by K.N. Lee
"Davin, you can't be serious… You can’t do this.”
“I think you’re wrong, Blaine. I’m already doing it.” Davin stepped into his view. He looked almost exactly like Ysbal. Body type, hair, face… just as he, Blaine, was the mirror image of Patriarch Solblaine, his father.
“But Ysbal was a Patriarch. The rules of the Brotherhood apply. The laws. Honor above all.”
“I honor my brothers,” Davin spat and turned around. “It’s always about your honor, your truth. But you had a chance to kill Ysbal before he killed the rest of my family. You made the choice. How have you been living with that, Blaine?”
Blaine’s mouth worked invisible words. The circular logic, made his head swim. If he had saved the others, Davin would be dead. If he hadn’t saved Davin, he wouldn’t be standing in front of him, blaming him for saving him. Just kill me now and save me from your delusional platitudes.
“Don’t you worry, Blaine. You will be one of my children and I will set you free.”
10
Mappwood
He struggled with his bonds, anyway. It didn’t matter to him if the beast went after him. He had a weapon. A weapon known only to the Brotherhood. Even if Davin knew about it through his father, he wouldn’t have know that Blaine had been enhanced for this mission.
When he first joined the constabulary force, the true nature of the Sanguinary was made clear to him. The blood of others worked with their blood, strengthened it. When he took the daily dose of the inhibitor, it worked with his body and blood to draw from the things around him and add their nature to his. But there was a heavy price. One he chose to pay. Life for life.
Other than the ‘thing’ nearby that he did NOT want to draw from, were trees. The trees would make him stiffer but it would also make him more resistant to bites and scratches. It would make him less vulnerable. But it would also make him slower.
He sought the trees.
In his belly—deep within—a hunger grew, a hunger for life. He closed his eyes and concentrated on the taste of petrichor in the forest. He felt the ancient blood grow stronger in him, combining, swelling, stealing the life from the tree outside the window. Sucking its life forces into his own. Strength.
Within himself, he heard the tree talking in a speech that he understood through flashes of color. The seasons that the mappwood tree had seen and lived: Bare branches, frozen rains, dark gray skies. A slow, deep voice rumbled. Commingling consciousness with his, the voice like a vine, wrapped itself around his will. Roots planted firmly. If he wasn’t careful, the tree itself would take over and he would lose this fight for dominion.
The image of termites gnawing into the bark of a tree branch flashed as the mappwood came into his head filled with the loamy scent of the earth. The tree’s will grabbed him around the throat, constricting his muscles. Blaine’s eyes bugged as he struggled for breath.
“To save innocent lives.” He tried to picture saplings and seeds: the mappwood’s newsboy cap covered oval nuts buried safe in the bed of the soil. He imagined the first growth of the seeds pushing their way up through the fertile earth. The pride of the tree for its progeny shone like the blazing gas giant that gave it life. Then Blaine imagined rain. He thought of rain and of being sated and of coolness and green. When he felt the tree loosen its grip on his breathing he kept up the image of green leaves and new spring shoots pushing their way up through the ground. Fecund and filled with life.
A feeling of contentment spread over him. Inexplicably, he wanted to bury his toes in the ground and imagined them elongating into roots. There was approval. Acceptance.
And a question… So Blaine imagined a fox. Blaine felt something like a root, taking its hold within him, anchoring him. He reran the memory of Elly changing shape from human to fox as he had seen in the light of the gas giant. An image of a mappwood bowing in the wind was the return. It understood.
Then, he showed the blood and the tail on the pitch goal post. Roots stretching, it was trying to understand, asking for more details. It did not see death of the foxkin as unnatural. So he imagined dry parched land and young saplings drying up: a bowing tree. He moved on with the imagery, showing what he needed for the tree to do, in order to save the fox. To save many foxes. He closed his eyes again, envisioning a den of them, young, beneath a tree and the symbiosis of the den and the tree together. Again, Blaine repeated the image of dry earth.
More roots stretched.
Visualizing a scythe cutting down the sapling got the reaction he needed. The mappwood returned the flashes of what seemed like a memory. From above he saw fox kits peeking out from a den and a large feline with teeth, jumping down from an upper branch where it had been waiting. Silently, it leaped, digging its claws into the limb. The wildcat and landed at the foot of the tree. Teeth, sharp and white snapped. It grabbed a kit while the others screeched and ran back into the tiny hole, scrambling over each other. The dark brown cat, about the size of a large canine, had a long white line of fur that stretched from its tail up to its nose. Blaine didn’t recognize the species. It reached out with a free hand and grabbed at the back of the pack, dragging in another kit towards it. Meanwhile its face was buried in the bloody remains of the first kit. The feline took the other kit in its maw and lifted its regal head, and shook the kit back and forth, snapping its neck.
Yes! Blaine visualized himself saving the kits before the cat jumped from the tree.
Blaine could simply take the tree’s life but he would not, it wasn’t right. Instead, he imagined sunshine and buds on trees, a hole filled with a new tree in the soil, placed in where the old one would now leave its dead husk.
In his mind, the tree bowed.
The reaction was immediate. He shook, his bones nearly rattling from the confines of his skin, his mouth locking closed, as the ancient power of the tree surged through him.
His clothes shredded in screeching rents until they hung in tatters on his back and around his waist. His skin toughened a hard bark, yet stayed supple enough for movement.
The restraints that held him before grew into his skin, his new skin. The life force of the rope, what was left of life within it, combined and bonded with the tree’s own, dissipating into the river of the commingling DNA.
Fear and delight shot through him. But the tree’s life force calmed him. Held him in its slowness and wisdom. Nurtured him.
He, no they, had to stop Davin.
There was a great splintering of wood and spine as they combined. He grew stiffer. Limbs spreading, growing out, and sweeping the half living human aside.
The zombie construct was in torture, pain. Blaine’s will and the mappwood tree’s combined to form a clear conviction. They stomped on it with the merged fleshy wooden leg. It spattered like an insect.
He was too large to pass through the doorway, so he smashed it aside with one blow. Creaking echoed through the house as the foundation sagged.
A shriek of anger. Davin flew like a night raven towards Blaine’s stiff body, then swerved away at the last moment. The scream was horrified and fascinated at the same time. “You don’t know what you’re doing. You fool!”
Blaine’s lips wouldn’t work. His vocal cords solid as the mappwood that was melded into him. He walked stiff-legged and half bent through the hallway of the house, limb-like arms extended.
The thought oozed like sap through across the amalgam of his woody brain. He could no longer smell Elly. That was one of the prices to pay.
Silence. Then a scream. Elly.
His stiff-legged hobble was encumbered further by his hunched body. Part of the dead-but-not-dead body he had crushed still clung to the bottom of one foot, as he dragged the darkened bloody mass with him. Foot-root sloshed when each step hit the dark wood floors.
A cloud of smoke billowed through the hallway at the back of the house. Dark black smoke. Crackling. His hearing, now encumbered by the wooden amalgamation, could not hear it clearly at first.
But the tree-brain knew. Fire. Deat
h bringer.
Mappwood retreated, leaving Blaine to take charge of the shared body. He lumbered forward, crashing into walls, between steps he tried to listen for Elly’s muffled screams.
He saw her then, through the window, Davin dragging her by her long thick hair, trussed like dinner fowl, bumping over the grassy knots in back of the house, towards the woods.
Blaine pushed through the mappwood treebrain panic to think past the entrapment of the burning house. The more he let oxygen in, the worse the fire would get. But he could not go forward because that would mean going through the fire.
To his left a door was ajar. A door similar in size to the one he had been locked behind. Blaine, the Sanguinary tree hulk, kicked it open with a flopping rooty foot, smearing black blood of the unlamented dead on the door jamb. He smashed his way through the threshold, splintering it, and himself. Parts of his wooden body shredded as he forced himself through.
Next stop, through the wall.
This is going to hurt.
He made for the shuttered window, bent over, and with all his monstrous strength, pushed, shoulder first, as though going through a door. Blaine crashed his way through, shattering the glass, splintering the sash, pushing the frame out, and taking part of the drywall and siding with him.
He stepped out into the air and heard the trees in his head, whispering in the wind. Showing him where his quarry had gone.
It was sluggish progress. Blaine dragged himself up over the hills. He thought about shifting back, but it would leave him spent and done. No, it was better for him to stay in this arboreal form for as long as he could, until he could get Davin.
Saving one person, Elly, would bring him to another choice. He had a law of Numina to uphold, not save her but find him and bring him back to his moon for the Patriarchs to mete out justice. Justice was not his to dispense.
Even as a constable, deadly force was unheard of. Ever. The Brotherhood demanded no murder. Even Ysbal, the mass murdering perpetrator of atrocities was held in the chamber as an example to others. Law breakers did not die, they lived as an example.
But that justice hadn’t worked for Numina, had it? Davin had only grown to hate his father and so formulate this horrible, twisted plan. And Blaine had been a part of it, not killing Ysbal when he had the chance.
Still they’d sent him for one purpose to get Ysbal. But Ysbal was dead. Blaine’s duty was satisfied. He had no business in interfering with the jurisdiction of Ballylock or the Seannach. Bringing Davin back to Numina would interfere with local law.
That was utter … what did Elly call it? Scat.
Was that what he was supposed to do? Apprehend Davin and then what? Bring him back so that his crime, preying on a secret kindred was exposed? Where was the protecting of the innocent in that?
Blaine trudged forward, working himself up for the task. Facing the flaw of the law’s logic. His entire life all he wanted to do was hold up the light and never hide the facts. But the Patriarchs had shrouded the truth in order to protect the innocent. Didn’t they?
Davin had left him no choice.
Blaine lumbered, his breath did not falter. The power of the tree within him strengthened Blaine as a mighty hammer would strike folded glowing metal to temper a sword.
Through his link with the mappwood the told him of the unnatural rock that was hidden beneath the leaves and branches. It vibrated in waves as when the two legs dug trenches and laid the trunks beneath them or built their own trees. Metal. The word came to him. A ship.
He had to get to Davin before he took off to who knows where next? Another moon of Ghael?
Would it hold more secrets, too?
He felt the bark on his skin growing thinner. The time was coming to return to himself. No. Not yet! He pushed himself forward, faster, to get through the woods to the hidden ship.
By the great foremothers! What in the blazing planet? Elly couldn’t decide what hurt more, her head from being dragged by her hair over rocks and sticks, or the branches, sharp stones and poking twigs that dug into her skin at every bounce.
And she still could not shift into her canidiform.
But what good would it do? Make her a little lighter? Her captor would still be dragging her, except it would be by her tail, and she had seen the results of tail pull injuries. It wasn’t pretty.
Elly closed her eyes, tears stinging at the pulling. Gritting her teeth, she tucked her chin and brought her knees up to her chest. Her flexibility, even in human form, allowed her to bring her bound arms under her bottom and eventually to the front. With legs still drawn to her chest Elly worked at the binds of her ankles.
Staying in a ball helped the knocking about and that in turn eased the jerking on her head, allowing her to concentrate on the bindings. Her deft fingers prized the bindings free.
Davin didn’t seem to notice, he kept forward, whistling a ditty, uncaring and detached.
“Why are you doing this? Didn’t you have your revenge killing your father?” She tried to speak a few words but he tugged at her, jerking her head back. She bounced again and a pebble flew into her mouth. Elly spat it out coughing, working her tongue back away from her teeth as her body jolted yet again over another outcropping.
He sneered. “There you go, thinking too small. Revenge? Revenge is the fortunate byproduct of my plan. Hush now, don’t think. You’ll stay alive. I promise. Feed my Lich family, my dynasty. And be the mother of many more kin to breed for blood. And then… I will be unstoppable.”
The idea of breeding his own, her kits, for him to feed to his disgusting constructs made her want to vomit. At the word unstoppable her heart pound harder in her chest. She passed over another rock, her eyes searching around her to see if there was something sharper but nothing would break the bonds that she could find. She would have to wait until he stopped dragging her to wherever he was taking her and then take him on somehow, by herself.
Another few minutes of agonizing tugging and dragging and they stopped. She heard a click.
The second he let go of her hair she sprung into action.
From the crouch she leaped to her now unfettered feet and flew at him full force, with joined fists first, straight into his belly. It knocked the wind out of him as he staggered back. Davin landed on his back and wheezed. He glared, putting one arm down to steady himself.
But she wasn’t giving up. Not her freedom. Who needed hands anyway? She was a fox.
Again, she hurtled herself at him, leaping legs first, into his face, before he could stagger to his feet. There was a sharp crack as her bare feet met his chin.
She tumbled over him, hand-springing back to her feet again, twisting around to face him.
Even in human form she was almost as lithe as in canidiform and as ferocious as her ancient ancestors. Elly kicked at his face again, knocking one bare foot into his teeth. Bloodied he tried to stand. Rage growing in his face and body, his back hunched as he rose.
Elly bounced foot to foot. This she could do. As long as he kept his mouth shut. And kicking him in his mouth had done a great job of stopping the thrall that had paralyzed her each time she had encountered him.
He stalked towards her. She sprang backwards doing a full twisting somersault in the air, landing on her bound hands before jumping back to her feet.
As she turned, Elly stumbled back.
Something else came at her now, Davin’s eyes grew dark. His fangs, like the alley, grew longer in his mouth. His hunched body grew, arms elongating like a spider.
What the blazes? Elly watched in horror, fear rippling through her spine. She gritted her teeth and crouched. She couldn’t keep this up for long. Still tired, spent from the draining of her blood by this fiend, she could only put on one last spurt of power before succumbing to exhaustion. Even now she felt her limbs turning to jelly.
“Ssssssss…” he smirked. His tongue tripped through his long teeth then darted out towards her. A serpent? A spider? What was he?
They stood in face off, ten
feet apart, Elly crouching, Davin transforming into something… The earth pounded beneath her bare feet. Elly mistook the thudding for her heart before but now it was—
“DAVIN!” A thundering sound echoed through the forest.
Davin turned away from her as Blaine, who wore tattered clothes and looked as though his skin was dried bark and his arms were spidery branches, approached. He had leaves in his thick long black mane and looked as though he’d been hit by a tree.
“I’m delirious. I’ve got spider lizard on one side of me and tree man on the other. What in the blazing…” She smiled over at Blaine but in that brief moment she felt a prick, a sting, like a bee bite at her jugular and the world began to grow fuzzy. She watched as Blaine moved, his tree stiffness apparent, but she could not move. Her body was stiff. Legs, arms, torso, nothing responded.
Elly watched and began to choke. Unable to take a breath, feeling more and more light headed. She fell to her knees and onto her face in the loamy scented leaves.
“What are you now Davin? You shouldn’t be using the Will of the Forebearers,” said Blaine.
The monster screeched. Blaire watched in horror as a sharp tipped tongue darted out and slapped Elly’s neck. A drop of blood, Seannach blood beaded where she had been stung. In helpless horror, he watched as she fell to her knees, then crumpled into a heap.
Davin shifted again, long teeth receding back into his gums. He laughed. “Look at you. Wood and bone…You want me? Or you want to save her? The poison will only take seconds, Blaine. You know how to save her. But save one or save many?” Davin sneered.
Limping, Blaine forced his uncooperative legs forward to close in on his quarry.
Davin’s eyes bulged as he backed up towards the boxy vessel hidden under the low arched branches of a vine oakennwood. Beneath his hand the doorway opened, sliding to the side. He stepped back, one foot on the treaded rung.
“You’re not going anywhere, Davin.”
Davin stepped back, into the vessel. “I’m sure I will see you again. And again.”