by Eric Asher
The last song he played was interrupted by fire, and a ball of lead. His last vision was the boy in gray, marching over the fresh graves, screaming that Terrence’s daddy had killed his, but now he’d return the favor in kind. He recognized the boy. He couldn’t be more than fourteen, couldn’t understand what he was doing, taking up arms for the Confederacy, and murdering his one-time neighbor.
The boy never saw what got him. Never saw the shadow rise from the woods, the angry flare in the forest god’s eyes. One moment he was alive, and the next vines had risen from the forest floor and shot through him like spears.
The lumbering shadow kneeled beside Terrence. It spoke. “Your music was beautiful.”
In his last words, Terrence whispered, “I knew you were real.”
* * *
I broke away from the vision with a cry. Tears stung my cheeks, and I defiantly stared up at the forest god. His charge had slowed until he came to a stop not ten feet from us. But his eyes weren’t on me. They were on the glowing spirit beside me, the tattered and stained uniform of a friend gunned down.
“But you died,” the forest god said quietly, the spikes on his body slowly receding.
Terrence barked out a short laugh. “Yeah. It sucked. But I’m glad you were there.”
“And the shadows around you?” Dirge asked. “They are ghosts, too?”
Terrence nodded. “But I don’t know why you can see me and not them. We’re the same.”
“I think I know,” Dirge said. And he turned his gaze to me. “You spoke the truth.”
“I did.” I bit my tongue, not wanting any sarcasm to slip out and possibly anger the very, very large forest god. “We were only here for the vampires and those who would do harm to the ghosts and commoners of this place.”
Dirge gave a slow nod of his colossal head before turning his gaze back to Terrence. The vines in his chest moved, slowly revealing what lay beneath. Dirge reverently removed an ancient guitar from where he must have held it for over a century. I didn’t understand how it could be so well-preserved, but the magic of the Fae and the gods could be a strange thing indeed.
Dirge gently held the guitar out to Terrence, and the ghost glanced between me and the forest god.
“I can’t, though, can I?”
I nodded. “For a time. Oh, and you’ll probably be visible to the commoners, so you might want to stay out of sight for a little bit.”
Terrence’s solemn expression broke into a small smile and he reached out for the guitar. He hesitated at first, as if worried his fingers would pass right through the strings and the fretboard, but they didn’t. Whatever magic had preserved the guitar hadn’t kept the strings in tune, but they were still pliable enough for Terrence to fix that.
Dirge sank into the earth, until he was not much taller than us, though his face and shoulders were still quite a bit broader. “We lost friends here in the battle. But I could not play your song for them.”
Terrence gave the forest god a sad smile as his fingers danced. The strings resonated, and the music that vibrated out of that old wood pulled me right back into the visions of loss that Terrence had tried to soothe with his music. We listened in silence: the ghosts of the cemetery, the forest god, and the necromancer.
* * *
The skies grew dark, and Terrence must have been playing for an hour. The lilting notes at once soothing the loss and building a beautiful memorial to those Dirge couldn’t play for.
When the last note died, the forest god didn’t wear the expression of rage that I’d seen on him like a fixture in the battle, and even when I arrived here.
“Thank you,” Dirge said.
“I can teach you,” Terrence said. “If I have enough time.” He glanced back at me.
“You’ll be able to hold the guitar for at least a few days, and you’ll need to watch out for the commoners longer than that. And since Dirge here seems to have better perception than them, you’ll probably have a while to tutor him.”
“Done and done,” Terrence said. “If that don’t beat the Dutch.”
Dirge frowned and turned to me. “Why would you do this?”
“I need help,” I said. “The things we fought here, the vampires?”
Dirge nodded.
“They’re allied with Gwynn Ap Nudd, the Fae King. He’s managed to infiltrate some of our allies’ forces. They have spies who can control other Fae. Possess them.”
“That is a magic I thought lost long ago,” Dirge said. “There were not many who could use it, even in the days of the old wars.”
“Can you tell us who? It could save many lives.”
Dirge inclined his head. “There were five among the immortals, and a handful among the Fae, but each had disciples. It will be a matter of tracking them and their lineage.”
I nodded.
Dirge began giving me the names. Some of them sounded like they were longer than the freaking alphabet. But others I recognized. On the last one, I froze.
“Koda? Are you sure?”
“Of course,” Dirge said. “Why would I mention them if I wasn’t sure?”
I gave a small laugh. “Fair enough.” I typed Koda’s name into my phone and sighed. “There’s one other thing.”
“Ask,” Dirge said, looking at Terrence. “If I can help, I will tell you what I can.”
“The commoners have weapons, extremely powerful weapons. Somehow Nudd stole them, made them vanish. It’s creating more tension among the commoners than is normal.”
“And they are like animals,” Dirge said. “When they are frightened, they attack.”
I grimaced and nodded. “Can you help?”
“What is it you wish to know?”
“Where they are,” I said. “Or if Nudd plans to use them somehow.” And as stupid as it sounded, I asked it anyway. “I mean, he doesn’t have some kind of magic for uranium, does he?”
“The Fae have magic for nearly limitless applications. But of that, I doubt.” Dirge closed his eyes and tilted his head to the side. The earth around us rumbled, and the trees shook as if a shockwave had gone out and Dirge was the epicenter. He sat like that for a time, listening. Eventually, the forest god nodded. His eyes opened, and he turned his gaze back to me.
“I have found what you seek.”
“Seriously?”
“The spirits are quiet, young one. And there is ill will toward you and your allies.”
“Ill will,” I said. “That’s a really nice way of putting it.”
“You slew the green men when the queen of the water witches fell.” Dirge looked into the distance for a moment then returned his gaze to me.
“They didn’t exactly give me a choice,” I said. “If I wouldn’t have killed them, they would’ve killed us.”
“That is an odd thing for a green man,” Dirge said. “They are not warlike. I fear that in the absence of the goddess, they are losing their way.”
“Gaia,” I said, remembering Morrigan’s words. “I know Gaia.” I placed my hand over my chest. “I walked with her in the Abyss.”
“With a ghost, perhaps,” Dirge said. He hesitated after those words, his eyes focusing on Terrence for a time.
I might have held back, but Morrigan’s words came back to me. Anything I could share would be like a gift to the green men and the forest gods. “She was imprisoned by the Mad King. Her hand cut off below the elbow.”
“How could one sever the limb of the goddess?” Dirge asked. “For she is the size of the worn mountains of this state. I know of few Fae who could defeat her.”
“Gaia has more than one form,” I said. “The Mad King enthralled her when she was not much bigger than a human.” I hesitated, and then nodded to myself. I opened my backpack and dug out the hand of glory. Gaia’s hand.
“Your goddess yet lives,” I said, holding Gaia’s hand reverently. “She is beneath the earth in this state.”
Dirge remained silent, his eyes locked on the hand.
“She offered me her po
wers,” I said. “But we can’t trust the compulsions placed upon her by the Mad King.”
“That is no mortal arm you hold there.”
“No, it isn’t.”
He reached out slowly, tentatively. As if he was watching a dream, and any movement might wake him from it. But the vines that made the tips of his fingers stretched out just a little and rested on Gaia’s palm.
“There is still much power in this arm,” Dirge said. “I don’t understand. She’s been dead, lost to us, for millennia.”
“Not dead. Just sleeping, trapped, and waiting for a new dawn.”
Dirge drew his hand back. “She could not offer her gifts to a mortal. You reek of lies necromancer, but you show me truths. It is … unsettling.” He frowned, the bark around his lips curling down. “A deathspeaker? A necromancer? She would keep her powers in the realm of life.”
I looked at the edge of the broken forest around us and walked toward the woods. “Not all my powers are death. Promise me something.”
“You seek my word? Why would I give it?”
“If I prove to you that I have the powers over life as well as death, I need you to speak to the green men, or the forest gods, or whatever spirits it was you tried to speak to. Tell them I am Gaia’s ally. Tell them she still lives, and she was betrayed by the Fae who serve under Gwynn Ap Nudd.”
Dirge studied me for a moment as I got closer to the tree line. I turned and faced him squarely, a strange visage standing among the tombstones surrounded by a group of ghosts.
He once again glanced to Terrence and then said, “Prove your word to me, and you will have mine.”
“Vadonon arbustum sero,” I said, and the power in the ley lines lanced out to meet me. I felt the roots of the grass first, before I found the dying remnants of the trees. Root balls and shattered stumps barely clinging to life, and some too far gone for me to do anything about. But there were saplings here, even seedlings, and if that’s what it took to get Dirge’s word, to find out what Gwynn Ap Nudd had done with the world’s nuclear arsenal, then so be it.
I kneeled. The blue flashes of the ley line energy grew green, and I spread my hands out upon the earth. Power rose, crashing into my knees and toes as it railed against the earth. I never thought of this magic as my domain, but Cara had long ago proven me wrong. I didn’t think she could have known I would one day have to prove myself to a forest god, but the thought was reassuring; that she was still with me, and in some ways, I supposed she always would be.
The grass curled around my fingers and grew around my wrists as I felt the specter of death creeping through lands, stalking Dirge, but I didn’t let up. The ley line energy surged out, pulling life from the very earth, from the decay that ate the dead things, the life that came from death. And those magics twisted together until they found the broken trees, the shattered trunks, and new life surged through them. I leaned into the grass, and it held me up as I opened my aura to a degree I hadn’t in years. Slowly, the magic started to recede, but the saplings hadn’t grown more than a few inches. I forced the gaps in my aura wider, and cried out, “Vadonon arbustum magnus sero!”
My sight grew hazy as pain screamed through my limbs. It felt as though I might burst into flame as the power seemed to superheat the entire world. But it wasn’t like the fire incantations. It didn’t blister my skin or singe the hair from my body. This was different. This was peaceful, even in the pain. I screamed as my vision returned and green light burst forth from the forest around us. Bark creaked, and the green flesh of new saplings rocketed into the air.
“Stop, necromancer!” Dirge shouted, his voice booming with renewed life. “Your point is made! I will do as you ask! Let go, and I will finish this.”
Dirge took a step forward, reaching out as if he could touch the power. And perhaps to some degree he could, as the burden and pain of the spell lifted away.
I let the power fade as I slowly locked down the channels I’d carved into my aura. The ley line energy drained back into its normal ebb and flow, only to be snapped up by the intricate movements of Dirge’s hands. I looked around and smiled before my vision swam, and the world went black. But in that moment, I saw the new trees, the saplings born from destruction, and the seedlings that were now as tall as I.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
I awoke to a sad guitar. But despite the melancholy notes, the guitarist wore a smile. The ghosts gathered around a small fire in the dark of Greenville.
I tried to make sense of what had happened. It was no longer twilight—darkness reigned around me. If I’d been asleep that long, I wondered where my friends were. Why hadn’t they come to find me?
I pulled my phone out and frowned at the screen. No missed calls. No texts.
“Your friends know you’re safe,” Dirge said. “I sent word to Stump at Rivercene.”
“Did I tell you they were there?”
Dirge shook his head. “No, but I felt your connection to the goddess. I felt the line of power that stretched outside this realm and wove back into Rivercene. I understand now why Stump has made that place his home, and I see why he gathers more of the green men to him.”
“Thanks,” I said, a bit woozy as I sat up. I’d unleashed too much power in that spell. Exhaustion had settled into my bones.
“I believe you could have used a less dramatic means of proving your word,” Dirge said. “But I am grateful for the forest reborn.” He paused and looked down at his bark-covered hands. “And for my life restored. You have healed me, necromancer.”
I groaned and turned slightly so I could see the woods behind me. I blinked at the restored trees. The new growth, and the long-fallen woods that had been sown back into the earth.
“Huh,” I said.
“That was a hell of a thing,” Terrance said. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen Dirge impressed before.”
Dirge sat down beside me, crossing his legs as part of his body sank into the grass until the top of his head was no higher than a shrub. “You have proven your word, and I have honored mine.”
“Yeah?” I asked, rubbing my neck.
“The weapons you seek were taken through the Warded Ways, delivered not to oblivion.”
I cursed. “If Nudd can take them through the Warded Ways, does he intend to use them on Faerie? Can he even detonate them in Faerie?” But even as I asked the question, I had little doubt Nudd could do terrible things without needing to circumvent the conventional human fail-safes.
“They are in the vaults deep beneath Falias,” Dirge said. “They are still here, in your world, and a danger to all.”
“Can’t get much worse than that.”
“The weapons cache is guarded by Hern and his army.”
“I stand corrected,” I muttered.
“Go to Rivercene,” Dirge said. “Your allies await you, and the evidence of your sister’s innocence should arrive there shortly. You need to rest, necromancer. Your fight is not yet done.”
I said my goodbyes to Dirge and Terrence and the ghosts of the cemetery, listening to the sad notes of that old guitar as I left. Dirge watched, a small smile on his face as his eyes locked on the hand of glory. I laced my fingers into Gaia’s and stepped into the Abyss.
* * *
“Rivercene, please,” I said before the stars of the Abyss resolved around me.
“I could hear them,” Gaia said, a crease in her brow that showed a level of pain I’d rarely seen on the goddess’s face. “The forest gods call out to me in a way they have not in a great many years.”
“I don’t think they realized you were still alive, but they do now. I hope that’s okay.”
“I am glad.” A frown flashed across her face. “There is no harm in them knowing I am here in some form. If I could but walk the earth once more, Damian, I could help you.”
I met the Titan’s golden gaze for a moment, waiting to see if that declaration would cause her some kind of pain, if it would go against the Mad King’s compulsions, or if the awakening of a Tit
an could truly benefit us. It was a seductive thought, especially knowing what was out there in the world. Knowing that the stockpiles of world-killing weapons the commoners were so fond of were now in Gwynn Ap Nudd’s possession.
“I’d sure miss having you as a guide in the Abyss,” I said.
“That is not a power unique to me. What is perhaps unique to me is my ability to gift it to another. I promise to grant you some of my powers if I should awaken, and that is not a promise I will break.”
Walking through the Abyss with Gaia didn’t seem to tear open the fabric of reality as the portals the Mad King once conjured had, resulting in the tangled, insane network known as the Warded Ways. But if she gave that power to me, granted me that gift, I wouldn’t trust myself with it. Would I cause damage like the Mad King had? But I couldn’t be sure if Gaia spoke of her own volition, or if some of the things she said were the remnants of a long-dead madman.
“We are here,” Gaia said. “There are a great many of my children here. Bid them greetings, if it is agreeable.”
“I will.”
Gaia nodded and released my hand. Exiting the Abyss was never exactly the same. The last time Gaia had brought me to Rivercene, she had dumped me and Nixie into the river. But today I blinked and took a half step back as the front door of the old mansion materialized in front of me. So close, in fact, that I could reach out and turn the doorbell even though I already heard footsteps in the hallway.
“I’m coming,” the innkeeper grumped from the other side of the door. “I’m coming!”
I smiled down at the old doorbell that worked by twisting it—the only one like it I’d ever seen—and the door frame that looked like carved rope. Multiple deadbolts clicked before the door swung open.
“We aren’t buying bullshit today,” the innkeeper said. “So keep it to yourself.” She stepped aside to let me in. The innkeeper was always grumpy. Hell, she made Zola look downright peppy some days.