by Marc Secchia
“Her magic?” said Kevin, chewing his lip miserably.
“The Glothums had a prodigious dislike for the Faerie peoples, an enmity of origins lost in the mists of time,” explained the Unicorn. “Her kind and any other Faerie were unwelcome in Shilliabär, and the Glothum wizards went to extraordinary lengths to dissuade the Faerie from meddling in their affairs. The anti-glödryan was discovered by chance–a rare weed which is poisonous to the Faerie. The wizards took it, studied it, and after nearly a hundred seasons produced what you see now.”
“P-Poisonous?” Kevin stammered, aghast at seeing the Dryad disappearing beneath the crawling green shoots. He would rather be tortured with hot irons than endure this. “W-Will she d-die?”
“From her own magic,” said he, shaking his horn in agreement. “It isn’t a physical poison, but a magical one, one which turns Faerie magic inside out, so to speak. It is difficult to explain to the uninitiated. Dryads like Alliathiune have the power of growing things, of healing, of making whole. The power of our great Mother-Forest is within her. In a way, she is the Forest. When a Dryad steps upon the anti-glödryan plant, she instinctively tries to protect herself with her magic, but instead of saving herself, dooms herself instead. The plant feeds on her magic. It feeds to grow. Once it has subdued her person, as you see, it stops growing and begins to work more subtly, using her own power against her. Animal will change to vegetable, flesh to plant. Once enough has changed, she will be unable to reverse the process and she will die–usually before the new moon, consumed by the plant. That gives us six lighttimes hence.”
“Hold still!” rapped the Unicorn, freezing Akê-Akê mid-step. “If you interrupt it she will surely die. Wait, and we may yet have a chance.”
Her skin was now nearly completely entwined in a layer of thin green strands. Though each was individually weak, together they formed an impervious cocoon around her body, until she came to resemble nothing more than a giant green pod lying on the forest floor. Even her long hair had been entangled by the plant, as if the least stray strand might prove dangerous.
Shifting from pad to pad as though a swarm of nisk flies were bothering him, Snatcher suddenly ground out, “What chance, good Unicorn? Speak, for the sweet Dryad’s life depends upon it.”
Zephyr sighed and shuffled his hooves. “It is my fault,” he muttered. “I should have remembered the Glothum hatred of Faerie creatures. I did not prepare adequately.” He lowered his head. “There is but one way, good Lurk.”
Snatcher squeezed Kevin’s shoulder gently, making him wince. “Your funereal tone bodes ill, noble Zephyr.”
“There is a Unicorn legend that tells of how the Glothum wizards used upon occasion, when they discovered Faerie persons entrapped by their magic, to remove them back to the city for study and to make an example of them. A particularly nasty version of the legend suggests that they made use of them for, ah …” He took a deep breath and rushed on, “Sprites became decorations, Naiads became fountains, and Dryads became … furniture. It suggests there must be a spell of reversal. If there is, there is only one place it would be found–in the Shilliabär Tower, a wizards’ library. The greatest library in the ancient world. If we can find it, we can hopefully reverse the spell and restore Alliathiune to her former self.”
“And this tower is where?”
“Right in the centre of Shilliabär; perhaps the most dangerous place in the entirety of the Old Forest.”
“One too many ‘ifs’ for my liking,” said Kevin, pale now and trembling. “If this plant is still alive, what other monsters are too?”
Akê-Akê plucked his bowstring meaningfully. “Only speak the word, master, and I shall riddle them with my arrows. When I run out of shafts, I will employ this mace by way of education upon their monstrous skulls, and if I break my weapon, I shall employ my bare hands and my teeth to rend them limb from limb. Though my doom should rise before me like the insatiable maw of Shäyol itself, with my last breath and lifeblood I shall purchase our passage to this Shilliabär Tower!”
Snatcher showed his teeth in a hideous grin. “Well spoken, poetic Faun! I declare in agreement with your vow, that as we are headed towards Shilliabär, we should make no detour where courage might fail us. We should strike for the heart!”
“Right!” And the X’gäthi, as one man, drew their swords in agreement.
“Me too,” Kevin offered meekly.
Zephyr shook his head in disbelief, but pride shone from his eyes. “I am surrounded by fools who dance for joy at the sight of the hangman’s noose! Nevertheless, I say Alliathiune is too good a friend, and too important to our cause, for us to withhold. Let all Glothums beware!”
Upon Zephyr’s word, Snatcher lifted the green cocoon and rolled it into his sling, which he carried crosswise from his right shoulder on his back. Then they set out again, moving more urgently now, pushing along the road at the very edge of caution. Several times, Kevin heard swords swishing ahead of them, but always by the time they arrived the X’gäthi had left a corpse and moved on. Some were bigger than the Lurk.
Darktime brought its own terrors. Shades appeared all around them as if drawn by the smell of living creatures, but Zephyr’s enchantments rendered their poisons harmless and by working in pairs, the X’gäthi warriors were able to slay them before they reached the campfire–which the Unicorn had allowed only because he needed the charcoal to prepare several of his powders. After a while, the Shades stopped coming. But later in the evening they were attacked by Black Wolves, and Goblins, and several other creatures Zephyr had no names for. His magic combined with the X’gäthi martial skills kept them safe, but one of the dark warriors lost his left arm, torn off at the elbow by a creature with a cat’s form and a snake’s scaly hide. No one enjoyed much sleep.
The following lighttime saw an end to the flakebark trees. Dark, tangled underbrush pressed in from every side, all snarled up with brambles and trailing, viciously barbed lorni-vines, and shaded by the vast, pungent kalar trees. To their affliction was added the joy of hacking through the vegetation with their weapons, the bites of grimflies and nisk flies disturbed by their passing, the upraised and gnarled roots of carnivorous tekla bushes, and the constant need to detour around the trunks of the kalar trees, which were often sixty to seventy feet in width and occasionally larger still. Beneath the forest canopy it was oppressively still and humid, despite the season heading toward Feynard’s winter, called Darkenseason. Sweat trickled down their backs and attracted more grimflies, which showed a particular fondness for Human and Unicorn flesh. It was mid-afternoon, when they were all exhausted and hungry and looking out for the first signs of Shilliabär city, that they stumbled upon a Yatakê lair.
Kevin’s weary eyes had detected strong signs of Blight on the leaves of bushes at his eye level. He had just called Zephyr to point this out, when the Unicorn stopped in his tracks and sniffed the air. He turned pale.
A monstrous roar split the air and one of the X’gäthi came flying through the bushes towards them as though shot from a cannon–luckily, gaining a soft landing in a bristling rotorberry bush, but he would be picking thorns out of his hide for the rest of that lighttime.
A great stench of dead things in the height of their corruption and decay preceded the creature. Then the Yatakê pushed into view and all else was forgotten. Kevin’s first impression was of an armoured bear. The snout was long and pointed, packed with triangular teeth more suited to shark, and anchored by a thick-muscled neck to a hulking pair of shoulders comfortably twice the size of Snatcher’s. It brushed aside a maggar tree, ignoring the attacking shadows of X’gäthi warriors. Its red eyes, narrowed with hatred and malice, stared right at Kevin, and when it saw him it reared up on its hind legs and roared a second time. Four great paws spread wide, brandishing for all to see claws like meat-hooks still stained with the blood of its last victim, and a ridged, chitinous armour protecting its underbelly. One set of such arms would have been fearsome enough. Two was terrifying.
It made a beeline for him.
Zephyr aimed his horn and let fly with a cloud of smoke which latched unerringly onto the creature’s head and clung there as though glued, covering its eyes completely. Akê-Akê fired as fast as he could, but his arrows only stuck in the tough hide. Though the creature was losing blood from numerous cuts inflicted by the X’gäthi, it oriented on Kevin, despite Zephyr’s cloud, and moved forward with ponderous certainty. The terrified Human back-pedalled, trying to dodge behind bushes and trees that the monstrous Yatakê simply pushed over or through.
Twice more Zephyr loosed his magic, once in a gout of white fire that sizzled even through the air before hitting the Yatakê full in the chest and throat. The second time, he used a powder to deflect and confuse it, allowing time for the Lurk to drop Alliathiune in a safe place and return, bellowing his anger, to the fray–and his blows, at last, had an effect on their immense foe. His strikes with that gigantic club sounded like a woodsman attacking a tree with his mightiest timber-axe, falling with a clean crack upon limbs and joints. Kevin, who was still scrambling for dear life, suddenly found time to regain his composure. There was a dull ache in his thigh, but he ignored it.
With its magic-enhanced speed, the Yatakê caught Snatcher up in its four mighty arms and jerked him bodily off the ground. Its hands locked behind his back. The corded muscles along its back and shoulders leaped into sharp relief. Its power was immense, the power of ancient evil hideously clothed in flesh and bone. The Lurk groaned and struggled, fighting to get its paws free before the snapping jaws found his head. Their roars mingled and rose, shaking the Forest to its very roots. Distinctly, through it all, Kevin heard bones crunching and tendons creaking under the tremendous strain. The Lurk was strong, but the Yatakê was stronger still and more massive. Despite eight X’gäthi warriors hacking at the creature’s legs and back, it gave no sign of letting up. Akê-Akê, having withheld his arrows for fear of striking the Lurk, leaped in with a mace to help the X’gäthi.
“Can we not do something?” Kevin shrilled, fearful now that Snatcher would be crushed as he surely must be under that devastating pressure.
“I have spells, but those would harm our own!”
But then Snatcher struck back. Swinging his left leg from the hip, he rammed his armoured knee into the Yatakê’s groin. And again. The creature grunted. And a third time. Now it shuddered. Two arms tore loose to batter Snatcher’s head–but this suited the Lurk’s plan. Wrenching his shoulders sideways, he found leverage and swung his head upward at an angle. His mouth yawned open, wider than ever before, and shut like a steel trap over the Yatakê’s lower jawbone. Kevin had learned that Lurks have jaw muscles comparable to a crocodile’s, but without the leverage of the longer construction. Put rocks between a Lurk’s back molars, though, and they could pulverise granite. With the additional stimulus of pain and adrenaline, the Lurk clamped down with all his strength, trying to shear that Yatakê’s lower jaw clean off.
The creature went berserk.
With deafening howls, the monstrous creature crashed back and forth between the trees in an attempt to unseat its tormentor. Its fists beat the Lurk’s back and head, but Snatcher only bit down the harder. Finally, unable to stand it any longer, the Yatakê convulsed and tore itself loose, leaving its entire lower jawbone in Snatcher’s mouth. Blood burst from the open hole in its throat. Yet still, it charged the Lurk once more and drove him with all its might backwards into the trunk of a kalar. Kevin distinctly heard something snap. But Snatcher lifted his legs, levered the Yatakê off, and using the tree as his springboard, tackled the creature around the knees. An almighty crash shook the Forest. Dust flew everywhere. The X’gäthi leaped in as one man.
But when the dust settled, only the Yatakê lay unmoving.
* * * *
“So, before she fell, Alliathiune was teaching you about the Forest?” asked Zephyr, falling into step with Kevin, about an hour after the Yatakê had been defeated.
“Berries, bushes, trees, animals, insects–what she doesn’t know of the Forest …”
“You grow fond of the Dryad.”
Kevin regarded the Unicorn with wary eyes. “The wisdom of which I doubt.”
“What cares the heart for wisdom, good outlander? But you could not pick a more able teacher than one part-vegetable.”
“I suspect Alliathiune would slap you for that comment, good Unicorn.” He looked ahead to the Lurk, carrying Alliathiune, tirelessly pushing his way through a thicket of horn-berry bushes. Inedible, he reminded himself. Useful as a green dye. The Lurk was an excellent trailbreaker. He simply walked through or over most things.
His mind served up an image of him kissing a carrot. Kevin sighed. He was as far from romance as Feynard probably was from Earth. And Alliathiune was steadily turning more plant than she had ever wanted to be.
“She spoke at length of the balance of nature, of this Forest’s intricate lifecycles and dependencies and habitats,” he said, hoping to distract the Unicorn from his gentle teasing. “It’s so detailed! So perfect, in ways I never imagined! It’s similar to what this book says about magic. But I wish you would stop calling me High Wizard Muckity-Muck, Zephyr, because you can’t be a high anything and be as ignorant as me. I thought wizards should be enormously learned.”
“And I am enormously learned, you flatterer,” Zephyr simpered, with such false modesty Kevin had to chuckle. “Allow me to share with you a Unicorn jewel of wisdom. No magic is done in isolation. All magic has consequences. What you saw earlier–that Yatakê–was a consequence. It is like unto the laws of motion you described to me.”
“Every action–”
“–has an equal and opposite reaction?”
“Indeed. But this isn’t entirely true of magic. Put otherwise, the laws of magic are not one and the same as the laws of the physical universe.” Kevin had the impression that if the Unicorn were a professor, he would have adjusted his spectacles before launching into his lecture. “Your tome is a fine work, good Kevin. But does it teach that magic can kill? That the consequences can be out of all proportion to the error? The Dark One thought he knew how to raise demons, his Yatakê. But they nigh destroyed him. Dryads used to travel this way to their Sacred Grove. Now the demons hunt them mercilessly. I tell you further, magical backlash can destroy a wizard. And–you can’t destroy magic.”
Kevin, who had been shaking his head, said, “But I imagined that like gravity versus anti-gravity, you could have anti-magic–at least, theoretically.”
“Oh, you can have anti-magic,” the Unicorn replied. “But it’s a force in its own right. It is a power far more dangerous and unpredictable than the direct application of magic.”
“Which I struggle with.”
“You have the patience of a nisk fly.”
“I find them awfully stubborn. My neck tells that tale eloquently.”
“Wizards concentrate on the direct applications of magic–from healing to devastating fireballs. Learn this law well: magic cannot be destroyed. It can be subverted, redirected, transformed, absorbed, or dissipated, even reversed. Come, while we walk, let us work on your mage-light. You have power in abundance, good outlander, but lack only the skill and discipline in its application.”
They walked quietly for a while, skirting the mighty trunk of a kalar tree. Kevin silently named the bushes he knew. But his thoughts churned eventually to a question. “What if outlander magic is different, noble one-horn?”
“I think I should be the judge of that, don’t you?”
Kevin nodded reluctantly. The X’gäthi called him ‘High Wizard’. So this allegedly mighty wizard, who could blast a hundred Black Wolves to smithereens and heal a dying Faun–how could he fail to hold a mage-light alight for more than an eye-blink? Why could he not heat water, start a fire, or drive away flies? Basic, basic Unicorn magic, but he always made cold water, occasionally immolated a twig, and insects kept biting him.
He asked, suddenly, “Why, if you’re so powerfu
l, would you not use your magic in Mistral Bog?”
“No need to sound so sullen about it,” Zephyr replied. “Because, noble Kevin, of the consequences. Mistral Bog has predators which are attracted to magic. Equally, Fauns are magic-users and apt to detect the use of magic. Law number two.”
“No magic is done in isolation?”
“Thank the Hills, he has ears attached to a brain,” said the Unicorn, sounding vastly surprised. This time, Kevin did dare to smack him.
Zephyr held that the consequences of magic were not merely physical, but also encompassed the realms of good and evil. Kevin chewed this over as the Unicorn talked. He called this the Great Balance, the Balance that Elliadora had once sought to right by building her Well. A great evil had been done to the land. Her work was a great healing and a binding of the evil races; the Trolls beneath the earth, and the Goblins and Drakes were expelled from the Seventy-Seven Hills. But even her act had consequences, he said. A great good, balancing the old evil, nevertheless became a target for further evil. Again and again, evil rose up against the good. Creatures, races, wizards, and wars–an endless cycle, the story of the aeons of history, the story of the Hills.
Kevin preferred to call it human nature–well, what did one call that in Feynard, creature nature? Dryad, Unicorn, Drake, Lurk nature? A cosmic battle between the forces of good and evil made for decent fiction, in his opinion. But not for a Blight. The Blight would have a reason he could put his newly sensitised nose to. He sniffed the air. Even a pathetic excuse for a non-wizard could tell that the Blight was more advanced here in the Old Forest–he had no need for Alliathiune to be gazing around her, hollow-eyed, unable to tear her eyes away from her dying Forest, from the limp boughs and drooping, splotched leaves, from the rot and disease patiently eating away at the heart of each tree.
