The Will and the Wilds

by Holmberg, Charlie N.

  I prepare for the journey, finishing too soon, and cook a hearty dinner for us to enjoy together. While we eat, I try to savor my father’s company, listening to the stories he never tires of telling and that I never tire of hearing. I sit with my back to the fire, facing him in his chair, so that he won’t notice the bandage on my right hand, only the glistening treasure on my left.

  I kiss him goodnight, claiming the need to turn in early for my journey on the morrow, then slip out of the house with my stone, a crown of oon berry, and the silver dagger. Trifles unlikely to offer much protection against my increasingly foolish ventures. The sunset turns from orange to pink to violet. A shiver warns of distant mystings—there’s been more activity in these parts than usual—but they’re not moving toward me, and the warning soon fades. It takes me longer to reach the clearing this time, for the weariness of my lost soul is compounded by the exertion of the day. I don’t rush, though darkness looms, and the wildwood surrounds me. Perhaps I am more a fool than I thought, if these shadowed trees no longer frighten me.

  I hear him breathing before I see him. He’s moved across the glade, holding on to a low branch of a young birch. His bandage is scarlet. Black pocks his skin like freckles, and I wonder what they feel like. Are they painless, like the mark of the gobler’s hand on my arm, or do they burn, like the bite of a newly spent match?

  I almost ask him.

  “I’m going to a library in the neighboring city.” I cross the glade halfway, standing close to where the thin line of light pierces the ground. “There may be books there to aid me. The apothecary seemed to think so, and he once studied the supernatural.”

  He looks at me, gaze luminescent. “Still trying to use humans to solve a demon’s problems?”

  “Would you rather I tried nothing? I can frolic around the wildwood as bait for the gobler, but I cannot actually summon it.” I touch the mark, wondering if that would be enough, or if it would simply paint me a target for something else. “I must consider other options.”

  He presses his forehead against the branch. “I’ll go mad here.”

  My shoulders soften. I hug myself against the chill of settling dusk. “I . . . am sorry. Could I undo all of this, I would face the gobler myself.”

  He laughs like that’s a grand joke, and I suppose it is, for I know from experience that I alone am no match for the bulbous breed of mysting. But I meant the words sincerely. I do not enjoy his suffering.

  A patch of black expands before my eyes, and I think I hear his wound squelch, but I can’t be sure. I clench my teeth, trying to keep my dinner.

  “How long?” he asks.

  “I don’t know. A day, maybe two.”

  “I . . . we might not—”

  “I know.”

  I approach him slowly, my feet heavy. It’s different this time. Maekallus is hurt, but he’s alert. Far more a man than a writhing ball of tar. The last bits of sunlight glint off his horn. I wish it were darker, like with Tennith. Here, even in the growing shadows of the forest, I feel exposed. Small. Unsure.

  I stand before him, less than half a pace between us. He doesn’t move, but hunger gleams in his eyes, and I wonder how long a narval can go between soul meals. It must be a while, or they would be more common on the mortal plane. More people would be wandering around without souls. Or perhaps their doctors and families have locked them away in a room somewhere, hidden from society, staring into nothingness and waiting for death to claim them. Fendell is tucked away from large cities, and only small merchant caravans bother to pass through. I’ve never heard stories to make me believe otherwise.

  The cut on my hand twinges. I close my fist around it.

  I try not to touch him, but our height difference makes it hard. I stand on my toes, ignoring the quiver of my hands. Maekallus, however, is not so meek. His hand grabs my hip, and with a swift pull, the space between us evaporates. His lips claim mine, and it’s as though I’m standing right under the town warning bell, its ceaseless gongs radiating through my bones.

  It’s nothing like Tennith’s kiss. There’s desperation in the movement of his lips. They’re rough, but in a different way. Tennith was much warmer. Maekallus is like kissing the twilight.

  I feel it break inside me, another piece of my soul. It doesn’t hurt this time, but instead leaves me with a deep pit of sorrow in a place I didn’t know I possessed.

  We break apart, and I gasp for air to fill the emptiness. The breath doesn’t reach.

  . . .

  I hear my name.

  Again.

  Maekallus’s hand slaps my cheek.

  I startle, take in my surroundings. The glade. The wildwood. Twilight. I stumble back, putting space between myself and the narval.

  He studies me. In the dim light, I see the spots of black are gone. His breathing has evened, quieted.

  I touch my cheek. “What . . . ?”

  “You weren’t answering.”

  I blink. The twilight. I . . . I don’t remember. There’s a moment of time that merely . . . vanished.

  Maekallus tugs at his bandage. Breaks it, without unraveling it. His chest is entirely healed. My soul did that, too.

  My soul.

  Caisgard.

  “I’ll leave in the morning.” I feel there is more I should say, but my mind can’t piece the words together. And I’m tired. So I go.

  As promised, Tennith arrives in the morning on a dappled mare, with her sister for me to ride.

  Caisgard feels a lifetime away.

  CHAPTER 11

  A mystium is a crossbreed between a mysting and a mortal. Incredibly rare, as most mystings and mortals are not a reproductive match. One can only assume violence to be involved in their creation.

  “We’re almost there.”

  I start at Tennith’s voice, though I can’t remember where my thoughts had been, if they’d been anywhere at all. I look up the road ahead and note the spire of a shrine over the next hill. We’re nearly to Caisgard. I should be excited, yet I find myself tightening my grip on the mare’s reins. For how long had I been . . . aloof?

  “Oh, we are.”

  I focus on the nearing city, trying not to notice how Tennith’s gaze lingers on me and not the road. It’s been clear since morning that he wishes to ask me something. Something, no doubt, pertaining to the night I approached him and asked him to kiss me. Still, he hasn’t said a word, and I can only assume my own words—please don’t ask me to explain—are the reason for his hesitation. I’m grateful. I don’t know what I would say to him.

  “I think I know where the library is, but we’ll have to ask to make sure when we get inside the gate.” He shifts his mare closer to mine. “I’ll see you there, then go to the market to look for that milking cow.”

  “Thank you, so much.” I twist the reins in my hands. “This means a great deal to me.”

  He smiles, though it exposes no teeth. “I’m happy to help, and Frera needs the exercise.”

  I glance down to my mare. Did he tell me her name before? I can’t recall. She is a black beauty with blotches of white. The uneven coloring makes me think of Maekallus, covered in tar, bubbling . . .

  I squeeze my eyes shut for a long moment.

  “Enna?”

  “Just a headache.” I try to be gracious. I wish I could say something to lighten this heaviness around us, but my mind is blank.

  “Do you need to rest, or—”

  “I need to go to the library. Please, don’t worry about me. Take your time with the animals. My task will take some searching.”

  And I am correct.

  The Duke of Sands’s library is enormous, a castle in and of itself. I’m instantly lost upon passing its heavy doors, although lost in the best way possible—between innumerable shelves stacked with leather-bound books. I see only a few occupants, half of whom are armored guards. I try not to look at them too long. I’m not used to guards, and an irrational part of myself fears they will take one look at me and know my conspiracy wit
h Maekallus.

  My thumb strokes the tip of my scar as I wander between the shelves. So many books. Shelves upon shelves upon shelves of them, and I wish to open them all and dive into their words. To imagine, as a student, I could spend day after day among these aging spines, squinting at worn handwriting and building upon my own knowledge, my own theories.

  Surely these have not all been cataloged. Such a feat would demand a lifetime of work. I look over titles, hoping to find something that aligns with my present subject of interest. I do not, and though I find myself at the other end of that first cavernous room, I can’t remember walking through half of these shelves. It’s as though I perused them as the undead.

  I shudder and grip my Telling Stone. Focus, Enna.

  I spy an old man sitting at a table, sorting through newer-looking volumes. Hoping he’s the librarian, I approach.

  “I’m sorry to trouble you, but I need help finding some books.”

  Without even glancing at me, he says, “Nothing leaves the library.”

  “I . . . That’s fine. But I’m hoping to read on the supernatural.”

  Now he lifts his gaze, peering over the small spectacles resting on his nose. I’m used to this kind of look, ill-concealed scorn mingled with feigned disinterest. “They teaching women that nonsense now?”

  “If you could point me in the right direction.”

  The man sighs. “His Highness the duke had a fondness for the occult. His collection is recorded in a book in that corner.” He points. “You’ll have to thumb through it.” His attention falls back to his sorting, so I thank him quietly and head in the indicated direction.

  Sure enough, several indexes sit on a high table in the corner. I brush dust off one, only to discover its focus is farming. Frowning, I check the next index, and the next, until I find one the thickness of my thumb that reads Mystics and the Bizarre. My broken soul leaps at the find, and I open it at once. There is no guide in the front, so I pore over each page individually. My eyes widen at the sight of so many volumes that could further my own research, none of which can come home with me.

  Focus, Enna.

  I do. Using paper and charcoal from the sack I brought with me, I write down a few promising titles.

  Though the massive library has the semblance of order, it is poorly organized. The books on the supernatural appear to be in three different locations, one of which is up a flight of stone stairs. I try to breathe lightly when I ascend them. I’ve yet to accustom myself to this lack of energy, but determination fuels my quest. The sooner I free Maekallus, the sooner I’ll be back to normal.

  I consider this as I run my fingers over aged book spines. The bits of soul living inside him—are they forever gone? Will they return to me once the binding is broken, or will he simply . . . eat them?

  Will one of these tomes tell me the secret to getting them back?

  What use is a soul when you’re dead? I remind myself.

  Quiet voices nearby draw my attention, and I find myself pulled toward them, my eyes still on the shelves as I search for what I need. There’s a short, round table tucked into a stone nook nearby, and two men sit at it, across from each other. One is remarkably old, his hair and beard stark white, his glasses thick, his back hunched. The other appears to be a few years older than my father. His hair is fashionably coifed, though I’ve never before seen someone sport the style of facial hair he has. It rings around his mouth, yet his cheeks are clean. He’s well fed and wears glasses nearly identical to his companion’s.

  “It can’t be. This finding was in three, remember?” The older man sounds gruff and tired. He pulls out a paper from a scattered stack and shoves it at the younger man. “Wyttens walk on two legs.”

  Wyttens. I’ve never heard the term before, but the style of the word instantly screams mysting. I write in the back of my mind that, whatever they are, they walk upright, and pray that my hole-filled memory will be able to recall the information later.

  The younger man shrugs. “I walk on two legs and could have made that pattern. This is cast from a bog, Runden. Perhaps the other half of his stride fell into a puddle.”

  “A puddle!” the man named Runden exclaims, then winces at his volume. He mutters to himself and sorts through his papers.

  Scholars. My lips form the word, and my pulse picks up.

  “I don’t think it’s the footprints that will help us,” the younger man insists, quieter, and I slide around a shelf to hear him better. “It’s the meal.” He pulls out a bone—No, it’s made of plaster. A replica?—and gestures to a long row of teeth marks across it. “Nothing has a maw so wide. The largest wolf can’t do this.”

  “I refuse Addon’s theory that it’s a reptile.”

  The younger man snorts. “No gators or the like in the whole area. Of course it’s not. This”—he punches a finger down on the paper handed to him earlier—“is supernatural. But it’s certainly not a wytten. Just because they have three toes . . .”

  He doesn’t finish his sentence, and my mind spins with the information. Three toes. In my mind’s eye, I open up my book of notes. I see every letter, every stroke of pen and charcoal, even the smudge of earth I earned trekking out into the wildwood.

  “Vuldor.” I’m sure of it. And when both men turn toward me, I realize I’d said the word out loud.

  Runden’s thick white brows furrow. “Excuse me?”

  An apology sits on my tongue, and I back up a step to escape, but stop myself. I know this, don’t I? It certainly matches Maekallus’s description! “That is, it might belong to a vuldor. They’re . . . as far as I know . . . never seen outside the monster realm, but it does match. They have wide jaws and three toes on each foot. They walk on all fours, like a dog.”

  Runden only looks angry at being interrupted. But his friend is astonished. That I, a woman, dared to interject, or that I have such knowledge?

  “Nonsense.” Runden returns to shuffling his papers.

  But his companion asks, “Where did you hear of such a creature?”

  My throat tightens. “I . . . cannot reveal my source.”

  Runden snorts. Even I know research is useless without a valid source.

  I bow my head in apology and turn to leave, but the younger scholar says, “Could you draw one?”

  I look back to him. Pull my sleeve over my bracelet. “I can try.”

  The man fumbles for a clean sheet of paper—it’s very fine, which means it’s very expensive—and turns it toward me. He has a sharpened pencil at the ready.

  Eyeing Runden, I crouch at the table, moving closer to the younger scholar so as not to block the lamplight, and do a loose sketch of a vuldor, just as I had in my notes. I’m sure it’s not perfect, but Maekallus had seemed to think it accurate enough. When I’m finished, I write, Vuldor, below it—admittedly, if only to prove that I can write and I’m educated—and step back. The scholar picks up the paper and examines it, adjusting his glasses as he does so. Runden continues to ignore me.

  “Fascinating. What did you say your name was?”

  “Enna.” Excitement twirls in my chest. A real scholar is asking my name! He is impressed by my knowledge! “Enna Rydar, sir.”

  “Call me Jerred.” He extends his hand. I grip it firmly, hoping to impress. Hoping he doesn’t notice the reddening scar across my palm. “You’re local?”

  “A day’s ride away.” A day, I remember. I have only hours to find the information Maekallus and I so desperately need. Bother! Why am I presented such an opportunity to talk to well-studied men when I cannot take it? I feel my heart flake and crumble, like mud dried too quickly beneath the summer sun.

  “And you cannot tell us more?” Jerred presses. He means my source, most likely. And I cannot tell anyone about him.

  Swallowing a sob of frustration, I say, “I’m sorry. I have research of my own to do and only a short time to do it. But . . . good luck, with your studies.”

  I duck away, hurrying to the shadows between the shelves. I c
an’t give Jerred, or even Runden, opportunity to respond, for they’ll draw me into the fantasy of their academia and I’ll never accomplish my task. I need not remind myself that my soul and my life are more important than my study.

  Once I’m away, I take several breaths to reorient myself and begin scanning the shelves again. Force myself to concentrate.

  Fate grants me mercy, for I find the first book on my list quickly and pluck it from its shelf.

  I read for a long time. Long enough for the guard shift to change. My mind grows fuzzy, but I shake myself, forcing attention. I may only have today to search for an answer, but as I look at book after book and return to the index again and again, I fear that no amount of time will be sufficient, merely because the knowledge I seek is not to be found in the Duke of Sands’s library.

  There is little on mystings as a whole; my grandmother’s journal is more precise than these volumes written by scholars. I’ve learned a great deal about herbs I now desire to plant in my garden, as well as various theories on the creation of the realms and what many call the “War That Almost Was” between the people of Amaranda and a horde from the monster realm—the very war my father fought in twenty years ago. But nothing mentions binding spells, or goblers, narvals, or even mystiums. Nothing mentions antidotes. None of these authors have traveled into the monster realm, and none, I believe, have ever seen a mysting with their own eyes. All the more reason to, someday, publish my own useful findings.

  I do discover a scrying spell in a skinny book, its pages filled with tight, nearly illegible script. I jot it down, though I would need something of the person or being I want to find to activate it, and I’ve nothing of the gobler who bound Maekallus to his demise, and me alongside him. I’m near tears, a headache pulsing down my neck, when a hand grabs my shoulder.

  I gasp and jump from my chair, a book on forest phenomena dropping from my lap to the floor.

  “Easy, Enna.” Tennith pulls back his hand. He frowns. “You don’t look well.”

  “I . . .” I realize I’ve not eaten, though I have dried fish and bread in my sack. Glancing out the window, I determine it must be the end of the afternoon—time to set off, if we want to reach Fendell before the dark swallows us.