Spirit Ascendancy (16 page)

I looked over at Milo, who was staring into the fire, his thoughts far from the campsite.

“She’ll be okay,” I said.

“That’s what I keep telling myself, but I can’t stand the not knowing,” Milo said. Any living person would have been uncomfortably warm so close to the flames, which were leaping and sparking in the misty early morning air.

“I know.”

“I just… I haven’t been this disconnected from her since I met her. I feel sort of…”

“Lost?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s like Finn said, they aren’t going to hurt her, not really. They need her at her strongest.”

“Speaking of our burly bouncer,” Milo said, tearing his eyes from the fire and changing the subject. “Where’s he run off to?”

“I don’t know. He was really angry about my decision to try this whole Walking thing. Anca said she saw him leave the camp with his backpack.”

Milo frowned. “He’s just blowing off steam. I’m sure he wouldn’t actually leave us here. He takes his job too seriously.”

“No kidding,” I said. “That’s why we fought. I think I made it too hard of a job to stick with.”

It was two long days before Ileana and the Council deemed everything ready for my first attempt at Walking. Having to wait those two days were just about the worst thing for my resolve. It gave me way too much time to consider all of the varied and terrifying ways it could all go wrong, and I began to have a hard time remembering all of the reasons I had agreed to do it in the first place. When I wasn’t dwelling on my own worries about Walking, I was obsessing over what might be happening to Hannah, or where Finn had gone. The Traveler Trackers had not yet managed to figure out where Hannah was, though Anca assured me they were following several very promising leads, and that she was confident that we would have news of her soon. None of the Travelers seemed concerned about Finn’s disappearance at first, though after the second day they reluctantly agreed to send someone to look for him as well. They did this more out of concern for themselves than they did for him; it finally occurred to Dragos that if Finn had run into the Necromancers, they might torture enough information out of him for them to find the encampment, the borders of which had been reinforced with every protection the Travelers could muster. Savvy’s reassurances that Finn would be back any time grew less and less confident, and Milo started to shush her any time she mentioned him. As my anger at Finn cooled, it was replaced by miserable guilt, even though I kept telling myself, over and over again, in a smaller and smaller voice, that I’d done nothing wrong.

BY THE TIME THE SUN rose on the morning that I would Walk for the first (and possibly last) time, my nerves had contracted all of my organs into tiny pulsing lumps. I started my morning by forcing down a few bites of breakfast, which immediately came up again behind the nearest clump of bushes.

“Are you okay? You look like death warmed over, mate,” Savvy said when she caught sight of me stumbling back out of the foliage.

“I’m swell,” I said. “Just anticipating the possibility of my imminent death.”

Savvy slapped me on the shoulder with a resounding smack. “Buck up, you’ll be alright. Anca told me they’re setting everything up to keep you safe. If it looks like it’s not going to work, they’ll get you back into that beautiful bod.” She winked, and I knew she was doing her damnedest to cheer me up. She’d vented her own nerves by chain smoking hand-rolled Traveler cigarettes all morning. She was patting her pockets for another when Dragos appeared behind her.

“I am to take you to Irina’s clearing. We are ready for you.”

With a Herculean effort, I swallowed back another urge to vomit and stood up on shaky legs.

“We’ll be right there with you,” Annabelle said, standing up as well.

“No, you will not,” Dragos said. “No one else will be permitted inside the clearing, for their own safety. You will stay here in the camp.”

“Like hell we will!” Savvy nearly shouted, jumping to her feet, the glowing butt of her last cigarette falling from her lips. “We’re not letting her do this on her own!”

“We’ll get as close as we safely can, and that’s where we’ll wait,” Annabelle said, stepping swiftly between Savvy and Dragos before she could take a swing at him. “But we are coming with you as far as we are allowed.”

Dragos looked for a moment like he might argue, but decided, after another long look at Savvy’s expression that it wasn’t worth the effort. “Suit yourself,” he grumbled, and stalked off toward the woods.

Milo, Savvy, and Annabelle walked with me through the woods. I could feel their anxious glances boring into me so often that I half wished they had stayed behind; they were somehow making me more nervous than I already was, and yet I seriously doubted if I could have kept my legs moving forward without the swish of their steady footsteps beside me. I felt like I was being led to the gallows or something, holding out for an eleventh hour pardon.

It seemed to take far less time to reach the clearing than it had a few nights before, perhaps because I was fighting the impulse to run in the other direction. Sooner than I would have thought possible, the light shafts widened and the spaces between the trees grew larger until they gave way altogether to the small circular space; a space, I now realized, that was by its very nature ideal for a casting circle with ready-made borders. And that was exactly what the Travelers had turned it into.

If I hadn’t already been familiar with the basic runes, candles, and other trappings of Durupinen ceremony, I’d have thought we’d stumbled into a horror movie scenario. The entire perimeter of the circle was on fire. Twelve women in flowing and ragged gypsy attire were sitting as though made of stone spread around just inside the licking flames, rocking and muttering under their breath. Dozens of ropes hung in the tree branches, and from them dangled huge renderings of runes, some woven from rough, plant-like fibers, others painted onto fabric, still others cobbled together from large, gnarled sticks or carved right into the bark of the trees.

In the middle of the circle, a bizarre webbed dome had been created from ropes and netting, enclosing an area about twenty or thirty yards wide and twenty feet tall. More runes had been scrawled onto its outer surfaces with broad strokes of black paint. Within its confines, a dark shape could just be discerned, in the grass. It wasn’t moving.

“What the actual fuck?” Savvy whispered.

“Welcome, Muse,” came Ileana’s voice

I spotted her in the far side of the clearing. Having no idea what would come out of my mouth if I dared open it, I just nodded at her. She beckoned me forward and I followed the crook of her finger as though hypnotized to propel myself toward her. Annabelle, Savvy, and Milo remained behind, unsure if they were allowed any further. I didn’t want them to follow me; nothing that was about to happen would be made any better by having them close enough to witness every detail.

I shuffled over to Ileana, my eyes darting repeatedly to the cage-like structure I was skirting. I knew who the dark shape was, though I was almost afraid to look carefully enough to confirm the knowledge. Ileana was puffing her pipe, but not in the imperious manner she had when I first met her. Now she sucked on it like she needed it to keep herself composed, and I realized that she was nearly as nervous as I was. She understood as well as I did how much rested on the experiment we were about to embark on.

“Thank you for coming,” she said quietly, and with rather less authority than I was expecting. It was almost as though she had expected me to change my mind and not turn up at all.

“I’d say you’re welcome, but…” I shrugged, my voice dry and hoarse.

“We’ve done all we can to ensure your safety,” Ileana said, waving in grand gesture to the structure behind us.

“What is it?” I asked.

“There is no real name for it,” Ileana said, frowning at it as though hoping a name would present itself somewhere amidst the tangles of rope. “We’ve been experimenting with a combination of castings, and this is the result. I can’t guarantee that it will protect you, and I can’t guarantee that it will hold Irina. We must hope for the best.”

“Okay,” I said. “Tell me how it’s supposed to work… in theory.”

“If Irina is to instruct you how to Walk, she must be able to do it herself, but that is very dangerous for her. Irina’s spirit is very strong; much stronger than her body’s ability to contain it. After so much time outside of its proper confines, it longs for freedom. When she releases it, it will attempt escape, never to return.”

“Yeah, I saw a bit of that the other night.”

 “The confines of this structure are meant to prevent that. Her soul, when free, should be trapped inside, free to roam within the boundaries of the structure, but trapped just the same.”

I looked again at the web. As I focused on it, I could feel the energy rolling off of it in dizzying waves. Whatever they had built, however experimental, it was powerful.

“Great,” I said, almost as a question. “And how is it supposed to protect me?”

“Much in the same capacity. Once your spirit leaves your body, if you do manage to separate the two, there is a very good chance it will want to escape. Again, this structure should prevent that. The other Durupinen will be standing by with castings designed to, uh…
encourage
your spirit to return to your body. Even if things go badly, we should be able to put you back together again.”

“Great,” I said, so faintly that I almost couldn’t hear my own voice. “What can I expect if it does go well? How will I know if I can really Walk without endangering myself?”

“You will continue to feel the pull from your physical body; it will act as a sort of spiritual root for you. Though you roam, you will know where you belong, and you will feel the pull of your living form more powerfully than the pull of the Gateway. At least,” and here Ileana threw a cursory look over her shoulder at a cluster of three Durupinen who were bent diligently over a little heap of books and scrolls spread across a folding table, “that’s what the stories tell us. We have records of several firsthand accounts of what the experience is meant to be like, as well as what we can glean from Irina’s gibberish.”

“She talked a bit about it to me,” I said, thinking back with mild horror to my introduction to Irina. “I think with a little coaxing she might be able to tell me more.”

“There is one thing,” Ileana said. She was running a soot-blackened finger along the inside rim of her pipe, refusing to meet my eye.

“Oh, I think there’s more than one thing,” I said. “But which one are you talking about?”

“The casting for the moment of parting,” Ileana said. “We do not possess all of the instructions.”

My heart stuttered. “Isn’t that pretty much the most important part?”

“It is crucial, yes,” Ileana said with a grim smile. “We know the items the casting requires, but it will be up to Irina to show you how to do it. We possess none of the words to be spoken, if indeed there are any, nor the steps required to achieve the parted state. You must find a way to pull it from Irina, if you can.”

I couldn’t help it. I turned right around and heaved emptily into the nearest bush. Ileana didn’t seem to care in the slightest. She watched me with detachment until I had gulped and wretched myself into silence again, and went on. “We have prepared the necessary materials for you. Right this way.”

I followed her around the outskirts of the strange structure to a table where the other Durupinen were poring over heaps of scrolls and books, many of which looked as old as the ones at the library in Fairhaven. Even in my current situation, my inner bookworm sent up a quiet, yet fervent prayer that the fire hadn’t decimated that collection of irreplaceable books, before I focused on what was in front of me.

“This is Flavia,” Ileana said, gesturing to the woman who sat nearest me. Flavia looked to be about twenty-five, with three nose-piercings. Her long black hair, shaved close to her scalp on one side, was thrown over her other shoulder in a heavy braid. Her eyes swam at me from behind dark-framed bifocals, which she flipped up onto her head to better focus on me.

“She is our newest but most prolific Scribe. Her special field of study has been obscure and antiquated castings, and it was largely her research that helped us to plan the set-up of the clearing,” Ileana said.

“I told you I’d only take credit if it actually worked,” Flavia said, in an unusually soft-spoken voice. She smiled very gently at me. “I’ve done my best. This is fairly uncharted territory.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“Certainly. Let me show you what we have for you,” Flavia said, sliding out from behind the table. The other two Scribes, both much older women, did not even look up. “The earliest descriptions of the castings describe in great detail the set-up and preparation of materials, so we have a really good handle on how to start. The casting is a double circle, which we’ve already taken care of. It has to be cleansed by burning sage and lavender, and all other residual spirit energy needs to be expelled. It seems that this will not be necessary as you progress in your Walking abilities, but for the first attempt, you need as empty a spiritual space as you can create.”

“Is it okay for Irina to be in there?” I asked, looking at her properly for the first time. She was still in chains, still covered in runes. She also appeared to be asleep.

“We think so,” Flavia said. “There is mention in the early writings about the helpfulness of a guide who can instruct in the Walking process. That guide would need to be within the sacred space in order to interact with you once you have parted company with your body.”

“Okay, then,” I said, and then my eyes fell on a row of bracelets on the tabletop. “Are those for me, too?”

“Yes,” Flavia said, picking one up and laying it on my upturned palm. “These are the most important element of the Walking process. No matter how skilled of a Walker you become, you will always need one of these to perform the act. It is called a soul catcher.”

“These are what Irina has been making for herself,” I said, turning it over and examining the knots, seven in all, each of which looked both unique and complex. “She was weaving them out of her own hair that she was pulling out of her head.”

“Yes,” Flavia said sadly. “They are not generally made from hair, of course, but that was all she could get her hands on. We’ve woven these from hemp and beads. They are exact replicas of the only known illustration of a soul catcher we have, found in a scroll from pre-medieval times.” Her voice flared just for a moment with a touch of academic excitement, and I could tell that she was restraining herself, for my benefit, from completely geeking out over all of this.

“Why do I need so many?” I asked.

“You don’t,” Flavia said. “At least, not today. Today you only need one. Each time you Walk, you will need to use one as a part of the casting that separates soul from body. We have simply made a stock for you, so that you don’t have to make them yourself. You can just focus on practicing. Eventually you will need to make your own, when you’ve exhausted this supply.”

I looked at the nine soul catchers remaining on the table, desperately hoping that I’d actually get the chance to use them all.

“So how do I use them?”

Flavia’s gentle smile faded away. “That’s the biggest gap in our knowledge,” she said. “We don’t have the exact steps for the casting itself. We know that Irina knows them, because she has successfully Walked many times, and still continues to make regular attempts. You will need to coax the right words out of her, in order to complete the casting. Generally, though, you tie it to your left wrist and cut it away here,” she pointed to the space between the third and fourth knot, where a red thread had been woven in, “while saying the appropriate words, at the moment you wish to separate body and spirit. The snipping of the soul catcher enables the cutting of ties between these two elements, and allows the spirit to wander free.”

I remembered how Milo had once described dying as cutting the ties that held him here, and how Irina had talked about cutting her strings and floating away. It sounded almost too easy, too pleasant… too literal. Nothing so gentle and natural could end in such a state as Irina was now in, could it? I shuddered, and clutched the soul catcher more tightly in my hand to keep from dropping it.

“So that’s it, then? I just put it on, say the magic words, and snip, snip?” I asked.

“According to everything we have on the subject, yes,” Flavia said. “If you are meant to Walk, the ties that bind you to your body, while loosened, should still hold, and you should be able to return when you choose. Body and soul should reconnect without trouble.”