by C. Greenwood
His tone grew lighter. “Besides, it is the quickest route on our way to the mountains.”
He offered a surprisingly sturdy shoulder to lean on while Geveral climbed awkwardly out of the back of the wagon. Beneath his wrinkled skin and beggar’s rags it seemed the old man was not quite as feeble as Geveral had first imagined.
“We will camp here for the night,” Janya said. “I have already gathered firewood for warmth as I mean to sleep beneath the trees. Too long I have dwelled in men’s cities, resisting the call of leaf and shadow.”
He pressed a walking stick into Geveral’s hand, a strong straight branch of elderwood.
“Found it among the trees,” Janya explained. “Put your weight on the stick instead of the leg, and you’ll do less hopping and hobbling.”
He was right. With the aid of the staff, Geveral was able to get around a little more easily. It was good to be free of the enclosed wagon for a while.
But he had one concern. He saw no sign of Kalandhia. The dragon seemed to have abandoned them since they entered the forest. Maybe the same instinct that frightened travelers away from these woods had affected the dragon too. Or perhaps the creature had simply satisfied itself that Geveral was in safe hands and had flown away to return to whatever far away home it came from.
As he and the old mage sat on fallen logs around the campfire, Geveral tried not to feel betrayed by the dragon’s leaving. The beast had repaid the debt for its rescue. It owed him nothing more. There was no use thinking how much longer the journey before him would become now that he could not cover the distance on the back of the dragon.
* * *
His thoughts were uneasy that night. He had been given the use of the wagon’s narrow bed while Janya preferred to sleep outdoors on the hard ground beneath the trees. But Geveral felt no more comfortable for the softness of cushions and blankets. The back doors of the wagon were left open to admit fresh air and whatever faint glow of moonlight could penetrate the thick branches overhead.
Each time he woke in the restless night, his eyes were drawn toward the misshapen shadows of the trees outside. In the darkness, their twisted forms loomed threateningly. One moment Geveral was unnerved by them. The next he pitied them, feeling they were somehow in pain.
When he finally fell into a deep sleep, his dreams were full of confusion, of wandering lost down dark forest paths lined by trees that sighed in sorrow or writhed in pain. Overhead, thunder rumbled and the naked branches of trees stabbed at the sky. Storm clouds rolled in and streaks of lightning zigzagged above, clashing together to form a forked pattern that glowed blue against the clouds.
Now that forked pattern was everywhere Geveral looked, etched into the trunks of trees and scratched into the earth at his feet. Strangely afraid of the pattern, he ran through his dream. But no matter how far or how fast he went, he could not escape the design as it rose in the mist before him.
There was another loud clap of thunder, and Geveral started upright. He lay on the ground, soaked to the bone, cold rain streaming down on him. At first he didn’t know where he was. Then he recognized the near trees, the wagon not far away, and the fitful glow of the campfire struggling to stay alight beneath the falling rain.
Janya appeared, wrapped in a cloak, at his side.
“Do you often walk in your sleep?” the old mage asked.
“Never,” Geveral answered, crawling to his feet. “I have no memory of leaving the wagon.”
Janya nodded. “Blightwood affects some folk in mysterious ways,” was all he said.
It must have affected Geveral a great deal, for he had not even brought his walking stick with him but had somehow limped or dragged himself outdoors without waking.
“The storm is worsening,” Janya said. “We had best take shelter.”
With Geveral leaning on the old man for support, they crossed the clearing and entered the safety of the dry wagon. Janya stoked up the fire in the little stove and closed the doors tight against the storm.
Over the noise of the rain drumming down on the roof, Geveral struggled to explain his strange dream and to describe the forked blue pattern that had followed him throughout it.
Janya showed recognition at mention of the blue pattern.
“Long ago,” he told Geveral, “the great weather mages of old bore proof in their flesh of their nature talents. Forked blue patterns of glowing light marked their wrists or their brows. No one knows how they acquired the marks, but these signs proclaimed them to the world as storm summoners. Powers like theirs have long since died out. Today’s mages possess only a shadow of their ancestors’ skills.”
“And this is the same mark that haunted my dream?” Geveral asked, wondering how he could dream of a thing he had never seen or known of. He did not await an answer. “Tell me more about these ancient storm summoners.”
While the wind howled and the rain continued to fall, the two dryads stayed up late, talking of their ancestors and the powers they had commanded in an era so long ago few could remember it.
CHAPTER SIX
The following morning the storm passed, leaving only broken tree limbs and mud puddles as the only proof it had ever been. What little Geveral could see of the morning sky above was now clear and bright. The forest seemed fresher and greener, the air still tinged with the scent of the recent rain.
After Janya had fed and watered the horse, who had weathered last night’s storm well enough, the old man prepared a hasty breakfast of porridge.
Geveral ate with appetite. Then, relieved to find he was now moving with less pain although he still required the walking stick, he explored the woods surrounding the camp.
Janya soon joined him and encouraged him to continue the exercise as long as he was able, working the stiffness out of his hip and leg. While they walked, the old mage pointed out some of the more unusual types of plants and trees they passed. He could name them all and tell in what parts of the kingdom they were typically found.
When they passed one of the dark misshapen elderwoods so common in the forest, Janya explained the tree was sick with a type of fungus that deformed it and covered its bark in cankers.
Moved by pity, Geveral put his hands on the tree’s trunk, pressing his palms flat against the rough bark. He focused inward, as Mentor Kesava had taught him in the old days that now seemed a lifetime ago. He caught a remote sense of suffering, as though felt over a great distance. He tried to communicate peace and healing to the ancient forest sentinel.
He could not be sure if he was successful. But it seemed to him that when he was done, the tree looked less bent and tired than it had before.
Janya looked on approvingly.
* * *
They spent two more days together in the forest of Blightwood. As they traveled, Geveral continued to practice his nature talents with Janya’s encouragement. The old mage rarely gave instructions, his mere presence and rare words of guidance lending Geveral the confidence to again tame the powers that had so often in the past proved too wild for him to manage. He advanced more in those two days under Janya’s watchful eye than he had under years of old Mentor Kesava’s tutelage.
He continued healing the sickest of the trees and honed his ability of growing small plants, another skill he had never really mastered in the years when the block to his magic had still been in place. He even experimented one morning with blanketing the ground in a gentle mist to water the newly sprouted saplings he had coaxed out of the earth the evening before. He still could not bring himself to create a full rain but believed that, in time, he would be ready to command storms again. Not yet, but soon.
His leg continued to recover as well, until only the slightest limp remained. He hardly needed his walking stick any more but continued carrying it even after it was no longer necessary to support his weight. He had grown used to the feel of the strong staff in his hands, to the smoothness of the wood interrupted by the occasional knots that reminded him of the twisted trees from which the branch had come. He h
ad the sense somehow that Blightwood had given the staff to him. It was a gift.
Despite the mental and physical gains he had made in Janya’s company, he was unprepared for what happened next. He was surprised, on the third morning, to wake to find Janya packing a traveler’s sack as if preparing to depart.
“You no longer need my direction,” the old dryad explained casually. “You are well now and equipped to face your destiny. My presence can only hold you back from your aims.”
“How could you possibly do that?” Geveral protested.
“There are enemies out there who wish to destroy you,” Janya reminded him. “At a time when it is best you go undetected, the company of an eternal will only draw attention from unfriendly quarters. You have had a respite here in Blightwood. The forest has granted you that. But hostile presences outside this wood remain greedy to possess the object you carry.”
He indicated the golden scepter Geveral had stowed in a corner of the wagon.
Geveral’s attention was caught. “You have spoken before of the importance of the scepter. What do you know of it?”
Janya’s wrinkled brow lowered, and he pressed his lips together firmly as if to prevent information from escaping them. “I have said enough. I have done all I can to set you on a safe path, but it is not my place to meddle further in the affairs of this age. An eternal alters great events at the world’s peril.”
Seeing he would say no more, Geveral abandoned the matter of the scepter. But he was not yet ready to give up the other question.
“Your training helps me daily to grow in my powers,” he argued. “You cannot leave me so soon with so much yet to learn.”
Janya only smiled and shoved oatcakes and a loaf of crusty bread into the traveler’s sack. “You may not feel it, but you are more ready than you know. You can’t become more so while watched over by me.”
Geveral accepted the mild rebuke. He could not expect Janya to look after him forever. Particularly when his mission led him toward dangers he had no desire to expose the older dryad to.
He took the bag Janya had filled, a waterskin, and a few coins the old man had generously found for him. The supplies should last him as far as his destination, Janya said.
They made their good-byes, and then Janya climbed onto the wagon seat, snapped the reins, and the rickety vehicle rolled forward.
“That path will lead you where you must go,” Janya called back to him, pointing toward the left branch of a fork in the road ahead. He took the right branch himself, and Geveral watched until horse, wagon, and old man had rattled off out of sight down the tree-lined way.
It wasn’t until Janya was gone that Geveral felt for the first time the solitude of Blightwood. A bird screeched overhead, making him jump. It was the first forest creature he had seen since entering the woods.
Shouldering his traveler’s pack, Geveral shook aside his uneasiness and started down the overgrown path that had been indicated. He no longer felt threatened by the trees now that he knew what caused their gloom. It was a simple sickness, not some curse or inward evil that tortured and warped their branches and trunks. But knowing the trees were his friends made him no less nervous about whatever other creatures lurked secretly in the shadows of Blightwood.
The way he followed was narrow, with thick undergrowth creeping in on all sides and drooping branches tangling low overhead. The rocky, uneven path was interrupted regularly by massive coiling roots that had thrust up from the ground, forcing Geveral to clamber over or around them. Much of the daylight was blotted out by the denseness of the trees, giving him the feeling of passing through a long tunnel that only led him deeper and deeper into the endless woods.
It was not a road Geveral would have chosen if it had not been suggested to him.
Still, he toiled on throughout the long day, stopping occasionally to catch his breath, eat a simple meal from his traveler’s pack, and rest his injured hip and leg. The latter soon began to throb. He might have been recovered enough for short walks, but it was now clear he wasn’t yet ready for prolonged exercise.
But there was nothing to do but push on.
* * *
By dusk, Geveral knew he was being hunted. It was more than the creeping sense of being watched by unseen eyes. He had grown used to that feeling in Blightwood. But too many times today he had heard the subtle stirrings among the trees lining the path. Too often he had caught the movement of a shrub or sapling that something concealed itself behind. And once he looked back the way he had come to glimpse, just for an instant, a pair of animal eyes glowing like hot coals out of the gloom.
He had seen eyes like those before. To encounter them again made his heart race and his stomach clench with fear. He knew what stalked him. Worse, he suspected there was more than one of them on his trail.
With forced casualness, he stopped at the next clearing to make camp. Best if they didn’t realize yet that he was aware of their presence. He didn’t want to push them into action before he had time to think, to plan. Injured and unarmed but for his walking stick, he was as good as helpless against predators of this kind.
His mind raced for a solution, even as he worked at building a fire. He tried to hide his clumsy limp as he gathered the dry branches. Tried not to betray his vulnerability. But of course they would already know his condition. They had been watching him all day. Learning his weaknesses. Waiting.
At least he felt a measure of comfort when the campfire flared to life, beating back the nearest shadows and creating a small circle of safety. But the safety was only an illusion, he knew. All the light did was make it easier for him to see his surroundings, putting him on slightly more equal footing with the creatures lurking beyond.
He kept a furtive watch on the darkness and finally saw one large shadow separate itself from the others and slink closer to the ring of light.
Geveral, sitting with his back against the trunk of a solid tree, gripped his staff in his hand and waited. Eventually, they would gather the courage to attack. Probably the only reason they had not done so already was confusion or lack of confidence because their master wasn’t here to command them.
The first time he had encountered these beasts was near Treeveil. They had been driven then by a corpse-like monster with rotting flesh and great metal spikes protruding from its eye sockets. One hunger hound had been killed then, and Geveral and his friends had escaped the remaining two. Later the surviving pair of hounds had attacked again, but after their eyeless master was slain, they were chased away by a rampaging fire scorpion.
Geveral had never expected to face the beasts again. But somehow he had stumbled upon the place where they must have fled. And even after all this time, they clearly still remembered their master’s orders to destroy any catalyst who crossed their path.
When the attack came, it was so sudden Geveral was caught unprepared. One moment he was watching the prowling hunger hound at the edge of the firelight. The next a second immense black shape leaped at him from the opposite direction.
There was a flash of shining black hide, a pair of glaring red eyes and the gleam of bared fangs, and then the hound slammed into him. Knocked sideways to the ground, Geveral found himself on his knees with the teeth of the snarling hound sunk deep into the forearm he had flung up to protect himself.
With a startled cry of pain, he scrambled for the staff that had been knocked from his hand. He found the stick and smashed it down across the beast’s back.
The animal yelped and fell back. But before Geveral could use the brief opportunity to get to his feet, the other hound launched at him.
Sharp pain screamed through Geveral’s cheek as the creature’s vicious teeth raked his flesh. He fell backward and was pinned to the ground beneath the weight of the large animal.
As he saw the dog’s head lowering to rip out his throat, Geveral’s world seemed to stand still. Small details jumped out at him. The leaping flames of the campfire casting shadows over the scene. The second hound drooling in the
background, its red eyes hungry, its skin stretched tight over powerful muscles and a protruding ribcage.
Geveral felt the hard ground beneath him, a lumpy tree root protruding from the earth to jut into his back. Instinctively, unthinkingly, his mind reached out to that thick root and to the looming tree it belonged to. There was no time to communicate or plead for help. He impressed his will on the tree, flooding it with his thoughts.
The ground gave an abrupt shudder. Then large clumps of earth sprayed upward as the great root ripped itself up from the ground. Thicker and stronger than any branch, the coiled root whipped through the air overhead.
Geveral flinched when it snapped downward, but it wasn’t coming for him. The root wrapped quickly around the hunger hound atop him and snatched it up into the air.
The forest floor trembled and holes were rent in the earth. Geveral made it to his feet in time to dodge more writhing tree roots as they erupted from the ground all around him. With a crash, the largest root slammed downward, and Geveral watched, stunned, as all the roots combined to drag the snarling, enraged hunger hound into the ground.
The earth closed up over them and all was silent.
In the sudden stillness, Geveral’s heart thundered loud in his ears. He could hardly believe what he had seen, what he had done. He had reached out to the tree only for an instant, and then the forest sentinel had gone wild and taken over, reacting more powerfully to his suggestion than he could have imagined.
He walked over the torn earth. There was no longer any sign of the hunger hound that had come so close to ripping out his throat. The other hound too had disappeared during the action, probably frightened away. The roiling of the ground had scattered the campfire, and Geveral hurried to gather the burning wood back into a pile before it caught the near trees ablaze.
