by Zy Rykoa
Kobin’s expression was stern, as if he did not understand what Alkon was saying.
‘I’m not sure they will see it that way, General. I informed them of the potential danger, though I could not confirm it until now, and that is why they approved the route I have chosen. You would do well to discuss your options a little more thoroughly with them next time; you cannot continue to blame me when I am only here trying to help.’
Alkon shook his head, still chuckling. ‘You cannot twist it this time, Callibrian. Your continual misleading comments have caused more damage than you are worth. After we have taken Waikor, I will see you executed.’
‘Perhaps,’ said Kobin, casually. ‘However, I am sure they will ask you how I could inform you of the dangers if I were not informed of your movements. You see, General, I will be mentioning to them that you have been trying to deny the finding of the Daijuar through this boy, and now that the men who you sent to track him are dead, which you will confirm, they will have all the evidence they need to know that you are at fault.’
Alkon stopped laughing. In his tiredness, he had overlooked something that now appeared obvious, and he had given Kobin the upper hand. But there was little he could do now. The damage had been done. Kobin would know that he had won, but admitting defeat would be ultimately damaging.
‘I think we will let the High Council decide who is at fault,’ he said. ‘Now get back to your quarters. You no longer have permission to be out.’
‘At once, General,’ said Kobin, and disappeared into the night as he left.
Alkon sat back into his chair. His face was darkening with each day that went by as his health began to fail. Thinking back, he wasn’t sure how he had been able to blame Kobin at all for what had just happened. He was so desperate to be rid of him now that he had been making mistakes in everything he did, not just in fighting Kobin. He had to get away from the wars, had to be free of his command. He would be taking a military unit to Waikor city soon enough, and then it would go on to fight at Corsec. Perhaps then he would be free.
He looked to the ceiling and wondered what he had done to deserve so much misfortune over the previous weeks, and then turned to the books lying on the side of his desk, the first being his father’s journal. He decided he would read for the remainder of the night, a small but welcomed escape. If he were to find answers at all in these times, it would be in his father’s written thoughts.
Chapter Twenty-One
Through these lies I see this place.
February 7, 997 R.E.
Jaden’s fingers moved, tracing the grooves between the stones as he came awake. The road was smooth underneath his fingertips, as if it had been worn down from centuries of rain so that not a sharp edge remained. He lay still in the darkness, feeling the cold around him as he tried to open his eyes. They felt heavy, tightly shut as if to resist seeing anything that opening them might reveal. He began to remember where he was, what had happened the night he had left Waikor and the aircraft crashing, but he did not know when that was.
Slowly lifting himself up and sitting against a railing along the side of the road, Jaden breathed in and found a familiar, yet strange fragrance entering his lungs. He recognised it from somewhere, the sweetness that was laced with bitterness at the beginning and end of each breath. It made him want to fight against taking in the air he needed, not wanting to have to endure the bitterness, but as it filled him, he found all he could think of was taking more in.
He stood, still leaning against the railing, and with a few blinks, he was able to keep his eyes open. It was no longer as dark as it had been the night of the crash, but thick cloud cover must have blocked out almost all of the daylight, leaving only the cold and a morning fog about him.
There were bizarre, almost enchanted sounds in the silence, slight and hidden, yet eternally present. He shook his head to clear them without success, as if they were from tiny creatures now inside his ears, singing him their haunted melodies.
He looked around him, and soon saw that he was not at Corsec. He was in a forest, with little more than a single road within it. The road had caved in to his right, into the gully below, and stretched as far as he could see through the fog to his left. The railing was intact, smoothed like the stones but still showing some of what must have once been a finely chiselled balustrade in the past. There were statues of sitting winged beasts to either side, still perched on their columns. They were almost entirely covered, entangled in the vine that grew over and throughout the railing and into much of the forest.
Jaden leaned closer to the vine. Its leaves were green and three times the size of his hand while the stem was brown and as thick as his wrist. Its flower was half the size of its leaves and possessed a bloom of dark purple and white with yellow pollen on a single protruding tip in its centre. He took in the scent as he breathed in and quickly pulled his head away. The flower, he realised, was the source of the strange fragrance he had smelled when he had first climbed onto the road. The bitterness had been so offensive that he decided he never wished to smell it again, and quickly walked away from it.
He went the way that the road took him, as there seemed to be nothing but forest beyond the collapsed stones. The bizarre sounds became louder momentarily as he did, and he began to wonder what he was meant to be doing. He had been fortunate to survive the crash that the two pilots had lost their lives in, but he didn’t know where he was, or what direction Corsec or Waikor were in. He had to complete his task so that he could return to Alyssa, but without transport, he didn’t want to think of how long that would now be. All he knew was that he had to keep on moving, and somehow, he would eventually find his way to a nation that could offer him transport to his destination.
He looked up; hoping to gain some bearing of where the sun’s light was coming from, but soon saw that it was not cloud cover that blocked its rays. The trees in this forest were giants, rising hundreds of feet into the air and sealing everything else below them in almost complete darkness with their thick canopy. He wondered how everything was so green beneath the canopy, starting to feel there was something very strange about this place. The sheer size alone did not seem possible. The trunks of these trees were as wide as any house there had been in Callibra, dark brown and with grooves he could have climbed into easily. They had been so big that he hadn’t even noticed they were there, as if they were simply mountains in the distance, figments in his imagination. He walked on bewildered by their majestic size, and he marvelled at how many centuries it must have taken them to grow so tall. He thought back to the stories travellers had told, but none had ever mentioned this forest of giants.
He was lost. All that he could be sure of was that he was somewhere between Waikor and Corsec, and hoped that the direction the road went in was toward one of them.
He walked onward, the road bending to avoid the trees as he went. It seemed that hours were passing him by, but he was sure it hadn’t even been one yet. The forest was having an odd effect on his sense of time, as if its size somehow slowed his passage through it while simultaneously speeding up his perception. He stopped by a large area covered in flowers. The vine had taken over the entire section of the road. He first thought to leave the road and walk around it, but instead reached down and picked one, smelled it, and then placed it inside the Daijuarn belt around his waist. The bitterness no longer bothered him, and he now seemed to be enjoying its fragrance.
His concentration was broken as he heard a sharp sound nearby. It was fast and had only lasted a second, as if a branch had just fallen from a tree. He then heard the snapping of a twig and sensed he was not alone in the forest. He could feel movement in the ground, footsteps of something that did not seem human trampling the foliage in the distance. He froze in hope that he would not draw its attention, and when he was sure that it was no longer near, he kept on, moving at a brisk pace, wishing more than ever that he wasn’t alone inside the forest.
As he quickened his pace, he had to stop several times for
fear of something following him. He had heard sounds down in the gully below the road, but could never be sure that they were there. He could still see nothing, and his sense of the ground did not reveal anything close. He began to run, his fear taking control as his legs felt weak from the adrenaline, and soon he came to the end of the road and a clearing in the giant trees and forest alike.
Before him now stood a city of stone, covered in moss and plant life, unkempt for as long as the trees had been able to grow. He was at the beginning of a yard with a fountain in its centre, no longer flowing and choked by the vine that grew throughout it and all over the buildings ahead. Tree roots lifted up some of the pavements at the doors, and each structure had small collapsed areas from where they had lifted too high. The design reminded him a little of Callibra, and he saw that one or two still possessed their domes as he had seen in Ceahlin. He thought back to the stories of the travellers once more, and again could remember nothing of any ancient civilisation abandoning a city within a giant forest. It seemed he was the first to venture here for a very long time, and that meant he was definitely alone, without anyone around to save him from whatever had been lurking near the trees.
Jaden looked ahead to take his mind off what he had felt in the ground. Most of the smaller structures seemed to be houses, with the larger ones appearing like temples of a sort, but the rest of the city was dominated by one grand structure towering above all others by four times their height. It seemed to be a palace, two gigantic courtyards suspended far above ground on enormous stone columns and a sharp rock face. He couldn’t understand why he had never heard of this place before, as it was surely as great as anything found in Ceahlin and Waikor. There must have been a reason why this place had been abandoned, and then forgotten for all these years.
Now that the thick canopy of the giant trees was gone, Jaden was able to see the sky. It was gray as he had expected, but the sun was high behind the clouds, revealing that it was afternoon and that he was travelling in the right direction, north. He was moving toward Corsec, but to get there, he would need to pass through the heart of the city.
He looked around nervously, to make sure that there was nothing watching him before walking forward. He had wanted to go directly through the centre, so that he would not have to stay in the city more than he needed to, but then felt that the open contained too much danger, and so he veered off to his right so that he could walk through one of the houses instead. The vine had cleared by the time he had reached the door, allowing him to walk freely without making too much sound, and he used one of the endobraces to light his way through the dark corridor ahead. The air was stale, a decaying aroma causing him to hold his nose. Finding no relief, he took the flower from the Daijuarn garments as he walked and now seemed to enjoy its bitter-sweet scent
There were doorways to either side of him now, each leading to a small room or another hallway. Faded paintings lined the walls, showing people at play and dining, throwing food at one another in joyous displays. The paintings were simple but warm, and used only a little green and blue, mainly of red, yellow, orange and black. He could not tell their race or culture by the paintings, but they seemed a pleasant people. He began to turn into one of the rooms when something caught his eye, and he almost jumped back when he saw that there was a skeleton leaning against the wall in the corner. Its jaw hung low, almost snapped off, while its legs were broken as it sat in a collapsed position. There were holes in its skull and many ribs missing.
Jaden moved back cautiously.
He didn’t know anything about this place, or its people, but he was starting to realise where he might have been. Few travellers had spoken of a great forest because none had ever been able to walk this deep and pass through it alive. He was not certain, but he feared if he were right, he was already in great danger.
Minutes passed by with Jaden too afraid to move. He stood completely still, staring at the skeleton crumpled in the corner of the room, as if it would somehow come back to life and tell him what he had to do. His mind was blank. Of the few stories he had heard, none of those who told them had ever gone past the edges of the dense forests in these parts, and even then they told of horrific attacks that left half of their company or more dead. They had said the creatures that lived in these parts were like no others in the world, but there had never been proof of their existence. Many of them had been tried in Waikor and found guilty of murder, but all had sworn that they had been innocent. It had been reason enough for no traveller to even go near these lands in decades, and Jaden wished for nothing more now than to be some place far from here.
He turned in fright at the sound of stones being kicked forward at the entrance to the hall, but he did not shy away too much, as there was no beast or horrific creature there, only the shape of a man limping into the doorway. Jaden shone the light of the endobraces toward him, but then readied to defend himself. The man wore an Alliance uniform. He was a scout, still giving chase to Jaden. How had they found him?
‘Oh, God, please help me!’ screamed the man, and Jaden realised that the scout had no weapons, and his arm had been badly torn open as it hung limply at his side.
Before Jaden could react, the man fell forward as a fierce roar sounded. A dark figure had lunged at him from behind, knocking him over and crushing him underneath its immense weight. Jaden heard the scout’s bones break and his scream end as the thing began to tear at his flesh with its claws and teeth. The light from the endobraces had dimmed, as Jaden knew there was nothing he could do, and he dropped the flower, turned and raced away without taking any time to study whatever it was that had killed the scout.
The shapes he had seen produced fearful images in his head, of a thing with long arm-like limbs the length of its eight-foot-high body, a skull that was humanlike except bigger and with a large plate curving upward on either side. Its thin, wiry body was barely able to fit into the hall, but the power it had used to crush the scout made it seem much larger than it had been.
More roars sounded, signalling the arrival of another, and then there was a haunted high-pitched scream that seemed as if the ghosts of several young women were being put to their deaths again. Jaden felt shivers pass through him as the screams continued, the beasts locked in battle over the newly discovered carcass of the scout.
Jaden had exited the hall and arrived at a courtyard. There were stairs at either end with a grassy patch in between them. Ahead of the next staircase was another opening to a second hall, but he dared not trap himself inside such a small space again. Instead, he would use the railing and collapsed sections of the roof to climb up on top and make his way above the buildings. With a plan set, he readied to jump down the first staircase.
He was stopped by a warm, putrid smell of something creeping up behind him. As he turned, there was a hiss, and he stood almost face to face with something that resembled what had been in the hall.
With a shout, Jaden instinctively jumped backward and ignited a field of energy that caused the ground to burn and the beast to scream out in pain. He had wounded it enough to hold it back for a time, giving him a chance to make a run for the other end of the courtyard. He climbed up onto the roof without looking back. He knew the beast would be chasing after him as soon as it recovered. He had to make as much ground as possible.
As he reached the fourth rooftop he was faced with a leap of faith. He glanced behind him quickly. The beast, although clumsier in its movements, was tracking him as he had expected. He had to jump to make it to the next roof, but if he missed, he could risk capture or even injury as he would fall twelve feet to the ground. With eyes set on his target, he took his run up and jumped. What should have been an instant seemed an hour, as if time itself had slowed with the weight of being so close to losing his life. This was nothing like the jumps he had made over the stream on the tennagen field, given that if he failed now he would surely die, but realising he was not going to make it completely, he used an old trick and turned slightly to his side. It allowe
d him to get one foot on the ledge and stabilising himself with his hands as he scratched his legs against the broken pavements. He winced in pain, but gave a sigh of relief as he climbed up fully.
He had made it.
But the beast would most likely not have such difficulty with the gap. With its extra long limbs, it seemed built for climbing such places, perhaps even the giant trees surrounding them. Jaden didn’t hesitate to continue racing along the rooftops. He was forced to make many more jumps after the first, the buildings now becoming more spaced out and at times rising to five storeys in the air. The beast was kept at a distance as the route Jaden took became more complicated and harder to navigate, but he came to a stop when his foot became lodged in a hole.
Frantically he attempted to free himself, looking back to see if the beast was anywhere near. He had time, but not much, and with a final yank, his foot came free and was scraped on the way up by the brittle concrete. The force he had used caused a crack to run through the rest of the roof and suddenly it gave way, collapsing with him still on it into the room below.
Jaden coughed as he waved away the dust. He had suffered only minor injuries from the fall and now felt bruised in several places, but knew he couldn’t stay where he was. The beast would be catching up with him for every second he remained still. Before the dust had cleared, he stood and made his way out of the room, his muscles painfully numbed by the fall. He did his best to ignore the pain as he ran through the corridors and up a winding staircase, hoping it would somehow lead him back onto the rooftops. He guessed the beast must have been far behind now and was no longer able to catch his scent or sight. Knowing this, he climbed back onto the roof at his own pace, hoping to rest his aching muscles.
All was quiet then, save for the deep rumble in the heavens above, lightning flashing across the sky as wind began to blow in from the north. Jaden looked around him. He knew he needed shelter, but no place would be safe with the beasts so close by. He realised then that he was standing on one of the gigantic courtyards of the palace. He had somehow run from the lower chambers and ended up here. He took a deep breath to recover from his exhaustion, but then felt something creeping up behind him. He knew it at once to be the beast, attempting to rely on stealth again to capture its prey rather than brute force.
