Pierait looked at his dying father and felt an instance of pity.
“Make peace with my mother when you see her. She would never have entered death without finding a way to wait for you,” Pierait said softly, using the Void to end his father quickly, the antimatter leaving no trace of him behind. It was moments like these where Rienna saw the wild card. Logic would say that his mother was erased, love and hope would say she waited for her true love. Pierait was no program.
The others had not heard the exchange between them but they waited close to the Tree of Life. Finn had told them he would explain what had happened once Pierait was able to join them. Pierait had not been gone long at all and Rienna looked at him with concern.
“Pierait? You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Rienna said, then laughed and shook her head at his confusion. “I mean you look shocked. Are you okay?”
Pierait nodded. “I was saying goodbye to my father,” he stated simply.
Rienna’s face cringed sadly. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know he was here,” she apologized guiltily.
“I never knew my father, Rienna, and he made sure of that,” Pierait shrugged and looked at the Reishefolk man. “You had something to tell us, sir.”
Finn smiled brightly and nodded. “Finn, if you will. And I’ve been introduced to all of you so I’ll get right into it.”
After the Summer Festival, Finn had not awoken until the next afternoon, completely naked and piled in laughing bunny girls. The field that had been full of tables and lanterns the day before had already been cleaned up by the hard-working Bryfolk and the field was fairly private but for the naked giggling Bryfolk women still crowded around him. Once he had gotten up and found his clothes, Finn had decided it was time to move on from the Bryfolk Hole, but the Bryfolk had talked him into a last binge of Swoonfruit and he had given in.
Rather than heading northwest towards Daunting Peaks, the Reishefolk-founded city he was born in, he had ended up traveling northeast in a drunken revelry towards an area that had not been populated in years—a series of abandoned towns and cities that most dared never travel to. Most of his companions had been spooked out of not traveling with him so he ended up with a couple of brave Bryfolk men as they approached the eastern shoreline of Vieres. The others had not even bothered to say they were leaving, just left in the night without warning.
A former port city by the name of Noisulli was still very beautiful despite having been empty for decades. Moss draped from buildings and ivy clogged unused doorways. Finn, still drunk on the dwindling supply of Swoonfruit they carried, spotted a rather pristine ship sitting untouched in the ruins of the harbor and his curiosity had led him to find the men who had to be here to have landed it. Finn and his Bryfolk friends (the names he regretfully couldn’t remember) searched everywhere but there was no sign of anyone.
The buildings were clogged with creepy crawlies and cobwebs and the night was approaching before they decided the search was futile and decided to board the ship and take their rest there. Finn’s friends were still inebriated enough to not care and the water on the ocean here was so still, it didn’t unnerve them anyway. The Bryfolk had decided to curl up on the deck (they had no love of ships or water) and Finn took up a spot on the rather roomy crow’s nest (yes, his friends had a great time of poking fun at that). At first, they had trouble sleeping; the wind was making unhinged doors creak and the wind howled like restless ghouls, but travel fatigue and imbibing on spirits had lulled them off eventually.
When Finn woke up, he had been shocked to feel the rush of air and the rock of the ship and noticed it was sailing. He had looked down in disbelief and the Bryfolk that had left him were all on board, his other two friends nowhere in sight though. He had called down to the Bryfolk but they had not answered and as he looked around his breath caught in terror as he saw the bodies of his two friends dangling bloodlessly from the far mast. In his panic, Finn made to fly away but a manacle about his ankle anchored him to the nest. He looked down again and could see that the things below were not exactly his friends anymore; he saw the fatal wounds left on their animated corpses—slit throats, severed spinal columns, faces bloated from drowning. It was then that Finn had realized that the land they had traveled through was deserted for a reason; this area had become a place of wraiths, vengeful spirits that recruited the dead to persecute the living. Like the Barren Lands of Stoneweld, there was a place on Vieres slowly being claimed by the dead and he had been unfortunate enough to discover the folly.
Finn thought for sure that he was doomed to meet the same fate as his friends and might have surely cut off his own foot to free himself if he had not left the weapons with his friends that evening. He used his talons to scrape at the thinnest parts of the metal that imprisoned him but he was gripped by horror as he heard the groans of his Bryfolk friends, waking as the Undead and undoing their binding to crawl over the masts towards him. Finn was so frantic to be free as the wraiths made their way towards him that he had worn away his talons to where his nail beds bled steadily. The cold dead hand of his former friend had closed over his wrist and he had reeled back, squawking like a bird (a thing he tried hard not to do in any other circumstance) and as he had leaned back against the railing around the crow’s nest, it had splintered and he started to fall, sure that his foot would be torn off as his weight sent him over the edge.
He had been shocked when his scraping had proved fruitful and the manacle broke away but he had little time to react and correct his fall to fly to safety. He had been so close to hitting deck by the time he caught lift on the wind and he had not gotten clear without one of the wraiths below ripping out a bloody chunks of feathers from his wing. Finn could not see land anywhere in sight, but he was relieved to be free of the horror he was sure would be his end that he did not care if he had to fly until the ocean swallowed his exhausted body.
Finn had flown all that night and well into the next day, faster than he had ever flown in his life, terrified that there was no land in sight. The shoals of Southern Vieres had been visible when he had abandoned ship but rather than flying west, he had flown south in a panic, hoping the Stoneweld continent wasn’t far. He had never flown so long in his life and was ready to tumble into the ocean when on the distant horizon he could see the towering Tree of Life, calling to him like the beacon of a lighthouse. He did not know if he could make the journey, even with hope making him more determined, but he kept his eye on the Tree and nothing else and he had tumbled onto the very edge of the shore, short of the tree but on land nonetheless. His ankle was clearly broken and his wing was infected where the wraith had torn at it, his body throbbed from overuse, but he wept and hugged the ground gratefully. He could see the petrified remains of trees shaped like women and wept for them too as sleep stole over him.
When Finn woke up, he was confused again—he had been in a Swoonfruit stupor for so long and the terror he had had to escape from leading to an escape that almost claimed his life as well. When he woke, his ankle was wrapped and clean and not at all painful and his wing was patched with a scented-herb poultice, the down of new growth already poking through. He was lying in a hammock of vines and deep in this serene forest, closer to the Tree of Life. He was ravenous when he saw a wooden bowl filled with delicious fruits and a wooden tankard of sweet water. He almost choked while wolfing them down and had to do his best to pace himself. He looked around him as he finished and was shocked to see that a great deal of the woman-shaped trees were watching him. One stepped forward slowly and held out her hands in a gesture of harmlessness. When she spoke, her mouth did not move but the voice rang in his head.
“Reishefolk, you are safe here. Yggdrassl had been waiting for you to come. Your journey has been hard and we hate to burden you but the Mother is in trouble and you have been chosen to aid us here. We have sped along your healing with our magic to prepare you,” the dryad explained liquidly in his head.
Finn spoke aloud, his voice croaking a little as he tested it but t
he fruit and water had healed its rasp and dryness so it wasn’t difficult. “You’re dryads, right? Spirits of tree magic?” he asked, flexing his limbs and wings slowly at first, but found they were right and he actually felt healthier than ever, leaping out of the hammock and stretching gratefully. “I am thankful for your care and I would not turn down your request.”
The dryads then told Finn about the Tree being revived by the humans, how grateful Yggdrassl was to be able to wake from years of pain she was sure would be her end. It was not enough to wake her though, and she would hear them plotting to force her to bear fruit again, a fruit that once gave extended life and youth to humans. Yggdrassl was already bearing fruit and she used her magic to hide it from the humans; it had been that very fruit that they had given to Finn to heal him. Yggdrassl needed Finn to come close enough to her to accept her gifts; he would be protected from the mages while they conversed and the dryads would aid him once the mages attacked.
Finn was nervous but he did as they asked and he had to be stealthy to come close enough to Yggdrassl’s roots to meet with her. Once he was close enough, the snow-white roots of the Tree snaked up. When he touched them, he was transported directly into her glowing canopy, guarded by her magic.
Finn had been in awe of this place—he could see pale green lights flying about here and the white limbs and branches were elegant and delicate yet not weak or breakable. The leaves themselves were even more amazing up close; they were shaped like hands, great lavender hands with glowing pulsing orange veins. They rustled and waved as if caressed by a light breeze. Once he had explored enough, the gentle matronly voice of the Tree spoke inside of his mind.
“I have never been grander, my chosen child, but the elementals’ powers are infused in me and mine wholly; I do not serve the elementals as I am a power in my own right. You see the wind in my leaves, the light and fire coloring them, the water is mine to give to my faithful dryads—even the shadows allow me to hide them, but I have no love for Erised, or any of them for that matter. I am Yggdrassl, the Tree of Life, and I do not borrow human forms to speak with humans. When the old gods forgot my role and punished my trees, I had my fill of their machinations and waited patiently until my powers stood strong on their own. I had belonged to the earth once, but the earth thought of my kind as a tool of the earth and we had our own unique powers. You will not find my gifts in any book, my child; you are the first to receive them, the powers of Life, as all life originated from plants. I cannot be summoned but I grant you my powers without condition or angles—I only ask that you protect your element and represent Life. Death and shadows fill too many pockets on this world and you may be needed to heal the damage. Everywhere there are trees, you have an army ready to serve you. The dryads are not afraid to die for the cause.”
“I owe you my life, Mother; I am happy to do as such,” Finn did not hesitate to tell her.
Yggdrassl’s dewy branches started to glow and the magic gathered around him. The dew hardened into a prismatic sort of armor and a sprig of wood sat in a dagger-sized sheathe at his hip. As he drew it, it grew and twisted rapidly into a dimly glowing long bow of amazingly lightweight. As he drew it back into the sheath, it quickly took on its original form. A quiver of glowing arrows rested in a quiver on his back, cleverly crafted to fit around his wings without becoming a nuisance.
“Just tap that bow or the arrows on any tree to awaken the spirits within them to your aid. It is deadly to your enemies, but it will not damage living wood,” Yggdrassl explained. “My dryads are fighting for you now; do not be surprised—they are borrowing your form to protect you.”
Once Finn reached that point in the story, they had all known what happened from there. Rienna added that they had been led further in, possibly to help as well and Finn had not disagreed.
Finn looked at Pierait at any case. “I am truly sorry your father was among them, Pierait. Whether or not you knew him, he was still your blood and we should never have to be party to such things.”
Pierait nodded but did not seem bothered one way or the other. He looked around at the surrounding area and then at his companions. “I am going to clean this place up so we can camp here for the night,” he explained as his glowing void came forth and he started to clean up the corpses left behind. It was a disturbing sight watching the green fog drink the bodies from existence. The void did not really take up space like souls seemed to, just swallowed it infinitely. Once might ask where it went, but it wasn’t physical. It wasn’t exactly ‘there’ at all, it just was. Rienna remembered him referring to the fish that way. Rather than examining possibilities, things were or they weren’t and the Void was the same.
Finn added, “The Mother will keep us protected against visitors so we will not need a watch; we should take this time to get some good rest. She rewards you with her fruit and sweet water, so take in your fill. She will lead us out when we are ready.”
The legends said that the fruit could prolong life but there was an unspoken truth that hung over them. All the fruit in the world did not prevent the inevitable.
Chapter 15: Reunion and Separation
Rienna, Ashe, Dinsch, Krose, Finn, Melchior, and Pierait took that evening to regale each other with stories of their journeys and even rehash some old fond memories. To Rienna’s horror and thanks to Finn, it was now common knowledge amongst them that her and Krose had that tryst in the Bryfolk Hole. Melchior had been shocked but slapped her on the back and congratulated her, but other than the ever-unaffected Pierait, the others had already known by this point or had suspicions. Verity had warned them that her name had meant ‘truth’ for a reason and if they wanted to pick on Rienna, she would be happy to enlighten the group on their pasts. This seemed to end the spotlight on that issue and they had taken to talking about some of their past skirmishes instead. Rienna had been happy to join in then. She told them about a time that Seije had to rescue the princess’s horse from a feral kitten.
Their next stop was looking to be a natural fortress of a trading city called Mythec and Melchior told them it was both the rendezvous point and a vast city that had managed to stay out of Myceum’s radar. He told them this was in great part to a powerful old magician with a grudge against Myceum. He hardly had the power to march on such a powerful city so he had dedicated his part to create a city on Stoneweld that could someday gather the forces that could tear it down someday. No one liked to pass through that gap in the mountains as it would only lead to Uzhuak Forest and most people would rather reach the east by ascending the Walk of Respite and swinging around the edge of Cyryl desert.
It made more sense to Rienna where Melchior might have begun to build alliances and networks. Belias had been naturally charming and could convince anyone to join his cause, but she hadn’t thought Melchior had it in him. The man was too blunt, too impulsive. If she were being fair though, she would admit that his approach to people had a certain magnetism too. Had he anticipated from the first that something was not right about his invitation? Rienna might have been too naïve to think of that herself, just counting her blessings for the generous offer, and wondered what sort of life made him prepare so well for the very worst that could happen. He was 13 when he came to Ersenais, already a scrappy swordsman. He had fended for himself after watching his family killed, she knew that, but had he really spent all that time away from civilization? 16 years old was the age he finally spoke to her and before then, she might hear the occasion whisper of the tattooed boy having been raised by wolves. Completely ridiculous of course, but he wasn’t civilized either. The tribes lived in the wilds their entire lives, but as a group. It blew her mind that a child was equipped to do it alone.
When they woke the next morning, Ashe had entered the building (in the mage’s camp) that Rienna and Verity had chosen with a frown on his face.
“Have you seen Pierait? No one can find him this morning,” Ashe asked, his face still puffy with sleep and his hair mussed.
They all decided to run a cursory
search for him, but Rienna had already had a sinking feeling in her gut about this. When they all gathered with no good news, Rienna had sighed and nodded, putting on the best smile that she could manage.
“Our purposes are no longer the same. While we gather to go against our enemy and maybe our deaths, Pierait must have learned something about the Wellspring and the thing he must do before he meets death. He talked to his father and it must have lead him somewhere. He had warned me before in many subtle ways that this was fate and I am grateful he was here with us as long as he was. I just wish that we were able to journey with him to aid him, but then where he is going may be no place for those with souls,” Rienna said, her eyes wet but not crying. She had not thought she would miss the unsettling man so much, but she surprised herself. She didn’t like separating from those she called her friends. Unless it was Melchior, but she still didn’t quite wish him ill. She just wished he would stop crawling under her skin and making her itch all the time.
Rienna thought about Pierait and said a silent prayer to the old gods that he find what he was looking for. In truth, they were all a little relieved he left. If he were to fail, the Barren Lands would be a safer place to become a Fury. After hearing all of Ashe’s theories, she was beginning to think that they might be drawn to the evil of that place anyway.
Once they had reached Mythec, they were amazed to see the armies that had gathered here and Melchior was visibly relieved that so many had come to stand against Myceum. They had been able to gather ahead of time by traveling uninhibited along the Walk of Respite in small inconspicuous groups. Mythec was a strange sort of city that could see into the hearts of men and would not even be visible to those who sympathized with Myceum. Those walking towards it would see nothing and would be transported without knowing to the other side if they tried to pass through it. Not a one of them wasn’t awed at how much power would be needed to make that happen.
The Truth about Heroes: Complete Trilogy (Heroes Trilogy) Page 26