“Where’s Bookworm?” I asked searching around. My brothers exchanged grave looks.
“He went after you and Vaze. He told us that if he didn’t come back with you to leave as soon as possible,” Jake said. “Didn’t you see him?”
A fleeting thought of the talking bear flashed into my head and I looked at Vaze, confused. He shook his head slightly and held a finger to his lips in a silent shhhh. I got the message and shook my head to my oldest brother. Jake nodded sadly and a tear formed by his eye, but he held it back. Out of all of us, he was closest to the Bookworm, even more so than Seth.
“I don’t like to admit it, but we’re going to have to go on without him,” Jake said slowly. He turned to Vaze. “Which way do we go?”
“We should start by going north,” he started. “We need to get to Ilam mountain pass, and then it’s a straight shot to being home free.”
“Really, it’s that easy?” I said in disbelief. The way he explained it made it sound extremely simple.
Vaze sighed.“Not exactly,” he said and paused. “For one thing we have no food, no map, and the most time Enzio being trapped in a Convergence will buy us is about four days.”
“Most of those things aren’t a problem Vaze,” Jake said. “We know how to catch or steal food, and are used to being hungry, so we won’t complain much.”
“And I can navigate by stars,” Seth cut in. Al, Darren and I looked at him in disbelief. He shrugged and said, “You can learn a lot from books.”
“Then what are we waiting for?” Darren asked. “If that guy is going to come after us again and we have four days of safety from him, we better hurry the hell up, right?”
Even if the words where coming from an idiot, they were true. No one could, or wanted to argue. Without further ado, we followed Vaze through the forest.
Then next few hours we traveled in silence. After a while, the forest opened up into a lush prairie field. The rain had dissipated by then and the clouds had rolled away to reveal a deep blue sky along with the warm tingling rays from the sun. The golden light highlighted the field and made it a breath taking sight.
A sea of tall sage grass was dotted with bushes that bore all different colors of flowers ranging from deep blue to ruby red and warm orange to dazzling purple. They were all quite small on the bushes but were accentuated by the large yellow lilies that popped up from time to time.
Far across the beautiful field was another forest, but unlike the familiar forest that hid our home, it had a menacing look to it, dark and foreboding. It looked like it could swallow us whole. Beyond that were the snow covered caps of an immense mountain range. With the three spectacles before us, it felt all the more amazing, and all the more impossible.
Out of all of us, I took the longest to recover from the sight, and I had also taken the most in. It took me a while to notice that Vaze and my brothers were far ahead of me in the field, and left me scrambling to catch up. I was about to do so, when something caught my eye. A woman with golden hair was strolling through the field, humming a tune that seemed oddly familiar to me, though no matter how hard I tried to put my finger on it, I couldn’t. I looked to my brothers up ahead to see if they had noticed her. All their eyes were focused on the forest up ahead and I looked back to the woman, but to my surprise, she was gone.
I scanned the area where she had been, looking for some evidence that she really had been there, but when I found none, I ran to catch up to my brothers. I didn’t mention the woman to them, and convinced myself I was imagining things.
While we walked I started to see more signs of life. Small black bunnies occasionally scampered in front of me without fear. They looked more curious than anything, though whenever Al came over to look at them, they fled. It was as if they didn’t know what to make of me, and wanted to examine me more closely. Butterflies started flying across the field, and were more flamboyant than any butterflies I had ever seen in my life. They were big and brightly colored, just like the flowers.
My brothers and I enjoyed the site, but Vaze hardly took notice of them. He was headed straight for the forest with a stone hard determination. The trip through the little field was like an oasis in a desert after the horrors I had gone through in the last day, but it was short lived. Soon the last of the butterflies pass us and field ended. The ominous forest was upon us. Its trees were the biggest trees I had ever seen in my life, and made the path leading into it look like night had suddenly fallen on this one remote forest. Vaze turned to us as he reached the base of the forest.
“From here on out it’s going to get extremely dangerous. I need to know that you will listen to all my instructions, no matter what. I’ve been here before, and know what can happen. The Shadows don’t come here, but that’s only because there are much worse things living in this forest. Will you obey my instructions?” We all nodded affirmatively. We didn’t need to be convinced.
“Good.” With that, Vaze turned and was swallowed by the darkness of the forest. Jake, Seth, and Darren went right in after him. Al looked at me uncertainly. I gave him a smile of encouragement and offered my hand to him. He smiled back and took it. With the comfort of knowing we would stay together, we allowed ourselves to be overwhelmed by the darkness of the forest.
It was a good thing Al and I were holding hands because the second we entered, all light left us. Another hand brushed my free hand and grasped it.
“Stay together for now,” Vaze’s voice said from beside me. “No one move until your eyes adjust.”
Slowly but surely, my eyesight came back, revealing the world around me with the least amount of color possible. Vaze let go of my hand on one side, and I had to pry Al’s hand off of mine, as did Jake who had made sure not to lose any one by joining hands with Seth and Darren as well.
“Everyone, welcome to The Forest of Death,” Vaze said to us. I looked at him. Instead of his usual pale color, his skin was as grey as a gargoyle’s. I looked at every one else to find that most of our skin had the same effect, except for Seth, whose olive skin had gone to more of a greyish tan color. The only thing that still had its true color was Jake’s fair hair which now seemed to glow in the darkness and most of our lightly colored eyes, except for Al’s dark brown ones. The brown hair that Seth, Darren, and I had quickly changed to black in the light, and Vaze and Al’s hair seemed to disappear entirely.
I thought from the outside this forest had looked menacing, but from the inside it was terrifying. The trees had grey gnarled bark and their branches twisted out like corpse arms. The branches close to the ground bore no leaves, but the ones higher up were so thick it made it look like night, though I knew from just a few minutes ago that it was still midday. The soil below our feet was black and had very few things other than the corpse trees growing out of it. Mist hung low to the ground, gripping my feet and freezing them as well. A distant howl rang through the air, making me jump out of my own skin.
“What was that?” Al peeped out barely above a whisper as he grabbed my arm in a death lock.
“If we’re lucky, we won’t have to find out,” Vaze said plainly. There wasn’t a shred of sarcasm in that statement. I really hoped we were lucky. Vaze started walking away, and the second we all realized it, we followed without question.
We passed countless corpse trees and hardly any signs of life. A few bats flew past rivaling some owls with silvery black feathers. Every time an owl flew over our heads, a pained cry of a dying mouse always came. I saw a couple of grey and black squirrels pass overhead and scowled in disgust. I hated squirrels. They were pure evil and threw nuts at people for no reason. And they’re freaking hard to catch when you want to see if animals can talk!
The farther we walked, the creepier the scenery got. We passed bits of scant plant life but it wasn’t like in the field that we had left for the forest. There were gnarly little bushes which bore brown berries that didn’t look edible at all. They had dark green, coarse looking leaves and a closer look also told me those ugly bushes had tho
rns. Note to self, don’t touch ugly bushes.
I trudged ahead of my brothers to approach Vaze. He turned his head to look at me when I was right behind him.
“So was that really how it happened?” I asked. “You know—the same thing that happened to Moraj?”
“I wouldn’t know. I wasn’t born at the time,” he said. “It happened twenty years ago Scarlet. I’m only fifteen.”
“Oh,” I said feeling a bit stupid. “So you’ve never seen your own castle?”
“Nope. I’ve never been treated like a prince much either. My father lives just like the rest of the survivors of Moraj, except he’s the heart of it all. We are always searching for Moraj, because we know that is where Velkire has to be. Once we find him, we’re going to revolt against him and bring our country, Castellia, back together. You might not have noticed it because you’ve never lived when there was peace, I haven’t either, but this country is in turmoil. Velkire travels everywhere and traps the people he comes in contact with into being part of chaos, when they never even have a clue that it is happening until it’s too late.”
“Who is Velkire?” I asked curiously. Whoever this Velkire was he didn’t exactly sound like the kind of guy you could get free pastries from. Trust me, I know those kinds of guys and they were freaking saints.
“He’s like the devil in human form, but that’s not the case,” He said solemnly. “He is the devil’s son apparently. According to legend he’s also the very first demon to force his being and other demons out of spiritual form into a physical form, so humans can be hurt physically by them. On top of all of that he created Soul Reaping, which is how demons can devour a human’s soul if the chance is presented. He is the reason some Guardians have to force themselves into a physical form, but unlike demons, after they do it once, and once their task is complete by saving their human partner from having their soul from being reaped, they cannot return to spiritual form and cannot survive long, so they merge with their partner.
No Guardians have survived this. Unless a Guardian is originally made into a physical form by The Healer they are not meant to change into a physical form, and are only allowed to do it once, but can never return to spiritual form afterwards. There are some people who can see Guardians while they are still in spiritual form, and they usually become close with their Guardian. Their gift is called the Sight. Something similar to this happened a long time ago when Velkire first came to power a century ago. Only the royal family of Moraj had remembered the story, along with certain beings that have lived in that time who are still alive today.”
I didn’t say anything for a while after that. My brain was processing the flood of information given to me at the moment. Vaze didn’t add anything and I didn’t ask any more questions, though I still had a whole lot more. For one, I wanted to know about the stone I had almost forgotten about, that hung from my neck nestled in a small leather pouch.
I wanted to know who The Healer was as well. Vaze and the Bookworm have both mentioned him without explaining who it was. I wanted to know where the Shadows came from and especially how there were so many in Laetus when there were none before. With each question that came into my mind, about five more formed from them. I was starting to think that maybe I had a problem.
We never stopped for a break, and no one ever asked for one. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one wired on adrenaline, and I know for a fact I wasn’t the only one jumping at every noise that wasn’t made by us. Vaze’s eyes darted from left to right every so often in a menacing way, as if daring some unseen predator to attack us and let them see what happens. The first time I had seen Vaze fight, he wasn’t all that great. But when I saw him the first time he had also been running from Enzio and the Shadows for who knows how long. He was exhausted then. When he was fighting Enzio in the town square of Laetus he wasn’t half bad. In fact, if he were fighting anyone other than Enzio, the fight would probably be over very quick, with Vaze as the victor. Against an animal going on instincts alone, I’d probably bet on Vaze. I didn’t give complements like that lightly—or any complement lightly for that matter. I had to actually be impressed.
The more we walked, the tenser the mood became.
Jake anxiously fingered the dagger strapped to his side that was hidden by his cloak. Since he was born, he had always been in constant danger. That could make any one a little bit jumpy, and in this situation, I didn’t blame him one bit. I made a little mental note to not tap on his shoulder when I wanted to talk to him.
Al did his best to keep as close to me as possible. Sometimes, I think of him as a little kid that I had to protect above all else. In a way that was true. Al was a negotiator, not a fighter. In contrast, I fought nonstop. Al hardly knew how to fight, and though he was older than me and it was his responsibility to take care of me, I still took it upon myself to fight the fights so he won’t have to, or learn to. Out of all of us, Al was the purest, and had the most chance of getting out of the hellhole of poverty. Seth would have been able to have the same chance, but he had a short temper at times, and when he snapped he didn’t think clearly. I’d always made up fantasies where Al’s quick thinking would get him places, and possibly even make him into an ambassador one day. It was a long shot, I know, but I never stopped hoping for my brothers sake that it was possible.
After a while, the forest got darker than it had already been. The visibility went from bad to worse, and I was worried that my lack of direction would cause me to veer off in an opposite direction by mistake if it got any darker. Vaze stopped and turned to us.
“We will stop here for the night,” He said. “It’s too dangerous to travel here when the sun goes down. We don’t have much farther to go anyway, so it won’t take long tomorrow to get out of here.” It suddenly occurred to us that we had been walking for possibly eight hours or more due to the sudden fatigue that overcame us.
Darren looked at him with wide eyes. “Wait!” He said with urgency. “How are we going to know when it’s morning?” I rolled my eyes. Darren was hopeless.
We stopped and Jake went off with Vaze to try to catch something to eat while the rest of us went to find wood for a fire. We didn’t want to get lost, so instead of actually going to look for the wood, we tore off the lowest branches on the corpse trees near us. After my brothers set the wood down I set it aflame, comforted by my close inhuman friend made by flames. Fire had always comforted me, and I had always felt it was a part of me that was as natural as a brain or a heart, or even a soul.
The light from the flames cast shadows that seemed to stretch for miles. The trees shadows were the worst. When I looked behind me, I saw the shadows they cast. They were long, skinny like people on the verge of death. Though I was comforted by the light, the scenery just got a lot creepier, and I felt more vulnerable than ever because of it. However, as if reacting to my fear, the fire burned a bit brighter as though trying to reach out and protect me.
Vaze and Jake came back shortly with and owl and a few squirrels. It was our jobs to skin them and Jake’s to gut them. We had done this before so the whole process only took around five minutes. Soon our meal of bird and evil squirrel meat was roasting on skinny branches over the fire. In all honesty, the smell of the meat roasting was about as attractive as the guts we had buried. It was foul, and the smoke was just as bad.
Though it wasn’t attractive to any of the senses, the meat cooked quickly, and we split the meat evenly. When we finished, our stomachs were as full as they would be—which wasn’t much at all. Both the squirrels and the owl tasted like dirt and a mixture of other unmentionable things. However, I was so hungry that I was afraid that if I didn’t eat, my stomach would eat me.
After every one finished eating, we decided for one person to be on watch at a time. First watch was Jake and the rest of us nodded off, each of us desperate to get away from this horror forest, if only for an hour or two. I was the last to fall asleep, though I tried harder than anyone. I wish I never did.
Chapter Five
I woke up with a jolt, but still remained half asleep. I looked around drowsily at my surroundings. Everything was pitch-black, except for a small beam of light that came from above me, flooding a small circumference with white light. I tried to bring my hands to my eyes to rub them, but my arms wouldn’t move.
I tried moving them again, with the same results. I started to panic, which woke me up enough to see the whole situation. I was sitting in a little wooden chair. The problem was that I was tied to it from my shoulders down to my upper torso. I tried to wriggle free, but my attempts were futile. The ropes were too strong for me.
Finally coming up with a solution, I concentrated on the ropes, and sure enough, a little flame popped up and began to eat away at the binds. But almost as quickly as it came, it died with a hiss. Okay, I admit that then I was really panicking. I didn’t know where I was and for the first time in my life my fire wasn’t working. Someone chuckled from inside the darkness. Their laughter sounded beautiful like silver bells. My frightened eyes shot up staring and groping for the source.
A man walked out of the darkness, and my breath was caught in my throat. His pale skin seemed to have a silver glow, and his hair was jet black like raven’s feathers. It fell to his shoulders, but unlike most people with long hair it was clean and looked like soft silk. His features were cut like a granite statue, but instead of being over bearing, they were pleasant. A quick guess told me he was around seven feet tall—but then again, to me every one looks seven feet tall (don’t comment on that). But what surprised me the most were his eyes. They were grey, alive, and almost completely identical to mine. They had a tender look to them, but I couldn’t help but feel like there was much more to him than that.
“Hello Scarlet,” He said. His voice was as sweet as honey and as beautiful as a harp. I had no doubt the laughter from before was his. “I’ve been waiting so long to meet you.”
Playing With Fire Page 6