by Wight, Will
From this vantage point he could make out the Damascan soldiers much more clearly. There were maybe seventy-five of them, about fifteen of whom were on horseback. The rest walked behind in neat ranks. And behind them, stretching off in a line easily as long as the rest of the column, stumbled the captives.
They were all held on one long rope, with both their hands bound and tied on to the main line. They wore loose clothes of brown and tan, desert colors, with worn shoes or sandals and little more than a stretch of rope for belts. The same clothes Simon wore, that he had worn all his life. One of the men, larger than most in the line, crouched on his knees, holding his arms above his head defensively. A soldier standing over him beat him with a long stick, yelling something Simon couldn’t catch.
The man on the ground yelled again, pathetically. Simon recognized that voice: Chaim, son of Moseth, as far as Simon knew the only one of the Mayor’s advisors to survive the Damascan attack. His daughter, Orlina, had been one of Cormac’s victims.
Simon almost lost his balance, and had to steady himself before he fell off the wagon. Now that he was looking for them, he recognized other faces from the village. Why? What were the people of Myria doing all the way out here?
Olissa had told him that the wagons were moving toward Myria, but Simon hadn’t thought much about it. Had Kai known something of this?
Was Damasca attacking the village again?
Chaim, in the middle of taking a beating from a Damascan soldier, had already lost his daughter. He didn’t deserve this. And it was up to Simon had to do something. but what was he supposed to do? If the Damascans had another Traveler with them, Simon wasn’t sure what he could do about it. If they just summoned a monster, sure, he could fight it. But what would happen if someone hurled lightning at him? Or called fire down on his head? Burn and die, he supposed. And even if they had no Traveler, the thought of slicing up seventy-five people—even Damascans—made him a little sick.
Simon felt chains pressing against the backs of his hands, and he glanced down. Between the sinking moon and the nearby fire, he had just enough light to make out the chain-shaped shadows slowly growing on his hands, one link at a time, as the Nye essence drifted through him. How dangerous were these chains, anyway? He needed to ask Kai before he got himself killed. Or maybe...
He looked at the blond doll in his left hand. She still had that smug smirk on her face. What was he thinking? Of course she did. She had been painted that way. He wasn’t as crazy as Kai, so until one of these dolls proved otherwise he would treat them like ordinary toys.
Still. Maybe she could answer his questions. She might be able to help him decide what to do.
Simon shook his head, disgusted with himself, and pulled his mind back to the task at hand. His anger, buried but never smothered since the attack on his village, demanded that he make an example of these Damascans. If they had no Traveler, he could most likely destroy them singlehandedly. He spun a rage-fueled fantasy of killing them all, piling their heads into one of these wagons, and sending the wagon back to Bel Calem. Let Malachi see what happened when he attacked an innocent village.
Simon’s queasiness grew worse when he realized what he was considering; and worse, when he realized that he could actually carry it out. Back home, he had occasionally nursed angry fantasies, mostly about beating an older boy until he gave up. But Simon had never had the power to do anything. Now, though, everything was different.
If he wanted the Damascans dead, he could have it. Right now.
The thought terrified him. And yet, if he did nothing, the people of Myria would continue to suffer.
Finally it occurred to him that he was going about this the wrong way. From his perspective, he could see only two options: attack the Damascans or leave the villagers in captivity. But that was based on only what he knew, which wasn’t much. He didn’t have the whole picture, and something still didn’t make sense. It was three or four days’ hard travel to Myria, even for one man alone. He didn’t know how much longer it would take a column of soldiers with captives, but certainly at least a day or two longer.
So what were they doing all the way out here? It was a long way for the soldiers to go just to round up some more captives, and the Myrians shouldn’t have come so far from their newly rebuilt homes. What was going on?
He had to know before he did something foolish. And there was only one way to get that information.
Ask.
***
On the far side of the camp, Ansher sat on his horse, barking orders to foot soldiers who hurried to and from various wagons, hauling crates from one to another. The Agnos family rushed along in their preparations to leave: checking wagons, seeing to horses, rubbing down oxen, asking questions of the soldiers and examining the captives.
Lycus glimpsed Simon once and brightened, starting to run over to him, but his mother grabbed him by one arm and spoke to him sternly. Sulkily he levered a bag of some kind of vegetable onto one shoulder and walked off to a wagon in the back of the camp. Olissa gave Simon a hurried smile and a wave, then ran off to complete her work.
Erastes was sitting on the edge of a wagon, pulling on his armored boots, when Simon walked up to him.
“Feeling better?” Erastes asked when he saw Simon. His eyes were as hard as his voice. They flicked down to Simon’s bandage-free leg. “I see you are.” He didn’t seem much surprised at Simon’s accelerated healing.
“I came to ask you about the captives,” Simon said. “Who are they?”
Erastes looked at him sharply. “Not your concern. Though if you’d like to know, you should travel with us a while longer. I suspect Overlord Malachi would like to meet you himself.”
Simon nodded, not in agreement, but because the captain had confirmed something Simon already suspected. “You’re heading for Bel Calem, then?” Simon asked.
“We’re going in that direction, yes,” Erastes said. He seemed determined to give away as little as possible.
“The captives as well?”
Erastes stared at Simon a little too long, clearly trying to come up with an answer that would put him off. Fortunately, at that moment Caius walked by, huffing and hauling a huge crate.
“Captives?” Caius asked. “Rebels and insurrectionists is what they are. Caught them dealing with Enosh, and you know what trouble that brings. The collar is too light a punishment, if you ask me.”
The collar. They were going to be sold as slaves. It was a good thing Simon didn’t have a sword on his hip, or he would have been gripping it so hard Erastes couldn’t miss it.
Just to have something to do with his hands, Simon reached into the back of his belt, where he had tucked the doll. Having her there was uncomfortable and obvious—anybody who saw him from behind couldn’t help but notice that he had something hidden between his pants and shirt—but he had to put her somewhere. Besides, he almost heard her indignant squawk when he put her back there. Eventually she would slip up and speak to him directly.
But once again, Simon was distracting himself from the matter at hand, trying to ignore his rising anger.
With a sigh, Erastes motioned for Caius to move on. “I wasn’t going to tell you, boy, but Caius has the truth of it,” he said. “We had captured some criminals up there a few months ago, and the Overlord was concerned that the rest of the village might unjustly blame him and turn to rebellion. We were sent in to get the feel of the place, maintain order. Didn’t expect to find anything.”
Behind the captain, one of the soldiers had untied a few of the villagers, and was herding them at swordpoint into one of the empty wagons. A bruised and battered Chaim happened to stumble, catching a glimpse of Simon as he did. Their eyes locked. Chaim’s widened, even as the soldier grabbed him and brought him to his feet.
Erastes noticed nothing. He shook his head as though saddened by his own tale, but his voice did not soften. “It only took us about two hours to find out that they’ve been making daily trips into enemy territory.
Accepting food, supplies, workers. They had even provided shelter to one of those enemy Travelers, if you can believe it.
“Naturally, we settled the whole thing down. Except a few of them escaped, we suspect headed for the capital to try and rescue their criminal friends. Spent the last six weeks hunting them down from here to the Badari Desert. And that’s as much as you need know and more.”
Chaim strained desperately against his captors, shouting, “Simon! Run, Simon!” The Damascans ignored him, or else didn’t connect ‘Simon’ with the strange maybe-Traveler who had saved the Agnos children. It didn’t matter. For whatever reason, they had missed their only chance to stop him.
Almost against his will, Simon drew more deeply on the liquid steel. The chains stretched up his skin, twisting around his forearms. The icy cold, rushing through his veins in complement to his anger. Ice leaked out into his voice as he spoke.
“Why weren’t you going to tell me?” he asked.
Erastes shrugged and pulled on his last boot, stomping it on the ground to get it settled. “I don’t trust you, boy,” he said. “I don’t even know your name.”
“My name is Simon. Son of Kalman.” His tone put heavy significance on the last three words. Damascans with a long heritage or those living in the city had family names, like Agnos. Only those who lived on the fringes of the nation, in remote villages, took their father’s name. Simon watched Erastes’ face as all those thoughts flitted through his mind.
Behind him, Chaim shouted one more time before he was shoved roughly into a wagon: “Run! Don’t let them get you too! Run, Simon, run!”
Then Simon added, almost casually, the last part of his name.
“From Myria village.”
It took the Damascan captain only a second to register the significance of the name. Once he did, his eyes widened, and his sword flashed from its scabbard. “Traveler!” he bellowed, deeply enough to be heard across a distant field.
The effect on the soldiers was immediate. One of them, behind Erastes, dropped a sack of flour to the ground and pulled his bow out of a case on his back, trying to string it as fast as possible. Ansher, still mounted, was more prepared; he put an arrow in the air before his captain’s shout died. The arrowhead gleamed as it sped toward Simon, almost too fast for thought.
But not quite.
***
The old man’s blood matched the rest of the room.
Leah and Malachi stood on a low balcony, surrounded by an iron railing, looking down on a rough room of stone. She might have almost called it a dungeon, except that it was filled, floor to ceiling, with an enormous tangle of leaves, roots, vines, and living wood. Branches crawled along the stone walls, moving slowly even as she watched, and fully half the room was obscured by a steadily shifting mass of leaves and thorns.
The worst part was that none of it was the healthy, clean color of living plants. Not a speck of green or brown showed in the whole indoor jungle. Every bit of it, from the rough bark to the tips of the soft leaves, was a bright red. A shade of red, in fact, that Leah recognized.
The scholars of Old Damasca had called Ragnarus by another name: the Crimson Vault. These plants—no, this plant—this plant was the color of Ragnarus.
She supposed she had found Malachi’s Tree.
The wall of red vegetation was not alone in the room. Besides the balcony on which Leah, Malachi, and two of Malachi’s guards stood, there was one more person present. Boez.
He hung in the air, branches wrapped around his wrists and ankles pulling him in opposite directions as though the Tree meant to rip his limbs from their sockets. All over his body, his skin had been shredded, as though the Tree had raked its thorns over him. He was so shrouded in his mask of blood that if Leah hadn’t known who hung there, she would never have recognized him.
Feigning boredom, she very carefully looked away.
“It’s quiet now,” Malachi said idly. “Perhaps he’s dead.” He didn’t look at Boez either, merely toyed with the edge of one of his fingernails. Leah wondered if he, like she herself, was just taking the excuse to look away from the dying man. But that was ridiculous.
Leah did not respond; she was afraid to open her mouth. Suddenly she wished she hadn’t eaten breakfast. She fiddled with the crystal on her bracelet, letting its cool presence calm her.
“Each of the Overlords has one of these Trees, you know,” Malachi said. “Your father told me that they’re connected through Ragnarus, though of course you would know more of that than I. Whenever one is fed, it nourishes all the others, though to a lesser degree.”
“Of course,” Leah said. Her voice came out as a croak. Where was he going with this? And could they not have this conversation in another room?
“You know each Ragnarus artifact has a price, and this one is no exception. It requires blood. Nine people a year, one a day, ending on midsummer. And as long as they’re fed, the Trees maintain the seal on the Incarnations.”
In spite of herself, Leah took a sharp breath and stepped slightly backwards. “Then this is...there’s one...”
“Here, yes,” Malachi said grimly. “Underneath my house. Safest place for it, all told, where I can respond to any issues immediately. But here’s my question, Ragnarus Traveler.”
Suddenly Malachi loomed over her, and she had to turn to meet him, her back pressed against the cold iron railing. He was the Overlord again, grim and dangerous, staring at her with righteous anger in his eyes.
“Why?” he demanded. He gestured behind her, to the man she knew was still hanging there covered in his own blood. She did not turn to look. “Why this? Is there no other way? And if there is not, then why are you here, where you do not belong? Do you not trust me to handle my own business? Why can’t you just leave me alone!”
He was shouting by the end, leaning close, with a fist raised.
And, intimidating Overlord’s rage or no, blood-sucking tree or no, Leah decided she had had enough.
She twisted her wrist so that the crystal on her bracelet caught the light and gleamed. It wouldn’t be as effective without moonlight, not enough to open a proper Gate, but she could call on what she needed.
The crystal bracelet flared with a white light, and she pressed her palm against Malachi’s chest.
“Overlord Malachi Daiasus,” Leah said coldly, and as she did she was proud to hear all the authority of Damascan royalty in her voice. “Take a step back.”
For a few seconds she thought Malachi was going to try and use force on her anyway. His guards obviously thought so too, because from the corner of her vision she saw them take a step away, closer to the balcony’s sides. They were wise enough to want nothing to do with a battle between two powerful Travelers.
She would have to kill him, of course, if he did attack. But she hoped she wouldn’t have to.
Finally Malachi relaxed and closed his right fist, the one with the Naraka brand. Then he stepped back. Something seemed to drain from him and he was only Malachi again, weary and vain and a tad lazy.
“I apologize, Highness,” he said. “I was overwrought.”
Leah lowered her hand, letting Lirial’s power flood out of her bracelet. “You are forgiven.”
“But please, if you will allow me to ask, why? Just...why? What is your father thinking?”
Leah’s instinct was to put the Overlord off again, tell him something vague and unsatisfying. That was how she had trained herself to deal with these matters. But there was a look in Malachi’s eyes that said he genuinely wondered, truly cared, and that honesty demanded the same from her.
Unfortunately, she still couldn’t give him what he wanted.
“I don’t know,” she admitted. Malachi searched her eyes before he nodded, once.
And then one of the guards screamed.
A thorny red vine had snaked up the side of the balcony and wrapped around his wrist. The vine stretched as long as Leah’s leg but no thicker than a finger, and it looke
d like the brawny guard should be able to snap it with main strength, but he kept screaming, clutching to the railing with his other hand as though it took everything he had to keep from being pulled over the edge.
Suddenly the entire Tree was awake, every root and branch and leaf shaking at once. The whole was a deafening sound like a hurricane’s roar, and it scared Leah far more than she would have ever admitted. She pulled light into her bracelet again, calling out for Lirial, but she wasn’t sure where to strike.
Boez—or his body, since Leah still wasn’t sure whether or not the man was alive—was seized around the middle by a huge branch and pulled back into the leaves, until he vanished into the thicket. The action reminded Leah eerily of prey being pulled into the mouth of some giant beast.
More thorned vines crawled up the balcony, slithering toward the rest of them. The plants were slow enough that she would never be caught as long as she was alert, but paired with the guard’s screams, and with what had happened to Boez…
Leah stepped back hurriedly enough, preparing to summon something sharp and deadly from Lirial the instant these plants got close enough to touch. No sense in taking chances.
Meanwhile, Malachi had pulled the guard’s sword, and had it raised. Leah wondered if he would even be able to chop this Ragnarus plant with ordinary steel—and wondered at the same time what might happen to the seal if he did—but he didn’t bring the sword down on the branch.
In one smooth motion, Malachi chopped off the guard’s hand at the wrist.
The guard’s scream was almost lost in the ensuing roar from the Tree, which snapped the severed hand back into itself like a frog taking a fly.
They lost no time leaving the room and sealing it tight. The second Malachi cleared the rooms, he shouted new assignments for his troops: fourteen soldiers at the entrance with orders to maintain a vigilant twenty-four hour watch.
“And a healer!” Malachi called to his servants, who had rushed down the halls to find some soldiers. He and the uninjured guard were trying to bind the fallen man’s severed wrist with a torn strip of shirt. As Leah watched, blood splattered up and splashed on Malachi’s face. He seemed not to notice.
