A Pact of Sorts

“You’re a murderer!” she yelled at him.

“I told you. He isn’t dead.”

“It’s the next best thing.”

“He did the same to me.”

“Without knowing. This is different. You turned on him, attacked him. I don’t want anything to do with the likes of you!” She was doing her best to keep him at a distance, to move to try and put Dreok’s grave between her and his killer. And though she knew it might be unfair, she added. “And you killed my brother. Let’s not forget that.”

“I had no choice there.”

“You had a choice here.”

“And I made it. I earned it. I served my time in this nightmare, now let him serve his.”

“I want nothing to do with you!” She wanted to turn around and flounce off into the woods, but she didn’t want her back to Old-Kinsom either, and she didn’t like the look of the forest that stretched out around this little island of grass and cultivation.

“Your loss,” he said. He looked as if he would quite happily turn his back on her and be done with it all. But then a look came over his face that could maybe have been shame or guilt – it was a face such that these feelings were hard to display. A face of the forest. “Jadda. Listen. I know you want to hate me, and maybe you even do. But I can help you. I can help you get back to safety. You won’t last long alone in the forest, not once the sun goes down. You were lucky to get this far. I can show you how to cross the border.”

“So you say.”

“I can. I will.”

“Because I’m his sister?”

“It won’t be easy. The forest will see you. I don’t even know if it’ll work, but… it’s probably the only way.”

“Who says I’m done here?”

“He’s dead. You’ve found his grave.”

That much was true. She’d come here to find her brother and now… But now here was Kinsom, buried beneath the forest, cocooned and metamorphizing against his will. She imagined dropping down on her knees and digging him out with her bare hands; but she knew that if she did, she’d find nothing.

“You can’t do anything for him,” this other Kinsom was telling her.

And that might be true too. Almost certainly.

“And I can find Dreok for you, the other part of him, out in that real world.”

#

It was that promise, she thought later, as she rested against the mossy wall of what had once been a hall or large farmhouse, that had tipped the scales. The sky was blue above her, swept with clouds. She could feel the difference in the air, the sensation of being home.

Just the way he’d promised.

“How do you feel?” he asked her.

She’d left Kinsom behind. She didn’t know how to answer that.

The forest border had looked and smelt and tasted just like any other part of that forest. There was nothing to distinguish it, and yet this other Kinsom had assured her it was the place. There were ugly, hungry breathing sounds in the vicinity, and an unsteady, bloody aspect to the fading light.

“There’s a lot of borders, once you know how to see them. But they’re a danger. Every last one. Are you sure?”

“I’m here, aren’t I?”

“Still…”

“Stay here? Live here with you? If I can’t save Kinsom, there’s no other point.”

He looked as if he might say something, maybe point out that she wouldn’t be living there with him since he’d every intention of going. She didn’t doubt that he’d leave her if she was pigheaded in wanting to stay. Dreok not-withstanding. His hopes were kindled now, after so many years, she could see them darting around in his eyes, torturing him with the fear that it might yet all come to nothing.

“All right then. Take my hand.”

“That’s necessary?”

“It’ll help. I need to guide you. Do exactly as I say.”

“What happens if I get it wrong?”

“Death, probably. Perhaps pain and disfigurement. The borders are basically just rows of magical hooks and claws, once they get their sharp bits into you, they’ll do some things you won’t like. That’s why I’ve been asking you: are you sure?”

She met his eyes. Eyes that reminded her a bit of Kinsom, but at the same time really didn’t. There was a murky green-grey in them that belonged to this place. Jadda took a breath. She could feel her shoulders trembling – he must be able to see it, feel it – but her mind felt clear. If she survived the next few minutes, she was going to see her brother again.

“All right,” he said, “step exactly where I tell you to.”

#

Her memories of it were already unclear. She remembered taking ginger steps through vivid, green, thorny undergrowth, listening carefully to her guide, taking her time with each step. But each time, the undergrowth had seemed different, it had seemed to infuse itself with a series of unlikely colours, it got more twisted. And then the light flared. And the sounds inside her head grew louder, drowning out Older-Kinsom. She looked back at him, seeking guidance, seeing something monstrous in his place – white, oozing, shaggy with tentacles – it was all she could do to hold herself in place, to try to look past the image, to say to him, “I can’t understand. I don’t know where to step next.”

Jadda couldn’t remember if there’d been an answer. Yes. But she hadn’t understood.

She looked into the undergrowth and saw a golden footprint, exactly her size, glowing out from the density. She saw another in front of it. And another. Old-Kinson’s handiwork? Or a trap, a trick?

She had no way of knowing.

She remembered that jolt of pain as her foot connected with the footprint. She remembered the way light burst out all around her along with sounds, and what felt like a hot, tearing gust of wind.

That’s where the memories ended.

They slowly reformed as nebulous sounds and blurred colours, to an awareness that she walking, that she was on a rough, neglected road, that there was a figure beside her. When she turned to him, she thought the thing he gave back to her was a smile.

#

“I don’t know if it was the forest or me,” he said as they camped. “It’s hazy in my mind as well.”

“So, you don’t really know how you got us out?”

“Not exactly. The memories slip and slide. I was there a long time, but I don’t feel as if I can remember enough to account for those years. At least as I lived them. I’m still an old man, aren’t I?”

“Middle-aged,” Jadda suggested.

“Not… him…”

“No,” she could hear her tone sharpen without it being her intent. “Not him. And you told me you could find Dreok.”

“I think so.”

“How?”

“I think I’ll be able to sense him. His being like me.”

“You think?”

“I’ve not exactly tried it, have I?”

“You lied to get me to go with you?”

“Not lied. I’m just… not certain of anything. Even less sure than I was - than I think I was. I’m sorry. If I lied, I didn’t do it on purpose.”

“Fine. Well, can you sense him?”

“Not now.”

“When?”

“I don’t know. In the morning, when I’ve rested. When my head’s clearer. I’m just so glad to be out here, breathing this air again, feeling halfway safe.”

“Lucky for you,” Jadda said sourly.

The answering look was hurt and angry. He seemed to expect forgiveness, or at least understanding. She even thought she maybe ought to be willing to give it. But the image of Kinsom, beaten, battered, eaten alive: how did this other person think she could just let that go so easily?

She just said, “Let’s sleep then.”

#

But sleep was stubborn. She was wound up tight inside. She wanted to scream, or to get up and run, something to burn off these intense and conflicting emotions that just kept hammering at the insides of her skull.

“I can’t sleep either,” he said, his back turned, lying in the grass.

Jadda moved over and touched him on the shoulder.

“What is it?”

“You can’t be Kinsom.”

“Well, I am Kinsom.”

“Not to me. Ever. But I need to call you something.”

“I suppose so.”

“You can be Kin.”

“Do I get a say?”

“You’re not happy with it?”

“Happy enough. If you really want to think of me that way. You can call me whatever you like when it comes down to it. I’ll probably answer.”

And so, this version of Kinsom now became Kin. And for some reason that seemed to do it, Jadda felt as if she could exhale some of her fury and frustration, she found she could finally get to sleep.

#

In the morning, Kin was sitting, holding his head.

“What is it?”

“Hurts like a bitch.”

“You didn’t used to get headaches in there?”

“Not like this. Nothing like this.”

Jadda didn’t want to sympathise, but she couldn’t restrain that part of her that – at least sort-of – did. She put one hand on Kin’s arm. “My grandmother used to get migraines when I was young. She said that were like the sky falling down on her, and all she could do was lay in the dark, not moving.”

“My uncle got the same. This isn’t as bad as that.”

“Eat,” they still had a few more days of rations.

Kin bit into the hard biscuit. “Not the honeycake and roasted pork I’d been fantasizing about.”

“Won’t kill you though,” she said, biting into her own. “You said you could find Dreok.”

“I said…I think… Though I’m not really very sure how to.”

Jadda bit her tongue. I knew you were lying. But she hadn’t. And finding her way back to where she was right now was still the best chance she would have had to find Dreok. She wanted to curse at Kin, but she wasn’t sure she could find the ammunition.

“I’ll try though,” he offered.

She nodded.

Trying was silent, still; and she couldn’t see that he was actually doing anything. He told her that he was doing something like attuning himself to Dreok, it was something he’d sort of picked up in there, but in a different way. It was a sense that had once led him to an unfortunate, like himself, who’d wandered into the forest – mortally wounded by the time he encountered him – and another who’d been halved and swallowed by the forest – one half dead, the other half so converted, so bestial, there’d been nothing to be done. And now, maybe – possibly – he could use that same thing to find Dreok.

Jadda was skeptical, and growing more so. Even if he hadn’t been full of lies, that didn’t mean he knew what he was doing. She had it on the tip of her tongue to tell him that they were just going to do this the old-fashioned way, when Kin turned and looked at her, wide-eyed. “He’s in Ashelmarring.”

#

As they walked, Jadda asked, “How can you know that?”

“I tracked him.”

“That’s not much of an answer. What does this tracking of yours actually mean?”

“It’s hard to describe.”

“No doubt.”

“It’s not quite an image. It’s more of a feeling. But there were images. I saw the streets, the rows of houses. I could see the Old Castle glaring over the city. And I could feel the direction. A kind of tug, I can still almost feel it. And… just a sense.”

That was probably the best she was going to get. She asked, “Well, is he all right?”

“He’s alive. And he didn’t feel to be dying.”

“Nothing else?”

“It’s really hard to say. The images were floating and overlayed. They were like waves; they didn’t all hold together. I think he’s doing well enough.”

Then what’s keeping him? Why did he never come to check on me? Did he even wonder if I were alive or dead?“It’s good,” Kin said, seeing her face. “This is good news. We’re making progress.”

She wanted to tell him that the progress wasn’t his, it belonged to a quest that Kinsom had undertaken, not him. It involved a lot of memories that weren’t his. At least she thought that was how it worked. She might have asked, but she didn’t think she could stand to hear that Kin had taken over his younger half’s memories as well as his future.

So they just walked.

Until Kin told her he needed to rest.

#

They walked again. And rested again.

It seemed clearer each time that Kin was getting worse. He was more and more tired, and the pain in his head intensified. He was dizzy and nauseous with it, and his skin tingled and jabbed him with sudden pains. Eventually he had to tell her he didn’t think he could go on.

“We can find an inn.”

“Do we have the coin?”

“I think so.”

“But no. When they see me, what they see in me, I don’t know what people might do.”

He looked mostly like a man, but a little bit like a monster. The road had been all-but empty today. They hadn’t had to chance civilization. But they were going to have to do it sooner or later.

“Are you going to live as a hermit?”

“For all I know, I am.”

“We have to get to Ashelmarring. We’ll have to walk through one of the main gates. Even if we get you a hood… you can’t hide forever. We know that.”

“I could be dead by morning. We have to consider that.”

She could see that his skin was cracking, there were beads of blood and moisture in some of the cracks. “You truly think you’re dying?”

“How should I know? Let’s just sleep in the open tonight.”

“There could be outlaws.”

“I’ll keep you safe.”

He was strong, but he was sick. Jadda wasn’t sure if he could protect them. But he seemed like he was determined. Or perhaps very afraid. She sat beside him, massaging his shoulder as he lay in the grass, panting, staring up at the sky. She wanted to tell him that she came from the West – well, depending where exactly they were right now – and there was tolerance for magic, and for strangeness, and it was an accepted fact that not everyone you encountered would be absolutely, undiluted human. She didn’t know why she couldn’t say the words, there was just a thick silence on her tongue that wouldn’t budge.

#

In the morning, when he heaved himself to his knees, Jadda saw where a tract of scaly skin was hanging from his cheek.

“Kin,” she said softly.

He turned to look at her. This chunk of bark-like, stone-like, barnacle-like skin had peeled away from his cheek and hung from the edge of his jaw. Jadda reached to cautiously touch it. The skin beneath it was raw, but looked soft. She reached to touch that with just the tip of her finger.

Kin flinched.

“That hurts?”

“A little.”

“What about the rest of it?”

“Not as bad yet. My head hurts, but I feel like I can think, and probably stand.”

“Hold still.”

When she pulled the skin away from his cheek he flinched again as the edge still clinging to his jaw came away. It left a small trail of blood. But beneath it, there was soft, human, almost childish skin.

The forest giving him back.

Becoming Kinsom again.

But she slammed her mind shut on that thought. It felt too much like forgiveness. How long before he began to look and feel like Kinsom again? How long before she began to think of him that way? Before she accidentally used the other name, and he considered, but didn’t quite correct her?

Jadda asked him, “Are you good to go?”

“I think so.”

“Good. We might not be too far away. When we find a settlement, you stay back, I’ll go ahead and ask directions. Maybe we’re not too far away from the city.”

Kin stood up, using her for some initial balance. His face – so much as it could – turned thoughtful. “It doesn’t feel that far away.”

Jadda made a note to herself, when she found her brother, she’d make sure to tell him that this was not the real Kinsom.

Would he just turn and look at her, all quizzical, calm – “Well, it’s not as if I’m exactly the real Dreok, either”?

 

Picture credit/discredit: author's own work