The Legend of Elsbeth - Chapters 18-22

A bedtime story

Chapter 18

They trudged forward in the forest, day after day, the weariness wearing them down, down, down into the ground. The mud clung to their boots, and the air was damp and cold, and the light was no light at all.

Elsbeth was silent as the grave, refusing even to respond to Deirdre’s questions with more than a nod or a grunt.

And then there were the glyphs. From time to time, there would be a strange glyph painted in dark red on the side of a tree or boulder. “It’s an old tongue, known only to royalty and a few scholars,” Elsbeth told Deirdre. “Our forefathers used it a thousand years ago.”

“What does it say?” said Deirdre.

“Means ‘stay away.’”

She proceeded onward with a shudder.

As they progressed further, Elsbeth became taciturn. They would come across the same glyph again and again, and Elsbeth would only shake her head and keep trudging, muttering unintelligibly.

Elsbeth stopped speaking, and at night times slept with her back to Deirdre. She muttered during the day and she muttered in her sleep. The only understandable words she spoke for three days was a sudden outburst—“Everything I do is a failure!”—apropos of nothing.

Everything about Elsbeth’s demeanor seemed angry, very angry. But Deirdre intuitively knew she wasn’t angry at her. She was either angry at the world, or angry at herself. But not at Deirdre.

But after a while, Deirdre grew quite bored of this. And so, she decided to do something about it. She began to sing.

Elsbeth pretended not to listen. She didn’t want to listen. But her ears couldn’t really help but hear, and her mind couldn’t help but interpret.

Elsbeth had heard some of these songs, particularly the ribald tavern tales, which seemed to be universal, and she even knew a few of the nursery rhymes that Deirdre sang, albeit she had usually heard versions of them with darker endings. It seemed that her kinfolk told stories to children primarily for scaring them into good behavior, but Deirdre’s people did not.

But the folk ballads were completely foreign to Elsbeth. The ballads were mostly great warrior tales about fighting to defend one’s keep up in the cliffs, or about scaling the cliffs to take the keep of the bad guys. The most interesting tale, however, was about the taming of Mernoch, the father of all great flying squirrels.

“Are the great flying squirrels really a thing?” she asked, when Deirdre had finished the song.

Once Deirdre recovered of the shock of Elsbeth finally speaking to her, she laughed. Then she answered the question.

“Oh yes. We call them mernochs.”

Elsbeth snorted.

Deirdre chuckled. “You don’t believe me! Well, that’s funny. Because I’ve seen them, time and time again! Sometimes even face to face, and that is an experience you never forget. For us, the great flying squirrels are as real as the great bears are to you. They just don’t venture down south here. They like the cliff forests.”

Elsbeth pulled out her sword and hacked away at some thick vines that blocked the path. There was an abundance of vines here, and it took quite some time. Elsbeth’s strokes came faster and more furious and she breathed heavily. And then, they came to a huge fallen tree. Elsbeth put away her sword, slamming it into its sheath, and then whipped out her brother’s sword. She seemed to meditate for just a moment, muttering some words to herself. The sword took on an uncanny glow, as if it were alive. And then with a great cry, Elsbeth moved as fast as a serpent and struck the massive log.

The sound was like an explosion. The log shattered into hundreds of pieces, its remnants scattered over a wide area. Elsbeth sheathed her brother’s sword and they climbed over the rubble.

“Nice trick, that!” Deirdre said. “That sword of shattering ain’t half bad.”

Elsbeth said nothing. It seemed they were back to silence.

Deirdre began singing again, this time a soft lullaby with no words.

When she had finished, Elsbeth spoke abruptly, “Tell me about the mernoch you saw.”

It startled Deirdre at first to hear Elsbeth speak. But then she smiled. She loved the telling of a good tale and a captive audience.

She began her story with relish.

“I was a young girl, old enough to like boys but not old enough for marriage. I was always in trouble at that age, always supposed to be with my minders for months on end, not having any free time, it was always lessons, lessons, lessons. I would run away to hang out with Ausere, this boy I liked.

“You know how it is—Ausere was my ‘boyfriend,’ even though I had no idea what that meant besides chasing and teasing each other. Anyways, I was hiding from my minders with my so-called boyfriend, and he took me someplace I had never been before, someplace he wasn’t even supposed to be. We leaped up a steep winding staircase like goats, and then scaled a rock chimney until we reached the top and were face to face with the most enormous building you’ve ever seen—it was almost like a barn built of great boulders, like it was built for giants. It was then I realized where we were. He was taking me to the mernochary.

“The mernochary—which is essentially a great stable for mernochs—is where his father worked, and Ausere had stolen his father’s key. It was daytime, so there was no one else there. The great flying squirrels hung from the rafters like bats there, asleep. I was very impressed by them, these huge creatures big enough to ride, so huge, and yet they seemed so precarious, hanging from these rafters! I was terrified to walk under them. ‘What if they fall on us? We could be crushed!’ But he just grabbed my hand and pulled me after him. ‘Don’t worry about it, they never wake up during the day,’ he said. ‘And by the way, if they did—never make any sudden movements around a mernoch. Just play dead. But don’t worry, they won’t wake up. I’m an expert.’

“I had my doubts, but I was also bewitched. We would stop under each one, and he would stroke its muzzle. ‘What are you doing?’ I said as loud as I could keep a whisper, but he said that they wouldn’t wake up, and he did this all the time.

“I knew that most people were forbidden into the mernochary. They were known to be very dangerous if spooked, easily crushing a man or woman or incapacitating you with even just a casual lash of their great fluffy tails.

“But he walked right up and rubbed their muzzles. I was scared, but, to listen to their snores, rising and falling like a great ocean of powerful, lazy beasts—they were beautiful, and each one different! They were gray, ruddy, black, calico—some had waves of polka dots swirling like rivers all over their fur. Their great tails idly whooshed through the air. It was so peaceful that I could have easily gone to sleep right then and there if I wasn’t so thrilled.

“And then I came to one that I felt peculiarly drawn to. Ausere told me that it was just a mutt, but it was a beautiful mutt to me. It had a black and white marbled pattern on its fur, and a tall crest of hair all along its back, from neck to tail. It looked as if it was the black sheep of its family, the one that didn’t fit in. For the first time since entering their den, I grew just a little more brave, and I reached out and stroked its muzzle with my hand.

“Its throat was warm, powerful—so powerful!—and yet there was an overwhelming sense of calm, like feeling the vitality of some great fathomless force of nature—like an oak, or the ocean—yes, the ocean! It was as if you curled up next to Noranous, the ocean himself, and felt the god’s slow heartbeat roaring up against your own body. I felt safe and powerful and not alone.

“And just then, as I was feeling all of these things, and getting all warm and fuzzy inside, the great mernoch, he opened his eyes! And he drew his head back a little and looked at me—he looked at me! He drew his head back and to the side and I was looking at this side of his head and this great eye just looking at me, silently regarding me. Ausere and I were a little freaked out, but we just froze, and as we were standing there, it stretched its head back towards me and nuzzled it up against me, nearly knocking me over. And I stroked its muzzle for quite some time, and the purring rumble grew louder. It sounded so pleased.

“This went on for several minutes. And then, the most remarkable thing happened. The mernoch, it twisted upright and then plopped down onto the ground! The whole building shook, and I fell down. I realized then why the building’s dimensions looked so weird from the outside. It was built so that giants could romp around inside!

“I was terrified out of my mind, and would have run away, if it wasn’t for what Ausere told me earlier. He said not to make any sudden movements, so I didn’t, and as for that great, magnificent beast, he approached me, and then he made this enormous, elaborate movement, stretching out his neck towering up high above me. And then reversing it, he brought his noble head all the way down and laid it gently at my feet. His big left eye looked at me a certain way, right at me, and it winked. And winked again. ‘What is it doing?’ I said. ‘Bloody hell,’ he said, ‘But I think it’s actually offering you the wing.’ ‘The wing? Like to ride it?’ ‘Hell!’ he said. ‘You know you’ve got to do it, now! It’s a great honor!’

“‘Wow!’ I exclaimed. And just like that, I decided, y’know what? Hell! And I started climbing up its neck. Ausere laughed at me and made me hold on till he could get a harness and saddle up on it, but in a matter of minutes, he had gotten it ready. And the great creature just waited there patiently, and the whole time, that great eye was blinking, winking at me, slowly, like a massive eclipse aimed right at my heart.

“When I climbed on its back, his body trembled in little spasms of excitement. Slowly, he lumbered to the great barn doors, which Ausere threw back. The bracing air shocked me a little at first. I gasped for breath and then called out, ‘What’s his name?’ ‘Old Rebel!’ he shouted into the wind, just as it gathered itself together into a crouch, and then—it sprang.

“That spring was such a jolt! My people are known for being able to leap great distances, but this was something else. The sensation was like how I imagine it would go if you were a grasshopper sitting on the ground, all crouched up, and then bam—you’re bolting through the air like lightning. It was such a rush, and I gasped to breathe—and then, all was still.

“We glided through the air, sliding through it like butter. I felt the tension in Old Rebel’s body, felt the pressure of the air bearing him up. He moved about easily through the air, which was an ever-present roaring pressure bearing us up, keeping us from falling very fast. He would stretch and contract his muscles, making minute adjustments to the wings that stretched like webbing between his four arms. No matter what direction we moved, it was smooth and seamless. And I realized that we were perfectly safe gliding on the wind, that we could no more ‘fall’ and crash than a fish could fall and crash on the bottom of the ocean.

“We made a huge circle and came back to my father’s keep. It was the first time I had seen the keep in its entirety, which was only a few thousand people, but to me, at the time I thought of that as a huge city. But now it looked just like a child’s plaything, a dollhouse castle with little dollhouse people hopping about like mites.

“When we got back, my parents were mad, so mad. But it was worth it. So worth it. Unfortunately, that was not an auspicious start to a new habit. My parents locked down the stables and for the next three years, I kept asking my parents for permission to ride Old Rebel, but they wouldn’t allow it. Until finally, on my 15^th birthday, they caved.

“When I rode him again, I noticed how much Old Rebel was getting truly old. Mernochs don’t live as long as humans, and he was already up there in years when I had ridden him for the first time. But even though I could tell his bones were getting old and creaky and he didn’t have much left in him, he still bowed down and gave me the wing. We rode together that day, and twice more before he got too old for it.”

After a long silence, Elsbeth spoke. “It must have been a special kind of relationship you had with him. To ride together like that, to experience soaring on the wind together. It sounds like a beautiful thing.”

“Yes,” said Deirdre. “A beautiful thing. Yes it was.”

Chapter 19

Their last meal was finished. They had saved the wolverine meat for last, and Deirdre had cooked it up in a stew with some pine needles. After the meal, Deirdre went over to the stream and washed her hands. When she came back, she had a strange look on her face.

“Elsbeth,” she said. “I found something in the stomach of the wolverine. I washed it off in the stream just now. Look.”

In her palm was a royal ring, an elaborate band with emeralds and topazes swirling around the middle. Elsbeth gasped.

She grabbed the ring from Deirdre and drew it close to the small fire they had lit.

“This is Faolin’s ring!” she exclaimed. “It was my brother’s signet.”

They looked at each other in astonishment.

“Well,” Deirdre said, “Where does that leave us?”

“No,” Elsbeth said, shaking her head. “I don’t believe it!”

She paced back and forth. Deirdre watched her silently. They both knew what this meant, but Elsbeth wouldn’t see it.

“I won’t believe that Faolin is dead until I see it with my own eyes.”

Deirdre twitched a little, but said nothing.

“This is good, really,” said Elsbeth. “It means we’re on the right track.”

Deirdre nodded, and looked away.

“Ugh,” Elsbeth said. “I hate the disgusting nature of this whole quest. It hasn’t turned out to be what I thought it would be. I don’t know what I thought it would be—not this! Not finding rings in wolverine stomachs, not the bloody runes—this is a dark, blood place. I wish I had never come here. But for me it was never an option!”

The words began tumbling out of Elsbeth like a torrent.

“I’ve done all the right things. I’ve tried to be strong, and brave, and always do what’s right. I’ve trained for years for this, I’ve spend thousands of hours learning the ways of the woods, hundreds of hours with the sword, and every one of ten thousand waking hours picturing his face, remembering his voice, swearing that I’ll come find you brother, I’ll come find you!”

She sobbed, lapsing into silence. Deirdre drew her close and put her arms around her. After a time, Deirdre said, “Tell me a good memory you have of Faolin. What did you love most about him?”

The tears continued to fall down her face, but Elsbeth began to think. She smiled a little.

“He was so kind. So forgiving. I was often very harsh with him, pushing him more and more…I could be even a little mean, honestly. You described what it was like for you, growing up as a princess, such high expectations. For me, I was the person with the high expectations.

“Honestly, my standards have often been higher than my father’s. He would be indulgent, letting Faolin spend long hours making art or crafting decorative armor or just talking to people. I spent many hours studying the law, studying finance and engineering. I considered it my supreme duty to learn how our society functions, what it is built and made up of, how the whole thing works. How can you expect to rule if you don’t understand that?”

“Why were you so concerned about learning how to govern? It was always the plan for him to govern, right?”

“I put a lot on myself, because I was worried about Faolin falling behind in school. Father taught me that we should always have each other’s backs in life, and somehow I interpreted that into some kind of rule—I don’t know, it doesn’t make sense to other people, but—when I realized that Faolin was falling behind in his studies, I decided that what I needed to do was make up for his lack. I needed to learn everything that he wasn’t learning so I could be his advisor later when he was king.

“But I resented Faolin for not spending the long hours at the library that I did, and I was a bit of a nag. He spent a lot of time just talking to people. Not important people, either. Just whoever. Street beggars, sometimes.

“But it was my father who showed me that it wasn’t just Faolin who needed to learn from me. My father commanded me to follow Faolin around for a week and observe what he did. And my father almost never issued a direct command to me, so it was very odd. But I did it.

“And I did learn something from Faolin which wasn’t something I would have ever thought to learn. I learned to empathize. He would just ask people what it was like being them, what they were experiencing and how they felt about it. Very strange. After my first day I reported back to my father and told him all about it, and said Faolin was wasting his time. He laughed and told me to go back and finish my assignment, that I wasn’t being teachable.

“I was always one for being obedient to direct orders, so I did that. And after a week, I realized something. All of these ideas I had about how to better govern, they all fell apart in the light of how real people work. If I understood the economics of blacksmithing but didn’t know what it was like to actually be a blacksmith, if I didn’t understand how they felt about life, then I would fall flat on my face as a ruler. He taught me a lot.

“Anyway,” she said mournfully, “None of this matters now.”

Deirdre wondered if that meant that Elsbeth was accepting the reality that Faolin was dead, but was too afraid to ask. She didn’t want to think about such things.

Instead, she asked, “Your father…what kind of man is he? At times that I met him, he confused me. The way he let you go on this quest…does he view you as expendable?”

Elsbeth laughed. “My father views no one as expendable. He taught me to value the life of even just one person, even when weighed against the needs of many. I was once about to pass judgment on this horsethief who had pillaged several noble’s horses in the castle. The crime was sufficiently serious to warrant death, and I was about to pass that sentencing.

“But my father intervened. I asked him why after and he explained to me the ripple effect, how the man had a wife and several children and they had been starving to death because the man had lost all his livelihood; he broke horses, but all his students had come down with plague at once, and he was held liable to all of his clients for replacing their horses, an impossible debt to pay. If we would have executed him right then, leaving his wife and children with nothing in the dead of winter, they would have all starved.

“And my father said something I’ll never forget: ’Some of the most powerful actions you’ll ever do in this life will be those of mercy.’ The man went to prison, but father made sure that his wife and children were provided with food for the winter, and he arranged so that his sons came and visited the man in prison to learn his craft.”

“That’s strange,” said Deirdre. “I’ve never heard of a king governing in such a way.”

“Yes, he’s a remarkable, strange man,” said Elsbeth, reverence in her tone. “I can’t imagine what I’ll do when he’s gone.”

That night, Elsbeth and Deirdre kept each other warm. When distant wolf howls kept them up, Elsbeth asked Deirdre questions about her life until she fell asleep.

***

The next day, Elsbeth and Deirdre entered a clearing that looked like an old outpost of some sort. There were several houses up in the trees, or rather, what used to be houses many years ago. All that was now remaining was collapsed ruins, tumbled down heaps of boards, a few still clinging to the trees, but many more fallen to the forest floor.

The tree houses were clustered around one particularly large tree that was so wide across that a carriage could have been driven through it with room to spare. In the side of the tree was a mossy door, carved with elaborate inlaid designs of gold. The air was very quiet and still.

Suddenly, there was a fffft, and an arrow appeared at their feet. Deirdre nocked an arrow in her bow and pointed in the direction that the arrow had come from. She peered at the trees but saw nothing.

“Look,” Elsbeth said. “There’s a message.”

Attached to the arrow was a tightly rolled scroll. Elsbeth unraveled it, and brought it up to the light. On the scroll were several runes, all painted in dark red that she could only but hope was not blood. It certainly looked it.

“What does it say?” Deirdre said. “It’s the same language as the others, no?”

“Yes, the same.” Elsbeth said. “These runes say: ‘eyes’…’many’…’days’…’leave this place.’”

She crumpled the note up in her hand. A rage built up in her. She raised her voice and shouted at the trees, walking back and forth as she did so, eyes raised in defiance.

“Show yourself, if ye be not cowards! Show yourself!”

There was no response.

“I’m not afraid of you!” Elsbeth continued. “Nothing you can do will stop me, you hear? Nothing! I will not accept your fearmongering, your despair and dread! You don’t make me afraid. I am Elsbeth, warrior princess of the undying line of the kings of the Virudaun! It is not I who fear you. It is you who should fear me!”

With that said, she strode forward to the great tree in the center of the clearing and yanked the door open.

Several things happened at once. As soon as she opened the door, a great echoing boom echoed from somewhere deep in the forest. It was hard to tell how far it was, because it seemed to emanated from the ground itself. The hairs on the back of their skin stood straight up. Elsbeth plunged forward into the room, drawing her sword, and Deirdre followed behind her, keeping an arrow cocked, and looking all about to guard their rear, constantly scanning for enemies.

Inside the tree was a large room, the walls of which were the outer layer of the tree. High up, there were openings in the walls which let in light. There was not a soul there, but there were lit candles everywhere, and rich tapestries of red and blue and purple, with gold and silver lines tracing their way throughout them. In the middle of the room was a high altar, coated in gold. A great, elaborate artifact of gold hung down from the ceiling like a stalactite so that it almost touched the altar. Resting on the altar, just beneath the stalactite, was a small chest.

For a moment, Elsbeth and Deirdre just took the room in. Elsbeth strode forward to the altar, sword in hand. Deirdre followed her a couple of paces behind, constantly scanning the various openings above them in case someone appeared to fire down at them. They had still not seen a soul.

When Elsbeth reached the altar, she hesitated, arm outstretched. She looked around.

“Perhaps we should be cautious…” Deirdre began.

“The time for caution is over,” Elsbeth said. “I demand answers.”

And she yanked the chest open.

“What are you doing?” whispered Deirdre at Elsbeth, now even more alarmed, but Elsbeth grabbed a bundle from the chest. It was something, wrapped in ornate cloths. She hurriedly unraveled the cloths, but then stopped suddenly when she saw what the item was.

“By the gods!” she breathed. “This is Faolin’s journal.”

Chapter 20

20th of Midsommar, 1014

I came to my camp for solitude three days ago. The weather has been wonderfully fair, and I’ve slept outside under the stars. But alas, my solitude has turned to disquiet. For all three nights that I’ve been here, I have seen a pair of red eyes watching me, floating in the darkness, eerily silent and detached. I could swear they were watching me. Twice I went out into the dark with my torch and sword, to try to get closer, but the eyes winked out once I came near. But as soon as I settled back into my sack, the eyes re-appeared. Eyes that, despite their red color, seem remarkably too human. The only one I know of who lives anywhere in the area is that crazy old woman Margo, but this would have been a long trip for her to make just for a prank. But who lives out here in the forest? No one.

23rd of Midsommar, 1014

I thought to myself—these eyes are in the direction of the White Path. What if someone or something lives out that way? I decided to take the path for just a few days and see what turned up. It has been three days now of traveling this path, and I still see the eyes each night, and always watching me from the same direction. Am I following these eyes, or is it only my imagination? Are they demons in the night, or are they something else? But I wonder, what if it is no monster, but a person, living here alone? I think this an unlikely fancifulness of my imagination. And yet, still…some strange curiosity impels me to go further. This curiosity is itself a curious thing, an arcane force cloaked in obscurity. I don’t know what I hope to find out here. I should really head back soon; it will seem strange to Father and Elsbeth if I am gone for too long.

26th of Midsommar, 1014

I told myself ‘just one more day’ and it has turned into three. But I have been encouraged by the sighting of a second pair of eyes showing up on the next night, and now on this night, I am surrounded by a whole host of eyes on every side. Again I ask myself, what am I searching for? What do I hope to find? The mystery is deep, but it seems to run in my very blood.

3rd of Sommarfall, 1014

How much hs happened! Not much time; writing in secret. Lost left hand to giant wolverine atk. Ws rescued/kidnapped by a strange folk. Whole bodies covered. I’m only un-blindfolded f meals. Strange moss food. These people—can’t see evn thr faces—only thr red eyes, which glow evn in daylight, if such a thing exists here. I seem to be prisoner & yet treated w reverence? They kp touching my face w thr gloved hands. Must go.

4th of Sommarfall, 1014

Took me to a sacred grove? Mch preparations ard me. Mesmrizing. They hv blue lights strung up & they all come fr thick cable of pulsating blue light fr deepr in wood. Someone tried to sneak past my guards today, to approach me. Wsn’t going to gv him away, b he hd a coughing fit. Cghed up blood. Guards killed him.

6th of Sommarfall, 1014

Huge battle. Over me seemingly?? Hard to know what’s gng on. There are 2 factions. Smaller fction won bc leader hs a magic gem in sword. Evry swing of blade magnified. He’s ruthless & suspicious I think. Lots of backstabbing. No one safe b me seemingly?? Wl try f escape. All uncertain.

9th of Sommarfall, 1014

Ruthless faction leader hd coronation ceremony? Crowned leader of all factions now, I think? Things hv settled down a little in terms of the killing. B lots of arguing, and I hv no idea what abt. There’s a throne room where this leader listens to ppl debate evry night. Sometimes if he dsn’t like wht they say, head comes off. Still—things are calmer than before. Not saying mch!

10th of Sommarfall, 1014

Ppl come to stare at me f long periods. They come in 2s or 3s & stand on othr side of my guards, arguing. Getting tired of all this. Moss food mks me sick. I keep hearing the word “Aethelan” and when someone says it, everyone in room mks a gesture. Bow the head & touch forehead w 2 fingers. V strange.

11th of Sommarfall, 1014

There’s a map on wall w diff dots on it & in middle, all dots connect to a blue tree. I pointed to tree & asked guard, “Aethelan”? He nodded ‘yes’ and made the gesture.

12th of Sommarfall

A man bribed the guards to come up to me. He took off gloves and stretched out to me the most horrific arms I’ve evr seen. He ws shouting & waving these hands in my face & the guards started yelling. Didn’t know wht to do. Then he grabbed my hands in his! Everyone got quiet f a moment. Then he just left quietly. What was that??

13th of Sommarfall

I awoke the next morning to find they had left me here all alone. I now have plenty of time to write in this journal without fear of being noticed. I apologize for the sparseness of previous entries; I was concerned that if they discovered my book they would confiscate it, as they did most of my things at the time. All that has been reversed now; when I awoke in the morning, my guards were not here, but my sword and other confiscated items were all returned to me in a neat pile. I walked outside, expecting to see the whole camp full of people, and it was deserted. The whole thing, all of these tree houses that were previously full of people and glowing with all of these blue lights strung up everywhere.

The one thing remaining was that huge, massive cord that seemed to supply all of those lights with their magic power. The huge cord of pulsating light is still there, but now with nothing attached to its end. It leads deeper into the wood.

Going hunting now. Tired of eating moss.

14th of Sommarfall

After a day of hunting and eating good meat, I’m feeling a bit better and ready to return. I should certainly return, it seems. My father and Elsbeth would certainly want to know about this unknown people who have been living in the woods, are unwitting neighbors all this time! And they seem to have magic we do not, on top of it. I need to get back soon.

I have gone through so much, and for a time thought my life was in grave danger. But now that it has all passed and I have received nary a scratch, and my belly is full of meat…I wonder if I was ever in any danger? Although they kept me prisoner, they never harmed a hair on my head. Truly it was the most curious occurrence, in fact I could have sworn it was a dream if not for the fact that I am still here in this outpost and can see the remnants of the people here. They took almost everything off all the walls, but left the map.

As I think back about these people, they are still a mystery. Not being able to understand their language was a great frustration. But I can’t help but think…it seemed they were very religious about always keeping themselves covered, head to toe, so I could not see an inch of their skin. But then, as soon as one of them revealed his arms to me—hideous things! Covered in strange protrusions, like the underbelly of a seafaring vessel!—as soon as I saw their skin, the whole outpost, a small city, just packed itself up and left. And I keep wondering…I don’t know why they should care what I think, who am I to them? But all the same…they seemed to treat me with reverence. Perhaps they did care what I think. And so I keep thinking…what if they left out of shame?

15th of Sommarfall

Elsbeth would scold me. I’m making a “very irresponsible decision.“ But, I’m going to go just a little further into this wood and see how far away this blue tree is. Who knows? Maybe I can get to it in just a day or so? And then I can return home with a lot more information. After all, I was never in any real danger. And once I see this Aethelan, which seems to be very important, and see more of these people than just a tiny outpost, I’ll know a lot more about them. I have to go further. Just a little. If I don’t quickly find the great blue tree, then I’ll turn back around. But I may be very close. Just one day, two at the most.

I suppose I should admit to myself the real thought I have in mind. Although I may later remove this page from my journal. I know it’s a fanciful thought, but: what if these people just need someone to see them and accept them as they are? Someone who isn’t them? I want to communicate to these people that I see them, protrusions and all, and accept them as they are.

Even though I think it highly unlikely I would be in any real danger, I must admit I cannot truly predict these people, and given their bouts of extreme violence, all proper precautions should be taken. Therefore I am going to leave my journal here, so that perhaps if my family ever comes looking for me, they could find this in my stead.

But I believe I will be treated well. I should be back in just a couple days. Four at the most.

***

Elsbeth stopped reading aloud and shut the book.

“That’s the last entry,” she said.

She held the book in her hands, thoughtfully. Then she set it down on top of the closed chest. Then she gripped it and slammed it down. Then she exhaled slowly and released it.

“Well,” she said, looking Deirdre in the eye. “I guess we know where we’re going now.”

Deirdre nodded and walked to the door, still open, and peered out, arrow still cocked.

“I’d like to get moving as soon as we can. I’ll watch the door while you look at the map.”

Elsbeth studied the map on the wall, which seemed to be the very same map that Faolin had mentioned before. It had no sense of scale, so she didn’t know how far it was from where they were to the blue tree in the center, but at least she had a general sense of directions. She needed to go due east to another outpost, south east to another outpost, cross a river, and then at a branch in the path, take a right due south, then…

A moment later, Elsbeth was ready to go. She had in her hands Faolin’s journal, turned over so that its back side was face up. She had drawn, on the back, a rough replication of the map on the wall.

“Let’s go,” she said, and they walked outside.

The moment they did, something strange began to happen. A shrill sound cried forth somewhere in the forest, not unlike a bird, but somehow more piercing. Elsbeth and Deirdre looked at each other askance for a moment, and then started walking. Elsbeth put the book away in her pack and drew her sword. The shrill sound repeated once every few moments, setting them on edge. They peered around the deserted outpost, but nowhere could they see any signs of life. Still the shrill sound continued.

“Let’s get out of here,” Elsbeth muttered.

“Don’t have to tell me twice,” Deirdre said.

Elsbeth led them plunging onward, following the same path as before, going even deeper into the forest.

“This sound puts my teeth on edge,” Deirdre said. “And I don’t like that it started the moment we left that strange room.”

“Maybe if we keep moving we’ll outdistance it.”

They moved very fast, sometimes running, and sometimes walking, as the terrain allowed. There were more white skulls occasionally on the floor of the forest and there was everywhere now the same shrill alert sounding. And now it became apparent that it came from many different sources, and it echoed back and forth in the forest, as if all of these sounds were calling to each other.

“This is some shite,” said Deirdre.

“We go on,” said Elsbeth.

Chapter 21

“You seem to keep forgetting something,” said Deirdre, as they rushed on through the forest. “We haven’t eaten in days and ready to collapse at any moment.”

“Yes…that has been coming to mind occasionally,” Elsbeth said ironically. “But I don’t think I’ll be able to rest until we get away from this alarm that’s going up everywhere.”

They traveled for all day, and the alarm did become more and more distant, sometimes closer, at other times further away. As they traveled, they found themselves in a part of the forest that was dank and damp, and the roots and trees slick with wet and algae.

And the roots of the trees became taller and taller. The roots rose higher out of the ground, and were arrayed into thin walls that got taller until they reached far above their heads. Instead of crawling over the roots, they now had to wind their way between the walls of roots as if they were navigating a maze. It wasn’t until some time had passed that they realized that they were navigating a maze. It had simply grown up around them, as if it had been there all along.

“What a sick place,” said Elsbeth, faint with exhaustion.

She collapsed to the forest floor.

“I can’t breathe,” she said. “It’s so suffocating here. And the light…I’m looking up towards the light far above, but I see nothing. It’s so dark it might as well be night time.”

“We have to get going,” said Deirdre. “If we stay long you’ll fall asleep.”

“I can’t move,” said Elsbeth. “I have to rest. My body is done. I am done. I’m done.”

And she fell unconscious. Deirdre leaned over and took her pulse. Elsbeth’s breath was labored but steady, and her pulse felt much the same. Deirdre herself felt exhausted, but she knew she could keep going. She looked around. Everything was so dreary. Then an idea entered her mind that delighted her.

When Elsbeth awoke, she was alone. At first she was afraid, and set up quickly, fumbling for her sword. At first she sat there in the dark, trying to make anything out. And then she heard it—the sound of someone scrambling on wood. And the accompanying sound of singing. Deirdre’s singing.

She looked up and above the roots were the trees, and coming down the trees from the canopy was Deirdre, and she was singing. She leaped with her goat legs from branch to knoll, and swung with her arms to the next branch. Elsbeth felt like she was only just now seeing Deirdre in her natural environment for the first time. Deirdre was made to climb. How wrong it must have felt to her to be confined to flat paths because of her comrades.

Deirdre landed with a plop next to Elsbeth.

“Where have you been?”

“I’ve been to see something very important. Very special.”

“What could that possibly be?”

“Something you may have forgotten about in this dark place.”

Elsbeth frowned.

“The sun,” Deirdre said with a laugh.

“You’ve been to see…the sun?”

“Yes! I climbed all the way up yonder tree, all the way up to the top of the canopy, and I stuck my head out among the leaves and breathed the fresh air. And the sun told me to tell you that he’s still alive and well up there. He’s shining down, beaming life and warmth down on all of us, and none of the trees here can take that away,” she said, taking Elsbeth’s hands. “It’s real. It’s golden and orange and it’s warming up the upper canopy. Even though it’s cold down here still, it won’t be for long. It’s Spring. And the sun is warming us, and the leaves are bright green up there, stretching out in oceans with waves rippling in the breeze. The sun is real,” she said with a squeeze, “and you’re going to see it again.”

“Thank you,” said Elsbeth, hugging her. “Thank you for bringing me news of the sun.”

She laughed.

“And you’re right. I had quite forgotten it existed.”

She breathed in deeply with relief.

“But,” she said, “I still don’t know if I can continue onward. My body seems to be refusing to move. I tell my legs to move and they just don’t.”

“That too, I can help with,” said Deirdre, and she lifted up Elsbeth in her arms.

They traveled this way for quite some time. Deirdre had to often stop to catch her breath, but no matter how many times she had to stop, she would go for another wind and pick up Elsbeth and go back at it again. Until they came upon the end of the maze.

And what an end. They began to hear sounds of bustle and activity long before they saw it. When they rounded the final corner, they emerged from the maze right in the middle of a great city in the trees.

It reminded them of the small outpost they had seen before, but much larger. Trees with buildings in them stretched on as far as they could see. And here they could see farther than Elsbeth had in a long time, for not only was the ground completely free of obstructions, minus the occasional huge tree trunk, but also, everywhere was lit with uncanny blue light.

The blue light came from little bulbs of glass strung from rooftop taverns. It came from little flickering lights embedded in trees in swirling, artistic patterns. It lit spiraling pathways that wound around the outside sand insides of trees. It lit the wooden causeways that arched between trees. It glowed warmly from houses that hung like baskets from large tree branches, and it burned hotly in the furnaces of great coal plants in the hollowed out insides of great dead trees. It lit up the robes of all the people moving about on all these canopies and paths, and it gleamed off the pikes and sword-hilts of the warriors who strode to and fro in their strange armor, an amalgamation of steel and dark cloth.

But most of all, it emanated from an enormous tree in the center of all things. The tree was massive, bigger yet than any Elsbeth had seen, and embedded in the tree—taking up much of its width, and yet still not taking up the entire tree—was a huge section made of a milky blue gem. How big the gem was could not precisely be told since so much of it was obscured by the bark around it, but it was clearly many times the height of a man and several times his width. And its depths pulsated with a powerful light so bright that it rivaled the light of the sun itself. And everywhere attached to the tree were huge cables, which went to the various other trees and the trees beyond them, and on and on. In fact, there was such a massive network of cables converging on the tree that Elsbeth imagined the entirety of a massive civilization might in fact be flowering forth from this one tree.

Deirdre and Elsbeth stood slack-jawed. Even Deirdre was at a loss for words for some time before simply uttering,

“Gods!”

“I don’t understand what I’m looking at,” said Elsbeth.

“Did you know an entire kingdom existed in these woods? With magic more powerful than your kingdom or ours combined?”

“No!” said Elsbeth. “There were legends of an ancient sister kingdom with ours, but…the legends are so old, but the split is so old, older than even my grandfather’s grandfather’s grandfather, that no one believed such a thing existed! I just…how could all of this exist without us knowing about it?”

Elsbeth started shaking her head, muttering repeatedly, “I don’t understand…I don’t understand…”

“I understand one thing perfectly well,” said Deirdre, affirmatively. “We’ve been starving to death, and these people have food.”

“Whoa whoa whoa—we can’t just go rushing in here!” Elsbeth said, grabbing Deirdre by the arm. “Who are these people, how is all of this magic operating, things moving about, are they friendly…we need to figure out what’s going on here!”

“I’m skin and bones, and you’re about to keel over any moment. What we need to do is raid a tavern,” said Deirdre.

Someone cleared his throat. They turned around to see a troop of guards standing behind them, pikes lowered to point at them, a smug man standing above them on a root. The smug man seemed to have some authority over the others, and his armor was trimmed with gold. A captain of some sort? Pretty armor, Elsbeth found herself thinking. Belatedly, she then realized that not only were they surrounded from behind, but now in front as well. Men had dropped down from cables all around them, halting several feet off the ground, aiming crossbows and halberds, ready to either stab or slice at a distance.

And all of the people surrounding them had one thing in common: no part of their bodies could be seen except for their glowing red eyes.

“Well, this is a bloody relief,” said Deirdre, throwing her bow on the ground. “You can always get a hot meal in jail.”

Chapter 22

Elsbeth and Deirdre were immediately bound, hands and feet, to long poles and carried unceremoniously along, their backs hanging to the ground, completely as helpless as pigs going to the slaughter.

“I don’t like the looks of this, Ellie,” Deirdre said.

“Eat or be eaten,” said Elsbeth. All she could think of now was food. And the fact that the people had not actually confiscated her swords yet. They still dangled from her waist, rather obviously. But she didn’t know if she could even lift a sword if she tried right now.

One of the men carrying her pole was coughing all along the way, Elsbeth noticed. At one point the pole stopped being carried. She wondered why, her mind moving slowly through a haze. Only belatedly did she think about the fact that the coughing was worse right now.

She looked down to see one of her captors cough up blood onto the ground, and then stand still for a bit, catching his breath. The captain suddenly appeared behind the young man, and barked something out, causing him to jump in surprise. The young man quickly covered his face and took back his share of the pole, and they all continued onward again. Elsbeth had only glimpsed his face for the briefest moment, but she saw something strange on it, like an oyster or mollusk protruding from his cheek, and a stony bumpiness to his forehead.

Elsbeth thought their language was half understandable. There were a great many words that seemed familiar. It was like listening to something that was always on the verge of making sense, but not quite. Somehow she seemed to intuitively feel the flow of what they were saying, even if the exact meaning still alluded her. But in that flow, there was one word that stood out above all others: “Aethelan.” When it was uttered, everyone gave a quick bow in the direction of the great tree, and touched their foreheads.

The troop stopped at the foot of the blue tree. Each one bowed down to it, and for a moment, Elsbeth got to take a look at the huge blue stone. In the middle of it was another stone, one that was small, as small as a pea, but emitted a blinding white light that seemed to flow from it throughout the rest of the blue stone. She also noticed, in front of the great blue stone a large, elaborately carved altar. All over the alter and around it were spatterings of deep red, of layers and layers and layers of blood.

Elsbeth and Deirdre looked at each other in horror.

“What kind of people are we dealing with?” Deirdre whispered to Elsbeth.

Then they were back on their way, now climbing a great staircase that was wide enough for a horse-drawn carriage—not that Elsbeth had seen much evidence of horses there.

“Can you understand them?” said Deirdre. The men constantly chatted casually to each other as they went about their duties.

“Kind of,” said Elsbeth. “It’s almost like just a different dialect of my own people’s language sometimes…and then other times incomprehensible. The one thing I’ve been able to make out is, there’s some important person coming here called the Healer. He seems to be some kind of political leader who has recently come to power and apparently people have differing opinions on him. One of these men seems to think the Healer is some kind of warlock or demon and it’s unnatural to come to power so quickly.”

When they arrived at a guardhouse, Elsbeth was not surprised. As some of the men took off their bonds and moved them behind bars, the captain turned and spoke to Elsbeth and Deirdre for the first time. Elsbeth tried to carry on a conversation, but it was very strained.

“We’re to be detained? Held here? Prison?...Yes. I understand. I’m hungry, very hungry. About to die. Water. Food. Please. Yes? Thank you…and I have a question. Do you know a man named Faolin? I’m here searching. Looking, searching. Trying to find my brother, Faolin.”

The man shook his head definitively, even suspiciously. As he said each sentence, Elsbeth translated for Deirdre.

“He seems to be saying he doesn’t know anyone by that name…and that people never come here. He doesn’t seem to trust something…trust us. Or where I’m telling him we come from. I don’t think he believes us at all. And we’re going to be confined here until…”

Elsbeth stopped.

“Until when? Shite, you look like a ghost. Confined here until when, Elsbeth?”

Elsbeth turned to her with a strange look on her face, a mixture of apprehension and revulsion.

“The last thing he said was…’You must be presented to the Healer on the altar.’”

Feedback

As always, feedback is welcome. Too many chapters? Too little humor? Too much cannibalism?

Author Notes

Normally I don’t give out this many chapters at once because I don’t want to overload readers, but in this case, I’m eager to share with you guys some new things I’ve been writing. My hope is that if it’s too long to read in one sitting, you’ll come back to it when you have time available. I’m curious to hear ya’ll’s reactions.

Book of the Week

This week I reviewed Your Utopia, a collection of vivid, memorable short science fiction stories written by the Korean writer Bora Chung. Read more here.

What’s Inspiring Me

The snow of Spokane! Last week, we had 6-9 inches of puffy perfection fall on the ground and it was a treasure. After growing up for so long in Tennessee where on many winters we don’t get any snow, much less 9 inches, it’s really magical. Gretchen and I packed our dogs into our big honking four-wheel-drive truck, drove up onto Mount Spokane, and hiked around there, where we took the picture above.

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Until next week!