Above the neck, a similar change from the human torso took place. His chin and jaw too, were human, but above them, the face began to change. A fur akin to that which covered his thighs spread across his cheeks, as well as his forehead. It even crept down his nose, which was somewhere between the nose of a man and the nose of a stag. Green-eyes flecked with brown looked out from beneath heavy, arched brows.
The crown of his head shared little in the way of similarity with that of a man. A stag’s ears stretched out from the sides of his head, twitching slightly as he regarded Phinnegan. Jutting from the space just above his forehead were two large antlers. Just behind, two bony arcs like the horns of a ram completed the visage.
“Wha…who are you?” Phinnegan asked.
“You have found me, do you not know?” the half-man said, his brow drawing down in a look that Phinnegan thought altogether dark.
“I…I’ve only just followed the stag. The white one.”
The man jumped to his feet so suddenly that Phinnegan flinched back, fearful that he would be struck. But the man only rumbled a deep laugh.
“The white one, he says! As if any other could have brought him to me.”
“Brought me to you?”
“Yes, of course,” the half-man said, drawing himself to his full height. A cloak of woven moss hung about his shoulders, clasped in front by braided vines.
“I am Cernon,” he said, his cloak swishing gracefully as he flourished a bow. “Fear not, for you are welcome here, Phinnegan Qwyk. Welcome to the Grove.
Cernon
“You…you know me?” Phinnegan asked with some trepidation.
“I have always known you. Even before you knew yourself, before your mother brought you into your world, I knew you. You are the Balance.”
“Balance? Balance to what?”
“So many questions,” Cernon chided, stepping surely over the roots at the base of the large, ancient tree. “All will be made clear to you in time. Come.”
Phinnegan grasped the hand that was thrust down to him, pulling himself to his feet. Dusting himself off, his hand brushed against the small book in his pocket. He had nearly forgotten about it. He thought to pull it out, but while Cernon seemed to mean him no harm, he sensed an otherworldly power in the half-man that made him uneasy.
“What is this place…the Grove? They called it the Circle.”
“It goes by many names. But to be true, it is the Center,” Cernon replied cryptically.
“Center? Center of what?” Phinnegan asked.
“It is
the
Center,” Cernon replied. His eyes stayed steady on Phinnegan, who broke first and looked at his feet.
“The things I saw…” Phinnegan began, but he was cut-off brusquely.
“Visions.”
“Visions, then…why did I see them? I couldn’t do anything. I tried, but they all vanished.”
Cernon snorted, throwing his head back in something between anger and humor.
“You were not supposed to do anything. You saw them because you were
supposed
to see them. There was no answer to what you saw, no response. You humans are always so concerned with the answer, with what you must do. But it is rare indeed that the answer is ever as important as the question, let alone more so. It is the struggle, the awareness of it, which is paramount. This too you will learn in time.” Cernon frowned, tilting his head so that he looked skyward into the fog.
“But now, time is your enemy.”
“My enemy? Why?”
“You have a task. You must be the Balance.”
“The Balance,” Phinnegan echoed. “You said that before. What do you mean, I am the Balance?”
Cernon turned away from Phinnegan, striding a short distance from the great tree.
“In nature, there is always a balance,” he began, his back still towards Phinnegan.
“There is Fire!” he cried, whirling and throwing an arm towards Phinnegan. A white-hot flame shot past him, incinerating the tuft of moss at the base of the tree, further spreading a trail of fire into the surrounding moss.
“And then, there is Water,” Cernon said more softly flicking a hand in the direction of the creek so that an arc of water flowed toward the fire, dousing it with a hiss.
“There is Light,” Cernon cried again, his strong voice ringing in the grove. Around them the fog dissipated as a bright sun appeared high above, bathing the clearing in a brilliant light.
“And there is Dark,” Cernon intoned. The sun vanished as quickly as it had come, the fog returning in a heavy rush, thicker than before. A blackness settled over them for several moments before returning them to the dimly-lit fog.
“There is Order and Chaos,” he said, turning back to face Phinnegan. “Predator and Prey, Earth and Air, as well as many others. Each is deadly, and each is life-giving. There are two sides to every coin.”
“I understand,” Phinnegan said. “But what does this have to do with me?”
“Let us have an understanding,” the half-man said as he approached Phinnegan. Towering above, some seven feet tall, his brown-flecked green eyes stared down at Phinnegan.
“I care not what happens to this world, or any other, in the end. Time will go on. But,” he said, pausing to raise a slender finger. “But, there must be Balance.”
“I still don’t understand…” Phinnegan said quietly.
“Can you think of no one in this world who seeks to destroy that Balance? Who seeks a power for himself that is beyond what any one mortal should wield?”
“Vermillion,” Phinnegan whispered.
“That is the one.”
“But, what can he do? Destroy this world?”
“Destroy the world? Bah! He is like the many waves of the ocean crashing against the shore. Try as he might, he will never succeed fully. He aims too high. However,” Cernon paused, his eyes narrowing, “just as a storm swells the power of the sea, rendering it capable of destruction normally beyond its means, there are things that he may attain that would swell his power to unfathomable levels.” Cernon stopped and arched an eyebrow.
“I believe you know of such a source of power.”
Phinnegan swallowed, thinking back to his vision.
“The Great Stone.”
“Indeed. Such a thing would give Vermillion power to alter this world significantly. In the end, he will fail, as do all who seek such power. But for the inhabitants of this world…his failure may well come too late.”
“The Faë?” Phinnegan asked. Cernon nodded.
“I must admit, I am fond of their kind, particularly the Young. In the end, I will not save them, though it is within my power to do so - to so directly interfere is, regrettably…forbidden. But, I have brought them you.”
“You are a very special person, Phinnegan Qwyk,” Cernon, said, the thin lips turning up in a smirk.
“You’re not the first to tell me that,” Phinnegan said quietly. “But what can I do to help the Faë? How could I possibly stop him?”
“My vision does not show me how, or if you even will. It is,” his lips curled in contempt, “limited. However, it does show me that you can.”
“But-“
“Do you not bear the Mark? Few humans enter this world,” Cernon said before leaning down suddenly, his face inches from Phinnegan’s.
“Fewer still can do magic.”
“Magic?!” Phinnegan exclaimed. “I can’t do magic.”
“Can’t you?” Cernon said with a smirk. “The Mark says that you can. You could not bear it otherwise. That was a test.”
Phinnegan’s eyes narrowed.
“Test? What kind of test?”
“When I learned of your passing into this world,” Cernon began, stooping down to allow a small, red snake to entwine itself around his arm, “I believed you to be the one who could be a Balance. The one who could find a way to stop him. But it is perilous for me to interfere as I sought, and now have, and so I had to be sure. It was a tricky thing. How to test you?” His lips curled into a smile as he raised himself to his full height.
“But then Vermillion made his first mistake. When he cast the enchantment over his daughter, seeking to further broaden his power, he opened the door for me. A gholem is a creature of the earth, and I am the Keeper of this earth.”
“You mean,” Phinnegan whispered, “Emerald?”
“Yes, that one. He opened her to me. She resisted at first, but soon, she listened. Though in the guise of her father’s work, it is
my
bidding she does now.”
“It was you, then,” Phinnegan said, anger creeping into his voice. “You had me brought to this castle - to
him
.”
“I had you brought to
me
!” Cernon said sharply in correction.
“When I learned of your escape from Féradoon, I sent her to follow you. Her father, too, learned of your value, but only after you had vanished. His orders coincided with mine, leaving him unaware of her new allegiance. She was there when the Faolchú attacked you; there to slip the Warber into your pocket in the courtyard of Heronhawk; there in the Winding Wood to see your Marking. She thought to take you then…but there was still one piece missing. A piece without which you could never hope to accomplish what you must.”
“The book,” Phinnegan mumbled, his hand moving absently to rest on the leather-bound book in his pocket.
“Yes, the book. You have it with you, yes? Show it to me.”
Phinnegan moved to take the book from his pocket, but hesitated. This man, half-man,
creature
, had done him no harm, it was true. But the uneasiness Phinnegan felt in his presence remained.
“Do you fear me, human?” Cernon said, barking a laugh. “As well you should, for I could destroy you in a moment. I have no need of that book. No, it is for you, and only you. Still, I am curious as to its properties. Show it to me.”
Phinnegan pulled the book from his pocket, hesitating only briefly before passing it to Cernon. The half-man surveyed the cover for a moment before opening the book, flipping casually through its pages. With a grunt, he slammed the book shut and tossed it back to Phinnegan who only just saved it from splashing in the stream.
“Do you know the purpose of this book?” Cernon asked with a wave of his hand, slender fingers twirling.
“I think so,” Phinnegan replied, staring down at the symbol etched into the cover of the book. “It tells me what to do, like it told me to enter the Gate, but to enter alone. Emerald said it meant I must not let her father pass.”
“Partly,” Cernon said, pacing slowly in front of the ancient tree. “One of its secrets is to show you a path, but not necessarily the only path. You always have a choice in whether to follow it. For there to truly be Balance, there must always be Free Will.”
“But…what if I had let him enter behind me? Would he have found…found the power you said he seeks?”
“Possibly,” Cernon said. “But the peculiar thing about a labyrinth is that you never truly know what you might find in the end. It is a journey to the Center, to your center. The visions you see tell you much about yourself, your loyalties, your fears. With a wretch like Vermillion, the visions may have driven him to madness - or worse. I trust the book said as much.”
Phinnegan thought back to the book’s warning to him. It
had
spoken of purging the unworthy.