by Daniel Kozuh
“Okay, okay,” Norman said, slowing down in an elevated area that seemed soft, but dry. “Okay! I think we can take a break.”
Everyone stopped and rested. The towering bamboo gave them a cool respite from the afternoon sun.
The team had no food or water with which to replenish their strength, so they simply collapsed on the moss-covered ground. For minutes, the only sound that could be heard was gasping and panting.
“So,” Norman exhaled, “I have an idea.”
Everyone groaned.
“Hey, we’re alive, aren’t we?” he argued. “My plans have worked, for the most part!”
“Tell that to my neck,” Tahra retorted, touching the raw, bleeding rope burns. Rick worked up some of his glandular magic in his palm. He dabbed it, like a salve, on to Tahra’s blisters. To Norman’s surprise, Tahra didn’t take a swing at Rick, or even flinch.
“Lawrence said that that it was The Verisimillion that opened the portal,” Norman went on. “But he lost the book. Everything else, including Lawrence, landed in Lake Tarnow after passing though the portal. Therefore, I suggest we head to Lake Tarnow, find The Verisimillion, and use it to close the portal and stop The Black Cloud.”
“If he can’t find it, how will we?” asked Tahra.
“Oh my god, stop shitting on every idea I have!”
“I’ll shit on whatever I want to shit on!”
“Settle down, both of you!” Roe stood between them, holding up his hands. “We are all tired, hungry, and thirsty. Before anything, we have to recover. I am sure there is a spring around here.”
“What about food?” Norman asked.
Tahra reached out and grasped a bamboo shoot. With little effort, she tore it away from its roots with a fibrous pop.
****
Within a few hours, Roe and Janey had found a murky but palatable spring near the campsite. They ladled water into the giant Neolithic-looking Patravali leaves that grew nearby.
Tahra and Rick carved the ends of two bamboo spears into points. The rattan forest was ripe with life and a quick hunt delivered a mass of carcasses. They hunted in silence but as a team, instinctively communicating between one another.
Just before they reached camp, Tahra turned suddenly and Rick almost walked right into her.
“I don’t like being saved or being in someone’s debt,” Tahra said bluntly. “But if I tried to fight my way out of there today I would have died. So … Thank you.”
“Of course,” Rick said. “It was an honor to fight by your side. I don’t know if you know this but you are a bit of a legend in goblin circles. We are terrified of you. In Goblin language we call you Kātala Psico which, loosely translated means, The Soulless Butcher.”
Tahra smiled, “Thanks. That makes me feel better.”
****
Norman took a fitful nap and awoke to the smell of barbeque.
“Oh, what’s this?” he asked. “Good work everyone.”
Once they’d eaten their fill, the group was ready to hear Norman’s pitch again.
“No matter what,” he said, “Lawrence is going to be looking for us. The Forest of Kath, assuming it hasn’t changed since I wrote about it, is a maze. Even if we can’t find the book, at least we can hide in there for a while and figure out our next move.”
This idea received the begrudging approval of the group, since no one had a better plan.
“Let’s all get some sleep and set out tomorrow at first light.”
Sleep. Sleep sounded like the best plan of all.
TWELVE
Unikü’s ageless, porcelain skin showed no sign of emotion. At last, he spoke. “I have lived on these lands for centuries, I have not let my borders extend further than necessary for my survival. If I wished it, my roots, vines and stems could cover this land, from sea to sea. Yet, here you come, to demand that I recede my already scant boundaries, so that you may rape the soil from which I feed, seeking an ore that will allow your wars to become more violent and destructive. Therefore, I deny your request and, if you decide to try and take my land by force, I will bury your army in my dirt and feed off their rotting corpses.
- Tales of Lingeria: River of Raael, Chapter 4
It was fifth or sixth light when, finally, Tahra was roused by the sounds of shouting and chopping. In an indeterminate direction a legion was clearing a path through the bamboo looking for the escapees.
She, quickly and quietly, prodded her companions awake. She handed them each a primitive bamboo spear and, within minutes, they were running again. Roe used the sun as a compass and led the group in the direction of The Forest of Kath. Tahra stopped, occasionally, to confirm they were actually fleeing the danger and not walking into it.
Once they exited the bamboo forest and onto the moors that would take them to their destination, they let themselves slow. Even the smallest mound was an arduous climb with most using their weapons as walking sticks.
Sometime during the afternoon, they came upon a glittering lake, which beckoned to them all. Soon, they were letting their weary muscles float and relax in its water.
Tahra and Rick, who seemed to consistently have private discussions by themselves, decided that it would be wise to camp at the lake’s shore for the night, knowing they couldn’t make the forest before dark. No one objected.
The rest of the day was spent relaxing. Roe slept beneath a tree, while whittling. Norman chased Calamity along the shore and gave her many a well-deserved belly rub. Rick sun-bathed on a warm rock, watching a homemade fishing line. Even Tahra shed her usual barbarian ways and disappeared to bathe privately, in the warm spring that fed into the lake. For a few, brief hours, they let themselves forget that they were being hunted.
That night, they all slept soundly, even though no fire was lit so as to not draw attention to their location.
The next morning, they actually did wake with the dawn and set out fortified and optimistic.
****
According to Tales of Lingeria, the Elven race grew from pods sprouted from the fruit of the first tree of Lingeria, long before any other physical race inhabited the land. The tree was poisoned by the demigod Iiblis and used its last strength to produce six elves, whose sole purpose was to protect the plants and trees of Lingeria. From those six, the race propagated.
The elves, similar to the goblin race, had no names but it was for a drastically different reason. Elves saw themselves as a single entity. There were no individual elves – they were all part of the one, and they called themselves “Unikü”. Likewise, all flora; every tree, plant, bush, etcetera in the forest was also “Unikü”. To an elf, there was no difference between a blade of grass, their cousin, moss, and themselves. All were one being. All were “Unikü”. The other residents of the Lingeria named the forest “Kath”. The elves, again, simply called it “Unikü”. While a beautifully bio-centric philosophy, it could make conversations with an elf infuriatingly tedious.
Lingerian Elves were simple, pagan creatures, who wanted little do to with outsiders, whom they found overcomplicated and barbarous. The elves had pale ivory skin and wore only a wrap of red ivy whose leaves were as soft as silk. They loathed war and spent their lives tending to the greenery of their forest – it was more like grooming than pruning. Outsiders have claimed to have even seen flowers spring up in an elf’s footprints.
Within “Unikü”, elves were connected to the entire forest, like a brain’s neural network; an orchid at one end of the forest could alert the elves at the other end to a stranger’s presence, instantaneously. It was said that you could brush your hand on the stem of a fern and make an elf shiver.
****
The Forest of Kath met the travelers like a dam – a wall of trees that ran for miles on either side of them. The group paused before entering.
“Anyone have any experience with elves?” Norman asked.
“I have traded with one. Once,” Tahra said.
“Okay, you do the talking,” Norman commanded.
“Me? I should never be the talker. Why not you? You created them.”
“I created you and we don’t get along too well.”
“People!” Roe interrupted. “Someone better say something, now.”
Everyone turned towards the forest and saw twenty delicate creatures, with silken white hair, pearly white skin, and pointed ears. They looked like inverted Goths. They stared, as one, at the intruders.
“Hello,” Roe tried, with a wave. Nothing.
Norman yelled towards them, “Do any of you speak English?”
Rick looked at him. “What is English?”
“It’s what you’re speaking now,” Norman educated.
“I thought this was Lingerian tongue,” Rick said.
“I call it ‘High Speak’,” Roe added.
“It is weird that we all speak the same language,” Tahra realized.
“Guys! Can we discuss the linguistics of Lingeria another time?” Norman shouted. He composed himself and turned back to the elves. “Hello. We don’t mean you any harm. We were hoping to briefly traverse your forest.” No wait, he thought, they are the forest. Why the hell did I make this so complicated? “You … your land, to visit Lake Tarnow, to look for something someone may have dropped.” Norman finished off with a bow, because, why not.
One of the elves raised his or her (elves are an esthetically androgynous species) thin, ghostly hand and beckoned the team to enter. The elves then turned and paraded back into the forest.
The adventurers followed behind the elves, mimicking their slow pace. The forest was much cooler than the land outside of it, and moist air wiped at their sunburned skin. A meditative quiet penetrated the forest. It was a relaxing nothingness, something a troubled sleeper might play to fall asleep. Norman could swear he heard wind chimes and glass bells, ringing from every direction.
A narrow game path twisted its way through the forest, carved so as not to disturb the native fauna. The trail curved around ancient roots, which arched above Norman’s head, and also around young saplings, fighting for the sun.
At one point, Roe left the path, to examine some berries that had ripened to the size of his fist. The elven train froze and looked back at their guests.
“Roe,” Norman said, through his teeth. “Get back on the trail!”
Roe reddened to the color of the berries and traced his footsteps back to the path.
The elven capital (also called Unikü) was an organic paradise. Elf structures were made of a sturdy, malleable vine, which twisted and braided in on itself – still alive and flowering. Pathways were paved with it, homes were built from it, and beds were bound from it. The same red ivy the elves wore spread over every surface and sprouted large diamond leaves that tiled their roofs.
The strangers entered the town to find hundreds of silver eyes trained on them. Elves never had to speak among themselves, as they were one mind. The silence was painfully uncomfortable.
The lead elf turned and faced them.
“Apologies for not speaking outright. I wanted to be certain that you were not followed.” He paused, “And you were not. I am Unikü.”
“Uh, here we go,” Norman thought.
Elves spoke in a gentle, sing-song monotone. Their words were like soft cotton in a listener’s ears.
“I’m Norman. Perhaps you’ve heard of me. I’m The Author.”
The silent stare of an elf was one of the most endlessly disconcerting events in nature, it was tactless with no social construct.
“This is Roe, Tahra, Rick, and Calamity Jane.”
“And you wish to visit my lake?”
“If it isn’t too much trouble,” Norman requested.
“Lake Tarnow is in that direction,” the elf said, pointing. “I ask that you retrieve your object and leave tomorrow morning.”
“It’s not that simple. We don’t really know –”
“This is not negotiable. These are my terms.”
“Okay, then we better be off,” Norman said. “Oh, and see, we … Well, there was this whole big hubbub and we lost our supplies. Would it be okay if we ate some of your … well, some of you?”
“My berries are ripe. You may take of them.”
“Ugh, that sounds obscene,” Norman thought.
“And only them, as it seems your stunted companion already has.”
“I’ll give you stunted!” Roe growled.
“Roe!” Norman chided. “Thank you,” he said to the elf. “That is most kind.”
****
While the flesh versions of Unikü stayed behind, the party couldn’t help but constantly feel watched, knowing that every leaf, branch, and toadstool was reporting back to high command.
The walk was easy, when compared with their recent trekking. The shade provided relief from the sun. The path they walked, while thin, was even and well-worn, and Roe seemed to find a berry bush every few hundred yards until he had a bright red ring smeared around his mouth.
After an hour the tree line broke and before them spread the massive Lake Tarnow – a pond so wide that the other side was merely showing the tips of trees.
Tahra surveyed the area. “So, it is in there somewhere?”
“I’m guessing so.” Norman sounded defeated.
“How are we supposed to search this entire thing?” Roe begged.
“Luckily,” came the only voice of sanguinity, “goblins are good swimmers.” And, with that, Rick peeled off his vest, waded in, and dove into the clear waters.
While Rick disappeared to search the bed of the lake – he could dive for fifteen minutes at a time on a single lungful of air – the rest of the team pretended to be of use, examining the rocky shoreline. Norman watched, as the sun passed from one side of the lake to the other, knowing they couldn’t search in the dark and tomorrow they would be forced to leave.
Just as the sun was silhouetting the trees on the opposite side of the lake Rick’s head popped up, right in the middle of the water. He was waving his hands and shouting but no one could hear him. He swam back to the shoreline at an Olympian’s pace and climbed out of the water.
“I found something!” he exclaimed.
He put out his green hand, as everyone gathered around. He held a small plastic figurine that, to Norman, looked like a hybrid of a tank and a robot. Faded silver and red paint colored the corners.
“Well,” noted Roe, “It’s not a book.”
“Oh! Oh,” Norman realized what he was seeing. “It’s one of his miniatures! Lawrence said that he threw some of his … they are like, toys … well, not toys, but you use them in games … Oh, it doesn’t matter! Rick, do you remember where you found this?”
“Oh, yes, exactly.”
“Great, that must be where he fell in. Go back and search every inch of that spot.”
“Right, right. Yes,” he said and was already back under the water.
Night came and the only things Rick found where three more plastic figures, of which Roe seemed to be very fond.
Rick finally crawled up onto the shore like a dying frog and splayed out.
“Alright, I’m calling it,” Norman said, defeated. “Good work, Rick. What do you all say we head back to the elves’ village and get some sleep?”
It was agreed and the team left the lake.
****
Although the sun had set, the trail was lit via Unikü’s bioluminescent spores, which drifted lazily about and made it appear that the starry night’s sky was pulled down to the forest floor. Like most pollen, the shimmering spores stuck to every surface and soon the team was covered in them.
They arrived back in the village. The elves were expecting them, already aware of their arrival. Baskets filled with berries, vine-spun hammocks, and blankets of leaves awaited the weary travelers.
Norman excused himself to sulk. He found an egg-shaped basket chair, hanging from a branch, and awkwardly clambered inside it. He watched the glowing spores dance through the night sky, as the chair slowly spun around. He abruptly became aware
that he wasn’t alone.
An elf had wandered up to him and was gazing at him, inquisitively.
“Pardon me,” the elf finally said, “but you seem saddened. Did you not find the treasure you seek?”
“No,” Norman sighed. “We did not.”
The elf dug its feet into the dirt beside Norman’s seat. Norman remembered that this was how they ate – their toes were like roots, pulling nutrients up from the soil.
“Perhaps, the treasure you seek is not an object at all. Perhaps the treasure is inside of you.”
“Nope,” Norman asserted. “It’s definitely something physical. It’s a book. Do you know books? Probably yea-wide by yea-long. You, uh, open it.” Norman pantomimed the opening of a book, “Read stuff out of it.”
The elf’s shimmering eyes widened. “Yes. Filled with man leaves, with hard bark on the front and back.”
Norman shot up, making his chair start to swing and spin. “Exactly! You’ve seen something like this?!”
“Oh, yes, I found it on the shore of the lake. It gave me very bad dreams.”
“You found it? You’re the Unikü who found the book?”
“I’m sorry, I don’t understand the question.”
“Which Unikü has the book?”
“I’m sorry, I don’t understand the question.”
“Grah,” Norman had to calm himself and ask the right question. “Do you know where the book is?”
“Yes.”
“Where is it?”
“I am holding it.” The elf’s hands were empty.
“You, you or -” Norman gestured broadly, “all of you?”
“I’m sorry, I don’t understand the question.”
Norman jumped out of the chair and took the elf’s hand. “Will you show me where you are holding the book?”
The elf smiled, nodded, and led Norman away.
****
They had walked about a half mile away from Norman’s companions and the other elves, to a part of the forest that was wild and unkempt – more jungle than woodland. Brilliant neon bromeliads spread their fingerlike petals wide, to catch the shining pollen. Massive palms, flamboyant, flowering veranera, and aromatic orchids, all so dazzling – even at night – that Norman almost forgot why he had come. It was darker here, the moonlight blotted out by the dense foliage.