by J. A. White
To the north and south the trees of the Thickety, which ran parallel to the Draye’varg, had shrunk to the height of red willows before fading away altogether. Soon Kara was surrounded, in every direction, by a desert of boulders as far as the eye could see.
The sun, which she had at first welcomed, seared her shoulders.
The worst part, however, was the silence. Kara had grown accustomed to the constant noise in the Thickety: bleats, snarls, slithers, snapping in the night. She found, much to her surprise, that she missed the creatures of the Thickety. Their lives were so difficult here, and if she could only help them . . .
Stop it, Kara thought. Sordyr’s presence here is unfortunate, but the suffering he has wrought is not your responsibility. You’re only going to get yourself killed, and who’s going to take care of Taff then?
Nonetheless, Kara reached out with her mind, just to hear the comforting voice of a single creature—and perhaps provide some comfort in return—but the nearest one was now only a distant whisper.
As they moved farther from the trees they began to see bones of every shape and size. Bones so small that the entire animal could have nestled in the palm of Taff’s hand, and bones from a beast so gargantuan that a single femur stretched across five boulders.
“The urge to survive is strong,” Mary said. “Dying creatures come here by instinct, not understanding what the Draye’varg is, thinking only that it can save them. This is especially true of creatures that have been touched by magic in one form or another.” She took a short swig from her canteen and handed it to Kara. “Magic calls to magic,” she said.
“Then why haven’t we seen any simulacra?” Taff asked. “With all these creatures coming here something must have fallen between the rocks.”
Mary dropped her sack and carefully loosened the vines knotted around its opening. The sun had vanished; clouds bulged and swirled across a storm-gray sky.
“No doubt the bones we’ve found thus far have created many simulacra,” Mary said, “looking no different than the original flesh and blood. But once formed, a simulacrum is a damned thing, existing only to find its maker and destroy it. They are angry, you see, for they understand that their existence is nothing more than a shadow of real life. They have no purpose, and it makes them violent—so they seek out their creators and punish them. There are many stories of travelers who crossed the Draye’varg and left a piece of themselves behind, not realizing it—only to wake up a year later with a mirror image of themselves drawing a dagger across their throat.”
Kara shuddered.
“But it would be different with the bones,” Taff said. “Their creators are already dead. If they became simulacra, what would they do?”
“Mostly just wander the Draye’varg like ghosts until they perish from starvation or thirst. Without their maker to destroy, their false lives lack any meaning . . . so they simply stop living at all.”
“But what about the bug you made from the branch?” Taff asked. “If you hadn’t stepped on it, would it be wandering around attacking trees right now?”
Mary reached shoulder-deep into her sack, digging for something. “Simple simulacra die within a few hours,” she said over the sound of shifting contents, metal clanging against metal, glass striking glass, the whoosh of something that sounded like sand cascading down a tube. “My guess is that these simulacra absorb something of the . . . Ah! I’ve found you.”
From within her sack she withdrew a porcelain rabbit, the cracks in its face belying its wide smile. The rabbit was no larger than an apple and sat upon a bicycle crafted from several bands of wire. One of the wires, flaking rust, had uncoiled from its brothers and pointed off into space.
“What does that do?” Taff asked, reaching out for the rabbit. Mary twisted away before he could touch it, and the witch’s petulant expression—like a child who did not want to share her toy—almost made Kara laugh.
Crouching down, Mary placed the rabbit on the boulder and, withdrawing a piece of chalk from within the folds of her cloak, scratched a careful X to the left of the bicycle’s front wheel.
She leaned over and whispered something in the rabbit’s ear.
“Okay,” Taff said, lying on top of the boulder so he was eye level with the toy rabbit. “I’m not going to ask any questions. I’m just going to watch and see what happens.” He paused. “What did you whisper in its ear?”
“I asked it to show us the way to Imogen.”
“You don’t know?” asked Kara.
Mary gestured to the boulders that surrounded them in every direction. “I admit to being somewhat disoriented.”
The three of them watched the rabbit. When nothing happened, Mary whispered her request again and then patted the toy rabbit gently on top of the head, as one would an obedient dog.
A minute passed. The toy rabbit sat there. Motionless.
The first drops of rain splattered against the boulder.
Mary looked like she was about to pound her hand into the boulder in frustration, but then thought better of it. “Blasted, useless bauble!” she exclaimed. “Sometimes this happens. Sometimes they don’t do anything at all. More and more, lately.”
“Let me try,” Taff said. Before Mary could stop him, he bent next to the rabbit and whispered something in its ear.
The rabbit started to move instantly.
Its tiny feet, encased in red boots, pressed down against the pedals of the bicycle. Turning the handlebars slightly, the rabbit began to drift in small circles across the boulder. The little wheels of the bicycle creaked softly.
“It’s moving!” said Taff. “It listened to me!”
Mary looked unamused.
Finally the rabbit began to cycle in a perfectly straight line. It picked up speed, and Kara stood near the end of the boulder in case it slipped off.
The last thing we need is a simulacrum of a toy rabbit, she thought. The image of a living, breathing rabbit on a bicycle should have been funny, but it wasn’t—not even a little bit.
Just when Kara thought she was going to have to pick the rabbit up, however, it stopped at the base of her feet. Mary bent down and drew a chalk line from her original X to the bicycle’s new position at the edge of the boulder, then measured the distance by using the span of her outstretched fingers.
“No more than three days’ journey,” she said, “though the Draye’varg will end long before then.” Wiping a bead of rain away from her eyes, she pointed in the direction the bicycle had traveled. “The forest is that way, just out of sight. We’re almost there.”
Mary picked up the toy rabbit and gently returned it to her sack.
“How did you make it listen to you, Taff?” Mary asked.
He shrugged. “I just asked it to show us the way to Imogen. I didn’t do anything special.”
“Hmm,” said Mary Kettle.
“Does that mean I’m magic?” Taff asked. Kara could not tell if the trembling in his voice was from excitement or fear.
“Not at all,” Mary said. “Using enchanted objects requires no craft, but it cannot be done by just anyone. It’s a talent that might be—”
Taff screamed.
A millipede the size of a rat was gnawing on his ankle. Except the millipede wasn’t made of flesh and blood.
It was made of water.
Mary hurled the writhing thing through the air. It struck the boulder next to them and exploded into a thousand droplets, most of which ran down the rock and vanished into the hidden ground below.
“I’m such a fool,” Mary said. “The rain. Why didn’t I think of it?”
From all around them, as far as Kara could see, water creatures were pulling themselves out of the crevices between the boulders. Some looked like the millipede that had attacked Taff; others were spiderlike with spindly legs. And then there were those creatures cursed with no shape at all, slinking toward Kara like puddles with teeth.
Lightning flashed, revealing a sky awash with water bats and translucent ravens that swo
oped and darted above their prey.
No longer heeding Mary’s warning to travel cautiously, Kara leaped from boulder to boulder. The storm had risen to a torrent and it was difficult to see more than a few feet in front of her, but even through the pounding storm she could hear the tinkle-tinkle of Mary’s bag and used that to guide her instead.
The water creatures attacked them from every side—from below and above as well. With each bite Kara felt a mild shock shoot through her body; this rain, born from thunderclouds, had inherited some of its properties. She kept moving, doing her best to dodge the shapes that skittered across the rocky surfaces. There was no use fighting the creatures; for every one she stepped on or clapped between her hands, countless more took its place. The crevices between the boulders became jammed and swollen with new creations, anxious to escape and join the hunt.
And the rain kept falling.
Kara stumbled and landed on her knee, wincing in pain. Before her, less than an arm’s length from her face, a translucent jellyfish splayed across the boulder on dozens of tentacles. The inside of the creature glowed faintly, and within its interior ocean creatures moved and swam and gnashed at one another with bestial violence. By instinct Kara reached out to the jellyfish’s mind, hoping to build a mind-bridge, but this was a simulacrum and there was no connection to be made.
A single tentacle rose in the air and tensed like a python, but before it could strike, Taff sailed over Kara’s head and landed on the jellyfish, smashing it into oblivion.
Pulling his sister to her feet he shouted, “We’re almost there!”
Sure enough, through shards of rain Kara glimpsed the canopy and dark trees of the Thickety, the familiar shapes that had terrified her throughout her childhood now a welcome beacon of shelter and safety. Her knee throbbed with pain, but she knew she couldn’t slow down.
Just a little farther. . . .
They neared the end of the Draye’varg, and the creatures began to attack with even greater fervor. A raven with rippling wings like waterfalls landed on Taff’s back, pushing him to the ground. Kara punched it with an open hand. It was like passing her hand through a spout of icy cold water, leaving an angry red welt across her palm.
When Kara looked up, they were surrounded.
Banding together, the simulacra had tightened their forces around the children so that there was no escape in any direction. Boulders swelled with waves of false life, far too many to dodge, a glistening sheen of jaws and teeth and mandibles. Above the children looped waterbirds, tiny bolts of lightning snapping between their open beaks.
Kara knelt next to her brother, her injured knee making a disheartening popping sound. Taff’s blond hair hung down in dripping tendrils across his forehead.
“Stay close to me,” Kara said.
She listened.
They were close enough to the trees that she could once again hear voices whispering FEED and HIDE and other common thoughts. Kara threaded her way through this storm of sounds, searching not for a particular animal but a particular need. When she found it she clenched her hands into tight fists and sent a message: Come! I have what you seek! Hurry! Hurry!
A tiny shock vibrated up her right calf. She plucked a water worm from her leg and squeezed tightly, sending droplets onto a dozen other shapes scurrying for position beneath her. “Leave us alone!” Taff screamed, slapping at his arms, his knees, his thighs. Some half-formed shape with four wings landed on the back of his neck, and Taff’s mouth trembled as a particularly violent shock pierced his body. Kara—ignoring the pinpricks of pain exploding all over her own body—slid across the boulder and yanked the creature away, wringing it between two hands like a wet hand cloth. She enfolded Taff in her arms and covered him protectively as a dozen water-winged shapes plummeted toward them.
The simulacra never reached their target.
Something large and blue streaked across the sky and caught the water creatures in its gull-shaped beak. Kara saw at least a dozen of these new arrivals—with leathery skin stretched taut across long, sinuous wings—snatching the remaining simulacra from out of the air, or slurping the ones without wings from the surface of boulders with long, conical tongues.
Kara had not known what matter of beast would answer her call.
She had needed them only to be thirsty.
One of the creatures landed gracefully on the boulder next to her. It was somewhere between a reptile and a bird, with soft eyes and an absurdly long tail that sat coiled upon its haunches like a stored rope. A jagged scar split its flank, and its slightly protruding tongue was swollen with black mold. It wasn’t completely Blighted—not yet—but it was well on its way.
The beast bent its head forward, and Kara, hesitating only briefly, stroked it.
“Thank you,” she said.
Must keep you safe, Kara heard its voice in her head. Witch Girl save us.
“No,” she said. “I can’t help you. I want to, but I can’t.”
The creature looked up at her, its old eyes glowing with wisdom, and a hint of mischief too.
You will.
And then, with a squawk so loud that Taff covered his ears, the creature lifted off. The rest of its tribe followed, their bellies happily swollen with water. Kara watched them disappear into the leaves of the Thickety.
Taking Taff’s hand, she skipped boulders until finally stepping onto black soil again, where Mary Kettle was waiting.
“Why didn’t you help us?” Kara asked.
“You must learn to fight your own battles.”
“We could have died!”
“Kara,” Taff said.
“But you didn’t. What exactly do you think Imogen is? A common sledgeworm? How do you hope to become strong enough to defeat her if I’m helping you every step of the way?”
“So this was, what? A test?”
“Kara,” Taff said.
“No. This was training.” Her voice softened. “If things had gotten truly dangerous, of course I would have helped you. But there was no need. You performed—”
“Kara!” shouted Taff.
Mary and Kara turned to face him. His face was ashen. Blood dripped from a cut on his left palm.
“You’re hurt!” Kara exclaimed.
“It’s not that,” Taff said. He raised his good hand and pointed toward the Draye’varg.
In the distance stood a small figure. It was too far away to make out all the details, but Kara thought she recognized an unruly patch of sandy hair.
“My blood—it must have dripped between the boulders,” said Taff. “I’m sorry.”
Kara shook her head. “It’s not your fault.”
“We can’t let it live,” said Mary. “It’ll follow us. Hunt Taff.”
Kara swallowed deeply and held out her hand.
“Give me your dagger,” she said. “I’ll take care of it.”
Mary unsheathed the blade. She held it hilt-side out but as Kara reached for it Mary withdrew her hand.
“No,” Mary said. She looked somewhat confused, as though surprised by her own decision. “This isn’t right. I can’t let you do it. You’re his sister.” With a look of resolution she stepped onto the first boulder. “Let me.”
Kara looked past Mary. The figure had come closer. She could almost see the green eyes she knew so well.
“Thank you,” Kara said.
She led Taff into the shelter of the trees, where she bound his wound. A few moments later they heard a familiar scream. Kara held her brother close, grateful that she had not been the one to wield the knife.
After dinner the following evening, Mary Kettle spread a scratchy old blanket across a patch of earth that had managed to dry beneath the feeble sun.
“It’s time you know the whole story,” she said, looking directly at Kara. “No more secrets.”
Mary untied her sack and poured out the contents.
Toys in various degrees of disrepair cascaded to the ground: rose-colored marbles, a splintered wooden canoe, two tattered pa
per kites, a stuffed bear missing one eye, some kind of musical instrument with five airholes, a handheld rocking horse whose paint was chipping off, and numerous dolls of every description.
“Look at all this stuff!” Taff exclaimed, his face flushed with excitement. He picked up a wooden top with stars carefully stenciled along the ridge, but Mary snatched it away.
“Don’t touch,” she said. “Their magic might be weak, but many of these toys are still dangerous.”
“What’s this one do?” Taff asked, gesturing toward the top.
“It spins,” Mary said, “until entire constellations of stars seem to pass before your eyes. You can’t help but look. And as you look, you forget. Today. Yesterday. Where you’ve been. Who you are.”
Silence descended over the group. The campfire crackled.
“I don’t want to play with the top anymore,” Taff said.
Mary was old that night, but as she shared the contents of the sack, her ancient eyes became as playful as a child’s. Some toys still retained their magical properties—though Mary could not always count on them working properly—while others had lost their enchantment altogether. Eventually, Mary stopped discussing magic and focused instead on examples of craftsmanship in which she took particular pride: a ship with sails that unfurled by touching a tiny lever, a wooden puzzle completed only by shifting colored squares into a particular pattern.
“You must have been an extraordinary toymaker,” Kara said.
“Aye,” said Mary, her eyes distant. “Men and women would travel for days just to come to my shop. It was my life’s work. Before I found the grimoire, that is.”
“What are these things?” Taff asked. He held a small metal object between his fingers. “There’s a bunch of them.”
“It’s a gear,” Mary said. She leaned forward, her spine popping with age. “Do you know what a clock is?”