Page 37 of Wildwood Imperium


  “You okay, Prue?” asked the hare.

  “Yeah,” she said. “It’s just . . . a lot.”

  “It’s coming!” shouted a voice from the sky; it was Owl Rex, soaring high above the assembled defenders.

  White noise assaulted Prue as the ivy exploded through the ring of trees that surrounded the meadow. It paused in its forward momentum to gobble up these ancient arbors, crowning them in a matter of seconds and engulfing their leafy boughs in a thick, swarmy beard of vines. Then, satiated, it moved on to the individuals standing steadfast in the center of the meadow.

  “What do we do?” asked a confused farmer, wielding a garden hoe.

  “Just try to keep it back,” instructed Sterling.

  The ivy began its advance.

  It flowed over the meadow’s grass like water lapping up a smooth beach; it rippled and eddied against the little tufts of wood sorrel as it went, overcoming the grass like so much hair being dunked in a deep bath. It gathered speed, an advancing tide, and set itself to break on the hapless defenders that stood in its way. Prue, overcome, fell to her knees, her hands sinking into the earth. Sterling tried to help her to her feet, all the while keeping an eye on the coming wave, but it was no use. She was immobile.

  The fox braced himself for the crash, the shock and concussion of this million-strong rush of angry, growing plant life splashing against their impotent weapons.

  But it did not come.

  Instead, the wave flattened itself against some invisible barrier, its brown underside revealed to the shocked figures who stood in the lee of the barrier’s protection.

  Prue lifted her head; she commanded the ivy. She found the strength, now, to deflect the ivy’s angry hissing, and she pushed back with all her thoughts. A great wall had been constructed, seemingly from the air, and the ivy struck against it with the force of a tsunami. It erupted upward with all the force of its momentum as it tried to find the topmost edge of this invisible barrier.

  “What’s happening?” hissed the bandit Ned. He jabbed his pitchfork into the writhing wall of brown vines and was surprised to feel it snag some of the woody plant.

  “I’m stopping it!” shouted Prue, her fists still planted in the earth. Great bulbs of sweat appeared at her brow, and she gritted her teeth against the onslaught.

  All around them, the barrier made a perfect circle around the tree and around the meditating Mystics. Prue realized it wasn’t her force alone that was creating this magic shield; the silent Mystics were helping too—she could feel their power channeling through her as she held back the wave of ivy and buffered the incredible sonic crush of hiss the plant was broadcasting to those few ears who could hear it.

  “Cut it back!” shouted another voice—it was a farmer who, armed with a mowing scythe, had cut a huge chunk of the plant by the roots. A slag pile of vines had fallen at his feet, gray and dead.

  The gathered defenders, the bandits and farmers, followed the man’s example, but the ivy kept coming; for every yard of the plant they took out, more rushed in to take its place, lapping against the unseen wall.

  The beating of wings sounded behind them; the birds, who had been circling the air above the tree, landed in the free space defended by the ragtag group, the circle of untouched meadow that surrounded the Council Tree. “To the air!” shouted Owl Rex, among them. The defenders, still brandishing their farming implements, backed uncertainly away from the embankment of ivy and climbed astride the large birds: They were herons, egrets, pelicans, and owls, and they took their riders with ease, bending low before unfurling their wings and, with a few swift steps, taking to the air. Prue stayed earthbound, channeling the meditations of the Mystics into the great barrier currently protecting the tree from being overrun.

  Then came the crashing, explosive noises—like elephants’ lumbering footfalls; Prue, caught behind the ever-rising bulkhead of ivy vines, couldn’t see where the noises were coming from or who was creating them, but she felt a surge every time one of them sounded.

  She could feel the tree behind her, still throwing her strange, disjointed images. What was it saying? She found it nearly impossible to split her attention between holding back the flood of ivy and trying to make sense of the tree’s weird symbols that were appearing in her mind. Did it want her to hold the ivy back? There was something almost resigned about the communications. It was as if it wanted to be overrun, it wanted to be torn down.

  Above her, she saw the whirling flock of giant birds as they dove down beyond the wall of ivy; they were attacking something, though she couldn’t see what. The screams of the birds and the angered shouts of their riders rent the air. More crashes sounded; more heavy surges of the vines. Her strength was beginning to wane; she felt like she’d just sprinted a mile around a muddy track and her lungs were aching for reprieve. A glance behind her confirmed that the Mystics remained in their placid spot—each in a delicate lotus position, their gazes fixed on the central point of the Council Tree.

  Suddenly, she felt something give. It was as if she’d been a part of a long line of grapplers on a tug-of-war course and her teammates had begun to fall away one by one. The ivy pushed forward, pressing its advantage against this new dip in resistance.

  “No!” shouted Prue, calling over her shoulder to the Mystics. “Help me!”

  But then the dam broke and the barrier fell away and the ivy cascaded down into the last defensible circle of grass on the meadow. Prue knelt down and held her arms out straight, commanding the ivy back, but she could only hold the scant few feet of ground that she occupied. Unable to break the field she’d created, the ivy formed into a giant funnel around her, a cyclone that rose and rose high into the air. The hissing noise was now enough to blot out all other sounds and all other thoughts, and she felt the numbing crush of gravity slowly reducing her power. The spinning cyclone shot higher and higher, and soon the blue-gray sky became an unreachable hole in the darkening vortex the ivy was creating around the girl.

  “HOLD TIGHT!” shouted a voice; even amid the din of the ivy’s swarming noise, Prue recognized the voice. It was the voice of an old friend.

  She looked upward and saw a dazzling sight: a coat of brass buttons glinting in the dimming sunlight, the plunging form of a heron in free-dive. She saw Curtis Mehlberg, astride this white heron, threading the eye of the ivy cyclone. She felt his hand grasp her arm, and with what little energy she had, she managed to throw herself behind him onto the back of the bird, and the bird rose up as the spiraling funnel of ivy vines collapsed below them in a shower of tangling green leaves.

  CHAPTER 29

  The Body of a Prince;

  The Battle for the Tree

  The molds were carved from the broken husks of walnut trees, their cavities meticulously routed by Carol’s nimble fingers as Esben gave him calm words of guidance. Seamus and Martha, working together, continually added wood to the fire while its heat poured ever farther out from the ring of the smithy. The ivy, which was so thick and pernicious that they had to keep their sabers at the ready, to cut the bolder tendrils before their ankles were ensnared, seemed to bow away from the heat of the flames, and soon a clear swath had been laid for the task at hand.

  The two machinists bantered back and forth casually as they labored, two old friends deeply engaged in their true life’s work.

  “Not bad,” said Esben, admiring the third mold they’d carved. “I wouldn’t go so far as to say ‘work of art,’ but it’s a work of something.”

  “Oh, I see how it is,” replied Carol. “Easy comin from the guy who can’t even pick his nose without runnin the risk of givin himself a lobotomy.”

  “Okay, I’ll level with you,” said the bear, smiling. “You actually haven’t been carving out the molds—I’ve been doing that. You’ve just been making a series of ornamental toilet paper dispensers.”

  Carol let out an explosive laugh. “Here,” he said. “Catch one.” He tossed the finished mold in Esben’s direction, giggling to hear the bear’s
hooks clack noisily together as he tried to catch the thing.

  “Easy there,” said Esben, who, after a few fumbling grasps, managed to have the thing spinning on his left hook. “You’re dealing with a trained circus professional, you know.”

  “How fitting,” said Carol.

  With Esben guiding the way, Carol and Martha, together, lifted the crucible from the flames, their hands protected by thick gloves (and Martha’s eyes shielded behind her plastic goggles). They poured the molten brass into the mold; after dousing it in a bucket of water, Esben held the template in the fire until the cast burned away and the sprocket was revealed. The bear looped it onto his hook and studied it in the light of the fire.

  “That’ll do,” he said.

  “Damn right, it will,” chided Carol. “Now we can keep sittin here, admirin our own armpits, or we can get back to work. Last I checked, we got two more to do.”

  Seamus, having dumped another load of logs onto the ever-growing pile by the fire, put in, “I hate to interrupt the repartee, gents, but if I’m not much mistaken, we’ll need something to put this thing into eventually, right?”

  Carol looked in his direction, miming shock. It was clear the old man was having the time of his life. “You haven’t got the body yet?” He turned to Esben and said, “What, is he one of your fellow circus performers?”

  “Carny, actually,” said Esben. “Ran the ring toss.”

  “Ha, ha,” said Seamus. “Seriously.”

  “Yes!” shouted Carol. “Get the automaton!”

  The bandit gave a quick bow, gesturing to Martha to follow. The two of them began to make their way beyond the throw of the fire when Seamus stopped. “One thing,” he said, turning around. “Where would I find it?”

  Esben stopped the old man before he made another sardonic comment by saying, “The cemetery. There’s a mausoleum.”

  “Right,” said Seamus, remembering.

  “And don’t forget the teeth,” added Esben.

  “The teeth?” Seamus and Martha exchanged a confused glance.

  “The whole thing is kaput without the teeth,” said Carol. “The body must have its teeth.”

  “Got it,” said Seamus.

  “You know the way?” asked Martha as they began their trudge through the calf-deep ivy. The warmth and the light from the smithy’s pyre ebbed away slowly.

  “I think so,” replied the bandit. “I was the emissary here, after all. Passed the place a few times. Most things don’t much look like they did, though.” The bandit was about to say something more when he suddenly shouted, “Watch it!” to Martha.

  Martha tried to leap backward, but she found she was stuck; a particularly deep patch of ivy had caught her heel and was in the process of sending shoots up her leg. With a single deft motion, the bandit had drawn his saber and brought it down in a quick cutting motion, severing the vines from the plant.

  “Thanks,” said Martha, leaping away, freed, from where she’d stood.

  “You better take this,” said Seamus, pulling out a long dagger from his belt and handing it to her, hilt first.

  They blazed a trail through the trees before arriving at what they assumed to be a road: Here even the ghost of a path could be made out through the blanket of ivy, like a mountain road after a heavy snowfall. After a few turns and intersections, blearily remembered by the bandit, they came to an ivy-draped metal gate. Once they’d cleared the vines away, the words SOUTH WOOD CEMETERY could be read there in tall, Gothic letters. The mausoleum of the deceased animatronic prince was not hard to locate; in the center of the cemetery, towering over every other ivy-blanketed tombstone and memorial, was a house-sized pile of writhing vines. Unlike the other crumbling buildings of the province, the structure, made of implacable granite, had proven impervious to the ivy. It wasn’t long before they’d peeled away the screen of vines to reveal the ornate iron door that guarded the entrance to Alexei’s tomb.

  Oddly enough, the door was slightly ajar, and several strands of ivy had made their way through the opening into the dark foyer of the tomb. Seamus quickly dispatched these invaders with his sword before slipping into the chamber; Martha followed. The darkness was pervasive. Martha lit a match and held it to the wick of the candle she’d brought, and the small glow dispelled some of the gloom.

  “Ever been in a tomb before?” asked Seamus, making nervous conversation.

  “No,” said Martha. “You?”

  “Nope. Guess there’s a first time for everything.”

  “I’m experiencing a lot of firsts lately,” replied the girl. She nodded quickly, making her goggles fall down over her eyes. “I have a question for you, actually.”

  “What’s that?” asked the bandit.

  “Are there ghosts? You know, in this world?”

  The bandit guffawed a little, saying, “Nah. Children’s stories. Campfire tales.”

  Martha paused a moment, chewing on this logic. “But there are, like, magic powers.”

  “Sure.”

  “And talking animals.”

  “Why wouldn’t there be?”

  “But ghosts don’t exist.”

  “Kiddie talk, there.”

  “Okay,” said Martha, thoroughly unconvinced.

  They continued on, through the dust-steeped granite flagstones of the mausoleum’s entry chamber. An opening at the end of the room let onto a larger chamber. There, the bandit and the girl found the sarcophagus bearing the body of Alexei.

  “Whoa,” said Seamus.

  “Gross,” said Martha.

  “Nothing gross about it—he’s a machine,” said the bandit, walking up to the body and tapping his finger at the body’s metallic cheek. Someone had cast aside the coffin’s lid, somewhat unceremoniously. It lay in pieces on the floor. Martha appeared at Seamus’s side, marveling at the strange corpse: its riveted joints and spring-loaded articulating fingers. The body had been dressed in a martial uniform, all gold brocading and brass buttons, stiff from years of quiet disuse. Martha moved to take a closer look at the boy’s face. He’d been handsome, she decided, and his eyes were peacefully closed. Seamus reached his arm under the mechanical boy’s midsection and lifted; the body gave a moaning creak, a rusty hinge long in need of a good oiling.

  “Not too heavy, actually,” said the bandit.

  “The teeth!” exclaimed Martha.

  Seamus looked up to the head of the coffin; Martha had pried the boy’s mouth open and discovered an empty cavity.

  “Gone?” asked the bandit.

  “Gone,” breathed Martha, craning her head around to get a better look into the automaton’s mouth.

  “Well, that’s not helpful.”

  “What did they say? We need the teeth?”

  “Doesn’t work without the teeth.”

  Martha chewed on her lower lip. “Like, doesn’t work doesn’t work?”

  “That’s what they said.”

  “What do we do?”

  “I guess we have to find out what happened to the teeth,” said the bandit, his voice falling a little in despair. Finding the cemetery amid the ivy scourge was one thing: finding a dead boy’s full set of teeth in a landscape rendered totally unrecognizable was quite another.

  Just then, a distinctly young and feminine sob rang out. Seamus mistook the sound as having come from Martha, so intrusive was the darkness that surrounded them.

  “Hey, it’s all right,” he said consolingly. “We’ll figure it out. No need to cry.”

  “That wasn’t me.” She held the candle flame up to her face, which the dim light showed to be pale with terror.

  “It wasn’t?”

  “No.”

  “Then who did it?” Seamus’s voice trembled with fear as he spoke.

  “It’s all my fault!” sounded a disembodied voice, steeped in sobs. It came from the far corner of the tomb, and Martha and Seamus each gave out an eardrum-shattering scream, their bodies reflexively leaping into one another in a terrified embrace. They hadn’t been there l
ong when Seamus pulled himself from Martha’s arms and ran, screaming, out of the chamber and back down the entry hall to the front door. Martha, frozen in her steps, whipped the candle around to face the specter.

  “Who’s there?” she called. “Spirit, name yourself!” She’d learned that line from ghost stories she’d been told by the older kids in the Unthank Home. It was always what the ghost hunters and the exorcists said when they bravely faced down some undead soul.

  “I’m not a spirit,” said the girl’s voice. “I’m just a girl.”

  Martha walked tentatively forward, and the glow of the candlelight fell on a figure crouched against the far wall. She was a young girl, a little older than Martha, and she had long brown hair and sun-kissed skin. A garland of dead flowers was nested on her head, and her cheeks were streaked with dusty tears.

  “Who are you?” asked Martha.

  “I’m Zita,” said the girl. “I’m the one who did all this.”

  The heron, its two passengers gripping tightly to its feathers, corkscrewed into the air, and Prue’s vision swam in her head. The wind, cool and brisk at this higher altitude, whipped at her coat and hair, and she looked down at the scene they were leaving on the ground below.

  It was an awesome spectacle; it was a horrible spectacle.

  The ivy had completely buried the great meadow in its tide; it had consumed the sitting Mystics and was now fully laying siege to the Council Tree, assaulting its giant, twisted trunk and climbing into its outstretched boughs, snaking over the leaves and limbs like deadly streamers.

  She listened and heard the tree dying.

  “No!” she moaned. “Curtis—put me down! I need to get to the tree!”

  “No way!” shouted Curtis over the din of the battle. “We’ve lost a few already—we can’t afford to lose you!”