With one strong stroke of his hands, Ixidor rose to the surface of the stream. He swam to the bank, surprised how far the current had carried him toward the dark cave. Working his way back upstream, Ixidor reached a likely spot with smooth, tan clay. He scooped up a batch of it and set to work.
The creature would be delectable, yes, but also practical. It would provide meat for immediate consumption, organs for stewing, and even its own crude pot for cooking them. Ixidor's hands worked quickly, forming the smooth sweep of the thing's back. If he was careful, he could get three meals from the creature, and thus not have to kill as often. Of course, it wouldn't matter that much: This turtle would want to be eaten.
He finished it-a deep shell holding plenty of muscle and organ meat, a small head with only a pliable and toothless mouth, stubby little legs devoid of claws, and best of all, no shell across the creature's belly. Ixidor could eat the first bits raw and then build a fire to stew the rest.
He set the creature down and completed the last polygons across its shell. With these final lines, the thing went from artificiality to reality. The turtle trembled to life. It lifted its too-small head beneath the massive, pot-shaped shell. Querulous eyes stared at its creator. Then, struggling on stumpy legs, it advanced toward Ixidor. It climbed slowly up his foot until it reached an awkward angle and toppled on its back. There, it waited, head tucked submissively on its pink belly.
Ixidor wouldn't even need a knife. The skin was as tender as wet paper. He need only dig in with hungry fingers. The turtle even wanted him to; it existed only to be his meal. Ixidor ran his hand across the creature's belly. A snagged nail drew a dotted line along it. Blood welled up from the seam. The turtle trembled, as if steeling itself for the inevitable.
Ixidor spread his hand atop the turtle's stomach. The skin there hardened to a tough shell. He tweaked each leg until it was larger, more capable of bearing the weight. A touch on the mouth gave the beast teeth with which to feed. Last of all, Ixidor brushed its head, giving it a will to live.
The turtle flailed, flipped over, and rushed into the stream. It left a turbid cloud of sand in its wake.
It was bad to kill a creature that wanted to live but worse to create a creature that wanted to die. Perhaps natural forms were safer. In them the complex dynamic of predator and prey were long established.
The creator was hungry. He knelt by the riverside, and his hands dug deep into the clay. He had made one turtle, and another would be easy. It took quick shape. Its shell was flat on top like a cooking pot, but its belly was guarded. The turtle had real legs with real claws and great snapping jaws. Put simply, it had a chance. If it eluded its creator, it could live a long, long while. Ixidor stooped over it, adding knobs of flesh beneath one knee.
The snapper whirled. Its mud-flesh became true, and its impressive jaws spread and clamped. It caught Ixidor's right hand and bit.
The pain was blinding. He shrieked and yanked. With a sick crackle, his hand came away, missing the ring and little fingers. The carpal bones were shorn halfway up his palm. Blood poured from the severed spot.
Howling, Ixidor leaped after the fleeing turtle. He landed on its back, forcing it to ground, the shell slick with blood. Though the turtle withdrew legs and tail, its head still lashed out, snapping at his heel.
Ixidor struck back. His heel smashed down atop the turtle's head. The creature shook. Ixidor struck again. The brain-pan caved. Ixidor continued to kick, feeling the skull crack. He kicked for revenge. In moments, the turtle stopped moving, but still, Ixidor kept up his attack until nothing but pulp remained beneath his heel.
He climbed off the carcass and limped to the stream. Some jags of bone had stuck in his foot. He dipped it in the water, and his hand beside.
Ixidor felt dizzy but triumphant. The battle played in his head. There was no denying it now: He created realities. Not only did he create them, but he lived with them and suffered the consequence of their being. They could wound him. They could kill him…
They could feed him…
Compressing his wounded hand beneath the opposite armpit, Ixidor stood up. He was covered with blood, mud, and water. Though he had pulled the skull shards out of his ravaged heel, it deeply protested. He limped back toward the carcass, set his toes under one edge, and flipped it over.
The turtle was dead. Ixidor kicked hard, his foot landing flat on the belly plate. The shell split, and blood swelled the seam. Ixidor knelt. He gripped one edge of the cracked shell, braced a foot on the creature's leg, and yanked. The shell did not give. Ixidor set his bleeding hand on the other side of the crack and yanked again. After four vigorous pulls, tissues began to pop. Still, the shell held.
Roaring in frustration, Ixidor stood and stomped on the creature. The carapace caved. He stomped again. A red paste gushed from the edges of the shell. Voracious, Ixidor knelt and ate. The stuff was still warm from the life of the creature. Another stomp produced more of the substance. It was not the way he had planned on eating the turtle, but he was desperate, and had no time, no tools.
Survival was a messy business. Creation too. It was a business of mud, blood, and water, of shattered shells and shards of bone. Ixidor had tapped a primordial power, and was becoming a primordial creator. Even with his own bleeding hand, he greedily scooped up the flesh of the turtle and sucked it from his fingers.
It was not merely messy. It was madness-divine madness.
Capering about the fallen beast, Ixidor began to hum and chant. The words were a mystery even to him. He crouched to snatch up more of the paste and shove it into his mouth. He smeared red lines across his face-war paint from his first kill. Ixidor danced, sang, and ate.
*****
He lay within a shallow well of sand, dug out by his own hands. Beside him rested the turtle shell, empty and clean. Reptilian flesh wormed its way through his intestines. Reptilian blood covered him from nose to knees, and gnawed bones lay nearby, bleaching in the sun.
The sun was forsaking Ixidor and his strange paradise. Palm fronds glowed iridescent green against the darkening sky. Boles draped long shadows across sand and stream, and breezes moved among the leaves without rattling them. It was the time for night birds to begin their weird songs, but Ixidor had not yet made such birds. All was silent. The desert's desolation seeped slowly into the oasis.
Ixidor was tired. His stomach was full and his mind empty. The madness was gone. Only gore and mud remained. He was done creating. Tomorrow he would fashion more beasts. His image magic would impose new things upon the world, but for now, he was done-exhausted.
Lying there in a delirium of fatigue and satiety, he saw her.
White and pure, shimmering in the midst of the darkling oasis, his muse appeared. It was unfair to call her Nivea, for Nivea had never had white wings and glowing robes. It was equally unfair to call her anything else, for the face of that glorious creature was Nivea's. She hovered above the waters, her wings unmoving in flight She stared at him.
Ixidor crawled up from the sandy hole and knelt before her.
He could not have felt more unworthy-crusted in filth and missing two fingers and part of his mind. If she were truly his muse, she would be horrified by what he had made. Crayfish, a raucous gull, and two turtles. Worse than these creatures was their creator.
"Forgive me, beautiful lady. I was hungry, and I ate."
She did not respond, but only floated before him.
Ixidor lifted his face. "Nivea, is it you?" he asked. Sand sifted from his face and made small sounds on the ground. "How I mourn you. You are my heart, absent from my chest. You are my mind, absent from my head. You are my soul absent from my body. Look at me." He spread his arms, revealing a ravaged figure. "You were all that was good in me. I am what remains."
She faded. Black boles showed through her gossamer form.
"I will create nobler things tomorrow. I will create not just beasts but ecologies. I will create marvels worthy of you."
The muse was gone. Only shadows li
ngered above the stream.
Ixidor bowed his head again to the sand. He clawed the ground with his three-fingered hand.
Weeping, he crawled toward the stream. Like a wounded rat, he slithered into the water. It embraced him. Currents cleansed the day's filth. The waters enlivened him, and he swam and felt new.
The stream hid his bitter tears.
CHAPTER TEN: STONEBROW
The First crouched in a wet hole and clung to a tangle of roots. His death-touch had killed them, and now they were his. Touching here, touching there, he could take control of whole stands of trees. The First was delighted to discover that a kindred darkness lurked in their heartwood. The corruption at the forest's heart had already reached its dark tendrils this far. Soon, the metastasis would be complete, and the First would go to the Gorgon Mount and take hold of that cancerous heart.
Just now, though, he had a trap to set. "Let's see how the champion fares against a forest turned to darkness."
With a twitch of his hands and a twist of his mind, the First hurled trees down upon a cringing village of centaurs. They screamed, some dying instantly, others bolting, and a blessed few lingered in broken agony. Their wails would draw Kamahl, and then these boughs would slay him.
*****
It was a time of terrors. Trees lay on the ground and grew like hair. Their trunks were as thick as hillsides. Their branches reached for miles. In violent surges, the forest overran itself.
Many of its creatures perished beneath the crushing boughs.
A few fought.
Sixteen centaurs crouched, a bulwark of muscle before the advancing tide of wood. Their ancient home lay buried beneath ravenous foliage. Encroaching limbs lashed with a will. The centaurs had retreated twice, but here they dug in to stand or fall. If the forest would make eternal war, the centaurs would be its eternal foes.
A great bough plunged down from the top of the snarl. It struck ground like a pummeling arm. Its impact shook the glade and sent dust spinning. The bough twitched, growing rampantly even where it lay.
The centaurs roared. Their simian faces split in fury, and their fangs gnashed. Sixteen stags leaped over the rock embankment, hooves sparking on stone. Anns as brawny as oak boughs swung axes, though they were sacrilege to the forest folk. The blades rose and fell. Sixteen steel teeth bit deep into the bough. Their impact reverberated through the glade. Axes reached the quick, canted to widen the wounds, and then chucked loose for more blows.
The bough recoiled. It screamed through twisting fibers and lashed slender shoots across its tormenters.
Welts striped the centaurs' backs. Their steel stormed into the wood. They cut crosswise, hurling great chunks into the air. Two blades sank into heartwood, rotten and rank. A third followed and chopped straight through.
The bough riled like a severed serpent, lashing violently and jagging across the glade. It would take a long while for the branch to die. Other such boughs still convulsed their lives away on the far side of the clearing.
The stump wouldn't die, though. It spewed sap onto its attackers. They retreated. Bark crawled across the wounded end, closing it off. New tendrils jutted with green defiance and swept toward the centaurs.
The beast men had retreated to their wall, but the shoots had followed them. Axes were no good against tendrils. Green scourges whipped them.
'Tall back!" shouted Bron, the centaur leader.
He and his warriors did, but they all knew what it meant. If they lost the wall, they would return with fire. If axes were sacrilege, fire was abomination-no weapon at all but a hateful god, the anti-forest. Still, the centaurs were desperate.
Two more boughs surged down from the height of the forest tangle and crashed before the centaurs.
"Back!" called Bron again. Though he and his warriors were massive, they seemed mere ants before the onslaught.
Turning, they galloped away, heading for a pile of deadfall and dry straw. At its base lay sixteen fist-sized stones-flint. Reaching the spot, the centaurs dropped to their knees and lifted the stones. They struck the flint obliquely upon their steel axes. Sparks showered away like meteors and lighted upon straw. The centaurs blew to awaken flame, but the straw would not even smolder.
Sudden illumination drew their eyes up from the tiny sparks. Golden light poured through the glade and cast shadows on the deadfall. Fire did not provide the glow. Something had arrived, something brilliant.
The centaurs shielded their eyes. It seemed as if a star stood at the edge of the glade.
The star was a man. He emerged from folds of rampant growth, his face and hands beaming brightly.
Boughs coiled and recoiled around him. One great tree bent and rushed down to crush him. The man reached up. The tree struck with purpose, but as soon as the man's hands touched the wood, it shuddered to stillness. Green power bled from his fingertips and bounded down the gnarled bark. Where it struck, the dead bark came to life. Steam hissed from the bole, and fibers wrestled against each other, black against green.
The man, seeming to hold aloft that massive tree, tilted his head back and roared. Power fountained from him into the tormented trees. The black tide ebbed away before a surging green wave. It poured down the trunk and rushed through to the root tips. Sparks and smoke leaped from a wet hole at the tree's base.
The bole rose and stood upright again, and the rampant glade grew suddenly silent.
All eyes turned to the man, who stood inviolate in the midst of the trees. He was cloaked in verdant leaves over gleaming armor, booted in vines atop metal soles. In one hand he lifted a gleaming staff, which burned a slanted line in the centaurs' minds. Come.
Come.
Bron dropped the flint. He stood and stowed his axe at his waist. His hooves shifted as if following channels in the air, and allowed himself to be inexorably drawn toward the man.
The other centaurs shouted. Their fingers clawed at his pelt, but they could not keep him back.
Bron walked across the glade. There was no simpler thing to do.
He knew the man, the barbarian Kamahl who had brought these horrors, but Kamahl had been changed by the divinity within him.
Bron wished to be so changed. He approached to within a few strides and knelt. He bowed his head, power streaming around him.
You once defended this forest, sent the man by way of mind.
"Yes," Bron replied simply.
Now you fight against it.
"Yes."
/ need such a fighter as you. Others will remain to defend the forest, but you will be my general, to come with me and fight in distant lands.
Bron exhaled. "I would gladly fight anything if I did not have to fight my own home."
The light changed. For a moment, its radiance seemed reflected inward, casting long shadows through the man's soul. It is a terrible thing to fight one's own home. The luminosity returned. What is your name?
"I am Bron, leader of the Cailgreth centaurs."
The staff sparked on the ground as if it were lightning touching down. The man reached out and touched Bron's forehead. Henceforth, you will be called Stonebrow.
Bron hadn't time to approve or disapprove. With that touch, he had ceased to be. He was Stonebrow now, and he grew.
Though the centaur still knelt, his eyes rose even with those of the man. Next moment, they were above him. Beamy shoulders widened, stout bones lengthened, and iron muscles strengthened. Ribs became the size of an ox's. Arms grew until they could shatter boulders, legs until they could topple trees. Fur thickened into a pelt that would turn arrows. Even belt and axe had grown.
Stonebrow climbed to his feet and towered above his creator. He was a giant among centaurs. He roared. The forest paused its tumult to listen to that sound. He pounded a hoof on the ground, and the glade trembled. Snatching the axe from his belt, he hoisted it high. It caught the sun and threw a violent wedge of light across the ground. He was not just huge but filled with fury. As if blood welled up through every follicle, his pelt took on a re
d cast.
There is new fire in you-too much for you to defend the forest. You will do more to slay than to save. With me, you will go. Together we will take the fight to the forest's foes.
"Yes. I will go, Master Kamahl. You will call me simply Kamahl.
"Kamahl."
Kamahl turned his gaze away from General Stonebrow. Oh, it ached to go from the heat of that gaze to the chill of its shadow!
Kamahl looked to the other centaurs. They stood wonderingly on the opposite side of the glade. Their hooves churned the soil as if preparing to flee. Their eyes, though, were locked on Kamahl. Invisible cords drew them forward.
These will be the forest's defenders. These will fight to protect the wood.
Stonebrow shifted to stand alongside his master. "How can they defend the forest when it is fighting itself?"
Kamahl did not answer at first. He only watched the fifteen beast men stride slowly nearer. The forest does not fight itself. It grows. Forests grow. It will continue until all the world is forest.
Even transformed, Stonebrow sensed the lie. This rampant growth was not good for the forest. Kamahl was deceiving his new general. Was Kamahl also deceiving himself?
Who will succeed you as leader of this village?
Stonebrow considered the folk. "Boderah was my lieutenant. Let him be leader."
The named centaur stepped forward. He seemed only a colt beside Stonebrow. They no longer belonged to the same species, but soon that would change.
Boderah, you will be called Granite, for you will be bedrock for this wood. Kamahl touched the beastman's forehead. The transformation began again.
Stonebrow watched. It had been a glorious thing to transform, but it was a hideous thing to witness. Every tissue, every sinew warped out of all natural proportion. The skin bulged as if inflated with air. The bones crackled in their rush to outgrow each other. Granite thrashed and screamed. Stonebrow realized he must have screamed as well. Years worth of growth were crammed into breathless seconds.
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