Ranispara rolled her eyes at Inari’s overprotectiveness, but Inari couldn’t help it. Ranispara had become a surrogate sister over the years. And I’m not losing her. I lost one sister to death and another to the Seekers. I’m not losing anyone else. Inari tightened her grip on Ranispara as her friend leaned forward to peer around the stone they hid behind. Ranispara tended to act first and think later, which made her a great leader during a crisis but not a safe one.
About ten-feet away, on the other side of the outer ring of menhirs, dozens and dozens of snakes slammed into each other and entwined. They rolled around in a woman-sized pile.
“What is that? Do you see that pearl of pinkish light?” Inari whispered. She pointed with the hand not manacling her friend’s wrist.
“Yeah, I see it, but I have no idea what it is other than growing. It reminds me of your pink lumir stone.”
Inari nodded. She’d had the same thought, but that light didn’t come from a stone.
Where the light-ball rolled, snakes merged together. A pink flash blinded them. When it dissipated, a naked woman lay on the grass laughing. Her skin was gray and scaly—like the snakes which had vanished in the light—and her fangs glistened in the sun.
Snake Woman rolled in the grass, loving its feel on her naked scales. I did it! I escaped the black lumir crystal and now I’m whole again! I did it! She pounded the earth in triumph then dug a clod out of the ground and let the dirt slide through her fingers. Gales of laughter shook her, but she didn’t care. She’d won.
And now for phase two. That sobering thought made Snake Woman sit up so fast, her newly formed body flopped back down. Fine motor control might need a little adjusting, but she could do that on the fly.
Snake Woman froze like a rat in lumir light as a fell voice drifted on the wind.
“Come, sinners, tell father your lies. At my side, thy time is nigh.”
No, not now—she was so close to accomplishing her goal. But that was a demon calling and she was preprogrammed to obey. Her body pushed to a stand and marched toward the mountain. Not again, I’m no one’s slave.
Snake Woman slapped herself hard enough to see stars, but it didn’t help. Her body moved to the beat and the commands of that demonic voice—until she smacked into an invisible barrier. It wove between those wonderful menhirs, and she kissed it. An electric shock coursed through her, knocking her away from that beautiful shield and she laughed.
I’m truly free! And my lips are numb—what an odd sensation. Snake Woman rubbed her mouth as she turned and fought for every step away. Those two rings of standings stones reduced the demon’s call, but it still thrummed through her, making her want to go to it.
Her legs became rubbery and she teetered, slamming her shoulder into a tree. Snake Woman flopped on to her belly, banging her chin. His call must subside eventually. I just need to put some distance between myself and that damned mountain. She shot it a baleful glare over her shoulder. Two women stepped out from behind the inner ring of menhirs.
Oh shit. Snake Woman dug her fingers into the dirt and pulled herself forward, inch by painful inch. She must escape the woman drawing a black blade from her hip sheathe or her plans were ruined.
Ranispara unsheathed her knife. It was eighteen inches of polished black death in her hands.
“What are you doing?” Inari squeezed the wrist she still held, but Ranispara yanked her arm free.
“My job. Stay here. That thing looks dangerous.”
“No, I’m coming with you. You’ll need a witness.” Inari rose from her crouch.
Ranispara shoved Inari behind her, which was fine because Inari was the taller of the two women. “Are you always this difficult?”
“According to my husband, yes.” Inari shrugged, though that admission hurt. “Apparently a partnership is not what he wants.”
“Nolo said that?” Ranispara glanced over her shoulder at Inari.
Inari shrugged. “Not in so many words, no, but let’s discuss my marital problems over a bottle of wine later. That thing is starting to come around.”
“Only if there’ll be cookies.”
“You know there will be.”
“Good.” Ranispara nodded and took a cautious step forward.
The snake creature was rolling around on the ground laughing and looking less dangerous by the moment. So Inari flanked her friend, and they struck an invisible wall at the same time. It bowed and flexed, sending them stumbling away from the space between two menhirs.
“Ow, what the hell was that?” Ranispara rubbed her face. Inari did the same. Her nose felt numb where it had struck the invisible wall, but the sensation was fading. She touched the space between those stones and her fingers met resistance—not the same as with a glass pane, but there was something there.
“I don’t know, but it’s definitely magical.”
“Damn it! That thing is getting away.” Ranispara hammered the heel of her hand into the invisible wall. “Let us pass.”
Inari captured Ranispara’s wrist before she could strike the shield again. “Let her go. She’s leaving not trying to enter. Your job is done. Mount Eredren is safe—” Inari broke off as the mountain jiggled. “I take that back.”
Up a rise, Snake Woman crawled with trees towering to her left and her right. Not one offered any aid, nor did they even react to her presence. Maybe she registered as harmless to their hive mind. Which she was. Right now, she couldn’t break any of the forest’s three rules even if she’d wanted to. So she slid down the other side of the hill, glad for gravity’s assist hoping she could lose the warrior woman down there.
Something about the demon’s call changed when she reached the bottom of the defile. Maybe it was the timbre or the content of his summons. Or maybe she was becoming immune to it because the more she crawled, the more control she had over her musculature. She breathed a sigh of relief and rose. She still felt a lingering urge to go to Mount Eredren, but she fought it down and hiked up the incline in front of her.
Where did little miss priestess go with my black lumir crystal? Come out, come out wherever you are, psycho girl.
Snake Woman grinned as she headed for her cache of goods. Before taking on the priestess, she needed a few things. Besides, finding that Seeker and her prize wouldn’t be hard. No doubt she’d left a mile-wide trail of destruction leading right to her.
But first, go get your things. You need protection before you can tangle with that black lumir crystal.
Inari and Ranispara exchanged shocked glances as Mount Eredren stilled.
“It's just another earthquake, nothing to worry about.” But Ranispara bit her lip and looked less certain of that than she sounded.
“What do we do now?”
Ranispara pointed to Mount Eredren. “Someone needs to report in.”
“Right, we tell Jerlo and let him sort it out.” Inari nodded, liking the idea the more she thought about it.
“What’s this ‘we’ business? You have your own errand, remember?”
“Oh no, you’re not cutting me out of this.” Inari shook her head. “You’ll find a way past their cordon and go after that snake girl, and I'm going with you.”
“What about your sister?” Ranispara pointed to the ships.
Inari cursed. Right, she already had a mission—Aralore. Inari stamped her foot family obligations always interfered with the best-laid plans.
“If I go deal with my crazy sister, then who’ll speak to Jerlo?”
Ranispara cursed. Shading her eyes, she scanned the meadow seeking someone else to dump that problem on, but she saw no one because the Rangers were stretched dangerously thin. “Damn it. Where the hell is Mardeck?”
Missing in action as always. The Ranger was never where he should be. Considering he ran the day watch, that was a serious problem.
“He must be on the other side of the mountain.” Her tone said he’d better be there or else.
Someone was running across the meadow, but he wasn’t Mardeck. Though,
he was shouting for that worthy. Ranispara cursed her luck again. That snake girl was gone too.
“Look, I must deal with this.” Ranispara hooked a thumb in the running man’s direction. “Why don’t you wait five minutes while I straighten out his problem, so I can accompany you? Then we can go to Jerlo together. You might need a witness.”
A bitter laugh bubbled up, but Inari bit it back, shaking her head. “Thank you but I need to deal with my sister on my own.”
Ranispara waggled a finger at her. “Fine but I want details. Find me afterward and deliver them, okay? If you don’t, I might storm the ship in search of you. And I’ll come armed for bear.” She gestured to her hip sheath where a blade made of polished obsidian rested.
“What about Jerlo? He needs to know what we saw though I doubt he’ll believe it.”
“You’re right. I could send a runner. There should be one by the docks. But it would be best if we both spoke to him. Two people can’t have the same hallucination.”
Inari nodded. “Sounds like a plan. Go solve the problems of the world, and I’ll deal with my sister.”
“Yeah right, I wish.” Without another word, Ranispara jogged to intercept the Ranger speeding toward Mount Eredren.
Grass crunched as Inari continued toward a confrontation ten-years overdue. Why did Aralore come here? Fear welled up causing her foot to slip as grass gave way to water-smoothed stones. She caught herself on a rock standing taller than her. Could her sister know about Sarn? Had the Seekers come to destroy him?
Inari squared her shoulders. Answers waited aboard that vessel, and she must pry them free. Sarn’s life might depend on them.
Visiting the Queen Tree
The moaning came from above, so Sarn loped to the top of the rise. He skidded to a halt and almost fell to his knees in horror. Once proud trees writhed on the ground for several miles then the destruction hooked to the east.
“Papa, who did this?”
The sight injected fear into Sarn’s heart. Not even a demon had managed to lay such trees so low. Nothing natural could have caused such laser focused devastation. The track widened at a regular rate as it ascended the next ridge as if its cause had strengthened. Was it darker to the northeast than it was here?
As Sarn started down the grade, only one explanation leaped to mind. “Black lumir, someone must have stolen some crystals from the Ægeldar. No, not someone—Dirk. I saw his symbol earlier.” Sarn wracked his memory. What was Dirk’s heading then? He’d only had a glimpse of the conman’s icon during that revelatory conversation with his sister.
“But wouldn’t it have hurt him?”
“Maybe it doesn’t affect the non-mage gifted.”
Ran nodded though he didn’t buy that explanation, and neither did Sarn. It was plausible, but not if you lived in a country full of magic. Some of that power must have infected Dirk.
Maybe it was like drawing poison from a wound when the black lumir crystal sucked it out. But that didn’t explain why nothing between the Ægeldar and here was touched. They’d passed plenty of still-ensorcelled trees.
“Or maybe he found a way to render it safe to carry.” Sarn nodded as that reasoning fit the facts better than any other, and Ran nodded too. He took care not to step on any of the branches or roots of the wounded trees he passed.
“But how’d he make it safe?”
“That I don’t know, but I know someone who does.”
“The Queen Tree?”
“Yeah, I’ve been wondering how she slapped a shield over a chasm full of black lumir crystals and kept it standing.”
Ran blinked as if the idea hadn’t even occurred to him. “She can do anything.”
“Yes, she can,” Sarn said as he crouched beside a boot print.
It bore none of the indentations of the sturdy, thick-soled boots favored by hikers. So, whoever had passed this way wasn’t shod for a lengthy walk nor prepared to climb Mount Kyleth sixteen miles northeast of here. Nor were there any hoof prints or wheel ruts, so this traveler wasn’t going far not shod in soft-soled boots.
Sarn cast about and discovered a dozen more sets of prints. Two sets were narrower and smaller than the others. Likely they were made by women’s boots. Who were these people and why were they following in Dirk’s wake?
Was Dirk felling the enchanted trees? That didn’t make sense. Dirk didn’t strike me as the outdoorsy type and there’s no profit to be made out here. No, Dirk had tested the black lumir crystal here then sold it to someone else—the person who’d appeared as two black pentacles superimposed over each other.
Sarn pulled up his map, but it ended at the outer circle of menhirs. Everything inside it, including Mount Eredren, was a nice coin-shaped blank, thanks to those annoying menhirs. Outward from this spot was more nothing because when Nolo took him on patrols, they stuck to the river. Nolo sent other Rangers this far inland.
Sarn blew out an exasperated breath. Sometimes sharing headspace with a map was more trouble than it was worth.
Ran poked him. “What’d you find?”
“Hmm? I’m just trying to work out what happened. Give me a minute to get it all straight in my head then I’ll explain.”
“You better.”
Sarn smiled at his son’s adorable threat and refocused on those troubling blank spots on his map. I could fix them. Sarn regarded the dark earth between gray, lifeless branches. His magic recoiled and shook its luminous head. It wanted no part of what was happening. That left only one recourse. He must track that party down and question them. That shouldn’t be hard given the clear tracks they’d left behind.
Ran tapped Sarn on the shoulder. “Now what are you doing?”
“Nothing, my magic doesn’t feel like cooperating. I’ve learned all I can from this.” Sarn gestured to the boot prints and explained his findings to his interested son.
“How did you know all that?”
“The Rangers, I work for them, and they’re often sent to find people in here.” Sarn shrugged. “They taught me to read the trails and the clues people leave behind.” His troubled gaze fell to the downed trees, and Sarn pushed to his feet. Some of them were still moving. Their blackened bark called to him.
Help us—eam’maya rayar! Help us curse breaker.
Sarn stumbled toward them. Magic flared around his extended hand in white and green tongues of light that licked the air.
“Why would anyone want to hurt the trees?” Ran gripped his pant leg.
The sudden movement broke the felled trees’ enchantment. Sarn blinked then caught his son’s arm before Ran could make like his nickname.
“Because bad people want power over others. So, they take that power by hurting other creatures. It’s called subjugation, and it’s wrong. It’s never right to hurt someone just because you can.”
“Why do they want power?”
“Everyone’s afraid of something, but some people can’t handle that. So, they strive to be invincible, but being feared just makes them vulnerable because there’s no one they can turn to when they need help.”
“What are you afraid of?”
“Losing you, but I won’t let that happen.” Sarn squeezed his son’s hand.
“I don’t want to lose you either.” Ran squeezed back.
But the trees were calling again, and their pleas propelled Sarn down the slope.
White light shot up from the ground in front of Sarn as he skidded to a halt. The Queen of All Trees appeared and swung a branch between them blocking his path. Her luminous roots spread out entwining with her stricken children. As she stroked their blackened bark, her silver fire plunged into the downed trees lighting them up and driving out the evil that had felled them.
“It’s the Queen Tree!” Ran struggled to free his hand.
“I know. Stay by my side.”
“What’s she doing?”
“I think she’s healing them,” Sarn said, then addressed his next question to the Queen of All Trees. “A black lumir crystal did this.
I can feel the theft—the lack of magic.” He told her what he’d reasoned out. But when he finished, she said nothing.
Keeping her massive trunk between him and her fallen brethren, she ministered to her injured children as if he hadn't spoken at all. When Ran reached out to pat her silver bark, she didn’t pause her work. There was something off about her other than her height. Instead of her usual thousand feet, she stood only about a hundred and twenty-five-feet tall, and the difference was jarring. But it was more than that. Her trunk was thinner; her aura was muted, and her bark was dull.
“Are you all right?”
She didn't answer. Sarn let the silence stretch on, hoping she'd break it. She didn't, but Ran did.
“I’m hungry. Do you have any more All-Fruit? I like them.”
That finally dragged a response out of her. A silver root, as wide as a fist, poked out of the ground. It reached into the trees standing sentinel around their fallen siblings and returned with a branch bearing three pieces of All-Fruit. The red, super-sized apples were a staple in Shayari because there were thousands of cultivars growing all over the enchanted forest. This one was the size of a melon and likely sweet too.
“Thank you!” Ran accepted the gift and bit into one of the augmented apples then he glanced around for water to wash it down.
The Queen of All Trees guessed his need before Sarn did and pointed to a brook flowing nearby. Ran ambled over and stuck his head in leaving Sarn holding two pieces of All-Fruit and a ton of unanswered questions.
“Eat, Papa. Lunch was a long time ago.”
Feeling eyes on him, Sarn sighed and took a bite. In minutes, he’d polished off both All-Fruit and deposited their cores into the waiting hole. Ran dropped his core in too and smiled up at the Queen of All Trees, who’d watched them partake if the simple meal she’d offered.
“Thank you again. The All-Fruit were good.”
The Queen of All Trees dipped her crown acknowledging his son’s thanks. Maybe she’d be more amenable to questions now.
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