Forest For The Trees (Book 3)

by Damien Lake

  It struck the cliff five feet below their boots. The disk continued forward, passing through the stone effortlessly, leaving glowing stone in the precise cut it left behind. Xenos yanked the last channel off the disk.

  Underground, the disk exploded. The overlook shattered. Bodies were tossed. Several were crushed when they fell between chunks of land that were falling back into jumbled place.

  The Arm nearly plummeted to his death. Before he could slip out into empty space, a land fragment sprouting a young tree spun before him. Its tree whipped around to lash the Arm across his chest in midair. He spun head over feet to crash into a grassy slope tilted upward sixty degrees. The meadow had been perfectly flat moments earlier.

  When the ground settled, Xenos counted auras. A quarter had perished. He could feel the terror of immanent death overtaking the survivors. Yes, their auras were spiking. They were realizing they were going to die this day. Casualties rather than heroes. Hearts were pumping faster. Excess life energies were blooming. Let the realizations sink in. Let the pain from broken bones hit their nerve centers. The feast grew sweet and delectable.

  He waited several long moments. A proper sendoff for the noble Arm of Galemar was in order, he decided. His childhood idol and kingdom’s knight had achieved a victory to match his predecessors. Not only that, but Xenos owed him gratitude for the marvelous bounty of death his strategy would yield. This battlefield would garner a fantastic harvest indeed, making his conquest of the Rovasii all but certain.

  The Earthen Purgatory. Xenos chose the attack with a smile. Centuries had it been since last it was witnessed. Only the true god’s most loyal followers had ever known the secret to casting it. A lance of energy, powerful in its own right. Yet once it made contact with raw stone, it mutated, the energy beginning a chain reaction, building on itself until the final release.

  A release that would turn a square mile into a blooming mushroom of fire and slag.

  Xenos meticulously spun the lance using a combination of magecraft and geomancy. He shut down his inflows of fresh power until he finished crafting it. The Earthen Purgatory required extremely high levels of concentration and imbued energy.

  Once he held it in hand, he resumed his absorption from the battlefield and selected a spot between the Arm’s feet. There. A good spot. People had begun to converge on the Arm, seeking assurances that he lived, desiring instruction. It was time.

  He cocked his arm back. The Earthen Purgatory required physical release as well as mental. It was the great secret behind it and why no outsiders had ever duplicated the Earth God’s masterpiece.

  A whip of fire lashed hard into his back the instant he released the lance. He felt it go astray slightly, not that it mattered. Xenos staggered several steps before spinning to see who dared!

  There! On the edge of those trees. The detestable eul’kkandr!

  * * * * *

  Marik gazed woozily between his supine boots. He lay limply against the slope where the tree had thrown him. His chest burned. Had his ribs cracked? Standing seemed an act beyond which the gods could reasonable expect from him.

  Somehow he had retained his sword when the tree played stickball with him. It rested in his right hand. He lacked the strength to lift it. He lacked the strength to move his head.

  A crunching noise announced an unknown person’s approach over an area of freshly-made gravel. The blurred figure entered his view from the right, indistinguishable at first because the earlier cut was bleeding freely into his eye. It halted several feet to the side. Marik forced his head to loll sideways until he could see who it was.

  “Beld?” Marik blinked. “Ah. That explains it.” He relaxed gratefully. “When did I fall asleep?”

  “You look good all broken there in the dirt.”

  “I can’t remember feeling like this in a dream before.” He thought he sounded drunk. “Except one time, I think. That was a bad dream. Maybe I’ve been cooked again.”

  “Cooked, yeah,” the large man sneered. “Your fat’s in my frying pan this time, you lousy bastard.”

  “A dream. Must be. I can’t see your aura, Beld. I can’t remember ever seeing auras in my dreams before.”

  “As I said,” declared a second man who rounded a freshly fragmented boulder pile. “He is unable to see us properly with his magical vision.”

  “You’re still not making any sense,” Beld growled. “Keep your Nolier rings out of it!”

  “Rings? Nolier?”

  “That’s right,” Beld confided with mock cheerfulness while drawing his claymore. “This here is Tallior, in case you didn’t know. Works for a higher-up in Thoenar you got on the wrong side of.”

  “You mean Baron Sestion?” Confusion rang through Marik’s head. He could see the man Tallior, who looked oddly familiar, growing livid at mention of the name. “What’s Sestion have to do with Nolier? He’s a court noble in Thoenar.”

  Beld, surprisingly, seemed amused. “Court baron, eh? That’s an answer or two, isn’t it?”

  “The man is incoherent!” shouted Tallior. “I have no idea what he speaks of, and neither, apparently, does he!”

  “How much will he pay for his fancy rings back, I wonder? A fat pouch of metal, I bet.” Beld waited until Tallior started screaming before cutting him off. “Who cares? I told you we’d find this piece of dog vomit with his guard down up here. You were worried about the other mages, but what did I say? Looks like I’m right and you’re wrong, doesn’t it? Found him weaker than we could have hoped.”

  Marik was alarmed to see Beld raising his blade high. Dream or not, he cared little for the prospect of this great ox, of all people, cutting him down. People said if you died in your dreams, you died for real. He hardly wanted to be the one to find out for certain.

  All he could manage were weak scrambles. His feet pushed loose rocks away, his hands unable to raise his overweight weapon.

  Beld grinned a feral cat’s smile. “No more cheap tricks out of you. We been waiting the hells own time for this!”

  Marik had no idea what happened next. Something struck Beld from behind. He only caught a flash of it before Beld’s body went rigid. A long streak of white laced through with dark brown, like gold veins twisting through quartz.

  The large man’s scream was lost beneath the electric crackles deafening men kingdoms away. Everything within sight darkened as Beld’s body outshone the sun. White lightning enwrapped him in a thousand arcing tendrils. His clothing shredded into wisps. Hair all over his body vanished in ashy puffs.

  Awestruck, Marik watched. The lightning must have somehow entered Beld’s body. He could see the man’s skeleton shining incandescent through his flesh. Beld’s heart was plainly visible within the ribcage, his brain pulsating inside his skull. Marik could see Beld’s intestines rupturing inside him. Could see the bladder pop like an air bubble broaching a river’s surface. Watched blood burst through the stomach wall and rush up the windpipe.

  Blood was forcibly expelled through every pore. Beld became a fountain spraying fine jets in a hundred directions. Through the grotesque ordeal, the man continued screaming, unable to topple, held in place by an unseen force. Marik felt the hot liquid, boiling hot, hotter than any blood he had ever felt, splatter his entire front. A hard object bounced off his left eyebrow. He looked down long enough to see a cracked, blackened fingernail resting in his lap.

  The greater lightning burned away quickly. Beld stopped screaming. His body was a seared lump of venison left too long over the cook fire. Scattered flickers of miniscule lightning arced across his flesh.

  Beld slowly toppled sideways. His body struck the ground with a hard thump. Marik could not tear his eyes away. He watched one last lightning flicker, thin as a strand of hair, crawl off Beld’s charred heel. It touched the fresh gravel littering the ground.

  The world vanished from sight.

  Only light surrounded Marik as the ground beneath his rear disintegrated. Dark specs hovered about him in the air, stones that had bee
n reduced to grains of sand. He could hear nothing, yet a roar filled his ears. A roar such as the world would make were it given voice to shout at the universe.

  He slid downward. What was there to slide down on here? Nothing could exist where nothing existed. That sounded like a statement Tru would make. Where was that black magician? Riding off with Tybalt despite Celerity’s adamant wishes. Nobody was there to mind the earth casks. The casks were important to guard because someone might empty the tobacco ashtray into the Tullainia 0031 cask. Then they wouldn’t be able to scrye any place except the foyer in the Standing Spell. Dietrik wouldn’t want a room full of mages watching Rosa slap his face for being cheeky.

  Had he stopped sliding? His arm was raised above him. Maybe it had caught on a rock or a tree root. It hurt, dangling from one arm. But what could he do about it? How should he know? Maybe he did know. Maybe that was why he was falling asleep. Because falling asleep when you were dreaming meant you were waking up. He could figure out what to do about it while he waited to attack the Citadel. By the next time he fell asleep, he would have the problem figured out and be ready to deal with it.

  Yes…he drifted into the void…the void that would take him away…the void he rushed toward so he could come back with the answer…

  * * * * *

  The fiery crater that burned where the copse had once been pleased Xenos. That would finally put an end to the interminably interfering eul’kkandr! Even that resourceful one could not have survived this time!

  He glanced to the mountain overlook three miles distant. The intact mountain soured his pleasure. Why had the Earthen Purgatory failed to enter full final phase? Was his reclaimed knowledge faulty?

  Impossible! Or…

  Of course. His deflected aim. The Earthen Purgatory must have struck a tree or other organic object. Only a bare portion of the energy had managed to find stone.

  It would still be enough, he could see. The vastly reduced effect had opened a second crater on the mountainside. A wide fissure split the cliff face, widening by the moment, sending cascades of stone plummeting hundreds of feet. Soon the entire northern face would be embroiled in an avalanche for the records.

  Xenos studied the lurching Citadel. It had broken in half. Anyone still alive in the stasis control cavern must have their feet dangling in open air. Massive pieces of the Citadel littered the plain for half a mile. Building-sized fragments still rained down on the fleeing armies of Arronath and Galemar both, every soldier on the field running to escape with his life.

  He easily climbed along the slanted peak that had once been unscalably vertical. At the tip, he sat cross-legged to wait, his entire body reconstituted to deal with any physical force it might encounter. From there he could watch the doomed fortress bear down on those who were about to die. It would be a magnificent blessing from god. A marvelous harvest.

  Laughing as he had not in many years, Xenos rode the diving Citadel toward its final impact amidst a swarm of agitated Wyverflies.

  Book 06

  Rovasii

  Interlude

  The hovering butterfly shone in the brilliant sunlight. Its wings shimmered between metallic green and oily iridescent pink. Lightly it flapped in a drunkard’s unsteady meander until a long tongue darted from a cluster of leaves. A forest lizard reeled in its catch. It swallowed the butterfly.

  Moments later, its eyes bulged and its body shuddered. Scales from lip to tail rippled as they changed to silver. Seconds later, over fifty sharp needles burst through the lizard’s body from within. The needles grew to five inches in a single heartbeat. Blood coated the metal points in rivulets that flowed over the impaled reptile and down the tree bark.

  Colbey leaned close to examine a single eyeball skewered on a needle tip, inches above the socket it had been ripped from.

  “This is a growing problem,” Thomas noted from behind the younger Guardian. “We are still too few in number. With our manpower so low, we can’t properly maintain the seals. Some of the barriers have been deteriorating for the last year.”

  “How many other species have broken free?” Colbey asked.

  “Not very many,” Thomas admitted. “But it is symptomatic of larger problems in the future. To date, the only serious erosion has been where weaker seals abut the boundaries of areas with far stronger ones. The holes are still minor.” He pointed at the lizard, now a gristly parody of a hedgehog. “Only insects and small creatures have found their way out from their areas and into new grounds.”

  “The spikewings won’t be the last,” Colbey predicted. “If the erosion continues unchecked, we will have larger and more dangerous creatures on the loose. Not only into neighboring seals, but into the outer forest as well. Into the Euvea groves and beyond.”

  Thomas nodded. “The damage can be kept contained up to a point. We have enough Guardians left that we can keep the seals from collapsing completely. But until we train new members, we won’t be able to fully repair the damage. Only patch the holes we find fast as we can.”

  “That…” Colbey paused. “It will have to do. Our seal masters are gone, their knowledge with them. We can never rebuild the seals. We must keep the seals that remain intact.” He clenched his fists hard without noticing.

  The senior Guardian did notice. He had carefully observed Colbey’s every slight habit since his return. His protégé had taken long strides along recovery’s path…though there remained a considerable distance yet to travel. Colbey’s hair continued to hang in straggling locks from his neglect for personal upkeep. Each morning he shaved only because it was policy in both the scouts and the Guardians.

  His mind had broken free of the endless spiral toward self-destruction, which was the most important step of all. Ghosts still haunted Colbey day after day, but they were the shades of his actions rather than fictions crafted from an increasing burden of survivor’s guilt, a sense of unfulfillable duty and a burning rage with no outlet. Those fragments of shattered sanity had come back together. They were tender, raw, still healing and, perhaps, might never reconcile their breakdown. Colbey might never find the strength to forgive himself enough to become a whole man once more.

  Only duty kept him going. His desire to live was tenuous. Colbey was convinced that dying was the proper justice he deserved. He only worked hard enough for three Guardians because he owed penance. A penance he could never fulfill.

  “Nothing is ever lost forever,” Thomas countered. “Forgotten for a time, yes, but elsewhere the knowledge continues to live on. Our seal masters are passed-on. In order to rebuild what we have lost we will need to reach out beyond the forest.”

  “Bring in outlanders?” Colbey was aghast, tearing his eyes away from the lizard to stare in astonishment at Thomas. “To the village? To the Euvea?”

  “Outsiders have made homes in the village before,” Thomas replied calmly. “Before your time, and before mine. Those who have proven trustworthy have been welcomed. What we need most at this point are men who are disheartened by their kingdom, who are willing to leave their world behind to enter ours. Men who will blossom as inheritors to a legacy fraught with responsibilities. Men willing to disappear from their lives to become villagers. And among them, we need to find ones with magical talent who are trustworthy. Ones knowledgeable in the ways of seals, or capable of learning what they must.”

  “A trustworthy mage?”

  “We must. When the next winter outside the forest begins, I will send out the surviving scouts to scour the fringe towns. The outer lands will be entering a calm with the snows dampening their farming and warring alike.”

  “They will never find such a one! There are no trustworthy mages in the outlands!”

  Thomas saw the opening he had hoped for. He quickly evaluated the younger scout and reached a decision. It was finally time to bring the matter up. Colbey had reverted in large part to his former trainee persona. A persona that had been pure once, springing from a time before the corrosion ate at his being.

  “No trustwo
rthy mages, you say. None at all? Are you telling me the mage you spoke of, the man you worked side-by-side with, is untrustworthy? How did he betray your trust?”

  Colbey’s lips twisted in a bitter grimace. “He…he did nothing to…obstruct me.” The words were pulled from his soul at tremendous cost. “He apparently acted in accordance to his stated aims. But that hardly makes him a man we could place our faith in. If we brought him into the Euvea, he might very likely change. Become like all the rest who ever sought our village out.”

  Thomas pierced him with a hard gaze. His ‘harsh instructor’ expression. Colbey flinched noticeably. “You are still clinging to the arrogant views you touted when you climbed so nimbly through the scout training classes! The apartheid belief that we alone possess the strength of character to fulfill the duties passed to us from our forbearers without suffering corruption. The same egotistical isolationism that drove you to believe you were alone in the world while surrounded by potential allies. Allies that might have willingly offered you aid had you asked it openly.”

  “I…they…asked for aid? None of them are half the warrior our weakest scout is!”

  “And why does that disqualify them from a Guardian’s needs?” Thomas pretended to ignore Colbey’s shaking hands. “Does a Guardian turn his back on a villager simply because he weaves hangings for our doorways? Should a Guardian ignore a potter because she is unlearned in our martial ways? No! I taught you better than that. Though non-combatants, every member of a community can lend significant aid to any larger effort.”

  “How can you have expected me to…to work with those communities the outlanders pretend is civilization? They rob and rape each other every day and ask the gods why such punishments were delivered on them. Never have they stopped to look at themselves to see the root of their problems.”