Below the canopy of Giant Pines the forest was roomier than it appeared above. The colossal trees gave a wide berth of space from one another. Great roots arched from the ground creating archways that rivaled most of the stone cities Vegard had seen. He walked under some, over others. Great dips in the forest required him to balance across roots that traveled across the distance. Some so large it was like a brisk walk across a bridge. “Giants and bridges…more of which I wished not to see for some time.”
The purple light consisted throughout his journey, although from where the light was emitting, he couldn’t figure. The torches always seemed to be just around another bend, right behind this particular tree trunk. But every time there was nothing. Nothing but another light emitted from the distance, around a grouping of trees, or over another hill. It was like chasing the horizon. No matter where you stood it was always in the distance.
Adding to this place’s absurdity, Vegard regularly came across stone carvings and statues. Runes shaped from branches hanging from trees like solstice decorations. Each different, each powerful, he could feel. In fact, this whole place felt powerful, like old-world magic. At the corner of his eyes he spotted large creatures watching him just to have them vanish when he turned his head or be a twisted structure that looked humaniod.
“I have a feeling, soul, that they already know we are here.” Vegard whispered. And, yet, he continued forward. He hadn’t a logical reason for going the direction he was going. He just knew he was headed the right way. Or was being guided thusly.
Vegard climbed over a few sharp boulders to stop suddenly at the bottom of a steep cliff wall. As his eyes scaled the formation he realized the whole thing had been carved and shaped. At the top, carved out of the cliff stone was a large, bald, rounded head. The eyes were the size of humans by themselves. The mouth was open and a thick tree root grew out of it like a horribly large, burrowing worm. Vegard swallowed hard, shuddering.
As he scanned down the cliff he realized the cliffside had been carved even further. Elegant robes popped from the solid rock, and one bare arm snaked its way down ending at Vegard’s feet. The ‘sharp boulders’ he had crawled over were actually the statue’s fingers curling up from the ground. He leapt off them and to the side.
“Well, that is disturbing.”
He couldn’t make out the culture of the human carved in stone. Round and feminine but exotic and powerful. Although, Vegard thought, perhaps the power came from its sheer size. The statue, if living, could have gripped the giant he had toppled into the ravine with one hand and flung him to this stupid merchant he was tasked to kill.
If only…magic never worked like one would like it to.
And yet as gargantuan and disturbing the stone figure was to Vegard he began to ascend the length of the arm. Where smooth stone and moss caused wary feet the warlock would grab at brush and tree branches to pull himself along safely. The forest grew everywhere. Seemed to him that the forest could not be denied its dominance on this part of the continent. Even something as grand and holy as this statue would have to bend to the wills of nature.
At the elbow Vegard was more than fifty feet in the air. The elbow pushed into the carved robe of the godly figure in the cliff, and where the two met there was as darkened fold in the cloth. Vegard crept forward on all fours, leaned against the stone alcove and realized he was staring into a cave. The rock was beautifully and deceptively crafted to look like nothing more than folded cloth around smooth skin. But in the fold was a perfect tunnel into the cliff side.
Vegard crawled inside the tunnel. Strings of beads and dark feathers were draped every twenty feet or so down the path. Vegard pushed them aside warily, expecting at any moment to be pounced upon. But the further he went the less likely it seemed it would happen. The curtains of colored beads and feathers were none two alike. Each had a different pattern, he noticed. Three red beads and a feather, two yellow beads, one purple, and a feather…
The patterns were all different. Somehow important. Vegard held a bead up to his face. They were wooden with carved runes in each. Red had a particular rune, yellow, and so on. He attempted to yank them out of the ceiling, more out of curiosity than anything else, but they held like iron chains.
“Of course you would.” He whispered to the dark. The magic of this place was palpable. It stood out boldly where elsewhere in the world it was merely wielded like a tool, a weapon. Here it was as much a part of everything as…well, everything.
The cave opened after a time to a large expanse of cavern. There was a water fall across the chamber with a lighted portal beyond it, like a sun shining in the subterranean place. Vegard assumed he would just have to crawl through the falls to continue on. There were no other walkways or paths that he could spot and it wasn’t likely, in his estimate, that someone would’ve gone through the trouble of decorating the entrance with magic if this was just a simple dead end.
He couldn’t figure what was emitting the light beyond the falls. The invisible purple torches had vanished upon leaving the forest. This light source flared like a great heatless fire. Vegard stomped through the foot of water that gathered in the middle of the cavern. All pretense of stealth had left him as weariness was like to drop him to his knees at any moment. The warlock had an empty stomach and no weapons to speak of, besides one that required on another soul to feed from.
He crawled lazily over large roots that found there way into even the cavern itself. He stumbled forward through cavernous foliage and slow moving water to finally stand in front of the waterfall with the hidden light source behind.
“Okay…” Vegard tentatively probed both hands through the falls. And stopped. It was solid rock behind. His fingers groped and searched curiously but nothing. Sticking his head through got him much of the same experience. Water from the falls obscured his vision but his forehead didn’t lie. It was nothing but rough solid stone he was scratching his brow against.
“What in the gods!?” He yelled, pounding his fists frustratingly at the water. He whipped his body around making another scan of the room. Tree roots, water fall, light source…what was he missing? The water from the falls fell through small cracks in the cavern base. Nothing he could squeeze even his slender frame into. Now what?
He shook the water from himself like an animal and went about reforming his thoughts. He cupped his hands at the waterfall and drank heartily. “At least I won’t die from thirst.” He laughed, voice echoing across the chamber. “Positivity will just have me starve to death, instead.”
Vegard looked about the cave from his perch next to the falls. The falls came from somewhere high above in the blackness of the ceiling where the light did not touch. He couldn’t make out a ladder or foot holds etched anywhere in the walls. And still the sun beyond the falls was shining through, taunting him with its oddity.
Perhaps this was a place of prayer? The light being some magical torch. Vegard definitely felt an almost tangible energy emanating in the air.
He took a deep breath feeling a wave enter him, warm and revitalizing. His pearly soul illuminated with the surge of vitality that he himself experienced. “You feel it too, huh?” Vegard let his warlock magic pulse, by all rights he shouldn’t have had anything to give, but there it was. His eyes blackened and muscles tightened and soared.
He turned from the falls then stopped suddenly. Looking down at the body of water in the middle of the cavern was his reflection. The waterfall, the sun, and Vegard’s silhouette clear and vivid on the still body of water. There was but one difference, though. Smooth stone steps leading up to the falls were reflected in the water like gray ripples. Vegard lifted his boots as if these steps were suddenly under his feet. They weren’t. There was a difference in what the water was reflecting and what existed under the warlock himself.
He cautiously moved toward the pool. Crawling on his knees he dipped his hands in the reflective, dark pool and felt the steps that appeared on its calm surface. He edged forward,
descending into the pool inch by inch. Each boot met a step downward.
At chest level he chanced a look back at the waterfall with its light source shining eerily through. The steps he was descending were still not visible in the ‘world’, as he understood it. He shrugged and took a deep breath before plunging his head down within the cavernous pool.
CHAPTER NINE
The Forge
The world was dark save for the steps that continued down into the blackness. Vegard felt weightless here. He was not floating like he had expected to underwater, although his clothes and hair swam about as if those truths were still in place. His physical body still reacted much like it would’ve on the surface. He looked up to the surface of the water. It danced a little, rippling with the warlock’s descent but was otherwise unchanged. The cavern above appeared indistinct and phantasmal, as he imagined it would. So he pressed onward.
An archway appeared at the bottom of the steps. A arch formed by tree branches that were twisted and weaved together. Through the archway Vegard stood at the entrance of a beautiful grotto. Green water was level to his knees, stalagmites hung from the ceiling precariously close to the warlock’s head. A head that was trying to wrap its way around all this wizardry. His thoughts floated much like his hair and clothes. It was hard to deduce in this place.
Vegard shook the cobwebs from his mind. As his eyes opened he could finally see the source of light that was hidden behind the cavern falls.
A blazing forge rested in the middle of the grotto made of large slabs of black rock laid in a circle. “Devils stone.” Vegard muttered, his words steaming from his lips for no reason he could think of besides that it was a haunting dreamscape and his body was probably laying dead somewhere in the Dark Forest.
Vegard splashed through the warm grotto waters to reach the ominous glowing hearth. He slid his fingers across the polished stone. More runes were carved into the stone, much like the bead curtains he’d passed through earlier. Inside the forge the stones burned like the eyes of a berserker; blood red and angry. They snapped at him, wanted an item to bend to their will, to shape into something worthy. Vegard had nothing. No weapon except those dark powers he had forged during the war.
you forged nothing. The coals read his thoughts and whispered to him. Their collective voices like sizzling water.
“Of course I did.” Vegard said, whipping his hair back defiantly. “I came to this forest many years ago. I learned these ways. Look!” He flared his powers, eyes darkening and power billowing from his body.
you wield blunted stone.
Vegard laughed. “So taunting for a pile of rocks! You doubt my abilities!? Let’s find this voice talking to me, eh? See how mocking you’ll be then!” He smiled as he probed his powers deep into the burning forge.
The orange coals screamed as Vegard’s power sunk deep into them. A scream as if muffled underwater. Vegard couldn’t help but feel satisfaction at the noise. He’d felt so vulnerable for so long. It was nice to be the one tormenting, for once. Vegard’s eyes dashed open as he felt a sudden jerk.
“Huh…” He realized that both his arms were elbow deep in the forge. The rocks sizzling and cooking his skin. His tunic singed and blackened, twisting up like a dying snake.
“Oh, shit!” He screamed as he desperately pulled and pulled trying to free his arms. But they held like a solid wall. “Let go of me, you demonic pile of rocks! Let go!” His flesh continued to sizzle, his skin bubbling where visible, his elbow blackening to cinders.
must break weak flesh. The forge hissed.
Vegard pushed with his legs against the forge. His whole body heaved. He summoned darkness from inside, enhancing his strength two fold. His soul hovered by his shoulder. Its pearly exterior brightening with intensity. Vegard began to pull from his spirit, as well. Anything to aid in his escape. Anything to become stronger!
“Help me, little one!” His soul burst with light and Vegard drank from it. He felt its power surge into him—and yet his arms were still cooking within the flame. The blackness crawled up from his elbows to his biceps. It was like a diseased limb poisoning the entire body. Vegard felt frantic. His thoughts flashed in front of his eyes. Any idea dashed away with the intense pain and furious desperation.
use the forge. sharpen yourself.
“You cryptic piece of…!” Vegard cut himself off with a bellowing, earth shaking scream. The grotto itself shook with his power. The warlock and his shining star of a soul burning to a crescendo of flowing dark energy.
Vegard tore his hands from the burning stone. His body splashing in the knee deep emerald waters of the grotto. The Skisssssss sound of his arms cooling in the subterranean water was like a fine wine to Vegard’s ears. Bubbles steamed from his blackened arms. Vegard didn’t have the mind to worry about their charred appearance, at the moment. He was free.
His body floated in the soothing water. His insides burned with an excess of dark energy that steamed visibly forth in the forge grotto. Vegard could have slept there. It was the closest thing to a bed he would have had in over a week. His insides were like an oven. He had never had such an abundance of soul energy before.
His fingers danced beneath the warm pool. They grazed lazily around the time-worn stone and slid across the thin layer of slimy moss. “At least I can still move my fingers.” His words barely a whisper heard below the peaceful waters. “Although, I suppose I’m a bit disfigured now.” It didn’t matter much to the warlock. He was used to being shunned and hated by society. What was another arbitrary factor they could judge him for?
His hand stopped at an odd shaped rock. Colder than the rest. His fingers examined the piece, drawing a mental picture for Vegard as they moved around it. It was not a stone, at all, he realized. It was metal and smooth.
A weapon? All of this felt too much like a dream. The edges of this reality were blurred and indistinct.
Vegard was so lost in thought that he hadn’t noticed the large force that had slithered into the room and was looming over him until it was starting directly down at the warlock.
The force appeared born from shadow and blackness. A mass of dark void given shape. It appeared from where Vegard had entered. The creature was shaped like a giant bull with four arms that sprouted from its side like a spider and a body that trailed off into the distance as far as could be seen.
Vegard had no words for a creature like this one. Its appearance defied sanity. Its menacing girth defied its silent approach.
Yet, as unreal as the creature appeared to be its clawed hand felt real enough, gripped around the tender throat of the warlock. Vegard was yanked from the water with the strength of a giant. The shadowy thing held its prey in front of what Vegard assumed was its face, yet it had no noticeable facial features. Its body was an unstable mass, constantly shifting.
A bija!? It was the only creature Vegard could think of. Unintelligible beasts from the jarro realm, Arkyamish. Vegard wasn’t sure if he was correct or not. His brain needed some sense of stability. An answer to this mass of madness holding him in the air.
The bija opened its mouth and roared. A sound that first exploded in the distance and rippled a high pitched tone up close, as if everything about this thing was backwards. Its other claws looking ready to dissect their prey. Two of them propped the bija’s body up, the third moved its shadowed claw closer to the warlock’s belly.
“Stop!” Vegard bellowed. His body pulsed. A shockwave that seemed to halt the bija for a brief moment.
Vegard was still crackling inside with infernal energy. I am not powerless. He thought. His fingers had dragged that metal from the emerald pool when the bija had pulled him forth. He now saw that the object was a sleek ebony short sword as dark as his arms were black.
The creature tilted its dark bull head to the side in confusion. Apparently this wasn’t a simple toy the bija had in its hand. Perhaps it was something more dangerous. Vegard confirmed its animalistic curiosity with a powerful slic
e of his new blade. The warlock coated the steel with power and cleaved through the wrist holding his throat.
The living shadow screamed. Again the booming echo coming from behind the warlock while the high-pitched squeal came from the front. The scream gave the impression of multiple enemies in the cramped grotto.
The claw around Vegard’s neck leaked into the air like smoke then melted away entirely.
“I’ve seen too many creatures from other realms, as of late!” Vegard pointed his sword at the bija, his body still steaming with dark power. “It is time one of you was taught a lesson.” He used his weapon as a conductor and began to pull life from the demon-spawn, much like he had used his hands and eyes in the past. He had never tried it with a tool before but the warlock felt an odd familiarity with this weapon. As if the ebony sword was a lost extension of himself.
The bija writhed in pain, it barked with repeated otherworldly yelps, before whipping its body to the side like a snake and backhanding the warlock away. The strike was quick and powerful. Vegard’s reality seemed to shake loose. He was quite sure the slap had made him dumber and would have broken every bone in his body if not for his powered state.
Vegard’s body skipped across the grotto and slammed into the cave wall, a wall much softer in contrast to the bija’s knuckles.
Vegard quickly began to heal himself as the creature slithered its bull form closer. It limped oddly because of its lost appendage. Just as the creature was upon him once more Vegard unleashed a burn and torched the jarro’s insides.
He wasn’t sure if it would work. Wasn’t sure if the denizens of Arkyamish even had souls to burn. Apparently, they did. The creature howled and quaked. It tossed and whipped about the grotto. Its girth tearing chunks of rock from the ceiling and walls.
A Forgotten Soul: The Vegard Orlo Saga Page 7
