The Lord of the Rust Mountains

by Kanata Yanagino

  I caught the blade in its antlers and tugged the wilderdemon towards me. It stumbled wildly. Because it was being dragged around by the antlers, its neck was being wrenched about, and it couldn’t keep its balance.

  There is a close connection between your sense of balance and the angle of your neck, which is why it suddenly becomes difficult to balance on one foot when you’re looking directly upwards. All that considered, no experiments would be necessary to answer whether a person could keep their balance while having their neck forcibly twisted.

  I dragged the demon to the ground and flowed into a downward swing of the spear. A spear wasn’t just a stabbing weapon; the handle I held in my hand was over two meters long and made to withstand full-force collisions. If I swung it down with all my might, that strength and its centrifugal force would come together to make my spear nothing less than an absolutely brutal blunt instrument.

  I slammed it down. I heard, and felt, the demon’s antlers and skull break. A roar of pain rang through the forest.

  Even then, the cernunnos made a frenzied attempt to fight back—it was a General, after all—but that resistance was very short-lived.

  ◆

  By the time I’d made sure the wilderdemon had turned to ash, and claimed the halberd left behind, Menel had already completed his work.

  “Phew.”

  I hadn’t noticed because I’d been incredibly preoccupied, but he looked exhausted. His silver hair was dull with dirt, and unless I was seeing things, even his cheeks looked a little sunken. Menel had been the one with the most exhausting job this time around, so it was probably only natural.

  All this had started on the day of the summer solstice, when snowdrops had blossomed out of season. By the time a few days had passed, a completely peculiar situation had developed, where all the fruit was overripe and falling rotten off the trees, and the trees were growing rapidly and dying at random, and eventually, even the wild animals and the fairies were going mad and wreaking havoc.

  Menel was quick to notice something was wrong, and told me with a sour look on his face that the woods were being thrown out of kilter. Since we happened to be stopping in Whitesails at the time, His Excellency Ethel asked us to resolve the situation, and we accepted. And where we headed was the domain of the Lord of Oak.

  According to Menel, the woods in the area were ruled from the winter solstice to the summer solstice by the Lord of Oak, and from the summer to the winter by the Lord of Holly.

  He told me that on the winter solstice, the day that marks the return to spring when the sun recovers its shine, the Lord of Oak takes over sovereignty from the Lord of Holly. Then the sun rises and sets, and when it reaches the summer solstice, when all its best days are over, the Lord of Oak hands its sovereignty back to the Lord of Holly once more.

  As he described it, it was the relationship between the two great and ancient Twins, also referred to as the Fraternal Kings, that maintained the cycle of nature in these woods. That was why we’d headed to see the Lord of Oak. The natural order of the woods had gone wrong the moment the summer solstice passed, so Menel had reasoned that the Lord of Oak must not have handed over the sovereignty for some reason, or perhaps was in a state where he couldn’t hand it over.

  But that turned out not to be the case. In the woods’ other domain, the incarnation of the Lord of Oak appeared before us and told us that the problem was the Lord of Holly, who was in a state where he couldn’t accept sovereignty over the woods. Because of this, the Lord of Oak said, the sovereignty had remained with him for too many cycles of the sun and moon, and many abnormalities were starting to occur in the woods.

  The sovereignty the Twins possessed was a powerful thing and would bring only harm unless it was passed into the proper hands at the proper time. It would not be long before the forest suffered a critical failure that would damage it so badly that it would be unable to fully recover for a good many years.

  I asked if there was any way to surrender the sovereignty, and the Lord of Oak answered that it could not be relinquished unless someone showed himself strong enough to be fit to receive it, as the Lord of Holly had for him and as he had for the Lord of Holly. His voice sounded as if he had given up on everything and accepted his doom.

  “Then leave it to me,” Menel said vehemently. “Great Lord of Oak, please, entrust your sovereignty to me.”

  But the incarnation of the Lord of Oak told him it was impossible. Perhaps it could have been done, he said, if Menel was one of the earliest generation of elves created by the god of the fae Rhea Silvia herself; but as he was, with his half-human blood, he wouldn’t last more than a month bearing the burden of the sovereignty of the woods.

  “If I can last a whole entire month, we’re good. We two’ll solve the rest.”

  The Lord of Oak was silent for a while, and then said, “But if the Lord of Holly is already lost, your soul will come to ruin after a month.”

  “Ya, I guess it will.”

  “Why would you go so far?”

  “Because I swore to atone for my sins and live a positive, forward-looking life.” There wasn’t a hint of embarrassment in Menel’s voice as he told this to the lord of the woods. “That was the vow I made to a great god through my friend, who rescued the soul of someone I owed a lot to. That’s it, no other reason.”

  The Lord of Oak fell quiet again. After a long silence, Menel’s self-imposed challenge earned his approval, and he declared that he would set a trial for Menel.

  “This trial is a secret rite of the woods. You—strong warrior, wielder of magic, agent of the god of the flame—you have no right to join him.”

  “I understand that,” I said. Menel and I looked at each other; I nodded to him, then turned back to the Lord of Oak and said, “I’ll wait. Right here, for as many days as it takes.”

  “I’m not gonna take that long, brother.” Menel laughed and told me to quit worrying. Then he and the incarnation of the Lord of Oak left me behind and headed into the depths of the lord’s domain.

  I never found out what happened in there, how much hardship Menel had to endure, or what he had to overcome. But after I had waited patiently for one night, he came back the following morning with a face full of fatigue, but smiling proudly in spite of it.

  After that, we immediately headed for the domain of the Lord of Holly.

  The rest of the journey proceeded wonderfully swiftly. Now that Menel had received sovereignty over the woods, not a single tree or bush obstructed his path. We discovered demons in the Lord of Holly’s domain, destroyed them, and that was everything up to the present moment.

  “...”

  I was kind of getting the feeling that problems caused by demons were on the rise again around here recently.

  There were some that we’d handled ourselves, and others that we’d just heard reports of from other adventurers after they’d solved the issue independently. They were all kinds of different incidents, really, but... now that things had escalated to demons capable of breaching the domain of a forest lord and laying a curse upon it, I felt that things were getting a little bit serious.

  As I wondered what was behind all of this, my mind was filled with a hazy sense of anxiety difficult to put into words. It was like I was overlooking something, but I had no idea what.

  My thoughts were interrupted by a voice.

  “You, children of men.”

  ◆

  I looked to see another person’s figure at the altar. Wait, was it actually a person? People didn’t have skin like bark, and they certainly didn’t have plant leaves and ivy in place of scalp and facial hair. But both Menel and I had a familiarity with this figure’s appearance; the incarnation of the Lord of Oak had looked very similar.

  “I am the Lord of Holly,” said the incarnation in a gentle tone. “Truly I thank you and commend you for your valor in removing those brazen invaders, and for your bravery in traveling to this domain to transfer the sovereignty. But first, I must restore order to these woo
ds. A moment, if you will.”

  The lord’s incarnation spread his arms. A recitation I couldn’t understand spun fluidly from his mouth. This Word was probably another of the woods’ secrets, and might even have been completely unknown to humans.

  A short while after he began reciting, the ground gradually began to rumble. Tremors emanating from the old tree known as the Lord of Holly could be felt through the whole domain. They continued for a while, and then gradually settled. The moment they could no longer be felt, the change occurred.

  Jets of clean water spurted one after another from the toxic bog that surrounded us. Menel could have done something similar when he had been in possession of the sovereignty, but not on anywhere near this scale. The poison was washed away with the force of a tsunami, and in no time at all, it had been diluted to nothing.

  Many trees had succumbed to the cursed poison and withered, some falling down tragically and others dying upright; but now, life sprouted from them and grew before my eyes, becoming seedlings, then saplings, then adult trees, and blossoming with all the flowers of summer. A fresh scent drove out the foul odor. Plants, flowers, and mushrooms began to spring up around the trees. The life of the woods returned to the poison-damaged earth. Leaves grew, the wind danced, and glittering beams of sunlight shone through the trees.

  “Wow...” Like watching a film being played in reverse, it was a sight of rebirth that shook the soul. Even Menel was captivated by it. “Lord of the Woods, huh. He’s using that crazy power like it’s a natural extension of his body...”

  Menel had groaned with pain every night while the sovereignty had been with him. Even though he hardly even used its power, the simple act of holding it within his body had caused him such great pain that even my benediction couldn’t ease it.

  Menel shrugged a little, accepting this as the difference between a person and a Lord of the Woods. But then the Lord of Holly spoke, having now completed his recitation in its entirety. “This is thy future also, child of man and fae.”

  Those words seemed to stun Menel. Finally, he said, “What?”

  “The sovereignty of the woods dwelt in thy body for a time. Gone though it now may be, the blood and power of man and fae already flowing in thee have begun to incline to the fae and steadily become more fit for a Lord of the Woods.”

  “Huh?” I froze in surprise as well.

  “Worry not. The change is not immediate.”

  Easier said than done, I thought... and Menel still looked frozen.

  “Umm... What’s going to happen to him?” I asked.

  The Lord of Holly answered, but to Menel. “If thou dost not neglect thy training, thou wilt live far longer than a century, and thereafter become a new Lord of the Woods.”

  At about that point, Menel finally started working again. “Ohh... ohh, uh...” Menel clapped a hand to his forehead as if he were fishing up some old memory. “Now that you mention it, back in my old home, I heard the oldest of the elves talking about this once. Elves acknowledged by a forest lord form a contract with him, and when their life draws to an end, they go into the forest before passing away. Their body becomes a wild animal, or a boulder, or a tree...”

  And their soul became a lord who ruled over the forest.

  “Yes. Thou madest such a contract with my brother, the Lord of Oak.”

  “That’s not what I thought I was doing.”

  “Be that as it may, such is signified by thy acceptance of the woods’ sovereignty, sapling.”

  “Can I refuse?”

  “It is possible. Thou could die as a human, were that thy desire.”

  “I see...”

  “Think not of it now, but the time shall come.”

  Menel nodded, his jade eyes remaining firmly fixed on the Lord of the Woods. His expression was serious.

  “And to thou, human child, disciple of the flame. There is something I must tell thee.” The Lord of Holly turned his gaze to me. “Thou surely knowest of the mountain range to the west, rich in reddish-brown stone.”

  “Do you mean... the Rust Mountains?”

  Their color was said to come from large deposits of red iron ore.

  “Indeed.”

  The lord’s incarnation nodded and opened its mouth. What followed was a fluid and foreboding stream of words.

  “In a future not far off for you men, the fire of dark disaster shall catch in the mountains of rust. That fire shall spread, and this land may all be consumed.”

  “Uh...”

  “The wilderdemon also came from those mountains of rust. That land is now a den of demons, wherein the great lord of miasma and wicked flame slumbereth upon the mountain people’s gold. Fightest or acceptest thou this future, be thou ready, for that day shall not be long in coming.” The words spoken from the mouth of the Lord of Holly echoed with the weight of a prophecy around the forest domain.

  “Aren’t you gonna do anything about it?” Menel asked him pointedly.

  However, the Lord of Holly’s reply was blunt. “If I am to perish, that too is fate.”

  He seemed to be passive by nature. The Lord of Oak had been the same.

  “To us, the fire of destruction leads to rebirth. Humans may again disappear from this continent, demons may flourish, the lord of wicked fire may roar as he will. It is no matter; the woods will live on.”

  All around, newly grown trees that had sprouted from those that had fallen waved in the breeze. Nothing more needed to be said.

  “Therefore, child of man, sapling: this is a warning, and also my duty.”

  It was his duty to us, who had righted the problems with the sovereignty and fought for no reward.

  “I promise you a bountiful harvest this autumn.”

  With that, the incarnation of the Lord of Holly disappeared.

  ◆

  “Lord of the Woods. God...”

  The two of us talked as we walked back.

  When we traveled through the forest, Menel would normally use his elementalist techniques to get the trees to open a path for us, but the routes he took now were... more than that. He ducked behind trees and between large boulders, taking me along trails with unreal scenery and cavorting fairies glittering gold.

  “This way.”

  “A-Are you sure?”

  “No sweat. I can tell. Uh, I’ve become able to tell.”

  On the boundary between the invisible world inhabited by those not human and the transient world in which we spent our lives were the fairy trails. They were a mystery of the woods, and any ordinary person who became lost and wandered into them would face the consequences. Menel passed through these trails one after another as if they were simple shortcuts.

  The air was cool, and it felt like the wind itself was sparkling. Night and day traded places at a dizzying pace. The leaves of the trees, wriggling like living creatures, were even more vibrant and richer in color than during the season of new green leaves. And when darkness fell, it was deeper than any night in the transient world. The glittering fairies blinked on and off in the jet-blackness as they laughed together and fluttered from place to place.

  I couldn’t deny that the sight was fantastic, but...

  “If I lose sight of you, I’m going to be in big trouble...”

  From all over, I could hear the sweet yet ominous laughter of the fairies. Not all of the laughs I could hear were welcoming; some were laughs intended to threaten the foreign humans, others the kind of insulting and mocking laughs that might feature in disturbing fairy tales. It was scary.

  An unusually powerful concentration of mana was swirling around. My skin was tingling the same way it did when I used a powerful Word. I swallowed.

  “Don’t worry, I’m not gonna lose sight of you. Even if you do get lost, I can search you out and pull you back in.”

  “I didn’t know you could do that...”

  “Can now, yeah. Not too happy about it, to be honest.”

  It seemed that having once had the sovereignty dwelling inside him, its e
ffects were still lingering. He’d been a talented elementalist in the first place, and now he had climbed a few rungs higher still—or maybe I should say he had been forcibly pulled up.

  “I was planning on getting there on my own,” Menel muttered. It sounded like things were complicated. “Eh, whatever. Power’s power, whether it’s handed to me or not. I’ve just gotta get used to it and make it my own. Same thing in the end.”

  As always, Menel was very swift to accept and adapt. He must have been thinking that power was power, whether you were given it or developed it yourself, and the only question was whether you could wield it effectively when you wanted to.

  “Well, stuff like powers, I can go through and test out one by one. The real question is the whole ‘becoming a forest lord’ thing. What’s your view on that, Will?”

  “It’s pretty incredible, but it’s such an overwhelming thing to imagine I don’t really know what to think, I guess.”

  “I know what you mean.”

  I couldn’t see anything particularly different about Menel’s profile as he walked alongside me. Just like usual, he was walking at a fixed pace while occasionally glancing around to make sure nothing was out of the ordinary. “Longer than a century, as the Lord of Holly put it... We’re talking about after my life runs out in two, three hundred years, maybe even further in the future than that... a world that far in the future.”

  I found it very hard to imagine. “I’ll be dead by then.”

  “Yeah.” Menel nodded. “I’ll keep watch over your grave, see how the lives of your kids and your grandkids play out... Well, I guess I’ll be pretty settled by then, come to think of it.”

  “You were planning to do all that...”

  “Damn right I was. You’ve done way too much for me.” He didn’t even hesitate.

  I had no idea how to respond to something like that. But I could tell he was serious, so I just nodded solemnly and didn’t make a joke out of it.

  “But yeah... After all that’s over, maybe becoming one with the mountains and the woods wouldn’t be a bad way to live.”