The Ashes of Worlds - Kevin J. Anderson [16]
“Worse than the Big Goose, maybe worse than the drogues.” Taking Kotto by the elbow, Tasia said, “You’ve still got a green priest at the shipyards, right?”
“Yes. Liona should be on her way over here. I, uh, sent for her in case the clans wanted to hear news of their loved ones. Planning ahead — ”
Tasia cut him off. “We need to send out messages to rally all the Confederation fighters. King Peter knows the Klikiss have returned, but I doubt he knows they’re attacking colonies. No time to lose.”
The din in the reception bay was deafening as refugees chattered eagerly with clan members. When the female green priest finally entered the admin complex through the metal-lined hall, many Roamers rushed toward her, hoping to send telink notices to friends and family.
But something was wrong with Liona; Tasia picked up on it immediately. The green priest looked aghast as she pushed her way into the clamor. She gripped her small potted tree, and the delicate fronds seemed to shudder. Liona’s distraught shout brought everyone to a startled silence.
She looked around wildly. “The faeros are burning the worldforest!”
* * *
7
Celli
A searing, sentient heat engulfed the stately trees and worked its way to their very cores. Yet the verdani heartwood refused to burn, so that the possessed trees shone like torches, unable to throw off the fiery elementals. Meanwhile, a normal fire had spread to vulnerable wood and underbrush, ravaging the forest as well.
At the edge of the meadow, Celli clenched her fists. “What can we do for the worldtrees, Solimar? How can we help them fight?”
“The faeros are torturing the trees they’ve captured.” Her friend pressed his hands against his smooth scalp, wincing and then forcing his eyes open again. “Burning! It is hard to concentrate.”
Though new to her abilities as a green priest, Celli could hear the wordless agony of trees. When the fires attacked one of them, they all felt the pain. Many green priests in the forest nearby were overwhelmed by the tragedy, unable to disconnect from their bond. Others fought back the clamor and the horror, afraid to open themselves to telink at all.
Though most of the trees in the central grove were caught up in elemental fire, Celli realized that the large trees were struggling to hold on to the faeros, to keep the fire from jumping to other worldtrees. She could feel the verdani fighting, but they were losing the battle.
With a shudder and then a surge of dismay, one of the weakening trees could no longer maintain its hold, and the faeros gleefully leaped to another towering trunk. Energetic flames raced up the golden bark scales to reach the vulnerable fronds, and within moments that tree had also become a living torch.
Solimar turned to her, his face drawn but determined. “Those faeros were transmitted through telink along mental pathways opened by Yarrod and his green priests. But these faeros are different somehow from the ones we’ve seen before.”
Celli sorted the information from the bedlam in her mind. The telink/thism connection had inadvertently created a passage for faeros sparks to hurtle through. After consuming the green priest conduits, they had possessed the nearest trees. Yarrod himself had been the first to die, and Celli was unable to drive the horrible image of her uncle bursting into flames from her mind. He had tried to do a good thing, and it had incinerated him.
“These are newborn sparks — and they aren’t as strong as the others,” Celli said. “We can fight them, if the green priests will rally. We can strengthen the trees, give them hope, just like you and I did with our treedancing!”
She felt a rush of optimism. When the worldforest had nearly given up after the first hydrogue holocaust, she and Solimar had danced for the trees. That exuberance, that show of life, had awakened a new strength in the worldforest, had let the deep roots tap into something the verdani had not previously known how to summon. Their human spirit had shaken the worldforest out of its old malaise.
She and Solimar could do the