked.

Some of the trees seemed to have leaves shaped like bowls. Others had leaves shaped like belts. It wasn’t so blatant as that. They were all unlike any particular object she had ever seen before, but her eyes caught the natural curves and the natural purpose. She marveled at the design of it all. It was as if the supreme intelligence that had built nature had also designed this place. Every living thing here, from the sword tree, to the pole-trees spoke of unity and purpose.

“Who made this?” She asked.

She knew in a flash that it was the Haestan. The trees were more distinct now that she was close. Their voices more apparent. She was not at all surprised that her question had been answered. One day, she knew she might even hear actual distinct sounds when her change was complete.

“Why did you choose me?”

She understood then that there was no choosing. There was only blood. Blood and awakening. She saw a starving world, ancient and long ago. It was a world from stories, a world wracked by the horror of the Tide War. She saw a people willing to do anything to escape hunger, and she saw the Haestan change those people. But… there had been a price with the change… a binding to the… Cainden. What they had done to change those who volunteered would only work here, and if they were ever to leave they must live as people once more. It was the dance between the trees and their blood that made this possible. She knew also that the Haestan had done this to give their descendants, who had not chosen the change, free will as to how to live.

Talori, returned to her feet, and walked by another tree. This one had long limber limbs that bent over with wide leaves. Talori marveled that the leaves looked very much like petal-shaped boxes. Several were missing. This forest had been grown for people to live in, but it had also been grown for another purpose.

War.

“What happened here?”

Stolen. Someone who did not belong to the forest had come and stolen the boxes. This was dangerous. The boxes were rare, and never meant for the outside world. They could hold things. Things that should not be held. She must go and find help. The trees had no centralized intelligence, it was all local, and no one who lived here lived near the edges.

“Where are the others?”

There was a journey ahead of her. The forest would guide her. She saw a city, a great big city, all alive in the middle of the forest. And… something there that took her breath away, that made her believe in all Deraun’s stories about gods and beauty.  If there truly was such a place, Talori knew she wanted to live there.

The trees smiled around her, a worry now ceased.

When she met the first of her kind, her skin was chestnut brown.