by Blake Rivers
Somewhere deep within her, Dangerous had returned, keeping her fear at bay, battling it for her as the mist rose higher now, touching her chin.
Eventually they turned, Hero guiding her movement, and the land climbed a little, bringing her above the mist and up against a dark wall of trees. Unlike the outside, however, there were gaps between these trunks. The mist had lowered to her ankles and she let go of Hero’s hand as he, Raven and Grace crowded forward. Ami joined them, moving closer, squeezing into a gap between two large trunks that leant against one another.
“Duck down,” a voice whispered, and all assembled ducked low. As they did, a blue light from far away filtered between the branches, reminding Ami of car headlights at night, sweeping round in an arc. The light lingered a moment and then fell, leaving them in the gloom once more. “Phew,” the voice said, “just in time. They’ll be back though.”
Ami pushed up next to Hero, trying to see in the small, dark space.
“Do you know who I am?” Grace asked, her voice slow and gentle.
“Yes,” the voice said, and Ami now saw a small girl, her face mostly in shadow, her dirty hair pushed back behind her ears. “I know who you are.”
“Good,” Grace said. “Can we go inside?”
“I don’t know,” the girl said. “The girl might come back. She’s been here a lot.”
Ami shifted position and could now see Grace clearly squatting, and across from her was the girl. Startled, the girl looked straight at her.
“I wouldn’t worry about that,” Grace whispered. “I don’t think she’ll be back just yet.”
The girl stared at Ami, her eyes wide. “You?”
Ami shook her head. “Do I know you?”
Grace held her hand up, barely visible. “I can explain but—”
“Hide!” The girl gasped and scurried further forward, diving into the misty black trees. Grace bent double and scooted through the same space, while Ami was pushed through by Hero, his hands around her waist. In the confusion she turned to tackle him, but instead fell to the ground the other side of the trees. She stood.
“Get down,” the girl’s voice called, but Ami’s attention was taken as she caught sight of the light again and watched it through the black trunks, far off in the deep blue. Bright white columns of luminescence were pulsing, searching. Their progress was silent between the branches—but the power awesome. She felt it across the distance like electricity. It raised the hair on her arms, the back of her neck, and roused the dark power within her that lay dormant. She felt it rise and ready, the need for release great and—
Hero pulled her leg from under her and she fell upon him, just as the light passed over them. It was brief, lingered for a second only, and was then gone.
“Will someone please tell me what’s going on?” Hero whispered, holding tight to Ami. “What are we hiding from?”
“The Sentries,” Grace and the girl said together.
In the darkness everything was close but unseen, and touch was the only constant she could rely on. Hero kept his hand on hers as the group huddled together on the ground. The unicorns, Ami noticed, were standing far off to one side, talking amongst themselves. They seemed to have no fear of the light, yet the racing of her heart suggested that she herself had much to fear. Raven and Hero bookended her as they sat opposite the old woman and the young girl. The mist cooked between them, a shallow broth of a witch’s brew, the only light, a blue that covered everything.
“I’ll tell you, Hero,” Grace said, “I’ll tell you all, but you must listen.” Raven and Hero nodded and Ami followed suit. Grace began, her voice low. “Thousands of years ago, hundreds of thousands, a superior race of beings existed in one world. They were not the creators, they were not gods, but only a species that were powerful, more powerful than many others. Humans existed then also, and horses, and birds, but these beings had built a civilisation throughout the land and had men worship them as their lords, or kings, or emperors, if you will. They became sure in their power, but made fatal mistakes. Those beings were called the Sentries. Catastrophe struck, and the world was fragmented, split, separated from itself. They had inadvertently created the layers of worlds, and in doing so, separated themselves too, splitting each of them into many parts, new but lesser beings. The civilisation had fractured beyond repair, and those who had the ability to do so created ways of fleeing across the layers to join with themselves, to hunt down their ancient supremacy. Portals were created, tunnels through the layers, and some of the old fragments of the civilisation, now split across thousands of layers, were concentrated, pulled together and contained. The beings focussed all their energies into doing this but were dying fast—never were they meant to live as fragmented beings in a fragmented world. Some merged with other creatures to stave off death, and the ancestors of those trials are the unicorns. Some merged with plant-life instead and survived as pure power, together with the trees and forests of the Mortrus Lands.”
Grace paused.
“How do you know this?” Hero asked.
“Because I never left, at least part of me didn’t. I’m right here.” Grace pointed down to the girl, who’d brought her knees up to her chest. She looked over at the old woman and smiled. The old woman smiled back.
Hero shook his head, but it was Raven that asked. “How is that possible?”
*
Adam shook his head and coughed, his throat still raw, his lungs heaving for air. He’d landed in the dark and could taste dust. It caught in his throat and no matter how much he coughed, the tightness continued.
Slowly, and not without effort, he pulled himself to his knees and looked around him. To his left was a chair, large and wooden and familiar. Beyond it was a dead fireplace. He recognised the room as the same one he’d created in Ami’s mind, the room he’d held her hostage in, forcing his will upon her.
He stood up.
From the shadows came a swift rush of air, and Adam’s head cracked to the right, snapping his neck. He fell to the ground again.
“Faaagh,” he sounded, not able to make his jaw move. He pushed himself up on his hands and felt a boot step on his fingers.
“No, no, be a good boy, Brother,” she said from the gloom.
Adam’s hate came back in a flourish. “Why don’t you die,” he screamed, and the power rose up, shooting from him in daggers of jaded light, but she brushed them aside and swatted at them like flies.
“No, Brother, not anymore. I’m much more powerful.” She smiled and pulled him out of the open door and onto a stone walkway. Dragging him by his foot a ways, she hurled him onto the grass. Adam whipped round, but she’d stopped to lift a fallen rose, breathing in its pure scent. Then she turned to him.
On his back, Adam scrambled in retreat—but then he saw them, and memories came back with a shudder. The archway, the steps. He hadn’t recognised them when he’d battled Ami, before she’d succumbed, but now he did. Now he did, and he was afraid. The ruined arches towered over him, and he heard the screaming his head that he’d forgotten.
Ami smiled over him, and withdrew her sword.
*
“Beware the Mortrus Lands, beware, North to the flow, below, below, Danger in light, blue and glow, Many go in, one must go. That poem was known to all who travelled in the caravan of people I was with. My father had read it himself many times over, though only to sound knowledgeable. He was so proud to be there and was proud of me, his only daughter, being there with him. Off to discover new lands. We knew the poem, but none took any notice of it.
“When we entered we travelled for hours, lost in the bleak wilderness of this blue and dark wood. As you can see for yourselves, the land is desolate of life and not at all what we had expected. My father at some point had begun to shake, though he tried not to let on. He muttered something about dreams, and another overheard him, a scribe from the castle. Their voices were low but still too loud in the quiet. Some were talking of going back, but the way back was as lost as we were.
“We’d reached a clearing, the only one we’d seen for the hours we’d travelled, and in the midst of the clearing were six large trees clustered together. Their trunks were split, hollow inside. The group—many of us—clustered around these trees, walking around in the mist. A few began to walk off on their own, weaving in and out of the black trunks, ducking the branches. Then a few more, until eventually only a handful of us were left.
“Lionel Barrel had long gone, and only when none had returned after what must have been hours, and the food reserves they’d kept ran too low, was it mentioned that maybe they weren’t coming back. A couple of the men staggered out into the woods calling the names of their friends, but their voices soon became distant. We were frightened, alone, and huddling together for warmth when the hollows of the trees lit.
“Flames burned in them of the purest white, so bright that we had to shield our eyes from them as if from the sun. My father held me tight, shivering all the more when he revealed that he’d dreamed of this, dreamed of lights in the wood. The flames rose out from their hollows as spheres of fire, before elongating into tall columns that reached far, far up into the dark branches. They surrounded us, and voices came from them, all booming the same chant: ‘One must go.’
“The chant was repeated over and over as they rounded on us, the pillars containing flames of faces, peering out in seeming agony. Men got up then and ran, ran far away into the trees. My father held me, both of us crying, and the scribe stayed with us, clinging on to my father, shielding his eyes from the light. We were alone with them.
“The chants stopped, and to my horror the nearest pillar of light bent toward me, a giant pillar of white fire bowing obscenely down before me, just to point its tapered top and say, ‘You must go.’ A second later the light from all six pillars merged upon us and I was torn away from my father, dragged into the fiery light. My father and the scribe scrambled to the trees and fell into the two hollows. Flames engulfed them then and they disappeared. My screams and cries were echoes in the silence.
“I was put down on the ground, released from the pillar, and as I watched through teary eyes, the pillars became spheres once more, balls of light that floated around my head. When my sobs began to subside, I began to hear the voices, whispered voices. They entered my ears and overlapped and echoed. It took me a while, but eventually I came to understand what they were saying. I was being told who they were and what was to happen.
“It was told as I have told you, that they were called Sentries, and they were the cause for the separation of the world into layers. They were the last guardians of the portals, made so long ago. Those who were not Sentry were to be banished to the forests of the Mortrus Lands where one could wander forever and never find a footstep made by another, where one would never die but would eventually lose reason, where one could tear hair and skin in loneliness and emptiness, but would only find demons of the mind between the never-ending trees. They had made it so, for many go in, but as always, one must go.
“I was to be ejected from the forest as mad as the others before me, and sent back to where I was from as a warning to all to never enter the land.”
*
“Wow,” Ami said, staring into the gloom. The light returned but shone far to their left, upon the unicorns who remained unconcerned. “So what happened?”
“I ran. I ran and I ran. I whipped through the wood as fast as I could and ran as far as I could, and when I couldn’t run any more I hobbled, and when I couldn’t stand anymore, I fell. They were right, the place was a maze, and what kind of maze? Did we indeed enter the wood we saw, or were we lost in another of those layers they whispered about? The dark trees were endless and my shoes were lost, ruined, my tears dry, my horror fresh.
“I soon saw the lights again, searching, filtering through the trees, looking for me. I was to be released without my mind, without my sanity and even at nine years old it was a concept I understood. So I got up again and ran. At some point I stopped by a tree and leaned upon it to rest, to catch my breath. My hands pushed against the bark as I coughed, and my fingers sunk into the bark like tar. I pulled away. The tree moved and opened its eyes and I found it hadn’t been a tree at all but a man, black and rotten, his skin rancid and slipping from his bones. He screamed at me and I screamed back—took to my feet and ran—jumping roots and dodging trees until I fell once more. I gave up and lay down.
“I slept, or thought I did. It was hard to tell. I dreamed, though I wasn’t sure now what was real and what wasn’t. I saw a square of lush green grass, and rising from it a white, shining platform of stone, maybe marble, and a single red rose blooming.
“I opened my eyes and expected the black, the gloom, the blue of the land that was now my forever, and I got exactly that—except for one difference. Between a bank of closely growing trees was a gap, and through that gap I saw a glint of green, a hint of yellow. Slowly I pulled myself up and crawled toward it, looking around me for the Sentries, the searching light through the trunks. I saw none and hurried toward my discovery.
“You know of what I speak, I suspect, Ami?”
Hero and Raven looked down at her and she nodded. “Yes,” she said, her voice so meek.
“I climbed through, between the trunks, beyond the opposing hollows, and through into a place of wonder. How long had I been lost in the woods? Days? Weeks? Years? Time had no meaning, and it was meaningless to guess. This place too was timeless, and I have never been sure whether I created it in my need, or whether it was always there, waiting…it is a mystery I don’t know the answer to, but what I did learn was that the Sentries do not know of it, or cannot at least enter it. It was a sanctuary and an escape.
“Fleeing across the grass I witnessed something magical happen. Upon the white platform three arches grew out of the very stone. Columns joined them creating gateways. I went to them, and after passing beneath them, touching the columns either side, I found myself outside of the forest. The river ran in front of me, the green—oh so lush and needed green—of the Planrus and Solancra forests on either side. I was where I had entered, not knowing at that point that no time had passed since my entry—I didn’t care. I ran.”
“But the girl?” Raven said, whispering as the light searched to their right, touching the black trees and giving them no light.
“A part of myself was ripped away when I passed through the arches. I think of her as a shadow, and I share her fears every night. Every night I dream, or travel, back to this place to be with myself here, hiding from the Sentries. Hiding, but never escaping. I found a way to leave, but part of me will always be here, able to leave but always returning and remaining. No one ever truly leaves.”
The girl smiled up at her again and touched the old woman’s face. Grace smiled back and held her hand.
Ami’s mind was blown, as if everything else that had happened hadn’t been enough.
“So what about us,” Raven said. “Are we lost, or can we escape?”
“We haven’t yet found what we are looking for,” Hero said. “A way to stop Adam, if we can. I don’t understand how—”
“All things are coming together,” the girl said, looking now at the ground. The forest lit as the pillars appeared over the rise. “Run!”
The four scrambled through the rising mist as the Sentries moved over the land, their light searching. “One must go. One must go.”
The chant called out across the dead wood.
*
Adam deflected her first blow in a shower of sparks, but her swing had already returned, the steel blade singing through the air as it sliced toward him, cutting his cheek, his blood stippling the grass as he stumbled backward, Ami looming over him with a smile. Her hair blew from her hood like autumn fire.
“Get away from me,” he spat, and from the depths of his open mouth came a belch of black mist that rose into the air and coiled like a snake, finding Ami and tightening around her neck. She clawed at it, but her fingers slipped in a black tar that came
from its dark body and dripped down her dress; it crawled her neck and onto her face, edging across her cheeks in small broken veins toward her mouth.
Adam backed away laughing as it entered her, her breaths labouring rasps of spluttered black—then she burst into flame, and the tar burned away from her skin, rising from her as a cloud. She sparked like a firework and sent the cloud swirling into the air with the rising wind. It turned into a dark storm, tinged with purple and green flashes that rumbled with thunder. In a single motion, Ami sent the storm raging toward Adam, chasing him to the trees where a shadowed figure stood just within the branches.
The storm exploded against the trunks.
She smiled and turned back to the platform, climbing the white steps one by one.
At the command of her risen hand, the charred branches came forth, floating upon the wind. They settled in a pyre in front of her, bursting into flame at once. There within the flames, the other world throbbed and dimmed. She pushed the blade of her sword into the centre, and the fire rose high.
“Let me find you there,” she said. “Let me find you, Hero.”
Her voice was a whisper on the breeze, singing a slow Celtic tune she’d once heard at a wedding.
Chapter Nineteen
The misted air passed between them and divided as they ran, and Ami’s hand slipped from Hero’s grip. A second later her foot snagged in a tangled root and she was thrown forward, down a sloped embankment and into a deep gully where she rolled to a stop, gasping and grasping at the soft earth around her. Hero had also fallen, but her desperate hands couldn’t find him; she could see nothing. All around was a thick fog where the mist had dropped low, and Ami was blind. Only the subtle light of the searching Sentries above penetrated the cloud.