Ahead, they saw a flicker of golden light.
“The Rabasyvihrk,” Stavark said.
They charged in that direction. The greasy gray mist slithered past them, but the golden light grew brighter. It flashed like lightning, and Stavark decided that now was the time.
He let go of Elekkena’s hand, and the tortured forest became silver. Elekkena froze beside him. The mist stopped swirling. Stavark’s legs and arms burned with joy. The golden light had become silver as well. Stavark sprinted through the silverland. He ducked around the waves and walls of mist, and suddenly he saw the Rabasyvihrk.
Medophae was in mid-air. A huge tree with thick branches like thinly muscled arms hunched over him. The tree was at least thirty feet tall, and a dark, shadowy silver. Tiny boles covered its diseased bark, and the gray mist poured out of them. A hundred of its menacing branches bent at angles to attack Medophae. He had been wrapped soundly in a dozen of them, but his fiery sword had shorn many of them apart. They lay on the ground at his feet. Several thin, tenacious branches held his ankles. Stavark aimed for them, slashing through one, two, three, four, five... Breathing hard, he stepped out of the silverland.
Color returned. Medophae’s golden fire lit up the darkness. The black, twisted trunk of the tree shivered as its branches fell to the ground, severed by Stavark’s blade. Medophae hit the ground with a wet thud. Three more branches launched out and attached to his arm and leg. Stavark stepped into the silverland again and severed them.
Medophae rolled to his feet, and they faced the tree together.
“I wondered where you had gone,” Medophae said. “I turned and everyone had vanished. Then this monstrosity took me from behind. This is what is creating the mist. Do you see?”
“I see.”
More branches came for them, but the Rabasyvihrk rolled low, avoiding the attack and clipping a few.
Stavark entered the silverland again and ran past the frozen branches. With small strokes, he severed bole after bole that leaked gray mist. He stepped in and out of the silverland, resting, then fighting, and he stayed ahead of the branches. He had never used the silverland this much, and he began to tire.
But with the branches trying frantically to kill Stavark, they left the Rabasyvihrk alone. Just as Stavark’s strength began to fail, the Rabasyvihrk charged and cleaved halfway into the tree’s trunk.
The tree shuddered and swayed. Thin, sharp branches shot at Medophae. Half a dozen of them pierced him through the arms and abdomen. Red blood flew. Medophae roared. A dozen other branches twined about his arms and legs. Stavark stepped again into the silverland. He sheared half of the branches away before he had to step out again, lest he collapse there and run the risk of remaining forever.
Though skewered by multiple branches, Medophae kept hacking at the tree. His fiery sword spit and hissed and he cut completely through the trunk. A great cracking groan filled the air, and the tree fell over backward. The wicked branches thrashed in every direction. Stavark entered the silverland, dodging the branches and retreating.
Medophae fell backward. He looked down at the gnarled spears that protruded from him. He grabbed hold of two in his gut and yanked them out together. He stood and staggered backward.
The tree’s thrashing quieted. Black ichor oozed from the stump Medophae had created, but already the forest was beginning to clear.
Stavark helped Medophae pull the branches from himself, even as the golden fire healed him. He leaned on the slimy stump and levered himself to his feet. He stood unsteady on his bloody legs. The mist continued to clear. Stavark could see nearly fifteen feet distant.
Finally, the tree stopped moving altogether, and a slimy, pale seed slipped out of the severed top of the tree. Stavark jumped at it, but it floated upward into the sky.
He strained to see what it might have been, but it vanished into the mist overhead. The mist cleared even more, and Stavark could see two more figures. It was Elekkena, leaning over the Maehka vik Kalik.
“Mirolah,” the Rabasyvihrk cried.
35
Mirolah
You will come to us now. We are one.
The voice reverberated all around her. All Mirolah could see was white mist, and all she could hear was the frightening voice. In Daylan’s Glass, that voice had barely noticed her. In Rith, it had invited her. Now it commanded her, angry.
She felt the GodSpill absorbing her again, pulling her back from the Godgate overhead, and she knew this time it wouldn’t let her go, wouldn’t let her come back to her body.
You will come now.
Then she heard a different voice, a chant. Behind the frightening demand of the GodSpill, a woman’s voice murmured in a language Mirolah had never heard before. The voice was soft, but steady and unbending. Tiny threads formed a net around her, stopping her from being pulled into the GodSpill or up into the Godgate.
The steady chant seemed to say: Come back. You are not yet done. Come back.
We are one! the GodSpill shouted, a thunderclap of sound inside her mind as it felt her slipping away.
Agony flared through her from a dozen wounds, then the agony faded. Memories raced through her head. Zilok Morth, the mist, the branches stabbing her. Golden flashes of light in the murky mist.
The chant surrounded her, foreign and incomprehensible.
Mirolah sucked in a breath. The chanting stopped. She opened her eyes.
A fuzzy figure leaned over her, then Elekkena slowly came into focus.
“What happened?” Mirolah asked.
“You are within the forest still, Mirolah,” Elekkena replied.
Mirolah squinched her eyes shut, opened them again and looked down at her body. She touched her stomach, her neck, her arms. She felt her chest, her legs with both hands. Her shirt, skirt, and breeches were a bloody mess, like she’d been run through with a dozen swords, but there were no wounds. Her gaze snapped to Elekkena.
“You healed me,” Mirolah said.
The young quicksilver girl shook her head. “No, Mirolah.”
“You were murmuring. I heard you as I woke. You stopped when I opened my eyes.” Mirolah sought vainly to read her emotions. She received nothing. “I can barely do that.”
“It was not me. It was you.” Elekkena shook her head.
“I was unconscious.”
“I tried to watch what you were doing,” Elekkena said. “But I could not understand it all.”
Mirolah tried to put it together, tried to remember if she had fragmented a part of her attention to save her body. It made a kind of sense, but she couldn’t remember doing it. It felt like someone else was pulling her back into her body. Was it possible that she unconsciously fought to protect herself from dying?
“You...weren’t murmuring? Maybe in your own language?”
“No. You were murmuring.”
How could that be when she didn’t even understand the words?
The doom descended on her again. It was the same feeling she’d had when she first realized that Sniff was not speaking the human tongue, but rather that she was speaking his. Now she was casting spells in her sleep? Was that even possible?
“I cut the tree. I pulled the branches from your body,” Elekkena said.
She glanced past Elekkena to see the tree in its final thrashing stages. The mist faded, and she saw Medophae and Stavark beyond, by another tree that had been demolished. Medophae looked as though he’d been half-chewed by a spine horse. Stavark, in true quicksilver fashion, had not a scratch on him, but he drooped from exhaustion.
Just as Mirolah was about to call out to them, she saw something at the bottom of the fallen tree. It was faded, but it looked like a figure. She concentrated on her threadweaver sight, and the little ghost appeared with stark clarity.
“By the gods...” she murmured.
The ghost was a young girl. She crawled out of the tree’s trunk and looked about herself as though she did not understand what was happening. She began to float upward. She looked at Medop
hae then at Stavark in confusion. Finally, her gaze found Mirolah’s. Above her, the Godgate churned, superimposed over the mists. It pulled the girl, and she began to rise.
“Mirolah!” Medophae called to her in a hoarse voice.
Ignoring him, she wrapped the girl in the same kind of net she’d used on the boy in Rith. The girl opened her mouth in a silent scream, writhed and twisted. The swirling sky moved faster, becoming more insistent. It was more difficult than it had been in Rith. The maw was stronger. The girl looked as though she was being twisted apart.
What was she doing in the tree? This poor girl, what was she doing in the tree?
Mirolah doubled her efforts. The strain was incredible, and the girl thrashed as though Mirolah was ripping her heart out.
“Let her go,” Elekkena said quietly. “You cannot help her.” Elekkena’s hand was gentle but firm on Mirolah’s arm. “She is dead.”
“But I can save her.”
“You’re torturing her,” Elekkena insisted. “Release your spell. She has no body to return to.”
With an anguished cry, Mirolah released the net and watched the girl’s spirit fly upward. The swirling sky took her and withdrew higher into the sky, but did not vanish. Mirolah could always see it up there now, swirling at a distance.
She lowered her head.
“Are you all right?” Medophae asked, kneeling next to her. Golden fire crackled around him, healing him, but his clothes were a bloody mess like hers.
She hugged him, pressing her face against his neck. “No,” she said. She wasn’t all right. Was this insidious forest really of her making? Had this grown because of the GodSpill released into the lands?
“I fought Zilok,” she said. “He knows we are tracking him. He nearly finished me.”
“This is his lair?” he asked.
“No, I don’t think so,” she said. “I think he discovered we were following and chose this place for an ambush. But these mists inhibit my ability to see the threads.” She didn’t tell him that this horrible forest might be her fault. “The GodSpill is...angry here.”
A long howl rose from the mists.
“Sniff,” Mirolah said. “Where is Sniff?”
The howl rose again.
“Sniff!” she shouted. The mists had withdrawn from this area of the forest, with the two trees dead, but it was still thick some thirty feet away from their group. Mirolah wondered how many trees were in this place.
Sniff leapt through the mist to her right, churning turf as he landed. He raised his toothy head and spotted her.
“Mistress!” he yipped, jogged toward her, then lay down in front of her.” He was covered with slashes and scrapes all over his skinny body. Bits of bark and wood chips stuck to his lips and between his bramble of teeth.
“What happened?” she asked.
“Bad trees,” he said. “Could not find you. Mist is bad GodSpill. Bad trees make mist. Sniff hurt trees. Made path.”
“You made a path?”
“Sniff kill tree mouths. They do not puff mist anymore. Come.” He stood, ran to the edge of the mist, and she realized there was a thin break there, a pathway through the mists, slowly parting.
They all followed Stavark through the tunnel in the mist. It cleared more until they came upon another deadly tree. This one still had its branches pointed at them, ready to spear them, but they stayed clear. However, the boles on the center of the tree had been torn and chewed by Sniff.
“That’s where the mist comes from.” Medophae pointed. He glanced at Sniff with new appreciation. “How did he tear those apart without getting speared?”
“I have no idea,” she said.
“Come,” Sniff said, leading them quickly forward.
They passed two other trees that had been bitten and chewed like the first one, then the mist parted. The forest ended, and they emerged into the open air, the afternoon sky above them. They stood on a rise that sloped down into a valley that held the ruins of a harbor city by the Inland Ocean.
“That’s Belshra,” Medophae said.
“Trail goes this way,” Sniff said, lifting his nose into the air. He started down the slope.
Mirolah looked back at the twisted forest. Is this my creation? My fault? And if so, how many people died there?
They continued on to the ruins of Belshra and made camp there for the night.
36
Mershayn
The drip continued. Drip drip drip. Mershayn tried to ignore it, but it pounded in his ear like a blacksmith’s hammer. Tap tap tap. He wanted to get away from it, but he couldn’t move his head. The last time he’d tried, he’d thrown up. As long as he stayed completely still, the ground stayed where it should, and the hammer didn’t get hit any harder. So he lay there in misery so it wouldn’t get worse. Drip drip drip.
Deni’tri and Lo’gan argued in what they thought were quiet tones on the other side of the room. It was truly a miracle that they had managed to get them this far. In the rush from the castle, Lo’gan had grabbed three of his most trusted guards. They stood watch outside the small, crooked door. To what avail, Mershayn didn’t know. He wasn’t worried about death coming through that door. It was already inside the room.
Collus lay against the cold rock wall, right next to Mershayn. His breathing was shallow; it came in quick little huffs. Sweat glistened on his brow, and he moaned in his sleep. He hadn’t been fully conscious since the attempted assassination.
Mershayn’s last movement had been to roll over so that he could watch his brother. After they’d cleaned up Mershayn’s vomit, he’d felt good about the effort for about half an hour. Now he realized all he’d done was give himself a prime view of his brother’s impending death.
He wanted to be angry at the injustice of it. He would even have welcomed an aching despondency, but he didn’t feel either of those things. He could barely think of anything except the pain in his head. His sole comfort was that he wouldn’t be far behind his brother; Mershayn would pay for his mistake. King and bastard would leave this mortal life together.
“We cannot stay here long,” Deni’tri insisted. She had been insisting that forever, it seemed. He wished she would stop insisting. He wished they would stop speaking altogether. Their words hurt almost as much as the accursed drip. Drip drip drip. Tap tap tap.
“Rumors have begun to fly. Two of the king’s guard limping down the street with injured in tow... If we leave this place, we will gather a crowd in moments.”
“Sym is searching for us. If we stay here, he’ll find us.”
“Where is a better place to hide?”
Deni’tri lowered her voice. “Out of the city,” she said. “Any place would be better.” She paused. “I don’t trust the owner of this establishment,” she murmured.
“Who? Bi’sivus?”
“Yes, Bi’sivus. The man stinks of greed. He’ll flip on us if enough gold is pressed into his palm. And he stinks of other things, too.” She wrinkled her nose.
“He is overdue for a bath, I grant you that.”
She shook her head. “He will sell us to Sym if pressed. By the gods, he may have already sent someone to contact Sym.”
Lo’gan paused and lowered his voice. “Look at them. Let us imagine we had a place to go. They cannot be moved. We barely got them this far.”
Just us die in peace. We tried. We failed. Mershayn the Idiot and Collus the Blind, that is what they will call us, if they call us anything at all. Grendis Sym proved himself the better man. The fight is over. The battle is lost. We’re the losers. That is the way of things.
Deni’tri stopped insisting, thank the gods.
When they did not speak again, Mershayn craned his eyeballs downward, to view the door where they stood. Deni’tri looked on the verge of tears. Her head hung low and her fists were clenched. Lo’gan kept his back to the wall beside the door, watching the king and his bastard brother.
They will die, too. They took your side, and it was the wrong side. When Sym comes, he’l
l kill them.
Lo’gan saw Mershayn attempting to watch him and pushed away from the wall.
“Do you need anything, my lord?”
“A new head,” he croaked. The sound of his own voice thudded inside his skull like a mallet. He winced. Suddenly, he was tired of lying on his side in the mud. The vertigo, which assailed him like waves, had withdrawn for a moment.
“Help me up, Lo’gan,” he said, shutting out the pain that his own words created. Lo’gan and Deni’tri were beside him in an instant.
“Help me to sit. I cannot lie here anymore.”
Deni’tri shot a worried glance at Lo’gan.
“Just do it,” Mershayn said tersely, hating to spend the energy on convincing them.
Together, they eased him up. He clenched his teeth, and the ground swayed. The blurry walls danced about, but at least they did not spin. He closed his eyes and concentrated on his breathing. In a moment, the swaying stopped, and he realized his back was against the wall.
“Good,” he grunted. He took a long moment to recover himself, then looked up at them as best he could. His good eye saw clearly enough, but mixed with his destroyed right eye, which he couldn’t close, he only saw jumpy blurs of the two guards.
“You should leave,” he said simply.
“My lord?”
Mershayn clenched his teeth. “Leave. If you are here when they find us, they’ll kill you. And even if you did manage to fight them off, Collus and I are done. He cannot even wake, and I can’t stand. My head is...” He didn’t want to finish the thought, but it was cracked. This wasn’t an injury one recovered from readily, certainly not while on the run. “No one knows yet that you helped us. Show me your steel and give Collus and me a merciful death. And take that shifty innkeeper Bi’sivus on the way out. Make good your escape, and I will piss on Sym from the Godgate.”
Lo’gan and Deni’tri exchanged glances.
The GodSpill Page 23
