Light the Reign (The Forgotten: Book 3) (19 page)

As seemed to be the custom with the tribes,
they were once again greeted by the leader of the Gwich’in before
even entering, though they were ushered inside before conversing.
The village was housed on an artificially-made mound of earth, with
many more buildings attached to the main portion by bridges and
held above the swampy water on pillars and posts. The beauty of the
place was stunning; the vibrant hues, lush vegetation, and
intricately designed buildings so out of place within the swamp and
yet at the same time seemed to perfectly complement it.

The leader greeted them warily, not with the
hostility of the Kanza, but with a definite prejudice for their
status as outsiders. He listened politely to their tale of the true
intention of the spell put upon the Princess Phoenix, and seemed
concerned by the eventual outcome.

“Will it affect us in our sanctuary here?” he
queried at the end of their explanation.

“I would imagine that eventually even you
would be affected, yes,” the Dena’ina leader stated, “Even though
you are far from the events currently transpiring, and you may even
escape the spread of the curse, the aftereffects would change the
very world around us.”

The Gwich’in leader was thoughtful, and
scrunched his mouth together, causing his wrinkled chin to ball
together like a walnut. “This is indeed a grave situation. And you
require the use of our powerstone to reverse this catastrophe?”

“We do,” Katya answered this time, having
become the one responsible for the stones – now stone,
singular.

The man stroked the walnut on his chin. “I
would like to be able to give the stone to you,” he started, and
Katya waited for the inevitable ‘but’ that was to follow. There
seemed to be a pattern forming throughout the tribes. He did not
disappoint. “But, a creature has recently come to root in our
swamp, one we call a gnarstal.”

“I’ve never heard of such a beast,” Katya
commented.

“It is a magical being, a cross between a
plant and an animal. It appears to be a giant tree, but it is not.
Anything venturing too close to its branches will quickly discover
this as they are snatched up and ripped apart to be eaten by the
gnarstal’s many mouths.”

“Has it been causing a lot of problems with
the people?” Katya asked, trying to imagine a giant tree stomping
through the village, grabbing and eating people as it passed.

“Not directly,” the man demurred, “however,
it has taken root very close to our abode and is poisoning the
swamp around it, including the water that we use. The roots, you
see, are actually its disposal system. It absorbs the nutrients out
of the creatures it eats, and expels the rest, including any
toxins, out through the roots. Unfortunately, a large part of its
diet where it has currently settled in seems to consist of the
poisonous frogs that abound in our region. Normally, these pose
little problem, and can actually be very useful, but when their
venom is extracted and purified, in essence, and then directly put
into the water…”

“I see,” Katya nodded, “and does your
powerstone somehow counteract this effect?”

“No,” he surprised her by answering, “But we
do require that you perform the task of removing it for us before
we will give you the stone.”

“Why haven’t you just killed it yourselves
already?” Hunter asked.

“We cannot get near enough it to do it any
harm,” he answered, “and being a magical creature, it has so far
rebuffed any spells we have sent against it. We postulate that
perhaps living so close to it, it has learned to recognize our
magical signatures, as it were, and cause the magic to rebound on
itself. Honestly, we do not know why our attempts have not worked.
Hopefully, as outsiders, you will be able to use magic to get in
close enough to physically remove it.”

“Remove it? Not kill it?”

“Removal would be preferable, in their place,
the gnarstal are an essential part of the ecosystem. If there is no
other way, extermination will have to be used.”

“Very well,” Katya agreed, “We shall get rid
of this gnarstal for you.”

They were shown the direction in which the
creature had taken root, and they proceeded carefully out into the
swamp. Past the area which the Gwich’in had shaped into their
paradise, it became mucky swamp water they were wading through once
more. Katya tried not to imagine what each of the slimly things her
hands occasionally encountered underneath the surface in the deep
spots were. The Gwich’in had loaned them special waders – basically
waterproof pants which connected directly into boots so that the
person wearing them could wade out into the swamp without getting
wet – but it was easy to imagine something getting through
them.

They could tell they were getting close when
a sudden putrid smell, worse than the regular dank swamp odor,
prevailed. The water turned a dark blackish color, and a shiny film
formed a coating over the surface. Dead fish, bloated and
half-rotted away, floated amongst the weeds. Their Gwich’in guide
slowed to a stop behind an island of trees and pointed around
it.

The gnarstal stood over twenty feet tall, and
its trunk would have taken three grown men to wrap their arms
around it, fingertip to fingertip. The squat little tree looked
fairly ordinary to Katya, until a small animal hopped underneath
it. She didn’t have time to make out what it was before the tree’s
branches swooped in and grabbed the creature, bringing it towards
its trunk. There, the many mouths the Gwich’in leader had spoken of
opened; the bark peeled back and created a cavernous space within.
There were no teeth, but fumes from a greenish liquid inside
suggested the creature didn’t need any. A strange squealing sound
filled the air, and Katya couldn’t tell if it was the animal, or
coming from the gnarstal. The many mouths were opening and closing
in anticipation, like baby birds waiting to be fed in the nest, and
the branch finally chose one and shoved the animal in.

They all clamped shut at once and the branch
went back to swaying in the breeze. There was nothing to betray the
carnage they had just witnessed.

“Yuck,” she commented and the Gwich’in with
them chuckled.

“The beauty of nature,” he quipped.

“Alright,” Hunter studied the tree for a
moment, “So, should we just throw a couple spells at it and see
what happens or what?”

Katya shrugged. “It’s a good a plan as any I
guess. Let’s try something simple. Just in case it gets reflected
back on us.”

She hooked a hand around a root of one of the
trees on the tiny island in front of her and hauled herself up onto
it. She felt much better not standing in the muck. Examining the
gnarstal for a moment, she gathered a bit of magic around her and
readied a spell. This close to the Gwich’in, the magic was tamed,
and she had no trouble controlling it.

She was surprised, then, when the light spell
she cast at the tree, blasted back at her, enveloping her world not
in light as she’d intended, but in darkness. She heard the
exclamations of several of the other people in their party and
realized that it must have affected them as well. She drained the
energy back out of the spell, ending the darkness around them.

“That was not the spell I sent,” she
commented.

“So it can create spells of its own?” Hunter
asked, looking to the Gwich’in guide.

“We don’t believe so. In all of our
observations, it has only been able to manipulate power that is
used against it or that it consumes. We had never before had the
need to use magic against it, so we don’t really understand how it
uses it. All we know is that the spell we sent to repel it out of
our region bounced back and repelled us out instead.”

“Interesting,” Hunter commented.

“So it changed the target of your spell, and
had the opposite effect of the intention of mine,” Katya thought
out loud. “Have you ever observed the effects of the magic it
consumes?”

“A few. There is a fish that would be
magically poisonous to any that ate it, any but the gnarstal. It
seems to be able to make it turn the thing even more nutritious by
its twisted magic.”

“Perhaps that’s just what it is,” Katya
suggested, “that it doesn’t necessarily have magic of its own, but
some property about it allows it to twist the magic it comes across
to be used to its own benefit.

“How can we use that to help us get rid of
it? If every spell we send against it can be changed to suit its
needs?”

“We’ll have to trick it into changing it into
something that will benefit us.”

“How?”

“I’m not sure yet.” Katya crouched on the
root she was balancing on and stared at the gnarstal. “Let’s play
around with it a little bit.”

She adjusted her position so that she was
wedged into the spot. She gathered the energy around her and
released a harmless spell, but added an aura as if it were
aggressive in nature.

A giant section of bark flew off the side of
the tree, and the branches converged on the spot, holding it as if
in pain. The Gwich’in did say that it was part animal, perhaps it
did feel pain.

The bark flew towards Katya and she reached
out a hand and caught it expertly. She examined it closely. As the
Gwich’in had thought, it did not seem to have any magical qualities
itself, but what it did to magic was strange. Even her magesight
seemed to twist around the bark when she used it on it, making it
appear invisible.

“What kind of spell was that?” Hunter asked,
squishing through the mush over to her side.

“Just a water spell, but I made it seem as
though it was something aggressive. It would seem that the creature
isn’t exactly intelligent, but can recognize the type of magic
being sent against it, and must have instinctive reflexes to handle
each, twisting the magic into something harmless to it.”

“Or not,” Hunter nodded towards the bark she
was holding, and she handed it over to him to examine. He looked
closely at it, then stuck it in his bag.

“I think moving it might be difficult. It’s
probably a spell that is well-ingrained in its woody head to avoid,
and the Gwich’in have already tried every possibility so it also is
very familiar with them. Maybe we can fool it into not poisoning
the place.”

“Like send a spell that seems as though we
want to be reflected back onto us in hopes that it will instead
incorporate into itself?”

“And make it filter out the toxins from the
swamp instead of add to them,” Katya finished for him.

It took them the better part of the afternoon
to come up with a way to get the spell to stick once the gnarstal
went for it, and into the evening to figure out how to trick the
tree into absorbing it. Eventually, however, they did succeed, and
the water around the gnarstal could immediately be seen to become
clearer.

“We did it,” the Gwich’in with them stated,
sounding rather surprised.

Katya smiled at him. “Can we get out of this
swamp now?”

With the threat of the gnarstal removed, the
Gwich’in made good on their promise and delivered their powerstone
to Katya. She took out the mangled mash of the other three stones
and held this one up to where its jagged sides matched with the
empty space. It jumped from her hand into place and shone brightly
for a second as it healed the split between them. Now only one area
remained marred, the rest a smooth surface of beauty.

Katya held the stone out before her for a
moment and took a deep breath. Just the Dena’ina stone was left,
then hopefully they would rid the world of the vile curse spreading
upon it.

*

Layna watched the Bricrui’s movements
carefully, counting the number of steps he took in each direction
before pacing back the other way, noting how he compensated for the
lack of one eye, and horribly aware of the drool dripping from his
mouth as he eyed her. The deliberate movements rather than the
mindless attack she’d seen others Bricrui employ betrayed either
his uncanny adaptation for survival in the ring, or that he was
still enough in control of his mental facilities to be able to
control his urges. Neither was good for her.

He lunged towards her, and she skipped away,
her eyes darting around the ring for something useful to use as a
weapon. She sent Gryffon a silent thanks for the self-defense
training he had insisted that she receive in the wake of their
assassin troubles, and focused on the task at hand. Soon, her
terrified shaking calmed and she concentrated on nothing but
countering the movements of her opponent.

He was circling back around, drawing back his
hand for a sweeping motion. She immediately ducked out of the way,
but realized too late that she hadn’t compensated for the fact that
she was fighting a beast, not a human. Instead of punching at her,
he had swiped, and his freakishly long fingernails bit into the
tender flesh of her cheek with searing pain.

Her hand flew to the spot reflexively, and
she let out a hissing breath. The monster’s eyes bulged at the
sight of her blood, its movements becoming more and more frenzied.
It licked its dry and cracking lips with excitement. She stared it
down dispassionately. It was easier to forget that it had once been
human when it was trying to kill you. She immediately regretted the
thought, but had no time for remorse as she had to duck out of the
way of the next blow.

This one she neatly avoided, and landed a
thumping punch on the beast’s back as it passed. It arched its body
in response, but made no sound, which was somehow eerier than had
it screamed in pain. It somehow twisted around, in a seemingly
impossibly flexible motion, and snapped its teeth at her.

Her training allowed her to stand her ground,
and she brought her fist up in an uppercut. It slammed the
creature’s jaws together with a resounding crack, and it stumbled
backwards. It spit out a tooth, cocking its head to the side in
confusion at it lying on the ground.