Previous Chapter: The Wizards Left Behind
Into the Forest
The Thief crept through the dead woods carefully, with Fergal taking the lead. The Aiv’s keen sight and sense of smell enabled him to find Peter’s trail, which steered away from the ruins and through the forest in a twisted, snake-like path. The undergrowth of briar grew sparse as they walked, until it disappeared, leaving them no cover other than the mist and the wide trunks of the giant trees. They felt as though they were creeping beneath the limbs of massive reptiles, and Fergal kept looking upward with the suspicion that some monstrous beast was watching him. The Thief hated the stillness that pervaded the forest. If he lingered too long, he could hear whispers that grew louder the longer he listened. He didn’t care what they said. Their words were not for him.
They seemed to wander endlessly in the forest until they spotted a light hovering through the trees. As they approached, a mound rose out of the mist. It was wrapped in moss-covered sticks and vines and had the appearance of something built by an animal; a musty reek emitted from the mound, telling of damp, fetid conditions. Something shimmered on a plate by the hole that presumably served as the entrance. Fergal stepped forward, but the Thief’s hand clamped down on his shoulder.
“I can’t believe my eyes! Do you know what that is lying before us?” gasped Fergal. “It’s the Lung, the sacred organ of the Faerie folk! Look at it, Thief! It is healthy and glistening! Watch as it heaves up and down with the breath of life! To think that the Huldufolk could taste their former glory once again! What a blessing of fortune that we found it!”
“Yes. Don’t you think that’s suspicious?”
“Well, of course… I suppose it is. But this is a lost land, and we know some of my people live here. Perhaps they could have brought it here ages ago and somehow restored it.”
“What is this land’s main currency, Fergal? It’s not diamonds, gold, or even lost artifacts. It’s flesh. Meat. The stuff sticking to your bones. What we’re looking at is a trap, one designed to separate us from our skins.”
“But the trail leads here, and we saw the light. Peter must be inside.”
The Thief said nothing in reply. He turned around and looked at the ground. There were no traces of his or Fergal’s tracks. He was light-footed, but the earth was soft and should have easily shown the print of a boot. Maybe he could get them back, but he wasn’t sure. This was a haunted wood, after all, and the spirits were conspiring against the living. He looked back towards the mound to see Fergal bending over the threshold to gingerly pick up the Lung.
“Look, Thief! I am fine. No horns are sprouting from my head.”
He took a step and the mound behind him trembled. The Thief leapt forward to grab Fergal, but the sticks and vines flew towards them, and he had to throw his hands up to shield himself. The weight pushed him to the ground; sharp points dug into his shoulder, and tendrils curled around his limbs and neck. He heard Fergal yell and tried to do the same, but moss filled his mouth and stifled the scream. Suddenly it was peaceful in the darkness, a cool quiet that eased his struggles and silenced his concerns. His mind knew he was acting irrationally; there was nothing it could do, however, but mull over its concerns in the dark.
He never recalled anyone digging him out. He simply opened his eyes, looked around, and realized he was in a pit. The moon was huge above, and in its light, he saw the bones littering the floor.
“Fergal!” he whispered, looking about. The Aiv was nowhere to be found.
A pair of enormous eyes peered over the edge of the pit. Another head popped up beside it. They observed for a while, breathing noisily like horses, until the Thief had had enough and snorted.
“It lives, my beloved,” said one of the creatures to the other.
“So we drop a rock on its head.”
“Should we kill meat so fresh? Perhaps we take an arm one day and a leg the next.”
“Blood is wasted that way. Precious, nutrient-rich blood.”
“Blood rich enough to keep us strong for many ages.”
“Until another stumbles into our clutches.”
“Another fool reaching for an impossibility in the doorway of a barrow.”
“Not realizing that the illusion will fail, and a pit will swallow him.”
“Treacherous whoreson!” yelled the Thief. “Which one of you is Peter?”
The two heads blinked simultaneously and emitted a raspy, choking sound that the Thief interpreted as laughing.
“I am Peter sometimes,” said one.
“And I am often Reginald,” said the other.
“But sometimes I am Reginald,” said Peter.
“And I am Peter,” finished Reginald.
“Damn it to hell, a pair of cannibal morons,” spat the Thief. “Who would’ve thought? Let me out of this pit. My flesh is rank. Poisonous, in fact. I have more diseases than you can imagine. Syphilis, worm-fever, elephantitus. Just standing next to me is dangerous.”
“Lilu do not worry about disease. We are, after all, nearly dead,” said Peter.
“Rotting on the inside as well as on the outside,” continued Reginald.
“And the only thing that can prolong our existence,” said Peter.
“Is the consumption of fresh, living flesh,” finished Reginald.
“So it was as ruse, your guiding us to the Underworld?” asked the Thief.
“No ruse. We demand payment, and you are the payment.”
“A delectably sweet, wholesome treat.”
“Our favorite treat, human meat!”
“Oh goddamn it,” said the Thief. He looked around and spotted a large femur, which he picked up and aimed at the one he thought was Peter. The bone flew from his hand and smacked the creature right in the forehead. He pitched forward, and with a leap the Thief was able to grab Peter’s ears and drag him down into the pit.
“My beloved!” said Reginald. He let out a low growl as the Thief wrapped his arm around Peter’s throat.
“Maybe you’re ready to throw a rope down now. Where’s Fergal?”
“Nasty, spiteful creature. Doesn’t die like it should,” rasped Reginald.
“You’re wasting my time,” said the Thief, tightening his arm and making Peter’s eyes bulge.
A slow, ugly smile crept over Reginald’s face. He fumbled in his pockets for a while, eventually pulling something out and tossing it down before the Thief.
“There’s a bit of your friend. Stony never liked him that much.”
A long, gnawed finger lay on the ground. The Thief’s rage overtook him, and he picked up a bone lying nearby and bashed it against Peter’s forehead. The bone splintered; Peter cried out and fell on the ground, a dark liquid oozing from his skull.
Reginald let out a cry and disappeared. The Thief stood incensed, but a professional’s calm came over him, and he examined the walls of his prison. They were soft and wet, made of muddy earth, and he did not like to touch the soil, for it felt like graveyard dirt, heavy with minerals and nutrients stolen from decaying bodies. He didn’t think he’d be able to climb out, but the distance to the edge of the pit was only about nine feet, and the Thief was a tall man, quick and agile. He took a step back, bent his legs, and then vaulted off the floor, pressing off the wall as soon as his limbs met it. By contorting his spine, he was able to seize the edge with one hand. A shadow loomed above him; Reginald had appeared with a large stone in his hands.
“Little fingers will be smashed if one does not drop back down into the pit,” he said.
The Thief didn’t reply. He lashed out with his free arm, and Reginald, not having the presence of mind to drop his stone, followed Peter into the pit. The Thief heard the rock connect with soft flesh, but he did not look downward after he had pulled himself over the edge.
He was still in the forest. A caldron stood a few feet away, a heavy black pot bubbling over a smoldering bed of coals. He didn’t have a look at its contents, but instead followed a trail of blood to a stick hovel, where he found Fergal lying before the entrance. The Aiv wore no ball or chain because he was missing his right leg below the knee; a dazed expression plastered his face, and he showed no sign of recognition as the Thief approached.
“I was going to try and take it,” he said suddenly, eyes staring off into the mist. “The Heart, you know. The sorceress didn’t really make me come on this journey. She knew I wanted it, that I had to have it. I knew what it was when I first saw you—I could see it through your chest—and it stirred an ancestral memory in my bones of times long forgotten when I and others like me…like Peter and Reginald, were different creatures. Beautiful, with long limbs and narrow ears, capable of grace, majesty, and prophecy. As the Lung withered, so did we, and now we are a remnant, a vestigial people not worthy of redemption. Do you know how long it has been since I’ve seen another like myself? Almost one-hundred years! And the first Huldufolk I meet are degenerate cannibals. It made me realize that there’s no one left to revive. I had to sojourn to the Land of the Dead to learn that fact, and now the madness has left me, and I am wounded beyond repair.”
“I’ll take you to Cassilda,” said the Thief. “She’ll fix you...”
“She cannot conjure a new leg for me, nor restore the blood that has been lost,” interrupted Fergal. “Besides, you’ll never make it through these woods with me on your back, and if you did, I’d be dead by the time you found the others. Just leave me here, with my kinsmen. You don’t know how incredibly old I am. Now that death is at my doorstep, I no longer have any fear. But listen, Thief. The sorceress means to take the Heart within herself. She is mortal, and the act will corrupt her and the organ, and your race will fade like mine, like the gods before us. You can’t let her do it. You must end the quest. Tell them to go back, to leave these shores.”
“You know that’s impossible,” said the Thief.
“But you must try anyway. There is something between you and her. Your destinies are intertwined. There’s something else I wanted to say to you, but I can’t remember, for the life of me. You must forgive my forgetfulness, I’m feeling rather drowsy right now. It doesn’t even hurt; can you believe it? I must be in shock. The Huldufolk don’t have many myths about death. Keep us away from the sword, and we’ll live forever, or so it is said. But that can’t be true, can it, Thief? I can recall what my grandmother looked like, as well as the sound of her voice, but I don’t know what happened to her. Now my father left for the North, but my mother… don’t you have something else to do? I am where I should be. This is a forest, an even older one than the Mawlden Wood. There are trees for me to gaze upon, and though they are strange, I can feel their language and it is my future tongue, the tongue of the dead. Do you think I will see Josun? Do humans go to the same place as Huldufolk? Or is there nothing awaiting me but the eternal rest of self-annihilation? That must be it, right, Thief? Otherwise, what meaning do our choices have in this life? What was Fergal will go back into the ground to nourish these massive trees. All the matter that ever was is still with us. Promise me that if you ever leave this place, you will return to my house and discover my will. I have just recalled that I wrote one ages ago. Take whatever you want, Thief. It is all yours.”
He came out of the fog like a specter and stood before the faint fire the sorceress had conjured, glowing green in the strange light. Callimachus stirred in her sleep, restless because of the voices murmuring in the woods as well as the cold chill seeping through the earth. Cassilda looked at him expectantly with her emerald eyes, the Heart of God sitting on her lap, twitching like an animal in its death throes. He met her gaze for a moment and then let his eyes fall to the ground.
“Fergal is dead. He was killed by our guide and his accomplice, both of whom lie dead in a pit.”
“Yet you came through unscathed,” said the sorceress. “Luck does cling to you. I think she drapes herself around your shoulders like a lover. Do not take another woman, Thief, for I think you will find her wanting. Perhaps some of the luck that deserted Fergal will find its way to me.”
“I didn’t desert him. I didn’t want to leave him lying in this place, but what was I to do? We left Josun in Beaune. I’m sure by the time this is over, you’ll have left me somewhere. Callimachus too.”
Cassilda’s retort was interrupted by a piercing scream. The trees themselves seemed to shiver, and a red light tore through the night, flying above the endless treetops. In between the shrieks, a rush of air was heard, as though two great wings were beating down the sky. It flew close to them, dropping down into the valley of brambles, a massive creature of leather and thorn, propelled by appendages that stretched like grasping hands of bone. As it soared towards a craggy peak in the distance, it turned its hoary head backward and vomited a cloud of fire that descended upon the valley, bathing the dead branches in dripping red heat. What remained of the company took shelter behind the ruins and cowered, as the valley burned below them, the flames licking high into the night, painting the sky crimson. After some time, when the conflagration had died, they peered out from behind the stones and saw nothing below them but charred ash and plumes of smoke.
“What was that?” asked Callimachus, her voice barely a whisper.
“Something that likely has no name in any tongue. Perhaps a monster, or an elemental force, or even a god. Who knows? We must follow it to the mountain and cross that valley of ash. We don’t need a guide, for the Heart beats stronger in that direction, and I know it in my soul that the entrance to the Underworld is beneath that craggy peak.”
Cassilda stood and whispered an incantation before leaping down into the smoldering ravine. The Thief and Callimachus could see nothing below but smoke, yet the sorceress’s voice soon came to them, bidding them to follow her into the abyss.
“I don’t want to jump,” said Callimachus. “It is fifty feet at least to the valley floor, which is undoubtedly most unpleasant due to that…creature’s emission. Furthermore, I find that my will to follow has diminished considerably. I am a scientific woman, of rational mind, yet this expedition seems cursed. I think I’ll find my way back to the zeppelin and wait for you there. If you do not return in a day, I will prepare to leave.”
“You think you can find your way through that woods? Good luck. If you make it to the beach, put a grenade in that pirate’s hat for me. Blow the whole damned place up for Fergal,” said the Thief.
He teetered on the edge and looked back at her, an unreadable expression on his face.
“Why do you follow her, Thief?” asked Callimachus.
“She has my heart,” said the Thief before jumping into the abyss.
He landed softly on the ground, cushioned by the sorceress’s spell. She reached out of the smoke and placed her hands upon him, drawing him into her circle, which shielded against the heat. They stood silently for a moment, the fire burning around them, smoke stinging their eyes and nostrils, until Cassilda grasped his hand and pulled him forward. Onward through the steam they went, following a path carved by fire. Their feet trudged through heavy ash; the brambles around them disintegrated with every gust of the wind. They walked for miles in near blindness, the sorceress’s firefly illuminating their passage, surrounded in every direction by smog. After hours had passed, the blindness lifted, and they found themselves before a marsh. The mountain was close, a jagged shadow looming above, yet the marshland was foul and treacherous, riddled with stinking pits and bubbling thermal vents. They sat down and contemplated the navigation ahead, the Thief pulling off his boots and examining his sore feet. Cassilda sat by a pit with the Heart on her lap, eagerness plain on her face, a mad gleam in her emerald eyes. The Thief knew that she was worn-out and fatigued beyond measure, yet the prospect of their long journey coming to an end had filled her with an inexhaustible reservoir of energy that she would call upon until she either entered the mountain or died in its shadow. He sought to temper that enthusiasm, and so he spoke.
“What are we going to do in the Underworld?”
She looked at him as though he had materialized out of the ether.
“But I’ve told you before. I will claim the Heart before the Pit of the Dead and say the Spell of Possession, and in the Emerald City I shall take the Heart as my own and be granted the powers of God.”
“I had the Heart in my chest and was granted no strange powers,” he pointed out.
“You didn’t truly claim it. You were a vessel, an instrument used to remove it from its prison. The Pit is the crater where Rankar fell, and only there can one claim a piece of him as one’s own.”
“How do you know it will work?”
“Because someone else has done it before. Pliny the Black did so during the time of the Pallas Emperor. His doing so hastened the Empire’s fall and led to the ruin of Ur. Something was lost, and the great feats of magic that sustained Pallas’s reign disappeared. The stature of men diminished. A dark age loomed until the city-states formed and ushered in our current era.”
“Will that happen again? Do they not say that the Heart is the last piece of God?”
She looked down at the beating organ in her lap for a while, as though pondering an answer.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said finally, putting the Heart in her jacket.
“What do you mean, it doesn’t matter?” asked the Thief.
“I have to do it. I must end his life. If all of Pannotia crumbles because of my actions, then so be it. Call me selfish, reckless, callous, call me whatever. The writings I read, I know that Dazbog fed them to me. I know what he wants, what he thinks will happen. He doesn’t know. The ancients do not know. No one will know but us.”
She took his hands in hers and peered into his eyes.
“You will share this with me, will you not? My only remaining disciple. My true, faithful friend.”
She kissed his lips, and they embraced.
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