by Kyle West
I cleaned the gunk off my blade on a nearby tree, wishing for a stream I could wash in. I was covered head to toe in monster blood and guts. I sheathed the blade, only to notice that the stranger was already walking down the trail, in the direction we had come from.
“Hey! Where do you think you’re going?”
He paused, then turned back. “Follow if you want to stay alive.”
“You know the way out?" Isaru asked.
The man was quiet for a moment. “I’ve made it through this place once before. With a little luck, we’ll make it through this time, too.”
Isaru and I caught up with him. I had a million questions.
“How does the forest change its paths? We came here, and when we turned back, the trail we were on had disappeared.”
I noticed, for the first time, that the man was smaller than I first gave him credit for; his loose garb had a way of making him seem larger than he actually was.
“It’s the trees. They can rise out of the xen without making a single sound. They do it when you’re not watching.”
I suppressed a chill. Just the thought alone gave me the creeps.
“How much longer until we’re out?” I asked.
“We are in the heart of the forest. Always, the trees lead you to the heart. There, they use the crawlers to kill you once all goes dark.” He paused. “That fire panicked them, so they attacked sooner. I lost your trail for a while; I’m a good tracker, but this place makes all my skill for naught. It was only your fire that allowed me to find you.”
The man’s strange, black-painted face made him all but unrecognizable in the gloom, while the hat was pulled so low that his eyes were completely hidden. This stranger was almost as unnerving as the trees.
“Who are you, and why are you following us?” I asked. When the man didn’t answer, I added, “What do you know about us?”
I meant, did he know where we were going, and did he have some stake in it.
“As I said before, in the canyon, I can say little other than it is in my interest that you succeed. I am neither your friend nor your enemy. I have my own reasons for helping. Reasons that you will never know. So only accept my help, and when you are out of these woods, our paths will then separate.”
“Will they, truly?” Isaru asked. “From the looks of things, you’re just going to follow us again.”
On this point, the man was silent.
“Do you have a name?” I asked.
The man hesitated, as if he were debating whether he’d be spending long enough to warrant giving us a name. “You may call me Hasar.”
I got the feeling that “Hasar” wasn’t his real name, but I wasn’t going to argue it. There was an initiate in the Sanctum named Hasar, so I thought perhaps he might be Elekai. Certainly, he had the blade for it.
To my surprise, the trail had returned. If what Hasar said about the trees was true, and they really did want us dead, I didn’t understand why they didn’t all just spring out of the ground to trap us.
As if reading my thoughts, Hasar explained. “As much as they hate you, they also fear you. But more than they fear you, they fear what you carry.”
Isaru looked at the torch, our only source of light. “I should have built that fire bigger.”
“No,” the man said. “You did right, even if you didn’t know what you were doing. There is a difference between a little fear and a lot. With a lot of fear, they might have lashed out, despite the rules of this place?”
“What rules?” I asked.
When Hasar answered, his voice was quiet. “For you to not to see your death, even as it happened. The trees do not want to be seen moving, for whatever reason.”
On impulse, I turned my head around to see if I could catch any of the trees moving. But they looked the same as they had before.
Hasar continued. “We are near the heart of the reversion, and this forest feeds off it. It has been so for decades now…there is a village not far to the east of here where they told me a bit about it, after I made it through. From the bleeding heart of this forest, it spreads like a cancer across the Wild, getting a little larger each year.”
I reached out with my mind, trying to detect by Insight whether this stranger was Elekai. However, there was nothing. The man fought like an Elekai, but he wasn’t one. Either that, or he was guarding his mind from any intrusion. And yet, he spoke of the Wild as if he knew it well.
In time, the near-darkness lightened to a dismal gloom, but that did little to improve my mood. It just made our depressing surroundings all the more apparent. Twisted trees grew from nearly colorless, sickly-looking xen, and the smell of plant rot was thick in the air. Added to the smell of monster guts on me, it was practically unbearable. While the trees were thick and tall, they were still hunched over, as if weighed down by some unseen weight. Their limbs and branches hung densely, all but blocking out the sky above. Even so, it wasn’t as thick as the area we had come from.
“How do you know where to go?” Isaru asked.
“While this place would kill me, it does not seek to kill me. There is a difference between the two.” He paused. “And I will entertain no further questions.”
So, we sunk into silence. Maybe it was better not to talk to Hasar anyway. After all, he’d told us he wasn’t our friend. But that didn’t stop me from being curious. Unfortunately, I got the feeling that even if I asked, he wasn’t going to tell us anything.
When the gloom deepened, I was worried we were going in the wrong direction again, until I realized that it was evening. Hasar came to a stop without a word, and began making a small fire. Isaru began setting up our pot and in short order, Isaru and I had our own fire going and food cooking. Hasar refused to share, for whatever reason, so we camped separately, about thirty feet apart. It seemed a waste, but it was what it was.
Hasar stood at the edge of the glen, facing away into the forest for well over an hour, not saying a word as Isaru and I ate. He was starting to creep me out.
“Do you have anything to eat, Hasar?” Isaru asked.
Hasar ignored Isaru, instead watching the forest.
“It’s hopeless,” I said. “Let him go hungry.”
Isaru frowned. “I’d say the same thing, but he’s leading us out of this forest, and if we get into another fight, I don’t want him keeling over from hunger.”
“He probably doesn’t want our gross stew, anyway,” I said. “Even I don’t want it.”
Not for the first time that day, the smell of that crawler’s guts hit me, and it was a struggle to even keep my food down, as hungry as I was. I had no change of clothes, and the thought of having to wear these all the way to the Crater was unacceptable. Even washing off in a stream wouldn’t do much good, and there was no question that the clothes were completely ruined.
“At least we’re alive,” I said, warming my own hands. “Somehow.”
Once done eating, we went to sleep, with Hasar still standing watch.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
WE BROKE CAMP EARLY THE next day, and without a word, Hasar continued to lead us through the twisted forest. As the morning dragged on, sunlight actually began to stream in through the trees and the air became less oppressive. The trees didn’t grow so chokingly thick, and I felt myself sigh with relief. It seemed as if the worst was behind us.
With the sunlight, the forest floor became pleasantly warm. At last, we came across a stream, which was deep enough to where I could lie down and wash off. The current was swift enough to help me out, but the water was too cold to stay in for long. It did pretty well of getting the gross stuff off my skin and hair, but the smell was still set deeply into the fibers of the clothing.
Once we crossed the stream, the forest changed drastically. The forest floor was covered with shaded xen, interspersed with small meadows filled with pink-tinted sunbeams. Glowing insects flew in clouds above fungal stalks, and the trees grew perfectly straight, their trunks narrow with plenty of space between them. The sweet
scent spoke to the multitude of Silverwoods, though these seemed to be of a smaller kind, narrower than I was used to, but still quite tall. Their upper branches connected with one another, making the treetop like a thin, pink ceiling through which the sunlight fell through tinted.
Hasar paused sometime in the early afternoon, turning to face Isaru and me.
“This is where I leave you. There is a village a few miles ahead, and as long as you keep the sun behind you, you should come across signs of it. If not that, you’ll run across a road, which leads to that village.”
Isaru and I just looked at him. I didn’t really want him around if he wasn’t needed, but at the same time, Hasar had proven himself more than useful.
“If you’re going to continue following us, maybe you could stick around,” I said. “What’s the point of traveling alone if you are going to follow us, anyway?”
Hasar remained quiet, indicating that he wasn’t going to answer that question.
“Whatever,” I said. “If you feel like changing your mind…well, I guess you know where we’ll be.” I paused, realizing that I should probably thank him for saving our lives, and more than once – first with the canyon, and then with the forest. “And…thanks. I know you have your own reasons, but we wouldn’t be alive if it weren’t for you.”
“Just go,” Hasar said. “I don’t need your thanks. Just a warning: these woods might seem beautiful, but they hold their own dangers…especially at night. Get across the stream to the east before nightfall and you should be fine.
Trying to show appreciation was pointless. “Let’s go, Isaru.”
We set off, and after we had walked half a minute east through the trees, I looked behind to see that Hasar was already gone.
* * *
The woods stayed much the same, but counter to what Hasar had told us, there was no sign of any human settlement. I looked for anything that might have led to people – the smell of smoke, a broken twig or branch, the parting of reeds in several of the streams we passed. But there was nothing. There were no animals, either, besides insects, which seemed strange considering how these woods seemed as if they would be a nice place to live.
There was no sense of wrongness, unlike the Forest of Mazes we’d left behind. There was no reversion here, and I doubted that monsters roamed these woods, at least in the daytime. I should have asked Hasar, as difficult as he was to talk to, what dangers he had been talking about.
I put him out of mind, because trying to guess his purposes was pointless. We had our own mission to complete, and the first thing was finding this village and getting some real food, some information, and with luck, even a bed to sleep in and a change of clothes for me. From what I’d learned about the Northern Wild, with the exception of Northold, there was nothing that could be called a city.
We had come across a rushing stream wider than the rest we had passed, which I assumed to be the one Hasar was referring to. When I spied a watermill upriver on the opposite bank, I knew we were close. The wheel rotated through the racing water at a quick rate.
“I think we’ve found our village,” Isaru said.
The water was quite deep, and there didn’t seem to be any clear place to ford it. We decided to head upstream, up the slope and rocks, until we were across from the mill. Still, there didn’t seem to be any place to safely cross.
“You’d think there’d be a bridge or something,” Isaru said.
“Maybe no one wants to come on this side of the river. If this part of the forest is so dangerous, a bridge might be too much of an invitation.”
Isaru grunted. I took it for agreement.
We went further upstream, deciding to try our luck at a crossing where the water was shallower. Xen grew on the rocks poking from the water, which would make them slippery, but as long as we kept our feet, we would be fine. The danger was falling over and not being able to do much about it because of the weight of our packs, but together, we could support each other. Isaru went first and I followed close behind. There were several points where keeping my balance was tricky, but thankfully, all the practicing I had done with sword forms helped me keep my balance. Soon enough, we’d arrived on the opposite shore, which was less rocky and easier to traverse.
We worked our way back downstream until we arrived at the mill. The door was closed, and it was late enough in the day that there probably wasn’t anyone there.
Isaru knocked at first, and after a moment, opened the door slightly and poked his head in. “Hello?” He waited, then turned around. “No one here.”
I looked into the mill to see that Isaru was right. It was dark, the millstone and machinery was almost completely lost to shadow. Various tools lay on a nearby workbench. It looked as if people came and worked here often, and we had missed them by hours, or even minutes.
“The village can’t be far,” I said.
There was a well-worn trail heading into the trees, which came to a sudden stop at the foot of a particularly large Silverwood. We looked in every direction, only to see more forest and no village. The trail had completely disappeared.
“All right, what would a mill be doing out in the middle of nowhere?” I said.
Isaru shrugged. “Maybe the village moved.”
“That mill seemed to be in good condition. There are people here.”
I looked up, on a whim, only to see the answer staring me in the face. Among the treetops were several spanning walkways, as well as small wooden buildings constructed on the boughs. The sight was surprising, though given what I knew about Elekai, I probably shouldn’t have been. To my credit, though, Isaru seemed to be just as surprised, and had even grown up in a tree.
“You would think Hasar would have mentioned the small fact that we might need to look up after we crossed that stream.”
I was still peering up into the various platforms and wooden domes built into the thick forest canopy. It was similar to Haven in that there were buildings in the trees, but unlike Haven, it was spread over several trees rather than being concentrated in one. And none of the trees were as large as Haventree…not by a long shot.
Looking up, I couldn’t see anyone. Then again, the branches were so thick that it was hard to see anything besides the walkways. Perhaps people were walking on them even now, and we were far enough below that it would be difficult, if not impossible, for us to see them, or for them to see us.
“How do we get up there?” I asked.
“That’s a good question,” Isaru said. “In Haven, we have platforms that can be raised and lowered with a pulley. Maybe it’s the same here.”
It was a great way to keep people out, and in the Northern Wild, safety was everything.
“Hello?” Isaru called. “Is anyone up there?”
That was when a head appeared over the side of one of the platforms. It was a middle-aged man with brown hair, but it was hard to see anything more from the distance.
“Who are you?” the man asked. “News from Northold?”
“We’re travelers,” Isaru said. “We need shelter for the night, and some directions to Northold would be nice. Can you let us up?”
The man still stared down, frowning and not saying anything. It was hard to even read his facial expression.
But then, the clanking of gears shattered the otherwise silence of the trees as a platform lowered from branches above. It was a bit surreal realizing that we were about to come into contact with other people. With the exception of Hasar, we had been alone for over a week.
I turned to peer back into the trees, but there was nothing – only the gathering of shadow from the onset of evening. There was the subtle glow of the xen, but it wasn’t enough to battle the coming night.
And then, the platform landed on the forest floor. It contained a shallow railing on all four of sides, with a small gate facing us.
Isaru unlatched the gate and stepped on. I followed and closed it, letting it click shut.
No sooner were we on did it start to rise. The creaking
of the gears above, coupled with the rope that didn’t look thick enough to support us, made me uneasy. It was a curious looking rope, no thicker than my thumb, but its appearance reminded me of spider’s silk. I wanted to touch it, but if it was really as fragile as it looked, I didn’t want to tempt fate.
The ascent was slower than the descent, but in due time, we were even with the deck which had been so far above us, to find ourselves face to face with the man who had let us up. Now closer, I could better make out his features, which was aided by the fact that there was more sunlight this high in the trees. He was older than I first thought, with well-set wrinkles, brown eyes, and a solemn face. He wore a robe woven from some indeterminate material that was similar to what the more well-to-do people in Haven might have worn…despite being plain brown, it had a shimmering quality that suggested it had been manufactured from xen, as so many Elekai materials were. He stared at us with wide eyes, our appearance likely alarming him.
Isaru broke the silence. “Hello. I’m Elek, and this is Alara. We are travelers, and we were wondering if we could stay here for the night. We can bring news in payment, but unfortunately, we have little else.”
“Are you of the Invi?” the man asked, looking at Isaru. “We already offer sanctuary to all of your tribe, though it has been years since we have seen any of you.”
“Is this village part of the Invi tribe?” Isaru asked.
The man's eyes widened as he shook his head adamantly. “No, Elek. I thought you were Invi, from your appearance alone.”
“My…mother was,” Isaru said. “But she died, long ago.”
The man nodded, sadly. “A sad, yet familiar, story. You said you needed directions to Northold. Well, you aren’t far, and unless I miss my mark, my guess is that you are both far from home. Most curious. The only way to get here is from Northold.”
“We came from the west,” I said. “Through that Forest.”
The man’s eyes widened. Just now, though I couldn’t see how he failed to notice it at first, he saw my state. Despite washing off in the stream, I was sure the smell of death was hitting him.