“A payment?” I said. “For the wish?”
“You expected it to be free?” The eyes of Bruni were stern.
“What do you want as payment? Gold?” I said. Bruni let out a laugh.
“I do not seek gold. I want you to travel to the Garden of Souls and destroy my plant. If you do not do it, I shall turn all the rum that your friend has drunk into poison.”
A chill came over me. I looked at Gnaria’s bulging stomach. If all that rum turned to poison… But could Bruni be bluffing?
“Remember that I am the goddess of this stream,” Bruni said as though she had read my thoughts, “If I can turn water to rum, I can definitely turn rum to poison.”
An anger came over me. Why did Gnaria have to do this? It was all her fault. Besides, I didn’t really need her. I had also not forced her to come with me.
“Then do whatever you want to,” I barked at the goddess of the stream. “Kill her if you want to, I do not care.”
I turned and I stormed away from the stream. But Gnaria’s face hung in my mind’s eyes all the while and after taking a few steps I found that I couldn’t keep moving. I found myself simply incapable of leaving Gnaria to be killed by Bruni. If I did not make the ‘payment’ Bruni would have no use of Gnaria and would kill her. I gritted my teeth and turned my head towards the stream again.
“Can’t leave your friend to die, can you?” Bruni asked me, a grin of malice on her face. “Once someone makes me a wish the payment must be made.”
I marched back to the stream and I bent and lifted the mostly unconscious Gnaria onto my shoulder. She was heavy. All the rum in her added greatly to her weight.
“Where is this garden you want me to go to?” I asked the filthy goddess.
The goddess clasped her hands together and a hummingbird of water formed magically.
“My little bird shall lead you to it,” Bruni said.
The hummingbird of water and light led me for at least a few kilometres before the trees suddenly gave way to a great garden, the like of which I had never seen in my life.
It was big. At least twice the size of the area over which the royal palace was spread back home in Abhaya’s capital city. I thought of the royal garden and how small it was compared to the Garden of Souls.
At the very centre of the garden, there was a small castle.
“So where is the plant that I need to destroy?” I asked the hummingbird that had hovered near me as I had taken in the great garden.
The hummingbird led me into the garden. For some reason the hummingbird was scared and it moved rather slowly. The flowers and other plants of the garden had a magical allure about themselves and at the base of each plant there was a name written, probably of a person from what it seemed. Had the plants been planted in the garden by the people whose names were at the bottoms of the plants? In that case quite a few people had come to the garden. I wondered if that was the case than had even a single one of them been able to get out of the forest of Ultur?
At least half an hour passed. I did not see why the humming bird was moving so slowly. Plus, I was carrying Gnaria and her weight was pressing down on my shoulder. Every now and then she would burp or laugh and say something unintelligible. Every time she did so, the humming bird would fly around me as though it wanted Gnaria to be quiet.
Perhaps someone lived in the castle that the bird didn’t want to realise that we had come into their garden without their permission?
And then finally we reached a plant, growing not far from the small castle. At the very base of the plant was written the word “Bruni” which was illuminated by the light from the humming bird.
“Do I need to uproot this plant?” I asked the humming bird. The bird nodded.
I placed Gnaria whom I had been carrying all along to the ground, and then I bent down and began pulling at the stem of the plant. The plant refused to come out of the soil, and as I applied more force, a voice that seemed to have been magically made loud, shouted from the castle, ringing with sheer anger.
“Who has dared to come and touch my plants?”
The humming bird began to panic and it flew round and round me as if urging me to uproot the plant.
“Who was that?” I asked the humming bird.
The humming bird instead went to my hands and rubbed its liquid body against them, insisting me to do the more important task.
I grimaced and then I put all my strength into uprooting the plant, and this time it came out of the soil. I fell back since I had been pulling very hard.
The uprooted plant crumbled to dust as though it had not been made of plant tissues but of sand. As for the humming bird, it fell to the ground with a splash and gave up its bird shape. On the glowing water on the ground which had previously been the hummingbird, the face of the goddess Bruni appeared.
“Thank you,” she said and she sounded utmost gleeful, “You have successfully done what all have failed at. Thank you for freeing me. The rum in your friend’s stomach shall not turn to poison.”
“Can you get the rum inside her to turn into water?” I asked Bruni.
“But she had wished to drink rum…”
“Look, I am the one who freed you, not her,” I said with some authority.
“So be it,” Bruni said, “the rum shall turn to water. Thank you again.”
Her face disappeared and the glow also vanished from the water.
Chapter 12
Gnaria began to stir, opening her eyes in a sober way for the first time in a while.
“Where am I?” she asked, looking around at the garden, rubbing her head.
“From the next time do not wish for rum,” I told her. I grabbed her paw and pulled her to her feet. “Now let’s get away from here. The owner of this garden is not exactly pleased with us.”
Gnaria looked down at her protruding stomach. She seemed to recall what she had done in the stream and a look of great guilt came over her face.
“I lost control again, didn’t I?” she said to me.
“Doesn’t matter, the rum has turned to water inside your stomach,” I told her.
The two of us began to make our way towards the edge of the garden so that we could get back to the forest. But as we were moving, we heard sounds behind us.
Something or somebody was following us.
I gulped. I checked my mana. I did have enough for the Long Hands spell, but the trees were far away and I didn’t know if I had the time to stretch my paw enough to reach one of the trees.
“We should hurry,” I said to Gnaria. But barely were the words out of my mouth that a beast leapt into our front from the plants. At first I thought that it was a strange creature, but I quickly realised that it was nothing more than an ant.
An ant the size of a bull.
Behind us another ant appeared.
“I guess it’s time to use my Knife spell,” Gnaria said even as her paws took the shape of knives. I for one pointed my paw at the ant in front of us and threw the rope spell. The rope appeared around the front two legs of the ant binding them together. However, I hadn’t put enough mana into the spell and the ant easily snapped the rope.
I threw another rope spell at the monster ant. This time putting more mana into it. The ant’s legs were bind again and this time it struggled to get rid of them. But its other four legs were free, and it approached us, angrily making disturbing clicking sounds with its horrific mouth parts.
Gnaria threw herself at the ant. I turned at the ant behind us, and leapt sideways just in time to avoid being grabbed by its jaws and torn to pieces. It came for me again, and I threw a rope spell that covered its large eyes. As the ant struggled to get rid of the ropes, I leapt onto its back. I did not know what to do. Meanwhile, Gnaria was battling the other ant. She had so far successfully chopped two of the legs of the ant. Yet the ant relentlessly kept trying to attack her as if pain was not something it knew.
The ant I was atop of finally managed to get rid of the rope I had thrown around its hea
d. It turned its head and looked at me. The ant began to move round and round in circles and it even rolled on the ground in an attempt to get me off its body. I however clung onto it, refusing to let go, sinking my claws into the exoskeleton of the ant as much as I could. Even though the ant was in constant movement, I was able to take aim at the head of the ant and fired a couple of air arrows. The ant stopped moving because of the pain every time an air arrow hit it.
I just needed to keep the ant distracted so that Gnaria could kill the other ant and then come for the one that I was riding (she had already chopped four legs and the antennae of the ant she was fighting).
A few more minutes and Gnaria succeeded in beheading the ant. Panting, she turned at the ant that I was riding.
“Help me,” I shouted to her.
She nodded. I had a sudden idea and I moved forward the ant’s body and I grabbed its antennae. It began to shake its head and in the meantime Gnaria was able to come close to it without attracting its attention. The moment I let go of the antennae, Gnaria slashed with the knife and the next moment the giant head of the ant fell to the ground. The ant’s body slumped to the ground and I got off it.
“Good team work,” I said to Gnaria who was inhaling and exhaling deeply, obviously exhausted. The two of us made a high five. It was a strange moment, for it was then that for the first time in a while that I felt truly close to anyone. I felt blood rush to my face.
“I think we should get going before any more ants come,” I said to Gnaria.
I took a step forward, but failed to notice some ant blood on the ground. I slipped and fell face first onto the ground.
“Are you okay?” Gnaria said, hurrying to my aid. My eyes had caught something nearby. It was a plant, at the base of which was written “Timmy” and there was another plant by its side at the base of which was written “Gnaria”. The top of the slender stems of the two plants had intertwined with each other as a result of growing too close. I could see that Gnaria’s plant had an infected leaf dotted with small holes, but it was on the verge of falling off and the other leaves didn’t seem to be infected. My plant had quite a few new, young leaves.
Gnaria helped me to my feet, my head still turned towards our plants. I did not understand. Why were the plants intertwined? I had after all met Gnaria only today. Or were the plants of some other people who were also named Timmy and Gnaria? It was a small possibility but I felt that the plants could belong only to us.
“Look!” Gnaria said, suddenly pointing a shaking paw at the first ant which she had killed and the carcass of which lay some distance from us. A plump cat had appeared next to it and the cat was kneeling beside the ant and apparently caressing it. The cat wore what looked like clothes that were made entirely of leaves. He also wore a hat.
The cat looked up at us. His eyes were neither cold nor very warm.
“I cannot remember the last time that somebody even tried to kill an ant of mine,” the cat said. He spoke in a deep voice, filled with authority.
“They attacked us,” I said.
“Because you broke into my beautiful garden and destroyed one of my plants… perhaps my most precious plant. The plant of my cheating wife.”
Plant of my cheating wife?
Was the stream goddess Bruni the wife of this cat?
“Your wife?” I said, “But I thought it belonged to Bruni.”
The cat stood up.
“Yes, she was my wife.”
“We didn’t want to uproot the plant,” I said, realising that this cat was probably very powerful. He after all had control over giant ants. Perhaps he had more ants that he hadn’t yet unleashed on us? We had had a hard time getting rid of two ants, if we were attacked by more we would lose. “Bruni threatened us. She said she would poison her,” I said, gesturing at Gnaria.
The cat nodded.
“That’s very much like Bruni. One hell of a cheat. A long time ago she was my wife. She was unfaithful to me. The cat she loved tried to kill me, but I killed him instead. As for Bruni, I set a curse on her, such that after her death she would have to remain in this realm as the goddess of the stream for all eternity unless she was somehow able to get her plant uprooted from my garden. Ever since her death she had been trying to trick whoever unwittingly enters Ultur into uprooting her plant. She gives them a wish and then she demands payment. So far all those who came to my garden trying to make her payment became snack food for my ants. Today however you got a bit lucky. I was celebrating with my ants yesterday and I allowed them to get drunk a bit. But still, it is commendable that you were able to defeat my ants.”
Commendable?
I had been pretty certain that the cat would be really pissed off.
“You almost sound happy that we killed your ants,” Gnaria voiced my thoughts.
The cat chucked.
“Killing ghosts and not killing ghosts is the same thing,” he said. And the next moment all the body parts of the ants that Gnaria had chopped off moved back on their own to the corpses. Even the blood flowed back into the bodies of the ants as we watched in horror and astonishment. In a few seconds the ants were up and alive, and shaking their heads as though waking up from sleep.
“How… how can this be possible?” Gnaria said.
“You see, my ants and I are somewhere between the living and non-living. We are ghosts, yet we are alive. You can kill us, yet not kill us.”
A chill caught me at these words. Ultur was a mystical place. I think it would have been better had we not come here.
Perhaps the cat saw the fear in me. His smile became wider.
“Do not be afraid of me,” he said. “To be honest the two of you have impressed me to a degree with your skills. I am Dom by the way.”
He came to us extending his paw and Gnaria and I shook it with some hesitation.
“We fought some insect creatures earlier,” Gnaria said, “were they your friends like these ants?”
“Not really,” Dom said, “they are inhabitants of Ultur much like me. But we mostly ignore each other. I do not like them much to be honest. They are always trying to get something or the other to eat. They have large appetites. They do attack outsiders and try to eat them, but I reckon they couldn’t quite get you two into their mouths.”
“What do these plants signify?” I asked. If Dom was impressed with us enough that he did not intend to set the ants on us again, I reckoned I could ask him a few questions. After all we were in Ultur and Ultur was the place mentioned in the map that led to the goat king’s treasure. Maybe Dom knew things that could help me in my quest? “Are they the souls of people?”
“No,” Dom said. “Actually it is hard to say what these plants really are. A long time ago, I was handed the responsibility to look after this beautiful garden. Ever since then I have been here. I had been told what these plants truly were but over the passing of the millennia I have forgotten what they are. These plants sprout with names at their bases when people are born. I reckon all those who exist in the world of Arun have a plant here which has their name at its base.”
“That is my plant,” I said pointing at the plant which bore my name at its base.
“And that’s mine!” Gnaria said, who had probably seen her plant only now. “And look, it’s intertwined with yours!”
“Are you two married?” Dom asked casually.
I shot him a look.
“We only met today,” Gnaria said with a slight edge of embarrassment to her voice.
“I see,” Dom said.
“If I pull out my plant, will I die?” I asked Dom more to change the subject a bit.
“There is not a single soul who can pull out a plant from this beautiful garden. Destroy a few leaves or bend a stem perhaps, but no one can ever totally uproot a plant,” Dom said.
“But I just pulled out Brani’s plant,” I said.
“Because she was already dead,” Dom explained. “The plant of someone who is still alive cannot be uprooted. Once a person dies, the plan magic
ally disappears. However, I forced Brani’s plant to remain in the garden as punishment for all that she had done to me. When you uprooted her plant you freed her. I should be pissed off with you, but I find that I am not. Brani has suffered a good few hundreds of years. I think she has been punished enough. Why don’t you two come along to my castle? I am a lonely cat living with my ants. Ants are good but sometimes a cat desires the company of other cats.”
Chapter 13
Gnaria and I accepted the offer. All the while as we followed Dom to his castle, I kept wondering why Gnaria’s and my plant were intertwined and why Dom had asked if we were married. Was Gnaria going to end up as my wife? I remembered my father, and I was pretty sure he would highly disapprove me marrying a girl who wasn’t a princess. I decided I would rather not think about the matter.
Though beautiful from the outside, Dom’s castle in no way matched the beauty of the one in which I had spent the bulk of my life since birth. Dom’s castle was dark and gloomy from the inside. There were very few torches and I thought it was colder inside the castle than it was outside in the garden. The walls of the castle inside were decorated with swords and helmets and skulls of monsters that Dom had killed some time in the distant past.
He led us to a table which was rather large considering it was only Dom who lived inside the castle. Thankfully there was a fireplace near the table and I liked sitting near it. Dom soon brought us tea, and as I sipped it, lost in thought watching the logs of wood in the fireplace which were reminding me of that moment in my father’s chamber when I had seen the map in the fireplace and I had made the biggest decision of my life.
Soon, I was done and Dom took away our cups. He came back and slumped onto his chair, relaxed.
I recalled the goat king’s legend and I decided to ask about it to Dom.
“Um… have you heard of the legend of the goat king?” I asked Dom.
“Legend?” Dom said, not seemingly getting me, “But he only came here a few days ago, how could he become a legend?” And Dom chuckled as though he had said something that he thought was really funny, letting down his authoritative tone for a moment.
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