by Marc Secchia
“Kevin!”
“You and the Faun–between you, I’m going to chop this hair off!”
“Please, no. I like it long.”
She widened her eyes in mock surprise. “Is that so, good outlander?”
Alliathiune, drat her once again, made him blush and splutter in tongue-tied embarrassment. Why, if they got on like cats and milk–after a decidedly rocky beginning–did she insist on keeping only to a friendship? Kevin sighed. He was certain she felt more. Or was he misreading the Dryad completely? He had so little experience of women! But Akê-Akê, Zephyr, and even the Lurk had all assumed there was a romantic relationship developing between them. Could they all be wrong?
Perhaps he should pursue her the more diligently? Or give her time and space? Or remain confused somewhere between those two poles. But he could not shake the feeling that somewhere beneath her bravado lay a scared Dryad; a vessel of secrets even greater than his own. He must figure her out. He simply must!
Kevin took a deep breath and struck a dramatically supercilious tone. “I was having lofty and significant High Wizard thoughts when you interrupted with talk of hair!”
“You brought up the subject.”
“Indeed I did. A small matter puzzles me, Allie.”
This time her eyebrows shot up. “Allie?”
“A nickname. A shortened form of Alliathiune. It’s quite a mouthful to say every time.”
“Do you not like my name?”
“Of course I do!” he protested. “You’ve got the wrong end of the stick. Your name is lovely. It’s like … like poetry tripping off the tongue. Nicknames are very common where I come from.”
At least they were in the books he had read. And he was proud of his recovery. What a fine turn of phrase, he congratulated himself. Like poetry indeed! Nicely put, Kevin!
“Hmm. Is this akin to your predilection for calling people ‘dear’ when they are not your betrothed?”
“Quite.”
“Well, then, I do prefer my proper name, but if you wish to mangle it into some Earthish custom, what recourse have I? You should not be mean about my hair either.”
“Sorry.” Kevin looked away, annoyed at how defensive he sounded. Time to change the subject. “Alliathiune, what is my common name?”
“Kevin.”
“Kevin who?”
“Ah! Now that takes me back–I remember!” She danced a little jig about him with a mighty ‘ha!’ of delight. “Kevin Jenkins, was it not?”
“Well done!”
“So …?”
“So, do you recall how we made our escape from the bandits? I could have sworn, right in the middle of it all, I distinctly heard someone call my name–my full name. Kevin Jenkins.”
The Dryad walked on apace, turning this over in her mind. Her step was quick and sure on the trail. Even the rougher parts hardly bothered her bare feet. “It’s a curious thing, good outlander, but I share this recollection. Was it Akê-Akê?”
“Was I what?”
“No, no,” Kevin waved the Faun’s away. “You and Zephyr are the only people–creatures–in all Driadorn who know my full name.”
“Ah …”
“Indeed. How did this Kraleon thing know my name?”
Akê-Akê dropped back to match pace with them. “Shall I stop pretending not to eavesdrop? Good Kevin, it’s characteristic of the demonic that they know an extraordinary amount about living beings, as if they had access to a private history of one’s life–one’s fears, joys, pain, failures, everything. That is one of the primary dangers involved in conjuring and dealing with demons, which practice I reiterate I do not indulge in. You see, demons would like nothing more to live in the real world like you and I. Theirs is a half-world, as though it were painted in shades of grey than in colour, and this holds for all the senses. Only through the living–specifically, the willing possession of the living–can they experience what it is to live again.”
Kevin said as carefully as if he were balancing on a tightrope, “In my world, Akê-Akê, demon possession and exorcism is regarded as something that used to happen hundreds of seasons ago.”
The Faun grinned. “Unlike Driadorn, good outlander. Now, do you not believe in demons?”
“I like to keep an open mind,” said Kevin, making a face at Alliathiune’s fit of coughing incredulity at. “Look, I’m still gathering evidence and formulating my opinions. I’ve seen so much since I came to Feynard.”
“Good. So what I’m saying to you is that special knowledge marks this creature as a demon–and a powerful one at that, from what we have seen.”
“Oh.”
“Let me know if you need any further information.”
Kevin pursed his lips as the Faun trotted off to converse with Hunter, who was eager to track down dinner. “I guess that means I’m still confused.” Soft laughter at his side accompanied this wry assessment. “So, on the subject of religion, Alliathiune, there’s something I have never asked you. What the creatures of Driadorn believe about death?”
“Ah, an excellent question.” She touched the horn at his side. “The Unicorns believe that creatures ascend to a higher state of being when they die, merging with the great world mind shared by all living creatures. We Dryads believe that those who serve worthily return to the spirit of the Forest, the original spirit of Elliadora, if you wish. She may send us again into the world as a seedling, as a rebirth, so that throughout our many lives we become closer and closer to attaining perfection. I assume that other creatures believe similar things, but I am no scholar or theologian to have studied these beliefs extensively. And what do you believe, good Kevin?”
“Ahem!” He stumbled on a flat section of road. “I’m afraid to say, nothing quite so romantic, Alliathiune. I believe that when we die, we die. Return to the mother earth, if you like, and fertilise the ground we are buried in. No soul; no afterlife.”
“You bury your dead?”
“Yes–don’t you?”
“No.” She lowered her eyes. “I probably shouldn’t tell you this, good Kevin, but I trust you to keep secret the sacred Dryad custom I am about to share with you. Will you promise me?”
He put all his heart into it. “I promise on pain of death.”
“You sweet man!” she exclaimed, tickled by his oh-so formal response. “We Dryads are never buried because we always return to a tree when it is our time. We call death ‘passing on’ in the Dryad tongue. A Dryad will always know when it is her time to return to the Forest–not long before, but long enough. It has happened that Dryads are slain. There was a particularly barbaric practice in the time when Ozark the Dark walked these leafy halls, which involved magically tying the spirit of a Dryad to a particular tree by invoking a binding spell called laik-Sälïph, and then chopping down the tree.”
Kevin’s eyebrows shot into his fringe. “Ouch!”
“Indeed. Each blow would be a shuddering agony for the Dryad before the final one severed her life completely.”
Her description struck home with such graphic force that Kevin gagged at once, fell to his knees, and deposited the contents of his stomach beside the trail. “Wretched, pathetic excuse for a Human–I’m sorry, Alliathiune. I couldn’t help it.”
“I’m sorry,” she replied, patting his back ineffectually. “I should have known better than to recount such details for you.”
“I thought I was over this!”
“Wipe your mouth.”
Kevin pushed himself to his feet. “I hate being such a weakling. I don’t know how you stand it, truly I don’t.”
The Dryad gave him a quirky smile that had an uplifting effect on his self-esteem. She linked arms again. “So you don’t believe in the afterlife, Kevin? You don’t believe there is something more than your physical being that will outlive you? I would find that so depressing. What hope is there for the future? What separates a living being from an animal?”
“Ah, an excellent question!” he replied, eyes twinkling as he repeated ve
rbatim her earlier exclamation. “Shall I tell you what I think?”
“My ears hunger for your wisdom, good outlander.”
“Well, in that case–”
Kevin glanced over his shoulder as Snatcher began to whistle a soft tune between his diamond-hard teeth, right behind them. The Lurk grinned. “A favourite Lurkish courting song,” he said. “I’m not sure I could translate the poetry.”
Alliathiune joined Kevin in scowling at him.
But the monstrous Lurk only grinned the wider. “Carry on, little ones.”
Before the Dryad could explode, Kevin made a shooing motion with his hands and said, rudely, “Go talk to the Druid or something, you lumbering mound of swamp muck. We’re trying to have a serious conversation here.”
He walked off cackling like a marsh duck.
* * * *
Thirteen lighttimes after entering Utharia, the company found themselves nearing the Ur-Akbarra mountains, which were guarded by a sprawling region of wetlands known–unsurprisingly, Kevin sniffed, with more than a touch of Zephyr’s loftiness in his manner–as the Utharian Wet. What was it with Feynard and their utilitarian names for most places? From the Seventy-Seven Hills to the Black-Rock Mountains to the Broadleaf Valley … could they not decide upon poetic names?
“I think we’re lost,” said Hunter. “This mist is like soup.”
“Lost in a swamp?” Snatcher sounded amazed and vexed.
“This is the nefarious Utharian Wet,” said Amadorn, peering into the mists as though he could pierce through to their destination. “The Ur-Akbarra mountains should be but a stone’s throw beyond.”
Akê-Akê put in, all excessive cheer, “But we have his Lord of all Bogginess to guide us–master of the slimy pits of Mistral Bog, in his native element and might I add, indisputably in the prime of his life! What terrors could this paltry paddling-pool possibly hold?”
Kevin chimed in, “Indeed, good Lurk?”
The Lurk lifted his arm and pointed one thick digit at a spot about ten yards from the shore of a nearby pond. “Observe yon tiny bubbles, good Faun.”
“I must squint to even behold them, noble Lurk!”
“They are no coincidence, emanating from the rear breathing spiracle of the giant flat-nosed salamander, whose smaller cousin does infest Mistral Bog in great numbers. Let us further surmise,” he continued, bending to heft a rotting log in his right paw, “that lunch were to splash uncaringly nearby. We shall ask her to leap up onto yonder mudbank, where you see the sedge grasses growing more thickly, in order to fully appreciate her size and beauty.” And he flipped the log in that direction.
“You know it’s a female?”
The words caught in Akê-Akê’s throat as the great, wet bulk of the salamander cleaved the previously placid surface asunder in a flurry and spray of mud that liberally splattered the companions. The yellow mouth that gaped upon to consume the stone could comfortably have accommodated the slack-jawed Faun standing upright, and its claws might have furnished a Dragon’s paws without shame. It beached itself momentarily on the mud bank, giving them a fine view as suggested of its size and dubious beauty.
Snatcher grinned horribly. “Salamanders are notoriously short-tempered. Now would be a good time to retreat.”
Akê-Akê led the way with alacrity. Glancing back over his shoulder, he saw the creature apprehend them, make an abortive charge towards the shore, before reversing course and sliding into the dark, muddy waters with the facility of a fish slipping through water.
“Object lesson gratefully received,” he said, wiping mud off his brow with a contrite half-smile. “Good Lurk, I yield without further ungraciousness. How shall we proceed? Will you lead us by paths unknown through the perilous quagmire to higher ground?”
Snatcher shook his great head, clearly bemused by the Faun’s antics. “Noble Faun Loremaster, I believe I shall ask directions from yonder old woman.”
The Faun’s chagrin was priceless.
* * * *
“Greetings and good health to you, good woman,” said Amadorn, making a complex sign with his right hand. “May your hearthstone be blessed.”
The companions ranged about the old woman, who was seated on a stone bench just outside her stick-and-rush hut, gnarled hands resting on the top of a walking-stick braced between her legs, eyes twinkling as bright as buttons in a wise, weathered face framed by a gaudy headscarf entirely out of keeping with the rest of her apparel.
“Good morrow to you, noble creatures of Driadorn,” she creaked in reply. “May your journey be swift, your hearts true, and the justice of your cause upheld.”
Kevin nearly gasped. How did she know all this? Amadorn courteously introduced them, one by one, as though this woman were the most important personage in Utharia and not a doddering old bird living in penury on the edge of a swamp.
She made that curious sign to the Lurk. “It is many seasons since the pad of a Lurk trod these misty waters,” she said. “What is your common name, great one?”
“Snatcher.”
“No, in Lurkish. Your kêylar name.”
As Snatcher sounded a long series of bubbling syllables from the depths of his throat, she closed her eyes and appeared to meditate on them for a moment. And when her eyes opened, there was a gleam within that Kevin mistrusted at once.
But she said, “The honour is mine, noble Lurk. Have you come in search of your brethren, the Greymorral Lurks, who tarried here awhile?”
Kevin stared at Snatcher, who appeared stunned to silence. Since no one else was speaking, he took it upon himself to blurt out, “Not directly, ma’am, but any light you could shed on the mystery of the Greymorral Lurks would be a boon indeed.”
“Ah, the noble Human speaks. You are a curious one indeed, both in looks and in mind. May I read your palm?”
“Ah … Alliathiune?”
She nodded gravely. Kevin frowned at the Dryad. What on Earth was going on here?
Strong fingers gripped his hand, turned it this way and that. “Ah, a young wizard we are. The magic burns strong within you but is overmastered by fear. That fear must be broken for your true powers to manifest. Remember, not all magic is what it seems. Yours is a power of opposites.”
And she hummed softly to herself, examining his hand more closely. She glanced up at Alliathiune with an inscrutable smile. “Ah!” she said, and bent her head again. Then, “Why grieve for the Unicorn in this manner? He has come to an evil strait, not to death.”
Abruptly she dropped his hand. “Very good.” Touched his jaw. “No need to catch flies, good outlander. Plenty of swamp creatures would love to make a home in there.”
He clamped his mouth shut and tried to make sense of her words.
“Don’t fret, good Kevin. You will find the right way by following your heart. I shall show you the way hence, creatures of Driadorn, for a small boon. I have a vegetable garden here that grows but poorly in this climate, and I do so like a fresh stew and good things to eat. If I could prevail on the Dryad’s generosity …”
“At once!” Alliathiune smiled sweetly at the woman. “If there is any other boon we may grant you, you have only to ask.”
She knelt at once in the loamy soil and touched it with her fingertips.
“It should by all accounts be rich soil.”
The Dryad nodded. “But there was once a great violation nearby and the work of vile, corrupting sorceries in ages past. It is for this reason that your vegetables grow but poorly. They are unhappy.”
As her eyes closed in concentration her hands dug deeper, as if searching for something beneath the surface. The Dryad stiffened. Minutes ticked by, measured by a nearby croaking of frogs and the whine of a persistent nisk fly near Kevin’s ear that made him execute a silent dance of annoyance. His scepticism multiplied in the interim. Unhappy plants indeed! Fiddle-faddle and poppycock!
Alliathiune began to sing a traditional Dryadsong in praise of the earth and life, of verdant fields and gelid sap stirring in ancie
nt places, of vibrant, uninhibited growth, of the harmonious rhythm of seasons and freedom from blight and disease. Her voice was sweet and melodious, and once more, as he remembered, the range of notes she could attain made the musician in Kevin gasp in delight and wonder. No Human voice could reach or perform the birdlike trills that characterised the swifter passages of her song, which reached so high as to be almost inaudible, nor could any Human make soil burst forth with new life and hold birds and animals spellbound. Kevin found his feet twitching and itching as if they too wished to take root and participate in an early Budding season. The mists parted overhead to bathe Alliathiune in sunshine; she threw back her oak-green tresses and laughed for the sheer joy of work and worship. Her eyes shone as she looked to the old woman.
The old head bobbed in accord and appreciation. The Dryad seemed to have had an ecstatic experience. Kevin had never seen a face light up in quite the same way. It made him want to smile too. It also made him insanely jealous of whatever it was that she felt just then.
“I’m sure my vegetables will be very happy now,” said the old woman. “Thank you, noble Alliathiune.” She turned to Snatcher. “Noble Lurk, your palm please.”
Snatcher gurgled in the back of his throat and covered her lap with his paw. Five fingers, two massive thumbs and a palm much larger than a shovel fazed her not one whit. Kevin was beginning to think the woman a magician or a witch. He marked the Lurk’s eyes flicker into deep sight and back again, almost imperceptibly swift, but the old woman had detected it too.
Her smile was that of a mother for her treasured son. “Who is able to deceive a Lurk? You may tell them after.”
“I shall do as you command.”
“Good Lurk, what was done by your kind to the Greymorral Lurks, was the work of evil creatures. But Ozark the Dark it was who conceived the plot and stoked the fires of dissension between the Greater Lurks of Mistral Bog and their less illustrious neighbours. Jealousy was his key weapon. Envy and pride were their downfall. And so as you know, the Greymorral Lurks were sold into the hands of the Men of Ramoth for the pittance of safety for the Lurks during the war to come, if they kept their neutrality. To their lasting credit this was a bargain that many Lurks chose not to keep.”
