by A. C. Salter
“Does it feel pain?”
“No, I think the wild wood knolls do, but the ones that were born of the trees in Farro don’t have any feelings at all.”
The halo made a clunk as it set level with the floor and the wood knoll paced back into its hole and closed the door.
“What does it do all day?” Dylap asked, staring at the door.
“Nothing, I guess. It stands in its place until needed. Almost becoming part of the tree once again. Come, we best get going,” Ebbin suggested.
Dylap released the lever and they plummeted down the shaft. Even though he was expecting the sudden drop, his stomach still lurched.
Once they were at the bottom they began to make their way along the trail, spiralling down the trunk of the opposing tree and halted part way over the next bridge. Dylap glanced down, searching for a target to latch onto.
“Don’t drop too far,” Ebbin cautioned. “You want to control the fall.”
Dylap grasped the end of the spider silk as he spotted a lone branch poking out at an odd angle, many spans below. “I won’t,” he replied, then leapt from the bridge.
Instantly, the cold air snatched at his hair and clothes as Farro rushed up to meet him. Yesterday’s fear was exchanged for today’s excitement. Dylap laughed with delight as he stuck out an arm to guide his body over the target. As he whooshed passed it, he flung out the end of the silky rope and his body swung under the branch.
Before he finished the turn, he sought out another target and flicking his wrist, detached the rope.
This time his body fell in an arc following on from the previous swing. Overreaching the intended goal, he swiftly found another in the direction he was falling and threw the spider silk.
It clung to a balcony ledge, the wood creaking with the weight as he was yanked to a stop. He momentarily hung below a window, swaying from side to side before he placed his feet against the trunk and shoved his body out into the void. Then dislodging the rope, he continued down, skimming the bark before passing a thick limb.
He fed out the silk and changed direction, releasing it in time to fall between the ropes that suspended a bridge. Twisting his body to fit through, he laughed with glee as he turned head first into a dive.
Below him were rows of leaf-thatched houses. Each roof a sharp tooth inviting him closer. With only a single span left, he flipped under the last platform and flew over the top of them. Close enough for him to reach out and touch the crooked chimneys, if he chose to.
When he had passed the obstacles, he snagged a branch to slow his descent and landed heavily on the row of market stalls, sliding to a stop upon the canopy. By the time he had caught his breath, Ebbin landed beside him.
“Crazier than a pin-bush squirrel,” his friend said, shaking his head.
Dylap rubbed the top portion of the silk between his finger and thumb and realised that it felt less tacky. He borrowed Ebbin’s knife to cut a portion off.
“Race you to the bottom,” he said, then dropped from the market stall.
The thrill of the speed pulsed through him, he may not be able to fly, but he could fall like the best of them.
He traversed through Farro, falling from tree to tree, branch to bridge and narrowly missing a night watchman who had flown around a corner at the wrong time. Dylap checked if the watchman would give chase, but as Ebbin passed he waved an apology and the night prowler carried on, muttering to himself.
A dark shape passed over Dylap as he faced forwards and he was struck by a large wet leaf. It wrapped around him and clung tight. Blocking his view.
“Watch out!” Ebbin screamed.
Unable to see where he was going, but judging by the desperation in Ebbin’s voice, Dylap knew it wasn’t good.
Yanking the rope clear, he dropped and the leaf shifted position. He managed to pull it away from his head and reveal a large waterwheel.
Water sloshed in buckets as they rose, pulled by ropes and belts that fed from the great turning wheel. It was easily ten times his own height and made from oak. Solid cogs were set at the central hub and spun other gears, square teeth interlocking with each other. Dylap was heading straight for the mechanism.
Pushing one edge of the leaf, he changed its shape enough to alter his direction. Fighting the wind that kept the pressure on in an attempt to fold it once again. He wedged his knees beneath him and forced his legs out.
The wet membrane stretched as he crouched into the fall, putting extra weight on his back foot to lift the tip. Then raising his arms either side for balance, he leaned hard to one side and pivoted on his heel, steering the leaf.
He felt resistance, but managed to sweep harmlessly around the hub, arms wind-milling to keep upright.
The leaf began to turn in ever tightening circles as it came down, until it was spinning so fast that it began to make Dylap dizzy and it inevitably spilled him out.
As he tumbled, he blindly threw the silk, hoping it would snag something.
The loop around his waist tightened and he began to swing out, although his descent wasn’t halted, only slowed.
“I can’t hold you,” Ebbin yelled through clenched teeth as he struggled with the rope.
Dylap’s whirling gaze focused on his friend who had caught the silk. Ebbin’s wings were as wide as they would stretch, the cords in his neck straining with the effort.
“Don’t let go,” Dylap shouted as he glanced down in time to meet the ground rushing up.
Lifting his legs to avoid them crashing into roots, he slammed into the blades of grass. Tall wet stalks whipped him as he sunk lower until Ebbin could bear him no more and he fell into the sodden earth.
Cold mud clung to him as he pushed himself up. He fell back down with a thump and remained sitting until his giddiness passed. The rope landing beside him let him know that his friend had caught him up.
“Think I’m getting the hang of it,” Dylap muttered as he attempted to stand.
“You think?” Ebbin protested, hovering above. “Are you sure you haven’t broken anything?”
Dylap felt pains in his ankles from the landing, but was sure nothing was broken. He pushed through the grasses to the slope of rock that jutted between the roots, and climbed up.
“We beat Merrybone today,” Dylap said as he scanned the small clearing that had been a bank of mist the previous day. “What’s that?”
At the far side of the clearing was a large black stone that reached out of the ground at an odd angle. It was half the height of a goblin and only a span wide. There were several holes in the upper portion that made a soft whistling noise as the breeze played over them.
“It’s part of the old city,” Ebbin explained, waving his hand over the trees beyond. “The rest is buried in the roots and ground on the forest floor.”
“I’m going to take a closer look,” Dylap informed him as he climbed down the rock and began to push through the grass.
“You can’t,” Ebbin said as he followed, hovering above. “The old city is cursed and haunted.”
“I only want to see the obelisk.”
“The obel…what?”
Dylap barely realised that he had said the name of the tall crooked object before the flicker of a memory flashed through his mind.
“Obelisk,” he repeated, more determined to reach the tall stone structure. “I think I remember something.”
Now closer to the obelisk, Dylap was less sure of the image in his head. Thick vines had grown around the tall tower, securing tendrils into the intricate patterns and symbols that were carved around the black stone.
A brief image of a similar obelisk shimmered across his vision. Fairies flying through the holes in the strange stone before vanishing – other fae remerging through another as if appearing from nowhere. They had bright wings and shiny clothes but when he attempted to see more detail the memory faded.
“What’s the matter? Dylap are you alright?”
Dylap shook his head as he came around. He was kneeling on the gr
ound, his nose pressed up against a daisy head. Rubbing his cheeks, he dislodged a white petal that had stuck to his cheek.
“I’ve seen this before,” he told Ebbin, “when it was straight and with no vines growing on it.”
Ebbin stared at him for a moment, worry drawing his eyebrows together.
“This obelisk, or whatever you want to call it, has been like that for centuries. It probably hasn’t been straight since the time of the old city, and that’s over a thousand years ago. See?” Ebbin asked while pointing at the crumbling remains of a fallen tree.
Dead roots pointed skyward like crippled fingers. Twisted and blackened, although they had at one time been the purest of white. The rest of the alabaster lay beneath the forest floor, the hard wood sinking into the ground to be devoured by the earth instead of rotting. It was hard to believe at one point, a long-ago time, this tree had been a palace.
Dylap paced the remaining steps to the obelisk and placed a hand to the black stone. It was cold, too cold and seemed to vibrate from within. The sensation caused the hairs on his arms to rise and made his teeth itch.
“I don’t like it,” Ebbin complained. “It’s cursed, along with the old city. We shouldn’t be here.”
“But I have seen this before,” Dylap protested.
“Or maybe they have one of these where you come from. It might be worth asking a scribe or historian.”
“Perhaps,” Dylap relented, giving over to Ebbin’s logic. Although, he was sure it was this very obelisk which he had seen from memory.
An ash leaf twirled between them, picked up by a sudden gust and danced towards the old alabaster. It grazed the decaying wood before sliding into a narrow slit. It began to shake violently before being snatched into the hole.
Ebbin gasped and flew backwards, his wings catching a blade of grass as he went. His wing tucked in and he spun to the floor.
“We shouldn’t be here,” he repeated as he clambered to his feet. He gave his wings a practice flutter before rising into the air once again. “Cursed.”
“What’s cursed?”
Merrybone pushed through the grass, his rangy frame making light work of the undulating earth. He grinned when his gaze fell on Dylap.
“The old city, apparently,” Dylap answered, nodding towards the dead alabaster and the slit in the wood where a large spider had emerged from.
“Cursed it is,” Merrybone agreed, taking his cloth cap from his head and wringing it in bony hands. “Tis haunted with dead fairies. Trapped souls which wander the dark corridors. Sometimes at night, at the darkest hour when the forest falls silent – you can hear the tap, tap knock of the ancient wood knoll. The very wood knoll which was born of that alabaster. It still roams the halls and chambers, wearing the crown of the old king as it awaits the final beat of its wooden heart. Taunted by the royal spirits which have plagued it since the old city was little more than a sapling.”
“The wood knoll is still alive in there?” Ebbin asked, eyes darting towards the narrow gap which the leaf had disappeared into.
Merrybone put a trembling finger to his lips. “Shush…listen,” he whispered, cupping his hand over his ear.
Dylap cupped a hand over his own ear, but heard nothing. Then on the fringes of his hearing he thought he heard the faintest of tapping noises. He strained to hear more, leaning out over the corner of the obelisk and saw a flicker of light pass the opening.
Ebbin gasped. “Did you see that?” he blurted. “It was a ghost.”
The light passed again before pausing, a mist-like tendril slowly curling out of the gap. Dylap watched on, fright chilling the blood in his veins, yet was rooted to the spot by fascination.
The tendril grew into a transparent arm, followed by more mist which morphed into a large round head; two glowing eyes spinning in spectral sockets to stare at them.
Dylap’s toes flexed into the dirt as he prepared to run. But when Ebbin began to laugh, he relaxed.
“What’s so funny?” he asked, unable to draw his gaze from the orb-like ghost as it began to lazily fly around the blackened roots, flowing over and under as it weaved an intricate pattern and leaving a thin trail of a tail in its wake.
“It’s not a ghost, it’s the wisp,” Ebbin explained, shaking his head. “The bloated foggy fart is usually floating around here somewhere.”
“What’s a wisp?” Dylap asked, mesmerised by the spectacle.
“Shush, it’ll hear you and we won’t be able to get rid of it. Too late,” Ebbin sighed, “it’s coming.”
The sphere-shaped ghost spiralled up the obelisk and flew in and out of the holes before weaving a line towards them, its tail wafting behind it like a spectral tadpole. A wide mouth began to form into an excited grin as it neared. Deep dimples creasing to either side and becoming more defined, although Dylap could still clearly see the forest through it.
Beaming to itself, it made a figure of eight between Merrybone and Ebbin before coming to a stop before Dylap.
“Hello,” Dylap said, unsure if the wisp could understand or even hear him.
The morphing orb came closer, its glowing eyes narrowing at it inspected this strange fairy before it. Then to Dylap’s astonishment it began to bounce with glee and burst into a frantic spin as it twirled circles around him.
“We won’t get rid of it now,” Ebbin complained. “Come on, let’s go. We’ve worms to gut.”
He flew higher, heading back towards the other side of the clearing, leaving Dylap and Merrybone to the mercy of the wisp.
“Your friend is right,” Merrybone agreed as he stalked after him. “You won’t be rid of the wisp until you cross back into the fairy protection.”
“But what harm can it do? He seems friendly enough,” Dylap asked, his own grin mimicking that of the wisp’s.
“No harm other than being irritating,” Merrybone grumbled.
Shrugging, Dylap followed the brownie across the clearing to the beetle cart, the wisp floating beside him until they reached the sloping rock.
“Goodbye,” he said, giving the wisp a wave as it failed to go further than the invisible fairy protection.
“Whatever you do, don’t invite him in,” Ebbin warned. “It’s happened before. A fae of Farro thought it would be funny to play a prank on the moonflower fairies, and so invited the wisp into the city.”
“What happened?” Dylap asked, thinking that the wisp was harmless.
“It hid in the petals of a moonflower and waited until the moon was at its brightest. This is when the petals open and the moonflower elder casts a spell of wonder over the plants. I don’t know how it works, but it has something to do with the barrier that protects Farro. Anyway, on this particular night, when the elder was about to wave her staff above the moonflower, out pops the wisp and…” Ebbin suddenly clapped his hands together. “It kisses the elder on the lips and the shock sends her tumbling from the Shroom Tree. Luckily for her, the Moonflower Tree is covered in mushrooms and toadstools and she bounced several times before landing on the grasses below.”
“And the wisp?” Merrybone asked, absorbed by the story.
“The wisp found it so amusing that it flew around kissing the other moonflower fairies, attempting to make them all topple off the Shroom Tree. It took the guild of spell-casters and binders, the city guard and the night watch to chase it from the city.”
Dylap stared at the wisp who now seemed sad as it tried to fly towards them but was propelled back by an invisible barrier. He thought him harmless, but then, there was a lot about Farro and the surrounding areas that he was yet to understand.
“Who was the prankster who invited him in?” he asked.
“Dunno, somebody with a grudge against the moonflower fairies, I expect. They are an eccentric lot.”
Dylap said goodbye to Merrybone and climbed onto the cart. Within moments the beetles began their rhythmic padding on the ground as they began the journey up the trail.
“What are you thinking about?” Ebbin asked as they tur
ned up the fork in the track and rolled across the bridge.
“That obelisk, do you think there are others?” Dylap answered, reliving the vision of the fairies disappearing through the holes in the strange rock and others remerging from another.
“There must be. How else would you have memories of it?”
Dylap bit his lower lip.
“I think they transport fairies to other places,” he said, feeling as though that was right.
“You mean to other places in the forest?”
Dylap halted the beetles as they came to a branch that the sun gem collector was working along. He watched the older fae slipping used gems into his trolley, slowly making progress as he hummed a doleful tune.
“I think so, but not just the forest. I think there are other obelisks spread all over Thea.”
“What makes you think that?”
“I…I…don’t know,” he admitted, struggling to hold onto the ghost of the memory which still eluded him. “But maybe, if there are others, it may be a way for me to get home. Wherever that is.”
“If you’re right, nobody alive today knows how it works. Besides, if you leave, who’ll be gutting the worms?”
Dylap offered his friend a smile, although he quietly pondered the mysterious obelisk and how he may use it. Perhaps he would find a scribe and ask what they know about them.
“Do you think Merrybone was right about the wood knoll trapped in the old city?” he asked, attempting to change the subject.
The gem collector had finished his work along the branch and flew onto the next. Dylap flicked the reins and put the beetles back into motion.
“It wouldn’t surprise me. Wood trolls live as long as the tree they’re born from does.”
“That seems so sad. To be trapped for a thousand years,” Dylap said, imagining what it must be like.
“But wood knolls have no feelings, they’re just wood.”
Dylap wondered about that. How would anybody know if wood knolls had feelings or not?
The rest of the journey to the Aviary was uneventful, the beetles rolling to a stop beside the cauldrons.