LITMIR.BIZ

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me.

      I had given myself to the magic. Cold iron was mine no longer.

      I stood slowly, backing away from my fallen sword and a truth I was reluctant to face. My heart was hammering in my chest. I’d go weaponless into the forest. Iron and the technology that it made possible was mine no longer. I shook my head like a dog shaking off water. I wouldn’t think about it just now. I couldn’t quite grasp all it would mean, and at that moment I didn’t want to.

      I gave a final glance around the cabin, realizing belatedly that I’d enjoyed living here, on my own, having things my own way. It was the only time in my life I’d had such freedom. I’d gone from my father’s house straight to the Academy, and then returned to his domain. Only here had I ever lived as my own master. When I left here, I’d begin a life not as a free man, but as a servant to a foreign magic that I neither understood nor wanted.

      But I’d still be alive. And the people I loved would go on with their lives. I’d had a glimpse, when the mob seized me, of a far worse future, a future in which Amzil’s best hope was that the gang rape would leave her alive and Spink’s that he would survive having his troops turn on him. My own death paled in comparison. No. I’d made the best choice, for all of us. Now it was up to me to move on, keeping whatever shreds of my integrity remained. I wished I wasn’t going into my new life so empty-handed. I looked longingly at my knife and my axe. No. Iron was not my friend any more. But my winter blanket, folded on the shelf, I would take. One final glance around the cabin, and then I left, shutting the door firmly behind me on Kesey’s rattling snore.

      As I came out Clove lifted his head and gave me a rebuking stare. Why hadn’t I freed him from his harness to graze? I glanced at the sun. I’d leave him here, I decided. It was believable that if the big horse had got loose in Gettys, he’d come back to his stall. I couldn’t take off his tack; someone would wonder who had done that for him. I hoped whoever took him over would treat him well. ‘Stay here, old chum. Kesey will look after you. Or someone will.’ I gave him a pat on the shoulder and left him there.

      I walked across the cemetery grounds that I knew so well. I passed the butchered remains of my hedge. I shuddered as I recalled it as I’d last seen it, with the bodies jerking and twitching as the rootlets thrust into them seeking nutrients and for a moment I was plunged back into that torchlit night.

      It was rare but not unknown for a person who died of Speck plague to be a ‘walker’. One of the doctors at Gettys believed that such persons fell into a deep coma that mimicked death, to rouse hours later for a final attempt at life. Few survived. The other doctor, an aficionado of the superstitions and psychic phenomena that so fascinated our Queen, believed that such ‘walkers’ were not truly the folk who had died, but only bodies reanimated by magic to bring messages to the living from the beyond. Having been a ‘walker’ myself, I had my own opinions. In my year at the King’s Cavalla Academy, I’d contracted the Speck plague just as my fellow cadets had. Once I’d ‘died’, I’d found myself in the Speck’s spirit world. There I’d done battle with my ‘Speck self’ and Tree Woman, only returning to life after I had defeated them.

      My erstwhile fiancée Carsina had also been a ‘walker’. In my final night as cemetery guard she had left her coffin and come to beg my forgiveness before she could rest in death. I’d wanted to save her. I’d left my cabin, intending to ride to town and get help. Instead, I’d seen an unimaginable sight. Other plague victims had risen and sought out the trees I’d inadvertently planted. I’d known they were kaembra trees, the same sort of trees that the Specks claimed as their ancestor trees. I’d known that when I’d seen the poles leaf out. How could I not have realized the danger? Had the magic blinded me to it?

      Each ‘walker’ had sought out a tree, had sat down, backs to the trunks, and then cried out in agony as the hungry little trees had sent rootlets thrusting into flesh. I’d never forget what I’d seen that night. A boy had cried out wildly, his head and arms and legs jerking spasmodically as the tree claimed his flesh and bound his body tightly to its trunk. I’d been unable to do anything for him. But the worst had been the woman who cried out for help and held her hands out beseechingly. I had clasped those hands and tried with all my might to pull her back, not from death, but from an extended life that made no sense to a Gernian soul.

      I’d failed.

      I remembered well which tree had seized her so irrevocably, thrusting roots into her back, roots that would burst into a network of spreading filaments inside her, sucking into the young tree not just the nutrients in her body but her spirit as well. That was how the Specks created their ancestor trees. Those the magic found worthy were rewarded with such trees.

      As I passed the hacked stump of the woman’s tree, I noticed that it had already sent up a questing new sprout. On the stump next to hers, a red-wattled croaker bird perched, watching me intently. It opened its wings and thrust its ugly head at me. Its wattles shook as it croaked accusingly at me. I shuddered. Croaker birds were the emblem of Orandula, the old god of death and of balances. I did not wish another encounter with him. As I fled from it, I realized that Clove was following me. Well, he’d soon turn back. I entered the forest and felt it take me in. It was like a curtain swishing closed behind me, signalling that the first act of my life was over.

      This part of the forest was young, a regrowth after a fire. Occasionally, I passed a blackened stump overgrown with moss and ferns, or strode through the shade of a scorched giant who had survived that blaze. Bushes and wildflowers grew here in the sunlight that filtered down between the trees. Birds sang and darted from branch to branch in the early morning light. The sweet scents of the forest rose up to surround me. Tension drained from me. For a time I walked without thought, listening to Clove’s hooves thud dully on the deep forest soil as he trailed after me.

      It was a pleasant summer day. I passed two white butterflies dancing together above a small patch of wildflowers. Beyond them, I came to a mounded tangle of blackberry vines competing for light in a small clearing. I stopped and gathered a double handful of the lush, black summer fruit. They burst in my fingers and stained my hands as I picked them. I filled my mouth with them, rejoicing in the sweetness that was both taste and aroma. I ground the tiny seeds between my back teeth, savouring them. Fruit such as this could take the edge off my hunger, but it could not satisfy me. No. As the magic had come to dominate my flesh and blood, I had learned to crave the foods that fed it. That was what I wanted now. I left the berry patch, hastening uphill.

      The burnt-over forest gave way to ancient forest with shocking suddenness. I paused at the edge, standing in the dappling sunlight among the younger trees and looked into a dark cavern. The roof was a thick mass of intertwining branches. Ranks and columns of immense trunks marched off into the dimness. The dense overhead canopy absorbed and defeated the summer sunlight. There was very little underbrush. Thick moss floored the world, indented with a seemingly random pattern of animal trails.

      I sighed and glanced back at the big horse. ‘This is where we part company, my friend,’ I told Clove. ‘Go back to the graveyard.’

      He regarded me with a mixture of curiosity and annoyance. ‘Go home,’ I told him. He flicked his ears and swished his badly bobbed tail. I sighed. Soon enough, he’d figure it out for himself. I turned and walked away from him.

      He followed me for a short way. I didn’t look back at him or speak to him. That was harder than I thought it would be. I tried not to listen for the dull thud of his hooves. He’d go back to where the grazing was good. Kesey would take him in and use him to pull the corpse cart. He’d be fine. Better off than me. At least he’d know what the world expected of him.

      There were no human pathways in this part of the forest. I felt as if I walked through an alien abode, richly carpeted in thick green, beneath an elaborate ceiling of translucent green mosaic, all supported by towering columns of rich wood. I was a tiny figurine set down in a giant’s home. I was too small to matter here; the quiet alone was enough to muffle me out of existence.

      But as I hiked on, the quiet reinterpreted itself to me. The noises of men were not here, but it was not silent. I became more aware of the birds that flitted and sang challenges to one another over my head. I heard the sharp warning thud of his

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