Part 21 (1/2)

”The places where the boundaries of a world grow thin aren't stable,” he said at last, ”and they usually aren't pa.s.sable in any physical sense. The vast majority of such breaches only allow dreams to slip through, or at best, fragmented whispers. Native shamans back home held their dream-quests at such locations, weaving narratives from the fleeting impressions they received from other worlds. But eventually such a breach heals, or s.h.i.+fts location, and dreams stop coming.

”Rarely, a breach becomes so wide that for a short while physical objects can pa.s.s through it. This is what the Shadows call a portal. They are volatile things, unstable and unpredictable. One day a portal might become wide enough for a man on horseback to gallop through it. The next day there will be no sign that it was ever there.

”The year that war ended, North Anna River was running low due to a recent drought, and on my way home I cut across a tributary that would normally have been impa.s.sable. And I ran into such a portal. Never saw it coming. There was a fleeting moment of dread as I approached, and my horse was clearly anxious-you can sense a breach when you get that close-and then suddenly I was swallowed up by the most fearsome darkness a man can imagine. I understand now that what lies between the worlds is a more terrible emptiness than that which separates the stars . . . but back then, all I knew was that I was lost and terrified. So was my horse. She bucked and threw me, and I fell to earth a few yards from where the darkness had first enveloped us. Or so I thought. But the land that had been dry a moment before was now knee-deep in water, and even as I struggled to my feet, coughing up the water I'd inhaled when I landed, I knew that something was terribly wrong.

”I soon learned the truth, which was that I wasn't in my world any longer, but a dark and terrible simulacrum, where people and things looked familiar but their essences were twisted beyond all recognition. In this new world the war hadn't ended yet, and Richmond was controlled by Loyalists, so showing up in a Continental uniform did not make for an auspicious start. By the time I learned enough of what was going on to save my neck from the gallows, the Shadows had gotten wind of my arrival. They despise anything they can't control-that is a part of their nature-and the thought that a man might dare to cross between the worlds without their say-so was deeply offensive to them. The Shadowlord of Richmond became my nemesis, and I spent months dodging his Hunters, unable to get back to my arrival point. By the time I finally managed it, the breach had disappeared. I had to travel hundreds of miles to find another one, hidden deep within the woods where native shamans gathered. Which is a story unto itself.

”After crossing back to my world I headed straight for home, feverish with the desire to be reunited with my family. But when I arrived, I discovered that my house had been burned to the ground. Oddly, it appeared to have happened some time ago; there was already a few years' worth of vegetative growth rooted in the ashes. But how could that be? And where were my wife and daughter?

”I scoured the countryside in panic, but there was no sign of them anywhere. Then I headed into Richmond proper, where I learned the terrible truth. In the months that I'd spent struggling to stay alive in this G.o.dforsaken world, striving to evade the Shadows long enough to find my way to an unguarded portal, five years had pa.s.sed back home. One night brigands had fallen upon my house, and-”

He shut his eyes, his brow creasing in pain as he remembered. We waited in respectful silence.

”I should have been there to protect them,” he whispered. ”And if I'd come back the right way I could have been there in time. I know that now.” His voice trailed off into silence.

Quietly I asked, ”What do you mean, the right way?”

He opened his eyes; the agony in their depths made my heart lurch. ”You are part of the world you were born into. Your body knows it, your mind and soul know it . . . the whole universe knows it. When you leave your homeworld, you leave a gaping wound behind. And when you arrive in a new one, you're bringing a foreign element into a perfectly balanced system. The first time you cross the disturbance is minimal, but after that each pa.s.sage becomes more difficult, and more damaging. In time even your own home world may reject you, no longer recognizing you as its own. Thus, with each crossing, there is a greater danger of lost time, scrambled memories, the chance of arriving in the wrong sphere altogether . . . even of being trapped between the worlds, unable to enter any sphere ever again.

”The Shadows long ago discovered that if they sent people in both directions at once, binding the two pa.s.sages together, a safe crossing could be stabilized. I don't really know how it works. No one outside their Guild does. All we know is that they've perfected the art of orchestrating balanced transfers, to the point where it's rare for any traveler to suffer a time dilation of more than a few days, provided they pa.s.s through one of the Shadows' Gates. And mental damage is very, very rare.” He paused. ”Hence their monopoly over interworld commerce.”

”But if all that's needed is to trade bodies back and forth,” Devon said, ”Why can't anyone do that? Why do they need the Shadows?”

”Because it's impossible to coordinate such a thing without being able to communicate freely between two worlds. And the Shadows are the only ones who can manage that.”

”Why can they do it, when no one else can?” I asked.

The pale eyes fixed on me. ”Whatever the metaphysical mark we bear, that connects us to our homeworld, does not exist for inanimate objects. So they can be carried back and forth with no issue. Dead bodies, likewise, can move from sphere to sphere without adverse consequences.”

I breathed in sharply. ”Are you saying the Shadows are . . . dead?”

He nodded. ”Dead, and also alive. Trapped halfway between the two states, they belong to no world, and thus are accepted by all. It's a gruesome and unnatural existence, but without them interworld commerce could not exist. So I suppose you could say they've earned their right to power.” There was bitterness in his voice.

I said it softly: ”You don't believe that.”

He shrugged. ”I was a revolutionary. This is a world where revolutions rarely succeed. France, America, Russia . . . the popular uprisings that reshaped Terra Colonna all failed in this world. Here, it's Gifts that make or break a war, and once the n.o.bility get enough of a chokehold on society to harvest all Gifted children for their own ranks, common men don't stand a chance. When the worlds finally go to war with each other-as I believe they will some day-it will be a similar story, only on a cosmic scale. Eventually the Shadowlords will rule everything. And you see what kind of social order they prefer.”

I thought about the abbies, the children being torn from their parents' arms, the two Seers who had spoken so casually of cleansing a world. I s.h.i.+vered.

Then Isaac spoke. ”You said that you arrived home five years after you left. But now you're back here, what, three centuries later? How did that happen?”

Sebastian sighed. ”I was mad with grief. To the point where I could no longer stand to live in the world where my wife and daughter had died. And I wanted revenge. So I found a way to cross back. I told myself I would kill the Master Shadow of Richmond, he who had prevented me from going home. And if I died in that attempt, so be it. No one who had failed his family so miserably as I had deserved to live.

”But I didn't understand how the portals worked, back then. How the negative effect intensifies with each crossing. It cost me twenty-three years to return here. By then the Shadowlord I'd come to kill had been promoted to the regional Guildmasters.h.i.+p in Luray. So I went there.” He paused. ”Looking back, I think I hungered for my own death even more than for vengeance.”

”You killed Guildmaster Durand,” Isaac said.

The Green Man looked at him for a long moment. Something pa.s.sed between them that I could not interpret. Like when two people take out their cellphones and transfer pictures to each other, while no one around them has any idea what they're looking at.

”Master Durand died,” he said steadily. ”I was in Luray when it happened.”

”Did you ever try going home again?” Devon asked, trying to steer the conversation back to safer ground.

Sebastian nodded solemnly as he turned back to us. ”Once. By then I understood the price I would have to pay. But it no longer mattered. There was nothing in either world that I cared about enough to fear the loss of it.” He paused. ”I arrived in 1865. Richmond was alight again. Only this time her own people had set the fire. I walked through fields of blood-soaked mud where brother had fought brother, striving to tear apart the very nation I had risked my life to build.

”I had thought I could know no greater pain than the loss of my wife and child. I discovered I was wrong.”

”But the secession failed.” Rita's tone was unusually gentle. ”The nation wasn't torn apart.”

”I know.” He nodded. ”I get news from home whenever I can. That's why I came when Ethan sent word that you were here. Fortuitous, as it turned out.”

”Do you think you'd ever go back home?” I asked.

He shook his head. ”I doubt I would survive it. The last trip cost me far more than time. My presence has become an offense to this world. That will be true anywhere I go. The day might come when I exited one world and would not be able to enter another. Which would leave me . . . well, you've seen what lies between.”

I remembered the darkness I had sensed when we pa.s.sed through the arch, and I shuddered.

”What else did it cost you?” Rita asked. ”Besides time?” When he didn't answer right away she added hurriedly, ”It's all right if you don't want to talk about it-”

”No. I do. I do. You need to know these things. No one should travel between the worlds without knowing the risk.”

He gestured down toward the ground by his feet. It took me a moment to realize why.

I heard Rita gasp.

The gra.s.s beneath his feet had wilted and browned while he was talking to us. The plants climbing up the log had been reduced to shriveled black ribbons. All around him, in a circle a yard wide, every single living thing had died.

A chill ran up my spine.

”I am no longer compatible with this world,” he said in a hollow voice. ”Or any other. Animals can hold their own in my presence, but plants are more primitive, and easily succ.u.mb. Next time . . . it's possible men will not fare so well when they are near me.”

I looked back at the area surrounding his cave. How stark it was! Not a single tree grew near the entrance. Not a single plant flanked the path he and I had walked together, nor were there seedlings struggling to take root in the dirt near his fire. Surrounded by a sea of life, Sebastian's home was an island of death.

Suddenly a lot of things came into focus. The strange t.i.tle he had adopted. The legends about his supernatural affinity with the forest, his ability to meld into trees. He'd probably spread those legends himself. Camouflage. Where would you go looking, if you wanted to hunt a man who was one with the forest? Not on a barren mountainside devoid of foliage.

”Come,” he said suddenly, rising to his feet. ”Enough for tonight. Jessica has had some sleep, but the rest of you haven't. You don't want to go into battle without being well-rested: Trust me on that.” He indicated the cave. ”There are blankets in there; take whatever you need to make yourselves comfortable. I'll wake you in the morning.”

I got up to follow the others, but before I took my first step Sebastian said, ”Jessica, your clothes should be dry by now. Why don't you help me take them down?”

Help him take two pieces of clothing down from a clothesline? Was he serious? I glanced at where my things were hanging, so far from the fire one could barely make out the outline of them. And then I got it.