Part 7.

He left and I rose to my feet, trying to quash the urge to collapse on the ground vomiting. The thought of the mad faerie with his green eye sent paroxysms of fear shivering through me. Morgana came across me like this, unsteady on my feet, face drained of all color.

 

“What is it, Robert?”

I explained to her the situation, and her face fell. “I told him not to.”

“Kings only have to listen, they do not have to pay attention.”

“Are you going to do it?”

“I have no choice in the matter.”

“Would it help if I told you how important this is?”

“No, but I think you should tell me anyways,” I said, taking her by the elbow and leading her away from the camp. With the faerie milling about us, I had a desire to be alone with her.

 

“This is total war, Robert - if we cannot defeat them, or at least make them think twice about attacking us, then we are lost.”

“‘We’, you say. Why should I risk my life for a ‘we’ I don’t belong to?”

She took one of my hands in both of her own. “There are other ‘we’s, Robert. You and I. And what should happen if we cannot halt the Feral?”

I laughed and withdrew my hand. “And by ‘we’, you refer to me. I assume all the risk, and you sit fretting in camp. I remember now how you told me you had no need of a crown. You lied, didn’t you - you just don’t possess the will to take it.”

 

She stepped away from me, and I partly regretted the outburst - partly. “That was unkind, Robert,” she said, walking away.

 

I loosed a bitter laugh and rubbed at the scar on my palm. “That was the idea,” I said, quietly.

 

Two of Berwyn’s most loyal guards arrived to escort me to the Unseeing Grove. They had bows slung easily over their shoulders, but their faces betrayed a certain unease.

 

“I don’t suppose it bodes well for me if you two are looking like that.”

 

They traded glances, and then both uttered brash and hollow laughs. “Nothing bodes well these days, human. Let us go.”

“What’s the hurry,” I asked them as we set out.

“Nightfall comes.”

 

And so we went, moving in silence, unerringly headed for mad Crose. My finely honed sense of gallow’s humor abandoned me as we walked, and black terror seized me in the chest, squeezing my lungs and constricting my heart. My escorts walked on either side of me, and I seriously considered making a run for it. I then considered that my escorts would quickly become my guards if I attempted it - but might not two arrows in the back be a better way to go than whatever awaited me?

 

Such dark thoughts were driven from my mind briefly when we came upon the Unseeing Grove. The trees were tall and tortured looking things, black and withered like charred bone, scant leaves rattling dryly in a faint wind. They stood alone, upon a blighted patch of earth, separated by a stone’s throw from the nearest green trees, as if their darkness had driven away the more healthy specimens.

 

“We go no further, human.”

I nodded. This seemed a perfectly reasonable course of action, one I desperately wished to follow myself. But the weight of duty and the fear of death and a great reservoir of unexamined emotion drove me onward.

 

“Well, lads, I suppose this would be an opportune time for my last words.”

 

They glanced at each other, waiting for me to speak.

 

“I did not really think it over, so I suppose we’ll settle for this. Damn your eyes. The lot of you - and especially Berwyn.”

 

They laughed, too loud and too sharply for the occasion. I nodded at them, and they stepped backwards.

 

My dark thoughts redoubled as I stepped forward. I was walking through the void, at that moment, and only the unknown lay before me. I hurried forward, not relishing the horrible feeling of uncertainty. I neared the trees, and finally took in their measure.

 

Berwyn had not lied - eyeballs the size of apples hung heavy from the tree branches, lidless and unblinking, pupils roving aimlessly.

 

“Crose!” I shouted. “It is Robert Carlisle, under order of the King Berwyn, and I come to speak with you.”

 

My voice echoed and faded. Nothing happened, and so I turned and looked over my shoulder. My escorts, eyes wide and arrows nocked, looked about frantically for something to loose an arrow at. Nothing presented itself, and I shouted again.

 

Moments passed, and then I heard the trees speak to me.

 

“Enter,” they whispered.

 

Swallowing mightily, throat knotted, I stepped forward under their dark boughs, trying to ignore the sensation caused by the weight of a thousand unblinking eyes following me intently.

 

It was dark as midnight in the Unseeing Grove, and I was guided by the voices of trees.

 

“Come,” they told me. As I neared, another one close by invited me over. I continued this way for some time until I reached the heart of the grove, her master within.

 

Crose perched upon a throne of peculiar construction, eager hands rubbing at his knees. I futilely tried to conceive of a wood with such an unnatural off-white coloration, but realized it was bone. He leapt up from his gruesome throne and spread his hands wide, strange jacket russet colored in the autumn.

 

“We meet again, human.”

I nodded.

 

“What is it you wish to speak to me of? Is it too much to hope that you have come to further my science?”

“I have a heard time imagining what you do is science.”

“Oh?” he said, smiling. “And why is this?”

I shrugged. “Was it science that built that fine throne you have?”

He looked at it dispassionately. “No. Simple cruelty.”

I stared at him, and he smiled again. “Science has no conscience, human, something you’ll quickly discover. As delightful as this is, I must ask your business - I have matters to attend to.”

 

“I’ve been sent to recruit you.”

“Me?”

“Yes - Berwyn fights a losing war, and he is in need of aid. He is under the impression that you might be able to help.”

“This impression is not unfounded. And yet… an ability to help does not necessitate a desire to help.”

I understood this sort of thinking, though recently a knife had been held to my throat every time my help was required.

“And furthermore, I am troubled that he does not come in person to deal with me.”

 

I shrugged. Crose and his uncanny eye ran up and down the length of me. I realized I found his remaining eye more unsettling than the empty socket beside it.

 

“Speak your piece.”

“Very well.” Berwyn had sharply instructed me in the things I was to offer. “Lord Berywn offers you territory, power, and wealth.”

 

Crose laughed, but I continued.

 

“He is prepared to grant you all the lands from this grove to the Sleepy River.”

“I don’t want more land.”

“He will give you titles.”

“Titles are as useless to me as land.”

“Wealth then, in whatever form you might choose - precious metals, stones, what have you.”

 

“Wealth, you say…” Crose mused. “Are you aware of how valuable you are, human?”

I did not know what to say to this, and so held my tongue.

“A human in the land of the faerie - it’s unheard of. Most of your race, by the time they stumble across us, are either mad or become so quite quickly. And yet it appears you still possess all your faculties for reason.”

“If I were entirely reasonable, do you think I would be here?”

Crose quirked a smile, something his lips were unpracticed at. “You are here because you must be here - I imagine Berwyn has not sent you as a loyal servant, but rather as a prisoner, bound to run at his beck and call. And if I imagine correctly, your power in this negotiation is even less than you pretend it is.”

 

I was becoming exceedingly uncomfortable, and felt the hot prickle of sweat on my back.

 

“As I was saying. A whole, healthy, sane human being in the faerie’s land. To be sure, I can grave rob, but corpses are stubborn, and have little incentive to cooperate.”

“I was not aware the dead need to cooperate.”

“Certain of my experiments require it. But no matter. You say your ‘king’ offers me wealth, and I will accept his wealth. And you also say it may come in the form of my choosing. I choose you, then, human.”

The worst had been realized.

“You mean to say-”

“Yes,” he said. “If you permit me to run a few… experiments… upon you, Berwyn has my assistance.”

“What sort of experiments?”

“Does it matter?”

“I should think it does,” I shouted.

“Of course, of course. They are strictly non-fatal, I assure you.”

His assurances meant nothing to me.

“Are my terms… agreeable?” he asked.

“Nothing agreeable about it,” I spat. But my options were few, and while his experiments might indeed be non-fatal, as he said they were, two arrows certainly were fatal. “I suppose I must accept.”

 

“Excellent,” he said. “Inform your nervous compatriots.”

 

I nodded weakly and found my way to the edge of the grove, again with the assistance of the whispering trees.

 

They nearly shot me when I emerged from the trees, so agitated were they.

 

“Go,” I shouted to them. “He has accepted terms. Berwyn shall have his assistance.”

“And at what price, human?” one shouted back.

“Me. Now go.”

 

They left in haste, and I, feet leaden, returned to the clearing.

 

Crose smiled, sinister excitement radiating from him.

 

“So. Shall we begin?”

 

EXCERPTS FROM CROSE’S JOURNAL

—————————–

New subject arrived - healthy human male. Unexpected development, and the tests to be run are simply staggering. First stage examinations will test pain threshold, sense abilities, and general physical examination. Second stage will test his Talent, and the third shall be a precise examination of the human anatomy. Most exciting, all of it.

 

DAY 1

—–

As I was first informed, live humans do possess red blood. Pain threshold was… disappointing. Subject lost consciousness at four separate occasions, and screamed until his throat could sustain no more.

 

Crose had brought out a plant contained in an earthenware pot. I classify it as a plant with some difficulty - while it had the general construction of any flower, instead of a pistil, it contained a gaping maw, and instead of flowers, jagged teeth. It was a mottled green brown, as if patches of blight had softened its flesh, like rotten fruit. The large head yawed about on the narrow stem, whipping about like a tendril of flame, slavering jaw snapping aimlessly at the air. It had no eyes that I could perceive, nor nose or ears. Simply a mouth. As Crose pushed it nearer to me, the stench of the thing caused my gorge to rise. With some difficulty, I fought the urge to gag and eyed it with disgust.

 

“This is a special piece of flora,” he told me with measured pride. “After long years of experimentation, I’ve finally achieved a carnivorous strain.”

 

I goggled at him.

 

“It’s quite elegant, I think. You see, human, this species has had difficult breaking down live meat. I’ve kept it alive with rotten flesh so far, but this shall certainly be an interesting test of its capabilities. And yours, I should imagine…”

 

I gritted my teeth and strained against my bonds. They were the same wooden shackles I had been imprisoned by during my first containment with the faerie, and they were no more comfortable this time. They pinned down my ankles, waist, and neck, as well as my right wrist. My left arm was constrained at the elbow, but my hand and forearm were left free.

 

As he shoved the plant nearer to me by means of a stick, long as an oar, he watched my strugglings.

“While the choice is up to you, you might not want to move so much. It has no eyes, and so senses by disturbances of the air.”

 

I dropped my hand to my side, letting it dangle limply. I would be damned if I was not going to make the foul plant work for its meal. It drew ever nearer, and every part of my being cried out for me to flee, to burst free of my bonds and abandon this madhouse. The grate of the pot on the levelled dirt was all I could hear, along with my irregular breathing.

 

“Almost… there…” Crose hissed, in a nearly sexual ecstasy. The plant grew still for a moment when it came within striking distance, languidly swaying about, as if testing the air. My breath came hissing from between my teeth as I fought the urge to scream. It must have sensed it, for it began lashing about in a true frenzy, maw snapping open and closed. The great weight of its head thumped against my leg, and it begain flailing against me. Crose reached in with his stick and guided it inevitably towards my waiting arm. I watched it move with geological speed, saw its mouth open and swallow up my hand, felt the sharp teeth grip my forearm. And then the mouth snapped shut, and I loosed a tremendous roar.

 

I heard Crose speaking with distant fascination. “It has no tongue, and hardly any teeth. It relies instead on a saliva that very much resembles acid. Describe the sensation, if you would.”

 

I was too busy screaming to answer him - it truly did feel as if my hand had been submerged in acid. A searing pain enveloped my hand, and I had the distinct impression of my skin going soft and running like paraffin wax in that horrid bath.

 

It became too much, and I passed out.

 

I woke to agony. The pain was simply too large to comprehend - it was a massive monolithic presence in my brain, overriding all other impulses save the desire to scream. I satisfied this desire, hollering and shrieking like a mad man, which was certainly not far off the mark. I discovered that there is pain so great as to test a man’s sanity, to bend and manipulate it until it reaches a point, a point where it is on the brink of snapping, like a twig. I reached this point, and perhaps exceeded it. As I raved, a haze of black crept to the edge of my vision. I passed out again.

 

When the torture was at last over, and Crose somehow managed to draw the thing off me, I was past pain, past thought, past anything but a dull acknowledgement of the fact that I was alive, and wished it were otherwise. He removed the plant-beast from my sight, and I then looked at my hand. Nearly to the elbow, it was a ruin. What little skin remained bubbled, and slick red muscle, half-deteriorated, glistened moistly. I could see the bones of my arm and fingers, ragged tendons and ligaments stubbornly clinging to mangled flesh. Crose returned and loosed my bonds. I collapsed, and he supported me on his shoulder, dragging my insensate form across the clearing.

 

“You will now experience my latest achievement. This is the regenerative pit. Assuming your physiogonomy supports this sort of magick, your appendage should survive.”

 

I listened to this vacantly, my being drawn into a tiny portion of my hindbrain, the place where nightmares emanate from. The pit at my feet was bubbling like a cauldron, fragrant mud roiling and rippling. Crose released me, and I fell forward, mangled arm plunging deep into the mud. This was a new sort of pain, the variety that is necessary for growth, the healing pain.

 

I did not so much lose consciousness as reject it, and I awoke sometime later.

 

My eyes immediately lept to my left arm, and I found it alabaster white and entirely whole, shining as if new-made. Crose stood nearby, I realized.

 

“It worked better than I expected.”

I tried to respond, but found my throat too abused to do anything more than make a painful grating noise.

 

“Ah. Water, yes,” Crose said. I was presented with a gourd and drank deeply, noting and not caring that the liquid had a strange consistency, thicker than water.

 

Crose crouched down and cocked his head sideways. “You should not have responded half so well to the pit. But we shall see just how… susceptible you are tonight.”

 

I took the gourd away from my lips and peered at the strange potion within - a vile green elixir.

 

“Sleep well, human.”

 

DAY 2

—–

Physical limits exceeded in first experiment. Human withstood less pain than adult faerie subjects, and far less than Ferals. Tonight I examine his mental fortitude. I hypothesize that the whispering trees might very well break his sanity, but much remains to be seen with this fascinating subject.

 

I awoke to hear my mother singing me a lullabye. I was caught between the world of dream and the world of the real, and grew confused as to which was which - as I lay there in utter disorientation, I wondered at what I was. How old was I? Was what came before merely a nightmare? These troubling questions faded as I focused instead on the sweet lullabye. I had forgotten how beautiful a voice my mother possessed. As I lay there in my daze, my grip on reality firmed, and I knew without question that I was Robert Carlisle, and I was at the disposal of a madman. I widened my eyes, so little as to be imperceptible to any nearby observer, and tried to take in my surroundings. I certainly knew my mother was nowhere near this grove of horrors. Who then was stealing her voice? My obstructed vision could perceive nothing, only fields of darkness layered upon fields darker still. I opened my eyes fully, and saw with a shock my mother kneeling at my side. She was watching me intently as she softly sang. Seeing that I had woken, she reached out and brushed my brow with a hand, and remembered long fevered nights, when my entire body was afire and her cool touch gave me solace.

 

“Mother?”

She blinked owlishly. “Yes, Robert?”

“Where am I?” I felt my voice weaken, reverting to its childhood state.

“Why, you’re home, dear.”

I looked around. “This doesn’t look like home.”

She glanced about at our surroundings. “Whatever do you mean?”

“The trees,” I told her. “Where’s the house?”

She shushed me, and enfolded me in her embrace. The nostalgic rush of the feel of her arms around my shoulders gave me peace, and I quieted in her grasp. But something was faintly wrong, something I could not identify. She rocked me back and forth, and I, with growing alarmed, tried to put a name to the wrongness.

“You smell different,” I realized. She stopped rocking me suddenly.

“Do I?” she said.

 

The feel of her touch was suddenly repellent, and I jerked away from her, seeking to distance myself. She calmly regarded me from her kneeling position, blinking languidly. I scrambled to my feet.

 

“What is going on?”

She did not answer in words, only a long witch’s cackle. As the ghoulish laughter extended past sanity, I was overwhelmed by an urge to flee. I acceded to this impulse and took flight, beating a hasty retreat from the laughing woman. I ran ceaselessly for what seemed minutes, and yet the laughter never weakened, never faded. It was if she was right behind me, giving chase.

 

Laughter, much like pain, can be a gateway to madness. It is strange to think it is so, but to hear such a joyful, everyday occurrence perverted and drawn out for such a duration was perhaps worse than the torture of the plant. I kept running until my lungs threatened to burst, and then ran more until my legs felt heavy as lead.

 

Mother came from the trees a moment later, unhurried, chuckling slightly. I placed my back against the rough bark of a tree and slid to the ground, knees drawn up before me, breath labored.

 

“Why won’t you stop?” I pleaded of her.

“Stop?”

 

Her laughter redoubled at that, and I clutched my hands over my ears, seeking to shut out the piercing noise. It was useless, and I felt the strong fingers of hysteria seeping through my mind, spreading like vines, preparing to split me like stone.

 

I bounded to my feet in an instant, salvation clear. She watched me approach her, and grinned wider as I drew back my hand. When I struck her, it was if I shattered glass, and the laughter abruptly ceased as she staggered and fell. Black regret seized me as I stood over her still form. Then she rose again, and as she stood, a transformation was affected on her. Her long hair molted from her as leaves falling from a tree, and her prim shoulders widened and filled out, and when she turned to me I was not looking at my mother but Berwyn.

 

“Left!” he shouted. “You were left and you were thrown away… refuse, rubbish, human.”

I stood before him, and he continued to scream. “You did not ever belong, human. You never could, and never would, and always will be nothing but a human. What can you know? What can you do? You are only human. Greedy, destructive, malicious, and thoughtless: human.”

 

“Silence!” I roared. He continued unperturbed.

 

“You struggle in vain, human. You seek to attain what cannot be yours. You think that it could ever be? More arrogant, thee. Because she is free and always will be, and you are heavy as a stone, human, and she will not consent to be dragged into your life of clay. So spare her and spare yourself the hurt of this foolish pursuit, and leave. Die here beneath the trees.”

 

His voice penetrated deeply, searing me.

 

“Stop,” I begged of him.

 

“I do not know how,” he said. “I am a stone rolling downhill. Aren’t I, though? Slave to forces beyond my control, thrall to those greater than myself, always wishing to taste the stars, always doomed to live in darkness. She can’t light your miserable world, human. Don’t destroy her along with yourself.”

 

At that moment, the illusion broke, and the curtain drew back.

 

“Real,” I whispered. “This isn’t real. None of it is real.”

 

“Isn’t it?” Berwyn asked me.

 

“No,” I growled. I destroyed him, then, ripping him limb from limb until he was reduced to his components, gray and formless. “Shapeshifter, Crose? Is that all?”

 

Crose appeared from behind a tree like a magician, prepared to accept his applause. “Of course not, Robert Carlisle.”

 

DAY 3

——

 

The subject surprised me. His mind appears more resilient than his body, and the shapeshifter enjoyed limited success. An unexpected development, and the question of this human’s capabilities requires further examination.

 

“So,” Crose said. We sat across from each other on stone chairs. They looked like any chair you might find inside of a drawing room, assuming that drawing room belonged to a gorgon. “These were sculpted with Talent, you know.”

 

I looked down at them. “Yes, they’re lovely.”

“No, human. Talent. Faerie magick. I emphasize “faerie”. And yet this selfsame force healed your human arm. Why is this?”

“Y’see, my arm was rather sore after some madman loosed a plant on it. You might recall?”

“I do. And if you do not answer my question, I might help you recall just how it felt to have your hand chewed upon. So?”

“I have no idea why the magick worked upon me.”

“Let us consider this. Have you any sorcerers in the human realm?”

I shook my head.

“Wizards? Warlocks? Witches?”

“No,” I nearly shouted. “No magic of any variety.”

“And yet you seem predisposed to affect it, and be affected by it.”

“I am not so sure about that.”

“I am. And you shall prove it for me.” Crose laid a hand over his empty eye socket, as if suddenly afflicted with a splitting headache. His breathing became audible, arduous, and he sat like this for some time. I watched with some amazement as he withdrew his hand, revealing his cupped palm. It contained a shimmering blue ectoplasm, flickering in his grasp like a languid flame, shifting and snapping. Crose’s face was bathed in blue as he gazed upon it, ghoulish. “This,” he said, not looking at me, “is one manifestation of raw faerie magick.”

 

I had little to say to this and nodded uncomfortably. His head slowly rose and then he was looking at me, grinning. “We shall see your Talent now, human.”

 

Quick as a snake, he lunged forward, cupped hand swinging forward, trailing blue flame. Before I could so much as blink, the hand made contact, smashing into my head right at the temple. I tumbled out of the chair from the force of the impact, my head ringing. Crose had swung with murderous velocity, but that was not my chief concern.

 

“What seeps through your skin at this very moment is some of my own consciousness. Fight it, human, fight it with all of your meager strength. Should you repel it, your power will be obvious. Should you fail - well, all great experiments must end.”

 

I stared at him in horror, and began scrabbling madly at my flesh, seeking to remove the viscous plasma as it seeped into my skin. It felt like a frozen flame upon my exposed skin, and icy tendrils were unfurling in my head.

 

“Physical removal is useless. Your mind is your only hope.”

 

My head grew heavy, and a film of icy crept across the surface of my eye, rendering the world in frigid crystalline facets. The pain was enormous, but pain had become routine, and the routine can be conquered. So I sat calm as I knew how, girding myself for this next cruel test. The cold continued its spread, and I felt my face settle into a frozen mask. Like some foolhardy explorer in the frozen wastes, I sank into a heavy drowse. Sleep came to me, and as it seeked to embrace me, its guise slipped and I realized it was death come to claim me. Terror seized me, but it was too late - oblivion came, and all that followed was the rushing void.

 

But this was not so, I realized. There was an entity, suspended in the void: myself. My essence hung like a forgotten star, idly rotating, insensate and yet with nothing to perceive, a horrifying emptiness all about. And then, as surely as I knew my own existence, I knew of the existence of another. The Other. It drew near with the speed of frost crawling across a window. At last, our mutual gravity drew us, one towards the other, and a silent, desperate battle was joined.

 

My life before that fateful night in the woods had been a peaceful one, pacifistic not by choice but rather an absence of threats. Now I found myself well and truly threatened, as another seeked to subvert and claim my very being.

 

I discovered, there in the void, that our grasp upon ourselves is not so strong as we think it to be. We are tenuous beings, gripping to sanity and reason by our fingernails, struggling to remain intact. In point of fact, we humans are at war, war with everything - the world outside us, those who obstruct our path, each other, and above all, ourselves. We are a race divided, our natural instincts opposed our learned ambition to dominate. The faerie suffer no such schism, and so I was faced with a being in perfect unity. Worse still, because Crose was focused upon a single thing, his essence honed like a dagger.

 

In a fight, one’s body can be abused, destroyed. This is upsetting, but natural. Having your very thoughts assaulted and injured is a far more unsettling sensation. Crose’s magick came upon me like a tidal wave, bludgeoning my frail pysche by virtue of its tremendous weight and terrifying singularity of purpose. I felt myself thrown about by him, and I began to lose my sense of direction. What was up, and what was down? A swimmer in a dark sea, I could not know. I was upturned again by another surge, and I felt the very character of my thoughts change, tinged with darkness and unfamiliar rhythms. I began to lose myself to the frigid currents, felt myself dissolving.

 

To this day, I cannot say what it was. I can say with some certainty it was not an external object - it was not Morgana, it was not my family, it was not my home. I suppose it was myself, my true self, that asserted itself. And much like an inconquerable stone in rough seas, I rose. Whatever might seek to influence me, it was in vain - I was solid, unshakeable. Crose’s assault abated, as he sensed my rally, and then redoubled. I batted him aside as a child might a toy, and then I took the offensive, sweeping him out of my mind with a firm hand.

 

Challenge answered, I hung there in the void. I was intact. And all around me, lights came on.

 

My eyes opened, and Crose stood above me. He looked more shaken than I imagined myself to be. This theory was quickly proved false - I attempted to rise and quickly failed, the struggle sapping me of all my strength. His eyes were murderous, and he seized me by the throat. I felt myself dragged like a gazelle in the mouth of a lion. I knew that whatever else might come, I had been victorious. Should death, that long delayed specter, come finally to take me, I would go proudly. I would go as a man.

 

DAY 4

——

The subject’s will is incredible. On the surface a weak, dithering creature, below lies an inexhaustible reservoir of sheer will. Truly, had the subject been raised amongst the faerie, I would be dealing with the most prodigious Talent of the age. As it stands, it seems his Talent will be locked away from him, sealed off by hundreds of weirs and dikes of his own devising. It will be a shame to discard the subject, but it seems that time draws close.

 

Death had little interest in me it seemed, for I awoke shackled. Crose sat before me in a chair, ankle on one knee, slender fingers tapping on lips.

 

“Why do you cry out in your sleep, human?”

I tried to force my eyes open, but the drowsiness only allowed me a narrow slit to watch him from. “Dark dreams, I suppose.”

“Dreams,” he said. “There is a truth in dreams, I find. My greatest creations have presented themselves to me in my sleep.”

“Fitting,” I said. “That you find inspiration for your nightmares in nightmares.”

“You have no eye for utility, do you? Can’t you see that if the end is acceptable, the means are irrelevant?”

 

I sat silently, hostility radiating from me.

 

“In any case, your utility is at hand. I’ve received word from the young king, and my aid is necessary. It seems we must put aside our enlightening diversions and uphold our end of the arrangement.” He loosed my shackles with a wave of two fingers. I rubbed at my raw wrists. “Stand up.”

 

I spat at him. “Forgive me if I’m not inclined to follow your commands, faerie.”

“Your reticence is understandable. Understandable but… wearying. Very well.”

Crose breathed deep, and then went limp. When his limps straightened with a sudden snap, I realized he was attempting the same magick he had worked upon me during our first encounter.

 

Things had changed. I felt the cold breath of his magick on my neck, whispering to me, compelling me, commanding me. I rejected it, rending and tearing it with the white hot fingers of my rage, reducing it to tatters. I heard Crose gasp, weakly, but that was all his vunerable position allowed him to. I stood, vengeance itself. His single eye was wide with shock or fear, and I rushed him. Crose was small for a faerie, and I seized him about the throat, whipping around him, gaining impetus, and then hurling him like a doll, sending him slamming into a tree. He cried out as his back smashed into the tree, and he collapsed to the ground, boneless. I stalked over to him, mad hands grabbing the lapels of his strange coat. I bodily picked him up, leaving his little feet kicking desperately in the air, and bounced his head off the tree trunk, rejoicing in the solid noise his skull made as it rebounded off the bark. I rattled and abused him like this for some time, watching his purple faerie blood drip from the crown of his head with animal satisfaction. I was going to leave him broken in this accursed place, with none but his perverse creations to mourn his passing.

 

The Talent Crose was not without his tricks, however. As I marshalled my wrath for a final strike, a grin came to his face. I hesitated for a moment, and he acted. He threw his hands behind himself, clapping both palms on the bloodied bark, and barking a single wordless cry. There was an aggrieved groan as the tree became animate, and suddenly great branches came whistling at my face. I dodged the first, and then the second, twigs scraping my face, but trees have many arms, and I did not see the next bough that struck me in the back of the neck, driving me to my knees. I cried out in pain, and it was Crose who was watching in cruel satisfaction now. He uttered something, and the tree’s assault redoubled, this time sending its twigs through me like needles. I was impaled time and time again, splinters of the tree driving into my soft flesh. Powerless to defend myself, I staggered away from the tree’s reach, bleeding profusely. My body a red mass of agony, I bulled through the clearing, thoughts confused. One came to me clearly, though: the pit. I stumbled towards it, hands uselessly clutching at my manifold hurts. It bubbled and seethed, a promise of rebirth. My foot came to the edge of it, and I let myself fall forward into it, watching as the soothing liquids drew nearer to my face.

 

The impact caused by the tree branch that shattered my ribs sent me flying clear of the pit, and I collapsed to the ground. I had nothing left - my body seeked to give itself over to the darkness, but I refused. So I lay there, breathing ragged, and heard Crose’s soft tread as he approached me. One of his hands knotted itself in my hair, and the faerie dragged me like a carcass, cursing and hissing in the low tongue.

 

“Make an end of me, Crose. Make it clean.”

“You’re not to be so lucky. It’s the Cradle for you.”

 

My sluggish thoughts knew not what to do with this piece of information. “Cradle?” I rolled my eyes upward, to see where Crose dragged me. My destination was a tree. Crose released me, and I lay there looking up at it, too much in pain to do more than that. A vertical slit ran up its trunk, and I watched with the horrified fascination of prey as this mouth yawned open, as if to receive me. Crose tore the clothes from my body, sending jagged flashes of pain through me as the twigs still piercing me were disturbed. Stripped naked, he hauled me up. He was strong, for a faerie.

 

As he propped my useless bulk up before himself, Crose prepared to speak. Words did not come to him, however, so he shoved me backwards, into the waiting maw of the tree.

 

The innards of the tree were warm and wet, and a powerful alien smell cocooned me. Crose watched me from without, scientist’s demeanor restored, head cocked as the tree closed again. Panic and resignation bubbled within me as the light was narrowed to a slit, and then disappeared, leaving me in the close darkness of the tree.

 

Then the pain began.