Raveler: The Dark God Book 3 (12 page)

She thought about killing herself to escape the devouring. She could flee this place, hide in the mountains. But there was no way to hang herself with the chains. Besides, she needed to be there for Legs. She would not leave him to face his last moments alone.

They brought Oaks back some time later and chained him to another spot on the wall. In the lamplight she saw his arm had been splinted. When the guards closed the door again, she said, “I told Flax everything I knew. Everything I’d sworn to keep secret.”

“Yes,” he said in defeat. He sighed. “Who could have guessed that a Divine was right there sharing our swamp and bread? He had them splint my arm. They want me whole. I’m to be put in the arena, pitted against a lion or mauler.”

“Part of a spectacle,” she said.

“Which won’t end with me hacking off the dog’s head. They’ll be sure of that.”

“Did he tell you about the Skir Master?”

“No.”

“He’s not dead.”

“Of course not,” Oaks said with a sigh. “Why should mankind get any breaks? The Creators are set against us.”

There wasn’t much to say after that. Sugar sat in the darkness next to Oaks. Eventually, she too concluded the Creators must be set against humankind. After all, hadn’t the Creators given life to the Devourers? All this time, humans thought they were the masters of the earth. But they were exactly what the Skir Master called them—meat for beings of greater power.

11

Hunting

TALEN LAY IN the darkness of the onion-shaped hut contemplating what he’d done to that weem. He was slipping into a vile blackness. He was crawling slowly to his own doom because even if he didn’t give into his lusts tomorrow or the next day or the next, he was bound to slip up again sometime. Maybe a few days from now. Maybe a few hours. A little slip here, another there. They would add up, and in a few years what would he be? Some horrid amalgamation of insects and people and animals. He would go mad. And when he’d lost his mind, what would he do then?

He sighed. All those nights he thought he was dreaming of a yellow world—it had been nothing more than his roamling on the prowl.

He wanted fresh air. He wanted out of the hut, but that wasn’t going to happen, so he recited poems to himself and cataloged the day’s events. He did push-ups and sit-ups in the little space that was his until he lost count. When he couldn’t do another, he stood and pinched himself mercilessly to keep himself awake. From the turning of the stars, he knew a few hours had passed. But he also knew there were more to come, and his weariness was growing. He’d been multiplied for almost a whole day, consumed perhaps a week of his life, and his body needed rest. But if he slept, who knew where his roamlings would go?

He closed one eye, thinking that maybe he could rest them in turns, but the other eye soon followed. He told himself that he would open his eyes again in just a moment, just one moment.

He roused himself. Slapped his face hard, but the sting could not remove his weariness. He was going to lose this fight. In the end, he was going to lose. But not tonight. Not here. He moved over to the little window and knelt before it, letting the cool air refresh his face and began mumbling what he could remember of the Proverbs of Hismayas.

* * *

A scream shocked Talen from his slumber.

He jumped and banged the back of his head against the wall of their onion shaped hut and thanked the Six he hadn’t been sleeping on one of the many tree platforms he’d seen. If he had been, he would have startled himself right over the side and to his death.

Something large inside the hut screamed again, a long, hideous caterwaul that sent a surge of fear through him and made the hairs on his neck stand on end. He scrabbled back, away from the sound. In reflex, he sent forth a roamling to see what it was.

Harnock was standing up in the center of the hut, stooping from the low ceiling. It was Harnock making the noise!

“Harnock,” River said rolling up from her sleep. She threw a pack at him.

The caterwaul changed pitch to a moan. Then a growl.

“Harnock!” River shouted.

The growling stopped.

Outside the hut, the woodikin guard shouted something. He banged on the door, shouted something again. Harnock replied to the guard in Woodikin.

“What’s going on?” Talen asked, his heart still thumping.

Harnock was breathing hard. He hissed in anger and slammed the side of the hut with his fist. The walls shuddered. “Sometimes we hate it,” he spat. “Sometimes we both hate it.”

“You were sleep walking, weren’t you?” River asked.

“I was running,” he said. “We were running, and I was caught.”

Talen assumed the “we” Harnock was talking about included the lion.

“One of these days,” said Harnock, “the lion will be free. I will be free.” He yelled something at the woodikin outside, then stomped the door with his foot. The door buckled. He stomped again and broke it open.

“Harnock,” River said in alarm. She grabbed him by his belt, failed to move him, then put herself between him and the door.

Outside the shouts of many woodikin rose, racing to the hut.

“You will stay!” a woodikin shouted. It was the troop leader who had captured them.

“I will not be caged,” Harnock said.

The troop leader held a short spear. “You will stay, or you will die. It was agreed.”

“He’s not running away,” River said.

“You will die,” said the troop leader.

“It was agreed,” River said, and she pushed Harnock back.

More armed woodikin began to arrive on branches around them.

Harnock clenched his fists, and looked like he was going to charge past River through the small door, but he sighed heavily instead and snarled in resignation.

“You will stay,” the troop leader said.

Harnock barked some comment back in woodikin, but he sat down. The troop leader lingered a bit longer at the door, his spear ready and said something to the woodikin outside. It sounded like there were at least twenty of them out there. They scampered about, some taking positions on the roof of the hut, others spread out along the limbs.

Talen wasn’t sure they’d be able to stop Harnock if he wanted to leave. But he had no doubt they’d fill him and River full of poisoned darts should they try anything.

Harnock sat down, then lay on his back.

“What was that all about?” Talen asked.

River said, “Moon told us that a number of times she found him miles away from the house still caught in some awful dream.”

“Not a dream,” said Harnock. “A reality. Lords, but I hate the Divines.”

There wasn’t much to say after that. River and Harnock eventually slept. The woodikin stood guard outside. And Talen thought about his own new reality.

* * *

It was still dark when a woodikin arrived and talked to the troop leader outside their hut. When that woodikin left, the troop leader gave orders, then squatted at the broken door. “You will get up,” he said and poked Harnock with the butt end of his spear.

The troop leader poked at Harnock again, but Harnock caught the spear in his hand and growled. River rolled up.

“You will go through these lands,” the troop leader said. “We will take you back to your skinmen. Then the female will return. The queen has agreed.”

Harnock shoved the spear away.

They exited the hut out into the cool night air. Stars shone above. Talen stretched and rubbed his weary eyes.

“I can barely see to walk,” River said.

It
was
dark, and one wrong step would send them falling to their deaths. Despite his reservation, Talen sent one roamling out to see with. “Give me your hand,” he said. He didn’t want to touch her, but what else could he do?

She took it, and the smell of her soul filled him. He gritted his teeth, but held on. And soon they were moving out. He found it interesting that neither the woodikin nor Harnock seemed to be having any trouble seeing in the darkness. They easily made their way through the tanglewood, down branches, along a wide road, over bridges. River stumbled once, but Talen caught her.

The tanglewood was quiet except for a small breeze blowing through the boughs. At one point, some woodikin cried out in the night, but then the cry stilled. As they moved, Talen’s night vision improved until he was able to make out the rough shapes of the light-colored tree limbs with his natural eyes, and he pulled his roamling back in. Not much later River let go of his hand.

He sighed in relief, and they proceeded forward. He’d been thinking all night long, weighing his options, and all of them ran to one place: sooner or later, he’d have to be destroyed.

He leaned over to River. “How are blends made?”

“I don’t know the specifics,” she said.

Harnock cut in. “You graft one soul onto the other. You start with an animal and graft in the soul of a man. Or vice versa. But you can’t do bits. That just leads to odd manifestations. A patch of skin, some fingernails turning into claws. You have to take the whole animal. There are some that try to do it in the womb or with babes. Lumen did it with full-grown men. He tried it first by putting the souls of men into animals. But the animals only panicked, and the blends died. Then he tried putting the beasts into humans.”

“What did Lumen use for blends?” Talen asked.

“Bears, stags, sharks,” Harnock said. “Whatever took his fancy. Frogs.”

River shook her head. “The Divines are monsters.”

“How many of you survived?” Talen asked.

“Only one. Another might have made it—good old Amak—but he killed himself to spite Lumen. I suppose I would have done the same, but I wanted revenge.”

“Which was impossible,” Talen said. “Because you can’t get close.”

“No,” Harnock replied, “Regret rot them.”

They stopped to fill their water bladders with tree water and then at some wide stalls with holes in the floor that stretched out away from the limb to relieve themselves. When the troop finished, he said, “I pity the woodikin below.”

“It drops straight to the forest floor,” said Harnock. “Sooner or later, a gang of their dungers collect it to use in the mushroom beds or dig into the earth about the tanglewood to fertilize the trees. The trees give to them, and they give right back.”

Talen nodded. The trees were so massive the ground must become barren without some form of replenishment. Then he realized the tanglewood probably could not grow as large as it did without the woodikin living in it.

A few minutes later they passed by a smaller road that was half grown, the limbs still reaching to meet each other from the parallel lines of trees. Not long after that they came to the edge of the tanglewood. The woodikin lowered ropes and descended. Talen and the others followed. A few more woodikin brought up the rear, carrying weapons and packs and wearing their odd segmented armor.

By this time the sky had lightened just a bit in the east. When Talen reached the forest floor, the troop leader gave them their knives and bows and arrows. Then two more woodikin joined them. One wore black silks and a mantle of gray and white feathers. Over his shoulder he held a short pole. At the end of the pole hung a medium-sized basket woven of grass. The other woodikin was clearly a servant. The troop leader bowed to the woodikin in black silks. They exchanged a few words, and then the troop set out—twenty-two woodikin and three humans.

Talen motioned at the woodikin with the pole and basket. “They’ve sent a wasp lord with us?”

“It appears the queen wants to protect her investment,” Harnock said and motioned at River.

Talen was fascinated with the basket. He was also horrified it would come loose or be knocked off the pole and the wasps would fly out, angry and looking for something to sting. But the basket only swayed gently with the woodikin’s gait.

As they walked, Harnock instructed them to call the troop leader “Chot,” for that was his title in woodikin. He also tried to teach them some basics of the language. “Twa” meant “yes.” “Zim” meant “no.” The word for food was “hala.” If they saw danger or wanted to alert the others, they should say “toom.” Eventually, the troop leader told them to be quiet.

As they walked, Talen looked back at the massive and towering tanglewood in the early morning light. He could not believe he’d been in one and lived to tell about it. Legs and Sugar would be jealous. He could lord this over Ke. Then his thoughts turned to Nettle, the best friend he supposed anyone might have. Nettle would have loved this, back when he was whole. Maybe he might yet enjoy it. Perhaps there was something in the book of Hismayas that would help him. Once they got the book back, he would make Uncle Argoth try to open it again. Surely there would be something in there for Nettle. He looked down at his wrists. There might even be something for him.

* * *

They walked many miles through the woods before they stopped for lunch. Talen removed his pack and sat beside it. He felt brittle, weary all the way to his bones.

Chot walked back to him. “No sitting, Skinman.” He pointed at a number of bushes around them. “You will pick plenty massal.”

“What is massal?” asked Talen.

“Massal,” Chot said and pointed around himself. “Massal.” And he grabbed the stem of a bush and brought it down for Talen to see. Massal was some type of small fruit that looked like currants. “You will pick plenty.”

Talen nodded, and Chot walked off.

Talen picked one berry and ate it. It was very bitter. “Which ones are ripe?”

“They’re all ripe,” said Harnock. “But we’re not picking them for us. They’re for our woodikin escort. You and I eat too many of these, and we’ll be doing nothing but hanging our bums out over the river.”

“I fancy the weevil anyway,” said Talen.

“We’re getting down to the last of that,” Harnock said. “We’re going to need some flesh.”

River looked over at Talen. “You look awful,” she said.

“I didn’t sleep much.”

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“He’s not,” said Harnock. “You don’t run a whole day on Fire and not sleep.”

Talen took the bottom hem of his tunic and brought it up to form a make-shift basket.

“I know why you didn’t sleep, Hogan’s son.”

Talen ignored him and picked a cluster of massal berries and dropped them in his tunic.

Harnock said, “It was you poking around my doors last night, wasn’t it?”

Talen picked another handful of berries and realized there was no point in lying. Sooner or later, all his paths led to one place. He needed to stand up in the sunlight and face the day. “I sent my roamlings out of the hut to get away from the temptation I felt there. But it didn’t help. Down in the bottoms of the tanglewood, I . . .”

“You what?”

Talen screwed up his courage. “I raveled a weem and devoured its Fire, maybe some of its soul.”

Harnock whistled lightly and shook his head.

River’s face filled with dismay. “Oh, Talen. Why didn’t you wake us?”

“What could you have done?”

Harnock said, “Sometimes Moon would talk to me. Sometimes that’s all that was needed.”

River said, “It takes large quantities of soul to turn someone into true sleth. I’m sure this won’t do much damage.”

“You’d be surprised,” Harnock said.

“It’s only going to get worse,” Talen said. He looked at Harnock. “Maybe it’s time for your mercy.”

“Maybe,” Harnock said.

“Stop that,” River said. “One mistake does not cast a man’s future in iron.”

“But the consequences—I ate soul. I’m turning into the very blackness we fight against.”