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Rain clutched Pan’s reins in a death grip as they descended the steep switchbacked path into the darkness below. Despite the rough bark of the torch, she held it tightly in her other hand. The incessant noise of hundreds of ravens chilled her to the bone as they hurried down the winding slope for the cover of the trees.
A small group of the birds seemed to be catching up to them. Pan nearly tripped as he rushed on, barely slowing at each switchback turn, needing no urging from Rain. It grew ever darker as they left the twilight above. The brightness of her torch against the darkness made it so she could barely see past the fire’s light. Just as she was sure the ravens’ close cries would render her deaf, they reached the bottom and Pan rushed forward between the trees she could barely see.
The noise died down as they left the cliff face behind, and Rain took a shuddering sigh of relief. Pan slowed finally to a walk, the apparent threat behind them, and Rain thrust the torch out in front of her with a shaky arm, observing her surroundings.
Large trees—not quite as thick as the ones above, but still immense—held out branches drooping with dank moss like long, reaching fingers. The air felt strangely warm, almost damp. Fungi grew on the tree trunks as far up as she could see, and a few strange white pipe-like plants sprouted from the forest floor. The loamy ground, covered in damp leaves and pine needles, made no noise as Pan treaded through the darkness. Thick tree roots protruded here and there, cradling small patches of mushrooms and rocks covered in moss and lichen. The silence lay around them like a blanket, muffling any noise. It was strange compared to the cries of the birds, mere moments ago.
Caemira moved her perch from Pan’s neck to Rain’s shoulder, lithely climbing up her sleeve. “Do you know where you’re going?” she whispered in her ear.
“No,” Rain said, her voice cracking. She swallowed to clear her throat. “I don’t have any idea.”
“Well that’s silly. Trying to get somewhere without knowing the way.” She chuckled, an odd sound in such a dark, dank place.
The sprite’s teasing began to annoy her. “I don’t suppose you would know the way to Arok’Amon?”
“Only you know the way, of course.”
“Of course,” she grumbled.
After a minute, she let her irritation go and wondered if the sprite had a point. She stared ahead into the gloom as they continued, not looking at anything in particular, focusing her thoughts inward. She figured the only way to Arok’Amon was by the same power that led her to the Dark Wood—a distant memory.
As soon as she began searching for the pull, she felt it. She let her hand holding the reins guide Pan in the right direction. From the corner of her eye, she saw Caemira give her a smug smile.
***
Her plan seemed to work until a few minutes later, when her torch illuminated an enormous fallen tree, right across their path. They stopped and Rain stuck out the torch, scouting the immediate area to see if they could go around the trunk.
Off to the right, near the giant mass of unearthed roots, she saw a path that went around the tree. But it went in the wrong direction. She stood in front of it, uneasy.
“Why don’t you go that way? The undergrowth isn’t too thick. After you find the other side of the tree, you might be able to find your way back to the right path.”
In the surrounding darkness, it was easy to imagine monsters lurking behind every tree, unseen pairs of eyes staring from behind ferns and bracken fronds. Before, she had kept her mind occupied with where they were going. Now, the fear of the danger she knew surrounded them began to sink in. She tightened her grip on the torch, terrified that it could be the only thing keeping them alive.
“Come on, I don’t think it’s wise to stay in one place for very long.”
It took a moment for Caemira’s words to filter through her fear, but eventually she nodded in agreement. She nudged Pan’s side and led him to the path around the fallen tree. The towering heap of roots they passed by loomed over her head, nearly twice her height. For a moment she couldn’t see the other side of them. She imagined the thick, dangling roots were arms and fingers about to grab her, and did her best to brush the thought away.
She peeked around the other side of the trunk and heard a rustling noise behind her. Startled, she swung the torch in the direction of the sound, off to her right.
It fell quiet as soon as the torch’s light fell across the ferns. “What was it?” she asked Caemira in a whisper, more to break the silence than to hear an answer.
“I don’t know, but I think we better keep moving.” For the first time, the sprite sounded truly scared. It set Rain’s nerves on edge.
Behind the fallen tree, thin undergrowth allowed them to travel in whichever direction Rain felt pulled, and she breathed a sigh of relief. “I almost thought we were—”
There was another rustling sound behind her.
She swung around in her saddle with the torch quick enough to see another fern frond bobbing up and down, as if something had brushed it. Turning back around slowly, with Pan still walking forward, she listened intently to see if it would return.
Sure enough, it happened again a minute later.
Determined to catch this creature, she stopped herself from instinctively turning around and scaring it away and instead stopped Pan and sat motionless, looking straight ahead. The rustling didn’t stop this time. She let the reins go and slipped her hand under her cloak, to her dagger. As the sound crept nearer, she slowly turned her head behind her to the left, careful to keep the torch still, and peered between the bobbing fern fronds. At first, she was confused. There was no beast of any kind that she could see in the bushes.
One set of fronds popped up out of the ground. She gasped—it wasn’t a beast following her. It was the ferns themselves.
The sounds of moving leaves erupted all around her, and soon they were surrounded by ferns walking on their roots, waddling and wriggling mushrooms and fungi, and small creatures that lived in the dark, cousins of squirrels and mice. For a moment she thought she saw birds around them, but realized they were bats. She swung her torch around frantically, and the plants and animals avoided the flames, but moved back to their positions when she moved the torch away. She calmed a little when she realized they weren’t attacking.
“What are they doing?” Rain asked Caemira in a whisper between ragged breaths. Panic swelled in her gut. She couldn’t grasp what was happening around her. Plants couldn’t move by themselves.
“I think… they want you to follow them.” Caemira said with a concentrated look on her face.
“We certainly can’t do that. What if they lead us to a trap?” Clicking her tongue, she urged Pan in the direction her memory told her to go. He stepped forward and the plants and animals moved out of the way of the horse.
After a minute, Caemira leaned into Rain’s ear. “I thought you weren’t going to go the direction they wanted.”
“I’m not—” she looked behind her to check and sure enough, the creatures were following them. She turned back to the sprite and they shared a worried look. “Are they saying why they want us to go this way?”
“No. I can’t understand any more than that. It’s hard to hear them.” She frowned at the trees around them as if she expected an explanation.
More creatures of the night came out of their homes or uprooted themselves and joined the crowd forming behind them. Dark-colored weasels and an odd cat-like creature—some kind of lynx, she thought—came out of the surrounding blackness. Rain told herself they were only plants and small animals—it was silly to be afraid. But she couldn’t keep from looking behind her and watching the quiet progression that followed them.
“Where there are small animals, there are larger ones,” Rain whispered.
***
A long while passed, and the exertion of the day began to catch up with her. According to Rowena’s words, they should be nearing the door, the real Hollow, by now. Where was it? All she could see was darkness and more trees. Her eyelids began to droop.
“Wake up or you’ll singe your horse’s mane!” Caemira said loudly into her ear.
“Oh!”
She snapped her eyes open and lifted the torch up, then switched hands to give her arm a rest.
“We should be there by now. I wonder…”
The animals began to squeak, chatter, and flap excitedly, and the plants rustled together noisily. They stopped moving forward and Rain instinctively pulled on the reins to slow Pan. She peered into the night, trying to detect what had agitated the creatures. A growing uneasiness unnerved her; something about this wasn’t right. The torch’s light wavered in her shaking hand. She inched Pan forward to see better in the gloom.
Before them stood the trunk of a massive tree, reminiscent of the giant pillars that held Belmaeron together. It had died and fallen apart years ago, so the highest the trunk reached was two or three times her height, the top jagged and broken. Two thick, lonely branches stuck out from either side of the trunk. A wide area around the dead tree was clear of all undergrowth and foliage, leaving only thick roots emerging from the soil.
Rain approached the tree hesitantly, stopping the horse once they were fully in the clearing. Examining the bark, she noticed it was clear of all fungus and lichen, unlike most of the other trees.
Why do you disturb my slumber?
She gasped, startled, as the angry voice rang in her ears. It sounded like the voice of an older man, but she knew there were none about. Peering at the tree before her, she searched in the bark for a mouth of some kind, but found none.
Caemira whispered in her ear. “See, I told you trees could talk—”
Silence! No one escapes my children.
A great shudder went through the tree, and the two lone branches began to move. With a loud creaking sound, they bent toward her, smaller tendrils of branches outstretched like fingers. Pan reared so suddenly that Rain fell out of her saddle and hit the ground hard, all the air rushing out of her lungs, the torch flung out of her hand.
She barely had a second to recover before the tree’s fingers scooped her up and clasped her tightly, arms bound to her sides so she couldn’t struggle.
You and your kind have been absent from here for too long. Why have you come now, when all hope is lost?
The branches lifted her up into the dark sky. She could see nothing but what the flame illuminated below. The torch had been hurriedly moved by the forest creatures to a place where it could not start a fire.
“Let me go!” Rain yelled when she recovered her breath, wriggling in the ever-tightening grip of the wooden fingers. She swallowed hard, trying not to think of how high above the ground she was.
How dare you show your face? For some reason, my children trust you. They did not get rid of you like they have the others. Tell me how you could possibly help, or I’ll kill you myself.
The tree’s branches tightened to the point where she had trouble breathing. She tried to answer, but could only croak.
“Release her! She can’t breathe!” Caemira yelled. The sprite sounded like she was being restrained as well, down on the ground.
The grip on Rain loosened only slightly, barely enough to talk. She considered everything she’d learned about the forest’s recent struggle for survival and the history of the moon elves and chose her words carefully, wondering if they’d be her last.
“Hope is not lost. I’m not sure what the moon elves have done to you, but it can’t be their fault. I’m here looking for them. I’ve come to find a cure,” she said, clueless as to how she would accomplish it. “The Soulblight has no doubt spread to your home here, in the Hollow.”
The sickening of some of my children is not the only problem we face. That is miniscule compared to the separation from our source of light.
The great tree’s anger seemed to be subsiding into sadness, as the constricting branches loosened a bit more. She took a deep breath, filling her lungs with the much needed air.
“I don’t understand.”
Lake Dolmeria has fallen to the phantoms. The light and energy produced by the moon elves, with the help of the moon and the power of the Goddess, has dwindled these long years to little more than a trickle. It is all that keeps my consciousness alive, and my brothers and sisters can no longer speak coherently.
She thought of how Caemira had said the trees were hard to hear, and understood. “I was told by the Goddess of Lake Dolmeria that the moon elves’ disappearance could be linked to the Hollow, which lies within Arok’Amon, the Great Tree.”
The tree was silent for a moment. You know my name?
“Arok’Amon?” Rain repeated, hope coming back to her. Perhaps they were closer to their destination than she’d thought.
Yes… a story for another time.
The second arm of the tree creaked and swung over to her, and its smaller branches intertwined to make a sort of palm. She was gently placed in the palm, and after stretching her sore limbs, she found it almost comfortable.
The Goddess and I share a bond that holds this forest of Ellwood together. Her power has dwindled with the absence of the moon elves. You must do what you can to bring them back, or much more will be lost than the lives the Soulblight takes.
“I will do what I must. Do you know where the door is, then?”
The tree groaned again, and the meager light from the torch showed the base of the tree opening and splitting to reveal a small passageway.
You may pass. Go, dear one.
The branches lowered, and she stepped back onto solid ground.
“Thank you… Arok’Amon. Great Tree.” She stumbled over the proper way to address the tree’s spirit. A sense of happiness seemed to come from the tree, as if it were laughing, though she wondered if it was her imagination.
She walked over and picked up the torch, noticing it would need a refueling soon, and then searched the immediate area for Pan. Where had he gone? A pang of worry bit her stomach.
Your steed is safe here. You will not need him or your supplies where you are going, and he will be here when you return.
“Thank you again,” she said, and though she knew it was wise to leave Pan behind, it felt like the last tie to her home would be gone. “Caemira?” she asked, wondering if she would want to come with her. It would feel much better to have a companion on the road ahead.
The sprite walked over to stand before her. “This is a job for you, alone. Silly,” she giggled.
May your footsteps fall true, moon elf. We await your return.
She nodded, taking a last look at the creatures and plants that had gathered around the clearing. Then she turned back to the base of the tree. Swallowing hard and holding the torch aloft, she ducked into the dark passageway, entering the bowels of the tree.
***
As soon as she left the opening behind, it closed up with a groan. Rain’s heart began to race as she thought of how alone she was. She examined the tunnel before her with the light from her torch.
The passageway hadn’t been used in years, as she expected. Cobwebs hung like the thin beards of old men. Old, hardened sap glistened in the firelight and spurts of moss grew where the walls met the ground. The ceiling was low, forcing her to bend her knees as she started downward. Her legs were soon sore from the effort.
When the slope steepened, she descended the steps molded out of the firm dirt ground. After two short sets of stairs, she came upon a third that continued much further. At the bottom of the staircase, she was relieved to find she could stand up straight. The ground had changed to a smooth stone floor, and the ceiling was a few feet above her head.
Extending her torch further into the gloom before continuing, she was struck with a stale, dusty smell that she thought she remembered. She extended her free hand and touched the wall, revealing a thick coat of dust. Just like in her dream.
She hurried forward and soon found an empty torch bracket hanging on the wall. Looking beyond it, she saw more brackets, but they contained finely crafted torches, strangely already covered with soaked pieces of cloth. If the dream had been correct, when she went forward, they would light as if by magic. It felt like a ridiculous test, but she wanted to make sure this place was the same as in her dream. After leaving her own crude torch in one of the first brackets, she walked forward a few steps into the darkness of the corridor beyond the second set of torches. They didn’t light. For some reason she couldn’t fathom, it worried her.
Instead of relying on her old torch, which she expected would run out of fuel soon, she used magic. Drawing on her power like she did with her first torch, she walked down the corridor making each torch she came upon flare to life. Though it would announce her presence like a campfire in a field, she didn’t expect anyone to be down here. The thought that someone might made her shiver. But the more light there was, the safer she felt.
***
Soon the echo of her footsteps seemed to change, and she saw she had entered the cavernous space from her dream. In this room would be the door.
The darkness of the far side of the room encroached on the torches’ light, and she had the urge to go around the entire room and light all the torches to illuminate the dark corners. She went along the wall to her right and lifted her hand to light the first torch in the room.
“Hello, Rain.”
A familiar voice whispered in the darkness, breaking her concentration.
“Damien?” she gasped, whipping around but not seeing into the blackness.
“Not anymore, pretty one. Dar’Quath, if you please,” the voice said, sneering.
Rain lit the torch in front of her. In that instant, she heard Dar’Quath snap his fingers and the rest of the torches lit all at once, nearly blinding her. The same images she saw in her dream, both brilliantly beautiful and frightening, surrounded her. A great door, with the handle she had created from her dream, was at the far end of the room.
Damien, wearing the same black robes she’d seen him in before in the forest, stood in front of the door.
“You were the one that left the note in my dream?” she asked in disbelief. Her voice echoed and magnified in the chamber, as if she had shouted.
“Who else?” He grinned and then took a long, sweeping look at the paintings on the walls. “Magnificent, isn’t it? Powerful magic was needed to create this room, and the hidden door it protects.”
“How did you get in here?” she asked angrily, advancing toward him. She stopped a few paces away. “Arok’Amon couldn’t have let you in.”
“That rotten old stump that guards the entrance? He and his children’s minds are so far gone that his mind was quite easy to control. I slipped in unnoticed.”
She clenched her teeth at his callous remark. “What about entering the forest? I thought your power would be too weak here.”
“Not anymore. The shields around the forest have weakened enough that I could enter. Fear not.” He gave another chilling smile.
Rain reached over and felt her left side for the dagger sitting under her cloak. She slipped her hand under the thick fabric of her cloak, ready to draw it at a moment’s notice, yet dearly wanting to turn and run.
Damien—now Dar’Quath—watched her without blinking. He reached into his pocket and took out a small glass vial, throwing it to the ground. The glass broke and a dark cloud wafted out of the shards. Dar’Quath whispered a short spell and the cloud became a pair of dark, shadowy hands.
The hands flew through the air towards Rain and she whipped out her dagger. The blade couldn’t pierce the shadow. The hands grabbed for her aegis, and when they touched it, the chain and stone turned to shadow. The hands pulled the shadow-chain through her neck like it was some kind of ghostly substance. It didn’t feel like mist, how people said it felt like walking through a ghost. It hurt.
The hands whisked over and gave the aegis to Dar’Quath, then vanished. The aegis returned to normal.
Before Rain could react, Dar’Quath’s gaze darkened and turned black. The pull was so strong she couldn’t turn away. She tried but failed to resist an unseen force that made her sheath her dagger.
“It was difficult trapping that spirit, but necessary,” he said. “We had to think of some way to get rid of this protection.” Still not taking his gaze from Rain, he put the aegis in a pocket.
His words rang through her head, so loud and invasive that she couldn’t think. “You were a danger to the world the moment you were born. Your magic is dirty and imbalanced. You don’t know what I mean?” He raised his eyebrows. “Only certain of your kind get innate magic. The rest of the moon elves, and everyone else, are forced to work hard for their powers. Innate magic is itself an injustice.” He spoke as if the ideas were ingrained into his mind, as if the words he spoke were affirmations someone had taught him. “But the work is worth it. Sprit magic is the power that will advance this world past all others. The moon elves kept students from reading and studying these secrets. Discrimination. Greed.”
As his voice grew louder in her head, each word was a bolt of pain. Fighting the magic that had taken her mind in its grip, one memory stood out from the rest and helped her let out one word.
“No!”
She shrieked, and it was unexpected enough that the power dominating her mind slackened for a short second. She began to talk, the only way she could think of to keep the dark power at bay.
“Making people lose their minds is a sick idea of advancement! You and your Wingmaster friends killed my parents! Is that how you plan to convince people to join your cause?” The image of them dead on the floor flooded her head and filled her with rage. “You’re a sick creature, and from what I’ve learned of spirit magic, it’s darker than any sort of magic, elemental or innate. You don’t have any chance of convincing me.” On impulse, finding she could move, she swiftly drew her dagger and lunged for him.
She ran into an invisible shield. In an instant she was on the ground, crying out in agony. The force she had exerted had sent her dagger flying and a spasm of pain rolled through her body from the fall.
That break in concentration let his dark mind enter hers once more, and his words filled her mind with pain, sharper and more agonizing than before.
“You’re alone. No one is here to save you. Your parents fell to their fate, chose it themselves. Dear, dear, Shea, he’s not here to save you either. His weak mind fell to the—Soulblight, as you call it—and he follows me now. You want to ‘save him’? He’s beyond saving, little girl. Give in. He doesn’t love you anymore. In fact, I’m not so sure he ever did.”
While he paused in his speech, Rain thought about the times when she had traveled with Shea. He was more than kind and courteous; he was a good friend, and possibly more than that. With sheer force of will, she let only one thought fill her mind. Shea. I love you.
She found the strength to stand up and found Dar’Quath had his hands pressed to either side of his head, with his face screwed up in pain.
This was her chance to be free of him. But what could she do? Her dagger couldn’t pierce him. She didn’t know how to use her magic to inflict pain, and even that might not touch him. She looked at the door at the back of the room. Could she trick him into another world? It would be a way to be rid of him, but she had no idea if it would work, or where she could send him. He might even know how to travel, and just come right back, wherever he ended up. She scrambled to pick up her dagger again.
Dar’Quath seemed to be coming around. He glared at her, but she noticed his rage was blended with confusion. “How did you… it doesn’t matter,” he muttered angrily. Yelling, he lunged forward, throwing himself at her mentally and literally.
This time she was ready.