Soul Weaver: A Fantasy Novel

by Trip Ellington

  “The last Conclave attended the emperor for a month,” Kal answered, then shook her head.

  “Then we’d better get started,” said Shel.

  “Shel, you're not serious. You want to plan an assault on the imperial palace itself? To rescue a man who’s not even there, a man you saw die? Even if the Suncloaks didn’t slaughter us all – which they will – it won’t bring Rez back.”

  “I know that,” said Shel. “I'm not a child. Listen to me, Kal. Rez wanted to overthrow the emperor, didn’t he?”

  “You know that he did.”

  “So what do you think he’d want us to do now that he’s gone?” Shel crossed her arms over her chest. “He’d want us to finish what he started, wouldn’t he?”

  ***

  Three hours later, Shel was asleep. The lamp-wicks had been lowered, dimming the flickering light. Shel was curled up atop the same cushion she’d been sitting on earlier. Kal sat across from her on another cushion, marveling at the change which had come over the girl.

  Better stop thinking of her as a “girl,” Kal chuckled at herself. It was no secret Shel hated to be treated as a child. Well, she’d certainly proved she wasn’t one. Escaping from Thorne, making her way back here…

  Not to mention the way she seemed perfectly poised to take command. Kal shook her head silently, still amazed.

  She’d had food brought in for the pair of them, and sent the news spreading through the camp. Rez, their much-loved leader, was a captive. He was being taken to the imperial palace, not far from Solstice, there to answer for his crimes. A rescue was being planned. She thought that would satisfy them for the moment, but it wouldn’t be long before the band of thieves wanted details.

  Shel had filled in most of those, however. She ate voraciously when the food came, half-starved after her ordeal. Between bites, though, she had never fallen silent. After the meal was finished, Shel kept talking. She’d talked herself to sleep, in fact, but the things she said made perfect sense. Kal was frankly amazed.

  Rez had been wrong not to trust this one. Of course, it was never his nature to trust anyone until they’d proven themselves. Sometimes not even then. Still, he’d been wrong about Shel.

  She had clearly not been put off by Rez’s true plans. Rather, she had apparently embraced the idea of rebellion with all her heart. She agreed with the necessity of keeping most of the gang in the dark, but insisted they needed to recruit more members. And not just thieves – Shel said they were going to need warriors.

  It was almost time for the rebellion to reveal itself.

  Rez had played a long game. His plans stretched years in advance. The “heists” he regularly sent them on were carefully chosen to pick away at the enemy in terms of both raw power and economic strain. In five years, they had succeeded in utterly ruining two noble houses. That was two archons, and their entire families, toppled from power and relegated to obscurity.

  Seven archons remained, and the emperor of course. The imperial apparatus had been weakened in key points, but it was a long way from collapsing. Shel acknowledged the genius of Rez’s scheme. In a very real sense, there was no rebellion and never had been. The rebels all believed they were merely ambitious thieves. Nothing about their strategy hinted at Rez’s ultimate goal.

  Thorne knew about it all the same. If Thorne knew, so did the rest of the archons and the emperor himself. It had been a good scheme, but the time for secrecy was over. Suncloaks would be coming for the gang. If there was to be any hope, a new plan was needed.

  Shel laid out her plan in simple terms. It was simple. Kal had to admit that it was also daring and brilliant, worthy of Rez himself. She just hoped they would be able to hold the gang together long enough to make it work.

  When she told Shel about the problems of food and coin, the other young woman dismissed her concerns with a negligent hand wave.

  “We have to keep them busy, anyway, remember?” she had reminded Kal. “They're thieves. We just have to put them to work.”

  They would reach the fallback lair in Midnight Grove sometime tomorrow. Once the gang settled in, Kal and Shel would unveil the first stage of Shel’s plan and, as the young Soulweaver had said, put them to work.

  Chapter 16 - In the Midnight Grove

  “ The Midnight Grove?” asked Shel incredulously.

  They were deep in the forest, coming up on the fallback hideout Maul and Sanook had agreed on all those months ago. It wasn’t long past midday, but what little sunlight reached them here was dim and filtered by the intertwining branches of majestic oak and maple trees. Slender aspen sprang up here and there between their fatter cousins. Vines curled up their trunks, and broad-leafed ferns and other bushes crowded what little open space was afforded by the thick, spreading roots.

  If midday was rendered twilight by the thick forest here, it wasn’thing compared to what lay just ahead.

  Kal smiled over at Shel. The pair were walking near the front of the long, irregularly spaced column of thieves. Half a dozen nimble-footed scouts walked ahead of them, frequently blending into the shadows and thick undergrowth. The rest were spread out behind in a loose formation. Everyone but the leading scouts and the two junior members Kal had assigned to erasing their backtrail carried heavy packs on their backs. Shel and Kal were no exception.

  “Yes, Shel,” Kal said, adjusting the weight on her back uncomfortably. She, for one, couldn’t wait to get to the cave marked on Maul’s most secret map. She didn’t care that it was nestled in the exact center of the infamous Midnight Grove.

  “You're joking.” Shel shook her head in disbelief. “And everyone went for that?”

  Kal’s smile was tinged with pride in the thieves she and Rez and the others had gathered together. When she had first told them their destination was Midnight Grove, there had been mutters. Two of the thieves had disappeared before the gang even left the fort, but there had been no other deserters since then.

  “What happened at Midnight Grove happened a thousand years ago,” she told Shel. She couldn’t resist teasing the other woman a bit, and a twinkle came to her eye as she added, “You don’t really think the place is haunted, do you?”

  Shel frowned at her. “They call it the Winter’s Last Stand in Vallen,” she said in a low voice.

  Kal laughed out loud, a tinkling of genuine mirth. It was the first real amusement the thief-turned-rebel had felt since the disastrous ambush on the King’s Road.

  “Where I come from, they call it the Cold Outpost,” she said, seeing Shel’s offended look. “I think Midnight Grove has a hundred names, or more. As many names as there are cities and towns in the empire, and all of them spooky and ominous. It’s just a grove of trees, Shel.”

  “You've been there before, then?” Shel asked, arching one eyebrow.

  “Well, no…”

  “Right. Just a grove of trees.” Shel hitched the straps of her pack a little higher on her shoulders, adjusting the weight. Her expression was skeptical. “The only Winterheart pines in the whole bloody empire.”

  “They're still just trees, Shel.” Kal looked over at the young woman again. “Legends and scarytales are just that, you know. After all, in Vallen they probably also said Shadowmen creep out on moonless nights and steal away naughty children for their dinner. And that Shadowmen burn in the light of the sun. You've met two Shadowmen, Shel. What do you think about the legends?”

  Shel’s brows drew down over her eyes as she considered. “Fair point,” she admitted. Just then, they came around a bend in the narrow path they followed and got their first glimpse of the fabled Midnight Grove.

  The Grove covered a little over one square mile, set deep in the center of the sprawling forest that covered much of the southwestern corner of the empire. The Winterheart pines stood close together, rearing up in towering splendor over the lesser oaks and maples and aspens surrounding the Grove. From outside, the densely-nettled boughs looked impenetrable.

  The bark of the Winterheart pines was a dull, sooty blac
k. Even the smallest of them rose more than a hundred feet in height, spreading their boughs thickly right up to the top. The “evergreen” nettles were anything but: rather than green, they were a deep, inky violet that appeared glossy black from a distance. Kal could well understand how a person might think those trees were spooky, or even downright evil, even without their connection to the equally legendary Shadowmen.

  Midnight Grove was where the Shadowmen had made their last stand against the Long Summer. This was where winter had been banished forever. It was cold in Midnight Grove, an impossible chill that radiated as if from the trees themselves. As the gang drew near the edge of the forest-within-a-forest, many of them shivered when they felt that chill.

  The going got much tougher once they entered the Grove. The Winterheart pines grew close together. The massive lower branches, bristling with amethyst nettles, blocked nearly every path. Often, the boughs of two neighboring trees wound and twisted about each other to form impassable obstacles.

  The thieves pushed boughs aside, forcing their way through the tangle. There was more than a little muttering and a few exchanged fearful glances. None turned back, however, and soon the entire company had disappeared into the Grove. They climbed over intertwined boughs where they had to, scuttling beneath others or simply going around to find another path.

  Shel crossed her arms over her chest. A moment later, she began rubbing her hands up and down her upper arms. She could see her breath misting faintly in the air every time she breathed, and it reminded her of the appearance her weaves always had. She looked up at the towering black pines and shivered from more than just the cold.

  “This place is magical,” she whispered to Kal. The other woman said nothing. They continued picking their way through the forest, occasionally calling out to the others when it was impossible to see anyone for the ever-present boughs with their purple-black needles.

  It was more than the misting of her breath. Shel could feel something in the Midnight Grove, something ancient and powerful. To her enhanced senses, the trees felt alive and faintly menacing. It was almost as if, towering above the pitiful humans, the Winterheart pines stood in stern judgment. Shel didn’t like the feeling, not at all.

  “How much further to the cave?” she asked, trying to make her voice light and carefree. It didn’t work.

  “Who knows?” Kal, who had taken out Maul’s secret map, threw up her hands in exasperation. “These trees are so close together, I can’t see five feet in front of my face.”

  They pressed on. At a normal pace, it would have taken them less than half an hour to cross the grove. Even in the dense forest they had just left, it could have been done in an hour or so. But here, with the sinister trees packed so tight together, Kal wasn’t sure they could cross the Grove in less than a day. That was assuming they could maintain any sense of direction. She thought the scouts had been leading them in a more or less constant heading, but who could tell?

  In fact, it was just over an hour after they first penetrated the Grove that Kal heard one of the forward scouts hollering the signal. The cave had been found.

  “That way, I think,” said Shel, pointing. Immediately, the two women headed in that direction. They had to crawl beneath one particularly low, thick branch and then climb over three that had woven together just beyond that. But the guiding voice had now been joined by two others. As each member reached the hideout, they would join the chorus of those keeping up a constant ruckus to guide the others in.

  Shel and Kal emerged into a tiny clearing at the heart of the Winterheart thicket. Their faces, arms, and clothes were stained with thick, gray-black sap. Violet nettles clung to them, some stuck in the sap and others snagged in hair or on buckles and fasteners on their clothes. There were half a dozen thieves already gathered in front of the narrow cave mouth.

  It was just a rocky outcropping the exact center of the Midnight Grove. The trees sprouted up all around it, close and impenetrable as always, but where the soil was thin or nonexistent the trees couldn’t grow. A spring of fresh water bubbled up through tiny cracks in the stone, burbling down the rock face and trickling away in a small creek that disappeared into the sinister trees. The opposite face of the stone outcrop split open in a single, larger fissure. This was the cave Sanook had suggested, and Maul had agreed to. Kal blinked when she saw it.

  Shel, looking around the tiny clearing, was similarly unimpressed. “I thought it’d be bigger,” she confessed. “No way we can get everyone settled here. There’s hardly enough room for one tent, let alone two dozen.”

  “The cave,” said Kal, pointing. She shrugged out of her heavy back, lowering it to the ground. Shel did likewise, propping her bundle up against Kal’s. The honey-haired woman was already striding purposefully over to the cave mouth, and Shel hurried after.

  Two of the scouts – it just happened to be Rori and Alban – had unpacked one of the lamps. It took a few minutes to refill the oil reservoir and let the wick soak some up before they could light the flame. Once that was done, Alban handed it over to Kal who held it up before her and advanced into the narrow opening.

  She had to crouch a bit, and turn sideways to boot, but Kal thrust the lamp ahead of her to light the way and saw the cave quickly widened out. The flickering light of her lamp couldn’t reach the far wall of the stony enclosure.

  “It’s a lot bigger inside,” she called back to the others, who were preparing more lamps. “Shel, come take a look.”

  Rori handed her a lamp. Their gazes met as Shel took it, and Rori’s eyes flashed with resentment. Shel frowned at the redhead, wondering if Rori still thought she could possibly be an enemy spy. Rori dropped her eyes and said nothing, and Shel shook her head. There would be time for that later. Twisting and contorting, she eased her way through the thin crack in the hillside.

  Jagged rock scraped against her stomach and the backs of her calves. It was a tight fit, and if Maul had been there Shel didn’t think there was any way the giant could have passed through this cramped aperture. But it quickly widened out, and Shel straightened up to see the enormous cavern concealed within.

  The ceiling was still low, but the ground sloped rapidly away toward the back. One wall was damp and stained by years of trickling water. Moss clung here and there in tufts and patches. But the cave floor was dry, as was the rest of the cavern. In the back, the cave narrowed into another cramped tunnel. Kal had gone to this aperture and was holding her lamp out at arm’s length trying to see how deep the opening reached.

  “It opens out again,” she called back to Shel excitedly. “There’s a whole other enormous chamber. It’s below us a little bit, but it doesn’t look like much of a climb. There’s room in there for our whole gang!”

  Shel hurried over to see for herself. Kal stepped back from the opening, letting Shel pass. The younger woman sucked in her gut to squeeze through the tunnel opening. It was a tight fit, but she came through easily enough. On the other side, the ground sloped steeply downward across twenty or thirty feet, then leveled out again. Shel held her lamp high overhead, casting its light as far as she was able. She could see no cave walls except the one at her back, through which she had come.

  “Use your inner light, girl,” spoke a voice in the darkness. It was a low and sibilant hissing sound, and reminded Shel more of wind rustling through dead leaves than any human voice. She drew back a step, her heel sliding in the loose gravel that covered the slope.

  “Who’s there?” she called out. Her voice echoed back to her from the unseen cavern walls. It sounded small and hopeless in her ears. Shel gripped her lamp, making ready to turn and scramble up the short slope and wriggle her way back into the upper chamber.

  “The inner light,” the whispering voice said again. It emanated from the deeper shadows; Shel couldn’t tell from which direction.

  “So the stories are true,” she said loudly, hoping her voice would carry back through the tunnel to Kal and the others. She was also hoping it made her sound braver tha
n she felt. “Midnight Grove is haunted, and you are the spirit that haunts it.”

  The sound of laughter came from the shadows, echoing and rebounding on itself until it became a mirthful chorus that filled the cool darkness of the cave. Doubled and redoubled, the sound became somehow more human than less. Puzzled, Shel lifted up her lamp once more.

  As the faint circle of its light expanded somewhat around her, Shel caught her first glimpse of the inhabitant of this deep cavern. Seemingly made of shadows, the dark and indistinct figure hovered just at the edge of her light. Even as she spotted the figure, it darted backwards and melted into the deeper shadows beyond her light.

  Grumbling, Shel strained to lift her arm higher – and then it hit her. “The inner light,” she murmured, laughing harshly at herself. Lowering her arms, she exerted entirely different muscles. The power within her, contained in her soul, flowed outward from her body. It was invisible to anyone else, unless they too were a weaver, but to Shel’s eyes it was impossible not to see. And it glowed.

  A ghostly white light bathed the entire cavern, baring its secrets to her magic-strengthened eyes. She was surprised at the enormity of the chamber, but at the moment she had a more pressing concern. The dark figure stood, starkly illuminated and cut off at last from the protective darkness.

  When he threw back the hood of his ragged, ash-colored robes Shel saw that it was no spirit or living shadow. It was only a man in hooded robes. He wasn’t very tall or muscular, but he radiated an imposing presence that she felt through her enhanced senses. His face – bare, she was stunned to realize – was covered with intricate markings that continued down his throat to disappear beneath his robes. Shel found herself grinning, and then she laughed out loud.

  “Sanook!” she shouted. “You crafty old Shadowman! We thought you were dead.”

  Sanook’s smile abruptly faded, and a sad look came into his eyes. “I'm sorry, Shel,” he told her. “You were not wrong.”

  Chapter 17 - The End of a Dream