The Whispering Trees (34 page)

Kara stopped short.

“Don't,” she said, but Mary was already standing in front of her. Reaching into Kara's pocket she carefully withdrew the crimson shard.

“See!” she said, holding it up to show Sordyr. “You
can't trust this one. If you send her down to Rygoth, she'll just try to trick you again.” She returned to Sordyr's side. “Master—why not let me go down to Rygoth instead? I deserve the honor of freeing you. We don't need this troublesome girl at all anymore.”

Sordyr took a few strides forward and stood before Kara.

“The idea has merit,” he said. He pinched Kara's neck between two branch fingers. “I must confess, I tire of this so-called
wexari
. She has been nothing but a disappointment since—”

The Forest Demon wailed in sudden, uncontrollable pain. His body went slack. He released Kara, who landed awkwardly on the ground.

“
WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?
” he screamed.

From this angle, Kara could see the bone shard poking out of Sordyr's neck. The Forest Demon tried to remove it, pulling on the shard with all his strength, but it was a part of him now.

“We knew you'd never let me get close enough,” Kara said, “once you suspected I had the venom. And I knew I wouldn't be able to defeat you with magic.”

“That's why we decided that I should do it,” Mary said. “You trusted me, even more so when I told you that Kara had snuck out of the village. It never occurred to you that I might do something good for once.”

“
TAKE IT OUT!
” Sordyr exclaimed. “
I COMMAND YOU TO TAKE IT OUT!
”

From the shard's entry point a crimson glow was spreading across Sordyr's body, changing the bark into something new.

Skin. Human skin.

Sordyr wailed in agony.

“You did this,” he said, pointing toward Kara. “You!”

Sordyr thrust his branch hands forward, too quick for Kara to react, and she braced herself for the sharp rush of pain as the branches sliced through her body. Before that could happen, however, Mary slipped
between them, shielding Kara's body with her own. Kara heard Mary's soft gasp and saw the sharp ends of Sordyr's fingers protruding from her back, red with blood.

Mary and the Forest Demon fell to the ground.

“No!” Taff screamed, running to Mary's side. He took the witch's hand. “Kara,” he said. “Fix her!”

“I can't,” Kara said. “I don't know how—”

“Then, Safi,” Taff snapped. “You must be able to make that book of yours do a healing spell!”

“I might,” Safi said, “but I don't know where it is.”

“Look for it, then!”

“But I don't—I don't—”

“Stop talking and just look for it!” Taff exclaimed, and Safi rushed away, her eyes brimming with tears.

Kara pressed her hand against Mary's wound but the blood was flowing too fast and kept escaping between her fingers.
Why can't Mother be here right now? She would know what to do
.

Why does it always have to be me?

“Let me,” said a man's voice, gently removing Kara's hand from Mary's wound. There was nothing remarkable about his appearance: brown hair, green eyes, hooked nose. He looked to be around her father's age, maybe a little older.

And then Kara saw the orange cloak—far too large now—wrapped around his body.

“No!” she shouted. “You're him! Sordyr!”

“Not anymore,” he said. “Let me see if I can just fix this one last thing before my powers vanish completely.” He opened his fingers and a few grains of black soil vanished into Mary's wounds.

“What did you do to her?” Taff asked.

“Look,” said the man.

The bleeding had already stopped.

“She'll need rest,” he said, “and certain medicines from the Thickety. But she will live.” He stroked her hair. “She was very brave to stop me the way she did.”

“You
helped
her. Why did you help her?”

He placed his hands on Kara's shoulders and stared into her eyes.

“We don't have time for questions. She'll be coming soon.”

“Who?”

Beneath the earth came a rumbling sound and the ground in front of them collapsed inward, as though the dirt supporting it had simply vanished. Black soil spun as rapidly as a whirlpool. A few of Sordyr's remaining creatures were caught in the current and vanished beneath the earth.

A woman, her eyes closed, rose from the ground.

She should have been filthy but her white dress was pristine, her face clean and unblemished. She looked to be in her twenties, her features as cool and beautiful as a statue.

The woman opened her eyes. Instead of pupils, spiderwebs stretched across her sockets.

“Hello, Kara,” Rygoth said. “Thank you for freeing me.”

She stepped onto solid ground and held her hand in front of her as though testing the air.

“It's colder than I remember,” she said. “Not that I'm going to complain. Two thousand years in that cave. In that form.” She glared at Sordyr. “All
your
fault.”

“You were the one who wanted to destroy the world,” Sordyr said. “I'd say you brought it upon yourself.”

“Hmm,” Rygoth said. Elbow-length white gloves appeared in her hands; she pulled them onto her arms as she spoke. “I didn't want to
destroy
the world. I wanted to
remake
it. Big difference.”

“Not to all the people you were planning to kill.”

“I have to admit, it was fun forcing you to do my bidding. Good, virtuous Sordyr. I made you into a monster. You have to live with all the things you've done, all the lives you've taken. You may have trapped me beneath the earth, but—”

“I kept you trapped,” Sordyr said with pride. “There was enough of me left inside that monster to do that, at least.”

“Whatever helps you sleep better, dear,” said Rygoth. She faced Kara and smiled coldly. “That hideous spider form did give me one advantage—a venom I could inject into our friend here to keep him doing exactly what I wanted him to do. I couldn't leave, sure—but neither could he. He couldn't even warn you, Kara. I wouldn't let him.”

“This wasn't about freeing Sordyr from you,” Kara said. “It never was. It was about freeing you from him. You fooled me into helping you.”

“And I feel just terrible about it,” Rygoth said.

“What now?” asked Sordyr.

“I continue where I left off. The World. I'm going to make it mine. Thank you so much for assembling all those grimoires, by the way. They are going to be
ever
so useful. Speaking of which . . .” Rygoth scanned the crowd until
she found Safi. She held out a white-gloved hand. “Little girl. You show promise. Do you want to come with me? Learn some real magic?”

Safi shook her head.

“As you wish,” Rygoth said. She turned to Kara, and the wolf by her side bared its teeth. “And how about you, Kara Westfall? Would you like to learn all the secrets of a
wexari
?”

“You know my answer,” said Kara.

Rygoth sighed. “I do. I don't even know why I asked, really. I've been in your head. I've experienced its . . . purity.”

Rygoth spit on the ground.

“Oh well. I guess I'll be going to the World by myself, then.”

“You're not going to the World at all,” said Kara. “You've been in that cave for a long, long time, and my guess is you're still weak. I'm not letting you leave this island.”

Rygoth shrugged. “Let's get this over with.”

Kara ordered the wolf to attack Rygoth, trying to buy time while she reached out with her mind and called forth as many creatures as she could in her weakened state.

The wolf bit Kara's hand instead.

She screamed in pain and horror as her former ally leaped onto her chest, pushing her to the ground. It stared hungrily at her throat while its scorpion tail rose high into the air, ready to strike.

“That's enough now,” Rygoth said. She stroked the wolf's ears and the beast shook with pleasure. “Feel free to call more creatures, but I think we know what's going to happen. I've been
wexari
for a long, long time. Compared to me, you haven't even learned to walk yet.”

Kara turned her head from side to side.
Why isn't anyone helping me?
And then she saw. Hundreds of webs, attached to nothing but the air itself, held them all in place. Taff. Mary. Sordyr. The villagers. Even their mouths were sealed shut.

“So while I don't consider you a threat,” said Rygoth, “I do believe in being cautious. You're clever. And persistent. I don't like that. I don't want you following me to the World and causing trouble. I could kill you, of course, but you did free me, and I think I owe you your life at least. I'm that kind of person.”

Kara turned her head to see the crimson shard of bone rise from the earth.

“However,” Rygoth said, “I can't allow you to keep your powers. I know you understand. In fact, I think you understand so well that you're going to prick yourself with that bone shard all on your own.”

Kara watched her hand reach over and pick up the shard between two trembling fingers. She tried to stop it but her body was no longer under her control. She sat up like a marionette and pressed the shard against the flesh of her hand, not quite puncturing the skin.

Rygoth leaned forward and whispered in her ear, “We have the same power, Kara. But what you never
understood in that pure little heart of yours is that
people are animals too
. They are ours to command. You don't deserve your gift.”

Unable to stop herself, Kara pushed the shard against her palm. She winced in pain as a single drop of blood welled to the surface and ran down the inside of her wrist.

The piece of bone shed its hue and crumbled in her hand.

She felt tired, so tired. Each time she blinked entire minutes seemed to pass, images jumbling together in a too-fast stream. Rygoth vanishing before her eyes. Taff and Safi bending over her, looking concerned. Voices, screams, running people. Someone moving her. Dust on her face, a rain of woodchips. Tree limbs falling to the ground, sending geysers of dirt into the air. A beast crashing through the canopy with a thunderous roar, the tiny figure of a woman sitting astride its back.

Kara recognized the storehouses grasped in its talons.

“That's why the roofs had metal rings,” she mumbled. “So Niersook could . . . carry them. Bring . . . grimoires to the World.”

“Shh,” a familiar voice said. Kara felt a warm hand brush her cheek. “It's over now, dear. You don't have to worry about magic anymore. It's all over.”

“Mother?” Kara asked.

Before she could turn to see the owner of the voice, darkness took her.

A
fter Kara had regained her strength she began to take long walks outside Kala Malta. Taff always offered to come, but Kara preferred her solitude. She told him that she needed time to think, to plan their next move.

This was a lie.

Instead, Kara spent entire days searching for a sign that she had done any good at all. The Thickety, as far as she could tell, remained unchanged. The flora was as dank and unforgiving as ever. Blighted animals still lumbered through the undergrowth.

Mary told her that she needed to give it time. “The Thickety has been diseased for hundreds of years,” she said. “You cannot reasonably expect it to recover in a single day. Maybe not even a single year.”

Kara wasn't certain she believed her.

She passed beneath two gray elms, their putrid-smelling leaves leaking some sort of yellow pus, and saw sitting on the branch above her a familiar shape.

“Hello, Watcher,” Kara said.

The one-eyed bird stared down at her impassively. Kara flushed with shame as she remembered their last meeting. She had accused Watcher of trying to trick her and then hurt the bird with a spell.

“I'm so sorry,” Kara said.

Watcher's eye turned a light mauve, holding there for just a moment before spinning to the color of a freshly ripened peach. And then, before Kara could say anything in reply, the bird flew away.

Those were such beautiful colors
, she thought.
I think
Watcher forgives me. I really do
.

Kara, however, couldn't know for sure. She didn't understand what the bird was saying anymore.

The next morning, she found herself knocking on Sordyr's door. The word
DEMON
had been scratched into the wood. The villagers had left him alone at first out of fear, but their courage was growing. It was only a matter of time now before they attacked him directly. Though they had followed him willingly enough when he had provided protection against the dangers of the Thickety, the people of Kala Malta now blamed Sordyr for leading them astray. Mary had tried to explain that he was under a curse and therefore not responsible for his actions, but it was useless. Once people believed you were evil, there was really no changing their mind.