Draig

Red

"Storm King be with you, Dane," said Léonin. "Go with Him as your guide, and may the Song lead you home."

***

When Dane got back to his rooms, he headed for a comfortable chair, and opened the journal to the marked page. The verse he found there read as a riddle.

It is cold and it is hot
It is light and it is dark
It is stone and it is wax
But its true nature is flesh
and its color is red.

The next line seemed like it referred to the World Tree.

Fruit reveals root.

Is this speaking of the Tree in some way? It must be. Why? What did it mean? The World Tree must be fully healed for the Song to be restored? I did heal it. Partially.
He qualified the thought, remembering how he had canted his sole refrain of the Lorica, almost under compulsion. N'khum had been there when it happened. The Wyn understood.

The Tree was impossibly alive, though riven almost completely in two. Perfect halves stood, with a large channel of water flowing through them. They were joined at the top, so far up as to be invisible to those on the ground. The War of the Wyrm had rent the Tree, the land, even the great city of Citraehne. The two halves of the city were ever after known as the Sundered Cities. The devastation throughout the Weldenlands had been unimaginable. It had taken decades to rebuild their cities. Many towns had built on top of the ruins of the old. Other places had just been abandoned.

When Dane had healed the Tree even partially, it had an equally profound effect. The two halves had visibly changed in the core of the massive hardwood trunk. Where before they had dripped with a bright red sap, making the Tree appear to bleed, now the entire interior of the trunk was coated. The sap had dried into a thick, fresh protective layer. Dane wondered if the two sides could ever meet and be made whole. An impossible hope. But he was newly-minted Majister. Impossible hopes felt to him, appropriate.

Dane had heard folk were now recovering from strange illnesses. Crops, which had been failing, were flourishing. Pezzik told him cows and goats had milk again. More than this, the Northern kingdom of Pelegor had been able to relight their Forge.

What would happen if the Tree healed completely? It would be beyond imagining.
Fruit reveals root. He mulled the phrase over in his mind. Finally, he banished the riddle away, willing himself to think on it while he did other things. Sometimes, when he did that, the answer would appear to him in the midst of other activities. "Let it be so, this time, Lord," he said. He got up and went in search of Bell.

***

Dane found Bell outside. She had wandered out to the surface of the island, and stood watching the lights of the village that wreathed the lake. She had a small pile of stones, which she threw, one at a time, skipping them across the surface of the water. He came up behind her and wrapped his arms about her waist. She turned in his embrace, to face him. Her face shone in the moonlight, her eyes wide as she examined him carefully, as if she were searching for something.

"What is it, Bell?" Dane asked, concerned.

"I just..." she started, then trailed off, dropping her eyes.

"Just what? Just agreed to go with me to meet angry dragons? Yes. You did," said Dane, teasing. He put his hand under her chin and tilted her face upward.

She made a frowny face and stuck out her tongue at him. "It isn't that. I don't mind going to meet angry dragons. They cannot have a worse temper than I do," she said. A wry laugh escaped her. "No. I suppose I was wishing we were home. I was wishing none of this had ever happened. I was wishing I could help plan the Harvest Festival and you were giving Poll all the gossip. Now I don't know when I will see home again. If I will see home again. I know I should be grateful, and I am. But I suppose part of me believed all of this was an adventure and we would return home, to our real lives, some day. This," she waved her arms around, indicating the island, "this is our real life now. This will be home."