by Kim Wedlock
His eyes gripped her. Grey eyes. Aged eyes. Troubled eyes - eyes that held...nothing, sometimes, and intense passion at others. Finally they had shifted into the latter, but the power of their ferocity stilled her, and for that her challenge faltered.
"Leave." He spoke through his teeth. "Me." His eyes burned. "Alone." He stared her down.
Heat rose in her cheeks as she felt herself shrinking, flushing red in the darkness. Resentment rose as sharply as her insult. Her tongue swelled and mouth dried in anger, words failing her when she needed their defence the most. And yet her lips moved anyway, and the useless, infantile words came out on their own. "Why can't you be brave?"
He straightened and turned away, dismissing her in favour of his patrol.
Frustration began to rattle her bones, and her body took over. Impulse snapped her away, and she stormed off through the trees before he could notice the furious tears in her eyes. They rolled down her cheeks, and she bit her lip hard in self-loathing, asking herself yet again why she bothered trying.
Kienza, as wise and all-knowing as Rathen deemed her to be, was simply wrong. Garon was fuelled by nothing more than stubborn pride. He was consumed by his work. It was all that mattered to him. It had to be, for what few occasions he'd spoken to her as a human being were overshadowed by the innumerable times when he had been nothing and no one more than Inquisitor Brack.
And she...she was a fool. A blind, whiny, mulish child.
No, that wasn't fair. Even Aria was cleverer than she was. Aria learned. She didn't. She just kept hammering away at him, and he dismissed her every time. Rejected her. Cut her down and spit on her.
How many times had she given herself this moth-eaten speech? How many times did she have to get herself hurt before it finally sank in? Perhaps she should take a page from his book and protect her pride. Leave him alone, if he wished it. It was probably for the best. For her, if nothing else.
...So why couldn't she stop her tears?
Chapter 36
On the eleventh wretched morning of their arboreal confinement, they awoke to find two more bulging sacks placed unsettlingly close to their heads. They leapt up with a start, checking over themselves and their belongings, but nothing appeared to be missing, added, changed into wood or goodness knows what else their fevered dreams could concoct. And so, they checked again.
"We're being followed," Garon had stated ominously just as they'd begun to settle down, but sorted through and handed out the sylvan rations all the same.
Anthis's lip curled as he eyed the stalks of the tiresome fungus. "We're going to start sprouting these soon..."
"I wonder if they're useful."
He cocked an eyebrow towards Eyila, and watched as she took a handful from her bowl and stuffed them into a pouch on her sash, which she'd kept stored in a bag to avoid offending the Root Mother. Quite out of nowhere, she'd begun taking a strange interest in the forest. Some kind of professional curiosity had pushed out her disdain, and she had begun meticulously analysing various leaves, barks, fungi and lichen, and not only with her eyes and fingers. A few were subjected to a taste test, and others were combined with bits and pieces she carried with her, occasionally leading to spontaneous combustion right in the palm of her hand. But while the others had panicked and spun around for enraged vakehn, she had only hummed in intrigue.
"Well, we'd better get used to them."
"Why?" Anthis blanched in alarm, snapping back at the inquisitor's regretful tone. "Have we still got that far to go?"
"I didn't think so..." Rathen looked up and found Garon observing him. He privately noted that it was a little too early for the purpose in his eyes.
"No," he agreed, "we don't - but I've had a thought. Hlífrún must know what we're doing - all of it. Salus has been attacking harpies and ditchlings and who knows what else. That won't have slipped by her. But she's keeping us here anyway, even though we could be out there stopping it, which means that she wants our help with something bigger. I don't think this magic is a matter as simple as we - or Salus - believe."
"What are you getting at?" Rathen asked carefully.
"Hlífrún is the Root Mother. She said she's connected to all the forests, and that every chasm weakens that connection. But perhaps that connection goes beyond just her - perhaps all the forests are linked to each other. This forest right here, the Wildlands, is her seat of power. It's the heart of Arasiin's nature. If they are all connected, and this is the heart, then perhaps fixing this place will have echoing effects."
"Yes, a good point - except the magic isn't coming from here, it's come from Dolunokh, and it's gathering all over the place, in forests and villages, and the chasms themselves are destroying far more besides."
"Wildlife homes are suffering more than humans'. Most sites of magnetism are in unpopulated areas."
"It's true," Anthis conceded, "what elven cities we still use are long post-magic, they have little significance to the gods. The magic doesn't gather there."
"Even so--"
"Rathen." Garon's eyes were burning. "We're trying to protect Turunda, and everything in it. Do not forget that."
"...Turunda's people, you mean."
"Everything and everyone."
He nodded slowly, coolly studying the officer's fervour. "And you say she's 'keeping us here'."
"She is."
Now Anthis blinked, and the realisation that had slipped over Rathen finally crashed onto everyone else. "He did say that, didn't he? Garon, I thought we were on our way out. Do you know something you're not telling us?"
"No..." But all eyes turned onto Petra. Her foot had slipped backwards into a readied angle, her fingers curled around her sword, and she regarded the inquisitor with open mistrust. "Something's wrong with him."
They knew in an instant that she was right. They recoiled immediately, ushering Aria back behind Rathen and Anthis, but Eyila moved forwards with a scrutinous frown.
She stopped beside the duelist, allowed no further by a warning arm, and studied the inquisitor closely. But Garon didn't shrink. There was no alarm, no denial, no attempt at allaying them. He merely stood and waited, his face a mask, uncharacteristically void even for him.
Despite Petra's sharp discouragement, she reached out and bared her palm towards him. She nodded a moment later, her lips setting into a hard line. "Magic. Wild magic."
Rathen quickly spun away, snarling violently. "Hlífrún."
He scoured the forest, between the trunks, across the wood, searching for those loathsome eyes of burning painites he knew were observing them from the shadows. "Hlífrún!!" His bellow shook the air.
The others formed up together, splitting their guard between Garon and the trees. Petra drew her sword, Anthis freed his dagger, Eyila loosened her fingers and Aria turned to watch their back, her hand grasping for the wooden sword at her hip which she knew couldn't possibly do a thing against creatures of the forest, if she even wished it to.
But it mattered little, because their weapons were rendered immediately useless. The ground lurched opened beneath their feet and they dropped and jolted into a dreadfully familiar snare. But the roots that had held them fast against the earthen wall for hours that first time now rose and lifted them out, casting them sharply back onto the surface above. While the others staggered, bruised, and collected their balance, Rathen stormed forwards unfazed, summoning the Root Mother with another seething call.
More roots erupted from the ground in answer and coiled around wrists and ankles to drag them to the dirt, but again their hold faltered before it could take.
A form flashed out from the darkness.
The roots returned in an instant, and this time they held true. But Rathen was not in their grip. He was frozen ahead of them, his arms raised, wrists apart in the grasp of long, grey fingers, and Hlífrún - Root Mother, Spirit of the Wilds, Queen of the Woods - stood before him with eyes ablaze and her perfect, terrible face twisted in wrath. Her voice seeped like a poisonous fog through her teet
h. "Enough."
"Garon," Rathen hissed, his dark eyes burning as black as coals, meeting her scathing stare levelly, "what have you done to him?"
She didn't grace him with an answer. Her acridly curling lips closed, and her harrowing gaze continued to drill its way into him, daring him to persist in his challenge and promising a swift and decisive punishment should he do so. But where he had once shrank from those eyes, now he all but matched them.
The others held their breath. Kvistdjur, healthy and monstrous, emerged from the surrounding trees. His companions willed him with all their power to stop.
But the huldra made no motion to her sentinels as they formed a patient ring around them, waiting for her order to attack. Her bare chest rose and fell sharply with outrage. Then her fine chin lifted and her brutal features hardened. Her fingers slipped away from his wrists.
Rathen's arms dropped heavily. Neither made a move for the other. Instead he watched her warily as she took a step back, rubbing his raw skin, and she, too, maintained the lock of her gaze even as she knelt and plunged her hand into the earth. It vanished as easily as had the ground been sand, and when it withdrew, a tangled, fibrous mass came with it. He blinked at the vaguely yellow, multi-capped stalks and everything fell horrendously into place.
His eyes flicked back to her, thick with accusation - but her throbbing voice rose first.
"Mykodendrit," she said, almost conversationally. "Spindle fingers, as the vittra call them - yes, you met a pair of them on your first visit. It grows in and around the roots of trees, plants and grass, passing information, sharing nutrients. Mother trees use it to feed saplings. Smaller plants use it to warn others of predators. The kvistdjur use it. I use it. This is the network, and it stretches beneath all of Arasiin. And, when the mature stalks are carefully harvested and eaten, one will, for a short while, become part of that network. For humans, though, it is a weak connection - just strong enough for manipulation on a subconscious level." She plunged it back into the ground, the grass and soil wholly undisturbed, and rose to wander slowly about them. He turned and tracked her carefully. "But this fungi is sensitive. It relies on balance to survive, and the magic is upsetting that balance. It's interrupting connections, it's mislaying information, it's stealing nutrients and changing the network's shape.
"The network is at its strongest in forests, and the forests are at the greatest risk. This is how my connection is being severed, without which the natural balance will shift; wilderness will wane first, then your crops and hunting will suffer, too." She stopped beside Garon, and with a gentle brush of her fingers through his hair, his eyes suddenly cleared. He looked around in a panic, only now aware of their circumstance, but his struggle ceased when she squeezed his shoulder. He looked up at her in confusion, then followed her gaze towards Rathen and his guarded bearing. "But it's here where it is at its strongest. And it's challenging my seat. I can afford pockets to be cut off - the land will heal, as will the network. But not without me. If the Wildlands fall, all hope of repair and renewal is lost."
"We understand that," Rathen replied mindfully, his previous fury finally tempered into consideration as his eyes flicked briefly over the watchful, rooted guards, "but there's more you're unaware of. Salus is dangerous, and with magic he's an even greater threat. He wants to move Turunda - he wants to split it away from the rest of Arasiin and move it away to 'safety'. He's stressing all the chasms right now and deliberately making it worse!"
"I am aware of this," she resumed her predatory circling while the band of glowing foxfire eyes impaled the captives. "You spend more time talking in the forests than you realise. But as I've said: I can afford to be cut off from a few pockets, and even if such a thing were truly possible - and I am forced for the sake of my kin to assume that it is - it will not happen quickly. He is not an immediate threat."
"He's also killing wildlings - your kin! You know this, you said it yourself! Through Garon! He sees you as a threat to the people of this country - how long will it be before he decides to direct one of those chasms through here and clear you all out of Turunda for good?!"
"You will stop him before then."
"Not if you're going to keep us in here, we won't! He has elves helping him, elves who want to see him succeed. All it takes is for one of them to step in, take over or say 'I just had a thought' and progress could speed on ahead so fast that we have no hope of catching up."
"I repeat myself again: it will not happen so quickly."
"Would that we could all be so confident about the actions of a mad man."
"Or indeed the people that let him rise to power." She stopped, reassuming an air of supremacy, and regarded him coolly down the length of her regal nose. "No."
"...No?"
"No. The priority of the Wildlands remains paramount. You will stay and repair every site within it. Then, and only then, will you be free to chase down your 'ghost'."
She observed him unmovingly as he appeared about to burst, his ashen face flooding crimson and hands clawing at the air. Her eyes didn't stray from him as Garon's voice rose to step in from behind. But whatever case he wished to make, and to whomever, it was silenced by a brusque gesture.
Faster than she could blink, Rathen flashed in front of her. She didn't flinch, having felt his movements in the ground, but the cloud of menace that darkened in his wake billowed out around him like a toxic shadow. For the briefest instant, she was betrayed by a flickering of her brow.
"Listen to me, Your Majesty." His breath was hot across her face, tone low, bitter - dangerous. And the dark, perilous promise in his eyes was meant unmistakably for her. "Whether you care to hear it or not, the magic is affecting far more than your forests and your 'network', and we - the six of us - are out here to put an end to it. We're the only ones putting an end to it. For the sake of our people as well as yours. We already have arrangements with the ditchlings and the harpies, and your demands will go right along with them - but, and if I'm going to be completely honest with you, my home isn't affected, and I don't care one whit what goes on in the cities. I could easily return to my chair beside my fireplace and abandon this whole situation. And without me, the rest of these fine people will be stuck. You will be stuck. And the world will fall apart around my home - which itself will remain untouched because I will have poured every ounce of my power into shielding it. With magic that you do not possess. Magic your vakehn no longer possess." He took a step closer, but she didn't retreat. "I am out here for only one reason, and she is standing back there, wrapped in your roots. So, O Root Mother, I think that you should probably let her go before I revoke my services altogether and leave you and your precious forests to fall, and your kin's fate in the hands of a mad man. And he needn't even resort to magic to wipe you all out. It wouldn't take many cinders to set this whole twisted forest ablaze - your singing kvistdjur have already made a start on laying the kindling, and the dry months aren't far ahead..."
The forest hung as silent as death. He ignored the shocked stares and centred his deliberately brazen defiance squarely upon the huldra. He kept a tight rein over the victory that came with her hateful scowl.
"Yes," she hissed, "that command..."
His eyes shifted past her at the slight sound of moving earth and watched as the roots finally receded, freeing Aria first, then the others. Anthis was quick to catch her hand in case she tried to run to him.
Satisfied, he returned to the huldra. "We are going to continue as we were. We will correct every site we pass, but we are not going out of our way. Our priority is to impede Salus until we can find a way to stop him. Then, and only then, will we be free to eradicate the magic - here and in our own homes."
Hlífrún's lips pursed, and her grey, gossamer-shrouded hip kicked out as she shifted her weight. She stared at him for a long while, assessing, calculating, regarding his steadfastness with the consideration of a ruler, weighing the chance and fate of all her kin in the face of something neither could truly know the outcome of. B
ut though he carried the same uncertainty, he wore only confidence.
Finally, her head snapped away with a bark of agreement, and a good many of the kvistdjur melted back into the forest. "I hope you know what you're doing, Rathen," she warned him as the few that remained stepped forwards to join their queen.
"To your credit, Your Majesty," he said a little more easily, "you know the forests well, but not the cities nor the people in them - nor what sudden power can do to a man. But I know something about forests, and I know cities, I know power, and I know the magic plaguing us - probably better than most."
"Yes, you do. But I hope all the same." She turned, then, to vanish back into the trees with her sentinels, but Rathen gently caught her wrist. One of the kvistdjur snatched out at him as fast as a scorpion. He released her in a hurry, and the sharp, wooden talons stopped as still as a tree just inches from his arm. Hlífrún turned with an expectant look.
"There is one more thing: you've been poisoning us."
"It is no poison."
"Call it what you will, but these mushrooms of yours have left us vulnerable. What else have you done to us?"
"Nothing. The mykodendrit was a precaution. I've not needed to resort to engaging it until now."
"You could have told us outright what you wanted, you know."
"You would have declined."
"We've still declined."
"Perhaps. But at least now you understand how serious I am."
"And look what good it's done you." He sighed and stepped back, then bowed his head graciously. "You have my word that we will do all we can, Your Majesty, but we will do it our way."
"And if the Wildlands fall before you succeed?"
He smiled abstractly. "We wouldn't let it happen. If nothing else, my home is in the scowles. I can't afford to lose those woods."
Her eyes slighted thoughtfully. "Yes, it is, isn't it... In that case, while I have you, allow me to apologise for the incident--"
