The Grove(8)

Whatever scraps of life-energy that weren’t drawn along with the animal’s spirit into the Dark, on its way to the Afterlife, were reserved for the plants to absorb. The cycle had to be preserved. Plants gave life-energy, the power behind all magic, to all the animals, and that energy was returned when their bodies returned to the earth at the end of life. Stealing life-energy for magic weakened mages, tainting them with the demonic touch of the Netherhells. Only in very special circumstances would a mage—a good mage—ever spill blood, and usually only their own.

Once, early in her apprenticeship to Grove Keeper Mardos, Saleria asked him what would happen to the magics spilled when these warped animals were slain. His reply had been vague. Sometimes it seemed like the energies just returned to the plants in the usual, normal, perfectly sane way. Sometimes, though, it seemed to quicken the mutation of the nearest plants.

Yet another patch of Grove ground I’ll have to watch for abnormalities. If I had an apprentice or an assistant, I could spend my time in trance, examining what happens to the flow of powers. But no, I’m not allowed to bring along anyone to watch my back.

Grimacing, she muttered under her breath another odious quote, mincing the words half through her nose, until she sounded almost like a buzzing wasp. “Most powerful mages aren’t interested in living a priestly life, and so all of our powerful priest-mages are needed exactly where they already are, with none to spare.”

Bollocks to that.

The moss didn’t seem to be wiggling or growing or changing in any way. At least, not right away. Content for now that the body was truly dead, she nudged both halves a little farther away from the wall-edged trail so the remnants of the shrew-thing could decompose, returning its physical nutrients as well as its energies to the soil. Stepping carefully around the stained patch, she continued on her morning rounds.

Taking life-energy from the plants was normal and natural, a part of the cycle of magic. It could be used without harm or taint. But she didn’t take it from every plant she met, just the ones that were threatening the wall or the path. Taking all the plant life forces would have been just as bad as taking the life of an animal, a needless waste.

Not that she had to take many, for nothing else challenged her authority. Even the southern locus tree more or less behaved itself, allowing her to drain the magic with her crystal-tipped staff. No lashings, no writhing vines or thorns, no limbs trying to pick her up. Just a quiet draining with barely even a gnat to buzz by and threaten her nose with a tickling as it passed.

Wary, staff crystal glowing like a reddish, cabbage-sized sun, Saleria retreated back to her home. A relatively calm start to her day wasn’t the usual way things ran at the Grove. Still, it was with relief that she hung the staff with its now brightly glowing gem in the tool shed for the moment and retired to her study on the ground floor of her home.

Daranen, her appointed scribe, got to have the luxury of sleeping in an extra hour, compared to her. Sometimes he joined her at breakfast, but not today. That did not mean he had a light workload, though; the middle-aged man often stayed up later than her, reading the day’s mail. But he was always up and ready to work when she got back from her first set of rounds.

In the last three years, Saleria had grown to expect him sitting in his favorite green tunic and trews at his desk when she returned from the Grove. It was a nice desk, set at an angle to hers so that both could enjoy the view through the bay window at the front of the cottage. She could almost envy him getting to sit in such a comfortable, padded leather chair, too. She certainly didn’t sit all that much throughout her day.

This morning, Daranen was there as expected, clad in one of his many green outfits, but he was not seated at his desk. Instead, he had taken one of the cushioned chairs opposite it and was chatting companionably with a strange man. Their backs were to Saleria when she entered, but when Daranen heard her, he finished whatever he was saying in a murmur and politely stood, giving her a bow. “Good morning, Keeper Saleria.”

“Good morning, Daranen,” Saleria returned. Her gaze flicked between the middle-aged, brown-haired man and the younger, blond-haired male rising from the other chair. He, too, turned to bow to her. “And good morning to you, milord.”

“Keeper, this is the Witch-priest Aradin Teral of far-distant Darkhana, which is a land placed far to the north and east of the Sun’s Belt,” Daranen introduced. “Witch-priest, this is High Priestess Saleria, Guardian of the Grove and Keeper of the Holiest Garden of Katan.”

“Holiness,” the stranger murmured, bowing a little deeper in politeness at her rank. He was clad in a fine-spun brown tunic and trews cut along Katani lines, and a pair of sturdy walking boots that looked like they had seen some wear. But he also wore an open, floor-length, deep-sleeved, deep-hooded robe that was a light shade of brown on the outside, but lined with a linen so black, it made his lean-muscled frame stand out all the more whenever he moved.