Lord of Souls

EIGHT

Glim wasn’t aware when silence and darkness claimed him; he didn’t know how long they had lasted-it might have been hours or days. But after the quiet came the voices, the gentle murmur of the trees, drawing him into the dream of thought, where past and future were irrelevant illusions and his mind was unhampered by reference to anything at all. And so he remained for a time, until finally the ache of hunger and the pain of his wounds brought him nearer to the world. The voices were still there, leading him through the twisting roots, finally into the light, amidst the great boughs of the Fringe Gyre. He climbed higher, until he could see the buildings above and get his bearings.

None of them looked familiar, which could only mean he was on the wrong side of the rim. Groaning, he began picking his way from tree to tree, hoping his quivering limbs didn’t fail him.

It was nightfall before he found the place, and all he could do was collapse and hope he didn’t die before Fhena found him.

“I’ve never seen anyone hurt like this,” Fhena murmured, pressing something that looked like yellow fur against the wound in his side.

He finished swallowing the whatever-it-was she had given him to eat. “That feels good,” he said, looking around. They were in some sort of cavity in the tree, irregular in shape. Light came in from around the bend, but he couldn’t see sky.

Then her comment registered.

“You’ve never seen anyone hurt? How do you know what to do?”

“No, of course I’ve seen injuries. Ixye broke his leg in a fall yesterday. I meant I’ve never seen someone hurt on purpose.”

He coughed out a little laugh. “I don’t understand. Murder seems to be the most common pastime in Umbriel.”

“Not up here,” she said. “Not in the trees. I know below is horrible. I’ve heard about it. But bad things don’t really happen up here.”

“Maybe it’s the trees themselves,” Glim mused. “Their influence. Anyway-I’m sorry to be your first.”

“Well, if someone had to be-” she began playfully.

“I can’t stay long,” he interrupted.

“Right,” She agreed. “You need to hurry back down there and get something else stuck in you. I understand.”

“They’ll look up here for me,” he said. “I don’t want to get you in trouble.”

“They looked up here for you yesterday,” she said. “I hid you. They passed by.”

“Yesterday? How long have I been up here?”

“Three days, reckoned by this sun,” she replied. “I gave you something to help you sleep.”

“I-Three days?”

“It’s what the trees prescribed,” she said.

“The trees?”

“Yes. Our usual medicines didn’t help you very much, so I asked the trees what to do and they told me.”

“Okay,” Glim said, trying to sit up. “Three days? From now on, when the trees tell you to do something, you ask me first.”

She frowned. “There wasn’t much ‘asking you,’ ” she said. “You weren’t really in much of a state to answer. Nor would you be now, if I hadn’t done what I did, for that matter.”

She turned away from him.

“Look, Fhena-”

“And now you’re just going to go right back down there. Stupid!”

“They’ll search here again,” he said. “Besides, the skraws are counting on me. Who knows what’s been going on?”

He saw her head sink a little.

“Wait,” he said. “You know. You’ve heard something.”

“Glim, please-”

“What is it, Fhena?”

“They think you’re dead,” she said. “They’ve gone crazy, started breaking things all over the place, and the lords have been trying to pacify them.”

“Well, then-”

“I’m not listening,” Fhena said, covering her ears.

He sat up and scooted next to her, gently taking her hands and pulling them down.

“You have to understand,” he said. “I’m responsible for this and I have to deal with it.”

She looked at his hands, holding hers.

“Well-how about this?” she asked. “Send them a message. Tell them you’re okay and they need to stop. You need a little more time. Please.”

Glim blinked, realizing that actually made a lot of sense. “Okay,” he said. “We’ll see if that works, and if it does, I’ll stay up here until things calm down a little. But eventually I have to go back.”

She smiled, and then a little tear appeared in the corner of her eye.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Nothing. It’s just that you listened to me. You really listened to me.”

“I did,” he replied. “But understand-I can’t stay up here forever.”

“I understand,” she replied, standing up. “But you will for now.”

“Yes.”

“Okay. I’ve got to go-more work for us with the sump in such a mess. But I’ll find time to send word down.”

After she was gone, he managed to struggle to his feet and look around. The wooden cave curved a bit, and he saw the hole above where the light was coming through, and a sort of slope going up. He climbed slowly but already felt fatigue when he found the opening. It was covered with a filmlike substance, possibly a large leaf of some kind. Deciding to leave well enough alone, he went back down to his pallet, curled up, and in no time was asleep again.

He woke with something warm nestled next to him. The light was gone, but he recognized Fhena by her smell and realized that she was spooned against his uninjured side, with her head up in the pit of his arm. She snuffled when he moved.

“What?” she murmured.

“It’s just me,” Glim said.

“Oh.” She lifted her head.

He hesitated a moment, then positioned his arm under her, so her cheek rested on his chest. A few moments later her breath evened out again, and he lay there awake. Once again he let his mind simplify, listening to the trees, but after a bit he understood there was something else, something like music, color, and tactile sensation braiding and unbraiding, sometimes together, sometimes breathtakingly separate, but always as recognizable as a scent.

It was Fhena, dreaming next to him, connected to him by the root.

“Longer,” she begged him two days later. “Stay longer. Things are better down there. They’ve calmed down.”

“Because they’re waiting on me to tell them what to do,” he said. “If I stay gone too long, they’ll start to wonder if I’m really alive.”

“The lords will kill you,” she said. “They’ll be waiting for you.”

“They didn’t catch me before,” he replied. “They won’t catch me this time either.”

“You weren’t this weak before.”

“Nonsense,” he replied. “I feel fine-you’ve done a good job healing me.”

“Don’t go,” she said. “I know you want to stay with me.”

Glim closed his eyes, wondering what Annaig was doing, knowing he had to find out, because he had to talk to her. He had never been this confused in his life about anything. Because Fhena was right-he did want to stay with her. He didn’t feel any sexual attraction toward her-they were too different for that. What he did feel was much more compelling and thoroughgoing than lust, and it was weaving knots in his brain.

“I’ll come back tonight,” he promised. “I’ll be back.”

“You’d better,” she said.

He made his way back down the tree, to his more usual path, and in a few moments was back in the sump. It felt good to have water around him again, and for a while he let himself enjoy the feel of it, marshaling his thoughts. Wert was supposed to meet him near the bottom of the Drop, in a stand of slackweed. But what was he going to tell him? Push forward or give up? If he agreed to give himself up, could he win some concessions for the skraws?

He had even less idea what to tell Annaig, when and if he managed to see her again.

His toes and fingers were tingling oddly; it had started almost below perception, but now it was beginning to bother him. He touched them and realized that the ends were completely numb; the pain was at the first joint. A moment later it was at the second, and progressing up his limbs at a terrifying pace. He turned and began swimming as fast as he could, back the way he had come, but before he went a hundred yards, he couldn’t move his arms or legs anymore, and all he could do was scream as the agony crept into his torso, surrounding his heart. He drifted down, toward the light in the deepest part of the water, toward the ingenium.

He felt his heart stop and icicles grow in his brain. For an instant he felt the trees again, and through them a little echo of Fhena, like a butterfly.

And that was all.