I learned that long before the sorrowind tried to destroy me. Its voice is just another note in the grim symphony.
Eventually I levered myself up off the ground, sheathed the knife and pulled out the glory hand.
“No tricks, now,” I muttered. “I’m in no mood. Show me the way to the Black Library.”
The forefinger extended itself, in a direct line away from the Spike and the standing stone at my back. I followed its line with my eye and saw, perhaps a mile distant, a glowering dark structure, massive and possessed of many towers and flying buttresses.
And between me and it, a forest, a river and a wall.
I knew now where I was. The forest was the Tanglewood. Bitter was the name of the river. The wall—oh, the wall. It was, and was not, the same Wall that Havak Silversword spent half his life imprisoned behind. Xom Dei, low duke of Thraxys, had thought it such a good joke he’d recreated the Wall in his own demesne, it was said.
Silversword had finally broken out, after thirty years, and in doing so became legend. Thirty years of a life stolen, for a joke.
I did not have thirty years to break in. But I did have something that might make a breach.
I shouldered the pack and resumed my journey.
Thirty
I descended the hill, brightblade in hand, crossed a dismal little sward, and soon enough found myself facing the edge of the very dark, very tangled wood.
“At least you live up to your name,” I said.
I could think of many, many things I would rather do than enter those woods. But going around it would take a long time; the woods paced the river for as far as I had been able see from the little hill’s vantage point. Perhaps even from the river’s beginning to its end. The maps I’d studied, or at least my memory of them, were unclear. And I did not want to spend extra hours in Thraxys if I could possibly avoid it. Thraxys was far worse than Gholdoryth, far more subtle in its brutality and its danger.
And the misgivings I had about entering the wood irritated me. I couldn’t tell whether the disquiet I felt was natural caution or some lingering, cowardly self-doubt engendered by the sorrowind. That inability to judge my own motivation was what decided me. I would rather default to recklessness than a failure of nerve, even if it meant unnecessary danger. Or death.
I summoned magelight and brightblade and stepped into the Tanglewood.
These were not great, towering trees. They were twisted, gnarled things packed close together, their branches and roots so intertwined it was mostly impossible to tell where one left off and the next began. I started by picking my way carefully, ducking, stepping over and pushing stray branches aside; but soon enough I had no choice but to force my way through, and make use of the brightblade more and more. The wood was growing denser and more impassable with every step I took, snagging on my pack, my clothes, and my hair.
I stopped and considered my position. I glanced back the way I had come—and saw that the path I had cut had disappeared.
“Why am I not surprised?” I muttered.
I pulled out the glory hand once more. “Show me another way to the Black Library,” I told it.
The fingers didn’t so much as twitch. This, apparently, was the only way. With a muttered curse, I shoved it back into its pocket.
Fire magic isn’t something I’m particularly good at. It’s simple enough magic; almost every mage I’d ever met had some skill with it. My own skill was not great; the amount of power I had to expend when I worked with fire was positively ruinous. Some mages have an affinity for the stuff, and can wield it deftly, artfully, all day long. I wasn’t one of them. My fire magic had all the subtlety of a sledge hammer against a ribcage. And just as swinging a sledge would wear me out after a few swings, so too would wielding fire.
So instead of risking a conflagration while I was still in the woods, I laboriously cut my way back out, giving up all the ground I’d just struggled my way across. I emerged from the woods more or less where I had entered them, a little scratched up, and no closer to the Black Library.
I dismissed brightblade and magelight and, raising one arm and gesturing toward the wood, called forth fire. Flames boiled up around my hand and shot forward, turning the swathe of woods directly before me into a bonfire. The heat was intense. I was forced to take several steps back. The trees burned, protesting with a hissing, crackling groan, but the low roar of the flames drowned out almost all.
The fire burned intensely, but did not spread as I had hoped. I began to worry that it would act as a beacon for whatever nastiness was still mobile in Thraxys. Dead, belligerent crows surely weren’t the worst, or the end of whatever remained. It was taking too long, this burning, so I helped it along with a gust of wind.
The results were much more satisfactory.
“Stop,” came a voice from the woods, melodic and inhuman. “Stop, and I will let you pass.”
“Why should I stop?” I replied. “I’m making my own path tolerably well.”
“Why take a hard road when an easy one presents itself?” And a path opened up off to the right, a little way from the conflagration.
“I know something about easy paths offered by demons,” I said.
“Then you know that we are bound by our agreements, and cannot breach them.”
It was true. Demons would honor any agreement made to the very letter—which was why it was vital to understand exactly what they were agreeing to.
“Very well,” I said. “Offer me a formal compact then, Tanglewood. State your terms.”
“Cease your burning. In return, receive safe passage through the wood to the near bank of the Bitter River beyond it.”
“Give me safe passage to the Black Library.”
“Alas, my demesne does not extend so far.”
I hesitated. No good ever came of any compact with a demon. But it was difficult to see the harm in this one. I wasn’t trading my soul, certainly. Still, I was reluctant.
“I would not deliberate overlong,” the demon said. “You summon wind in the realm of the sorrowind. You usurp its prerogative, and the sorrowind will not abide that. It will surely return to castigate you, if you continue.”
I shuddered at the thought. If there was even the possibility that the demon of the woods was telling the truth, I wanted to be moving on as quickly as I could.
“Very well. I’ll stop. But what’s already been set alight will have to burn itself out.”
“So be it.”
With deep misgiving I took the demon-wrought path.
#
The path began to curve almost immediately. I stopped as soon as I realized it.
“The agreement was safe passage to the river.”
“Indeed,” replied Tanglewood.
“Why then is the path leading away from the river?”
“Did our agreement stipulate safe passage by the quickest route? I think not.”
“Fire is not the only weapon in my arsenal, demon.”
“Calm yourself, mage. I intend a short detour only.”
“To what purpose?”
“I wish to meet with you face-to-face.”
“To what purpose?” I repeated.
“Follow the path and satisfy your curiosity. Or break from the path and make moot our agreement.”
Damned demons. I followed the path.
Soon enough I came to a smallish clearing, the ground littered with leaves and bathed in moonlight, as bright as I had seen in Thraxys. The wounded moon stood directly overhead.
In the center of the clearing stood a lone tree, much larger than the others that made up the wood, thicker-boled and marginally less twisted. A figure lounged in the deep shadow of its leaves. Human-like, it appeared to be leaning casually against the trunk. More I could not tell from where I stood.
“The great mage hesitates to come nearer,” it observed, melodic voice tinged with sarcasm.
“Why should I?”
“You will have to, if you wish to proceed. The path continu
es behind me.” The figure was still, unnaturally so. No shifting of feet or hand gestures. Nothing.
“You wanted to meet me face to face,” I said. “Will you now tell me why?”
“I wanted to see if you were worth another proposition.”
“I am uninterested in another deal with a demon.”
“Perhaps so, perhaps no. You haven’t even heard it yet.”
“I don’t need to.”
“What if I told you there was no way to force a crossing of the Bitter River? That it will surely destroy you if you try? That your drowned corpse will be its plaything until such time as your flesh disintegrates and your bones come to rest on its sandy bed?”
“An unpleasant thing to contemplate,” I acknowledged.
“And what, then, if I told you I know the secret of its crossing? Would you remain as disinterested in another bargain?”
Damned demons.
“What are your terms, then?”
“Simple. Take from me a single seed. If you manage to escape the infernal planes, toss it to the ground somewhere, and kick a little dirt over it. And walk away.”
“You want me to propagate Thraxys in the mortal realm.”
“Not all of Thraxys. Just me.”
“You’ll forgive me if I point out that would be exceedingly bad for mortals, even so.”
“It needn’t be. Here, I and indeed all of the eleven hells require souls for sustenance. On the mortal plain, this would not be the case. And time grows short, mortal. I look for the continuance of myself, in the form of my offspring, just as you might.”
“A demon? You are immortal.”
“Immortal, yes. Eternal, no. I am tied to Thraxys, and Thraxys, soon enough, will be no more.” With a faint creak the shadowed figure raised an arm and pointed upward. I followed its direction with my eyes, up past the leaves of the tree, to the dark sky, to the brilliant moon—and saw another piece of it break away and begin to spin off with a stately sort of slowness.
“As above, so below. The Black Library may cease to exist before you reach it.”
“That would be bad,” I acknowledged. I was all for seeing the hells destroyed. Just not with me still in them.
“Take my acorn, mortal, and swear to plant it in mortal soil. In return I will give you what you need to cross the Bitter.”
“So be it. Toss the seed to me, then.”
“Oh no. That will not serve. You must come and take it from my hand.”
“What for?”
“So that I may know if you intend to deceive me, of course.”
“Of course.” Of course I had intended to toss the thing as soon as I’d got across the river. Now I’d have to make good on my promise. I wondered if it would be safer to plant the demon seed in the Broken Lands, or in the desert between Nine Cities and Far Thwyll, the one called the Anvil.
I walked towards the demon. It wasn’t until I came under the shade of the tree it leaned against that I could see more than a silhouette.
It was beautiful, in an androgynous way. At least the face was. The torso and arms were as slender as a child’s. Everything below where the navel would normally be was merged with the tree. It had appeared to be leaning against the tree because the trunk bent sharply away from the ground at about waist-height, which was where the demon’s body emerged from. Then the trunk bent back sinuously, to merge with the back of the demon’s head.
“The nut, then,” I said, putting my hand out, palm-upward.
It was quick for a tree, I’ll give it that. Faster than I imagined possible, it had my hand and wrist clamped in both of its own bark-covered hands.
“Ah,” it said, and released me as quickly as it had grabbed me. I stumbled back, ready to send a gout of fire into its beatific face. I raised my hand, and felt a slight itching there.
“You’ll have to cut it out, but it won’t go deep. No worse than a splinter, and less irritating.”
“That was an assault. You’ve just voided our original compact.”
“Oh, come now, it was the smallest of transgressions, and the intent was not to cause harm. Indeed, I wish you nothing but health, so that you may carry my seed away with you. It would not survive long exposed.”
I rubbed at my palm, and felt the smallest of lumps under the skin, in the center. There was no wound, or even blood.
“Tell me how to cross the Bitter, damn you, and let us be done with each other.”
“Attend: You must tell the river that you love her. She will not believe you, of course, so you must offer yourself to her.”
“In what fashion?”
“You must let her drown you, of course.”
“Madness.”
“Indeed. The Bitter is mad, but not without an interior logic, of sorts. She will drown you, proving to her own satisfaction that you didn’t in fact lie to her. She will regret her rash act. She will cast you up on the bank and withdraw.”
“I’ll still be dead.”
“Momentarily. Then my lovely little acorn will do what I have told it to do. It will recall you to life.”
“This pip?” I asked, rubbing again at the seed.
“Yes. It contains most of my life force. I’ll not need it much longer, and I suspect it will. You will not plant it in a hospitable climate, I think.”
“How can you be sure the Bitter will cast me up on the far bank?” I asked, ignoring Tanglewood’s entirely accurate assessment of my plans for its seed.
“Because she hates me. I will rail against her for taking my plaything, and demand your return. She will cast you up on the far bank to spite me. That is what sisters do.”
“In hells, perhaps.”
“In Thraxys, of a certainty. Trust me, mage. All my hopes are attached to your success. Literally. If you fail, my seven thousand years of existence ends, without even the coda you shelter in the palm of your hand.”
“Well,” I said after a time. “It’s good to be needed, I suppose. But why don’t I just jump in and let her drown me? Why do I have to pretend to love her?
“Her bed is littered with the bones of those who merely tried to make a crossing. She does not give those bodies up. Try to be convincing in your professed ardor. Bitter is insane and predictable, but not wholly stupid.
“Now go,” it said, but I was already walking.
Thirty-One
The Bitter River. I did not know much about it, other than the fact of its existence, and its location relative to the Tanglewood and the Wall. But it was a river in Thraxys; I was not expecting waters pure and cool.
It turned out that the Bitter was a literal river of blood.
A scant yard separated the river from the wood. I sat down with a sigh on the grassy bank and contemplated the bloody, turgid flow.
“Is there anything more beautiful than a river bathed in moonlight?” I wondered aloud, feeling like a fool.
Nothing happened. I was at a loss as to how I should proceed. Wooing wasn’t an art I’d had much practice at.
A branch smacked me in the back of the head. I turned and glared at the Tanglewood, then set my attention back on the river.
“What graceful lines, what secrets, now hidden, now revealed in the serene flow. What murmurings, sweeter than a mother’s lullaby! A river—this river—must surely be what mortal women only aspire to. Lover, mother—bah. I wish I were a poet. I would set it to rhyme worthy of the reality. Perhaps not,” I argued with myself, shaking my head. “Poets lie far too often. They flatter for effect.”
“They do that,” the river whispered to me, voice faint as silk on sand.
I sat up straighter. “Whose voice is that?”
“The object of your admiration,” Bitter replied.
“Beauty,” I breathed.
“Do you think so?”
“I have said so, when I thought my words went unheard.”
“What do you want, cunning man, silver tongue?”
“Why should I want anything? I have you to behold, what more might I expect
? Unless….”
“Unless what?”
“No. My thoughts are too forward to share. I would not have you think less of me.”
“Thraxys falters. Soon I will have run my course. Be forward, before the end, and let me think what I will.”
“Very well, since you insist—and because, in your insistence, I am shielded from you finding fault. Beyond admiring you from this dry bank, I would hope to brave your waters, to swim, to dive, to plumb your depths. To lay my hands on your bed, and discover your hidden secrets.”
Bitter was silent for a time. Then, an even fainter whisper: “Blandishments. Honeyed words. Encomium. You seek to cross me. You would not be the first.”
“You doubt my sincerity,” I replied. “Ironic, that the wood behind me declares an affection for me that I do not return, then I in turn declare a love for you, Bitter, and am not believed.” I sighed again, woefully. At least I hoped it was a sufficiently woeful sigh.
“Tanglewood fancies you?” the river asked, sharply.
“How else would I have made it through the wood’s entanglements?” I shrugged. “It matters little.”
The silence stretched.
“I want to believe you,” Bitter said in a small voice, barely audible. “But there have been so many liars….”
“Very well. I put myself at your mercy.” I stood up. “Drown me if you like, dear Bitter, only let me swim in you while my breath holds out.”
I took a deep breath, and dove.
Bitter was as warm as blood usually is. I did not open my eye—to what point? But I swam down, until my hands met soft sand and what I might have mistaken for half-buried driftwood, were it a mortal river. As it was, I guessed it to be a thigh bone.
Bitter caressed me with her current. Even fully clothed, it was intimate to the point of unpleasantness. I repressed a shudder. I resolved not to struggle. I held loosely to the bone, keeping the current from washing me downstream, and submitted for a short span.
And then of course I began to feel the need for air.
“Will you drown me, Bitter?” I asked, spent air escaping my lungs and blood entering my mouth.
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