Rarely did anyone other than the apothecaries visit the Forest of Wonders; there were other wooded areas for hunting and timber. Those from Gilden spoke in awed whispers of the Forest’s arcane magic. Plants with tendrils that could strangle . . . shrubs that shot out poisonous thorns . . . flowers whose scents induced eternal sleep. Who could even imagine the beasts that fed on such dreadful flora? And what of the gnomers and throlls and other fantastic creatures from once upon a time—weren’t there always kernels of truth in such stories?
Only kernels. There was, for instance, the touchrue bush, whose thorns were not only needle-sharp but also coated with a sap that burned painfully. The bush did not, however, launch its thorns. But it suited the pothers to keep the Forest both pristine and to themselves, so in general they said as little as possible to refute the rumors.
“Don’t worry, Mannum Zimmer. We’ll be careful,” Garith said cheerfully.
Other friends stopped the boys to inquire about their families. Mohan Santana and Salima Vale were more than well-respected for their apothecarial abilities, while Salima’s brother, Ansel, was admired for his boldness and adventurous spirit. Garith, with his easy manner, was a great favorite with young and old alike. As for Raffa—he knew too well what was said about him in the settlement.
Baby genius, indeed.
He was in no mood to hear that again, besides which he was in a hurry to get to the Forest. “Come on,” he said to Garith. “We can pretend we’re foot-racing. Then it won’t seem rude to people when we run past them.”
“RumbletumbleGO!” Garith shouted, without warning. He took off, leaving Raffa flat-footed behind him.
“Hey!” Raffa charged after his cousin.
It took a good few minutes for Raffa to catch up, and he managed it only because Garith slowed to a walk once he was beyond the settlement.
“Thought you’d never get here,” Garith said lazily as Raffa came puffing up beside him.
“Maybe someday you won’t need such a big head start to beat me,” Raffa shot back.
They continued their friendly bickering as the Mag came into view. The Mag was a bleak wasteland that covered a long stretch bordering the Forest. It was named for the magma that had risen to the surface when a deep fissure opened up during the Quake.
The Great Quake. Some two hundred years earlier, a series of violent earth tremors had devastated half the continent. Millions had died; whole cities had been destroyed. The destruction was on a scale never before experienced in recorded history. The Sudden Mountains were born, a range of peaks and abysses that all but isolated Obsidia from neighboring lands to the south and west.
In the aftermath of the Quake, small groups of people had made the perilous journey to Gilden and its environs, which were the only sites within hundreds of miles to escape total devastation. Raffa’s Santana ancestors had made the arduous trek from the southwest to cross the Suddens, and for every family that reached its destination, many more had died trying.
Although not nearly as imposing as the mountains, the Mag was still an effective barrier between the settlement and the Forest. Even in full daylight, it was an eerie place. Twisted rock formations rose from the pitted basalt underfoot, some of them three times Raffa’s height. Others littered the ground like small creatures from another world, frozen in midstep. Some of the more distinctive formations had names: the Angry Ox, the Frozen Man, the Poisoned Pillar.
Well before sunpeak, the boys passed the Three-Headed Beaster, which was the last significant Mag formation before the Forest. Tree growth began with young saplings pushing their way through the tall grass along the path. It was a pleasant part of the walk, a few moments of relief between the harshness of the Mag and the strangeness of the Forest. Raffa was torn between delight and anxiety: What surprises would the Forest have in store today?
“Whew,” Garith said, and stopped to drink from his waterskin. He peered ahead down the steadily narrowing path. “It would be nicer to eat here, don’t you think? Rather than farther in, where it’ll be a lot darker.”
“We haven’t even started looking yet,” Raffa said, anxious to reach the Forest proper.
“But if we eat now, our packs will be lighter,” Garith pointed out. “And we’ll have more room to carry stuff if we find anything.”
Raffa rolled his eyes. No one could keep Garith and food apart for very long. If they didn’t stop to eat now, Raffa knew that his cousin would badger him mercilessly. Besides, he was a little hungry, too. So he shrugged out of his rucksack’s straps while Garith found them a handy stump to sit on not far off the path.
Raffa’s rucksack contained flaky oatcakes spread with good butter, two small chunks of crumbly cheese, slices of onion, and a handful of dried cherries.
“Solid-earth, look what else!” Garith exclaimed in delight. As a surprise treat, Salima had given them pieces of honeycomb wrapped in grapevine leaves.
The boys settled down to contented chewing. A few curious chickadees flitted around, calling, “Chicka-dee-dee-dee!” Raffa threw crumbs to the little birds. He liked them for their friendliness and their neat black caps and bibs.
In the midst of lunch, Garith started a cherry pit–spitting contest. He won the first few rounds easily. Then Raffa argued that because Garith was taller, he should have to stand back a step for the next round.
“That’s the only way we can see who’s really spitting them farther,” Raffa concluded.
“You’re just mad because I beat you three times in a row,” Garith said.
“So? If you’re so sure you’re better at it, you shouldn’t be worried about taking a step back.”
After some more discussion, Garith agreed to take half a step back. The spit that followed was a tie—at least the way Raffa saw it.
“No, mine won,” Garith declared. “Yours landed on a leaf—it’s higher than mine, not farther.”
“That’s horsedawdle and you know it!”
“Is not!”
“Is so!”
Garith let out a pretend roar and tackled his cousin. They rolled around in the underbrush until the rassle ended with both boys breathless and laughing.
Raffa sat up and brushed dead leaves from his hair. Then he plucked a small twig out of his tunic and his mood suddenly turned somber: The twig reminded him of the matchsticks he had used to splint the bat’s wing.
He jumped to his feet. “Come on,” he said. “We need to get going.”
CHAPTER FOUR
THE boys walked single file now, rather than side by side. Garith led the way. Since they had reached the interior, the trees were taller and closer together, straining the sun’s rays and dimming their light. Phosphorescent fungi glowed in mossy shadows. It was a place of whispers and secrets.
The path was almost, but not quite, the same as it had been on Raffa’s last visit. There was a dense grove of bamboo-like trees he didn’t remember, and parts of the trail were now edged with scratchy spikes of orange beardgrass, which he’d only seen previously in another part of the Forest.
Otherwise, he recognized the way easily, to his relief. If the area had changed too much, he might have wished that his mother were with him, which was not the kind of doubt he wanted to feel on this trip.
His pace slowed as he peered around intently, searching for a flash of red amid all the greenery. Meanwhile, Garith was supposedly looking for the vine, too. But there were plenty of fine distractions around. The Forest of Wonders was mostly old growth; some of its trees had been alive for centuries, even surviving the Great Quake. It held countless smaller wonders, too.
“Raffa—cracklefruit! I’ve never seen them so late in the year!” Garith bounded a few yards off the path to a small shrub. He returned with a handful of the pale yellow orbs and gave two to Raffa. The cousins watched each other’s mouth to see the bright sparks flash from the fruits as they were crunched.
Next Garith found a stand of burstbean stalks. He collected several pods and spent the next few minutes throwing them at
tree trunks. Each pod exploded with a loud bang that clearly annoyed the trees’ residents—squirrels and jays, who chattered and scolded noisily.
Raffa picked some pods, too, and put them into his rucksack. As far as he knew, no one had yet found an apothecarial use for them, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t one. He could experiment, try new combinations. . . .
Then something else caught his eye. “Look at this,” he said, stepping up to a neverbare tree that flanked the path. The bark bore several long, deep scratches caked with hardened resin. Caught in the resin was a tuft of coarse blond fur.
“Bear,” he said in awe. Bears were a rarity in the Forest. Not even Uncle Ansel had ever seen one, although he sometimes reported having seen signs of them deep in the interior.
“Do you think it’s the one—you know, tamed by that girl?” Garith asked.
Some settlement folk claimed that a girl from one of the nearby farmsteads had tamed a Forest bear. Neither Raffa nor Garith had ever met her.
“How would I know?” Raffa said, fingering the fur. He tried to imagine what it might be like to tame a bear. Was it like training a dog? Did you start with sit and stay? Could a wild bear ever become as tame as a pet?
These thoughts brought his mind back to the little bat again, and he chided himself for idling. He knew he would not have been allowed this trip if Mohan had thought that other botanicals might keep the bat alive. The scarlet vine was the bat’s only chance.
Raffa put his head down and began the search again in earnest. With his eyes on the forest floor, he didn’t see Garith come to a halt, and bumped into him. “What—” he started to ask.
“Wait.” Garith held up his hand. “It’s weird,” he said, his brow furrowed in puzzlement. “There’s some kind of clearing up ahead. A big one. See how light it is?”
Raffa leaned around his cousin to get a better look. Garith was right. The path continued on through dense growth, but by looking up instead of down, Raffa could see that it was much brighter ahead of them.
He tried to think. When was the last time he had been in this part of the Forest? Last spring, probably—maybe six months ago. There hadn’t been any clearing back then.
The boys moved forward cautiously. Then Raffa let out a sound that was half cry, half groan as he stared at the scene before them.
Dozens of trees had been ruthlessly axed, their doomed trunks forming a haphazard border around the clearing. There was no way to replace such venerable trees, not in his lifetime, not in his children’s children’s lifetimes. This was no Forest magic. It was human-wrought.
The clearing had obviously been some kind of camp, abandoned only recently. Off-center, a ring of stones and a pile of blackened wood showed where a fire had been.
The boys walked the perimeter of the clearing in silence. Piles of rubbish littered the ground. Raffa saw a forgotten tent stake. A torn waterskin. Pieces of frayed rope. Whoever the intruders were, they had been careless and slovenly.
Approaching the far side of the clearing, they could see that a track had been hacked through the Forest, heading northwest and wide enough for a cart or even a small wagon. A chill trickled down Raffa’s spine. There were trails throughout the Forest, but no roads or tracks. It was part of the charter.
The Forest had been protected by government charter for centuries because of its essential botanica, without which countless ailments could not be healed or cured. “For use by all, abuse by none” was the motto in the charter. Whoever slashed this track through the Forest had broken the law as well as ruined the land. There might be an explanation for everything here, but Raffa couldn’t think of one.
Who would do such a thing? And why?
“I think we should follow the track,” Garith said at last. “If we can figure out where it goes, maybe we’ll get an idea of who did this.”
Raffa shuffled his feet. “Do you think—I mean, maybe we should—”
“Should what?”
“I don’t know. . . . Tell someone first?”
“What, are you scared?”
Raffa stifled a sigh. He wasn’t scared. There was a difference between scared and cautious, but he’d never be able to explain that to Garith.
So they made their way to the track. As they took their first steps out of the clearing, there was a whoosh in the air above their heads, and an enormous bird hurtled past, barely missing them.
“Hey!” Garith shouted. “What was that?”
Raffa turned to watch the bird as it soared behind them. It was a great-tufted owl, easily the biggest he had ever seen. It banked in a smooth curve, barely moving a feather—then headed back toward them.
“Look out!” he yelled and ducked.
The owl came at them again, its vicious talons extended for a strike. The boys stopped short and reversed direction.
Again and again, the owl circled and dove at them. Raffa could see its yellow eyes fierce with concentration.
What was going on? Owls didn’t attack people—and what was this one doing out in the middle of the day, anyway?
They fled through the clearing and back to the path. “Where is it?” Garith panted, his eyes wide as he turned in a full circle, looking for the deranged bird.
A tense silence, during which the boys could hear nothing but their own ragged breathing.
Then—
Wham!
“Yow!” Garith yelled. He dove to one side of the path, Raffa right beside him. Both boys covered their heads with their hands and cowered there, motionless.
After a few moments, Raffa dared a peek, then sat up and looked around. There was no sign of the owl.
Garith was clutching the top of his head. Blood trickled slowly down his forehead.
“Garith! You’re hurt!”
“I’m okay,” Garith said in a shaky voice. “Just a scratch.”
Quickly Raffa untied the kerchief knotted to his rucksack, took out his waterskin, and dampened the cloth. He would have stanched the wound himself, but Garith waved him off and took the kerchief from him.
Raffa scrambled around on his hands and knees in the undergrowth. Mellia or wortjon didn’t grow this deep in the Forest, but he found a few wilted yellowroot leaves. What could he combine them with? There had to be something. . . . He scanned the plant life around him.
There! Growing on the north side of a huge querco tree was a large colony of sponge moss. Raffa dug out a small patch with his penknife. As he rubbed the moss and leaves together between his palms, he saw blue and red blending to pale lavender in his head. It should have been a deep rich violet, but without mortar and pestle, the paste was very crude.
It would have to do. He patted the paste on the wound, doing the best he could to rub it through Garith’s hair and into his scalp. All the while, he puzzled over the behavior of the crazed owl.
Then he remembered that the bat had been clutching an owl feather: It, too, had been attacked by an owl. Could it have been the same bird?
“I’m all right,” Garith repeated. “Thanks—it’s already stopped bleeding. Let’s just sit here and rest a minute.”
Raffa sat down with his back against the querco tree. His heart was still pounding, and he closed his eyes for a few moments. A breeze riffled the leaves, but otherwise the Forest was quiet.
The tree at his back was ancient and enormous. If both boys had stood with their arms outstretched, they might just have been able to encircle the trunk. Raffa opened his eyes, thinking of how the roots reached as deep into the earth as the topmost twigs stretched into the sky. The entire root system would be equal in girth to the tree’s crown, as if two huge trees had been placed as mirror images above and below the ground.
As he stared into the branches of the tree, his vision seemed to cloud. One of the branches became a shelf, like those in the cellar back home, holding a single earthenware jar. He took a breath, and the image vanished.
He squinted in puzzlement. Near the trunk, a bright red snake twined itself around the limb. That wa
s a little unusual; most of the snakes in the Forest were more modest colors, gray or black or brown. Out near the end of the branch where it forked, there was a large ball of leaves and twigs, a squirrel’s drey, but it looked abandoned—
Raffa blinked. He flicked his gaze back along the branch.
A bright red snake?
CHAPTER FIVE
RAFFA jumped to his feet and pointed. “Garith! Do you see it? That streak of red?”
It wasn’t a snake at all.
It was a vine!
That was why the branch had turned into a shelf in his mind’s eye! He must have seen the vine without realizing it, and only now recognized it for what it was.
Garith stayed seated, still holding the kerchief to his head. He looked up into the tree.
“You think that could be it?” he asked, sounding dubious.
“No wonder they couldn’t find it—it grows in the trees, not on the ground!” Raffa exclaimed as he circled the base of the tree.
The lowest branches were far above his head. Even standing on Garith’s shoulders, he’d be unable to begin climbing. Why hadn’t they thought to bring a rope with them?
“We’ll have to come back,” Garith was saying. “We can bring a rope tomorrow.”
Raffa shook his head. Tomorrow might be too late for the little bat. He had to figure out a way to harvest the vine now.
A solution came to him. He hesitated for a moment, then decided to act before he could change his mind: He stripped off his tunic, took out his penknife, and began slicing the leather into strips.
“What are you doing?” Garith said, his eyes wide. “Aunt Salima’s going to kill you!”
Raffa’s tunic had been new that season. He had long wanted one like it. Years earlier, Salima had made one for Mohan and another for Ansel. Last winter Garith had received one as a birthday gift. Finally, this fall, it had been Raffa’s turn.
Salima had tanned the deer hides herself, pieced them together, and painstakingly sewed the seams, reinforcing them with waxed thread. It was a beautiful tunic, sturdy and serviceable, with a hood and two large pockets. All of Salima’s menfolk loved their tunics; Mohan’s and Ansel’s were by now nearly worn to rags.
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