Clockwork Phoenix 5

by Brennan, Marie

  That’s when I noticed that the Dragon elder had broken through the soil.

  I took a seat again in the grass. In a half-hour the elder was a sapling, skinny and self-assured. Two hours later she was a young tree. I climbed up her then. I have never climbed a tree naked before and couldn’t believe I had denied myself that pleasure up to now. That feeling of union.

  The tree grew for the rest of the night. She slowly lifted me toward the sky. I fell asleep on a branch like a leopard and didn’t wake up until morning was well underway. Anyone who visited my house would think the tree was half a century old. All the grass in the yard was dead, crisp, brown-black. The shrubs had shriveled. The Dragon elder was fruiting, laden with berries.

  I took my breakfast from those berries. They were messy; they painted my face, matted the hair all over my body, turned me purple.

  I climbed her for the rest of the morning. I didn’t want to get down. I would just live in the tree forever, naked and happy. She would feed me elderberries and flowers, and occasionally I’d catch and eat a bird. I’d eat the insects that lighted on her. Ants would march toward me in sacrifice and become my food.

  But then I had to pee, and there was still enough of civilization in me to make me go inside to use the bathroom. I was anxious and impatient the whole time. I couldn’t wait to be in the tree again. I swore the next time I would just do my business from a branch.

  As I headed back out, almost running, I saw my laptop. I grabbed it. I am now writing you this message from high up in the tree, naked save for elderberry stains. I’m writing you because I know you'll understand. You’re so good at life. I’ve only met you a few times and I know with every ounce of my being that you’re one of the kindest and wisest people I’ve ever encountered. You know what Dragon elder is; that’s why you gave the seeds to Morgan. No tree can do what your seeds did. So tell me how all this works. Tell me what happens next. Tell me what to do.

  —Eliazar

  * * *

  From: Lourdes Belen

  To: Harry Najinsky

  Date: February 17, 2015 1:54 p.m. est

  Subject: Re:

  Eliazar, I love your new name. It suits you. Eliazar is a name that unlocks potential.

  Send me your address. I am coming to you. Don’t bother getting dressed unless you’re feeling shy. But I don’t think you will be. I think you’re well beyond the neurosis and nonsense of Original Sin. You stay in the tree, and I’ll let myself into the backyard.

  It’s going to be a few minutes. I need to stop at Saverin’s first for supplies. Meat, mostly. A lot of it. It doesn’t need to be fresh. It can be scraps; it can be rotting. Trees aren’t picky eaters. Volume is the name of the game. You and I are going to spend a lovely afternoon burying rancid meat in the soil. You can reimburse me later.

  I’ll explain more when I get there. But for now: technically, the Dragon elder isn’t a tree. It’s what cryptobotanists call a tregg. Think a caterpillar’s pupa stage. This one will take 5-6 years. And then the Dragon elder will rend itself in two, and you and Morgan get your wish.

  But wishes can be curses. We need to start preparing now. She’s going to be newborn-hungry when she emerges. She would eat you quicker than Saturn if you let her. Not to mention all of Rutland County. We will need to lure her into a forested area, far from people, with lots of elk and bears for her to eat. We have to start planning now how we’re going to get a half-starved apex predator out of city limits. It will probably involve a trail of meat.

  But there’s time. For now, stay in the tree. Rest. Sing to her, speak to her. Wrap yourself around her branches. Don’t remove splinters; let them dissolve into your body. Eat all the berries you want. I’ll be there soon. Sleep and eat and rest and stay with Morgan. And don’t forget to talk to her. Nothing will help her grow strong more than your voice.

  The Tiger’s Silent Roar

  Holly Heisey

  Evin was on his way in from the gardens, taking his usual shortcut through the formal parlor, when he first saw the soul hunter. She stood in her violet aura near the hearth chairs, hair glinting an unnatural silver. Her gaze razored to him with a predator’s instinct.

  A throat cleared. His father. “Oh, Evin, you are here. This is Mira Tran. Ms. Tran, this is my son, Lord Evin Arduay.”

  Evin made his bow, and the hunter returned it.

  His father continued. “Ms. Tran is a member of Lord Jerain’s court—from the inner worlds, you know—and tells me she is a great admirer of the arts. She has expressed interest in seeing your work. She will be staying with us for the next hand of days, I am sure you will be accommodating?”

  Evin eyed the hunter. Beyond the silver hair, could he see her second soul?

  The hunter’s gaze stayed steady on him. “I have seen your works, Lord Evin, and they are much talked about in the courts abroad. I am partial to The Waterfall in particular; I have spent many an evening watching the ripple of the glowworms across its branches. But of course that is a recording. My Lord Jerain desired me to come to you and report back if these works are as extraordinary in person as the holographic representations suggest.”

  Evin saw the earl’s aura swimming with murky, distressed blues. His father certainly hadn’t invited the hunter.

  “I will of course show you my work,” he said.

  And if he didn’t think he could see her second soul, could she see his?

  His father cleared his throat. “Well, then, we can have dinner, and after dinner Evin will tour you through the gardens. The sculptures are best seen after dark.”

  “That is true,” Evin said.

  The hunter nodded, and her gaze settled into that of a predator, waiting.

  Evin’s jaw clenched, and he swallowed bile. Damn the inner-world nobles and their outsourced souls.

  The hunter’s face didn’t change, but her aura shifted a shade darker. He didn’t think she could read his thoughts, but if he could see her aura, she could see his.

  May the gods help him this next hand of days.

  * * *

  At dinner, Evin ate because it would have been suspicious not to, and mostly listened to his father and the hunter speak. His father’s view on the outsourcing of souls was no secret among the worlds: “They’re all on a permanent functional high, and it damn well doesn’t improve their judgement.”

  But the hunter avoided the subject deftly, engaging the earl in this political foray or that economic debate until he began to relax and words flowed more freely. And there was laughter.

  Was that also a power of the second-souled?

  She was younger than Evin had thought. She spoke with such animation, her eyes blue and vital, yet her aura had settled into a violet-gray and hardly shifted, while his father’s reeled through the patterns and colors of his own emotions. And what did Evin’s aura show?

  When dusk had fallen, Evin found himself on the garden path with the hunter. Glowworms in the bushes and on low-hanging branches lit as the two approached, shifting through green and white and gold. The flagstones were solid and familiar beneath his boots. Deeper, the roots of trees hummed, now and then asserting themselves to push a flagstone upward or a few inches askew. The smell of rich earth held the air, blending with the citrus of the leaves, the pepper of the glowworms, the perfumes of the flowers. Evening mist cooled Evin’s face and dampened the chorus of crickets and braying of frogs from the ponds. This was his place, his world, where everything was known, and everything was always changing: growing, living, dying. Steady auras of greens and golds and browns.

  “Lovely,” the hunter breathed.

  Evin stiffened. He had almost forgotten she was there. But in his world, calm flowed around him again and he began to relax. “They are nothing to the gardens of the inner worlds. Our gardener is skilled, but he is a craftsman, not an artist.”

  A flicker of yellow—surprise?—showed in the hunter’s aura. “You do not tend the gardens yourself?”


  “I have my work,” Evin said. And the work his father set to him. Second heir he might be, but the earl insisted he know the running of things. “The beauty you see comes not from the design but from the glowworms and the species of plants that are native to this world. Our plants and invertebrates are mostly symbiotic, and few can be transplanted elsewhere.”

  “I have heard that, yes. But whether this is the work of an artist or of nature, it is beauty enough. And I can’t believe that you have had no hand in this garden’s keeping.”

  Evin shrugged. “Enough of a hand.” And he steered the hunter toward a fork in the path.

  Ahead, trees parted and the glowworms lit up in a rush of blue and white.

  The hunter inhaled sharply. “The Waterfall.” She watched as the glowworms rippled colors across the deliberate branches, cascading like water. The light sparked in her eyes. Her aura, which had stayed that steady violet-gray with only the occasional flicker, now steeped in a deepening gold.

  Evin looked down.

  “It’s grown,” she said. “It’s different from the hologram.”

  Evin brushed his hand against the ends of the branches, making the glowworms ripple faster. “It’s a living sculpture, one of my first. I have coaxed its branches for the last four years. It is quite different now than when I first allowed it to be finished.”

  The hunter circled The Waterfall, studying the sculpture with the same intensity as she had first studied him. Evin watched her warily. Could she see the most recent coaxings, far more honed and organic than the rest?

  The hunter looked up at him, her eyes still glowing. “May I see the tiger?”

  Evin stared back. News of his latest sculpture would have leaked. It always did.

  “It’s not finished,” he said. And it wasn’t. He had not yet found the adequate shape of its tail, and he was only now coaxing the left front paw into just the right arc. But that wasn’t the point. The tiger was the first sculpture he had brought to full coaxing with the new senses of his second soul. He had found angles of growth he would never have used before, had set the glowworms into patterns he would not have thought possible two months ago.

  “I haven’t seen any holograms of it, if that’s what you are wondering,” the hunter said, her tone wry. “A rumor only. But your next project is truly a tiger?” And then she hesitated, her aura flickering something Evin didn’t recognize. “I would like to see it, finished or not, if you will let me. That is, if you let anyone see your sculptures before they are completely finished.”

  Evin let out his breath. “It is nearly finished,” he said. She would see it anyway, when it was scanned next month and released to the public. He couldn’t hide anything then, and he doubted he could hide anything now. She was too keenly aware.

  Evin wondered why he was taking her through the winding paths, deeper into the place where the older trees held glowworms higher overhead and bushes grew out over the path as it turned from flagstone to gravel. He never showed an unfinished piece to anyone. How much of his doubt showed in his aura, and what did the hunter make of it? Was this coercion on her part, to see the tiger? But he did not, for all the stories of the soul hunters, think she could change his thoughts. He certainly did not have that ability.

  “Are you also an artist?” Evin asked. The question had been growing the whole evening. She wasn’t a scholar, and she was more than an enthusiast, with her intensity and technical awareness.

  She stopped. The path was darker here, and her silver hair glinted pink, then red from the glowworms high overhead. She was the predator again, still and waiting. Her aura did not so much as flicker.

  “No,” she said finally. “That is not a luxury afforded to the second-souled.” She turned and picked up her pace on the path.

  After a breath, Evin hurried to take the lead again. The tiger was not far.

  He reached the mouth of the clearing, and the glowworms of the tiger lit up. The hunter barked an oath and crouched back. Above them, the tiger bared its teeth and extended its claws. Glowworms rippled in orange and white along its hide, the release of readied muscles.

  The hunter let out a hissing breath. “That,” she said emphatically, “is a tiger.”

  Evin coughed a laugh and pulled his gaze away from the pouncing tiger to see jagged green fear fading from the hunter’s aura. He was going to say the sculpture wasn’t done yet, but he stopped and absorbed the awe on the hunter’s face. Nothing studied or calculating.

  Evin closed his mouth and looked back up at his tiger.

  * * *

  The next morning, Evin rose before dawn, shaved his head and face and arms—anywhere the silver might be visible—and dressed in a plain white shirt and tan trousers. He carried his boots in hand and wove through the lightening house, adding his tuneless hum to the distant clatter from the kitchen and the hushed steps of servants preparing for the day.

  Outside, the air was fresh with dew. Birds called across the garden, the morning music. He picked out each call and knew its source. Closing his eyes, he let the birds show him the path to the greenhouse and his waiting tools. He felt the souls of life all around him, better seen without sight, and changed his hum to a whistle.

  Gravel crunched on the path behind him and he turned, opening his eyes. The hunter.

  Evin rooted himself to the steadying earth and waited for her approach. He had not forgotten her, but he’d hoped to put her out of his mind for just this morning, at least. No one from the courts of the inner worlds rose before whatever sun they lived under neared its zenith. Still, he wasn’t sure why he’d expected these rules to apply to her.

  She smiled and made a slight bow. “Good morning, Lord Evin. Yes, I do rise early—this day, at least. The ships do their best to synchronize to a local time, but I’m afraid the majority of passengers were bound for the capital to the west.” She grimaced, and Evin laughed despite himself.

  “Tourists,” he said. “There are always tourists this time of year, no matter that the capital is more a steam bath than a city. But it’s when the gardens are flowering and at their greenest.”

  “Then I am surprised that you do not work your sculptures there.”

  “Oh, I give my father an excuse to escape to the country.” Evin looked out over his own gardens, the balmy air settling heavier on his skin with the sun now edging the tops of the trees. “The glowworms are less judicious in the capital. My finer work is much more suited to this temperate clime.”

  “Are you working in the greenhouse today?” the hunter asked.

  Evin turned back to her, feeling the loss of his guard and pulling it back up again. “No. It’s where I store my tools.”

  “Ah. And will you be working on the tiger? May I watch you work?”

  “No,” he said. He never let anyone watch him work, and he was certainly not going to let her watch him work on the tiger.

  He took a breath. Maybe he could ignore his senses for one day. He could prove to her he was normal. “I’m working on the hummingbirds today. Some of the branches need more coaxing back into alignment. The sculptures are living, you know.”

  But she did know that, and beyond all technical expertise, he’d told her again the night before. Evin looked down and tried to sort what to say next.

  “Oh, the hummingbirds,” the hunter said. He heard the disappointment in her voice, but he didn’t feel any triumph in it. “We didn’t see that one last night. But if you are sure you do not mind—”

  “It’s fine,” he said, and turned to resume his walk to the greenhouse. At least she would be where he could see her and not wandering around, inspecting the coaxings on his tiger.

  Evin collected his tools and wound through the garden pathways. In his bucket, pruning shears rattled against wire and the dented metal side—a familiar, calming rhythm. Three Hummingbirds, Playing was an older sculpture, set closer to the house, and as he approached its clearing, he was already planning which branches he would shift into the new pattern to keep its growth in
shape.

  Evin set down his bucket and unfolded his stool, pointing to a place a few feet away where the hunter would be in his line of sight but shadowed by the surrounding bushes and trees. She unfolded her own stool and sat, smiling when he glanced at her. “You’ll forget that I’m here.”

  He doubted that. At least it would be a reminder for him to be careful. He couldn’t make his coaxings by reading the plants’ auras today.

  Evin sat down, rolled up and pinned his sleeves, and absently flicked at the locks on his platinum talisman cuff as his eyes roamed the shapes of the hummingbird in front of him. The locks clicked open, and he let the cuff slide off his wrist, bending to set it on the edge of the root basin. Then he realized what he was doing.

  He looked up at the hunter. She looked back at him from the tree’s shade.

  “Do you always remove your talisman when you work?” she asked, her tone conversational. “I wasn’t aware they could be removed.”

  Evin thought of putting the cuff back on, but she’d already seen him take it off. He let it drop with a clink to the basin edge, pushing it beneath a branch so it wouldn’t catch the sunlight.

  “It makes a glare,” he said. “I modified it so it can come off when I work.” He reached inside his shirt and pulled out the simpler talisman, the soul symbol carved into a lightly polished disk of wood. A commoner’s talisman. “I have this.”

  The hunter leaned forward to look. “Effective, and yet easily misplaced.”

  Yes, like two months ago when he’d got into the habit of taking off his cuff and got out of the habit of putting on the common talisman in the morning. No one knew why in the outsourcing process a soul would sometimes stray from the path the priests defined for it, but everyone wore their talismans to ward against receiving such a soul. Evin had thought that here, on a planet far from the inner worlds where few attempted to outsource their souls, the risk was minimal. He had been wrong.