The Whispering Trees (22 page)

She nodded. “A village called De'Noran. Far south of here. We were forced to flee—”

“I do not need to know more than this,” Breem said quickly. “My curiosity is limited—probably why Sordyr choose me to be your host in the first place.”

Kara threw up her hands. “Our
host
? We're prisoners!”

“If that were the case, you'd be in the thorn cages. You are our lord and master's honored guests.”

Kara took a step toward the front door.

“Then we can just leave any time, right? And you won't stop us?”

Breem stepped to one side.

“During the day, you may roam Kala Malta as you see fit,” he said, gesturing toward the open door. “You must stay inside the Divide, of course, but that goes without saying. At night you may not leave the hut. If you break either of these rules . . . you've seen Sordyr's Devoted, right? Purple cloaks, thorns piercing their bodies.”

“We saw them,” Kara said.

Breem nodded. “They sing only their master's wishes, and their eyes will be on you at all times.” Breem lowered his voice, as though realizing that one of the Devoted might be listening right then, and added, “They have strange ways. Don't give them an excuse to punish you. Understand?”

Kara nodded. And then, because Breem seemed in a sharing mood, she asked the most important question of all.

“Why are we here?”

“You need a place to sleep, don't you?”

“Not here in this hut. Here in this village.”

Breem, who had been absentmindedly stroking his beard, suddenly stopped. He raised his eyebrows in astonishment.

“Has he not told you?”

“He has told us nothing,” Kara said. “All we want to do is leave this cursed place and go—”

Kara was about to say “home” before realizing that they had no home, not anymore.

“Our father is sick,” Taff said. And then he added, with great certainty, “Kara is going to save him.”

“Hmm,” Breem said. He took a seat at a circular table and poured himself a drink from a clay pitcher. “You're loyal to your father. I like that. But it matters not where you come from, where you're going. Sordyr has a plan for you and it is not my place to tell you. Only a fool angers the Forest Demon. Besides, you'll find out tomorrow.”

“Why?” Taff asked. “What happens tomorrow?”

Breem gulped down the rest of his drink and stared at the empty cup, unwilling to meet their eyes.

“Your sister goes into the cave,” he said.

K
ara awoke from a dreamless sleep to find Taff bending over her, his finger pressed to her lips.

“Shh,” he whispered. “We're escaping.”

She sat up, eyeing the silent hut. Safi was asleep in her bedroom and Breem, snoring heavily, lay on a mat close to the front door. He wasn't quite blocking the entrance, but his intent to dissuade any escape attempt was clear.

Taff held out his hand to help Kara to her feet.

“No,” she said, and even in the darkness she could
see the confusion on her brother's face. “If we flee this place, Sordyr will just capture us again. We need to stay. At least this way I can find out why Sordyr needs me so badly. That might help us figure out what to do next.”

“You can't go into the cave.”

“You don't even know what's inside.”

“It's a cave,” said Taff. “Nothing good happens in a cave.”

“I'll be fine,” Kara said. “Just go back to sleep.”

Taff shook his head.

“You spend so much time worrying about me,” he said, “but it works the other way too. I don't know why Sordyr needs your help, but I
do
know that it's going to be really dangerous.”

“I've been in dangerous situations before.”

“Not like this.
Please
, Kara. We have to at least try.”

“We'll go look at the fence,” Kara whispered. “That's all.”

Breem barely moved as they stepped over his sleeping
form. His scars were even more hideous in sleep, without words and gestures to distract from their grotesque appearance.

What is Sordyr doing to these people?
Kara wondered.
And why don't they fight back?

Kara peeked her head out the front door. A purple-cloaked Devoted with three black thorns studding each ear stood across the way, watching the hut.
I need a distraction
, Kara thought. She reached out and felt a needle-nose digging for insects in a neighbor's backyard.
Perfect
. There was no need to build a new mind-bridge, as Kara had communicated with needle-noses before, so she simply asked it to rustle some leaves and branches. The Devoted heard the sounds and, worried that Kara had somehow slipped past him, went to investigate. As soon as he left his post they dashed out of the hut and into the shelter of the dark.

Pairs of Devoted were patrolling the main road of the sleeping village, so Kara and Taff traveled behind
the huts instead, stopping every so often to check for movement.

“They might be watching the main gate,” Taff said.

“I agree,” said Kara. “Maybe we should cross to the other side of the village. We've been traveling for such a long time—we might be close to the eastern shore of the island by now.”

“We have to go back the way we came. Mary said the only way out of the Thickety was past Imogen.”

“Mary said a lot of things.”

“She didn't lie about that,” Taff said.

“No. Just everything else.”

Kara hadn't had time to consider the depths of Mary's betrayal, but she had at least accepted it. Judging from Taff's look of defiance, he had yet to reach that point.

“Where did she go, anyway?” Taff asked, his voice suddenly concerned. “Why haven't we seen her?”

“She's probably with Sordyr. Her best friend.”

“Don't say that.”

“If it wasn't for Mary, we wouldn't even be here,” said Kara, her cheeks flushed with frustration.

“You're right,” Taff said, “we'd be dead. She taught you how to use your powers.”

“So I could help Sordyr,” Kara said. She clasped her hand to her forehead and an unexpected chuckle bubbled from her mouth. “By the Clen, Taff—aren't you at least a little bit angry with her?”

“It's not her fault. It's the grimoire. It made her do this.”

“Taff—”

He spun on his heels and snapped, “You should understand that better than anyone!”

They walked in silence until the fence surrounding Kala Malta loomed before them. It was absurdly tall, but Kara thought there were enough nooks and crannies to allow them to climb it. She gripped a lower limb, expecting to feel cold bark but feeling something else instead.

The fence moved; you saw it. . . .

“No,” Kara said, snatching her hand back as though from a flame. “He couldn't have. That's too terrible, even for him.”

Slowly, not wanting it to be true, Kara pressed an ear against the fence.

“What are you doing?” Taff asked.

“Shh,” Kara said. At first she heard nothing, and then—there it was, what she had felt and not wanted to be true: the frantic beating of a heart.

The branch opened its eyes.

With a wild scream of surprise Taff leaped backward, falling to the ground. The fence shook as though awoken from its slumber. Kara looked closer, the sharp tang of vomit burning her throat as she recognized the once-human forms, their arms and legs transformed into branches and twisted into the pattern of the fence. Unblinking eyes stared back at her, and mouths opened in silent screams.

Sordyr hadn't used wood to make his fence at all. He had used people.

The branches began to shudder, and thorns as long as shoehorns made a dangerous whizzing noise.

“Sorydr did this,” Kara said. “With his seeds. Just like with Shadowdancer. He turned these people into this . . . thing.” The branches were just a blur of motion now; if they tried to climb the fence, the thorns would slice them into pieces. “That's why he didn't bother putting us in a cell. Kala Malta itself is a prison.”

“It's warmer in the house,” said a deep voice behind them. Kara and Taff turned around to see Breem standing behind them with two blankets hooked over his arm. Safi stood next to her father, holding a small doll—though she quickly hid it behind her back when Taff looked in her direction.

“Were these people from your village?” Kara asked.

“Of course,” Breem said. “This is the Divide, the glory that awaits all residents of Kala Malta when they die. It
is our eternal duty to join our ancestors and protect our children and our children's children from the dangers of the Thickety.”

Two Devoted approached the group but Breem waved them away. “Sordyr wanted them to see the Divide,” he said. “He knew they were going to try to escape tonight and we were told to permit it.” When the Devoted refused to move, Breem added, “This is part of the plan he sings,” and they finally left.

Kara turned back to the fence. The thorns had stopped buzzing but dozens of eyes were still watching her, as though waiting to see if she was going to touch the fence again.

“Are they suffering?” Kara asked.

“I don't know,” said Breem. He checked to make sure the Devoted were out of earshot. “I'm not even sure they're still alive. Most were on their deathbeds when Sordyr fed them his seeds.”

“Most?” asked Kara.

Breem pointed at the fence. “That one there, Thomas—I don't know if I would call him my friend, but he worked hard and did no one any harm. Except one day he made a mistake at the Bindery and burned half our stock. Sordyr decided that Thomas could better serve Kala Malta as part of the Divide. Such is the
wisdom
of the Forest Demon.”

Breem's voice remained calm, but as he spoke, his body tensed with barely subdued fury.

I wouldn't want to be on the wrong side of this one when he loses his temper
, thought Kara.

“You're prisoners here too,” Taff said.

“Of course not,” Breem said. “This is our home. Sordyr saved our ancestors from dying villages throughout the Thickety and brought them to Kala Malta, where we have lived in peace for many generations. Sordyr keeps us safe from the creatures of the Thickety. Without him, there would be no life.”

“And what do you give him in return for such
generosity?” Kara asked, eyeing Breem's scars.

The man's bushy eyebrows narrowed in anger.

“My people do what we must to survive,” he said. “Surely you know something about that.”

Using the main road this time, they started back toward the hut. Nobody talked. There was nothing more to say.

After a few precious hours of sleep Breem took them to the cave.

They rode horses to a hollow cleared of trees. The Forest Demon was waiting for them, his head bent forward in repose, branch hands folded across his chest. He gave no indication that he had noticed their arrival. Next to him a cage woven from thick, pliable roots hovered above a hole. The rope holding the cage aloft wound through a series of pulleys attached to a thick wooden post, then spooled onto a large wheel. Several Devoted waited to lower the cage into the earth.

Kara noted, with a sinking feeling, that the cage was only large enough for one person. Visions of the hours she had spent trapped in the dark confines of the Well passed through her head.
I'm going down there alone
, she thought, trying to slow her suddenly rapid breathing.

Kara glanced down at Sordyr's feet and saw exposed, for just a moment, a three-clawed foot armored with black bark. Snakelike roots dug into the sole and sides of the foot, pulled taut against the earth.

He's connected to the ground, a part of it
.

Kara was trying to think of a use for that knowledge when Sordyr raised his head and fixed her with merciless green eyes that seemed to hover in the darkness beneath his hood.

Kara looked away.

The Forest Demon flicked a hand into the air. Two vines, looped at the ends, descended toward them. Kara stood protectively in front of her brother, wondering what new horror was about to unfold, but the vines
simply dropped in front of them like swings.

“Sit,
wexari
,” he said. “There is something you need to know before you enter the cave.”

Kara and Taff sat. Sordyr turned away from them, as though unsure how to begin. After a few moments of silence Taff absentmindedly tucked and untucked his legs, breaking into a grin as the vine swung high into the air.

“Stop that,” Kara whispered.

Taff dragged his feet along the ground, halting the motion.

“Sometimes you're no fun at all,” he said.

When Sordyr spoke, his voice was softer than Kara had ever heard it before. She wouldn't have said he sounded
human
, but it was a passing facsimile.

“I felt your power all those years ago. The night your mother died. The night you first used your gift and forced the nightseeker to conceal your magical ability. Even if you didn't do it intentionally, it was an impressive display of self-preservation—and without the use of a grimoire. I
knew then that you possessed the power of a
wexari
, a rare thing indeed. But I did not know how special you truly were until you killed Bailey Riddle.”