The wooden mouth opened. A groaning, moaning squeal of pain came out.
“Please,” I begged. “Not this! Not again!”
I swallowed hard. The lump in my throat felt as large as my fist. I couldn't believe this was happening to me.
Elnar had been almost a father to me. I had worshipped him… done everything I could to be just like him. Of all the things that had befallen me—of all the horrors I had seen since leaving Ilerium—his death struck me the hardest.
After murdering him, hell-creatures had mounted his head on a pole outside of Kingstown. When I had returned there, the king's head spoke to me. Somehow, impossibly, magic kept it alive. It had called me vile names and shouted for hell-creatures to come and kill me.
That had been one of the worst moments of my life.
Of course, I knew deep inside that it hadn't really been King Elnar speaking—not truly—but the words still hurt like no others could have. I knew I had betrayed his trust. I knew I had deserted him in his time of greatest need. Because of me, he had died. Horribly.
No, I forced myself to think, not because of me. Because of the foul magics of the Courts of Chaos.
I took a deep breath, forcing down my shock and repulsion. Hell-creatures had created a grisly parody of what King Elnar had once been. The head on the pole had not been my liege and friend. Nor was this face in this tree King Elnar. It was an abomination, created by magic—an abomination to be loathed and destroyed.
And yet—it was King Elnar's face—
As I watched, those familiar blue eyes stared down at me. The wooden mouth parted, twisting into a half snarl.
“You!” it moaned at last, with Elnar's voice. “I know you! You are the one who did this to me! Murderer! Traitor!”
Chapter 2
I took a deep breath, then let it out explosively.
“You're wrong!” I said. The severed head on the pole in Ilerium had uttered pretty much those exact same words. “Think back to what really happened. Look inside yourself. You will see the truth.”
“Traitor!” it cried. Its lips pulled back in a pained grimace. “Murderer! Butcher!”
I turned away. My eyes burned and my head pounded. I couldn't believe my luck. Why had the unicorns done this to me? Were they trying to punish me for some reason?
No, not the unicorns… the blame lay with Aber. Understanding came on me suddenly. I had returned to Juniper with the pole upon which King Elnar's head had been impaled. Aber had taken the pole. Later, at the Pattern, when I asked him for a staff, he had summoned one for me… and it was my bad luck that he had given me back the one which had held King Elnar's head.
The unicorns, with their life-giving magic, had somehow brought both the staff and King Elnar back to life, but joined together. It made a certain amount of sense. King Elnar's head had been growing into the pole, as I had discovered when I smashed his head to a pulp in Kingstown, what now seemed a lifetime ago.
“You deserve to die!” the face in the tree screamed. “No—death is too good for you! Torture! A thousand years of torture!”
I pressed my eyes shut and turned my face away. How much more of this could I take? Still King Elnar called down abuse. What could I do to stop him? What could I do to make it up to him?
“Enough!” I said. Drawing a deep breath, I whirled. My temper flared; I could not put up with his abuse any longer.
“Oh, the coward speaks!” he mocked. “Enough! Boo-hoo! Did I cry when you killed me?”
“I mean it!” I said. I drew my sword and took a step forward, raising my blade menacingly. Would it be soft like human flesh, or hard like a tree? “Shut up, o—!”
“Or what? What are you going to do, kill me again?” It actually laughed at me. “You always were a fool. A fool and a traitor! Look how you respect your oaths of allegiance. Will you kill me by your own hand this time? Or will you leave that to the hell-creatures?”
I sucked in an angry breath and raised my sword.
“Assassin!” it shrieked. “Assassin!”
“I'm only going to say this once,” I said in a dangerously quiet voice. I owed it to King Elnar's memory to try one last time to make peace with whatever part of him remained alive here. “Believe me, I could not have done anything more to help you. Had I stayed in Ilerium, we would both be dead now. That is the truth.”
“You should be dead!” it cried. “Thousands perished because of you! Murderer! Traitor!”
“Enough!” Rage swept through me.
Without a second's hesitation, I stabbed the face with the tip of my sword. Steel bit into its nose with the dull thump of metal hitting wood. It didn't penetrate far, but it seemed to hurt.
“Assassin!” the face howled, its voice rising in panic. Its eyes crossed almost comically as it tried to see the wound. “Help me, someone! Help me! Save me from the assassin!”
I jerked my sword free, leaving a long gash in the wood of its nose. Slowly, a sticky-looking black sap oozed out. It had the consistency of blood. And, like blood, it slowly beaded.
Still the tree cursed at me.
“Enough, I said!” My voice rose to a roar. If I couldn't out-fight or out-reason it, maybe I could out-shout it. “Be quiet, or I'll carve out your tongue!”
“You wouldn't dare!” it cried. “Oath-breaker! Liege-killer! Murderer!”
On and on it went.
I forced myself to take a deep, soothing breath. Clearly the hell-creatures had taken all of King Elnar's rational mind, leaving behind a creature that could only parrot human speech. Nothing remained of my old friend.
It was all too ridiculous. I couldn't allow hell-creatures to waste my time and energy. I would not fight a tree.
Shaking my head at the morbid humor of this whole situation, I turned away. I could easily waste all my time and energy trying to reason with this monstrosity. And maybe that's what the hell-creatures wanted. Maybe it was supposed to keep me busy until they could capture or kill me. Unfortunately for them, they were nowhere close. They would never find King Elnar again… never use him against me.
Clearly this thing wasn't my old liege. I didn't have to treat it with any special deference or respect. Nor would I fight with it. After all, what could I possibly accomplish by hitting a tree with a sword? Maybe I could claim “first sap” instead of “first blood” in our fight. Not that anyone would call striking an unarmed tree with a sword a fight…
Then the answer came to me suddenly.
I didn't have to do anything at all. If I wanted to win, all I had to do was walk away. If I abandoned it here, forever howling insults and cursing my name, it had no power over me.
Turning, I headed up the valley. And why not? With so many Shadows to choose from, I had no reason to ever come this way again. Let it scream. Let it curse my name. What did I care?
“Come back!” it yelled. “Coward! Simpering weakling! Traitor!”
I paused. Despite the soundness of my own advice, I discovered I couldn't just leave. I did care.
Maybe it was my oath to King Elnar. Maybe I owed something to his memory. Or maybe the hell-creatures had put a spell on the head, a compulsion to make me stay and argue with it against my own better judgment. Whatever the reason, I needed to make peace with the tree.
But how? Threats hadn't worked. Reason hadn't worked. What else remained?
“Assassin!” it continued to scream. “Murderer! Someone help me! Avenge my death! To arms! To arms! He's getting away!”