The Redwoods

by Ross Turner

  ‘The Greystone’s power has never matched that of your own family, because their purposes and their desires are driven by nothing but anger and greed. You must not do the same. That has never been the way of the Featherstones, not in all the years we have been connected to your bloodline.’

  ‘You’ve been connected to us?’

  ‘Yes Vivian.’ The infinite voices replied. ‘And not once in all those years did the Greystone’s power match that of your bloodline.’

  ‘Then how did they manage to kill my parents!?’ Vivian demanded, anger swelling and rising up inside her once more. ‘If they’re not as powerful as us, why did my mother and father die!?’

  ‘Because all your parents wanted was to save you Vivian.’ They replied calmly and softly and quietly as ever. ‘They happily gave their lives to save yours. They knew you would be safe in the Redwoods, for a few years at least. And they hoped and prayed that when the time came that the Greystones had grown in strength enough to flush you out, that you would be ready for them.’

  ‘But I’m not.’ Vivian replied almost automatically, sinking to her knees in silence as she formed her response, defeated before she had even begun.

  Red crept over to his Vivian and her arm found its way absently around his broad neck, her fingers running through his thick fur, even while her mind remained occupied still.

  ‘That’s only the case if you truly believe it.’ The whispering sounds responded firmly, their many tones reprimanding. ‘Only if you don’t care about your home and your family and your world in the way that your parents before you did.’

  ‘My family are dead!’ Vivian snapped back suddenly.

  ‘And is Red not your family?’ They asked, cutting to Vivian’s very core with that simple question. ‘It will be you who kills him too if you continue down this path.’ They told her quite plainly. Their tones were not spiteful, only honest, razor sharp with truth.

  Vivian did not respond for a moment.

  She didn’t have the words.

  Even the mere thought of bringing harm to her Red made the young girl’s stomach churn, and suddenly she felt a vast wave of guilt rush over her, pulsing through her body.

  “I’m sorry.” She spoke out loud this time and Red’s ears pricked up beside her, a look of confusion crossing his face. Of course the Redwoods heard her too, but their immediate response, whatever it might have been, Vivian ignored. Instead, she threw her arms around Red’s warm neck and buried her face in his fur, sobbing and shaking uncontrollably. She cried at the memory of her family lost, and at the terrible possibility of losing all that remained.

  The Redwoods were right of course. Red was her family. In fact, he was all she had left in the whole world. How could she afford to lose him now? After everything that had happened?

  The answer to that question was simple.

  She couldn’t.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Vivian repeated, her head still buried in the fur of Red’s neck. He didn’t move, and though she no longer spoke aloud, he knew exactly what she was doing. He remained respectfully silent so as not to break her concentration. He remembered all too clearly his first attempts at listening to the Redwoods, and he knew it wasn’t easy.

  ‘Do not apologise Vivian.’ The voices reassured her. ‘We understand it’s very difficult, and you will need time to adjust.’

  ‘Time to adjust to what?’ The young girl asked, though somehow she knew exactly what their response would be.

  ‘The great wilderness needs you Vivian. The woodlands and the mountains require your help. They need your protection, just as they needed it from your parents before you, and their parents before them.’

  ‘How can I hope to protect them?’ Vivian replied, dismay clear in her mind, for she felt not this great power that they had spoken of, but instead only the weak and feeble fears of a child.

  ‘The Greystones have cast this plague upon the woodlands to kill you, or at the very least to flush you out. They may be fools, but they understand that while a Featherstone still lives, they will never rule freely. And they can sense your heartbeat still, just as you will learn to sense them. They will not stop until you’re dead, or until you defeat them.’

  ‘How did they cast the plague? How can they sense me? What do I have to learn? How can I defeat them?’ Vivian asked, her questions flowing uncontrollably as ever, though now of course, because she wasn’t actually speaking, every question that flitted through her racing mind, the Redwoods heard.

  ‘They are sorcerers, Vivian. Just as your mother and father before you were.’

  Vivian didn’t reply for a moment. It was a simple concept, and one that made perfect sense, but that made it no easier to believe. She battled internally with the fact that sorcery was a myth, but then also with all the strange, unexplainable things she had witnessed in her short lifetime. Not least of which was the talking, almost even human, red bear, who she still clung to for dear life.

  Finally, she collected her thoughts enough to formulate a response.

  ‘So…I guess that means I’m one too…?’ She asked uncertainly. Somehow unconsciously she sensed the Redwood’s delight at her swift acceptance, and when they spoke to her again their voices were lifted.

  ‘Yes indeed young Vivian. Like your parents before you.’

  ‘So what do I have to do?’ She asked, feeling at least a little more resolute with every passing second. For some reason this new knowledge was building a fire in the pit of her stomach, and she felt a drive that she had not felt for years, not since she had fled for her life into the forest from Featherstone Keep in fact.

  ‘Eventually you must go to Virtus, for that is where the most powerful of the Greystones reside. But first, you must learn to control and harness your power, and you must learn to do so quickly, for the plague will not slow.’

  ‘How do I learn?’ Vivian asked. ‘Who will teach me?’

  ‘Red will aid you.’ The Redwoods replied. ‘But you must teach yourself. Test your limits Vivian. You have already begun to explore them. Those things that you consider unexplainable are evidence of that.’

  That made perfect sense at least.

  ‘Ok.’ Vivian replied resolutely, rising to her feet once again. ‘I will learn.’

  The Redwoods seemed satisfied with her answer, and with her newfound fight, but nonetheless they still had final words of warning for the young Sorceress.

  ‘Don’t forget Vivian, the people need your protection too, just like the forests, and our kin the mountains and the great plains. The Greystones rule with an iron fist of fear and torture, and both man and nature have suffered the consequences. The world needs the return of the Featherstone ruling, for their hand was always one of fairness and sincerity, and not of greed and lusting for power and control.’

  Vivian nodded gravely, for she understood the weighty significance of those words.

  ‘I will learn.’ She said firmly. ‘And I will end the Greystone’s rule and rid the world of their plague once again.’

  Her words sounded strangely prophesising, and in that moment she no longer sounded like the young Vivian she had always been, but someone much older, much wiser, and much more powerful.

  ‘Either that, or I’ll die trying.’

  14

  That night Vivian and Red spent on the run. There was not the time for the great red bear to wait for her to keep up with his enormous, powerful strides, so instead she clambered atop his broad back, rippling with muscle beneath his thick fur, and he thundered south at a pace that stole Vivian’s breath away.

  He wove his way perilously between trunks and beneath branches and over shrubs, all wilting noticeably in the darkness. Though they raced as far ahead of it as they could, Vivian could nonetheless sense the blackness creeping its way toward them through the night, and the very feel of it made her flesh creep. Ducking and diving left and right, narrowly missing trees and limbs in every direction, Red tore up the earth beneath his feet, churning the ground and spraying dirt in all
directions, his speed and power unmatched.

  As Red charged south even still, the mountains loomed closer and closer into view, now almost permanently visible through the thinning treeline, even in the darkness all around them.

  It wasn’t until the early hours of the morning, his breath steaming in huge, hot and damp clouds, that he finally slowed his bounding strides to a walk. His vast ribcage expanded massively with every breath, and Vivian rose and fell dramatically, clinging to his fur for dear life, her hands frozen in place from the chill wind that had barraged her for the fleeting past hours.

  “I think we can rest here a while.” Red eventually said, coming at last to a halt, his voice deep and gruff and his breaths short.

  Vivian prised her hands free from their clenched position and dropped numbly from Red’s back, her legs having lost all feeling hours ago. She toppled to the floor and choked on meek laughter, barely even having the energy for that.

  Red looked at his friend with intrigue, cocking his head to one side, unsure exactly what was funny. Vivian managed to drag herself to her feet, though fatigue and exhaustion weighed down her every movement. She leaned heavily against Red’s side for a minute or two, feeling his warmth surge through her, and as she laughed she coughed meekly in her exhaustion.

  The forest was much less dense here, for now they were barely a league from the treeline that gazed up the slopes of the mountain ranges that Vivian had always scrutinised as a child. The natural boundary between the trees and the rocky cliffs seemed unnaturally straight, but at the same time it showed one of the most respectful relationships Vivian had ever seen.

  It was cold on the floor and Vivian shivered when they lay down to rest, burying herself against Red’s neck once again for warmth. They stayed there for a moment. Both of them were exhausted, afraid, and unsure, but at least they had each other.

  “Make a fire Viv.” Red urged gently. “Then we can rest and you won’t be cold.” She nodded timidly and began gathering a few bits of damp wood, broken logs and kindling. After a few minutes she had bundled them into a haphazard pile and fumbled in the dark with her flint, unable to light the sodden wood even after four or five attempts.

  Red looked on eagerly, knowing that she was tired and unable to focus, but hoping that this seemingly mundane task that he had set her, unknowingly to Vivian, would help her along her way, even just a little. As he watched her he silently urged the idea to fall into place, and for her not to give up, for she was becoming ever more frustrated with each failed attempt.

  Finally, after a further three failed attempts, Vivian threw her hands up in exasperation.

  “Will you just light dammit!” She cried, her words irritated and even a little angry.

  And then, as if in response to her command, a tiny spark lit amidst the wet wood and kindling, catching and flaring for but a few seconds before it stifled out once again, leaving a tiny wisp of smoke in its wake. She stared on for a moment, dumbfounded and shocked, disbelieving of what she had just seen.

  She turned back to Red, who wore an entirely unreadable expression as he watched her progress.

  “Now try again.” He instructed her quietly and kindly, his voice calm as the Redwoods. “But don’t get angry and frustrated, and you don’t need to say what you want it to do. You just have to tell it. Like when you speak to the Redwoods. You don’t have to say what you want them to hear, you just have to tell them.”

  Finally Vivian understood what Red had been trying to get her to see. She had made it through plenty of nights just from the warmth from him alone, without the need for a fire. It wasn’t the heat he wanted. He was trying to help her to understand. He was trying to teach her.

  She smiled suddenly at the thought and her spirits soared.

  Turning back to the damp pile of logs and tinder, a thin tendril of smoke still rising in streaks from its centre, she calmed herself and tried again. She cast her thoughts back to the task before her, and threw her frustration aside.

  It took her a few attempts, and admittedly a few amendments to succeed, but from the Redwoods point of view, they had never seen such an apt student, even in all their years.

  ‘Please light.’ Vivian tried first, this time directing her thoughts and her will towards the kindling instead of words, but she was not rewarded, not even with a spark.

  ‘Too polite.’ A thousand voices whispered in the ears of her thoughts, speaking all at once. ‘It’s not a request. Try again.’

  She did as she was instructed.

  ‘I want you to light.’ But still her second attempt yielded nothing. She was doing as she was told, why wasn’t the fire doing as it was told?

  ‘It’s not a desire.’ The Redwoods whispered to her again, their many tones echoing in her thoughts. ‘It’s a command. Try again.’

  Suddenly then, everything fell into place, and it seemed so simple that Vivian could have kicked herself. The Redwoods were giving her the answer. She felt their silent and distant contentment once again as her comprehension came to the surface.

  ‘Light.’ She commanded silently, and indeed this time her instruction was heard, or at least sensed, and obeyed.

  A spark ignited in the darkness and the tinder caught immediately. Smoked spewed up as the wet wood caught aflame, spitting flashes here and there, but soon roared to life. Vivian watched as it grew, adding more and more logs as the minutes ticked by, the flames flickering and growing quickly, taking root immediately. It was like their energy and their flame was more fervent and eager that she had ever seen before, as if because she had created it, it mirrored her own desires.

  Soon enough she stood back, all traces of her exhaustion vanishing, and admired her work. Red took a few paces forward and rested his massive head gently on her shoulder. Vivian brought her hand up to his face and sighed deeply.

  “Thank you.” She whispered. Her gratitude for her friend matched only by the fact that he was the closest thing to kin that she had. He was her kin in fact, and there was nothing that would sway Vivian otherwise.

  “Let’s get some sleep.” He replied quietly, his deep voice tired, and Vivian nodded in agreement.

  She didn’t even remember her head hitting Red’s soft fur, for she was that exhausted that she fell asleep immediately, warm and safe - at least for now.

  They had travelled far enough and fast enough in the night to ensure that the plague did not catch up to them by sunrise, and Red even managed to catch a few rabbits in the early morning. And so, somewhat surprisingly, they enjoyed breakfast together, meagre as it might have been, for the first time in quite a while.

  It was certainly a welcome change of pace from the peril of recent times.

  Nonetheless, as expected, by the time the sun had risen far enough in the sky for Vivian and Red to feel the benefit of its warmth, they could both sense the blackness encroaching through the forest, though again it was slowed by the daylight.

  Moving off reluctantly once more they headed for the treeline and the mountains beyond, unsure how they would eventually get to Virtus, for not only were they moving in the wrong direction, but their path behind was blocked by the plague. For now it seemed they had little choice other than to keep moving, and for Vivian to keep exploring her recently discovered heirloom.

  She would not have any guidance from her mother and father, assistance that they undoubtedly had when attempting to harness and control their own power for the first time. But she had Red, and she had all the reason in the world and more to pursue the difficult task. So she persisted, unwilling to falter in her determination even once.

  As of yet the plague was not in view, but Vivian knew it was coming, and she began to lead them away from the Redwoods. Her dear friend would have followed her to the ends of the earth, but he was obviously torn by leaving his home, and Vivian understood his pain, even as she strode up the shallow slopes feeling the same twinges of loss and abandonment.

  She could see that the slopes grew steeper and steeper up above them, and do
wn below them the treeline was fading and dying slowly, covered at first with black blotches and veins, and then eventually engulfed entirely, swallowed amongst the encroaching darkness.

  It seemed at first, as they both looked back, that beyond the treeline they would be safe, and that the black miasma they had so fearfully fled could advance no further. But of course, as is usually the case, that would have been far too good to be true.

  Though the trees had thinned and eventually run out, the dirt from which they grew was gradually engulfed by the blackness also, and that creeping evil stole towards the young girl and the great red bear with slow and purposeful stealth. Even when the dirt and earth turned to pebbles and stone beneath their feet, and rock, iron and tin all, each of which protruded from the infant mountainside, they too succumbed to the blackness, and the plaguing darkness sought after the last surviving Featherstone with all its might.

  “Come on Viv.” Red urged her, turning and continuing upwards. “We can’t stay here.” But even as her vast friend passed by her, the expression on his face one of longing and instinctive survival, Vivian shook her head defiantly.

  “I can’t.” She said quietly. “We won’t make it. It’ll catch us.” She wasn’t denying Red as much as she was denying the fact that the plague wanted to claim her.

  Making her decision, Vivian refused to run any further.

  She would not be afraid any longer.

  “Vivian…” Red almost begged her, but she shook her head again, this time more firmly, and he silenced his pleading, for he knew now of all times she would not be swayed. She was discovering her ability. Not only that, she was discovering herself, for the real Vivian had been lost, fleeing alone into the Redwoods over six years ago, and only now finally was she coming into full view of the light, even amidst the endless darkness.

  Suddenly their roles felt very much reversed. It had always been Red who had stood his ground to protect Vivian. Even though of course now there was doubt in the back of her mind. Her hidden doubt warned her that she wouldn’t be able to save either of them. But at least she was no longer afraid.