by Ari Marmell
THE WORLD WAS BOBBING AROUND HIM. Up, down, up, down, not violently but sufficient to send new throbbing through his aching head, new heaves through a gut that, he was surprised to discover, had already emptied itself. Only with that revelation did he notice that his mouth tasted of bitter residue, and he could only hope that he’d not vomited on anything that wouldn’t readily wash.
Jassion pried open eyes that felt gummed shut with the dregs of a tanner’s vat, and gazed blearily at the forest slowly marching past him. It must have been drunk, that forest, since it was so hideously out of focus. He snickered at that, a dry, croaking sound that ceased abruptly when he realized just how badly his throat burned.
“And here I was sure you didn’t know how to laugh, old boy.”
The sound of Kaleb’s voice was a dash of cold water to the soul, and Jassion’s head finally began to clear. He was walking, had been so delirious that he hadn’t even realized it, and wondered how far they’d come before the slow creep of consciousness had finally reached his brain. Something was tapping him in the back of his head as he walked; he felt back over his shoulder and discovered Talon strapped securely, if not comfortably, to his back.
He was held aloft not by his own strength, but by an iron-rigid grip that Kaleb had looped under Jassion’s own arm. His side stung, but it was a dull twinge rather than the roaring agony he’d felt before.
“What …?” he croaked, rather pleased to have gotten even that much out.
“The sidhe,” Kaleb told him, jostling the baron painfully as he shrugged, “apparently don’t take kindly to intruders in their home. You, my heavy friend, were rather badly poisoned. If the mail hadn’t absorbed some of the blow, scraped some of the venom off their claws before it got into your flesh, I might not’ve been able to save you.”
Jassion pushed himself away, standing—wavering and unsteady, but standing—on his own two feet. With a tentative finger, he prodded through the hole in his hauberk. His skin came away covered in some sort of lumpy sludge.
“Spellwork?” he asked dubiously.
“No. My magic is focused primarily in, ah, less gentle directions. I’m not much of a healer, and what few restorative incantations I do know wouldn’t have been potent enough to help you. I do, however, know my herbs. A few particular growths, chewed into a paste, should have counteracted most of the poison. You’ll be sore for a time, though, and you’ll need to keep the wound clean. It’ll be prone to infection.”
The baron shuddered at the notion that he owed his life in part to Kaleb’s saliva, but nodded his thanks. Kaleb passed him a waterskin from which the parched Jassion drank greedily, rivulets spilling across his chin.
“Careful. We only have so much until we get the horses back,” Kaleb warned. Then, “Can you walk on your own?”
“I can.” Jassion actually wasn’t certain, but he’d make himself certain rather than ask the other man to help him again.
“Good. I’m sure this’ll come as a surprise, you being an aristocrat and all, but people don’t actually like carrying you.”
Jassion shook his head, then staggered as a new dizziness washed over him, and focused on putting one foot in front of the other.
“Are they gone?” he asked after he’d managed a few score paces on his own.
“Hmm?”
“The sidhe,” Jassion said. “Are they gone?”
“Oh, they’re around somewhere. But I don’t believe they’ll be disturbing us any longer.” Before Jassion could ask for clarification, the sorcerer continued. “What in the name of Chalsene’s darkest orifice was with that speech, anyway? ‘I will not yield’? Really? You sounded like a drunken playwright. I could produce more stirring oratory by squeezing a goat.”
“Kaleb—”
“An incontinent goat.”
“Kaleb, do you really believe I give a damn what the sidhe think of my ‘oratory’?”
“Who the hell’s talking about the sidhe, old boy? I have to be seen with you, you know.”
Jassion twisted and reached out a hand, unsteady but enough to stop Kaleb in his tracks. “My lord,” he snarled.
“Um, what?”
“That’s the second time you’ve called me ‘old boy,’ and I’ll not have it. The proper form of address is ‘my lord.’ ”
“Oh, I’m so terribly sorry. Apologies, my lord Old Boy.”
Jassion’s eyes flashed, and his hand darted toward Talon’s hilt like a striking snake. Clutched it—and froze, without drawing the hellish steel, beneath Kaleb’s glower.
“Be very sure,” the sorcerer said, his voice low. “You’ve seen what I can do, old boy. You tasted a morsel of it, back at Castle Braetlyn. Even if you could take me—which, just to be clear, you can’t—you’d be dooming your hunt to failure.”
The baron was panting hard with anger, the tendons in his hands creaking with pressure against the Kholben Shiar. “I will have your respect!” he demanded.
“No, you won’t,” Kaleb said. “You’ll have my assistance, and that’ll just have to do. If it makes you feel any better, it’s not you. I really don’t have much use for any of—well, anyone at all, actually.”
“It doesn’t.”
“Ah. I can’t tell you how much that bothers me. Really, I can’t.”
Jassion took a few deep breaths and, visibly struggling, tore his hand from Talon. He swore he heard a faint wail of disappointment from deep within the blade.
They continued without another word. The world was largely silent, its only sounds the breaking of occasional twigs beneath their boots, or a rustling leaf suggesting that, even if the sidhe would bother them no more, someone watched their progress through Theaghl-gohlatch.
Kaleb’s mystical light offered little by which to judge the time. Jassion, guessing as best he could, figured that about two hours had passed between his rough awakening and the moment his companion, following gods-knew-what trail, finally led them to their destination.
It wouldn’t have looked at all incongruous in most woodlands, that simple hut, but here in the malevolent reaches of Theaghl-gohlatch its presence was nothing shy of miraculous. No trees sprouted within a dozen feet on any side, though their branches intertwined above it, the sensuous fingers of wooden lovers. On three sides of the house, the clearing thus formed was filled with a chaotic admixture of herbs and vegetables, growing in no rows or pattern Jassion could ascertain.
The cottage itself was built of loose stone, though where those rocks could possibly have come from wasn’t entirely clear. Ivy crawled across the walls, appearing like veins bulging from a petrified skin, beneath an overhanging roof of bark-coated shakes. The door, too, retained its coating of bark, and somewhere beyond a fire must have burned, for a thin tendril of smoke peeked from behind the rim of the chimney before dashing shyly on its way.
Kaleb pointed at the smoke, waited for Jassion’s nod to indicate he’d seen it. “Are you well enough to pretend to be useful in there?” Obviously taking Jassion’s murderous glare as a yes, he approached the door and kicked it brutally open, stepping aside so the baron could dart past him, Talon held ready.
An orange ambience emanated from the hearth, though it came from glowing charcoal and ash without visible flame. A teakettle hung from a tripod, keeping itself warm without boiling away, ready to serve at a moment’s notice. Plants sprouted everywhere, hanging from rafters, rising from pots, even protruding through the floor.
And sitting on a bed in the far corner, her legs crossed and her eyes shut, was the woman they had braved the haunted wood to find.
Her hair was black as the unnatural night beyond her walls, save for a few glints of earthen brown where the light caressed her locks just so, and her outfit consisted entirely of the same lush browns and vibrant greens as the forest itself. Her face, though lined by many cares, boasted an ageless grace; she might have been just over thirty years old, or approaching sixty, or anywhere between.
Despite the violence of Jassion’s entry, the creaking
of broken wood and bent hinges as the door twisted slowly in its frame, she did not wake. Her breathing continued, chest rising and falling so softly that the intruders might have thought her dead had they not specifically watched for it.
Jassion stepped forward and slapped the moss-filled mattress with the flat of Talon. No response.
“She’s not here,” Kaleb said after a moment’s concentration. “Are you daft? She’s right there!”
“Did you drink much quicksilver as a child, Jassion? I’m starting to wonder how you know which end of a chamber pot to piss in.” The sorcerer sighed. “What I mean is, she’s not in her body just now. Some witches master spells that allow them to briefly inhabit the body of another creature. They use it to pass along messages, or to spy. I imagine she’s out seeking the source of the recent disruption in her woods.”
“You mean us.”
“Why, yes, I do. Very good, old boy.”
Shashar, grant me tranquility! Aloud, Jassion said, “So how do we call her back?”
“We don’t.” Kaleb stepped to the witch’s side, ran a disturbingly sensuous hand across her face. Jassion shivered and would have moved to stop him, save that he truly didn’t know if the man was feeling mere flesh, or the flow of her magics. “It’s a shame we don’t just want her dead. This would be an excellent opportunity. But no, we wait. She’ll be back, sooner or later.” He yanked the sheets out from beneath her, letting the empty body tumble aside, and began tearing them into strips. “We can, however, make certain that she’s in no position to prove, ah, argumentative when she awakens.”
Jassion’s scowl grew even darker at the thought of binding a helpless woman, but he couldn’t deny the sense in Kaleb’s precautions. The distasteful task accomplished, he left her tied firmly to the headboard and crossed the chamber to wait, his back to witch and sorcerer alike.
Another hour passed, or so Jassion judged by the slowly disintegrating charcoal in the hearth. And then …
“Well. If I’d known I was having visitors, I’d have tidied up a bit.”
Jassion had to admit, he was impressed. There was almost no trace in her voice of the fear she must be feeling.
Almost.
“And a good evening to you, Seilloah,” Kaleb said from beside the bed.
“I don’t know you,” Seilloah told him. Her attention flickered across the room. “But you, I recognize. Hello, Jassion.”
“That’s ‘my lord’ to you, witch!”
Seilloah raised an eyebrow, and Kaleb shrugged. “That seems to be a sore spot with him,” he told her casually. “I’m working on it, but he’s got a way to go.”
“Nobles can be a bit prickly that way,” she agreed. Perfunctorily, she tugged on the strips of linen that bound her to the bed. “Are these really necessary, gentlemen? Surely we can discuss whatever brought you here like civilized folk? Perhaps over a meal?”
“I’d hardly call you civilized,” Jassion sniffed. “And I know about your dietary predilections, witch. I prefer to be at the table come supper, not on it.”
“I see.” Seilloah’s lips pursed ever so slightly. “Have you come for vengeance, then, my lord Jassion? Do you fancy yourself my magistrate and executioner?”
“I should,” he said, his voice thoughtful despite the rage that quivered behind his teeth. “Your crimes are nearly as monstrous as those of your master.
“But no.” He sighed. “We’re here to speak with you. Cooperate with us, and you may escape your just sentence for some time yet.”
“I see. And what am I to tell you?”
Kaleb and Jassion glanced briefly at each other. “Where,” the sorcerer asked her, “might we find Corvis Rebaine?”
Seilloah glanced at the man beside her. “You should know … I’m sorry, I don’t believe I got your name.”
“Kaleb.”
“All right. You should know, Kaleb, that I’ve not seen Corvis in three years. A little longer, actually. I haven’t the slightest notion of where he might be these days.”
“I don’t believe you!” Jassion insisted, stepping forward with fists clenched.
“I’m not the least surprised,” she said. “It’s true just the same. And even if I did know, it would take far more than you’re capable of to make me tell you.”
“We’ll see about—”
“I will, however,” she interrupted, “offer you a piece of advice in lieu of the information you seek.”
“And what would that be?” he asked, his tone dripping scorn so thickly it nearly splattered across the toes of his boots.
Seilloah offered a beatific smile. “Never attack a witch in her own home, you silly goose.”
It hung there for the briefest instant, mocking them. Jassion’s eyes grew wide, Kaleb drew breath to shout a warning, his hands already rising.
The torn linens unraveled themselves from Seilloah’s wrists and lashed outward, leaving twin welts across Kaleb’s face, causing even the proud sorcerer to flinch away. Vines detached from the walls, roots burst through the sides of clay pots, stretching impossibly across the chamber to wrap about Jassion’s ankles, his knees, his elbows, his wrists … His throat. Gagging and twisting, trying to wrench free even as the foliage dragged him bodily upward, Jassion somehow had the presence of mind to wish bitterly that the world’s warlocks and witches had better things to do than lift him off the damn floor.
Seilloah rose to her feet without flexing a muscle, raised by an unseen force. Her arms, her fingers, stretched and twitched as though puppeteering the thrashing vines, and her brown eyes had assumed the hue of Theaghl-gohlatch’s leaves, complete with jagged veins of lighter green.
Kaleb hurled fire, but it arced aside before kissing the witch’s flesh, pouring into and up the chimney in a burst of thick smoke. The floorboards shattered, flinging splinters to gouge the flesh of all three, as tree roots rose, swaying, enraged serpents of bark and wood. Viciously they tore into the flesh of Kaleb’s calves, slapping his legs from under him so he fell hard to the broken floor.
Jassion, who once again lacked the mobility to swing, flexed his aching wrist, sawing at the ivy with Talon’s edge. He felt his pulse pounding in his ears. His chest burned, begging for air, and the wound on his side dribbled blood, threatening to reopen as the plants wrenched him back and forth.
But even as Seilloah stepped from the bed to the floor, the smile slipped from her face. Kaleb, spitting syllables nearly unpronounceable by human lips, reached out and grabbed the roots pummeling him. At his touch they halted, bark flaking from beneath his palms as a swift rot consumed them from within. The sorcerer rose to his feet, steady despite the terrible wounds to his legs, and raised his arms once more.
Jassion felt the first of the vines snap beneath Talon’s edge. With greater mobility, he went to work next on the ivy that had wrapped itself around his neck.
The witch raised her hands as well, crossed at the wrists, and then she and Kaleb froze, palms perhaps two feet apart, their gazes forming invisible lances in an unseen joust.
The vine around his neck gave way and Jassion dropped to the floor, choking as breath flooded his beleaguered lungs. Even in the midst of his convulsion, however, he couldn’t help but gawp at a sorcerers’ duel unlike any he’d ever envisioned. No energies flew across the chamber to blast at the stone walls, no fell beasts rose to do their master’s bidding, no sounds filled the chamber save his own racking cough and the twitching of the vines. Yet he felt the power flowing from the spellcasters, saw the air between them shimmering like a heat mirage, and he understood with a humbling clarity that he would be obliterated in an instant were he foolish enough to step between them.
Sweat bedewed the witch’s brow, dripped in a growing torrent down the sides of her lovely face, while Kaleb’s triumphant grin grew wider. That his ally would ultimately prove the victor, Jassion didn’t doubt. But the vines still writhed, their torn ends reaching for him once more. Smaller plants heaved themselves from their pots, scuttling on tiny roots, an
d even the teapot on its tripod began to walk with the screech of bending metal. Yes, victory was Kaleb’s—if his efforts weren’t impeded from behind—but even if he won, would he do so in time to prevent the living house from choking out Jassion’s own life?
The baron wasn’t prepared to wait. Talon clasped in both hands, he approached from the side, careful never to enter the flickering barrier that linked the two combatants, and with a furious cry he swung.
Cloth, flesh, muscle, and bone parted before the Kholben Shiar like a moist pastry, and the floor was awash with blood. Seilloah’s fingers clutched at the demonic steel protruding from her gut, fingers leaving bloody artwork across the blade as they spasmed. She craned her neck and, strangely, offered Jassion a knowing smile of crimson-coated teeth.
A rattle of breath, the grating of bone on blade, and the witch of Theaghl-gohlatch slid from Talon to lie in a sodden mass at Jassion’s feet.
“I SAID I’M FINE!” Kaleb snapped, hands flexing as though prepared to physically shove the nobleman away.
“Those were some nasty wounds you took,” Jassion insisted as they walked, leaving the hut and its wildly thrashing—and now audibly keening—foliage behind. “I’m amazed you can even stand. You told me that your magics weren’t much for healing.”
“They’re not, but they’re better when directed at myself than others. I don’t need your help.”
“The hell you don’t. You carried me, Kaleb, and now—”
“If you so much as try to put an arm around me, old boy, I’ll turn you into something small, stupid, and inclined to lick its own excrement.”
Jassion growled something that Kaleb missed (or pretended to miss). Then, as they reached the edge of the clearing and faced the wilds of Theaghl-gohlatch once more, he stuck out an arm to halt the sorcerer in his tracks.
“What did I just—”