The Redwoods

by Ross Turner

  “Why aren’t you hiding?” She asked them then, looking between the two sisters and their father questioningly. “Why don’t you go home and stay out of sight?”

  The question seemed an obvious one, but even as the words escaped Vivian’s lips, and the three’s gazes before her fell to the littered remains covering the floor all about them, the answer seemed even more blatant.

  I’m so sorry…” Vivian suddenly said, realising all at once that they were stood where their home had once been.

  “Don’t apologise.” Garth said then, turning around to conceal the tears in his eyes from Vivian. “You weren’t to know…” He was silent for a moment longer before he spoke again, his back still turned to them. “They came by here only five days ago. They were looking for something in the forest, I don’t know what…”

  Vivian did not speak. She knew exactly what they’d been looking for, or more accurately who they’d been looking for, but she kept her lips firmly sealed.

  Garth continued.

  “We weren’t here, but Rose was: my wife. They asked her if she’d seen anything in the forest. She said she hadn’t, and that made them angry.”

  “So they destroyed your home!?” Vivian demanded, furious at the thought.

  Garth only shrugged solemnly.

  “They can. They’re the most powerful sorcerers in the world.” He explained simply. “They do as they please. We came back and found Rose trapped under the rubble. We couldn’t get her out. It took her two days to die.”

  Tears stood in Vivian’s eyes, both sorrowful and angered. She would not stand for this any longer. Garth’s tone of casual acceptance at this stone cold cruelty set Vivian’s teeth on edge, and she simply would not let it pass. She could not let it pass.

  “They can’t do as they please.” She said firmly, her lovely eyes flinty and dangerous.

  “Why not? Who’s going to stop them?” Amber suddenly asked, speaking for the first time, the youthful look in her eyes faded and hazy.

  “Because they’re not the most powerful sorcerers in the world, and even if they were, that gives them no right to treat others this way!”

  Garth laughed under his breath suddenly, the sound of it raspy and difficult.

  “You sound like a Featherstone.” He chuckled.

  “Would you know?” Vivian asked, her tone still edgy.

  “As a matter of fact I would.” He replied steadfastly, resolution, and almost even defiance in his tone. He turned to face her again, that same desperation replaced with determination. “I knew Dorian Featherstone very well. He was a good friend of mine. We were schooled together for many years.”

  This new knowledge of Garth took Vivian aback somewhat, but she didn’t flinch, and instead poured her eyes into his imploringly.

  “I knew him better than most here, and I would recognise his eyes anywhere…”

  “They are unmistakeable.” Vivian agreed, not giving an inch. Garth sighed deeply, the strength seeming to drain from him.

  “Were…” He said solemnly. “They were unmistakeable. I can only hope that his young Vivian is still alive. The Greystones deny it of course, but most believe the rumours. Or they want to believe them at least. That’s almost the same thing…” He continued, turning away again.

  There was silence again for a minute or two and something seemed to hang heavily in the air between Vivian and Garth, each waiting for the other to speak.

  Finally Garth broke the silence with a deep sigh.

  “I just hope that if she is alive she hasn’t lost her way. Her father would never want for that to happen. He loved her far too much.”

  “She hasn’t.” Vivian replied gravely. “She knows exactly what must be done.”

  Garth and his daughters turned to her then, their eyes widening with imploring hope, but all unable to find words to speak.

  Vivian continued.

  “A Featherstone will not shirk their responsibilities in the way the Greystones have done. The time has come for their reign to end.”

  Still neither Garth, nor Mel, nor Amber could find their tongues. Their original hopes and suspicions had been confirmed, and their spirits soared. But then, just in the moment that they almost found the breath to speak, Red materialised from the treeline, appearing, as always, looming, his form monstrous and terrifying. He had heard the entire conversation, for of course his senses were unmatched, and knew by now that the three strangers knew Vivian’s true identity.

  Garth’s immediate reaction was to grab his daughters and turn and flee, but a single barked command from Vivian halted him dead in his tracks.

  “Stop!” She ordered, her tone not harsh, only authoritative. “Don’t be afraid.” She told them, and as if to emphasise her point, as Red reached her side, Vivian ran her hand through the thick, warm fur on his neck, as she always did, as she had done for years.

  “W…Wh…What…?” Mel stammered, fear gripping her and her voice quivering ferociously.

  Though they were on the brink of fleeing, none of them seemed to be able to move - paralysed by Vivian’s command.

  “Red won’t hurt you.” Vivian said firmly. “He’s the closest I have to family.”

  “Red?” Garth questioned, managing to find his voice, though his heart still raced, pounding heavily against his chest, suffocating him with a vice of fear.

  “Yes. My name is Red.” The great red bear said suddenly, startling his audience once again back into terrified silence. They had not expected him to let them live, let alone introduce himself.

  “Now then.” Vivian said in an assertive tone. “My name isn’t Clover. My name is Vivian Featherstone, and I am the only surviving heritage of the Featherstone bloodline.”

  By this point, if Garth and his daughter’s mouths hadn’t been agape before, they certainly were now.

  “I am here for one reason, and one reason only…”

  Vivian’s voice rang with the tone of absolute finality, speaking firmly and with resolution found through perhaps more desperation than she would have liked to admit. She held herself boldly, unafraid of whatever lay before her, for she knew of course that she would not be met kindly by her enemies.

  “I am here to kill the Greystones.”

  19

  Though the Greystone’s rule had been unimaginably harsh, their reign had nonetheless never been challenged, for after they had murdered the last of the Featherstone’s, supposedly, none amongst those who remained had the power to match them.

  But as Garth had told Vivian, there had always been rumours that one had survived, that young Vivian had escaped into Redwood Forest and had never been found. Of course the Greystones claimed that they had killed her too, but their searching did not go unnoticed, no matter how hard they tried to hide it. Even the peasants could see the desperate fear and longing in their eyes. Their many hours combing the woodlands could never have been kept secret, for no one ventured out there without the utmost necessity, not even a sorcerer.

  And then of course, these rumours spread through the poor, and the old, and the frail, and the weak, like unstoppable wildfire, giving them a tiny glimmer of hope amidst everything else. If there was even the slightest chance that the young Vivian Featherstone could one day return, and save them all from the grasp of the Greystones, that was at least one small thing they could hold on to.

  Now that she had returned, Vivian felt a fire in her heart and in her soul like she had never experienced. She made her way slowly through the place she had known for her entire life only through tales of its grandeur and importance. But what she saw before her now was neither of those things.

  Poverty reigned, let alone the Greystones.

  What Vivian saw all around her - all the suffering and starvation and loss, was nothing short of terrible, and it burrowed a hole deeply into the heart of her largely moral and just upbringing.

  Buildings were crumbled to dust here and there. The cold and starving population, barely clinging to life, looked just as grey and awful as
their homes, scattered throughout the streets like abandoned children.

  Vivian walked through, following Garth and his two daughters, leading her towards the very heart of the place known only to her as Virtus, though that name was far from befitting now. The virtus of the people, the People’s Power, seemed most inappropriate, in light of everything awful Vivian had found here.

  But as she passed by, all those who saw her seemed to somehow rise with new life, looking on as they beheld her shining blue eyes with renewed hope, their depression of the past six years lifting, even if only ever so slightly.

  They didn’t even seem phased by the fact that Red was so obviously in Vivian’s company. They all knew of the Featherstone’s fabled power: much greater than that of the Greystone’s, and appeared not in the least bit surprised that their potential saviour made casual company with such a ferocious beast.

  It was with a very heavy heart that Vivian looked upon the people she had come here to save. Though she knew her guilt was most likely misplaced, she felt almost altogether entirely responsible for their suffering, and swore she would do everything within her power to put an end to it, once and for all.

  In fact, she saw no reason why she shouldn’t begin immediately.

  “Garth.” Vivian called, and the old man stopped and turned. “Please, just one minute…” She requested. He nodded in response, though of course he knew she didn’t need his permission. He was just not used to being addressed so respectfully.

  Vivian turned and walked a few paces to the side of the paved street, though the floor was rubble now more than it was pavement, and the buildings to the side of the road had all but collapsed. She wasn’t even really sure how she was going to do what she had in mind, but Vivian was determined to help these poor souls, and that determination fed her power limitlessly.

  “Viv?” Red whispered, close by her side as always. “Are you ok?”

  “I have to help them Red.” She whispered back, staring at the mountains of broken stone and wood before her, clumped together in masses of destruction. “I’m all they’ve got now.”

  “I know.” He replied, nodding with grave understanding. “And I know you can save them all.”

  Vivian smiled warmly, so glad to have the great red bear at her side, believing in her and supporting her to the end. And indeed Red would support her to the very end, whatever the outcome. That much, at least, she was certain of.

  She closed her eyes then, and focused on those senses that she’d only recently learned she even had, and found that she could picture the pile of debris sat before her quite easily in her thoughts. She looked it over carefully, trying to decide exactly how she was going to do what she planned.

  Finally, after a few tense minutes, the breath of every onlooker around her held tightly, she began.

  Slowly but surely, the pile of rubble and debris strewn before the young girl, stood still with her eyes closed, began to groan and shift and twist, rising up gracefully into the air and taking a hundred different shapes before her people’s very eyes. Even Red stared on in amazement, for though he knew her power was something to be in awe of, he had never seen her perform such a feat.

  The piles of broken rock and stone and timber loosened and lifted and began to take dramatic shapes, rising from the ground even as they contorted together into vast walls and columns, creating arches and steps and pillars and doorways and a hundred other shapes from the shattered remains and fragments thrown all about.

  Eventually, once Vivian’s spiralling shapes and creations had grown vast, spreading for a hundred metres or so, she pictured them in her mind differently. Just as she had formed them in her thoughts, and those thoughts had become reality, she then merged them, and lo and behold, before her astounded audience, the pieces of the enormous jigsaw slowly began to fit together.

  Walls joined and merged and moulded, encompassing all the other pieces, sealing each of Vivian’s creations within. Arches perched atop stone columns and broken stone and bricks flattened, their cracks sealing perfectly, and formed walkways. And then, slowly, and very carefully, the entire creation gradually lowered to the ground, cementing itself into the now pristine pavement without so much as a whisper.

  Before anyone could even really register what had happened, the physical form of the image Vivian had created in her mind came to be, and the twisting, moulding, churning blizzard of debris settled to the ground as a new, immaculate home.

  The building was something out of a fairy tale, with great wooden doors and columns and pillars, perfect glass windows and solid walls. There was the warm, flickering sight of flames that could be seen dancing in the stone hearth on the ground floor, and even the smell of rich, well cooked food laid out upon the tables, all ready to be eaten.

  The people stood before Vivian, their mouths agape, looked on in wonder and awe. It was not that they had never seen an act of sorcery before, though truly they had never witnessed one on such a vast and impressive scale, but instead that they had never seen it used so kindly.

  Their whole knowledge of the art was one of fear and obedience, for indeed that was what they had been taught, under the cruel rule of the Greystone’s.

  Undoubtedly, now, things would be very different.

  20

  Leaving those awed onlookers behind her, requesting that they stay put and enjoy the generous feast she had laid out for them, Vivian continued towards where she knew the Greystones were keeping. It didn’t take much convincing of course, for the people hadn’t eaten, or in fact likely been in a warm, lighted building, out away from the elements, for a long time.

  Vivian smiled as she walked away, with Red in tow, for she planned for this act of kindness to be the first of many. Sadly though, as is too often the way, such acts can only follow ones of great difficulty, and indeed such difficulty included those challenges she was about to face, and that her people had already faced.

  Of course the Greystones knew she was there by now. They had first sensed her so close when she had revealed her true identity to Garth and his daughters, but her blatant act of sorcery before the people had left them in absolutely no doubt.

  Vivian Featherstone had returned, and her purpose was clear.

  She did not need to go much further to catch her first real glimpse of the feuding family, and for the first time in many years.

  She had sensed them for a while now, feeling their heartbeats always at the edge of her subconscious, but now that she could see them once more with her own two eyes, her emotions stirred violently again.

  Her calm was brutally upset, knowing now wholly what they were responsible for, and all the pain and suffering and evil that they had caused, having seen it first-hand on more than one occasion.

  Red must have felt her reaction shift, for he leant his chin gently on Vivian’s young shoulder.

  “Steady.” He whispered quietly.

  “I’m trying.” She replied, struggling to hold her voice level, her heart racing.

  “Don’t try too hard.” He told her honestly, with just a slight edge to his voice. “Just pick your moment.”

  Vivian nodded, understanding of course that Red’s feelings towards the Greystones were little different from her own. The great red bear had been raised only to trust, and indeed even protect, those from the Featherstone bloodline, and to be more than wary of any others, above all the Greystones. That, coupled with the fact that their incantation had killed his mother, little was left to doubt regarding his feelings on the matter.

  In the distance, all too clearly, Vivian and Red could see the shapes and figures of their enemies materialising, appearing and shifting and disappearing between the derelict buildings and streets. Clearly they were making their advance upon their Featherstone enemy, but their first move was certainly a cautious one.

  Vivian smiled, triumph in her grin.

  They were afraid of her.

  Virtus was littered with ruined homes seemingly in every direction, rubble lying callously about every
where. The Greystone rule had not been a peaceful one, and this threat to their throne was undoubtedly going to be met in the same way.

  Where the Featherstone bloodline was concerned, had the Greystones been ruling or not, it would always have been the case.

  Their advance upon the young girl and her protective companion seemed to take an eternity, as they crept and darted between the cover of what buildings remained. With her senses Vivian could tell that they faced four adversaries, and that all of them were sorcerers.

  Two were in their thirties and relatively experienced, one male and one female, and then the remaining two were much closer to her own age, only twenty or so, and both male. The family connection between them all was clear however: mother, father and two sons.

  For a moment the thought of destroying an entire family set Vivian’s heart off beat, for she had experienced the same pain herself more than once. But eventually her guilt simply could not override her anger and her resolution.

  She had already decided what she had to do. Now all that remained was to see it through to the bitter end, no matter what heartache that cost her.

  Surely it couldn’t cause her more pain than she’d already endured.

  The first attack came swiftly, but expectedly. The eldest two of the family darted from their concealed positions, sprinting between ruins, and threw handfuls of fire at Vivian, spraying sparks and licks of flame off in all directions, scorching everything around them.

  Vivian vaguely remembered a similar sight from many years ago in Featherstone Keep, when her family had been murdered. Fleeting memories of hurled balls of flame dashed through her thoughts, but only very briefly, before her mind was set on the daunting task before her.

  With a faint flick of her hand Vivian knocked the seething balls of fire aside, scattering them across the ground, scalding it terribly in the process, leaving black circles dotted about here and there. But that didn’t matter.