The hyacinth rustled more softly.
You have told your mortal charges far too much. So much that they might well turn upon a path that would end this world. Tell them no more, and take them from this place.
Chap's rumble grew. All Leesil wanted was freedom for his last remaining family.To be with his mother once again. Yet Chap's kin became obsessed with inaction.
And why could he not remember… more?
Bits and pieces learned in his mortal life still did not fit together. He did not retain enough awareness from existence among his kin to bind those pieces and fill in the gaps;
The branches shuddered around him.
You have taken flesh and lost our full awareness. Trust the path… trust in us. In flesh, you cannot understand all things.
Chap wavered in silence. He had relinquished eternity to follow the will of his kin. Once he must have known and agreed with their purpose, but now he could not remember why.
There must have been a reason… one that he had forgotten.
Wynn controlled her vertigo and tried to rush around Lily. Each time, the dog shifted or barked in warning and would not let her pass.
A chorus of a thousand shuddering and crackling leaves erupted within Wynn's head.
You have taken flesh and lost our full awareness. Trust the path… trust in us. In flesh, you cannot understand all things.
Wynn collapsed, wracked with dry heaves. She stared into the shifting dark trees on hands and knees, shaking uncontrollably. She heard the Fay communing with Chap.
His snarling howl rolled through the forest.
Wynn turned toward Lily. "Oh please, just get out of my way!"
Lily cocked her ears. Wynn crawled to a nearby cedar and clawed up its rough bark to her feet. The others of the pack ranged around her, but none came near. They only watched her and Lily in puzzlement.
Before Lily could react, Wynn lunged around the cedar's far side toward the sound of Chap's cry.
Chap quivered as his howl faded from his ears. Why did his kin treat him like a servant who owed blind obedience?
He had been one of them-one with them. He saw no possible harm in a son finding the mother who birthed and raised him. Nein'a did not want to see harm come to this world any more than the Fay, even though she had raised a son in her own caste's ways for her own purposes.
Chap's shudders faded, and he paced a slow circle, studying the sentinel trees. No voices came on the low rustling breeze. But they were still there-still waiting for him to acquiesce.
This had nothing to do with keeping Magiere from the enemy.
Why do you fear Leesil reaching his mother?
Chap's question rang in Wynn's head.
She spun around, lost once again with nothing to guide her. She had not taken one step. Yet if her eyes turned away for an instant, a vine, that patch of moss, or even the bare spot of earth to one side appeared to have moved.
Take the sister of the dead and leave. Go back to the human realms and never return to this land.
Wynn shut her eyes and threw her arms around an aspen trunk to keep from falling. The leaf-wing chorus drowned all other sensations. But she heard wind rustling branches not far off.
She opened her eyes, turning her face toward the sound, but Lily stood blocking her way. Wynn remembered Chap briefly touching heads with the white female. He had somehow told Lily to keep her behind.
"You must let me pass," Wynn whispered, uncertain how to make Lily understand.
Chap had communicated somehow with this dog. With Wynn's new ability to hear him and perhaps even communicate withhim, she wondered if she might do the same with Lily.
She inched forward, trying to pick up any thoughts from Lily. She did not believe Chap could read her own verbal thoughts-when they communicated, she spoke aloud, and he projected words into her mind.
"Lily," she said. "Can you understand me?"
Lily stared at her intently, but the white dog seemed only to be acting as guardian, and Wynn heard nothing in her mind as she did with Chap.
Wynn closed her eyes, this time trying to reach inside Lily's mind. There must be some way to connect and express her desperate need to reach Chap! But she felt nothing and saw nothing. Lily was not likeChap.
They could not speak to each other.
Wynn grabbed for Lily. The dog hopped away and spun about to face her again. Lily's shift was in the same general direction as the sound of chattering branches.
Wynn might not be able to navigate the forest-but Lily could. The dog betrayed Chap's path in every attempt to keep Wynn from following. Wynn tottered forward and grabbed for Lily again.
This time Lily did not hop away. She turned with ears perked to look through the trees. Wynn settled her hand on Lily's back.
A shudder ran through the dog's slender body, but her attention remained fixed toward the sound they both heard.
"Chap," Wynn whispered and pushed Lily forward. Had the dog heard Wynn use that name enough to know it? Wynn repeated it, again and again.
Lily took onestep, her crystalline eyes focused off into the forest, and whined.
Wynn could see Lily was afraid, but she shoved the dog forward.
Lily stepped slowly at first, weaving from tree to tree and peering around each before moving on. Wynn followed the white majay-hi as her only guide.
Chap's awareness sharpened to the presence of his kin. Within leaf and needle, branch and bark, and the air and earth, he felt their presence-their strained anticipation.
He let them wait.
Finally the breeze snapped sharply. The rustle of leaves was laced with the clatter of branches.
The elven mother is not important. Take your charges from here, and keep them in ignorance. Regain your faith in us.
Again no answer for Leesil's concern-and too much denial of Nein'a.
Even if Leesil fulfilled this blind scheme of his mother and her dissidents, why would Chap's kin not want such an Enemy to fall?
In his mind, he found no memory of his kin's concern for Leesil-only for Magiere.
From the moment of Chap's birth, he had known what to do concerning Magiere, and that a half-blood boy would be the means to that end. But he knew nothing of this hidden and evasive concern over Leesil and Nein'a.
Taking flesh was not the cause of this.
It was not the failing of his mortal mind to keep what he would have known among his own kind. Something more had happened in the infinitesimal instant between his place among his kin and being born into this world.
Why will you not speak of Leesil?
Only silence.
Why can I not remember this?
Unseen small creatures scurried among the branches and made dark spaces between them flex like mouths with lips of leaves and needles.
You are flesh, frail and faltering. Your heart and earthly senses weaken your purpose. It is little more than what we feared.
Chap cringed-but not from their admonishment. He remembered the first part of this journey as he had tried to lead Leesil to his mother.
In the deep winter of the Broken Range, in cold and hunger, Chap's kin had ignored his pleas for aid. Only the high-pitched whistle of an unknown savior had led him and those in his care to the caves. His kin had done nothing to save them. Even with Magiere at risk among the elves, thesean'Croan, the Fay had remained silent.
Now they showed themselves only to bar Chap's way to Nein'a.
What better way to keep Magiere from the hands of the Enemy than to allow her to die?
Whether in those mountains or among a hostile people, it would simply be her fate and none of the Fay's doing.
How badly his kin wished to keep Leesil from his mother. Would they allow Leesil to die as well, so long as it served some purpose Chap could not remember?
And why could he not recall the answers? Such vital knowledge could not have just slipped from him.