Woga Dimples's Arc

Chapter 14 of 3

Trenthem waited with his white eyes on Woga. "Gold," he said again. "The warren piece is gold. You give more gold, or it stays mine." He raked his coins and did not look away. Woga had no gold. His vines were graying at the edges. The gray hunter crept closer across the waste. He needed to offer Trenthem something worth more than gold, and he had nothing in his paws. Then a light came out of the gray. Two lights. One burned like morning sun. The other was a horn full of stars, black as the waste around it. Two unicorns stepped into the camp. Woga knew the sunlit one. Strudel had read the dead roots beneath his warren once, told him flat how far the life reached and where it stopped. She still carried the black eyes that were not her own, set wrong in her glowing face. "You crossed the poison," Strudel said. No greeting. "We followed your green." The star-horned unicorn stared past them both at the violet fire. "Honestly, I didn't mean to come here," she said. "My horn showed me gold. I followed it." She swayed on her legs. She looked like she had not slept in days. "Feef," she added, when Woga looked at her too long. Trenthem lurched toward Feef. Her horn caught his white eyes and held them. The galaxies inside it turned. Trenthem stopped. His ruined mouth hung open. He had never wanted anything but gold, and now he saw more gold than any coin pile, spinning inside that horn, endless. "That," Trenthem said. His voice shook. "I want that." Woga saw his chance. "Look into it," he told Trenthem. "Keep looking. It never ends." He turned to Feef. "Stand still. Just a moment." Feef shrugged and stood. She was used to being stared at by hungry things. Trenthem shuffled closer to the horn, coins forgotten, arms reaching. Strudel watched with her stolen black eyes and said nothing. "The warren piece," Woga said. "Hand it over, and the gold-light stays here where you can watch it." Trenthem's rotted hand went into his coin heap without looking. He drew out a small heavy thing wrapped in cloth and shoved it at Woga, eyes locked on the horn. Woga unwrapped it. A statue. A stone cherub, wings spread, holding out a single tulip. Gilt still clung to its base. A piece of his family's garden. "It's mine now," Woga said. He backed away fast, the statue tight to his chest. Feef blinked and broke the stare. "That's long enough." She turned her horn away, chasing some new image only she could see, and walked off into the gray. Trenthem howled as the gold-light left. He grabbed only coins again, raking, raking. Woga had the cherub. But his vines were nearly dead, the hunter was close, and now he stood two days deep in poison with no clear way back.