Chapter 15: Magic of a Stranger Sort

One moment Tavi was walking, and the next there was only a gray, tree-trunk leg where he had stood. Tarek was too horrified to scream. It felt as if his heart had stopped. The beast heaved and snorted, standing still. Tarek fell heavily into sitting position, too numb and incredulous to even think straight.

Tavi’s head poked through the surface of the beast’s leg as if emerging from a pool. “Are you just going to sit there?”

Tarek hadn’t thought his eyes could go any wider, but they did. His mouth fell open, and he gabbled in meaningless syllables like old Kotlan had when a branch hit him in the head.

“It’s not real,” Tavi said, exiting completely from the creature’s leg with no apparent difficulty. “I told you, look at the rain! It was making noise and breaking wood, but it stayed dry and the rain went right through it. It wouldn’t fool a child.” He pointed back to where the beast stood suddenly placid… and dry as a hearthstone.

Tarek looked from him to the beast and back. The beat of his heart felt labored and off-kilter, as if it had started beating again and was having trouble finding its rhythm. He still had no words.

“Plus, now that I look, there’s no broken trees even though I saw it stomping them all over before.” Tavi looked down from his critical analysis of the impossible beast and crouched by his side. “Hey, are you all right?”

Tarek reached out and touched him, half convinced that his hand would pass right through him like a mist-hart. But no, he was solid. He was real. Tarek let out a shaky laugh and clutched his brother close, trying to put a dozen emotions and thoughts into a single embrace.

“Hey!” the boy squawked. “Let go!” He pushed off of Tarek’s chest, scowling. “What’s wrong with you?”

Tarek slumped onto his back in the mud and let the rain wash over him, trying to process what had just happened. The incredible beast stood motionless and disinterested; its posturing was gone as if it had never been. A ghost. Some kind of illusion. What could make such a thing?

Tavi stared down at him. “You didn’t know. You thought it stepped on me.”

Tarek laughed helplessly and covered his eyes, nodding his head.

“But the Song would have been shouting if something that big were running around breaking things! Ah… of course.” Tavi sat by his side, inspecting his older brother like a bark-paper equation. “You thought I died.”

Finally getting himself under control, Tarek sat up. “For a moment, yes. I did.”

Tavi took a breath as if to speak. Then he visibly changed his mind, grinned, and said, “I’m too smart to die. Come on. You can walk right through. I’ll show you.”

With great trepidation, Tarek approached the now-motionless illusion. He’d seen Tavi move through the thing, so he knew it wasn’t real, but his eyes refused to accept that fact. The closer he got to the great beast the more nervous he felt. It looked perfectly real, its skin a mosaic of pebbled roughness and folds. There were four great black nails like hooves on its short, blunt toes. Every instinct urged Tarek to run, but Tavi disappeared inside the thing without a backward glance, and so he had no choice but to follow.

He braced himself to feel… something… as he pushed himself through the beast’s skin with closed eyes, but there was nothing. Not like stepping into water, not like stepping into shade… nothing. There was no difference. He was still getting rained on. When he opened his eyes, he could see in all directions, though his surroundings seemed fuzzier and less distinct than they ought to, even taking the rains into account. He kept walking and quickly emerged from the other side of the leg. It now appeared that he was directly underneath the great belly of the beast. It was nerve-wracking, and he hurried on.

Beyond the beast he saw a clear, well-worn trail into the jungle. He dodged between its rear legs, not wishing to make another transit through the thing’s murky insides, instinctively ducking as he passed beneath its offensively large maleness. He couldn’t help himself from breaking into a trot to get well clear.

When he turned back to see it from the rear, it was gone.

“That’s really something,” Tavi said. “Where’d it go?”

“More strange magic,” Tarek answered.

“Xochil doesn’t like company, it seems,” his brother said dryly. “Wonder how he does it?”

“Come on, I want to get to wherever we’re going. But stay close to the Song. Who knows what other traps the old snake has along the way?”

Another hundred paces on, the trail widened into a path, and another fifty beyond that there were smooth river stones lining both sides as it wended its twisted way through the jungle. Despite the pounding rain, there was no standing water anywhere, though mud sucked at their feet.

“Hang on,” Tavi muttered, grabbing Tarek by the arm. “There’s something…” He closed his eyes. “Barely hear it.”

“What?”

“Sshhh,” the boy hissed, his brow creased in irritation. He stood for several heartbeats in perfect silence, and then began the atonal hum of the Song. He began to sway gently, and the movement took him from side to side in gentle, shuffling steps that led in no particular direction. His hands quested out blindly, and the peculiar dance gradually brought him lower and lower to the ground until he was on his knees, his fingers hovering over the path, moving in a straight line from side to side. “There it is,” he sighed in satisfaction as his humming ceased.

“Can I ask what now?”

Tavi grinned at him. “There’s a tripline buried right here, but it’s alive. Sort of like a chokevine, except under the dirt. And this one has teeth.”

Tarek blinked. “Plants don’t have teeth. Thorns, sure. But that’s different.”

“Nope, teeth. I can feel it. I’ve never heard a plant sing so hungry before.” He frowned, his hands still hovering over the dirt, and his eyes widened. “They’re all different. I think… it stole the teeth from animals it ate and now it uses them.” He blanched. “A few of them might be human.”

“Xochil told me to come,” Tarek mused, baffled. “I know he did. A magic monster made of air is one thing, but this would have killed me if you weren’t here. Why would he do that?”

“Let’s ask him,” Tavi said grimly. “But be very careful.” He traced a line in the air above the dirt. “Don’t step anywhere near here.”

Tarek settled for jumping over the spot as high and as far as he could, and Tavi followed suit. They moved more carefully after that despite the wide, clear path.

Coming around a bend in the path, Tarek saw Xochil’s house. He stopped in his tracks and gaped. He had never seen such a huge building. The path dipped down into a hollow in the land, and two hundred paces away the structure reared up into the gathering night, shimmering as it shed the flood water effortlessly. It was built entirely of massive river stones, and the house filled the glade. It had to be eighty paces from end to end! Either the ceilings inside were higher than any he’d ever seen, or there were actually rooms stacked on top of each other in there. Windows let out flickering light from within, but they weren’t covered with skins or wooden shutters. No, some clear, glimmering substance stood in narrow wooden frames in the windows, the rain bouncing off in a way that made him think of the surface of a pond. A stout door of wood filled the doorway, and the roof was made of some substance that looked like tiles but seemed to be made of bark. “Wow,” Tavi breathed. “No wonder he doesn’t want visitors. Everyone would want to move in.”

“Plenty of space for all,” Tarek replied, and they both snorted a laugh. The path leading to the house was carefully cultivated with sprays of flowering plants and trees framed the corners of the house that looked as though they’d been trimmed into pleasing shapes. “Let’s have some words with the old man, shall we?”

Tarek wasn’t surprised at all when the door opened as they approached. A man-shaped shadow filled the gap.

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“Oh, look, visitors,” Xochil said dryly. “What a surprise.”

“Honored elder,” Tarek said formally. “I have come to ask for your help.”

“Took you long enough. I’ve been sitting on my hands for two days now waiting for you.”

“Then maybe next time don’t give directions using the stars during a flood,” Tavi said acidly.

Xochil looked at Tavi as if seeing him for the first time. “Huh,” he said. “I did do that, didn’t I? Oops.”

Tavi looked to Tarek, mutely incredulous.

“What’d you bring this little shit along for?” Xochil said to Tarek. “It wasn’t a group invitation.”

Tarek bit down on the sharp words that were ready to spring off his tongue and waited until he was sure of his temper before he spoke. “Our tribe discovered my, um, secret—”

“Told you.”

“…Yes. They tried to hang my family alongside me, but Tavi and I escaped.”

Xochil leaned against the doorframe and shook his head. “Fool Catori. ‘Root, banch, and stem,’ that’s the law, isn’t it? Couldn’t even do that much right.”

“They tried a whole lot harder than we liked,” Tarek said. He could feel anger burning in his chest.

“So you both got away. Well, all right. I suppose they killed your parents.”

“What’s wrong with you?” Tavi yelled. He started forward, fists balled.

Tarek held him back even as he thought about putting his own fist in Xochil’s mouth. The old man had always been barb-tongued and eccentric, possibly dangerous, but he’d been kind to Tarek in the past. There was no hint of favor in his face now.

Xochil pointed at Tavi. “I don’t want you here, little boy, and honestly you’re a bit of a problem. Stay quiet if you want to keep all your bits attached.”

Tavi clenched his jaw and mastered himself. Tarek could almost hear his brother’s thoughts. He could probably kill me ten different ways, and we need his help. Tavi stopped pushing at Tarek’s restraining arm and nodded curtly to his older brother.

Tarek turned back to Xochil. “It’s cold and wet out here, honored elder.”

Xochil shrugged. “That’s flood season for you.”

Tarek spoke through clenched teeth. “It has been a dangerous and unpleasant journey. May we come inside?”

“Oh.” Xochil blinked. “Right.” He glanced back inside his own house, looking uneasy. “It’s not all that bad out here, is it?”

“It is,” Tarek said. “We haven’t been dry since the rains began, and we’re weak and cold.”

Xochil sucked at his teeth, looking unhappy. Tavi made a small noise of indignation, but Tarek put a hand on his shoulder, and he quieted.

“You asked me to come to you for help and you didn’t think I would come into your house?” Tarek said, incredulous.

“I don’t really like having people around,” Xochil said. “I’m a private man.”

“I’m not happy to be here either,” Tarek said stiffly, “but either we talk inside or you can watch us faint out here.”

“Fine,” Xochil sighed. He held up a finger, a long, dirty fingernail waving at them. “But you’ve seen my magic. A bare shred of it. Touch anything I don’t tell you to and your guts will fall out.” He glared at them suspiciously.

“Magic,” Tavi muttered. He jutted out his jaw and spoke more boldly. “I saw through your big, empty horn-beast in about ten heartbeats.”

Xochil folded his arms, offended. “No fewer than a dozen grown men have soiled themselves when they saw that illusion. It’s not my fault you’re too stupid to be scared.”

“The rain doesn’t get it wet.”

The old man opened his mouth for a retort, paused, and looked at Tavi a little closer. “That’s actually a good point. I’ve never had to scare anyone off during the floods before.”

“Why try to scare us off at all? You told me to come,” Tarek protested.

“If you can’t get past a simple mirror beast, you’re not worth my time.” Xochil walked into his home, waving at them irritably. “All right, come in if you must. You won’t be staying long.”

Tarek and Tavi exchanged a wary glance and followed him inside.

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