Death's Heretic

by James L. Sutter

  It was the dryad who settled matters. She stepped up to the great tree’s side and placed a hand on its root-leg, stroking it. “Peace, Egas,” she said. “Delini will decide. The names of your flock will not be forgotten.”

  Egas the tree-man gave Neila one last baleful look, then turned. With a long-legged lumber, it led the dryad out of the clearing, and the humans followed.

  They walked beneath the trees for the better part of an hour, crossing narrow gullies and bramble-infested thickets. The dryad melted through the latter with ease, while Egas strode over them in a few steps, leaving the humans to fumble their way through, the difficulty compounded by the desire to do as little injury to the plants as possible while Egas and the dryad were near. Salim suspected their course was specifically designed to put the humans through their paces, and the malicious chuckles that occasionally emanated from the nearby underbrush told him the other locals were enjoying it as well. Once he caught sight of a pixie darting ahead, buzzing between trees like a dragonfly, no doubt keeping tabs on their progress for Delini and the forest’s leaders.

  At last, however, the walkabout ended, and the two humans stumbled, scratched and stinging, into a wide clearing. The trees here were the largest they’d seen yet, and the canopy overhead was woven together so thickly as to become a roof, blocking even the sun. The floor between the boles was naked earth, and in the center was something neither of them had expected to see—a raging bonfire, with a young pig roasting on a spit at its edge. Aside from the fire, the whole clearing was lit by softly glowing lanterns hanging from branches, their lights colored from shining through membranes of dried autumn leaves.

  The clearing was packed with fey. No one was hiding now—around the fire stood dryads and satyrs, while pixies and brownies perched on low branches or shoulders. Here and there, nymphs stood several inches taller than their companions, faces and breasts covered by light veils of gauzy moss that kept them from blinding the other celebrants while leaving nothing to the imagination. Gourds and woven reed cups held wine and food, but no one was drinking now. The fey stood still and stared at the newcomers, faces grim.

  All but one, that is. From the far side of the clearing, where a throne woven from still-living shoots stood high on an old stump, a voice called out, and then Delini was springing forward nimbly on his backward-bending goat legs. He wore a sash of river lilies, and his head was crowned with blossoms.

  “My lady,” he said, stopping just out of reach and giving Neila a deep bow. “So you’ve decided to take me up on my offer after all. I’m honored.” He placed one hand over his heart, the other over his groin. Neila ignored him.

  “I see you’re having a party,” Salim said, gesturing casually toward the fire and the surrounding faces, as if the expressions there weren’t carved out of stone.

  “Always,” Delini said, grinning. “‘In the shadows of the eldest trees, the revels never end / and from their boughs the melodies like ripened fruit depend.’” He sketched another little bow. “I wrote that myself, but it’s true just the same. And tonight we’re celebrating something special.”

  “What’s that?” Neila asked.

  “A sacrifice.” Delini’s smile was no longer humorous. His sharp, goatish features suddenly made him look more like a fiend than a fairy. “Unless, that is, you can give me a satisfactory reason why you dare to enter my woods after killing my people.”

  Behind him, the fire crackled.

  “I can go you one better,” Salim said. “I’ve not come here to fight, but to make you an offer. We need your help.”

  There was a moment of shocked silence, and then a brownie sitting on a log erupted into hysterical laughter, which cut off only when a nearby dryad reached out and knocked him off his perch. Delini didn’t turn, instead continuing to lock eyes with Salim.

  “Findelas isn’t the most eloquent of speakers,” he said, gesturing over his shoulder at the brownie that was tottering unsteadily back onto the log. “Especially not when he’s been drinking. But his point stands. Exactly what is it that you think you have to offer us?”

  Salim didn’t hesitate. “Your forest,” he said evenly.

  Delini frowned slightly. “You’re hardly in a position to make threats, Master Priest.”

  “I’m not a priest,” Salim said automatically. “And I don’t make threats. My offer is exactly what I said it is: your forest. Help us, and Neila will sign over all the Anvanory lands that encroach upon your forest, fair and legal.”

  “What?”

  Neila’s voice was a squawk. Salim turned to her and stared hard.

  “Do you want your lands or your father, Lady? Because right now, I don’t think you can have both.”

  Neila set her jaw but said nothing, which Salim took for assent. When he continued, it was to Delini.

  “There you go, then. If you help us reclaim her father’s soul, they’ll cede you the manor grounds. We’ll have the contracts drawn up by one of the bankers of Abadar, and place the church on retainer, so that even if the city decides to challenge the deal later on, the church will intervene. You can replant the fields with whatever you want. What do you say?”

  Delini looked thoughtful. “And in return? What do you get?”

  Salim smiled, and in the flickering firelight he looked every bit as feral as the fey.

  “In return, you give us a repeat performance of your firebombing of Anvanory Manor. Only this time, it’s the cathedral of Pharasma.”

  Delini looked surprised, then mirrored the grin. “An interesting proposal.”

  “Don’t listen to them, Delini.”

  The new voice was soft as a burbling creek. The crowd of half-human forms parted, and one of the nymphs stepped forward. Salim instinctively moved to shield Neila’s eyes with his palm, narrowing his own eyes to slits. Through blurred lashes, he saw that this one had a dark poultice bandaged to the top of her head.

  The one he had hit. Salim wasn’t sure now if leaving her alive had been a good idea or a bad one.

  “Don’t trust them,” the nymph said again, staring daggers at Salim. “They’ll burn us out as soon as the job is done—just set a fire and let the wind do the work. You know they will.”

  Delini stretched out his arm and absentmindedly pulled the nymph close, reaching around for a quick grope.

  “Easy, Yanora,” he said, stroking her breast. “Normally I would agree with you, say we send the man home sore and the girl with a gift in her belly. But this one let me live when he didn’t have to.” He looked to Salim, measuring him. “I’d say he’s hard, and tired, and as likely to cut your throat as bed you, if the situation warrants. But once he’s given his word, he keeps it. That sound about right?”

  Salim had heard worse. He nodded.

  “And you?” Delini asked Neila. All lecherousness was gone from his manner now. “Will you abide by this covenant? We attack the cathedral for you, and in return—whether the attack is successful or not, whether you get what you want or not—you’ll deed us the land beneath your manor?”

  Neila looked like she’d just swallowed a worm, but her voice was strong. “I will.”

  “And you?” Delini called, turning to face the assembled fey. “Will you fight again to reclaim our forest?”

  The answering roar was deafening. As if the question were a cue they’d all been waiting for, the clearing erupted into celebration. Wine was remembered or appeared from nowhere, and several of the smaller fey began to dance around the fire. Back near the wicker throne, a satyr and a dryad bent over the chair’s arm and began putting it to good use. Delini sent the nymph under his arm on with a pat on the rear, then turned back to the two humans.

  “There you have it, then,” he said. “They’re willing. I only hope your plan doesn’t cost them too much.”

  “I understand,” Salim said. “Now here’s what I’ve planned. Once the sun—” He broke off as the satyr raised one horny-nailed hand.

  “I said they’re willing,” Delini said. “I didn
’t say they were allowed. That’s not my decision to make.”

  Neila glanced toward the violently rocking throne, then quickly back to the satyr. “I thought you were in charge.”

  “I am, more or less,” the satyr admitted. “These woods and their residents are my responsibility. But we as a whole have responsibilities beyond ourselves. And before I can lead them away from those, I must seek permission.” He turned and began to walk toward the far edge of the clearing. When Salim and Neila didn’t immediately follow, he stopped and crossed his arms impatiently.

  “Well?” he asked. “Are you coming?” He looked to Neila with a ghost of his old rakishness, then nodded toward the throne. “Or would you rather stay and enjoy the festivities?”

  Neila colored slightly and walked quickly toward him. Salim followed.

  The satyr led them in an arc that circumvented the majority of the celebration and then turned sharply into the woods, taking the humans between the trees at a quick walk. Salim and Neila had to hurry to keep up, though the satyr paused politely at fallen logs and other obstacles that they needed to scramble over. Delini himself cleared most such barriers with a single leap of his goatish legs, his gait more that of a deer than a true goat.

  There was no honor guard this time, no nocked arrows. It seemed that the fey either trusted them or were confident in Delini’s ability to handle them should the situation get tense. Either way, Salim was grateful—they’d already handled what he’d expected to be one of the most difficult parts, and the last thing they needed was some dryad with an axe to grind—though perhaps that was the wrong metaphor—getting startled and letting an arrow fly. If Delini thought he had the situation well in hand, then perhaps he was indeed formidable enough for their purposes.

  They walked for perhaps fifteen minutes before Salim noticed the change. All around them, the trunks of the trees were growing thicker, expanding from giants of the forest to behemoths of nearly impossible girth, so thick that all three of their party holding hands would not have been able to stretch around them. The ancient trunks were covered with a coating of moss and crawling vines so thick that Salim had to tilt his head back and gaze up to find any flashes of naked bark. Where the ground should have been bare, shaded as completely as it was by the great trees, the forest floor was instead exploding with life, ferns and grasses growing incongruously up around the three travelers’ waists as they moved, their leaves full and green in the arboreal twilight.

  Yet these changes in the landscape were not what Salim noticed most. Instead, as they walked, he began to feel something new. It was difficult to describe—not a sound, exactly, but something like a deep hum that permeated the plants and air and vibrated his teeth. As it did, he felt his body coming awake—truly awake, in a way that he rarely experienced outside of combat or sex. The nerves in his skin reached out to feel every breath of air upon them. His groin ached, full and in need of release, and his stomach rumbled audibly.

  “You feel it now.” Delini looked over his shoulder and gave Salim a half-grin. “Really gets the old spring flowing, eh?” He turned to Neila, and the expression broadened into a leer. “You too, princess. There’s no use denying it—I assure you it’s perfectly natural.”

  Neila, already flushed, reddened further and said nothing, only crossing her arms across her chest, perhaps to hide the hardened nipples now straining against her bodice.

  “What is it?” Salim asked.

  “This,” Delini said, and held aside a leafy branch to allow the two humans to pass.

  They were in another clearing, but this one was as different from the meeting place they’d left as a deep forest from a village square. The ground—if indeed it was still there—was completely covered over by a writhing thatch of crawling vines. Strange, brilliantly colored plants and fungi that Salim had never seen before sprang up from the vines, or stood out sideways from the trunks of the surrounding trees in gravity-defying explosions of red, yellow, and purple. And in the center, above half a dozen weathered stone steps, hung a tear in the sky.

  That was the best way Salim could describe it—a vertical rip in the air, its ragged edges peeled back and splayed open to make it perhaps ten feet high and three or four across. Bright green light radiated from it, and through the brilliance Salim could faintly see the outlines of another place—an open plain with the barest suggestion of mountains in the background. It was from this floating window that the hum was emanating, the song in Salim’s bones.

  Two satyrs with bows flanked the portal. Both came to attention as the newcomers entered, and Delini waved them casually back to their normal slouches. Salim paid none of them any attention.

  “A breach,” he whispered.

  “A breach,” Delini agreed solemnly. “Now you understand why these woods are so important, and why I can’t just lead its guardians off to attack the cathedral.”

  “What’s a breach?” Neila asked.

  Surprisingly, it was Delini who answered, and without his usual swagger. “You know about the First World?”

  Neila hesitated, then nodded. “Where the gnomes and fey come from. Originally, I mean.”

  The satyr made a face. “There’s a bit more to it than that, but yes, it’s where we all came from, back before time was time.”

  “The First World was the rough draft,” Salim explained. “Before the gods created our world, when they were still dabbling with reality, they created the First World. When they were ready, they built the real world over it, like an artist painting over his sketchwork. Most of them abandoned the original in favor of the new, letting their half-formed creations run wild. But it’s still there, behind everything. A world given entirely to nature and potential, unbound by the rules of our own.”

  “And that’s a doorway to it?” Neila motioned toward the glowing portal.

  “Not quite,” Salim said. “A breach is more of a broken place—a spot where the image of our world has been rubbed too thin, revealing the world beneath.”

  Delini nodded. “Close enough. Even more than the river, the breach is what gives this forest life. But of course it’s more important than just a few trees, or the creatures that live in them. Which is why our master set us to guard it.”

  “And who’s your master?” Salim asked.

  Delini shrugged. “That’s a complicated question, but you’ll meet him soon enough. Or her. Whatever.” He stepped forward onto the springy carpet of vines, sinking in to just above his hooves. “Come on, we’ve dallied long enough.”

  At the top of the stone stairs, slick with lichen, he greeted the two guardian fey in a flowing, liquid tongue that Salim didn’t recognize. Both bowed slightly in deference, their actions strangely stiff and grave for satyrs, and then Delini switched into common speech for the humans’ benefit.

  “I’ll be taking them through,” he said. “We’re going to see Shyka. It may be minutes or days, but make sure that someone holds this post. I don’t care how hung over they are. Understood?”

  The fey nodded.

  “And give me your bow.” Delini snatched both weapon and quiver from one of the fey, who made no move of protest. He slung the bow over his shoulder, then tied the belt of the quiver around his waist. He looked back toward the humans waiting at the bottom of the steps. “Doesn’t hurt to be prepared. Are you ready?”

  Salim looked to Neila, who nodded, jaw set. “We’re ready.”

  “Then why aren’t you up here already?” Delini turned back to the satyr whose bow he’d stolen and winked. “Humans. If their thighs weren’t so loose, they’d be no use at all. Ah, there we are now!” He reached out to Salim and Neila, who now stood on the step below him, and took their hands.

  “Welcome to the homeland,” he said.

  Then he took a step backward into the glowing green radiance, pulling Salim and Neila with him.

  Chapter Twenty

  The First World

  There was no sense of transition, none of the nauseating disorientation or freezing nothing
ness associated with Salim’s amulet. One moment they were standing in the forest staring through a rip in the air, and the next they were on a wide, grassy plain, beneath a sky that was a clear and brilliant blue without any trace of a sun to light it. Behind them, the fey’s clearing in the woods was a dark splotch suspended in the air, through which they could see the satyrs resuming their positions to either side of the portal.

  Delini breathed deep, with evident satisfaction. “It’s something else, isn’t it?”

  It was. The forest had been rich with smells—the sharp scent of the trees, the low and earthy scent of disturbed loam—but this was something entirely new. The air smelled as crisp and fresh as a winter morning, yet without the chill. The perfume of the grass was all out of proportion to what the humans recognized, and each breath felt laden with a barely restrained energy, an urge to grow and expand. It was as if the land itself were breathing out and into them, making Salim’s head swim. He reached out a hand to steady Neila.

  “What is it?” she asked. “This place feels...different.”

  “It’s the First World,” Delini said. “This is nature’s domain, free of the taint of men and gods. Best abandon all preconceptions right now, Princess.”

  Neila looked ready to press the issue, but Salim had questions of his own. He turned in a slow circle, scanning their surroundings carefully. Aside from the portal, they were alone in the middle of an immense field that stretched to all horizons, the waving thigh-high grass unbroken by so much as a stunted tree. Only a distant line of mountains ahead of them, little more than blue shadows against the lighter blue of the sky, offered any point on which to set his bearings. “Where are we going?” he asked.

  Delini gestured toward the peaks. “Shyka dwells in the House of Eternity, in those mountains.”

  Neila’s response was shrill. “But that’ll take weeks!”