They tromped a few feet off the path. May had pointed toward things that looked uncannily like flowers, but could not be. Their tops were about waist high and culminated in what looked like little red faces with petals for hair. Swirling white spots took the place of eyes, and yellowish beaks protruded from where the mouths would have been.
“These are symflowers. They’re not hard to find because of one certain characteristic.”
“What, the fact that they have beaks?”
May chuckled, holding her gloved hand over one of them. Her fingers tilted inward and a small amount of water drizzled from her hands onto one of the petals. Immediately, the flower’s beak opened and let out a low note, melodic and smooth. She moved her hand over another, and the new flower let out a higher note that perfectly harmonized with the first. She moved from flower to flower, until it sounded almost like a barbershop quartet. After kissing the flowers with small droplets, which prompted a few quarter-notes, May took her hand away and the music died down.
“When it rains, the forest comes alive with music. My favorite is a very light drizzle—it almost sounds like jazz.”
Sam’s jaw went slack. He felt giddy, like when he’d scored his first touchdown as a child.
“You see,” May used a gloved finger to stroke the side of the symflower, which let out a warm purr, “this whole place is full of fantastic things. The more magic is used, the more extraordinary things spring out of the Veil. With so many sorcerers living here, there’s always plenty of excitement.”
Sam ran his own finger along the closest petal, but the flower remained silent. “I bet.”
“Let’s keep moving.” She stepped over a few roots and made her way back onto the path. “There will be plenty to see on the way back, and you’ll probably want to be getting some sleep soon.”
“No, I want to see—” He cut himself off. In fact, exhaustion was coming quick. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”
“Tapping into the Veil and using magic can be taxing, especially for the first few months. It’s like running a marathon; you have to train for it. I’m surprised you didn’t pass out immediately after the game.”
Sam nodded. “I sort of did.”
“Don’t worry. I have a room all set up for you.”
They continued their trek for a few silent minutes.
“Why, hello there!” May addressed a group of trees on the side of their path like they were old friends. She turned to Sam, her cheeks pinched with delight. “You’ll like these!”
She pointed at the thin, zebra-striped trees beside them. “They’re called zigzag trees. They don’t like to be touched; go ahead and try.”
“Why? What will they do?”
“Just trust me. Go on.”
He slowly reached out for the tree. Just as his fingers were about to make contact, it bent backwards out of the way.
Sam startled. He tried again to touch the zigzag tree, but this time at a lower spot. The tree curled into a C-shape and again avoided his touch. Sam turned his back nonchalantly, and then suddenly rocketed at the tree as if he were going to tackle it. The zigzag split apart and Sam fell right through.
May laughed as Sam pushed himself off the ground and the tree sucked itself back together.
“They really don’t like being touched.” May winked.
Sam snorted. “Apparently not.”
May tilted her head to the side, the tip of her nose giving the smallest of twitches. “Are you hungry?”
“Starved.” He laid a hand on his stomach. “Do you have any food on you?”
“No.” She spun Sam around. “But they do.”
A pack of animals came into view. They were small and looked like black sheep. They travelled in a tight pack, reminding Sam of a small thundercloud. Each animal had three horns and a snakelike tail that twirled as they marched.
“Drecklers.” May ambled over to the flock so as not to startle them, and pulled out a few tuffs of the wool-like material from the stragglers of the group. The black substance came out very easily and they didn’t seem to mind.
She came back and held out her hand. “Here, eat.”
Sam accepted the handful of black material and took a test bite. It was surprisingly chewy, with a consistency like licorice, but it was sweet, like chocolate. After the first delicious swallow he took a much heartier portion and the pains in his stomach quickly subsided.
“This is fantastic.” His words came out sloppily in between chews.
“Dreckler cotton. It is a great sweet. Very common after-meal top-off.”
Sam shoved another large chunk of cotton into his mouth. “And the drecklers don’t mind you taking it?”
“They actually prefer it. Too much cotton and they get itchy.”
Sam dashed toward the pack of drecklers—earning him a couple of nasty bleats—and took a few more handfuls of their cotton, which he stored in the thigh pad pockets on his pants. The cotton came out easily, without any effort at all.
After re-joining May, he gave a shrug.
She smiled. “Don’t worry. You’ll find plenty of it in town.”
Continuing along the trail, May pointed out bushes that changed color depending on the mood of whoever passed, and gnarled vines covered in green flames, each twisting their way up various tree trunks—which May explained didn’t actually hurt the tree, because the flame only gave off light, not heat.
“What are those?” Sam pointed over May’s shoulder.
She turned around and then stepped back in line with Sam.
Not far off, the air was cloudy with a swarm of insects. Sam thought they might be bees, but they looked smaller, more the size of fireflies. Hundreds of them flew in their direction.
“Don’t move,” May whispered through still lips, having already taken her own advice.
Sam froze as the buzzing grew louder.
“Why not?” he asked softly out of the corner of his mouth.
“Echo flies. Just stay calm, do as I say, and watch.”
The swarm moved closer, traveling together in tight-knit swirls. They stopped just inches shy of his face. Sam tried his best to stand completely still. Individual echo flies were uniform in color—either black, white, or grey—including their eyes. The echo flies twirled around his face, re-grouped about a yard in front of him, and started pulsating inward. Each pulse caused the group to get into a smaller and tighter formation. Certain flies came together to create distinct shapes and shadows. He first saw a nose and then eyes and then hair. After a few more throbs, Sam was looking at himself, or at least a black and white portrait hanging in the air.
The mirror image of his face was not only the right size and shape, he could feel that it was more than an image. The flies had captured the depth of his eyes and his inner emotion. It was incredible, a truer reflection than just looking at a shiny surface.
May’s voice was just above a whisper. “Now try them out.”
“Try them out how?” Sam tried his best to speak through a closed mouth, but he couldn’t keep his lips from moving. The black and white doppelganger mouthed the same thing he did.
He couldn’t help but smile.
As his lips curled, so did the echo flies’.
Then, as quickly as they had come, they broke form and vanished off into the brush, flying in single file.
“That was incredible!”
“That was befitting, too.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well,” May rubbed her hands together, “that’s another aspect of the Veil that I need to explain. Actually, the echo flies couldn’t have picked a better time to show up. You see, not everything that comes out of the Veil is… nice.”
Sam looked off in the direction the flies had gone. “So the echo flies are bad?”
“No, no, I wouldn’t go as far as saying they’re bad, it’s just that with some of Her gifts, you have to be careful. It is rare, almost unheard of, for something truly malevolent to spring from the Veil here. You see, At
las Crown, along with every other sorcerer community, is an all-inclusive deal, and most of what the Veil gives us is meant to help. We need nothing from the outside world because of what the Veil provides. Food, shelter, clothing, and even entertainment are found within. They are gifts. The drecklers and symflowers are just the tip of the iceberg. You see—”
“So where do these echo flies come in? The entertainment?”
“No.” May flashed a mischievous smile and twirled a finger. “They are the vigilantes of the woods.”
Sam stared, blank-faced.
“You didn’t happen to see their stingers, did you?”
“No, they kind of looked like ordinary flies to me.” He pulled out another tuft of dreckler cotton and shoveled it into his mouth. “Okay, maybe ‘ordinary’ isn’t the best word, but all the same.”
May’s ungloved hand ran over the diamond-like covering on the other one, hovering around her wrist for a moment. “There are animals called Irukandji jellyfish. They are about the size of a fingernail. Irukandji are extremely venomous and can cause all sorts of nastiness for their victims.”
Sam’s words were sloppy and wet, his mouth still full. “Those jellyfish came from the Veil?”
“No, from Australia.” A smirk played across her face.
“So what do they have to do with the echo flies?”
“Think Irukandji in the air. But, unlike the Irukandji—which can die from even the smallest impact—echo flies are not easily killed. The echo flies have a hard exoskeleton and live in very large swarms. They police the forest as best they can.”
Sam bent down to examine a patch of twinkling, furry moss growing on the side of a rock. “How so?”
“They can see through you.”
Sam cocked his head. “Like, to my organs and stuff?”
“No, they can see through you. They don’t just mimic your appearance. They decide whether or not they see you as worthy. Once they decide your fate, they will either move with you or—”
Sam stood up. “Worthy of what?”
May smiled.
“What?”
“Using the Veil.” She turned and started walking, her heels clacking together in her hand. “Come. We are getting close.”
She strode toward the pillars and brushed away a few silver strands hanging down from a tree just off the path.
Sam trailed close behind. “So, you would have let them sting me?”
“Of course not. I would never have let them harm you. I could have easily kept them away.”
“So, why didn’t you?” Sam stepped over a frog-like creature with tiny puffed-up throat sacs surrounding its entire head like a mane.
“Lion frog,” May called out, as if she had read his mind. “Watch their feet, they can stick to almost anything.”
Sam was determined not to drop the subject. “So, why didn’t you just keep them away? Better safe than sorry, right?”
May stopped in a beam of sunlight filtering its way through the treetops.
“Because,” she gave a toothy smile, “I was curious, and I am not an echo fly.”
Sam snorted. “So I passed.”
“You didn’t fail. However, it wasn’t a test so much as an assessment. But don’t worry, Bariv will have plenty of tests for you.”
Sam sighed. “Oh, joy.”
May smiled serenely. “I see my gift is starting to wear off. I’m sure sleeping would do you a world of good right about now.”
“Agreed.” Although the excitement was starting to fade, he wasn’t feeling panicked like before—but he did really want to sleep.
“By the way,” she gestured in front of them, “we’re just about there.”
A giant stone monolith filled the end of their path. Along the sides of the pillar, a stone wall reached as high as a goal post. The wall sprawled along into the forest, brush and trees growing right up against it with no obvious openings. Layers of sand rested upon the weathered ledges cut into the rock. Reaching the wall, Sam ran his finger against a crack in the stone. Where his finger touched, the rock became translucent, and for a sliver of a second Sam caught a tiny glimpse of a white room behind it.
He opened his hand and placed it against the rock. When he took it back, he could see through a palm-shaped window just long enough to make out a black door leading out of the room to some hidden destination.
Sam humphed.
“It’s something the sorcerers did a long time ago.”
“How long?”
May tilted her head for a moment and looked up.
“Very long.”
The hair on the back of Sam’s neck stood up. He could feel eyes on the back of his jersey, he was sure of it.
He quickly twisted around, only to find an empty path. Scanning the woods for any sign of life, the only thing he found was a lion frog hopping into the brush.
“You and that frog have something in common,” May said.
“Hmm?”
“You’re both a little jumpy.”
“Very funny, but I could have sworn something was behind us.”
“You have no reason to be alarmed. The higher-ups and I have taken precautions against the undesirable.”
Sam focused his attention back on the glass rock.
“So how do we get in?”
May placed her glove against the stone.
A section of the rock shattered, forming an oval-shaped opening big enough for both of them. May went inside first and beckoned him to follow. Sam stepped in behind her, careful of the edges.
May laughed. “Trust me, Sam, you won’t break it.”
May waved her diamond-coated hand in the direction of the makeshift doorway. The shards of rock reformed themselves and sealed shut with a kissing sound that reminded Sam of fish sucking the surface of a pond.
The room was pure, unbroken white except for the black door. Sam went over and found no handle. He put his shoulder against the door, but just as he was about to push, May stopped him.
“We will go into town tomorrow. For now, you must get some sleep.”
“Here?” Sam asked, looking around. He had slept in more uncomfortable places than a bare floor before, but after all he’d been through, he desperately wanted any sort of bed.
“If you would like.” She chuckled. “Or…”
She pushed open a hidden section of the white wall. It opened forward, the light from the hallway only revealing a few details.
May put her hand on Sam’s back and ushered him into the shadowy room. After a moment, she cleared her throat, and a light flickered on.
The inside was cut from the same rock as the walls, which gave the place a cave-like feel. A hammock of green material stretched tight between two freestanding poles. A glass ball floated next to the hammock, giving off the only light. A seat carved from a large stump filled the corner, and a large carpet woven into a beautiful tapestry of purples and yellows covered the floor. Artwork decorated the walls, drawn directly on them like cave paintings, only much more sophisticated than the primitive examples Sam had seen in his history books. A well-detailed landscape of sunflowers decorated the wall above the bed. The stars in the mural twinkled like the real night sky.
“Whisper something nice about me to the light and it will go off. The bathroom is on the right. When you get up, touch the wall. Goodnight, Sam. Travel well in your dreams.”
And with that, May closed the door, leaving Sam alone.
He had a million questions to ask, but exhaustion was a powerful de-motivator. He had never spent the night in a hammock before, but at this point he was more than willing to try. After pulling out and eating a bit more of the dreckler cotton, he took off his cleats, which had accumulated more than a fair share of dirt from the forest, and he fell back into the green material.
Sam’s body was cradled only by the portion of the green ropes he lay directly on. It felt like he was floating.
“May is pretty,” Sam whispered.
“How pretty?” the light asked in M
ay’s voice.
“Um…” Sam had never spoken to a lamp before. “Pretty as that painting?”
The light faded and Sam was left in darkness.
It took no time for him to fall asleep.
CHAPTER 7
Blue flame erupted from Vigtor LaVink’s palm as he slammed it against the jade table. The outburst did not surprise the other ten Elite; it was his way of releasing anger. Vigtor lifted his arm and pointed at Saria. The scaly, black second-skin shifted with an oily ease on his hand. He had taken the skin, forcefully, from the last armor-belly to walk the earth.
“Just when we are given a gift, you let it get snatched away.”
“It was May.” Saria sneered. “She showed up just before we did.”
“And…?” Vigtor’s scowl deepened as he waited for a better explanation.
“And,” Sage butted in, relieving her twin sister, “May took the boy under.”
“And did you follow?”
“Yes, of course,” Saria spat. “But, it was May.”
“You were the one looking out of that flathand’s eyes. Do you know how lucky it was to come across the boy so quickly? What happened?”
“I willed the flathand strict instructions not to let anyone know where he put the boy, but it appears that May released him.”
Vigtor smiled. “She’s getting better.”
Crom gave a loud, throaty snort.
“Something to add?”
Crom’s massive body rose from his seat. His robe didn’t do much to hide his bulging muscles. Even though Crom was across the table, Vigtor had to raise his eyes with the rest of the Tembrath Elite to see his face. A full two heads taller than any of them, with power to match, Crom was the only member of the Tembrath Elite Vigtor worried about trying to seize leadership.
“We don’t need him,” Crom’s booming voice echoed in the chamber. “You’re getting weak.”
Vigtor made a scooping motion with his covered hand and long rods of golden light appeared in front of him. Like arrows, the rods shot into Crom’s robe and sent him flying against the back wall, pinning him there.
“I do not lose strength.” Vigtor gave a mirthless smile. “Only patience.”
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