by Chris Africa
Of all Rehn’s creations,
none is greater than
those he has birthed:
Ades, who rules the deceased;
Ana, their protectress
Asa, who weighs the nature of man
And Fures, goddess of justice
Falise, doomed to her lover’s
friendship, brings her
children to the table:
Dulisa, dryad mother,
Thano, the scythe,
Besche, goddess of celebration
Sesh, bringer of balance.
Each in his place, each in her place,
Greatest of the gods.
Chassy had always wondered about the missing god of the dead—Erise, the only son of both Rehn and Falise, an evil god who had been banished to the underworld and now ruled over the wicked dead. What must it be like to spend eternity striving to escape and bring chaos to punish the living?
Shuddering, Chassy rested his hand on the smooth statue of Dulisa, patron goddess of all Waet Tree Village. It felt slightly warm, and he wondered what it must be like as a goddess, to live in this stone form for eternity. He felt safe knowing that she and her children protected him. As if in response to his thoughts, a dryad appeared in front of him, tall and slightly shimmering, her bark-colored skin almost blending into the trees. Her long hair was a tangle of leafy vines loaded with flowers, which flowed over her body like clothing. What was she doing on the Shelf, away from her trees? Chassy looked around, but she seemed to be alone.
"Look here!" the dryad commanded and Chassy’s eyes shifted back to her. Moons and shadows faded.
The dryad reached up and removed a slender silver chain from her forehead. On it dangled a perfectly round silver pendant that he hadn’t noticed before. Chassy suddenly recognized the pendant from the stone statue under his fingers. He looked from the apparition to the statue. The goddess herself stood in front of him. The stone now felt dead under his fingers. She was talking and moving, and she smelled... like fresh bark, leaves and berries, and crushed Waet bolls.
"Goddess!" Chassy fell to his knees. She smiled, and the whisper of Waet trees filled his mind. She held out her hand, offering him the pendant.
"Such wisdom as my Mother gives to me, I now give to you. Wear this, and you shall always know as much as you should. Wear this, and all the dryads the world across will bid you welcome. And you may call me in your time of need and I shall come."
Chassy looked down at the pendant, trying to wrap his mind around her words. When he looked back up, she had gone. Had she really been there? The pendant in his hand was proof. The unbelievably fine chain was as flexible as silk weave rope. The globe dangling from it flooded the shadows with its light.
"Like a tiny moon in my hand," he whispered.
Boy, was Nita ever going to be surprised!
"Tell no one..."
Chassy looked around, but there was no sign of the goddess. His enthusiasm faded just a little. It was almost impossible to keep secrets from Nita, she was so good at seeing through him. He put the pendant around his neck and tucked it deep in his shirt so at least it wasn't visible.
By the time Chassy got back to the inn, a small crowd of friends and neighbors had already gathered outside. They nodded to him or squeezed his arm in support as he passed, murmuring well wishes. Master Svarne had brought three horses from his stables. It looked like he had chosen some of his best mounts. His eyes were tight with worry, and Chassy knew Nita was like a daughter to him. Everyone involved in preparations was waiting inside, including Tuva, the baker's daughter, and Pookana, the herb woman. Uncle Ean was kicked back in front of the fire, smoking up the room with his stinky pipe.
The center of activity was the corner, where Lora was giving Nita and Andrev's packs a good going-through.
"Five more minutes, and I was going to send you off on your big adventure with a good whipping," Lora said, as she grabbed Chassy's pack and started sorting through it. "Well, at least you know how to follow directions. You'll be hot this time of year, you'll want to stuff that cloak in your saddlebags."
Chassy almost laughed when he noticed Pookana's hair, which was normally tied down with a scrap of fabric. Tonight, it stuck out in all directions, making her head look enormous. She tucked a wad of leaves into his hand. "The pink stuff is for cuts, make sure you keep it covered while it heals. If your lips start to swell or you get a rash after you eat something new, crush up some of those wide leaves and swallow them. And the ferny-looking one will help with an achy head or a tooth, but not a bellyache. And don't eat any berries that Andrev doesn't approve."
"Why not?" was all Chassy could get out.
"'Cause he's the only one that's read all my books, and you can't tell the difference between silly vine and poison oak, that's why." She patted him on the chest, right where the pendant hung, leaned in and whispered, "Some things as have power in them shouldn't be generally known."
He wasn't surprised that she knew about the pendant. Pookana often knew things she wasn't supposed to, without anyone telling her.
Andrev was also in the corner with one of the stable hands, poring over some parchments held down at the corners by lamps.
"What are you doing?" Chassy asked him.
"Planning our journey," Andrev said. He looked down his nose at Chassy. "Unless you know how to read maps and stars?"
Chassy shook his head. He had seen maps, and he liked looking at the stars, but he was pretty sure that wasn't what Andrev meant.
Andrev looked back down. "Then go play with Nita. I'm busy."
Chassy looked at Nita, who seemed to have recovered from her crying jag and was listening attentively to her father's instructions for some kind of stew made out of forest vegetables. He felt useless.
"You look lost, and you haven't even left yet." Mother put her arm around him and kissed him on the cheek.
"I just don't know how I fit in, is all. Nita knows how to cook and use a bow better than anyone, and Andrev knows... well, just about everything, from all those books he reads. And I'm just going to be—I don't know, carrying wood or something."
Mother laughed. "You're going to be more useful than the both of them together," she said. "When one of their cloaks gets torn, who do you suppose will fix it for them? And when someone has to climb a very tall tree to get your bearings, do you think Andrev or Nita will be half as capable as you? How about when you have to haggle with a merchant along the way?"
Chassy nodded grudgingly, then thought of something that made him smile. Who really wanted to cook anyway? And those maps were sure to keep Andrev out of the way for hours. He could live with that.
In another hour, they were ready to leave. Andrev stepped around nervously when his horse turned its head to look at him, while Nita was busy making friends with hers. Chassy patted his horse's neck and looked back at his parents. To his surprise, his father stepped forward with open arms.
"Do what you need to do, and come home safe," he said, embracing Chassy awkwardly. His mother added a tearful, lingering hug.
And then it was done. Chassy mounted his horse and followed Nita, who followed Andrev. The moons dangled in the sky, like the pendant nestled under his shirt.
6: The Journey Begins
In no time at all, the Langesrote came into Nita's view. The dividing line between the northern Blackwood and the groves, Langesrote ran the length of Ayzwind from Port Northvale to Heaven’s Point. Chassy's parents had expressly forbidden him from ever crossing that road, but Nita had never needed a prohibition to keep her out of the Blackwood. The village boys dared each other to do stupid things all the time, but girls were generally more sensible than boys.
Even in the brightest daylight, the edge of the woods appeared tangled and pitch black—not open and welcoming like the groves. The trees towered above, their branches drooping over the road in some areas. Wherever their shadows touched the ground, nothing grew, as though the very sun fled the mysterious darkness. She remembered from An
drev's map that further south the Langesrote actually divided the wood. She shivered at the thought of how scary it must be to travel through the middle, with blackness crowding on both sides. Then she remembered that they might be travelling through it, and the shiver intensified.
"We’ll travel north along the edge of the wood until we get to Orchard Vale. Then there is a well-traveled road through the wood down to Sunoa. There must be scores of travelers, so it should be safe." Andrev studied a small map in one hand. The other clutched the pommel of his saddle with white knuckles.
Nita rode even with Chassy, wishing she could hold his hand. Every since they were kids, he'd always protected her from the darkness just by holding her hand.
Andrev gazed up at the double moons. "We’ll travel tonight for as long as we can before stopping."
"How far to Orchard Vale?" Nita heard the tremble in her own voice and just managed to hold back tears.
"A decan and a half by trader’s measure," Andrev answered. "But we’ll have to keep going just about constantly, except for sleep, or we’ll never catch that elf. So we may gain some time."
As they stepped out onto the road, Nita looked back at the grove, glowing silvery and warm in the moonlight, and then to the other side of the road, at the towering black trees that seemed to suck the rays of the moons into their endless depths. She swallowed hard.
A magical amulet. A place called Death's End. Mysterious, scary prophecies from a strange creature from Across.
Andrev. Nita looked sideways at him. He wasn't the sort of brother to have a heart-to-heart conversation. He was more of a sulk-and-read-until-you-forget-about-it kind of guy. But Nita needed to talk.
"You know, you're my brother no matter who your father was," she said.
Andrev heeled his horse and rode out in front. She caught up with him.
Andrev pulled his horse to a stop, forcing Nita to stop quickly.
"There's something going on that no one told us, Nita. There's always something going on," he said. His voice sounded tight, like he was ready to explode. "Yesterday, I didn't know you were only my half sister and that my real father is dead. I—we—didn't know we were going to be sent to the other side of the world on a wizard's errand. But he did, that wizard. And I have some kind of dangerous power that no one knows about, not even me. So what else didn't anyone tell us? Do you have a power too? What about Chassy?"
"I don't know about that. Just because Mama never told us about your birth father doesn’t make everything a lie. Maybe she thought you would be happier not knowing," Nita said. "All I know for sure is that no one can make you be someone you're not."
"I've always been someone I don't want to be, you just didn't know it," Andrev muttered. "Let's keep moving."
Nita felt stung. What was that supposed to mean? Chassy caught up with her and gave her a sympathetic look.
They set off, clinging to the shadows along the edge of the trees as much as possible. Nita was afraid to bring up the subject again, thinking about Andrev's last words. Chassy didn't seem eager to talk either. Cold emanated from the wood, and now and then an inhuman screech blared from its depths, making her teeth ache. Exhaustion fell upon her while the moons were still high, but she could not have slept. The events of the evening replayed in her mind and ominous words of the Nydwon, punctuated occasionally by creepy sounds.
Time seemed sluggish as they rode along, and Nita became convinced that she was actually asleep. As the horizon began to brighten with a hint of sunrise, Andrev stopped.
"You both look like you're going to fall out of your saddles," he said, as if he had not also been leaning precariously. "It’s time we stopped."
Nita looked around. On their left, the wood stretched ahead of them for miles; on the right was a flat expanse of wild flowers punctuated by an occasional oak.
"Isn't this a little... exposed?" she said.
"Not here. We’ll go into the woods," Andrev said. He dismounted and led his horse into the heavy brush.
Chassy dismounted and waited for her. "Come on, Nita." He looked like he was going to fall asleep standing up.
"You both heard the sounds coming from the woods. I don’t think we should go in there." Nita hung back.
"Would you rather sleep out in the open, with no protection from bandits at all? We’ll be so close to the edge that you’ll be able to see your way out, but other travelers won’t notice you."
Nita dismounted and followed reluctantly. Chassy took her hand and give it a reassuring squeeze; she immediately felt better.
Andrev had turned to the left, behind a thick stand of shrubs.
"Looks like other travelers have stayed here—maybe even Lyear," he said, kicking at the remains of a small campfire.
Andrev tied the horses in far enough that Nita couldn't actually see them from where she was standing. They were too far away for Nita's comfort, but Andrev insisted that he didn't want to be kicked or trampled by them in the dark. Then they tossed down their packs and collapsed.
Well, sort of. Nita collapsed like Andrev and Chassy, but her mind wouldn't let her sleep right away. She silently wiped away the tears that collected on her face the minute the boys weren't watching. She wanted to be home, in her bed, with her family around her. Andrev was trying to prove something, and Chassy had always wanted to travel the world. They would never understand her homesickness, and she didn't intend to let them know about it.
What seemed like just a few minutes later, Nita woke stiff and sore, disoriented by the crunch of branches underneath her. She blinked several times in the nearly complete darkness before she realized where she was. She felt around her. Chassy was curled around his pack, his head resting on a rolled up cloth. Nita recognized it as the weaving from his room. Homesickness stabbed her again, and she wished she had brought her own. Andrev, who had been on the other side of her, was nowhere in sight. Her heart thumped. Where was her brother? She clearly remembered Andrev saying that they would be able to see their way out, but she could barely tell that there were trees in front of her.
"Andrev?" she whispered.
"Just checking the weather." Andrev’s voice came from behind. Relief washed over Nita. "Tell Chassy to pack up. We’ve slept far too late."
"It’s still dark. Can’t he sleep just a little longer?"
"It’s nearly noon," Andrev said. "You'll see when we get out of the trees."
Nita roused Chassy, and the two had a quick brunch of rolls and cheese, while Andrev read a book by candlelight. When they finally ducked out of the wood, the sunlight was momentarily blinding.
"I don’t see how a bandit could travel in these woods," Nita said. "There are no stars to follow at all. And the trees are so thick, they can't possibly use horses."
"If they actually live in these woods, they may know the trees as well as we know the grove," Chassy said.
"You can’t even see the trees to tell them apart," Andrev sneered. "They probably use a compass."
The gloriously sunny day buoyed Nita's spirits. She collected a sample of every flower she could reach from her horse, and Andrev kept them entertained by divulging irrelevant facts about the local plant life.
"This one here," he said, pointing to a prickly looking shrub with large yellow blossoms, "Makes a nice tea."
"If you don’t mind a few thorns," Nita added, sucking a finger.
"What’s this?" Chassy reached for a fluffy blossom of a long-stemmed plant with broad, glossy leaves.
"Don’t touch!" Andrev shouted, and Chassy jerked his hand back. "That one will give you a rash to run home about."
After that, Nita stopped picking flowers. Andrev's voice droned on, eventually running together in Nita’s mind until she couldn’t remember even one of the names he had said. Chassy yawned; he was obviously bored, too.
"Andrev," Nita asked. "What do you think the Nydwon meant about all those prophecies? I've been turning the words over in my head, but I can't make heads or tails of anything she said. Mine seems the simplest
—I have a gem for a dying enemy. But if I'm going to have many enemies, how do I know which one? And how do I use it?"
Andrev snorted. "I think it's all nonsense. My power is an abomination? What power is that?"
"Mine sounds just silly," Chassy agreed. "My hope 'is in the trees and carried as ash on the wind.' Does that even mean anything? Does that mean my hope is dust?"
"I think you should take this more seriously," Nita argued.
"Nita, if these prophecies are real, they are going to happen whether or not we understand them. All the writings about prophecies speak of their mysterious and immutable nature," Andrev said. "Besides, by the time we retrieve that amulet, everything will be settled, right?"
Nita couldn't disagree with his reasoning, but she didn't understand how she would play her role properly if she didn't know what to do with the gem.
Andrev pushed them relentlessly, from sunup to well after dark. Each night they sheltered in the Blackwood, waking the following morning to his call, sore and tired. Despite the perfect darkness of the wood, he seemed to know when the sun’s rays were fresh on the horizon. If it hadn’t been for his frugal, worrying nature, they would have run out of provisions long before reaching the village. Lyear was nowhere in sight.
By the time Orchard Vale came into view after almost ten days, Nita was ready to drop on the spot. Chassy and Andrev looked to be not far behind. Nevertheless, spying the village renewed their energy, and they managed to drag themselves to the gates by late afternoon.
7: Orchard Vale
Orchard Vale’s timbered walls were driven deep into the ground and lashed together with some sort of hemp. It towered above them, three times higher than Chassy was tall. He tried to imagine the height of the original forest that had made these walls. A reinforced gatehouse arched over the road leading into the city. A lone farmer with a team of six horses drove his empty cart out of the gate as they approached, tipping his hat to them as he passed.