The Spirit War (17 page)

Miranda blinked and turned to Slorn, waiting for some sort of explanation, but Slorn said nothing. He just stood there, staring at the sky, his brown bear eyes open as wide as they could go. Frowning, she turned to Gin, but the ghosthound wasn’t any better. He was crouched at her feet as close to her as he could get, his orange eyes wide as dinner plates.

“Gin?” she whispered.

The dog didn’t even look at her. “Can’t you see it, Miranda?”

She frowned. “What?”

Next to her, Slorn took a shuddering breath. “I thought… I mean, I always suspected, but I never imagined it would be so large. So… endless.”

“
What?
” Miranda asked again, growing supremely annoyed.

“The world,” a deep voice rumbled. “Or what it was.”

Miranda jumped before she could stop herself. The voice came from under her feet, vibrating up through her legs from the stone below the fluttering illusion of flowers. Beside her, Gin lowered his head with a soft whine.

“Tell me your names.” The words buzzed through Miranda’s body, more vibration than sound, but they carried an authority she could feel in her bones.

“Teacher,” Slorn said. “I am Heinricht Slorn.”

“I know who you are,” the mountain said, for Miranda knew it could be no other. “I remember all my children, even the ones who desert me. I am eager to hear what excuses you’ve thought up to convince me to take you back, but for now, tell me, who is this woman?”

Miranda stepped forward. “I am Miranda Lyonette, a Spiritualist of the Spirit Court. This is Gin, my—”

“I do not need the lesser spirits’ names,” the mountain rumbled dismissively. “They know their place. But I am curious as to how
the core of a great water spirit came to live inside a human. Mellinor, can you still speak?”

“I can.”

Miranda steeled herself as Mellinor’s spirit surged forward, rising in a plume of deep blue water from her fingers, which she held out for him.

“I see you have escaped your prison,” the mountain said.

The water dipped in a bow. “With Miranda’s assistance, great mountain.”

“A strange arrangement, to be sure,” the mountain said. “But then, you water spirits always did flow down the easiest route.”

“I did what I had to,” Mellinor said.

The meadow flickered as the mountain laughed. “As do we all, inland sea, as do we all. I am satisfied. You may return to your human shore.”

The water retreated, and Mellinor flowed back into Miranda, who lowered her arm cautiously. Something odd was going on, besides the obvious. Mellinor was being surprisingly deferential. Her sea spirit wasn’t rude, but he was a Great Spirit and he didn’t tend to let others forget that. This meekness was very out of character. Perhaps it was because the mountain was so much bigger than Mellinor’s diminished form? But he’d shown no such deference to the West Wind.

“Now,” the mountain said. “To business. Why have you come home, Heinricht? Or do I call you Heinricht anymore? You are as much bear as man, now.”

“I am still myself,” Slorn said. “And I came home because I had no more reason to run. Nivel is dead. Her seed has been taken by the League.”

“I am sorry,” the mountain said.

As the stone spoke, the flowering grass began to dance in an
unfelt wind. All over the valley, the sunlight faded, and Miranda looked up to see dark clouds rolling in from the south. Within moments, the meadow was covered in a thin, misty rain. But though she could see the rain falling, hear it hitting her shoulders, she was not wet.

“What’s happening?” she whispered.

“The Teacher is grieving,” Slorn answered.

“Of course I grieve,” the mountain said. “Nivel was my student before she was your wife.”

“Then you should know she continued to abide by your teachings,” Slorn said bitterly. “Even after you would have murdered her.”

The soft rain became a downpour as Slorn finished, and the ground shook with the mountain’s anger.

“It was the demon who murdered your wife,” the mountain said. “Not I. Nivel died the moment the spirit eater took her. All you achieved by running was to delay the inevitable, putting all of us at risk in the process.”

Slorn bared his sharp teeth. “The end might have been inevitable, but our work was not in vain. Nivel lived for ten years with that seed inside her, and even then it was not the demon who killed her. She was murdered by a rogue League member who took her seed for his own. Had he not appeared, she would still be alive, doing your work.”

“And what work of mine could a demonseed do?” the mountain said. “Demon-panicked spirits cannot be Shaped.”

“The first affirmation of all Shapers is the collection of knowledge,” Slorn answered. “That’s the pledge you have us make, and Nivel and I never forsook it. We spent those ten years researching demonseeds. Through our work, Nivel lived eight years longer than any seed on record.” He reached into his coat, taking out a small, leather-bound book. “I have here detailed observations,” he said, holding the book up in the phantom rain. “Mine and hers, from the
day we left the mountain to the day I surrendered her seed to the League. I believe our research contains more information about the demon than any spirits have ever collected before, including the League, and I am prepared to give all of this knowledge to you. With the Shapers’ help, we could save countless lives, maybe even one day reverse the demon infestation.”

The rain began to slack as he spoke, and the clouds rolled away, leaving the mountain gleaming white in the freshly washed sunshine. Its stone slope had not changed, and yet, somehow, Miranda got the feeling the mountain was sneering at them.

“You would give me knowledge of how to prolong a demonseed’s life?” the Teacher said.

“Yes,” Slorn answered. “I can already make manacles that retard the seed’s growth and cloth that hides the demon’s presence, allowing it to walk among spirits without terrifying them. But these are only crutches, stopgaps. With your help, I hope to find a way to reverse the seed’s conquest of the host, perhaps even remove the seed without—”

“Enough.”

Slorn stiffened. “What do you—”

“You wasted your freedom studying the wrong thing,” the mountain said. “Extending the seed’s life? Hiding it? Why would we want to do that? If you’d found a way to pinpoint seeds before they wake, that I could perhaps condone, but demonseeds are a menace, Heinricht, not something to be coddled and hidden.”

“Menace?” Slorn growled. “A feral dog is a
menace
. Demonseeds are the greatest disaster we’ve ever known waiting to happen. Each seed has the potential to become a demon every bit as dangerous as the one imprisoned under the Dead Mountain. I don’t know if you were paying attention, but it nearly happened a few weeks ago not far from your own slopes. To ignore such a danger, to refuse to learn as much as we can about its nature, to remain willfully
ignorant of the greatest threat to the spirits that form this world,
that
is the menace, Teacher. And that is why Nivel and my research is so important.

“Think what could happen if we could safely remove seeds from their hosts without killing them. Demonseeds would come forward willingly to be cured instead of running. The League would no longer have to hunt the seeds down or risk fighting them. Who knows? Each seed is an identical shard of the demon of the Dead Mountain itself. If we learn more about them, we might find a way to stop the Dead Mountain from sending them out, maybe even a way to get rid of the demon altogether. This knowledge, Nivel’s knowledge, could be the beginning of the research that saves us from the demon forever.”

The mountain rumbled as Slorn finished, a long, grinding slide of stone on stone that rattled Miranda’s teeth. She barely noticed. This was it. This was why they’d come all this way. If the mountain got behind Slorn’s plan, then this could well be the birth of an age of safety and freedom greater than anything the Spirit World had ever known. Not just freedom from the crippling fear she’d felt at Izo’s and in the throne room at Mellinor, but also freedom for the seeds themselves. Unbidden, her mind flicked to Nico. Despite the company she kept and the wound she’d given Gin, Nico didn’t deserve to be eaten by the demon. Neither had Slorn’s wife. No spirit deserved it, and today she would make sure that, if the first steps toward ending the demon’s infection of the world were not taken, it would not be because she did not try.

All around them, the scenery was changing. The flowering meadow withered and turned brown. Deep snow appeared on the mountain’s slopes, and the sky grew dark as raw iron. Though the air had not changed, Miranda felt colder than ever. Still, she did not move until, at last, the mountain spoke.

“I am very sorry, Heinricht,” it said, “but you have wasted your time. I don’t know why you even thought to start this line of questioning, other than sentimentality. You should know better than any that demons are the sole realm of the Shepherdess and her League.”

“But there’s no reason we can’t help.” The words burst out of Miranda before she could stop them. “I’ve seen the League in action, and they are marvelous, but they would have lost at Izo’s if not for Slorn and Mellinor’s help.”

“Who gave you leave to speak, human?” the mountain thundered, sending snow tumbling down its slopes. “Slorn is in disgrace, but he is still a Shaper. You are nothing to me. Why do you think you can raise your voice here?”

“Miranda!” Gin hissed, pressing his paw on her foot.

“No,” Miranda said hotly, shaking her leg free of Gin’s grip. “I’ve had enough of this. I may not be a Shaper, but I am a spirit. It’s my world too. Why shouldn’t I do whatever I can to help it?”

“It is not your place,” the mountain rumbled.

“It is my place!” Miranda shouted back. “I am a Spiritualist! I am sworn on my life and my soul to protect the spirits from harm, and that’s what I intend to do. You say this is League business, but I think it is reckless and ridiculous to leave the entirety of our well-being in the hands of a League we cannot call or control.”

“The League is the only reason our world still exists, wizard,” the mountain said.

“And I am grateful!” Miranda cried, shaking off Slorn’s warning hand. “But if they, if
you
truly wanted to save the world rather than just preserve the status quo, you’d accept our help. If Slorn’s knowledge truly can change the way we deal with demonseeds, if there’s even a chance that this could prevent what happened in the mountains outside Izo’s camp from happening again, then how can anyone say it is not worth trying?”

Miranda stopped, panting. She hadn’t meant to say it that way, but the tirade had burst out of her. Gin was whimpering at her feet, his muscles tensed to grab her and run, even though there was nowhere to run to. Overhead, snow drifted silently from the gray sky, filling the valley in soft drifts until it was up to Miranda’s knees. The snow hid the mountain like a veil, but nothing could dim the mountain’s white, terrible presence. When the stone voice spoke again, its words were even colder than its icy slope.

“And what would you have me do,
Spiritualist
? Bring seeds here, into my stone, among my people, so that Heinricht can have his little experiments?” It gave a rumbling huff. “
You
are the one who is being ridiculous. Understand this, if you can: Letting a seed grow, even under controlled circumstances, is the most dangerous, reckless undertaking possible. Even if all of your postulations are correct, and some miraculous cure was found for the demonseeds, it would still not be worth the risk to my stone, my spirits, my people, or my standing with the Powers to pursue it. We have a system ordained by the Shepherdess for the protection of her flock. The Lord of Storms and his League have held back the demon since it was imprisoned. That is enough. Let it alone.”

Miranda flushed and took a step forward, her mouth already open to challenge the mountain again, but Slorn’s hand on her shoulder stopped her cold. She looked back to see the bear-headed Shaper staring up at the mountain, his yellow teeth bared.

“Were you just a Great Spirit, I would accept that logic,” he growled. “But I am not the man I was ten years ago.” He raised his hand and placed his longer fingers across his muzzle, the tips pointed at his large, brown, bear eyes. “I have seen many things since I merged with the bear. Learned many things that spirits have been taught never to speak of. But I am not a simple spirit. I am human. A human who
sees
as we were never meant to see, and I see you now, Durain, Lord of the Mountains.”

“Stop,” the mountain said.

But Slorn did not stop. “I thought the spirits deferred to you because of your great age and size. Now I see I was only half right. I see her mark on your soul. You are a star, a chosen spirit of the Shepherdess, elevated above all others. You are right. It would be intolerably risky for the Shapers to work on this problem alone, but we don’t have to, do we? You can bring my knowledge to the Shepherdess herself—”

“
Enough!
” The mountain quaked, nearly knocking Miranda off her feet. Slorn stumbled too, but caught himself at the last moment. His eyes, however, never left the mountain.

“I begin to understand at last why the Shepherdess made your kind blind,” the mountain said, its voice deep and annoyed. “Even though you see, you do not understand.” The stone’s shaking fell off to a slight vibration, almost like a sigh.

“What don’t we understand?” Slorn said.

“Anything,” the mountain grumbled, lowering its voice. “To start, you’re right. I am a star of the Shepherdess, but the meaning of that title has changed over the long years.” Its voice grew wistful. “We old souls were the greatest spirits left at the beginning. When the Shepherdess came into being and was given charge of the sphere, we worked together. She gave us her mark, her authority, which she herself had been given by the Creator, and made us her overseers. We were her hands in the world, keeping order among those spirits of our own kind. My twin brother and I were tasked with watching the mountains, and it took us both, for in those days all the mountains were awake. But then the world changed. The demon appeared.”