by Cindy Dees
Rosana asked, “What this quest?”
He shook his head. “I cannot tell you. My father swore me to silence.”
Cicero leaned back, stretching his feet out toward the fire. “But he did not swear me to silence. Care if I make a guess at what you are about?”
Will shrugged.
“It has something to do with Bloodroot and the Great Circle, or else that disk would not have chosen you to stick to. Sha’Li, you said you had it in your possession for several hours, and it never stuck to you. Correct?”
The lizardman girl nodded, looking distinctly surly.
“Perhaps Bloodroot wants your help in reconstituting his body.…”
As the elf trailed off, Rosana piped up, “I think no. You say Boki try that for very long time already and it no work.” She looked intently at Will. “What quest interest Bloodroot enough to latch on to Will?”
Kendrick stared at the gypsy and then at Will in dawning shock. He blurted, “Surely not.”
Will blinked at him. “Surely not what?”
“You do not seek the Sleeping King, do you?”
Where on Urth had Kendrick heard of that? Oh, wait. The son had heard it from the father the same way Will had from his own father. “Landsgrave Hyland told you of him, I gather?” Will asked in resignation.
“Actually, no. I eavesdropped on my father when I was a boy. I heard him talking about it once with a solinari.”
“Aurelius,” Will declared. Of course. The son of a landed noble was too valuable to risk on a quest for the Sleeping King. But Will, the son of the disgraced and outlawed Dragon, was not.
Eben chimed asking, “Who is this sleeping king?”
Kendrick answered eagerly, causing Will’s ingrained sense of secrecy to wince. “He was an elf. The king of a great elven nation called Gandamere that spanned most or all of this continent. He fell in battle against a troll and nearly died. A mysterious lady came along and saved him, barely. He fell into an endless sleep somewhere between life and death, and there he has remained ever since.”
Will stared. What Kendrick described exactly matched Will’s dream a few nights back. How was it possible he’d dreamed of events he’d never heard of until now? The answer was sour in his mind. Bloodroot. The tree spirit had given Will that dream. The whoreson must have waited until Will’s mental defenses were down in sleep and slipped the dream into his mind.
Will asked, “Does legend say how this guardian will wake?”
“Or when he is supposed to wake?” Rosana chimed in.
Kendrick shrugged. “The legend is vague about those things. It goes that the Mythar will awake when the land would perish without him. As for the how of it, I have never heard anything.”
Will asked soberly, the other one within him radiating certainty that this other tale was the key to everything, “Who is the keeper of the knowledge of how to wake him?”
Kendrick answered heavily, “The Boki.” The other members of the party, save Raina, squawked in dismay.
Kendrick continued, “My father and Aurelius spoke of how close they’d come to finding the Sleeping King in a grove deep within the Forest of Thorns. The grove was guarded by powerful Boki warriors. If you want to find this sleeping king, you will have to ask them. Assuming they let you live long enough to even speak to them and do not kill you the second they hear your question.”
Which was to say, they were all doomed.
* * *
Will stopped to camp when the others forced him to but only because they flatly refused to take another step without food and rest. The needs of the physical body were of no meaning to him, vaguely registered pangs subsumed in his driving need to get home. Too restless to sit still, he went into the woods to gather firewood while the others set up camp.
In the rare moments when Will was aware of his body, he felt terrible. His health was deteriorating rapidly. He’d lost weight until his clothes hung on his frame. His cheeks felt gaunt, and he could hardly eat without becoming violently ill. If he did not know better, he would say he was dying of some wasting disease.
Rosana insisted on healing him every time they stopped to rest, and the Heart-calibrated vibrations of her magic did make him feel somewhat better for a time. Except something subtle had changed in her magic since they left Dupree. He couldn’t put his finger on how it felt different. But it did. Regardless, he deteriorated quickly between healings. Quickly enough that she even broke down and asked Raina to heal him.
The blond girl’s magic felt different upon his skin. Whatever source she drew her power from, it was not the same as Rosana’s. Which was odd, given that they both used simple healing magics upon him. Rosana’s magic seemed to work best when directed at the wooden disk, whereas Raina’s was most effective upon Will directly. Between the two girls, they managed to keep him patched together. But just barely.
Raina hit upon using magic to clear poison upon him, and that seemed to help a bit longer than simple healing. Even then the girls’ magic had a fraction of the effect upon him that it should have had. Only the sheer volume of magic the two of them were able to pour into him seemed to be keeping him alive.
Rosana suggested that perhaps the party should slow down and rest more. But he knew the suggestion was for his benefit and not hers.
He was having no part of that, however. Will led the party’s frantic rush toward the Forest of Thorns. He told himself a tale about merely being eager to end this quest and return to a normal life, and that it was not Bloodroot spurring him on. But it did not take an ancient forest lord to point out that Will was lying to himself.
It was a relief to pretend he still had a family, a home, a normal life, to return to, and it was toward that fantasy he raced. It was easier than listening to the tiny voice in the back of his mind whisper at him to accept that his parents were dead and his friends and family slaughtered, as if death and destruction were nothing out of the ordinary, all part of the cycle of life.
Of course, death was all around. He, himself, killed animals for food and for furs to warm him. He’d helped the loggers in the hollow cut down living trees to build homes and furniture, and they all harvested plants to eat. Without those other deaths, he could not live himself.
He understood that nature encompassed both birth and death and that without both the cycle would fall out of balance. Starvation, overpopulation, and disease would run rampant if death ceased, and then every living thing would finally die. But, he argued with himself, there was also a proper time for everything to die. It was not right when death claimed a living being prematurely.
Bloodroot all but snorted in response, as if to say, Who’s to say what’s premature and what’s not?
Will challenged, “Is it right, then, that somebody killed you and chopped you into little pieces? Was it your time?”
The surge of rage that rose in his gut nearly knocked Will off his feet. He staggered against a tree and had to catch himself against it.
Will commented dryly in his mind, Right. That’s what I thought.
Bloodroot’s presence retreated into sulky silence, and suddenly the rigors of the journey caught up with Will full force. His limbs felt like logs and his eyelids were abruptly so heavy he could barely hold them up. He staggered back to camp, dumped his armload of wood, and collapsed onto the bedroll Rosana had been thoughtful enough to lay out for him, unconscious before his head hit the ground.
Will and his companions kept the same grueling pace for the next several days, traveling until they collapsed from exhaustion each night. Were it not for the others forcing him to stop now and again, he feared that Bloodroot would have driven him literally to death. Were it not for Rosana and Raina’s constant healing, he was certain he would have died. Every time they stopped, one or both of them came over and laid hands on him.
The others slipped the three of them extra rations, which was probably why the healers didn’t keel over as they drained themselves again and again. The party traveled mostly in silence, too exhausted to chat and
too nervous about being attacked to make noise that might draw attackers.
There was no guidepost announcing that they had crossed into the Forest of Thorns, no clear dividing line between settled lands and untamed wilds. Over the course of a day, the last few clearings retreated behind them and the trees blended together into thick, continuous forest. The trees shifted from fast-growing birch to swaths of pine and then to stands of old-growth oak, huge and gnarled and ancient, their limbs tangled overhead.
When they crossed a small stream flowing out from between two giant boulders late the next morning, the landmark sent a surge of exultation through Will that nearly made him leap for joy. “We’re here,” he announced. “The Forest of Thorns.”
The healers pulled their cloaks closer about themselves while the others clutched their swords a little more tightly. Sha’Li cast a suspicious glare at the massive trees crowding close to the path. Whoever was responsible in this part of Dupree for keeping the trees cleared back from the road ten paces on each side wasn’t doing his job. At all.
Rosana looked around curiously. “Where are the thorns?”
Cicero answered, “Thorn is the title of the shamans within the Boki.”
Eben looked over his shoulder sharply at that. “The Boki have shamans?”
Sha’Li replied, “Think you they live like savages?”
The jann shrugged. “It is not something I think much on. They act like savages, so why would they not live like savages?”
Bloodroot snarled inside Will’s head. Fond of the Boki, was he? Will couldn’t see why. Eben was right. They were savages.
Cicero muttered, “We’d best look sharp and move quiet. They’ll kill us first and ask questions later.”
The party slowed its breakneck pace, emphasizing stealth over speed now. That night, they ate cold rations and slept in shifts, with two people standing guard at all times. To Will, the night sounds were sweet music to his ears. It was as if each cricket, each trilling whip-poor-will, were an old friend welcoming him back.
With his new awareness, Will heard the slow groans of the grandfather oaks speaking to one another, almost, but not quite, within his comprehension. He felt the vibrant rhythms of the woods … and gradually became aware of something else. Something disturbing.
Bloodroot hadn’t been in these woods for a very long time, and perhaps that was why Will noticed a difference in the tapestry of life around him. While the others slept, he lay awake thinking, trying to figure it out. Something felt wrong, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it.
Frustrated, he threw off his cloak to sit directly on the cold ground. Its damp chill seeped through him until his fingernails turned blue. But it wasn’t enough. He tore off his clothes—shirt, trousers, boots—until he was completely naked. He lay upon the ground, spread-eagled upon his belly, and let his awareness became one with living Urth.
It was threatened, his Urth. A slow attack encroached upon the land, eating at it from within the way a termite attacked a tree. Panic filled him. Death was natural and healthy. But this … this was wrong. Alien. Not of nature. Not of Urth. This death bore no hint of renewal. The forest was in danger.
What had the others done in Bloodroot’s absence to let the forest come to this pass?
What others? Will seriously wished his mind would quit conjuring up such nonsense.
Renewed urgency to find his tree-body and be restored to his former power surged through him. The Great Circle was horribly out of balance. It was high time and more for Bloodroot to resume his place within it. The boy needed to hurry up and make it happen. And maybe while he was at it the human should wake the Mythar as well. The land could use its greatest guardian right now.
Thankfully, the other one within him allowed Will to sleep when his shift on guard duty ended. It was clear that Bloodroot’s presence within Will was too much for his fragile human body. He was killing the boy by slow degrees. The arch-healer was a boon. Not only did she help the boy, but she also was giving him enough strength to hold back his full powers from destroying the boy outright. Without her impressive power and its unusual source, he would be trapped in his heartwood once more, awaiting a spirit of sufficient strength and resolve to withstand him for a time.
If only he were whole—he could give the boy such strength and vitality as he’d never known. How was he ever to accomplish what must be done with only this frail, naïve human to work with?
When Will woke the next morning, the new day was chill and wet, with a slow drizzle dripping down through the trees, making all of them miserable. A fine mist, not exactly fog, hung in the air, reducing visibility to no more than a dozen lengths of a man in any direction and muffling sound like a thick fleece blanket.
They huddled around the tiny pit they’d dug to contain a small cook fire and conceal its light from hostile eyes. How Cicero had gotten it started with the available tinder as soaked as it was Will had no idea. They set up a watch rotation that excluded Will so he could get some extra sleep, and he laid down close to the tiny blaze. The heat of the fire drove back the bitter chill he’d been unable to shake since he’d realized he was stark naked and so stiff with cold he could barely move last night. Bloodroot was going to be the death of him yet.
* * *
Raina eyed Will worriedly as they resumed their trek. He did not look good. His skin had taken on a sickly, gray tone, and if she looked closely she saw dark veins crept beneath his skin like tree roots through the ground. She’d never seen the like.
More practically, Will shivered periodically as if he had a fever, and he barely ate anymore. Half the time he spoke, he did not sound like himself. She would lay odds the spirit within that disk had possessed him, or at least was in the process of taking him over.
She was giving him literally every bit of healing energy she could summon. Well, him and that disk. As soon as she’d started healing it directly, Will’s decline had seemed to slow a bit. If she was not mistaken, the constant casting of all the magic she possessed was gradually increasing her overall capacity. It was still not enough to get ahead of Will’s wasting sickness, however.
For some reason, Rosana’s magic seemed to affect him differently than hers. It was as if each of their magics had taken on a different, and necessary, flavor to heal Will.
Cicero, Kendrick, and Eben veered away from the party from time to time, making side trips to hunt while they hiked. Now and then, Will dragged himself off into the woods as well. But he never returned with any game. He’d left on one such excursion when she took advantage of his absence to move up beside Rosana.
She matched her stride to the pretty gypsy’s. “I’m worried about Will,” she murmured. “If there’s aught I can do for him, you have but to ask.” As she expected, the dark-haired healer cast her an equally worried look in response.
Raina commented, “Anyone can see he likes you. A lot.” She added, “You’re lucky. The one I like is very far from here. I miss him terribly.”
“Tell me of him,” Rosana murmured. “It will help to pass the time.”
Raina regaled the gypsy girl with some of her and Justin’s wilder exploits as children. Several times, Rosana had to slap a hand over her mouth to keep from laughing aloud.
Raina noted Sha’Li sidling closer to hear the stories, but the lizardman girl remained surly and uncommunicative. Lizardmen were widely regarded as savages within the Empire, unfit even to be slaves. Although as strong as oxen, they were said to be too stubborn, too stupid, and too time-consuming to break to the yoke to be worth anything in the slave markets.
They lived in freshwater marshes, rivers, and lakes, their settlements underwater, which meant they mostly avoided contact with land dwellers. From what Raina knew, lizardmen were green or gray in coloration. Sha Li’s shiny black scales must be some sort of anomaly. If she was odd even among her own kind, that might explain her prickly demeanor. Although the way Raina heard it, most lizardmen were unpleasant sorts.
It wasn’t until midaf
ternoon and a chance comment Raina made about the Great Scholl Swamp north of Tyrel that Sha’Li finally joined the conversation. “Scholl, you say?”
Raina blinked at the first words from the lizardman girl since lunch. “Aye.”
“Any of my kind are there?”
“Lizardmen? I assume so.”
“No. My kind.”
Raina glanced uncomprehendingly at the hopeful look on Sha’Li’s face. She asked carefully, “You mean of your color?”
“Yes!” the girl snapped impatiently.
“I do not know,” Raina answered regretfully. Were black lizardmen rare among their kind, then? Outcasts, mayhap? Was that why this girl was alone, far from the waterways that would usually hold her kind?
“Of strange monsters and terrible creatures in your swamp do people speak? Touched by death and tainted by strange magics?” Sha’Li asked.
Surprised, Raina replied, “Yes, as a matter of fact, people do speak of such things.”
Triumph gleamed in the lizardman girl’s black, vertical-slitted gaze. “I knew it.”
Raina frowned. “What does that mean? Are your kind … tainted in some way?”
Sha’Li hissed and long, vicious claws abruptly protruded from the backs of her hands. Cicero leaped in front of Raina, his sword clanging clear of its sheath. The sound rang loudly through the trees, bringing the entire party to a sharp and horrified halt. Raina jumped back as Kendrick’s sword joined Cicero’s in front of her, forming a steel barrier between her and the lizardman girl.
“Stand down, you two,” Raina bit out. “The fault is mine. I said something to offend Sha’Li without knowing I did so.” She bowed her head formally to the lizardman girl. “My apologies.”
Sha’Li blinked and her claws began to retract slowly. “To me you apologize?”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“Lizardman I am. Human you are.”
Raina frowned, not understanding. “But I offended you.”
Sha’Li shook her head. “Your kind apologizes not to my kind.”
Raina retorted indignantly, “You are a living, thinking being with as much right to polite treatment as anyone!”