Heartwood (Tricksters Game) by Barbara Campbell Read Free Book Online

stone. Mist rose from it as it might from a lake on an autumn morning.
    The Fox-Fur moved the stone closer. Warm not-water drizzled into him. His upper being heaved and the not-water spewed out. Only after the pouring had been repeated several times did he learn to take the liquid in, little by little. This made the Fox-Fur’s mouth turn up.
    The hollow ache inside disappeared, replaced by a fullness still lower in his being. He searched his memory, but like the not-water, this, too, was outside his knowing. The fullness peaked. Warm wetness soaked him. He waited for it to roll off. When it did not, he tried to pull it into himself and failed.
    The Fox-Fur rubbed something soft on him. Some of the wet went away. There was more underneath him on the prickly, shifting ground. The Fox-Fur and the Dark-Fur moved him. The tilting was so not-good that his being heaved again. Heat seared him, gushing out to spatter the Dark-Fur’s claws.
    The Dark-Fur’s mouth turned down. The Fox-Fur made soft noises and stroked him with soft claws, like a vixen cuffing her kits. He wondered why the Fox-Fur did not lick him. Perhaps men did not do that. The Fox-Fur was a different sort of man from the other two, but it was clearly their kind—just as he was not.

    Too agitated to sit, Darak paced. “He doesn’t speak. He throws up his soup. He pisses the bed.” Four strides across the width of the hut. Four strides back.
    “It’s only been a day,” Griane said.
    Mother Netal grunted. “Give him time, Darak.”
    Asleep, his brother looked unchanged. Only the scratches on his cheeks and the faint shadows under his eyes spoke to the ordeal he had undergone. Darak squatted beside the pallet once more. The next time Tinnean opened his eyes, his brother would know him.

    He learned that there were times that were dark and times that were not-so-dark, but even in the not-so-dark times, there was no sun or wind or snow. He learned there were many men and that they were as varied as the leaves of the trees: some small, some large, some broad, some slender. Strangest of all, he learned that he was no longer rooted to the earth, that he could will himself to move, not simply rely on the men to move him.
    With that knowing came another that made the inner tattoo beat very fast. Instead of many limbs, he now had only five. Two longer ones grew out of his upper trunk. Two others, longer still, grew from his lower trunk. One, small and limp, grew from his center. All were pale and soft.
    The awareness horrified him so he shut out the sight of the not-forest and the men and his own pitiful, pale form. Then he could remember birds and beasts, wind and rain, sun and moon and stars, and everywhere, trees.
    He could not shut out the not-forest for very long or the needs of his new form. He learned to move about the small, dark place using the lower limbs, which trembled and folded beneath him until he managed to control them. He learned to cover his limbs with the skins of dead animals to keep out the cold. He learned to scoop up the not-water with a turtle shell. And always, he watched the men who watched him.
    Each time he moved, the Dark-Fur’s body tensed like a stalking wolf’s. The Dark-Fur did not seem to understand how strange and terrifying and enthralling his new form was to him. When he rolled the thick not-water around his mouth, savoring its lumps, the two wings above the Dark-Fur’s eyes drew together. When he explored the ridges and hollows of his face with his claws, the Dark-Fur’s voice rumbled like distant thunder. When he rubbed the small limb in his center and made it stand upright, the Dark-Fur’s face turned as red as a crab apple; even after he stopped rubbing, the Dark-Fur continued to shake him, snarling loudly all the while.
    When the Dark-Fur left, the One-Eye would come, or the Fox-Fur, or the small White-Fur with the gentle hands and a face as wrinkled as a dried rowanberry. Often, the One-Eye grasped his face gently and