Ix folded his hands on the table. “We have studied you. Our ancestors once worked with you, long ago. They wrote scrolls on your culture, society. These writings are of course boring to the ‘average joe’ – an idiom we picked up –,” Ix seemed quite proud of his using it, “but they are standard reading material for the representatives from each of the villages. I’ve read them front to back multiple times, so you’ll notice I’m a little more well versed in Human.”
“I see.” Cybil was digesting all the new information as it came, but found with every question, a slew of new questions presented themselves. She thought a moment to not ask another, but her mouth proceeded without her. “When did our peoples work together?”
“Great many years ago, it was wizard times then. Dark days. They were the first to find the depths of the forest from your world. Knights, they called themselves. Arrived on horses, obsessed with the essence. They wanted to know how they could harness it, use it for energy. They thought it would be the discovery that brought about a utopia in their society. They teamed with the wizards to encapsulate it, but all the other creatures of the forest kept attacking the wizards in their glades, preventing the Knights from making the progress they sought after.”
Somewhat off-put by the behavior of the forest creatures, Cybil asked, “Why did they do that? Why stop the Knights?”
Ix took on a grave tone, “Because the wizards were evil, Cybil.”
“They were?”
Ix nodded. “They lusted for power, they wanted to control the forest. When the Knights came, they used their number and their weapons to expand their dominion. Nearly all creatures fell under their control. They forced magic worship on them all, slaying so-called heretics and stealing crop and goods from all. Oh, they were a terrible lot, to say the least of it.”
Cybil found herself leaning forward on the table, eager like a child before bedtime. “What happened? Are there still wizards? Where are the knights?”
Ix held up a hand, “One bit at a time, love. Can’t rush history.” Ix cleared his throat. “It so happened that while the Knights were using the wizards, so too did the wizards use the Knights. They tracked them, routing the path back to your world through the elusive portal.”
Cybil thought back on how she had entered. It seemed to her that she had just gotten lost and it took little more than that to find the Deep Forest. “I don’t recall a portal,” she said.
“It’s not such a simple thing. You don’t step through a door and here you are. It’s a special path your mind must walk through, sometimes without your knowledge of it. You come to the trees, you breathe in the scent of the leaves, and suddenly you’re spun about and treading in very unfamiliar territory.” That sounded right to Cybil. Not just for the Deep Forest, but most places in her life, physical and not. “The wizards learned to find it reliably and began casting spells on humans in power in an attempt to expand control beyond the forest. When the Knights discovered the betrayal, they made friends with as many other forest societies and creatures they could find. They formed what we now refer to as the Knight’s Alliance, a collection of us forest dwellers with the humans that first bridged our worlds. Together, we vanquished the wizards, freeing the forest from their wicked grip.” Ix laughed to himself. He turned to Uli. “It’s wild to think, isn’t it, honey? That once, we fought side by side with the others?” Uli laughed then, as well. Riddle expressed disappointment by crossing arms and turning his head.
Cybil, ever curious as the forest became unveiled, inquired, “What others?”
“Well, who was it again? Giants, lycanthropes, ogres, foxmen, fairies, treefolk, what was left of the minotaurs, the cavefolk, even the shadowfolk! Goodness, what that must’ve looked like.”
“Anybody who opted out?” Cybil asked, half-serious.
“Well,” said Ix, thinking back, “the molefolk weren’t so keen. They felt quite content to stay in their holes.”
“Ah, one can never be too content with a good hole.”
Ix was still lost in the imagery of history when he replied, “I suppose so.” His eyes returned from their distant place to continue, “Anyway, when the Knights had ensured the threat of the wizards was put to rest, they left our world never to return. It’s said that they imprisoned the last wizard should they ever require his skills, but we’ve never found him. Not that it would be so easy, the forest alone is treacherous as you venture through, only made more so labyrinthine by the trickery of the wizards’ paths.”
Cybil turned her gaze to Uli, who sat quietly at Ix’s side, smiling as he relayed the past. “Does all this stuff bend your head, too?”
Uli smiled graciously, “It is fascinating, history. To think all these different creatures came together, that is baffling.”
Cybil’s eyes narrowed into a more intense stare. She felt shorted the full opinion of her female host. Wanting it, she asked directly, “What do you really make of all this?”
Uli turned to Ix, who patted her hand on the table, then left his atop hers. Despite the reassurance, Uli spoke candidly, “It terrifies me. It all terrifies me. I know it’s all history, but with you coming here, the Order showing up, I’m absolutely terrified.”
Rubbing his hand against her back, Ix spoke softly, “Uli—”
But she continued, “You know, I keep home warm. I smile at the others in our village, I tell them every time Ix is away meeting with the council that it’s just routine, catching up and so forth. But in truth...,” she retreated, pulling back her emotions and collected herself. Slowly, carefully, she proceeded, “Cybil, you seem a lovely girl, and I couldn’t be happier to have you. However, understand, there are implications to your presence.” She looked to Riddle. “It’s more than young romance that brings you here. The forest is active again, in its light places, and in its dark ones. And we don’t know what will happen.”
Watching Uli relay her fear, Cybil felt a knot twisting in her abdomen. it was the sword that pierced her illusion, that this could all just be fun whimsy. Suddenly, Cybil felt caged. Her breath shortened as she tried pulling in deeper breaths. She cleared her throat, rubbing her neck, pushing out her chair from the table.
“Are you alright?” asked Ix. But she was already stumbling to the floor.
Riddle leapt from his seat to catch her as she fell, holding her in his arms as her lungs struggled to perform. She looked up into his eyes, solid blue with little pupils fixed on her. He lowered his head, lips hovering before hers and, despite her labored breathing, she prepared herself for an exasperated kiss. Instead, Riddle parted his lips to provide a trace of blue wisp that twirled in the air between their mouths before entering hers. It relaxed her as its coolness soaked into her throat, providing a rush that propelled her to kiss him. Startled, but not at all offended, Riddle welcomed her lips with his own, until Cybil pulled back from embarrassment.
Still in his arms, she spoke, “I’m sorry, I don’t know what happened.”
“It’s alright, dear,” replied Uli. “Lucky Riddle was here for you.” Then she turned to Ix, “Seems the orphan’s found his home.” Cybil logged the comment, but held back another question as she regained her composure, retaking her seat at the table with Ix.
Something about the display seemed to change Ix’s demeanor. “I think it’s time we took you to the council, Cybil.”
“Sorry, was that always in the itinerary?”
Ix sat, unamused, hands folded on the table. “I want to remind you that we are friends, Cybil. The forest is deep and full of tricksters. We are not them.”
Cybil looked to Riddle, who seemed equally perplexed by the sudden tone shift. “You seem alright to me,” she said. “But about visiting the council–”
“It must be done, Cybil.”
“But, see, I need to be getting back, I have this thing called school, where I study things in my world so I can make a future for myself there and all.”
Cybil was ignored, attention stolen by Uli, whose elongated elven ear was pressed
against the earthen wall. “What is it?” asked Ix, concerned.
“Hooves,” she replied. “Many.”
Ix scrambled from his seat, leaping onto the couch, recoiling in his knees, then releasing as he soared up through the hollowed tube of the tree. Cybil twisted her head, hair twirling into her face. She swept it aside with a shivering hand and asked Riddle with a quivering voice, “What does hooves mean?”
He swept away what was left of the hair in her face behind her ear, answering, “Lycans.” Her eyes went wide, fearful and desperate for reassurance from Riddle. The most he had to offer were his hands against her cheeks, which she gratefully met with her own, but did little to quell the anxious feeling in her stomach.
“Listen, dear,” came Uli’s voice, breaking Cybil’s eye contact with Riddle. “We need you. As such, it is in our best interest to protect you. Our village has defenses, but we need to send you home. For now.” Uli looked to Riddle. He nodded.
“Come with me, Cybil,” he said. He took her hand and led her to the couch. They stood atop the cushions, Cybil shivering before Riddle. He placed his hands on her hips and squeezed. “It’s going to be okay.” He forced his stare on her, and she nodded. She wiped a tear that escaped down her cheek and thought to herself, wake up. Instead, she found herself in the next moment soaring up through the hollow tree, having been bounced by Riddle at a perfect angle and sent her through the opening back into the village. She landed on the forest floor with a stumble, but caught herself as she witnessed the motion the villagers had leapt into. Scurrying past her, none were interested in her as they had been on her arrival. Whizzing through the trees, running around one another between houses in the trunks and beneath them, criss-crossing the town square beneath the mysterious ball of light suspended above them with arms full of things Cybil did not immediately recognize. Though, as she watched them gather at the edge of the village, a border that wrapped in an unmarked circle around their trees, it grew apparent they were fashioning cannons from hollowed logs. Others carried ladders to where the cannons were being assembled, hoisting them vertically. Cybil found this curious, ladders raised to the air. Then she heard Ix from somewhere off in the distance, a guttural shout that echoes through the forest, “Raise the wall!”
As she peered into the distance beyond the village’s edge, she could just make out the rise and fall of a line of grey fur, hair raised on the backs of a hundred or more wolves charging towards the village. As they closed the distance, she heard their gnarling and their piercing barks signal their intentions. Then, on Ix’s queue, elves at the edge pulled bark levers attached to trees Cybil had not considered different than any others, apart from their size. As the levers came down, the trees cracked like acorns, splitting from their trunks to their branches. The simultaneous sound of the twenty or so trees cracking reverberated into the ground and rattled Cybil’s feet. A moss covered wooden wall a yard in width shot out from each tree, sweeping across the ground where Cybil saw tracks from previous use. The met one another in the space between, colliding and locking in place, the moss meshing together to cover the seams. Cybil twirled, seeing that the entire village was in an instant surrounded by the magic wall. Her spin stopped on Riddle, who had landed behind her without her noticing.
“What’s happening?” she whispered.
“I have to take you away now, Cybil.”
Over his shoulder, she saw the wood elves ascend the ladders, hoisting the cannon pieces and assembling them atop the wall. It was all a matter of seconds, she saw, that it took to fully arm themselves on the wall and begin firing. They had raised long stick into the white sphere that hovered over the town square, dipping their ends into its viscous substance, and racing it to the defenders along the wall. They used the glowing ends of the stick light the cannons, loaded with what appeared to be giant seedpods that fired five or six rounds, loud successive pops, before being reloaded. She heard the howling of the wolves on the other side, and pictured them dying. She felt more tears welling when Ix appeared beside them.
“They come from the west,” he told Riddle with a sweaty, upturned face. “Take her east.”
Riddle nodded. He took Cybil’s hand and led her away, though she kept her head turned over her shoulder, watching the action at the wall. More cannons were mounted every minute, filling the air with their constant stream of pops. When a wolf finally leapt atop the wall, sweeping a cannon off with a powerful swing of his front paw, she saw their size to be little greater than her own. However, as she watched the wolf bury its teeth into the neck of the cannoneer it had just disarmed, this realization did not stop them from seeming every bit as terrifying as she imagined a werewolf to be. A cannon swiveled to fire on the wolf that had breached their defenses, blasting open its back. It raised its snout in a howl and as it bled from its wound, shifted slowly into a naked boy, weeping, who fell from the wall. Cybil turned her head back to Riddle as wood elves swarmed to replace the downed cannoneer.
“Cybil, we need the essence!” Riddle shouted.
“What?!” she cried.
“Close your eyes, breathe,” he spoke calmly back to her, despite sprinting. And despite seeing the wall coming nearer before her, she obeyed, shutting her eyelids tightly and inhaling deeply. In the darkness behind her eyelids, she saw the face of the orb again, as she had the day before, hovering now just before her. Startled, she opened her eyes and released all the air in her lungs. A great billowing cloud emitted from her lips, spinning, building light in its center until it shot forward into the space between them and the wall. Then it flew over their heads to the air behind them where it extended two brawny arms.
“What will that do?” Cybil asked as she attempted to catch her breath.
Riddle’s response was a single word command. “Jump!” He leapt and she felt her hand rise as he did. She pressed her feet against the soil and followed him up. Just when she thought she should feel herself falling back down, she was soaring over the wall in the hands of the Essence she had expelled from within her. Once eclipsed, it gently soared down, releasing them back on the ground before shooting off into the forest, just like the other had. She watched it in awe, breathless, until Riddle turned her to look upon him. “Cybil, come back to me.”
“When?” she asked, ignoring the greater question of how, as she had as of yet not come to the Deep Forest voluntarily.
He held her shoulders. “You’ll hear the calling.” He took her face in his hands and placed his lips on hers, cool, invigorating, brief. When he pulled them away and Cybil reopened her eyes, he was gone, and the forest had changed. She looked behind her for the wall, but it was gone, replaced with smaller trees and shrubs. The moon was overhead and all was quiet. Until the sounds of footsteps snapping twigs in the space not far away stole her attention. Knowing she was back in her world did not keep her from feeling in danger yet. She peered forward, seeing a cloaked figure sneaking. She watched its hands rise and grip the hood to pull back, showing a radiant head of blonde hair that she recognized immediately.
“Ethan?” she whispered to herself, thinking that everything in her life was now somehow conspiring together for the sole purpose of confusing her.
*
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Unrest in the Woods (Secrets of the Forest Book 1) Page 5