Summer in Orcus

by T. Kingfisher

  “The sign says, ‘No fires,’ said Summer.

  “Good thing we’ve got an indoor fireplace, then, eh?” said Reginald.

  Summer had been worried that someone would come and yell at them for putting a house in the park—even a very well-behaved house—but nobody did. Perhaps the fact that Glorious’s temporary license was posted prominently in the window helped, or perhaps the people of Fen-town were simply used to such things. But they couldn’t build a fire on the back of the turtle—Summer had a feeling that Chelonia Park would not have liked that at all—and so there was no hot tea in the morning for anyone. Eventually they just decided to leave and sort breakfast out later.

  She felt very out of sorts as they left Fen-town. Her eyes were full of grit and the morning air was cold and smelled like rotten fish.

  The stone causeway continued across the marsh, toward a dark line of trees on the other side.

  Halfway to the trees, Summer could make out a large, oddly shaped lump.

  “What’s that supposed to be?” she grumbled.

  Glorious said nothing. Reginald, who was incurably cheerful at this hour, said “I’ll go check it out, shall I? Nothing like a dawn flight to get the old heart pumping, is there?”

  “Morning people should be shot,” said the weasel, although he waited until Reginald was in the air.

  The wolf and his rider paced down the causeway for several minutes.

  “Reginald’s coming back,” said Summer.

  “Flying fast, too,” said Glorious.

  “Probably forgot his waistcoat,” muttered the weasel.

  The hoopoe landed on the road. “Turtle,” he said. “Like last night. The skeleton only. You can see the shell from miles off, though.”

  Summer wound her fingers tightly in Glorious’s ruff.

  Slowly, slowly, the skeleton came into focus. It was vast, bigger than Chelonia Park had been, with a shell as big as all of Fen-town. There were trees growing on its back, with trunks so wide that Summer could not have reached even halfway around them.

  The trees were green, but it was a pale, sickly green. The leaves had yellow veins that stood out in sharp relief, like the tendons on the back of an old man’s hands.

  The turtle shell was half-buried in mud, and a skull protruded from it. It was broad and flat, striped with moss. The eye-sockets hung deep and empty.

  Summer swallowed a few times. “It’s so big…” she said finally. All the analogies she could think of were things from her own world—dumptrucks, bulldozers, earthmoving equipment. The skull alone was broad enough to park a dozen cars on.

  It did not seem right that something so large could be allowed to die.

  The weasel stood atop Glorious’s skull and made small sounds of distress.

  “I smell it too,” said Glorious.

  Summer wiped at her nose. She knew that she couldn’t smell as well as the wolf and the weasel, but still, there was something in the air…something strange and moldy and foul…

  “Like the wheat field,” said the weasel. “And the Frog Tree.”

  Glorious nodded. “I have smelled it before.”

  “But what is it?” asked Summer. Her eyes were prickling. She did not mind bones, generally, but there was something breathtakingly sad about the turtle skeleton, with the lonely marsh behind it and the killdeer’s cry echoing over its bones.

  “Perhaps we shouldn’t discuss it here, eh?” said Reginald. “Don’t know what sort of chaps might be listening.” He looked nervous, which was so unusual for the hoopoe that it made Summer want to look over her shoulder. (She did. There was nothing but the road, and, far in the distance, Fen-town.)

  Glorious shook his head. “This is safer than the forest,” he said. “We will see anything coming for a long way. But let us move a little from these bones. The smell burns my nostrils.”

  They went down the causeway. Moss grew up the sides and over the edges of the stones. The moldy smell went away, and was replaced with more of the rotten fish smell.

  At last, Glorious halted. He sat down and Summer slid off, though she kept her hand on his ruff, unwilling to let go entirely.

  “So you, too, have smelled this before,” said Glorious, not to Summer but to the weasel.

  The weasel flicked his ears and nodded. “Several times since we came to this world,” he said.

  “I, too,” said Glorious. “And I have heard of more. My people speak of it sometimes. Always great things, great magics, collapsed and rotting in on themselves. Always a smell, like a burning anthill. Always immense and irreplaceable things that no hunter would have touched.”

  “The cancer at the heart of the world,” said Summer, almost inaudibly, remembering what Boarskin had said. The words tasted strange on her tongue.

  “Yes,” said Glorious. “Yes. Exactly. Whoever said that knew, Summer-cub. Something is doing this deliberately.”

  “But why?” asked Summer, anguished. “Who would want to hurt the Frog Tree, or that poor turtle, or—or—a field of wheat?” She could just barely imagine a giant turtle stepping on something important, but it was hard to imagine anything less offensive than a wheat field.

  “There are those who need no reasons.”

  “Could it be Zultan?” asked Summer.

  “Huh!” said Reginald. “The Tower of Dogs, maybe, an inn here and there, but he’ll cut his coat to fit his cloth in the conquest department. And that was all before I was born. Doubt he could muster an army now.”

  “His power may be weakened,” said Glorious slowly, “but even my people know the name of the Queen-in-Chains.”

  “It’s been years,” said Reginald. “She’s probably dead.”

  Glorious ignored him, looking over his shoulder at the turtle skeleton. Summer could feel his breath going in and out, long and slow, his shoulderblades moving as he breathed.

  “This is why she sent you, Summer-cub,” he said.

  “Baba Yaga?”

  “I believe it to be so,” said Glorious. “I am sometimes wrong, but not often.”

  “But what can I do?’ asked Summer. “I can’t bring any of them back! I can’t even stand up to Grub! This wasn’t my heart’s desire!”

  Glorious shook his head. “I do not know,” he said. “But I smell her even under this. Like clean stone under rotten meat.”

  He stood. Summer put a leg over his back and they began to walk again, while the turtle dwindled, becoming only another faded hillock in the marsh grass.

  “What do we do?” asked Summer. The killdeer called and she felt the sound of it echo inside her chest, as if she were as hollowed out as the turtle’s shell.

  “Let us find this Forester of the hoopoe’s,” said Glorious. “Perhaps she will know a little more.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “What are you thinking?” asked Summer, when they had walked what seemed like a long way. They had already stopped for lunch, and Summer was tired and feeling groggy. Reginald was in the air and the weasel was asleep in her pocket.

  “My own thoughts,” said Glorious.

  He said nothing more, and Summer felt a squirming unease in her stomach. Why wouldn’t he tell her? Was he thinking something bad? Was he thinking of leaving them? She wasn’t sure why he was staying anyway, and if they kept finding things like the giant turtle and the rotted wheat—if that was the path she was going down—maybe he would want to leave. Who would want to see more things like that?

  She fisted her hands in his mane and stared down at them.

  He flicked an ear back at her. “You’re wound tight as a hare’s hind leg, Summer-cub.”

  “Why won’t you tell me?” she whispered, although by now she didn’t want to know.

  He snorted. “Because what I think is of no concern to anyone but me, unless I choose to tell them. And my thoughts are not ready yet to be shared, so I will not share them. Is that all?”

  Put that way, she felt foolish. She thought of her mother saying, “Fine. Don’t tell your mother what you�
��re thinking,” and felt the edge of some emotion so vast and complicated that she did not know what to call it.

  “The thoughts of others are dangerous,” said Glorious. “But it is not a danger that we can protect ourselves from.” He shook himself, but cautiously, so that she did not fall off. “Be at ease. A friend will not think unkindly of you, and an unfriend will not tell you the truth of their thoughts, so what purpose is there to worry?”

  “It’s not as easy as that,” said Summer sadly. “I can’t stop myself from worrying.”

  “You’re human,” said Glorious. “Humans hoard up their fears as if the world might run out.” He huffed a laugh. “Still, you build cities with them—and towers and artworks and families and faiths. It seems to work for your people, even if it would not work for mine.”

  “I wish I was a wolf,” said Summer.

  “That is a very sensible wish,” said Glorious. “But even Baba Yaga cannot grant you that. So you will simply have to be a brave human.”

  Reginald landed on the causeway before them. “Turn off at the end of the causeway,” he said. He waved a wing at the line of trees that had appeared on the horizon. “The Forester holds all the woods on the left side.” Glorious nodded.

  Summer was glad to leave the fens. There was something about their emptiness that made her feel empty, too.

  If I had more fears, like Glorious says, maybe I’d want to feel empty. Maybe it would be easier.

  She wondered what her mother would think of the fens. Probably that the mud was dirty and full of broken glass and you’d cut yourself and get tetanus. She sighed. Her mother’s fears were too vast for a mere landscape to heal.

  The trees on this side of the marshes were not like the pine forest on the other side. The trunks were spaced like pillars in a cathedral. The leaves rustled in every breath of wind, so that it was like walking through a constant murmuring wshhhht wshhhht. Great thickets of blackberries tangled around some of the trees, throwing up whips higher than Summer’s head.

  They went a little way into the woods and Reginald stopped them. “Here,” he said, pointing to an opening in the trees that looked just the same as every other opening in the trees.

  “How can you tell?” asked the weasel.

  Reginald laughed. “No fear,” he said. “I can’t, and probably neither can anyone else. But if we go into the woods, the Forester’s birds will pick us up, and then there’ll be a guide.”

  “A guide for birds,” said the weasel, but did not protest as Glorious padded off the road and into the forest.

  Summer was fairly sure that the weasel wasn’t really bothered, and was just snipping at Reginald on general principle. She petted his tiny furry back. He grumbled.

  It was not more than half an hour before the valet-flock set up a startled twittering. Glorious halted.

  Summer looked around to see what had upset the birds. She couldn’t see anything at first, and then suddenly she did see it, and wondered how she’d missed it before.

  An owl sat on a low branch, directly in front of them. It was the biggest owl that Summer had ever seen. Its chest was as big around as hers was. It had mottled brown feathers and two enormous ear-tufts.

  There was a thin gold chain wrapped around its left foot. The talons, where they gripped the branch, were as long as Summer’s fingers.

  “Settle down, you lot,” said Reginald to the valet-flock. “He’s the Forester’s bird. He won’t eat you.”

  “It wouldn’t take him two bites if he did,” breathed the weasel, pressing up against Summer’s leg.

  The valet-flock settled, but it was clear that they didn’t like it.

  The owl tilted its head sideways, which would have been comical if it were not so gigantic.

  “Hello…?” said Summer carefully. Did the owl talk? She didn’t want to hurt its feelings by asking.

  Apparently it did not talk, or it chose not to. It spread its wings instead and launched itself off the branch, passing so close to Summer’s head that she could feel a wash of air from its wings.

  “Don’t mind them,” said Reginald, as she ducked. “Not a talkative bunch. He’ll lead us right in a trice, though.”

  “I thought owls didn’t like the daytime,” said Summer, as Glorious followed the owl.

  “They don’t,” said Reginald cheerfully. “But they know their duty, and if we go blundering around at night—with a cottage in tow, begging your pardon, Glorious—we won’t get far, will we?”

  Glorious grinned briefly. “If we do not reach your Forester by nightfall, you may have to.”

  “No, no,” said Reginald. “Once we’ve got an owl leading us, won’t be half a heartbeat. You’ll see.”

  Summer wished she felt as confident as the hoopoe. The owl landed on a branch a hundred feet away and waited. It did not look patient or impatient. It did not look like anything but a truly enormous owl.

  As long as it doesn’t look hungry…

  The owl watched them approach. The valet-flock swirled, and then landed, all at once, on Summer’s shoulders and head.

  They startled a laugh from Summer. The owl turned to look at her. Its eyes were vast and golden and looked nearly as large as her palm.

  The weasel muttered something unkind as the valet flock twittered, but Summer noticed that he stayed close against her knee, where the owl might not see him.

  When they had passed underneath the branch, the owl flew again. This time it landed on a small hummock on the ground and turned its head to watch them.

  Glorious paced past it, close enough that Summer could have reached out her hands and touched the owl’s feathers. She knotted them in the wolf’s mane and did nothing of the sort.

  On the ground, the owl seemed even larger. The weasel lay flat as a rag and the valet-flock did not even peep. Summer could feel their tiny claws prickling in her hair.

  If it jumped for me, it could knock me off with one wing.

  The owl did not fly after them. Instead, Glorious pricked up his ears and went forward. Reginald flew from tree to tree ahead, and at long last, Summer’s human ears picked up the sound as well—hoo-hoo-koo-hu-yu?

  She peered around, and saw a smaller owl, feathers striped with black, in a tree off to the left.

  “It’s over there,” she said quietly.

  Glorious nodded. “Humans have better eyes,” he rumbled. “Owls don’t smell very strong themselves, though their leavings stink to heaven. There’s at least two more.”

  Summer craned her neck. The valet-birds on her head adjusted their grip.

  The big owl was still on the ground behind them. Summer picked out another, much smaller owl in the crook of a branch, then another, then another.

  The woods were full of owls. All of them wore golden chains on their claws. Sometimes one would hoot, but mostly they stared in silence.

  It was more than little bit creepy.

  Glorious paused and Reginald landed next to them.

  “It is easy to follow one guide,” observed the wolf. “Harder to follow a hundred. Which way do we go to find this Forester?”

  Soft laughter came from behind him. “You have already found her,” said the Forester, stepping into the open. “And I see that you have brought trouble with you.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  The Forester was the largest woman that Summer had ever seen—not just tall, but enormously broad across the shoulders, with heavy hips and breasts and thighs like tree trunks. For a moment, Summer wondered if she was a regular human at all, or some kind of giantess.

  Her skin was the color of fallen oak leaves, and her black hair lay tightly curled against her scalp. She walked toward them, and her footsteps were as silent as the wings of the owls.

  “Reginald,” she said, sounding amused. She held out her arm, and Reginald flew to it. Even though he was much larger than any normal bird, the Forester’s wrist did not tremble under his weight.

  “Ma’am,” said the hoopoe, dipping his wings. “Begging your pardo
n for troubling you, but I happened on this chit of a human dragging a destiny along behind her, all about trees and Baba Yaga and of course I thought, ‘Who’d know about trees? The Forester, that’s who,’ and so here we are.”

  “Indeed,” said the Forester. “And did you happen on the wolf and the weasel as well?”

  “Eh?” Reginald glanced over at them. “Oh, right. The weaselly chap came along with Summer here, and we helped Glorious here out of a tight spot.”

  “And we will be in another tight spot in a moment, if I do not get clear of these trees,” said Glorious dryly. “Forester, is there a clear place where I may transform? It is nearly sunset.”

  “Do you wish to transform?” asked the Forester.

  “Wishes have little to do with it. I have no choice in the matter.” Summer felt his skin ripple and she slid hurriedly off him. The valet-birds swirled and landed along her arms. The weasel climbed into her pocket.

  Glorious shivered again and looked around for an opening in the trees.

  The Forester stepped forward and laid her hand on Glorious’s skull.

  “Be at peace,” she said.

  The wolf inhaled sharply.

  After a moment, he said, “You have stopped the change. I thank you, Forester.”

  “Not permanently,” said the Forester. “But I know what it is to be in a body where you do not belong. In the bounds of my power, you need not fear the change.”

  The Forester tossed her arm in the air, launching Reginald. He flapped down beside Summer, settling his neckcloth. “Told you she was amazing,” he whispered. “She’ll fix us right up.”

  Dusk spread out from under the trees. Glorious’s fur shone like a star.

  The Forester knelt down and cupped her hands together. Warm golden light flared up between her fingers.

  When she took her hands away, there was a tiny animal curled up in the leaves. It had quills like a porcupine, and every quill burned like a candle-flame.

  “Phoenix Hedgehog,” said the weasel. “You don’t see many of those any more.”