"If travel is so dangerous, why have you risked it all alone?"
Kanika’s voice stumbled in its song and she shot Portia a look that spoke volumes.
"It was important," was all she said after a long moment. "I, too, am looking for something. Or someone."
Portia laughed despite herself. "Well, which is it? A something or a someone?"
"Either, I suppose. I guess the someone. Since the something seems to be gone now."
"I’m sorry."
Kanika did not answer, she only walked on, her eyes focused on the little puffs of dust that roiled up around her tiny, slippered feet. "What’s the worst is that if I could have found it, you could have been the someone to help me."
"Me? What could I do for you? I don’t even know you."
Looking ever more the lost little girl, Kanika turned to Portia with awed tears glistening on her lashes. "Don’t you know what you are? Can’t you see yourself?"
Portia held out her hands and examined them front and back. "I am me. I only see myself as I always do." But not as I always have.
Kanika shook her head, disbelieving. "You know, you didn’t need to tell me that you yet live, I could tell anyway. You shine here, Portia. You glow. The magnitude of your power is tremendous. You’re in danger here, a target. And you can’t even see it." She stopped and looked Portia up and down once more. "This quest you’ve put yourself on, it will not be easy for you. I know what you are. I know the stories. Bene ‘elim. You are not supposed to be here because you are not supposed to die, not like this, anyway, not like ordinary people. Angel-souls don’t come here. But," she said, smiling, "that means I know who you are looking for."
"You do?" Portia’s heart pounded, afraid that the name Kanika would speak would be Nigel.
"Yes. She’s the one like you. The one with the angel’s soul."
A modicum of tension left Portia’s shoulders. Not Nigel. And she had seen Imogen…unless she meant Hester. "So you’ve seen her?"
"I have."
"Can you tell me where she is?"
"If I wanted to, yes."
"I see. How do I know you’re not just telling me this so I will be beguiled into helping you?
Kanika sighed. "That’s hardly fair. Why would you think I was trying to trick you?"
"Let’s just say I’m not the trusting type."
"Your one true love has red hair. Tall. Very pretty eyes, green, at least the last time I saw them anyway."
Portia let out a long breath. Imogen had indeed passed through here. "And what would convince you to tell me her whereabouts, Kanika dear?"
"I don’t know yet. But maybe I can think of something."
Portia sighed. "Somehow, I get the feeling that you’ll have no trouble coming up with what you consider a fair price for your information."
"It’ll have to be a price that you’d be willing to pay. But from what I read in your eyes, I could ask for anything. You shouldn’t show yourself to be too willing. This is a dark place, and others would be eager to take their advantage."
"But not you."
"Oh, no! Never!" She actually looked aghast, for an instant. "But we trade in favors here. Favors and shadow-gold."
"What’s shadow-gold?"
"Not a necromancer, are you?"
"No. Hadn’t you guessed as much already, my clever girl?"
Kanika pointed toward the hazy outline of a large building on the horizon. "You’ll find out all about it when we get to the city."
Portia followed her gaze. There, in a low valley, she could see the edges of buildings through the mist. It was right where Penemue ought to have been, but instead of the regal chapter house and the village nestled at its feet, there were only jagged shapes and foreign outlines of a town in ruins.
She nodded. "Then let’s be on our way."
The bleak path was intersected by a scrubby patch of trees that in the Penemue of the living world was a thriving orchard, one of several in and around the village. Here, Portia observed, Kanika’s confidence shrank and she forced a smile to her lips and began to sing once more. It was an unnerving melody full of strange little notes that did not seem to have any relationship to the ones that preceded or followed. It in fact sounded somewhat like a melody Portia knew from childhood, but sung backward.
"Sing!" Kanika hissed at her.
So Portia joined in, only she sang the tune the right way around, and it made for a most disharmonic experience. But the moment they set foot within the shadows of the spindly trees, the moaning began. The sound quickly increased to a loud gibbering that sent chills rolling across Portia’s flesh. She turned to ask Kanika if perhaps there was not another way through—she could think of about a dozen back ways into the center of Penemue and several of them did not involve going near any trees—but the girl was standing, frozen, in the middle of the path. The finger-branches already reached for her.
Racing to her side, Portia intercepted the first branch and snapped the twigs back in a single, practiced motion. The tree howled, the very bark writhing with pain. That was when she saw the faces. Dozens of eyes looked woefully at her with woody lids and mossy lashes. Mouths like knotholes keened and the whole tree undulated in suffering and anger. Portia slapped away two more clawing offshoots from other trees and brought her forearm down hard on a weak spot on a third. The branch splintered and fell into the dirt with a heavy thump that sounded more like meat hitting the ground than wood.
"Kanika, run!"
The girl’s eyes grew wide and she nodded, a small smile curving her lips as she dashed forth, making for the far end of the orchard. Portia watched her go, not willing to give an inch of ground until the girl was safely away. The trees, it seemed, couldn’t have cared less for Kanika and made no effort to stop her. Instead, they focused all of their malice on Portia. Sharp, hand-like twigs came at her from all directions. Portia tucked the canvas satchel safely into the folds of her jacket and pulled a set of goggles from an interior pocket. She drew them snugly down over her eyes and dropped into an easy crouch.
"If you want me, you’ll have to come and get me."
Enraged, the braches attacked wildly, swinging for her eyes and snapping their ends on the tempered glass lenses. Portia blocked and struck as she slowly inched toward the open sky ahead. Her cautious movements escaped notice for a time, but then one of the arboreal beasts reached out and clamped its spiny digits around her throat, dragging her back; its neighbor reached out to help reel in the prey.
Some of the spirit faces cheered and others wept. The second tree dug its branch ends into Portia’s scalp, snarling in her hair and drawing blood. She let it yank her head backward, relaxing into the fall. Nearby lay the fallen limb, still shimmering darkly and occasionally twitching. She got her hands around it and swung it up over her head. Surprisingly, the branches that were tangled in her hair flew into brittle pieces upon impact, and the one that had wrapped around her throat spasmed and let go. Moving with the momentum, Portia rolled to the side and came up on her knees, brandishing her weapon against a second onslaught. Her scalp throbbed. She wiped away a sweaty rivulet of blood as it dripped into her goggles before gripping the branch with both hands once more.
A glitter of silver like holiday tinsel hung from broken twig-fingers of the second tree; dabs of her blood shone among the fine strands of her hair. The rest of the branch lay shattered across the path, as if the tree had been made of glass. Portia rose, slamming her improvised weapon into the outstretched wooden arms. One after the other they splintered, exploding into a shower of ragged shards. When she swung for the trunk, it split from root to tip and fell over like a broken scarecrow. She saw that the wood was black, as if it had been burnt, but the other trees remained untouched. She looked down at the blood on her hand, pressed against the bark of the branch, and realized that the vanquished tree had been the one that had opened her scalp.
Wiping a hand through her blood-clotted hair, Portia pressed a wet, red print into the trunk of the nearest tre
e and watched as it shuddered violently, nearly wrenching itself from the earth before collapsing into blackened rubble.
"Yes, I am alive and I am not human. I will destroy you all if I have to. Let me pass."
The tree that had made the initial grab for her neck reached for her again. Portia let it. She allowed herself to be bound up tight by its braches and dragged in close to its trunk. It pressed her close, but pushed her face away, holding her bleeding head with the very tips of its twigs. She even allowed the sickly yellow-green growths to snake up from the roots and twine around her legs, reaching up for her torso and her body’s warm, living core.
"You are a very stupid tree," she whispered. "My blood is not the only part of me that can hurt you."
The shoots pulled her legs apart, seeking to burrow straight up through her.
"You have been warned." Portia closed her eyes and let out a long, slow breath. In the long weeks since her ordeal at the convent, her waking hours had been spent on just two thoughts: saving Imogen and learning to control this new power of hers. They were inexorably linked. She could rescue Imogen from death and from the clutches of the Aldias forever, but she would have to learn how to harness the raging fire of spirit within her if she were ever to succeed. Perhaps it was too soon to have tried this risky gamble, but Portia had always thought herself a quick study. Carefully, she released her mental reins, allowing that banked flame to grow and to consume her. She knew she would not burn. The light built slowly beneath her skin and the branches began to flinch back from her flesh.
"Are you afraid? You don’t know the half, yet."
She gulped in a fresh lungful of air and let it out again slowly, so slowly, as the pressure built within her. She had practiced this power, among others, with Anna, laying hands to trees and boulders under her house-sister’s watchful eye. But here in the spirit world, the ability was different, manifesting in a far more visual way. Portia’s bones began to glow.
She focused her mind on the soothing rhythm of her breath, allowing the light to fill her until each strand of her hair was ablaze and the demon tree was desperately trying to untangle itself from her. Portia took its trunk in her hands, just as she had touched the felled trees in the living side of Penemue to split them into firewood, and let her fire out. Tongues of seraphic flame tore from her flesh, haloing her in a sphere of blinding light. It annihilated the tree in seconds, and the force of it knocked down most of the others around her in a wide ring.
With extraordinary effort, she pulled the power back into her, leashing it with heavy chains of will. She sagged to her knees, exhausted, then slumped over onto her side, her heart racing and her eyes dazzled. She pushed the goggles up onto her forehead and looked around, gasping. She had never felt so connected to the celestial power within her. It had leapt to her command, exponentially more potent than it had ever been…and that much more difficult to contain once it was freed.
All the training, Portia realized, it isn’t going to be enough. I can’t control this.
Splintered wood spread in an elegant fan shape radiating from the shallow crater where she lay. The spirits that had been trapped within rose from the wreckage like steam and, moaning softly, vanished into the ever-present mist. A soft patch of green grass had sprung up all around Portia, jeweled with violets and clover. She pushed herself up onto one elbow, running her hands over her head to find her scalp entirely healed. Kanika stood nearby with a hand outstretched to help her to her feet.
The girl’s perfect ringlets bounced as she shook her head with that same imperturbable smile playing along her soft lips. "Portia, you’re trouble."
—3—
AT THE center of Penemue stood a fountain with a large pool. Graceful figures reached for the sky as water showered down around them, all carved from an ivory-colored stone flecked with gold and red. On the shadow-side, instead, there was a festering pond from the center of which sprouted an ominous-looking willow tree, its leaves hanging lank and leathery like so many dead bats clinging to the long branches.
"So, what’s in the bag?" Kanika was chipper again, striding alongside Portia and bubbling with conversation.
Portia batted the girl’s hands away as she reached into the satchel.
"Oooh, is that myrrh unguent? Oh, my! Where did you get this? It’s not a real salvation flower, is it? They only bloom once every one hundred years!"
Portia reclaimed the pilfered containers and stowed them back in the bag. "Kanika, listen, I appreciate the company, but I cannot have you getting your fingers into everything."
"Afraid I might steal something?"
"No. Everything I have with me I have for a specific purpose and it was quite a burden to get it here, so I would like it muchly if you’d leave my things be. Please."
The girl huffed. "You do need me to help you, or don’t you remember?"
"If you ruin my supplies, then all the information in the world won’t be of any use to me."
Kanika kicked at some of the loose scree scattered atop the cobblestones. "You aren’t any fun."
Portia wheeled on the girl and Kanika flinched. "Take me somewhere that’s safe, where we can speak openly. You’ll tell me what you know and I will find a way to repay you."
Kanika looked dubious at the suggestion, but after a moment’s thought she led the way toward a long row of broken-down houses. Portia recognized the place as Jeweler’s Row.
"So, how close of a copy is this to the living world?"
Kanika shook her head. "Not a copy, an echo. There are places, many in Penemue, where the two worlds not only intersect, but interact."
Portia gazed around the cavernous building toward where the floor had buckled and the second story had caved in, leaving a jagged and unwelcoming maw where once had been a bustling shop full of gold and jewels. "An echo, hmmm? Evidently something here has gotten lost in translation."
"It’s the only world we know. And much better than any alternative."
"So how many places are beyond this?" Portia followed her into the storefront.
"Lots. Some are even pleasant, or so I hear. But the road is harsh and treacherous and many of us prefer to remain here. Most of us still have loved ones left among the living, and we like to stay close. And it doesn’t get any closer than this. Well, so far as I know, anyway."
"Do you have relatives in Penemue? I can certainly carry a message back to them when I leave here."
"You are ever so optimistic, Portia. Thank you for your kind offer, but no. What needs to be said to them I can just as well say myself."
"How does this work, then? How did you come to be here?"
Kanika clucked her tongue and dragged out a crate from the cobwebbed shadows. She sat on it, reclining back on her arms and stretching her legs out before her. "First of all, it is terribly rude to ask someone here how they died. Especially since you have not had the privilege of that experience."
"My apologies."
"Second, if you are taking one soul back over with you, I think you should consider taking me along as well."
Portia leaned against the dust-cloaked counter. "Oh? You do, do you? I am afraid it is a bit more complicated than that. To begin with, the lady in question that I am here to retrieve still has a body that is very much alive, ready and waiting for her. I somehow doubt that you have the same luxury. And I would need some sort of object that was precious to you to help guide you back to the mortal realm; that is, if you have not been dead so long you don’t remember it at all. Which brings me back to my original question: How did you come to be here?"
"There was a fire. I don’t recall much other than that."
Portia shivered to recall her own near miss in the convent fire. "I see. Well, sadly, that hardly helps us. I am sure your body is long gone, I’m afraid."
"What if I could get another?"
"Another body?"
"Sure thing! The necromancers come all the time. They take the souls belonging to the bodies they have, and sometimes, if they can’t
find the right soul to go with the right body, they just pick any ghost they like and take it instead. Seems to work; we never see any of those taken show up here again."
"I can’t say that is necessarily a positive thing, Kanika. You said there were other places than this, worse places."
"Certainly, but when you’re freshly dead, you always end up here. Unless you’re one of you. And then you usually don’t."
But what if you’ve already been dead once…or twice, then what? "I cannot make you any promises, Kanika dear, but I will do my best to help you."
"You will? Do you promise?"
Portia paused, carefully considering her words. "No, I cannot promise that to you. But I will try to help you however I can without jeopardizing my own task here. You must understand, Imogen comes first."
"Sure thing." Her coquettish smile returned. "Imogen. That’s a nice name. Sort of chimes, doesn’t it? Imogen! Imogen!" Kanika called the name lightly and appeared utterly charmed by it. "Does she persist in her own name here?"
"I don’t know, honestly. I hope she has, or at least she will know it when she hears it."
"I hope so, too. Imogen. Such a nice name. I’d hate to see it go to waste."
Portia nodded and silence descended between them. It felt terribly awkward to her, but Kanika showed no uneasiness; she simply sat back and gazed at Portia with frank appreciation.
"Well, then." The girl stood up, seemingly finished with her staring, and brushed the cobwebs from the backs of her thighs, twisting over in a vain attempt to bring attention to her backside. "We had best get to bed. It isn’t safe to be out at night."
"Night?" Portia craned her neck to see out of the dingy front windows. "How can you tell? It doesn’t look any darker than it was before."
But the wind had picked up, and it whistled around the edges of the doors and between the window panes.
"At night, the storms come. Storms and demons. Doesn’t your kind hunt demons? Oughtn’t you know that?" She made her way to a small stair at the rear of the building. "Come on up, we’ll be safe here."
The Labyrinth of the Dead Page 2
