Soulkeeper Page 19

  Beside those footprints was a trail of blood.

  “Once Janus was done here he went into the forest,” Devin explained to Jacaranda after he’d called her over to him. “Most likely he was dragging a body, though dead or alive, I cannot guess. There’s a lot of blood to know for certain.”

  “Then all of the loggers are dead,” Jacaranda said. “We shall return to Londheim.”

  “No,” Devin said. “Not yet. I need to know what Janus wanted inside those woods.”

  The soulless woman looked greatly displeased.

  “The loggers are dead. Master says to return, so we must return. You propose a delay. There must be no delays.”

  Devin let out a loud sigh. Jacaranda was his responsibility, and he wasn’t going to leave her alone. That, and as much as he didn’t want to admit it, the horrific sights around him had set his nerves aflame, and he greatly preferred to have any sort of company with him as he searched.

  “We don’t know that the one he dragged with him is dead,” he argued. “He could be alive.”

  “That is a lot of blood. He is dead.”

  “Do you know that for certain?”

  Jacaranda stared at him for a long moment.

  “No.”

  Devin loaded flamestone and shot into his pistol.

  “Then in we go.”

  CHAPTER 19

  The missing person continues to leave blood behind,” Jacaranda said. She trailed two steps behind Devin as he led them onward. “He is certainly dead by now.”

  “We go until we find a body,” Devin said. “That’s the rules. I don’t make them, just follow them.”

  He took perverse satisfaction in Jacaranda’s confusion.

  “Whose rules? Rules for what? I do not understand.”

  “Neither do I,” he muttered. The forest was rapidly changing, and in ways that left him mystified. Thorn-covered vines sprouted along the trunks of the black oaks, encircling halfway up in a stranglehold. The brush of the forest, normally scattered and thin, tightened with weeds and bushes that looked entirely foreign, something that should not be possible in a region Devin knew like the back of his hand. The leather of Devin’s coat was his only protection against the burs and thorns.

  A thick wave of rot attacked his nose upon a soft hint of wind, and Devin fought back a gag. His first thought was that it was the dragged man they tracked, but the smell came from the right. He veered off anyway, needing to satisfy his curiosity. A short walk later he found the bloated corpse of a deer. It lay on its side with its belly opened as if by a sword. Red and purple vines emerged from the dirt surrounding it, their short, sharp thorns digging into the deer’s skin on all sides of the gaping wound. Devin could not shake the feeling that those vines had been what ripped the deer open. Where there should have been blood and intestines instead was a massive growth of crimson flowers.

  Jacaranda peered past Devin to the carcass and deliberated.

  “It looks like flowers spilled out from its stomach and started to grow.”

  “Yeah,” Devin said. “It does kind of look like that.”

  “Is that possible?”

  Devin retreated back to the tracked path.

  “I have no goddess-damned clue anymore.”

  The two of them walked deeper and deeper into the forest, and after an hour Devin felt his nerves begin to fray. Already the forest had become unknown to him, but now it was getting harder to see the sun through the thick canopy of leaves. Normally he trusted his innate sense of direction, and his ability to survive weeks in a forest if need be, but the weirdness of the vegetation robbed him of his confidence. Flowers appeared the wrong color, moss shimmered blue and yellow, and the cries of birds in the trees were of species he knew nothing about. At least the dragging body and its smear of blood was still easily tracked, but should they wander…

  “Devin, do you hear that?”

  He stopped, and in the absence of footfalls and crunching brush, he did hear the faintest sound.

  Singing.

  “It sounds like a woman,” he said. “But a woman singing out here, in the middle of this forest…”

  The hairs on his neck stood on end. The song lacked any words he could understand, just a long, continuous melody that could leave many of the professional singers in Londheim jealous. There was no doubt as to its source, either. It came from up ahead, the same direction that the tracks lead toward.

  “Do you think it wise I ready my weapons?” Jacaranda asked. “I do not see any threats, but my knowledge of this forest is significantly limited.”

  Devin laughed, a dark grin spread across his face.

  “Limited?” he said. “Yeah, that’s one way to put it. I think it’s wise, Jac. Very wise.”

  The soulless woman drew her daggers, Devin his sword, and together they followed the slightly trampled path spackled with blood toward the sound of a song. It wasn’t far until he spotted a strange ring of trees, their trunks close enough together that they almost formed a wall. The trail led directly within them. Devin mustered up what courage he had and strode right in, to be greeted by the forest’s singer in its center.

  Its base was a rose pistil as wide as a tree trunk, its lovely red petals opened in full blossom. A seemingly numberless collection of vines sprouted from below, some snaking along the ground, others tunneling deep into the earth to reemerge elsewhere. A second row of petals opened up within the first, these a yellow deeper than the sun and speckled with soft red dots. Four stamens waved in an unfelt wind, their tips bladed and stained crimson. In the center of it all grew the creature’s heart, a feminine shape with her arms crossed over her chest. She showed no facial features, just a lush of yellow-green vines, blooming flowers, and pulsing veins. A gaping hole opened where her stomach should be, and from within its depths came the lovely song.

  It’d have been a beautiful image if not for the blood splashed across the vines and petals.

  “Visitors to my forest?” asked a voice that lilted through the ongoing song. The tone quickly shifted when the featureless face turned their way. “Human visitors. Trespassers. Why have you come?”

  Devin took in a deep breath and mentally ordered himself to remain calm. Yes, it was an enormous talking flower, but so far it was a nonviolent enormous talking flower. If they were lucky, it’d stay that way.

  “A camp nearby was attacked by a man named Janus,” he said. “Do you know of him?”

  “I have met him once.” The four stamens shivered. Devin could not help but notice the razor-sharp blades along their sides. “Viciss’s avatar of change brought gifts. Do you bring gifts?”

  The drag marks to the flower’s base. The blood across its petals. It added up to a particularly unsavory image, one that Jacaranda put together just as quickly.

  “The flower ate the body,” she stated. “This is unusual.”

  “I am more than a flower. I am the songmother of the woods. I woo the deer. I calm the wolf. Every tree that grows, every plant that dies, I guide. I control. I make in my image.”

  Devin felt his knuckles ache from his tight grip upon the hilt of his sword. If the songmother turned violent, where did he even strike? He had one shot for his pistol, but would it do anything to the mix of vegetation within its heart? What exactly were the internal organs of a carnivorous flower?

  “Forgive us, songmother,” Devin said. “We bring no gifts, but I assure you, we mean no disrespect by it. We were unaware of your presence.”

  The harsher chords within the song softened.

  “Foolish. Ignorant. The deer contain more wisdom. The tick harbors greater purpose.”

  Try not to think too highly of us, Devin thought, wisely keeping that to himself. Instead, he gestured in the direction he thought Oakenwall was in and tried to bring the conversation back on track.

  “The camp,” he said. “Please, Janus murdered all of the men there, and I would know why.”

  “Why?” The songmother leaned closer. A scent of pollen and tulips
washed over him. “Hundreds of years, we slept. Buried beneath the ground, like seeds. Locked in the sky, like water within clouds. We slept, so you might multiply like rodents. We are angry, and you ask why? Why?”

  The petals shook with laughter.

  “There is no place for you in my forest. I have no heart for you in my song. Be gone.”

  Not good enough. The songmother had called Janus the avatar of change, but what did that even mean? Why had he come to Oakenwall, and why slaughter the men? The songmother was his only lead, which meant he had to press the issue. He begged the Sisters for wisdom and stepped closer to the giant petals.

  “Please, if you know of this Janus, tell us of him. Tell us why he came. Surely I do not ask for much?”

  Vines crept across the trunks of the black oaks surrounding them. The impression of walls closing in was unmistakable.

  “I ask you to leave, and you stay,” said the songmother. The song deepened. “Always this way with humans. Soft flesh, no claws, blunt teeth, yet you believe yourself lord of beasts and sky. Make demands of your betters. Build homes upon land that was never yours.”

  “I believe we are being threatened,” Jacaranda said as the feminine figure in the center rose to its full height.

  “I believe you’re right,” Devin said as he raised his sword.

  “You wish for answers?” the songmother shouted. “Janus came for the starlight tear. Does that knowledge grant you comfort? Does the name make up for the insult you inflict upon our kind?”

  The bladed stamens whipped circles in the air.

  “I am hungry,” the songmother said. “And human blood has always tasted the sweetest.”

  Two of the stamens swung simultaneously from either side of Devin and Jacaranda. Devin slid to his knees and chopped overhead. The stamens retreated halfway, avoiding the cut. Jacaranda burst into motion beside him, weaving like a professional dancer through the thorned vines that covered the ground. Her daggers cut grooves into the thick red petals at the base of the songmother. They drew no blood, if the creature even had any to begin with. Its only reaction was one of annoyance.

  “Do not mock me with your metal weapons,” it said.

  “What about a pistol?” Devin asked. He pulled the trigger, his shot perfectly aimed. The bullet hit the center of the feminine figure’s forehead and exited the other side in a burst of water and petals. The songmother didn’t even flinch. A cut across his arm from the stamen was his reward. Devin dodged, his sword deflecting a follow up hit.

  Jacaranda took advantage of his distraction to cut three more grooves into the petals and then retreat. A stamen lashed for her legs, and she leapt over it with grace that left Devin stunned. He considered himself a fine swordsman, but Jacaranda’s reflexes looked as honed as a panther’s.

  “I do not know where to attack,” Jacaranda said upon landing, so calmly and matter-of-factly that she might as well be telling Devin the weather.

  “Forget attacking,” he shouted as he dropped to his knees and slashed his sword above his head. The blade cut halfway through the stamen. Blue-tinted water spilled across his coat from the wound. “Just run!”

  “Which direction?” Jacaranda asked. Though her voice strained with exertion, she showed no outward sign of fear or panic. For once, Devin envied her soulless condition.

  “Away from the damn flower trying to eat us!”

  She reacted immediately, retreating to the outer edge of trees and slashing against the vines that sealed them in. They weren’t many, and they were thin enough that her daggers could cut through them in one blow. Devin followed after her, positioning himself to guard her against the stamens, his pistol holstered and his sword held high in both hands. The songmother leaned in closer, her song pulsing with rapid, almost guttural urgency.

  “Where shall you run?” it asked. Thorns broke through the ground as vines emerged in all directions. “The forest is mine. The world is ours. We shall pick you from our bodies like a dog does to fleas… with its teeth.”

  All four stamens lunged simultaneously. Devin saw them coming and knew immediately he was doomed. His sword could not stop them all. He dug in his feet, then felt his balance immediately falter. The stamens pierced where he’d stood, but he was falling backward, Jacaranda’s hand firmly gripping the neck of his coat. The two of them fell through the severed vines and out of the circle of trees surrounding the songmother.

  “We are not safe,” Jacaranda said as she helped him to his feet. Though the stamens could not reach beyond the circle, there were still hundreds of veins cracking through the dirt, and they approached the two of them like snakes.

  “Then start running.”

  They ran without any sense of direction, easily outpacing the vines. All that mattered was putting distance between them and the songmother. Their sprint settled to a jog after a few minutes, for the vines were sparser. That jog became a walk only when there were no vines at all, and the sound of the flower’s song had faded into the quiet rustle of the forest.

  “It would be wise to avoid further contact with that creature,” Jacaranda said when they paused to catch their breath.

  “Couldn’t agree with you more.”

  “What do we do now?”

  “Now?” Devin shrugged. “I’d say we’re out of leads, which means it’s time to exit this awful forest.” He glanced at the sky, thought a moment, and then pointed. “That way should be the direction out.”

  They walked in silence. Devin’s certainty lessened with each passing minute. The forest was so strange that he recognized no familiar sights, and even reliable markers, such as where the moss grew upon the sides of trees, seemed off. Devin wasn’t sure he would call himself lost, but as the minutes dragged on, he feared that they were taking a more parallel path to the forest’s edge than he’d have liked.

  “Do you hear that?” he asked Jacaranda near the end of an hour.

  “I hear many different things.”

  “I mean the crying.”

  Jacaranda stared at him blankly. Devin frowned and asked her to remain still while he listened. He couldn’t quite place the direction, but it sounded like the crying of a young child. Had there been children at the lumber camp? He didn’t know, but if there were, perhaps one had survived?

  Devin slowly approached his best approximation of the source. The closer he walked, the more certain he was of the crying. Under any other circumstances he would have called out to the child, but now? The rules of the world were cracked and shifting. Void’s sake, a giant singing flower just tried to eat him and Jacaranda. The tears could be of a child… or they could be a trap. He drew his pistol just in case.

  Devin held a finger to his lips when Jacaranda started to follow. He turned back and continued, now certain as to the source of the noise, that of a tree not far in the distance. The more he neared, the more certain he was of it being a young girl crying.

  “It’s all right,” he said as he stepped around the deep black oak. “I’m…”

  A tiny woman no taller than the length of his hand sat atop a white lily, her weight bending the stem sideways. Her skin was darker than any other Devin had laid eyes upon. It almost didn’t look like skin, but instead as if she’d been carved from smooth, malleable onyx. Her short hair was equally black, if perhaps a shade lighter. Four wings resembling those of a dragonfly sprouted from just below the shoulders, the higher two larger than the bottom. Her dress was a dark green and appeared woven from the leaves of the forest.

  “Oh!” the faery said as she pulled her hands away from her face. Little tears fell to her lap, each one shimmering like a tiny fleck of diamond. Her wings buzzed, and faster than his eyes could perceive she was in the air.

  “Please-don’t-shoot-don’t-shoot-I-promise-I’m-nice.”

  “Is it a threat?” Jacaranda asked from the other side of the tree. Devin couldn’t imagine so, but he’d been plenty surprised since the black water’s arrival. He recognized words in that verbal explosion, but she spoke a
t such a mesmerizing clip he could only guess. Her eyes focused on his pistol as she hovered, and Devin realized he still held it at the ready.

  “I’m Devin Eveson, Soulkeeper of the Three Sisters,” he said as he carefully lowered his pistol. He didn’t want to antagonize the creature if she was friendly. “It’s nice to meet you…?”

  The faery crossed her arms over her chest and sniffled one last time. She dared take her eyes away from his pistol to meet his, and when she next spoke her words were slower and clearer, even if still delivered at a rapid clip.

  “I’m Tesmarie Nagovisi,” she said. “I said please don’t shoot, I promise I am friendly.”

  A tiny pin of guilt stabbed Devin in the heart. Here he was, towering over the tiny woman with pistol drawn, and he was worried about her threatening him?

  “Forgive me, Tesmarie,” Devin said. “I do not mean to frighten. I raised my pistol in self-defense.”

  Her wings fluttered to life and sang a pleasantly low hum as she lifted up to his eye level.

  “You’re forgiven. Maybe. I need to know if you’re-friendly- first-so-we’ll-see.”

  She sounded like a wagon barreling downhill to higher and higher speeds. Jacaranda stepped around the tree, and she showed not the slightest surprise or reaction to witnessing the existence of a faery.

  “Will she be of use to us?” the soulless woman asked. “Or will she be a distraction?”

  “I’m not sure,” Devin said. “A lumber camp was nearby here, Tesmarie, and its people were attacked. I’m trying to find the man responsible. A… creature of the woods, it called itself a songmother, claimed Janus came here in search of a ‘starlight tear,’ whatever that might be. Have you heard of one?”

  “Starlight tear?” Tesmarie said. “No, well, maybe, I shouldn’t, I’ve been… preoccupied, that’s it, busy-doing-things-um-I’d- rather-not-talk-about-it.”

  Her speech increased with her apparent nervousness until she spoke at such a rapid pace he could only guess at her words.