Heirs of Prophecy - Lisa Smedman [17]
Still clutching the wand in one foot, Leifander winged his way after them.
* * *-*
From high in the forest, drifting down from leaves dappled by moonlight, came the sound of chanting voices. Leifander kneeled at the base of the tree from which they originated, an oak so old that its trunk was as wide as extended arms could span, with pale gray bark that looked silver in the bright moonlight. High above its
thickly leafed, spreading branches, a near-full moon crept to its zenith against a star-speckled sky.
Doriantha kneeled beside Leifander, also awaiting the summons from those above. In the days that had followed the abortive ambush on the caravan, Leifander had used his magic to heal the blisters on her arms and face, and to heal his own wounds. Now all that remained were a few faint pink scars.
The wand that Leifander had yanked from the wizard's grasp lay between them on the forest floor. It had been wrapped in rabbit skin, the soft fur turned inward to protect it from the rigors of their journey through the woods. During the days it took Leifander and Doriantha to respond to the summons from the Circle of the Emerald Leaves, the bone had lost its sponginess and turned hard and brittle, and the pearl at its tip had lost its sheen. Yet the wand still stank of the foul mist it had produced.
Above, the chanting stopped, then a single female voice rang out. "Doriantha of the Tangled Trees, rise up, and meet our sacred circle."
Picking up the fur-wrapped wand, Doriantha rose to her feet. She glanced down at Leifander, still kneeling, who returned her terse nod. Then she reached with her free hand for the trunk of the Moontouch Oak. A branch appeared, pale and insubstantial as moonhght, and she grasped it. Another moonbeam bent and met the trunk, near the ground, forming a second branch, and on this she placed her foot. She climbed, using the branches that appeared in a rising spiral around the oak's trunk, each one disappearing after her foot had left it.
Waiting his turn as voices murmured above, Leifander wondered why the Circle of the Emerald Leaves had included him in their summons. Both he and Doriantha had already related the full story of their aborted ambush to the elves' High Council, but perhaps the druids wanted to hear the tale themselves. Perhaps they felt there was some detail that only they could coax out
of the pair, some thread of information that the High Council had overlooked.
A short time later, a rustling above announced Dori-antha's descent. When she reached the ground, she appeared puzzled.
"Strange," she muttered. "They didn't want to know anything more about the wizard or the wand. Instead they asked me about you."
Leifander's eyebrows knitted together in a frown. "About my part in the ambush, you mean?"
"Yes… and no. They told me about your…" She hesitated, then seemed to change her mind. "They asked if I had noticed any omens or signs that-"
Before Doriantha could finish her whispered answer, the voice called out once more from the leaves above. "Leifander of the Tangled Trees, rise up, and meet our sacred circle."
Springing nervously to his feet, Leifander waited as moonbeams coalesced into a spiral of branches around the Moontouch Oak's trunk. He gave Doriantha one last look, and his courage nearly faltered as he saw the tense, expectant expression on her face, then he climbed.
Despite the warm summer air, the moonbeam branches felt as cool as a mountain stream under Leifander's bare hands and feet. He followed their course, climbing in a spiral around the trunk until branches completely obscured the ground below. The murmurs of voices overhead led him to a spot perhaps fifteen or twenty times his height above the ground. He peeked up through a hole in the center of a platform that surrounded the trunk of the oak-a