by Kim Wedlock
"If they're leading us to the ruin, they probably expect us to fix it," Rathen pointed out in concern.
"Well, then they're going to be disappointed."
"What's this tree?" Aria asked Nug as all but a few of the other ditchlings clambered dexterously up the surrounding forest to follow through the treetops. All four of them marvelled at how silent they were as they jumped from bough to bough - no leaves rustled, no branches creaked or snapped; their movements were so practised and so natural that the trees themselves barely seemed to notice them. Clearly, the single bare footprint and few broken twigs that had given them away served as substantial evidence to a catastrophic accident, one that had quite probably ended in a splinter.
"It's where the Lady lives," Nug replied. "She used to live nine and a half days north of here, but hoomans started getting too close, so she moved and we followed her."
"Who is the Lady?"
Nug frowned as he looked at her, surprised she didn't know, but as he glanced towards the pale-skinned, black-haired and unkind man who walked barely half a pace behind her, he seemed to remember why. "She looks after Arkhamas spirits," he explained. "She keeps us alive with joy, mischief and laughter, and when we go to sleep forever, she takes our dreams and carries them with her so they're always safe. She makes everywhere she goes beautiful - trouble is, she goes lot of places, so it's not easy to follow her when she leaves 'cause she never leaves a map."
"She sounds wonderful," Aria smiled, "but is that what the problem is? That the magic will make her leave?"
He nodded, his dark blonde, dishevelled hair falling in his face. "It's too beautiful, and it ain't her doing. If it keeps going on, she's going to get angry and jealous, so she'll either leave or destroy the place."
"Destroy it?" Aria frowned. "Why?"
"'Cause it's prettier than what she could make it. Her sisters have done it before." His lips pulled down at the corners, and as Aria watched him, she saw tears forming in his now haunted, oversized eyes. "One place crumbled when the ground shook, and another was set on fire. It's not a nice place to go to sleep."
Aria nodded in understanding, and as she watched his expression worsen, sorrow tugged at her own lips. She soon noticed that the few of his kind still around them wore similar looks of anguish, but before she could say anything naive to try to soothe them, she yelped in surprise and stumbled over a rock.
A strong grasp caught around each of her arms before her knees hit the ground. She puffed in relief and looked up to smile in gratitude, but was surprised to find her father holding only her left arm, and Nug holding her right. Together, they pulled her back to her feet. "Thank you," she smiled, then glared down at the curiously attractive rock that had tripped her.
"We're here."
Rathen needn't have made the dubious statement; the four were well aware of the fact as they stared out at the grove of carved and scattered rocks sprawling ahead of them. The trees that studded the area were spaced almost evenly enough to have been placed intentionally, like pillars in a hall, and the ceiling of leaves let soft fragments of light through like high, glassless chapel windows. But the stones seemed to have come from another world, one overlapping the forested realm that nature tried to maintain. Amongst the weathered rubble that tree roots imprisoned, portions of wall still stood, some covered in a vertical carpet of moss much like the rock faces in the scowles, and others pierced by trees that had somehow wended their way through cracks as they grew, continuing through them rather than finding another way around. But rather than swallow or smother the remains, the forest appeared to be trying to preserve them, adding itself as foundations to prolong the architecture's already ancient life, as though it belonged there just as much as the trees and the grass did.
As they stared at the light-dappled stone and the shining diamonds of rain on the leaves, Anthis suddenly blustered past them, having snatched a notebook from his saddle bag and forced the reins into Garon's hand. He made immediately for the nearest standing fragment of wall while Nug called a warning after him. He made no motion that he'd heard him.
The ditchling turned to Aria in exasperation, clearly already regretting his decision. "Anything he does--"
"He won't make it worse," she promised once again, but she hurried after him all the same, shouting for him to be careful and not to upset the Lady, while Rathen promptly rushed off after her, calling for her to be careful in turn.
Only Garon remained, and as Nug turned and looked at him and the three sets of reins in his hands, he grinned cheekily before skipping away.
As Aria peered over Anthis's shoulder, torn between making sure he behaved himself and watching him flick quickly through his sketchbook, urgently comparing the stone before him with illustrations from other sites, Rathen stood behind them and studied the surroundings. He paid particular attention to the ditchlings that had gathered to watch with the same interest as Aria, and Nug even more so as he joined them. But despite his caution at their present situation, he couldn't keep his mind from being dragged away by the unmistakable magic. Once again they were surrounded by beauty, and every gentle breeze brought with it a curious sense of peace. Standing there in that perfect grove, he could forget every worry he'd ever held, every grudge that had ever formed, and he could watch the world pass him by without a thought of time - if he let himself.
But how the others didn't immediately succumb and stand there dazed, staring off for miles, Rathen had little idea. His own magic gave him enough natural resistance, and the ditchlings weren't human, so who was to say how resilient they were to the effects? But how Garon, Anthis and Aria managed to stave off the desire to envelop themselves in the tranquillity of the place and let their minds vanish from the world, he couldn't begin to ponder. Perhaps their minds were just that strong - and yet the temptation of the peace was almost too much for him.
He folded his arms and pinched himself to shove the matter aside, and turned his attention back to the magic itself, ignoring the lure as best he could.
And the very moment he turned away, Nug took Aria by the elbow and led her off into the grove.
She frowned and looked uneasily back towards the others, but just as she began to protest, he brought them to a stop at the foot of another tree.
"This," Nug smiled, peering up at it, "is where the Lady lives."
Aria's eyes snatched away from the adults, bright with sudden fascination. The tree was not a giant; it had no pure white staircase leading up to a home hollowed out within, no white balconies to oversee the grove and its visitors, nor a garden of flowers and fruits planted along its branches. But its reality was no less enrapturing.
It was no bigger than those around it, but unlike the others, its chaotic boughs seemed to have grown with a precise intention, as misplaced as it may have been. They haphazardly reached and crossed one another, creating what looked like a twisting ladder up and around the tree's wonky trunk, sometimes leading vertically, other times horizontal, but always reaching the dense leaves in the end, and from the outermost branches hung baskets and bottles constructed of grass, twigs and leaves, nests to small, speckled weaver-birds that seemed not the least troubled by the creatures that moved through the surrounding trees and the grass below. But the ladder served no purpose beyond leading to the highest reaches, and there seemed to be little more than owls living within the hollowed knots of its trunk.
"She lives in the tree?" Aria asked, captivated by its wonderfully misshapen form.
"Kinda. She's in there, somewhere."
"Is she an owl?"
Nug laughed, a joyful cackle, and Aria smiled at the curious sound. "No! She ain't an owl! She lives in the leaves, in the sap, in the bark - but she ain't the tree, neither. She's sorta like what you hoomans call a ghost, I guess."
Her eyes grew wider in slow understanding, and when she looked back to it, she no longer saw just a tree, nor the home of eighteen birds. She saw a living, thinking being that seemed to have suddenly become a giant within the forest.
"I get it," she nodded as she heard the tell-tale footsteps of her father approach behind her, and though she expected him to scold her when he stopped, he said nothing at all. She smiled to herself. He was surely as enraptured by the tree as she had been. "Then how do you know when she leaves?"
Nug cackled again. "'Leaves.'"
Aria grinned.
"We know when she's gone 'cause she tells us in our dreams, but she don't tell us where she's gone. It's like a game - if we love her enough, we'll find her. If we don't...well we'll probably find one of her sisters instead."
"But that won't do?"
"Nuh-uh." He shook his head vigorously, his giant eyes so wide and severe it was apparent that the very thought was blasphemy. "We want her, not her sisters. They might look after our spirits in sleep like she does - least I hope they would - but it wouldn't be the same."
Aria nodded, and as Nug looked back to the spirit-tree, his eyes shining in reverence, trust and absolute adoration, she pursed her lips and regarded it thoughtfully herself.
Chapter 9
With movements Anthis once believed physically impossible, he managed to save himself from stumbling over the gaggle of childlike creatures that scurried about like mice beneath his feet. But though they, too, scrambled to get out of his way each time he darted suddenly through the half-standing ruins, studying its every inch, they remained obliviously glued to his heels. So it had been for ten minutes; the ditchlings - the Arkhamas - followed him everywhere, nattering to each other as they went, talking about his blonde hair and how it wasn't as long as anyone else's, about his drawings and how they were better than what most of them could do, but 'squirrel nuts' compared to others, and about his clothes and how they were nicer than everyone else's - though he wasn't quite sure what to make of that last point as he glanced at the skins and torn and sodden shirts.
But between discreet glances and keeping one eye on his belongings all the while, he did his best to ignore them. He knelt in the damp grass whenever he found half-buried fragments of stone that were not, to a trained eye, like the others, or runes carved into the stone as pre-magic elves often laid into their structures, be they homes, workshops or even just kilns, and he focused himself on sketching them out with a quick hand, reading their almost entirely eroded shapes as easily as if the rock spoke them aloud. And as he turned a corner in search of his next subject, his unwanted entourage dutifully in tow, excitement stalled his feet.
The lines were sheer and delicate, but they gripped him immediately. Etched almost imperceptibly down the inside corner of two intersecting walls, protected by chance from the elements for centuries, hid a string of runes that released a rabble of butterflies in his stomach. He blustered over, almost stumbling over the ditchlings as he went, and pressed his pencil so urgently into his notebook that he almost pierced the page. He scribbled feverishly, only fractionally disheartened by the thought that the top half of the passage was surely shattered and lost forever in the rubble behind it.
He managed to copy only two edges before the nib snapped.
The ditchlings around him gasped; Anthis only tutted. But though his hand twitched towards the hem of his shirt, he quickly thought better of it. He could sharpen it later. He had at least a dozen others in his saddlebag.
He feigned an itch instead and looked up to see who was nearest to the horses, but sighed with mild irritation when he spotted Garon at the other end of the grove, though he was sure he'd been beside the beasts just a moment ago. The inquisitor's bearing hadn't changed, though; he still stood rigidly, his arms folded across his chest, while his eyes somehow tracked every single ditchling's movements at once.
He looked about for Rathen or Aria instead, but he noticed them just as quickly, several feet away and standing at a bizarre-looking tree where other ditchlings sat uncharacteristically quiet amongst its roots.
He sighed. Clearly, he had no choice but to get it himself - but as he rose and turned to do so, a young, silvery-eyed girl suddenly stopped in front of him, her hand outstretched. Within her grasp was a pencil.
He frowned. It was one of his; the end was covered in familiar chew marks.
"Thank you..." he said with confusion as he took it, then noticed that she hadn't been one of the throng to have spent the last fifteen minutes following him around. At least, he hadn't noticed any around him with small sticks like antlers tied into her hair. Leaves and flowers, yes, even a bird's nest, but these curious adornments were a detail he was quite sure he wouldn't have missed. "How did you--?"
"They told me," she said, her voice and manner just as common as the others she pointed towards, but as he looked around at the thirteen gathered behind him, they each looked just as innocent as the next.
"But they never said a word..."
Frowns of shared confusion muddled their faces.
"We don't need to," one of them said, as if he was stupid, and tapped the side of his head. "We just thunk it - oh yeah! But hoomans can't do that, can they?"
"No!" Said another. "They need to speak out loud."
"But you speak out loud," Anthis insisted suspiciously, looking from one round face to the next while trying to decide just how deceptive they looked, "so how can you..."
The girl giggled. "Look! He's confused!"
"So confused!"
"But he's so smart! I liked him when he was smart!"
Anthis frowned tightly and shook his head as their voices clamoured around him. "But you're so loud!"
"Course we're loud!" The one with a crown of leaves and shattered bird eggs laughed. "'Cause we don't need to be!"
"We don't like the silence, see, so we like to talk loudly!"
"And shout!"
"And sing! And laugh!"
"And roar!" The boy promptly demonstrated.
Anthis was still shaking his head, fighting to get his thoughts in order over the cacophony, unable to deny the brief but screaming evidence. "Telepathy..." he said quietly, very much to himself rather than trying to be heard over their din, "that would make you highly organised - good at raiding, stealing things..."
"We are," the crowned one nodded as the others suddenly fell silent, though they all continued grinning widely. "But we're also good at spying and learning. One of us learns something, then we all do. That's how we know where the best stuff is."
"Is it immediate?" He asked, wondering why he was indulging their lies.
The girl beside him bobbed her head about indecisively. "Kinda. Depends where we are. If we're far away, it takes a while. A few minutes, I reckon."
"And how far is 'far'?"
She pursed her lips. "Ten days away?"
Anthis's eyebrows rose in surprise, then dropped just as quickly in doubt.
"He doesn't believe us," one of them said sadly.
"Well he can't see our heads' insides neither, so how could he trust us?"
Anthis's shoulders dropped and his frown similarly weakened as Nug's previous statement repeated itself in his mind. "...He meant it literally..."
They each frowned at him. "It's annoying not knowing what he's thinking."
Anthis dropped his wide eyes back to them. "So," he began carefully, still wary of being caught in a trap, but he couldn't deny his fascination, "you can exchange thoughts to each other, information...but how do you know when the thought is your own, or another's?"
They stared at him blankly.
"You're right, he ain't smart."
One of them suddenly picked up a stick and drew three lines in the mud, and the others immediately began nodding in approval. "This," said the girl with the pencil matter-of-factly, pointing at the top line, "is the top of our heads. Like the top branches, right? The wind can reach it. This," she continued, pointing at the middle line, and he peered at it with growing interest, "is the middle of our heads, the main bit, like the meat of an animal, not the skin - yeah, the skin is the top line."
"Why not the top line is the leaves," Anthis offered, "and the middle is the branches? Or is it th
e trunk?"
"Yeah, it's the trunk. It's both."
"He is," one of them agreed, though Anthis wasn't sure what to.
"And this," she said, finally pointing to the bottom line, "is the roots. Now, we have thoughts and feelings and ideas - we make them on our own, right? Like if I fall out of a tree, it hurts. The hurt is mine. The 'mine' bit happens at the roots."
"Because you're the one that feels it," Anthis nodded slowly, kneeling down beside her.
"Yep! But this bit, the trunk, that's where the decision that it's pain comes from, and the curses that fly out with it. It's where the thought forms, but the fact that it's mine comes with it, like the trunk comes with the roots. You can cut a tree in half, and the roots and trunk will still stand, right? But you can't have just the top of the tree standing with no roots, can you?"
"No, you can't," he agreed, frowning thoughtfully.
"Right? So the roots can exist on their own without anything else, the trunk can only exist with the roots--"
"So every thought and idea is sort of stamped with 'you'."
"Yeah!" She grinned as the others began murmuring excitedly around him. "And everything at the top, where the leaves are and the wind can carry things, is what we tell everyone else. Just like a trunk can stand without the leaves, I don't have to tell anyone else that I fell out of a tree if no one saw it, but if I do tell anyone, it has to come all the way from the roots."
"So you choose what you share," Anthis clarified, "and you share it at the leaves, on the wind, and it comes with your identity, because the leaves can't stand without the trunk or the roots."
"He gets it!"
They all cheered, and Anthis found himself feeling quite pleased with himself. "So that means you always know who a thought came from?"
"Usually."
He frowned at the girl.
"Sometimes some of us can let the tree stand without the roots."
"But...but you just said--"
"Yeah, crazy ain't it?" She grinned. "Shouldn't happen, like a tree shouldn't stand without roots, right? But some can, like sometimes a brown bird is white. So sometimes we might get sent a thought by someone and not know it ain't ours, 'cause we don't feel the roots give our thoughts 'me' when we have them, it just happens, it's like the roots are just there for the sake of whoever gets the thoughts, right? So if we get a thought without no roots, sometimes we think it's ours."