His teeth were bared like an animal’s and there was no human intelligence in his eyes. He snapped at my face. I jerked my head back and then slammed it forward, crashing my forehead into his. I saw stars and he managed to get another short flailing swing in with his poker. It hit my hip. I was taller than he was. Hugging him, I managed to lift him off the floor and then threw my weight against him. We slammed to the uncarpeted floor together, and I was sure we made quite a loud thud. I had to finish this quickly before the Sergeant came in. I grabbed the man by his collar, sat up on top of him, and slammed the back of his head, hard, against the edge of the hearth. For an instant, his eyes unfocused. Then his hands darted to my throat. I tucked my head down tight to my shoulders, and while he struggled for a grip, I bashed his head against the stones again.

The third time, his head smacked wetly when it hit the masonry. Suddenly he was boneless, limp beneath me. His eyeballs jiggled in their sockets. I felt queasy, but forced myself to keep my grip on his collar. I would not be tricked. His head turned to one side. He made a peculiar sound. His eyes were open, his mouth lax.

I was shaking as I climbed off him and stood up. Blood was spreading slowly from under his head. Was he dead? Had I killed him? I didn’t care. I dropped hastily to one knee and rifled his pockets. The ring of keys, heavy brass ones, were exactly where I thought they would be. I took them.

I wanted to flee. I knew I must not. I stood, caught my breath, smoothed my hair, and recovered my hat from the floor. I straightened my jacket. Then I stepped to the desk. I gathered up all the love letters I’d written to Carsina, and my sister’s two letters to her. I picked up my enlistment papers, and the vicious little note my father had sent. I refused to read it. I glanced in the desk drawer where he’d kept them. A medicinal smell rose from it. There were no more papers in the drawer, only two empty bottles, a half-full one, and a large sticky spoon. Gettys Tonic. I took the letters to the fire and dropped them in, one at a time, stirring them with the poker until I was sure that every page was burning well. Then I carefully put the poker back in its stand.

I glanced at the Captain. He hadn’t moved. As I stared at him, his chest lifted slightly. Still alive, then. I recovered my useless saber, shoved it fully into its sheath, wedged it inside my sword belt, and hoped it would pass a cursory inspection. Soundlessly I walked to the door and unlocked it. Then I moved back to Thayer’s side. His eyes had sagged shut. I took a deep breath and dropped to my knees beside him.

“Oh, no! What’s wrong! Captain Thayer, what’s wrong, what’s wrong!” I raised my voice even louder. “Sergeant! Sergeant, come quickly! Something terrible has happened.”

No one came. I sprang up, went to the door, and jerked it open. The Sergeant was just coming back in from outside. He gave me a guilty look. He smelled of strong, cheap tobacco. I flapped my hands and babbled at him. “He said he didn’t feel well. Then he gave a sort of a twitch, and his mouth started working. And he fell to the floor and started jerking! Sergeant, I’ve been calling you and calling you! The Captain has had some sort of fit! He’s fallen and struck his head. He won’t speak to me!”

As the man rushed past me to look in on his fallen commander, I shouted, “I’ll get a doctor. Don’t leave him alone! He might choke. Which way is the infirmary?”

“Down the street to your right! Hurry, man!” he shouted over his shoulder.

I ran out of the building, slamming the door behind me, and turned left, toward the jail. The street was mostly dark. Light leaked from some windows, and lanterns burned outside the entry to a barracks. I ran in and out of that pool of light as soundlessly as I could, wondering if my wild tale had been foolish or bought myself more time. The Sergeant would stay with the Captain for some time, assuming help was coming soon. When no one arrived, eventually he would go to the door and shout for help or perhaps run for the doctor himself. This time of night, most likely the doctor would have to be roused from his bed. It would be some time before anyone had leisure to wonder what had become of the Captain’s late-night visitor. I reached the jail. I paused and caught my breath. My imagination peopled every shadow in the dimly lit street with crouched figures. Nonsense. Focus on the real danger. There would be two of them. Some element of surprise would help. I stood in the dark, calming my breathing and trying to create a story for why I was there with the keys. I couldn’t think of one and time was trickling away from me.

I went silently down the stone steps. This door would open onto the cell level. My hands shook as I felt for the keyhole in the dark. There were four keys. The third one turned the mechanism with a sharp “clack.” I froze, listening. Nothing. No. A voice, muffled by distance or a closed door, inside the building. A man’s voice. I opened the door, eased through, and shut it behind me. I was in a stone-flagged hallway, one I remembered too well. A single lantern burned on a hook, yielding dim illumination. The cell doors that opened off it were staggered. Each had a small barred window at eye level, and a slot for a meal tray at the bottom. I went past the cell that had been mine without looking inside it. She wouldn’t be here. Spink had said she was in a “punishment” cell, one without a window.

I passed six cells and came to a second door. It, too, was locked. Luck gave me the correct key the first time. I turned it in the lock, then I pressed my ear to the door. The man’s voice was louder, a droning monotone. There was no window in the door. Stronger light spilled in a puddle from under it. I took a breath, unsheathed my sword, and opened the door.

Another hall, this one lit by a succession of lanterns on wall hooks.

At the end of that hall, a door was ajar. Light and the man’s voice were spilling out of it. I listened a moment. Was he singing? No, reciting something, over and over. I moved stealthily closer. I was halfway down the hallway before I recognized it.

It was the same night prayer my mother had taught me. The man was repeating it over and over in a horrid, breathless way that spoke of fear beyond measure. It made the hair stand up on the back of my neck. Swift and silent as a plains cat, I padded down the hall and then peered around the edge of the door.

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.”