The willow branches, recovering from their surprise at suddenly grasping nothing but air, bent back down to block her path, fronds writhing and twisting into a living wall of greenery. But Alice-the-Swarm was a hundred times more agile than Alice-the-Girl had ever been, and she slipped through gaps in the barrier in a hundred different places. Where there wasn’t a hole, she made one, her sharp beaks nipping and slashing at the hanging tendrils. Then she was through, leaves and branches boiling furiously behind her. Her tiny legs blurred, and she felt grass underneath her claws.
The willow branches pulled up short, stretched out as far as they could go, fronds straining after her horizontally as though whipped by a hurricane. They fell back, finally, exhausted by the effort. The swarmers huddled together outside their range, a mass of beaks and rubbery dark fur.
There was a moment of flowing, melting confusion. Then, in place of a hundred tiny creatures, there was one girl lying in the grass, bloody and panting for breath.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
A DECISION
GERYON!” ALICE SHOUTED, AS soon as she had her breath back.
Her heart still hopped and jumped in her chest, though she couldn’t say whether it was from fear or exhilaration. That first moment of dissolution, her body dissolving into dozens of different pieces—Alice was certain she’d have nightmares about it until the day she died, if she lived to be a hundred and ten.
“Geryon! I know you can hear me.” She sat up, feeling a little wobbly. “It’s over, all right? I can’t do it. Get me out of here.”
There was no answer. She hadn’t really expected one. She wasn’t even sure if he could get her out, once she’d gone inside, but she didn’t think he would even if it was in his power.
All around her, the wind whistled gently through the grass, sending silver, rustling waves all the way down the hill and through the distant valleys. Beyond that, the mountains loomed, distant and somehow vague, as though they weren’t quite completely defined.
It’s not real, Alice thought. None of this is really real, except this hilltop and that tree. And that . . . thing. There’s no way out, except through there.
“But how am I supposed to kill something like that?” she said aloud.
It had seemed impossible even before the entire willow tree had turned on her. She’d caught it off guard and gotten away, but she wasn’t sure if she could manage it a second time. She wondered what would happen if some of her was caught while she was the Swarm. Would she reassemble herself without a finger, or a big toe?
Alice laughed, a little giddily. She clambered to her feet and shook out her arms and legs. The air here was just cool enough to be bracing. She’d lost her shoes during the transition, somehow, and the grass and soft earth were gentle on her bare feet. She stretched, taking several deep, calming breaths, and turned back toward the tree.
The tree-sprite was watching her, sitting on a single thin limb folded down from the tree’s crown to stretch as far as it could from the trunk. It still had one hand thrust inside the wood, and its green eyes burned maliciously. There were scores and notches in its hide where the Swarm had attacked it, but they were already starting to fill in and scab over. Alice glared back at it defiantly, only a hint of color in her cheeks.
“We wouldn’t have to do this,” she shouted, “if you would be reasonable!”
Another tree limb unfolded, club-like and massive. It raised itself up to a great height, then plunged downward with shocking speed, hitting the ground hard enough to raise a mighty crunch and a puff of dust, like a giant pounding the earth in a tantrum. Alice couldn’t help but jump backward, and she thought she saw satisfaction in the vicious creature’s eyes.
“You’re not going to scare me like that,” Alice muttered.
She started walking in a circle around the tree, just beyond the thing’s striking distance. It followed her, leaping from branch to thin upper branch when they’d stretched as far as they could. The willow fronds rustled and reached out as she approached, as though they could scent prey.
But not the whole time, she thought, watching them carefully. There’s a moment—
It wasn’t much of a plan, really, but it was more than she’d had the first time she found herself in a prison-book. She tugged on the Swarm thread as far as it would go, summoning as many of the little creatures as she could manage. They tumbled from the air around her with a susurrus of pops, until a huddled crowd of several hundred of the things surrounded her. Meeting the tree-sprite’s gaze, she gave it a slow, deliberate smile, and then extended a finger and a mental command.
The swarmers charged. The willow fronds rustled, spread wide to receive them, but the little creatures were too fast when they were running full tilt. They shot through gaps in the leaves or pushed the thin tendrils aside, ignoring the razor-sharp leaves. When they were past the perimeter of hanging branches, they converged on the tree trunk.
Alice had realized, at some point during her wild, multi-bodied flight, that the swarmers could climb trees. They were heavy for their size, but extremely strong, and the sharp-tipped claws on their feet could dig through bark and get a solid grip. More importantly, they could work together. They hit the tree trunk and swarmed up it like an army of angry ants, the ones still close to the ground helping to support the weight of those farther up. Many of them didn’t make it, especially once the trunk started twisting in an effort to rid itself of its uninvited guests, but those that fell simply bounced a few times, rolled over, and ran back to the fray. Within moments they had reached the lower branches and were running along them, beaks slashing at the hanging fronds, while gangs of them worked to hoist themselves farther into the canopy.
The tree went berserk, like a dog suddenly assailed by an army of fleas. Every branch bent inward, fronds reaching and grasping in a leafy chaos, trying to grab the persistent little parasites and pull them free. A few were yanked off and sent spinning across the fields, but when a frond grabbed one, a half-dozen others descended at once, chopping the offending tendril with their beaks and freeing their trapped compatriot. Alice could almost hear the scream of rage as the tree flailed frantically at itself.
She never could have done it before this. Individual control of the swarmers would have overwhelmed her in a chaos of multiple legs and eyes. But her brief moments as the Swarm had taught her a great deal about them, including what she could safely leave them to handle on their own. Each swarmer knew where the others were, all the time, and they could look through each other’s eyes as easily as she could see through theirs. They needed only the lightest prodding to do what she wanted, and once she’d sent them off, they set to it with a will.
She had enough concentration left over to wave at the tree-sprite as she walked deliberately forward, past where the cordon of hanging fronds had been.
“Hey!” she told it. “You want me? Here I am!”
The creature turned to face her, the branch it rode twisting around like a snake. Its green eyes flared malevolently. All around Alice, other branches arched toward her, and she could feel the ground writhing beneath her feet as roots worked their way upward.
She stuck out her tongue at the tree-sprite and ran, staying within the willow’s reach but a comfortable distance from the trunk. The branches twisted around to follow, as did the tree-sprite itself. She saw it reach the end of its branch and leap to a new one. And, through the countless eyes of the Swarm, she caught something important: The tree stopped moving during the brief moment the sprite was out of contact with the wood.
More branches quickly curved in to block Alice’s path, and she had to dodge and weave to avoid them. The swarmers ran along the tree limbs, snipping and snapping at any fronds that looked like they might get ahold of Alice as she passed. Even so, she had several near misses that left her with stinging cuts, and the fronds in front of her were getting thicker. She didn’t look over her shoulder—she didn’t n
eed to, the Swarm could see everything—but she kept as much attention as she dared on the tree-sprite itself. The branches it leaped to were mostly the very highest on the tree, as they could stretch the farthest, but as it closed in behind her it jumped down, swinging from a suddenly still limb and landing on one of the lower branches directly in Alice’s path. She pulled up short, skidding to a halt in a cloud of flying dirt, and the glow in the sprite’s eyes seemed to brighten with triumph. Fronds raced in toward her from all directions.
It didn’t notice the swarmers piling onto the branch behind it. How could it? Alice thought, almost pityingly. It only had one pair of eyes.
The little creatures raced out along the limb to where it thinned, then attacked it with their beaks like a swarm of maddened woodpeckers. Chips of bark flew. The tree-sprite spun, perhaps feeling some echo of the tree’s agony, but it was far too late. Two dozen swarmers were already slashing at the weakened branch, and before the sprite could jump free, the wood gave way under its weight with a mighty crack. It fell almost directly toward Alice, who had to duck backward to avoid it.
The sprite’s left hand, with its ragged, bark-like claw, was still sunk deep in the wood of the branch. But the branch was no longer connected to the tree. As Alice had observed, without that connection, the willow was just a willow, not a multi-limbed engine of destruction. All the branches stopped at once, swaying gently with suddenly halted momentum. All the fronds twitched and fell limp, hanging in gentle curtains like willow fronds ought to, and there was a shower of dislodged leaves and twigs.
If the tree-sprite got its hand back on the tree, Alice was certain, it would all start back up again. The fall seemed to have stunned it, and she didn’t intend to give it a chance to recover. The swarmers dropped from the branches like a rain of strange-shaped fruit, bouncing and rolling across the uneven ground, then homing in on the ape-like thing. They charged beak-first, burying the points into its skin, slashing and cutting. Alice, recalling the vicious sharpness of those beaks, quailed at the sight, but there seemed to be no flesh or blood in the tree-sprite. Chunks of bark came away with dry cracks and pops.
The thing started to move, freeing its hand from the broken branch and swatting feebly at its tormentors. Alice directed the swarmers to pin it to the ground, driving their beaks into it and holding it fast with their combined weight. Soon they had it spread-eagled, face-down, and Alice herself cautiously approached.
“It’s over,” she said. “Can you understand me? You’ve lost, all right?”
Something was happening to the creature. Its skin seemed to be drying out, cracking and hardening into old, dead bark, while in the chest of its ape-like body something continued to twist and writhe. Alice watched, still tense, as a great plate of bark cracked in half and fell away. A mop of pale green hair emerged, straight up out of the tree-sprite’s back like a shoot growing out of a fallen timber. It was followed by two slender hands, their skin the color of fresh buds in spring.
They scrabbled on the bark armor until they found a handhold, and then a child-like creature no taller than Alice’s knee levered itself out. It was naked, genderless as an undressed doll, with a painfully thin body and slender, delicate limbs. All it shared with the ape-like armored thing were its eyes, which were the same brilliant, burning green. Alice had a sudden image of this fragile little thing sitting cocooned in bark and wood like a medieval knight in his plate-mail, looking out at the world from a slit in its visor.
It was trying to get away, clambering over the wreckage of its bark-suit, but when it reached the edge it lost its footing and slid heavily to the ground. One of the swarmers ran up to it and took a tentative peck at its leg, and its beak left a curving, ugly wound that leaked thick, sticky sap. The tree-sprite’s mouth gaped in a silent scream, showing teeth the pale color of birch wood.
“Stop,” Alice said aloud.
A ring of swarmers halted, all around the little creature, which clutched at the cut just like a human in pain. It rolled over, face-down, knees pulled up under it, and huddled there like a child awaiting punishment. The swarmers surrounded it, razor beaks gleaming and dangerous.
She tried to think back to what Geryon had told her. He’d mentioned, offhandedly, that a creature could surrender rather than fight to the death, but he’d never said how.
“You have to . . . submit,” Alice said uncertainly. “Then I can go away and leave you alone. Do you understand me? I don’t want to hurt you. But otherwise I have no way to get out of here.”
Was this enough? The fight was clearly over. But she was still here. She tried to remember what had happened when she’d escaped the world of the Swarm, but she’d been freezing and nearly unconscious at the time, and recalled only waking up in bed.
“Geryon!” she said. He could hear her, she was certain. And he’d already spoken once. “What do I do?”
“Kill it,” Geryon said, inside her skull.
“What?” Alice looked down at the creature, pathetic and in pain. “I can’t. Not now.”
“It has not submitted to your will. You must destroy it to escape the prison.”
“I don’t think it understands.”
“Whether or not it understands is immaterial,” Geryon said. He sounded irritated. “It is bound, and can choose only submission or destruction.”
“But I can’t seem to talk to it,” Alice said. “If I could explain things, I wouldn’t have to—”
“Just because a creature has a human face does not mean it has a human mind,” Geryon snapped. “Submission may be beyond its comprehension. It matters not. Strike.”
“No,” Alice said. “I’m not going to hurt someone just because it’s more convenient for me!”
“I do not understand your reluctance,” Geryon said, getting angry. “It is not ‘someone.’ It is not human. What does it matter?”
Alice ignored him. She bent beside the little thing, swarmers shuffling aside to let her through, and put her hand on its shoulder. Its skin was cool to the touch, and smooth as a fresh-grown twig.
“Listen,” Alice whispered. “I don’t know if you can understand me, but please try. I’m not going to hurt you. Whatever Geryon says, I’m not. But it’s over, you know? You don’t have to fight anymore.”
A shudder ran through the huddled thing. Slowly, it began to uncurl, and it turned its head to look up at her. It had a narrow, triangular face, with thin lips and a tiny button nose, but its green eyes were enormous. They flashed and sparkled with a light of their own, like gemstones in the sun, and once again Alice could almost feel what the creature was thinking. Rage, and hatred, and fear, and—satisfaction?
One of the tree-sprite’s hands had scratched out a hole in the dirt, burying itself to the wrist. Between its tiny fingers, Alice could see something pale white and wormlike, twisting and writhing. The very tip of a root.
The willow shuddered back into motion with a thousand creaks and rustles that merged into a triumphant roar. Alice turned in time to see one of the largest branches bend back until it nearly touched the trunk with its tip. It snapped forward like a bow with the tension released, whistling through a wide arc. The end of it caught her in the stomach with the force of a baseball player’s swing, hard enough that it lifted her off the ground entirely and sent her flailing through the air like a tossed ragdoll. There was a moment of disorienting flight, and she got a glimpse of the tree trunk looming in front of her, with only time enough to close her eyes and cringe.
Instead of the bone-crushing impact she’d expected, she hit the wooden surface and sank inside it like it was made of thick syrup. Darkness enveloped her, and her ears were full of the creaks and pops of moving wood. Her breath wouldn’t come, and something in her chest felt broken and wrong. She tried to scream, but nothing emerged. The tree began to press on her, a giant’s fist tightening its grip, and Alice felt the pop and crunch of bone before her consciousness fled
and her body fell away behind her.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
THE GIDEON
ALICE OPENED HER EYES, gasping for breath. She was standing at the rail of a ship, looking out at the sea. The setting sun filled the sky with gaudy colors, and the highlights on the gentle swells faded from gold to crimson.
When she worked up the courage to examine herself, she was doubly surprised—not only was her body intact, but she was wearing a dress she distinctly remembered leaving behind in New York. It was a blue silk-and-satin affair her father had given her this Christmas past, a bit fancy for Alice’s taste, but she’d always loved it because he did. Just the sight of it brought tears to her eyes, and she reached up to wipe them away. Her hand froze, midway through the gesture, and rubbed tentatively at her cheek. The thin, slashing scar she’d gotten from the Swarm was gone.
The color drained out of the sky, and the ocean went from red to purple to a deep, impenetrable black. Stars began to emerge through the shredded clouds overhead, one by one. Alice turned around. The wall behind her was pierced by a set of round portholes and a single door, looking very nautical with a round handle set in the center. Standing by the door—
That, Alice thought, is impossible. It’s a trick, and a cruel one. It’s—
Her traitorous legs were already in motion, paying no attention to her rational brain. She ran as though through molasses, slow and clumsy, expecting that at any moment the apparition would vanish and be replaced with something painful and awful. Then she was there, throwing herself forward, and her father’s arms wrapped around her. He was warm, and real, and as she buried her face in his chest he smelled of everything she’d ever thought of as safe and home.
“Hello, Alice,” he said. His familiar voice tipped her over the edge, and she began to cry great, wracking sobs. He patted her head and ran his fingers through her hair, and Alice felt six years old again, crawling into his bed in the middle of the night because she’d read something scary and had bad dreams.
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