Clockwork Goddess (The Lesbia Chronicles) (18 page)

"We have been fooled," she said. "We are captured."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean this forest is being altered around us. We will not soon find our way out, not even if it were directly before us."

"What do you mean?" Vix repeated the question because the first answer had not explained a thing.

"I mean we have been tricked," Ayla said. "Flummoxed."

"Oh," Vix replied. "Flummoxed."

"Yes."

Ayla lifted her voice and spoke to the trees. "Come out, Soren, we tire of your games. What is it you want from me?"

There was silence. Nothing stirred. Not so much as an ant crawled such was the stillness of the moment.

"Try setting something on fire again," Vix suggested. "They seem to respond really well to arson."

Ayla's cheeks dimpled in spite of the strain of the situation. "Yes," she agreed with a smile. "They do, don't they."

"That will not be necessary." The voice came from behind them. Vix and Ayla turned to find that Soren was standing not a few feet away, an impassive, unreadable expression on her high elven face.

"I thought you agreed to let us go."

"I did," Soren replied. "And if you knew the way out, then you would be gone."

"That is like locking a prisoner in a cage and telling them that they're absolutely free to go as long as they have a key," Vix pointed out. "Which is stupid. And cruel. And mean."

"Cruel
and
mean," Soren replied in patronizing tones. "How awful for you."

Vix was not pleased with the response, but at least there was one. She had been pointedly ignored up until that point, which was not at odds with her experience of life in general, but it was starting to wear rather thin.

"What do you want, Soren?" Ayla repeated the question somewhat tersely. "I have important business."

"Oh I am sure you do. You have had a great deal of important business since you left us all those years ago, haven't you?" Soren's tone strongly suggested that she did not approve of most of it.

"This is Ayla," Vix interrupted. "She's the one who saved Lesbia from being completely destroyed by the Blood Witch by guiding the summoner Atrocious. I mean, I don't believe that, but I don't believe in magical elves either, and here you are, so as far as you're concerned, she saved you. Thanks are in order."

Soren's brows lifted almost all the way to her hairline. "And who are you to speak so impertinently?"

"She doesn't know who I am," Vix said to Ayla. "Can you believe she does not know who I am?"

Ayla was trying to maintain her composure, but it was obvious that she found Vix's unprecedented verbal antics quite amusing. Vix did not quite know where her own verbosity was coming from, aside from the fact that Ayla was clearly thrown off balance by this Soren and her people and Vix desired to even the playing field somewhat.

"A human mortal," Soren said. "Of little consequence. You will be silent and not meddle in our affairs."

"But I have already meddled," Vix replied. "And I am much, much more dangerous when I am silent."

"That is true," Ayla agreed immediately. "I'd keep her talking if I were you."

Soren's lips thinned. She was clearly not pleased with the way things were going. There was a certain lack of gravitas to the whole affair, coupled with a stubborn resistance which was not fading in spite of apparently insurmountable odds.

"You have become far too familiar with humans, Ayla. And you have done this one a grave disservice. A mortal should speak with reverence when in the presence of a high elf."

"I don't care if the elf is high or not," Vix said boldly. "The world has changed. We don't worship myths any more. If you want to prance around in the woods, that's your own affair, but don't expect me to be impressed by it."

"... Prance around in the woods?" Soren spluttered the phrase. "In all my considerable years, I have not heard such a description."

"How nice for you," Ayla replied. "Isn't it good to know that there are new things still left in the world?"

"Take these two and chain them up," Soren said, speaking to the trees. "They wish to be arrogant and disrespectful. We will see what a hundred years of confinement does to that attitude."

"A hundred years! I'll be a dried up skeleton by then," Vix protested as the elves emerged from the forest to do Soren's bidding.

"How unfortunate for you," Soren replied. "That will make you far less obnoxious, I imagine."

"You will not imprison either of us," Ayla hissed, pulling Vix close. "If a single one of you lays a hand on either one of us I will call down a fire upon this forest which will not end for a thousand years. I will burn the ve
ry heart
out of this place, and I will make you rue the day you decided to stop me. Now open the path and let us go, before you find yourselves in a world of agony."

"My," Soren said with a little smile, apparently unmoved by Ayla's threats. "The blood runs strong in you, doesn't it. Alise was right. You are your mother's child."

"You have waylaid me. You have lied to me. You have threatened me and my companion. One does not need to be the daughter of your collective nightmare to be annoyed by that."

"The daughter of our collective nightmare," Soren said. "That is a good way to put it. I cannot let you leave, Ayla, you have been gone too long and there is much we need to discuss. You have been of the world. You have seen what is taking place there. The truth is, we need you."

Vix almost burst out of her skin upon hearing the last part of Soren's confession. "This is how you act when you need someone? You lie to them? You trick them? You make them walk for three hours and threaten them with life in prison?!"

"She very much needs to stop talking," Soren said to Ayla. "Her voice grates."

"Vix's voice is the least of your troubles," Ayla replied. "My truth is I don't care if you need me. Your needs are of no importance to me whatsoever. Open the way before us and let us go."

"You should care," Soren replied. "Your mother is loose."

Ayla stopped. For a moment it was as if she was made of stone. Everything about her became still. Even her hair ceased to move in the breeze and her face became hard like Vix had never seen.

"My mother is dead." Ayla's voice cracked as she said the words.

"She is not."

"She was buried under a mountain of rock sharp obsidian."

"She found her way out."

"I don't believe you."

Soren's eyes narrowed until they were almost feline. "Yes you do. Now. Come with us. Please." Soren gestured toward the nearest tree. "We have much to talk about and time grows short."

Ayla let out her breath in a long sigh. "Very well," she said. "If what you say is true, then I have no choice but to follow."

"Thank you, Ayla," Soren said in resonant tones. "Come this way." She gestured elegantly toward an oak with a thick trunk.

Vix did not see how she was going to walk into a tree the way the elves did, but she followed in Ayla's wake and to her surprise found that solid matter shimmered around her when she lifted her foot toward the tree. She stepped through the bark as if she'd been doing it all her life and found herself in another wooded world.

The forest beyond the forest was nothing like the one they had left. It was a place lit by a light brighter and yet softer than any natural light. She soon realized that it was being shed by millions of little flying creatures, like fireflies but a thousand times more luminescent. This was a much greater, much older forest, she could feel it in the every breath she took.

The surrounding trees towered toward a sky she could barely make out for the canopy which was high, high above. They were many times larger than any she had ever seen before, so great that she felt positively dwarfed by them. The grass between the trees was soft but also long, it brushed her knees with every step she took and the flowers that bloomed nearby did so with petals as big as her head.

"Have we become incredibly small?"

Soren turned toward her with a smile of genuine warmth. It transformed her face and made her look almost kindly. "Very good," she said. "Most humans are slow to realize what this place really is."

"I don't know what this place really is," Vix said. "I just know that flowers used to be much smaller."

Soren's smile broadened, but she said no more.

Ayla did not seem at all comfortable. In spite of the wonders of the place which held Vix so in thrall, Ayla held herself tall and walked with a stiff gait, her expression inscrutable. She did not seem impressed, or surprised, or happy or sad. She seemed almost as though she weren't really there, as if her mind had taken her very far away.

There were other elves about the place, but they paid the visitors no mind. All the elves who had come to capture them went about their business, leaving Soren to lead Ayla and Vix to a house which was built into the roots of one of the great trees. The gnarled growths of its roots stretched out along a path, rising higher than Vix's head where they met the trunk itself. Smaller and smaller they were and Vix grew curiouser and curiouser.

"Think of this as your home," Soren said as she turned the door handle.

"I will not think of any place here as my home," Ayla replied stiffly.

"This is your home," Soren contradicted her. "Just because you fear it, doesn't mean it's not yours. Please, take some time to clear your head and rest your body. I will speak with you soon."

*****

"This place is nice," Vix said when she and Ayla were alone.

The tree house was nice. Every single stick of furniture gleamed with care and was hand hewn with the utmost skill. It was comfortable in every way, curving lines and soothing shining surfaces. The little home was just one room, but that one room contained all one could ever need. There was a big soft looking bed covered in wool coverlets, a table with two chairs and a fireplace and several shelves and cupboards stocked with bowls and foodstuffs and other necessities of life. Simple, but elegant.

Ayla did not say anything in response to Vix's comment. She stood staring into the ether until Vix wandered up and tapped her on the shoulder.

"Are you still in there?"

"I swore I would never come here as long as I drew breath," Ayla said eventually.

"Bad memories of this place?"

"No memories. I've never been here," Ayla replied. "I was not allowed when I was younger and now I am old I have no desire to make the acquaintance of those who shunned me."

Vix nodded slowly. "They didn't like you, so now you don't want to like them."

"It's not that simple." Ayla crouched before the fireplace and began to stack kindling. She moved without any real purpose, operating more like an automaton than a woman. Vix had seen mechanical hens with more soul than Ayla seemed to possess in that moment.

She frowned slightly as she watched the witch work. "Is there really a fireplace inside a tree? That seems like a bad idea."

"It won't burn with real flame," Ayla told her. "It will burn with faelight which nourishes the tree."

"Isn't that convenient," Vix noted. "Faelight. I've never heard of such a thing."

"You will see many things here you have never heard of, and you will forget them all when you leave," Ayla told her. "Human minds cannot contain the elven realm for long."