“It is.”
Alliathiune drew a deep breath. “I would like it if you weren’t so bothered by the magical aspect of my nature, good Kevin. I understand that I am different to anyone you may ever have encountered, but in the Forests of Driadorn and our world of Feynard, I am–well, perfectly natural. Different to you, but distantly related to Humans. Once a moon I enter a tree to rest for a darktime, for we Dryads are in some way part of all nature around us–tied to it, you might say. We cannot exist without the sustenance–the Sälïph-sap–we gain from trees.”
Kevin
nodded encouragingly. “Are your kind truly related to Humans, Alliathiune?”
“Informed studies performed by the Unicorns show that there are great similarities between many of the two-legged creatures of the Hills,” she replied
, as if quoting a text. “There are various legends about the origin of the different races. Amongst my kind, the Dryads, I am special. I’m a Seer.”
It was on the tip of his tongue to cry ‘you don’t say!’, but
Kevin bit the offending appendage lest it break this spell that encircled the two of them. He quelled a shudder as she continued:
“A Seer is one
in whom the magic of our great Forest has expressed itself in a unique form–there are few Seers, perhaps one every three or four generations, and only amongst the Dryads do they appear. Seers have a great duty towards the Forest, to protect it and nourish it, and to use their powers to confound its enemies, which are legion. Because of this special position and greater magical powers than others of her kind, the life of a Seer is lonely. Others are jealous–or afraid. Seers do not have many friends.”
What was she hiding? Alliathiune’s voice was replete with nuances, as though she
were trying to tell him something without saying it. Who had made a mistake and died? What was the one sacrifice demanded of a Seer? Now Kevin’s head was whirling for three reasons: her proximity, what he had seen before, and what she had told him now. Where lay the truth in this? He must not forget a word! And he knew he would not.
“
Dear–uh, good Alliathiune, are you saying you have few friends?”
Her head bobbed slightly before setting back against his shoulder. “
This darktime I shall enter one of these gloamingbark trees, good Kevin. I fear to enter these ancient citizens of the true Old Forest, for not all the spirits are kind. I fear also that Zephyr has only touched the surface of its dangers.”
“He wishes only to protect us.”
“It is not only the holiness of the Sacred Grove that keeps creatures from travelling these parts, good friend.”
Those two words–good friend–made him feel as he had never felt before. And yet, did friends keep secrets from each other? That said, he was keeping many
secrets, too! “You should understand,” said Kevin, as cautiously as a rabbit exiting its burrow, “that one cannot say we know each other well. It would be foolish to assume that there are no secrets between us. Yet, I believe friends should keep no secrets–in time. Is that true?”
She stiffened immediately. “Are you keeping secrets, good
Kevin?”
“
Of course.” His laugh was low and as bitter as aloes. “Those most painful to me. I wish I could speak, but my fears prevent me.”
“Friendship walks hand in hand with trust. Trust grows stronger given time and
faithful companionship.”
“Very wise.” He pursed his lips and stared at the fire. And took the plunge. “
Might it be true that you keep secrets, Alliathiune, even within the secret you just shared with me?”
“Do you read minds, High Wizard?” she replied, in a small, wooden voice. In an instant, she cast off the blanket and leaped to her feet. “
We have spoken enough this darktime. I shall enter that tree now.”
With a flick of her long green tresses, she moved away, leaving
Kevin staring into the fire with tears in his eyes. Idiot! He had pressed her too far.
And the words he would have spoken, died unspoken.
C
hilly and damp dawned
the morn, in accordance with Kevin’s dreary mood. Soon they would prove his hypothesis. Ahead lay but four lighttimes of the Old Forest and they should reach Elliadora’s Well. They breakfasted in haste upon fruits and waycrust, each preoccupied with his or her private thoughts about the way ahead.
His eyes were red-rimmed after reading his tome of wizardry until the last embers of firelight had dimmed, and the single glance he cast in Alliathiune’s direction that morning
was a reproachful one. She, rather than looking refreshed, had dark circles under her eyes, as if she had been crying all darktime. Yet she summoned for Zephyr several yellow-tail sparrows with a warbling bird-whistle she trilled with her tongue, and instructed them in the messages they should bear to Thaharria-brin-Tomal and Dryadell, home of the Dryads. The Unicorn then cast the spells that he had prepared the previous evening over each of their company in turn. Kevin flinched when it came to his turn, but he came to no harm.
As they hiked
along, the forest rose above their heads. Presently, the tall broadleaf trees gave way to thickset stands of maggar and flakebark trees, and towering above them, the mighty, spreading old kalar trees, true giants of the Forest at over three hundred feet tall. Kevin soberly paced eighty-two paces around a single kalar’s trunk. Now he felt small!
They might try to follow the ancient Shilliabär road,
he observed, but here many roots had conspired to tear it up and the undergrowth obscured the mustard-coloured bricks.
To take his mind off trudging
up the long, ever-ascending slope–and especially off what had passed between him and Alliathiune the previous evening–Kevin reviewed his mental map. To the northeast of Shilliabär they should locate the primary tributary of the Barlindran River and follow it eastward, ever ascending into the tall hills surrounding Elliadora’s Well. Here, proclaimed the maps depicting Driadorn’s extraordinary geography, lay the headwaters of the seven rivers that fed the Forest, all originating from a single point–the Well. Kevin thought it unlikely that seven great rivers should originate at a single place, but kept his doubts private for fear of provoking a Zephyr-style diatribe on the extent of his ignorance.
By midmorning the dark trees
closed in completely, plunging the company into gloom so thick it made Zephyr mutter that he doubted if indeed Indomalion stood in the sky. The flakebark trees were so ancient that the trunks were completely obscured by mounds of rotting bark, which the trees shed year-round. Alliathiune declared she had never seen flakebarks so old. The travellers were forced to slip and slide over fetid, rotting mounds of bark as tall as the stalwart form of Akê-Akê. The Faun looked fierce in that semidarkness, all muscle and scars and clannish war paint, which he had painstakingly applied before setting out that morning. Zephyr cast Kevin a meaningful look at this development. Evidently the Faun was not yet forgiven the sins of his fellows.
After lunch, however,
matters took a turn for the sinister. Firstly, the X’gäthi appeared to warn them that several animals had been–definitely now in the past tense–tracking them for a short turn of the glass. Secondly, the road disintegrated and vanished into the undergrowth, until it was only through the X’gäthi tracking skills that they were able to keep to it with any confidence. Zephyr worried that the road would become impassable. Kevin was more worried about all the bugs and spiderwebs–at least, until their dinner-plate-sized spinners began to drop from the branches above and one plopped softly down on the back of his neck. He had a screaming fit and fainted.
He woke, spluttering, to find Alliathiune pouring water on his face, down his neck, and everywhere else.
“I said, gently!” cried Zephyr, thrusting her aside with his muzzle.
Alliathiune stuck her tongue out at him. “It worked, didn’t it? Good
Kevin, the spiders have all been vanquished in your absence by the indomitable X’gäthi.”
There was more than a hint of Harold in his tone as he snarled
back, “Are you quite done with your vicious mockery?”
Tears welled unexpectedly in Alliathi
une’s eyes and she lurched away; blindly making for the nearest tree. The Dryad pitched onto her face as though felled by an axe. Everyone started as one.
“Stay back!” cried Zephyr.
The party froze mid-breath; the X’gäthi blades quivering with the effort of restraint; Akê-Akê with his bow partly drawn and an arrow taut against the bowstring; Snatcher with his club upraised and ready to strike.
“Stand well back!” The Unicorn extended his horn, testing the environment with a delicate application of magic.
The ground beneath the Dryad’s prone torso trembled like flour sifted through a sieve. The patterns on her arms and legs writhed with sinister abandon, making her limbs and muscles twitch and spasm uncontrollably. Tiny, tender green shoots broke through the soil, waving gently back and forth as though caught in their own breeze, growing steadily into tiny creepers that slithered along her skin with a vile purposefulness and perversely intimate touch. Alliathiune’s face contorted as though she experienced hideous pain, but no screams came from her open mouth.
Kevin
found himself frantic with guilt. Could they not do something for her? Why had he snapped so? It was his fault she was being attacked by that … thing! His hand moved to his pocket.
“
Kevin, do not interfere.”
“
Zephyr! What is it?” rumbled the Lurk. The X’gäthi muttered and shifted forward, only for the Unicorn to motion them back.
“A Glothum trap.” Zephyr
bit off the words in his distress. “An ancient magic called
anti-glödryan
. I said before that the Glothums were among the most creative of the peoples of Driadorn. So were their wizards. I had no idea these things still existed!” And he cursed eloquently, but bade them sternly not to interfere.
“Look,” said Snatcher, “must we perforce stand impotent and not interfere? Those
repulsive vines will surely soon strangle her.”
As they watched helplessly, the tendrils grew longer and wound tighter and tighter around the Dryad’s body, slowly subduing her struggles until only the barest quivering of her muscles reassured them that she was still alive. It was incredibly difficult to watch as their companion was entrapped and defeated by the strange plant. Had it not been for Zephyr’s cautions, they would have fallen upon it tooth and nail to rescue her.
Zephyr shook his mane and shifted his forelegs uneasily. “My understanding is that we should not attempt to halt the process, or the entire power of her Dryad magic would turn against us and I cannot say that we would live to remember the experience, at least not in the forms and bodies we presently enjoy. Her own Dryad magic has been subverted by the anti-glödryan and ensnares her even as we speak.”
“
Her
magic?” said Kevin, chewing his lip miserably.
“The Glothums had a
prodigious dislike for the Faerie peoples, an enmity of origins lost in the mists of time,” explained the Unicorn. “Her kind and any other Faerie were unwelcome in Shilliabär, and the Glothum wizards went to extraordinary lengths to dissuade the Faerie from meddling in their affairs. The anti-glödryan was discovered by chance–a rare weed which is poisonous to the Faerie. The wizards took it, studied it, and after nearly a hundred seasons produced what you see now.”
“P-Poisonous?”
Kevin stammered, aghast at seeing the Dryad disappearing beneath the crawling green shoots. He would rather be tortured with hot irons than endure this. “W-Will she d-die?”
“From her own magic,” said he, shak
ing his horn in agreement. “It isn’t a physical poison, but a magical one, one which turns Faerie magic inside out, so to speak. It is difficult to explain to the uninitiated. Dryads like Alliathiune have the power of growing things, of healing, of making whole. The power of our great Mother-Forest is within her. In a way, she
is
the Forest. When a Dryad steps upon the anti-glödryan plant, she instinctively tries to protect herself with her magic, but instead of saving herself, dooms herself instead. The plant feeds on her magic. It feeds to grow. Once it has subdued her person, as you see, it stops growing and begins to work more subtly, using her own power against her. Animal will change to vegetable, flesh to plant. Once enough has changed, she will be unable to reverse the process and she will die–usually before the new moon, consumed by the plant. That gives us six lighttimes hence.”
“Hold still!” rapped the Unicorn, freezing Akê-Akê mid-step. “If you interrupt it she will surely die. Wait, and we may yet have a chance.”
Her skin was now nearly completely entwined in a layer of thin green strands. Though each was individually weak, together they formed an impervious cocoon around her body, until she came to resemble nothing more than a giant green pod lying on the forest floor. Even her long hair had been entangled by the plant, as if the least stray strand might prove dangerous.
Shifting from pad to pad as though a swarm of nisk flies were bothering him, Snatcher suddenly
ground out, “What chance, good Unicorn? Speak, for the sweet Dryad’s life depends upon it.”
Zephyr sighed and shuffled his hooves. “It is my fault,” he muttered. “I should have remembered the Glothum hatred of Faerie creatures. I did not prepare adequately.” He lowered his head. “There is but one way, good Lurk.”
Snatcher squeezed Kevin’s shoulder gently, making him wince. “Your funereal tone bodes ill, noble Zephyr.”
“There is a Unicorn legend that tells of how the Glothum wizards used upon occasion, when they discovered Faerie persons entrapped by their magic, to remove them back to the city for study and to make an example of them. A particularly nasty version of the legend suggests that they mad
e use of them for, ah …” He took a deep breath and rushed on, “Sprites became decorations, Naiads became fountains, and Dryads became … furniture. It suggests there must be a spell of reversal. If there is, there is only one place it would be found–in the Shilliabär Tower, a wizards’ library. The greatest library in the ancient world. If we can find it, we can hopefully reverse the spell and restore Alliathiune to her former self.”
“And this tower is where?”
“Right in the centre of Shilliabär; perhaps the most dangerous place in the entirety of the Old Forest.”
“One too many ‘ifs’ for my liking,” said
Kevin, pale now and trembling. “If this plant is still alive, what other monsters are too?”
Akê-Akê plucked his bowstring meaningfully. “Only speak the word, master, and I shall riddle them with my arrows. When I run out of shafts, I will employ this mace by way of education upon their monstrous skulls, and if I break my weapon, I shall employ my bare hands and my teeth to rend them limb from limb.
Though my doom should rise before me like the insatiable maw of Shäyol itself, with my last breath and lifeblood I shall purchase our passage to this Shilliabär Tower!”
Snatcher showed his teeth in a hideous grin. “Well spoken, poetic Faun! I declare in agreement with your vow, that as we are headed towards Shilliabär, we should make no detour where courage might fail us. We should strike for the heart!”
“Right!” And the X’gäthi, as one man, drew their swords in agreement.
“Me too,”
Kevin offered meekly.
Zephyr shook his head in disbelief, but pride
shone from his eyes. “I am surrounded by fools who dance for joy at the sight of the hangman’s noose! Nevertheless, I say Alliathiune is too good a friend, and too important to our cause, for us to withhold. Let all Glothums beware!”
Upon Zephyr’s word, Snatcher lifted the green cocoon and rolled it into his sling, which he carried crosswise from his right shoulder on his back. Then they set out again, moving more urgently now, pushing along the road at the very edge of caution. Several times,
Kevin heard swords swishing ahead of them, but always by the time they arrived the X’gäthi had left a corpse and moved on. Some were bigger than the Lurk.
Darktime brought its own terrors. Shades appeared all around them as if drawn by the smell of living creatures, but Zephyr’s enchantments rendered their poisons harmless and by working in pairs, the X’gäthi warriors were able to slay them before they reached the campfire–which the Unicorn had allowed only because he needed the charcoal to prepare several of his powders. After a while
, the Shades stopped coming. But later in the evening they were attacked by Black Wolves, and Goblins, and several other creatures Zephyr had no names for. His magic combined with the X’gäthi martial skills kept them safe, but one of the dark warriors lost his left arm, torn off at the elbow by a creature with a cat’s form and a snake’s scaly hide. No one enjoyed much sleep.
The following
lighttime saw an end to the flakebark trees. Dark, tangled underbrush pressed in from every side, all snarled up with brambles and trailing, viciously barbed lorni-vines, and shaded by the vast, pungent kalar trees. To their affliction was added the joy of hacking through the vegetation with their weapons, the bites of grimflies and nisk flies disturbed by their passing, the upraised and gnarled roots of carnivorous tekla bushes, and the constant need to detour around the trunks of the kalar trees, which were often sixty to seventy feet in width and occasionally larger still. Beneath the forest canopy it was oppressively still and humid, despite the season heading toward Feynard’s winter, called Darkenseason. Sweat trickled down their backs and attracted more grimflies, which showed a particular fondness for Human and Unicorn flesh. It was mid-afternoon, when they were all exhausted and hungry and looking out for the first signs of Shilliabär city, that they stumbled upon a Yatakê lair.