I dripped my blood into the siphon. Smoky images appeared upon the obsidian tablet; I heard the susurration of half-heard voices. The smiling image of a faerie flickered in the grey vapor; she was inviting someone, someone to a place called the Blighted Tree… I saw an antlered head sit up at a window, wavy hair spilling over her shoulders…
The Blighted Tree… you know the way… your dreams…
The smoke evaporated.
I cursed aloud. It sounded like the mark was headed to a fae enclave – no roads there. But at least they were close. They were very close. I touched the Void Stone that hung about my neck; the most powerful object I had on my being, a carefully refined jewel imbued with the siphoning strength of a hundred souls and tethered to the insatiable emptiness of the Void. At least the enclave couldn’t be obscured from me, so long as I had this stone with me. Their magick would dissipate and I would see clearly, move unhindered.
I took up the knife again and grimaced. I needed to know exactly how to get there. I couldn’t let the mark get away from me – not when I was so close.
I sliced into my forearm. I needed blood, lots of blood, to see the way. It hurt. But it was necessary.
I dripped my blood into the siphon and kept scrying. I searched for an hour, maybe more; I searched until I was exhausted and dizzy. And finally, with knife in hand, I collapsed beside the Soul Slab. My reserves were all but empty, my soul ached, my arm seeped.
But I knew which way to go. And with that in mind, I allowed myself to slip into sleep.
* * *
I was drowning in the sea.
Inky water splashed into my mouth, into my eyes; I spluttered and thrashed, trying desperately to swim. The black water rose up in great waves before crashing down upon me. I cried out, but was alone; the horizon was empty in every direction.
I tread water as the waves calmed. A raft came into view; idly it drifted toward me. Someone was laying on the raft. I called out, waved, tried to get their attention. They looked like they were sleeping.
As it neared I saw it wasn’t a raft at all; it was the Soul Slab. It floated in the water like a plank of wood. And laying upon it was Avna’a.
I called out again – I couldn’t believe it. I thought Vash-turel had killed her…
The Soul Slab bumped up next to me. I lifted myself up, scrambling to get aboard, babbling about how relieved I was to see her -
And then I stopped. I was face to face with Avna’a. Her eyes were gone; blood drooled from her mouth, thick and dark, and her pale hands held in her guts.
I screamed and fell back into the sea. The storm began again, wild and crashing. I gasped for breath; I was tossed among the waves, drowning with every spluttered breath.
My body struck something hard. Suddenly I was on solid ground. I cleared the inky water from my eyes and looked up. A colossal mountain rose up out of the sea; it loomed above, casting a shadow against the sunless sky. The grey stone of the mountain was streaked with scars of white marble.
A single ray of light descended from the grim firmament, cutting through the heavy clouds; it fell upon the peak of the great mountain. I was drawn toward it, and with trepidation, I began to climb.
Hand over hand I pulled myself toward the peak until at last I came over the lip of a cliff. Exhausted, I rolled over onto the level ground. Here, there was no stone; here there was only grass, rich green grass that gently swayed. The ray of light glimmered upon a point in the centre of this idyllic meadow – I was calmed. A peaceful sensation came over me.
Barefoot I walked toward the pillar of light. As I neared, two sprouts began to grow; slowly, very slowly, in perfect unison, they grew into saplings, then into young trees. But as they grew in height their branches changed; the leaves fell off. They turned into a pair of antlers.
A peal of laughter rang out, loud as thunder; laughter I had heard but once, laughter I could never forget.
It was the laughter of Turvarik, the old fortune-teller.
* * *
Suddenly I awoke. I was lying beside the Soul Slab; blood was crusted on my forearm. My blanket was tossed over me. I tore it off.
I was angry and confused. I seldom had dreams – not like that one. I could recall every detail. And I was still angry at The Slave. It was selfish, it was petty, and I knew it. But I didn’t like how he made me doubt who I was. I didn’t like how he made me doubt the righteousness of my cause.
He was still sleeping. I looked off to the brightening sky; the sun would rise soon.
I rolled over and went through my things, grabbing up my wash bowl and my razor. I had to hurry; I didn’t want to miss sunrise. Not today, of all days.
I stripped down to my undergarments and filled my wash bowl with my water-skin. Then, with razor in hand, I knelt down, bowed my head, and waited.
Here I did not shiver. There was no remnant chill like there was on the dry, open plain. Soon the sun’s light broke over the hill-dappled horizon; I felt its warmth upon my head, my shoulders. I dipped my left hand into the wash basin and splashed the water onto my head. Then, with the razor in my right hand, I shaved my head.
It only took a few moments. Soon I was splashing the last of my wash bowl onto my head, cleaning off the shaved hairs. I wiped my head with my hand – it was smooth, perfectly smooth.
I sat up and watched the sun rise from the gloom. Droplets of water ran in rivulets down my neck, onto my shoulders, down my chest and back. I breathed in deeply. I tried to feel clean, I tried to feel sanctified; I tried to feel strengthened by the ritual.
But I did not. I felt hollow. Last night’s dream roiled in my head. It would not leave me alone. The great mountain, Avna’a’s sightless gaze, the black ocean – and the two growing trees that grew into antlers…
I leaned forward and put my hands into the grass. What did it all mean? Did it mean anything at all? I thought about what The Slave had said. I thought about Turvarik’s fortune.
Then I thought about Gol-Gorom. And Ashrahaz. I tried to feel something, anything – but there was nothing.
I brought a fist down into the dirt in frustration.
None of this mattered. My uncertainty, my questions; it would all burn as chaff before the heat of my righteous action.
I had to complete my mission.
I stood up and pulled on the rest of my clothing – then stopped. I didn’t want to get caught up in my loose shirt. I had a feeling things might devolve into a fight. So I left my shirt off to keep my arms free, my midriff exposed, much like how we practiced in Ashrahaz. I was unarmored anyway; a thin bit of loose silk would do little to save me if I made a mistake.
But I never made mistakes, I reminded myself. I was the best because I had to be the best. Especially today; for today was the day I would capture my mark.
I ran my hand over my shorn skull.
I had no other choice.
40
Herace
Dawn led us forward, as if in a trance. There was a faraway look in her eyes.
We rode into deep-cut hills, all choked with brambles; the hills weren’t very tall, but the sides were sharp, abrupt; we stayed to the gorges in between.
We rode down into a deep vale. There was no path and we had to be careful with the horses. Blackberry vines coiled in great swathes all along the hillsides. I plucked a blackberry as we passed beneath a hanging vine. I sniffed it; it smelled alright. I popped it into my mouth and immediately spat it back out. It was incredibly bitter. So bitter, in fact, that it caused my face to convulse.
“Not very good, eh?” Ortham asked from behind me.
“Hm? No. Much too sweet,” I replied.
“Really? I don’t believe you.”
“Fine, suit yourself.”
A few moments later I heard Ortham spitting and coughing. I guess he just had to know for himself.
“Too sweet, eh?” I asked with a laugh.
“Real funny. Real funny…” he muttered.
> The hills either got taller or the gullies got deeper, because soon the sun was completely obscured. I looked up and noticed something altogether surprising; the canopy above was not made of tree limbs and leaves, but of thorny vines. We had somehow ended up beneath the coiling blackberry tangles.
And not just blackberries surrounded us, either; upon closer inspection I noticed all sorts of noxious, prickling weeds. Poison oak, spine-club, stinging nettle, poison ivy, foxglove; even yellow skunk cabbage grew in muck-filled puddles amid the vines.
I looked behind us. The way was hidden by the most loathsome vegetation.
“I really don’t like this place,” I murmured.
“Neither do I. Something feels… wrong,” Ortham concurred.
Dawn didn’t say anything. She just kept riding forward, leading us deeper and deeper into the bramble-choked ravines.
I could hear the cry of birds and other creatures farther off. Intermittent and far away, and very vague as to their origin; I couldn’t quite tell what kind of bird sang from the treetops. If you could even call it singing; more like a dissonant, mournful cry.
If it even was a bird.
Other queer noises emanated from the surrounding thorns and looming crevices; grunts and squeals, chitters and huffs. Never quite loud enough to pinpoint, never quite hushed enough to ignore.
What kind of strange beasts slunk through these shaded thickets? What vague and unknown creatures crawled amid the tangled thorns?
A weird sensation shivered up my spin. My skin felt cold. I recoiled as we passed by the bare trunk of a maple tree; the grain of its bark was unsettling in ways I could not define. They seemed to swirl and twist unnaturally, and without movement; the static pattern was bizarre and senseless.
Just as soon as I had seen the maple tree it was swallowed back up into the cloistering vegetation as I rode by.
Where was Dawn leading us… what awful region of the blighted earth were we travelling? From behind every leaf I was being watched – in this dim, sun-starved ravine there was no way to track what time of day it was. How long had we voyaged through the twisting brush? How many gullies had we travelled?
I lost sight of the hills. We weren’t in the hills anymore; we were practically in the ground. It was as if we were in a waterless riverbed, surrounded on all sides by rock and dirt and hanging roots. From in between the suffocating greenery I saw a worm wriggle out of the dirt slope and fall wetly to the ground.
I hated this place.
“I hate this place,” I said aloud.
“I don’t like it either,” Ortham replied.
His voice sounded so far away; I looked behind me. He was right there, his horse’s head bobbing up and down, his hat pulled low over his brow. His lips were drawn into a thin, hard line.
I turned back to look ahead, to look at Dawn.
“Dawn?” I called.
Now my voice sounded far away too, so far away. It was like I was shouting down a tunnel, the sound tubular and echoing.
I wiped my eyes. I was in a cold sweat. Weird, undefinable noises were rising all around me – distorted birdsong, gnashing of teeth, the squelch of globbing mud…
My mouth was dry and I licked my lips; my tongue still tasted bitter, foul like the disgusting blackberry. I wiped my face with my hand and drew back in horror; the back of my hand was smeared in thick, dark blood.
“Ah!” I cried, pulling my hand away.
I looked again – nothing was there. My hand was clean.
What was this place, this awful place… where was the sun? Were we above ground, or deep beneath the hills? Those domed hills, all maddeningly aligned in symmetric imperfection, the noxious, evil weeds coiling all around, suffocating us;
suddenly the narrow ravine opened up. I watched the vines recoil as if drawn back by invisible strings; magick was afoot.
The oppressive dread that had slowly been encroaching upon me then receded. It was as if a cruel weight was lifted from my chest; I realized I could breathe. The disturbing noises that had once surrounded us faded.
I looked around me; there was nothing to fear.
Before us lay a wall of slabbed rock; it rose from the dirt in shelves, some low, some towering over twice my height. They were covered in moss and blue-green lichen.
Dawn dismounted. Without hesitation, without even bothering to tether her horse, she walked into the pillars of dark grey rock.
Ortham and I shared a confused look. We leapt from the saddle and I quickly tethered our horses to a nearby tree as he ran in after Dawn. I soon followed.
We wound our way through the rock shelves. In some places the gaps narrowed so much that my shoulders touched either side; in others we were able to walk three abreast with ease.
After a few twists and turns the network of rock shelves ended abruptly. We came to a clearing; around the edges grew strange, broad-leafed plants, dark fungus, and sickly, coiling vines. Puddles of gritty mud ringed the clearing.
And in the centre, twisting up from the dirt, was the whited corpse of the Blighted Tree.
It was an ancient and sickly oak, rising out of the ground like a malignant ghost; most of its branches had long since rotted away. Only stunted limbs remained, poking skyward like misshapen horns. The trunk was distastefully swollen; fat and tumorous, sagging like a half-full water-skin, its rough grey bark terribly bloated.
Looking up I noticed we were deep in a crevasse; far deeper than I could have imagined. Sunlight glowed faintly from through the tangle of brambles above, so very far above. It seemed that we were in a nexus of the hills; in their very centre, where each gully intersected.
Dawn approached the great tree. She stopped a ways before its unsightly trunk. Ortham and I stopped behind her. We all stood there in silence for a long time.
“Well. Here we are,” I said aloud.
“Yeah. I guess so,” agreed Ortham.
Our voices sounded strange in this secluded corner of the world; not distorted or changed, but in the way they simply carried through the air. Like we weren’t supposed to speak – like we had no business being in such a lonely, purposely-forgotten place.
I shouldered up to Dawn. She was looking at the tree, brow furrowed.
“So… now what?” I asked. “Are we going to knock or something?”
She didn’t reply; but she did approach the tree. She took a few, uncertain steps; no further.
A small shape appeared upon one of the truncated branches. It was a faerie with dark, lustrous wings and insect-like legs; dark paint was smeared across her face like a blindfold. She bid us forward, coaxing us with a wave.
The three of us walked toward her until we were standing at the base of the bloated trunk, looking up. She sat down upon the decaying stump of the branch, a small staff in one hand. Her legs were like a beetle, or perhaps a cricket; but everything else about her was rather beautiful. Soft, milky skin and narrow fae eyes stood out sharply against her deep purple wings.
“Your dream-sense is strong, princess… I knew you could find your way,” said the faerie in a low, pleasing voice. “And I see you brought attendants…”
The faerie dropped from her perch and floated down to land upon the tree trunk before us, catching hold of the bark with her insectoid legs.
“…they must be very courageous… so few make it through the hills with pride intact…” she said, gazing up with a mischievous smile.
“Where’s your Grand Master?” Dawn asked, drawing the faerie’s attention.
“Why, he is below your very hooves, my dear princess,” she replied. “All you must do is climb beneath, into the mothering roots of the Blighted Tree…”
As she spoke she pointed to a crooked root; it shifted in the wet earth, uncoiling and lifting up to reveal a dark, muddy opening. A rat-faced boggart, no taller than my shin, crept out and squinted his eyes against the dim light.
Catching sight of Dawn he smiled and bowed gracelessly.
“In there? Am I supposed to crawl?” she asked.
The faerie and the boggart both nodded.
“Bildurog awaits,” purred the faerie, idly toying with her staff.
Dawn looked at us. I shrugged; Ortham grimaced.
She wasted no time. She squatted, steadied herself against the trunk of the tree, then crawled through the mud and into the hole.
We watched her go with consternation – but soon the hem of her emerald dress, dragging beneath her cloak, disappeared from view. Princess Dawn, led by the rat-faced boggart, was swallowed up by the roots of the Blighted Tree.
Ortham and I were left alone in the clearing. The faerie flew back up into the stunted, gnarled branches and watched us dispassionately from her roost.
The susurration of flittering wings resonated from the surrounding foliage that grew at the edges of the clearing. I didn’t bother to look; I knew what was hiding there, what malign small folk snickered from the shadows.
“I get a bad feeling about this place…” Ortham muttered to me, eyeing the heights of the rock shelves.
“Really? I don’t know what you’re talking about. Seems lovely,” I replied cavalierly.
“No, I’m serious. Riding in I was terrified – I think it’s the fae magick. They can make you feel things, weird things,” Ortham said in a low voice. “Just, uh, don’t tell Dawn that I was scared.”
“Don’t worry. I think we all felt it…” I confided.
I looked back to the tree, its engorged bulk, the tumorous knots that hung from its swollen belly. Dawn was in there, somewhere.
I put my hand to my sabre hilt and scanned the clearing, the uncomfortable feeling of being watched tickling the back of my neck.
I hoped she would hurry…
41
Day of the Hunt (The Faun Quartet Book 2) Page 35