The Wizard's Sword (Nine Worlds of Mirrortac Book 1)

by Paul Vanderloos

  ‘Careful,’ said Yenic. ‘We must nought disturb the glow creatures or they may all go out.’

  The glow creatures and the size of the huge chamber also fascinated many of the mature and older erfins. To Mirrortac’s right was the stone bridge just as Ni-Do had told him, and the column descending to the dark pool below. The sound of a waterfall could be heard with a soft mist rising from the pool at its opposite end. They marched along the ledge then across the stone bridge to the central column where rough steps led them down. Many erfins crawled across the bridge, frightened of the great drop into the seeming nothingness below. Even Mirrortac had to take a breath as he negotiated his way across stone that in places was no wider than his body.

  The steps were steep, winding in a spiral around the central column of pale stone. And as they descended, the air became quite warm and stuffy. A peculiar scent of earth and green things wafted up from an invisible gap in the darkness below then was lost in the rising mist of the waterfall which now could be seen spraying out from a crevice in the rock wall opposite. Mirrortac could discern shimmering rings of water as he descended nearer the pool. The stone steps leveled out and finally he was walking on sand alongside the shore of the pool. Large fawn coloured rodents scampered away at his approach, disappearing into the shadows of the great chamber.

  Mirrortac now scanned the reaches of the chamber for the narrow archway of which Ni-Do had spoken, and found it after passing around another large stone column hidden in the dark. Daylight filtered through the archway, showing the way into another large chamber that was still warmer than the first. The earth in the chamber was dry and warm and a small stream issued out of a spring and flowed out towards an opening to the exterior. All the erfins were astounded by the huge size of the chamber and the warmth like that of the Season of Luma in Eol. The scent of green things was now overwhelming, arousing the curiosity of the younger ones who wanted to see what was outside. Mirrortac shouted a caution to them, forbidding anyone to go outside until he had scouted it to see that all was safe.

  Mirrortac approached the opening and looked out. He was immediately astounded at what he saw - a gigantic forest unlike anything he had known in Eol. The waters of the cavern fed into a stream that gurgled through a forest of giant trees. Enormous vines and plants of many exotic and alien kinds laced in among the trees that towered ten times taller than the highest trees in Eol. Beyond the lofty canopy of emerald leaves, a grey mass of cloud churned and boiled. Lightning streaked and crackled into the still warm air; the sound of it booming off the crags and high cliffs of Mateote. Mirrortac peered up the sheer rock, astonished at its height. The cliffs rose up and vanished into the cloudbank at what must have been a moonith in elevation, far higher than the full reach of Mateote on the side of Eol. Flanking the mountain, the forest was filled with a heavy moist air, laden with an ominous and darkling presence.

  Returning to the cave, he was intercepted by Witherelle. ‘Have you told Yenic of your mission?’ he said, somewhat sternly.

  ‘I shall tell her this night,’ said Mirrortac.

  ‘Nay ... this night you must already be in the forest. There is nought time to waste.’

  Mirrortac felt his stomach tighten with tension. ‘Does Ni-Do say this?’

  Witherelle bent his head nearer. ‘I know it as much as Ni-Do has said it.’

  Mirrortac bowed to the priest, weighed down by duty but torn by the need to leave his family. ‘I hope that this will nought take long,’ he looked at the priest who smiled back awkwardly.

  He left him and strode heavily towards his wife and the laughter of his two she-erfin children. He nuzzled them and stroked Yenic’s hair with the back of his fingers. Noticing his sullen mood, her smile faded.

  ‘You are going somewhere ... into the forest aren’t you?’ She anticipated what he was about to say.

  He nodded. ‘Yea. I have been called upon a grave matter...’he began, and then started to tell her all about his meetings with Ni-Do and Witherelle, and of the sword. Yenic listened with incredulous ears yet trusted the truth of his incredible tale. When he had finished, they embraced for a long time. Thee children quizzed him on why he had to go and cried. At last, Mirrortac forced himself away and a brave Yenic brushed away her tears as she farewelled her husband into the unknown forbidding forest. Witherelle assured the erfin as he left the cave that he would take care of the people. Mirrortac repeated Ni-Do’s caution to stay away from the forest stream and not to venture out too far. Witherelle agreed to uphold the command then nuzzled his subject with a final farewell.

  Chapter 3 – The Forest

  Damp soil clung to the pads of Mirrortac’s feet as he stepped forward under the umbrella of the forest. Moisture hung in the air and condensed on the shining leathery leaves of the trees. As there was no defined path, Mirrortac stayed close to the stream, using it as a guide to explore this green world. The forest floor was littered with half decayed leaves, branches and other pieces of vegetation. The wandering roots of trees broke out of the ground in lumps and nodules and he had to watch the ground at every step should he be tripped up. Smaller plants and young trees grew up in patches where light had penetrated through the canopy above. Vines crept up the trees like caterpillars, circling the trunks up into the clutter of branches. He arched his neck back and peered upwards towards the roof of the forest. The canopy lay far above him, obscured in a tangle of vines and leaves. He could see orchids and the shadows of small creatures as they scampered along branches. He turned his attention back to the ground. The reek of decaying vegetation pervaded the air and for a time, he could only hear the murmur of water as it gurgled and bobbled down the stream.

  Mirrortac wiggled his ears in every direction, straining for the sound of animal activity. Only a few short erfin-lengths ahead, a leaf rustled as something brushed past. The erfin noticed the sound, slinking down low as he stalked forward with the silence of an experienced hunter. The scent of a small creature excited his nostrils. His senses keened. He took cover under a small bush and watched carefully for movement ahead. A large rodent, like the ones he had seen in the cave, appeared in a clearing in front of him. In the daylight the animal was a smudgy yellow like the colouring of the clay near the stream. It sniffed and prodded the earth with its whiskery nose, shoveling up insects and bits of vegetation that had not yet begun to decay. He watched with patience as the rodent nuzzled its way across the clearing towards him. He flexed himself for the lunge, rolling his shoulders up and down with nervous expectation. The rodent halted in its foraging and threw up its nose, twitching it with urgent suspicion. He burst into the clearing with a lightning movement, giving the rodent no time to escape, and seized it with both hands, sinking his claws into its neck and bleeding the creature to death. He ate it on the spot, then as was the erfin custom, curled himself up under a bush and slept.

  He awoke surrounded by the dark of a deep forest night. He could hear the rustle of numerous night creatures as they scrabbled about the foliage and vines above and around him. A pair of glowing eyes winked at him from somewhere up in the trees, scrutinising him for a few moments before resuming whatever activity it had planned. He stared into the darkness for a time before his eyes finally adjusted, focussing on the shapes of the trees and the pattern of leaves around him. Night was no barrier to an erfin but at the edge of his thoughts there was still the fear of the nite-wolves and the unknown predators that may be roaming this forest. The vivid memory of his confrontation with the wolves came back to haunt him, filling his mind with the sight of their flaming eyes and the sound of their terrible growls. Mirrortac shivered despite the warmth.

  As his eyes adjusted further, he caught sight of something large and slimy that was lying on the ground near him. The thing seemed to be some kind of gigantic leech and it made horrid sucking sounds as it slid towards him. He backed away as the leech crawled onwards, lifting its black head at him in readiness to attack. He began to feel anxious and made a movement to get away. The leech suddenly le
apt up and latched on to his leg, grasping through the fur and biting into his skin. Frantically he withdrew his sword and slashed through the soft flesh of the leech, making a clean cut through its body and decapitating it. The leech’s writhing body slumped to the ground but its head stayed firmly clamped to his leg, resisting all efforts to detach it. With growing alarm and amazement, he watched as the gaping wounds on the head and the body of the leech healed and closed up, forming into new animals - the head growing a new body while the body grew a new head. He limped out into the forest, dragging one leech behind him while being pursued by the second. He felt the surge of his own blood being drawn into the animal, which grew larger with each throb of his heart.

  Running and limping, he tugged vainly at the leech but it held fast. Stumbling, he struggled from tree to tree, feeling steadily weaker as his lifeblood drained out of him. The second leech squirmed and leapt along in pursuit, coming ever closer to him as his pace slowed. In a daze he tripped over a large buttress root and fell to the ground with a heavy thud, giving the other leech the opportunity it needed to catch him up. It leapt clear of the root and latched onto his side, losing little time to pinch through his skin and start to drink his blood.

  His energy was waning fast. He was too weak to stand up. Memories flashed through his mind, reeling past in a series of images. Suddenly, he saw the vision of Ni-Do and heard him repeat a strange command in the words of some alien tongue. Mirrortac formed the sounds with his lips, rasping out each word in his delirium.

  ‘Be ... Yarg ... De ... Har ... gur,’ he whispered.

  A squeal escaped from out of the giant leeches and for a moment, they halted in their drinking.

  Mirrortac repeated the command. ‘Be Yarg De Hargur!’ he cried in a hoarse voice.

  The leeches squealed again and released their hold, acting for all as though they had been smitten. Realising the occult power of these words, he repeated the command, forcing the leeches to abandon him and retreat to the stream.

  With failing strength, He dragged himself as far from the stream as possible and into the relative safety of a low overhang of vines. His great loss of blood caused him to feel faint and it was an effort to remain conscious. Near him was the trunk of a long fallen tree, supporting a rich growth of fungi. A small plant, just an erfin-length high, grew out of the compost of leaves and vegetation matter that had accumulated in a hollow of the dead tree and the sweet aroma of its fruit cleared the cloudiness in the erfin’s head. Mirrortac clung to the hope that if he could pick some of this fruit; he may have enough energy to go on. He crawled over to it and plucked the plump red berries, suspending one of the berries in his mouth. He bit into the skin of the berry, releasing a tiny droplet of juice. The sharp sweet tang of it tingled inside his mouth and warmed his throat as it made its way down. He immediately craved for more of the berries and threw them into his mouth in handfuls. The sweet juice excited his taste buds and began to clear his head. He chewed up more handfuls of the berries, rolling them around his tongue with gusto and swallowing them as fast as he could grab another handful. He could feel his strength being restored but the eating binge could not be stopped. He gobbled up more and more of the berries until he felt himself overtaken by a strange dreaminess and euphoria. The small tree was soon picked bare of all its fruit but he was not satisfied and he started looking around for more of the plants.

  Energy restored and with single-minded purpose, Mirrortac set off into the forest, stepping easily now and searching the vegetation around him for a sign of the tasty berries. He pressed further into the forest and further from the stream. A flapping of wings was heard overhead and in the spaces between the trees, a large shadow glided across and landed into the foliage with a crash. Eyes looked down at him, and the creature bearing them grunted. But Mirrortac was more intent on finding more of the berries than to speculate on what creature followed his progress. He pressed on with reckless abandon, pushing aside small trees in his path. High up within the depths of the trees the unseen creatures grunted, then chattered among themselves in a sound like laughter, their harsh voices echoing through the still night air.

  Suddenly a space above him lit up in an iridescence of many colours and fluttered down to settle in a low plant, illuminating a cluster of red berries. He grinned at the sight of the berries and bounced up to them to pick some but as he came closer to them, he was distracted by the source of the light. There, attached to the coloured glow, was a bird of exquisite beauty, so beautiful that although birds were a favourite delicacy for erfins, Mirrortac did not have the heart to eat it. The iridescence pulsed out from the long flamboyant tail feathers of the tiny bird, spreading a soft luminescence over the pink feathers covering its body and the tufted crown of its head. Its liquid blue eyes glinted and winked up at the erfin before the bird flew off to a perch in a branch above where another, lacking iridescence, joined it.

  He reached for the fruit but stopped again when he heard the sound of the birdcall above him. A lilting liquid birdsong snapped the air with a chime of melody sweeter than the taste of the berry it had fed upon. Mirrortac was uplifted by the resonance of its song. A peculiar euphoria took root in his heart and rippled up through his body in a tingling rush that danced through every nerve; every part of his being. There was something inside of him that seemed to pulse up and out of him, reaching for the lure of the melody that sprang from the tiny throat of the bird. Among the shadows of the overhanging branches, the miniature rainbow danced to and fro. The bird’s love song called out to the night and enveloped it in its warmth and Mirrortac watched and listened in wonderment, witnessing the love-dance until its culmination when the bird flew deeper into the forest followed by its new mate.

  For a few long moments, Mirrortac stared after the bird, hoping it would return. When it didn’t, he turned and glanced back at the plant with its sweet intoxicating fruit and suddenly felt very tired. The craving had left him and all he wanted to do now was to sleep. Thus, nestling under the plant, he bedded down and was asleep in moments.

  Mirrortac did not know what time of day it was when he awoke but as he looked above him, he recognised the familiar berries as they dangled over his head. The congealed blood on his leg and side reminded him of the reality of the night before, a night that brought him horror, near death and euphoria. He grabbed a handful of the berries and cast them into his mouth. Their taste was so bitter that he promptly spat them out again. ‘This must not be the same fruit,’ he muttered, coughing out the last bitter fragments remaining in his mouth. He looked into the branches; half expecting to see the beautiful pink bird, but instead saw only damp leaves. Somewhere beyond the green canopy an eternal storm rumbled, the sound of it rolling from one end of the forest to the other.

  He rose to his feet, stretched and yawned. A crack of thunder shredded the clouds above, releasing the rain in large heavy droplets that penetrated to the branches directly above before dispersing into a mist of sprinkles over him. His fur was soon wet and uncomfortable, making him feel miserable. He hoped that if he continued far enough into the forest he would eventually emerge into the open where it would be dry and more hospitable. The constant fall of mist droplets urged him onward and he loped through the random pathways between the giant trees. The rain fell steadily throughout the day as he marched onwards into a forest to which there seemed no end.

  The nature of the forest changed little - the vines, the giant trees, the lush green of moist emerald leaves melted into a vague uniformity, insinuating its rainforest odours into every pore of the erfin’s body. Mirrortac pressed on, hoping that he would soon find the land of mists and waters of which Ni-Do had spoken. He preyed on the odd rodent that chanced upon his path, keeping his energy up. The density of the forest gradually thickened: trees began to grow in clusters closer together, forming a thick scrub which slowed his pace as he pushed his way through the tangle of vines and branches, using his sword at times to slash away at stubborn growth. There were also more insects now, beetles
with fire in their tails, dragonflies and numerous gnats that swirled around in clouds, stinging and biting at the exposed vulnerable parts of his face. The hum of the insects rose up into a screeching din and the stench of stagnant water drenched the still warm air. Mirrortac decided to change direction, trying to avoid the unpleasant scrub and annoying insects.

  After travelling for a time in the new direction, he heard a strange buzzing above him and looking up, saw an odd creature that floated in the air like a bubble. The creature looked like a fish that hung upside-down in the air, its gaping mouth whisking up insects as it floated in hops and heaving blows, filling and emptying its bubble-like abdomen. The seemingly harmless creature was a godsend, gobbling up the annoying gnats that whirled around his head. Mirrortac was delighted at the appearance of the creature, which was soon joined by a flock of others of its kind, all sucking and blowing their way among the swarms of insects. Impressed by his new protectors, he forged on through the forest, accompanied by an ever increasing flock of the creatures.