“Yeah, something like that,” Mara said.
“You think the bowraiths respond the same way to Curate Tran?” Sam asked.
“While pretenders like Tran and her acolytes can animate the elements of Perception, somehow I doubt the creatures they create are an extension of their Consciousness in the way Mara describes,” Ping said. “Of course we have no way of knowing for sure without more experience with them.”
“We’re on our way to getting more experience with them,” Sam said.
Ahead, Ginger sniffed the ground and circumvented several pits and troughs effortlessly, looking up occasionally for the next glimmer of orange light.
Mara stepped behind her mother and asked, “She continues to follow the lights without you pointing them out to her. How does she do that, understand and retain your instructions so well?”
“She’s a smart girl. Mara designed her to be a helper and a gofer of sorts. At the shop, she can fetch just about anything that fits in her mouth, based on a verbal command. She can even make deliveries, if you send her to a familiar place,” Diana said. “I hope you have enough cinderflies to get us to the moat.”
“That won’t be a problem,” Mara said. She pointed to the orange glow ahead of them. “Keep your eye on it after we pass.”
They walked beneath the fluttering insects and craned their necks. Just as the orange light was about to fade into the mist, its brilliance increased and split into two separate sparks. After a moment of hovering, the newly created cinderflies darted ahead of them, disappearing into the fog.
“Oh! They can reproduce themselves. Like little sparks shooting out of a flame,” Diana said.
Ping and Sam caught up and watched the miniature light show as well.
“Were you aware they were capable of that?” Ping asked.
Mara nodded. “It’s only logical, given their nature.”
“How so?” he asked.
“They are creatures of Fire, capable of spreading and replicating.” She glanced around at the ground around them. “Unlike bowraiths, we don’t have to dig up more trees to make more cinderflies. I’m beginning to like the whole concept of them.”
“I’m impressed at how well you intuit the nature of these things,” Ping said. “You’ve come a long way in your understanding of such concepts in a short time.”
Mara waved everyone along. “I owe it all to my metaphysics professor.”
“Speaking of concepts, have you devised a way for us to get across the moat yet?” Sam asked. “Since you’ve heated the water, I’m all for swimming, but I didn’t think that would be your first preference.”
“I don’t know, but we won’t be swimming,” she said.
The thought of the water made her stomach tighten. Getting a little wet should be the least of our worries, considering what awaits them on the other side of the moat. She shook her head, purging those concerns as she followed the rest of the group into the mist.
* * *
After what felt like a couple hours later, Mara stumbled into Ping’s back. He had stopped walking for some reason. “Is there a problem?” Mara asked.
Ping turned, took her arm and pulled her to stand next to him. “We’re here,” he said.
Mara’s gaze followed Ping’s as his head craned upward, scanning the translucent wall that stood several hundred feet away on the far side of the churning steaming water at their feet. The building was as large as a stadium and glowed with an almost imperceptible pulse, as if it were alive. At its base, a row of backlit stalls housed the trunks of bowraiths pinned in place by their branches woven into the walls of the structure above, forming the skeleton of the bulbous body of the Arboretum.
Mara glanced at her mother and nodded to the binoculars that hung around her neck. “May I use those?” she asked.
Diana handed them over, and Mara peered through the lenses. She focused on one of the alcoves containing a bowraith. The creature looked as if it had been crucified into position, its woody branches splayed widely and melded into the tissue-like wall surrounding it. Because it was backlit, details were difficult to see, but Mara could make out the shifting of the bowraith’s eyes as its gaze settled on her.
She gasped. “They are still alive, or animated, even though they are fused into the side of the building.” Lowering the binoculars, she shook her head at Ping. “Why would you give something that level of self-awareness and then imprison it in a wall like that? It seems so pointless. And evil.”
Ping took the binoculars and held them to his eyes. Without looking away, he said, “Apart from the efficiency of constructing a structure of this size with animated materials, another advantage appears—the Arboretum has eyes. It is likely they have detected our presence.”
“Why isn’t the steam rolling over the other side of the moat, toward the Arboretum?” Sam asked.
Ping scanned the distance for a moment. “It’s difficult to tell. The building might be giving off enough ambient heat to form thermals that push away the steam.”
“You would think, if they knew we were out here, there would be an alarm of some kind,” Sam said.
“That’s assuming they are alarmed about us at all,” Mara said.
“What are you implying?” Ping asked.
“Just that they have made minimal efforts to stop us while we were traveling through the swamp, and they have made no effort as we crossed the barrens, despite the appearance of this weird fog. Maybe Tran isn’t all that threatened by us,” she said.
“The design of this place—particularly the moat—would indicate otherwise,” Ping said.
“I’m beginning to feel it’s more for show than any real effort at keeping us out,” she said. “The moat isn’t that much of an obstacle. I bet Curate Tran knows that.” Mara pointed to the opening at the base of the Arboretum several yards to their left. “That’s the way in. Earlier, I watched them retract the drawbridge from there.”
The group, still led by the leashed chobodon through the thinning fog, walked along the edge of the moat until they were across from the feature Mara had pointed out—a large cavernous tunnel sliced into the base of the Arboretum, the floor of which sloped downward into the structure, like the entryway of a stadium, preventing them from seeing any details inside.
Mara grabbed the binoculars and gave the tunnel a closer examination. Just below the floor of the tunnel she could make out a narrow rectangular seam. To no one in particular, she said, “I bet the drawbridge slides out of that slot. Let’s see.”
She lowered the binoculars and held out her right hand, grasping at the air and retracting her arm in a pulling motion. A hollow rumble vibrated across the misty air. A moment later, a large plank at least fifty feet wide slid out of the base of the tunnel, extending over the far side of the moat. When about one-third of the way across, a second panel unfolded from the top of the moving plank and extended toward them. Moments later, a third panel unfolded and landed with a thud a few feet from where they stood. A platform, apparently constructed of the translucent material that made up the rest of the building, now connected their side of the moat to the tunnel entrance.
Ginger sniffed it for a moment, snorted and stepped onto it, leading them toward the entrance of the Arboretum.
CHAPTER 28
Mara could feel the gazes of the bowraiths embedded in the walls of the Arboretum following them as they approached the circular opening in the side of the building. As they got closer, the creatures’ irises shifted sideways as they trailed the group’s progress across the drawbridge. Mara got the impression the occupants of the sarcophagus-like alcoves could not turn their heads. A shiver ran down her back. She made an effort to look away from them and into the large passageway ahead.
“They aren’t making a move to block us,” Ping said as they stepped past the wall of bowraiths, into the soft-lit interior.
“They cannot move without tearing apart the building,” Mara said.
Ginger headed to the closest wall of the caver
nous tunnel they had entered, pulling the group along with her. She stopped, sniffed the curved floorboard and grunted loudly. Ping approached the wall, examining its surface, assessing its green-tinged translucence. He rubbed his hands along its surface.
The chobodon nuzzled the wall, then attempted to bite it—unsuccessfully because the curve of the barrier prevented her teeth from gaining enough purchase to pierce it.
“Silly girl, you can’t eat the wall,” Diana said.
“Actually I suspect she could,” Ping said. Leaning closer, while continuing to rub the surface, he added, “It’s constructed of plant cellulose of some kind, probably excreted from the branches we see permeated through the building. Fascinating.”
“Guys, we’re not here for dinner or an architectural review. Let’s find Mara and get out before they decide to come after us,” Sam said.
“Okay, but we’ve got to get our bearings,” Mara said. “Nash said our other Mara was being held in the Apex. That means we need to go up somehow. No terminal wall can be seen ahead, and it feels like this tunnel opens to a large space. You guys stay here, keep Ginger from eating the place, and I’ll take a look.”
Without waiting for their agreement, Mara turned and headed toward the end of the passageway a couple hundred feet away. To feel less exposed, she kept close to the wall on her right side, the one Ginger attempted to bite. About halfway to the end, Mara encountered an opening in the wall, a small corridor whose walls flowed artery-like from the tunnel. The smoothness of the connection between the two was so subtle that Mara didn’t see the offshoot until she stood in front of it.
An arched door stood at the end of the corridor.
Later.
She didn’t want to get caught in a dead end until she got a sense of her surroundings. After glancing at her group and nodding, she continued forward until she arrived at the end of the tunnel.
There, she gasped at the massive open interior of the Arboretum. Her eyes were drawn upward above the spacious floor to the domed translucent ceiling of green-tinged cellulose. From it sprouted a circle of thick woody vines, adorned with intermittent leaves and purple flowers, dangling for some distance from the ceiling, forming a round hammock which suspended a large ovoid-shaped opaque structure. It looked like a giant white river stone, its edges smoothed by currents for generations. A faint light seeped through its walls.
The Apex.
Below it, the ropelike vines twisted together and plunged to the ground, forming a massive woody trunk that looked thicker and older than the Redwoods as Mara remembered them from California. Two walls—more like dividers that reached only one-third of the way to the ceiling and covered with leafy ivy-like vines—outstretched from the base of the central trunk, as if arms, toward the entrance where Mara stood. Thanks to the leafy partitions, she could see only one-quarter of the floor, a wedge of space centered on a stage at the base of the central trunk surrounded by curved rows of seats. A circular banner featuring a stylized flame hung above the meeting area. Behind the seating, closer to her, were random clusters of furniture and containers: barrels with scorched rims, large Dumpster-size cubes opened on one side with darkened blast marks on its inner walls, plus funnel-shaped bowls as large as bathtubs also marred with burns.
Someone’s been playing with Fire.
Leaning outward from the tunnel, Mara looked at the wall encircling the floor. It was solid white with barely discernible white doors inset every few hundred feet. Each was etched with almost invisible white numbers.
From behind her, she heard the sound of footsteps sliding to sudden stop. When she turned around, she saw a robed figure approach Ping and the rest of the group.
He must have come out of that corridor. I should have told them to keep their eye on it.
She pressed herself close to the wall and headed that way, hoping the acolyte had not noticed her before spotting her group.
“I wasn’t aware new initiates were arriving this evening.” The robed figure’s voice bounced in the tunnel.
Ping looked wide-eyed as the man stalked toward them. Halfway to where they stood, Ginger snorted, then squealed loudly, yanking at her leash aggressively toward the acolyte. The robe figure paused.
“You’re not initiates. Who are you?” he asked.
Sam leaned forward, trying to catch the man’s attention. “Hey, man. Look at me.”
The man’s cowl swung in his direction. “Answer my question. Who are you, and what are you doing in the Arboretum with that creature?”
As Mara skulked up from behind, she could tell that Sam had trouble seeing the acolyte’s face and catching his attention long enough to prompt him. Now only several feet away and undetected by the acolyte, Mara dashed across the remaining distance toward the man’s back and pinched the acolyte’s cowl. Snatching it backward, she revealed a man with a full head of black hair. Before the startled man could turn, Sam waved a hand to get his attention and prompted, “Don’t move!”
The acolyte froze in midturn when his gaze locked on Sam’s.
Mara stepped up beside the man. To Sam, she said, “Nice job. I should have come back and warned you guys about the corridor back there. Is that where he came from?”
Sam nodded. “Those cowls make it tough to make a connection, prompting-wise. We can’t really run around decowling every acolyte who approaches us.”
“Actually,” Mara said, “we need some cowls of our own. We’ll stick out like sore thumbs if we go inside looking like this, and we’ll never get close to Mara, especially if she’s being held where I think she is.”
Sam turned to the man in the robe, who stared blankly into the distance. “Where can we find robes like yours?”
“In the dressing room. Robes are stored there for new initiates,” he said.
“Where is the dressing room? Can we get there without being noticed by anyone else?” Sam asked.
“It’s at the end of the hall. I just returned from the dressing room when I ran into you. Everyone is taking evening meals, and no one is there now.”
Mara smiled. “Convenient.”
“Take us to the dressing room and help up find the robes,” Sam prompted as he walked ahead with the acolyte while the rest followed a few feet behind.
Mara sidled up to Ping and said, “Don’t you think it’s odd that they have made no move whatsoever to stop us from entering their Arboretum? Nash said the adults trained to defend the place against the person with great magical power who destroyed their faith. Well? Here I am. I pulled open their drawbridge and just walked in. And nothing. No resistance at all. Everyone’s busy eating dinner. What’s up with that?”
“It does seem a little odd, considering the lengths they went to fortify the building with defenses. I assumed a moat and drawbridge were defenses,” he said.
Sam held the door open at the end of the corridor as they followed the acolyte into what looked like a large locker room outfitted with storage lockers, closets and even showers.
“I hope we are not in the men’s room,” Diana commented.
Sam glanced at the acolyte for an answer. The man shook his head and said, “The dressing rooms are used in shifts. They are not gender specific.”
“Great. … Um, do you have a name?” Sam asked the man.
“Gordon. I am Brother Gordon.”
“Okay, Gordon. Where do we find the robes?” Sam asked.
He pointed to a large set of double doors on a wall at the rear of the room. “Robes are not gender specific either, but smaller ones are on the left, and larger ones hang on the right.”
Sam pointed to a bench bolted to the floor in front of bank of white lockers. “All right. While we get dressed, sit here quietly and wait for us.”
From the closet doors, which Diana and Mara had already opened, Mara called back to Sam. “Ask him if there is anything special about how we are supposed to wear these. Like, is there a particular knot for the belt?”
Gordon shook his head and said, “Just make sure the
robe is long enough to touch the top of your shoes but doesn’t drag on the ground. You should have the effect of floating as you walk.” It sounded like a rehearsed statement.
Diana slipped on a robe and tied the belt. After assessing her compliance with the floating standard and finding it acceptable, she returned to the closet and pulled out another of the white robes. She called Sam over and handed it to him. “This should be your size. You’re about the same height as me,” she said.
“Thanks.” He slipped on the garment.
Mara accidently pulled her belt from its loops and struggled for a moment rethreading it on the back while keeping the loose sleeves from flowing off her arms. Once she got it, the back of the robe sagged off her shoulders. Sam stepped behind her and pulled the garment up so she could tighten it.
“Thanks,” Mara said.
“Now that we have our disguises, you want me to tell Gordon to take a nap for a while?” Sam asked.
She shook her head. “No, I’ve got some questions for him, and maybe we could use him to give us a quick tour of the place. Can you prompt him to do that?”
“Sure.”
CHAPTER 29
With no hint of concern or resistance, Gordon the acolyte led Mara and gang—now clad in flowing acolyte robes—down the tunnel to the open floor of the Arboretum, speaking in a tour-guide-like monotone as he went. They made a point of encircling Ginger, cloaking her as best they could with the folds of their robes, though Mara was unsure how hidden the chobodon would be from someone looking down on them.
“This quadrant of the Arboretum, called the Chamber of Flame, is where Fire adepts learn and hone their craft,” he said, holding his arms out wide as they stepped from the mouth of the tunnel.
“What is that?” Sam asked, pointing to the ovoid suspended below the center of the ceiling and above the central pillar of woven vines.
“That is the Apex of the Arboretum, where the curate resides. From there she can watch over the work of each of the chambers,” Gordon said.
Broken Spells Page 18
