“We need to go in, don’t we?” he whispered.
“I’m not sure about that…” Orlando said.
“Come on,” Shireen said, but Thaddeus heard the strain in her voice. “We need to know.”
The three of them slowly approached the entrance to the gigantic tree. Shireen reached out to the handle of one of the double doors and pushed. The door opened a slight amount and then stuck firmly. Orlando, and then finally Thaddeus, helped to push, and with much exertion, it finally opened enough to allow them to slip through the gap, one after another.
Putting a finger to her lips, mostly for his benefit, Thaddeus was sure, Shireen wiggled into the opening. Orlando quickly followed her, leaving Thaddeus to bring up the rear.
He looked at the dark opening, willing himself forward. Every fiber of his being screamed at him not to go inside. There was only death, pain, and madness there. The massacre out here was better than what waited in there.
But the two scouts from Towering Oaks had gone in. Could he do any less?
He took a deep breath, and forced himself to slip through the opening, into the darkness.
CHAPTER 17
Florian poured another drink and brought it to Jediah. “Well,” he said, taking a seat in a chair next to him. “What do you think they’re going to find?”
“You know what they’re going to find,” Jediah growled, and tossed down his drink in one gulp.
Florian frowned and sipped at his own drink. He didn’t want to admit that Jediah was probably right. He knew both Shireen and Orlando, by reputation at least. Neither of them were proven to flights of fancy. If they said that something had disturbed them that greatly on their patrol, then something had. And he knew of nothing else that it could be.
“Jediah,” he began, but then faltered, and covered it with another sip of his drink. How had it come to this? Jediah was at one time his closest friend. As young men, they had hunted together, drank together, and even occasionally pursued the same woman. Even when they got older, and became the Heads of their Houses, they had remained close, and the bonds between Whispering Pines and Towering Oaks had been firm.
But then…Solomon. Jediah hadn’t been exaggerating when he had called Solomon the best of them. The likes of him hadn’t been seen in the Greenweald since the days of old, the age of heroes, who had taken a wild, brutal land, and changed it into something more civilized and pleasant. Most said that Solomon was reborn from that age, come again at a time that the Greenweald would need him, although no one knew quite why that was.
Maybe they would now.
But no, Solomon was no great hero after all. He had let Florian’s only daughter, the light of his eyes, die. He had disobeyed Jediah’s direct order, and continued to see her, and taken her to that accursed pool…
He knew he wasn’t being entirely fair. If someone had tried to keep him from Shanta, Celia’s mother, he would have moved heaven or hell to be with her. If he was being honest, his objection to them being together wasn’t so much that she was the daughter of a Head of House, and Solomon merely a soldier. It was more that for the first time, Celia was looking at someone else the way she had always looked at her father. Like a hero.
Except that in Solomon’s case, he really was.
And yet, Celia was gone. And unlike Solomon, no one was here begging him to allow her to come back. They couldn’t. That option wasn’t available for her, so why should it be for him?
“We need to come together on this,” he said, finally. The words felt sticky in his throat and he had to force them out. Why was this so hard? He rose and poured himself another drink, then turned and filled Jediah’s cup again as well. He needed to slow down, or the liqueur would go to his head, and that wasn’t what was needed right now.
“Do you honestly think that’s going to matter?” Jediah said quietly. “It’s a Soul Gaunt, Florian. You know what that means.”
“Yes, it means we hunt it down and kill it. It’s not as if that’s never been done before.”
“No, that’s true. It has. And how many died before we found it and were able to put it down? How many died trying to do just that?”
Florian didn’t respond. He remembered it well. All those years ago, the Soul Gaunt that had come into the Greenweald had wreaked havoc. It had stayed hidden by day, only coming out at night, and blending into the darkness. It had oozed into the lesser homes of the Folk, claiming victims at random. Finally, it had been stumbled upon by pure, dumb luck, by a soldier who only had time to scream before he died.
Others had run to the noise, bearing torches and surrounded the thing, but it was fast, and deadly. It wielded a long, cold sword, that sliced through the armor of the Folk as if it were paper. Its touch caused agony, and its breath made strong men quail. Before Jediah himself had delivered the final blow, there was a ring of dead bodies around it.
Most weapons hadn’t touched it. Only those that had been blessed, or that had been forged with the assistance of a mage seemed to have any effect on the thing. And then only barely. Scratches. But over time, enough of those scratches had finally done it in.
“I remember,” Florian said. “I remember that you finally killed it. We’ll do the same thing again now. We know more now. We know how to fight it, hopefully how to find it.”
“Tell that to the children who will lose parents. Or worse, the parents who will lose children. You, above all others, know how that feels. Would you have others go through that also? When you don’t have to?”
“So I should let the killer of my child come back home? On the off chance that he could actually help?”
“Off chance? You don’t understand. Solomon is our only chance of stopping this thing without losing a lot of people. Do you know how many died when that one came in? But when he went after the next one? One. Just one. Solomon tracked it, knew where it would go, and confronted it, on his own. And he beat it.”
Florian grimaced. “I find that hard to believe. I was there when we…”
“I know you were there,” Jediah interrupted. “Which is why what he did should mean more to you. Do you think that I lie to you, Florian? Why? You were my…”
He trailed off and took a drink himself. Florian watched him, realizing that his old friend was as uncomfortable reliving the past as he was.
“No. No, I don’t think you lie to me.” He sank back into his chair. “And you were my closest friend, too. But you ask a lot of me.”
“Yes, I do. I don’t ask it for me, although I’d be more than happy to see Solomon returned to us. I ask it for all of us.”
Florian rubbed his eyes, and set his glass down. His head was starting to ache and the liqueur wasn’t helping. Dammit. He didn’t want the man to come back. He didn’t want the killer of his daughter to live among them again.
But…
But, he knew that wasn’t fair either. Solomon didn’t kill Celia. Not really. Whatever force was in that pool. That was what had killed her. Solomon was guilty of loving her, and disobeying, and failing her. He saw the man’s face when he had come back here, to this compound, not to his own, to tell Florian man to man what had happened. He had taken the blows that Florian had rained on him, and never tried to strike back.
When he had summoned the guards, Solomon had never resisted, and had not even offered up a defense in front of Jamshir, other than saying that he had failed her. For all of his abilities, for all of his greatness, when Florian had looked on him that day, he had seen a broken man.
“Dammit,” he said again, quietly, but aloud this time. “It’s not fair.”
“No,” Jediah said, and sat down in his own chair. “It’s not. She was too bright a light to go out so early. I never said it, but I was sorry, Florian. I still am.”
Florian nodded, not looking at his one-time friend. “If I agree to this, what next?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know how the spell worked, or how to reverse it to get him back. Do you?”
“No, one of Jamshir’s pet w
izards did it. But Thaddeus might know something. He was always more attuned to that kind of thing than I was.”
“Then, we wait. Shireen and Orlando will return soon with news, I’m sure. We’ll hear what they have to say, then go see Jamshir.”
“Jamshir? Why? If I’ve agreed to let Solomon back, and Thaddeus can work the magic, then why involve him?”
“He’s still our liege lord,” Jediah said. “He needs to know that a Soul Gaunt is loose in the Greenweald, if he doesn’t already. I have a feeling that he always knows much more than he lets on. Plus, he should know that we’ve agreed that we need Solomon.”
Florian nodded. “Yes, I guess you have a point. Still, something about it…” He stopped, and took another sip of his drink.
“Yes?” Jediah said. “You were saying?”
“How far can I trust you?”
“You always could have. Even after Solomon, I wouldn’t have betrayed you, or your confidence.”
Florian hesitated and looked around to make sure that none of the servants were within earshot. “I’m sure it’s treasonous to say this, but I don’t entirely trust Jamshir.”
To his surprise, Jediah smirked. “Go on.”
“Didn’t you ever have the feeling that he was working for the good of his own House, and for his own gain, more so than worrying about what was good for the Greenweald?”
“I’ve thought that for years. Jamshir is not the man that his father was.”
“No, he isn’t. Still…I don’t think he’s necessarily corrupt. More…selfish, maybe?”
“I think that’s a good assessment. And if this was anything other than a Soul Gaunt, I’d say to forget him. We’d handle it and fill him in later. But if this thing gets away from us, he does need to know.”
“You’re right, of course. I’m letting my own prejudices get in the way of the greater good.”
He rose, decided on one more glass of the liqueur and refilled Jediah’s as well.
“Here’s to old friends and allies reunited again” he said, raising his glass.
“About damn time,” Jediah replied and took a more lingering sip this time.
CHAPTER 18
Solomon was much happier to see Daisy than he thought he would be. Despite what he had said to Lacy, he had been worried about her. Yes, Hunting Hounds were tough, fast, and fearless, but a Soul Gaunt was a Soul Gaunt, and plenty of tough, fast, fearless things fell before one of them. Since getting back parts of his memory, he knew that first hand.
But either the Gaunt hadn’t returned after he had driven it away with the flare, or Daisy had been faster and smarter and had managed to evade it. Either way, she was here, she was fine, and he was very glad of the fact. He rubbed her down briskly once more, then rose to his feet.
“Weren’t worried about her at all, huh?” Lacy’s voice came from behind him, her footsteps crunching through the gravel on the driveway.
“Well, maybe a little, I guess,” he confessed. “I really did think she’d be okay, but I have to admit, I’m glad that I was right.”
Lacy reached down and scratched Daisy between the ears, the dog pushing her head up into the woman’s hand. “Yeah, she’s fine. Aren’t you girl?" Daisy ate up the attention. “So, is there any sense looking in the woods now? In the daylight?” She kept petting Daisy, but this was directed at Solomon.
He turned and looked at the woods. “I don’t think so. Unless we want to try to find Luke, but even that’s a long shot. If the Soul Gaunt has him, he won’t be where we can find him that easy.”
Lacy nodded. “Let’s go inside then. I’ll make some coffee, we can decide what we’re going to do, and then take a rest. Get some sleep, if we can.”
She led the way into the kitchen and busied herself making coffee while Solomon took a seat at the table and looked around. There was none of the grandeur of the Greenweald here, but the home was comfortable, lived in. It had the look of a place that had been inhabited by the same person for years, with everything in its place, even if some of those things were long forgotten. He liked it, it made him feel that he was somewhere that was loved.
A few minutes later, Lacy set a steaming mug in front of him. “Sugar? Cream?”
“Both, please.”
She brought them over and Solomon helped himself to two large spoonsful of sugar, and a healthy pour of cream. Lacy watched him over the rim of her cup and chuckled.
“What?”
“I would have taken you for a black coffee man.”
“Nah. I don’t like bitter. Even at home, I have a sweet tooth. Horrible habit.”
“What’s it like? Your home, I mean.”
“The Greenweald? It’s…well, it’s wild. It’s like those woods out there, but bigger. Much, much bigger. It covers the largest part of the world as we know it. There’s areas outside of it, of course. And we, meaning my people, have some interactions with them, but mostly, we stay by ourselves, in the parts that we’ve come to live with.”
“So, you guys live in the forest, in what, like log cabins and stuff? Do you have electricity, and flush toilets, and TV? Or is it like Little House on the Prairie?”
Solomon laughed. “I’m not sure what that is, but no, probably not. No prairie anyway. My people have learned, well, were forced really, to live with nature, and with the trees. We don’t cut them down and saw them up. Instead, we shape them into things that we need, and they let us. We care for them and they take care of us in return.”
“Sounds very hippyish.”
“I guess it is. But our trees are much bigger than those here. Even your biggest ones. The central tree of my house, Towering Oaks? It’s big enough around to fit several of this house inside it, side by side. It raises so far into the sky that it’s hard to see where it ends. And that’s not even the largest. The largest one I know of is the tree that houses Jamshir. He’s our ruler, I guess. His house is Glittering Birch, and that tree is huge, even by Greenweald standards.”
“It still sounds weird to me,” Lacy said, sipping at her coffee. “Living in trees and all. But the way you talk about it. The look you get in your eyes. It makes me wish I could see it.”
“You’d love it, I’m sure. And I miss it. Now that I remember it, anyway.”
“So speaking of that, any ideas on how to get back there, get your sword and kill that thing out in the woods?”
“None,” Solomon said. “I’ve never been attuned to magic, so I have no idea how the spell that sent me here works.” He picked up his mug and took a sip, but then stopped at Lacy’s expression. “What?”
“Magic? The spell? Come on. Are you putting me on?”
He set his mug down and sat forward, putting his elbows on the table. “Lacy. Are you telling me that you can believe I’m from another world, and that you’ve seen the Soul Gaunt, but that you’ll balk at magic?”
“Of course, I will! Why wouldn’t I? None of this makes sense!”
Solomon could see that Lacy was at the edge of exhaustion. He felt worn out himself, and he knew that if he was, a human, no matter how tough, had to be about finished.
“Hey,” he said. “Why don’t we talk about it more later, huh? Maybe get some sleep?”
Lacy nodded. “Yeah. I don’t think the coffee’s going to keep me up.”
“Good,” Solomon smiled. “I’ll take the couch, if that’s okay.”
“Yeah, that’s fine. Daisy can stay in here too. I don’t want her out there by herself.” She rose and collected the two coffee mugs, bringing them to the sink to rinse them. “Solomon. What’s going to happen to Ed?”
Solomon sighed. “I don’t know. I don’t know what the Soul Gaunt’s effects will be on a human, but it hurt him badly. Like I said at the hospital, he may not ever recover. I really don’t know.”
“But is there anyone in your world that could help him? Since you guys have magic and all?”
Solomon sat back. The thought had never crossed his mind. The only Soul Gaunts that he knew of from personal
experience had been the one Jediah had killed years ago, and the one that he himself had fought much later. In both cases there had been no wounded to worry about, just bodies.
“I don’t know,” he finally said. “Maybe. But that still leaves us with the same problem. We need to find a way for me to get home first.”
Lacy nodded, suddenly looking too tired to even stay on her feet. She swayed slightly, and Solomon quickly got up and steadied her. “Come on. Let’s get you to bed.”
A few minutes later, Lacy was laying under the covers of her bed, fully dressed and snoring gently. Solomon smiled slightly as he looked down on her. She really was impressive. Then he returned to the living room, and stretched out as best as he could on the couch, Daisy curled up on the floor next to him. He stared at the ceiling of the room for a few moments before sleep came for him, too.
But he had only been out for a couple of hours before he found himself wide awake again. He lay on his back, staring at the ceiling. There was too much happening at the moment, and he needed to think his way through it, analyze the problem and come up with a plan of attack.
First, and most important, was the Soul Gaunt. He couldn’t allow it to remain here, in this world. Humans were woefully unprepared to deal with it. Their weapons wouldn’t hurt it, and they had no way to find it if it didn’t wish to be. The flare that he used would have surprised it, blinded it for a few moments, and maybe even scared it, if such a thing was possible. But it wouldn’t have lasted. And now the Gaunt knew what it was, and that trick wouldn’t work on it again. It would hide, come out to kill, and then hide again. Eventually maybe, someone here would figure out a way to stop it, but how many would die before then?
Then there was Ed. Lacy may have hit on something. If he could get Ed back to the Greenweald, maybe someone there would be able to do something. There was healing in that land, simply by being there, to say nothing of magic. Look at Daisy. He had hurt her leg badly when they first met, but she had apparently gone back and a short time later…
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