by Jim C. Hines
“And what if she turns that power back on you?”
Lena managed a smile. “One way or another, you’ll have your distraction.”
I hadn’t liked my original plan. I liked this one even less. It was one thing for me to try to enchant Deifilia, and to risk whatever backlash might come if my plan failed. It was my research that had started all of this, after all. But if Lena failed, she would take the brunt of Deifilia’s punishment.
I turned onto my street, and a metal eagle swooped down to land on the top of the windshield, talons grating against the crystal. I slammed the brakes, stalling out the engine. Smudge lit up like a flare.
“That’s why you didn’t get to stay supersized,” I said as I waited for my heart to recover. “You’d have set the whole car on fire.” I nodded to the eagle. “We’re alone.”
The eagle spread rust-edged wings and gave an ear-stabbing shriek. Tiny, layered scales of sheet metal served as feathers. The edges were irregularly cut.
“I have the books.” I restarted the engine and edged the car forward. The eagle didn’t appear to object, though it watched me closely with eyes made of iron pellets. I was more fixated on the damage Deifilia had done.
I lived on the edge of Copper River, in a moderately wooded area. Deifilia had turned the trees against my neighbors. Using oak and maple as giant clubs, she had smashed rooftops and fences, flattened cars, and ripped through power lines. My house was the only one undisturbed. Deifilia had put the trees behind my house to another use.
I couldn’t decide whether to call it a grove or a fortress. Oak trees had sprung up in a rough circle throughout the backyard. Branches wove together to create a fence of living wood. The trees were a good forty feet higher than any others, and the smallest was three feet in diameter.
Wendigos watched us from the upper branches. Metal glinted among the bark and leaves. I saw no sign of Deifilia or her human followers. Presumably they were inside the grove.
“That’s impressive,” I said. “Terrifying, but impressive. Of course, now all the neighbors are going to want one.”
We stopped in the driveway and climbed slowly from the car. The moment Lena’s foot touched the grass, she froze. “It’s all one tree. Isaac, this is my oak, and Deifilia is inside of it.”
On another day, I would have come up with something better to say than, “Wow.” Not only had Deifilia created a grove of cloned oak trees, she had done it in less than an hour.
“Be careful,” said Lena. “Anywhere the roots or branches touch, she can strike. The roots will encircle and break your legs, or drag you into the ground until you suffocate. Or maybe they’ll just sprout spikes and impale you.”
“Making Deifilia into Sleeping Beauty and the enchanted hedge all in one. Perfect.”
A slender figure stepped out from between the trees, the branches bending aside to let her pass. Bi Wei gave no outward sign that she knew me, though we both knew Deifilia was aware of our earlier contact. “Leave the car and any weapons. Including your books.”
I stripped off my jacket, tucked my pistol into an inner pocket, and set it inside the car. Lena did the same with her bokken, but she kept the graft from her tree. She rested one end on the ground and leaned on it like a crutch. At this point, the branch was probably the only thing keeping her upright.
Bi Wei studied us both. A pair of metal grasshoppers nested in her hair. They could have been decorative, save for the way they rubbed their forelegs together as they watched us. Harrison’s millipede circled her throat. “You carry spells,” she said, stepping closer. Her fingers touched my temple. “Here. And another, deeper within.”
I tapped my head. “I have a fish in my brain. Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. It translates languages for me. Slimy and a bit gross putting it in, but it works well.”
For an instant, I saw amusement in her eyes, and something more: a libriomancer’s delight at discovering a new trick. But the emotions didn’t reach her voice. “What of the other spell?”
I had left the potion in the glove box, and I wasn’t carrying any other magic. Everything was locked in the car, my books, my jacket, even— “Smudge. I created him, and it’s my magic that helps to sustain him. He’s staying with the car.”
Bi Wei tilted her head, listening to sounds I couldn’t hear. “You’ve brought our books?”
If I said yes, they could kill us and rip the car apart to find them. They’d be pissed to discover the books weren’t there, but that would be little comfort, what with me being dead and all. “First I need to talk to Deifilia. She needs to leave Lena and Copper River in peace.”
She bowed slightly, then beckoned for us to follow.
“I like her,” Lena said. “She’s cute for her age.”
Each step we took whittled away at my confidence, and I hadn’t been terribly confident to begin with. Partly it was a matter of scale. From the street, the trees looked enormous. Here in their shade, with the roots turning the ground to hard lumps and coils of wood, it was like crossing into another world, a world in which Deifilia was creator and goddess. The trees muffled the sounds from outside. The canopy turned the sky green. Leaves swirled through the air, a gentle and deceptively peaceful effect.
Wendigos climbed lower, preparing to pounce. I tensed, but Bi Wei never slowed. These wendigos were fully transformed. The students of Bi Sheng must have found a way to complete the process. Flakes of ice drifted from their bodies like snow as they moved about.
The branches parted, and Bi Wei escorted us inside.
Nothing remained of Lena’s garden. Her oak stood in the center of a swamp of tree roots and fallen leaves, without a single flower or blade of grass to be seen. Lena’s central tree was unchanged, but dwarfed by the surrounding oaks.
A man and a woman stood in front of the central oak. I could feel the magic wafting from them, like heat rolling from an open furnace. Both wore loose silk tunics, but the embroidery didn’t appear to be Chinese. The necks were cut in a low V, revealing white undershirts. The man wore blue leather boots that rose just past the ankle. I’d have to check my books, but the fashion looked European. Not the wardrobe I would have expected from Bi Sheng’s followers.
Neither one showed any hint of sanity. They didn’t move at all. I didn’t think they were even breathing, and if they blinked, it was too quick for me to see. Their eyes were wide, their mouths parted as if to speak, though they never did.
“Their books were destroyed?” I guessed.
Bi Wei said nothing, but her back tightened.
The others Deifilia had restored were trapped within the roots, bound so tightly they could move only a finger here, a toe there. She hadn’t bothered to provide clothing, though little flesh could be seen through the gaps. I counted four more.
August Harrison was here as well, and he was awake. He sat, shirtless, at the base of Lena’s oak. A single root circled his neck. Judging from the bruises around his arms, he had been bound more tightly until recently.
Had I been a more petty man, I might have gloated. This was the man who had broken into my house, stolen my research, and used it to attack my town and the woman I loved.
On second thought, I had time for a little pettiness. “You see what happens when we steal other people’s magic toys and try to use them without knowing what we’re doing?”
He watched in silence as Lena and I stepped carefully over the outer edges of the roots. I stepped carefully, at any rate. Lena was barefoot, and strode as easily as a cat. Being here seemed to have restored some of her strength, though she still leaned on her branch for support, her fingers lost in the budding leaves.
“This is your doing,” Harrison said. “Victor’s death at the hands of creatures the Porters hid from the rest of us. The students of Bi Sheng, victims of Gutenberg’s war.”
“And this is your plan to make it better, eh?” I pretended to look around. “How’s that working for you?”
His face reddened, but before he could respond, the ro
ot around his neck pulsed. His fingers went to his throat, and then he settled back. He glared hatefully, not at us, but at the trunk of the oak, where Deifilia was emerging from the wood.
Harrison’s dryad had auburn hair, and her skin was a lighter tan than Lena’s, but she had come from the same mold. She was eerily familiar: short and plump and delightfully curved, like an assembly line doll painted by a different artist.
A sleeveless gown made of interwoven leaves clung to her skin like scales. Her legs were bare from the knees down. A wooden sword hung from her hip, though I saw nothing holding it in place. It could have been a part of that living dress. A smaller wooden knife clung to her opposite hip. Both had straight double-edged blades and heavy pommels.
She stepped toward Harrison and stroked her fingers through his hair. To Lena, she said, “You have something for me, sister?”
“I thought you loved him,” I said, nodding toward Harrison.
She smiled. “He’s a beautiful man. I owe him my existence.”
“What do your other lovers think of him?” Lena asked.
Her loving expression never changed. “She sees a pathetic, magically worthless worm of a man.”
“She?” I repeated. Jeneta had referred to a “she” when talking about the devourers in her dreams. “Does this other woman have a name?”
“You’ll learn her name soon enough,” she said lightly.
“How did you get out of the mine without Gutenberg seeing you?”
“You don’t understand.” She gestured to the two people standing like zombies. “Your Porters study magic, but they are magic. We flew through earth and stone as easily as air.”
“Cool.”
Lena’s toes dug into the roots. “It must be difficult, loving someone you can never touch.”
I searched for the glint of metal among the green of Deifilia’s dress. The leaves clung like a second skin. The cicada had to be on her, but where?
“She’s waited more than a thousand years,” said Deifilia. “I can wait, too.”
“You long for her, don’t you?” Lena stepped closer. “You hear her whispering to you, but a ghost isn’t enough. You want to feel her legs curling with yours, the sweat as your bodies tighten against each other.”
Deifilia didn’t answer, but I saw goose bumps on her skin.
I caught Bi Wei’s attention, wishing there were a way to communicate without Deifilia overhearing. She inclined her head ever so slightly. Doubtless she could feel Lena’s magic. I turned toward Deifilia’s two mindless guardians, both of whom were now watching Lena.
“I know what it’s like to feel alone.” Lena pointed to Harrison, then to me. “They would have us kill one another, the only other person who understands what it’s like. Who knows the strength and passion of the oak.”
“His wishes no longer matter,” Deifilia said.
“Can you imagine the things we could do together?” Lena whispered.
There was a question with more layers than I could count. Yet, on some level, I think she meant it. The longing in Lena’s words wasn’t sexual. Not just sexual, at least. She reminded me of myself years ago; the first time I met other Porters. The first time I truly understood that I wasn’t alone.
Deifilia’s answering desire was enough to flatten me. She spoke, but the drumbeat of my blood deafened me to her words. All I could see was the longing in her eyes.
Lena’s hand snapped out, catching my arm and stopping me from walking toward her, from pulling those leaves away one by one.
The touch of Lena’s hand both helped and made things worse. I clasped my fingers over hers, my mind careening into a new and utterly inappropriate fantasy involving my lover and the woman who would happily destroy everyone and everything I knew.
Lena bent my arm, wrenching me around behind her without ever breaking eye contact with Deifilia. With her free hand, she reached for the other dryad.
Just before Lena made contact, Deifilia realized what was happening. Her arm snapped up, striking Lena’s hand away. Lena spun with the impact and whirled around like a dancer to slam the back of her fist into Deifilia’s cheek.
“Oh, hell,” I muttered to myself. “All right, time for plan B.”
21
I don’t believe in immortality. Which is odd, considering I’ve met Juan Ponce de Leon and Johannes Gutenberg, both of whom are effectively ageless. Not to mention vampires who have survived unchanged for centuries.
I’ve killed some of those vampires. Ageless doesn’t mean immortal, and there’s always something capable of taking you out. Even if that something is simple entropy.
Gutenberg relies on the magic of the grail, which he created using his first mass-printed Bible. It’s kept him alive for five hundred years, but that’s nothing in the larger scheme of the world. Christianity is only 2000 years old. Who’s to say his religion will last another millennium, and what happens to the power of the grail when all those who believe in it are gone?
Or maybe he’ll go on indefinitely, until the sun falls into its death throes, cooking all life from this planet. Hopefully, humanity will have moved on by then, but even the universe will end someday. Unlike the heat-death of Earth, the universe will die in cold silence, taking even the so-called immortals with it.
Perhaps science or magic will offer a way to outlive the universe. I have a hard time proclaiming anything impossible these days. But by any reasonable standard, death is a certainty.
I blame Isaac for this train of thought, for the endless “What ifs?” I’ve found myself asking lately. For the nights spent dreaming in my oak, imagining not only the coming years, but the centuries.
I’ve survived the death of my tree. My human body appears not to age, save for cosmetic changes dictated by the unconscious desires of my lovers. I don’t know what would happen if this body were killed but my tree survived. Nor do I have any interest in finding out.
(All right, fine. Maybe there’s a small, nagging streak of curiosity, which I again blame entirely on Isaac.)
The point is, if I’m both careful and lucky, I could survive longer than any ordinary human being. Perhaps even longer than Gutenberg.
At the same time, I’ve already died more than any of them, and my deaths are potentially as limitless as the stars. Even if my body survives, my lovers pass. Each time that happens, the person I was dies with them.
METAL RODENTS SWARMED DOWN the side of the tree, and the buzz of insects grew deafening. Birds swooped from the branches, and wendigos leaped to the ground.
I spun, only to have bark shear away from the undulating roots beneath me. My foot slipped, and roots the size of my thighs pinched my ankle in place. Something popped in my knee, and pain exploded through my leg.
The problem with plan B was that it required a great deal of concentration on my part. Between the pain and the fact that the world’s largest and grumpiest oak grove was trying to smother me, this was going to be difficult.
Deifilia ripped her weapons from her side. Lena raised her branch to parry. Deifilia’s first overhead blow dropped her to one knee. I saw the roots of Lena’s grafted branch twining around her fingers, sinking into her skin, until the weapon was a literal extension of her arm. The wood flattened, and the buds and twigs ripped away with Lena’s counterattack.
Both dryads moved too quickly for me to follow. Within seconds, Deifilia was bleeding from cuts on her arm and thigh. The right side of Lena’s face was bloody as well.
Lena dodged past Deifilia and scrambled up the tree like Spider-Man. Her hand and feet sank into the wood, giving her just enough traction to climb out of reach of the roots.
I didn’t know much about Lena’s study, but I was certain no sensei had ever taught the stance she adopted next. She turned to face Deifilia. Her left leg was stretched up over her head, anchored to the wood, while her right braced her full weight. Her leg muscles shook as she swung her sword two-handed, knocking Deifilia’s sword from her hand.
Lena’s training an
d experience gave her an edge over Deifilia, but it wasn’t enough. A rat dropped onto Lena’s back and sank metal teeth into the flesh between her shoulder blades. She jumped down, smashed her back against the tree, then spun to cut the arm from a wendigo sneaking up behind her. In that time, Deifilia scooped up her sword and lunged. Lena parried, but the blade sliced the skin over her ribs.
I tried to concentrate on Deifilia. Gutenberg had demonstrated how easily he could rob Lena of her power. I had seen him perform the same trick two months before, pulling Smudge’s magic into himself and flinging fire against an enchanted car. Smudge hadn’t liked that one bit, so I had excused him from guinea pig duty, but I had tried time and again to duplicate Gutenberg’s feat. For the most part, I had failed utterly.
But I had been relatively stable those times. Given how magically raw and exposed I was now, I should be able to tap into any book-related magic I touched. The real trick would be holding on to my sanity long enough to use it.
A root shot upward, shaping itself into a spear. Deifilia dropped her dagger, snatched the spear, and thrust the point at Lena’s chest. Lena twisted and stepped inward. She caught Deifilia’s other wrist, blocking a sword thrust, and smashed her forehead onto Deifilia’s nose.
Until now, the two empty shells who had once been students of Bi Sheng had been content to watch. Maybe Deifilia was enjoying the fight, or maybe the Army of Ghosts needed time to adjust to their human bodies. Whatever the reason, they acted now.
I saw them move toward Lena, and then my vision flickered, and there was only magic pouring forth to tear her from existence. It was like staring at an optical illusion, a landscape that suddenly resolves into the face of a man, or a goblet that becomes the silhouette of two faces. They weren’t casting a spell; they were the spell. They reached out, flesh and magic stretching to touch Lena’s arm, to unravel the cells of her body one by one.
I couldn’t read the expression on Lena’s face as she collapsed. Fear? Sadness? She didn’t appear to be in pain, for which I was grateful.