by Jean Lee
Even The Voice shudders inside her heart’s chambers. Only once has the High Sage granted such a gift to one the likes of you.
Charlotte blinks, finds she’s trying to remember how curtsies work, then gives up, because it’s Captain. “This, I don’t, I mean I went after you with Liam’s blood dagger. That can’t play by your rules, but…” she looks to Arlen and Liam, both standing once more, bodies as tense as Dorjan’s before he ran. “You honor me. I promise to earn that honor.” Charlotte knots the belt and slides the bone dagger through the braids. “Thank you.”
“We will patrol Aranina closely until the threat has passed.” Captain bows curtly and walks out into the shallows and beyond, her fish scales shimmering as they sink with every step. “Do take care the next monster you battle has all its parts. That last one was missing humors and organs alike. A disappointingly short study.”
26
An Uneasy Trail
Charlotte strains to hear a creak, a buzz, a bark, a something. Never thought I’d miss Aine’s laughs and whines as much as I do right now. Even when she first crossed the Wall, she had D’s breathing, and then Campion’s chattering. This time, the green stillness feels more like a void sucked dry of life.
She walks between Liam and Arlen with her hand perched upon the hilt of Captain’s gift. Sunlight falls through the trees and lands in ever-changing patterns on Arlen’s coat. The odor of Cairine’s urine is very faint—either Dorjan did not run this way, or the acidic stink of angry fear from Liam crowds out everything else.
This doesn’t feel like the direction to Rose House. No fruit bushes grow around them, and many of the ferns and bluebells lie trampled into the earth.
Silence presses them on.
Part of her wishes she could pass the bone-knife to Arlen, weaponless yet leading their line through the western forest, but she knows he’ll refuse it. There’s a chill to the red eel leather that still gives the weapon a touch of alienness at Charlotte’s side. Bizarre, since the bone-knife looks quite normal, really, whereas the blood dagger, the thing that shoots fire and grows into a sword and all sorts of other magical things, feels perfectly normal in Charlotte’s possession.
Arlen kneels to check his direction, raising a pinch of soil and leaves to his nose. His face sours as he wipes his hands.
Liam reaches back for his dagger as he does a slow, spinning survey of the land, then whispers, “What is it?”
“No fresh oil or clay from the Pits. Orna’s last followers never returned.”
They continue on until the green stillness gives way to another strange, new sight.
Soil has bubbled up like so many giant ant hills where trees were ripped out for the Incomplete transformations. Without that ring of worshiping trees, the Black Tree squats forgotten, like a misplaced prop from some 80s fantasy film. Its branches unfold up high like a dead choir’s fingers touching heaven, its ropes of roots like herds of snakes gathered for slaughter.
Charlotte follows Arlen into the barren spacing, waiting for the tongue-like door to unroll out to lure her in as it did when she first came to River Vine…but it doesn’t.
Liam runs his hand along the bark where the door should be, then bangs his fist. “Rose House. They know we cannot keep away from it forever.”
“Or they’re recovering from their own skirmish with Orna.” Arlen scans the bottom half of the trunk and finds a several slahes in its trunk—claw marks, perhaps, but high enough to be from talons.
“Guys.” Charlotte points to the familiar asters and ferns she remembers from her walks between between the Black Tree’s clearing and the Southern Road.
The trees—not all, but many—have been decimated.
“Who won?” Charlotte still can’t bring herself to say names.
The scraps of Incomplete death lay before them like Hansel and Gretel breadcrumbs. Chunks of oil-soaked bark, short lengths of thorned branches lodged in healthy trees now halved, their inner pulp jaggedly rising like the outlines of tiny cities. Charlotte and Liam step skittishly with their bare feet, mindful of thorns or oil that could lie beneath the broken foliage.
The Southern Road’s lush green grass is all but lost beneath the ash and oil, wood and bone. A few teeth shine against the charcoal of a branch, while one burnt hunk of wood smooths and hollows into a maw locked open in a scream.
Liam slides his fingers into four deep grooves in the wood: “Bear claws.” The words fall flat under the oppressive silence.
Arlen’s brow furrows. “Sloppy. I expected better.” He moves away.
“No broken glass, either,” Charlotte murmurs, imagining the giant glass lady crashing through the trees, fighting for them (she hopes), paving the way for their return...
Liam’s too lost in thought to hear Charlotte, but Arlen’s dark look and head shake are enough.
This is not the work of that Breed, The Voice whispers. Say nothing of your allies until you know it is safe.
The stone eagle markers soon welcome them off the Southern Road and into the wide clearing that is the center of River Vine. The large dome Liam had built to cover the hole over the Pits’ atrium curls now like a sick, wilted flower, its metal framework twisted beyond repair. Glass shards glitter at the base of the dome like the sun’s own teeth.
Destruction spirals out further into the clearing. Ash and broken branches mingle with jaw bones and gnarled legs.
Rose House, the heart of River Vine, sprawls gutted. The glass house on the roof has lost at least one wall. The far-left corner of the house that held the music room is completely knocked in, the beams crooked at frightening angles like bones piercing out of skin. The central wing looks sliced open from the roof down through the portico and to the veranda, its rock split. The gash in the library wall bleeds books into the grass, where the pages flip back and forth with every whim of the wind.
Charlotte’s mouth, gut, soul—they all drop. Even the Voice in her heart recoils. What did they do?!
For all the times Rose House helped me, made the boat barge even when it couldn’t protect itself…Charlotte’s chest seizes. She thumps her own sternum to breathe again, runs her hand across her eyes to see again.
A quiet birdsong sets them all spinning around. In the trees behind the Southern Road’s eagle markers flutters a little orange bird. They duck back into the tree cover, their questions tripping on one another.
Arlen: “Ember! Thank Aether. Are the others back, did they meet anyone—”
Liam: “Are they in Rose House alone? Who? Where?”
Charlotte: “Where’s Devyn? How’d you get separated?”
Ember hops off the branch a bird and lands a person. “Devyn is doing his best to catch the last scouts returning over the Wall.” Two raccoons walk out from the forest undergrowth with a green shopping bag tinkling between them. “We combined forces with Rose and Reed during the night and did the best we could.” She takes the green bag from the raccoons and sets it down. Inside are half a dozen mason jars glowing lavender with veli. She hands a jar to Arlen, then Liam. “We thought to reach Rose House early and scout Orna’s position.”
The raccoons poof themselves into personhood. The whites of their eyes almost pale the violet irises, their stark black hair falling across their sharp cheekbones. Rose grabs a jar and tries to guzzle it like Arlen and Ember, but only makes it one swallow before gagging. “How can you take straight veli so fast? And aren’t we sharing?” she shoves her jar into Reed’s hands.
Arlen’s shoulders shudder with the last swallow. He sets the jar down carefully next to the eagle marker. Ember sets her jar next to his and says flatly, “There may not be another chance.”
“All of it, Liam, c’mon.” Charlotte gives Liam’s arm a little nudge as he drinks, her own arms crossed upon herself. The lingering sets the nerves in her toes buzzing. Moving through even more ash was one thing, but all that glass and bare feet…damn. “Wish we could give Dorjan some.”
“He’ll be all right.” Though by the look of Ar
len’s face, he only speaks to hope. Still, he sets one full jar amongst the empty ones while Liam tosses his own emptied jar back into the trees.
“They must have seen us. I say we take the clearing, keep their attention on us. Buy the scouts more time to hide.”
“But what’s the big deal?” Reed’s voice cracks like a teenager’s. “All the traitors are dead, right?”
“Not by our hands,” Liam says, eyes fixed on the corpse that is Rose House. Arlen follows.
Charlotte blows a lock of hair off her face. Here we go. “Be careful,” she says with a weak smile to Ember, and keeps her pace just behind Arlen and Liam.
At least this new silence is warm. Charlotte tries to watch her step, feet and pants as grey as Devyn’s wings. They’re all three of them dusted with battle’s remains as they move closer to the hollowed frame of their home. A shape darts between crenels, but no alarm is sounded. Charlotte finds fresh comfort in her bone-knife, the one thing the ash doesn’t stick to for some reason. I’ll have to ask Captain why—
The ground beneath Charlotte’s feet gives way like sand.
Charlotte plummets.
Liam screams.
Black roots sew the hole shut.
27
Pale Fire
Charlotte’s body slams into the ice-cold clay of the Pits. She slides down the tunnel, faster and faster, until it evens out and she slows to a stop. This clay is a little less damp, the air a little less putrid. And light: barely, but there. Any light at all must mean the atrium. So, breathe through your god-damn nose, Charlie, and sneak on over that way to get help.
But why would Orna trap you down here only to let you out again? The Voice puzzles.
Shut up, no one asked you.
Toes first. Charlotte wriggles them into place, then carefully brings weight back down on her heels. Charlotte holds the bone-knife before her, ready to slash and swipe, while her free hand finds the tunnel’s side and presses it gently. Step by step. Forward.
Stop breathing through your mouth, Charlie!
But Charlie isn’t breathing through her mouth.
In the void ahead…somewhere, someone is breathing. Slurping. A click-popping, almost like a frog’s broken croak.
Charlotte pauses. Looks back. Ahead.
Another broken croak. Followed by a slow, slow rattle.
Orna—or a Hisser?—lies ahead.
Charlotte takes another step.
The rattle stops.
Charlotte slaps her hand over her face. Counts her breaths and reaches for the pendant that’s not there. Dammit, Dad, I wish I had a piece of you with me like I did that first time down here.
But even though Charlotte’s alone in the darkness, she is not alone. Liam and Arlen can find me, and they will find me if I ain’t quiet.
“Bring it on, bitch!” Darkness sucks her words into the void.
The rattle starts again. The croaking quickens to a sort of buzz…
Charlotte’s fingers groove the tunnel’s side as she walks with blind briskness. Colors squiggle where her eyes strain for light, but the air continues to freshen—she is moving towards the atrium. “How the hell can you even see me in this dark? Ha! Can you see the reeeal me…” Charlotte starts to sing, and the rattle ramps up its insane rhythm. The Voice in Charlotte’s heart laughs as it presses the bellows to the rhythm of Charlotte’s favorite Who song. Orna’s henchman Cein thought he could take it from her—hell to the no on that.
“Can you see the real me, preacher? Preacher?!”
The rattle keeps getting louder, but now Charlotte sees a clear, definable web of light ahead—the tunnel’s exit into the atrium of the Pits.
“Can you see, can you see, can you see?” Charlotte runs and slides out of the tunnel, singing,
“Can you see the real me, doctor?!”
The atrium is a graveyard of branch and bone. Ash floats lazily in the air like dust mites. A wide gaping mouth high in the wall above Orna’s old platform still hangs open, drooling its lines of glass droplets—the old channel for the water road, now crystalized tears of dead magic because of the Wall.
Charlotte looks up to the atrium’s ceiling, where the white tree once grew. New roots, black as pitch, are sewing the gap shut. But in this moment shards of light can still sneak through. She breathes deep and belts as loud as she can, “Can you see the real me, Maaaaaaama?!” she holds that last “Ma,” ready to sing herself hoarse—
“No. No. No. No. No.”
Charlotte spins around. In another tunnel’s entrance stands a pale shadow. The bottom half writhes, and the rattle grows louder. Two needle-thin arms stick out and shoot up as though a child is positioning the limbs. Ten fingers as long and sharp as snake fangs jerk out, jerk up, and take hold of the head slumped to one side. They wrench it upright. Mangled, oily locks of hair fall into place, but the tongue remains free to slurp and drool where it wants.
Inside, Charlotte wants to gag. What drunk sewed your face back on?!? Outside, Charlotte sticks her hands on her hips. “What, no Anna skin this time? I could describe my grandma to you if you want. Always did want to punch that hag in the mouth.”
The rattle tones back. “Ha ha ha ha.” Her lips don’t—or can’t—move. The tongue slithers about in the air and catches Charlotte’s scent. It wavers in Charlotte’s direction, and Orna’s snake-half finally slinks forward in short, halting movements. The hands jerk free of her head, and The Lady’s head flops to the side once more. Her fingers move in mechanical fashion at Charlotte, even as one finger falls off to the ground, lifeless at last. Orna’s eyes look pathetic without the menacing stars that once glowed in them.
Charlotte scoffs. “Jeez, even I could kill you now.”
“Charlotte?!” The cry flies down through the crevices. Yet the roots still grow, bridging every gap they find.
Charlotte sticks her bone knife back into the red belt. “Pardon me for just a second,” she says to the herky-jerky Lady and cups her hands to her mouth. “DOWN HERE!”
“An an an ha ha ha.”
Charlotte’s eyes narrow at the name. “That name’s got no power comin’ out of your stupid-ass mouth. Damn, even I can sew better’n’that..” She pulls out the bone-knife—
—almost too late.
Orna’s tongue whips far longer than before, missing Charlotte’s shoulder by a hair. Charlotte rolls to the side and curses at herself. “Yeah, Charlie, you can really slay the snake-lady easy peasy, can’tcha?”
The roots threading the atrium’s ceiling shake and crack, but don’t break. Thunder shakes from within a tunnel, echoes of light rippling out the tunnel’s sides to die in the atrium.
Orna’s tongue blossoms into three, then five, then ten translucent pink living whips. The stitches at the bottom of her face rip as her jaw unhinges wide enough to swallow a human. The hydra-tongue descends—
Charlotte leaps aside and slashes with the bone-knife. Dammit, this ain’t no blood dagger! But the blade is wicked sharp and takes out one of the tongues. It flops fish-like on the ground, spurts of oil and veli barely missing Charlotte’s leg.
She runs away before Orna’s hydra-tongue can take aim again. If I can slash up the snake part, I bet I could bleed the bitch out. She spots the serpent portion of Orna’s body, its peeling, sick skin caught on the rocks littering the tunnel’s entrance. Charlotte picks up speed, bone-knife aimed for the massive molting serpent—
Fire lights up the atrium. Roots rain ash as Liam’s blood sword burns through them all. He rolls, sheathes the blade, transforms mid-fall into the golden eagle, talons at the ready.
Charlotte’s knife strikes hard and deep into the snake’s belly. Oil laced with veli oozes from the gash. The funk of rot floods Charlotte’s nostrils.
Thunder builds in the tunnel. There’s a light, white and spectral, running with the thunder…
Orna’s body shakes and screams. Her head flops as the hydra-tongue feels the air for Charlotte.
It finds Liam’s talons instead.
“Liam fly up, NOW!” Charlotte screams. The hydra-tongue quickly coils round both Liam’s legs. Liam’s whole body burns feathers of fire, but the tongues don’t give. He transforms and hangs upside-down several feet above Orna’s gaping jaws.
The empty eyes meet his. A moan of pleasure oozes from her mouth.
The blood dagger slips from its sheath into Liam’s hand, and he slashes one leg free. Charlotte runs and aims for those needle arms, ready to rip one out.
“Can you see, can you see—” A tenor voice barrels out of the tunnel, followed by a pale figure wielding a sword of white light. Charlotte slides to a stop as he lops the bottom half of Orna’s jaw clean off. “Can you seeeee the real me?!”
Orna’s eyes roll towards him. A geyser of oil and screams erupt at the base of her tongue.
Liam slashes his other foot free, and he somersaults to the ground.
The pale figure wraps his hand in a hank of Orna’s hair and lifts her oily, sparkling half-face off the ground and right up to his own, the star-less orbs even darker next to his white-blond hair and ice-blue eyes. “You should have played the game my way.” Her herky-jerky arms begin to reach out, but he stomps down on her breasts and pops her head off with a thock!
He tosses the head over his shoulder, spins the light sword. It flickers down into a broad, thick dagger with vicious claw marks crisscrossing in its steel. He slips the dagger into a leather sheath strapped to his right calf, then looks at Liam. “And where in Aether’s Fire have you been? The old tomcat commoner said something about Lake Aranina. And you’re welcome, by the way.” He thumbs back at Orna’s head.
Liam grunts as he pulls the last of the hydra tongues off his ankles. “I was getting there.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself. A caged bird can’t fly, after all. Oh, hello. You’re new,” he glances at Charlotte, then takes Liam by the shoulders. This close together, blue eyes in line with grey, Charlotte notes a touch more youth in the blond guy’s skin and voice. A more modern sense of clothing, too, with his boots, jeans, and grey hiking jacket.
