by Ren Ryder
She was easy to please.
“Right, then. Now that there are two of us, we can take turns. We have to reveal each section before moving forward. You just pull like this, then—”
Fin grasped the path of thorns without flinching, then, one-handed, yanked hard on the vine. I could tell he ripped a whole section out from the earth without any effort.
The show of strength impressed me, but I tried to play it off. “Yeah, like that, you’ve got it.”
“And you’re certain this will lead us to the Darkwood?” Fin asked.
I glanced sidelong at Bell. “As sure as I ever am of Bell’s advice.”
“Hey!” she protested.
Chapter Six
Advance. Pain. Bleed. Switch. Repeat. Advance. Pain. Bleed. Switch. Repeat. Advance-pain-bleed-switch-repeat.
Fin had produced a thin coil of rope from around his waist and tied us together so we wouldn’t get separated in the fog. One of us would drop the path of thorns while the person on break got tugged along. The arrangement was basic, but it was a rather efficient system. We were at easy doubling, if not tripling my solo progress rate.
Typical for her, Bell nodded off in her spot tucked away in my shirtfront pocket almost as soon as we were off.
We passed through the Twilit Boundary in dead silence. Somehow we managed to avoid the roving patrols of slaugh, but their cries felt awful close, keeping me on edge. No matter how I felt like I could keep pushing through, I was bloody, sore, and tired. I couldn’t speak for how Fin fared with his monstrous constitution, but whenever I wasn’t taking a turn on the path of thorns, I was daydreaming about a restful spot to lay my head.
I don’t know how long we’d been in the Boundary, but the sea of fog began to clear in stages. First the fog itself became less voluminous, so that I could see a few paces in front of me. Not having to worry about our footing made us move faster, and it wasn’t much further before the sounds of roving slaugh faded altogether. That was when I knew we’d left the Twilit Boundary well and truly behind us.
I cast the path of thorns aside and threw my arms into the sky with childlike enthusiasm. “We made it!”
We found ourselves in a field of wild grasses at the edge of the Boundary. The Nightside greeted us with a sea of stars and a grinning crescent moon. I walked a few paces away, trailing a hand through stalks of waist-high grasses as I went. Breathing deep and exhaling fully, I let go some of the tension that’d built up inside me.
The hair on the back of my neck stood up.
“Our working arrangement has met its natural end, it seems.”
“Has it?” I wondered. I wasn’t imagining it. The feeling of being watched pierced me in the back between the shoulder blades. “Don’t look now, but I think there’s somebody watching us.”
Before the breath I’d taken to warn him had left my body, Fin turned halfway around to look in the general direction I’d indicated.
I sighed. “I said don’t look.”
“Sorry.” Fin appeared to struggle with himself, trying not to take another step towards the hostile presence.
“If not another champion, some kind of guardian or local predator, maybe?” I speculated. “What do you think?”
“The fastest way to find out would be to rush their position and force them to reveal themselves.” Fin pounded his fists together, already raring for another fight.
I scratched the back of my head. “That’s… not wrong. I don’t know, I could use a bath and some rest before getting into another brawl. How do you feel about extending our truce ’til we’re able to get a bit of shuteye? We can take turns keeping watch. If we’ve still got a pair of eyes on us after that, then we can rush them— and go our separate ways after.”
Bell stirred awake. “Kal, c’mon! Let’s go our separate ways now! We don’t need anybody else.”
I wasn’t sure Bell was wrong, but I felt a sense of kinship with the big guy, and that made me want to prolong our arrangement a bit longer despise my reservations.
“So says you,” I returned.
“I’m… not sure,” Fin said with a shrug of his massive shoulders. “I would rather not extend our truce and risk angering the honored sylph.”
Bell puffed out her chest. “Hah, did you hear that Kal— such respect! You know what, I changed my mind, let’s keep the big lug around!”
I hid my smirk behind an elbow. “See, the honorable sylph would love to keep your company awhile longer.”
“If both of you say so, the very least I could do to repay my debt is to secure your rest.”
“That’s the spirit,” I said.
With that decided, we trekked through the field of tall grass towards the nearby tree line. I bent my head back and tried to overcome vertigo as I guessed at how tall the trees were.
“Are we there yet? I want to take a bath too~”
I almost gave Bell’s question a serious answer, but I squashed that part of myself before it passed my lips. Instead I focused on studying the region as we made our way by the light of the moon and stars.
The Darkwood was a mirror image of the Wildwood in a lot of ways. Both were old growth forests with a huge population of grand, old trees of all kinds. Great pines stood beside huge oaks, and packs of redwoods seemed to reach the stars. Despite the many breeds of tree in evidence, there still remained a feeling of interconnectedness that made it feel like the forest itself was a living, breathing being.
There were differences, though. One difference I noted was that either Fin and I were way off the beaten path, or there were more established game trails tracking across the Wildwood. I regularly had to clamber over roots as big around as my body.
There was a smattering of evergreen trees, trees that never shed their leaves no matter their season, but deciduous trees abounded. The trees that had lost most their leaves left behind dark skeletons that clawed at the night sky. In the Darkwood with the light of the crescent moon and stars to go by, the ruddy bed of fallen leaves piled up on the forest floor looked like a river of blood.
I crunched through the fallen leaves with a grimace. There weren’t many places to set my feet that wouldn’t announce my presence in the forest. Not that I should have worried overmuch, with the way Fin crashed through the undergrowth. I would carefully make my way through a patch of brush, while Fin would demolish bushes on his way through behind me. Any wildlife in the area would’ve heard us coming a mile off.
He’s a bull in a china cabinet.
I pointed at a trickle of water making its way across the forest floor. “I’ve got something here.”
“Following your lead,” Fin said.
I nodded.
At first the stream was but a trickle. I followed the sound of rushing water, and it got wider by degrees until we found it. A peaceful waterhole fed by a small waterfall.
I didn’t see any animals offhand, but there must be many that regularly habited the place. The ones we hadn’t scared off were probably watching us from the safety of the shadowed forest.
“This’ll do just fine.” The blood and sweat caked all over my body cracked when I stretched.
The waterhole’s shore was covered in black sand and black rocks, some few with white veins running through them. The pool of water was deep and dark, with moonlight penetrating as deep as it could go before turning black. Probably the waterfall had eroded the rock until a deep hole had been made and the waterhole had formed.
Fin waded into the water up to his waist and started splashing the clear liquid all over himself. The big guy had stripped off his bulky light-blue shirt to wash it, revealing what was underneath. A layer of thin scars that left no doubt in my mind where they’d come from: a lifetime of whipping. I winced in sympathy but didn’t bring attention to them.
I saw a way to approach the waterfall from one side. My boots squelched as I crossed the intervening distance. As I did, I noticed the waterhole itself seemed to be formed from the same black-and-white-veined rock.
I
clambered onto a huge rock and climbed up to the waterfall’s summit. It was a short climb— the waterfall wasn’t that big— and I practically glided to the top, not even breaking a sweat. A thick stream of water fed a small pool that supplied a constant stream of water to the waterfall.
I hopped onto a rock in the middle of the stream and stared over the edge.
Balancing on one foot then the other, I peeled off my boots and tossed them to the sand below. One boot missed the sands and splashed into the waterhole’s shallows. I scowled.
“Wakey wakey!” I snatched Bell from her rest and tossed her into the air.
I waited for her to scream awake, then I jumped off the waterfall’s peak and dove feet-first into the water. Bubbles crashed in around me as I went under. I let myself travel as far beneath the surface as my momentum would take me.
I didn’t reach the bottom.
How deep does it go?
The water was cold, but refreshing. I felt more awake than I had since, well, for as long as I could remember. Time was a foreign concept in the Otherworld, as if it wasn’t already hard enough to keep track of.
From the sky above a sliver of moonlight pierced the water’s surface and reached down into the dark where I was. I studied it blankly, wondering at it.
A passing current brushed against me like a caress, but I was nowhere near the waterfall’s downspout. Startled, I kicked my way to the surface in a swarm of bubbles.
Bell flew by once, then came back around and landed on my head. “What was that for?! Ugh, I should leave you for Fin, he knows the proper way to treat a lady of my station!”
I didn’t respond, staring into the waterhole’s depths.
“Hey! What’s wrong with you?” Bell asked.
“Ha-ha, nothing!” I said, my voice a little too high-pitched to sound convincing.
Bell stared at me for a moment before letting me off without an explanation. “Whatever. You look disgusting, and smell worse. Stop messing around and clean yourself up already.”
I splashed in the direction of the nearest shallows. “Fine, but why don’t you join me? Thought you wanted a bath,” I muttered, then smirked. “Oh yeah, I almost forgot— you can’t swim,” I sniggered.
“Pfft, I could learn how in a second if I wanted to,” Bell scoffed. “Plus, you said you’d teach me!”
I waded through the water to the shallows. Eventually my feet touched bottom and I stood.
I was feeling a bit vindictive, so I said, “Go on, go right ahead. I’m watching. In case you drown, I’ll fish you out before it sticks.”
Bell dipped a toe in the water where I was standing, then shivered. “Yeah, I think I’ll just take a bath over where it’s safe.”
She flew to her version of the shallows, where the water lapped the sands. Bell whistled and splashed water over herself, pretending she wasn’t avoiding my challenge.
I shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
Washing myself all over, I scrubbed all the crusty, sticky blood off me. It took some doing. My skin was raw and red by the time I was done, but I was clean. I felt better right away. My blood tinted the water purplish-black around me before it regained its natural hue.
I rubbed my palm with the pad of my thumb, trying to assess what my path of thorns had left me with. The pinpricks bled a bit as I cleaned out the wounds, but the bleeding stopped as soon as it started. Looking at my hands, I let out a long, weary breath. I was left with a collection of ritualistic wounds that were odd enough on their own, let alone when combined with my other features.
Next I stared at the spiderweb of veins running through my chest.
Did they spread?
There was nothing to do about it, though. So I didn’t dwell on it, occupying my mind with the next task.
My back twinged. I stretched my body to get a good look at the gashes there. They looked like two furrows plowed into the earth. Puckered and starting to scab over, I didn’t want to mess with the open wounds. Still, I cleaned them as well as I could, then left them to heal.
I paced over further into the shallows until the water was just above my knees. There I tore off my ruined shirt and stepped out of my worn brown trousers. I frothed the clothes in the water, watching as dirt and blood clouded the pool. When they seemed clean enough, I wrung them out and hung them over my shoulder until I could find a place to hang dry them.
I grabbed the one boot out of the water where it was floating and tossed it next to where the other lay in the sand.
“Kal! What’re you doing! It’s too soon for that! Put some clothes on!” Bell sputtered.
I looked down. I had my small-clothes on. “What?”
I didn’t see a problem. It was just Fin and me at the waterhole, and it wasn’t like I had a spare change of clothes on hand to change into. The clothes I did have barely lived up to the name, and I wanted them to be at least passing clean.
“Don’t worry about me. You have to finish your bath, remember?”
Bell stuck her tongue out at me. “Bleh!”
Fin was already out of the water getting a fire going, bare-chested but otherwise clothed. He’d formed a fire pit out of rocks native to the waterhole, but the few pieces of tinder he’d gathered needed attending to.
“You’ve got flint?”
Fin stopped crashing his flint against a black stone. “Yeah?”
I whistled in appreciation. “And here I’d just lost my own fire starter,” I said, glancing at my left hand where Igni, the lesser fire elemental, used to be sealed.
It rubbed me wrong that the merrow ate him.
Fin nodded soberly, looked at his flint, then cracked it in half with his fingers. He tossed one piece at me. I caught it out of the air, then lobbed it back and forth between both my hands like it was a hot potato. I felt bad now for bringing attention to his flint.
“You sure about this?”
Macool grunted. “I don’t know much about the Darkwood, but I don’t think you’ll get any rest without a fire to ward off the night.”
His generosity made me feel uncomfortable. “Well, thanks. I’m going to go see if I can find some deadwood for the fire.”
Fin nodded.
I took it upon myself to look for some deadwood, but first I dropped off my soaking shirt and trousers on a rock that would be near enough to the fire that they’d get the benefit of its heat.
I didn’t want to venture too far into the wood, so I kept our waterhole in sight as I prowled the area for deadwood. After I’d stacked as much as I could in my arms, I dropped off my haul of dead twigs and branches by the fire for Fin. To make sure we had enough wood, I made a few trips before making a final circuit around the waterhole to the bonfire. I dropped off my last load and brushed off the bit of bark and dirt I’d gotten on myself in the short while since I’d gotten clean.
Fin had gotten the fire going in the meantime. Thin tongues of flame leapt up from the small batch of tinder he had arranged in the center of the pit. He blew on the flames and added a few more twigs and branches.
My staff was already by the fire pit. I didn’t remember putting it there, so Fin must’ve picked it up from wherever I’d left it. Oops.
Bell sat crosslegged on a little rock of her own, shivering with her hands held out to the fire. “So— cold! Why did I do that, I hate cold baths, I forgot how much I hate them. I can’t stand them!”
“Okay princess, no need to be dramatic. It wasn’t that bad,” I said.
Bell perked up. “Princess?”
I sighed. “Don’t take my words out of context.”
Fin finished making a tepee out of twigs and logs, and, satisfied, laid back to examine his work. I sat down opposite him on the other side of the fire pit, and Bell alighted beside me.
“Your junk is showing, put your pants on already!”
“Fine, because you had to make it weird.”
I picked up my trousers. They were still quite damp, but at least they weren’t soaking. I hopped on one foot and then the oth
er to get my legs in. The wet cloth clung to my skin as I stepped into them. Shivering, I shook my head and sat down as close to the fire as I could get without being burned.
My blank stare got lost in the fire.
What’s the point? I don’t even care. I don’t. I won’t.
I shook my head. “Sorry, what? Did you say something?”
“I said, can I ask what happened to you?” Fin waved his hand to point at my body in general.
I poked the bonfire with a twig, stirring up ash and embers.
I forced a laugh. “I took a beating is what happened.” A lump formed in my throat. “No, that’s not right.”
Shaky, I breathed out through my nose. “Some bad people dug their clutches into somebody important to me, family. I’m not sure she’s the same anymore because of it. I did my best, but you can’t save someone who doesn’t want to be saved. Still I can’t help thinking it’s my fault, that I waited too long to come back for her. All I had to do was stay at her side, and I failed her.”
Bell poked me. “Kal, you can’t blame yourself. It was out of your control. You did everything you could.”
I refused to look at Bell, instead I stared back into the fire.
I was just tired of everything. So tired.
“I can’t speak to what happened, but I can say that, no matter how much you want to help someone, your feelings may never reach them. Especially if you’re separated by time, space, or, worse— a dark fate,” Fin said, his words tinged with bitter regret.
The way he spoke, it pulled me out of myself a bit. “You talk like you’ve got a beef with destiny.”
Fin’s muscles rippled. “Destiny. What a joke. I wasn’t meant to be here, to be stolen out my crib when I was just a babe, taken from my family and all I knew, replaced by some monster. No, I don’t believe in that nonsense, only in what I can grasp with my own two hands,” Fin clenched and unclenched his fists. “I refuse to believe that I have no say, that my fate has long been decided for me and there’s no changing it. After I’m through with these stupid trials, I’m going to leave this Otherworld once and for all, I’ll warp destiny if I have to.”
