by S. M. Beiko
“And whatever the girl’s fate or my son’s crimes . . .” Solomon cannot bear to recall his nephew’s broken body, barely clinging to life, but he forces himself to revisit the image, knowing it was the doing of his son and the thing he has become. “. . . they will be judged accordingly if they survive. The Narrative is in their hands, now.”
*
The trees grew thicker the farther in we went. They were all dead, branches twisted and burnt yet stretched towards the misty light in a murky sky. I coughed, nostrils stinging from the bitter smoke.
“Wonder where the source of the fire is,” I asked, less looking for an answer and more trying to fill the silence. We hadn’t heard any more screams or booming for a while, and Eli had retreated into himself.
He made a face and grunted through his nose. “I think this entire place is just a landscape of ash. Hell’s aftermath, or something like it.”
That we’d stumbled into some kind of hell made sense, given how nightmare fodder was pretty much everywhere we looked.
I glanced behind us, the single chain that tethered us together dragging softly in our wake. Taking a longer look, I saw it extended way back past the horizon where we had begun. Seeing it reassured me there was a way out of this place, but the clock felt like it was ticking, and going back empty-handed didn’t seem like an option. The truth hovered beyond the smoke around us.
“Wonder how much more of a leash we have,” I muttered. Eli stared straight ahead, his eyes seeming to change colour from grey to gold. Maybe a trick of the nonlight. Or maybe he was fighting the urge to choke me to death with my sarcasm and stupid questions.
He looked my way and my cheeks burned, and not in a human-torch sort of way. Why the hell was I blushing? In the silence I’d remembered clearly that this guy wanted me dead, somewhere in his heart of hearts. Maybe we were dating? No, that sounded way wrong. Then I realized that I maybe wanted his respect, or at least his trust. Or maybe I was just embarrassed that he’d caught me looking, because I was a terrible sleuth . . . “You’re not terrible, but you could work on the subtlety,” he mused.
I flinched and went from embarrassment to wrath. “You can read minds?” I jeered, afraid to raise my voice and conjure more worms or worse. “Do me a favour and stay the hell out of my head!”
It was Eli’s turn to be insulted. “I didn’t do it on purpose!” he scowled. “I doubt you’ve got anything remarkable in there, anyway.”
I prickled and brought us up short. “Listen, you high and mighty ding-dong. I have value. Or else I wouldn’t be here. So unless you want full-body third-degree burns —”
“Relax,” Eli sighed, pinching his nose. “I’m sorry. It just happened.” He didn’t seem like he wanted to make a concession, but he did so anyway: “There are so many things swirling around in my mind that I don’t understand. So I just . . . reached out. To get out of my head. And yours was just so open and calm. I didn’t . . . mean to intrude.”
We walked on. Did his face just colour, or did he have total command over his blood vessels, too? I was about to crankily forgive him, but then, losing all empathy he’d just apologized for not having, he said, “And I’m sorry about your parents. I know what it’s like. To be alone.”
My throat thickened. “My . . .” Yes, they’re dead, I realized distantly. They’d been dead a long time, too, though I’d only just recently discovered the truth of how they’d died, and what for. My breath hitched, and I narrowed my eyes at Eli. How far was I from joining them? And what game was he playing?
“My mother died, too,” Eli admitted as we trudged. He touched his chest, where the Moonstone was. “She raised me alone. This used to belong to her, but it destroyed her.”
I suddenly felt guilty for threatening him and the delicate common ground we shared. “I’m . . . sorry,” I said, and I meant it, though I was still suspicious. “Is it going to destroy you, too?”
“Eventually,” said a third voice, and we stiffened.
We had broken out of the knot of burnt death and into a clearing. A felled tree was just beyond, seeping black ooze into the cracked earth.
No, not ooze. Blood. The tree had been alive and pulsing with it. The screams had been the tree’s, its roots now ripped clean of the ash they had once called home.
The source of the voice was a rock by the hole the tree had rent as it died. Suddenly the rock moved. A living creature straightening to its full, massive height. The creature’s body was a muddle of spines and slate monoliths. It turned to face us, six topaz eyes arranged in an inverted triangle weighing every doubt we had as we stood before it. Its hands were shaped like axe blades and covered in the blood of the tree. A huge, tree-murdering mountain.
A crooked grin appeared in the crack of its stone face. “A stone-bearer and a firefox come to my garden,” said the mouth. “You have come for the targe, at last.”
Well, so much for subtlety. Eli and I exchanged an anxious glance. As I ogled the thing before us, memories snapped into place. “You’re Urka. The Gardener.”
Its hands were no longer axes, but separate fingers of knives. Instead of responding, it clinked the blades together as though it was scoring the air. Then its body was no longer shaped like a hulking stone but a spindly set of limbs that stretched. “Is that what they’re calling me in the Uplands, these days?” Its arms morphed and twisted, knife-hands raking the ground and churning the earth. “I’ve had many names. But it is nice to know I am remembered by my favourites.”
“What are you doing?” Eli asked, feigning curiosity even though he probably knew the answer. He was stroking Urka’s ego, and we moved forward, apparently to show investigative courtesy.
The smile deepened. “Gardening.”
One of its arms shot down into the hole left behind by the tree. It rooted around until it plucked something alive and throbbing. With all the tenderness of a mother, Urka brought the thing to its mouth, then gently placed it in the new hole. The blood of the felled tree seeped into it, and a spiny black shoot fingered its way through the soil.
“These are my Hope Trees. The damned reach towards the world they remember, to try to escape their misery. Just as they think they are close to breaking through the sky, I cut them down and replant them.” Urka bared teeth that I could have sworn had teeth of their own. “Nothing tortures more than a hope.”
My toes curled in my boots. I chanced a quick look to the trees surrounding the clearing, trying to ignore that the twisting of their bark suddenly looked like tortured faces and bodies, desperate to escape . . . a garden, indeed.
“Their roots go deep.” Urka gestured to the felled tree. “Deep down to the Darkling Hold. Their hopes torment my remaining two masters, and I cannot have that. My masters grow restless waiting for their turn.”
Darkling? The remaining two? This sounded like a story I’d heard before. My mind clicked again, and I tilted my head. “There were three down there once.” I pointed down. “In the Hold, I mean.”
Urka patted the soil one last time, with love. “Zabor has mighty work to complete. I admire her.”
God, these nonanswers were driving me insane. “Look, let’s skip to the part where you hand over the targe-thingy, and we let you get back to your super-sick hobby. We’re kind of in a crunch.” I held my hand out.
Suddenly Urka was huge and powerful again, arms heavy with their axe blades. The smile was gone, but there was still a mouth. It slammed an axe into its chest, shale shattering to reveal a disc of green crystal glinting around its neck.
“I am nothing if not a servant,” spoke the mouth. “If you take this talisman from me, I will be dishonoured, and my mistress will detest me. Her love is worse than her scorn, but I would have the one over the other. And I would rather have your blood to keep our garden fresh. That is fair to me.”
In one clean arc, the axe swung down on another tree, burying deep into its flesh. It sc
reamed, begging for the chance to stay alive, to hope for freedom. I moved to cover my ears, but Eli yanked my hand back to my side.
“Would you make a trade for it, then?” Eli offered, as if there were no tortured wails echoing up and down the woods.
Urka pulled the blade free, staring at the fresh blood there. “Hmm. An exchange?” Urka held a blade to its mouth, smearing the dark ooze on its face with a strange delight. Then it huffed, and its skin rent apart, revealing coals glowing beneath the surface of the cracks rippling all over its body. A hole irised open in its belly, revealing a black furnace inside. It axed off the twisted branches of its newest tree-victim and fed it bleeding and screaming into the hungry, purple flames.
The smoke was foul and exhausted out of Urka’s many eyes. I tried to force mine back into my head and keep a passive face, but I whirled on Eli. “And what kind of trade do you have in mind, boss?”
He turned to me, as though it were obvious. “I offer my prisoner, this lowly firefox who seeks to supplant your mistress,” and he shoved me forward as far as the chain would allow. Naturally, I snapped back like a yo-yo, the warmth buried deep within me stoking higher.
“What —”
“Yes,” Urka agreed, “what would I need with a firefox? My flame is darker and more beautiful than the children of the First Fox. It burns away the light. It lodges in the hearts of the brave. And Foxes are too common for my taste.” The demon continued to hack away at the tree-flesh, which seemed to try to shrink away from each stroke. Urka fed its belly-furnace, stoking the black fire. “Whether it was Deon herself burning our glorious land into the ruin you see, or that upstart Ravenna who tried to take the targe from me once before, I grow tired of the red beasts.”
My vision tunneled and my soul contracted. Ravenna. Beautiful. Strong. Doomed.
Mother.
“Ravenna was my mother,” I seethed, the air around me shimmering as something inside me snapped into place. “Where is she?”
Urka laughed, laughed long and low and with so much intense pleasure that I could feel sparks coming off my eyelashes as the rage within me built.
“Why, I cannot recall if I incinerated her or planted her. Or if I offered her to my masters as benefaction. What I do remember is that there will be pieces of her scattered across the Bloodlands for millennia to come. And you will never find one.” Urka was feeding itself frantically now, the tree it consumed silenced, each branch making the demon grow larger.
Not one to be forgotten, Eli cleared his throat. “This Fox is the daughter of your enemy. And seeks to undo Zabor’s great work in the Uplands. Would you betray your masters by letting her go?”
Urka seized, the belly-furnace belching cinders and charred wood-flesh. “I exist to serve the damned. You question my loyalty?”
Eli grabbed a hold of my hand, wincing as he was clearly being burnt for doing so, but he held fast. His eyes were clear, and so was his intent. There was a smile there.
“I question your sense of value. What good is an old piece of glass to a creature of your standing when held up against a traitor to those you serve? The blood of your enemy would seed your trees well.”
Urka’s red eyes glinted with mania, and its enormous feet churned towards us. “You mock me in my own garden.” The black fire seeping from its mouth like a tongue. “Give me the Fox or perish!”
“But that is not fair.” Eli held his free hand to his chest, bowing and refusing to retaliate the closer Urka came. “And you are bound by a law of equals. You must give in order to take.” I jerked my head in surprise; I wasn’t the only one with memories flooding back it seemed.
The axe hands became claws, and they held fast to the glinting targe around Urka’s neck, hesitating. I saw only myself reflected in those six murderous eyes, and they were greedy. “Zabor’s great work is nearly done,” Urka salivated. “A fresh world is about to be born. And I must have my place in it, in the favour of the Three.”
Urka was so close I could feel the roar of the belly-furnace. Eli still held tight to me, his flesh searing but face resolute. The great and terrible Gardener bent so that the targe was just out of reach, and when it was close enough to touch, Eli snapped out his mighty wings.
“Now!” he yelled, and with a kick from the ground, he yanked us, and the targe, backwards before Urka could swipe us back. I felt my body explode, the fear and the anger and the despair of my lost mother kicking through my skin in an inferno so calamitous that the wind of Eli’s wings caught the flames, and made a hurricane of light.
I heard only howls and cries as Eli brought us up through the eye of our storm, the gleaming Moonstone in his chest cutting us a path as we navigated free of the woods. With one burning hand he held me, and in the other he held the targe.
A screech of anguish made us both look back, and we narrowly missed being crushed by the twisted trunk of a mighty, bleeding tree. Urka came barrelling out of the thicket with a crash, annihilating everything in its path, and emitting a scream so anguished that I knew I’d have nightmares about it later.
“We have to get higher!” I shouted, and Eli grunted as we turned over and shot upward. Then the afterthought struck me, and I immediately regretted my words.
“Wait!” I tried, but it was too late, because Urka had seen the glinting chain, had slammed its foot down on it, bringing us hurtling back down just as we cleared the treeline.
My vision spackled and my body tingled after the impact, but when I shook myself alert, I realized I couldn’t move. I yanked hard on my left arm, and while it was still attached to Eli, he was stuck in a hollow made between two massive, bloody trunks, and he was unconscious.
“Dammit!” I snarled, trying to reach him with my free hand. “Eli! Eli, get up!” His wings were twisted and mangled, and he didn’t respond as I tried to shake him.
Something shifted in my periphery. Urka wasn’t nearby, but it was only a matter of time — trees were coming down like dominoes in the distance as the demon searched. Our golden lifeline-chain shimmered and shook with each quake and would eventually lead Urka directly to us.
Then I realized something worse and, glancing down into the hole Eli was wedged in, I threw myself down to join him.
“Hurk!” he spat as I landed on top of him. Well, at least he was awake now.
“Shh!” I plastered my sleeve over his mouth. “We’re hiding.”
Eli groaned, and I tried to ease up as much as possible to allow him to breathe. “Still not one for subtlety,” he muttered.
“Not my style.” I patted him down. “Pardon the familiarity. But where’s the targe?”
“The — ?” Then he snapped, fully alert, searching himself madly and suffering for it.
As the crashing and the tremors grew closer, something tinkled nearby. The targe was caught on a crooked branch high above our heads. But with Eli lying broken under me, and the two of us stuck together, there was little we could do to get it.
He wheezed a laugh. “Looks like it’s my bloated corpse holding you back. Plot twist.”
“Just shut up and let me think for a second. Or you could, since you aren’t doing much else.” Falling trees and the footfalls of a super-pissed monster thrummed hard in my ribs. Not long, now.
“You know what you need to do.” His eyes were clear. “I’d have done it. Though I’m strangely not proud to admit it.” With what little strength he had left, Eli shook our linked arms. “Cut the chain. Get the targe. Escape.”
I scrunched my nose. “I’m not leaving you here, you birdbrain. Besides, you’re technically my ride out. There’s gotta be another way.”
Without thinking, I moved Eli’s shirt aside, my palm still a glowing ember between us and the Moonstone sticking out of him like a weapon. “Maybe we can use this —”
He crushed my wrist in his grasp.
“Don’t,” he hissed, but this time it was les
s a demand and more a plea. I could see it in his eyes. He was afraid, but he was ready to die. “It’ll be quieter soon. I can finally sleep. And you still have work to do.” He didn’t smile ironically this time. “I’m sorry I prevented you from doing this. It wasn’t the best version of me, you could say.”
My heart seized. “So it’s safe to say both our memories are back.”
Eli’s face had nothing left to offer. “To think it only took trying to kill you three times to see the error of my ways.”
I guessed that was as much of an apology as I was going to get.
“Just shut up,” I snapped, and I wrapped the Moonstone in my hot grasp.
Traitor! Unworthy! Worthless! Sacrifice! To the snake!
A thousand voices shrieked and overlapped and took the form of one raging banshee. The words were blades and they cut my spirit down to its smallest part, but there was only so much they could damage — I was, after all, made of many tiny flames, that would incinerate the Moonstone.
The black forest faded into a whipping current. I was somewhere in the Veil, and I knew I had walked there with a warrior at my side — Sil. Cecelia. I felt her now even though she was a world away. I remembered her and the promise I had made her. I would do as she told me — respect the dead, even if they want your blood.
“I come to beg your help,” my fire whispered. “To save your stonebearer.”
To save yourself, the banshee wailed, the anger there creating a tornado so powerful I was afraid it might put me out. To avert your fate. To doom all Denizens.
“To preserve the fates of all,” I assured. “Save him, and I will meet my fate. Too many have died. I give you my word.”
The silence hurt worse than the words of all the Owls who had come before Eli, for they were surely locked inside this crystal, and all along had been torturing his mind with their influence. No wonder his mother had folded under it. No wonder his mind felt free without it. And for the man I’d seen in those fleeting moments of clarity at my side in Hell, I needed to make this gamble. I couldn’t let anyone else die — even Eli, who had tried hardest of all to kill me.