The Will and the Wilds

by Holmberg, Charlie N.

  She whimpers against him, but doesn’t pull away. Heat runs down his throat—another piece of soul, fiery and thrilling. The want becomes so much more. It courses through his blood, sings in his muscles.

  He breaks away and claims her again, drawing her into his arms. She shivers, and he hates himself. When the final shard of her soul fills him, she doesn’t make a sound. Her lips stop moving, fingers stop clutching.

  It encompasses every last corner of him, illuminating shadows, brightening his memories. In that moment he knows Enna entirely, and he loves her. The whole of her spirit paints him—a flash of perfect clarity—and in it he sees a life left behind, a life that isn’t his, not anymore.

  He wipes the bar with a wet rag. The cloth is starting to smell of mold, but he’ll scrub it clean, hang it to dry, and use it again. The little inn isn’t much, but he got it by scrimping and saving, and the habit has stuck, even into his middle years.

  The moment Ganter Kubbs walks in, he knows it is going to be a bad day. A bad week. Maybe even longer. Ganter is local. He doesn’t drink here. None of the mobsters in the Factio do. But he pulls up a stool, spills a few coins on the bar, and says, “Stu, give me the strongest you’ve got.”

  He’s never turned down a customer. And no one turns down Ganter Kubbs. So he pours him some ale and leaves to clean the kitchen.

  But Ganter returns the next day, this time with two friends. Then it’s three friends, then five, and he says, “Don’t you have space in the basement? My boys would like space in the basement. Indefinitely.”

  Stu rubs the stubble on his face—a nervous habit. He catches himself and drops his hand. “Just for storage. I don’t have the room—”

  “We’ll make it work.”

  He never said yes. The gang just makes itself comfortable down there, doing their busywork. Stu doesn’t ask questions, and he doesn’t get answers. He tries to move on like all is well, but mobsters are bad for business. Word gets out, and soon his only customers are the traveling variety who don’t know any better.

  But then there’s Annalae.

  Annalae, sweet Annalae. Like a daughter to him. Her mother brings him cheese for the kitchens twice a week in exchange for use of his fruit press. She brings her daughter, and the girl sits in the back while he cooks. Chats his ear off. He hated it, at first. But then he got to liking the company, so now that she’s a little more grown and has found other things to do, it breaks his heart.

  Sometimes Annalae still brings the cheese, and when she does he wraps her up in a story, and she pokes fun at his thinning hair and big ears. Then the cheese doesn’t come for two weeks, and when her mother finally comes by with a delivery, he hears the hard truth.

  Ganter Kubbs had taken a liking to Annalae, and he never takes no for an answer. It will only be a matter of time before he starts asking Annalae questions to which she can only consent.

  Stu won’t have it. Can’t have it.

  So he closes the inn the next day. Damn place hasn’t so much as rested for a holiday in twenty years. But he goes off and sends a request to His Lordship, and the following week armored men come in and take the mobsters away. All of them.

  Or so Stu thinks.

  A moon passes before two come back. He doesn’t even know their names. He never asked questions. But when it’s so late even the sturdiest drunkards turn in, they come, and they drag him into the forest and rake a rusted blade across his throat, once, twice, three times . . .

  The blood falls onto the grass. Seeps into it. Trickles down to another realm. Changes. Takes shape.

  And Maekallus opens his eyes.

  Maekallus winces at the memories, startling himself when he bites the inside of his lip. Blood dribbles from the corner of his mouth, and he wipes it away. His hand is free of corruption. The air around him is calm. Free of the pricks and nibbles that always engulf him on this plane.

  The mortal realm sees him as one of its own.

  Enna stands before him, staring straight ahead. She doesn’t blink. Doesn’t move. Barely breathes. Dull. Empty. Soulless.

  The tusk dagger lies by her feet.

  He picks it up and traces it across the earth, stumbling a bit. Off balance. He touches his forehead. The horn is still there, but it’s shorter, perhaps one and a half hands in length. Never mind that.

  He takes her left hand in his and unclasps the Will Stone bracelet—she can no longer use it. Without a soul, she doesn’t have a will. He tries to fasten it around his own wrist, but the chain is too short, so he winds the silver around his middle finger and palms the most powerful thing he’s ever touched.

  Do not devour her, he commands himself.

  He draws the mortal’s descent circle, then takes Enna in his arms and stands at its center.

  Blue light flashes, and the mortal realm falls away in one fluttering piece.

  CHAPTER 28

  The mortal realm will devour a mysting’s body. The monster realm will destroy a human’s mind.

  The ground separates.

  I fall.

  He’s there.

  It’s red.

  Too warm.

  I . . .

  I?

  CHAPTER 29

  Narval horns make for excellent sorcery, or so a rooter named Attaby has claimed. The extent of his meaning is yet to be determined.

  Once, not long after Maekallus was made, before Enna was ever born, he fancied a mortal woman.

  He hid from her for a long time, watching, intrigued. Narah worked at a brothel—those aren’t too different across realms, save for the customers. She was tall and lithe with hair like midnight that fell in soft curls down her back. Her breath smelled like dying roses. Her lips were stained red. She was coy and curious and bold, and Maekallus learned how to charm just about anyone from watching her. He’d found her during one of his scouting missions for Scroud; she’d been a diversion from the orjan’s dominating presence in the Deep.

  Maekallus had already coaxed out a soul or two by then. Lost himself in the brief ecstasy of the vigor. So long as the mortal was willing, the soul came. Willingness could come from lust, fear, or trickery. An easy obstacle to overcome.

  When he’d finally shown himself to Narah, she’d hardly reacted at all. Perhaps it was the smoke in her lungs or the drink in her belly. It didn’t matter. She was kind and curious. Invited him into her home, and her bed.

  It was a dark night, the sky congested with those strange white clouds of the mortal realm. She told him about things he’d never experienced—dancing and comedy and heartache—and he hung off her every word like they were drops of water in the middle of the Azhgrada.

  It wasn’t entirely his fault. She’d leaned toward him, smiling, reaching for his mouth. He’d kissed her, and he’d taken her soul—the entirety of it. He hadn’t meant to. But intentions don’t matter when one is a narval.

  It burned brightly inside him, blissful and sweltering and agonizing. It made him regret. And like the other souls he’d consumed, it began to fade. He panicked.

  Then he heard about Attaby. Sought him out. The rooter was interested, quiet, contemplative. Even now, Maekallus remembers their conversation. The immortal waters might do it. Then again, once a soul leaves its body, the pathway is carved, isn’t it? Who is to say it wouldn’t leave again, and of its own volition? You’d need some sort of talisman to keep it in place. But it doesn’t matter.

  Why? Maekallus asked.

  The rooter shook his head. Her soul is dead, dear lad. It died long before you found me.

  Just like that, he’d lost her. And the moment he digested her soul in the Deep, he’d stopped caring altogether.

  The Deep has no sky, just endless red light that isn’t really light at all, but somehow it enables the eye to see. It has trees, but they’re ruddy and short with jagged limbs bearing fruit that will kill any mortal taster. Its soil is darker, where there is soil to be had. Much of the Deep, at least where Maekallus dwells, has uneven ground that’s spongy with one step, st
eellike with the next. But there’s water—brooks and streams and rivers of it, though not nearly as bounteous as in the mortal realm. Even mystings have to drink.

  Sometimes, in the mortal realm, on a snowy night, one can experience pure silence. But it’s never silent in the Deep. There is always something breathing, crying, laughing, feeding. Always something writhing, usually unseen.

  It had bothered Maekallus at first, at the beginning of this existence. Then he’d stopped noticing it, stopped caring. But with Enna in his arms, he notices every click and whine, every shift of the endless red landscape.

  Enna doesn’t. She stares straight ahead, a puppet without a master. The light is gone from her eyes, captured inside his own body, burning inside a lantern that won’t let it shine.

  The Deep lends him the ability to digest what he stole in the realm above, and the mysting in him longs to do just that. His stomach growls with hunger. A strange thirst forms at the back of his throat, begging to be quenched.

  He squeezes the stone and focuses. He has to be swift. He will not let her soul die.

  Grabbing Enna by the hips, he throws her over his shoulder. He can move faster that way. She doesn’t so much as peep at the discomfort.

  Her reaction—her lack of one—spikes fear through him.

  He runs.

  Enna doesn’t draw attention; she’s soulless, a husk. But Maekallus does. He feels eyes, seen and unseen, follow him as he navigates through the Deep. His destination is the immortal waters, but no one can travel directly there. Its magic nullifies circles.

  He passes through spiny trees, a poor imitation of the wildwood. Hears a low growl issue from the shadows between them. By habit he reaches his free hand for his horn—but his trusted “blade” won’t come, even here. The soul cements it in place. It’s barely a knife now, besides.

  Then he remembers the stone, and he pushes toward the predator, and the pursuit halts before it begins.

  He grips that stone until his hand aches, afraid to use it lest it draw attention. He doesn’t understand how it works in the mortal realm; he certainly can’t comprehend the consequences of its power in the Deep.

  He nearly cries when he sees it—another absurd new sensation. The immortal waters. A great rusted hill with a crater where its crest should be, and in that open mouth laps an enormous pool of silvery water. It feeds the Deep, little by little. It’s why Maekallus and his kind live so long, though he has no knowledge of its source.

  He shifts Enna to his back and wills her to cling to his neck to keep from slipping off. The Will Stone goes into his mouth. He needs both hands to climb. His lungs burn first, then his legs, weak from so much travel. His arms throb last, but he climbs until his fingernails crack and bleed. Until his feet numb. Until his throat scorches like he’s drunk acid-laced wine.

  He comes up the lip of the crater and topples over it, sprawling onto the thick, almost beach-like ledge. Enna falls with him, losing her grip around his neck. He lies next to her for a moment, wheezing, staring up into the endless red. He grips the Will Stone. Can he still feel her soul inside him? He hurts too much to tell, but that very worry gives it away. Maekallus isn’t accustomed to worrying.

  Pulling himself up, he gains his bearings. Ahead, the ledge tapers downward into a lake. Two grinlers sit near the edge of the water, eyeing him, eyeing Enna. He ignores them; in the Deep, size and power trump all else. Without their pack, Maekallus can make short work of them with little effort.

  Maekallus cradles Enna in his arms, balancing her across the crooks of his elbows. He wades into the waters. Something, an aquatic mysting, slithers by him. He wills it away. The waters calm.

  “Stand up, Enna,” he whispers to her, setting her feet down. The water reaches the tops of her thighs. She stands, but stares blankly ahead. Pale and sickly, quiet. The life has gone from her. She still breathes. Her pulse raises the vein in her wrist. But the thing that had truly made her alive has vanished.

  Reaching around her, he pulls the silver dagger from her belt. Silver, a metal nowhere to be found in his world. Deadly to all mystings.

  Narval horns make for excellent sorcery.

  Grasping his horn in his left hand, he squeezes the hilt of the dagger with his right and swings with all the strength he can muster. The silver does its job. It hacks halfway through the horn, which is likely weakened from his borrowed soul. He hits it again, and this time the tip comes off. Two-thirds the length of his hand.

  Something quakes below the hill. Not uncommon here, but it sets him on edge. In the lake, he can’t see over the ridge of the crater, so there is no telling if the tremor is natural or not—it merely reminds him to hurry. He fastens the Will Stone around Enna’s wrist. The wrong one, but it doesn’t matter. As his fingers move, his mind pulls up Attaby’s decades-old theory, the one he initially sought out in the hopes of saving Narah.

  He takes Enna’s hands in his own and kneels in the water. It rushes up to his chest. Bending his head down, he pulls water into his mouth and holds it there. Stands again. Places the Will Stone in Enna’s hand, putting his own over it. Wills this to work. Wills her to live.

  He thinks he feels the stone shiver.

  With his other hand he cradles Enna’s head and covers her cold mouth with his, letting the water trickle between their lips. Kisses her like it will be their last . . . for it will be. It needs to be.

  The soul within him ignites. Enna gasps against his lips. The tearing sensation hurts, like something deep within him has broken. It rushes out of him like water, or perhaps like blood, leaving him cold, empty, and unfeeling.

  Remember, he tells himself as the last tendrils of bliss flood from him to her. He squeezes her hand, squeezes the stone. Remember your task.

  He pulls back from her. Her eyes shimmer. Her body trembles.

  “M-Maekallus?” she whispers.

  He wraps her in his arms and plunges the tip of the horn into her back.

  CHAPTER 30

  The “immortal waters” is a great lake in the monster realm that fuels the longevity of those who call that horrid place home.

  I wake with a start, hot and cold all at once. I squint at the uneven light before me, yellow and white and green. The familiar sounds of birds and insects filter through air that’s warm yet slightly crisp—summer morning.

  Something creeps over my hand. I shake it off, pushing against moist earth and weeds to sit up, groaning at the pain in my head. My back is damp and covered with bits of old leaves. Trees stand sentinel around me.

  The wildwood. Morning. I know this place—it’s not far from my home. A good area for rabbit snares.

  I lift my hand and press it to my forehead, trying to calm the ache there. The Will Stone swings before my eyes. I stare at it, a trickle of sunlight glinting off its dark edges. It hangs from my right wrist, not my left.

  I gasp, and when I do, a sharp pain sparks in my chest just below my breasts. I cough and touch the tender spot. The ache is deep, traveling clear to my spine.

  Gods above, I remember. I remember the gobler, I remember the tusk dagger. Then there is a hole, my thoughts plucked free, but I’m used to that now, used to—

  I pull my hand back again and flex the fingers. Warm fingers. And my fingertips . . . they’re not numb.

  My soul. It’s there. It’s there.

  Tears spring to my eyes. I stand up, sore but not fatigued. I laugh and leap and hug myself as I would a long-lost friend.

  But then the blank spot in my memory fills in, and the joy distills into sobs. Great heaving sobs that make that sore spot in my chest burn.

  The last thing I saw down there was Maekallus standing over me, watching me with vivid yellow eyes.

  I clutch the Will Stone in both hands, but its surface is warm.

  He is gone.

  I was truthful when I said I had lied to my father for the last time, for when I arrive home, I cannot even bring myself to speak.

  He follows me to my room, worried, but when I softly
shut the door, he doesn’t intrude. I stand there for a long moment, head resting against the wood. I reach up a hand and rub dried tears from my eyelids. The sun pours through my window, making the room too warm. It’s almost silent within, but even these walls can’t block out the noise of the forest.

  Pulling away from the door, I reach around and unfasten the three buttons at the back of my ruined dress. I let it puddle on the floor, my punctured underclothes with it.

  There, just over my diaphragm, is a small circle, almost like scar tissue. No larger than a pinhead. I touch it. The skin feels bruised, but it’s not discolored. I find another circle at the center of my back, barely missing my spine. This one is bigger, the size of a gold farkle, our largest denomination of coin. I recognize it, although I don’t know how. Maybe by the size, maybe by the color. Maybe by the feeling of it inside me, hard and unyielding and magicked, for anything else would have taken my life.

  His horn. The tip of it, plunged through me. Why? Not to return me to the mortal realm. I trace the small scar beneath my breasts, thinking again of the pinhead. Pinned.

  And what else would he have need to pin, except my soul to my body? So it could not escape?

  A new surge of sorrow erupts. I cover my mouth with my hands to muffle the sound and drop to my knees. Tears spatter the pile of clothes. The too-warm Will Stone brushes my wrist.

  I think of his yellow eyes. Without my soul inside him, what has he become? Unfeeling, unknowing, uncaring—

  Mysting.

  I am renewed. I am returned. I am everything I once was. I am whole.

  And yet I am useless.

  I feel as though my own home is a dream, faded around the edges, and I have become a specter within it. I am complete, and yet my heart is so broken I can’t find its pieces. I remind myself that he is a mysting, that he lied to me, that he betrayed me, but the words are no salve to the deep and unrelenting ache. All I know for certain is that he is gone, and that, beyond all reason, I love him. Loved him, for my mind is clear enough to know Maekallus is no longer the being who shattered me so completely, and that makes it hurt so much more. I cannot even lure him back to me, for the powerful Will Stone cannot reach into the monster realm to find him. I cannot even bring myself to worry for the portal ring deep in the wildwood, save for when I clutch the Will Stone and pray Scroud’s scouts will pass over this place.