Chapter 84

The Pupil Becomes the Master

The beastie and I set off through the woods together. Elizabeth flies on ahead without us.

As I walk, the beastie trickles its way through the trunks and branches, testing out the new size of its body like an overgrown and rather eldritch puppy. It is still growing. Gorging on so many memories seems to have given it a monumental growth spurt. It is now bigger than me, bigger than a cart, bigger than a large carriage.

I am going to have to give it its own tower at Dunbarra Keep, to keep it away from the general population. One for the beastie, one for the terrible lizard… one for the grimoire. What a strange collection of pets I have acquired, and that is not even counting the humans.

The beastie though - it was bad enough before. Now it is truly a monster, not that it seems troublesome. Not as long as I keep it close, and keep it supervised. The crows I do not trust. By proxy that means I should not trust the beastie either, since they insist it is part of them. But I have always felt that they are the schemers, while the beastie is just… I do not know what the beastie is, to be honest.

I look at it sideways. Lightning crackles along its length, delicately, in ripples. It is exquisitely graceful, oozing through the air with predatory ease.

We make a side trip through a patch of living forest. Afterall, I promised it some eyeballs and it has been very helpful, I do not want to think it ungrateful. Eyeballs are not in abundant supply but we manage to find some squirrels, a few birds, and one rather magnificent lynx that has slunk down from the mountains to hunt with the warmer weather.

Happily, the beastie arranges the birds’ eyes in a spiral pattern on its shell. The lynx eyeballs it holds tightly between two tendril. Lifting them high, it floats around as if looking through them. Then it presents them to me to admire.

“Very nice,” I say, and I mean it. The lynx’s eyes are pretty - yellow green with a single dragon slit down the middle. The colour is delicately offset by the little gobs of blood and brain matter sprinkled around the edges. At least the beastie seems to be easily pleased. Indeed, the walk has been pleasant and has served to clear my head before the hard work of siege prep.

We turn homewards towards the keep. This part of the forest is near the boundary of my soul’s reach, near the slumbering oak where I left Janvier’s phylactery. Briefly, I consider going to check on it, but then decide no. The less time I spend there the better. No one will find it. It is perfectly safe.

I trip over some roots poking out of the ground. So high are they that I almost fall to the ground. I could have sworn they were not there moments before. Oh well. On we go.

A clump of snow drops on my head from some nearby branches.

The wind? A coincidence?

Perhaps it is just one of those days? I shake the wet goop off, annoyed, and continue on my way through the glistening woods.

It is early morning and the sky is clear. The frosted branches are dripping in the subtle warmth of those early morning rays. Piled in great drifts, snow is stacked high in the shadows and northern sides of the trees, while in the glades and open spaces mud peaks through. Spring is truly on the way. I can’t wait to finish my war and then I can start gardening in earnest. It really is urgent I don’t want to waste the growing season mucking about in Fairhaven.

With the sun on my back I wind through the trees after the beastie, humming under my breath and wondering what herb I can pair with draugr violets.

A clod of soggy wet earth hits me on my pauldrons. The mud slides down the engraved steel plate leaving a horrible brown smudge. I whirl, searching for the culprit but the forest is still. There is not a soul to be seen. Only the early morning wind caressing its way through the slumbering branches.

The beastie crackles beside me in gentle confusion.

“Hmm,” I mutter, casting a suspicious glance around the clustering trunks.

I can’t imagine who would be throwing mud. Who would dare? And what would be the point? Probably just a coincidence. Or something dripping off a defrosted branch. “Let’s go,” I say shortly.

We continue on.

A spray of soil splatters over my helmet. A plop of snow lands squarely on my head, momentarily obscuring my vision. I stumble over fresh roots and land in the snow on my chin. There is a whisper of laughter.

“That’s it!” I yell, clambering to my feet. I pull out my axe. “Come on out! Whoever you are! That’s quite enough! What do you want?”

My ire could blister the bark from the pines but only silence greets these pronouncements. I stand there brandishing my axe and feel more than a little ridiculous. Something is taunting me. Where is it? Who is it?

I squint at the dappled shadows.

A patch of light moves. There! No, there. Green and yellow, golden against the blue shadows of the snow. Am I imagining it? Now it is gone.

“I can see you!” I lie. “Come out! Whatever you are, come out!”

On the very edge of my hearing is a sound not unlike the rustling of leaves. Is it the overactive imagination of a dead woman who has not slept for more than six months? Bah. Why do I doubt myself? There is a spirit here.

“Show yourself!” I yell, rotating on the spot. Then under my breath. “I wish I could see!” I look over at the beastie. “Can you see it?”

The beastie holds up its lynx eyes.

“Yes, very nice,” I say, “but it doesn’t help me find it.”

The beastie drifts towards me, faster than is comfortable. Tendrils and tentacles drift like kelp through a slow current, belying the swiftness of its movements. Some of the tendrils are as thick as branches now. Others are whisper thin. Like stinging webs, they float hypnotically, luring in bugs and the unwary. Sparks crackle, little drops of liquid lightning. It is beguiling.

I realise I am staring.

The beastie caresses my face with one exquisitely soft motion. A pitter patter of intense pain, up my cheeks, towards my eyes. It grips the sides of my face.

I open my mouth to protest, to shout, but before I can utter a sound, a tendril plunges into my left eye. A flash of white hot, seering agony consumes me.

I stumble backwards, howling, flailing my axe in my panic. The beastie has ripped out my eye!

It backs away.

My fingers feel at the empty space, prodding and groping, my lungs gasping for air in remembered panic. My body still remembers terror, even if I seldom feel the emotion these days. Of course I do not need the flesh of a newly grown eyeball to see. I could see perfectly well when my eye was just an empty socket and I was in my bones. I liked the eyeball though! Confusion and then anger wars in my brain.

“Why?” I scream. “Why did you take my eye?”

The enormous beastie stares at me curiously through its assorted eyeball collection. It has placed mine in pride of place, at the centre of the concentric rings. I am not flattered. I liked the eyeball fine where it was. “Why?”

The beastie does not deign to reply, although I know it could if it wanted too. Instead it holds up the set of pretty lynx eyes, placatingly.

“No thank you!” I huff.

It speeds forwards, tendrils outstretched.

My back thumps against a tree and once more I know fear. Have I miscalculated? I should never have fed it. I should have killed it immediately. Now I will have to do it here, now.

The beastie looms over me, its bulk blotting out the sky.

I ready my axe for the underhanded blow that will split its shell and spill whatever it uses for innards all over the forest floor. My other hand grips the wrapped hilt of the Archon’s sword. I will skewer it from both sides at once. My muscles bunch.

A tendril darts forward.

I move.

The beastie moves.

Sword and axe flash through empty air. The beastie swarms many feet backwards. How? How did it move so fast? And… what? What is this? The blasted thing has shoved something into my empty eye socket!

Blinking furiously, I drop my weapons, scratching with my fingers, groping at my face. WHat is it? My groping fingers poke gelatinous mass. Ow! The lynx eye.

The damned beastie has shoved a lynx eye into my left eye socket!

I growl under my breath. This is untenable. This is too much! It serves me right for not killing the beastie the very first time I laid eyes on it! I should have finished the job there and then. Next time I meet some strange creepy creature in the forest, that’s it! No mercy.

I snarl and step forward. My vision swims, and then clears.

I-I am looking at the forest through the lynx eye. The lynx eye. It sits so uncomfortably, and then settles. It is confusing.

Lights swim and dart.

Sparks of fire.

Willow the wisps? What is that? What shades? What madness am I seeing? Spirits? What in the Whisperer’s name is going on?

I clamp a hand over the lynx eye and everything looks normal. Except for the skulking beastie which has retreated above the treetops and is floating there guilty.

“I will deal with you in a minute,” I mutter.

I move my hand, covering my sole remaining eye, so that I am staring out of the lynx eye once more. I blink. The forest looks… different. The same, but different. Tiny little men are peering at me from under a low branch. They have pine cones for heads and bright amber eyes. The knots in a twisted oak glare at me. Is the tree looking at me? What is going on? Before I can decide if I am finally losing my mind another clod of earth hits me on the helm, reminding me of my original quest.

Now I can see the culprit.

A man is peeking at me from behind an oak trunk. His skin is weathered, furrowed in whorls and knots, and dark, bark brown. His beard is thick and dark also. Antlers protrude from his brow… no not antlers… branches. He is naked from the waist up, and appears to have cloven hoofs. His lower half is mercifully covered in fur. Or is it old moss? I should stop looking down there.

He lifts his hand and-

“Don’t you dare!” I yell, fully expecting another clod of earth.

The man’s face splits into a grin. He pulls something from Goddess knows where and brandishes it at me. It is a package wrapped in rags and string. A crown-sized package.

“Take it back,” the tree spirit roars, and all the trees in the glade rustle in anger, pine needles and branches shaking. “I don’t want it!”