Between Worlds: the Collected Ile-Rien and Cineth Stories (24 page)

He turned away from it, baffled, and found himself
staring at a skull-face peering out of another twisted tree on the stream’s
opposite bank. Incredulous, he moved forward, brushing past pine branches to
see another body wound up in a wizened trunk. And another, and another, all
along both banks of the stream.

Something crunched underfoot and he started back,
looking down to see other bones scattered under the trees, grass and ferns
growing up through ribs and skulls. All these bodies, undiscovered, unmourned,
must have gone without rites; the whole woods must be lousy with angry shades.

Ilias looked around again, realizing the bones and the
bizarre trees with their dead occupants were all tucked close to the water.
Is
the curse in the stream? But we both drank out of it, we both ate the fish
.
He grimaced at the thought now. But Giliead had waded into the deeper water and
Ilias hadn’t. That was the only thing they had done differently, the only
reason he could think why it had taken Giliead but not him.

Swearing under his breath, he pushed on, following the
noxious water toward a thicker grove of trees, dimly seen ahead in the green
twilight. From what he could tell, the curse must draw a victim into the forest
with something borne in the water, then kill anyone who followed to look for
him. That he was doing exactly as the curse expected didn’t escape Ilias, but
there wasn’t anything else he could do. Giliead had to be here somewhere. Ilias
refused to believe he was dead. Whatever old curse lived here might be subtle
enough to catch a Chosen Vessel but surely not strong enough to kill one.

Then from ahead he heard footsteps crunch on dead
leaves. He stepped soundlessly to put his back against a tree, glancing first
to make sure it was a harmless beech with no bone collection.

Brush rustled in the grove ahead and he squinted to
see. Then suddenly Giliead was wading out of the streambed, his boots muddy and
his pants wet to the knee. Ilias stared, stunned into calling out, “Gil! What
happened, where were you?”

Giliead came toward him, apparently unhurt though it
was hard to tell in the dim light. “You’re asking me where I was?” he demanded.

Taken aback at his angry tone, Ilias gestured in
confusion. “No. Yes. I was worried. What happened to you?” He moved forward,
lowering his sword.

“Nothing happened.” Reaching him, Giliead caught his
arm, hauling him away from the stream. “I came to look at all this, but it’s
old, harmless.”

“Harmless? Are you kidding?” Ilias protested, trying
to look back as Giliead towed him over the uneven ground. He was used to
heeding Giliead’s instructions in anything to do with curses -- if he hadn’t,
he wouldn’t have lived much past his sixteenth year. But Giliead wasn’t usually
this much of an ass about it. Tired of being dragged like a recalcitrant child,
Ilias yanked his arm free, twitching his jerkin back into place. “Something
lured you off here with all these...tree-things.”                                                 

“No, there’s nothing wrong,” Giliead said flatly.

He reached for Ilias’ arm again and Ilias fell back a
step by reflex. “But there’s still a curse here, right? In the stream?” He
looked past Giliead toward the grove.
Either there’s a curse or we’re both
going crazy.
“Why did you go in the middle of the night--”

Caught flat-footed, the punch spun him around and he
lost his footing, slamming down into the ground nearly face first. Groggy, he
shoved himself up on his hands and knees, swaying dizzily. “I’m guessing there’s
still a curse,” he said thickly.

Ilias had held onto his sword by instinct and it was
still under his right hand. He saw Giliead’s boot come down on the blade and
knew the other would be heading for his ribs. Abandoning the trapped sword he
threw himself into a sideways roll and scrambled to his feet. He backed away,
saying, “Giliead, listen to me--”

Giliead came toward him, a predatory cast to his face
so alien to his normal self that it made him look almost like an entirely different
person. “You’re under a curse,” Ilias tried, “You have to--”

Giliead swung at him but Ilias ducked under the blow,
caught Giliead’s arm and shifted his weight to send him crashing to the ground.
“--Snap out of it!” Ilias finished.

Giliead rolled to his feet with barely a pause and
Ilias backed away.

They circled each other and Ilias tried again, “Look,
it’s me. You’re under a curse, it’s something in the water or the trees. You
just need to concentrate and try to break--” He spun out of the way as Giliead
charged him again.

Ilias kept trying, but dodging lunges, ducking under
punches, getting thrown down onto the bone-strewn grass, and freeing himself
from strangleholds didn’t leave much breath for logical arguments or emotional
appeals. He had fought Giliead for practice and for fun all his life, but it
wasn’t giving him any advantage. Giliead didn’t seem to feel pain, either;
punches to the face, kicks to the gut left him unmoved.  

Ilias came to his feet again, braced to meet another
charge. His jaw was sore, his arms and chest were scraped and bruised, and he
was beginning to get winded.
This is not going well.
Then he saw Giliead
scoop up a rock from the streambed about the size of his head. “Oh no, don’t--”
He ducked sideways but the rock caught him in the shoulder, knocking him flat
in the weeds at the edge of the bank. He rolled over, hampered by a right arm
numb from the impact, to see Giliead looming over him. He kicked up with both
feet, caught the other man in the stomach and sent him staggering back, gaining
enough time to roll to his feet.

“Giliead, for the love of-- Yow!” His boot slipped on
the mud as he made to dodge and the wild swing caught him in the side of the
head.           

Everything went black, leaving him with just the cold
wet gravel against his face and under his hands to tell him he was still
conscious.
Oh no
. Being beaten to death was not the end he would have
chosen. And he didn’t want a curse-ridden Giliead to be the one responsible. Ilias
lifted his head, tasting his own blood, getting a hazy view of the ground as
his vision slowly cleared. A hand gripped his hair and he realized Giliead was
kneeling over him. “You don’t want to do this,” he said, slurring the words.

“But I do,” Giliead breathed into his ear.

Ilias blinked grit out of his eyes, suddenly focusing
on the hand planted firmly in the dirt only a few inches away from his face,
the copper and leather archer’s brace on the wrist. The olive leaves etched
into it were a match for the designs on Ilias’ own armbands.
He’s wearing
that wrong,
he thought woozily. Giliead drew his bow with his other arm. Then
with sudden clarity,
it’s not him
.

The realization came with a rush of equal parts relief
and terror. There were curses that masked identity, but Ilias had been so convinced
it was something affecting Giliead’s mind that he hadn’t even considered
another possibility. Ilias made himself go limp, hoping whoever this was didn’t
just decide to snap his neck since he wasn’t providing any more entertainment. After
a moment the man shook him roughly by the hair, then pulled him up off the
ground. Ilias twisted and smashed an elbow back into his face. The grip on his
hair released and Ilias shoved off the ground, scrambling out of reach. He
landed in a half-crouch and turned to put a tree at his back.

The man wiped his face with a sleeve, though the blow
hadn’t even given him a bloody nose. “I wasn’t done yet anyway,” he said,
watching Ilias with that predatory expression so disconcerting to see on
Giliead’s face.

Except it’s not quite Giliead’s face,
Ilias thought, eyeing him intently, looking for the
subtle wrongness he knew was there now. The archer’s brace on the left arm
instead of the right was just the most obvious. He looked for the girl’s
bloodstain on Giliead’s shirt and saw it was on the wrong side too; he hadn’t
noticed it earlier because the bad light made it hard to see against the
red-brown cloth.
It’s a...mirror image. As if I’m looking at his reflection
in water.
He slipped a hand under his shirt and pulled his belt knife. “I
think I’m done,” he said through gritted teeth, and shoved to his feet.

The duplicate surged toward him with a growl and Ilias
slammed into him and drove the knife up under his breastbone as the bigger man’s
weight pushed him back into the tree. The duplicate gasped in shock and Ilias
shoved him away, breathing hard.

The blade was buried in the man’s chest to the hilt,
but the fluid leaking from it was thick and green. It gave off a foul odor,
like plants rotting in bog water. Ilias met the curseling’s astonished gaze and
said, “I thought so.”

It lunged toward him again, but stopped short with a
gasp, then staggered back. It fell to its knees, fumbling at the blade. Ilias
pushed away from the tree, watchfully evaluating its attempts to stand. When he
was sure it wasn’t going to get any further than clawing at the grass and
writhing, he circled around it, limping over to collect his sword. His ribs
stabbed him as he bent over to pick it up and his head throbbed from that last
blow. He spat out some blood, took a deep breath to slow his pounding heart,
then turned back.

It was still trying to get up but the thick green
ichor puddled around it, leaving it shrunken and its skin loose, as if it was a
punctured wine skin. Its clothes, even the leather and metal, had shrunk and
wrinkled too; it didn’t even appear that human anymore, which made it much
easier to look at.

Ilias stopped at the edge of the growing puddle of
ichor and leaned on his sword. “What did you do to him?”

It looked up at him, baring its teeth. “You’ll never
find him.”

So he’s still alive.
Ilias looked away to hide his relief. “I don’t know, you seemed
anxious to keep me out of that grove. I think I’ll try there.”

It snarled at him, making another wild grab, but its
arm fell off. The sickening smell drove Ilias back another step. The abrupt
movement had used up the last of its strength and it sank back into the puddle,
the last remnants of humanity vanishing.

A crack and a strangled yell from the trees ahead spun
him around.
That was Gil
. He bolted for the grove.

Past the first curtain of trees and brush, the ground
sloped down. Ilias fought his way through clinging vines to see the stream
formed a large pool, choked and foul with weeds. Branches thrashed on the other
side of the water as a familiar form grappled with one of the curseling trees. Ilias
plunged toward it, calling out, “Gil!” though he had never tried to kill a tree
before and had no idea where to start.

Wrestling with a whip-like branch trying to pierce his
chest, Giliead looked up, shouting frantically, “Ilias, no! Don’t let it touch
you.”

Ilias slid to an abrupt halt, staring in horror as he
realized two of the sharp branches had already pierced Giliead’s flesh, one
burrowing into his thigh and another through his right upper arm, blood welling
up around the foul wood. Giliead forced the writhing branch down, managing to
free one hand. He reached out, saying with a gasp, “Give me your sword.”

Ilias ducked in, slamming the hilt solidly into
Giliead’s palm as the branch whipped free and darted toward him. The wood
slammed across his back but he twisted away, then another branch suddenly
sprang up to curl around his ankle, yanking him off his feet.

Ilias hit the ground hard but saw Giliead use the
instant of the curseling’s distraction to drive the sword down under the roots.
Half-sitting up, Ilias caught a glimpse of something green and horrible moving
in the cavity under the tree.

A groan came from under the earth and a foul odor of
rot filled the air. With a piercing crack the trunk split and the branches
writhed wildly and drooped, all motion dying away.

Ilias pushed to his feet, dragging the nest of
branches aside to get to Giliead. With gritted teeth, Giliead worked the wood
out of his upper arm. He gasped as it came free, shaking his head with relief,
his frayed braids flying. “That...was different.”

“Different? That’s a new word for it.” Ilias was so
giddy with relief he hardly knew what either one of them was saying. He took
the sword from Giliead to awkwardly cut away the branch piercing his thigh. Giliead
waved him away and pulled it out himself, making an inarticulate noise in his
throat at the pain. Blood welled but Ilias could see it hadn’t gone in as deep
as he had feared. He stepped in to put an arm around Giliead’s waist and
Giliead grabbed his shoulder for support as Ilias hauled him away from the
trunk. The thing under it began to leak that sour green fluid. “There’s bodies
in trees all up and down this water, do you think there’s a curseling under every
one?”

“No, I can’t smell any other curselings. I think the
curse was carried by the water from this one.” Giliead leaned heavily on him,
wincing. “I don’t remember much of it. I left camp, came up here. I could smell
the curseling, I went right to it. But instead of killing it... The next thing
I knew the tree was trying to eat me.”

Ilias nodded, hearing his own suppositions confirmed. “It
made a duplicate of you and tried to kill me. Maybe you woke up when I killed
it.”