by Kim Wedlock
The evocative and unnatural shape resumed at the curve of her hips, but only for a moment. Carven shelf fungus sprouted along the length of her left thigh while trumpet flowers and butterflies adorned the right, and below the knee each leg bent backwards, fetlocked, and ended in a horse's hooves. The chiselled figure stood lightly upon the largest of a collection of lily pads, carved as a whole from a single tree at the head of what had, until quite recently, been a stream, now dried and barren but for the bed of smooth, tumbled pebbles.
A few, they finally noticed, were floating a foot above the rest.
"A monument," Anthis murmured as they approached. "And a diverted spring..." but as his eyes traced what should have been the flow of water from the ends of her cupped hair down into the dried stream bed, he found instead that the flow of water did in fact persist - and flowed straight up into the air.
He frowned, bewildered, back towards the curtain of water.
Having fished the relic out of his bag while they'd walked, Aria hurriedly pressed the Zi'veyn into her father's hands. He didn't acknowledge it beyond taking a hold, and continued at his urgent pace towards the statue before coming to a short stop upon one of the lowest lily pads. He then fell perfectly still.
His unnatural behaviour formed a pit in Aria's stomach. She forced her eyes away and hurried instead to Anthis's side for distraction while Garon and Petra faced out into the woods, and Eyila stepped dreamily, free of tension's hold, to settle down silently at the foot of the statue. She didn't notice a rabbit hop timidly past her, silver of coat, human of face.
Anthis hurriedly sketched the giant wooden figure. Aria scrutinised his work as it unfolded, her big eyes flicking critically between example and depiction, and so she was quick to notice the tapered point of the woman's ears. "She's an elf..." She concluded, restraining her wonder for fear of distracting her father than for attracting unwanted attention, which was foremost in Anthis's mind as he responded just as quietly.
"No, it's Feira. Elves made it, short post-magic - it's how they envisioned Her."
"They thought She looked like them?" She watched him nod, his eyes flicking between paper and wood just as hers had, and pursed her lips. "Hmm...when I draw, I draw ears like mine..."
"Exactly. They knew nothing else. All of their work was like this - though their few surviving depictions have since been...adjusted."
"...I see...but I don't understand why."
"Because, Aria, hatred is a very petty thing."
Her lips pursed tighter, and she continued to watch him in silence.
Rough and haggard breath puffed as irregularly as the shrill and distant birdsong, punctuated by the slightest grunts much like the abrupt and blood-curdling avian screams. By comparison, Rathen's struggle was positively melodic.
But it still set Petra on edge, even against the local repose. She halted her patrol beside a broad tree, three feet wide at the trunk, and withdrew her waterskin from her bag, casting an uneasy glance up towards the mage. She sighed anxiously to herself. "Why does it have to take so long?"
"Consider what he's doing," Garon said from behind her, startling her as he passed on his own route. "It can't be easy."
"I never presumed it was. I just wish we weren't all standing around here while he's doing it."
"Don't we all? Just keep your eyes open."
"Oh I am, don't you worry..." She drank just enough to avoid both dehydration and the need to refill from wild water so soon, closed the skin and set it back among her belongings. Her hand immediately returned to its instinctive hold upon her sword hilt as she rose back to her feet, and cast a careful look over the forest.
Until Garon caught her eye, lingering to fetch his own water. The bandage Eyila had tied around his right hand loosened as he withdrew it, and she watched him tighten it with his left. It didn't go smoothly. He turned away from her to resort to his teeth. She obliged only as far as looking away. "How are they?"
"Don't get distracted," he grunted a moment later. "Not here."
She nodded and straightened, and movement immediately grabbed her attention. A benign hop of the peculiar leporine creature. The tension in her shoulders eased, but as the rabbit came to snuffle gingerly about Eyila's dirty bronze feet, the tribal didn't flinch. Petra's brows drew together again.
"There's nothing we can do."
She glanced towards Rathen, still embroiled in his struggle. "No, there isn't."
She looked about the confined grove, at the rabbit, the rising water, and whatever else had managed to escape their notice. She shook her head helplessly. "This magic..."
Garon sighed ponderously, tucking his waterskin away, and rose to survey the area in her stead. "What about it?"
"...Is it...I mean...is...all this..." she puffed in exasperation. "What the magic is doing to people, to Eyila, to all those others...but people keep...using it...and as a weapon..."
"Is it worth it, you mean? No. Though I expect a great many mages would disagree."
Her eyes shifted sideways towards him. "Do you think Rathen would?"
He continued rolling his shoulder without a word.
Out of nowhere, a shudder took hold of them. Fear and anxiety crashed like an avalanche, and whatever ambience had been hanging in the forest a moment ago was instantly replaced by a humming silence, vanishing along with the tranquillity. They grasped their swords on impulse, but their eyes turned skyward as thunder approached, snaking rapidly through the boughs towards them from the very path they'd come. Then they were soaked.
The wall of water surged back towards the chiselled statue in a swathe, narrowly missing Anthis and Aria who were quick to step out of the way, while drenching both Rathen and Eyila, neither of whom reacted. Its height dropped, its strength diminished, and it returned at last to its place in the figure's hands, spilling over and along the hair's length, following the threads of algae, and trickled at last down into the stream bed to gurgle tamely along its winding route. The pebbles, too, had given in and lay back down with the rest.
Their relief was short-lived. Immediately, eyes appeared between the trees. Pale green, like the flesh of an apple.
"Vakehn..."
Anthis pulled the enraptured child close while Garon and Petra hurried to their side, blades held ready, and herded them back closer to the two absent mages. They counted - at least six pairs of eyes stared back at them, faint enough that they could easily have missed others standing further back in the shadows. But those eyes didn't move. They didn't blink. They were fixed upon the six of them with malice. Or curiosity. Or simply observation. It was impossible to tell, and their owners made no sound or move to reveal themselves, hide themselves, set them at ease or attack. Which made the risk even greater.
Anthis jolted with a stifled murmur, and both blades immediately angled towards the forest ahead of him. Each of them stared harder through the myriad of gnarled tree trunks until a deep snort puffed from the darkness. Rough, but inquisitive, and distinctly marked by mistrust. A warning.
Then came a rustle, and they started and tightened. A snap of a twig muffled beneath a paw, and a face soon appeared through the murk. A new pair of eyes came to rest upon them.
Anthis sighed in relief and let his shoulders sag. "It's just a deer..."
But Aria tightened her hold on his hand, and Garon his sword. Petra followed their lead.
The beast moved out where the light could finally reach it.
Long-legged, sleek, lean and strong; tawny with brown mottled stripes and a narrow head that stood at the height of a man's, crowned with crescent antlers. Immediately, upon a mere glance, the beast was the picture of nobility; majestic, proud and healthy. A prize for the most skilled of hunters.
But the seconds ticked by, and the pressure grew. Beneath the unshakable threat of the creature's gaze and a second, far less patient warning snort, the majesty trickled away, and the assumed image of a grand stag began to correct itself.
Those long legs ended not in cloven hooves, but
in cat-like paws concealing needle-sharp barbs. The strong, lean body was more muscular than a cervid's should have been, with thicker shoulder and rump muscles for attack rather than running. So too were its jaw muscles, a broader skull that promised a bite with power more akin to the crocottas of Ithen, as well as the bone-crunching teeth packed into its muzzle. And that wondrous crown of streamlined black antlers gathered at the lead into a frightful armoury of thorns. A bow of its head, a swift, powerful leap, and its target would be gored.
They dared not move. The now exceptionally ordinary rabbit froze. The green eyes didn't react. The raghorn surveyed them all with menace.
A quiet curse came from the back of the group, but a short, sharp hush silenced the wearied mage. Aria spared her father a look, checking the distance between them now that he'd begun to return to himself, and so she was the first to see the brutal stare of the tribal behind him.
Her shocking blue eyes burned, searing into the back of Rathen's head with malevolence, and her hands were slowly rising from her sides, fingers already preparing a spell.
Thoughtless and instinctive, even as heat flooded her little chest, Aria ripped herself free from Anthis's grip and seized Eyila's dangerous hands before she could unleash her intentions.
Swords flashed, heads spun, strangled alarm grunted. All came to stare upon the two in confusion. And no one missed the hatred, the condemnation, the hunger for vengeance in those usually so kind and astute eyes.
It was the very same look the maddened mage of Rowan's Repentance had burned Rathen with when he'd quietened the magic of those misty dells.
Another snort snapped their attention back to the raghorn. Blades promptly followed.
The beast had shifted. Its stance was hulking with front legs splayed, and its eyes appeared to glower as it dropped its head and angled its horns towards them. But still it made no move. And neither had their audience.
"If we are very, very careful," Petra murmured, "we might be able to get out of here..."
"As far and as fast as we can without provoking a charge." Garon nodded shortly. "Follow me - keep close, and Anthis, Aria, keep a look out behind us."
The group remained tight, so tight as to almost trip over one another had they not been so very slow and cautious, and as they followed the inquisitor's lead towards the bags, no one suggested that they weren't worth the delay. Instead, under intense watch, they each picked up a load, negotiated it so that weapons were always ready, and backed away through the grove, across the stream and into the trees on the furthest side, where the green eyes seemed to have vanished.
Nothing followed them.
They remained close and alert until the early hours of the following morning.
Chapter 31
The ground moved on its own. The roots were reaching out to trip them. Trees were living things, after all, and living things moved; there was no reason they couldn't attack intruders. The forest was wild enough, strange enough, full with all kinds of impossible creatures - some of these trees could very well not be trees at all.
The fact that such an idea seemed so very reasonable was, of course, where the problem lay. Their brains were addled after another night wasted chasing the elusive respite of sleep, and when they finally had managed to catch its tail, they'd risen feeling as though they may as well not have even bothered trying. They were so very tired, irritable, disorientated, staggering along across uneven ground where it was in fact their own feet that tripped them. But they tried their hardest to stay calm. They knew they couldn't give in to stress - not here. But that condition made it all the more difficult. Especially when injury kept finding them. Eyila patched up the increasingly common cuts and scrapes with salves and bandages, avoiding use of magic not out of respect for the Order's decree but because, by her words, 'a stumble isn't venomous'. A remark which only served to turn their thoughts towards the various levels of harm the sinister forest and its creatures may just be capable of.
By the time they happened upon the edge of another dome of magic, tensions were reaching breaking point. It was only by that same sheer necessity that they managed to maintain control of themselves, but yet again Anthis shouldered the additional burden of hiding the extent of Rathen's struggle from the rest. Kienza had asked him to keep an eye on him rather than any of the others; whatever was wrong with him - and he had his guesses - she didn't want them to notice. How the mage managed to handle the Zi'veyn in such a state, he couldn't fathom, but as long as he did, he surely couldn't be suffering as badly as Anthis feared.
Eyila, on the other hand, was another matter. Petra had kept her close since the near-incident at the statue two days past, but she had informed Anthis that she would be in his care when next they were forced to a stop. It was a duty that surprised and intimidated him, but one he intended to fulfil to his best capacity, even though it meant no 'wandering off, goggling at rocks or scribbling in that damned notebook'. Evidently, Petra was warming back up to him.
That afternoon, as Rathen set to fixing another, far less remarkable ruin - a shrine to the Goddess of Life, Vastal Herself, though since Anthis wasn't allowed to inspect it it may as well have been an ant hill - he sat nervously upon a rock beside her. But his fluster didn't last for long. She was thoroughly unresponsive, so much so that talking to her suddenly became much easier than usual, as well as an avenue of much-needed distraction.
"You must be comfortable," he said absently, tugging his shirt away from his sticky chest. "All this heat. I don't know how you can possibly live in the desert...though I guess if you grow up with it, you get used to it. It would be normal...although I suppose it's not as humid. I think it's the stickiness I hate the most..." He watched Rathen mindlessly while his thoughts trundled slowly along, and his gaze began drifting around the forest. "This place really is something else. It's so...wild...in every sense of the word..." he grunted. "Every sense... Last time we were here we didn't see any...eyes, or raghorns or dead nymphs. But this time it's as if they're seeking us out... Mm. It's a shame your first experience here had to be like this. I think you'd actually have liked it otherwise. Last time it was almost peaceful..."
A sudden shriek scattered his thoughts, neither too near, nor quite far enough. The two swordsmen burst back through the trees and Aria clung closer to her father whom she had taken to guarding. Silence fell for but a moment, then the birds continued crowing as though they had never been interrupted.
Anthis chuckled nervously while Garon and Petra warily resumed their watch. "Perhaps not too peaceful... Ohhh I would love to wander around in here, see the ruins, study them - I mean, who knows what all this is hiding? What we have yet to discover? What time-worn questions could be answered..." he sighed wistfully, staring past the mage and up at the shrine, tracing with his eyes the lines that flowed like water, the most common depiction of raw life. "But with everything else hiding in here, it's impossible. You'd be just asking to be...ugh, I'd rather not think about it. ...Though..." his brow furrowed softly in consideration, "I don't think I'd like them to go anywhere, either. They're part of what makes this place so wild, really - probably the very reason it's been left alone. Why it's so full of life. I mean, I doubt if even the strongest lumberman could fell any of these trees. Which means, at least, that everything stays in tact. The statues in here - well, they still all have pointed ears. And that's..." He smiled to himself, and his thoughts tumbled further until another pensive frown slipped in.
"This place is one of the last frontiers. If everything in here was discovered, what would be left? Once everything has been found and translated, there'll be nothing left to learn about the elves...what an awful thought... Perhaps we're not supposed to find everything. Perhaps some things should remain hidden forever - at least then no one could actually know everything, even if they presume to; there would always be something left...something to drive people...keep fascination alive..."
His eyes turned towards Aria, and a smile spread quickly over his lips. Though she kept a tigh
t hold on her father's trousers, her nose was now mere inches from the stone. "Something to drive young minds. And so few of them care anymore. All my peers are so much older than me. If I'm honest, I...sort of thought that kind of passion would die with me. That sounds ridiculous, I know - it just seemed that no one else was likely to follow this path. All my friends wanted to be soldiers or merchants - anything with power or money. And there's no power or money in academia..." But a smile returned to his lips even while he shooed the romantic thoughts of freedom and enlightenment away. He looked instead back towards Aria and watched her brush her fingertips over the carvings. "Or perhaps I'm worried over nothing..."
Another shriek, and Anthis forced the invading tremor out of his breath. "This forest, on the other hand, seems particularly predisposed to kill us..."
But in that instant, the soft howling of the displaced whirlwinds behind them suddenly began to waver, and the leaves they'd whipped up, as foreign and unnatural as the currents themselves, drifted in the lull and faded into nothing before they could settle upon the ground. The light, too, increased, and only then did he realise that the previous overcast darkness had also been a figment of magic.
But as his eyes flicked from Eyila, who continued her unbroken stare through the forest, and onto the victorious mage, he found him neither rousing, stumbling, nor straightening with a long, relieved breath. Instead, with the Zi'veyn clutched tightly in his hands, he surged off abruptly into the trees as if his heels were on fire. Aria tried to follow, but doubt held her back with a searching look towards the others. Garon returned in an instant and gave the order to follow.
"What's happened now?" Anthis mumbled dubiously, hurrying to his feet and taking the near-limp tribal by the arm. "Come along, Eyila, we've another merry chase..."
