A Dying Land

by K. Ferrin

  Fern and Ling moved to the lip of the pool and climbed out, trying to squeeze as much water out of their clothes as possible. Ling debated drying herself with the blankets on the bed, wondering how long the flesh-eating organisms that made up the biolumesce could survive out of water. She felt certain this was Fariss’s private chamber—he would never let anyone else so close to that pool. If he were to lie on the damp blankets sometime later in the day, would enough of the creatures survive to destroy him?

  She resisted the urge and instead followed Fern across the room to listen at the door. Fern pushed the door open slowly and then stepped through. Ling followed on her heels, closing the door softly behind them.

  She turned to find that they were in a massive library with bookcases filling every wall from floor to ceiling. Large tables were scattered throughout the space, some stacked high with books, others empty. Overstuffed chairs and sofas also littered the room, low fires burned in several fireplaces, and warm lamps cast gentle light everywhere. The room was clean and warm and homey, a combination Ling never would have expected given what she’d seen of the place on her last visit.

  They walked slowly through the room, keeping to the edges. They moved silently toward a large set of double doors, which were wide open and inviting. The doors led out into a wide atrium filled with the tops of trees and flowering vines. Ling could make out the yawning entrances of hallways jutting out from the atrium in all directions.

  As they stepped through the doors, two forms suddenly came into view in a hallway off to their left. Ling and Fern ducked back into the library and watched as two women strolled along a walkway that ran beside an atrium. They wore long robes of deep purple and walked arm in arm, heads close in intimate conversation. Ling could hear the low hum of their voices, but she was unable to make out any of their words.

  “How many do you think are here?” Ling whispered.

  Fern lifted her shoulders in reply, stepped forward, and stole a quick glance over the low wall in front of them, peering downward toward the bottom of the atrium. The center of the fortress was filled with a thick garden. The plants were enormous. She couldn’t see it from where she stood, but the central garden had to stretch from the top to the bottom of the entire building. It was a riot of color and life, and plants of every sort filled the space near to bursting. But it was not the careless abandon often found in nature. It was clear this garden had been meticulously planned, the abundant life tightly controlled by its maker.

  Ling stepped next to Fern and darted a quick look over the wall, scanning the space below for warlocks. Her breath caught in her throat. The atrium did indeed stretch for several stories, but what had halted her breath was the number of people she could see moving quietly along each floor. The floor she and Fern were on seemed to be the most sparsely populated.

  “We’ll never make it down there.”

  “Oh yes we will,” said Fern. Ling looked at her and found that the other woman’s eyes were pinned on the largest specimen in the atrium, a massive tree thickly covered with branches, which in turn were heavily draped in a vine with dinner-plate-sized purple flowers. Fern darted off along the perimeter, making her way toward the far side of the atrium. Ling stuck with her. As they came around the last corner, she was finally able to see what Fern had seen all along.

  A large branch had managed to grow within easy reach of the floor they stood on. Without pausing, Fern leapt onto the branch and scurried along it until she reached the trunk. The light in the space was dim enough, and the foliage thick enough, that she vanished into it. Ling smiled in relief and scurried along the branch after Fern.

  They lowered themselves branch by branch down the tree, sticking to the heavy protection closest to the trunk. They paused from time to time, watching and listening for any sign of detection. Warlocks were all around them, sometimes close enough for the two women to pick up random bits of their conversation, but they remained unseen and unheard.

  The heavy foliage went right down to the ground floor, dark and quiet and empty of warlocks. They slipped out of the atrium and made their way to a gaping hole in a natural stone wall. This part of Shadowhold was familiar to Ling. She hadn’t looked back to examine the doorway as she and Fern had fled the dungeon during their last escape from this place, but there was no doubt that was where they were. Peering back up the walkway, Ling could see the doorway to the closet that had hidden the crack they’d fled through.

  They moved through the doorway with great caution, but they did not encounter anyone as they moved. The way was dark, and Ling dragged a hand along either wall of the narrow hallway to guide her in the darkness. They wound downward for several minutes before they began to see flickering firelight. As they came around a dark corner, the dungeon opened up in front of them, just as Ling had read about in the grimoire.

  It was a massive, shadowy, round room. In the center of the space was a large wooden rack. Alyssum hung there, head tipped limply forward. She was stretched so tightly, Ling could see the unnatural bulging of her joints. Ling scanned the room, looking for any indication that they were not alone. She and Fern exchanged a glance, and each of them moved slowly in opposite directions around the edges of the dim room. The only sound was the steady plunk of dripping water.

  When they were certain they were alone, they both rushed to Alyssum’s side. Ling lifted her head, patting her cheek lightly.

  “Alyssum, wake up,” she said while Fern worked at the restraints, struggling to get them undone.

  “Alyssum,” Ling repeated, shaking her gently. Alyssum moaned and seemed to try to open her eyes. They rolled back into her head, and she went quiet again.

  “Got it,” Fern said. “Hold onto her.”

  Alyssum slumped down into Ling’s arms, and she lowered the woman gently to the ground. Fern came around to her other side and sobbed as she stared into Alyssum’s slack face.

  “Look what they’ve done to her.”

  Her body was slick with blood and her own filth. Two fingers were missing, along with one toe, and every one of her claws had been torn off. A black bruise the size of Ling’s splayed hand was spreading along the right side of Alyssum’s ribcage. Ling was no healer, but she thought there must be internal bleeding there.

  “I’ll carry her. You find a way out of here,” Ling said.

  Fern dropped to her knees, palms flat against the stone floor and closed her eyes. Ling patted Alyssum’s cheek, trying to get the woman to wake up while doing her best to ignore the voice in her head screaming at her to run.

  A loud clapping shattered Ling’s focus, and she spun around in surprise.

  “Bravo, bravo. Of course, it’s quite easy when we let you through all the usual defenses.” Fariss stood near the doorway into the dungeon, clapping his hands together as if in appreciation of some great performance. Spread out on either side of him were at least a dozen more warlocks, all grinning and clapping along.

  Treantos must have warned Fariss they were coming. Ling shook with rage when she thought of what hid beneath that friendly face of his.

  “I figured you would come,” Fariss said, gesturing to Fern. “But I was certain they’d keep you locked away someplace safe, Ling.”

  He strolled forward slowly, approaching them. Fern jumped to her feet and pushed Ling, who still held Alyssum in her arms, back toward the wall, stepping in front of them. Ling’s heart pounded in desperation, and she looked frantically for some way out.

  “I am not often wrong. But I am thrilled to have been wrong about this.” Fariss turned his head, looking at the warlocks around him as they laughed, a sound that made Ling’s skin crawl.

  Fern nudged Ling gently to get her attention and glanced upward briefly. Ling looked up to find an open ceiling. It didn’t go far, but in the narrow confines of that space she was able to make out a blackened grate. It was impossible to know where it went, but it went somewhere other than here. The problem was that it was at least twenty feet up the wall—she’d never reach it
.

  But they might.

  Fern and Alyssum could reach that grate easily if they both had time to transform. She glanced back at Fern and blinked slowly, trying to tell Fern to go for it.

  “What a day this is!” Fariss crooned. “All those years spent trying to figure out how to end this war, to get control of the last bit of magic, and here you three just hand it over to me!”

  Ling wanted to bury a knife in his gloating face, but she studied Fern instead. Alyssum was unconscious. The only way to get her through the grate would be to carry her, but could Fern do that once she was in dragonfly form?

  If Fern would take Alyssum up through that grate, that would leave Ling to find her way back underground. She’d never find her way out, but she could get so deep into the cave system below that Fariss could never reach her. Fern would find her there. Eventually.

  She looked over at the warlocks arrayed before her, and something clicked into place. They could not hurt her, not really. They could make her feel pain, but physical pain was a price she would gladly pay if it meant saving those she loved. She would distract Fariss, giving Alyssum and Fern the time they needed to escape. He couldn’t kill her, and he didn’t yet know what she was. Even if he caught her, the effort he spent trying to make more of her or learning what she really was would give Alyssum and Fern enough time to seal the breach. Or flee and go deep into hiding.

  Ling clenched her fists tightly at her sides and took a deep breath.

  “Fern!" she bellowed at the top of her voice as she shoved Alyssum’s limp form into Ferns hands and sprinted straight at Fariss.

  Fariss stopped moving, eyes opening wide in astonishment. She could just make out the other warlocks leaping into action, their eyes on her as they moved to bodily stop her or fumbled with spells to restrain her. She dared a quick look back as she barreled into Fariss and saw fear and regret on Fern’s face. The woman’s lips formed an O, as if she’d just shouted, “No!” Ling heard nothing but the thudding sound of flesh on flesh, harsh breathing, and muttered curses as the warlocks tried to stop her. She felt a moment’s regret as Fern’s form glittered with a bright light.

  Her impact lifted Fariss off his feet and slammed him onto his back. The other warlocks bowled into her, and she lost her footing, going down in a seething mass of bodies. She squirmed and wriggled her way through until, suddenly, she was free. The door was in front of her, unblocked by magic or warlock. She scrambled to her feet, fending off a dozen grasping hands, and sprinted for the door. She could hear the murmur of spell work all around her, and she leaped through the door, not daring to pause long enough for a glance back.

  Please, make it out, she thought madly as she threw herself up the steps.

  Please. Please. Please make it out.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Ling raced up the steps and through the hallway, bursting out at the base of the towering garden at full tilt. There were no doors or windows leading out of this level, just a winding staircase that wrapped around the interior perimeter of the fortress and the closet she and Fern had originally escaped from. She could hear the pounding of feet behind her, and she sprinted to the steps, taking them two at a time. The next floor also lacked doors and windows. She cursed herself for not paying more attention as they’d climbed down here in the tree. The noise from her pursuers was getting louder.

  She reached the third floor and was relieved to finally see doors. She slowed enough to try their knobs, but found most of them locked. Those that were unlocked she threw wide open, pausing just long enough to unsuccessfully scan the spaces within for an exit. There must be a door, she thought as she raced to the stairs. They get in and out somehow!

  She slid around the corner to the fourth floor and came face to face with two red-faced warlocks. They slid to a stop in shock as she came into sight. She used their surprise to her benefit and leapt over the railing, throwing herself into the branches of the tree. She fell several feet before catching hold of a branch. She began swinging madly upwards, but she had only been climbing for a couple moments when the crowd of warlocks she’d evaded in the dungeon finally spilled out onto the fourth floor landing. They fanned out, surrounding her. She paid them no mind, focusing her attention instead on climbing as fast as she could force her limbs to move.

  She heard a low murmuring begin to build below her and forced herself to climb faster. The tree, so solid only a second before, began bowing beneath her weight, as if it were made of heated wax. She focused her eyes on the top and climbed, but she knew she’d never make it. The top of the tree sagged to one side, bowing downward and taking her with it. She maneuvered herself around to the far side of the tree and leapt wildly for the railing. She caught it with one hand, dangling dangerously for several seconds while she struggled to get her other hand up over the rail. Swinging, she managed to hook her foot over the railing and rolled up and over to land on the rug.

  Before she could regain her feet, the wall behind her exploded. Rock flew in every direction, and the resulting cloud of dust blinded her. The floor beneath her tilted, a chunk of wall to her left falling away and taking the floor below it out as it went. Wind buffeted her, and as the dust cleared, she realized a hole had been blown right through the wall. She climbed to her feet and moved toward it.

  “You idiot!” she heard Fariss yell from somewhere down below. “You’ll bring the whole place down on top of us!”

  She leaned out over the jagged edge of the hole to find that she was very high up. It was still dark, and morning was still hours away. She could just make out where the stone that supported Shadowhold jutted out below her. It was too dark for her to see all the way to the ground, but it didn’t matter. She’d never be able to leap far enough to get past those protruding rocks. If she jumped, she’d fall right into them.

  “She’s there! I see her!”

  “Get up a wall!”

  Shadows emerged out of the dust and debris around her, blocking her from escaping through the building. She once again heard the alien mumbling of spell craft. She looked down at the jutting rocks so far below her. If she stayed, they would capture her, torture her. Worse, there might still be time for them to catch Alyssum and Fern. If she jumped, she would have at least a chance of breaking free.

  She had been beaten and battered many times since leaving home. The pain had blown her mind apart, but the magic had neatly stitched her body back together. She had walked away from it every time, and she would walk away from it this time too. The only real threat was the warlocks slowly approaching through the dust. She wondered if Fern and Alyssum had made it out.

  She turned and looked at the grime-covered faces moving toward her. From where she stood, she could see Fariss on the far side of the atrium, the half-melted tree slumping between them. They shared a long glance, his face twisted in frustrated rage, hers placid and still. She felt a tingling in the air behind her and knew she was out of time. She gripped the bag with the grimoire in both hands, spun on her heel, and stepped off the crumbling ledge of stone.

  She went weightless and, oddly, still. For a brief moment she wondered if the ledge had sprung wildly away from her while she hung in mid-air. But seconds later she hit the stones below with a sickening crunch. She felt her body compress in unnatural ways as she tumbled. Her neck snapped. An arm was torn from its socket as it caught in a crevice. She smashed face-first into a jutting corner and felt teeth separate from gum. She bounced violently far longer than she would have thought possible before landing with a splash in a deep pool of opaque pink water.

  She floated face down for several long moments while her brain tried to catch up to her body. She was broken, bones jutting where they shouldn’t be. She couldn’t move. But she had no choice.

  It’s not real.

  She forced her body to work the way she knew it could. She raised her head, staring through the murky darkness around her, trying to figure out where she was. With a start, she realized she was on the bay of Malach, and off in the dis
tance was the great wall holding the Mare Tenebrarum at bay. The sea without light. A vast expanse of blackness. They would never find her there.

  She forced herself to dive down into the pink water until she reached the bottom of the bay and began to swim toward the great seawall. They would stop at nothing to find her. The only way she would get out of this was if she could lose herself in the Mare Tenebrarum.

  But in the end there was no way through the seawall. She searched and searched through the darkness until she was forced to admit she’d have to cross the wall at Malach, leaving the same way she arrived.

  She shot up to the surface to scan the bay around her. She was far from Shadowhold, and the world around her was empty for now. She’d need to find a place to rest for the remainder of the night. A place she could wake up and safely read through her memories.

  Her mind jumped to the dozens of abandoned ships that had floated in the harbor, their owners long dead or now wandering the wasteland of the Colli Terra. She swam until she found one that was half underwater it was so rotted through. But she could climb in and out of it through a hole in the hull, never disturbing the tattered remnants of the cover still over it.

  She hauled herself up into the driest corner she could find and curled up tightly into a ball. She wrote furiously in the grimoire by the light of the moon that filtered through the tattered boat cover. She was terrified of sleeping here, of waking up in terrible danger in a strange location without any memory of what had transpired, but she had done it before and survived. She rolled over onto her back and stared upward at the moldy remnants of the cover over her head and wondered how she would ever find Fern again.