by Ellen Oh
Buddy, Mac, and Gabriel waved and quickly turned back to huddle together over what looked like cards with moving holograms. Jiho barely got a glance at them. But the two girls named Tess and Jay stood up and unleashed a torrent of abuse so fast and so loud Jiho couldn’t understand any of it. The translator just gave up and let out beeping sounds. They were both quite tall and vibrantly attractive. Tess was a curvy girl with very curly golden brown hair that matched her golden brown skin perfectly. Jay had auburn hair and warm beige skin.
“Tess and Jay are from Urcia,” Frankie said. “Whatever enhancements you people made to the universal translators has made it much easier and faster to understand them. Now we don’t have to hear the long translation before we finally figure out what they’re saying.”
“That’s ’cause Urcian is the most long-winded language in the world,” Shane cut in.
“Just because we like to take our time and use our words wisely, you mock us,” the girl named Tess drawled. “You are all brutes who do not understand the power of language.”
“Shut up,” Frankie said companionably.
The two Urcian girls launched into a long and eloquent tirade about what Frankie should do to himself. The others burst into laughter, but Jiho was perplexed.
Jiho scratched his head. “So I’m speaking Joson, and to me it sounds like you are speaking Joson too. But what language do you hear me speak?”
“You’re speaking good old Orion, without any accent either,” Frankie said. “And to them, we’re all speaking Urcian.”
“But not as poetically or as beautifully as a true Urcian,” Jay retorted.
As Frankie and the Urcians continued to trade insults, Jiho sat down in front of the fire next to Shane.
“So the universal translator usually doesn’t work like this?” Jiho asked.
“Nope, it was kind of slow, because it had to first translate the words into the language of the person wearing it.”
“But what caused it to do this?”
Shane was shaking his head. “I don’t know, buddy. You tell me.”
“I’m not Buddy. That person over there is Buddy. I am Jiho.”
Shane started laughing. “That’s one thing the translator was never good at.” He was shaking his head. “Buddy is his name, but it’s also something we call someone we’re friendly with.”
“I understand,” Jiho said. “But why are you asking me to tell you about the translators? I don’t know anything about them.”
Calvin interjected in his calm, thoughtful manner. “Maybe it’s the magic you’ve been talking about. We’ve been calling them enhancements without really knowing what it is.” He pointed back toward the foreman’s tent. “Maybe it’s messing with our equipment.”
This was intriguing. “I know the forest does not like technology—it usually kills it,” Jiho said thoughtfully. “But I never thought its magic could enhance man-made technology.”
“Didn’t you get one of your own?” Calvin asked. He held out his translator to Jiho.
Jiho shook his head. “I don’t need it,” he said, not explaining about his magic-canceling abilities. Staring at the small translator, he said, “So when it comes down to it, the Kidahara is stronger than technology.”
Everyone turned to stare at Jiho in disbelief before bursting out in laughter.
“No way,” Frankie said. “See that truck over there?”
He pointed at a large truck guarded by several soldiers who were holding strange black objects.
“There’s enough firepower in it to blow up the entire forest to smithereens,” he said. “Ain’t no magic gonna withstand that!”
Firepower? Smitherwhat? Jiho didn’t understand what they were talking about.
“I don’t think the new guy’s ever seen an assault rifle before,” Frankie said. He stood up and went over to a nearby guard and came back with a long black object.
Calvin immediately stood up with a serious expression. “Frankie, you shouldn’t be messing with that thing.”
“We’re not supposed to even touch one of those!” Shane exclaimed.
“Relax! I just want to show Jiho what a real rifle looks like,” Frankie retorted.
“That’s a rifle?” Jiho asked. “It doesn’t look anything like the ones we have.”
“Your rifles are ancient. These are the most modern weapons you can find,” Frankie said, admiring it with lustful eyes.
“Shut up, Frankie.” Tess stood up to face the Orion boy. “They are dangerous weapons, not something to be admired.” She tried to take the rifle away, but Frankie sidestepped her.
“Hands off, Tess,” Frankie said testily. “I’m just gonna show the new guy what it looks like.”
“I know it’s hard, Frankie, but try not to do anything stupid,” Jay said with a long-suffering sigh.
“Oh, would you guys just lighten up already!” Frankie retorted.
He plopped down next to Jiho and cradled the weapon lovingly in his arms.
“This here is the Warrior 5000X series semiautomatic,” he said. He then launched into a long description that was baffling to Jiho except for the last part, where he said, “It can blow a hole the size of a grapefruit in a tree.”
Frankie handed it to Jiho. “Feel the power.”
Jiho looked it over doubtfully. “I’m not sure it will work any better on magical creatures than our rifles,” he said. Pointing it up as he passed it back, his hand slipped down and depressed some kind of a lever. Suddenly, the rifle let out a rapid-fire ratatat noise so loud it left a painful ringing in Jiho’s ears. Frankie shrieked and snatched the rifle away. Leaves rained down on them, and several small birds fell dead to the ground.
Soldiers came running toward them, their weapons drawn as Calvin began yelling at Frankie.
“Why didn’t you make sure the safety was on?”
“I don’t know! I thought it was on!”
“I told you not to be stupid!” Jay yelled.
Even the three Quest-playing boys muttered angry curse words as they went to pick up their scattered cards.
The soldier who’d lent the rifle to Frankie grabbed it back and gave Frankie a hard slap on the back of his head. As they realized there was no danger, the other soldiers left.
But Jiho sat staring in stunned dismay at the dead birds on the ground.
“That is a terrible weapon,” he said finally. “It means instant death to anything you point it at.”
“Yeah, pretty much,” Shane said. “Now you see why we’re not afraid of your forest.”
Troubled by his words, Jiho studied the camp again, noticing how many soldiers carried rifles. There must have been hundreds of them.
Threats. The forest would see them all as threats and would eat them alive. The weapons would bring more violence and more death.
Jiho shuddered. He didn’t know where that thought came from, but he felt uneasy.
“What’s the matter, Jiho?” Calvin asked. The older boy was staring intently at him.
Jiho blinked and focused on the boys sitting all around the fire. “Don’t underestimate the Kidahara forest,” he said. The others quieted down at his words. “It is the most ancient land in our entire world. Old as time itself. And it is very dangerous.”
All the others scoffed at him except for Calvin and Shane.
“Jiho, I’m sorry to say this, but your backward country is not going to be able to hold up against the Omni Murtagh arsenal,” Frankie said. “Like it or not, Joson is going to enter the modern age.”
“Such a shame,” Tess said. “This is a beautiful country. It will be forever changed. And who’s to say it is for the better?”
“Like you would give up your tech,” Frankie said with a derisive smile.
Tess shrugged. “You Orions care about nothing but technology,” she said. “There is no beauty in your souls.”
Jay snorted. “Do they even have any trees left in Orion?”
“We’ve got trees! Tons of them!” Frankie retorte
d.
“But are they real?” Jay asked slyly.
They started squabbling again.
Calvin and Shane scooted closer to Jiho.
“Those guys don’t believe in hocus-pocus,” Calvin said. “But we do.”
Shane nodded, his eyes wide with old fears. “We’re from Old Bellprix, the part that’s not as modernized as our capital. They might have never seen a real monster before, but we have.” He shuddered. “I once saw a neighbor who died from influenza rise up and walk the land again.”
“And we’ve seen things that look like people kill and eat other people,” Calvin said. “So when you said there are magical creatures in the forest, what we need to know is what kind of creatures are we talking about?”
Jiho sighed. “The kind that eat people.”
“Crap,” Calvin said.
Chapter 6
EARLY IN THE morning, the crew headed to their destination, southwest of Hanoe. Jiho had worried all night that he might destroy the magic spells on them if he rode one of the motorbikes. Instead, he was able to hitch a ride on a horse-drawn carriage without drawing too much attention to himself. The others had just shrugged and called him old-fashioned. But Jiho had watched wistfully as they rode out on their motorbikes. It looked like fun.
The caravan took a couple of hours to get to their base camp. Jiho had wondered why they had chosen this part of the Kidahara, but now he understood. They were in a part of the woods that was open, with wide spaces for passage. The camp faced the tall, dense, closed canopy tree line that would lead to the heart of the forest. Jiho remembered the map he had seen at the foreman’s tent. This was the straightest point to Mount Jiri. Despite all the elaborate plans for building cities in the Kidahara, the end game seemed to be Mount Jiri. Jiho wondered why the Orions were so intent on getting to the volcano. No humans had ever gotten to the mountain, as far as he knew. At least none who ever returned alive.
At the edge of the forest, the foreman gathered all the workers.
“All right, people, here’s where the job starts,” he said, his cigar clamped firmly between his teeth. “We chop down every tree to form a nice wide path from here until we reach the edge of the mountain. And then we’re going to level that thing down to a pile of rubble.”
Of all the mountains of the Kidahara forest, the largest and oldest was Mount Jiri. The last time the volcano had erupted was five hundred years ago.
This was not right. Jiho could no longer ignore the unease that crept up his spine and lodged into his throat. This went far beyond clearing the trees of Kidahara. Destroying the mountains would violate all the natural laws. A shiver went through him. He feared what would happen if the magical creatures of Kidahara learned of the Omni Murtagh plans. He feared that none of these crewmen would manage to come out alive.
It was Jiho’s crew’s job to scout the area beforehand, to mark the trees that were valuable for lumber and make sure nothing dangerous was lurking. But soon the foreman changed his mind. The earlier crew had begun clearing the trees with loud buzz saws, but none of the saws lasted for more than a minute.
Nelson cursed at the wasted expense of magic spells that didn’t work. They would have to do it the old-fashioned way. And because time was short, and without the buzz saws it would take them ten times longer, Jiho’s entire crew was given axes and told to chop down trees.
Jiho held the heavy ax in his hand and lined up with Calvin, Shane, and Frankie in front of a group of trees. He stared hard at the ax. He’d never cut down a tree before. He was too young when his father was around. Once his father left, Jiho had avoided the forest. His uncle took down trees only when absolutely necessary and never from the Kidahara.
To the right, they could hear the clatter of falling trees as groups of men took down the bamboo grove.
“Come on, Jiho, you take the first whack,” Frankie said. “These trees ain’t that big. You can take it down yourself.”
Jiho gazed at the tall maple tree before him. It was sick and diseased. He could tell by the way it listed to the left, its roots lifting out of the soil, and the base covered in large mushrooms. If he were to hazard a guess, he’d say an oni came by and knocked into the tree, causing it to uproot. It had probably been slowly starving to death for months.
Saying a quick prayer to the tree, Jiho slammed his ax into the thick trunk. The tree shuddered as if in agonizing pain. Jiho froze in place, his eyes glued to the tree. He saw a yellowish smoke seep out of the gash and pull together into a small form, no bigger than a child. It floated toward him, and then he was completely enveloped in it. Gasping, he fell to the ground suddenly and then watched as the figure disappeared into the sky. He was shaking so bad he couldn’t stand up. The spirit of the tree had thanked him for its release, but it had also passed on a warning. He saw a vision of blood and death—the kingdom of Joson overrun with all that was evil in the Kidahara.
“What the hell was that thing?” Shane asked. All three boys were staring down at Jiho with looks of concern and nervousness.
“It looked like a ghost,” Shane said.
“Ain’t no such thing,” Frankie snapped. He nudged Calvin. “You didn’t see nothing like that, right?”
Calvin was quiet, only gazing somberly at the tree.
“Get up, boy! You take that tree down now, if you know what’s good for you,” the foreman shouted as he came stomping over to them. The other boys backed away as Jiho got up onto his shaking feet. He forced the vision away. It wasn’t real. There was nothing to fear. The Orion men were well prepared for any and all dangers. They could handle the monsters of the Kidahara. Jiho pushed away the niggling doubt in his mind and took a deep breath. He pulled the ax out of the tree and began to chop in earnest. After an extended period of feverish action, he felt the tree starting to give way.
“Timber!” Frankie shouted.
Jiho looked curiously at Shane. “That’s what the Orioners say when a tree is falling,” Shane explained.
The tree fell with a crash, and immediately a group of men came over to haul it away.
Jiho wiped the sweat from his forehead and looked around at the others. Some of the crews had already downed their trees, while others were still working on them. These trees were smaller and slimmer. But he worried about how they would take down the older, larger trees in the forest. They would need a lot of men to chop one down.
And what would the spirits do?
This was a good question. It had been years since he watched his father cut down trees in the forest. Nothing bad had ever happened, but his mind was full of his father’s warnings.
Never take the life of a tree unless you absolutely have to.
Jiho shook his head hard. No. It was time for change. They couldn’t live in fear anymore. The trees had to be cleared. The creatures of the Kidahara had to be wiped out.
And the mountain? What will you do when they reach them?
Jiho could feel the hairs on his arm rising with his goose bumps. The mountains were sacred. How could they even think of touching them? He shivered.
By the third day, the team was farther into the forest. They’d cut down a large, wide path through the heart of the Kidahara, but Jiho could feel the hopelessness of the undertaking. The Kidahara was too big. Even the hundreds of men Omni Murtagh had brought were not enough for the job.
Also, Jiho had noticed the singular lack of the Kidahara’s magical creatures in their path. But he felt the sensation of being watched.
They’re waiting.
Jiho tried to wave away the thought, but it was too troubling. They were all out there watching them. Waiting to see what all these humans were doing in their forest. Jiho became so spooked at the idea, he knew he had to do something. He had to leave the forest. He went in search of the foreman.
“We need more men,” he heard the foreman complaining to Brock Murtagh. “This would have been fine if our chain saws and bulldozers worked, but the only thing we can bring into this damn forest are the axes. It�
�ll take us a thousand years at this rate.”
“Your job is to clear a pathway to the base of the mountain, not take out the entire forest,” Murtagh said. “I want you to do your job so that my men can blast that bloody mountain into a crater.”
Murtagh walked away abruptly, leaving the foreman angrily chomping on his pipe.
“Mr. Nelson . . .” Jiho approached.
“What do you want?” the foreman snapped. He didn’t even pretend to be nice anymore.
“Well, I think I have to go home now. I was wondering if I can get paid for my days here,” he asked.
The foreman glared at Jiho. “Now, you listen here, kid! You’ve been hired for this project, and you don’t get paid until it’s done. You read me?”
Jiho didn’t know what reading had to do with getting paid, but he nodded. He had no choice. He had to stay. His family needed the money.
Two days later, Jiho’s friends were broken into smaller groups. Frankie was now teamed up with the Urcian girls Tess and Jay, and the three Quest-playing boys were officially their own team.
Calvin shook his head. “I don’t know what the foreman was thinking with those teams. Frankie will spend the whole time arguing with the Urcians, and the Quest boys will spend every moment trying to trade their cards and forget to take down any trees.”
“Guess we’ll have to show them how it’s done!” Shane said.
Jiho smiled weakly. The farther into the Kidahara they ventured, the more uneasy he became.
Later that afternoon, what Jiho had feared from the first moment he entered the forest finally happened. He and his small crew stood before a large tree that he knew he couldn’t touch. It was a deep, instinctive knowledge that could not be explained. His father would examine the trees, smell them, pray over them, before even touching them. But this tree needed no such ritual. It reeked of malevolent energy. Jiho wanted to get as far away from it as he could. This was a bad tree.
But who would listen to him? The foreman would scream and hurl insults. All he cared about was clearing as much of the forest as they could. Jiho needed to get away from the tree.