Laughter echoed from the trees above. The mare reared up on its stubby hind legs, screaming. It kicked and bucked and threw Keren from the saddle. At least it wasn’t far to fall…Keren crashed into the dirt, the mold of rotting leaves filling her nose. Her body bounced off the spongy ground, yelping as the air left her lungs.
She scrambled to her knees, gasping for breath. Dimly she heard the mare whinnying and crashing away into the forest. Her vision and balance were still shaken from the fall. Keren couldn’t seem to get her bearings. One hand fumbled for the dagger at her waist while the other sought to keep her from falling over.
Still the laughter sounded, over and over and over again.
Keren almost screamed in rage and terror. Whoever was hiding in the trees, playing this sick prank – how dare they mock her?! Finally the world stopped spinning and Keren was able to focus on the nearest tree. She looked up, and saw something that wasn’t right. A face stared out of the tree at her. Its flesh was made of bark, its hair of leaves, its hands of roots. Its eyes were like two beads of amber, glistening with malice. It was smiling at her.
“Wee human, why dost thou intrude upon our sacred grove? Was thou not forewarned of the penalties of trespass upon this hallowed ground?” A husky cackle emanated from its throat. The tree it perched in shivered violently in an unseen wind.
Beneath the tree was a mass of tortured shadows with one bulging, blood-stricken eye bobbing in their midst. A faceless mask floated in the darkness below the eye. Its voice sounded like the wind howling over the moors: “Daughter of man, hot blood beating in thy breast, passion overflowing. Thou art the most prized of ingredients in our amaranthine elixir!”
More voices responded: a whole troupe of the shadow-things, their lidless eyeballs bobbing, eating up the night. The wood-man cackled overhead.
Keren whirled around at the sound of rustling leaves. There was another creature behind her – this one resembled a spotted cat with a human face. Its fur gleamed like silken gold in the half-light. A mask of woven fibers was clasped in its lashing panther-tail. It sauntered lazily towards her. Keren stabbed at it with the knife, before her hands were seized by slithering roots that sprang from the earth.
The cat yokai smiled and stroked her face with its paws. “There now, sweet human, we will not eat you without first giving thanks.”
Keren started to sob, from real terror as well as from the monster’s unnerving touch. The yokai smiled as it caressed the tears on her cheeks. “That’s right, let your fear and sorrow flourish! The more you offer up to us, the swifter we will grant you release.” Then it pressed its lips to hers.
For a moment Keren was surprised by the tenderness of its kiss, before she felt a tension in her chest. A spectral maw fastened around her heart, drinking in her desperation. The more she struggled against the monster’s hold, the faster it consumed her. Already she felt her grip on reality slipping. Once it swallowed her heart completely, she would die.
Keren did not know how to close her heart like she had closed her mind to the Necrow. There was no escaping the monsters’ lure. She felt the others crowding around her, their disembodied tongues sampling the fading dregs of her rage, eagerly lapping up her despair. She tried to scream, but the cat yokai’s lips were still firmly joined to hers. Its velvety paws stroked her face tenderly as she died. Darkness drew across her eyes…
There was a distant rumble of thunder. The monsters around her flinched back, hissing. Keren coughed and gasped as the cat yokai tore its mouth away from hers. Its golden, pulsing gaze was fixed into the distance.
There was a creature stepping deer-like through the trees, glowing with unearthly light. Its aura illuminated the forest, so bright that Keren couldn’t stand to look full upon it. The most she could see were the dainty points of its hooves, the lashing of a lion’s tail at its back, and the outline of a single antler rearing from its brow.
The crowd of shadowy blob yokai streamed towards it, their voices calling out in a keening, primeval tongue. The creature turned its head towards the yokai, static crackling across its fur. It reared up, emitting a call like a deep bell echoing out of the mountains. With a toss of its mane, an arc of lightning crashed down from heaven. The bolt struck the ground beneath the monsters. Screaming in mortal terror, they fled away through the trees, disappearing into the night.
The yokai holding Keren bared its teeth, its fur standing on end. Although its face was human, the look in its eyes was that of a wild creature; ferocious and without conscience. Its spectral maw tightened around Keren’s heart, a lion unwilling to give up its prey.
The white creature charged at them, the bell of its voice reverberating through wood and earth and stone. Keren felt her spirit bathed in a silvery radiance like nectar from heaven, lightening her heart until she slipped free of the yokai’s hold. There was a moment of stunned silence. Then lightning smote the ground where the yokai stood. The monster screeched in agony – how it was still alive, Keren could not fathom – its charred remains bolting from the clearing.
Keren’s eyes and ears throbbed from the tremendous discharge of light and sound. She crumpled to the forest floor, cradling her aching head. The earth was soothing against her throbbing skin. After a few moments of tortured moaning she remembered where she was, and looked up through her hands.
The radiant creature was standing there, watching her. At least, she thought it was – she still couldn’t see very clearly. But the effect of its power on her was unmistakable. Now free from the specters that had caused her such terror and pain, the horned beast’s song now worked a different effect.
It made her aware of things she had once felt, that she had since locked away inside. Things unseen, things unspoken; a kind of letting out, and a kind of gathering in. It made her realize what she was, and what she had done.
It was the most terrible sensation in the world, even as she felt her entire chest filling with light. She uttered a choked cry, trying to speak, but unable to find the words. Even if there had been words for how she felt, speaking them would have only made the feelings worse.
The creature turned and cantered away through the trees. It moved as swiftly as a song, its hooves never quite touching the ground. Once it had left, Keren immediately regretted its absence. She ran after it, crying, but it quickly passed out of sight, its light softly fading. All that was left was the overflowing well of emotion inside her. Keren tried to fight back her tears, but could not.
She was lost and alone.
She looked back the way she had come, and saw the mare plodding towards her. It neighed softly and plunked itself down – directly in the spot where the second bolt had struck. The ground there glimmered with the silvery remnants of the creature’s power. Keren threw herself down beside the horse, put her head on her knees and wept.
CHAPTER 10
THE FALL
Keren huddled in the forest she knew not for how long, the dark soil staining her robe. Storm clouds gathered above. Beside her the mare heaved with an occasional sigh, its warm flanks quivering with satisfaction. Keren envied the beast’s contentment as her heart throbbed in unbearable agony. She shuddered as she tried to reject the catalyst the radiant creature had seeded in her. But fighting it only made it worse, creating storms of anguish and regret that burst forth in uncontrollable sobbing.
A familiar sensation brushed against her mind, jolting her out of her daze.
Akar stood at the edge of the clearing. Its face was bowed in shadow, but Keren could tell its eyes were open. Misty orbs gazed blankly at the ground where she sat. Neither she nor it said anything for several moments.
“How are you still alive?” the Necrow murmured. There was something strange about its voice. It seemed…almost hypnotized. What it saw, Keren could not imagine. If its eyesight was as poor as it claimed, she doubted it could see anything at all.
“I don’t know,” Keren said.
“Were you not attacked?”
“I was.”
“How did you survive?”
“I don’t know.” Keren was not sure why she felt compelled to lie. Whatever the radiant creature had done to her, she did not like it. And she especially did not want Akar to know about it.
The Necrow stood looking at her for several moments. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine, you misbegotten son of a leper! What do you want?”
“The same thing as always, comrade.”
“Really? You tried to mind-control me again, you ugly corpse! I told you not to do that!”
“You realize there is no incentive to listen to such demands, especially not when you are galloping off towards certain death? My priority is to preserve your life. Extreme measures must be taken when you recklessly endanger that priority.”
Usually Keren would have screamed a retort after a remark like this. Instead she only clutched her knees more tightly, unwilling to speak lest she burst into tears again.
Akar was right. It really was just trying to protect her. She remembered the fear in its voice when it had called out before. And Keren would have died, if the yokai had had their way with her. The only reason she was still alive was because of that. Keren feared to guess what that creature had been. And yet she knew. She had known ever since it had stepped into the clearing, with its bell-like call and beautiful, shining presence.
It was a kami; which one, she did not know. The element it controlled was obvious. But its virtue…? Keren couldn’t imagine what that might be, given what it had done to her. She could not remember any details from Malak’s tales. It was easier to believe the dreaded Harbinger of the gods had laid a curse on her; what she suffered now did not feel anything like virtue!
Finally she made the effort to speak: “Akar. I’m…I’m sorry for how I behaved. I was a fool. Getting angry at you for what you didn’t tell me…just got me mixed up in the kind of danger I was afraid of in the first place. I…forgive you for deceiving me. And I’ll try not to let my anger and…and pride get the better of me again.”
The Necrow stared at her for several seconds, as if it was unable to believe what it was hearing. Then it blinked, and finally closed its eyes. It bowed to her. “Your apology is received with gratitude. Strict honesty shall be practiced henceforth. If you so desire, you will be escorted back to the lowlands to continue on to whatever nation you wish. It may be more dangerous for you here than was originally expected.”
Keren sighed, rolling her eyes as she swallowed the lump in her throat. “It’s fine, really. Seeing as there’s nowhere else I’d rather be right now, why not continue deeper into the deadly forest that men fear to explore? Perhaps we really will discover something about the Necrow. And as long as I don’t go frolicking off by myself again, why not enjoy a little danger and adventure?”
Her heart skipped a beat at this, and the kami’s nectar slowly eased its pain. Keren wondered exactly what part of what she had said had triggered it. Which virtue was it?? She had listed several vices and repented them; was it the antithesis of one of those, or something she wasn’t even aware of?
The Necrow cocked its head to one side. “That is – an interesting way of looking at it. Your decisions never cease to confound. It is no longer certain whether it is your humanity, or you yourself that is so erratic and unpredictable.”
Keren got to her feet, self-consciously brushing the dirt off her robe. “Oh, it’s just me. Although, thinking back on all the odd people we’ve met so far, I’d like to think I’m not so different from the rest of humanity after all.”
The two travelers continued onward – not back to the plain and the safety of the trail, but up into the mountains where unknown villages and creatures awaited. Akar still carried the length of wood that was the beginnings of a bow, and whittled it from time to time as they walked.
The storm clouds gathered swiftly, and that night the forest was soaked in a torrential downpour. Keren huddled beneath a makeshift lean-to, teeth chattering, immediately regretting her decision to choose adventure over comfort. While munching on dried rations she fantasized about the hot meal she could have been savoring in another of the Iru Mori villages. Good company, delicious food, warm bed; why had she given all of that up?!
Keren blamed it on what the kami had done to her. That creature had laid a curse on her! She had been so desperate to escape its disapproval that she had promised Akar far more than she was willing to put up with.
So, Akar the nuisance wanted to find some clue to the Necrow’s origin? Fine. Hopefully in a week they could get there, get out, and move on to someplace nicer. Surely there was some kingdom somewhere that was beautiful, fertile, and not overrun by vicious man-eating beasts?
Keren took out the map and poured over the names and borders, trying to puzzle out their route. According to the spaces the people of Shinrin had filled in there should be another village somewhere to the northwest, near one of the mountain passes. It would take several days to reach it, maybe longer if this rain continued.
Keren huddled tighter inside her robe. At least she did not have to fear being out in these ‘sacred woods’ in the middle of the night. Akar was confident in being able to repel any aggressors.
The next day they broke camp and continued under a light mist. Gray clouds roiled overhead, pierced only briefly by scattered rays of sunlight. Keren and Akar walked among trees that seemed like gigantic columns holding up the very roof of the world. Omnipresent was the perfume of exotic flowers, their bright blooms rarely seen yet always hinted at in scent. The boughs overhead were alive with a plethora of singing insects, cicadas rubbing their spiny legs exuberantly in the humid spring day. Their shrill cries mingled with the songs of exotic birds flitting through the canopy, their bright wings flashing with light. Far off on the mountain slopes the ghostly howls of strange beasts echoed through the mists.
The forest was absolutely drenched, the soil turned to mud in places that made it difficult for the little mare to walk. Around late morning they emerged from the trees onto an open ridge that overlooked much of the territory they had just traversed. Keren gasped in awe at the carpeted slopes falling down, down, down to distant flowering hills.
They followed the ridge for some time, looking ahead to where it rejoined the rest of the forest.
Suddenly the ground began to shift. A low, angry rumbling filled the air. The horse panicked, veering hard away from the cliff. Keren lost her balance and spilled from the saddle. She felt Akar’s arms around her and felt relieved.
Then her stomach dropped out from under her.
They were falling, the entire section of cliff caving out from under them. The horse had reacted instantly, and managed to scramble beyond the unstable ground to safety. Keren and Akar were not so fortunate.
They plummeted over the brink.
Keren was sure she was screaming, but couldn’t hear herself over the roar of the wind. She twisted frantically, trying to see the ground – perhaps she could land feet-first and break her fall – but Akar’s arms were clenched around her like a vice, holding her immobile. She would have clawed and tried to extricate herself from the Necrow’s grip, but there was no time.
An enormous force slammed into her body, and consciousness was lost.
Keren came to a few seconds later, head spinning, unable to breathe. Her entire body was numb with shock. Her tattered awareness struggled to orient itself, trying to re-form coherent thoughts – I’m paralyzed…I broke my legs, my spine…I’ll never walk again…God help me, I don’t want to die here! Finally her lungs remembered how to breathe, and Keren gasped eagerly at the damp dirt-flavored air. Gradually feeling returned to her limbs.
The cliff reared hugely above them, gray and slick with rain, its sides smeared by a tangled mass of plants and soil. A mudslide. Foolish, that: they shouldn’t have been caught by something so obvious…
Keren groaned and rolled onto her side, trying to ease the tension in her bruised spine. At least she could still move. At least she was still alive…
/> Too late she bothered to notice the tortured breathing beside her. Akar’s body lay amidst the rubble, cracked and dismembered from the impact. Its bruised flesh was torn and scattered; an arm hanging on by a few filaments, a leg almost completely crushed, spine bent upward at an unnatural angle.
Keren clapped her hands to her mouth, instinctively fighting the urge to vomit even before she knew if she would. And yet, horrifying as it was, the sight of the Necrow’s corpse elicited no bodily reaction from her. There was no scent of hot and steaming flesh, rich with the metallic tang of fresh blood; no ghastly protuberance of white and glistening bone; no stench of punctured organs oozing green and brown obscenities.
No hint that something once living was now defiled by death.
The rasping noise coming from its throat, however, was almost as bad. Keren recalled its reaction when she had once pulled arrows from its body. Strange to think it was in agony now, when its body looked only like a broken statue… a statue of clay. Its veins were like tiny roots tunneling through soil, its bones wooden shafts connecting ropey muscles made of doughy worms. The Necrow, despite its outward appearance, was not made of dead flesh; it was a sculpture, an effigy, a doll.
This weird realization fascinated Keren. There were stories of this: statues that took on a life of their own, or child’s toys that longed to become real. That the Necrow was merely an imitation of a man aroused such sympathy in her that, for a moment, she longed to cradle its head and comfort it in its suffering.
Then the ground beneath her withered.
Broken trees and plants that had been carried over the cliff with them shivered and curled as if brushed by a desert wind. A bone-dry, merciless wind, desiccating all it touched. Keren felt it brush against her briefly and pass on. The living things around her were sucked dry.
The Necrow’s body shivered, and all its pieces of mottled clay cleanly knit themselves back into a whole. It was eerie beyond description, like the smashed innards of a ceramic pot spontaneously gathering themselves back together, rejoining to leave no trace of any damage.
Necrosis (The Omens of Gaia Book 1) Page 13