by Ren Ryder
My throat constricted. I started choking, but I refused to breathe in. The corners of my vision began to shrink and I was struck by a terrifying lightheadedness. My nerves lit up with pain; my body was sending mixed signals to keep me conscious.
My vision tunneled.
There was a fission of energy as my mana hacked into the kelpie’s. My power clashed with the kelpie’s and sheared through the binding sticking me to the saddle.
I was free.
I threw out my hands to slow my descent and separate myself from the kelpie, and kicked, hard, with my booted feet.
I felt like I was swimming in molasses.
My chest convulsed and my muscles screamed as I clawed towards the surface. Without finesse I drove a cushion of wind beneath me. It took all my remaining strength to gather enough air from the surrounding water to do so. I focused on reaching the separation from the dark depths to the lighter shallows, keeping my flagging consciousness alive.
A hand wrapped around my boot at my ankle, gripping so tight my bones ground together. My construct of wind burst like a popped balloon. With remorseless purpose, I was dragged away from the light and into the deeps.
My eardrums imploded.
Far beyond my limits, my consciousness snuffed out like a candle flame.
Where was I? What was I doing again?
A dull comfort wrapped me up in an embrace.
I couldn’t see, not with my eyes, but I felt it— a complete inversion of existence— there was nothing, not a single speck of life anywhere. My awareness was all that filled the vast, empty void.
I started to drift.
Going through life, I always felt tired. So, so tired. My soul was tired, and it cried out for the comfort of death. Existing was hard. Living was harder.
There didn’t seem to be a point, no rhyme or reason behind anything, and that was a bitter pill to swallow. Suppose I sought a fleeting sense of purpose in a harsh world full of cruelties amid a life largely devoid of meaning. Suppose I found it. What then? Would it be enough?
At first I was comfortable. At peace.
I was cast adrift from my body into limbo. Floating without purpose or direction, I felt a deep sense of relief. There was nothing here, I felt neither cold nor heat, there was no color, no sound. My senses were dead. Even pain was a distant memory.
Pain and suffering were for the living. I didn’t miss them.
Bell’s silvery spirit invaded my empty peace. “I won’t let you die. I won’t! You hear me?! You get back here!”
Her presence was so bright and comforting. It hurt.
“No,” I pushed her away.
I railed against the sense of wrongness that rose within me along with Bell’s words. Pain filtered into the extremities of my being, and I shook my spectral body like a dog shakes off water.
A sense of longing filled me. I longed to… I stopped that line of thought in its tracks.
“Kal!”
My neck burned like I was being branded anew. A sense of wrongness twisted my spectral body into knots, and I was shifted out of step from the empty void and was stranded in another space. A tiny pocket world.
The land was so true and wild that I felt out of place. Like I was tainting the purity of it.
The tiny pocket world was overgrown with tall bushes and vines, covered in mosses and packed with tall, silent trees. Occupying the central space atop a grassy knoll was a great bristlecone pine tree, twisted with age but full in all its glory. Half its great mass still sported greenery, but the other had fully shed its needles. A bright red bed of freshly fallen pine needles covered the top of the knoll.
A gentle melody drew me inward.
With no game trail to be found, I forced my way through the dense foliage and climbed up the incline towards the knoll’s peak. I led sideways with my shoulder to make a path, tripping over giant roots and forcing my way through stubborn vines.
Sensation made my nerves thrum with static as feeling returned to me. Dizzy and nauseous, I fell to my hands and knees and puked up a bucketful of water before I was finished.
The melody stopped abruptly, and an air of panic replaced it.
“Who dares disturb me?” Black anger seeped into the words filled with unquestionable authority.
A great pressure bore down on me. It took more than my usual amount of bluster, but I wiped off my mouth and chin and stood hunchback.
Dread settled in my gut. This was not the death I longed for.
My eyes were drawn to the trunk of the ancient bristlecone pine, which radiated power. Etched into the bark was a rune that was all too familiar to me. It was the same one branded onto my neck.
I’d made it to the base of the ancient pine to discover another, even more ancient thing. Partially covered by decaying flora was a being that radiated power. I knew in that moment that the figure was this pocket world’s creator, its master and commander.
He had hairy black hindquarters, legs, and horns of a goat, but otherwise his body was that of a man. His body looked chiseled from stone by a master stonemason, perfect in every detail and untouched by time. A pan flute fashioned from bone was strapped to his waist by leather strands, and in his idle hands he held another pan flute of the same kind made from hollow reeds.
This was the melody’s source, I was sure.
“Speak, or I will suspend your spirit in a torture without end, with a window into solace that will be forever out of reach.”
I found my voice. “I, uh, pretty sure I drowned in a cave in the Darkwood near the Otherworld’s Twilit Boundary. I was in the middle of the first trial to crown the Seven Year King…” I trailed off, gulped.
The being reached out. “Your name, give it to me.”
“Give you… my name? Uh, that’s— I don’t have a name to give you, but you can call me Kal.”
“Call me by Robin Goodfellow. I may answer to it, but likely not.” Goodfellow stroked his reed pipes as his penetrating gaze fixed me in place. “What a peculiar creature, betwixt and between as you are.”
“… thanks?”
I looked around, but my attention always returned to the ancient pine, and the being laid beneath it. I tried to avoid looking the ancient one direct in the eyes, instinct made me fear the deep dark pools speckled with stars.
My voice filled with weary acceptance, I asked, “Is it my fate to die here?”
Goodfellow laughed, a melodious sound that made my stomach feel full and satisfied. “Long ago, humans, forever unsatisfied with their bountiful lands, drove ever further into the wild places of the world, and so the faeries, as is their way, bargained with me. I fashioned for them an Otherworld, one out of step from time and Man. This place is the anchor, its seed, its fertile soil if you will.”
The way he handed me the information with such ease, it made me… uneasy.
My mind raced through the possibilities. I rubbed my neck, hard, then grimaced.
Goodfellow dipped his head in acknowledgment. “As the bargain was struck, so I must prune and tend to its health on occasion, but every seventh cycle on Samhain’s last harvest, the seed must be watered, the tithe paid, or else the Otherworld will shrivel and die.”
“What do you get out of it?” I wondered.
Robin Goodfellow smiled a thin-lipped smile, one that hid his teeth from view. “That knowledge is not yours to ask for.”
Some far off sound filtered into my ears, so faint that I couldn’t make it out. Struck by a coughing fit, I held up a delaying hand to Goodfellow.
Goodfellow played his fingers across his reed pipes. He tilted his head to indicate the pine. “A death awaits. If you desire it, you need but reach out and take it.” I felt then the suctioning force of it, its rune, a pair to mine, drawing me in like a magnet.
Goodfellow appraised me with some interest, seeming to await my choice.
My moment of decision danced on the edge of a sword.
Then, from a far off place, “Kal! Wait! You listen to me! Don’t—” Bell�
�s voice broke, “don’t go off somewhere I can’t follow!”
I sighed. Bell was like a fly fisher casting and recasting a line. I could feel her grim determination. She wouldn’t stop until I’d grabbed hold.
Goodfellow chuckled. “A rather persistent companion you have.”
“I’ll say.”
“Go on. I may follow your feats with some interest. We will meet again, this I assure you.”
I would rather have suffered a thousand lifetimes than gain the interest of an ancient being like Robin Goodfellow, or whatever his true name was.
Goodfellow blew against the sharp inner edge of his reed pipes. A cacophony of sound brushed up against my skin, then cast me out of the pocket world, back into the empty void, and into my vacated body.
Chapter Nine
I’m freezing.
I clenched my teeth together to keep them from chattering and rubbed feeling back into my dead limbs. My body felt like a house left unattended through the winter and was in great need of attention. Every muscle in me felt heavy with disuse, each raspy breath I took was a battle.
There was a musty, wet smell to the air.
With a herculean effort, I clenched and unclenched my fingers and toes. I was laid facedown in a puddle of water atop an expanse of rock. I couldn’t see more than that.
I’d puked up the water I’d drowned in at least. No wonder my chest felt like a wet sieve.
My right side twitched and every nerve there lit up in fiery pain. I craned my neck to look down. The kelpie had taken a huge bite out of me. A big chunk of flesh was missing from my right side, the impression of many teeth left in its place. Despite its size, a bare trickle of blackish blood poured from the wound to stain the puddle I was partway submerged in.
Slow and deliberate, I dragged my right arm up my body, then followed it with the left. I placed both my hands against the cold, wet stone and pushed with weary determination. Bloodstained water dripped off me as I gathered myself on hands and knees.
My vision was fuzzy. I squinted, blinked, and my sight regained its usual clarity. I still felt, off. So instead of trying to stand straight away, I sat back on my butt and looked around.
I was in an underwater cavern packed full of stalactites and stalagmites like row upon row of teeth. The stone refracted warm light throughout the cave. I looked around to find a light source, and noted several glass globes hung from the ceiling, each housing a lesser fire elemental.
Something crunched beneath me. I lifted my left knee to see what it was. Bones. A pile of bones had been arranged in this section of the cave. The larger skeletons were piled in one section, progressively getting smaller until the smallest skeletons were stacked where I was. I had crushed a dusty baby’s skull with my knee.
My stomach did flip-flops. My throat convulsed and I gagged over stomach acid and bile, but I swallowed down my nausea.
“Bell,” I rasped.
Bell was wrapped around a stalagmite, her attention fixed on a deeper point within the cave. The sound of water lapping against a shore carried to my ears from that direction. Where there was an exit, presumably.
“G-g-ghost!”
“Uh, no. And did you take a bite out of me?”
“Who’s there? Thea, is that you?” A voice bounced off the cave walls to where we hid.
I groaned. “Here we go. Now look what you’ve done… say something!” I whispered fiercely.
“Ohh… one minute! I’ll be right there!” Bell called back in an unconvincing falsetto. In a whisper, “You were dead. How’d you come back from that? And I may have taken a little nibble, but can you blame me? The kelpie took the biggest bite!”
Now I was looking for a Bell-sized bite, but I couldn’t immediately tell where she’d taken a chunk out of me.
I felt slow, geriatric even. My bones ached. My joints felt like stones grinding against one another whenever I moved. And I had to fight like this?
“I’m missing a whole pound of flesh! What’s up with that, some sort of taste test?” I asked.
“Yeah, I dunno, this kelpie is weird. Really weird,” Bell said. “You’ll see.”
“I don’t want to see! Couldn’t you have dragged me out of this place before we found ourselves in this situation?”
“Oh, sorry, like I didn’t tell you not to casually mount the malevolent horse spirit!” Bell returned. “Was I supposed to drag your cold body out of here, like it mattered?”
“What is going on back here!” A head and hand holding a meat cleaver poked between some rocks, turned to Bell, “You aren’t Thea,” then dismissed her to look at me.
Bell and I locked eyes.
Bell bounced back first. “Oh, excuse us! Thank you for your hospitality, but we really must be going~"
Black shaggy hair threaded with watercress and shells covered most of the kelpie’s face, but it had transformed from a horse into a boy. The gray pallor of his skin looked unhealthy on a humanoid, but it was unmistakable— this was the same entity from before.
The kelpie shook his head, ignored us, and started talking to himself. “No, I am quite certain the boy was dead. His meat was delicious, I was preparing to make a full course meal out of him… how do I reconcile this sight?”
Feeling like a rickety old man, I pushed off one knee and forced myself to stand. When I did, I realized I was taller than the kelpie. It was a bit comforting, actually.
“Start walking,” Bell whispered out the corner of her mouth.
I had to squeeze to fit between a stalagmite-stalactite pair. The rock bit into my flesh, leaving light scratches but not drawing blood. That was when I realized I wasn’t wearing a shirt. The kelpie must have torn it off me to get at my meat.
“Quick, through here!” Bell called.
I weaved through the mass of adjoining rock with all the agility of an old timer, but the kelpie was deep in thought.
Bell led me to a giant, open domed portion of the cave. In piles surrounding its living space, the kelpie had neatly arranged discarded weapons, clothes, jewelry, artifacts, leather goods, full suits of armor, packs of all sizes, coins in various denominations and currencies, and various other odds and ends.
There’s a dragon’s hoard of wealth here.
And in the midst of it all burned a merry cook-fire, in the center of which sat the biggest cauldron I’d ever chanced to lay eyes on. It could easily fit… my dead body. The pot was boiling over, and the air near it smelled of crushed garlic, mint, and spices.
“Hey, wait! Stop there, intruders! I am not done with you, I just finished preparing the stew!”
In one corner behind a stack of brilliant jewels and gems was a small pool of water that lapped against the nearby cave wall.
“That’s our exit!” Bell said.
“Look, I know I’m tasty and all, but I really can’t have you eat me. I have things I’ve got to do before I die, so I really have to decline your offer of becoming stew.”
The kelpie foamed at the mouth. “But what will I replace you with? The perfect ingredient! This is a travesty. No, I will not allow it!”
Why do I have to be so damn tasty?
“And with a sylph for garnish…” the kelpie salivated.
I was fed up with the conversation at this point. “Look kid, get this through your wet-ass head— neither of us are going into your stew tonight.”
We aren’t getting out of here without a fight.
My staff was who knew how far above us at the waterhole’s edge. There was no way I was going to be able to concentrate wind mana into a scythe without it. Knuckling my skull, I tried to come up with something off the top of my head. I looked around, and my eyes fell on the neat, organized piles of goods.
“Kid? Who are you calling a kid! I am known far and wide as the great kelpie, Erlk! You were but a babe when I was feasting on my great-grandchildren!” Erlk, the great kelpie, raised his meat cleaver and menaced us with it.
Bell made a face. “Ew, nasty.”
“Are kelpi
es strong?” I asked.
Bell waved me off. “Nah, they’re a one trick pony,” she put a finger to her lips, “I think.”
Erlk’s meat cleaver slashed through a chest-thick stalagmite with the ease of a chef cutting butter. “Come, I will make short work of you both and dinner will be served without delay.”
I stepped slow towards the corner that housed the pool of water. I tried to keep him talking. “Hmm, that so?”
Bell pinched her fingers together. “Bit strong?”
Erlk stomped his foot. A sheet of ice raced across the stone and froze the pool of water solid when the two collided. I clicked my tongue. With the exit sealed, no matter that I was edging my way over there, a simple escape was no longer possible.
Wily old man trapped in a kid’s body.
“You got any ideas, now would be the time for them,” I told Bell.
“How about we make a deal?” Bell asked the kelpie. “You want your dinner, don’t you?”
“A deal?” Erlk rolled the idea around on his tongue.
My boot-heel clanged against the chest piece for a suit of armor. Keeping my attention focused on Erlk, I glanced side-to-side to get a look at the organized piles of treasure nearest me.
“Don't touch that!” Erlk yelled at me.
His reaction sparked an idea in me.
Bell tried to distract him, waving her hands to get his attention. “How about that deal? C’mon, think about it! You don’t want to dirty your special ingredients, do you? Kal here is extra tasty!”
“I would never,” Erlk cleaved the air as he thought aloud, “but one must be certain to tenderize the meat before boiling the flesh off bone.”
“Don’t forget he wants to use you as a garnish,” I muttered.
“Not helping~” Bell spoke out the side of her mouth.
Though my mana flow stuttered, I tugged hard on my source to pull what I could to the forefront. I formed a thin skin of mana around my body, and I don’t think I imagined feeling a little less shaky because of it. This new ability was going to have to be put to the test.
