Bones of Faerie03 - Faerie After

by Janni Lee Simner

  “I know.” I rubbed at my shoulder, but I couldn’t reach all the sore spots on my own. Lowering my voice, I said, “Matthew’s with him.”

  “Of course he is. Don’t need visions to see that.” Allie wrapped her arms around herself. “I’m tired, but it doesn’t seem right to sleep when so many people I care about are in so much trouble.”

  “If you rest, you’ll be better able to help them.”

  “I know that. I do.” Allie sipped from the wine skin. “You need sleep, too, Liza.” She handed me the skin.

  I drank as well. “I slept while you were gone. Go ahead.”

  “All right.” Allie pillowed her head in my lap, and this time she fell asleep as easily as after a day’s work in the fields. I brushed her hair back from skin clammy with sweat.

  I watched for patches of darkness, for any scent of decay, and most of all for Tolven to keep his promises.

  Tolven didn’t return. I kept watching long after Allie’s light went out, but when I saw new light in the distance at last, it was Nys, come to fetch Allie away once more.

  Chapter 7

  Allie woke at that light, and we both stood to face the stone shaper. He ignored us, kneeling instead to examine the pile of gray dust. He tapped his belt, and one of the links took on a liquid brightness. He drew the link free, and it shifted into a sharp stone shard. Nys poked the shard into the dust, removed it, and, finding it whole, pressed it back into his belt, where it became ordinary stone once more. He put his hands to the floor on either side of the dust then, and that stone, too, turned to shining liquid. Sweat trickled down Nys’s face as the liquid rock flowed over the dust, covering it before hardening again.

  “That should hold well enough,” Nys said. “And so you see more of the damage the Uprising has wrought. Come, Healer.”

  Had the fires my people sent truly caused this crumbling, as surely as they’d caused the unraveling of fire fever? How could any fire hold that much power?

  Allie let Nys’s fingers wrap around hers. I wanted to throw up the sickly sweet vegetables I’d eaten. How many times would I watch, powerless, as he took Allie away?

  “Take me with you,” I said. Allie shouldn’t have to do this alone—and beyond this room, there might be some chance of escape. Tolven hadn’t come back. It was up to us to find our own way out.

  “And why would I do that?” Nys looked coolly down at me. “You’re no healer. You can draw the living to you, but you cannot call back the dead.”

  “But she can,” Allie said. “If they haven’t gone too far.”

  “Indeed?” Nys tightened his hold on the healer. “That is not a power summoners were known to have, before the Uprising.”

  Karin hadn’t told me that. I fought to keep the surprise from my face. “I can help Allie. If someone’s shadow tries to slip away again, I can call it back, at least for a little while. I can give her more time.”

  Nys went very still. “I do not know whether to welcome your help or kill you for having such unnatural power.”

  “I’m of more use to your people alive,” I said.

  Nys gave me a long, level look. “That is a near thing. See that you do not take it for granted. I will hold your hand. If you cause any trouble, you will pay for it.”

  I did not need to ask which hand he meant. I swallowed and held my left hand out to him. Nys’s free hand wrapped around mine. His touch shivered through the stone, a reminder of how much power he had over it. My stomach churned. Nys walked swiftly into the tunnel, and Allie and I followed. Allie walked steadily, head held high. There was something in that posture—she hadn’t just gotten taller this past year. She’d gotten older, nearer to the adult she would be. I hadn’t noticed, living with her day to day.

  We turned into another tunnel, one with more glowing purple stones embedded in its walls. Side passages branched off the main one. From one corridor I heard soft voices reciting poetry, something about swift red hawks and slow green trees, things that must have been as lost to this world’s Before as cars and telephones were lost to mine. From another corridor, I caught a glimpse of warm yellow light. I glanced down that corridor, into a huge room filled with dark soil and brown leafy trees and vines. Winter colors, only the plants weren’t limp like winter plants. Somewhere among them somebody sang a strange, low song, filled with the sounds of wind blowing, rain falling, plants sighing as they reached for the sun, a song that made me long for any world beyond these tunnels. Nys slowed his steps as the song stopped and a voice whimpered, “Color crumbles. Green is but a dream. Only gray remains.” The singer shrieked and took up his wordless song once more. I knew him then: Tolven. He sounded lost, far too lost to help us.

  “Who’s that?” Allie said. “He sounds so sad. He’s sick, too, isn’t he?”

  “It is not an illness you can mend. Healers cannot heal everything. Surely Kaylen has taught you this.” Nys strode on, and Allie and I scrambled to keep up as Tolven’s voice faded. Light reflected off clear gems set in the tunnel’s ceiling and floor, casting rainbows through the air ahead of us.

  Allie reached out, as if to catch the colors in her hand. “Mind hurts. We can’t heal mind hurts.”

  “Just so.” Nys walked through the light as if he scarcely noticed it. “Our young plant speaker is quite mad, and no wonder. He came into his magic as the fire fell from the skies. The first thing he heard was the trees’ screams as they died. He hears them still, in memory and in every twisted plant he calls. Nothing grows straight or true here any longer. It is more than any speaker can endure. Thanks to Karinna, we know that for certain now.”

  “He wouldn’t hear dying plants in my world,” I said. Even in winter, human plants merely slept, and in summer they grew strong enough to seek human blood. “You could send him there.” Karin and Allie and I weren’t the only ones who needed to escape this place.

  Nys jerked me forward, and heat flared through my hand. “Do you condemn us all so lightly? Since the Uprising, precious little grows here without help. Most of our other plant speakers perished in the fighting. The few who remained here to protect us fell to fire fever soon after. Without poor Toby, we would surely perish as well. Even with him our crops failed for a time, without warning or reason. There is no telling when that might happen again.”

  Toby, Nys had called him. That had to be his short-name, making Tolven his true one after all. He had to be mad indeed to give it to me.

  Allie’s steps stiffened, not with glamour, but with anger. “It’s wrong. Keeping him here.”

  “And what would you know of what’s right or wrong for my people? We may all fall to the fire fever and the crumbling in the end, but I’ll delay that day as long as I can. We all bear scars from this War, some more openly than others. If Toby pays a higher price than most, there is no helping that.”

  An open archway stood at the end of the corridor. A woman in a green tunic and pants was stationed there, a long knife at her belt. She scowled when she saw us. “Another human?”

  “I take full responsibility for her,” Nys said. “We have need of healers, and of other magics as well. Unless your fear is greater than your will to help our people.” The contempt in his words would have been a match for the Lady herself.

  “I am not afraid, I assure you,” the woman said, but her hand moved toward her knife, belying her words. Nys’s gaze swept into the room. It was lit by purple lights, warmed by orange ones, and held a sickly sweet sickbed scent that reminded me of the overripe vegetables I’d eaten. The ill lay on the floor, furs beneath them and down blankets covering them. A few other fey folk tended to them. Patients and visitors alike were quiet, far quieter than most sick humans would have been.

  Nys stopped beside a man whose clear hair lay around his face like a cloud. The stone shaper released Allie’s hand but held tight to mine. “You will start here today, Healer.”

  Allie knelt beside the man. His eyes were closed, but his body held none of the restfulness of sleep. I started toward her side.
Nys pulled me back. “You will not interfere. You will only watch their shadows, and call if calling is needed.”

  I hadn’t been trying to interfere, only to help. I watched the man’s shadow from where I stood. It was solid and dark within him, trembling as the man was not.

  Allie pulled the blanket back, her attention already more on her patient than on Nys or me. Deep red bruises mottled the man’s too-tight skin, and the bones beneath pressed against it, as if seeking to break free. Allie ran her hands over his body with a series of light touches, none lasting too long. The man’s dull silver eyes opened to regard her without curiosity.

  Allie bit her lip and put her hands to his chest. I kept my own gaze on his shadow, watching for any sign of fading or flickering. Light bloomed gently beneath Allie’s hands, hundreds of thin silver threads that formed a shimmering web as they burrowed into the man’s skin. For a moment it seemed I saw through flesh to where those threads wove their way into blood and bone, making it whole, and then the light was gone. Allie smiled wearily. “You need rest now,” she said. More light flashed over his body, and his shadow stopped trembling as he shut his eyes. Allie sighed and drew her hands away. The man’s red bruises were gone.

  “Will he live?” Nys asked, his voice cold.

  “I hope so.” Allie gasped for breath between words, as if she’d been running. “It’s so much more work to heal your people than mine, because they’re so much stronger—and fire fever is slippery. Sometimes I’m sure I’ve gotten it all, but other times, like this one, it’s hard to tell.” Allie’s shoulders slumped as her breath steadied. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault,” I said. Allie and I hadn’t commanded the fire that fell from the skies, any more than we’d ordered the trees to attack my people. Yet the harm those things had left behind was ours to live with, just the same.

  “All humans share the blame for what happened here.” Nys moved to a woman’s side. “This one next, Healer.” The woman’s eyes were closed, but air rasped in and out of her lungs as if through dry leaves. I saw a deer’s shadow tangled with her human one.

  Allie looked up at us, and there was something in her eyes. Too far, I thought. She was afraid of pushing too far. Allie pressed her lips together and knelt by the woman’s side.

  “She needs rest,” I said. “Before she does any more.”

  Allie shook her head, a warning. Nys’s fingers tightened around mine. My fingers tightened around his, and heat pulsed through them. I stumbled, and the heat went away, but my fingers remained obediently in place, as if I were a child holding an adult hand. I wanted to throw up. It took all my will not to fight that hold.

  “Go on, Healer,” Nys said. “I will tell you when you may stop.”

  Allie lifted the blanket, while other faerie folk in the room watched us in silence. I swallowed the sour taste in my mouth. Even if I could escape Nys’s hold, there were too many others. We weren’t leaving until Nys said we were.

  Allie ran her hands over the woman’s body, stopped, and glanced at me. “Shifter?” she asked, and I nodded. Allie’s hands moved to the woman’s breastbone. Light bloomed again, brighter and more focused, a river of light that flowed into her.

  “Does it please you, Liza, to watch our people die?” Nys’s gaze remained on Allie and the woman she healed. “To know that we have been dying ever since your petty Uprising?”

  “No. It doesn’t please me.” Perhaps it should have, trapped as I was by those people, but it made me feel as ill as the way my fingers remained wrapped around Nys’s.

  “We once thought those few of our people who survived the initial burning were fortunate. We were wrong. The fires burn within as well as without. Only the worst come to this sickroom, but none is untouched by this illness that continues to cling to air and soil and stone.”

  I watched as Allie drew away. My people had died, too, in the War. They had not died slowly.

  “That one was easier,” Allie said. “The fever wasn’t everywhere, just in one place. When she’s strong enough to shift, I’ll need to see her again to be sure, but I think she’ll be okay.” As Allie stood, Nys grasped her hand again. “I really do need rest now,” the healer said, her voice small.

  “And you shall have it.” Nys turned and swept from the room, pulling us after him. Allie stumbled as she hurried to keep up. We turned down the main hall and moved steadily through it, past all the side passages. They were no longer lit, and I didn’t hear Tolven’s voice as Nys led us back to our room.

  “You have done good work this day, Healer. For that, much thanks.” Nys released Allie’s hand but held mine a moment more. “You please me less, Liza. You will not accompany us again.” I felt my stone fingers unwrap from around his, one by one. Nys left us, taking the light. I ran after him, but of course I wasn’t fast enough. The stone closed behind him, leaving us in the dark.

  “He has to take you next time!” Allie cried. “We have to find a way out!” Her shadow hand searched for mine, and her fingers gripped the stone, though I couldn’t feel it. “We can’t let Caleb and Matthew come here. We can’t.”

  “I know that!” I jerked away with more force than intended. “Don’t you think I know?” I was failing them all: Matthew, Caleb, Karin, Allie. Allie fumbled for me again, but I stepped out of her reach. My stone hand felt heavy and dead by my side. None of us was going to make it out of here, not now, not ever.

  “Liza?” Allie’s voice was small. “Don’t be angry, please. Don’t leave me alone here.”

  I drew a deep breath, focusing on the feel of air moving into my chest. Breathe in. Breathe out. I could not afford to lose control. “Sorry, Allie.” With my good hand, I reached for her.

  Stone whispered over stone, and an arm snaked around my neck.

  “Seeds,” Tolven rasped.

  Chapter 8

  “Go away!” I whispered the command as his grip tightened. “Tolven, go away!”

  Abruptly he released me. “You promised seeds,” he pouted. “The green is real. Nothing else is real, but the green is. And you promised.”

  I gasped for air, my hand going to my throat. “I promised you one seed, and I promised it later. After you lead us away from here. Remember?”

  “Remembering’s hard,” Tolven whined. “Too many other voices. Too many—” His own voice rose, cracked. “I can listen. Listen to the green. I did it before. I will do it now.” For several heartbeats I heard only his ragged breathing. Then, “I am sorry. Did I harm you?”

  “We’re fine,” I said, knowing he was himself again. “And I will give you a seed, just as soon as you show us the way out.”

  Allie edged close to me and took my hand. I squeezed it, willing her to feel my apology. She squeezed back, and I hoped she forgave me.

  “I got lost again,” Tolven said softly. “I knew I had to find the seeds, but I could not recall why, through the wilting and the crumbling all around. I am weary of being lost—that is not your concern. We have made a bargain, and I will keep it. Come, this way.”

  My throat hurt. I wanted to say it was my concern, though I had little enough reason to trust Tolven beyond the promises we’d exchanged. His shadow moved silently across the room, and I followed, leading Allie behind me. Maybe the seed would be enough to save him. But it hadn’t been enough for Karin.

  Light flooded the room as a tunnel opened before us. “Even mad, I knew I could not be seen,” Tolven said matter-of-factly. There were new tears along his sleeves, stained with dried blood. He took the purple stone that lay in the tunnel in his hand. “I hid the light in one passage, then came for you through another.”

  By the light, I saw the wine skin Nys had given us lying on the floor. I ran back to sling it over my shoulder, and then Allie and I followed Tolven into the tunnel. We swiftly reached a stone wall, but the stone parted at Tolven’s approach, revealing a longer passage with rougher walls. As we entered that tunnel, I heard the groan of shifting rock. I looked back to see the stone closing in behi
nd us, leaving us only a few free paces ahead and behind. A trap, I thought, but Tolven kept walking, and the stone kept opening ahead of him, as quickly as it closed behind. I pushed Allie in front of me; if one of us got caught by the swift-flowing stone, I didn’t want it to be her. Allie gave me a long look and dropped back to my side, though there was barely room for the two of us to walk abreast. Our steps echoed against the tunnel floor.

  “Not so loud.” Tolven scowled as he glanced back at us. “Do you wish to be found?”

  I knew how to walk more quietly, but not without slowing down. With the stone flowing behind us, I chose speed over stealth. We climbed uphill, gently at first, then more steeply, until I heard my and Allie’s breaths as well as our steps.

  Without warning, Tolven stopped, one hand halfway to the stone ahead of us. “The Summoner’s Grove—what remains of the Grove—is just beyond this spot. You will give me the seed so I can see that humans keep their word, and then I will step forward and the stone will open to that place. When it does, you will be free to leave.” He extended his hand to me.

  I reached into my pocket and took out a seed. The life in all the seeds flared stronger, as if they were reluctant to be parted from one another. I pressed the seed into Tolven’s palm. His fingers closed around it, and I felt … peace, flowing like a contented sigh from the green he held. Or maybe it came from Tolven himself, who set his glowing stone aside to cradle the seed in both hands like a precious child. “Yes. It is well done.”

  Cold tickled the back of my neck. I turned to see the way behind us filling with a darkness the light could not touch. Dust trickled to the floor a couple arms’ lengths away, no more. The purple light gave way to gray.

  “Tolven,” I said.

  Tolven looked up from the seed, as if waking from a dream, to focus on the gray all around us. He moved swiftly forward. Stone flowed aside, letting in hot yellow sun. Allie and I stepped past him into a world of blue sky, glittering ash, black tree snags. My eyes ached at the sudden brightness. In the distance, I saw a circle of stumps, bench and standing stone within them.