7.

Martimeos was trapped within a long, terrible nightmare.

A nightmare about a place of utter dark, and a chill that sank into his core, into his soul. A nightmare of a thousand ringing bells, and the only things he knew were the bitter, ruinous cold, the endless tolling of bells, and the glimpse of undulating, feathered snakes circling him in the dark, going round forever, and ever…

But then something warm and soft had drawn him out, something that first soothed him and then filled his body with fire, with life. He had felt himself sinking away from the dark, the feathered beasts roaring at him with the furious tolling of bells, pursuing him but unable to touch him as he fell away, away, the dark howling with fury around him, falling away from the nightmare, and into pleasant dreams of kissing and squeezing a soft girl as she laughed at him and called him a fool wizard.

Eventually, Martimeos opened his eyes. He was...in the bedroom in the apothecary’s shop, the bright morning light streaming in through the windows. How had he gotten here…? The last thing he remembered was….that creature, in the ruins….some foggy memories of racing out of that dim, dark place, Elyse pulling him along... and not much more than that.

Suddenly, Martimeos realized that not only was he pleasantly warm, but Elyse….he looked down. She had her face pressed against his side, snoring peacefully, her long dark hair trailing off the side of the bed. He frowned at that. What was she doing there?

Then, he suddenly realized he was naked. And – he lifted up the sheets, seeing Elyse’s bare form pressed into his, and yelped and jumped back so hard that Elyse fell out of the bed with a shout of her own, suddenly jolted awake as her rear slammed hard into the floor.

“Ow! Well, good morning to you too,” she snapped, glaring at him.

“What’s going on?” he asked, so baffled that he didn’t even care that she was sitting there on the floor in nothing but her skin. “What were you doing in my bed?”

“Sleeping, obviously.”

“Speak plain, witch!”

Elyse folded her arms, getting to her feet, utterly unashamed of her nudity. Summoning his willpower, Martimeos did his best to keep his eyes on her face and a snarl on his lips. It was a losing battle against the alluring curves he glimpsed just in the periphery of his vision. “Oh, nothing," she snorted. "Just saving your life, is all. You’re welcome.”

“Elyse,” he intoned, an edge of anger coming into his voice, “Tell me what happened. Explain.”

"Hmph." Elyse sounded indignant as she pulled strands of her long black hair our of her face, brushing it back behind her head. “Fine. That creature that we fought in the ruins, that snake of feathers – you remember that? ‘Tis called a Mirrit – it bit you and poisoned you. We rushed back to the apothecary’s, but her treatments could do little for you. Lucky for you, I have some knowledge of Mirrits and their poison. That it can be treated by giving the victim a taste of life to drag them out of the darkness. So...” she gave him a wicked smile. “I bought you back by reminding you of the flame of life….with my flesh. And finally broke the spell with...” here, she raised a hand in mock modesty to her cheek, giving him a look of wide-eyed innocence. “A kiss. ‘Twas like a fairy tale.”

“Did….did we...”

“I went no further than kisses and warming your body with mine. ‘Twould be too great a shame if you were not awake for us both to enjoy that.” Elyse smiled at him, but Martimeos just stared back at her. Suddenly she felt very aware of the fact that she was naked, and he was not bothering to look away; in fact, he was looking at her with something like desire. She felt the fire grow in her and the heat rise to her cheeks and laughed nervously. “I jest! Though a man’s body does make a good pillow.”

Martimeos looked down. “I...see. Thank you, Elyse. I suppose you were right about the fact that we should have tackled it together, as well.”

“Oh, that’s right. I hadn’t even thought about that. I-” She fell quiet, gawking, as Martimeos suddenly tossed aside the sheets and rose from the bed, walking over to his pack, rooting around in it for something, not bothering to cover up.

Martimeos glanced her way, smirking her astonished look. “If you’re not going to care about it, I don’t see why I should,” he shrugged. “Seems silly to bother with modesty at this point. You’ve seen it all.” Finally, he retrieved what he had been looking for in his pack – his pipe.

“Should have known you were going for that,” Elyse laughed.

Martim grunted as he tamped his tobacco down in the pipe’s bowl. “This...Mirrit,” he asked. “What else do you know of it?”

“’Tis an Outsider. I suspect ‘twas the Mirrit who preyed upon the children. They are drawn to places where life fades; children who burn bright with the flame of life dwindling away would be a fine meal indeed. Though they prefer lingering deaths….” Elyse grew quiet, serious for a moment. “Perhaps ‘tis best not to think of what happened to the children before they perished. Maybe best not to tell the villagers.” Her eyes widened in alarm as Martimeos’ legs suddenly wavered beneath him and he sat down upon the bed before he collapsed. “Are you alright?”

“Fine,” Martimeos muttered. “I just feel...weak. Like I ran a hundred miles and then fasted for a month.”

“Let me take a look at your wound. I would like to make sure the Mirrit’s poison has completely left you.”

He sat patiently as she unbound the leaf poultice at his shoulder, doing his best to ignore her nudity. If she was going to parade naked in front of him, he was going to show her that it wasn’t going to get to him. Finally she unbound the poultice and gasped, and Martim turned his head to look at the wound in his shoulder.

It looked mostly like a healthy wound – nothing too serious, a red gouge in his arm roughly the size of a coin, though it felt like it went deep – with no signs of inflammation or infection. But protruding from the wound was a dark, jet-black, smooth bump. “What is that?” Elyse asked, prodding at it.

Martin set down his pipe, and poked at the bump with his fingers. It wobbled within the wound. It felt….loose. He gripped it with his fingers, and with a snarl and a sharp lance of pain, slowly pulled it out of his shoulder. When they had washed the blood off it, it revealed itself as a small, jet-black egg, so dark it seemed almost made of shadow, no larger than a robin’s egg. When Martimeos held it to his ear, he could hear the faint tingling of tiny bells. “A Mirrit egg?” he asked, holding it to Elyse’s ear so she could hear.

“I have never heard of this before,” Elyse muttered, tilting her head curiously at the sound. “I have never seen record of a Mirrit laying an egg.”

They considered smashing it, but were unsure of what it would release – and it was a pointless exercise for now, anyway, as the shell was thin but hard as stone. Eventually they decided to wrap it in cloth and stick it in a corked bottle. As they were doing this, they failed to notice the sounds of someone entering the shop, and jumped at the sound of a warning rap at the guestroom door before Minerva pushed it open. “Well, girl,” the stout old woman said, as she entered the room, “Was your healing successfu-”

She stopped, drinking in the scene before her of Elyse and Martimeos, both nude and two swift steps from the bed. Then she barked a laugh and closed the door, shaking her head. “I owe you a silver, Ritter!” they heard her call, muffled, through the door. “He lives!”

Martimeos’ face burned, and he quickly pulled out a fresh pair of clothes from his pack, frowning at the bloodied, torn leathers he had worn to the ruins. Even Elyse seemed slightly embarrassed for once, a blush playing across her pale cheeks.

When they were dressed they went to the front of the shop, finding Minerva tidying up while Ritter stood in a corner, puffing on a pipe of his own. The lean old innkeep looked tired, but no worse for wear for the scene last night. Flit was there too, perched on a shelf; upon seeing Martimeos he chirped triumphantly and landed in his master’s wild brown hair, nestling in. Martim shrugged and let him stay there for now. Minerva looked at the both with mirth in her eyes but said nothing except how astonishing it was that Martimeos had lived. When he mentioned how hungry he was, Ritter stepped out, and returned shortly with a loaf of freshly baked bread and a jar of honey, watching in astonishment as Martim took slice after slice slathered in honey, until nearly the whole loaf and half the jar was gone.

Martimeos, licking the sticky sweetness from his fingers, mentioned that they should make another trip back up to the ruins, after Elyse had finished explaining what they had found there – the glimmerling, the Mirrit – after all, they had left in such a haste that he had left his sword stuck in Zeke, and Elyse had dropped his crossbow as well. Ritter and Minerva said they would come along, and Ritter left to hook up an old rickety cart to Bela so she could pull them all along.

As they stepped outside, Elyse not bothering to change into her woolen dress, still wearing her witchly robes and hat, the few villagers walking around widened their eyes with fear and scurried away at the sight of them. Minerva and Elyse glanced each other and shared a laugh over that, as Martim raised his eyebrow at them curiously. After they were done laughing, Elyse apologized to Minerva for calling her a bumpkin and Minerva waved her apology away, saying she had been called far worse by troubled patients.

They met Ritter by the inn and set out, Ritter riding Bela while Elyse, Martimeos and Minerva sat in the bumpy cart in the back. Bela was still a bit worn from her race back into town the other night, but still they made good time, and it was just a bit past midday when they had reached the garden of skulls that lay before the entrance to the ruins. Ritter topped his cart there and dismounted from Bela, not wanting to roll over the bones in the dirt path. Minerva looked at the buried corpses in horror; Ritter just looked grim, shaking his head sadly.

It was a short walk from there to the ruins, though Martim and Elyse told the two grayhairs to stay back while they entered first, just to make sure that nothing was awry within. Though the midday sun burned bright, the light still did not reach into the ruins, and it still took a torch to light their path within – though the darkness seemed much less intimidating now, with the Ritter and Minerva peering in curiously after them.

The ruins still smelled of burnt feathers, and they found things much as they had left them. The beak and tongue of the Mirrit still lay on the ground; these Elyse covered with a cloth and pushed to the side of the hall with her foot, warning that the beak was sharp and still poisonous. The corpse of the glimmerling was there as well, though now that it was dead it looked just like the corpse of a man, no longer held suspended in the air.

Martim was able to get a closer look at the wizard, holding his torch over the corpse as he tugged his sword from its chest. The dead man wore sky-blue robes worked through with a yellow thread in the design of roses and briars. Fine robes, though now torn, and stained, as Martimeos wiped his sword clean on them. He was dignified-looking, lean, almost gaunt, with sharp features and a strong, hawklike nose, and jet-black hair peppered here and there with silver swept back from a widow’s peak. Beneath his open robes, his other clothes were of fancy make as well - a ruffled shirt of white lace, crisp green pantaloons, and a pair of sharp black boots that came up to mid-thigh. All, though, were soaked in blood. Besides the sword in his chest, the crossbow bolt Elyse had fired had struck him in the gut.

The dead wizard also had a great golden ring on one finger, with a large sapphire set into it – that would be a fine treasure, but what Martim found more interesting was what he had strapped to his belt. It was a long dagger, nearly a short sword, with an ornate hilt, but what really made Martim’s eyes widen was the design etched into the pommel. It was a stag’s head, with branching, wicked-looking horns. He unhooked the sheathed blade from the man’s belt and drew out the dagger. It was made of pitch-black metal; Dolmec iron, as it was called, the same material that he had offered to the Dolmec who had led him to Silverfish. No one knew why the Dolmecs longed for the stuff, but they took it as offering in return for favors.

Finally, they finished checking around, and called Minerva and Ritter in, telling them it was safe. Minerva huffed and shook as she made her way into the ruins, complaining loudly about how eerie it felt, but Ritter just marched along silently, surveying things, his hand on his sword. When he saw the glimmerling’s corpse, his eyes widened, and he shook his head sadly.

“That’s Zeke, for certain,” the inkeep said, looking for a moment as if he might cry, his eyes going misty in his wizened, hardened face. “Looks just like I saw him all those years ago.” He bent to take the ring from the wizard’s finger, which almost caused Martim to shout in alarm – he did not know whether or not it was a simple ring or a wizard’s ring, and perhaps dangerous – but Ritter just shook his head at Martim’s warning. “No, lad, ‘tis just a ring. A gift I got for Zeke a long time ago.” He rolled it over in his knobbed fingers quietly, watching the sapphire sparkle in the torchlight, then tossed it to Martim, who caught it deftly. “I won’t keep it from you. I wouldn’t really want it anymore, anyway. ‘Twould just remind me of his sorry end.”

Martim took out the dagger he had taken, showing it to Ritter, unsheathing it to display the black blade. “Do you know where Zeke got this dagger from?” he asked quietly.

Ritter took the dagger in his hands, staring at it with narrowed eyes as he held it up in the torchlingt, the light from the flames dancing off the black metal. “Aye….aye, I think I know where I’ve seen this blade. Not often you see a dagger like this. ‘Twas maybe a year or so before the troubles, when Silverfish still had many visitors. A group of lads came into town...sorry, but I cannot remember how many were in their party. All I remember was that they looked dangerous. They went to visit Zeke, once they heard we had a wizard. I was a bit worried, but figured the old wizard could handle himself, and nothing untoward happened in the end. A bit later I visited Zeke, after the lads had left, and he showed me this blade, saying one of the boys had traded it to him for some knowledge and some trinkets.”

“Do you happen to know where those men went after they left Silverfish?”

Ritter shook his bald head, handing the blade back to Martim. “Sorry lad, I’ve no idea. Silverfish got many visitors in those days. I could never keep track of their comings and goings.” Martim sighed, thanking the old man as he took the blade back.

Martim and Elyse led them to the end of the hallway, to the flooded stairwell. Ritter’s eyes widened upon seeing the water. “It wasn’t flooded when last I visited,” he explained. “The first floor was always in this sorry state, but there were two more floors below. That was where Zeke spent most of his time, did most of his research. Though I can’t imagine what the state of things are down there now.”

Martim tsked in frustration, glaring at the waters; for a moment Elyse thought he was almost about to dive in to go explore the sunken depths of the wizard’s lair. But he just sighed, and lifted his torch to reveal the pile of bones sunk within the water. Ritter cursed, and Minerva choked back a sob, then broke into tears, more emotion in the stern old woman than Elyse and Martim had been expecting, holding on to the old soldier. “At least we’ll have their remains, now,” Ritter said quietly, soothing her as she moaned in grief.

Finally, Elyse showed them the potted tree they had found in the ruins, the one with stangely bluish leaves. She had Martimeos carry it outside, placing it in the sun. Out of the darkness of the cave, its leaves were an even more brilliant blue than she had thought. Elyse sat cross-legged on the ground next to it, staring at it intently, as Martimeos, Ritter and Minerva watched on curiously. She did not recognize the type of tree it was, though she thought it looked like a willow sapling. After watching the shadows of its leaves dance on the ground, and listening to the rustle of the wind through its branches, she sighed, shaking her head. “A young boy’s soul is in this tree," she said, glancing back at the three, "Though it is still too hard to tell much more than that. It seems he knew little of human speech, and still knows little of the tree’s speech as well. I cannot even tell his name. Though it seems this happened to him recently.”

“Do you think...it’s little Jacob? The Dahlson’s boy?” Minerva sighed, wiping fresh new tears from her eyes.

“Perhaps. It seems likely.” Elyse held up a hand to stop Minerva’s next question. “I cannot turn him back, I do not have the skill. You would have to search long to find one with the Art who did, I think. And the longer he stays a tree, the more difficult it becomes to turn him back...”

“You don’t have to rub my nose in it,” the stoud old woman snapped, tugging a handkerchief from a pocket in her faded woolen dress, glaring at the witch as she dried her reddened eyes with the cloth.

Elyse seemed genuinely abashed. “I...I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “I just...do not want to give you false hope. Better now to just accept that he is a tree than to think he might be returned. But give him sun and water and ‘tis not so bad. Trees lead long, happy lives.”

“I don’t understand, though.” Ritter scratched his bald head. “You said you think that Mirrit ate the other children. Why would Zeke turn Jacob into a tree?”

“You may never know,” Martimeos replied. “Such is the way with glimmerlings.”

In the end, they left Zeke’s corpse there, bringing back with them the potted tree and the remains of the Mirrit, which Elyse wrapped in many layers of cloth. She was keeping them, she said – the remains of an Outsider were interesting, and the poison might prove useful. Once back in the village, Ritter called a meeting in the inn, gathering all the villagers that remained in the common room. Elyse and Martimeos were there, as well, and though Elyse saw some angry glares from the villagers who had been in the crowd last night, they seemed too scared to do anything – and then, once Ritter explained that the curse had been broken, by Elyse and Martim, had the decency to seem ashamed.

There was a great collective sigh as Ritter announced the bodies of the children had been found, but not so much weeping. These folk, it seemed, had given up on the idea of finding the children alive a long, long time ago. There was some debate about what to do with the bones – they would be somewhat difficult to reach, underwater as they were – but eventually it was decided that they’d do all they can to retrieve all of the remains surrounding Zeke’s place and give them a proper burial.

Martim and Elyse stayed within the village while Martim built up his strength, recovering from the Mirrit’s poison. Every day, Ritter would take out his cart to Zeke’s place, along with a few strong men; every day he would return, before darkness fell, with a grim harvest of bones. It took a week to collect them all; thirty-three bodies, in the end, twenty-one of them children, though they only knew to count from the skulls, the rest of the bones being too jumbled to make sense of, and they could not tell which body was which. They dug graves for them all, sorting the bones the best they could, marking the ground anonymously with rocks until such time as appropriate headstones could be carved.

The Dahlsons took the news of their sun being a tree in stride – it seemed they too had long resigned themselves to the idea that he was gone. They planted him alongside the road leading out of town, the one Martim and Elyse had taken to enter. He was always running down that road, they said, as soon as he could walk, wondering what the rest of the world was like. He would like it to see what few travelers they got coming and going from the village.

They did ask Elyse if she would stay, saying they would pay her to translate what their son said from tree-speech. But Elyse shook her head, saying that she could not. “Send missives. There are others with the Art who know tree-speech as well. And those without, too. Some hunters and rangers learn of it,” she suggested. Though while she was here, she was surprisingly generous to the bereaved couple, spending time every day to go with the Dahlson’s to their son and tell them what she could make out of what he was saying. He was happy, she said, to see them again.

The villagers were polite and thankful, though they seemed to give Martimeos and Elyse a wide berth now that they realized the two of them practiced the Art. They had little to give, but they insisted upon scraping together a reward. They repaired Martim’s torn leathers; a seamstress told Elyse she’d sew her dress, but Elyse just laughed and said she liked the tatters, though she did ask the seamstress if she might have some ribbons for her hair. And the folk gathered what little coin they had and pooled it together into a purse for the witch and wizard, by way of reward for the breaking of the curse.

Martim asked around, talking to the villagers about the dagger he had found on Zeke's corpse, but it seemed Ritter was the only one who remembered anything about it at all. None remembered anything about the man who had carried it before Zeke.

The two of them continued to practice the Art together, as well. By now, Martim could turn Flit a different color – though the cardinal was insulted when he was anything but red – and Elyse could make dry paper smoke and slowly wither. They opened the book they had taken from Zeke together; it was a book of sigils, they soon realized, though the patterns were so complex and intricate that Martim did not think he could properly draw the least of them. The book was strange, too; the pages shifted around, while it was closed. No matter how they marked their spot, after some time away from the grimoire, they would come to find their bookmark was now marking a different sigil than the one they had been studying previously. A dangerous book, Martim declared, and they should be careful in studying it. Zeke had been knowledgeable indeed.

But slowly, as they spent their time in the village, Martim recovered his strength. Finally, after a few weeks of hearty meals, the lingering effects of the Mirrit's poison left him. No more weary soreness in his limbs, no more feeling winded after a bit of a walk. Feeling himself recovered, he decided to tell Elyse he was going to move on.

She was on her bed in the apothecary’s guestroom, a candle flickering on the vanity lighting against the darkness that had settled in for the night, idly scratching behind Cecil’s ears as he purred – her familiar had been given free range of the village over the past few weeks, and he had been growing fat on fish stolen from the docks or offered by villagers. Martimeos was checking his pack, making sure that he had everything that he wanted to take with him. “I think tomorrow,” he said suddenly, “is a good time to leave.”

Elyse glanced at him. “I was wondering when you’d feel good enough to head out. Where are we off to?”

“You still plan on following me?”

“Of course.”

Martim was quiet for a moment. “Why?” he asked.

Elyse stopped her petting of Cecil, eliciting an annoyed meow from her familiar, and looked at him, dark blue eyes large and mysterious beneath the shadows of her hat, expression unreadable. When she did not say anything, Martimeos continued. “You said you were a wanderer. We happened to stumble across each other in the wood. Why now follow where I go?”

He was expecting some biting remark or perhaps an insult. But instead, Elyse seemed forlorn, gazing sadly at the floor as she twisted the dark ring on her finger. “I like you, Martim,” she replied. “Is that not reason enough? I left wanting to learn, and we learn much of the Art from each other. Is traveling with me so bad? You get to admire the curve of my hip, and I your broad shoulders. Do you not yet trust me? I could have let you die, and yet I saved you. And not solely because I want your knowledge of the Art. I did it because I like you. You make me laugh.”

Martin felt a little abashed, rubbing the back of his head. “I...didn’t mean anything like that. ‘Tis just curious to meet someone in the wood and have them decide to follow me.”

“Where else would I have to go?” Elyse asked softly, not meeting his gaze.

Martimeos didn’t know how to answer that. He did still feel ashamed, though. The truth was, he didn’t completely trust Elyse yet. And yet it felt...wrong, not to offer her a little trust, when she had saved his life. She was right, too; they both did learn much of the Art from each other - one always learned quicker with someone to guide you, someone to practice with. And there were worse things in the world than traveling with a pretty girl by your side. But as much as he might enjoy traveling with her, he could not shake the feeling of suspicion he had about the witch. How odd it seemed that she might choose to follow him. Sighing, he tamped down that suspicion for now. In their time together, she had given him no reason to distrust her, and plenty of reasons to think her genuine.

“Well...if that is your reason, that is your reason,” he replied finally. “And...er...Elyse, I like you as well. You are a fine companion to have on the road.”

Elyse just gave a small, sad chuckle at that. “Goodnight, Martimeos,” she said, rolling over in her bed and facing away from him, towards the wall.

Listening to the sounds of Martimeos readying himself for bed behind her, Elyse twisted and twisted the ring on her finger. She did like Martimeos. It felt bad to lie to him.