Father in the Forest, #1

by R. K. Gold

  The purple flowers split to the left. Pace followed the trail. "Where are you going?" Armstrong called after him. He couldn't hack, since Pace was too close, and Pace slipped through the dangling vines and brush with ease. Thorns brushed against his suit, but they didn't penetrate the thick material. His body was soaked in sweat, and he felt his heart race as he fully entered the black. The purple flowers glowed more brightly in the absolute darkness. “Pace!” Armstrong called after him again, and the flowers took a sharp turn to the right. He bumped his shoulder against a tree. Only the ground was illuminated by their light. Hovering over were white specs that disappeared into the darkness once they floated off the trail.

  “Pace!” Armstrong called again. Ahead, he spotted a single white light, but it didn't float away. It remained perfectly still. Armstrong bumped into Pace. "Stay close," he whispered.

  “You see that light?” Pace asked, and Armstrong stopped rotating at once.

  "That's a clearing." He grabbed Pace by the wrist and led him forward. The purple flowers dimmed as the light grew, and the branches arched overhead. When the light was right on top of them, they pushed through like a curtain. Pace squinted and covered his face with his hands. The falling star’s glare burrowed under his goggles and crawled through his sockets.

  Puffs of white floated around them. They hovered around Pace’s face. Armstrong swatted them away, but Pace remained still. They fell to the ground and turned the grass a richer shade of green while Armstrong continued to thrash at the swarm around him. Each time he swiped his hands, they multiplied.

  Before Pace could get a good view of the clearing, both hands were pulled behind his back, and he was tripped forward. His face squished to the ground, and a sharp knee pressed against his back, making each breath more shallow than the last. His heart raced as he tried to wiggle free, but whatever was on top of him wouldn’t budge. In fact, the more he moved, the more they secured their grip. He gasped as the jammed further into his mouth, its round guard scraped his lips.

  "Let him go!" Armstrong ordered, and in an instant, she released Pace. As he spun on the ground, he saw a flash flip over Armstrong as quickly as fire jumping on dry leaves. The starborn yanked his rifle from his hand and wound up like it was a club. Pace had waited years for this moment. She wasn't running away or playing any tricks. He was in her home now, and she was fighting back.

  He charged the starborn with a lowered shoulder, but before he could tackle her, she blinked away, extinguishing from existence like a candle under a lid, and he ran through nothing but smoke. A firm smack landed on the back of his thigh, and he limped to the nearest tree, glancing over his shoulder to see the starborn still holding the colonel’s rifle.

  Armstrong bounced on his toes with both fists up. He jabbed and crossed, but each blow only hit air. She ducked under a hook and swiped at his feet with the butt of his gun. Armstrong hopped over the strike. They danced back and forth, spinning through the forest, weaving through the trees.

  Pace crouched and prepared to launch at the starborn again as they reached the clearing when he spotted a tan-skinned girl with curly black hair and a long, hooked nose.

  “Yael?”

  She didn’t respond. His voice bounced around in his suit, and he felt like he was separated by a bubble. Neither of them could ever break. The Mother's star slashed through the clearing, washing out the green leaves and flowers on the ground and carving the darkest shadows where it couldn't reach. He tried to look up but felt sacks of stones draped around his neck. It brought him to his knees. Maybe that's why one knelt to pray, not from respect but from the weight of the gods' presence.

  Each breath filled his throat with gravel. His chest and back ached, and his knees grew weak. The world dimmed, and gentle darkness hugged his peripherals as the ground spun beneath him. "Yael?" he called again and pulled the mouthpiece away. He needed a breath. He needed air. "Yael!" He ripped the regulator out and shouted. A moment later, he was on the ground.

  21

  Pace heard movement but couldn't make anything out. A firm grip forced his mouthpiece back in, and his breathing steadied. The heat from the Mother's star beat down on his face, blinding him with its white glare.

  “Stay back!” Armstrong shouted, and the vibrations from the familiar voice wrapped Pace in invisible body armor. He felt himself falling back into his bed back in Wydser when Armstrong would check in on him with a tray of hot soup and bread from the kitchen. The colonel removed his sword from its hilt and pointed it at Yael’s father. The blade wavered, and Pace tried to roll off his guardian’s chest, away from the weapon, but his body draped like brick-filled sheets.

  Pace patted Armstrong's leg and rolled over to his hands and knees. He turned his head and, through the thick goggles, saw the girl from the Mother's Sanctuary in Wydser. The one he ran across a hostile northern border for. Her white and red eyes caught him, and he knew she could see him—really see him.

  Armstrong rose to his feet, his blade fully extended at the immortal’s chest, and Pace laid on his side as the colonel reached the immortal. The immortal peered down at the sword, then back up at Armstrong. The light blurred the rest of the forest in a haze of white. The trees were silhouettes painted on a white screen.

  “You came into the forest armed and protected from the poisons, so I assume you know who I am.” Izkobak stepped forward. He brushed the sword away with the back of his hand like it was nothing more than a thin branch. “And on the day of the descent too.” He took another step forward, and Armstrong hopped back, so the tip of his weapon was once again centered on the man's chest.

  Pace tried to sit up straighter, but his arms shook. It felt like a metal wire was tied around his muscles and pulled tighter the longer he tensed them. His veins expanded against his skin, and the world spun beneath him. The figures were more shadows than people, and with Armstrong engaged, the only person he stared at for balance was Yael.

  “You’re the immortal,” Armstrong asked, but it sounded more like a statement.

  “And you thought threatening an immortal with a sword was a wise strategy?” Again, Izkobak moved on Armstrong, and again he dodged, but Pace struggled to see the details. The more he looked, the more the two men blurred together. Yael crawled towards him, even as he floated in the Mother’s warmth, cradling him between the sky and the ground. He felt like he could dip his finger into the earth, and it would ripple like a still pond, and the roots beneath the surface matched the veins and arteries in his own body. They were all connected, even the two men circling each other now.

  “So, it’s true. It’s all true. The Mother is returning, and those she touches become gods,” Armstrong said.

  “You know nothing of gods, boy, and I suggest you turn around before you accidentally destroy everything you’ve ever loved,” Izkobak said.

  "Emerlia has already seen to that. You'd know if you ever left this place." Armstrong peered around the immortal and looked at the tree. Its leaves emanated a white and yellow light, which sizzled under the descending star. Through the curtain were ribs of electric blue. Thunder crashed, and lightning zipped through the light. The more it struck, the more its colors spread through the sky like paint in water.

  “I have left this place and seen what your kind has done to the world. The Mother is right to return every thousand years.”

  “If you helped, Emerlia and Dracar wouldn’t be destroying the world.”

  Izkobak pinched the bridge of his nose. “You’re delusional if you think this is a single country’s problem.”

  “You haven’t seen what they’ve done. The horrors they’ve committed.” He spat on the ground as Pace’s vision cleared, and Armstrong turned back to the starborn who looked ready to pounce.

  Pace could sense an electric barrier separating the three in the air. He could almost hear the fizzle of the circuitry. Yael was nearing Pace now, and he tried to reach out for her hand like taking it would push them through thin air and out the other side of this forest.
The fight didn’t matter, nor did the star. She was why he came.

  “I have seen it. I’ve done it too, and I can guarantee even if you shape the world with the Mother’s star, I’ll eventually see it again. The world will always return to its mean, and the best we can do is save our loved ones.” He spread his arms wide. “You’re a military man, I take it. I recognize that stance. A southerner, no doubt.”

  “My name is Colonel Armstrong, and I’m not from the south. I’m from Lansing.” He looked over his shoulder down the path they came. The immortal stiffened, and his eyes widened at the name of the town. Armstrong noticed the change in his posture. “So, you know. You know the truth about Emerlia, and you stand in the way of our only chance of stopping them.”

  "The one who broke through the Twin Rivers. Heard a lot about you in the south. Funny how few mention the advantage Rishid left you by taking on the bulk of Emerlia's forces." He rubbed his chin. The light bit their eyes. From the clearing, they saw a diamond descending from the sky. The longer Pace stared, the more the burn stabbed, crawling under her lids and drilling behind his sockets. It was so bright, it flushed the color of the forest away, leaving the land unsaturated. The trees shook, and branches snapped to the ground, dissolving in white light and floating into the sky. A thin film of white mist hovered over the forest and as the glowing orb descended, the cloud condensed to a slick golden sheet. It sparkled over them like the thousands of flashbulbs blinking at once and fizzling out, only to be replaced by another, moments later. Pace imagined thousands of tiny hands passing the lights down an assembly line behind the glow.

  It was barely the size of a diamond now, and light hailed from the sky. It struck the ground and stabbed into the dirt. Wherever the light touched, flowers grew, and a voice began to sing. It didn’t sing words. It hummed across strings. “And you thought the Mother could help?”

  “She would give me the chance to end this war once and for all. Once Emerlia and Dracar are removed from this continent, we can finally live in peace.”

  “Maybe. The world used to think the same way about me. Then the continent actually split into three, and all that happened were more kinds with more royal ambitions spread across the world.”

  The two men stood in silence. Armstrong kept his sword out towards the immortal while Miya paced back and forth behind the colonel. She looked ready to pounce, but something restrained her. Maybe it was the immortal’s words that controlled the leash. Izkobak stepped forward as Armstrong approached the tree, blocking his path. Neither man slowed down.

  Yael reached Pace and put his head on her lap. "You came? Why did you come?" Her voice switched back and forth from high pitch stress to calming relief. The vibrations of her speech spiked and flattened around him. The harsher consonances stabbed the back of his neck as her nails curled into his forearm.

  "Of course, I did. Of course." He sat up to watch Armstrong face off with the immortal but kept scooted closer to Yael. The colonel could look after himself, and if they separated, he had an entire country that would look after him. Yael—for all Pace knew, this forest was all Yael had now.

  Armstrong shifted right, and Izkobak matched his step. He kept pace with the colonel until he took the blade into his stomach. He winced, but no blood came out. Only white light similar to the pollen around the trees.

  The immortal continued stepping forward until the sword went all the way to its hilt. Armstrong tried to pull it out. His face tightened as he jiggled the grip, but the immortal grabbed the sword by the blade and kept it in place. Armstrong threw it aside hard enough to spin Izkobak, but Miya grabbed his arms. He shrugged her off and pulled a knife from an ankle holster. He slashed at her, which was enough to make her flinch back. He spun around and created a separation between himself and the immortal.

  Pace tried to run after him, but he fell to the ground. His legs trembled, and he crawled back to his feet only to fall back over two steps later. Yael went to hold him. She crouched beside him and moved his arm over her shoulder. She could hear his labored breathing as she rose to her feet. He put more weight on her and hunched forward.

  The Mother’s star hovered just under the tree line. Fragments rained down into the earth. They sizzled, and roots shot from the ground where they landed as flakes fell off the shards like dry sand. The star itself was barely the size of a marble now. The rest of the sky glistened from the light that melted off. Streaks painted the blue and white sky. The light arched over them like ribs.

  Armstrong reached the tree and climbed as Izkobak and Miya gained on him. Miya leaped up three branches with ease while the immortal climbed up after him. "Leave—him—alone," Pace tried to call, but he was out of breath and could barely get one word out without wheezing.

  His suit was baggier than the colonel’s, having most likely been designed for an adult. The hood fell over his goggles, and his liners didn't fully fill out the gloves. "Pace—Pace, you have to stay awake." She slapped his face and held him up. She remembered what her father said about her mother and how she didn't come to the forest to die but sleep. Pace wobbled forward. His arms swung in sweeping arcs as the air hissed as the star shot down.

  22

  Two hands broke from the air and cupped the forest. Yael’s eyes burned from the light and her sweat, which pooled at every corner of her body, but as the fingers from the star touched the ground and transformed into golden cyclones, she left her body. She was nothing but conscious sight floating in the light, and for the first time in her life, she felt no pain or loss. She had no idea just how much she felt in neutral until she truly experienced nothingness. She never had to return to earth or touch her toes against the ground again, even if they were the soft sand beaches in the south. All she had to do was rest. All she had to do was close her eyes, the one link to the world left, and that nothingness could fill her. It didn't force its way in; it just politely hovered all around her, waiting for a proper invitation.

  A cacophonous hum radiated through the clearing. Even the trees' branches rose like hands to their ears as the sound bounced around, but Yael just hovered. She saw the young boy who had never been anything but kind to her drop to his knees. He squeezed his hands against the side of his head and bent at his waist as the colonel fell flat on his back.

  The ground cracked, and the grass withered away. The flowers fell limp and dissolved into the light, joining Yael in the sky, and the cyclones sucked away the leaves until the remaining forest stood naked. As the storms curled and returned as fingers of the Mother, the light around Yael grew teeth. The yellow harshened, and the orange lit ablaze. Their knocking intensified, and all Yael had to do was close her eyes. The light didn’t speak to her, but she could sense the Mother’s wishes as clearly as she first felt the warmth from the star. Pace squirmed on the ground, holding his arms around his head. He kicked his heels into the dirt as arms broke through the surface and grabbed him. Armstrong clung to the tree in the center of the clearing directly under the light. Whenever he reached for it, he flinched as if he took a kick to the ribs.

  The hums reached their peak, and her consciousness flew through a tunnel. She could hear the wind blowing by and felt her form return where the air couldn't pass. She looked back to Pace, alone in the clearing with the earth trying to drag him down. Pace, who hadn't hesitated when Yael was trapped and the Emerlian soldiers, attempted to take her away. She spun towards him, and the movement severed whatever ties the star had on her.

  If her mind was set to a pendulum, it reconnected with her body as she fell through the air. The sensation of falling snapped her back fully into her body just in time to crash, and as she hit the ground, the orange and yellow orb collapsed on itself. A ring exploded from its smallest point and blasted in all directions, knocking the naked trees in the forest back.

  Izkobak and Miya held their ground by the single tree in the clearing as the lingering light from where the star hovered drizzled to the ground in specs of gold. When they touched, they fizzled into the earth, and a l
ush green grass grew. Wildflowers popped up all around them in vibrant colors, and the trees surrounding them fully erected with thick leaves once more.

  The starlight that remained on the surface hissed like oil in a hot pan as larger chunks melted together into tooth-shaped shards. Their gold paled until it was a metallic white. Pace remained on the ground panting as Yael crawled to him. Armstrong rose to his hands and knees and arched his back.

  “Pace?” She put a hand on his back and another to his cheek. He was breathing heavily, but his arms were limp. She couldn’t see his eyes and rolled him over.

  “Yael?” Pace coughed and sat up. She helped him balance, pulling him close to her body. They sat in each other’s presence, surrounded by the remnants of the star. The dust cleared, and a clear purple sky was painted over them. Yael broke away first and helped Pace to his feet. The clearing glowed where the star touched with pockets of light dissolving into the earth and others melting together.

  As her eyes adjusted, she saw one body flat on the ground and another holding onto the tree trunk. A third stumbled away, making it three steps before collapsing.

  23

  A loud crack whipped through the sky, and electric blue ribs carved through the air, as glowing snow fell to the ground. The roots beneath the surface darkened to the point their limbs were visible. They stood on one enormous form. The trees blew side to side, and their branches rattled as the gusts picked up.

  Armstrong stood in front of the burning tree. Its flames licked the sides of the trunk and floated across the limbs like water through a maze. Smoke filled Yael’s nostrils, and the crisp smell of burnt wood filled the air. The colonel’s suit flapped behind him as the wind died down and the smoke parted. He tossed his breathing apparatus aside and wiped the ash from his face.