“My people lived here since the beginning of the second age,” Philiastra explained as she looked around in awe. She reached out and traced her fingers along the earthen wall, the roots of the flowers growing within glowed in response. “In those days, no one dared trespass here. Every ship that attempted to land was sent back to sea, filled with bodies.”
“Yes, my people called this place Dásos tou Thanátou, the Forest of Death,” Erolina mentioned. “We thought it was guarded by unbeatable warriors. How wrong we were.”
Philiastra gave Erolina a sharp backwards glance.
Pops grunted in discomfort, and leaned against one wall to dislodge a rock in his shoe, falling behind the group.
“Then the filthy centaurs came,” Philiastra continued. “Whether by accident or design, they attacked during Ieró Sezón, when the light of the forest was being rekindled, the one time when we were vulnerable, and they set fire to the forest.”
Suddenly Storgen felt like something bit him in the heart, ice cold poison running through his veins, burning and freezing a path through his body.
He fell to the ground, gagging and coughing painfully.
Philiastra turned around.
“What’s happening?”
Erolina drew her weapon and looked around, but could find no attacker. Then, she noticed it, a cluster of fresh young tree sprouts breaking up through the soil near where Storgen had fallen.
“With no one to prune the forest, it has overgrown and spread. This part of the path is now forest.”
Storgen cried out in pain, black veins creeping over his flesh, blood trickling out of his ears and nose, his skin turning purple.
Pops stumbled backwards, tripping over a rock and falling flat on his back. “Can’t you call them off, Philiastra?”
“The trees don’t listen to me. I never…”
“Grab him and drag him free, you idiot!”
Erolina snatched Storgen by the collar and clamored up the side of the Holloway, dragging him along the flowered field away from the forest.
Storgen’s eyes rolled back and all went dark.
Young Storgen banged his bald head against the cage bars, screaming in terror as buckets of water were dumped atop him, forming a pool around his feet. Skotádi watched in fascination with his milky pink eyes as the spell was activated.
The cold burned like fire, sizzling Young Storgen’s skin, his very spirit shivering as the spell wove its way around him.
His feet froze to the cage floor, ice crystals growing up his toes. He yanked so hard he felt his foot might break off, but the ice held him fast, working its way up his calves, his bones creaking and groaning as the marrow within froze and expanded.
“I wish to thank you for your blood,” Skotádi cackled. “I have enough for decades of research. It pains me to think that my favorite novelty may grow old and die one day, and then, whence will I get new material? So, I am affording you a special honor.”
More water was dumped into the cage. Young Storgen screamed so loud he felt his body would explode. His fingers froze to the bars, ice crystals rushed down his throat, violating him from the inside out. Burning freezing water filling him up, tearing him apart. Water slammed up his nose, drilled into his ears, slipped in around his eyeballs, the bubbles around him slowing and freezing in place as the water turned to ice.
“Be still, stay fresh. Hopefully I will unlock your secrets before I need you again, but if I don’t, I’ll see you again in a few decades.”
More water still was dumped in, leaving Young Storgen encased in a block of ice, his frozen eyes pleading out for mercy from within.
“I’m coming for you, my novelty.”
Storgen shivered from the cold, his body twitching and shaking, his muscles cramping, his sense reeling.
“I think he’s coming around…”
His body drew in breath, and he found his lungs soft instead of solid, his eyes rolled beneath their lids, relieved to be filled with liquid and not ice.
“Just breathe carefully, Storge.”
His head pounding, Storgen groaned painfully. His skin as not cold, in fact it felt quite warm, his head was resting against something soft and pleasant.
He carefully cracked open an eye, and found the lovely faces of Philiastra and Erolina looking down on him in concern, his head gently placed on Philiastra’s lap as she stroked his hair.
“What happened?” he asked, enjoying very much the sensation of her fingers running across his brow.
“You entered the forest,” Philiastra explained. “Another few moments and you would have been lost to us.”
“It was my fault,” Erolina explained. “I misjudged how close you humans could venture to the woods of the world. I forgot how frail you are compared to us.”
“That feels more like an insult than an apology.”
“Are you okay, lad?” Pops asked.
Storgen sat up painfully. “My head feels like I’ve been hit by a hammer, and my body feels like I swallowed scorpion venom. So, yeah, I’m fine.”
“You know what it feels like to drink scorpion venom?” Erolina asked.
Philiastra rolled her eyes. “It’s a metaphor, Scythe, try to keep up.”
Erolina gave a cold glance. “You assume my people are ignorant? You could not be more wrong. We have a rich, and ancient culture. Our literature, our music, our art is second to none.”
“Yes, I’m sure your cave-wall smearings are very nice.”
“Not to mention the fact that what he just said was a simile, not a metaphor. So kindly rid us of your squall, nymph.”
“Good idea, I could always climb up your ego and jump down to the level of your intelligence. That should easily be enough to finish me off.”
“Tch.”
The two girls stared angrily at each other, the air between them crackling with magical energy.
“No, he really has drunk scorpion venom,” Pops assured.
The two girls turned to him.
“When did that happen?” Erolina asked.
“How did that happen?” Philiastra wanted to know.
“It’s a long story,” Storgen said. “Can I get a leg up?”
Philiastra helped Storgen to his feet and he looked around. They were in a lovely meadow at the mouth of a canyon, the valley beyond devoid of trees.
“Come on,” Erolina bade. “We’ll cut our own path into the valley. We can resolve the nymph’s ignorance later.”
Storgen and Pops were pretty uneasy cutting through the pass with forest on either side, but once they were in the valley they found something they didn’t expect. A quaint human village atop a rocky mesa with familiar sunstone roofs and water clocks.
“Wait, humans live here?”
Philiastra was ecstatic when she saw it. “This is the town my adoptive parents grew up in. Oh wow, I remember all of this! There’s the flour mill, ooh, and the bakery where my dad apprenticed, ooh, and there’s the shrine to Jenala where grandpa Gasper worked.”
She scurried up atop a rock jutting out of the hillside. From there, she could see all the stumps of cleared trees around the edge of the valley to keep the forest from encroaching. “I used to play here all the time when I was a kid. I had a forest nymph friend, oh, what was his name? Wei, yes, it was Wei. He played the pan flute. We’d come climbing down from the trees over there to watch the humans. Oh man, we’d play all the time together, like every day. I think he was even the son of the clan chieftain. Wow, I can’t believe I forgot all of this.”
She sat down on the rock, kicking her legs out like a little child. “Wei and I would sit right here and wait for the humans to go to sleep. Then, when it was dark, we’d sneak into the village and spread acorns around their houses.”
She chuckled nostalgically. “In the morning, we’d watch the humans panic when they saw the acorns. They’d run around like frightened chickens, digging up holes everywhere, terrified that they’d missed one and it would sprout.”
Storgen chuckle
d, rubbing his chest. “You were a little terror, weren’t you?”
“Yeah, kinda.”
“That’s not very funny, scaring humans like that,” Pops scolded. “You’ve seen what the forest does to us.”
The laughter bled away from Philiastra’s face.
“Come on, Pops, she was just a kid, she didn’t know.”
“You always take her side.”
“No, I don’t.”
Philiastra frowned. “No, he’s right, I knew. I guess I didn’t like humans much back then. Wei thought you guys were fascinating, but me, I just wanted you to leave.”
“Why are there humans living here, anyway?” Storgen asked. “I thought you guys killed anyone who came close.”
“It’s because they saved them against the centaurs,” Erolina added, surveying the valley with her telescope.
Philiastra nodded. “When the centaurs set the forest alight, humans from neighboring islands came to our aid. They attacked the centaur’s ships in the harbor. The centaurs were afraid of being trapped here, so they withdrew. The humans saved the forest, and in return, they were given this valley to live in.”
“And that’s when they renamed this place Dasikí Chará, the forest haven,” Storgen concluded.
“Forest of joy,” Philiastra corrected.
Erolina collapsed her telescope. “Let’s get moving, we’re burning sunlight.”
They had to cross-cut a couple of times to make their way to the valley floor, but once they were there, it was easy going. The steady pumping of water wheels and clockworks was soothing amid the eerie slice of the surrounding forest rising up around them on all sides as they approached the village.
The soulfire of the trees burned brightly amid the dark shadow of the forest. This place had its own distinctive scent. A savory earthiness, like fresh rain and sage. It seemed to Storgen like they were surrounded by a sea of stars, glassy starlight winking out between the countless tree trunks and burned stumps.
“Most of these trees are very young,” Philiastra pointed out. “You can see there the remains of all the older trees; they are all that is left of the primeval forest that was burned.”
“This place is so quiet,” Pops complained, looking around warily.
“Maybe to you, but to me this place is alive with voices. Even an untrained novice like me can hear it.”
She stopped and looked around, taking in the view. “Each tree has a voice, and yet they are not distinct like we are. They’re more like a choir. A symphony of voices all working together to form a single song.”
“What do they sing?”
She looked around uneasily. “You don’t want to know.”
Storgen rubbed his chest. “Yeah, I kinda got the message already.”
“Wait!”
Philiastra held out her hands, her eyes sparkling.
“I sense treasure.”
She ran over to the side of the road, where the town dump lay. Putting on her goggles, she jumped into the pile like a diver, disappearing within.
Erolina could not believe what she was seeing. “What in the cosmos is she doing?”
“It’s kind of her thing.”
They watched as the trash shifted around as she burrowed within.
Erolina backed away from the lofting smell. “She’s rummaging around in the garbage.”
Pops rubbed his bald scalp. “Philiastra, your family is rich, why do you need to go dumpster diving, anyway?”
Erolina looked around in disgust. “Ugh, human settlements are so wasteful. Amazons discard nothing.”
“Especially their pride,” Storgen quipped.
“You’re a joke, human.”
“Yes, but am I a funny joke?”
She squared herself up to him, a full head and shoulders taller.
“Do you know why the men are normally the warriors in human villages? Because that’s all they’re good for. They can’t bear offspring, they can’t nurse, they’re just dead weight that eat up all the food.”
“That’s not true, we also give good hugs. Can you give good hugs?”
“Do not measure me by your standards, human.”
`“Wow, the view must be great from that glass house of yours.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“You do nothing BUT judge others by your own standards.”
She folded her arms. “Maybe, occasionally, a man will make himself useful by sacrificing himself for the good of the village, or by fighting off some predator, I’ll grant you that. But the rest of the time they’re useless. That is why we amazons are so much more successful. Every single individual can fight, bear children, hunt, and build. When you go to war, you have to leave half your people at home for fear of losing the women, but we can field armies with our entire population at once.”
“And when you lose? What happens then? You’re all wiped out.”
She stepped closer, her massive chest nearly poking him in the face. “We’ve never lost in open battle, but even if we did, every single member of our tribe can bear children. We can effectively double our population in a single year if we have to.”
Storgen stepped back so he could look her in the eye. “You know, if you keep talking like that, we’re going to get the impression that you think amazons are better than humans.”
“Are you thick? Of course amazons are better than humans.”
Pops grunted. “Racist.”
“No, it’s not racism. Racism is when you believe one race is superior when in reality they are the same. But, that’s not the case here, is it? Amazons actually are superior to humans, demonstrably so. They’re stronger, faster, tougher, live longer, have keener senses, are more resistant to disease, and we have some of the most powerful innate magic of any race. This isn’t an opinion, this is objective reality. Anything a human can do, we can do better.”
“Except, shut up, apparently.”
Philiastra burst free of the garbage, holding a skunky potting plant in her hands.
“Look what I found!”
They all turned their noses at the moldy, musky thing.
“Um, congratulations, Phili.”
“It’s a self-watering planter,” she gushed, taking off her goggles. “And I think it still works.”
“This is the girl you’d rather spend your time with?” Erolina grumbled.
Philiastra rubbed her sleeve against the caked-on residue, trying to create a clean spot. “These are really rare, a true gift from Sirend himself.”
“Don’t tell me you’re going to sleep in that thing,” Pops interrupted.
Philiastra stared at him. “Of course I’m not going to sleep in it. That would be disgusting.”
“How could that possibly be more disgusting than what you just did?”
“Treasure hunting can be a dusty business.”
“This is a waste of time,” Erolina complained. “The spring is just up the path there, we should continue.”
Philiastra opened up the alchemic circuits and began to tinker with them. “If I can wake this up, we won’t have to.”
“How is that?”
“See this sigil here? You tap it and the planter fills up.”
“We don’t need dirt, you cabbage.”
“Did you just call me cabbage?”
“It fits you, doesn’t it?”
“It doesn’t fill up with dirt, you cave-dweller, it fills up with water.”
“C-cave dweller?” Erolina reached for her weapon. “Who are you calling a cave-dweller?”
Storgen put out his hand. “Wait a minute. Are you telling me that thing will fill up with water as often as we need it to?”
“Yeah, neat huh?”
Storgen turned to Erolina. “See? Not a waste at all. That would be way better than a few water pouches.”
Philiastra made a few final adjustments and then placed her hand on the sigil, her hand glowing as she charged the device.
“I am not drinking anything that comes out of that t
hing,” Erolina whispered.
“There, got it.”
Philiastra tapped the glowing sigil and the pot sputtered and smoked, belching out a wisp of black fume, before crumbling to pieces in her hands.
Erolina began to laugh.
“It…died?” Philiastra gasped.
Erolina laughed even harder. “Thanks for displaying your quality, cabbage. I’m going up to the spring.”
“Don’t call me that!”
As Erolina and Pops moved on, Storgen stayed behind as Philiastra sifted through the broken pieces.
“I don’t get it,” she said in dismay. “That should have worked.”
“It’s probably for the best. No matter how many times you washed that thing out, it still would have felt dirty drinking water out of it.”
The largest chunk was the base, but when she tried to pick it up, she could tell something was amiss.
“This isn’t right…”
She began to break away the top layer. “The catalyst chamber should be hollow and filled with an inert gas. Someone jammed something in here, no wonder it didn’t work right.”
She managed to crack the base in half, revealing a small wrapped bundle crammed within.
“What’s that?” Storgen wondered.
She held it in her hands, her eyes growing wide with surprise. “It can’t be…”
“What can’t?”
“These should have all been destroyed.”
“Dang it, stop playing the pronoun game, Phili, and just spit it out.”
She pulled away the wrapping and revealed an immaculate piece of jewelry. An arm bracelet, delicately carved from two colors of hartwood, coiled around one another like serpents, yet their appearance was like that of tree branches, meeting only in the center, where a golden receptacle awaited something. Looking over at the forest, Storgen noticed it was shaped exactly like the way the tree branches grew together.
Philiastra held it up close, her voice trembling with excitement. “This is way more than treasure. This is priceless. This is a kratóntas ta chéria, the holding hands of the forest. The devices my people used to cast their spells.”
“So, it’s like a wand or a staff?”
“Basically, yeah.”
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