by Sylvan Scott
“What did you do to him?” With a shout, Karl swung Anthony’s hockey stick at the naiad. The wood struck Meripone at the shoulder with a splash. It passed through her, her body changing from flesh to water to flesh again in the stick’s wake. Karl stumbled forward, off-balance. Meripone whirled on him.
“You dare strike me?”
Karl had stumbled into the water at the pool’s edge. The shallow waves around his feet didn’t radiate far. Instead, they doubled back, grew in size, and surged upwards like tentacles, writhing and coiling about his legs. Despite their liquid nature, they gripped him like boa constrictors. He barely kept from falling over and swung the hockey stick at the water surging around his ankles. The wooden weapon passed through the semi-solid water with ease, only sporadically weakening its grasp.
Quissit reacted by leaping to the top of a shoreline boulder. He hurled his thick-bladed dagger at the water spirit’s head. Like the hockey stick, it passed harmlessly through her. She shot him a glance and a tendril of water erupted from the water to coil around him, pulling him into the pool with a splash. He struggled as the water enveloped him.
Meripone surged closer to Karl. Behind her, the flow of water down the falls increased three-fold, rising from a trickle to a low roar.
“Meripone! Meripone: you’ll wake Auntie Willow!” Rosa’s nervous voice barely rose over the din of rushing water. “Meripone!”
The naiad did not speak. Instead, she gestured at the small dryad. Rosa fell forward, gasping. The petals on her head and shoulders faded and began to wilt as water was drawn from her body.
“Meripone: please! What … what have I … done?”
Meripone smiled. “Everything I asked,” she said.
The bank, covered with moss and wet summer grass, erupted.
Roots exploded outwards like striking snakes, piercing Meripone’s body. The naiad cried out in surprise and pain. Shoots and runners coiled into the pond and twisted over its floor. Meripone turned to face the old willow tree on the bank, raising her hands in a dramatic gesture. But rather than draw forth the tree’s lifeblood, there was no effect. Instead, the exact opposite seemed to happen. Meripone looked confused, then pained, and then began growing thin and wan. The roots drank deep, sapping the naiad’s strength.
As Meripone’s concentration wavered, the water fell away from Karl and Quissit. Both gasped for air and stumbled free of the pond.
“Don’t … make an enemy … of me … willow,” the naiad hissed.
Karl got his breath back and retrieved the fallen hockey stick. He watched as Meripone became desiccated and the pond, lower. The naiad looked like a shriveled, old hag: shorter and bent double. More minutes passed before, finally, the roots retreated, drawing back into the mossy bank at the base of the tree. The pond was a fraction of its former depth and Meripone swayed and stumbled before collapsing into waves and foam. A faint disturbance of ripples moved weakly up to the base of the waterfall and vanished beneath it.
She was gone.
A glow emerged from the trunk of the willow. Karl and Quissit watched as an elderly woman—stout but with slender, strong arms—stepped forth from the bark. Similar to Rosa, she appeared to be clad in nothing but leaves. Her skin was a light, bark-colored brown and her hair: a pale green that reached her ankles. Tufts of leaves grew at her joints. She looked the gathered group over and stepped to the water’s edge.
Rosa knelt before her. “Auntie … Auntie, I’m sorry. Meripone, she—”
“She did what she always does,” the elder dryad responded. “She used someone for her own ends.” Her gaze shifted to Karl and Quissit. “You should be more careful in consorting with nature spirits,” she advised. “Especially those of the capricious element of water.”
“What … who are you?”
The tree spirit raised an eyebrow. “You’re not native, are you? A royal would know better.”
Karl frowned, putting together what he’d learned of NeverEarth so far. “I’m a … mortal. And you?”
“A dryad; elder in these woods. I have stood here for five hundred seventy four years; you may call me Auntie; Auntie Willow, if you like.”
Quissit cleared his throat and stepped forward. Suspicion drenched his features nearly as much as the water. His once fluffy tail dragged on the ground and his pelt was matted. “What did you do?” he asked in his curt, practical tone. “To the water spirit, I mean.”
“I protected you, of course, along with my ward.” She addressed Rosa. “I have warned you, dear: Meripone went bad many years ago. You should not heed her influence.”
Before Rosa could answer, Karl interrupted. “Look, that’s all fine and good but what about Anthony? He’s out there, somewhere, all alone.”
The dryad looked at Karl. “The lycanthrope?” She seemed to pause, pondering the question. “If I understand correctly, he was accursed without Meripone’s intervention. He was infected before being drawn back into this world on the night of a full moon. By dawn the lycanthropy will have taken him, fully. All Meripone did was arrange it. I am sorry for your loss.”
He scowled. “You’re talking about him as if he were dead.”
“He’ll probably wish that he was,” Rosa whispered. She glanced at Auntie Willow before continuing. “The werewolves loathe their existence. The few who have mastered their humanity are still beasts in their hearts; they are never free of it.”
“Isn’t there a … a cure or something?”
Auntie Willow shook her head. “He is now and ever after, a beast. Only the degree to which his humanity remains is in question.”
“That’s ridiculous! Are you telling me that in a magical world no one’s ever cured werewolfism? What kind of insane place is this?”
“It is a world of rules, young one,” the dryad said. “And if there is a cure for your companion’s condition, I have not heard of it.”
“Well, I’m not giving up on him,” Karl said. He turned to follow in the direction Anthony had gone.
“While commendable, that would not be wise,” the willow said. “You would likely be killed or, failing that, cursed, yourself.”
Her statement made Karl pause.
“I can’t just leave him,” he finally said. His voice cracked a bit as defeat edged into his otherwise defiant tone.
The elder dryad looked contemplative for a moment. “If true love is your—”
“It’s not ‘true love’,” Karl responded, turning to face her. “Shit, we just met two weeks ago! But you don’t just leave someone like this!”
“I agree,” Quissit chimed in. The red squirrel stepped forward to stand before Rosa and the Willow. “I don’t know if there’s anything that can be done for him, but doing nothing wouldn’t be right, either.”
Auntie Willow looked both in the face, eventually nodding.
“So be it. If you wish to go to your friend, I will not stop you. It is likely your own death you seek. But, perhaps, if you can get through to him—pierce his bestial veil before the sunrise fixes his mind beneath a curtain of savagery—then perhaps his humanity can be coaxed to the fore.” Hastily, she added, “you cannot remove the curse, mortal. Remember that. But perhaps you can … ameliorate it.”
He nodded. “I have to try something,” he said. “So, how do I find him?”
“All lycanthropes are driven by their baser natures; even those most fully civilized. During the full moon, their first full moon, all are called to cry to her from as high a point as they can. While I have no doubt the nose of your squirrel companion could lead you, I believe I can guess his destination: the Tower Peaks at the wood’s edge.” She pointed west. “There, on the highest of the moonlit hills, you might—just might—find him.”
“And when we do?”
“I do not know,” she admitted. “Even if you can stir his humanity, you are not likely to escape unscathed. But if you think there is something to be gained—”
“They’ll never make it,” croaked a voice. From beneath the falls, the shri
velled form of Meripone peered at them with hate and bile. “The curse is upon him now and forever,” she hissed. Her teeth had grown sharp and pointed; her eyes were as black as midnight ink. “My vengeance has been consummated; the Champion is lost!”
“Not if they have help,” Rosa said. “I enticed the mortal; this is my fault.” She glared defiantly at Meripone. “I will guide them.”
Both Karl and Auntie Willow said, “No, you won’t.”
“You have done enough, Rosa. Your innocence and naiveté—”
“Cannot be used against me if my eyes are open,” interrupted the young dryad. “Auntie, I so wished for adventure, for a measure of freedom, I allowed Meripone to command me. But how can I atone if I am not allowed to make good on my mistakes?”
“Also, I don’t trust you,” Karl added. He crossed his arms over his chest.
“I am doing this for the mortal I wronged and to cleanse my own honor,” she said, primly. “Your trust is not required.”
“Oh, I think it is,” he began, but Quissit interposed himself.
“Please! He runs half on four legs and half on two; he is surely leagues towards his goal tonight. Even if he is slowed by the hunt, we have to hurry! If you wish to argue over which of you has the greater right to rescue the mortal, then so be it. But can’t you do that on the way?” With that, he sniffed the air and turned to the west.
Karl’s frown deepened but he nodded.
Rosa looked at him with a triumphant gaze. “The way is more northerly than that,” she said to Quissit. “You can follow his scent or we can go directly there. The Tower Peaks are home to many birds and insects I commune with, daily.” She gestured to the tangle of thorny vines, leaves, and flowers from which she had emerged and, from them, coaxed a cloak to wrap around her shoulders. “And never fear; no plant or tangle or thicket will stand in our way. We shall find him.”
With that, she skirted the shore of the pond to lead the two travelers after the werewolf.
“But then what?” Karl muttered.