The Will and the Wilds

by Holmberg, Charlie N.

  He turns from her, focusing on the task at hand. There is a way for mystings to sense one another, if they want to be sensed. Attaby is the type to not have his guard up.

  Maekallus pushes the magic out of him, deeper into the forest, away from human civilization. The energy is so thin already; it barely grazes the surface of the wildwood. But just as it burns out, he detects something distinctly rooter. Straight east.

  Opening his eyes, he walks out of the circle, letting his hooves—the hooves that now bear five points, similar to toes—scuff the rune as he goes. He gestures in the direction.

  “Attaby.”

  “You’re sure?” Enna asks.

  “As sure as I can be.”

  “But if it’s not . . .”

  He folds his arms and leans his weight onto one leg. “What was it that you bothered me with, over and over? That we should try?”

  A small smile touches her lips. He tries not to mirror it. “Then we should go, while we’ve still time. Lead the way.”

  Maekallus passes out of the glade, to the point where the binding spell prevents him from going any farther. He presses against it; the curse presses back.

  Enna takes one step past him, clutching the stone in her hand. He can’t fathom it—the Will Stone, all this time, in the hands of a mortal. The rumors that it had been stolen by a human must be true. A human of Enna’s acquaintance? This father of hers? Or had it simply traded hands from merchant to merchant, sold as a simple charm of warning? Leave it to humans to peddle away the greatest weapon of his time.

  The spell slackens. He takes one step, another. Grins. It’s like stretching after a year-long slumber. Like sex after months of solitude.

  “Prey and predators,” he mumbles, ducking under a tree to avoid catching it with his horn. Thick forests really aren’t prime locations for narvals. When he isn’t lurking about human cities, he prefers open plains. “I almost feel free.”

  Enna smiles beside him. “I’m glad.”

  The gobler’s spell, however, begins to tug again.

  “You need to actively want my company.” He moves to jab her with his tail, only to remember it’s been sacrificed to the maw of the mortal realm. Will it return, once he descends? “Otherwise I can’t accompany you. Unless you know this part of the wildwood, I would suggest willing me here.”

  Needless to say, the first time Enna had given up willing him out of his prison, it had not been pleasant. He’d been jerked back to the glen so forcefully it was a wonder he hadn’t broken anything.

  She doesn’t respond.

  “Enna?”

  She snaps to attention. “Oh, sorry.”

  The spell relaxes.

  He eyes her. She’s been . . . leaving the present more and more lately. In response to the thought, the bits of her soul light up like fireflies, pressing against him as if attempting to get closer to her. It’s only the soul, he tells himself, and it’s . . . strange. Maekallus has never felt for so long in his entire existence.

  The one he can clearly remember, anyway.

  Enna begins to prattle. He isn’t sure why. Perhaps she doesn’t like the silence, or she wants a distraction, or she has some weird human need to share her stories. She talks about growing a mushroom farm—how anyone can eat those things is beyond him—and the different plants in her garden, all of which Maekallus had to put in his mouth during their first attempts to break the gobler’s spell. He cringes to remember it. She asks him questions about the beuhger again, then talks about what she knows about goblers, and then prods him for information about the slyser—the large, serpentine mysting who’d come up through the summoning circle—for that ridiculous book of notes of hers. Then she goes on about her grandmother, and how the older woman had once hired a rooter to protect her home. How it was the one true evidence Enna had that a docile mysting could exist, though her grandmother had never recorded the rooter’s name.

  “Maybe it was . . . what did you say his name was, again?”

  “Attaby.”

  “Attaby.” She smiles. Such a small, simple thing, but it’s strangely beautiful. “It doesn’t sound like a mysting name.”

  “I suppose you’re the expert.”

  She shrugs. “It’s just . . . too friendly.”

  Maekallus picks his way up a sudden, short incline in the forest floor. “Then it’s perfect for him.”

  Enna struggles behind him; he grabs her forearm and hauls her up. She scrapes her knee, but doesn’t protest. “Is it?”

  “Rooters are doleful little ka’pigs. They do well in this realm, frolicking in the meadows and wiping their asses on the doorsteps of humans.”

  “Maekallus.”

  “You deny it?”

  “No.” She takes a second to catch her breath. “It’s just . . . I don’t think anyone has ever said ‘asses’ in front of me before.”

  He shrugs and trudges ahead. Stops so she can catch up. Gods, she’s weak. He knows humans aren’t usually so weak. It has to be the soul.

  She’s weak because she’s helping you stay alive.

  Because you lied to her. Because you’re still lying to her.

  Maekallus clenches his jaw. Enna stumbles.

  “Here.” He grasps her forearm and, careful with his horn, stoops over and scoops up her knees with his other arm.

  Color returns to her face. “I can walk—”

  “Do you want to make it back before dark or not? We’ll go faster this way.”

  Her body tenses with complaint, but as Maekallus picks up speed, winding through the uneven wildwood, she relaxes into his arms. “Just until I catch my breath,” she insists.

  Gods, she’s small. She doesn’t look that small, just . . . feels it. Like he could crush her without trying. Like if he drops her, she might not get back up again.

  His stomach tightens at the thought of it. He wishes it wouldn’t.

  It’s farther than he anticipated; the mortal realm’s sun has crested and begins to fall by the time he senses Attaby.

  “He’s close.” Maekallus searches the wood. A fox darts to the south.

  “Put me down.” Enna presses a hand to his chest; it ignites something strange in his skin, something that seems at odds with the corruption coursing through his veins. He obliges. She takes a moment to look around, rolling the Will Stone between her fingers. “Are you sure? The stone hasn’t chilled.”

  “Chilled?”

  “It gets cold when mystings are nearby.”

  “It should have been cold this whole time, then.” He points to himself.

  Enna turns and looks him up and down. He feels her gaze like the winds of the Azhgrada, the desert of the Deep.

  “It stays cool for you. It hasn’t thought you dangerous since the binding.”

  That takes him aback. Not dangerous? Hadn’t he been dangerous to those grinlers? And to the mystings who passed through the portal to the Deep?

  He growls deep in his throat. Steps closer to Enna, until the space between them is as narrow as his little finger. Enna tenses. He stoops low, letting the base of his horn press against the highest point of her forehead. His hands slide around her neck—softly, but he can feel her pulse hammering under his thumb. Is it for fear, or something else?

  “Does it still think I’m not dangerous?” he murmurs. His nose hovers just above hers. He thinks about the way her lips feel, warm and willing—

  “M-Maekallus,” she croaks.

  Two heavy footfalls sound ahead of them. “Am I interrupting something? Maekallus, I wasn’t expecting you. Ah, you’re missing a tail.”

  Maekallus straightens, letting his hands fall from Enna’s neck. She backs away instantly, a small squeak escaping her when she beholds Attaby.

  He looks as any rooter will—about eight feet tall, with hard, dark skin that resembles the bark of a tree. His head is broad and rectangular, and if he closes his eyes, his face will be nearly indistinguishable from the rest of it. He has long arms and skinny, wood-like legs. Thick, flat fin
gers on each hand. In a place like the wildwood, a rooter can stand stationary and never be noticed by a mortal.

  “It’s been a while.” Maekallus bends his head in greeting.

  “Indeed. You are not one to traipse the wildwood.” He studies Enna. “Especially with a mortal. Has this anything to do with your tail?”

  Enna glances at her stone, then back at Attaby. She pulls her sleeve over the bracelet.

  “In a manner of speaking.” Maekallus gestures to the thin stream of light emitting from his chest.

  “At least you didn’t lose your horn. Narval horns make for excellent sorcery.” Attaby moves closer, ungracefully, crushing vegetation underfoot as he goes. He squints at the red light. “Ah, that’s a terrible chain to have.” He looks to Enna. “And you can’t untie it?”

  Enna blinks. “I, uh, I’m not the one who bound him here. It was a gobler. I hired Maekallus to eliminate him, and it . . . didn’t end well.”

  She opens her right hand and pulls back the bandaging on it, showing the weeping red cut.

  Attaby chortles. “Trouble with a gobler? Really, Maekallus?”

  “There were two of them,” he growls. “The second crept up on me.”

  “In a forest, no less? Hmm. Follow me. I’ve a nicer spot to chat.” He turns, far too slowly, and stomps back through the forest. It isn’t hard to see where he came from. Rooters leave clumsy trails. At least the mellow pace will be good for Enna.

  They don’t go far. Attaby brings them to another glade, much smaller than Maekallus’s cage, the grassy ground littered with leaves green and yellow. Dogwood—Maekallus thinks that’s what it’s called—springs up in patches around it like the claws of a fergshaw. The rooter has set up a sort of table, a long split log propped up on other logs. Speaking of sorcery, atop it sits a collection of things: a hare’s foot, leaves and needles from various plants, gemstones, ash, a bowl of slop from the River of Blood in the Deep. Enna takes an immediate interest in them, toeing behind Attaby to investigate. No doubt she wishes to sketch the lot in her book.

  “And the girl?” Attaby asks, as though they’d been conversing this whole time.

  “We’re bound by the bargain. She . . . has an ability to break up her soul.”

  “Truly?” He turns about and looks at Enna, who takes the opportunity to look right back. She doesn’t seem afraid. Granted, Attaby is hardly terrifying.

  “How do you do it?” the rooter asks.

  “Uh”—she glances to Maekallus—“I don’t know. It’s . . . something I was born with.”

  Maekallus groans inwardly at the obvious lie, but Attaby accepts it. “Interesting. And you’re keeping him alive. But of course, the bargain spell is simply—”

  Maekallus clears his throat loudly. Gesturing to Enna, he says, “We’ll worry about the bargain. What we need help with is breaking this.” He juts a thumb at the binding spell.

  “Hmmm.” Attaby considers for a moment before walking to Maekallus and grabbing his jaw in his wide, rough fingers, turning his head this way and that. Maekallus resists the urge to knock the rooter away. Like it or not, he needs help.

  Attaby releases him and looks him over, possibly studying the spots of black growing like mold over his body.

  “You’re not corrupted,” Enna says, drawing the mysting’s attention away. “You’ve obviously been here a long time, but the mortal world doesn’t consume you.”

  The rooter chortles. “Oh, it does indeed, young one. But a dip back into the Deep is all I require to return renewed. It is not hard to linger here if one visits home on occasion. That is why so many of our kind haunt uncultivated places like this wood. The weather here really is more pleasant, as is the food.”

  “Truly? What is it like in the monster—”

  “To the task at hand,” Maekallus interrupts. Even as he says it, black oozes out from the slice across his hand, eating up his palm. It stings.

  “I’ve no mystium blood to unbind it,” says Attaby. “I’m surprised it lets you come all this way. Binding spells tend to have short leashes.”

  “Can you break it?”

  Attaby frowns. He places his large, woody hand against Maekallus’s chest. The thread of red light passes through it.

  Then he digs in all four of his jagged fingers, and the tips begin to glow blue.

  Attaby is an old mysting, well versed in the workings of both worlds and the sorcery between them. It’s why Maekallus sought him out. This time, and the last, though he’d been too late, then.

  But Attaby’s workings are never pleasant.

  Heat like a thousand suns pulses through the rooter’s hand, and it takes everything Maekallus has to stay standing. Air storms from their connection. Something beneath Attaby’s grip cracks and sizzles. Maekallus’s knees give out, but he doesn’t fall. The power holds him up.

  It pierces him, and he screams.

  “Stop!” Enna’s cry is muffled by the surge of Attaby’s power. She grabs the rooter’s other arm and tugs, as if she’ll ever possess the strength to move him. “You’re hurting him!”

  The gusts and the light die down, as does the strength holding Maekallus upright. He drops to his knees, palms against the earth.

  Enna runs to his side. His chest smokes and smells terrible. “Are you all right?”

  He trembles. Grits his teeth to stop it, but his body is repelling the workings of the rooter. It will take a moment.

  “Maekallus?” She grabs either side of his face, searching his eyes. Is she going to kiss him, like she did after the grinlers’ attack?

  He reaches up a hand and grasps her wrist. “It’ll leave a mark,” he rasps.

  “Hmm.” Attaby strokes his wide, flat jaw, completely unmoved by Enna’s screams or Maekallus’s . . . whatever. “Alas, this binding is absolute. It wavered for a moment, but that is all I can do without killing you.”

  Maekallus looks down. A strange circular burn mars his chest, the skin there gray and waxen. The glimmer of the binding spell beams bright in comparison.

  He spits the vilest curse the Deep had taught him.

  “Interesting,” Attaby says, but when Maekallus lifts his head, he realizes the rooter isn’t referring to the spell. His dark eyes shift back and forth between Enna and Maekallus, a flat finger pressed to his mouth.

  “Attaby,” Maekallus warns. The name scrapes up his throat.

  Attaby turns to Enna. “You should know, little mortal, that there’s been more activity in this place than usual, closer to the heart of the wood. Magic quakes through the air. Mmm, yes. Mystings all about, sniffing something out. Not all are as tolerant of humans as I am. Or, apparently, as Maekallus is.”

  Enna stands. “Tolerant? This is our world. We tolerate them.”

  Attaby shakes his head. “Oh no, no. The strong prey on the weak, it has always been so. The setting is just happenstance.”

  Enna frowns. Maekallus, biting down on a groan, gets up on one malformed hoof, then the other. Slowly, every muscle in his back pulling and twisting, he stands, albeit hunched over.

  “Scroud’s minions,” Attaby continues. “Something around here he wants. I can’t think of another reason for them to brood about in the wildwood, unless it’s a grab for resources.”

  Maekallus licks his teeth. Scroud. More mystings in the area. Do they know Enna has the stone? But the gobler who escaped him never made it to her home. Perhaps they have determined to look elsewhere.

  “Hmm. May I?” Attaby steps closer to Enna. Places a hand on her shoulder. Maekallus can tell she’s trying not to shrink back.

  Since when could he read a mortal like this? Since when has he cared to try?

  Attaby stoops low, almost leveling his eyes with Enna’s. He stares long and hard. “Little mortal, you’ve just half a soul left. Be careful how you divide it.”

  Enna’s mouth works, forming the word half, but the word has no voice. Her smooth skin drains of color, making her dark hair stark against her cheek.

  Attaby looks a m
oment more. “Ah, yes. I’ve been about these woods many years. I knew your grandmother. Wily woman.” He straightens and drops his rough hand before turning to Maekallus. “I’m sorry. A mystium, a tusk, a death. That’s how those spells work, as I’m sure you know.”

  The slivers of soul sink down to his pelvis, cold and desolate.

  “I do not think you’ll have time for the first,” the rooter continues, peering from Maekallus to Enna and back. “Mortals have such slow gestations.”

  Maekallus rolls his eyes. All the blood returns to Enna’s face at once, turning it redder than his hair.

  He’d be lying if he says he hadn’t thought of it, for one reason or another.

  “I’m aware.” He grits his teeth against the pain in his chest, stifling the words. “Thank you, for trying.”

  Attaby pulls his broad head back. “My, my, a narval with manners. You’re changing, Maekallus. And I don’t just mean the tail.”

  Enna glances at him. He doesn’t meet her eyes.

  “Another option gone,” she whispers.

  Maekallus winces, feeling sore blackness spreading behind his knee, hot and . . . wet. He tries not to cringe. The wet spots are much worse than the dry.

  The walk back is slow. The soreness Attaby left through his chest and back is deep and aching. But Enna keeps up with the slow pace. She puts Maekallus’s arm around her shoulders as though she can hold him up. By the time they reach the glade, full night has fallen, and stars peek from the sky. Maekallus has to lead the way; Enna’s eyes can’t pierce the dark like his can.

  She moves to her basket, pulling from it a lantern. She makes a few sparks before it lights. “This would be easier if you’d stop injuring yourself.”

  “Not every injury is intentional.”

  She stares at the light of the lantern, frowning at it. What is she thinking?

  He pounds the heel of his hand against his brow. Why did he care?

  Changing, the rooter said. This damned soul is reworking the way he looks, the way he thinks. The way he feels. Its vigor is as bright as the day he first tasted it.

  Is this how he’d felt before? In his past life? Those memories . . .