Seilloah glanced at the man beside her. "You should know… I'm sorry, I don't believe I got your name."
"Kaleb."
"All right. You should know, Kaleb, that I've not seen Corvis in three years. A little longer, actually. I haven't the slightest notion of where he might be these days."
"I don't believe you!" Jassion insisted, stepping forward with fists clenched.
"I'm not the least surprised," she said. "It's true just the same. And even if I did know, it would take far more than you're capable of to make me tell you."
"We'll see about-"
"I will, however," she interrupted, "offer you a piece of advice in lieu of the information you seek."
"And what would that be?" he asked, his tone dripping scorn so thickly it nearly splattered across the toes of his boots.
Seilloah offered a beatific smile. "Never attack a witch in her own home, you silly goose."
It hung there for the briefest instant, mocking them. Jassion's eyes grew wide, Kaleb drew breath to shout a warning, his hands already rising.
The torn linens unraveled themselves from Seilloah's wrists and lashed outward, leaving twin welts across Kaleb's face, causing even the proud sorcerer to flinch away. Vines detached from the walls, roots burst through the sides of clay pots, stretching impossibly across the chamber to wrap about Jassion's ankles, his knees, his elbows, his wrists… His throat. Gagging and twisting, trying to wrench free even as the foliage dragged him bodily upward, Jassion somehow had the presence of mind to wish bitterly that the world's warlocks and witches had better things to do than lift him off the damn floor.
Seilloah rose to her feet without flexing a muscle, raised by an unseen force. Her arms, her fingers, stretched and twitched as though puppeteering the thrashing vines, and her brown eyes had assumed the hue of Theaghl-gohlatch's leaves, complete with jagged veins of lighter green.
Kaleb hurled fire, but it arced aside before kissing the witch's flesh, pouring into and up the chimney in a burst of thick smoke. The floorboards shattered, flinging splinters to gouge the flesh of all three, as tree roots rose, swaying, enraged serpents of bark and wood. Viciously they tore into the flesh of Kaleb's calves, slapping his legs from under him so he fell hard to the broken floor.
Jassion, who once again lacked the mobility to swing, flexed his aching wrist, sawing at the ivy with Talon's edge. He felt his pulse pounding in his ears. His chest burned, begging for air, and the wound on his side dribbled blood, threatening to reopen as the plants wrenched him back and forth.
But even as Seilloah stepped from the bed to the floor, the smile slipped from her face. Kaleb, spitting syllables nearly unpronounceable by human lips, reached out and grabbed the roots pummeling him. At his touch they halted, bark flaking from beneath his palms as a swift rot consumed them from within. The sorcerer rose to his feet, steady despite the terrible wounds to his legs, and raised his arms once more.
Jassion felt the first of the vines snap beneath Talon's edge. With greater mobility, he went to work next on the ivy that had wrapped itself around his neck.
The witch raised her hands as well, crossed at the wrists, and then she and Kaleb froze, palms perhaps two feet apart, their gazes forming invisible lances in an unseen joust.
The vine around his neck gave way and Jassion dropped to the floor, choking as breath flooded his beleaguered lungs. Even in the midst of his convulsion, however, he couldn't help but gawp at a sorcerers' duel unlike any he'd ever envisioned. No energies flew across the chamber to blast at the stone walls, no fell beasts rose to do their master's bidding, no sounds filled the chamber save his own racking cough and the twitching of the vines. Yet he felt the power flowing from the spellcasters, saw the air between them shimmering like a heat mirage, and he understood with a humbling clarity that he would be obliterated in an instant were he foolish enough to step between them.
Sweat bedewed the witch's brow, dripped in a growing torrent down the sides of her lovely face, while Kaleb's triumphant grin grew wider. That his ally would ultimately prove the victor, Jassion didn't doubt. But the vines still writhed, their torn ends reaching for him once more. Smaller plants heaved themselves from their pots, scuttling on tiny roots, and even the teapot on its tripod began to walk with the screech of bending metal. Yes, victory was Kaleb's-if his efforts weren't impeded from behind-but even if he won, would he do so in time to prevent the living house from choking out Jassion's own life?
The baron wasn't prepared to wait. Talon clasped in both hands, he approached from the side, careful never to enter the flickering barrier that linked the two combatants, and with a furious cry he swung.
Cloth, flesh, muscle, and bone parted before the Kholben Shiar like a moist pastry, and the floor was awash with blood. Seilloah's fingers clutched at the demonic steel protruding from her gut, fingers leaving bloody artwork across the blade as they spasmed. She craned her neck and, strangely, offered Jassion a knowing smile of crimson-coated teeth.
A rattle of breath, the grating of bone on blade, and the witch of Theaghl-gohlatch slid from Talon to lie in a sodden mass at Jassion's feet. "I SAID I'M FINE!" Kaleb snapped, hands flexing as though prepared to physically shove the nobleman away.
"Those were some nasty wounds you took," Jassion insisted as they walked, leaving the hut and its wildly thrashing-and now audibly keening-foliage behind. "I'm amazed you can even stand. You told me that your magics weren't much for healing."
"They're not, but they're better when directed at myself than others. I don't need your help."
"The hell you don't. You carried me, Kaleb, and now-"
"If you so much as try to put an arm around me, old boy, I'll turn you into something small, stupid, and inclined to lick its own excrement."
Jassion growled something that Kaleb missed (or pretended to miss). Then, as they reached the edge of the clearing and faced the wilds of Theaghl-gohlatch once more, he stuck out an arm to halt the sorcerer in his tracks.
"What did I just-"
"Kaleb," Jassion said, "what now? Seilloah was Rebaine's closest ally, or so I understand. If she didn't know where he is…"
The sorcerer nodded. "There's a spell," he said softly, "that I can use to locate people. It-"
"What?" Even knowing what Kaleb was capable of, it took all Jassion's limited self-restraint to keep from hurling himself upon the sorcerer, fists flailing. "Then why by all the gods haven't you-"
"Shut up, you yapping pest, and let me finish! First, it requires the blood of a close relative to work. And second, it's easily blocked, at least over any significant distances, and I can guarantee you that Rebaine has any number of spells cast on his person to prevent easy location."
"Oh." Jassion gnawed on the inside of his cheek. "Then why bring it up?"
"Because there's someone else who may know where Rebaine is. I don't know yet where to find her, either, but I do have access to one of her blood relatives."
"What do you… Kaleb, no!" Jassion could feel the blood drain from his face as understanding washed over him. "Gods, no, I will not involve her in this!"
"She's already involved, Jassion. She's been involved for twenty-three years."
"No! If you so much as go near her-"
"Do you want Rebaine, or don't you?"
Jassion cursed, vilely, and struck the branches off several nearby trees with the Kholben Shiar. "We talk to her," he said finally, his voice strangely soft, almost child-like, "and only talk. If you hurt her, if you threaten her, if you so much as look at her the wrong way, I swear to every god I'll kill you. I don't care how much I need you, or what sort of power you have."
Kaleb just looked at him. "Are you through?"
"If I'm understood, yes."