The great city … Ildakar. The word came to her, but she couldn’t be sure. Was it a name that Mrra had heard but not understood? The sand panther did not comprehend the handlers’ speech, only the pain they inflicted. Ildakar …
She and Thistle went together to the dining hall, where breakfast was being served as the scholars gathered, ready to dive into another day of research. Simon consulted with two other researchers, comparing notes on an old volume with faded letters. Nathan and Bannon were there already at the morning meal, chatting together.
Seeing Nicci, the wizard gestured them over. “We have what we need, Sorceress. Mia has found ancient maps, which show the landscape as it was three thousand years ago when the documents were hidden behind the camouflage shroud.”
“The roads will have fallen away, by now,” Nicci said. “Armies swept across the landscape, kingdoms rose and fell. Cities were abandoned, while new ones were built.”
Nathan shrugged. “True, but cities are cities, generally built on crossroads and waterways, near productive mines or fertile farmlands. If there was a reason for a city thousands of years ago, the reason is likely still valid.” He reached over to tousle Thistle’s curly nest of hair, and the girl grinned and reached up to muss his white hair in return, which startled him. He laughed and said to the group, “And if the cities are different and the land has changed, then that is what exploring is all about. Besides, I need my magic back.”
“We all need you to have your magic back,” Nicci said. “We’ll leave as soon as possible. The Lifedrinker is dead, and I have saved the world, so I have fulfilled the witch woman’s prediction. Now we go to Kol Adair.”
Nathan could barely contain his eagerness. “True, true, my dear sorceress—but what makes you think you will be required to save the world only once?”
With an embarrassed frown, Bannon ate his oat porridge. “Before we go, I really want to say good-bye to Audrey, Laurel, and Sage. We’ve become very good friends.”
The wizard had a twinkle in his azure eyes. “Yes, I suspect very good friends indeed.”
Bannon flushed. “But I can’t find them. They went away somewhere with Victoria.”
Nicci vaguely remembered seeing the group of women through Mrra’s eyes in the dream hunting the night before, but she had not seen them since. She said, “If you find them in time, you can say your farewells. But we are leaving.” She felt restless, determinted to find Kol Adair for Nathan, but also to continue her mission for Lord Rahl, to move on to other kingdoms, provinces, cities, and towns, all of which needed to know they were now part of the expanded D’Haran Empire.
A mousy young woman dashed into the dining hall, her short brown hair windblown as if she had just run a great distance. Sweat glistened on her forehead. The young scholar, Mia, had often helped Nathan find required tomes in his search for defenses against the Lifedrinker. Now she ran up to the scholar-archivist. “Master Simon, something’s happened out in the Scar! I can’t even begin to explain it. You must come and see.” She looked around the room and also spotted Nathan. “Nathan, you have to see. It’s a miracle!”
Simon ran his hands through his mussed brown hair. “What is it?”
In response, Mia led them all into the tunnels through the heart of the plateau, jabbering. “Who could ever have expected this? Wait until you look through the window alcoves. It’s remarkable.”
The crowds grew larger as they moved through the corridors, following Mia. Simon asked, “Where is Victoria? If it’s so important, the memmers should see this as well.” He seemed to be trying hard to include them, but no one could remember seeing the matronly woman or her three acolytes. Finally, they reached the window wall that looked out upon the vast valley. From here, they had viewed the extent of the Lifedrinker’s spreading devastation, but now they stared out at something exceedingly strange.
Nicci came forward, focused on the sudden, dramatic changes that had occurred overnight.
In the center of the vast, dead valley where the evil wizard had dwelled, the dusty brown had changed. The sandstorms and dust devils were gone, replaced by a green haze over an area of new growth—a burgeoning jungle that arose in the Scar. The vegetation was much more than the lone and defiant Eldertree oak sapling they had left behind. It looked like a storm of plant growth.
And it was clearly spreading.
CHAPTER 60
When the magic revived her, penetrated her, and jolted her, Victoria found herself alive … and more than just alive. She was exploding with life, seething with an energy that surged through her veins like the runoff from mountain snowmelt. Her muscles writhed, teeming with new creatures. Every droplet of blood, every scrap of skin, every splinter of bone, each hair on her head was alive. She felt as if thousands of swarming bees or termites were energizing her while countless strands of plants bound her together.
Victoria drew an astonished breath. As she inhaled, a furious gale rippled through a dense forest, leaves rushing and rattling, thick boughs swaying against each other, bending in reverence … to her. She opened her eyes, and light surged in with all the green of the forest, the power of the soil.
By shedding the blood of her sacrificial acolytes, Victoria had worked that ancient spell and unleashed a magic powerful enough to counteract the deadly blight caused by the Lifedrinker. The destructive, selfish fool had brought untold harm to the world, and now Victoria accepted the task of repairing the damage he had done. She was strong enough. Roland had been an embarrassment and a failure because of his improper understanding of powerful spells that he had no business even contemplating.
Victoria could fix it. It was her duty to fix it.
Precious Audrey, Laurel, and Sage had given their lives for the cause, and Victoria realized that she herself had given even more than that. When the awakening forest seized her, co-opted her, she had not understood its intent. She had struggled and screamed, terrified that the writhing explosion of life wanted to kill her. But no, that hadn’t been correct at all.
Her spell had awakened an avalanche of exuberant, uncontrollable life, replenishing all that the Lifedrinker had taken, and the magic needed Victoria as a conduit. Even as the vines wrapped around her, plunged into her mouth, and nose, and ears … after the writhing plants held her open and assaulted her, the surge of magic was merely trying to make her something more, to build her into a woman so filled with the energy of life that she could guide the whole world’s reawakening. She would let it flow like a flash flood of fresh growth bursting from the broken dam of Roland’s evil sorcery.
When Victoria stood up in the heart of the primeval jungle and extended her arms, she saw that her skin was the mottled green of countless leaves. Her hands were large and powerful, the fingers like small branches. Her muscles were coiled and twisted like sturdy wind-lashed trees. Rising taller, she could feel her limbs creaking as if she were a redwood that towered over the forest. Her vision was shattered and dizzying, as if she saw through countless eyes. She heard the loud hum of bees, saw the colorful flurry of birds, swarms of bright butterflies, fresh blossoms bursting open like a magician’s celebratory trick at a wedding party.
Victoria was the embodiment of all this life energy, but she still remained herself. With the release of the fecundity spell and the sacrifices she had made, the price she had paid, Victoria contained the sum of fertility—green, vibrant, and feminine. Through her own body and her own soul, she had given birth to life everywhere. In the new forest, she could feel the trees growing and spreading, the perimeter of her reclaimed green territory expanding like a bold army that meant to conquer the Scar, and much more.
This was just the beginning of her work. Victoria would do more than restore the world to the way it had been. Why stop there? Why limit herself at all? After the parade of armies and warlords, after thousands of years of bloody history, mankind had caused tremendous damage.
The spell she had unleashed was extremely powerful, and the magic was as wild and unpredictable as lif
e itself, but for so great a task, Victoria required lieutenants. And she knew exactly where to find them.
Her three acolytes had already given everything. They had believed in her dream and had never questioned her instructions. Even though Simon had insulted her memmers and tried to make her feel irrelevant to the work of Cliffwall, those girls had been utterly loyal. Victoria would reward them now. With the rejuvenated gift so strong within her, she had the power to do anything.
In the swarming, boiling army of life that arose from the desolation, she reached out with her mind and her magic, searching in the dense underbrush, the swelling weeds and shrubbery, the vines that tilled the soil. She found long-forgotten seeds and sparked them awake.
The bodies of Audrey, Laurel, and Sage had become a matrix for the regrowth. Their blood had spilled into the channels Victoria carved in the barren ground, where now the thickest roots and vines swelled, building and strengthening that spell-form. But her acolytes’ bodies were more than just fertilizer—they were catalysts.
Victoria found the remains of the young women and rebuilt them, pulling together the strands of their bones, reweaving their muscles, using soft plant tissue to re-create their flesh. She did not intend just to restore the three as they were, however. She would make Audrey, Laurel, and Sage into forest guardians as well. They needed to be strong enough to combat those who would inevitably try to stop her miraculous work.
After she re-created the bodies of the three women as constructs of the living forest, Victoria bent close to the figures and exhaled, blowing the tingle of irresistible life force into the parted lips of first Sage, then Audrey, then Laurel.
The bodies roused, and moved. When their eyes opened, the irises sparkled green as if made from the overlapped carapaces of jewel beetles. The young women breathed hard; they opened their new lips and flicked out pink tongues, exposing sharp white teeth. Their matted hair was lush, like Spanish moss, and they extended their arms and flexed their muscles to show off astonishingly beautiful forms, the perfect embodiments of femininity, of life magic, of the energy of lust and creation.
Awake and aware now, the acolytes looked at Victoria with wonder, admiring what she had become. Victoria could not see her own body, but she felt its power, its ominous beauty, and the potential she contained.
“Victoria,” said Sage, but she was no longer Sage; she was but one component of the three-part manifestation of the unstoppable spell.
“Mother,” echoed Laurel and Audrey.
Yes, Victoria thought, I am the mother now. The mother of all things.
“We have great work to accomplish. We have the power, the magic, and the will to do what must be done. My original intent was just to restore this valley, make it as fertile and pristine as it once was. Now I know that my ambitions were too limited. I have been given a gift, and I now bear a tremendous responsibility. Through me, you all have the same duty.”
She looked at them. “With the acorn from the Eldertree, we have the magic and the spark. It is time to restore the original primeval forest across the Scar and spread it throughout the land, so that the whole world can once again be perfect, as it was when the Creator first manifested his vision.”
Victoria’s dark green lips curved in a smile. Her three beautiful acolytes nodded. She added, “A world lush and untouched. And without humans to sully it.”
CHAPTER 61
After seeing the burgeoning area of growth at the heart of the Scar, a curious and awestruck Simon led another expedition from Cliffwall, rushing out to see what had happened. The people were guardedly optimistic. Life was returning to the great valley.
Simon made his best effort to find Victoria and invite her to join them, but when no one could find her, he heaved a sigh. “We cannot wait. Let us go see this miracle.”
As the group descended the plateau wall and headed out across the still-barren landscape, the glimpse of green in the distance made Thistle chatter with excitement. She walked close beside Nicci. “Maybe it won’t take so long! Maybe the valley will be green again, just like I dreamed, and I’ll have a chance to see it in my lifetime.”
“The sorceress gave you all a second chance.” Nathan tossed his straight white hair and strode along beside Bannon, who kept his hand near the pommel of his sword, pretending to be alert for dangers.
Nicci glanced back to Nathan. “I helped kill the evil wizard, but do not credit me with this rebirth. It was not my doing.”
Nathan said, “Perhaps the Eldertree still had a remnant of energy that the Lifedrinker did not quench after all. That might have triggered this reawakening.”
Nicci regarded the verdant haze of forest that had already spread across the desolation. Even from a distance, she could hear a stir of plants and branches, the buzz of life. “So much growth…” She frowned at the swell of green ahead of them. “I am concerned unless I understand it.”
Nathan raised an eyebrow. “You find fault in an overabundance of life, Sorceress? After so much desolation, this is a good thing, is it not?”
Her eyes narrowed. “Is it?”
Sooner than expected, they reached the edge of the lush vegetation, as if the swath of growth had moved outward at great speed to meet them. The air was humid with vegetation, thick with the smell of grasses, leaves, pollen, and the sickly sweet odor of explosive blossoms.
Thistle gaped. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”
Simon stretched his arms outward to welcome the furiously insistent jungle. “It’s marvelous!” Towering ferns unfurled, and trees stretched and cracked, rising impossibly high in such a short period, as if time itself had accelerated to let the forest catch up for all that had been lost to the Lifedrinker.
Branches stretched and strained, unfurling countless leaves. Twigs rustled as they proliferated. Vines swirled back and forth like twitching tentacles. To Nicci’s ears, the stir of rampant fertility sounded sinister, restless … even dangerous.
The tree trunks enlarged as they grew at a manic pace, groaning with the agony of too much life. The stirring branches sounded like slashing blades. The plants spread a blur of pollen throughout the air. Shrubs and flowers spat seeds, and mushrooms flung spores in all directions. Grasses rose up whispering and hissing.
As the group from Cliffwall stood marveling at the unexpected sight, more shoots sprang up, grasses and weeds extending from the perimeter to reclaim more of the parched desolation. This primeval jungle expanded at a tremendous pace.
“Sweet Sea Mother!” At first, Bannon grinned in amazement, but the awestruck wonder on his face shifted to an expression of concern. “Isn’t that a little too fast?”
Bees and beetles hummed and whirred through the air. A dark mist of gnats rose up like a wave.
Simon shouted into the forest, as if he could summon a greater presence. “Thank you! We are grateful for the return of life.”
A stirring occurred among the trees and branches, and larger shapes flitted through the green angled shadows: human figures, female figures—naked, shapely women whose mottled skin provided perfect camouflage among the leaves. The branches and vines parted to reveal the three women standing before the gathered scholars.
The young women were as lush as the forest itself, their breasts and hips swollen with life, their hair a tangle of matted leaves and moss. They looked alien, their transformed bodies more forest than human. Their features were still recognizable, still familiar.
Bannon gasped. His lips curled in an uncertain smile. “Laurel? Audrey? Sage?”
When the three figures moved forward, the undergrowth flowed along with them. Their eyes flashed an iridescent green. Victoria’s acolytes throbbed with fertility, the essence of the forest and life itself. They exuded a wafting and irresistible pull of attractive scent, like an animal in heat. Even Nathan seemed affected by their presence, along with Simon and all the other men in the group. The sexual shimmer pervaded the air.
Bannon breathed heavily. Perspiration covered his skin, and he fl
ushed with longing. The look on his face was one of yearning and impossible separation. “You were gone,” he said. “I didn’t know where you went. I looked for you.”
Laurel said with a vibrant giggle, “We waited for you, Bannon.” The other two young women echoed her sentiment.
“We wanted you here.”
“With us.”
Simon was even more insistent. His mouth was drawn back with male need, his eyes shining, even glazed. At the front of the group, he pushed forward, blocking the others. “So much life, so much hope,” he said. “We want you. I want you!”
“Yes, come closer,” said Sage, fixing her attention on him. “We want you too. We want you all.”
Bannon tried to join him, but the scholar-archivist pushed him aside, raising his hands. He didn’t even seem aware of what he was doing. “You brought back the forest,” Simon cried. “You counteracted the Lifedrinker’s curse. It is wondrous!”
The three green forest women reached out to welcome him. “There is enough, enough for all,” said Audrey. Their soft and yearning fingers suddenly transformed into pointed wooden spikes. Their nails curved and became the sharpest of thorns.
Drunk on the thick, seductive scent in the air, Simon didn’t notice. His eyes were heavy-lidded, his mouth open in a gasp of a smile. When the forest women tore him apart, he didn’t even have time to scream. They stabbed him with wooden-spike fingers, raked him open with thorn claws. They sliced and unwrapped his flesh, peeling it away as if stripping the bark from a fallen tree.
Several scholars screamed as they scrambled back. Some let out moans of disbelief. “Simon!” cried Mia.
Releasing a burst of defensive magic, Nicci knocked the rest of her companions away, sweeping them out of reach of the grasping, deadly women.