by Zax Vagen
As Jem turned to call Thist one wisp rush straight at Thist and collided with him. As it did its essence dissipated and then rematerialized, and it darted off into the forest. It was hard to tell if there were two or ten others but they vanished along with the other one.
Thist was startled and looked to where it had come from and then to where they all had gone. He ran to where Kelvin and Jem were standing, his long black coat flailing behind him like a cape in the wind.
“Not aggressive, hey Thist?” taunted Jem. “I don’t care what you say, I don’t trust those things.”
Thist shook his head, “I don’t know what that was. They seem more inclined to leave us alone if we are in a tight group. Let’s stick together, and let’s get a fire going.”
“No!” said Kelvin. “Cold camp tonight, we are on a scouting mission, remember?”
“Oh great.” said Jem “Now we get to spend the night with an army of forest ghosts in the cold wet jungle in total darkness.”
Thist sat down on a bolder. “We have to communicate with them somehow, let them know we mean them well.”
“How?” asked Jem. “They cannot possibly understand anything that we say or even sign with our hands.”
“It’s a very old forest.” said Kelvin “Many thousands of years.”
“Still.” said Thist “How do we communicate with a being that is so foreign to us and us to them?”
“We can’t even feed them.” said Jem.
“They have a problem,” said Kelvin “If we can solve their problem then we can win their favour.”
Jem looked dubious. “Kelvin, you are mad. What problem could they have?”
Everyone and everything in the world has problems.” said Kelvin. “Look around in the forest as far as you can see. Can you see anything out of place in this forest, anything at all?”
Jem looked at the forest; everything was perfect, more than perfect. Something was missing. The Hyperion trees were everywhere, there were small forest ferns and the whole of the forest floor was covered in a rotting deadfall.
“All the trees are old and massive.” said Thist.
“And?” asked Kelvin sounding like an old school tutor.
Jem stood up and scanned the forest floor, then turned and looked to the other way cupping his hands to the side of his face as he strained to focus. “There are no small trees.”
“Isn’t that strange?” asked Kelvin. “Even the trees of the forest are not reproducing.”
“It’s not that strange.” offered Jem. “This type of tree needs fire to germinate their seed. There just hasn’t been a forest fire in this forest for thousands of years.”
“I have an idea.” said Jem. “We can make a small fire and flash some seeds then we can plant them and hope the wisps will like us. What do you think?”
Thist nodded his head and pursed his lips in a gesture of approval. “Worth a try, I’ll get some wood.”
“I did advise against a fire,” muttered Kelvin, “but I guess the trees are so tall and thick that we should be just fine. Besides, the castle is still a long ways off.”
Jem and Thist built up a small camp fire while Kelvin scouted close by for some seeds. As the fire started to crackle and smoke, the wisps started to gather in numbers on the edge of the firelight. The crowd of black apparitions became larger as more and more wisps joined in to watch. They stayed just beyond the firelight, jostling for position like a crowd of market-goers trying to watch a thespian show.
Jem watched the crowd grow, with open mouthed, wide eyed horror. Kelvin was still busy sorting seeds and had not looked up yet. But Thist was enjoying the spectacle.
“I wonder who’s watching who?” said Thist.
Kelvin looked up and froze in position as his jaw dropped. “Ho…!” the profanity went cold in his mouth.
The forest of a hundred thousand ancient trees had not seen the glow of firelight in thousands of years. A gathering of a hundred thousand curious dark apparitions collected in a tight circle around them. For a while none of them spoke, Jem was frozen cold with fear. Kelvin was riveted in disbelief and Thist was enjoying the spectacle.
“Let’s do the job guys. We have a full house watching.” Thist’s words may just as well have fallen onto rocks. “Jem! Kelvin! Are we roasting seeds or what?”
Kelvin turned his head toward Thist without taking his eyes from the crowd. “Did the wisp that ambushed you earlier touch or move you at all?” asked Kelvin.
“It bumped me a little.” said Thist. “Why?”
“Then this many could probably do something nasty,” said Kelvin, “couldn’t they?”
“Sure, but they are friendly, what is the problem?” said Thist.
“We just lit a fire in their forest, I don’t think they like that.” said Kelvin.
Thist considered the folly of their actions. One spark out of place could not only bring down the most majestic forest that they had ever beheld, but they would never outrun the inferno in the dark. “Let’s make this fire count.” said Thist. “Bring the seeds. Jem, bring a pot, we can pan roast some and maybe char some with flame. Jem! Jem!”
Jem did not respond except for a loose involuntary bowel movement.
Kelvin stood up and put a hand on Jem’s shoulder. “Jem!” it was futile, Jem was catatonic with fear.
“Thist, I have to do something radical to help Jem.” said Kelvin.
Thist was holding a small travelling pan over the fire with some seeds in, he looked up briefly and nodded, “Just hurry, I think our forest friends have lost their friendliness.”
Kelvin took Jem’s left third finger and placed it on an apple sized stone, then he slammed Jem’s finger with another flat stone.
The pain from Jem’s crushed fingernail purged his mind of every thought and emotion and filled it with the fight or flight reaction and he punched Kelvin in the eye.
Kelvin reeled backward while flailing his arms and fell, back first, into the cold stream. Thist was irritated by the display of delinquency and shouted at Jem and Kelvin. “Stop fooling around and get me a canteen of water.”
Jem, who was now fully alert and ready for action, grabbed one of the tin drinking bottles and scooped it full of stream water. Kelvin was still struggling to right himself on the slippery pebbles and found all of his profanities from earlier on and used them to describe his frustration with Jem’s insolence. Thist had taken a hand full of hot pan roasted seeds in his bare hand and was blowing onto them. His eyes were shut as he conjured up a spell on the seeds. “Get ready to plant them.” He instructed.
Jem clambered over some large boulders to where Thist was weaving spells. “What are you doing Thist?” asked Jem.
“Just adding some speed, scrape us a trench in the dirt over there.” said Thist.
The hot roasted seeds were burning Thist’s hand but he didn’t seem to feel anything. Jem held the canteen in one hand and scraped a deep groove into the rich dirt just beyond the boulders. “Come, its ready.” shouted Jem.
Thist rushed over to where Jem had tilled the soil and poured a line of seeds into the trench and then kicked over some dirt to close up the seeds as he went along. “Pour some water you moron.” ordered Thist.
Jem started to shake out some water for the newly planted seeds and sucked the injured finger on his other hand.
Kelvin came up to where the Jem and Thist stood looking at the trench of newly planted tree seeds. “Now what?”
Jem, Thist, Kelvin and a hundred thousand smoky black forest wisps looked on at the ground where the seeds were planted. Nothing happened.
Kelvin shook his head in disappointment with his one hand over his injured eye. “That’s great.” said Kelvin, “I’m cold, wet, hungry and I am lost in a haunted forest with two blindingly stupid idiots.”
Thist patted Jem on the shoulder, “Buddy, you need to wash yourself. I’m going to make a poultice for your finger and Kelvin’s eye.”
The crowd of wisps started to spread out as they fou
nd more comfortable vantage points to watch the human spectacle, but they did not dissipate. A slight breeze had started to move through the forest making an eerie sound like the whooping of ghosts. The rain, which had been a gentle drizzle at best started to fall in earnest. The pelting of large drops on the ground and on the forest fern’s leaves were punctuated by the new sound of distant rolling thunder.
“Oh no” said Jem. “Not again.”
Jem knew that rolling thunder coming over the mountains behind was like an early warning signal for a potential flood. At best it was just a torrential down pour that could last no less than a minute, unless you were in a rain forest. It was still an hour or more to sunset but as the thunderclouds rolled over the mountain to replace the lighter drizzle clouds, the forest turned from dingy to dark. The fire was extinguished by the down pour that followed and the three men hurried to find shelter and huddled together under a massive tree. It was ill advised to shelter under a tree in a thunder storm but there was no place nearby or at least visible that was not under tree cover. Jem would have protested by now if he had thought that there was any real danger, but he was convinced that it was not the type of lightning that struck the ground.
The rain was heavy and came down on them like long chains of water that soaked them through. They could not have become wetter faster if they had dived head first into a lake.
Jem found the rain relaxing, the blinding dark hid away the apparitions and he felt better for not seeing them. All three young men loved to watch a good lightning show but the incessant gushing of water on their faces made it impossible to watch anything.
Thist grabbed Jem’s arm to have his attention and shouted, “How long will this rain last?”
Thist’s words were barely loud enough above the sound of the storm for him to hear himself.
Jem glanced around for a second as if looking for clues to the answer, “If this lush and massive rainforest is anything to go by,” shouted Jem “then about five thousand years.”
Thist blew a plume of water out of his face and wiped his hair out of his eyes “I need an orb.”
Jem sat down on a large protruding root and covered his head with his cloak. It only served to keep his mouth and nostrils dry as he waited for the rain to rinse away every last bit of travel dirt. “I may as well wait while I wait.” He mumbled to himself.
Thist had moved out from under the tree and had wandered out of sight. Jem didn’t notice at first until he looked up to say something about the warm rain. “Thist! Thist!” Jem shouted as loud as he could.
Kelvin bumped his shoulder and pointed. At first Jem could see nothing until a bolt of lightning lit up the sky for a second. Thist was kneeling in the mud and stroking a potato sized pebble. “What is he doing?” shouted Jem.
Kelvin raised his finger and swirled it around his one ear while shaking his head, signalling madness.
A flickering light emanated from Thist’s face as if there was lightning coming from his eyes. The stone in his hand began to glow an arcane blue colour. Thist stood up and held it to the sky and shouted. His words were too faint in the storm. A bolt of lightning crackled from the sky in deafening anger and struck the stone, it cracked and snapped. Kelvin dove for cover behind the tree and knocked Jem over face first into a shallow puddle of mud. Kelvin knocked his face against the side of the next tree giving him a bloody nose. Jem had bitten his tongue.
“Come and get me!” shouted Thist as he approached. Thist held the thunderstruck orb high above his head. He had successfully imbued it with a magical power that made an invisible shield around him like a large dome tent. The rain drops pelted at it with force but flowed over and around as if it were an oiled jar.
The orb glowed with the light of half a candle, which was a welcome luxury.
Jem spat mud and bits of twig from the forest floor. He wiped his muddy face with a muddy hand he stood up in the bubble next to Thist and tried to clean his face. “How ironic.” he mumbled, his tongue now swollen and clumsy.
Jem stepped out of the energy bubble to let the rain flush the mud from his hands and face. Kelvin stepped into the bubble holding his nose high. He nodded to Thist and said. “Nice trick Thist, you are the lightning man. I must say; when this adventure began I had my doubts about you but now…” Kelvin let the thought trail off.
“It even sounds better in the bubble.” mumbled Jem with a fat tongue. “Do you have any of that magic eye and finger poultice left for my tongue?”
Thist had mixed the healing balm in the nearly empty hum jar that he carried in his shoulder slung bag. It was mostly made of tea and hum and he had used the last smidge to make it. “Sure, have a look,” just spare a little for my hand.”
“Me too.” Kelvin gestured at his banged up face.
Jem opened the hum jar and swabbed a bit with his finger and onto his bleeding tongue.
“What’s wrong with your hand Thist?”
“It’s stuck to the orb. My hand and the rock have melted together from the heat of the lightning bolt.”
Jem and Kelvin looked a little shocked. “Doesn’t it hurt?” asked Jem.
“Sure.” said Thist, “But it’s just pain.”
“There is something else.” said Kelvin. “You did a powerful spell without tea and without fainting, you’re not going to faint are you?”
“I feel exhausted, but not like before. Look, if I move the stone all the way to the ground then the dome stays where I want it to stay so if you guys help me to prize it off then we could make a fair shelter.
“I’ll get the knife,” said Jem.
Thist put his good hand behind his back and let Kelvin hold the hand with the orb stuck in it. Jem prized the arcane stone from Thist’s hand with forceful digging movements like he was trying to remove oysters from the sea floor.
Thist gritted his teeth in agony. “Just hurry it up will you!” he shouted. Kelvin held Thist’s hand steady for Jem to work in the poor light but he could see tears running down Thist’s cheeks. “Hurry Jem, let’s fix our man up nice and quick.” said Kelvin, “You know, Thist, we would have been fine to be wet for the night.”
“I know,” said Thist, “But I need to know that I can do it. I’ve wanted to do that for a while.”
“What?” asked Jem, “Imbue a rock into a magic orb?”
“No. Yes. I mean, catch lightning and use its energy instead of mine.” said Thist.
Kelvin shook his head, “Isn’t the price of your success too high?”
Thist shook his head back at Kelvin, “Isn’t the price of all success too high?” said Thist.
“Consider the rewards of failure.” said Jem. “How do they measure up?”
Kelvin held the rock in his hand and patted Thist on the back, “You are a good man Thist. Let’s get your hand wrapped up with your poultice and a bandage. It should be new in the morning, just like my jaguar scars.
50
Thist looked at his hand. The wound had healed overnight like Kelvin had predicted. The rain had stopped and the dawn sounds were fresh and welcome. Jem was still curled up on a pile of damp leaves and Kelvin was off on a morning chore. There was no sign of the wisps as far as he could tell but the forest was alive with the chirping of birds and the howling of monkeys. Kelvin came sauntering up to the camping spot with two fowl in hand. “Breakfast is served, my eccentric travel companions.” he said in high spirits. “Thist, Jem you have to come and see this, it’s unbelievable.”
Jem barely stirred, Thist was on his feet in a second, “Leave him be for now.” said Thist, “What’s up?”
“Just come and see this.” Kelvin dropped the two fowl next to Jem’s head on purpose and led Thist around two big trees, back to the stream where they had made a fire the night before. “Behold! A veritable wall of trees.”
Thist was dumb struck; the seeds that they had roasted and ploughed into the ground with a stick had grown. They were not the giant timber towers from which their seeds were picked, just saplings in comparison, bu
t there was enough lumber in the line of trees to build one house.
Jem stumbled into the small clearing where Kelvin and Thist were standing. “Mother.” said Jem. “Are those the puppies we planted last night?”
“Yes!” exclaimed Kelvin with a broad smile. “Do they look fantastic, or what?”
Jem walked up to them and put his ear to the wall of trees. They were planted so close together that they had all grown together and into each other, forming one thick tree that looked like a wall with leaves. “Listen,” He said “you can hear them growing.”
Kelvin put his ear to the trees, “I hear it.”
Thist stood and stared at the trees and then down at his open palmed hands. “What have I become?” he asked himself out loud. “Jem, you once said, ‘magic is just the manipulation of things that other people cannot understand’ but what if I can do magic that I cannot understand?”
Jem patted Thist on the back. “Some things, you do not need to understand. Some things you just have to accept.”
“Like what?” asked Thist.
“Like ‘you are awesome.’” said Jem.
“Let’s get breakfast.” said Kelvin, “After that we can follow the stream and see where it leads us.”
51
The walk down from the ancient forest was brutal. They had to negotiate uneven terrain as they blazed their own trail down to the beach. The sight that greeted them on arriving at the beach was incredible. Jem and Thist had never seen the ocean but they had heard the stories. There were no golden sands like it was described in the tales but a vast stretch of pebbles, all rolled and chaffed by the waves into egg shapes. The pebbles were of every manner of rich colour. Thist sat down on the pebble beach and dug his hands into them with childish glee. It was early morning and the sun shone through the holes in the clouds, making golden rays and lighting up patches on the ocean. The vast water was calm and stretched beyond where the eye could see. A flock of gulls flitted over the pebble beach gaining considerable speed as they glided toward and over the water.