by Blake Rivers
“Hero,” she whispered, feeling thick roots and wiry vines, her bare knees bruised from the fall.
“Shh.” He was behind her. She twisted, feeling a large root dig into her back as she did. If she’d had her sword she would’ve cut through it—but she didn’t. “Take my hand.”
Something stroked up her side and Ami grasped it, feeling only hardened steel beneath her palm. His sword. The space in front of her lit with a purple glow, muted yet there all the same. A spark of green flame flickered and doused, but Ami ignored it, grasping instead the hand that was held out to her.
“Hero, where are the others?” They’d run as a group but the trees had swallowed them in darkness, the light behind them touching their retreating shadows, the mist thickening. It had soon taken the sound of Raven’s footsteps and the whisper of Grace’s gown, and their hands had parted either side of a thick trunk. Then they were gone.
“I don’t know,” he said, his voice urgent from a face hidden. The light strobed and flashed above them as if the underbelly of a quiet storm. His hand held tight to hers. “Are you okay?”
“I’m okay,” she said, though she had no idea whether that was true or not. By what standard could she rate her level of okay? If it was against the okay of the last few days, then she was doing just peachy-keen, but if against her other life, her old life of what seemed so long ago now? Then no, she wasn’t at all okay. “I’m okay,” she repeated.
Trees above creaked and groaned while a soft breeze from nowhere shifted the mist making her feel dizzy. Her eyes closed to it, and in the darkness behind her lids she saw Adam, struggling and screaming, rolling in a minute of flame.
A bass boom echoed and the silent woods exploded to her right, lifting Ami with a sudden wind that caught her and threw her, dashing her against the ground where she struck her head hard. A flare of purple lit the terrain for an instant and was then gone, an anguished cry rising a chorus of cries, each overlapping the next in hate—but Ami hardly heard it. There was a darkness fast approaching her senses and she was sure she could taste blood. The mist took her as an arm drew around her and pulled her between the roots of the trees.
When she opened her eyes, it was to a blue sky that seemed too clear and perfect. Far away clouds weaved and striped between the sapphire air like marble, and her only thoughts were of the perfection of such things. Rarely did people truly look at the sky, or at a tree, or a field; rarely did they penetrate the invisible layer of perception to find the true beauty. It was a moment of clarity she’d never been able to explain, and as her eyes scanned the endless sky now, she understood herself more than anyone else ever could. She was an artist. She would create from the natural and create it again…it was just who she was.
Only when she moved her head to the side did the pain take hold and pierce its claws into her neck, bringing back everything that had happened. She clenched her eyes tight shut, seeing Dangerous wielding a sword in her memory, seeing Adam, lost and ignited in his own anger and fear. Opening them she glimpsed the columns and arches, clearer now than ever before. Across the grass, close to her face, rose petals danced and curled. She reached out her hand to touch one, hot pain stripping the muscles of her arm—but her fingers touched, and the velvet softness brought a smile despite it.
Wincing, Ami sat and stared out across the clearing. The woods were to her right, black and now familiar, and between the branches she could just make out a dusky blue, far, far away. To her left the white steps led to the platform, half-finished arches rising with columns, and between them a burning fire. Smoke rose white into the air but disappeared before polluting the sky.
“I like to keep it blue,” a voice said, and Ami turned, her neck in agony as she looked behind her. “The fires make it black, and sometimes I can’t stop it changing colour, but if I can, I like to keep it blue.”
The voice came from the girl, the younger Grace, who stood before the stone walkway, barefoot and filthy. She rubbed her feet against the grass and came forward. Ami watched her for a moment and then gave in to the pain, collapsing back to the ground.
“Why don’t you heal yourself? I’ve seen the lords do it. Some of them have to when they come here because they get hurt in the woods.”
Ami rolled onto her front and pushed herself up to look at the girl. “Heal myself?” Adam had said she could, yes, she remembered. He’d attacked her and she’d moved, defended, was wounded. She looked down at her cut arms and legs, the dress filthy but unharmed. Closing her eyes for a moment only, she called the power to rise up within her. Purple and green light shimmered across her, sealing the wounds, running her body in beads of tiny flame. She felt the pain let up in her neck, and wounds she didn’t know she had suddenly felt fresh and cool. Her arms and legs strengthened and she felt the fire flash in her eyes.
“That’s it,” the girl said, and took Ami’s hand.
“Where am I? What is this place?” She rose with the girl and found herself being led by her toward the raised platform, the fire burning low between the arches. What a curious thing.
“This is my safe place,” she said, sitting with her upon the steps. She smiled and Ami couldn’t help but do the same. “You can stay here for a little, but the other will come back soon.”
“The other?”
“The other you.”
“But I thought—” Ami’s eyes flicked between the rosebush and the walkway, the arches and the woods. “I didn’t think this place was real. Is the other me real?”
The girl nodded. “She comes here. She sets fires and disappears. She touches the roses. I stay hidden. I’m good at hiding.” Her voice was dreamy, vague, a little far away.
“Where does she go?”
The girl shrugged. “She isn’t you yet, or no—I mean, you aren’t her yet. You are her, but you aren’t yet.” She looked up at the sky, thinking. “I think that’s right. I help the lords. They come into the woods and get lost, but I watch them and bring them here. I send them through the gateway that the other me went through. Another returns, it happens again. I keep them safe, and away from—”
The girl looked back to the woods. All was quiet except for the crackling of the fire.
“You send the Lords of Legacy through?” Ami pointed to the archways. They looked innocent enough, and yet somehow mystical—they did look like gateways.
The girl nodded. “And show them how to leave when they come back. I don’t know how it works.”
Ami stroked her hand across the steps and stood up, looking around again. “You did the same with my father? What happened? Why didn’t he send me back? What happened with Adam?”
“The last lord.” The girl shook her head and walked up the steps, twirling on the marble flagstones. “There was a fight. The man who came with him wasn’t the one to go. The last lord said that as long as the man still lived, another heir wouldn’t return—too dangerous. The man tried to hurt me, but the Sentries came and he went into the wood.”
The air was sweet with the smell of the roses, and turning now, Ami headed to the rosebush she’d been to so many times, only this time it was real. She pulled a rose from the bush and a thorn stuck her. Dangerous. The fire burned perpetually.
“She’ll return soon,” the girl said, “and then you’ll know yourself.”
*
The boom had blown Hero back also, and flying like a leaf in the wind he’d landed against the branches of a tree, falling to the ground with shattered black limbs showering him. The white-grey mist had lit a purple flash, and in the distance he heard the screams—Adam.
Checking himself, he rolled into a crouch and pulled himself up. His sword was in his hand.
“Ami?” he whispered, but the air was empty, the gully his entirely. “Ami?”
Keeping one hand upon the root of a tree so as to not lose his bearings, Hero turned around, the blade of the sword lighting purple, glowing dully in the muting mist. The screams had stopped and no longer echoed, but the lights of the Sentries were back a
nd roamed closer, firing the mist like a blinding furnace. He heard their faint chants as they searched: “One must go.” Many go in, one must go. But who was to go? Grace was sure to have answers, but she was nowhere to be seen, lost with Raven and the child, lost like Ami was now; and Adam was here. He’d found them, followed them. Yet hadn’t Lady Grace said that he’d be here? She’d known…
He spun as sounds above filtered down, movement through shrub, scratching against bark, light in the grey mist and blue hue. Hero stepped back, entering what he hoped was the centre of the gully between two banks, though he had no way of knowing for sure. The blade in his hand flamed and he held it aloft, ready.
A sound of a drop, someone near, the light hazy and unfocussed, yet the mist moving and swirling. “Who’s there?”
“Hero?” The familiar voice startled him, for it held a lilt of strangeness, but as the light became defined he recognised it more fully. The horn came before the beast, and Florina appeared close. The crystal shone a bright white, pulsing. “Hero, I’ve found you.”
“Florina, I have lost the others, I have—”
“They’re safe,” she whispered. “Raven and Lady Grace are with Talos, though where Ami and the girl are I’m—”
A cry ripped through the woods, closer. It sounded human and yet unhinged and dangerous.
“It’s Adam,” he said. “He is here. If he finds Ami—”
“Then let’s find him first,” she said. “We unicorns are born from power, akin to the Sentries here. Their power is ours. I am powerful here.”
The mist parted around the unicorn and her luminous body glowed a bright white, the crystal horn lowered, rippling with flame. Hero hid his face behind his hand, the glare too much. When it died, leaving only the flickers of flame, the unicorn had gone. In her place was the girl from the Commune. Florence. The horn in her hand, a fiery sword.
“Let’s hunt,” she said, smiling, and Hero raised his sword to hers. Their combined light shone through the mist enough to define a path that rose from the gully and led them to the forest floor above. Their steps quickened as they rose from the fog bank and into the blue.
The lit pillars of the Sentries were close, clusters of black trunks casting shadows that moved as they moved, tracking them. From somewhere deep within those shadows came the frustrated cries of a madman. Florence pointed her sword forward. “There.”
Hero saw him. The man was running and tripping, throwing bursts of power back over his shoulder. Pursuing him was another, ducking and diving, deflecting. “Let’s go.”
They picked their way carefully between the trees, Hero conscious of falling beneath the mist once more, and constantly thinking of Ami. Where was she? Was she safe? Was she lost? Wherever she was, if they were able to eliminate Adam, she would be much safer, but how were they going to do that?
Florence cut them a path through dense trees, the mist rising at the trunks and crawling up the bark. Several times he heard murmurs in the shadows, the trees whispering—or perhaps not the trees at all. There was a desperate sense here, and as he looked at the spaces between the trees, the blue dusk of eternity, he began to slow and think. What would it be like to wander the forest forever, to know nothing but an endless walk, a constant thirst, a starvation that ate your body bit by bit, but never yielded to death; what would it be like to—
“Keep moving,” Florence said, pulling his robes. “Don’t stop. People go mad here, people stay mad here. Stay with me.”
“Yes,” he said, shaking. He’d stopped and lowered his blade—he hadn’t noticed—but now he jogged beside the girl. A unicorn, powerful, a woman, resourceful. Yes, she would’ve made a fine addition to the Guard and to Legacy. He looked out toward the men. They were closer, much closer now, though the Sentries had disappeared from view. The darkness was now only blue-lit shadows, and the path Adam travelled led to a wall of mist between a cluster of trunks.
“In through here,” Florence said, and entering a tight space between two wide trunks, Hero found himself on a pathway. The pathway was not defined, was sparse with trees and seemed no different to any other part of the forest, and yet it was leading him. He felt it, and the power within him felt it. Whatever was ahead was where they were meant to go.
“Don’t you recognise this place?” a voice said, near, quite close. Hero saw nothing ahead, yet he felt them. His blade lifted as they made a turn, and found themselves within a large clearing.
Adam was there, with his back to a cluster of hollowed trees, a man standing before him, taunting him.
“Don’t you remember?”
“You’re trying to trick me, Father,” Adam said, but his face was contorted into a fearful grin. He was shaking, green flames rippling from him. His sword was still sheathed.
They hadn’t yet been noticed.
“I think you’re deluded,” his father said. “Then again, that’s not exactly news is it? Son, look around you and remember.”
The man came forward and turned Adam round by the shoulders to face the cluster of trees, but Adam’s eyes skipped over them and landed on Hero and his burning blade of purple flame.
“You!”
Florence stepped beside Hero as Adam ran at them, and the two touched their blades together. The blast of white and purple produced a rainbow of power that shot through Adam’s chest. He flipped backward and landed on his back.
Hero wasted no time and moved forward, but Adam was already on his feet, turning on the spot, a whip of green flames flying from his palms. The flames clawed at Hero and Florence and lifted them up, throwing them into trees. Hero landed face first on the forest floor, but when he arose, he saw that Florence was already in battle, white and green sparks shooting across the clearing. He stood and called on the borrowed power, pushing himself into the fray, charging at Adam with his blade.
He swung, and Adam dodged, he spun around and their blades met with a flash of colour.
“You can’t defeat me, silly man,” Adam screeched. “I am forever.” His black boot kicked out and lowered Hero to his knees as Florence took his place. Adam brought the mist up to blind and bind her, but her white fire still found him and threw him back against the tree, his back to the hollow. He pushed forward from the trunk and launched at Hero, his blade raised with a cry of hatred between sharpened teeth.
The green sword sliced through the air to Hero’s neck, but another power threw Adam aside as Graeme stepped forward from the sidelines, his hands raised with purple-lit palms. Adam fell, grabbing Hero as he did, bringing him down with him. With one hard push, Adam sent Hero off-balance and toward the hollow of the tree.
“No, Hero!” Florence called, but it was too late. Flames engulfed him as he entered, and was then gone.
*
Adam felt reality slip as Hero burned in the hollow. The flames licked and extinguished leaving nothing but silence and darkness. Only moments ago, it seemed, he’d run fast to escape the firestorm that his protégé had sent after him, and only too late had his eyes fallen upon his father. He was thrown into the trees as it hit, the purple blast sending them both into a land where the only light was a misted blue, and the black trees surrounded them like unearthly sentinels from another realm. They watched him and waited for him, and his immortal soul screamed. He’d run as the searching light found him, a long ago forgotten threat, a broken memory wrapped in a solitary darkness that came together at last in his mind. His father and the girl were on pause as he started to remember everything—the madness between the trunks, how he couldn’t get away, how he’d fallen into the dark path with his father the first time, all those years past, and the light had shorn away as if with a blade. The trees behind were impassable darkness, and in front, a lonely place where they fought an endless fight of hatred and jealousy. He’d screamed for his father to relinquish the sceptre. “Give it to me, old man, I am lord now, I am lord.” How long had it been? Time meant nothing and the two fought for hours or weeks or years, rolling and jumping, skidding and throwing, th
eir power shields and weapons, purple and green sparks.
At some point he’d grabbed the horn and yanked it from the old man’s hand, yet his father had been surprisingly strong and resilient. He took chase, netting him with a mesh of purple flame, dragging him back between the trunks, his body slamming against each in turn. How long had he been pulled in like a fish from the sea? How long had it taken? There’d been no way to tell.
Sometime later they’d found themselves within a clearing, a cluster of six hollowed trees before them—and that’s when they’d come, and father and son had run from the fiery spheres together, run forever from light that stretched to eternity and back, seeking them, herding them; run forever, dodging trunks and jumping roots, falling into gullies and losing direction, losing sense. A girl had appeared and he threw her aside; but then his father was no longer with him and Adam was lost. The beings had gone, though they were still there—in his head if nowhere else—chanting: One must go. Oh, the chant! One must go. That horrific chant! It’d rung in his head like an infinite bell. The trees were black gates he couldn’t pass, the branches dead insipid hatred made flesh from wood. At what point had he known his mind was gone? The wood groaned around him a deep voice, howling a restless whimper of silent noise. Shadows began to move to follow him, walk with him and talk to him of death and morbid things; men with no skin offered him rides on horses that weren’t there. A fire of black burned him to a dance, and for how many hours did he do that dance, singing loudly into the trees? He’d screamed and yelled, cried and cheered, laughed, and laughed, and laughed, and laughed—
When he’d found the sceptre of crystal in his hands still, he’d screamed at it, for he’d been carrying it the whole time. He hadn’t noticed. He looked at it for decades, or had it been only minutes? Time had been funny, and with it he’d scratched a tear into a tree, laughing and screaming as the marks became light—so long since he’d seen light—and he grasped the edges and tore them, tore them with his teeth, with his nails, chewing his way through the bark and into the light and then—