Illusions

Chapter Twenty-Seven

TAMANI SAT VERY STILL, HIS EYES SCANNING THE forest for movement as the sun disappeared behind the horizon. This was the ideal time to spot trolls — as their “day” was just beginning and the long shadows offered plenty of places to lurk. Wherever they were hiding, it had to be nearby — the trolls they’d wounded always seemed to head in this direction. But the few square miles of forest sandwiched between two human neighborhoods had yielded nothing but frustration. Tamani ground his teeth. He had promised Aaron he would make things right and, eye of the Goddess, he was going to!

“Please, Tam, for all your training in stealth, even a half-deaf troll would hear those teeth grinding,” came a flat, almost bored-sounding voice from lower down the conifer Tamani had climbed for a better view.

Tamani sighed.

“You’re spreading yourself too thin,” Shar added, sounding more concerned now. “Three nights in a row. I worry for you.”

“I don’t normally go for so long,” Tamani said. “I just want to make use of you while you’re here. Normally I do one night on, one night off.”

“That still has you not sleeping half of your nights.”

“I sleep a little while on watch.”

“Very little, I imagine. You know catching trolls isn’t your job,” Shar went on, his voice so low Tamani could barely hear him. He’d said the same thing the last two nights as well.

“How better to protect Laurel?” Tamani asked hotly.

“That’s an excellent question,” Shar said. He had climbed almost as high as Tamani now. “Do you intend to harrow yourself to death with it?”

“What do you mean?”

“You had a choice. Follow the trolls, or stay with Laurel. You stayed with Laurel. I don’t know if you made the best possible choice, but you made a defensible choice, particularly with Laurel unconscious and unable to defend herself. If you’d made a different choice, maybe you could have followed those trolls back to their lair. Or maybe the chase would be fruitless, as it has been so far. I’m sorry that Aaron disagreed with your decision, but you can’t let it take root in you like this. You have to move on.”

Tamani shook his head. “Aaron was almost there. Laurel would have made it home fine. And I could have been one step closer to eliminating the ultimate threat against her.”

“It’s easy to think that, because she did make it safely home. But who’s to say there weren’t more trolls waiting for you to leave Laurel alone? Or that Yuki or Klea weren’t waiting for the same thing?”

“That seems remarkably unlikely,” Tamani muttered.

“Aye. But you’re Fear-gleidhidh. Your job is to anticipate even the most unlikely threat. Above all else, your job is to keep Laurel alive and on task.”

“I would leave everything and join the World Tree tomorrow if she died,” Tamani said.

“I know,” Shar whispered through the darkness.

An hour passed, then two, and the fae said nothing as they scanned the forest. Tamani felt his eyes start to droop, a weariness settling into him that seemed to reach all the way to his core. He’d stayed out two nights in a row often enough, but three was pushing it. Shar had slept during the day, but aside from a brief nap at school while Mr. Robison was out of the room, and a few short stints in the tree, Tamani had not slept since the night he’d forced himself to leave Laurel’s bed — obeying her request even though he knew that as long as he left before dawn, she would never know. He closed his eyes now, thinking of that last sight of her, her blond hair spilling out over her pillowcase like the softest of corn silk, her mouth, even in sleep, turned up ever so slightly at the corners.

His eyes fluttered open at the crunch of dry leaves. At first he thought it was only another deer. But the sound came again, and again. Those footsteps were too heavy to be made by anything so graceful.

Tamani held his breath, willing it to happen, almost doubting his own eyes when two trolls came lumbering into sight, reeking of blood, one dragging a full-grown buck. If they kept going straight, they would pass right under the tree where he and Shar were perched.

Quickly and silently, Tamani and Shar descended. The trolls didn’t seem to be in any hurry, so it was easy to keep them in view. Tamani was tempted to ambush them, to finish them off, but tonight’s mission was far more important than simply eliminating a few trolls. It was time to find out where they were hiding. All of them.

He and Shar tracked them at an almost leisurely pace, traveling alongside the path in short sprints. The trolls paused, and Tamani crouched low, knowing Shar was doing the same behind him. He knew they couldn’t smell him — he carried neither blood nor brimstone to tickle their noses. But some trolls could sense danger, or so Shar claimed from time to time.

The troll with the deer carcass lifted it off the ground, as though to examine the quality of the meal. Then, both trolls vanished.

Tamani suppressed a gasp. They had disappeared right in front of his eyes! Forcing himself to remain hidden, Tamani held his breath, listening. There was a distant shuffling, a creak, the slam of wood against wood. Then silence. A minute passed. Two. Three. There were no more sounds. Tamani rose to his feet, every stem in his body ready to run, to fight.

“Did you see that?” Shar whispered.

“Aye,” Tamani said, half expecting the trolls to jump out from behind a tree. But the forest remained quiet and empty. He stared at the place where the trolls had just been standing. The messy one had left several drops of blood from his kill-trophy splattered on the fallen leaves. Tamani followed the blood droplets to where the trolls had paused, at the edge of a smallish clearing. The crimson trail ended where they had disappeared.

Crouching to get a closer look, Tamani studied the blood. He stood over it and walked forward, fixing his eyes on the tree in front of him. When he had reached about half the distance to the tree, he turned.

The blood drop was not behind him. It was off to his left.

But he’d walked a direct route.

“What are you doing?” Shar asked.

“Just a second,” Tamani said, confused. He went back to the blood drop and tried it again. He focused on another tree and walked halfway to it. When he turned, the drop was behind him and to his right.

Tamani knelt down, studying the trees that appeared to be in front of him, but apparently weren’t. “Shar,” Tamani said, making sure he was standing over the blood drop, his back to the trail he had followed. “Come stand in front of me.”

As he stepped forward, Shar’s feet seemed to reset themselves on a diagonal path. He took two more steps, then stopped and turned, eyes wide.

“Understand now?” Tamani asked, the confusion on his mentor’s face making him smile a little in spite of their predicament.

As Shar stood staring at the spot where he had just been standing, Tamani braced his feet and reached out with his hands. He didn’t feel anything, but the farther out he reached, the farther apart his hands spread. When he tried to bring his hands together, he found himself bringing them back toward his chest. “Shar!” Tamani whispered breathlessly. “Come do what I’m doing.”

It took Shar a few moments, but soon he too stood with his hands held in front of himself, tracing the intangible contours of the barrier that seemed to bend the space around them. It was as though someone had cut a very small circle in the universe. A dome they could not perceive, let alone enter.

But it could be entered, somehow, Tamani was certain. That must be where the trolls had gone.

“If I hadn’t seen the trolls vanish, I wouldn’t know anything was amiss,” Tamani said, dropping his hands to his sides.

“But we can’t see it, and can only feel it indirectly,” Shar said, his arms folded across his chest as he stared into the darkness. “How do we breach a wall we cannot touch?”

“The trolls went right through it,” Tamani replied. “So it’s not really a wall.”

Shar silently stepped away from Tamani and picked up a small rock. He stood a few feet away and gave it an underhand toss. It arced toward the barrier and then, without the slightest interruption, vanished.

Encouraged, Tamani bent down to grab a small stick. He walked forward, just to the point where he found himself turning, and reached out with the stick. There was no physical sensation, nothing stopped him from moving freely — but when he thought he was thrusting it forward, he found the stick pointing sideways. He started to pull back, confused, when a new idea struck him.

Maybe it’s attuned to plants.

He tossed the stick at the barrier instead, expecting it to bounce back. The stick vanished, just like the rock.

Guess not.

“That’s some warding,” Tamani breathed.

“Since when do trolls work this kind of magic?” Shar asked.

“Since never,” Tamani responded darkly. “So it ought to be easily overcome.”

“Oh, aye, clearly,” Shar said, sarcasm heavy in his tone.

Tamani studied the mysterious nothingness. “I can throw things through it, but I can’t poke through it with a stick. Think you could throw me through it?”

Shar looked at him for a long time, then arched one eyebrow and nodded. “I can certainly try.” He knelt with his fingers laced together and Tamani placed one foot into his open palms.

“A haon, a dó, a trí!” Shar heaved, and Tamani made a flying leap, directly toward the barrier.

He was airborne, and then he had the excruciatingly distinct impression that something was turning him inside out. But the pain passed quickly, and his back hit the ground, forcing the air from his chest. There were too many stars in the sky, he thought, trying to focus. Shar was looking down at him, vaguely amused.

“What happened?” Tamani asked.

“You… bounced.”

Tamani sat up and stared at the space before him. “It must be very specifically attuned to fae. That shouldn’t even be possible.” He glared at the ground for a moment. “Maybe we can dig under it?”

“Maybe,” Shar said, but he didn’t sound confident.

“What can we do, then?”

Shar didn’t respond immediately. He was studying the small clearing with a look of consternation, tilting his head this way and that, as if in search of an angle that would allow him to see the secret. Then he stopped and straightened.

“I wonder…” Shar reached his hands forward, dragging his toe along the invisible barrier, marking its perimeter. From his pack, he produced a small drawstring pouch. “Stand back.”

Automatically, Tamani took a few steps backward, wondering what Shar was up to.

After loosening the strings that held it closed, Shar pinched the bottom corner of the little pouch between his thumb and forefinger. Then he crouched on the ground, carefully scattering its pale, granular contents around himself, completing the circle by dropping an arc from overhead that disappeared as it passed the invisible wall.

Tamani jumped back in alarm as the small clearing where they stood swelled to triple its size in the blink of an eye. His breath caught in his throat as he surveyed the expanse that materialized before them from the vaguest hint of a shadow. In the center of the clearing was a dilapidated cabin, its windows tightly boarded. It practically glowed in the full moonlight.

Realizing at once how vulnerable they were — how vulnerable they had been the whole time — Tamani dropped to his stomach and scrambled for cover behind a scrub oak. When nothing moved in the moonlit clearing, Tamani crept out slowly, though part of him suspected it didn’t matter. If anyone had been watching them for the last quarter of an hour, the time for hiding was long past. Still, his training didn’t allow him to do anything but proceed as carefully as possible.

Shar hadn’t moved. He was standing in the middle of his improvised circle, staring at the now-empty pouch that rested in his upturned palm. The look on his face was a mixture of awestruck horror and giddy delight. Whatever he had done, he hadn’t expected it to work.

“What was that?” Tamani said appreciatively.

“Salt,” Shar replied, his voice hollow. He didn’t take his eyes off the pouch in his hand. Tamani laughed, but Shar did not.

“Wait, you’re serious?”

“Look there.”

Tamani looked at the ground where Shar was pointing. The white line of salt Shar had made around himself overlapped a thick arc of dark blue powder that appeared to encircle the entire clearing.

“That’s Mixer’s work,” Shar said, frowning.

“It looks that way, but this is Winter-class enchantment. They’ve hidden half an acre just by drawing a circle around it!”

“Benders don’t use powders,” Shar replied. Tamani suppressed a grimace; referring to Winter faeries as Benders was vulgar even by sentry standards. “The powder makes it a Mixing for sure.”

“Or maybe we’re dealing with a new kind of troll. Laurel hit those trolls with caesafum and they didn’t even blink. Tracking serums don’t work, either. And it seems like Barnes was immune to everything but lead. Specifically, lead shot into his brain.”

Shar ruminated on that. “Maybe. But there have been some very, very strong Mixers in our history.”

“Not outside Avalon. Except the one exile, and she burned, what, forty, fifty years ago?”

“Indeed. I saw it happen with my own eyes. But perhaps an apprentice?” Shar hesitated. “There is the young faerie.”

“I don’t think it’s possible. Even on the off-chance that the Wildflower is a Fall, she’s too young. An Academy-trained Mixer would be a hundred before they could do something like this, never mind a wild one.”

“Anything is possible.”

“So I see,” Tamani said, gesturing at the powder. “Both this blue powder and whatever you did,” he added. “Why salt?”

“Testing a theory,” Shar said. “So far, I’m encouraged by the results.”

Sensing that Shar was not going to say more on the subject, Tamani knelt and examined the blue powder. “Can I have that pouch?”

Wordlessly, Shar dropped the small burlap sack into Tamani’s outstretched hand. Tamani scooped some of the powder onto the blade of his knife and poured it into the pouch. Then, as an afterthought, he used his knife to draw a line in the dirt, breaking the blue circle.

“What are you doing?” asked Shar.

“I’m guessing a broken circle won’t work,” Tamani said. “If the trolls inside didn’t see us, they may not know the circle is broken — but they might find your salt. If we scatter the salt, and cover this break, maybe they won’t notice their lair is exposed.”

“I want this place watched day and night from now on.”

“I’ll need to call reinforcements,” Tamani said, the weight of his weariness bearing down on him as the excitement of discovery waned. He ducked behind a thick tree to turn on his iPhone, wishing the screen didn’t light up quite so brightly. Hoping Aaron remembered how to use the GPS, Tamani sent his location to the other sentry’s phone.

By the time Tamani returned, Shar had eradicated his salt circle and scattered leaves over the break Tamani had made with his knife. There was still no light or sound coming from the cabin, which seemed odd; it wasn’t like trolls to sleep at night.

“Maybe we should just storm the place and get it over with,” said Tamani.

“You’re in no condition for a fight,” said Shar. “Besides, I’d like to keep them under observation for a bit, get a feel for their numbers. For all we know, there are thirty trolls in there, just waiting for us to knock.”

It wasn’t much longer before Tamani heard the telltale whisper of leaves all around him, heralding the arrival of at least ten sentries.

“Can you take it from here?” he asked Shar.

“If you like. Where are you off to?”

Tamani held up Shar’s burlap pouch, then tucked it into his pack. “I have to get this back to Laurel. She may be able to figure out what it is.”

“I hope so,” Shar said, staring at the moonlit cabin.

With that, Tamani turned and ran, his bare feet whispering through the blanket of autumn leaves. He felt like he could have made the run with his eyes closed — as though all paths led to Laurel.

Tamani shook his head, realizing it was starting to swim — blackness encroaching on the edges of his vision. He blinked hard and forced himself to run faster, trying to push away the weariness that threatened to overwhelm him. Maybe Shar was right — maybe he was spreading himself too thin. After this, he told himself. After I deliver this, I can sleep.

He braced himself against Laurel’s back door and knocked, feeling his eyes close even as she came into sight. She opened the door in wordless surprise and he only managed one step into the kitchen before the ground rushed up to meet him.