by Ramsey Isler
“So you just want me to drive around for a while?” Sam asked.
“No,” Piv said. “The roads don’t go deep into the woods. We will have to walk.”
“Walk where?” Sam asked. “Where do we start from?”
Piv pointed out the window and said, “There, I think.”
He was pointing at a wide path ahead that intersected the road they traveled along. It might have been another road sometime in the distance past, but it had never been paved. Knee-high grass grew on it, and the only indication that it was a man-made path was the way it cut through the endless line of trees.
“How do you know?” Hax asked.
“Just a feeling,” Piv said. “Turn on that path and drive a bit. We’ll stop when the car can’t be seen from this road.”
Sam followed his instructions, slowing to turn onto the little pathway that wound into the forest. “It’s getting dark out here,” she said as the car’s headlights illuminated the dark forest. “Maybe we should just find a hotel or something and pick this up in the morning when we’ll have a full day of light to work with.”
“No,” Piv said. “We must be quick. If the moon isn’t just right, the longbeard will be even harder to wake.”
“Great,” Sam said. “Just...great.”
Sam kept driving along the serpentine pathway as the last bit of sunlight disappeared and night surrounded them. Soon, the path ended in a pile of rock that may have been a wall at some point.
“End of the line,” Sam said. “Now what?”
“We get out,” Piv said. “You brought a flashlight?”
“It’s in the glove compartment,” Sam said. Hax opened it and retrieved a black flashlight. He thumbed the power button and a beam of bright white light appeared. He handed it to Sam. “We won’t need this,” he said. “Try to keep the light out of our eyes.”
Sam took the flashlight from him. “I’ll do my best. Piv, where are we going?”
But Piv was already out of the car, and beckoning Rupert to follow him. The dog cast one wary glance at Sam, then he jumped out of the car and disappeared into the night.
Sam grabbed Rupert’s leather leash from under the armrest. She assumed Piv was still nearby, but she couldn’t see him. She turned the car off and stepped outside. It was a warm evening, but not uncomfortably so. The forest had a fresh smell of moisture; it had rained here recently, but the grass was mostly dry now. Milky moonlight filtered through the clouds above, but it wasn’t nearly enough for Sam to see her surroundings. She scanned the area with her flashlight for a bit and eventually caught sight of Piv and Rupert. Piv appeared to be whispering something into the dog’s ear.
Sam walked up to them and said, “What are you doing?”
“Giving instructions,” Piv said, cheerily. “I don’t know which direction to follow, but Rupert’s doggy nose might. Yes, it might.”
“How would he be able to tell what a longbeard smells like?” Sam asked.
“A dog’s nose knows,” Piv said with a smile and a wink.
Sam sighed and hooked the leash to Rupert’s collar. He walked in a circle around her legs and stared at her with wide eyes. “He doesn’t seem to know what you’re talking about.”
“Give it time,” Hax said. He had appeared next to Sam without making a sound. A few seconds later Rupert started to move, sniffing the ground as he went.
“We follow,” Piv said, and they all went deeper into the forest.
* * *
“I hate the outdoors,” Sam said. It had been an hour since they had started their trek, and she’d already suffered a number of scratches from thorny bushes, and several mosquito bites. The forest was dense and overgrown, making it hard for a human to weave in and out of the tight spaces Rupert weaved through. But the Kith had no problem.
“You should let him off the leash,” Hax said in a voice that was tinged with annoyance. “He will be able to move better without it, and without you trailing behind him.”
“I feel more comfortable with it on,” Sam said. “He can get skittish sometimes. I don’t want him to run off in this forest. Who knows what trouble he’d get into.”
“I assure you that I or Piv would retrieve him easily,” Hax said. “It is foolish to keep him latched to you like some sort of slave.”
“He has a point,” Piv said. “We would make faster progress if—”
“Fine,” Sam said, stomping up to Rupert and unlatching his leash. “But I swear if he gets lost or hurt I’m taking it out on you two.”
“Noted,” Hax said. Then he strode ahead and walked next to Rupert.
They marched through the forest for another twenty minutes, with the Kith flanking Rupert as he kept his nose to the ground and sniffed out their target. The temperature had dropped a little, and Sam felt a few shivers run through her. But she wasn’t exactly sure if that was only due to the chill. This place felt strange and foreboding. A calm wind blew through the trees and made a sound like a whisper. Besides Sam’s clumsy footfalls, that whispering was the only sound in the forest. There were no birds, nor crickets, nor frogs. It was almost like nothing lived here.
Rupert and the elves veered left and Sam followed dutifully. These trees looked familiar to her. Sam wasn’t enough of a woodland expert to tell one tree from another, but she was observant, and she knew when she’d seen something before. She used her flashlight to scan the ground and found a pattern of tamped grass and broken branches, then she knew what the problem was.
“Guys,” she said, “we’re going in circles.”
“How clever of you,” Hax said. “It only took you ten minutes to realize it.”
“Thanks for the commentary, smart ass. But you’re just as lost as I am.”
“True,” Hax said. “Piv?”
“We are not lost,” Piv said. “Rupert has taken us most of the way. I just need to...figure out the rest.”
“What is it that you’re figuring?” Hax asked.
Piv didn’t respond at first. He took a few paces away from them with his arms outstretched as if he were walking blind and trying to use his arms to guide him around obstacles. Then he stopped, and turned to his right. “Over here,” Piv said.
“Are you sure?” Hax asked.
“Yes,” Piv said.
Sam turned her flashlight to the new direction Piv had taken. He was walking toward a great willow tree. It was taller than some buildings in Birmingham, with a trunk so wide that four adults could link arms around it and just barely complete a circle.
“I can feel it now,” Hax said. “He’s close.”
“Yes,” Piv said as he approached the tree. He fell to his knees and put his ear on the nearest root. Then he tapped it, and listened. A few moments later, he smiled.
“Oh ho ho!” he said. “This is clever. Very clever.”
“What is it?” Sam asked as she walked around the thick tree trunk and examined it from all sides.
“All this time I was thinking that he would be in a cave,” Piv said, “or a den under a great mound of dirt. But no, that’s not it at all. He has made his home here.”
“In this tree?” Sam asked.
“Not...quite,” Hax said, his voice full of wonder as he caressed the tree’s bark. “He’s under the tree.”
“Yes yes,” Piv said. “This must have been just a mere sapling when he came here. But as it grew, its roots formed a natural home for him.”
“Okay then,” Sam said. “So how do we get in there?”
But Piv wasn’t listening to her. His full attention was on the grand old tree. He caressed it like a child cuddling an oversized teddy bear. Then he whispered to it, softly. Sam couldn’t hear what he was saying, or if he was indeed saying anything. She could only see his mouth moving, and hear strange quiet sounds coming out.
Then Piv stopped. He smiled, and motioned for the others to follow him as he pranced to the other side of the tree, and out of sight. Hax and Rupert followed dutifully. Sam hesitated for a moment, and kept her flashlight
pointed directly in front of her as she carefully walked around to the spot where the others had disappeared.
The tree had a hole in it.
It was about four feet high, and two feet wide, and it was right at the base of the tree. Sam was absolutely sure that hole hadn’t been there earlier. She was just about to call out to the Kith and Rupert when they all turned to face her. They were already in the tree. Sam could tell because she saw three pairs of curious eyes reflecting the moonlight from the shadows, and suddenly she felt very out of place.
“You can fit, can’t you?” Hax said.
Sam aimed her flashlight and saw her companions waiting in there. Rupert and Piv turned away, but Hax snarled and bared his teeth. For just a fleeting moment, Sam thought his eyes flared red.
“I told you,” Hax growled in an unnatural voice that made Sam’s insides turn, “keep that cursed light out of my eyes!”
The flashlight’s little bulb popped and sizzled, and Sam’s light died.
“Oh dear,” Piv said. “That will be troublesome.”
“I told her,” Hax said.
“Indeed you did,” Piv said. “Well, nothing can be done for it now. Shall we proceed?”
“I won’t be able to see anything in there,” Sam said, staring at the now useless flashlight.
“Don’t worry,” Piv said. “You will see. Come, come.”
Sam went inside the willow’s portal, and unyielding darkness welcomed her. “Piv, I can’t see a damn thing.”
“Patience,” Piv said. Sam felt a small hand reach out for hers. She grasped it, and moved deeper into the darkness, shuffling her feet slowly along the way to avoid tripping on what felt like roots. Soon, she saw what Piv had meant. There was a little bit of light down here. It was a dim, amber glow that came from writhing blobs scattered here and there. A stray light lazily flew in front of Sam’s face and then she knew what she was seeing. They were little groups of fireflies.
The tree’s portal led to a spiraling path downwards, deeper into the earth. She breathed in stale, stagnant air that was heavy with dust. As Sam’s eyes adjusted, she could see roots, rocks, and dirt all around her. The passageway was Kith-sized, and she had to stoop.
When the spiral pathway ended, they had arrived in a wide chamber with pockets of empty space interspersed with tendril-like roots that descended from above or snaked along the earth above them to form a natural load-bearing cage. Sam guessed she was at least thirty feet underground now. Fireflies flew around them in slow, meandering flight patterns that indicated the little bugs weren’t in a particular hurry to do anything.
Piv led them deeper into the chamber. Rupert followed, with Hax next to him. Sam was bringing up the rear now. She couldn’t help but steal a glance behind her every few seconds. The dead flashlight was still in her right hand. She grasped it tightly, feeling the heft of the sturdy metal casing and the large batteries inside. She was glad she still had it. It eased her discomfort...a little.
They walked on in silence. The air grew denser. The earth beneath their feet was less solid, and more like sand. Columns of loose dirt fell from the ceiling and clumped in Sam’s hair. She was sure she was filthy now. She didn’t even want to think about the thorough bath Rupert would need later.
As her mind was busy with these mundane thoughts, they came upon a body.
It was a skeletal figure, lying flat on its back and covered in dust and entwined in roots. It was dressed in tattered clothes; plain garments made of what appeared to be canvas. He had a long beard of brown hair that was so wiry it looked like slender twigs growing out of his face. Piv walked closer. The others followed. The body’s eyes opened.
They were ancient eyes; eyes the color of hazelnuts. And they were not glassy and smooth. These eyes had texture like stone. The pupils moved slowly, surveying each of the visitors carefully. He scanned Piv first. Then Hax. Then Rupert. Finally, those stony eyes met Sam’s. Sam smiled, nervously. The ancient elf did not show any reaction.
Piv crouched next to him and said, “Do you remember the king’s tongue?”
The longbeard opened his mouth, dust and rocks falling from his face. When he spoke, his voice was raspy and harsh. “Aye.”
Piv looked back to Sam, grinning. “A good start,” he said. He turned back to the longbeard and said, “I am Piv. That is Hax. This wee pup here is Rupert. The woman is Samantha. We have come to beseech you to join us. The world is new, and full of wonders.”
The longbeard was quiet, and still. Only his eyes moved. His gaze shifted to each of them, and he stared into their faces for long moments. Even Rupert received a stare-down. But when it was Sam’s turn, the longbeard only looked at her for a scant few seconds before returning his attention to Piv.
He opened his mouth again, wider this time, jaw joints creaking like old floorboards. “Why?”
“A multitude of reasons,” Piv said. “This woman here has brought the Kith together, in numbers not seen for an age. We have found a new place in the world of men. We are makers of fine things. We live amongst them, though they know not.”
“Verily?” the longbeard said.
Piv nodded and pointed to Hax. “And there is a fresh hatch. The first of many.”
The longbeard turned his head to Hax, who was watching with an impassive expression. The longbeard stared for a long while, and then said, “What do you desire?”
Hax grinned, and said, without hesitation, “I wish to learn from you. I want to know what you know.”
“Why?” the longbeard asked.
“Because,” Hax said, “knowledge is power.”
Sam understood Hax’s response all too well. It was a phrase she herself believed in. But she was a human, and the longbeard was a Kith. She’d spent enough time with Kith to know that Hax had just doomed this little enterprise. Piv’s recoil and wide eyes just confirmed what she already knew: Hax had given a very wrong answer.
The longbeard scowled and turned to Piv. “What have ye brought to me? He is no Kith. There be no desire for worldly gain in a Kith’s heart. A Kith wants for naught. Ye have brought me an abomination.”
“What did you call me?” Hax said.
“Nothing,” Piv said, stepping between the longbeard and Hax. “He didn’t say a thing. We should go now.”
“Perhaps we should come back when the old one is tired of hiding in his dirt hole,” Hax said.
“Nay,” the longbeard said with a wicked grin. “Ye will not be here again.”
“I don’t like the sound of that,” Sam said. A second later, the scattered fireflies in the chamber all flew out of the space in one unified swarm, leaving utter darkness behind them. Rupert started to bark. Then the chamber began to quake, and clumps of dirt hit Sam in the face.
“RUN!” Piv shouted, and panic seized Sam’s heart.
The darkness was terrifying. Sam tried to move but her feet caught in roots and rocks and she fell. She got back to her feet and decided it would be better to take high steps. She felt a mass of fur against her arm and reached blindly to where she figured Rupert’s head was. She grabbed his collar and he dashed forward, leading her away from the chaos.
It seemed like an eternity, but in actuality it was only less than a minute before Rupert led Sam back up the spiraling pathway that brought them underground, and she could see pearly moonlight beyond the small portal in the tree. She ran out the door and collapsed on the forest floor, coughing out dirt and sucking in cool gulps of forest air. She looked up at the tree. The portal was gone.
Rupert was so dirty his gray fur had turned dark brown. Piv was doing his best to brush out the dirt, while Hax just stood off to the side and watched with indifference.
“That surely was a waste of time,” Hax said to Piv. “You took me from my work just so I could be insulted by a dried up old coot?”
“That was not the plan,” Piv said. “You spoiled everything.” His eyes narrowed to slits and he bared his teeth. Rupert whined and slunk away from him. Sam realized that she was
witnessing something she’d never seen before; something she didn’t even know was possible.
Piv was angry.
Hax continued to give Piv an impassive stare, unaffected by Piv’s fury. “All I did was give him an honest answer. It’s not my fault that he didn’t like it.”
“Your answer may have been honest,” Piv said, “but it was wrong.”
Hax shrugged. “For you, maybe. Not for me.” Then Hax just walked away, back in the direction they had come from. Sam, Rupert, and Piv watched him go. Rupert looked at Sam, then Piv. He seemed to be looking for some indication of what to do next.
“Well,” Sam finally said when she had caught her breath, “besides being scared half to death, I have to say this little adventure was...interesting. I can’t call it a total waste.”
“Nor can I,” Piv said. He was relaxed now; the corners of his mouth turned up in a faint smile. “I learned something today. So did you.”
“Did I?”
“Yes,” Piv said, “although you don’t realize it yet.”
Piv started walking back to the car with Rupert. Sam followed. She did not ask him what he had meant, but she thought she had a good idea.
Chapter 26
Sam drove straight home after the events near St. Ignace. No one said a word during the entire trip. When she arrived at her house, the Kith went off in separate directions. Sam went inside and fell asleep on the couch. Rupert did the same on the floor next to her.
In the morning, Sam woke and realized that both she and Rupert were still filthy. She washed Rupert first, and an hour later he looked presentable. Sam showered, ate, and got ready to go to the office. She was determined to act as if nothing had happened yesterday. Nothing important, at least.
She drove to Better headquarters and got into her office as quickly as she could, avoiding eye contact with any of the employees. Once inside the sanctuary of her office, she checked her email first. Thirty-five messages awaited her, all sent by eager people clamoring for her attention. Ten of the messages were from reporters.
She deleted those.