Robin Hobb - Renegade's Magic

It took me a few moments to make sense of what I saw there. There was a small guardroom with a table and two chairs, and beyond it, a locked door. One guard sat at the table, his head slumped forward on his chest. The other sat stiffly in his chair, laced up to attention. He was the one speaking, saying his hopeless, helpless little prayer over and over. Every surface in the room, the walls, the floor, the tabletop, the guards themselves were netted over with pale white root. The only parts of the room innocent of the spreading filaments were the iron hinges and reinforcements of the door. As I watched, a network of rhizomes worked its way up over the slumped guard, as if spinning him a shroud of white lace. It sank into him as it worked, tattooing his clothing to his flesh as it dug into him as ivy digs into a stone wall. He was definitely dead.

But the other guard was as emphatically alive. His arms were bound to his sides with roots and his legs were clenched tight together with them. I wondered how they could have both been overcome so quickly and so thoroughly, and then didn’t want to know if the roots could truly grow that fast. The man looking at me gave a sudden squeal and then said, “Oh, god, oh, god, oh, god!” In horror, I watched as the roots began to thread themselves into his ears. He squealed again, and then abruptly the noise stopped. The guard suddenly spoke in a very calm voice. “He says he does what you should have done before you left the town that night. And she says, she says, she says she wants all of you, she always wanted all of you, that she wept when the old god stole parts of you away. Come to the tree outside, she says, and she will gently take you in.”

He spoke conversationally, in such a rational voice that I answered him the same way. “I don’t want to come to you, Lisana. I want Amzil. And as much of my own life as is left to me.”

The man did not speak again. He made a gargling sound and then shook his head back and forth in a sudden, vigorous negative. His mouth opened, and a wet wad of bloody root spilled from it to cascade down his chest.

And from the other side of the locked door, I heard a woman give a muffled scream.

“Amzil!” I cried, but I doubt that she heard me. In the instant of silence that followed my horrified shout, I heard a small voice behind me.

“Mummy?” Kara asked in a terrified whisper. I whirled. She stood behind me, staring in horror at the root-wrapped men. She wore only a short white nightshirt, and she was barefoot. Where had she come from?

“Get back!” I bellowed at her. “Don’t let the roots touch you, Kara. Get back!” I swung my gaze back to the small room. “Get out of my way, Lisana. I don’t want to hurt you, but I’m coming through!” I touched my bared sword to the stone floor. I pushed it into the room, and the tiny tender roots that webbed the floor parted and writhed back from the deadly touch of the iron. A stouter one resisted, but then parted with a snap and curled back on itself. Panting fear, I trod the narrow path my blade created. The small room seemed to stretch a mile. I reached the door and had to free my right hand to try a key. It didn’t work.

“Mummy? Is she in there?”

I glanced back. Kara had returned to the doorway. I silently cursed whatever moron had let the child escape supervision. Why had she come? How had she gotten here? But there was no time to even think of that. The rootlets were webbing across the floor behind me, obscuring my path, and creeping out the door of the chamber toward the child. “Kara, get back!” I roared at her. “Stay away from this room! I’ll bring your mum to you, but you must stay back!”

She gave a wail of fear and anger at my angry response. She retreated, but I feared it was only a few steps. I turned away from her and shoved the second key in the lock. It fit, but would not turn. Something tugged at my boot. I looked down to see roots creeping across the leather toe. I could feel the tiny invasions as it thrust little anchors into my boots. I ripped my boots free of it, stamped my feet angrily, and then tried the third key. It wouldn’t go in. Neither would the fourth. I didn’t have the key! And on the other side of the door, I could hear Amzil wailing. “I’m coming. Amzil, I’m here, I’m coming!” I shouted through the thick wood at her, but could not tell if she heard me.

I slashed again at the creeping roots, and the smaller ones fell away as before. But some of the webbing was thicker and stronger now and it did not yield. I started through the keys again in desperation. As before, only the second one would fit the lock. I shoved and rattled it and then, inspired, pulled the key out a tiny bit and turned it again. It gave. I pulled the iron lock free of the hasp and furiously threw it on the floor behind me. It landed on the roots and they retreated from it as if I’d thrown a hot cup of water on thin ice.

I pulled at the handle of the door, but it did not budge. The roots that had flowed across the edges of the wooden planks held it fast. I screamed in fury and slashed at them with the blade. Behind me I heard Kara’s voice again. “Nevare, will they kill her? Are the strings eating her?”

“Get back!” I roared at her again, and with a mighty wrench, I tore the door open.

The revealed chamber was no bigger than a cabinet, forcing the occupant to choose between standing and crouching, and it reeked of old urine and fear. Amzil screamed as the door opened. She was pressed into the corner of the tiny chamber, dancing to keep her feet free of the questing roots. Tiny wounds on her legs were bleeding and the little white roots wriggled happily as the drops of blood fell on them.

“To me!” I roared at her, as if I were rallying my troops for a charge. “Amzil! To me!”

I do not think she recognized me, but she leapt, first to my arms and then swarming up to my shoulders. She was making terrible little panting cries that changed to a shriek of horror when we both heard a little voice crying, “Mummy! Mummy, help me! Nevare, help, help!”

I tried to turn. I could not. My feet were laced to the floor and I roared in fury as the little roots penetrated the leather and bit into my flesh. I pivoted and saw little Kara, shrieking at a root that had wrapped her thin, bare leg. The pallid white tendril suddenly flushed pink. “Save her!” I yelled at Amzil, and tore the woman I loved from my back to hurl her across the small chamber. She landed on the writhing mat of roots, yelped in fear, and levitated like a cat on a hot stove. She did not appear to touch the ground as she flew across the room and out of the door to Kara. I dragged at my feet but my boots were held firm. I felt the roots as little white worms that burrowed into my flesh. I slashed at them but I had stood still too long. The roots had grown thicker. The iron scored but did not part them.

“Kara! Kara!” Amzil cried. She was dragging at her daughter, but the root only wrapped around her leg more tightly, biting into the child’s meager flesh.

“Cut her free!” I roared and threw her the saber. I saw her catch it by the blade and cry out as it cut her fingers, but then she turned it, seized the hilt, and flailed at the greedy root that gripped her child as if she were whipping the floor with the blade. In my mind, I heard an exclamation of pain as the root parted.

And then I heard Soldier’s Boy, speaking very clearly inside me. “She wants you. I’ve no idea why. I think I am better off without you. But Lisana wants you to be part of us, and so she shall have you. Come to us, Nevare.”

“No!” I said, and somewhere a woman’s voice echoed that word in dismay. But my own utterance had no strength. The little roots that had penetrated my boots were worming into my feet, drawing off my blood and my will. Would it be so bad? I’d be one again, whole, and with a woman I loved, a woman who loved me. We’d live a very long time. Wasn’t that what I had wanted? I would have peace.