The Tree Read online

  “I understand, but they are new to Zebub, and new to their power as well. They are foolish and only meant to entertain themselves. They meant no harm.”

  Arel placed a hand on his shoulder but Jagi shrugged it off. The fear he had felt had turned to anger, and he wanted these ‘dants to fear him. He wanted them to know that they lived at his sufferance, and then he wanted to kill them for threatening those who were his.

  Their lives were saved by the small hand that slipped into Jagi’s. He looked down at Davi who was staring back at him. He smiled down at the pup he had come to love as his own and saw that smile returned. He would not kill these ‘dants. Not in front of Davi and Min at least.

  The Door came to the common area at a run. They were wearing a sheath of bright green fabric that shimmered and split into pants at their legs. Their hair was curled and held tinges of burnished gold in the dark depths that matched the sandals they wore. They looked at the the three ‘dants.

  “Out.”

  Neither Arel or Jagi had thought that a Door would or could speak in such a way. Their voice thundered through the building and echoed in the room. The very walls seemed to pulse with their vibrato. It reminded him of the way the Athenaeum had reacted to Mayer.

  Byron and his two followers hurried out. Arel and Jagi looked at The Door as they spoke quickly and clearly.

  “The Hunt is going door to door now; it is only a matter of time before they reach this house and begin to search.”

  Arel stepped forward into Jagi’s vision. Jagi was happy to step back and bend down to lift Davi into his arms to comfort them both.

  “Do you have a way out?”

  “Yes. Right here, in fact. There is time, though. Is there anything you need from your room upstairs?”

  Arel and Jagi both answered in the negative. They had brought nothing with them and in their time at The House had accumulated nothing.

  The Door nodded and walked over to the wall. They reached into the side of the green sheath that left their shoulders, neck, and arms free of fabric. They came out gripping a knife. It was thin and glinted in the light. The Door touched it to the small seam between two planks of wood on the wall, sinking it an inch in. Then they pulled the knife out of the wall and slammed it through the palm of one of their hands. Davi cried out and buried his face in Jagi’s neck. Everyone else was silent.

  The Door pulled the knife out but there was no blood on the blade, nor was any gushing from the wound. They could all clearly see the cut and the blood flowing inside but it did not spill over the edges of the wound. The Door held their hand up, spreading their fingers as far as they would go. The seam they had marked with the knife began to widen and gape before them. The Door turned their hand sideways and the two planks on either side of the opening turned sideways as well, making the gap just big enough for them to slip through.

  “Go. They shall not find this passage. It will lead to another House of the Madame, the one closest to the Ruling Courts. It has already been searched, so you should be safe there.”

  Arel and Jagi met each other’s eyes and nodded. Jagi hurried through with Davi in his arms, Min scrambling behind them without a word. Arel stayed behind for a moment. He looked at The Door.

  “I thank you.”

  “You are welcome. It is my duty.”

  Arel narrowed his eyes.

  “All the same, if this is a trap, we will survive and we will come back and make you pay.”

  The Door’s beautiful, wide eyes became luminous, their full lips stretched into a wide smile, their golden skin glowed.

  “I would expect nothing less.”

  LIL

  Lil had only seen The Out from her window, so her head snapped to and fro as she followed Uchel and Kima through the black woods. The three sisters rode high in the air tonight, and the light they shed made the broken blackness of the trees and lingering ash glow. She and Kima blended in somewhat with their gray and black. Uchel wore a pure white dress with long sleeves brought in by a belt of braided black and gray. The hem hung to the ground and dragged in the ash and dirt, but picked up none of it.

  “It is a lovely night for the market,” Uchel said, and Lil could hear the smile in her voice. She moved faster than Lil, which was a given, but also faster than Kima.

  Lil stumbled slightly under the weight of the two baskets she carried. She knew they were nothing compared to the three that Kima had strapped to her back and each shoulder, but the weight of them, light though it was, pulled on Lil’s injuries. It made her more aware of her missing toes and the new way she was forced to balance her weight. It made her stomach and sides ache for pieces of muscle that had been removed along with her skin.

  Lil refused to show the strain. Her focus narrowed as they walked; less attention on the environment and more on pushing her healing body. The woods were all the same anyway. Just broken and burned trunks with small hints of green in the skeletal branches that arched above. Until they came suddenly to a clearing, and Lil stumbled in shock because now it was bright as day. She looked up. The blackened branches here had more bits of new growth peeking through. They were taller and thicker as well, and reached farther up, interweaving over the clearing. A perfect circle was kept clear in the center of the canopy and the light of the three moons shone through, somehow amplified, making the clearing bright but not extending beyond the circle of trees. The light had been invisible to Lil until they stumbled into it.

  At least fifty ‘dants bustled around under the light. Tents and tables were set up in four concentric circles with enough space between them that customers could move from circle to circle easily.

  They were approached and stopped by two figures in head-to-toe black. Their faces were covered with masks of the same color, and their eyes were protected by wide lenses that glowed green in the night. They let them by immediately, nodding to Kima and Uchel, but staring at Lil with suspicion as she passed.

  Lil tapped Kima on the shoulder and gestured back to the dark figures, raising her eyebrows in question.

  “Yes, I know them.”

  She said no more on the subject, so Lil assumed they were part of Kima’s “Resistance.”

  Lil longed to ask about this clearing and the power that obviously ran through it, but her hands were full and she could not write anything down. She caught Uchel’s gaze and tried to gesture up and all around with her head.

  “There are a few places like this in The Out. Places sacred to those who lived here. Before they were all killed,” Uchel explained.

  That had not been what she wanted to ask. Lil already knew a little about those who had lived here. They had claimed to have been in the woods forever, and to have never been chained by the Antes. They had lived quiet lives and kept themselves apart. No one knew what had finally pushed the Antes to attack them, but attack they did, and murdered most of them, scorching the forest black in the process. Lil also knew that some had survived. She knew Mayer had helped send them to another city. Lil had been only seven cycles at the time, but they had looked no different from the other ‘dants as she watched them crouch in a forgotten corner, weeping and begging Mayer to help them.

  Her head ached at the thought of her mentor and she quickly pushed him from her mind.

  The power to create this clearing might explain the Antes’ reaction, though. No one but Antes could manipulate the very living flesh of Corpiliu, or so Lil had always been taught, though ‘dants had access to many smaller magics, and the Holders and their apprentices had access to and training in much larger magics. However, none but Antes like those from the Court of Sorrows and Riches, the Antes that grew the pink living houses from the very ground, were supposed to have this kind of power.

  They walked to a table in the fourth and most central circle.

  “Right here is fine,” Uchel said, already laying out a thickly woven blanket over the surface of the table.

  Kima and Lil set down the boxes of herbs and Uchel heaved her large bags onto the table as well.
Uchel immediately began to unpack and arrange all that she had brought.

  “Thank you. I am fine here by myself. You should go off and explore.” Lil looked around and realized Kima had already melted into the bustle of the night market. The old lady was smart and realized that no one would approach with Lil hanging around the table. She nodded and gave the woman a rueful smile before leaving. She did not go far, though, and, weaving among the stalls, she made sure to keep an eye on Uchel’s table.

  She watched for a while and realized that many of the customers that came to the table bought nothing. Not to say that Uchel did not have customers; the supply of herbs was steadily depleting. But most came up, talked to her for a moment, held herbs in their hands, and then put them down and walked away. Members of the Resistance, no doubt, but how odd that they spoke to Uchel instead of Kima. Was it for convenience? It could be for secrecy, but Lil got the feeling that most in the Out knew what Kima and her group did, so why hide? Unless they were hiding the truth from her, and Uchel was actually the leader.

  “What are you doing?”

  Lil let out a gust of air at the voice behind her and turned.

  Assan stood, too close, his hands clenching so tightly that the amber skin of his knuckles looked like it might split. The scars on his chin made it look like he was always frowning and suspicious. It did not help that, as far as Lil could tell, he actually was always frowning and suspicious.

  She narrowed her eyes at his question.

  “They may trust you, but as far as I’m concerned—”

  Lil turned away from him. She knew what he was going to say. It wasn’t the first time he’d said it, even if those times had been loudly outside her door to someone else. He grabbed her arm. She spun around, ready to speak, forgetting she had no tongue.

  Ignoring the pain that welled up in her at the memory, she braided the two center fingers of her right hand together and curled her thumb and third finger in. She hoped it would still work with her missing pinky. She knocked the curled fingers in the center of his forehead, holding the image of pure, blank, whiteness in her mind’s eye.

  The grip on her arm went limp as his eyes clouded over. She backed away from him and moved into the crowd, which was growing larger. As soon as she was far enough away he would wake, no worse for the wear, but out of her space.

  She moved from booth to booth for a while, taking in their wares. The proprietors always looked at her oddly. She noticed that most others greeted each other by name. Most likely they did not get many new faces at the market. No one moved to stop or question her, so she ignored their stares.

  At the center of the concentric circles that made up the market she felt darts of tight pain across the skin of her neck. She recognized the feeling from when she was around Mayer, when he first taught her other branches of power, or used them himself: Power, ‘dant power. The ten shopkeepers beside Uchel that made up the center circle were all very different. All ages. All shades of skin and hair. They had nothing in common with one another, other than that each of their tables or tents held a distinct feeling of power. And they all stared at her with wide eyes and their hands clutched at various items she assumed were charms or idols of power.

  She approached each table, nodding at each shopkeeper in turn. She had no intention of purchasing anything and in fact had nothing to barter with. She only had her knife and the bag of the root, neither of which she was willing to trade.

  Most of the tables had infused items for sale. Stones with different properties that shone with power were watched over by a girl barely out of her childhood. Two older men watched over a table that had feathers to improve speed and swiftness of the mind. She moved among them, holding her hand over the items in question until she recognized the intention of the object. She then tried to reverse engineer how she would create such an object.

  It reminded her of the tests that Mayer had occasionally thrown at her without warning. And she needed to build up her knowledge. So much of her study from the last few years had been in Babel. Now she was stripped of her most potent weapon and left with only half-remembered larger-power-workings and smaller magics.

  For speed she could have used any of the feathers as long as it was whole. Then she would have bathed it in a mix of herbs and eaten it. That would have made the speed longer lasting, though it would take a couple days to prepare. Alternately, she could have used her knife to carve a crude drawing of a bird into her flesh and then threaded the feather in and out of her skin alongside the image.

  Blood magic was fast and dirty. Pain was an important part.

  Only at the very last table did she stop, surprised. The person behind the table was tall and wide, the skin she could see between glove and sleeve a light brown. She could see nothing of their face, as it was covered in a carved wooden mask. The mask had no features, simply dark holes for the eyes. The robe they wore was a dark brown, verging on black, and seemed to move on its own. She thought it wind at first, but then noticed the lumps moving underneath, bulging the fabric oddly before disappearing.

  The table was littered with various knots of wood that looked completely natural, as if they had grown that way. No matter how closely Lil looked she could not see an end to any of them. Each seemed to be a continuous twist of wood.

  “We have many wares that would interest a Holder Apprentice.”

  Lil jerked back. No one had called her that since coming to The Out. Even Kima and Uchel just used her name.

  The proprietor held up their hand palm out and Lil took note of the odd symbol in the palm of their glove. A spiral in the center with eight arrows pointing inward, hemming it in. “Do not worry, young one. We mean you no harm.”

  Lil raised an eyebrow at that. The symbol tickled something in the back of her head. It belonged to none of the Houses or Courts of Zebub. She would recognized those immediately. She reached for her pad and stylus.

  How did you know who I was?

  The figure laughed, and it was a light giggle that seemed to echo with a number of smaller voices that came from under the robes.

  “There is little that happens in Zebub that we do not know.” The figure rose from their seated position and Lil could see that they were exceptionally tall. She could see the wideness of their belly and hips as the loose fabric of their robe clung to them. They reached over the table and their gloved hand moved over all wares on the table before stopping. “This one.”

  They picked a beautiful knot composed of two woods; one a silvery-white, the other a dark, deep brown. They curved around and into each other, looking like a heart from one angle, a knot from another, and a hand from still a third.

  “Birch for rebirth, Oak for strength,” they said, and held out the piece. “Take this. It will help you soon enough.”

  Lil hesitated and stared at the proprietor.

  “Come along child. If I were to betray you, do you think I would do so here, in front of all these people? If I were going to betray you I would have already told the Courts where you were this whole time.”

  Lil touched the knot of wood, lightly, with one finger. There was some power thrumming through it to be sure, but it did not feel antagonistic. It also did not feel positive. The energy was simply there, uncaring one way or another about her. She clutched the knot of wood in her palm and slipped it into her pocket along with The Root and her other belongings.

  “Now, go and explore what you were interested in. You have much to learn.”

  Lil nodded in thanks and began to back away. She let her hand rest on the wood in her pocket, feeling the warm thrum of life and power. She kept the person in her line of sight until she had no choice but to turn, and they stared at her the entire time as well. At least she assumed they were staring.

  Slowly she made her way out of the center and moved closer and closer to the edge of the clearing. She hesitated, made even more cautious by the mysterious encounter, and paused as she overheard the proprietor of one of the outer booths speaking with a customer. />
  “I heard she’s the one the Courts are hunting.”

  “Who is she here with?”

  “Uchel.”

  There was silence then, and Lil wished she could see the expressions on their faces.

  “She must know what she’s doing.”

  “I don’t know. Bringing a hunted here?”

  They grumbled for a bit longer but provided no useful information for Lil, and eventually she moved to the edge of the circle of the light, anxious for a closer look at the trees that formed the border of the clearing. There was power in them, but it didn’t spark across her skin like the other ‘dant magics. Instead this was like a hum in the air; constant, half-heard, and achingly familiar, but Lil could not place it. She stepped out of the circle of the light and into the near-complete darkness of the forest surrounding them. There was the immediate feeling of being watched that happened when surrounded by darkness. Looking up, she could make out the trees that formed together to protect the clearing. Waiting for her eyes to get used to the dark she slowly traced the branches down until she singled out one of the trunks.

  Lil moved deeper into the darkness to study the tree. There was something about it that called to her. She ran her hands over the bark. Ash and soot quickly covered her palms. Lil could still feel the power in the tree. It moved through the tree but the tree was not the source. The source was somewhere attached to it. When she focused on it she immediately felt the shock of Babel in her system.

  Babel. Written.

  She shimmied through the brush moving around to try and catch a glimpse of the symbol. When she finally took it in, it was much as it had been at the entry to the Vault. As soon as she saw the carving, the meaning of the word glowed in her mind: GROWTH. She could think of a number of pronunciations that could fit with this symbol but of course she had no access to any of them anymore.

  She moved to the next tree and examined it. As she was moving her hands over the the rough surface of the bark the feeling of being watched increased. Whereas before it had been a nagging feeling, now she felt as if a knife was about to be plunged into her back. She stopped and looked around, seeing nothing until she looked down.