Mind of the Magic (Arhel Book 3) (20 page)

“You could have tied it for him,” Bytoris said. “Sent him over before you.”

“I suggested that, but he wanted to go last.”

Bytoris looked momentarily startled. “He did?” he blurted—and then his countenance became grim again, and he said, “Well, yes, you can say that, can’t you?” He went back to sharpening his knife.

Faia thought Edrouss Delmuirie sounded sincere. She didn’t particularly want to believe him—there was a part of her that still blamed him for the Barrier, and for his delusions of godhood while in the emeshest, and it would have fit her preferred picture of the man to think he’d also done something that had caused Geos’s death. In spite of herself, however, and the grudge she bore against him, she felt he was telling the truth. “Geos tied the knot himself,” Faia said at last. “If Edrouss had tied it, and it had come undone, it would have been easier to believe his death wasn’t an accident.”

“So?” Bytoris raised an eyebrow. “You think this man did nothing wrong?”

Faia took a deep breath. “Yes,” she said slowly. “I think Geos’s death was an accident.”

Bytoris nodded stiffly and slipped his knife into the sheath at his waist. “You are entitled to your opinion.” He rose and walked to his tarp, and before he ducked inside, made a show of wrapping one hand around the knife hilt. “I hope you and your opinions sleep well.”

She and her opinions dreamed ugly dreams, of drowned men and waterfalls and something that watched, waiting. Once, she woke from a sound sleep to hear someone out in the packs, but when she looked out, she saw nothing.

In the morning, when Gyels woke them, everyone’s belongings were scattered through the little copse, and their food was gone.

They stared at each other, and every face wore the same suspicious expression.

Gyels was the first to speak. He said, “I didn’t make this mess. I left camp last night because I couldn’t sleep, and I’ve spent the night trailing Thirk; I only just returned this morning. At least I bring good news with me. Thirk is very near.”

“You don’t look like a man who walked all night,” Faia told him. “You don’t look tired at all.”

“I don’t need as much sleep as you… you sluggards.” He sniffed and his nostrils pinched tight.

Which was true, Faia thought. Gyels had stayed in the lead the entire time, breaking trail under dreadful conditions, and although she had seen him look bored plenty of times, she had never seen him look completely worn out.

“Perhaps Thirk doubled back to steal our food,” Delmuirie said.

Bytoris looked at him as if he were insane. “He’s almost to Bonton already. He has the magical chalice. Why in the names of all the mad gods would he troop back into the mountains to steal our sorry dried fish and hardbread?”

Delmuirie shrugged. “Why, if he has something magical, would he walk through the mountains instead of flying?”

That was a good point, Faia thought. Their mountain trek had been no pleasure stroll. If
she’d
had her magic, they would have flown at the very least. Thirk was a saje, and knew how to transport. Why had he not done so?

Gyels said, “No doubt an animal got into the packs while you people slept.”

Faia had been looking over the ground beneath the trees where the packs had been. She found prints in the soft earth—but they weren’t animal prints. They came from a human. She rested her foot lightly beside the clearest of the marks, and found that it was somewhat longer than her foot, but nearly as narrow. And the boot had a sharply pointed toe and a rounded heel.

She said nothing. Instead, she looked at the boots Bytoris, Gyels, and Delmuirie wore. Bytoris’s boots were round-toed. So were Gyels’s. And Edrouss Delmuirie wore odd square-toed boots with thick, black soles carved in geometric designs.

“Perhaps it is the person I’ve felt following us,” she said.

Gyels looked at her and rolled his eyes. “I told you, no one is following us.” He glanced at the ground beneath another of the trees where a pack had hung and said, “Night boles. Their prints are everywhere.”

Faia started to dispute him and stopped. The hair stood on her arms and her gut tightened. Liar! she thought. But what did he have to gain with such a lie? His insistence on a point she could plainly see was untrue meant something. All she needed to do was figure out what. Why would it matter to him that everyone thought an animal raided their packs instead of a man? Why would he deny so vehemently even the suggestion that someone might be following them? Was that important? It was frightening, of course… but was it important? And if so… why? She held her peace, deciding she would watch Gyels, as she watched Bytoris and Delmuirie, until something began to make sense to her.

THE rolling hills and scattered groves of the countryside they reached two days later were lovely; as Faia waded through knee-deep grass full of day-blooming fox-roses and towering Maraid-flowers, she was overwhelmed with memories of the hills where she’d grown up. She felt that at last she’d come home. She breathed cool air redolent of crushed grass and sweet sage, and heard the bleating of sheep in a far pasture, and her heart ached.

The four travelers crested a hill, and from the ridge Faia saw gaudy flags flapping in the distance from the top of a grey stone wall. She guessed the great city—for she could see Bonton was that—at little more than an hour’s walk. Her first thought was, There will be food in Bonton, thank the Lady—and someplace to bathe.

Her second was, I wish Kirtha were here. She’d love the flowering meadows, and the sweet, cool air. So different from humid Omwimmee Trade near the sea.

“Bonton,” Bytoris said. He smiled, and when he did, Faia realized how long it had been since she’d seen a smile on his face.

Delmuirie studied the huge walled city and stopped. “It was nothing but cow pastures and mud huts… before,” he whispered. “Truly, is that Bonton?”

“The greatest city in the world,” Bytoris said.

“Well could I believe that, seeing it before me now.”

Gyels said, “It is sad that we were unable to capture Thirk before he reached the city. Once inside, he will have little difficulty hiding from us… he may elude us for a very long time.”

Faia waited. There was, she was certain, more to what Gyels intended to say.

He didn’t disappoint her. “I am certain Bytoris Caligro will have to return to his work, now that he has come home. And Edrouss Delmuirie will need to find a place for himself, and some way to provide himself with food and shelter.” He clucked his tongue. “Which will leave you and me to catch Thirk. There are people in the city who… owe me debts. We will be able to find lodging and food without difficulty, you and I.”

Both Bytoris and Edrouss turned and studied Gyels.

“I had thought to continue the search for the man,” Bytoris said. “I would not willingly give over such a vital quest.”

Delmuirie nodded. “I did not come to Bonton to find a job,” he said. “I came to find a thief and stop a madman. Once I have done what I came for, I will worry about other things.”

“But where will you stay? How will you live?” Gyels asked. His smile was confident—and now Faia saw what his aim had been. She wondered if, all along, Gyels had been keeping them back so that Thirk would be able to maintain his lead. He intended to discard both men and be alone with her.

His tone infuriated Faia.

Evidently, however, she wasn’t the only one put out by Gyels’s assumptions. Bytoris said, “I have a large house in the city, with plenty of rooms. My newfound sister will have a place to stay and food to eat.”

Faia looked at him, and tried to put her hopes and her prayers in her eyes. “What about Edrouss?” she asked.

Bytoris’s lips thinned and his eyes narrowed for an instant. Then he said, “By all means, Delmuirie will stay with us, too.” Then, with a cold little bow, he added, “Even you, Gyels, are welcomed beneath my roof, should you desire to help us continue our hunt for Thirk Huddsonne and the chalice—though of course we will no longer need your tracking skills.”

The tone in his voice told Faia under no circumstances did he expect Gyels to accept his offer.

The next instant, Faia decided Bytoris should have ignored good form, for Gyels smiled and said, “Well, well—both invited and welcomed into your home. In truth, I am honored; I will carry your offer and promise close to my heart.” But then he shook his head sadly, and she breathed a quick sigh of relief. “Nonetheless, there are in Bonton those who value my company, and who await my arrival with some eagerness. I suspect I should first seek them out, to see if they would help me.”

“Help you to find Thirk?” Bytoris looked surprised.

“That is what we have been doing all this time, isn’t it?”

Bytoris nodded his head stiffly and turned his back on Gyels, whose smile became at once both self-satisfied and sly. Bytoris pointed out across the meadows before them. “Beyond that next little hill, we’ll cross the road. Be wary near it—the Wen’s trees, in these past few months, have moved from the jungle to the roadside, and now hide within the normal trees that line both sides of it.”

“The trees—moved?” Delmuirie asked He looked from Bytoris to Faia, and his expression indicated he was certain they’d all gone mad. “Walked? Oh, come now. Surely not.”

“Lurched along on their roots like giant fat spiders,” Bytoris said “I saw them do it—watched two of them moving toward the city while I stood on the top of the wall.” He frowned at the horizon and said “Ugliest gods-forsaken things I ever saw.”

Delmuirie looked last at Faia, and leaned close, and said, “You don’t believe this, do you? It can’t be real.”

Faia said, “The Keyu are magical trees. In the last few months, they’ve begun to walk—the survivors who traveled to Omwimmee Trade told stories of the trees hiding by the roadside and snatching up any who weren’t quick enough. Those trees are both real and deadly.”

“Trees,” Delmuirie muttered. “
Walking
trees.” He shoved his hands into the pockets of his breeches, and sighed. “I have never seen such a thing.”

“You’re about to,” Bytoris said. “Be careful you don’t die of the excitement.”

The travelers stopped just short of the trees lining the road. A dreadful stench assaulted them—the stink of meat spoiling in the sun, of death. Faia saw the Keyu waiting among the nonmagical trees, squat and twisted and leprous-looking, hunkered down on their insect-leg roots with their fat, slimy white palps trailing along the ground. She shuddered, remembering her first encounter with those trees, deep in the Wen jungles that bore them. They’d been bad enough when they couldn’t walk.

“How are we going to get around them?” she asked. “They’re lurking much closer together than I would have supposed.”

“Gods, those are ugly trees,” Delmuirie whispered “And they reach out and grab at you as you go past them?”

Faia nodded. “And then their trunks split, and they drag you into the hollow middle—” She stopped and closed her eyes; the memory of being caught in the maw of a Keyu, of being touched and bored into by silky, sticky threads, was suddenly fresh and real again. And now that none of them had magic, she didn’t see how they could hope to pass.

When she opened her eyes, she saw Bytoris frowning at the Keyu.

“What is it?”

“You’ve seen them before, haven’t you?”

She nodded. “Closely.”

Bytoris pointed. “Look at them. They aren’t twitching the way they usually do.”

Faia studied the trees, and realized that, indeed, they were as still as normal trees. Puzzled, she looked back to Bytoris.

He picked up a rock and hefted it thoughtfully from one hand to another. Abruptly, he pitched it at one of the Keyu. It struck directly on the palp—and sunk in. The wound oozed gelatinous grey slime, and then, with a moist, sucking sound, the palp he hit fell off.

“Ugh!” Delmuirie muttered. “Disgusting.”

“They’ve… they’ve rotted,” Faia whispered.

None of the palps so much as jerked. Faia, bewildered, took wolfshot from the bag at her belt, tucked it into her sling, and hurled it at a different palp, on a different Keyu. The jagged shot bored in one side of the growth and out the other, and more of the grey slime spurted from both holes. That palp, too, ripped free and flopped to the ground with a sickening squelch.

“I think the Keyu are dead,” Bytoris said.

“Couldn’t happen to nicer trees,” she told him, though she didn’t dare to believe he was right.

She and her brother edged closer to the Keyu. Her heart pounded in her throat—she was just waiting to discover that it was a trick, and feel again the moist, sticky tendrils as they wrapped around her and dragged her toward a waiting, gaping maw. The smell of death grew stronger, and so did Faia’s fear. Delmuirie walked along beside them, staring from them to the unmoving trees, until at last he gave an exasperated snort, and trotted up to the nearest one, borrowed sword drawn. He whacked off its palps, then strolled across the road to the other side, where he turned and bowed.

“I would guess they’re dead,” Faia said.

Bytoris gave a dry chuckle. “You might be right, mightn’t you? Though I find myself wishing that one, at least, had been alive—to swallow him.” He nodded toward Delmuirie. “Arrogant bastard.”

Gyels strode forward. Faia put a hand on Bytoris’s arm, and both of them hung back. When Gyels was out of earshot, Faia said, “I know you don’t like Edrouss. But thank you for making room for him as well as me; the more I have seen of Gyels these past few days, the more I feel we are at common cause against him.”

“You’re welcome. There are few things about that hunter that I like.”

They looked over to see Gyels walking past Delmuirie, hurrying toward the walled city—while Delmuirie stood transfixed, with his mouth gaping idiotically wide. Faia realized he hadn’t moved since he turned and bowed He stared at the tree—and suddenly an eerie, wordless keening noise tore from his throat; it brought the hairs on Faia’s neck straight up.

“Uh-oh,” she whispered. These Keyu were dead—dead. They had to be. She
wanted
them to be. But perhaps they were not as dead as they seemed. Perhaps Delmuirie was under the spell of some new form of their magic, some clever trap. She ran between the gauntlet of trees, keeping as far from any Keyu as she could manage, while her pulse roared in her ears and her breath came in short, sharp gasps. The trees didn’t move, didn’t grab her, didn’t pull her in. They stayed dead, and she reached the far side of the road in safety, and turned to see what it was Delmuirie stared at.