by Ren Ryder
“Don’t just fall!” Bell screamed at me. “Like this!”
A sustained wind propelled me across the skies like a bullet. The buoying wind died down almost as soon as it picked up, and then I was falling again, straight down. Maybe a thousand meters separated me from the thick bank of clouds below.
“Your turn! Go go go!”
Wind mana surging inside me, I channeled a sustained burst of power out behind me. A nimbus of wind mana formed around me and Bell and I jetted across the skies with renewed speed. It felt like I was flying.
Elation rushed down my spine. “I’m flying!”
“That’s the spirit!” Bell crowed. “Falling sideways more like,” she corrected like a stern schoolteacher. “Put more oomph into it!"
The power draw was intense already; my bones creaked under the strain of it. I struggled to wrangle up more as I kept half my focus on the wind working. Biting my lip hard enough to draw blood, I cycled the extra power through the sylph’s sigil and added it into the mix.
The effect was instant.
We shattered the air with our passage.
We fell into the bank of clouds, obscuring my view. Instantly I was drenched. Spitting and spewing water, I lost focus and fell like a stone through the cloudcover and back into open air. Adrenaline surged through me at the sight of the ground rushing up to meet us.
I renewed the wind working and propelled us forward with as much speed as I could draw out. Not far below the Wildwood blurred into shades of green as we picked up speed.
Panic at the imminent collision fired me into overdrive.
Working wind mana through my ashwood staff, I started to spin the length of wood in my hands. Right as we neared the treetops, I sent a massive pulse of focused power into the staff, creating a whirlwind that fought the pull of gravity on our behalf. Our headlong rush towards the earth stopped and for a tense moment I was like a feather floating on the breeze.
Gravity reasserted itself and I crashed through the trees, snapping branches along the way. I ended up lodged in the lower branches of an ancient redwood, twigs in my hair and scratched up by the fall, but otherwise unhurt. I lowered myself from the branch and dropped the rest of the way to the forest floor, crashing into a bed of crackling leaves.
“That. Was. Awesome!” Bell squealed.
Adrenaline surged through me again when I realized I’d survived.
I was on fire. My blood was pumping overtime, and my black veins stood out starkly on my skin. I felt like I could wrestle a bear or take down an elephant barehanded.
“Kal? Kal?” Bell called.
Black veins?
I felt sick. Like I was breathing through a bamboo straw while underwater. I wobbled unsteadily along the breadth of a wide tree branch, lost balance and fell the rest of the way to the forest floor. I rolled over onto my side and tried to stand up, but fell back onto the ground when I was struck by a bout of dizziness.
“What… whatsit?” I mumbled, my vision out of focus.
“No! Not yet! It’s too early. Why is this happening now? We’re almost there!” Bell cried, then pleaded with me, “Kal, you need to get up. We can still make it! Get up!"
I tried. My limbs rebelled against me, spasming and falling out from under me as I was struck by a series of muscle convulsions.
“I’m going to finish the deal. You just… hang in there, okay Kal?”
I gagged and spat up dark-colored phlegm. Somehow I managed to nod.
I started retching violently. Sludgy black ectoplasm spewed out my mouth to cover the forest floor. Again and again my stomach convulsed, producing an endless stream of sludge. Soon I was laying in a puddle of black sludge, seizing, unable to move on my own.
“Hang on! Just hang on.” Bell zipped off into the Wildwood at speed, leaving me hopelessly alone.
Native or not, I worried about her traveling the length of the Wildwood by herself. I knew she could handle it, but there were as many unknowns in the Otherworld as there were trees. Even assuming she was able to find the merrow without trouble, I wasn’t sure I trusted them to hold up their end of the deal.
All that was irrelevant, though, seeing as I couldn’t move my head out of the puddle of puke I was laid up in, let alone go after her to help.
Almost as soon as Bell was gone my mind started to wander, then I started seeing things.
Glowing soft white, a many-horned stag as tall as the Wildwood’s tallest trees stepped into the clearing. Trees and branches bent backwards to allow the stately being’s passage. Flowers bloomed in the impressions left by its hooves.
I must’ve been hallucinating.
Vibrant vegetation covered the stag's massive form, growing straight out of its coat of soft brown fur. Vines wove around the dense musculature of the stag’s legs. Moss and fungi coated its undersides. White spots covered its snout and nose.
Traditional celtic torcs adorned its ankles, neck, and hung from the stags horns.
The stag’s golden orbs seemed to absorb everything taking place in the vicinity and beyond, into eternity.
An alien presence pressed in around me, forming a connection with my psyche. Rather than hostility I felt a calm assurance flow into my mind. Like the warmth of a hearth-fire, I felt content and at ease. A wholesome interconnectedness grew roots inside me, merging my consciousness with the forest as a whole.
The interaction took a dark turn then.
Images of what could be filled my mind, images of death and destruction, forests burning and the Otherworld becoming a mere shadow of itself. Sorrow not my own poured into me, and I mourned as the forest did at the wanton destruction and loss of life.
An image of a serpent eating its own tail occluded my vision. Bitter recognition dawned on me. I’d recognize that symbol anywhere.
Ouroboros.
Led by sorcerers dragging enslaved faeries, a human army invaded the Otherworld in droves, mining the land of its treasures. Swaths of forest were cut down, faeries hunted for their magics.
An earnest plea rose in my chest.
A call to action filled me.
I responded with righteous anger and indignation. No matter my personal issues with the Other Side, so long as I lived, I would never allow such a tragedy to befall the Otherworld.
With the slow surety of the aged, the stag leaned its head down and touched its wet snout to my forehead. Bright white light burst from its many horns and flowed down its nose. Warm conduits of energy formed between us as the light crested then faded.
A sense of peace and oneness overcame me.
The great stag arched its back and returned its neck to its full height, staring down at me with singular intensity. Then, with a jerk of its maned head it took its heading and strode silently away, leaving a refreshed and renewed forest in its wake.
The fragile eternity brought by the many-horned stag shattered and thrust me back into the harsh reality of the present. I started questioning my sanity and the whole experience as soon as the unnatural tranquility overriding my natural instincts began to fade from my mind.
Weak as a kitten and feverish, I maneuvered myself into a sitting position so that I leaned against the trunk of the redwood I’d fallen out of. I was covered in black bile and sludge. Wiping myself off in disgusted revulsion, I cleaned away the dark ectoplasm as well as I could with my shaking hands.
I woozily recalled I’d stolen an extra moonflower for a situation not unlike the one I’d found myself in. I started rummaging around in my pocket for it, but stopped midway.
No.
Either Bell would come through or she wouldn’t. I refused to throw away a lifeline I may need in the future for a dim uncertainty in the present. Pulling my knees up against my chest, I rested my chin on them as I alternated between feeling freezing cold and burning hot. I fought to keep my eyes open as a strong current of fatigue pulled me under.
“Kal! You’re alive!” Bell cried like a baby into my shoulder. “I thought you were gone for good!”
I’d dozed off.
I patted Bell on the back. “No need to be so dramatic, I was just resting my eyes.”
Bell sniffled then sneezed all over me. It was all rather gross but I let it happen. “But, but you weren’t breathing!”
Uneasy, I replied, “What’re you talking about? Of course I was breathing. I’m breathing now, see?” I demonstrated with a series of raspy breaths.
“You look like crap. I bet you can’t even stand up.”
“Hah! Watch me.” With shaky legs, I scraped my back up the tree trunk to push myself up to my full height.
I’d been through the wringer more times than I could count in the recent past, and it showed— but something miraculous was happening. The black spiderwebbed veins all over my body began to pulse and recede until they regained their natural color. Even the dark veins branching out from the stab wound over my heart retreated to reveal the nasty dagger wound Sammie had left me during our last parting.
“This is incredible. Bell, are you seeing this?!”
Bell looked on with grim fascination. “I’m seeing it.”
Strength flooded back into my limbs and I felt renewed, like I’d hibernated through the winter and emerged better for it.
How was this possible?
Almost all the wounds I’d accumulated while in the Otherworld had disappeared. Where I was covered in black scarred flesh, smooth, perfect skin replaced it. Trembling, I reached up over my back to feel for the puckered, furrowed flesh from the slaugh’s pitted swords, but they were gone. So was the massive bite the kelpie Erlk had taken out of my side. Other than the rectangular black markings left by the test of iron and the rune branded into my neck by Oberon, I was healed.
The scars I received while in the human realm remained, which, for some reason made me feel relieved. Even the thick scars I’d gotten during my imprisonment with Ouroboros had begun to grow on me, though Sammie’s remained a painful dagger in my heart. I didn’t want to let go of my past, and my scars were a physical reminder that I carried with me wherever I went.
“This is unbelievable. So this is the merrow’s healing factor sans the blood curse?”
“I think so,” Bell had a weird look in her eye. “I’m no expert, but I think you’re turning into a bit of a monster, Kal.” Bell smirked.
“As if I wasn’t one already,” I laughed. “Better that than dead in a ditch somewhere, eh?”
“I’d say so,” Bell agreed with a little nod of her head.
“So they accepted those moonflowers and I’m healed, just like that? No more hidden agendas or deals?” I asked, a sudden suspicion growing in me about the good turn my luck had taken.
“That’s what it looks like, doesn’t it?” Bell asked, a veil of innocence covering her features.
“That’s a rather cryptic answer, don’t you think?” I prodded.
Bell showed her teeth. “Can’t you accept a good thing at face value?”
“No,” I narrowed my eyes and shook my head side-to-side. “For good reason I think, I’m concerned this gift the merrow granted me without my knowledge can turn curse at a moment’s notice.”
“Well, good. You’re learning. Though in this case, I think we can rely on those stinkin’ fishes. We kept our end of the bargain, and the merrow kept up theirs. That’s all there is to it.”
I paused to consider her words before I responded. “If you say so, I believe you,” I told my sylph companion.
Bell smiled prettily. “As you should.”
I stretched to loosen myself up. “Well, are you ready? I think it’s high time we put this first trial behind us and move on to the next. We may even get to surprise Oberon by returning alive.”
Bell threw up her arms and moaned. “Can’t we take a beat to rest first? I'm tired from all that flying.”
I clicked my tongue. “Nope. Not a chance.”
“I saved your life! Again! Ugh, you’re so ungrateful,” Bell complained.
“I’d let you sleep but you’re supposed to be my all-knowing guide here in the Wildwood…” I trailed off.
“Fine! I’ll do it, okay! I didn’t say I wouldn’t!”
I made a grand sweeping motion with my arms. “After you.”
Chapter Sixteen
Bell lead me down a series of interwoven game trails that twisted and collided with one another at frequent intervals. We traversed across the luscious expanse of the Wildwood at speed, keeping a brisk pace that I felt I could hold forever. Even following the brief glimpses I got of the Dayside’s brilliant sun breaking through the foliage to the forest floor, I was sure I would have lost my way and been backtracking endlessly without the sylph’s unerring guidance.
I fell into something of a daze as I took the course on autopilot, avoiding a stump here and a boulder there, but letting my mind wander.
Compared to earlier I felt light as a feather and much recovered from my bout of sickness, but I was having trouble coming to terms with the experience I had in Bell’s absence. Was I supposed to take the interaction as it was, or was it possible the whole thing had been a figment of my imagination? With growing frustration I pushed my questions about the forest god to the back of my mind, adding it to the growing list of the things I couldn’t comprehend about the Other Side.
“Think Oberon will be surprised to see us?” Bell asked with a mischievous grin.
I thought about it. “I think he’ll be angry. I don’t think we’ll be safe when Oberon realizes his first trial didn’t wipe us off the board.”
My feet pounded into the dirt as I ran, disturbing leaves and snapping twigs. A trio of songbirds singing beautiful melodies made me glance upwards to try to spot their nest.
Bell’s grin fell off her face. “Yeah, I could see that. The first trial seems designed to separate the wheat from the chaff.”
We crossed a small stream where a brown bear was sniffing the air while staring into the waters. Its cubs were hiding in the undergrowth and their ears laid back at our passage, but their elder paid us little mind.
“I think there’s a darker purpose to these trials,” I admitted.
“What makes you say that?” Bell asked, a wondering look on her face.
Scratching my neck, I was reminded of yet another interaction with a mysterious entity, Robin Goodfellow, and the ancient bristlecone pine inscribed with the same rune branded into my neck. “Just a feeling.”
Bell looked skeptical. “Crowning the Seven Year King is a big deal. As powerful as he is, Oberon has his hands tied with overseeing the trials.”
I gripped my staff until my knuckles turned white. “Yeah, you’re right. It’s probably nothing.”
“Don’t be such a worrywart! It’s not like you,” Bell said.
“You got me there,” I laughed.
Bell had a point, thinking things through wasn’t my strong point. Now, on the other hand, danger and me were pals. It didn’t matter whether or not there was a darker purpose to the trials. I just had to overcome whatever Oberon threw my way, come out on top in the trials and return to New London, because I’d decided to confront Ouroboros and all that came with it.
Even Sammie.
In my distraction I was too slow to avoid a branch that hit me in the face, sending me sputtering and spitting out leaves as I ran.
“Watch it!” Bell warned.
I spat out a chunk of leaf. “Thanks.”
Sounds of merriment and cheers drifted to my ears from somewhere ahead of us. Drumbeats thrummed against my skin. Tinkling laughter and loud crashing overlapped with one another, creating a loud din.
I skidded to a stop to collect myself. “… is that?” I asked.
Bell flew a circle around me before landing on my head in a boneless heap. “Yup. Now let me nap in peace, okay? I’ve done my part, now you do yours.”
Almost as soon as the words left her mouth, Bell started snoring. I shook my head in disbelief. How she was able to sleep through all the racket caused by a faerie court celebrating an endle
ss feast, I had no idea.
I took a deep breath, cracked my neck then jogged into the wall of sound. I broke out into a clearing and had to shade my eyes from the sun’s rays. Going from seeing mere slivers of it before, the Dayside’s sun pelted my eyes and made me squint in pain.
“Kal, of the human realm, returns with his sylph companion,” a voice boomed.
As my eyes adjusted another chorus of raucous cheers broke out from the courtiers arrayed around the massive feasting table still filled to the brim with food and drink.
“Wel-welcome, champion. Congratulations on completing the first trial. You, you can call me Willow, and I’m meant to accompany you while we wait for the first trial to be brought to its formal conclusion.” The girl that spoke was sitting with legs crossed not two feet from me, graceful as a swan.
The nymph had dark green hair framing her face that was cut above her shoulder. Willow smelled of must and earth and life, and her skin was a nutty shade of bronze. Dressed in a revealing bodice inlaid with a leafy pattern that looked to be living wood and a skirt made from grasses, she was barefoot and looked one with the forest. Two forest green bands were tattooed on her left bicep.
She looks oddly… familiar, somehow.
Looking at how well put-together she was, I felt out of place. I was tired of coming off as a caveman with my torn-up pants and naked upper body.
Too late, I realized I’d been staring.
Bell buzzed around me like an angry fly.
“Hmmph,” Bell sniffed, then sniffed again louder to draw my attention more purposefully. “Excuse me, no two-timing!” Bell poked me in the eyes with her fingers.
Reeling from the pain, I stumbled back and covered my eyes with my hands. “Ow! Really Bell?! That freakin’ hurts! What was that for?”
“For being unfaithful. Now, let’s go!” Bell dragged me by the hand, putting distance between us and our new acquaintance.