Forest For The Trees (Book 3) (64 page)

“Yeah,” the mage echoed.  “We left our heavy cloaks
behind.”

“Area Fifty-Seven would have left you battling heat
rarely found outside the Kello-beii desert.  Area Fifty-One…best not to think
on the alien horrors sealed there.”

“Wait,” the mage interrupted.  “How many of these
seals are there?”

“All tolled, one-hundred-eight.”

Dietrik swore under his breath.  “It is no wonder that
so many strange tales regarding this forest circulate through the nearest
towns.”

Colbey snorted.  “Few outlanders ever encounter a true
denizen of the seals.”

“You can enter any of these seals?”  The mage sounded
confused.

“I could,” Colbey affirmed.  “Yet several are strictly
forbidden.  They are classified as sixth level dangers.  Only the most
experienced Guardians enter them, and never in less than groups of eight. 
Others are impossible to survive.  Sealed Area Seven contains toxic vapors that
fill the air.  It consumes clothing and flesh alike.  No one has entered it in
hundreds of years.”

“But who made these seals in the first place?”

“Later.  Do you see that?”

Colbey pointed to a large bush sprawling in an
unrestrained mass beside the pathway.  The Euveas grew far enough apart that
their root clusters were islands on the earthen sea, rather than the interwoven
tapestry that defined the ground outside.  The path they followed wound around
the monoliths in the open spaces of true forest floor.

“It is a rhododendron,” Dietrik shrugged.  “What of
it?”

“Look closer.  But
draw
no closer!”  Colbey
restrained the mage, yanking him back by the arm.

“Choose your words more carefully then!  You about
snapped my arm!”

Colbey ignored the mage’s ire.  “See there?  The
blossoms are off color.”

“I assume that has a meaning?”  Dietrik shaded his
brow with a flat palm.  “A different species, I expect.  The flowers are closer
to violet than any rhododendrons I have seen.”

“The dyers and cloth merchants might care,” the mage
griped, “but I fail to see the significance.”

“Pay heed to any plant life displaying such colors. 
To an insect, purple and violet are the brightest hues.  They stand out as
watch fires in a stormy night.”

“I’ll keep that in mind if I decide to sprout a pair
of wings.”

“In the Rovasii’s heart, any plant making effort to
attract living creatures must be treated with great caution.  Observe.”

Colbey pulled a branch from a separate brush tangle
several steps back down the pathway.  Once he reduced it to a leafless stick,
he spat several times on the tip until a thin coating of foam covered it.  He
approached the violet rhododendron, stick outreached.

The two mercenaries gasped when the stick neared
several blossoms arranged in an innocent bouquet.  Slowly at first, the
movements scarcely perceptible, the blossoms turned.  No subtler a movement
could have come from a wolf pack sensing prey, the ears pricking in interest,
the muzzles lifting slightly to sample the wind.

Six inches away, the violet blossoms struck
viper-quick.  The petals drew back with the viciousness of lips curling away
from fangs.  Each stamen resembled a stiletto tongue designed to pierce flesh
and drain blood.

Colbey allowed four flowers to pull the stick from his
hand.  Their velvety petals wrapped around the stick tighter than a mile of
silk wound into a foot-width bolt.  His stick was held aloft by the botanous
aggressor.  The bare wood swayed until an audible crack accompanied the length
bending at an obscene angle.

“Animals are far from the only dangers beyond the
seals.”

“That is for bloody certain,” Dietrik croaked.  “How
can a plant move like that?”

“Some breed of magic,” the mage supplied with equal
tremulousness.  “What else could make it do that?”

“I cannot say.”  Colbey tilted his head quickly from
shoulder to shoulder until he elicited cracks reminiscent of the stick’s. 
“None among the Guardians can.  The rythas bush may well be as natural a part
of the world as raspberries or pine trees.”

“That’s the most unnatural thing I have ever seen!”

“Make no assumptions, mage.  There are countless
species existing across all the lands which live only in small, secluded
areas.  The distortions the seals contain have wrought untold changes, yet not
every inexplicable phenomenon is the rooted in them.”

“Would you bet your coin for or against the
distortions in this case?” Dietrik asked.  The strength had returned to his
voice.  “What does your
gut instinct
tell you?”

Against his intention, he felt a smile growing.  “A
bush that stalks living prey as violently as the rythas?  No doubt the dice
read a strange number for its roll.”

The mage quirked an eyebrow, yet kept his attention
fixed on the pathway.  They were shuffling around the rythas, keeping as far
back as possible without departing the worn path.  “Dice?”

“I am certain Kerwin could decipher the meaning in
moments,” Dietrik said.  “Were he present.”

“It is meaningless.  Only a trainee’s jo—watch where
you step, mage!”

“What?  What is it?”  The mage danced sideways, away
from the rythas.  Color had drained from his flesh instantly.

“Hold your foolish jumping!”  Colbey slid around
Dietrik easily as a greased eel.  His sword was half-drawn from its sheath
before he fully recognized the shape laying where the mage had nearly set his
unwary foot.

“Keep back, mate!  It’s a damned tommy!”

“It poses no threat.”  Colbey rammed his sword home
with finality.  “Come around, you two.  Look.  This is the fate of any poor
beast who runs afoul of the rythas.”

He waited without fear until the two men flanked his
elbows.

“What is that thing?” the mage whispered.

“A stole for a woman too fond of her cook’s artistry,”
Dietrik quipped.

“It is a kitsune,” Colbey identified.  “The raw welts
in the fur are where the rythas caught hold.  It had the strength to break
free, as few creatures do, but not without coast.  It left too much flesh
behind to survive the encounter.”

“Must have been a strong bugger to rip away with…six
of those leech-flowers clamped on.”

“Six on this side,” the mage pointed out.  “Could be
as many on the other.”

They murmured while Colbey remained silent, gazing
down on the body.  It was a fox, except twice the size of any breed outside the
forest.  The fur shone in a lustrous golden-red as only a vast wheat field
under the setting sun can achieve on a summer day.  Its three bushy tails were
limp in death.

That alone recalled the sadness in Colbey’s soul.  A
kitsune’s tails were never at rest.  Such a sight embodied his village’s plight
far more poignantly than any other.  Forever stilled.  Never to play again
under the vivid spark of life.

He walked away in the midst of their murmurings,
cutting short their morbid fascination with the three-tailed fox.  They jogged
several steps before they caught up.

“Are all the animals as twisted as that one?” Dietrik
asked.

Colbey bit back the first reply that rose to mind. 
Kitsunes could never be called twisted!  No one who had watched them move,
watch them play, watch them
live
could ever think of them as anything
short of beautiful.

“No.”

The curt reply put a bit in Dietrik’s teeth.  Nothing
ever stopped the mage, though.  “How many are there?  I don’t like the idea of
sleeping in a den of fox-monsters.”

“You would be lucky to have one approach you, mage,”
Colbey answered through grinding teeth.  “And they do not feed on any creature
larger than mice and frogs.  Save your concerns for dangers worthy of it.”

Dietrik reclaimed his voice.  “Things with a stranger
number than the rythas?”

Colbey allowed a second, deeper sigh to escape.  A
headache throbbed behind his left temple, a sensation that had become all too
familiar during his time in the outlands.  “For descriptive purposes, yes.  Yet
that only stems from a foolish saying the trainees indulged in.  We used to say
that the seals were the gods’ playground when they grew restless.  The
distortions were wombs through which anything could be born.  It was a game
where one god would roll a pair of dice.  The higher the number, the stranger
would be the new oddity that came through into the seals.”

Predictably, the mage grew thoughtful.  “You know,
that sounds like it might be tr—”

“It is the idle fancy of trainees who delight in
avoiding the work set to them!  A means by which they may tease each other when
the least desirable duties falls to a fellow rather than on oneself.  ‘It looks
like you rolled a hard twelve’ is what we would say when the foulest tasks were
distributed.”

“What tasks?  Who trained you in all of this?”

“We are progressing too slowly,” Colbey stated
flatly.  “This chatter is stopping our feet from proceeding with due speed. 
The day dwindles, and we have miles to make.”

“If we are to get to the next entrance by nightfall,”
Dietrik supplied.  “Or will it be daybreak?  I can’t keep track of this
battiness.”

“If our new day is beginning, then their next night
should be starting at the same time,” the mage mused.  “At least I think that
is how it works…or perhaps...”

Colbey ignored their prattling.  He had never expected
to lead outlanders through a seal in his life.  The very idea ran counter to
his training.

Except those days were no longer, nor ever would be
again, he believed.  Thomas had insisted no true Guardian could leave such
heavy karmic debts unpaid as were recorded in Colbey’s ledger. Colbey owed
repayment to the mage for the betrayals he had committed against him.  The
younger Guardian accepted his elder’s teachings, though privately he still felt
as turbulent as a merchant ship on a storm-tossed sea.

A Guardian sees to his debts.  And the gods only
helped those who strove their hardest to solve their problems through their own
strengths.  Was this the proof of Thomas’ words?  Did the gods replace him
aside the mage as ultimate validation of the senior Guardian’s lessons?

Only time would reveal that.  Yet this time, Colbey
was determined to act as a true Guardian should.  Or perish in the attempt.

There could be no other course for a man granted the
chance to rearrange the Scale of Life’s balancing weights one final time.

*        *        *        *        *

Marik huddled closer to the crackling fire.  It did
not help.  His back felt too cool for his liking while his face and arms were
overheated.  Beside him, Dietrik stared moodily into the flames.  Dietrik’s
temper was considerably frayed after being forced to march for an entire cycle
of day and night.  Or day and day, if one wanted to be literal.  He never had
mastered the stamina boosting trick that kept Marik and Colbey moving with ease
the entire time.

His friend shifted his eyes without humor when Marik’s
stomach complained loudly.  “I am miserable enough without hearing from your
quarter.”

“Tell it to Colbey,” Marik replied.  “I don’t consider
the fare he collected any more appetizing than you.”

“The man is a savage.”  Across the stone circle
containing the fire, they could still see the remains of several black beetle
carapaces.  The two mercenaries had made do with water.

“Hard to imagine the Arronaths are moving around in
the daylight at the moment.”

“So he says.  Do not forget, mate, that this is the
same man who completely spun off his top only months ago.”

Marik nodded.  “If he told us of this place, I would
assume it was only another sign.  But if this is a delusion of his private
fantasies, we must have spun off the same top together.”

“That hardly means he is sharp as a tack,” Dietrik
disagreed.  “The truth of a single crate does not mean the entire shipment is
legitimate!  If he
was
trained to work in this living hell, it could
well be
this
place that sent him over the edge in the first place. 
Waiting in Vernilock’s toilet to chinwag with a lunatic does nothing to set my
worries to rest.”

“I suppose.  We’ll have to wait until he finishes
scattering that moss he scraped off the trees earlier before we can hear what
he has to say.  I don’t know what the fuss is, but he acted like that moss was
important.”

“Only as important as your life,” Colbey announced,
stepping into the light from the darkness beyond.  Marik jerked in surprise.

“A repellant, I assume,” Dietrik commented.

“Indeed.  It will keep the gerbiscuses at bay for the
evening.  They refuse to touch any lichen matter.”

“What sort of monster is a gerbi-whatsit?”

Colbey returned Marik’s question with a direct stare. 
“It is a vine, mage, not a beast.  One that pulls out its roots so that it may
wander the nocturnal realms.”