15. The Swordless Warrior
The deeper into the woods the mortal ventured, the larger and more twisted grew the trees. Fewer and fewer lancing columns of sunlight penetrated the canopy, and his shadow became indistinct upon the forest floor. The mortal proceeded warily. As fearsome as he had grown, his kind had always feared to travel alone in the woods.
Soon he came to a clearing where the trees were scored with gunfire and magic. The ground was splashed with blood, which lay wet and fresh despite the years that had passed since he had spilled it. He looked around the place, remembering his battle with the Black and Crimson host. They were dead, now; nothing remaining of them but their colours. Black and crimson; blood and shadows.
Something too fast for the mortal to perceive hummed past his left ear. He raised his arms to protect himself and stumbled about comically, confused as to what exactly had transpired and in which direction it had come from. After a few moments he spotted a knife embedded in a tree, its handle still vibrating. The point of the thrown weapon pinned a long strip of his skin to the bark; a curling ribbon that was red on one side, pink on the other. He touched his hand to his face and found that he was bleeding.
“Hello, pig-fucker.”
The mortal turned around slowly, his hands in the air. Blood was dripping from his cheek.
A warrior dressed in leathers and chainmail stood slouching at the far side of the clearing. A dagger hung loosely in each of its hands. “I have orders to bring you back alive,” it said.
“I’ve heard that before,” the mortal replied. “Your comrade, who died at the city of the Ore-lands, told me the same.”
“I am not my comrade,” said the swordless warrior. “Don’t try to run—if I disable your legs I will have to drag you all the way back to my queen’s headquarters.”
“Why would I run?”
“Will you come willingly?”
“No.”
“Here, in the forests, you have no allies to safeguard you,” said the swordless warrior. “There is no escape. There is nobody here but you, and me, and my many, many blades.”
“Somebody always turns up,” said the mortal.
The black thing took that as its cue. Smiling, it eased out of the shadows to face the warrior; its black eyes shining as wetly as its black enamel teeth.
The swordless warrior looked it up and down. “This pathetic thing is your protector?”
The mortal seemed equally surprised. “It appears that way.”
“Just the one?”
“Yesss,” said the black thing. “Jussst the one.”
“And how, precisely, are you going to prevent me from doing what I have said?”
“I’m going to kill you, warrior,” said the black thing. “In single combat. My knife against yours.”
The swordless warrior snorted. “You have but one knife,” said the swordless warrior. “And I have many.”
“You have but one life,” replied the black thing. “And I have many. Shall we see who dies harder, here beneath the mortal’s gaze?”
“Once you lie slain I will take his eyes,” said the swordless warrior, lowering itself into a fighting crouch and raising its hands. Blades sprouted from between its fingers; three in each hand.
The black thing drew a dagger from a sheath concealed on the inside of its forearm and, grinning, came towards its larger opponent in a knife-fighter’s hunch.
The swordless warrior took a step backwards. When it threw the knife, its motion was too fast for the mortal to see—the first he knew of it was the eruption of pain in his leg. He fell backwards; landed hard on his arse.
“I’ll not have you flee while I dispose of your thing,” said the swordless warrior.
The mortal just lay upon the ground, groaning and bleeding.
The black thing moved to its right. The swordless warrior to its left and launched a looping, twisting attack upon the black thing; a whirl of steel and leather. The black thing stepped away, avoiding the feint-feint-slash easily and striking at the warrior’s extended hand. Its gleaming black blade skidded off the chainmail that protected the back of the warrior’s forearm.
The swordless warrior spun forwards, kicking at the black thing’s knife-arm and throwing a dagger from its concealed hand. The black thing let the kick pass it by and plucked the thrown knife out of the air. It ducked another slash and reprised with a cut of its own. The black thing danced away, leaving the warrior’s own dagger embedded in its wrist.
The swordless warrior retreated a few steps, drawing its injured left hand to its chest and extending its right. It rolled its remaining knife over its knuckles into a backhand grip.
The black thing lunged and the swordless warrior stepped into the attack, cutting at the black thing’s extended hand. The counter-attack was—just barely—too late. The black thing’s blade found the armpit gap in the warrior’s armour, slid between its ribs, and pierced the warrior’s lungs and heart.
The swordless warrior went over backwards. It did not get up.
“Well, that was easy,” said the black thing, fingering the glancing cut it had received on its knife-arm. Its blood was as black as its skin.
“How did you do that?” asked the mortal, who was lying prone upon the ground.
“The warrior was trained a swordsman,” said the black thing. “Who can say why it chose to fight only with knives?”
The mortal touched the dagger still embedded in his knee. “Help me,” he said.
“I have neither healing powers nor medical skills,” said the black thing.
“You have functional hands,” the mortal replied. “Pull the dagger from my leg.”
The black thing capered closer to him. “Your hands are as functional as mine.”
“I’ve lost a lot of blood.”
“You haven’t the stomach for it,” said the black thing, squatting down beside him.
“Yeah, you’re right,” the mortal conceded. “Now pull the dagger.”
The black thing plucked the dagger from the mortal’s thigh, spun it in its hand and made it vanish somewhere into its garments. It was pleased with itself: it had killed a warrior, and now it had some of the mortal’s blood.
“Give me a strip of your clothing,” commanded the mortal.
“You would have the shirt from my back?” said the black thing, feigning insult.
“Give me a strip of your clothing.”
The black thing unwound a section of black fabric from its left arm and handed it to the mortal. He wound it tightly around his wound. When he felt it was secure, he tried to stand, but his injured leg caused him far too much pain. “I need a walking stick.”
“Full of demands today, aren’t we?” said the black thing.
“Cut me a stick.”
The black thing tore a low-hanging branch from a nearby tree and, with a few deft strokes of its black-bladed dagger, trimmed the branch down to a serviceable walking stick.
The mortal hauled himself to his feet using the stick and took a few tentative steps. He could walk, if he used the stick to take some of the weight from his left side. “Thank you,” he said.
“Any time,” said the black thing, bowing its leave and scampering back into his shadow.
16. The Tree Queen’s Domain
The mortal limped onwards through the Tree Queen’s domain; breathing the exhalations of her precious trees; spilling his filthy shadow upon her treasured soil. The swordless warrior had failed to destroy him, and the Tree Queen was becoming concerned.
The new Tree Queen had different ideas about governance than her predecessor, whose hubris had resulted in the destruction of her entire court. She knew who and what the mortal was, and she knew that she could not allow him to pass through her territories…but dare she risk confronting him herself? He had slain so many queens already.
> The mortal stopped. Leaning heavily on his cane, he cried: “Where is the Tree Queen?”
The trees creaked and groaned before his words.
Leaves began to fall from the shivering trees. Sunlight shimmered down through the thinning canopy. “I’m just a crippled old mortal, unarmed and alone, without a single spell or sorcerous oath to my name. Will you not face me, here in your own territory?”
The bark on the trees began to crack and slough off. The wood beneath was darkening from brown to black, as though burned by the descending sky.
“I ask again: where is the Tree Queen?”
The tree folk broke and ran. From the humblest of dryads to the Tree King himself, the people of the forest took flight; running headlong in any and every direction, so long as it took them away from the mortal. But the forest was no longer their territory. The limbs of the trees did not embrace them; the trunks provided no shelter; the boles gave them no succour. Something terrible had happened to the forest.
“I am here.” The Tree Queen’s voice was ragged.
“Ah,” said the mortal, turning to regard her. She looked most unlike her predecessor, who had been beautiful and human-looking; green haired and pale in her silks and her jewels. The new Tree Queen bald and bark-skinned. Her gown was of moss and lichen, and her eyes were the wet amber of hardening sap.
“Where are your soldiers? Your magi?”
“They have fled,” she replied. “I am the only one left here.”
“Your defenders are cowards,” he said. “They were happy to abuse me when I was weak and hurting, but now that I have returned they flee like cravens.”
“They are not cowards,” said the Tree Queen. “They have defended my domain from all manner of monsters and abominations…but they remember what happened the last time you were among us. They do not know how to fight the likes of you.”
“I don’t fight. I only dream.”
“What horrors have you dreamt of my Realm?” said the Tree Queen. “What have you done to my trees?”
“They’re my trees, now,” he said. “They are mortal, like me…”
Her eyes glistening, the Tree Queen threw her arms about the trunk of the nearest of the blighted black trees.
“…and like me, they bear the contagion of death.”
The Tree Queen’s skin peeled and shivered off her frame, which was made of wet, green wood. That wood darkened as the black of the trees bled through it, like ink upon paper. With a creak and a sigh, the remains of the Tree Queen collapsed into a puddle of glutinous shadow.
The mortal walked on, alone in the forest of bare, black-skinned trees; his boots falling silently on the dead black soil. Alone but for his shadow, of course, which scampered and cavorted about him, in accordance with the position of the sun.
One more trial remained. One last antagonist, who would be awaiting him at the Worldtree. Then his task would be complete. Then, the Realms of the Land would be irrevocably different.
The mortal found the direction he wanted and went on with a spring in his limping step and a smile upon his bleeding face. Soon he began to whistle.
17. The Council of
the Magi
The Council of the Magi had spent many days in session without a single recess; scrying and divining, observing and seeing, invoking and evoking. They had drawn widely upon the power they had stockpiled. The Council needed to be certain of what was occurring before they could table any action.
After all those days and all that expenditure of power, they had located the mortal. They could watch him going about his business, although they could not ascertain exactly what that business was, or how he sought to accomplish it.
“His workings remain opaque,” said the Speaker for the Council. “Whatever he is doing, he is doing it without the use of sorcery.”
“I do not believe we will be able to properly determine his purpose from afar,” said the Councillor on the Speaker’s right.
“Then we must bring him before us,” said the Speaker.
The Councillor on the Speaker’s left seconded the motion.
When the mortal emerged from the black forest, he found himself in some territory he had not seen before.
Here, the landscape was disturbingly regular. The hills and valleys were far too uniform. The river, which was blue as the skies were grey, meandered a near-perfect sine wave through the territory. The rows of trees hardly seemed a forest, for they were perfectly staggered. The lowland plains were indeed planar. Time was divided equally between day and night. The temperature was unvaryingly pleasant.
Having no desire to visit this Realm, the mortal turned in the direction in which he believed that he would find the Worldtree, but the landscape veered with him.
“Alright,” he said. “I’ll take the hint.” It seemed the Realms could surprise him yet. He let his feet lead him, for they seemed to know where to go.
The mortal was drawn down from the hills towards a strange, shimmering city. He passed through an empty, rune-encrusted gateway, to which he paid scant attention: spells and enchantments were of no interest to him. Still, a short way down the track, some instinct bade him turn and look upon them.
Without so much a groan, the gateway fell in upon itself and puffed away into black dust.
The mortal proceeded at a leisurely pace, slowing to look into the shining surfaces of the buildings that lined the streets. Those surfaces did not reflect back the sun or anything of the Land around it: every wall, every merlon, every buttress showed a view into a different place, a different world.
When he had gazed his fill of these other worlds, the mortal discovered that he was no longer alone. A dozen hunched, robed figures stood upon the sidewalks to either side of him, regarding him from within the shadows of their cowls. He did not know when they had arrived. Most likely they had been there all along, and he had simply failed to notice them.
One of the figures approached him. “The Council of the Magi would speak with you,” it said, unfolding a pair of blackened, burn-scarred hands in a gesture that might equally have been a greeting or a warding.
“Then I would speak with them,” the mortal replied, and suddenly he was somewhere else.
The teleportation was without sensation, but it left him feeling violated. He had journeyed the length and breadth of the Land on foot: to be transported instantly from place to place seemed wrong. It was not his way.
He stood before a many-spoked table in a large, polyhedral chamber. The mirrored walls reflected nothing back: he had the distinct impression that they had been curtained from his gaze. The mortal’s lips tightened. The Council of the Magi had at least partway fathomed his power.
A dozen robed figures—he supposed the same ones who had met him outside—sat around the table, one at the end of each of its spokes. The chair at the end of the thirteenth spoke was empty. He thought he could see bloodstains upon it.
The mortal stood leaning on his stick. “Hello,” he said. “Lovely weather we’re having.”
“You have returned to the Land,” said the Speaker for the Council of the Magi.
“I have,” replied the mortal. Something flickered on the greyed-out walls of the chamber, vanishing before he could properly see it. Something black. Perhaps there was an image in it; perhaps not.
“You sent your kinswoman ahead of you.”
“I sent her on a quest.”
“Yet there was no quest for her.”
“No,” he said. “There wasn’t. I suppose I knew as much.”
“You sent her to her death.”
“You have an unpleasant way of putting it.”
The walls flickered again. There was definitely an image in the black. Something jagged. The mortal did not think the Council would have permitted the projection if they had been aware of it.
“You spent her mortal
life for your own purposes.”
“That is hardly a fair—”
“Fairness is not our concern,” said the Speaker. “Nor justice. We are only interested in the facts of the matter.”
“Thus far, I’ve heard nothing but slander.”
“Slander is not our purpose,” said the Speaker. “But it is your purpose that is subject to question.”
“If you have questions then ask me, already.” He was starting to discern the image broadcast upon the walls. Black cliffs, he thought, against a night sky.
“What, then, is your purpose?”
“It will be easier to show you than to explain it.”
“Then show us.”
“If you would be so kind as to open a window? It’s quite stuffy in here.” Black cliffs against a night sky, jutting over a seething black sea.
The Speaker clenched its fists. “This Council will brook no more of your insolence. Tell us what you desire, and how you intend to achieve it, or there will be consequences.”
A dark tower stood over the black cliffs, the shadowed sea. It was visible only because it was blacker still than the sky and sea and land. It was the source of all that darkness. It was the source of the transmission.
The mortal sighed. “For a minute there, I thought you’d worked it out by yourselves,” he said. “My…desire…by perception. I travel somewhere, I observe it, and then it belongs to me.”
“Sorcery does not work in this way.”
There was something familiar about the tower. Some remembered past, some lingering enmity…but also a shared strength. They were magnets, he and the tower: drawn together and repelled apart; casting a field of influence between them.
“It’s not sorcery, it’s only magic,” he replied. “But that’s merely a detail. You’re missing the crux of the situation.”
Faerie Apocalypse Page 22