The Whispering Trees (27 page)

She did not go inside.

The main road finally emptied into a grassy square. Here a group of children around Kara's age were playing a game that involved three clay balls that varied greatly in size. The children laughed as they ran up and down
the field, passing the balls between them. Kara stepped closer, longing to be folded in that laughter, as warm and comforting as a blanket.
If I can just figure out how the game works
, she thought,
perhaps they'll let me play
. After watching the participants for some time, however, Kara could still make no sense of the rules, and no one offered to help her understand.

She moved on.

At the opposite end of the square lay a man whose pants leg had been cut away to reveal a long, bloody gash. A woman with strange feathers in her hair sat on a stool next to him. She crumbled dried herbs into a mortar half filled with milky liquid, then ground the two ingredients into a thick poultice. This she spread over the man's wound.

A healer
, Kara thought.

After this she decided to return to the hut. Kara felt as though her walk had not been wasted; she understood the villagers better now.
They eat. They worship. They play.
They heal
. It turned out that Kala Malta was not so different than De'Noran after all.

That night Kara's body was restless, her thoughts even more so. When she finally grew bored of staring up at the ceiling she went outside. It was cold. She brought her hands to her mouth and blew warm air into them, then waved to the Devoted posted across the road. He watched her carefully but did nothing else.

What am I thinking?
she wondered.
Stopping Grace was one thing. The grimoire made her dangerous, but she was still only a girl. Sordyr is something different altogether. He might already know I'm planning to hurt him. He might be playing with me
. She perused the night: the slumbering huts, the arching branches.
He could be reading my thoughts right now. . . .

“What are you doing out here?” Safi asked.

Kara turned to find the girl standing in the doorway. Her thin arms hung by her sides, her doll nowhere to be seen.

“I can't sleep,” said Kara. When Safi's eyes remained fixed on her, she added, “I'm not out here planning anything evil, if that's what you're worried about.”

“I believe you,” Safi said.

Kara dug at a piece of dried earth embedded in her knuckle. “So you've finally accepted that your vision about me might be wrong?”

“I believe that you want to do good.”

“You didn't answer my question.”

“My vision had two parts. First I saw you and Taff in the Thickety. Then I saw all the death and destruction that are going to happen in the World. The way the visions followed each other, I thought that you were the one who caused all the bad things. Does that make sense?”

“Yes,” said Kara. “I probably would have thought the same thing.”

“You coming here and what happens
are
connected,” Safi said. “But maybe not in the way I thought. My visions, they sometimes play tricks on me.”

Safi stopped, on the verge of saying something more. Kara waited. She heard stirring from inside the hut as Taff tossed in his sleep.

“I know you saw your mother die,” Safi said. “Taff told me. I hope that's all right.”

Kara nodded.

“How old were you?” Safi asked.

“Five.”

“I was four when I saw my mother die,” Safi said, “only it was in my mind, not in real life. Not yet. I saw her drown in a pond. I must have been terrified, but I don't remember that part. I only remember how relieved I was when I woke up and found my mother peeling vegetables—alive, still alive. It felt like the greatest present I would ever get. It felt like a miracle. I told my mother what I had seen, and instead of telling me it was just a bad dream
she listened to me
. I guess maybe I had seen things before and they had come true—I don't remember. Or maybe she just trusted me. Anyway, my mother stopped going in the pond, or the
river, or anywhere else she might drown. A year went by. I thought she was safe.”

Safi's lips began to tremble as she talked, but her eyes remained dry.

“My mother stayed out too long in the rain one day and grew ill. Spent her last few days in a fever, coughing blood. I heard my father and Mr. Tonkins, who knows some things about medicine and tried to help, talking afterward. Mr. Tonkins said there was nothing he could do because there was water in her lungs. ‘She's drowning from the inside out'—those were his exact words. I remember that.”

Kara didn't say anything. The girl's mother was dead. The right words didn't exist.

“These visions of mine,” said Safi, “sometimes happen in a roundabout way, but they always happen.”

“This is different,” said Kara.

“Is it?” asked Safi. “It doesn't matter, I guess. We have to try to stop Sordyr. That's all we can do. But I'm not
sure it's going to change anything—not anything important, at least. My mother didn't drown in a pond, but in the end she died just the same.”

Despite Breem's prediction the weather remained dry, and two days later Kara found herself deep within the earth, summarizing her discovery of the grimoires to a shadowy shape in the distance.

“Between all the storehouses there must be thousands of them, and he's still making more,” Kara said. “But
why
? Can Sordyr even use a spellbook?”

Of course not
, replied Rygoth.
Nor does he have need of one
.

“But didn't he make the first grimoire? That's what they believe in Kala Malta, at least. Last night a man named Breem told me a story about a spoiled princess—”

Sordyr created the tree whose wood, once turned into paper, enables the magic to be trapped. So yes, in a way he is the grimoires' creator. But that doesn't mean he can use them. A
blacksmith doesn't wield the sword he fashions
.

“Sordyr made
Fenroot trees
?” Kara shook her head. “This doesn't make any sense! I grew up as a Child of the Fold, who believe that all magic is evil. Why would they
revere
the Fenroot tree, then? Unless—maybe they don't know about the connection to the grimoires?”

Fenroots make magic. Your people hate magic. That can't be a coincidence
.

“I don't know,” Kara said. “It's hard for me to believe that the Fold would accept anything that involved magic. And Fenroots are such an important part of our religion! We can't even settle on a piece of land unless there's a Fenroot tree growing there.”

Ah
, said Rygoth.
I may understand now. Your people rose to prominence after I was trapped in this place, but the forest is full of spiders, and they bring me information overheard from those who have settled in the Thickety through the years. I have heard many things about your Fold. They were great witch hunters in their day, feared and merciless. No doubt they knew a Fenroot
tree was the source of a grimoire's pages
.

“So why didn't they just destroy them all?”

Because Timoth Clen was much too clever for that. Instead of destroying the trees, he set his armies around the Fenroots as a trap for witches foolish enough to try to harness their power. When the witches vanished, the Fold lost its power; for many generations its members were scattered and disorganized. Almost all written records of that time were lost. My guess is the Fold remembered that Fenroot trees were important, but forgot the reason why. Time is a fickle sieve, catching the larger truths while the smaller ones spill through its slots
.

“I think I understand,” said Kara, “but that doesn't answer my first question. Why does Sordyr need all these grimoires?”

Why do you think?

Kara sighed. “My friend, the daughter of the one who told me the princess story . . . she sees things. The future, maybe. And she thinks these grimoires are going to cause great harm.” Kara looked up at the dark shape in the
web, an idea occurring to her. “When Sordyr gets to the World, is he planning to create an army of witches?”

The Forest Demon has no interest in armies or war
.

“Sell the grimoires, then?”

Gold is like war, a province of man. Do not cloak him with human motives
.

“Tell me,” she said. “Please. What is he going to do?”

Nothing
.

“Nothing?”

I believe he is going to spread these grimoires throughout the World and simply let nature run its course. Witches will find them. Witches will use them. Chaos will reign. Why destroy the World when you can watch the World destroy itself?

Kara instantly recognized the truth in Rygoth's words; that was
exactly
what Sordyr would do. There was nothing he loved more than corrupting the innocent. Kara. Shadowdancer. Imogen. The forest around them.

Why not everyone in the entire World?

“Wait,” Kara said. “That plan won't work. I was raised
on the old stories. Even in the Dark Times, when magic was at its height, witches were few and far between. Not nearly enough for what Sordyr is planning.”

And yet in your village alone, four possessed the gift. You. Your mother and her friend. Grace Stone. Why do you think that is?

Kara thought on it. Was De'Noran special for some reason? Her people despised magic in all its forms, so it hardly seemed a likely location for such fertile witch growing.

Unless . . .

“It's not the talent that's rare,” Kara said, speaking her thoughts as they occurred to her. “It's the grimoires!”

Indeed
, Rygoth said.
It is safe to say that every village has a witch—maybe two—but without the grimoire necessary to unleash her talent. Most of the original spellbooks have been lost forever, and the only one who knows the secret to their creation is—

“Sordyr,” Kara said. “And all this time he's been
making new ones, stockpiling them until the day a
wexari
could set him free.”

She thought about how much damage Grace did with a single grimoire. What would happen if you multiplied that destructiveness by a hundred? A thousand?

The World would never survive.

“We can't let that happen,” Kara said. “Niersook's venom. Are you sure it will still work?”

Oh yes. That sort of magic is eternal
.

“Where do I find it?”

The resting place of Niersook is close—I can feel that much, but nothing more. I think Sordyr is somehow blocking its location from me, for though Niersook is nothing but bones, the Forest Demon fears what use I might yet make of it, as well he should. You will have to find it on your own
.

“And then what?”

Trust your intuition. I do not think we should talk more of this. With every word grows the chance that Sordyr will sense our intentions. Which reminds me—we must make him feel as
though you've done him good service today
.

A section of web suddenly snapped, releasing the root that had been attached to it. Sordyr would feel this and hopefully keep believing that Kara was helping him escape.

“Did you really create Niersook?” Kara asked. “Like it says in the story?”

I did
.

“Wow,” said Kara. Her powers suddenly felt tiny and insignificant. “I could never do anything like that.”

But you will someday! You have only just begun to realize your potential
.

“You mean I'll be able to make my own animals too?”

Yes—but you'll be able to do more than just that. So much more!

Kara looked down at her hands. “Maybe you could teach me how to use my powers properly. When you're free.”

Rygoth's reply was a long time coming.

I would like that, Kara Westfall
, she said.
I would like that very much indeed
.

When Kara returned to the hut Taff and Safi were playing some sort of game with stones and cups.

“Another point for me,” Taff said. “That's five.”

“Four,” said Safi. “If it were a point. Which it's not, because you can't use the same cup two turns in a row.”

“Says who?”

“The rules.”

“Really? How do I know you're not just making this up?”

“Because I can't!”

“Why not?”

“They're
rules
!”

Kara watched them for a few moments, just two children playing a game, their argument playful and good-humored. There was a lot to discuss, but Kara remained silent, not wanting to end this rare moment of normalcy
a minute sooner than necessary.

Then Safi shook her cup, intending to roll a fresh set of stones across the table, and noticed Kara standing in the doorway.

“You're here!” she said.

Taff pulled Kara to an empty seat.

“Safi's father will be back any moment,” he said, “so we don't have a lot of time. We'll have to talk fast.”

“I still think we should tell Papa,” Safi said. “He could help us!”

“No offense,” Taff said, “but your father's a grown-up. That hasn't gone well for us in the past.”

“I agree,” said Kara. She met Safi's eyes. “But not because I don't trust him. He's your father. If he knew we were talking about making moves against Sordyr he would report us right away, before we got you involved in anything really dangerous. It wouldn't be a difficult decision for him to betray two near-strangers in order to keep his daughter safe.”

“I guess,” said Safi, but she didn't look convinced.

“Tell me what you've learned,” said Kara.

Before meeting with Rygoth, Kara had told the two children to split up and stroll around the perimeter of the village, casually checking to see if there were any gaps in the Divide.

“I saw a small group of villagers leave,” Taff said. “All the leader had to do was wave his hand and the gate just opened. Maybe this will be easier than we thought.”