Chapter Five

FOUR DAYS OF TRAVEL FOUND US DEEP in the Verboten woodlands. We’d run into nothing that required the skills of a semi-rabid pixie with the mouth of a randy sailor just put into port at Calaer.

Try as I might, distancing myself from Tezen failed to work. She was just too persistent, an admirable quality, even if annoying. I feared for her health should we find homes filled with sick and dying elves and told her so repeatedly, yet she remained at my side. If the truth be told, her company, ribald as it was, helped keep my flagging spirits up nearly as much as gazing at Beirach did.

Nin had returned two days back with a missive from Umeris. The scout had died. His organs had petrified. He had ordered the corpse incinerated and the healers that had attended him quarantined. There were no signs of the stone sickness amongst the healers. Yet.

Umeris bid me to stop tarrying. As if the many miles we had covered already were not substantial. I would not ride the mare into the ground. She was a sweet, gentle steed with a love of bitter apples from the wild trees that dotted the now thick forest. I could feel her confusion over being so far from her stable and her owner. Laying hands on her helped ease her mental distress, but it never left the horse, nor me.

We had lost the thin lane we had been following late yesterday. The woods were dense with trees and underbrush, fallen logs, and small runoffs of spring water, so even if I wished to ride Atriel more harshly, it was nigh impossible. It was obvious to me that Umeris Stillcloud had never seen the Verboten forest. But why would he have? The woods fell under no noble family jurisdiction as they had been gifted to us by royal decree by the king. A bandage on an amputation that served to only cover the stump from the eyes of the royal court. A kindness, a gift, a small token from the royal family to show they cared for their brethren who had left the flock to avoid the enlightenment.

“You seem far away,” Tezen noted as we rode through a standing copse of pale beech, the bark tan with dark stripes, the leaves darkest green and large as a thicket bear’s paw. The sun was above us, the forest shady and cool. Beirach rode a front, his mood as unpredictable as mine. It seemed for the setting sun we shared our cravings and admiration for each other grew, which then led us both into bouts of unhappy confusion. “Every time you grow silent, your expression grows sad, then mad, then fearful.”

“You’re astute,” I replied, my sight flicking to the pixie sitting in her favorite place, between the horse’s ears. “My mind darts like flutterwings over a pond.”

“Thinking that deeply about shit that makes you look that sad is a waste of time,” she announced just as we broke from the thicket into a small clearing. My eyes widened in recognition. I knew this place. “I learned a long time ago that keeping happy thoughts in your head is much better for your outlook. Like now, I’m thinking it wouldn’t be a bad thing to find a pub with a burly barmaid who—what are you doing?”

I slid off the horse, my boots landing in a soft muskeg that gave slightly under my weight. I smiled softly at Beirach who had come to a halt and sat atop Methril, his blue eyes taking in the break in the forest. He appeared reluctant to join us. I chalked that up to him being set in his ways and averse to hijinks as most many middle-aged folk were.

With a trill of pure glee, I ran to the center of the clearing. I kicked up dark blue crickets, honeybees, and a female rust grouse. She exploded out of the tall grass with a cackle, her patina plumage as shiny as a copper in the hot sun.

“Hey, what is it?” Tezen appeared at my side, picks in hand, her sharp teeth bared.

“ That is it,” I replied, running faster up a small incline to reach the Greenwood pond. Named by my brothers, cousins, and myself after our discovery of it on an expedition of sorts. Our trips into this side of the wilds were nearly always led by one of my elder brothers, this time it was Bellas, the oldest of our brood and the one who would oversee the clan and accept the mantle of wilder warden when Father stepped down. Those in the city would say that made each child of Dyffros and Jastra princes of the woods. We wore no crowns nor wished any and so those titles meant nothing to the people of the boscage. “That pond is where I learned to swim. It marks the perimeter of my mother’s homeland. The bosk of the singing spruce is only a short journey from here.”

“Huzzah! I could use a dip. My pits smell like a sloth weasel’s mangy bunghole.”

I laughed at her, the sound bouncing off the dark green evergreens that ringed the meadow. With a hoot, Tezen raced ahead of me, her breastplate tumbling to the dancing feather grass tops followed by her undershirt. I tried to catch the tiny bits of metal and cloth but tripped and ended up on my face with a pixie shirt on my pinkie finger and my chin resting on the cool mud bank of the pond. Beirach shouted at us, but what he said was lost to the joy of a familiar pond to frolic and play in after a long hot ride.

I sat up, grinning, and pushed at the heel of my right boot with the toes of my left. A swim would wash away the grit of the past few days, and even, perhaps, launder away the ceaseless yearning for Beirach growing more and more undeniable within me.

As one boot came free, I worked on yanking my shirt free from my trousers.

“Last one in is a fetid pus ball on a troll’s nut sack!” Tezen shouted as she dove into the pond.

A huge shadow leaped over me, landing on the edge of the pond. Four long legs planted deeply into the soft soil as I looked up at the elk, its coat golden-red and brown in the sun, antlers wide as a delivery wagon. Its celestial blue eyes found me just as Tezen impacted into its side like a bumblebee drunk on fallen apples. The elk snorted at us. Twin blasts of hot air shook the wispy grasses and fluffy pods. A clear warning that was backed up by Beirach stamping the ground with a hoof as large as a plow horse’s hoof.

I darted to my feet, lurching out to snap Tezen out of the air before she fell to the ground and was stepped on. She hit my hand hard, her little naked body stretched out over my palm. “Ow, you fracking moldy, pointy-eared, son of a pissy—”

I stepped around the elk, my one hand on its strong chest, the other clasping a dazed, nude, angry pixie. A log lay on the water, half in and half out, its needles long ago fallen into the water. Still shaken by the arrival of Beirach in his elk form, I found a foursome of turtles sunning themselves on the log. They didn’t turn to look at us or hustle off into the water. They simply sat there. Unmoving, unblinking, their heads and legs gray with cracked granite.

“The turtles are stone,” I croaked out, my joy at seeing the pond erased by the visage before us. “How?” I whispered as my companion, uncaring that her tats were out, sat up in my hand, hair in her face, and gaped in terror. “Why?”

“By the ancient one,” she whispered as she shimmied to my fingertips to stare down at the turtles. Lifeless gray eyes gazed up at us, their shells dull but still with exquisite details under the suffocating coating of stone. “Do you think the sickness is in the water?”

“I don’t know,” I answered honestly. I prayed not for if it was, then thousands would fall ill as the underground springs in this area spread far and wide, feeding into untold numbers of streams that fed wells in the farmlands. “I’ve never seen such a thing.”

Beirach lowered his head, nudging us back from the water’s edge with his antlers, ever gentle but insistent.

“We should go,” she softly said, her wings drooping down to tickle my hand.

“Yes, we should go now.”

A red-winged dragonfly darted past us, lighting the still water’s surface to drink. We stood silently, watching, until the insect took off.

“It didn’t turn to stone,” Tezen said aloud, her gaze moving to find mine. “That’s good, yeah?”

I shrugged, feeling small and incompetent.

We left the pond at a dead run back to the horses waiting in the shade. My worry compounded now that I had seen that which I had begged Danubia to save this forest from. Proof of the sickness this close to my homelands filled me with dread.

Beirach pushed through the thickets, moving his head this way and that to avoid getting his rack caught in low boughs, his hooves sinking into the dirt. I placed my hands on his neck, his blue eyes framed with dark red lashes, and buried my face in his throat. He smelled of fur, sun, and cinnamon from our clumpy morning oats.

“Thank you,” I whispered into his fur. Clinging to him in this form was less puzzling. “We would have leaped in and…”

A primal, resonant sound like a bass drum being played in a deep cave rose from within his chest. A soothing sound, to me at least, as I dug my fingers into his pelt. He was relieved now, that emotion swallowing up the lingering traces of fright.

Tezen buzzed past my ear. I pulled back to find her seated on a bright white antler tine as long as my arm. She was dressed now. Mostly. Her breastplate was missing still but her breasts were covered with an undershirt.

“I’m not going to lie. That was one of the most unsettling things I’ve ever seen,” she admitted, for once forgoing her usual raunch and bravado. I nodded as my fingers moved through the thick ruff along Beirach’s neck. “You said your mother’s people are nearby?”

I couldn’t quite bring myself to speak, my throat growing tight even thinking about what we might find, so I merely inclined my head.

“Shit, Minty Fresh,” Tezen whispered, then flittered down to snuggle into my neck.

We all took a moment in the shade to hold each other close for what we might discover in the village past the tainted pond might be the stuff that fed little elven boy’s night terrors.

What we found at my aunt’s village was a nightmare beyond description.

We took the shortest route through the woods, a thin, rough path that proved too difficult for Beirach in elk form to navigate. Seated upon Atriel, Tezen perched between the mare’s ears as always, we watched elk shift back to man. Bones popped as Beirach’s body reformed into his human shape. Fur melted away, antlers fell off, and the man appeared enveloped amid a cloud of dark blue. He remained on all fours for several minutes, panting, working through the pain of the transformation.

“Damn,” Tezen whispered when Beirach finally rose, his hand resting on the withers of his horse. I wasn’t sure if she was stunned at the agony a druid endures to become a beast or at the sight of the man nude. Both were reason enough to be awed. “I never realized it was so draining to shift.”

“It is a process that takes as much as it gives. Much like all of nature,” he replied as he rummaged into his saddlebag to find clothes. “Forgive my lack of clothing, Lady Tezen. I would not usually show my attributes to a member of the fey court after such a short friendship but the shift came over me quickly.”

I pulled my sight from his broad back to the pixie enjoying the view a bit too much for my liking. I wondered if she truly was regal or if Beirach was simply being courteous.

“Please, don’t fret about a little skin,” she said, giving me a wink. I reached out to shield her eyes behind my hand. “Hey!”

Beirach was stepping into tan breeches when Tezen untangled herself from Atreil’s mane to peek again. I got a look most foul from the pixie.

When the archdruid turned, a plain white shirt in his hand, his expression was firm. “I called to you both to halt. Several times. Why did you not heed my call?”

Tezen and I exchanged glances. “I cannot speak for anyone other than myself. I heard you but was so swept up in the happy memories of the glen and the pond that…I acted immaturely.”

“Yeah, same. My father always said I charged head first into things without thought, then wondered why I ended up covered in pig shit.”

“I am not scolding you, for that is not my place. I simply wished to hear why my calls went unheeded.” He walked over to me, his face showing the drain of that impromptu shift. Knowing what I did from seeing my father and siblings transform, he would require rest and soon, for his magicks would be severely depleted. He looked at me, sky blue eyes rife with concern. “I do not wish to be your parent, Kenton, for you are a man grown.”

I felt most unlike a man grown at the moment. “We should have listened,” I softly said and got a nod of chestnut head. “How did you know that there was danger in the pond?”

His sight left me to touch on the clearing. “There is always a residual signature that all mages leave behind. An identifying crackle in the air as the magicks lingers. I could sense the dark magicks. Taste it on the wind molecules. It was a scent of death that I, sadly, am familiar with…”

His explanation drifted off. I looked at Tezen, who shrugged. “So you felt the magicks. Your experience served us well. Thank you,” I said, yanking him from his fog.

“No thanks are necessary. I have grown fond of you both and would see no harm befall you. We shall ride in a moment. I need to finish dressing.”

When he was clothed and in his saddle, we sat staring out at the clearing. “Perhaps we should take measures to protect any other foolish chits from leaping into that water.”

“The water may not be tainted at all as the residual magicks feels less a poison of the earth and more a powerful curse that traveled a good distance. Still, it would be best to warn others, and your thoughtfulness shines through yet again. If you could ask the woods for aid? My mind is most willing, but my body is weak.”

Knowing the muscle that he carried, I could never think of him as weak. “Yes, I will gladly.”

I slid from my saddle and walked out into the clearing, small gnats and butterflies clouding around me as I neared the pond. Sadness overtook me as I kneeled on the soil, placed my hands on the dirt, and closed my eyes. My fingers dug into dry loam, curling into the soil, as my magicks flowed out of me into the earth. Calling upon the wild rose bushes and berry brambles that cluttered the clearing, their roots began to grow and spread. The sun was hot on my head as I channeled my power into the plants. Sweat ran down my neck, soaking my braids, as new shoots erupted from the ground. They tangled around each other, knitting into a thicket so dense that a hare would have trouble wiggling through. It was exhausting spellcasting.

When it was done, I lifted my hands, the soil sifting through my fingers, and sat on my heels feeling some pride but also great melancholy.

“You did well,” Beirach said from behind me. “Come, let us leave this place.”

He offered me his hand. I slid my gritty fingers over his. He pulled me gently to my boots, his gaze touching upon my damp cheeks. He seemed ready to speak but said nothing as he laced his fingers with mine. We walked to our horses. The pond where I had spent so many hours of playtime with loved ones now hidden behind a thicket of thorns.

Beirach helped me mount, and we rode to the north and to the great hill that looked down upon the grove of my mother’s people. Healers and earth druids, joyous elves all, who served the goddess in all ways. My prayers to that goddess floated skyward, heard or unheard, I had no way of knowing.

Seated on our horses at the top of the hill and looking down at the glen, I knew Danubia had not heard my pleas. The village that sat at the base of the hillock was deathly still. There was no sound of voices or the soft bleats from the goats that roamed about. Nothing could be heard but the sound of insects and the wuthering of a lonely wind through the trees.

“We will stake the horses here,” Beirach said, his voice low with concern. His sight moved from the lifeless community of healers to me. “This way they will not wander down and graze until we ascertain that the illness has not contaminated the soil. Kenton, can your magicks help in that regard?”

I nodded dully. My eyes locked on the small huts. No smoke rose from the chimneys. My skin erupted in cold shivers.

His warm hand came to rest atop mine where it lay on my thigh. My gaze moved to him.

“I know this is difficult. If you wish, I shall go myself to investigate and—”

“No, they are my family.” I swung my leg over and dropped to the ground.

“Then so it will be. Touch nothing, either of you,” Beirach stated as he glanced from me to Tezen. “We will enter and observe. Kenton, do you know where the home of the wilder warden of this valley is?”

“I do, yes, it is my aunt and uncle’s home.”

“Perhaps it looks worse than it is,” Tezen kindly offered.

After tethering the horses to a tree where they could nap and browse, we made our way down the hill, the tall summer grasses tickling my fingertips, sharing small sparks of earth energy with me that I sorely needed. My legs felt wobbly still, but I followed behind Beirach, who had donned his dark bark armor and carried his staff. We found several songbirds lying in the grass, encased in stone, beaks open as if struck down mid-song.

Tezen flew beside me, her picks out, her face sternly set. The stillness was unsettling. Our first discovery that the stone illness had struck here was finding a young lad of perhaps six cuddled up with a small goat kid behind a rock. The same rock that my older brother Lyari had leaped off of during a moon festival and had broken his arm. I was just a toddler then, but I recalled seeing him land awkwardly and the howls of pain that followed. He’d quickly been tended to, his bone mended, and spent the rest of the night being fawned over by several village girls who fed him fruit tarts to allow his splinted arm to rest overnight.

I choked on the memory and the sight of the little boy, eyes wide, his faithful pet in his arms.

“Is he family?” Beirach enquired. I shook my head. “Perhaps you should wait with the horses.”

“No.” I cleared my throat then marched around the archdruid, straight into the heart of the village. Elves of all ages were frozen in place, many caught unawares, many with fearful looks. “By the goddess,” I murmured as we slowly moved among the cursed villagers.

Flies zipped around us, the beehives by the well were busy with tiny insects coated with pollen returned for the night, and a pair of green dragonflies flew by.

“Naught has touched the insects it seems,” Beirach commented as we slowly made our way to the temple. It was much like the one Beirach tended. Domed, the stone walls supporting a thick growth of dark green ivy with tiny white flowers filling the still air with a rich scent. “This tells me that my impressions of the pond hold true.”

“A curse?” Tezen asked, her picks now lowered, for there seemed no danger here, only the inhabitants cast in gray stone.

“Mayhap, Kenton, can you feel anything amiss with the soil or plants?” Beirach asked, and I placed my hand against the ivy on the temple wall.

It hummed with life, the pulse of rich nutrients coursing through it as it strove to produce more buds. I removed my hand from the vines and kneeled down to dig into the dirt. The soil was warm. I lifted a handful to study it. An earthworm wiggled out of the clump, alive and seemingly unaffected. The ground itself was rich and brown, alive in all good ways.

“The soil and plants are healthy,” I announced, placing the ball of dirt back where it belonged. I stayed on my knee, my sight trying to push into the temple. The torches and braziers were dark and cold. “The fountain is dry,” I noted.

Beirach tapped a torch with his staff and a dancing blue flame erupted to throw the interior into muted light.

“The fountain has been destroyed,” Tezen stated, flying to the stone base where a statue of Danubia in flowing robes cradling a small fawn once stood. The white limestone carving had been shattered into bits with chunks of statuary scattered about. “Why would someone do this?”

“The gem is missing,” Beirach said, striding into the temple, his boots crunching the small bits of rock that once were our goddess.

“The gem?” Tezen asked, dropping down to sit on my shoulder as I remained on one knee at the entrance. I rose and shook off my fear.

“Each temple of Danubia has a fountain, and each fountain is a likeness of the goddess. Inset in each carving is a holy gemstone,” I explained. “The stone is chosen by the wilder warden and priestess of the clan to reflect that which the peoples in their septs are adept at. Healing would be represented by a pink sapphire, and the elk clans have blue diamonds, and so on.”

Beirach moved around the fountain’s base, water seeping from the earth that would have been flowing magically into the likeness of the goddess, mumbling to himself.

“Who would do such a thing to a holy site?” I asked as I stepped up beside the archdruid, my foot catching on something hidden in the shadows. Beirach grabbed my arm, steadying me, the light from the magical antler bound to his staff shining down to illuminate what had tripped me.

A fine ankle coated with stone.

My sight flew from the foot to the woman’s face.

“Goddess no,” I gasped, staring down in horror at my aunt. Her mouth opened, her hand up as if she was shouting a spell when she was struck down. She resembled my mother so much that I cried out, tears welling in my eyes. “Aunt Fayeth,” I shouted and reached for her.

“No, do not touch her.” Beirach tugged me back, his grip on my biceps strong, and turned me from the sight. “Come with us, outside. Come now.”

I stumbled along at his side, coughing and sputtering, trying to quell the tears as best I could.

“Sit, we shall take a moment here to pray for the cursed,” Beirach said, leading me outside to sit down beside a small flower garden brimming with pink, purple, and yellow night dancers. The flowers bowed toward me as my legs buckled. Tezen lighted on my shoulder. She patted my wet cheek and dabbed at my face with the hem of her undershirt.

Beirach began to speak, his tone low and reverent.

“Gracious Danubia,

Bring gentle respite to these children of yours as they venture onward,

Clasp them to you, guide them from their suffering into the light of the life giver,

Cleave them onto you so that they may cycle back into the glory that is your wild heart.”

Shaken and depleted, I bowed to place my forehead on the ground where once small happy feet played and allowed my salty tears to fall.