Барб Хенди - Of Truth and Beasts

Again, he raised his eyebrow. “What could be out there that you have to see so urgently?”

“Aonnis Lhoin’n,” Wynn answered firmly. “First Glade.”

Staff in one hand and a glowing cold lamp crystal held high in the other, Wynn tried to illuminate their way. Shade was out in front, leading them down a narrow path of flat stones set in the earth. But the walk to First Glade took longer than expected, as the forest grew more and more dense around her.

Endless masses of twisting ferns and vines meshed tightly between the trees on both sides. The intertwined canopy overhead blocked out the moon and stars.

“This is foolish,” Ore-Locks said from the rear. “We should have gone to the guild and taken rooms until morning.”

“You’re welcome to turn back and wait,” Wynn answered.

A sharp intake of breath came from behind. No answer followed it.

In part, Wynn knew he was right, but she’d been too eager, and Chane couldn’t come with her in daylight. Then she glanced back and realized that the sharp sucking of breath hadn’t come from Ore-Locks.

Chane’s face was so pale in the crystal’s light that it bordered on gray. A mere ghost of brown remained in his irises. His eyes shifted rapidly as he peered into the dense foliage.

“What’s wrong?” she whispered.

He jerked out the new sword in one swift movement and stiffened to a sudden halt.

“They’re moving,” he said. “Can you not see? The trees ... are shifting when we are not looking!”

Wynn grew frightened, though not because of what he saw. She suspected this might happen the closer they came to First Glade—to Chârmun, the great tree called Sanctuary. Chane was succumbing partially to its influence flowing out through the Lhoin’na forest, even while wearing the brass ring.

Ore-Locks turned his head, following Chane’s fixed gaze. “What is wrong with you?”

“There is nothing wrong with me !” Chane rasped, and pointed back the way they’d come. “That vine over the path ... it was not there before. I would have had to push it aside if it had been.”

Ore-Locks looked behind them, hefting his iron staff and perhaps expecting to see whatever had unsettled Chane. Wynn held the cold crystal with only her thumb and tugged on Chane’s sleeve with her fingers.

“I promise you, the trees are not moving,” she said. “Focus on me—only me—and you’ll be fine.”

Ore-Locks shook his head. “It looks the same as before.”

“Let’s move on,” Wynn insisted, still trying to pull Chane around before ...

Shade circled back and began snarling, her full attention locked on Chane.

Ore-Locks started at the dog’s behavior, and then retreated two steps back from Chane and leveled his iron staff.

Chane ignored both of them and twisted about.

“I know what I saw!” he whispered to Wynn.

The light of her crystal showed his irises as colorless. His pale face was coated in a sheen, as if he perspired.

“What is happening to him?” Ore-Locks asked. “What is ... he?”

This was all Wynn needed. Chane was succumbing to the elves’ forest, and Ore-Locks was openly demanding answers.

The undead, especially anything akin to a Noble Dead, were almost unknown on this continent but for veiled references in forgotten folktales. Ore-Locks had probably never heard the word “vampire,” let alone understood what it meant. But he certainly knew of the undead, as any stonewalker did; he’d helped destroy Sau’ilahk.

There was no knowing how a corrupt stonewalker might react to Chane’s true nature. A rational guess led to the worst of conclusions. Anyone who thought a mere explanation would settle this was a fool. Chane had done horrible things without remorse that Wynn didn’t like thinking about, but the situation wasn’t that simple.

“Answer me,” Ore-Locks said.

“When nothing else needs my attention,” she returned. “And, Shade ... be quiet.”

Shade fell silent, though her jowls still quivered as she watched Chane.

Wynn didn’t know if this place heightened the dog’s natural instincts, or if Shade simply didn’t like the idea of Chane going to First Glade. Or perhaps it was just Chane’s obviously decaying state. Wynn could do no more than put off dealing with any of this.

“Lead ... now,” she said.

Shade reluctantly turned and slunk ahead.

“We are not going any farther,” Ore-Locks stated, “until you answer me.”

“Then leave,” Wynn replied.

His threat was a bluff. Ore-Locks would never get what he wanted without her, and they both knew it. He’d never let her go on without him, nor would he challenge Shade and Chane just to stop her here.

He said nothing more, and Wynn took up Chane’s free hand, placing it on her shoulder.

“Hold on, and you won’t feel so lost,” she assured him. “Chap did the same for me in the forest of the an’Cróan.”

She’d been affected by that far elven land, for that place not only abhorred the undead, but anyone not of full elven blood. Even Leesil, with his mixed heritage, had fought to keep his wits there. Almost everywhere Wynn had gone in those wild lands, she’d kept her fingers clenched in Chap’s scruff.

Chane’s fingers gripped down, but Wynn didn’t wince. He slid his sword back into its sheath. A bit of soft brown stained his irises once more, but Wynn felt him shuddering.

“Do you want to go back and wait for me?” she asked quietly.

“No,” he answered between clenched teeth.

Wynn considered arguing, but turned and waved Shade onward. She was ambivalent at the sound of Ore-Locks’s heavy footfalls following along. Then the path split in three directions.

Shade sniffed the air and craned her head, looking up into the branches. Wynn waited in silence, for in this place, she put her trust in Shade’s senses. The dog finally trotted along the center path, but Chane made another harsh sucking sound.

“Close your eyes,” Wynn told him.

Her crystal cast eerie shadows in the wild underbrush, but something more stood out in the darkness overhead. She gazed upward, raising the crystal, and its light caught on tawny vines as thick as her arm. They wove their way through the high canopy, some of them paralleling the path ahead.

Wynn slowed, looking closer. The vines were smooth, perhaps glistening from moisture, and utterly unlike anything else in sight. She thought she saw grain in them, like polished wood.

—follow ... tree—

At those broken memory-words, Wynn looked down at Shade. How could she follow a tree? Which tree? But Shade pressed on, and Wynn stepped after her.

The farther they went, the more Wynn noticed those strange, tawny vines—and they grew broader, thicker. Smaller ones appeared here and there, perhaps branching off from the larger ones. All were woven into the upper reaches of the trees, and now ...

They didn’t glisten as much as they appeared to faintly glow, as if catching the radiance of the moon hidden from sight.

Wynn traced onward by their faint radiance as she followed Shade, until another light appeared ahead, beyond the forest’s tangle. Vines and branches, trunks and bearded moss were like black silhouettes between her and the nearing illumination.

Shade lunged ahead through a break at the path’s end.

Wynn couldn’t keep up without leaving Chane behind—which she would not do.

“Shade!” she called.

Within a few paces, Wynn stepped through the break and stopped.

She stood in a broad clearing wholly roofed by the forest and touched Chane’s hand upon her shoulder, looking up at him. His eyes opened before she turned back.

Wynn looked across the moss-covered earth to the immense glowing tree in the heart of First Glade.