Soulwoven

by Jeff Seymour

  The flesh of the tree was soft, warm, and vibrant. It felt unusually alive, almost as if it had a mind of its own and was watching as she climbed. Sixty feet up, she was forced to stop and rest by Cole above her. He’d dug his hands into the steps and was pressed against the trunk of the tree, panting.

  Ryse was breathing hard herself, and she inhaled deeply. The tree’s scent was sweet. She closed her eyes and felt almost instinctively for the flow of the River.

  Her eyebrows twitched.

  The River was acting strangely.

  The flow through the forest had been calm and steady all morning, but around the tree it swirled in a rush, building into a standing wave of thousands of souls on one side and then spilling around it in torrents when the volume grew too great. The effect was a lot like the way the River responded to a powerful soulweaver. Ryse had never seen a tree, or anything but a human for that matter, cause an eddy like it.

  When she opened her eyes again, she found that her chin had fallen to her chest and she was looking down. Her muscles jerked her closer to the tree. Below her, she could see Litnig and Quay, still climbing. The view was dizzying, but she loved that feeling, loved the rush that came with vertigo.

  She smiled sheepishly. Cole’s feet were gone above her head. He was nearing the top of the steps, which disappeared when they reached the branches that formed the crown of the tree. Ryse could see a square platform built high in those branches, and a rope bridge as well, swinging over the wall to a matching platform on the other side. It wouldn’t be much longer to the top. Len had probably already reached it.

  Her curiosity about the tree grew as she climbed. She could sense the River building and releasing, building and releasing. The eddy centered on a point near the top of the tree. A single focus, like that of a human soul.

  Ryse reached for the next step and grasped air. A hand shot out and grabbed her wrist, and then she was looking into the concerned face of Dilanthia Lonecliff, who was squatting between two branches above her. Ryse smiled apologetically, and Dil helped her onto the branches and pointed out the path up to the platform. The tree’s limbs were wide and strong and steady, almost like a staircase. Len was clambering onto the platform already. Cole was just behind. Ryse set off in their wake, leaving Dil behind to help Litnig and Quay.

  Not ten minutes later, they were all standing on the platform, watching the rope bridge sway over the wall and catching their breaths. Litnig and Quay were gray-faced and sweating. The others looked less afraid, but only Dil seemed truly comfortable. The girl motioned for them to follow her over the bridge, told them they’d feel better once they were back down.

  “Wait,” Ryse said.

  The flow of souls around the tree was too odd to just pass by.

  “I want a closer look at this tree.”

  Cole looked flabbergasted, and she saw Litnig clamp a hand on his brother’s shoulder and look hesitantly to Quay. The prince’s lips were pale. He was keeping as close to the center of the platform as possible.

  “Why?” he asked, and she could see that his mouth was dry with fear.

  She explained. Quay looked nervously at the rope bridge and nodded. Cole groaned, but Ryse ignored him, ignored everyone, and focused on the tree.

  The boards creaked as she crossed to its trunk. The treetop swayed above. The wind whispered in the leaves, and she opened her eyes to the River of Souls and was pleased to find that even in the midst of such a strong eddy, there were hundreds of tiny spheres of light already welling around her. She breathed in gently with her soul and began to weave.

  She’d used the technique many times. The great secret of the soulweavers of the temple was a method by which they could animate virtually any substance—earth, rock, water, or even air or fire if the soulweaver was powerful enough. The weave Ryse used was the first part of that process, employed to determine the properties of the subject to be animated. She breathed out carefully, built a tether from her soul into the tree, and searched for its heart.

  She could feel its essence located near its crown, close to the place where the eddy in the River was. Her tether of souls crept cautiously through the dense, living flesh of the tree. There was something else there too, something strange, but she had only a split second to realize that before she made contact with the tree’s essence.

  Most essences appeared in her mind as small, glowing spheres of various colors. They were relatively unintelligent. They responded to her questions by making her feel emotions.

  This tree’s essence was a man.

  He sat cross-legged with his chin on his chest and his eyes closed. His garments were red and purple and cut in a very old style that wisped and shifted as she breathed, as if they weren’t completely real. His hair swept gently over his face in red-brown waves, and he had a goatee. He looked to be in his early thirties, strong, in the prime of his life.

  She blinked, and she couldn’t stop her mind from asking, What are you?

  The man’s chin rose from his chest. He stared at her and cocked his head to one side, as if unsure what was before him, then rose slowly to his feet. He stumbled a little, as she might’ve after being awakened from a long nap on an uncomfortable surface.

  I’m—a tree. His voice boomed deep and heavy around her, and as he said the last word, he let out a quick laugh—a loud, echoing bark that scattered through the blackness between their minds. He held a hand to his head and faltered as he stepped forward. Confusion swept over his copper-colored eyes.

  What are you?

  A dozen answers raced through her mind. A girl. A woman. A traitor. Confused. Bewildered.

  A soulweaver, she told him.

  The tree man’s jaw tightened. His eyes widened, and she saw deep darkness in them, deep age. He blinked and stared at his hand as if he wasn’t sure what it was, and then there was a spark of light in his eyes, some understanding that spread to his whole body. He hummed with energy, with vitality, with joy.

  A soulweaver, he said. A strong smile crossed his face. Me too.

  Ryse pursed her lips. It wasn’t possible. Her teachers had been clear. A tree couldn’t have a human soul. A tree couldn’t weave souls. She felt carefully for some sort of tether, some sort of link between the tree’s soul and a distant soulweaver, maybe one hidden by the anomaly she’d felt when she’d linked with the tree.

  But there was nothing. The anomaly had been him.

  His eyes grew clearer.

  You doubt me, he said, and a shiver went down her spine. She could feel his emotions, she realized, flowing in quiet waves up the tether that linked them. And if she could feel his, then he would feel hers.

  Were you of the Temple? she asked. What was your name? How did you—?

  The man frowned and crossed his arms. My name… he said. His hand went to his forehead. His eyes screwed shut, and he murmured, Reif. Reif Graywater. He opened his eyes again. The look of concentration left his face.

  Ryse became uncomfortably aware of his strength in the River. That was why the tree had altered it so strongly. His soul, asleep, pulling at it. And if he had a pull that strong while sleeping…

  His emotions flowed up the tether to her in a stream of curiosity and wonder and unfettered joy. It was difficult not to be swept up in them. She’d never touched the soul of another human before, not like this, and she realized that she wasn’t entirely prepared for it.

  You wonder how I got here, he said. It’s a long story.

  Old rumors tickled the back of her brain, about the risks of touching the soul of another, and the benefits—two students in the Academy had been caught doing it and had disappeared under the care of Division Nine shortly thereafter.

  How—? she began, but his thoughts raced ahead of hers. He was faster than her—smarter or stronger or both. She couldn’t be sure which.

  I don’t know, he said. She felt a burst of confusion, of fear, of shock. She had a singular feeling of being torn apart, and then the link to him went quiet. He looked at her.

&
nbsp; That’s all I remember, he said.

  Her heart bowed with sharp, heavy uncertainty. A man trapped within a tree. Such things weren’t supposed to exist. It was impossible to create life, or to tamper with the mechanisms that bound souls to it. Every soulweaver knew that.

  Yet here this man was, bound to a tree nonetheless.

  Reif’s eyes flashed.

  The Temple, he said. Forgive me, but I sense your connection to it. I’m sorry. He sighed, and a wind rippled between them. My generation failed the future in so many ways.

  A queasy feeling slid up the tether and into her gut. Her questions faded. She could feel his torture. Trapped between death and life, with no way to move on, no way to live, no way to die—unable to return to the River of Souls, to see the world or the face of Yenor or even the face of another human being.

  He seemed to sense her thoughts and smiled weakly. It’s not quite so bad as all that. Time moves quickly. You’ve come, and that’s something. And I’m never so alone as you think.

  He pulled a small, glowing ball of pale green light from his pocket. It whirled around his head and Ryse’s in the void between their minds, pulsing emotions. The edges of Ryse’s mouth tugged up—it was the essence of the tree as she’d expected it, and it seemed playful, more youthful than she would’ve expected in a plant so old.

  She looked more closely at Reif as the tree’s essence whirled around him. For a moment, he held his head at an angle that reminded her of a boy she’d known at the Academy. The boy’s face flashed before her, sharp and angular, but soft when he smiled. So soft—

  Leramis…

  The name tore from her mind without her permission and raced over the link, lubricated by emotions she didn’t want to share. Pain. Guilt. Agony. Remorse.

  The tether grew quiet. Reif’s eyes met hers and quickly dropped.

  I— she began, but thoughts of Leramis flowed into her mind unwanted. Of stolen handholds; small, soft kisses; whispers and smiles in dark, abandoned hallways.

  She fought to contain them, feeling utterly naked before the soul of an ancient man, and then as suddenly as they’d come, the memories were gone. Reif’s eyes were wide, his breathing quick, his hands shaking.

  It was him, she realized. He pulled those memories up.

  She could feel him holding back, trying not to dig, trying not to reach into her mind and take her deepest secrets just to know something, anything, about another human being. She felt deeply, terribly violated.

  His face flushed. I—I’m sorry. It’s difficult to— His face contorted, and his loneliness crept up the tether like a cold cloud. Your companions wish to move on, he said.

  It was a lie. She could feel it. He was afraid of his struggle with himself, and he wanted her to leave before he lost control again. His image wrapped its arms around itself and dimmed, and all the power in his soul did nothing to hide his needs, his wants, his fears from Ryse. The coldness in her heart, the feeling of being violated, faded.

  I won’t ask you to search for a way to free me, but if by chance, by some miracle— His voice broke, and he whispered, Please, don’t forget me.

  Ryse pitied him.

  She didn’t reach forward in her mind to comfort him. They were too close to begin with, and he’d taken too much from her already. Instead, she said, as kindly as she could, Of course not.

  The warmth of his hope spread through her veins as if it was her own. He looked up, shivering, and smiled. You have a good heart, soulweaver. Do you have a name?

  Ryse, she said.

  Ryse, he echoed. He held the word in his mouth like she would a dove in her hand. I’ll treasure the name.

  She felt her embarrassment creep along the tether.

  There’s one thing more, Ryse, he added. His eyes grew hard. The dragon. The Duennin. They’re real.

  Her heart slapped against her ribs in a sudden, loud tattoo. She felt like she’d been kicked in the chest.

  I’ve fought them, he said. And the destruction—you can’t imagine—

  He shuddered and took a deep breath. She could feel a flood of his memories straining to break free and crawl up the tether into her mind. His teeth ground together. If I can help you, Ryse, he said, use the tree’s soul to contact me. I give it to you freely.

  She nodded. She wasn’t sure if the panic in her chest belonged to him, to her, or to both of them.

  Go now, he said, and walk with the Grace of Yenor.

  In her mind’s eye, the shadowy image of Reif Graywater faded into blackness. Ryse felt him pushing at her tendril of souls with his will, prying himself gently from her grasp. The tether loosened and unraveled, and the flow of emotions stopped. The last thing she felt was the pain of his disconnection. Letting go of her had been the hardest thing he’d done in a thousand years.

  Her soul became her own again. Her awareness returned to her body. The wind whispered through the leaves and caressed the top of her scalp. Beneath her fingers, the trunk of the tree felt smooth and cold. She let out a long, deep breath.

  Her own memory of the dragon filled her mind.

  I am coming.

  She felt the sun on her back. The sweet smell of the trees filled her lungs.

  But nothing could dull the cold ache that memory woke in her heart.

  As Ryse backed away from the tree, a small spot on its trunk began to glow. A pale green ball of souls emerged from the light and floated freely in front of her, pulsing excited and happy emotions. The weave was astonishing in its complexity—thousands of souls arranged to support and anchor the soul of the tree, to make it capable of moving on its own and being seen even by those who couldn’t see the River. She could’ve spent a month studying it.

  She heard the others creep toward the treesoul. Toward her.

  Ryse took the little ball and tucked it into a pocket in her robe, where it hummed pleasant thoughts. She’d show it to the others later, on the ground. They’d be able to appreciate it better there.

  When she walked past Litnig, he looked as gray as if he’d been pricked in the neck by a wasp.

  Ryse tried not to think about why that might be.

  FOURTEEN

  Think of other things.

  A round, tiered city squatted a few miles ahead of Litnig like a spider in the dust. Beneath his feet, a red road slipped toward its creeping outbuildings inch by inch. The wind licked his scalp. Two rivers, one to the north and one to the northwest, winked orange and gold in the sinking sun as they fed into the metropolis and merged.

  He stood close enough to Ryse that he could hear her breathing. In. Out. In. She was almost near enough that he could feel the heat of her body.

  Think of other things.

  The treesoul buzzed over his head, and he swatted it away like he would a horsefly. He’d gotten used to the thing’s emotional telepathy over the week since he’d crossed into Nutharion, but he hadn’t gotten used to the soul itself. Ryse told him he could see it because it’d been coated in thousands of others, that it was a self-sustaining weave of incredible complexity. When she spoke of it, she used the same tone of voice she’d once employed to lecture him about the slums.

  He didn’t trust it. Or the ancient, tree-bound soulweaver who’d given it to her.

  Try as he might, Litnig couldn’t forget the emotions on Ryse’s face as she’d communed with the tree. Concentration. Surprise. Consternation. And then, momentarily, shy, creeping embarrassment. She’d blushed.

  Ryse had never once in her life blushed for him.

  He didn’t think of himself as a jealous person, but with her—with her he found it difficult not to be.

  Think of other things, he told himself.

  The city ahead of him was unlike any he’d seen before. It looked like a single piece of construction, its buildings linked to each other and built layer upon layer upon layer, getting higher toward the center until a slim tower, taller by half than any he’d seen in his life, shot from the middle of it like a baton.

  Nutharion City, h
e thought. Centerpiece of the powerful, soulweaver-ruled mageocracy to the west of Eldan. Focus of a thousand nasty rumors that his father had always told him smelled of lies.

  He inhaled deeply through his nose. They were upwind of the city, and the air smelled of green grasses and growing corn and the smallness of the rural world. He could still hear the songs of crickets in the fields beside the road.

  He wondered how long that would last.

  A few hours later, Litnig stood inside the quiet shadow of the spider city, tilting his chin to look up at it. The main road plunged ahead of him into a deeply shaded corridor beneath a flat layer of stone and mortar. Dozens of squat buildings supported the manmade plate, and on top of it yet more of them grasped like dirty fingers for the sky. Closer to the center of the city, he could see another plate built on top of them, and above and further in he saw more buildings and more plates, pillars glittering in the dying light, greenness that spoke of gardens and parks.

  “There are seven plates,” grunted Len Heramsun’s voice below him. The Aleani had craned his head back the same as Litnig. “And the city grows more expensive and more high class as you rise.” He was frowning, and after a moment he gestured to the darkness beneath the lowest plate.

  “Come,” he said. “We belong in the shadowlevel.”

  Litnig shared a glance with his brother as the Aleani stumped into the dusk beneath the city. Len claimed to have been to Nutharion City dozens of times, but Litnig couldn’t bring himself to trust him. Neither could Ryse or Cole. The three of them had talked in whispers the night before about who would watch the Aleani while they were in the city. Litnig had eventually drawn the duty.

  And as they’d talked, the treesoul had buzzed around his head.

  Think of other things.

  The outskirts of Nutharion City had been full of marvels. Soulweavers had stood on corners weaving pastel illusions in the air, blowing fire and ice at passersby, levitating heavy goods to the tops of buildings. Even the shopkeepers had worn the bold, monochrome robes of the soulweaving class.