The Whispering Trees (11 page)

“It might not be an insect,” Mary told him. “It might be something else altogether. Also”—she plucked the rock from his hand—“let's not play with dark magic.” She squeezed Kara's shoulder. “Listen for the voice of the branch insect,
wexari
.”

Kara listened. She did not need to close her eyes—not anymore—but instead let her natural instincts guide her past the eerily quiet morning and to the hidden sounds she had grown to know so well. She could hear the
TUNNEL
of the worms beneath her feet, the
BUILD
of the sickle-tailed bird nesting above her. But although she focused all her energy on the twig insect, there was nothing but a vacant silence where its voice should have been.

“I don't hear anything,” Kara said. “Like it's not there at all.”

“When you use your talent, you are hearing the very essence of a creature.”

“You mean its soul?”

Mary winced. “If you will,” she said.

“But how can a creature live without a soul?” Kara asked. “That shouldn't be.”

“Precisely,” said Mary Kettle, and squashed the scurrying insect beneath her boot.

A
s it turned out, Mary wasn't worried about the Draye'varg growing simulacra—as she called the creatures—from twigs or rocks; she was worried about it growing simulacra from
them
.

“We mustn't hurry,” she said. “From one side of the Draye'varg to the other is but a few hours' journey, but we cannot risk someone falling. Even a single drop of blood can create a simulacrum.”

Kara and Taff used strips of cloth and long tangles of vine to secure their meager supplies, though Kara wasn't sure they needed to fear a creature made from a spoon or
coffee urn. While they did this Mary used a mortar and pestle to crush various cones into a thick paste. She spread this on their fingernails and it hardened in minutes.

“We'll be climbing a lot,” she said,
“
and you'll have to use your hands to gain purchase on the stones. A piece of your nail could easily chip away.”

“Would it be made of fingernails?” Taff asked. And then—Kara suspected simply because he liked saying the world aloud—he added, “The
simulacrum
?”

“No,” Mary replied. “It would look just like you.”

Taff stopped saying “simulacrum
”
after that.

It was Kara's hair that, more than anything else, worried Mary Kettle. “Why does it have to be so long? You probably lose a hundred strands a day and don't even notice.” She suggested that Kara cut her hair off completely, and although Taff thought this would be highly amusing, Kara refused. In the end she bound her hair into a tight bun and secured it with a kerchief. Mary and Taff did the same.

Finally Mary spent an hour examining every inch of
her sack, making sure there were no holes or areas that needed to be patched.

“We don't want anything in here slipping out and becoming a simulacrum,” Mary said.

“Why?” Taff asked. “What would happen?”

“I have no idea,” Mary said. “But it would be
bad
.”

The first hour of their journey across the Draye'varg was uneventful, and though Kara's calves grew sore from all the climbing, feeling the warmth of the sun on her body was more than adequate compensation. The boulders, gray and featureless, were indistinguishable from one another. On more than one occasion Kara nearly slipped on a surface worn smooth by hundreds—maybe thousands—of years of exposure to wind and storms.

To the north and south the trees of the Thickety, which ran parallel to the Draye'varg, had shrunk to the height of red willows before fading away altogether. Soon Kara was surrounded, in every direction, by a desert of
boulders as far as the eye could see.

The sun, which she had at first welcomed, seared her shoulders.

The worst part, however, was the silence. Kara had grown accustomed to the constant noise in the Thickety: bleats, snarls, slithers, snapping in the night. She found, much to her surprise, that she missed the creatures of the Thickety. Their lives were so difficult here, and if she could only help them . . .

Stop it
, Kara thought.
Sordyr's presence here is unfortunate, but the suffering he has wrought is not your responsibility. You're only going to get yourself killed, and who's going to take care of Taff then?

Nonetheless, Kara reached out with her mind, just to hear the comforting voice of a single creature—and perhaps provide some comfort in return—but the nearest one was now only a distant whisper.

As they moved farther from the trees they began to see bones of every shape and size. Bones so small that
the entire animal could have nestled in the palm of Taff's hand, and bones from a beast so gargantuan that a single femur stretched across five boulders.

“The urge to survive is strong,” Mary said. “Dying creatures come here by instinct, not understanding what the Draye'varg is, thinking only that it can save them. This is especially true of creatures that have been touched by magic in one form or another.” She took a short swig from her canteen and handed it to Kara. “Magic calls to magic,” she said.

“Then why haven't we seen any simulacra?” Taff asked. “With all these creatures coming here something must have fallen between the rocks.”

Mary dropped her sack and carefully loosened the vines knotted around its opening. The sun had vanished; clouds bulged and swirled across a storm-gray sky.

“No doubt the bones we've found thus far have created many simulacra,” Mary said, “looking no different than the original flesh and blood. But once formed, a
simulacrum is a damned thing, existing only to find its maker and destroy it. They are angry, you see, for they understand that their existence is nothing more than a shadow of real life. They have no purpose, and it makes them violent—so they seek out their creators and punish them. There are many stories of travelers who crossed the Draye'varg and left a piece of themselves behind, not realizing it—only to wake up a year later with a mirror image of themselves drawing a dagger across their throat.”

Kara shuddered.

“But it would be different with the bones,” Taff said. “Their creators are already dead. If they became simulacra, what would they do?”

“Mostly just wander the Draye'varg like ghosts until they perish from starvation or thirst. Without their maker to destroy, their false lives lack any meaning . . . so they simply stop living at all.”

“But what about the bug you made from the branch?” Taff asked. “If you hadn't stepped on it, would it be
wandering around attacking trees right now?”

Mary reached shoulder-deep into her sack, digging for something. “Simple simulacra die within a few hours,” she said over the sound of shifting contents, metal clanging against metal, glass striking glass, the
whoosh
of something that sounded like sand cascading down a tube. “My guess is that these simulacra absorb something of the . . . Ah! I've found you.”

From within her sack she withdrew a porcelain rabbit, the cracks in its face belying its wide smile. The rabbit was no larger than an apple and sat upon a bicycle crafted from several bands of wire. One of the wires, flaking rust, had uncoiled from its brothers and pointed off into space.

“What does that do?” Taff asked, reaching out for the rabbit. Mary twisted away before he could touch it, and the witch's petulant expression—like a child who did not want to share her toy—almost made Kara laugh.

Crouching down, Mary placed the rabbit on the boulder
and, withdrawing a piece of chalk from within the folds of her cloak, scratched a careful
X
to the left of the bicycle's front wheel.

She leaned over and whispered something in the rabbit's ear.

“Okay,” Taff said, lying on top of the boulder so he was eye level with the toy rabbit. “I'm not going to ask any questions. I'm just going to watch and see what happens.” He paused. “What did you whisper in its ear?”

“I asked it to show us the way to Imogen.”

“You don't know?” asked Kara.

Mary gestured to the boulders that surrounded them in every direction. “I admit to being somewhat disoriented.”

The three of them watched the rabbit. When nothing happened, Mary whispered her request again and then patted the toy rabbit gently on top of the head, as one would an obedient dog.

A minute passed. The toy rabbit sat there. Motionless.

The first drops of rain splattered against the boulder.

Mary looked like she was about to pound her hand into the boulder in frustration, but then thought better of it. “Blasted, useless bauble!” she exclaimed. “Sometimes this happens. Sometimes they don't do anything at all. More and more, lately.”

“Let me try,” Taff said. Before Mary could stop him, he bent next to the rabbit and whispered something in its ear.

The rabbit started to move instantly.

Its tiny feet, encased in red boots, pressed down against the pedals of the bicycle. Turning the handlebars slightly, the rabbit began to drift in small circles across the boulder. The little wheels of the bicycle creaked softly.

“It's moving!” said Taff. “It listened to me!”

Mary looked unamused.

Finally the rabbit began to cycle in a perfectly straight line. It picked up speed, and Kara stood near the end of the boulder in case it slipped off.

The last thing we need is a simulacrum of a toy rabbit
, she thought. The image of a living, breathing rabbit on a bicycle should have been funny, but it wasn't
—
not even a little bit.

Just when Kara thought she was going to have to pick the rabbit up, however, it stopped at the base of her feet. Mary bent down and drew a chalk line from her original
X
to the bicycle's new position at the edge of the boulder, then measured the distance by using the span of her outstretched fingers.

“No more than three days' journey,” she said, “though the Draye'varg will end long before then.” Wiping a bead of rain away from her eyes, she pointed in the direction the bicycle had traveled. “The forest is that way, just out of sight. We're almost there.”

Mary picked up the toy rabbit and gently returned it to her sack.

“How did you make it listen to you, Taff?” Mary asked.

He shrugged. “I just asked it to show us the way to
Imogen. I didn't do anything special.”

“Hmm,” said Mary Kettle.

“Does that mean I'm magic?” Taff asked. Kara could not tell if the trembling in his voice was from excitement or fear.

“Not at all,” Mary said. “Using enchanted objects requires no craft, but it cannot be done by just anyone. It's a talent that might be—”

Taff screamed.

A millipede the size of a rat was gnawing on his ankle. Except the millipede wasn't made of flesh and blood.

It was made of water.

Mary hurled the writhing thing through the air. It struck the boulder next to them and exploded into a thousand droplets, most of which ran down the rock and vanished into the hidden ground below.

“I'm such a fool,” Mary said. “The rain. Why didn't I think of it?”

From all around them, as far as Kara could see, water
creatures were pulling themselves out of the crevices between the boulders. Some looked like the millipede that had attacked Taff; others were spiderlike with spindly legs. And then there were those creatures cursed with no shape at all, slinking toward Kara like puddles with teeth.

Lightning flashed, revealing a sky awash with water bats and translucent ravens that swooped and darted above their prey.

No longer heeding Mary's warning to travel cautiously, Kara leaped from boulder to boulder. The storm had risen to a torrent and it was difficult to see more than a few feet in front of her, but even through the pounding storm she could hear the
tinkle-tinkle
of Mary's bag and used that to guide her instead.

The water creatures attacked them from every side—from below and above as well. With each bite Kara felt a mild shock shoot through her body; this rain, born from thunderclouds, had inherited some of its properties. She
kept moving, doing her best to dodge the shapes that skittered across the rocky surfaces. There was no use fighting the creatures; for every one she stepped on or clapped between her hands, countless more took its place. The crevices between the boulders became jammed and swollen with new creations, anxious to escape and join the hunt.

And the rain kept falling.

Kara stumbled and landed on her knee, wincing in pain. Before her, less than an arm's length from her face, a translucent jellyfish splayed across the boulder on dozens of tentacles. The inside of the creature glowed faintly, and within its interior ocean creatures moved and swam and gnashed at one another with bestial violence. By instinct Kara reached out to the jellyfish's mind, hoping to build a mind-bridge, but this was a simulacrum and there was no connection to be made.