by Layton Green
The background noise grew so loud it paused the battle. As friend and foe alike stopped to discern the source of the ear-splitting ruckus, Will saw Selina standing on a tree branch high above the party, her lean form silhouetted in the moonlight. In the chaos of battle, he realized he had forgotten about their most powerful ally.
The sylvamancer spread her arms wide, shouting but barely able to be heard above the din. “You left us to be consumed,” she screamed, “and so consumed you shall be!”
As she swept her hands forward like a conductor, the jungle exploded around them. Millions of insects swarmed out of the foliage, from all directions, covering the ground like a moving carpet. As Will stared slack-jawed at the swarm, something long and sinewy grabbed him by the waist and jerked him into the trees. He panicked before realizing it was a vine and not a serpent. About the time he realized vines shouldn’t grab him around the waist and lift him into the air, he was deposited on a branch near Selina and Mala, who had recovered her sash. More vines deposited the other members of the party in the same place.
When Will looked down, he saw the jaguar people leaping madly into the trees to evade the swarm. One of them was too slow and the horde devoured him like a vacuum cleaner sweeping up a pile of dust. Not to be deterred, the insects rushed up all of the trees except the one holding Selina and the party, forcing the jaguar people to flee through the canopy.
Clacking and chittering, the swarm of bugs followed their prey into the jungle, disappearing as quickly as they had arrived.
Remind me, Will thought as the vines lowered everyone to the ground, not to piss off a sylvamancer in the woods.
Mala gave Selina a nod of thanks, checked her compass, and started walking. No one wanted to find out whether more jaguar people would arrive, or how little magic Selina had left in reserve.
Hours later, the jungle broke, and the party found themselves at the edge of a lake whose far shore remained unseen in the dark of night.
“Here,” Mala said, as everyone leaned against the nearest tree or rock, pushed to the point of collapse. “We camp here.”
The terrain was dense but quite dry. They retreated a short way into the jungle and, drawing on vines and fallen trees, Selina used her magic to weave together a crude shelter and shield them from view. Everyone crowded inside, shoved down cold rations, and collapsed. Praying nothing disturbed their little hideout, Will fell asleep to the gurgle of a stream in the distance.
Both the dawn light and the loudest, most obnoxious cawing Will had ever heard disturbed his sleep. His head still fuzzy, he rolled over and saw Mala sitting cross-legged by the leafy entrance to their shelter, studying the map. Will joined her as the others roused.
He could see the lake a few dozen yards away through the trees, and he gawked at what the daylight revealed. The surface of the lake had a dreamy, vivid pink hue, a sunset trapped in water. It was a breathtaking contrast to the deep green hues of the surrounding jungle.
Mala pointed out a rune on the map. “Roughly translated, it means rose water.”
Excited, he looked from the map to the lake. “This has to be it.”
Mala nodded, then put a finger to her lips and pointed at the water’s edge, where a cluster of thick-bodied birds with brown feathers and long, curved talons was causing the awful ruckus. As Will wondered why there was a need for silence, two of the birds started fighting and one turned its head in their direction, causing him to gape for the second time that morning.
The bird had the face of a human female.
It was not a pretty sight. Framed by coarse feathers, the face looked stretched and rubbery, unnatural, as if the face of an old crone had been ripped off and fused onto the bird.
“The Arpui are known for their vicious natures,” Mala said quietly. “And they are quite territorial.”
Arpui, Will thought. Harpy. In Greek mythology, the harpies were human-bird hybrids known as the hounds of Zeus. Jason and the Argonauts had encountered them in Virgil’s Argonautica.
Looking back and forth between Yasmina’s eagle and the Arpui, wondering if they shared a common ancestor, Will shuddered and looked down at the aged parchment. The lake was the third and final marker. On the map, the terraced pyramid lay just beyond, surrounded by a group of thimble-like symbols denoting hills. Mala handed him a bronze monocular. The miniscule telescope allowed him to see past the opposite shore, where a long slope marked the beginning of a region of low hills.
“Judging from the map, we should be able to see the pyramid from here,” he said.
“Perhaps,” she said, sharing the monocular with the others as they gathered around.
They decided Selina should take flight and do a reconnaissance of the terrain. She didn’t return until the late afternoon, stumbling out of the jungle and looking raw with nerves. Mateo caught her as she almost fell into the shelter. She dropped gratefully into his arms, smiling up at him and brushing aside a lock of his hair.
“Why did you come through the jungle?” Mala asked.
“I circled the entire region of hills,” the sylvamancer replied, after catching her breath and accepting a canteen of water. “It is not extensive. When I failed to spot a pyramid, I decided I needed a better view of the center. I flew too close to the roost of the Arpui, who spotted me and gave chase. They fly much faster than I, and I was forced to shift into their form to escape. I took evasive action and attempted to blend, but somehow they . . . knew me.” She shivered. “I was forced to stop and do battle, and barely managed to re-enter the jungle. I couldn’t risk another flight.”
Mala leaned forward. “The pyramid. Did you see it?”
Selina took a long pull from her canteen, then slowly shook her head. “I saw the top of every hill. I’m sure of it. There was no deviation.”
Mateo pointed at the map. “Perhaps it’s nothing, but notice how the pyramid is drawn. Not on top of one of the hills—but standing alone.”
Gunnar frowned. “And?”
Will squeezed Mateo’s shoulder as he stared at the map. “What if the pyramid is one of the hills? Buried inside or overgrown? This thing is thousands of years old—of course it’s not sitting there like the Parthenon.”
“The what?” Mateo asked.
“Nothing,” Will mumbled. Yasmina gave him an amused glance.
“An astute observation,” Mala said, “but which hill? We hardly have time to excavate each one.”
“There are a hundred hilltops, at the least,” Selina added. “Most of them within view of the Arpui.”
Will looked up from the map, thoughtful. “What’s the story with them? Are they menagerist creations?”
“No one knows their true origins,” Mala said. “In fact, they were believed to be extinct. What we know is that they breed amongst themselves, hate all living creatures, and are loathe to leave their roosts. Legend holds they were first bred as guardians for the stronghold of an ancient menagerist.”
Mala’s eyes widened as she realized the implication of her own description. She gave Will a brief, expressionless glance, then turned to the sylvamancer. “Selina, were the creatures roosting on one hilltop in particular?”
“It appeared so, yes. But there are far too many Arpui for us to engage in battle.”
The party fell silent for a moment, until Yasmina looked back at the jungle and said, “I think I can help with that.”
After breaking camp, the party watched anxiously as Yasmina left the safety of the shelter and walked alone towards the beach. None of the Arpui was within a hundred yards, but once the closest ones saw her, they lurched into the air, claws extended, and flew at her with their horrid faces twisted into snarls. Will realized the eyes of the avian hybrids bothered him the most, the mixture of human intelligence and animal cunning. They stared at Yasmina with pure hatred, as if the Arpui knew what perversions of nature they were.
In keeping with the mystique of her new profession, Yasmina had refused to divulge her plan, saying only that friends were watching a
nd making everyone promise to stay behind her until she gave the signal.
Knowing the Arpui would tear her apart if she were wrong, Will could hardly bear to watch as the troop of foul avians, at least a hundred strong, bore down on her. Yasmina kept walking towards them, unflinching, her eagle cawing madly from her shoulder. Will couldn’t take it any longer and ran out of the shelter. Just before the creatures swarmed her, he saw a pack of huge gray bodies surge out of the jungle and fly straight at the Arpui. The new arrivals had wingspans as wide as three men and bulbous feathered heads, silent assassins targeting their enemies without warning or mercy.
Owls, Will realized as he watched the two flocks engage in midair above Yasmina. Terrifyingly giant owls.
It was no match. Though inferior in numbers—perhaps two dozen strong—the owls had far superior power and speed. They also had claws three times as long as those of the Arpui, curved and strong as meat hooks, and their thick bodies looked impervious to normal blows. As the first wave routed the front line of smaller birds, more owls poured out of the jungle to join their brethren, scattering the Arpui across the sky.
Yasmina waved furiously. The party rushed over to find six owls waiting by her side, necks bent. “Hang on,” she said. “They’re not used to riders.”
Clutching the owl’s broad neck, praying Selina would catch anyone who fell, Will felt his heart leap into his throat as the great bird took off like an arrow. Somehow he managed to hold on, and in minutes the bird had deposited them at the apex of a low hill, indistinguishable from the other hilltops except for the Arpui roosts nestled like brown wicker cages amid the trees. The owls chased away the few remaining birds, mostly mothers with their young.
Warily eying the sky, Mala asked to borrow Will’s sword, then drove the magical blade straight into the earth. It went a foot into the ground and struck stone. She returned the weapon and gave the owls a worrisome look, as if they might decide to leave. “Selina, have you fully recovered?”
“No, but I can manage this task.” The sylvamancer moved off the summit of the hill and waved everyone behind her. As she raised her arms, the roots of the trees and other vegetation popped and slithered out of the ground in a large radius around where the sword had struck stone, toppling the smaller trees. Face straining with effort, she summoned a fierce wind to blow away the topsoil and remaining roots, exposing an iron pull ring in the center of a grid of giant limestone blocks, stained brown from the earth.
-19-
After two more days of imprisonment inside the tree, with nothing to do except dwell on his terrible fate at the hands of the Fairy Queen, Caleb spent hours feeling around in the darkness for the hinged door he knew was there. The door he had seen them open.
But he never found it.
Some thief he was.
Caleb had discovered that if he lay on his back in the mushroom ring and didn’t move, the woodland fairies wouldn’t drug him. It was a far worse fate, soberly enduring their taunts and crass behavior and putrid incense-breath, but he forced himself to lie still and observe.
Unfortunately, he didn’t learn anything new, and the fairies always drugged him before they stuck him back in the tree. One thing: He was pretty sure they had changed redwood groves again.
The next night, the fairies dragged Caleb into the mushroom ring with more gusto than usual, swarming around him as if charged with licentious energy. The Brewer had already arrived, lying on his back in the center. Zipping around the mushroom ring above them, holding a crystal wand in one hand, was the ugliest creature Caleb had ever laid eyes on.
As naked as a baby hippo, the grotesquely fat Fairy Queen was twice the size of her fairy brethren. She had saggy skin the color of a dead mouse, redwood bark for wings, and a face like a bowl of mashed potatoes. As soon as she saw Caleb, the Fairy Queen stopped in midair, forcing two other fairies flying right behind her to crash into her ample backside. The queen licked her lips and snorted like a wild boar, almost hyperventilating as she drifted over. Caleb recoiled and then jumped to his feet, waving his arms for someone to shoot him up with colored bolts.
The queen batted him in the face with her wings, knocking him down. She straddled him and kissed him full on the mouth with lips that tasted like sour milk. He thought he might gag. He bucked wildly but couldn’t budge her.
As she ripped off his shirt and snorted again, something pinged off the side of her head and fell on Caleb’s chest. He looked down. It was a small rock.
Another rock whizzed into the circle, and then another. In a rage at the distraction, the queen flew off Caleb, looking for the offending fairy.
“Over here, ye ugly brute,” Marguerite said. She was standing ten feet outside the mushroom ring, one hand clutching her trident dagger, the other holding a canvas bag. She withdrew another rock from the bag and threw it in the circle, felling a smaller fairy.
The queen shrieked and pointed at Marguerite, then began babbling in a strange tongue. All but six of the woodland fairies darted straight at the rogue. Once the wood sprites left the mushroom circle, their wings changed instantly to a dull brown color, but they whipped tiny daggers out of the pockets of their leggings as they flew. The daggers resembled large thorns affixed with wooden handles.
As the angry sprites closed in, Marguerite picked up a fishing net with weighted ends and whisked it through the air, catching three of them. After that, she rolled to the side, jumped up, and stabbed two more with her dagger. Plenty remained, whisking around and bloodying Marguerite with their thorns. She fought back with a vengeance, and Caleb wasn’t sure who had the upper hand.
But Marguerite had created a diversion, and Caleb seized it. He scrambled to his feet, praying the queen and the remaining fairies wouldn’t notice. If he could just escape the mushroom ring, he knew those colored bolts couldn’t harm him.
The queen shrieked. Caleb dashed for the edge of the ring. In the corner of his eye, he saw a silent flap of wings, and felt a prick in his back.
Oh no.
As usual, the drug took effect immediately, blurring his vision and causing his knees to buckle. But he was going to make it. Only three steps to go.
More bolts stung his back. Didn’t matter. He just had to pitch forward and clear the faerie ring and Marguerite would drag him away. He looked up and saw her backed against a tree, trying to fend off the enraged fairies. She stumbled to a knee, and one of the fairies stabbed her in the arm. Marguerite screamed.
She was losing. Caleb had to help her. Just as he lurched for the edge of the mushroom ring, his toes inches away, someone yanked him backwards by his hair, dragging him to the center of the ring. The queen batted him in the face with her wings and two other fairies held him down. The monstrous leader opened her hand and the crystal wand flew into it. With spittle flying from her mouth, she pointed the wand at Caleb and began babbling in her language.
Caleb’s fingers felt numb, and he looked down at his hands in horror. They had turned green and lumpy. The queen kept chanting. As the fungal growth spread to his forearms, painfully scraping against the vambraces, a powerful male tenor rose above the din, belting out a ballad that projected through the forest, causing a feeling of well-being to flood Caleb’s senses.
The queen slowly lowered her wand and stood in a daze with the other fairies, mesmerized by the voice. For a moment, Caleb joined them. He forgot about the fairies attacking Marguerite, the ring of glowing fungi, and the deadly power of the queen that was turning him into a mushroom. Everything was drowned by that incredible voice and the numbing effect of the fairy bolts. All he wanted to do was drift and forget, spend the rest of his life sinking into blissful nirvana.
Someone darted into the circle and grabbed Caleb underneath the arms. In a dim corner of his brain, he realized it was the Brewer. His voice didn’t have the same power in the circle, and the fairies started to blink and recovered from their stupor. The older man dragged Caleb backwards as fast as he could, towards the edge of the circle. Just before they made i
t out, the Brewer tripped over a prone fairy.
As Caleb started to giggle, watching the Brewer try to extricate himself from the ugly little sprite, the Brewer stumbled to his feet, pulling Caleb with him and using him as a shield. Caleb felt a flurry of colored bolts sting his chest in the process. He couldn’t tell if any had hit the Brewer, but once they reached the edge of the mushroom ring, the older man resumed singing, even louder than before.
Marguerite screamed Caleb’s name as the eyes of the nearest fairy began to gloss over again.
The Brewer pulled faster.
Caleb passed out.
-20-
A civilian guard clutching a halberd shouted down at Val and the others as they approached an entrance gate set into the north side of the town wall. “State yer name and purpose here!”
Rucker gave their names and claimed they were travelers passing through from Londyn, seeking a warm bed for the night.
“We ’aven’t had news from Londyn in a year. It’s still standing, is it?”
Val and Adaira exchanged a glance. Still standing?
“We’re here, aren’t we?” Rucker said, with a flawless rendition of the man’s archaic accent.
The guard glared at Val. “Yer staff—’tis not a wizard’s?”
Rucker brayed with laughter. “A wizard? ’Im? ’Tis a fancy walking stick.”
“Londyn’s a long way to travel through demon territory.”
Demon territory? Val thought. What happened here? Has this town been stuck inside the mist for an entire year, or are we someplace . . . else?
Rucker twirled his sword above his head in a figure-eight pattern, the blade whisking through the air. “I never said we didn’t have some fun along the way.”
The guard nodded grimly and ducked below the wall. He appeared at the gate a few minutes later with a dozen armed men. One by one, the militia let the members of the party through, searching their belongings and performing a strange ritual: they checked everyone’s wrists, neck, heels, and back.