Solomon's Journey

by James Maxstadt

  When her mother died, she never gave her father another thought. She simply left, leaving the House and its intrigues behind her. Let others of purer bloodlines deal with it.

  Everything was changed now, though.

  If her father truly was Towering Oaks, then half of her was of that House.

  Not that it mattered. Towering Oaks was still what it was and still used the other Houses, especially Whispering Pines, to further its own ends. Right?

  But if she were of that House as well. Maybe even the daughter of a noble on that side ….

  It changed nothing. Except. But. Yet.

  She trailed behind the others, letting the thoughts wash over her. When this was done, she was going back to the Southern Seas. Let someone else, Thaddeus she would guess, have Whispering Pines. Let someone else, and she didn’t care who it was, have Towering Oaks. Give her a ship and a crew.

  And as tempting as it was to simply slip away right now, she couldn’t do it. Not leaving this mess behind. A mess that she felt, if forced to it, that she had a hand in.

  Ahead of her, Thaddeus began whispering to Melanie, leaning on her for support. There was steel in that woman. She’d make a good sailor, if she didn’t have ambitions here. Which she obviously did.

  “It will be okay,” Jocasta heard Melanie say. “You’re not alone.”

  “You don’t understand. What I did.”

  Jocasta cringed at the whining in Thaddeus’s voice. She didn’t know if it was remorse, fear, or pain that was causing it. While Willow may not have been seeking active revenge on him, she also hadn’t taken any steps to heal him.

  “Enough crying,” Jocasta said, squaring her shoulders and pushing past them. “We’re almost there. Try to act like a man for once.”

  She didn’t even bother glancing at them as she passed.

  The sound of a horn being blown in warning split the air. They’d been seen from the sentries of Towering Oaks. That was a good sign. At least they still had sentries.

  Jocasta quickened her pace, passing Darius and Willow as well and taking the lead.

  When they neared the Towering Oaks compound, the door to the main tree opened and two men exited. Jocasta recognized the one as Orlando. The one who’d come to visit her at Whispering Pines and struck up what he thought of as a friendship with Darius. A bit of a fool, perhaps. But Shireen’s mate as well, and Jocasta knew that Shireen would suffer fools no more than she herself would, so there might be more to him.

  She didn’t know the other man. He was tall, even for one of the Folk, and held himself with the air of one who was ready for anything, capable of stepping to any challenge. It was an appearance that she could recognize. She’d seen it often enough in the mirror.

  “Solomon,” Willow said behind her, the relief evident in her voice.

  “Oh, shit.” The voice was hushed and came from a few paces further back. Jocasta didn’t need to turn to know it was Thaddeus.

  Well, this should be good.

  She slowed down to let Willow walk past her. The healer let go of Darius’s hand and climbed the steps, folding Solomon into a tight hug. She stepped back and spoke in hushed tones. Jocasta couldn’t hear what was said, but saw Solomon’s eyes flicker to Thaddeus a few times, and once or twice to Darius as well.

  Then he looked directly at her.

  There was something there. Something that she recognized.

  Solomon was a handsome man, even with the scar running down the side of his face and the black eyepatch. It wasn’t that, though. The world was full of handsome men and Jocasta had had her share of them. This was something else …

  He smiled at her, an easy, soft expression that came with no malice, no mockery. It was the simple smile of someone that knew his own worth and wasn’t overly worried about what anyone else thought.

  Her own smile was more of a grimace in response. What was going on here?

  He and Orlando came down from the steps. Orlando moved to Darius while Solomon came directly to her, hand held out in greeting.

  “Jocasta,” he said. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, although I wish it was under better circumstances. I’m Solomon.”

  She took his hand and shook it, finding herself unexpectedly pleased by his simple use of names, rather than honorifics.

  “Nice to meet you, too,” she said. Then, she remembered where they were and why they were there. “Whispering Pines isn’t going to crawl, you know.”

  Her protest sounded ridiculous and out of place. A stupid thing to say.

  “Good to know,” Solomon replied. “Nor should it. We’ll work together to solve what’s going on. It’s not only here, you know. I need help with another place, too, but we can talk about that.”

  A politician’s answer, yet, somehow, it didn’t feel that way coming from him. From Solomon, it felt like nothing more than the simple truth.

  He smiled at her and moved away. She followed his progress as he passed Darius with a nod and stepped to Thaddeus.

  The mage had stopped, his eyes downcast. For her part, Melanie glared at Solomon, and although she didn’t say anything, she never looked away from him either.

  Yes, there was steel in that one.

  “Thaddeus,” Solomon said. His voice was quiet, almost serene. There was none of the menace in it that Jocasta, and apparently Thaddeus, had been expecting.

  “Solomon,” Thaddeus muttered.

  “Willow’s vouched for you. Don’t make her regret it.”

  “Things have changed,” Thaddeus said, finally lifting his eyes to meet Solomon’s. “And so have I.”

  “Good. We can use your skills, I think. After it all, we can talk about what comes next.”

  Thaddeus nodded. Solomon returned it, then started back toward the main tree. He stopped and looked back at Thaddeus.

  “I’m glad you’re alive,” he said. “But you should know. Celia is back as well. I’m not sure what your reception with her will be.”

  Jocasta narrowed her eyes. So, Celia had returned, and with her, the number one threat to her position as Head of House Whispering Pines.

  Somehow, that thought didn’t really bother her anymore.

  “Let’s go in,” Solomon was saying. “We’ll set up in a conference room, compare notes and figure a way out of this mess.”

  He led the way into the massive tree.

  Chapter 74

  Like almost everything else about the Towering Oaks compound, Darius decided, the room Solomon led them to was utilitarian. A large table, grown from the floor itself, with chairs around it dominated the room. It was a room made to hold several people at once, to discuss serious matters, and that was it.

  A perfect place for what they needed to talk about, even if too austere for Darius’s taste.

  “Who wants to start?” Solomon asked.

  No one spoke up. Darius shifted uncomfortably in his chair, unwilling to share his story and his parts in what was now happening to the Greenweald.

  “All right,” Solomon said, “then I elect Jocasta. You’ve been to Glittering Birch and have returned. What’d you find there?”

  Jocasta settled back into her chair and looked at each of them first. Darius couldn’t tell if she was simply being dramatic, or if she was considering her sway over each of them here. Finally, she spoke.

  “Evil,” she said. “Sounds melodramatic, I know, especially from me, but I’m going to speak the truth about what I saw. And felt. To begin with, Jamshir is beyond help. His madness is absolute, and I don’t think he even recognizes what’s going on around him as reality. If anything, I think he’s a pawn.”

  “He is,” Darius put in.

  Solomon’s eye on him made him uncomfortable again, and he searched for Willow’s hand. She took it, and her calm, reassuring presence gave him the courage to continue. “We can get more into my role in all this later, but Jamshir is a puppet. Malachi, the Head of House Subtle Hemlock, did it.”

  “All right,” Solomon said. “I don’t think that absolv
es him of all guilt, but we can all agree that Jamshir’s not the real danger here, correct?”

  Nods and mutters of agreement came from around the table.

  “What else?” Solomon asked Jocasta.

  While she relayed the story of the hunter, as Solomon called them, and how she’d followed Jamshir to the room with the gates, Darius let his eyes roam around the room.

  Everyone was intent on what Jocasta was saying.

  Especially Orlando.

  “Wait,” Orlando said, interrupting Jocasta’s story after the fight with the hunter. “What did you say happened with Shireen?”

  “She ran,” Jocasta replied.

  Orlando opened his mouth, but Jocasta held up her hand to stop him.

  “Wait. I don’t mean ran like she was scared. She wasn’t. She ran like she needed to get away from it for her own good. Maybe mine, too. I don’t know.”

  Orlando glared at her for a moment, then motioned that she should continue her story.

  Darius continued to watch him. Orlando kept his gaze focused on Jocasta, but after a moment, he looked down at the table. His chest heaved in a silent sigh and his eyes closed. When he opened them, he looked directly at Darius.

  Caught staring, Darius flushed and tore his gaze away. The anger in Orlando’s eyes was palpable, and Darius couldn’t blame him.

  When he dared to glance back, Orlando was again staring at the table.

  “We saw gates almost identical to those,” Solomon said when Jocasta finished. “In an entirely different world.”

  “Almost?” Willow asked.

  “Different colors in them,” he answered. “Except for the big one that made Jocasta ill. That one was the same. I think you’re all right however. I think those colors indicate where the gates lead.”

  “Shireen didn’t bring something back with her, then?” Orlando’s voice held an almost pathetic amount of hope.

  “I don’t know,” Solomon said. “Her bringing it back might have enabled a gate to open to Towering Oaks, or it was in addition, or …. I just don’t know.”

  “That’s not really important,” Thaddeus said. “What is, is what we’re going to do about it.”

  “That’s a good question,” Solomon said. “What can we count on from Whispering Pines for help?”

  “Us,” Jocasta said. “Haven’t you been listening? Whispering Pines is as bad as Glittering Birch. It’s gone.”

  Solomon cocked his head. “No, no one said that. Or if they did, I missed it. What do you mean gone?”

  “Everyone there is infected by whatever this is,” Thaddeus said. “I couldn’t find anyone other than us who wasn’t.”

  “I need to go there, now.” Solomon stood and began moving around the table toward the door.

  “Wait,” Willow said. “Solomon, stop. And tell us what it is.”

  “Celia. She wouldn’t come here with me. She said she was going home to Whispering Pines!”

  Darius felt like a fool. He heard Solomon tell Thaddeus that Florian’s daughter had returned. It never occurred to him, or apparently anyone else, that she went there, rather than staying with Solomon.

  “I’ll go,” he heard himself say.

  “What?” Willow turned to him in disbelief.

  “She doesn’t know me, has no reason to dislike or mistrust me. I’ll bring her back here.”

  “It’s not safe—" Willow began.

  “It will be fine. I’m going to get her and bring her here. Thaddeus and Melanie know my story, or at least enough of it to get the idea across. Keep talking. I’ll be back in a few hours.”

  Without waiting, he rose and left the room. Behind him, the voices rose to indistinct mutters heard through the door. He was surprised that Solomon let him go this easily but was grateful for it.

  Maybe this was the first act of atonement in a long line of them.

  His second came a moment later when he saw Samuel approaching him.

  “Samuel,” he said, which was as far as he got before the thin, mild-mannered man hit him.

  It was a surprisingly powerful blow and knocked Darius into the wall and off his feet. Before he could rise, Samuel kicked him in the stomach.

  Darius retched, his arms wrapping around his middle.

  For a brief moment, his power flared up and he started to enter Samuel’s mind. He could freeze him, walk away without any more confrontation, or make him go to sleep, or …

  He did none of it. He lay on the floor, holding his aching stomach, feeling the throb of the bruise rising along his jaw and waited.

  Samuel stood in front of him, his chest heaving and fists clenched at his sides.

  “You think I’m weak,” he spat. “The things you did. I’m not weak! You’ll find out. When Solomon is in charge again. When Lady Shireen is back with Lord Orlando and everything is sorted out. Then you’ll find out. I’m not weak!”

  He punctuated his last outburst with another kick, one that Darius saw coming and rolled into so that it glanced off his hip. It still stung, but a lot of the force was gone.

  “You’ll see,” Samuel said quietly.

  He spit into Darius’s face and stalked off.

  Darius lay still for a moment, the spittle stinging his eyes. Finally, he climbed to his feet with a groan. He could go back and ask Willow to heal his bruises.

  Instead, he resumed walking.

  Chapter 75

  It was like being back in Dunfield. The sullen expressions, the hooded leers, even the whispering. Only Celia never expected to find that here. Not in the Greenweald and certainly not in her own House.

  She walked warily along the overgrown path, keeping her eyes moving, always on the lookout for trouble. A habit that she picked up in Dunfield. One she thought she could put behind her once she was home.

  Whatever happened there had made its way here, and she wondered if it was everywhere now. The evil spread throughout the entire world and the end times come.

  Even in its current state, simply being home made her miss her father more than she ever believed she could have. When she first washed up on the side of that pool, and found the Mar-trollid, all she could think of was that she missed Solomon and wanted to see him again. She was ashamed to admit that her father hardly crossed her mind.

  Perhaps that was forgivable. Florian had always been there, and as far as Celia was concerned, he always would be. He was a fact of life as much as the air, the water and the sunshine. He was eternal.

  Her feelings for Solomon were not. At one point she would have thought so, but now? Now he’d shown himself to be nothing special after all. He actually made problems worse by charging at them head-on, rather than being patient and seeing the lay of the land first. Ironic, since everyone said he was the finest scout House Towering Oaks had produced in many a generation.

  If he was the finest, perhaps their reputation was ill-earned.

  She made her way to the main tree, seeing the doors wide open. A few one-time guards took their ease on the steps, the remains of a meal and several empty bottles strewn about them. They were watching her approach with undisguised avarice.

  “Well, who’s this then?” one of them drawled as she came close.

  “I’m going inside,” Celia replied. “I’d prefer to not have any problems.”

  “Ohhh…prefer, would you? Then by all means, allow us to move out of your way.”

  None of them moved an inch. They stayed where they were, sprawled on the steps, blocking her way forward.

  “Wait a minute,” another said, peering at her and picking the remains of his meal from his teeth. “I know you. Weren’t you Florian’s daughter? The one who decided to run off with that other guy?”

  “I am Florian’s daughter, yes. And I am the rightful Head of this House! Now, either stand up, fix your uniforms and show some respect, or get out of my way!”

  The anger coursing through her lent strength to her voice. For a moment, it looked like they were going to do as she commanded. There were shifts of pos
ture and sidelong glances of uncertainty to each other.

  Then, the first one who spoke slowly rose.

  “Okay, my lady. We’ll do one better.” He sauntered down the steps toward her. “We’ll take you inside ourselves. Right to wherever you need to go. Then, once we have you inside, you can thank us. One at a time, or all together, it’s up to you.”

  Everywhere, Celia thought. Everywhere this evil infects, men turn the same. A woman is helpless before them and they’ll take what they want from her.

  The guard reached the bottom step and the others were nudging one another and laughing.

  He was taller than her, and bigger as well.

  “What’s it going to be?” His breath stank of sour wine and neglect. “Shall we go inside, or do you want to put on a show right here?”

  That was as far as he got before Celia hit him. She lashed out, catching him in the front of the throat with her fingers folded under. The guard gagged and his hands went to his neck. Celia moved in, grabbed him by the front of his shirt and pulled him forward at the same time as her knee came up.

  The gagging turned into a strangled gasp and the guard collapsed.

  Celia ignored him and started up the steps.

  She’d been afraid that the other two guards would come for her while she was busy with the first one, but they were too busy laughing and pointing at their fallen comrade.

  The one on the right held up his hands in mock surrender.

  “Peace,” he giggled. “That was all him. He was an ass. Besides, you’re not my type. Too skinny.”

  He seemed to find that even funnier and collapsed into gales of laughter, rolling onto his side on the step. His companion laughed as well, scooting over and indicating that Celia was free to walk past.

  She did, keeping an eye on the pair, waiting for one or both to make a move toward her. The laughing one kept at it, sounding like a drunk, while the other chuckled and gazed out over the compound.