by Damien Lake
Dietrik shrugged his mail into a comfortable position and followed without a further word. His mood had been dark since the two friends had re-encountered each other at the mountains’ base. Troublesome as that was, it still comforted Marik to have him at his side. He shuffled fast, the trembles never completely subsiding.
The Tangle rose above them, vast, unnatural and intimidating. At least while running to the cliff’s edge, they had progressed through forest that was, visually at any rate, normal. Now here, in this purgatory, there was no ground. Only crisscrossing branches growing and curving in every direction conceivable. If he fell, he would surely strike another branch quickly. Except with nothing save bark to grab hold of he would undoubtedly slide off, his body slamming into countless eeling tree limbs, broken long before he eventually thudded into the ground.
Wherever that might be.
Colbey set a fast pace. He was determined to arrive at Xenos’ target first. Their brief encounter had demonstrated the effectiveness of attacking the monster head-on. They would be dead before they were aware of it.
Their only chance was to take him unawares. Marik agreed with the assessment. Dietrik had volubly stated the foolishness of trying to fight Xenos at all, no matter the method.
But Marik could no more abandon the effort than he could drink the Southern Sea. Seeing Rail appearing in the clearing…perhaps it was that which roiled his insides so badly rather than the precarious path he trod.
There was no longer any question of why his father and the mysterious man clad in red were so intent on bringing about Xenos’ downfall. Could there be any question but that he was the worst mage to lust after power in centuries? His astonishing strength, fearsome to behold...all at the cost of innocent people’s pain and suffering.
And it was not enough to satisfy the man’s thirst. Whatever he hoped to capture within the Rovasii must be such that it would grant him power that would dwarf his current abilities. The entire Galemaran army would be hard-pressed to destroy him then. If the army weren’t already bleeding from losses in multiple wars.
The scene replayed in his memory. Roots of guilt were burrowing through him. In the face of terrifying magical power, he had left his father to fend off the attacks alone. After the prolonged search, the daily doubts whether he would ever find Rail, it had ended with him leaving behind the only man Marik could call family.
But who is to say what happened then? This is hardly the first time they’ve fought. Father will survive, and the red one, too, probably. Except they’re out of time. They can’t sit and ponder the next best attempt because Xenos will have plundered Colbey’s village by then. And there won’t be any stopping him after that…
Marik forced his feet to raise off the bark enough to take a full step. Shuffling along would be far too slow a pace to set. Especially with Colbey pushing harder by the moment.
The scout constantly slowed his pace from a near run to a hard walk. Marik could feel the irritation wafting off the man. Yet he never said a word. His guilt would ensure he never abandoned them. Not within the confines of a sealed area, anyway. Once they breached the seal he might leave them to their own devices in order to race ahead.
Learning what he had from Marik around the campfire had rekindled a fire in his soul. The other reason Marik refused to turn back was that, if left alone, Colbey might decided to recklessly charge Xenos, teeth bared and sword flying, either in hopes of vanquishing a hated foe or dying in the glorious attempt.
The daylight darkened once they worked their way deeper into the Tangle. Their branch continued without end. It rose in steep hills and plunged in steeper descents until Marik felt his feet sliding despite his care. Once it climbed two-hundred feet in a perfect spiral seventy feet wide.
Many times they were forced to duck or crawl under branches that overlapped theirs. The last was so narrow Marik had to exhale deeply to squeeze under. It marked the strangest journey of his life, following the airborne pathway through the Tangle, listening to birdsong as if it were only an ordinary forest.
They caught up to Colbey after he stopped sharply several candlemarks later. He bent his concentration on a separate branch that passed vertically next to their path. Close enough to touch. Looking for all the world like an innocent tree trunk. Neither he nor Dietrik commented. Both were offering silent thanks to their patron deities for deliverance.
Dietrik marched through the shimmering air the moment it appeared. Marik followed with a quicker step than he had managed since releasing his rope. He was ebullient at the prospect of feeling solid earth beneath his boots. Never again did he ever wish to depart the ground for any reason.
The icy sensations washed over him. When they were replaced by the mild cool of deep forest springtime, he opened his eyes. A cry nearly escaped his lips.
Dietrik stood by the branch’s edge, fists balled against his hips, staring down through the Euvea limbs to the distant earthen floor. Or what could be seen of it beneath the twisting roots. The branch they stood upon was narrower than the Tangle’s pathway.
When Colbey emerged moments later, Marik shouted an angry demand before the shimmer could completely fade. “What is this, a twisted joke? Where’s the gods cursed ground?”
“Where it always has been, mage. Beneath you.”
“Then how about an exit down where the sane people prefer one, instead of high enough up a tree that we can see people entering the heavens?” Sweat beaded Marik’s brow in fresh layers.
“Actually,” Dietrik contradicted, “by the look of the land’s lay, it is little different no matter where you stand. We would be forced to beat a path while keeping our balance atop the worst roots yet.”
“Exactly,” Colbey affirmed. “The branches are the faster route. Push on, mage, if you intend to continue any further.”
Dietrik pierced Marik with a silent gaze. Marik knew what was on his friend’s mind. He hunched his shoulders and resolutely followed Colbey, against Dietrik’s better judgment.
His body swayed alarmingly on the narrower branch. Wind that had been absent within the Tangle pulled at him with every step. Stomach acid burned the back of his throat at the mere thought of the drop to either side. It only made matters worse to see Colbey leap onto a lower branch that crisscrossed theirs. The necessity was plain. Not much further on their branch would be blocked by the towering Euvea trunk. Outside the seal, the pathway branches could not continue indefinitely.
His senses swam during the short fall to the next branch. He felt his heart hammering a frantic tattoo within his chest. There was no possible way he could continue. The fact that he could actually see the ground made the perilous march a dozen times worse.
Acting before he fully realized his intention, Marik switched over to magesight. Heights had never bothered him as he soared through the etheric skies in disembodied form. Much of the tension fled when thick purple mists filled the surrounding environment. The lower roots twisted through the ground’s black void, coming to resemble the Tangle’s impossible weavings.
Since he remained confined within his body, the sensations he sought to overcome were far from completely vanquished. But enough had dissipated that he could continue the journey. Marik mastered the gnawing emotions, taking his mind off the present by taking inordinate interest in the forest.
It took him several moments to notice just how vivid the green auras emitted by the Euvea were. Plant auras were generally a lesser background against which animal or human auras blazed with bright ferocity. Defying the norm, the Euvea trees glowed enough that he felt he needed to squint his eyes. If the magesight had actually made use of his eyes.
Marik concentrated while he followed Colbey. He pushed his magesight to its highest level. The auras around him faded, replaced by the pure white networks of life energy flowing through the trees and his companions.
He nearly stopped. Large as the Euvea were, the core of life force they contained seemed far larger. Never had he witnessed such incredible energy networks.
Pulsing through the trunks were channels thick enough that they were etheric lines in their own right. Many were thicker than the few lines he had worked with in Kingshome and Thoenar. At this level, the Euvea appeared composed, not of bark over wood, but pure energy shaped to resemble the mighty trees.
Around him, mountainous trees of white fire rose against the black void.
He had never heard tell of so much energy in one place. How could simple trees…well, the Euvea were hardly simple, were they? Even so, trees should never be able to produce this much life force. It no longer surprised him that they had grown to such an enormous size. Anything containing this amount of energy must either use it or burn out.
Could this unthinkable amount be produced by the trees alone? He lowered his magesight so he could study the mass diffusion with increased care. These mists were thicker than he had ever encountered. Small wonder. The bleed-off from the Euvea must be phenomenal.
Something was wrong, though. As he watched, he grew increasingly certain that the mists were different from the usual free-floating energy they ought to be. There was a definite direction happening. An etheric wind wafting the mists slowly toward the outer forest. What madness was this? In the etheric plane, natural forces such as weather and the sun did not exist.
Yet it was undeniable that the mists were moving. And that the trio was walking into an etheric wind they could not feel.
Colbey pushed them hard, moving faster the closer they came to their goal. Marik noticed that the Guardians must have made a few alterations to the lofty branches this far into the groves. Climbing to branches above their own became easier due to molded handholds and foot grips. Only after the fourth such climb did he realize how cleverly they had been crafted. They must have been manmade in spite of their natural appearance. The Guardians had disguised their work with superior craftsmanship.
Marik’s thoughts were in a knot no less impressive than the Tangle when Colbey finally stopped. The mercenaries could see they had reached their destination at last. Ahead, around the trunk this branch led to, a broad platform encircled the Euvea tree. Railings ran along the edge, curving out of sight behind the tree.
“Outsiders are present,” the scout whispered. “Make no noise.”
“Where?” Dietrik returned. “In the trees? They must be the rest of your chaps, then.”
“We would not hear them, were that the case.”
“How could they have gotten ahead of us?” Marik hissed far too loudly. “You said we could get to this place first!”
“I could have, mage. Clearly I should have left you on your own after all.”
“Left us to die, you mean.”
“To the same result, apparently. You slowed me to much! All hope for ambush is lost.”
Dietrik pulled his main-gauche dagger and held it menacingly between the two. “Enough with casting blame! Let’s see what is what before we throttle each other.”
Colbey’s ire persisted. It made them vividly recall the scout of old. He rounded the deck silent as a falling leaf. Marik followed. So did Dietrik, who chose to keep his dagger withdrawn.
The tree-borne village shocked Marik. True enough that Colbey had described it so he should have pictured it with sharp clarity, but witnessing entire buildings perched nest-like high above the ground stole his breath away. They evoked equal parts wonder at their existence…and poignant sorrow at their disarray.
Their cracked and splintered doorframes, their broken window shutters and caved-in roofs simply looked wrong. He could see both their ruined corpses and their heyday when they had been glorious…shacks. Well, not shacks exactly, nor rude sheds. None could be called an unparalleled feat of architecture but their simplicity made them perfect for their setting. They blended harmoniously with the Euvea trees that sheltered them.
Looking at the torn walkways hanging limply against the trunks reminded him forcibly of the post-war veterans who had lost body parts to Nolier blades. Those maimed soldiers were set adrift by the army they had served, left with nothing save what sympathy would gain them. They were out of place huddled half-drunk by tavern hearths, or leaning heavily on rough crutches by the fences that marked a town’s furthest limit. Never had they been meant to become broken shadows without purpose, robbed of body and spirit.
The same cruel play of life was no less forcibly acted out here. Marik could sense the ending of an age in these ruins. A village that had been as alive as any patriotic soldier who ever wore the green and brown. Maimed here forevermore.
He followed Colbey mutely. All thought of the perilous path they trod was forgotten even when the scout forced them to climb or descend twenty feet at a time via a line he carried. Each rent wall and frayed rope drew his eye. Battlefields were gore-strewn charnel houses, several of which he had walked under the knowledge that it mattered little in the larger scheme whether it had been he who lay dismembered across the grass or the enemies he’d slain in his place. Yet this one touched his heart with soft calls from the dead. And it was no mystery why. There was only one corpse to be found in the Rovasii. One so large he was forced to walk through it rather than around.
Images of the great stained-glass windows in Thoenar’s cathedral rose cyclically in his imagination. Each shattered with the mindless brutality of a soul incapable of acknowledging beauty. Glass scattered over the filthy ground. Yellow shards, and blue, and green, and red. Blood drops winking in winter’s cold light.
His vision slowly slipped to the upper reaches of magesight while his mind wept from a loss it scarcely understood. From his mood, the bald energy flowing through the Euvea looked closer to ice than anything else. A towering forest of icicle giants, cradling a grave that called to the one man who had escaped. Colbey strode the frozen arms in search of…what? Revenge? Justice? Most certainly. At least on the surface.
But deep inside, Marik thought he truly comprehended for the first time. Respite. An escape from the cold reality of what had been irrevocably destroyed.
Colbey slowed, trailing his hand along a wall belonging to the largest building they had seen so far. The massive doors faced an opening in the trees. It was a space around which dozens of buildings were set in much the fashion of a town square. Marik inched closer to Colbey’s back to see what the scout did. Dietrik leaned against the wall and flung his dagger hilt horizontally from hand to hand. He performed the maneuver fast enough it flew through the air twice a heartbeat.
The scout’s head blocked most of the view until Marik craned above him like a long-necked fishing bird. A piece at a time, the tableau unveiled itself. Marik could see that his assessment must have been close to the mark. Enough broken suspension walkways hung in mossy strands that this must have been the central point in the village. Numerous buildings, as well as broad platforms that must have served as social gathering points, rested at various heights above the forest floor.
In fact he saw, leaning still further over Colbey, there was no true forest floor at all. A vast standing pool drowned the trees, the roots arcing from the water majestically. The waters shone green from the algae growing healthily along the bottom. It could not be especially deep to judge from the clarity. He could make out the stones resting along the bottom. Along as much of the bottom as he could see. From back where the three had so recently come, all the way to…
Marik’s legs went watery while he stared, transfixed, at the center of the pool in the village’s heart. He could feel what was there. Knew that here lay the ancient legacy protected from the outer world by Colbey’s ancestors. Reluctantly he reopened his magesight. What he beheld beneath the placid waters dumbfounded him.
The pool’s center was deeper than he had first assumed. An artesian well was the water’s source, endlessly pumping water upward to maintain a constant surface level. Any farmer would sacrifice anything short of his soul to have one on his property.
He could see the ground tapering into a funnel leading to the well’s source, but lower than that, deep in the not-ground of the eth
eric plane, within the subterranean waterways, he could see a sphere glowing with greater intensity than the Euvea trees.
In Thoenar he had been astounded to find three etheric lines flowing under the city. The most he had ever before seen that close together were two beneath the Forest of Green Reaches.
He counted seven lines under his feet. Each massive by ordinary standards. Far thicker than his wrist. Nearly the size of his thigh. Nor, he marveled, could they be entirely natural. At some point they must have been shifted in their course. Was such a thing possible? How? The ability to effect the etheric plane in such a manner was beyond the realms of imagination!
Yet there was no other explanation. Seven lines did not, by chance, flow to exactly the same point any more than seven rivers would. Marik could feel the power flowing through the lines. The total life energy of the entire Rovasii forest, without question. Wild, hot, dangerous to touch. Using energy from these lines was beyond his ability. It would burn him out until there was nothing left but a drooling vegetable wearing his clothing.
The power he sensed was astounding, but also only the beginning. Gods, the beginning!
Each line flowed into the sphere. The closer he examined it, the better he felt he understood. What he saw as a perfect sphere must be another seal. Must be a seal set by those ancestors who long ago defeated the Rovasii mage. This was the remnant that lay beyond their power to eliminate. A massive knot formed from seven lines. A knot so incredibly powerful that any mage with the ability to tap it would be as a living god on the world. Nothing could stand up to a mage with such…with such…
Marik blinked. No. That theory was flawed. Knots formed when two lines crossed, though they were hardly common. Three-line knots were far rarer, and only the strongest of the strong could successfully harness their energies. Knot energy boiled worse than a kettle over a blazing fire. Their power was far wilder than the lines that supplied them.