It might have been an overly showy move, but I had spent the last week terribly ill, skirting the line between life and death. I felt I deserved a moment to show off. Picking up speed I was already a thousand feet above them when I looked down to see Layla slowly banking to the right, making a wide circle to take them back in the direction they had come.
My power drove me ever higher, as I raced toward the limits of the sky, the ground dwindling beneath me. As the air began to thin I changed my shield to keep a heavier bubble of air around me. As I went higher still I felt the pressure inside begin to press outward. My altitude now was such that it would probably be impossible to breathe without my shield, and I knew I was limited by how much air I had with me. I couldn’t stay this high for too long.
The view below had already revealed what I suspected, though. The bizarre foreign forest had arrived in a precise geometric shape, that of a hexagon. The question, is why? I thought. There was something about the shape that tickled a memory in the back of my head, but I couldn’t yet put my finger on it.
Lancaster Castle should have been in the northwestern portion of the hexagon, but I could see no sign of it, or of the lake that was associated with it. Even with those huge trees, the lake should have still been easily visible, but it wasn’t. The piece of land beneath me simply wasn’t the same one that had once held Lancaster.
Putting that question aside, I began my descent. I was so high I could no longer make out the massive dragon, but soon enough she appeared, a tiny dot below. I angled my flight to meet them and slowed when I was almost there. With a flourish I turned over and dropped lightly onto Layla’s back, exactly where I had been before.
Penny nearly jumped at my touch. “I will never get used to that!” she yelled over the rushing wind.
I laughed, and we flew on, returning to where we had left the others. They were anxious to hear whatever news we had, so I explained what I had seen. Matthew frowned as I described the hexagon I had seen, and his eyes met mine for a second, a question in them.
“Why would it be that shape?” wondered Gram aloud.
Chad wiped his mouth, slipping a small flask back into his pack, ignoring the look of scorn Penny gave him. “Fuck if I know,” he commented. “Maybe the gods have a weird sense of humor.”
“There aren’t any gods left,” said Penny.
Layla spoke, her deep rumbling voice rolling across us, “Could it be a spell?”
I dismissed her words, “No wizard could do such a thing. It’s too big. I wouldn’t even begin to imagine how it could be done. Growing trees of that size, in less than a day, over such an area?”
“What about an archmage?” asked Grace.
Matthew shook his head. “No, there are traces of magic at the boundary.”
Gram’s dragon nodded, “So it could have been an archmage…”
I interrupted, “That’s not what he means. What an archmage does isn’t really magic. It’s more like persuading the universe to do what we want. If this was an instance of an archmage remaking reality, there wouldn’t be any traces of strange aythar at all. Besides, if someone like me managed to do this, it wouldn’t be a hexagon. It would be circular, or even irregularly shaped. The human mind doesn’t usually imagine things in perfect geometric forms like this.”
“What if it wasn’t a human archmage?” asked Grace.
Chad spoke up, mildly annoyed, “He already said it wasn’t an archmage.”
“There aren’t any non-human archmages anyway,” I added. “Tyrion was the first, and the She’Har had never encountered the phenomenon before he was discovered.”
“Does Tyrion even count as human anymore?” asked Gram. “I thought he was supposed to be She’Har now. Wasn’t he a tree?”
Penny grimaced, “Not the last time we saw him. He seemed entirely too human then.”
Matthew had been silent the entire time, deep in his own thoughts, but I had an idea what he might be thinking. There was one type of magic that used the hexagonal shape in everything it did. He looked up at me. “Do you think Tyrion can spellweave now?”
Everyone fell silent, watching us as I replied, “I don’t know. Even though he was or is a She’Har elder, I’m not sure it’s possible. It requires a seed-mind.”
The seed-mind was the main thing that distinguished She’Har children from regular humans. Their bodies were fully human in every respect, but within their brains was an extra, non-human organ, a small structure of vegetable matter. It was this structure, the seed-mind, that eventually became a She’Har elder, a tree. It recorded all the events of their lives, preserving the information and giving them perfect recall. It was also what produced their spellweaves, transforming their thoughts and aythar into a highly structured form of magic.
What few knew, was that that magic was formed entirely of tiny hexagons. The shapes were so small that few mages, She’Har or human, could perceive them. Tyrion had seen them once, two thousand years ago, and I had observed them myself when I had occasionally encountered She’Har spellweaves.
Penny broke the silence first, “You think Tyrion did this?”
“I don’t see how he could have,” I answered. “Or why he would, for that matter. He would have had to travel here right after we fought. And that still leaves the question of how he would have done it. The amount of power that would be required to do this—none of it makes sense.”
“This was translation magic,” pronounced Matthew.
Translation was the term my son had coined for his own special gift, the ability to manipulate dimensions and travel between them. It was an ability that had once belonged only to the Illeniel She’Har, but it had been passed on to him through an inconceivable series of seeming coincidences. Coincidences planned by the Illeniel She’Har in their bid to preserve their species. He had inherited his magic from me, but while my last name came from Tyrion, neither I nor my ancestor possessed the Illeniel gift. No, my son had acquired the Illeniel gift from his mother, Penny. She had always had the gift of foresight, a gift that appeared to come from some unknown Illeniel ancestor.
In my son, who was also a human mage, the gift had finally come to fruition, granting him the ability to manipulate dimensions and to sometimes predict the future. He didn’t describe it as foretelling, though. His explanation was that he saw into closely related dimensions, dimensions advanced in time compared to our own. From that he was able to predict what would ‘probably’ happen in our own.
He also had little conscious control over that aspect of his ability. From what he had said, in times of stress or danger it allowed him to avoid attacks before they came, but he had never had prophetic visions like his mother had, or like the She’Har elders did.
“You’re sure?” I asked him.
Matthew nodded. “I am. It’s also the only thing that makes any sense. Growing giant trees and changing the landscape doesn’t seem rational. The land didn’t change. It’s been replaced. The jungle we are looking at came from somewhere else.”
“An’ what about Lancaster?” put in Chad.
Matthew shrugged, “If this is here, maybe it’s where this came from?”
My wife rephrased her question with more emphasis, “So it had to be Tyrion who did this, right?”
“As much as I’d like to blame him, he doesn’t have the Illeniel gift, and he probably can’t spellweave either,” I told them.
“Lyralliantha does,” said Matthew. “And so does Lynaralla, along with any other children the new She’Har have produced.”
“Then they have betrayed us,” concluded Gram. Penny’s face echoed the anger in his words.
Holding up a hand I cautioned, “We don’t know that yet. There’s no apparent reason for them to do something like this. It makes no sense.”
“Unless the She’Har planned this as a way…,” began Matthew.
“Matt!” I barked, a bit too sharply. “No more speculation for now. We need more facts.” I turned to the others, “I don’t want any of you d
iscussing this when the others get here, either. I’ll investigate the idea further when we return home.”
“Fuck that!” said Chad, spitting at the ground. “Lynaralla’s one of ‘em. Walter and Elaine are probably dead, an’ she could be a traitor. I say we make her tell us exactly what she knows.”
I gave him an imperious glare. “Master Grayson, you will do exactly as I have commanded.”
The archer held my gaze steadily, rebellion in his eyes, but after a time he eventually responded, “Fine—for now.”
Penny spoke up, “I don’t want to believe she has anything to do with this, but he has a point, Mort.”
Facing my wife, I put my back to the others before mouthing the words, ‘not now’.
After a second she added, “I agree, though. We should keep this quiet.”
A sigh of relief escaped my lips. I couldn’t have them descending into argument and accusations. My son had almost blown the entire thing wide open with his remark, and I already knew what he was thinking. What we were looking at could be the result of some long-hidden plan of the Illeniel She’Har. It was possible they had hidden a part of their grove, tucking it away in an extra-dimensional space. What we had found could be part of it, if there were Illeniel elders tucked in amidst the massive trees, or it could be some kind of side effect.
Either way, if it turned out the Illeniel She’Har had some hidden plan, the knowledge could spark a war. I wasn’t ready to allow rumors and speculation to start that war, not until I knew more. I sent a private thought directly to my son, Say no more of this, to anyone. If you have any ideas save them for my ears only.
He nodded, and then sent a reply, If this is something done by the Illeniel She’Har, why don’t we know about it?
Because the loshti Tyrion stole was tailored by them. Whatever their full plan was, they kept all knowledge of it from him, and by extension, his descendants, I answered.
We waited in silence after that, as everyone pondered their own thoughts. It would be another two hours before the soldiers arrived.
Chapter 15
Moira arrived first, her dragon Cassandra coming down in a long glide to land near us. An hour and a half later the horses could be heard and soon we were all together once again. Thankfully the others heeded my command, and no word of our prior speculation was brought up.
“Captain, pick twenty-five of your men to go with us under Sir Gram’s command. The other half will remain here with you as a reserve force. Lynaralla, Conall, and Moira, you will stay with them,” I ordered, announcing my plans.
Conall stood up in his stirrups, “But Father!...”
Penny cut him off, “Conall! If you want to be on any more military exercises, then you’d best learn to obey commands.”
None of the others dared protest after that.
Once I was sure I had their attention, I went on, “The rest of us, along with most of the dragons, will enter the forest. We will blaze a path and search for survivors. If possible, we will make our way to where Lancaster was, or where it should be. If things go badly, it will be the responsibility of those here to either haul our asses out of the fire, or fight a holding action while we retreat. Am I understood?”
Captain Draper saluted, “Yes, my lord!” Almost comically, Lynaralla saluted along with him, unaware of the fact that since she wasn’t technically my vassal, or part of the military, she wasn’t required to do so. A few of the men chuckled at her overly serious demeanor.
There’s no way she’s part of some plot or scheme, I thought silently.
We entered the forest with the three dragons leading the way, Layla, Zephyr, and Grace. Their massive forms created an easy path for the rest of us. The largest trees they avoided, but everything else, smaller trees, bushes, and underbrush, they trampled and tore through. Gram and five of the soldiers followed them on foot, while five took position on either side of us. The remaining ten men kept to our rear. Chad, Penny, Matthew, and I remained in the center. The horses remained with the reserve force as the terrain was too unpredictable.
Using such a wide formation wouldn’t have been possible in such thick growth, were it not for the wide path created by the dragons. With their help it was easy going, almost easy enough for us to have brought the horses, but the destruction they left in their wake included a vast amount of broken limbs and uprooted saplings, which would have made for treacherous footing.
Matthew and I kept our magesight trained on our surroundings, searching for some sign of Walter or Elaine, or any other survivors. From what we had heard, I doubted we would find any, and if the Prathions were alive, they might well be veiling themselves from even our senses. We could only hope that the incredible noise of the dragons tearing through the forest would alert them to our presence so that they would signal us in some way.
I detected no animals in our vicinity at all, other than small rodents and the occasional bird. Nothing like the monstrous bear-like creatures presented itself within my range. That might have been because of the dragons, though. The sound of their passing was incredible, and I could well imagine that any large predators with even an ounce of intelligence would be quickly heading in any direction but toward us. It was almost disappointing.
If anything did attack, though, it was bound to learn the error of its ways quickly enough. Dragons were not to be messed with. After an hour of traveling, stepping on and over broken limbs, I was convinced there would be no attack.
“I don’t like this,” muttered Chad, who walked beside me. Of our entire group, he had the least trouble with the unpredictable footing. He was at least as old as I was, but his feet were sure.
“If you say, ‘it’s too quiet’ I’ll laugh,” I replied. The noise of our passing was deafening. During the moments where the dragons did pause, it was quiet, but that was to be expected. The creatures making our path were predators large enough to scare away everything.
“Very funny,” he said sourly. “Nah, it’s not that. It’s these trees, the grass—all of it. I don’t recognize any of it.”
“That’s a pine,” I said, pointing at one of the larger trunks we were bypassing.
“Yeah, but what kind of pine?” he remarked. “There are dozens of different kinds, and this ain’t like any of the ones I know.” Bending over, he snatched up a leaf with an irregular star-shaped leaf, “An’ yeah, this is a hardwood, but what kind? I don’t know it.”
I had never taken him for a botanist, but that was the thing about the greying woodsman, he was full of surprises. People often dismissed him because of his rough phrases and uncouth demeanor, but underestimating him was a mistake. I knew for a fact he was just as sharp as his arrows.
“An’ every bit of it is too fucking old, too damn big,” he continued. “This is like a primeval forest. Trees don’t get that big unless they’ve been left alone for a really long-ass time.”
“What are you getting at?” I asked.
He sighed. “I’m a hunter. I spent my whole life in the woods, and in all that time, I knew I was the biggest, meanest thing there. Well, ‘cept maybe for a bear, but even they know to steer clear of humans. This place makes me feel small, an’ somethin’ tells me I ain’t the most dangerous animal in these woods.”
“At least we’re the smartest,” I said lightheartedly.
The veteran archer wasn’t amused. “Are we, Mordecai? We don’t know a damn thing about this place.”
“Well, if we aren’t the smartest, at least we brought the biggest with us,” I said, nodding toward the dragons.
“Bigger ain’t…,” he started to reply, and then chaos broke loose.
I felt it only a second before it happened, multiple flashes of aythar appearing around, and more crucially, below us. They weren’t the sort of flash you would see when a mage used his power, no, this was much more subdued, as though a host of living creatures had appeared where only inanimate dirt and soil had been before.
Two of Captain Draper’s men, Daniels and a fellow whose name I
didn’t know, vanished as a flurry of dirt flew upward. I could still see them with my magesight, struggling only a foot or two beneath the surface with monsters that had entirely too many legs. They had been dragged under.
At the same time, attacks came from both sides of our party. One man on either side was drawn under while a large number of the unknown beasts swarmed over the dragons.
All of this was merely the backdrop for what had my personal attention, though. The ground had shifted beneath me, and something with fangs, clawed insect-like legs, seized my legs. I was flat on my back and halfway underground before I fully registered what was happening. Matthew was in similar straits.
Dragons roared, and men screamed, but before I could help anyone else I had to do something about my own situation. Seconds later, as the initial shock passed, I struck out at the thing holding me with a powerful bludgeoning strike of pure aythar. The results were less than impressive. It shed aythar like a duck shed water. My power hit, but slid away, doing minimal damage to the creature, if any at all.
Simultaneously, I flailed with my arms, legs, anything that would move. That part was purely instinctive, and not very manly, when viewed from an objective standpoint. But it wasn’t a matter of thought, I was overwhelmed by the raw terror that anyone would feel at being seized by a giant man-eating spider.
Terror was an old friend of mine, though, and some part of my mind kept working, just not the part that managed kicking and screaming. Since my power was ineffective against the creature, I directed it at the ground instead, creating a rock-solid foundation beneath me to halt my descent. Then I used the earth like a fist, clenching it around the thing trying to bite through my greaves.
A short struggle ensued, but after a moment I was able to force my body and the spider’s apart, though my leg was bruised and twisted in the process. I opened the earth above my head and glorious sunlight spilled down on me, a welcome sight. Penny’s hand reached for me, but before I could take it, the thing beside me broke free, scrambling over me and surging toward her.
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