The Legend Of Eli Monpress (42 page)

“You’re a wonderful houseguest, you know that?” Eli said, wiping the water off the table. Josef just shrugged and helped himself to an apple from Eli’s plate. He leaned against the heavy wooden table as he ate, staring through the window. Outside, Slorn was still standing in his circle of sewing materials, his bear head warped to monstrous size by the wobbly glass.

“He gives me the creeps,” Josef said quietly, taking a bite out of what had been Eli’s apple.

“How so?” Eli said. “Is it because of the—” he made a gesture, outlining a muzzle in the air in front of his face.

“More than that.” Josef looked around at the small, tidy kitchen. “This whole place has been giving me the creeps since we came in. Rugs that slide out of the way before you step on them, cabinets shutting themselves when they’ve been left open. It’s not natural. And then there’s the constant feeling that we’re being watched.” Josef grimaced. “It’s like the whole house is alive.”

Well, Eli thought, munching a block of yellow cheese, it had been bound to come up sooner or later. He was only glad he didn’t have to give this explanation in front of Slorn. The bear-headed man was a stickler for particulars, and Josef explanations required lots of glossing over.

“Not alive,” Eli said, “
awake
. Like an awakened sword, only this time it’s cabinets and plates.” He held up his empty breakfast plate. “Awakening an entire house is pretty extreme, but that’s Slorn for you.”

Josef gave him a flat look that was dangerously close to not caring, and Eli tried again. “I know ‘wizard stuff’ isn’t exactly your forte, but try and follow me here. You know about awakened blades, right? Well, this is an awakened house. Unlike a sword, though, a house isn’t just one spirit, but hundreds, maybe thousands, all working together. That’s how it moves. The legs work with the supports, which work with the nails, which work with the hearth. None of these could move the house on its own, but together they’re far more powerful. The secret is getting them to work as a team. It’s called ‘spirit unity,’ and it’s a very secret and well-guarded Shaper wizard technique. Even I don’t know exactly how Slorn does it, especially with so many small, sleepy, mundane spirits. I’ve tried asking, but he bites my head off every time I bring it up, something about respecting Shaper secrets.”

“So Slorn’s a Shaper,” Josef said, looking out the window. “I’ve heard stories, but I’ve never met one.”

“And you’re not likely to,” Eli said with a shrug. “They keep to themselves. Of course, technically, you still haven’t met one. Slorn’s an ex-Shaper.”

Josef’s eyebrows shot up. “What, did he get kicked out?”

“Kicked out or left on his own.” Eli said. “I don’t know which for sure. But I do know it had something to do with how he got that head.”

They both looked out the window where the bear-headed man was still working, this time kneeling in the sand and drawing something with a long stick, muttering to himself.

“How
did
he end up like that?” Josef said softly. “Did the Shapers curse him or something?”

“Powers, no,” Eli said, laughing. “There’s no such thing as a curse. Slorn’s head is his own doing, though, again, I don’t know the particulars. I’ve known Slorn for a long time, but he’s tight-lipped about the past. He’s had that head the whole time I’ve known him, though. All I know is that it used to be the head of the great bear spirit that watched over these woods. The bear and Slorn made some kind of deal, and Slorn ended up with a bear’s head but a man’s body and mind. I don’t know why he did it, but I know one thing for sure.” Eli pointed two fingers at his eyes. “Those black eyes of his aren’t just for show. They’re bear eyes, real ones, and they can see as spirits see.”

Josef gave him a curious look, clearly not comprehending how impressive this was, so Eli explained further. “You know how wizards are humans who can hear the voices of spirits, right? Well, even the best wizards can’t see the spirit world. We can feel it sometimes, especially if the spirits are very strong, but we can’t see it. It’s like we as a species lack that sense, like our eyes are only half functional, seeing only half of the world. That’s why spirits are always complaining about human blindness, because to them, we are blind. Most spirits don’t even see as we do. Like this table.” He knocked on the heavy wood he was leaning against. “It has no eyes, no sense of vision as we think of it; yet to it, we’re the blind ones. But Slorn’s different.” Eli turned to gaze out the window. “He can see as they see, and that gives him a tremendous advantage as a craftsman. The things he makes are literally on an entirely different level from other goods, even other Shaper stuff, because Slorn is the only human crafter who can actually
see
what he’s doing.”

Josef pursed his lips. “Why in the world did the Shapers kick him out, then? If he’s that good, I’d think they’d be after him like mad.”

“They would be,” said an annoyed voice behind them. “If they could find us.”

Eli, Josef, and Nico whirled around to see Pele leaning against the doorway, looking cross. Eli relaxed when he saw her, but Josef looked put out, and Nico looked deadly furious. Neither of them was used to people being able to sneak up on them. For her part, Pele just crossed her arms and gave the three of them a sour look.

“Next time you decide to gossip about your host,” she said, “don’t do it inside his awakened house. When I tell you the walls have ears, it’s not a figure of speech.”

“Don’t be prickly, Pele,” Eli said. “If your walls were listening, they know I didn’t say anything to my companions I haven’t said directly to Slorn’s face. Have a little faith in me, darling.”

Pele looked skeptical. “Slorn wants to see you outside. All of you.”

Eli, Josef, and Nico exchanged a look, then stood up and filed out. Pele brought up the rear, but Eli hung back, letting the swordsman and the demonseed outpace them.

“So,” he said quietly, glancing at Pele, “it’s ‘Slorn’ all the time, now?”

“Shaper tradition requires distance between a master and his pupil,” Pele said. “Technically, as my father, he shouldn’t be teaching me at all, but it’s not like there’s anyone else.” She looked up as they exited the house, staring north at the distant snowcapped mountains. “I don’t even remember the Shaper mountain.”

“Well,” Eli said, putting an arm around her shoulder, “you’re not missing much. It’s dreadfully boring.”

Pele shot him a glare, and Eli removed his arm before she did it for him, hurrying down to the riverbed to stand beside Josef at the edge of Slorn’s circle.

Slorn himself was standing at the center beside the carefully stacked pile of materials that had passed his rigorous examination. His bear face was impossible to read, but his movements were anxious as he motioned his guests closer.

“I’ve finished material preparations for the coat,” he said gruffly. “But before I begin the cloth, I’ll need to take one final measurement.”

“What?” Josef said. “Did the girl miss an inch last night?”

“This measurement can’t be taken with tape,” Slorn said. “This coat doesn’t just hide Nico’s body; it hides the nature of her soul, and what lives inside it. For that, I need to take Nico up into the mountains.” His dark eyes flicked to Josef. “Alone.”

“Why?” Josef said, hand drifting to the Heart’s hilt. “What do you need that you can’t do here?”

“Those are the terms,” Slorn said. “If you don’t like them, you can leave.”

Josef looked supremely uncomfortable, and Eli was about to say something to deflect the tension when Nico stepped forward, her cracked-leather boots soundless on the packed sand. “I’ll go.”

Eli blinked in surprise. “Are you sure?”

Nico just gave him a scathing “of course” look over her shoulder before going to stand at Slorn’s side. The bear-headed man nodded and turned to Pele. “Bring these”—he pointed to the pile of materials at his feet— “to my workroom. Eli, you and your swordsman can put the rest back into storage.”

Eli gaped at him. “What part of our deal says we’re your grunt labor?”

But Slorn had already turned and started walking toward the woods, Nico following close behind him. Pele just grinned and started gathering the chosen materials. A moment later, Josef started picking things up as well. When it was clear he wasn’t going to be able to get out of this one, Eli sighed and started lugging bolts of cloth into his arms, muttering under his breath about Shaper wizards and the dreadful decline in service. Josef, however, was ignoring him. The swordsman picked up the balls of yarn and yards of cloth with only half an eye to what he was grabbing. His real attention was on the trees, where Nico and Slorn had vanished into the forest’s shadow, and nothing Eli said could draw him away from them.

Nico and Slorn moved silently through the forest. They followed no path, but they did not need one. The trees parted for them, the young hardwoods creaking softly as they lifted their branches. Slorn nodded his thanks as he passed. The trees rustled in return but then grew still as Nico walked by.

They walked without speaking until they reached the foot of a steep, leaf-strewn slope. There, Slorn began to climb, his heavy boots moving surely over the slick leaves. Nico followed more cautiously, digging her hands into the wet leaf litter to keep from slipping. They climbed for a long time, and as they got higher, the trees began to change. Slender oaks and birches gave way to heavier, darker trees Nico couldn’t name. They clung to the slope in great knots of root and stone, looming enormous and dark, their black leaves blotting out the sunlight until the ground was a dim patchwork of shadows.

As they climbed in the dark, the need to flit ahead through the shadows was overwhelming. Why, something inside Nico whispered, should she crawl like an animal? She could have been at the top ten times over by now. But Nico forced the feeling down. Such thinking was dangerous. Shadows were the demon’s highway, and moving through them, even for a short jump like this, always made her feel like a shadow herself. Without her coat, it was easy to lose focus, to forget to come out of the dark. Easier for the thing inside her to go places it shouldn’t, the places in her mind where she hoarded her humanity. A cold, clammy feeling began to wrap around her, and Nico shook her head, focusing her attention to a dagger point on Slorn’s back as they trudged on. To stay with Josef, to stay human, she needed to keep her mind clear, sharp. It was only a little longer. She would see what Slorn wanted her to see, and then go back. Easy, simple. She repeated those words again, and deep in the dark behind her eyes, something began to snicker.

Finally Slorn stopped. They were high now, the air cold and heavy with the smell of snow. The strange trees were shorter here, thinner, and Nico caught glimpses of blue sky through the branches. Yet the sun seemed to shy away from them, leaving the thin woods at the top of the slope darker than ever. Everything was quiet. Despite their height, no wind rustled the trees, and no animals moved in their branches. The slope was still, a heavy, unnatural stillness that pressed down on Nico like deep water, and she had the strong feeling she should not be here.

“What you are feeling is the will of the valley,” Slorn said softly, turning to face her, his gruff voice grating against the silence. “We woke it years ago and tasked it with keeping things away.”

Nico looked around, confused. She didn’t see a valley, just the slope and the strange trees. Slorn saw her confusion, and he motioned for her to look at him, his voice becoming deathly serious.

“What I am about to show you,” he said, “you must tell no one, not even your companions. If you cannot promise me this, I cannot make your coat. Will you promise?”

Nico looked up at him hesitantly. No one, not even Josef, had ever asked her to promise something. She thought about it a moment, weighing the weight of a secret against the necessity of her coat and her own growing curiosity, and then she nodded.

Slorn turned and walked up the slope, motioning for her to follow. Nico did, slowly, fighting against the growing certainty that she should turn around and run while she still could. She was so focused on putting one foot in front of the other that she almost didn’t see Slorn’s shape flicker ahead of her, as though he’d walked through a curtain of water. A step later, Nico felt it rush over her as well, intensely cold and strange, as if the air itself was moving to let her pass. It was only for a moment, and then the world around her changed. She was standing beside Slorn, still on the slope, still surrounded by the strange trees, only now she was balanced on the edge of a knife-sharp ledge looking down at a valley that had not been there a moment before. It was a small, narrow thing, barely fifteen feet across and maybe thirty feet long, more like a fissure in the slope than a valley. There were no trees growing nearby, yet the light was somehow dimmer than ever. When she looked down into the cleft, shadows flowed like a river, making it impossible to tell how far down the crack in the stone went.

Nico frowned. She wasn’t used to shadows hiding things from her. But as she leaned forward to get a better look, a familiar, terrifying feeling crashed into her. It took her over, passing through her senseless body like a spear and landing hook first in her mind. No, deeper. This feeling, the sense of grasping claws, of an endless, gaping, ravenous hunger, of being trapped, of being crushed, was deeper than mind or thought. For an eternity, it was all Nico could do to hold on to the tiny flickering light of herself until, inch by inch, the darkness subsided. Rough, warm hands were shaking her shoulders. She didn’t remember falling, but Slorn was helping her to her feet. Already the feeling was fading like a dream, but deep inside her, something curled closer, drinking it in.