Inferno volume 3, p.6
Inferno!, Volume 3, page 6
‘“You have sent an embassy before, I assume?” I asked.
‘“Of course,” Gurd said. He pulled a sour face. “That is how we know who is responsible. We found our wise woman’s bones tangled in vines thirty-three days after she departed, along with her guardians, not far from the walls. In the past it was our enemies left out this way for us to see – now we find we are the victims.” He leaned forward, and spoke urgently. “Kelloway’s niece went missing only a day ago. There might still be time for her, if you hurry.”’
‘Babies are so tasty,’ said Shattercap. ‘But eating them is bad!’ he added hurriedly, clapping his hands over his mouth.
Stonbrak curled his lip and shook his head.
‘I sipped at my mead as I sip this wine now,’ Maesa went on. ‘I had no real desire to venture into the deep forest and seek out the children of Alarielle, for they can be vicious, and the ancient compact between my kind and theirs is void. But I thought of the sorrow of the woman Kelloway for her missing niece, and how it had touched my own. Something in me had awoken after a long slumber. A change like that does not occur by chance. This was meant to be.
‘“Where is the child’s mother?” I asked.
‘“Where do you think?” said Gurd. “Beside herself with grief.”
‘That made little difference to me, for I had not tasted her pain. It was an abstract, but I realised I wanted to go. I was recovering from my loss. Later, after the adventure was done with, I looked back and felt a new pain, for I realised my grief was fading, and that meant I was letting my beloved Ellamar go.
‘“Very well,” I said. “I shall visit the forest born, and return the child, if I can.”
‘And so it was agreed. I set out at dawn.’
‘Gurd’s people directed me edgeward where, according to their tradition, the creatures of the forest dwelled. They met rarely, and none had seen a dryad for some time. I detected none of their presence, even as the woods got thicker. Giant trees stretched limbs towards the sky, their leaves casting shadows that flooded the forest floor with an inky gloom few plants could survive. Soon I was in near darkness, interrupted by scattered coins of sunlight, rare wealth indeed. The air was unmoving.
‘I have known all manner of forest, yet none daunted me so much as that stifling place. A wood watched over by the sylvaneth is a place of fecundity, but this land was dying. The trees were sinister and their hearts black with spite.’
Maesa set his wine glass down. Like everything else he did, the move was accomplished gracefully, and without sound.
‘Shortly after, I found the sylvaneth. I entered a burnt patch of the forest, where blackened earth showed through leaves turned to white ash. The trees were charred some way up their trunks, weeping amber tears of sap from their deepest burns, and their spirits cried out in silent pain. In the middle of the devastation was a tangle of charcoaled branches that could be mistaken for tree limbs, but were, sadly, the fire-slain bodies of dryads.
‘I skirted the burnt ground, not willing to defile it with my tread. The bodies were much reduced, and so it was hard to see how many lay there. Were the sylvaneth dead, supplanted by wicked powers? I saw no beast sign, or the works of corrupted men. Disquieted, I passed further on.
‘The land rose, slowly at first, then quickly. The trees thinned, allowing a wind to refresh me. Green showed upon the forest floor once more. I smelled the icy breath of a mountain ahead. Broad-leaved giants dwindled, replaced by smaller, hardier breeds with knuckled roots that gripped rock into splintered submission, then they too failed, and straight-bodied pines who aimed themselves at the sky like arrows took their place. When I turned back, I could see for league after league across that part of Ghyran. The forest stretched on towards the realm’s centre. Hysh-ward, the way I had come, I saw the ancient kingdom hidden beneath its cloak – the lines of roads and the blocks of cities, the stumps of towers and citadels, reservoirs choked with reeds. Hysh-away was another story. There the forest abruptly ended in a black plain riven by chasms of molten rock. Hundreds of thousands of dead trees formed the border of the two landscapes, all scorched as spent matches. The might of Chaos drew near, and I wondered why this forest had held so long, with its frightened, remnant folk, and why it was only now beginning to fail.
‘Ahead the mountain soared to touch the sky. Great beasts wheeled around its snowy peak, and the light of glorious Hysh burned most brightly over it. Up there, I was sure, I would find my answers.’
‘Beautiful, beautiful,’ said Shattercap mournfully. ‘I wish one day to go home.’
‘Perhaps you will,’ said Maesa, before continuing his tale. ‘Sure enough, as the trees dwindled to isolated shrubs, and meadow took their place, I found tracks in the earth. Small tracks, less than a day old, and less evident than the signs of the burden they dragged up the slope.’
‘Spites?’ asked Barnabus, quietly.
‘Spites!’ shouted Shattercap.
Maesa nodded. ‘A dozen of them, or so I judged. With no more trees to scamper through, they had been forced to go upon the ground. Now I had their trail, I made swift time. As the meadows gave way to slopes of scree, I found a dell scooped from the mountain’s side, and there, set back in permanent gloom, was a castle of living trees and huge boulders bound fast by roots.’
Barnabus’ eyes widened. ‘Alive?’ he said. His face dropped. ‘I have never seen anything like that, and I suppose I never will.’
‘You are of the realm of Shyish,’ said Maesa. ‘What is mundane to you would be wondrous to someone of Ghyran, to whom a living fortress is the most ordinary of castles.’ He leaned in a little closer to the boy. ‘Look around you with new eyes, young human. You dwell in an inn cupped in the palm of a slumbering demigod. Is that not marvellous enough?’
Ninian ruffled Barnabus’ hair. The boy frowned thoughtfully.
‘Not knowing what welcome I would find in the fort, I strung my bow before scaling the walls. There was no one within. The walls were dying, the roots were dry and losing bark, while soft mountain winds rattled withered leaves on the tower trees. A beast cried in the sky – otherwise there was naught but silence. Stealthily, I headed deeper into the castle.’
All the company were enraptured now, even Stonbrak, whose dark glances towards the spite had all but ceased.
‘Beyond the walls was a grotto burrowed into the mountainside by roots as thick as a man, and gated with a screen of vines. They were also dead, and falling apart. I wondered if I would find anything alive in there at all, then I heard voices – high, whispery, restless twigs scratching one another, but voices nonetheless. I nocked an arrow to my string, and stepped through the crumbling vines into a cave a thousand strides across and filled by a lake.
‘A giant black trunk climbed from an island at the centre. The tree was immense, and its branches braced the cave roof. Light fell through holes in the rock and shone upon the tree, and reflected from the water. Like the wall trees, it too was dying.
‘I finally spied my quarry. The spites struggled down a path to the lake shore, dragging a bundle behind them that was most burdensome to their feeble strength, though it was but a swaddled human baby deep in enchanted sleep. For all the effort it took them, the spites moved quickly, rolling the slumbering child into a small boat made of a single curved leaf. Their leader leaned over the side and with huge, webbed hands paddled the boat, spites, baby and all, across the water to the island. Following the boat along the shore, the source of all this misery became apparent to me.
‘A seat was grown into the wood of the mighty tree, and in it a great tree lord enthroned. Tree lords are mighty creatures, wise, powerful and quick to wrathfulness against the enemies of order, but this one was injured grievously.
‘Fire had consumed his left side. His bark skin was peeled back to the fleshy wood, which was pale with illness, and wept a foul reeking sap. His face was likewise blackened, one eye burned out, his crown of leaves scorched away. He sat crooked, leaning away from his wounds. His mouth worked with pain. The whorls in his skin, which should shine true with the light of jade magic, pulsed an angry redness. In desperation, he had sought a terrible cure. All around his throne were heaped the remains of hundreds of creatures. I saw the bones of orruks and humans mingled with those of simple beasts of the wood. All of them were deathly white, drained of life completely, awaiting but a single touch to knock them into dust. What flesh was upon them was desiccated to powder. The tree lord’s feet were rooted firmly in the depths of this horror – from the dead he drew new life. Around his neck he wore a necklace of lambent seeds, and by this adornment especially I knew the tree lord had lost his senses, and descended into madness. A terrible fate awaited the child.
‘The leaf-boat reached the far shore. The spites sang high-pitched work songs as they struggled to move the sleeping babe from the boat and towards the pile of bones. I could have walked away, and left the child of men to its fate. Many aelves would have done so. I could not. I looked at the baby and thought only of the child my darling Ellamar desired, but which we could never have. I drew my bow. The creak of it roused the tree lord from his pain. He opened his one remaining eye and looked at me.
‘“An aelf, and a wanderer at that,” he said in the language of creaking boughs. His voice was the grinding of roots breaking bedrock, slow and deep and powerful. At his speaking, the cracks of the great tree’s bark around his throne shone with a hundred eyes, and more spites crawled out – the court of this wounded king.
‘“As life made me so, I am Maesa, exile prince,” I said, using the formal words that were part of our people’s common bond long, long ago. They could not be denied, and the tree lord was forced to respond in kind.
‘“And as life made me, I am Svarkelbud, whom some call the Black,” he said, naming his own evil. He did not wish to give his name, and he spat the words unwillingly. “I do not care for aelves. I have not seen your kind since you betrayed Alarielle, and left Ghyran to its fate.”
‘“That was long ago,” said I. “Long before I was born.”
‘“You cannot escape blame. The guilt is yours,” said the tree lord firmly. He clenched his good hand into a thicket fist. “You have no right to be here, nor to call upon our ancient alliance. Begone, you are not welcome.”
‘“I will gladly go, with the child,” I said.
‘The tree lord laughed. “Now we come to it. An aelf at the beck and call of savages. How noble. That is impossible. I must heal. The forest must persist. The child’s soul is ripe with life’s potential. By consuming it shall I grow strong, and the slaves of the dark gods will feel my wrath again!” His cry turned into a pained, splintering cough. He clutched his wounds. Sap ran through his fingers. “I will not allow you to take it,” he said, his voice hazed with pain. “I require its essence.”
‘“Where are your dryads?” I asked. “I will speak with them. Perhaps we can come to another arrangement that will bring you back to health.”
‘Once more he laughed. “Traitors! They are dead. After I was wounded by the slaves of the blood god, they entreated me to leave this place and head to the jade wellsprings where I could be remade. The journey is too far, the process too long. I would have been rooted there for many generations, and my forest at risk all the while. They did not approve of my alternative.” He laboured to speak through the pain of his wounds. Time was running short. The spites had the sleeping child upon the shore, and were moving it to the pile of bones at the tree lord’s feet.
‘“By fire I was wounded, by fire they perished. By my hand!” roared the tree lord. “They opposed me, so they died, and became acquainted with my agony.” His voice lost a little power. He hunched over himself.
‘“You wear their soulpods,” I said.
‘“They were unfaithful!” he said, as if this blasphemy were normal.
‘“Now you hunt the people who are your allies.”
‘“Where were they when Lord Fangmaw burned me with alchemical flames? Hiding in their hovels! For too long they have intruded upon my realm,” insisted Svarkelbud. “They have earned their fate.”
‘“Their city is swallowed by your trees. I would say you intrude upon their realm,” I said. “You go against the teachings of the goddess of life. Let me help you. End this madness.”
‘“Alarielle is gone! Driven away. What loyalty do I owe her? I am king in this domain!”
‘The spites chittered and screeched at me from the trunk of the underworld tree, more mischief in the gathering than in a troop of apes. Their cohorts raised the child above their heads and bore it to the mound of bones. I had my arrow aimed at the tree lord through the conversation, but switched it now, sending it at the foremost spite bearing the child – a sinuous thing wearing the form of a glowing, four-armed snake – and striking it dead. Already I was moving forward, pulling a second arrow from my quiver and letting it fly. It buried itself, fletch-deep, in the chest of a waddling thing fat as a barrel. I made the shore of the lake, slaying more of the spites before my feet were wetted. Cold, subterranean waters beckoned, who knows how deep, but though I am no battle wizard, I have my magic. Murmuring certain words, I sprang onto the water, and sprinted across the surface, loosing arrows all the while.
‘Their numbers diminished, the spites struggled with their load, half dropping the slumbering infant; so jolted it awoke, and began to cry.
‘“Cease your meddling!” roared Svarkelbud. He heaved himself to his feet, sheets of hardened resin cracking from his wounds and letting flow the sap-blood they staunched. Screaming with pain and rage, he thrust his roots deeper into the ground. They burrowed through stone quick as my arrows, and erupted in a spray of water from the lake. Tips of iron-hard wood speared upward, but I was gone. Swift as the wind am I, too fast for the sylvaneth. He called to his court of mischiefs. Spites crawled headfirst down the tree, carpeting the shore, brandishing thorns of wood and splinters of bone. The babe was but fifty paces from me. Perchance I was already too late.’
Maesa paused and looked at Shattercap. ‘A spite of medium size, grey-green of skin with leaves quivering on his shoulders, stood upon the squalling infant’s chest. In his hand he held a sharp dagger of bone raised to puncture the child’s throat, and steal its life away.’
‘Me!’ exclaimed Shattercap. He clapped his hands.
‘You,’ said Maesa. ‘In desperation I called out, “Do not harm the child!” Although he most certainly had harmed others, the spite looked at me, and for the briefest instant, his face lost its ferocity, and he looked upon the child with something approaching tenderness. It was enough for me to spare his life. I drew my sword.’ He patted the hilt of his strange blade. ‘Not the one I bear now or my task would have been considerably easier. When I reached the child, I struck with the flat of my weapon, knocking this creature, this Shattercap, unconscious. I severed the life threads of a dozen more spites to clear myself a little more space. I needed but an instant, for my kind is swift-limbed, and I am reckoned among the very fastest. That day, I moved as quickly as I ever have. I nocked my final arrow, whispered fires upon its tip, and sent it winging towards Svarkelbud. The tree lord saw the shot, but could not prevent its striking. It was the last thing he saw in this life.
‘The arrow plunged into his remaining eye and burst into flames. His roaring was so terrible that his other spites scattered, leaving me free to snatch up the puling babe.’
Again, Maesa paused and looked upon his companion.
‘On a whim, I took the spite also, stuffing him into one of my pouches and tying him fast within. Svarkelbud lashed out in every direction with his good arm and roots. His hand swept down, and I leapt upon it, and jumped again, swinging my sword to cut free the string of soulpods about his neck. I caught it as it fell, and landed upon the dry, dry bones. Then I was away, down the shore, over the lake, as his roots and wrath burst stone, water and bone all around us.
‘Soon enough I was clear. Svarkelbud’s head was ablaze. Sylvaneth fear the flames. They fear the smell, and the heat, for in their hearts they remember the screams of trees consumed by forest blazes, and they dread the same death for themselves. It was worse for Svarkelbud the twice-burned. In his madness and his panic, he forgot the water all around him, but blundered about, beating at his burning head with his hand and wailing, “Treachery! Treachery!” He banged into the underworld tree, and fire leapt from his head into its dry, dying leaves, setting them alight. At that moment I fled.
‘From a safe distance we watched the castle burn. The reign of Svarkelbud was done. For a single aelf to slay a tree lord is a deed of legend, yet nevertheless I am ashamed of it.’
‘The forest,’ said Horrin, his drink forgotten and mouth dry.
‘I do not know what happened to it,’ said Maesa. ‘I hope it remained until Sigmar’s storm swept down from high Azyr, and grows there still. I did what I could to ensure that. I found a grove, by a spring, and there I planted the soulpods of the dryads slain by their own king. Given time, they would sprout and take up the guardianship of the forest, and the hidden tribe of men who sheltered within. I hope that is what occurred.’
‘What happened to the baby?’ asked Ninian, who was clutching her foster son tightly.
‘Returned to the mother in the dead of night. I did not speak with the villagers again, but left a token so they would know it was I who had brought the child back, and that she was not some changeling. Then I left the woods, and headed into the wastes beyond, my eyes shedding the scales of grief. After so long, I had something of a purpose – the rehabilitation of my new companion.’
‘Why did you not kill him?’ said Stonbrak in tones of outrage. ‘You said yourself these things are dangerous, and witnessed them at their worst.’
