Wit'ch War (v5)

  “No word.”

  Greshym scowled. “If only the wit’ch would attack before the full moon,” he grumbled. “Any distraction would suit my needs well.” He turned to face Rockingham. “Anything else?”

  “Only one thing . . . Something you will want to hear.”

  Greshym’s eyes narrowed. “What?”

  Rockingham tugged at his mustache nervously but shook his head. “First what you promised.”

  Greshym clenched his fist around his staff. He had needed an ear among those who plotted against the wit’ch. After he had lost Elena’s brother, Shorkan had cut him off from the main flow of information. Rockingham, his old companion, however, now filled that role. At first, Rockingham had balked at sharing what he knew, but every man has a price—and Rockingham’s was cheap. Greshym bought information with information, an even exchange. Greshym wanted to keep updated on the whereabouts of the wit’ch, and Rockingham wanted the darkmage to fill in the gaps of his own memory. It seemed lately that Rockingham had been getting disturbing glimpses of a life he could not recall. Like bubbles rising to the surface, strange smells, snatches of conversations, and other bits and pieces of fragmented memories had been rising to the surface. Rockingham wanted Greshym to bring forth his memories in full. He wanted to know who he had once been.

  “Please tell me,” he begged.

  “I will give you one more piece of your past, but until I have the Blood Diary in hand, you will never know your complete heritage. Serve me well, and I promise you that all will be made clear.”

  “Anything . . . Tell me anything.”

  Greshym had to choke back a laugh at the man’s desperation. “I will tell you this, Rockingham. It was not without merit that the Dark Lord sent you as emissary to the sea goblins. In ways, you are not so unlike them.”

  Rockingham scrunched up his brow. “What nonsense is that? You give me riddles when I ask for answers.”

  Greshym shrugged. “That is all you will get. Bring me information that will put the Blood Diary in my hands, and I will sit and tell you your life’s history in full. Otherwise, bring me scraps and that is all you will get in turn.” Greshym pointed his staff at Rockingham. “Now tell me what else you’ve learned.”

  Rockingham seemed hesitant, but Greshym stared him down. “Do you never want to know the mystery of . . . Linora?” the darkmage teased.

  The woman’s name had its usual effect. Rockingham jolted with its mere whisper. His eyes filled with agony; his fists clenched in frustration. Greshym waited. He knew the woman’s hold on the fool’s heart was still as strong as ever. Love truly blinded a man. Even when the physical memories were obscured, the emotion still remained to bind the heart with thorns. Greshym smiled at Rockingham’s pain.

  The golem’s shoulders finally sank, defeated.

  “So what else have you learned?” Greshym repeated. “I won’t ask again.”

  Rockingham’s voice was dull. “Shorkan has moved the date of the book’s unbinding forward by one day.”

  “What?” Greshym could not keep the shock from his voice.

  Rockingham shrugged. “He has perused some ancient texts and determined that the stars are in better alignment on the first day of the full moon, rather than the second.”

  Greshym’s vision dimmed. All his careful plans would have come to naught if this vital piece of information had been kept secret. For a moment, Greshym wondered if Shorkan suspected his betrayal. But Greshym’s vision cleared. Impossible. Shorkan had his nose too buried elsewhere to notice the bent-backed mage. No, this slight in not informing Greshym was just another example of the Praetor’s lack of interest in the wrinkled old mage.

  Greshym would eventually teach the fool how blindness kills.

  Turning to Rockingham, Greshym waved him off. With a day less to plan, he did not have time to tarry with the golem. “Keep your ears and eyes open,” he warned. “If you have more information to trade, you know how to reach me.”

  Rockingham stood another moment, wringing his hands, clearly wanting to beg for more substantial answers. Finally, though, he nodded silently, turned on a heel, and disappeared up the dark stair.

  Greshym waited until the iron door above clanged shut, then turned to face the door that led to the prisoners’ cells. He still had one more meeting this morning, one more ally to hire. But he did not worry overmuch. As with Rockingham, he knew this man’s price.

  Crossing the room, he pulled open the thick oaken door. The smell of human waste and dried blood assaulted his nose. He took a moment to choke back the rising bile in his throat. Once ready, he entered the dungeon proper.

  As he walked, he passed rows of small doors on the left, so low that one had to crouch to enter. From beyond some of the doors, small moans and sobs issued. None slept in these cells. Terror kept one’s eyes pried open. As he clopped by one door, something huge slammed into the wood; an inhuman mewl erupted from the beast. It had smelled his blood. Claws scraped at the wood. It was hard to believe that what lurked behind that door had once been a man. Greshym shook his head. Shorkan had grown in skills.

  Greshym stopped before the next door. Here was his goal.

  Bending with a slight groan, Greshym moved his staff to the crook of his stumped arm, freeing up his hand. He pointed a finger at the lock and twisted his wrist. The catch snapped open. Greshym smiled. He too had his skills. Shoving the door open with his staff, Greshym crawled into the cell.

  “What are you doing here?” a voice inside growled.

  Greshym straightened and kicked aside a rat. “Your brother does not treat you well, Er’ril.”

  The plainsman spat at Greshym but could do little else. Naked except for a soiled loincloth, Er’ril was trussed by chains to the far wall. Shorkan could not kill his brother; Er’ril was too vital to the unbinding spell. But neither did he care if his brother suffered until then. Fouled in his own filth, bruised from beatings, and smelling of disease from where the iron cuffs had cut into wrist and ankles, the once-proud plainsman appeared a beaten man.

  Shorkan had ordered Er’ril strung up in chains mostly to restrict the man from killing himself. The Praetor could not let that happen—at least not until after the book was unbound.

  Greshym leaned his staff against the wall and slipped a dagger from his robe. He himself had no such qualms. Er’ril’s death would mean the book was forever safe from Shorkan’s spell. Greshym watched as Er’ril eyed the blade, almost hungrily. But Greshym dispelled such hope. “This is not for you, Er’ril. You are worthless to me dead.”

  “You might as well kill me now,” Er’ril said hoarsely. “I will never help you unbind the book.”

  Greshym’s eyebrows rose. “Who said I wanted you to? I have less of an interest in seeing the book destroyed than you do. As a matter of fact, I come to make you a proposal.”

  Er’ril’s eyes narrowed warily. His lips cracked as he spoke, blood dripping down his chin. “And what might that be, traitor?”

  “I offer you your freedom.” Greshym waved his dagger about the rank cell. “Unless you have grown fond of your accommodations?”

  “Do not toy with me, foul one.”

  “It is no idle offer, Er’ril. I want the Blood Diary for myself, and you are the only one who knows the secret to unlocking the spell that protects the book. It’s that simple. Free the book, hand it to me, and I will free you.”

  “And why should I trust a traitor?”

  “Because I am your only hope. In three nights, Shorkan will unbind the Blood Diary and kill you afterward. That much is certain. So what do you have to risk? Even if I betray you, you are none the worse off. But if I speak the truth, you will have your freedom—though the book will be kept from Elena. You can run back into the arms of your little wit’ch. And who knows? Maybe someday I will tire of the book and gift it to her. I have no love for the Black Heart. Let her take on the Gul’gotha. What do I care?”

  Er’ril’s brows darkened. Greshym knew the plainsman balked at joining
in any such bargain with the enemy, but the man was no fool either. Danger or not, it was a chance to do something. Er’ril had lived as a warrior all his life. How could a swordsman decline an offer to shake free of these chains and at least attempt to fight for his cause? Greshym knew Er’ril’s decision even before the plainsman’s gaze confirmed it. “What do you propose?” Er’ril asked, fire returning to his tired eyes.

  Greshym smiled. Every man had his price.

  Taking his dagger, Greshym sliced a small sliver from his new staff. “Let me show you.”

  18

  AT DAWN, ELENA stood with the others gathered along the ship’s bow rails. The Pale Stallion drifted toward the sargassum forest, its bow parting the red seaweed before it. Elena’s nose curled. The vegetation reeked of brine and decaying roots, and the odor grew more pungent as the ship delved deeper into the Doldrums. In the distance, from beyond the tree lines, gulls and nesting terns warned them back from the forest’s edge.

  Overhead, the sails had been reefed on Flint’s orders. He had said the sea current would propel them from here. His words proved true. The pace was slow with the weeds choking their progress, but Flint seemed to know where the vegetation grew less thickly. Positioned around the boat, the zo’ol sailors called orders to one another in their foreign tongue. Manning the wheel at the stern, Flint listened and seemed to understand. He made tiny adjustments in the rudder.

  As warning against any mistakes, the hulking ruins of ghost ships dotted the seas. Rotting behemoths, half submerged in the weeds, spread to all horizons. Nearby, a section of a mast poked through the red vegetation, a scrap of stained canvas flapping from its tip as they passed, as if begging for release from this choking death.

  “It be a haunted place,” Tol’chuk grumbled.

  Meric agreed. “A long-neglected graveyard.”

  About them, the chatter among the zo’ol sailors died down as the line of forest grew. A hush descended over the party. With the sun rising, the trees ahead lost their ghostly haziness. They towered twice the height of the Stallion’s masts, but their trunks seemed too thin to support the waving canopy of branching fronds.

  “Look!” Joach said, pointing up toward one of the trees. Unlike the inland forests, these growths sprouted leaves the color of sunset, burnt orange and pale rose. A stray breeze fluttered the foliage. Buried among the leaves, delicate flowers were also revealed, so darkly red they appeared almost black. “Those must be the flowers Flint told us about,” Joach continued. “The ones his sect harvested for sleep powder.”

  Elena nodded and stared as their ship slipped into a narrow channel through the wood. According to Flint, the forest was not exactly composed of trees. Each “tree” was in reality a single shoot from the mass of red weeds, fronded growths thrust up to better catch the sun’s light. But entering the forest now, Elena doubted his words. It was as if they drifted along a river that had only flooded its banks, swallowing the roots of the surrounding trees. The open seas seemed far away, a figment of some terrible dream. The world was now trees and water.

  As if to enhance this effect, in the distance, hillocks of red weeds sprouted so densely that they appeared almost like land. Upon some of these matts, other flowering plants had taken seed. One tall hill was covered with what looked like yellow-petaled daisies. Elena even spotted a small furred animal scampering across one of these patches, its bushy tail sticking straight up. It darted up into a tree and vanished as their ship passed.

  “It’s hard to believe we’re in the middle of the ocean,” Joach said.

  Mama Freda nodded. “It reminds me of sections of my own jungle home back in Yrendl. In some regions, the rainfall is so constant and heavy that the jungle has become swamped like this.”

  “But is this place safe?” Meric asked grimly. “We could be easily trapped here. Why did that old man pick this place to meet up with the mer’ai?”

  “He must have his reasons,” Elena said.

  Flint spoke up suddenly from behind, startling them. Their conversation had drawn him from his wheel. “Fear not,” he said. “For those who know the Doldrums, there is no safer place to hide a large force. This maze of channels, trees, and weeds has hundreds of exits and escape routes. But for those who don’t know its paths, it can be a deadly trap.”

  “And you know this forest well?” Tol’chuk asked.

  “Aye, the sect of the Hi’fai, my order, has mapped these lands in detail. Besides the sleep powder, it is a bounty of botanical treasures.” Flint gazed at the surrounding trees. “But there is another reason I chose this rendezvous spot.”

  They waited for elaboration, but Meric grew impatient. “Why?” he snapped.

  Flint waved an arm to encompass the forest. “These trees may appear like those that grow on land, but it’s a deception. Each tree here sprouts from a common root—the sargassum weed. All around you are not individual trees but one single growth. This entire region—the submerged weeds, the entire forest—is all one creature.”

  Elena stared out at the wide landscape. “A creature?”

  Flint nodded. “In its own way, it is as intelligent as you or I. But it has a very foreign mind. It existed here before anyone stepped foot upon the shores of Alasea. It measures its life in centuries, as we measure days. The passing of a man’s life is but a blink in its long existence. We are but gnats to this great giant.”

  “So why are we here? How does this help us?”

  “Long ago, centuries before the Gul’gotha plagued our shores, a Brother of the Green Order, Brother Lassen, made contact with the intelligence here. They conversed. Unfortunately, the forest thinks and speaks as it lives—over winters, instead of breaths. Just their initial greeting took one decade in the Brother’s life. Their entire conversation consisted of four sentences and took six decades to complete. The entire time, Brother Lassen had to sit quietly in the heart of the Doldrums. Food was brought to him. He slept between syllables of the giant’s speech. The poor Brother aged and died while saying good-bye and passing on his thanks.”

  “What did they talk about?” Elena asked. “It must have been important to cost a man’s entire life.”

  Flint shook his head sadly. “No, their conversation consisted of a discussion of the weather. Nothing more.”

  Meric scoffed. “Foolish waste.”

  “Perhaps, but the forest here respected the man’s death. It seemed to sense the sacrifice the man made to simply acknowledge and pay his respects. Ever since, these lands have been a welcome haven for any of the Brotherhood. It has learned to be more responsive, listening for us. It now protects and cherishes us. There is no safer place.”

  “How do you know it will protect us now?”

  Flint pointed to beyond the ship’s stern. “It has heard my silent pleas, and even as we speak, it hides our path from those that might hunt us.”

  Elena turned. The channel behind the ship had vanished. Trees and matts of weed blocked their way back to open waters. They were now surrounded by the floating forest, swallowed within its belly.

  Elena hugged her arms tight around her chest and gazed out at the landscape of draping trees and hills of weed. She tried to absorb all she had heard. So the forest was all one creature, some strange intelligence who viewed the lives of men as mere flickers of a candle’s flame. Elena stared out at the endless spread of trees. It seemed to stretch forever. Elena was lost in the enormity of the beast’s size and life span.

  She glanced to her brother. Joach shared her same expression.

  Flint’s revelation had been meant to ease their worries.

  It had failed.

  ROCKINGHAM KEPT VERY still. Kneeling on the thick wool carpet in the Praetor’s study, he tried to shrink into the background as the trio of darkmages argued. With his head bowed, he concentrated on the whorls of reds and golds in the rug under his knees. His calf muscle cramped, but he ignored it. He knew better than to massage the limb or even to shift to accommodate the cramp. A spasm of pain was nothing comp
ared to drawing the gaze of the Praetor. So he sat frozen and listened as his fate was discussed.

  He had brought word this morning from his drak’il spies. The wit’ch’s boat had been discovered entering the sargassum forest of the Doldrums region, inhospitable waters even for the sea goblins. The drak’ils had refused to follow.

  “We need further information,” the boy mage argued in his childish voice, sibilant and whining. Denal, a sandy-haired youth, lounged in one of the overstuffed chairs, kicking his heels against one of its legs.

  “Denal is right,” Greshym agreed, grumbling a bit. “We know they seek the mer’ai. If they should join—”

  “There is only one thing the wit’ch seeks,” Shorkan said, interrupting starkly. His words frosted the air in the small tower chamber. “She needs the Blood Diary. Let her scurry and gather scraps of supporters. I invite them all to come and dash their bones on our rocks. None can hope to penetrate the forces here. From the carnage, we will collect the Black Heart’s prize, dead or alive, and deliver the girl to Blackhall’s dungeons.”

  Greshym dared to argue. “Shorkan, as long as I’ve known you, you’ve always put too much trust in your power. Has the wit’ch not shown that she and her companions are devious? They’ve defeated drak’il forces and demon ravers. Only a fool would underestimate her.”

  “Watch your tongue, old man.” The room’s warmth suddenly chilled. “Those were minor battles, meant only to hinder her progress.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Rockingham glanced at the combatants. The Praetor, dressed in white robes, towered over Greshym. Small flames of darkfire danced across the pristine whiteness of his robe as he threw back its hood. Rockingham could not mistake the kinship of this fellow with his brother, Er’ril—a rugged face built of hard planes, piercing gray eyes, and hair as black as a moonless night. Before this one’s youth and vigor, Greshym appeared like some crippled beggar.

  Still, the old mage stood steadfast before the gale of Shorkan’s anger. “But what about her blocking the shipment of the ebon’stone Weirgate?”