“You lied to us!”
A partially scorched, dryad came raging out of the wood, bounding over the mired bog of murky water. Her body unraveled into large twisted limbs, blackened and smoldering in places, yet dark green and wood-grained in others.
“You gave us this forest when the Xarmnians quitted it. Now you send harpies in to drive us out!”
The cataracted eyes of the Pan blinked and narrowed, as a low growl rumbled from within and without.
“I permitted your occupation of it. I did not give it away. The land is mine, the woods are mine. A king does not parcel out his kingdom. You would do well to mark this and consider to whom it is you speak and accuse.”
Other dryads emerged from the backwoods, following their scorched leader, also bearing the marks of fire, and smoke.
“Why did you send the harpies among us?!” another asked, “Have we not served you?”
At this, the satyrs stood up from under the low forest brush.
“Hello, sweet Briar!” one of the taller grey and grizzly looking satyrs announced, a dark-lipped grin spreading from the coal-black apples of his cheekbones, eyes shining with lecherous delight, “Did you miss us?”
The other satyrs that had hidden within the brush also popped up and laughed throatily, sounding like a chorus of baying and barking dogs.
“What are THEY doing here?!” the lead dryad, jumped at the suddenness and surprise as satyrs fanned out among them, circling them around and around, feinting in and out to stroke their legs.
The lead dryad, the one that the grey satyr had addressed as ‘Briar’ bristled at the touch, her body suddenly developing large thorns all around.
The grey satyr pulled his hand back, a small cut on his palm from the contact.
“Funny,” he croaked with laughter, “you have the same effect on me.”
The satyrs all laughed, erupting again in that strange cacophony of bawdy mirth reticent of drunken partiers laughing uproariously together at a shared dirty joke.
The Pan lowered himself into a crouch, moving steadily forward, his nostrils flaring and his large ears twitching among curls of black and grey hair.
“Don’t think I haven’t marked you, human toad,” he rumbled, “Our conversation is not over. You have not been dismissed.”
Grum-blud had been attempting to slink away. Both he and Shelberd were hoping the distraction with the dryads and the satyrs would prove to be more than The Pan could manage, but it wasn’t working.
“Yes, sire.”
“Dryad, I will treat with you in turn,” The Pan growled, and then turned his focus back on the trolls.
“Now, I was asking you about the Manticores. Where are they?”
Hoping to ingratiate themselves with The Pan, Bunt and Dob attempted to answer at once.
“They’ve fallen in the fires.”
The Pan stood rigidly and still. Dangerously still.
“I asked the Troll,” the voice rumbled an octave lower and was slowly enunciated expanding every syllable.
There was an implied warning in the words, and both onocentaurs gaped and clamped their mouths shut, but trembled.
Grum-blud’s mouth felt as if it was filled with cotton, and in this very moment, he regretted the day he was ever born.
Shelberd whimpered, huddling on the ground covering his head with his hands, not daring to look up. Grum-blud smelled the distinctive pungency of urine but wasn’t sure if it was Shelberd’s or his own.
***
Syloam raced through the mid-canopy, crashing through branches, breaking and snapping smaller limbs as her gnarled and twisted root clusters clasped the tree poles, rocketing her body through the forest, closing fast upon the harpies flying and dangling her nest before her, like a hypnotic pendulum. She could now see the human Surface Worlder, she had bound inside, slinging from one side of the rotting-cage to the other, grappling to hang on the anything he could, even as pieces of the cage began to peel and break away. She wondered if she’d been wise to delay her pursuit by taking time to pick up the pieces of deadwood from the forest floor because she might have gotten ahead of them if she had not descended, but she had no choice. The milk of the harpies was deadly, as evidenced by the deteriorating condition of her bower. Something had given it far, greater potency.
Ahead, she heard the harpies laughing and taunting him, oblivious to the fact that they were being followed.
“Stay put, little mousey!” one squawked at him.
“Cawten, you’re dripping again!” the lead harpy reprimanded, glancing down at the deteriorating condition of the vine cage, “Quit frothing, you idiot! These flesh bags are soft and break easily. The Pan will get no pleasure if it dies before it gets to him.”
“Pay attention to where you’re going, Grawla!” another hissed at the lead, “You almost flew us into that tree back there. This basket is not going to hold our little mouse much longer if you keep jerking us around. I should have flown lead.”
Just then the branch and vine cluster one of the harpies had been holding clasped in their talons, broke away from the rest of the basket, causing the corner to sag and drop down, jerking the others forward and down, spiraling into a tree, smashing through the basket with a loud crunch and snapping of other brittle branches.
Will was thrown from one end and smashed into the side of the trunk pole that ripped into the cage. The vines that had been holding him snapped and he felt the impact, blunted a bit by the final grasp of the bindings, but at last, he was free…
And then he was falling…
***
Jeremiah wondered how he had gotten himself into these messes. First General Mattox confronting him. Then the satyrs maiming his horse. The firestorm on the horizon. Now, this. The thought of Brian returning to the Mid-World and leading a quest of Surface Worlders as he had long ago before everything went totally wrong. His brother’s betrayal, his company divided and fragmenting under his leadership, the lies and deception, and now here it was again. Come around full circle. The ghosts of the past confronting him at every turn. Confronting him or haunting him. He did not know which. He had to somehow find a way to make peace with the past, but it dredged up so many painful memories. He wished he’d never been called, been given such a responsibility. It was too much for anyone to bear alone.
But that was the point, wasn’t it?
He felt that same quiet stirring deep within his spirit, that had seemed to go silent so long ago.
At least he had thought it had gone silent. Perhaps the problem had been within him all along. He’d chosen to quit listening.
***
Will was falling…and then he wasn’t.
He felt sudden compression in his chest and ribs and found he had been wrapped in a curling twisting vine that moved like a serpent around his body, constricting him, yet dangling him from the trees and spines of rocks jutting out of the forest floor below. He looked up, following the extension of the branches to see Syloam dangling from a massive branch, her arms and legs a fusion and amalgam of vines, branches and moss and lichen. She was breathing heavily from the exertion and the last second catch of his body.
“Look at what we’ve got here, Awlen. Isn’t that sweet?” Grawla the harpy said, recovering from the strike, having found a perch on a branch from which to regroup.
The broken cage had ripped apart, brittle vines snapping and scattering across the forest floor, the withering brown husk of it misshapen and twisted on the rocks between the tree roots and trunks below.
Cawten, the erstwhile frother, had sustained an injury and tumbled down after the cage landing on top of it, her wing folded under her, broken. Awlen, the harpy to the back right side of the cage bearers, had flipped downward, plunging with the torn enclosure, but finally freed her claws, caught air and regained her flight wings, before striking the ground. Disoriented she gathered air under her, and climbed upward, beneath the hyperextended dryad that had caught their prize.
“Just precious,” Awlen sneered, “Where Dawlen?”
“Up here,” a scratching croak came from above, “Grawla, you cank! You could’ve killed us!”
“Mawgla dropped her end. Where is Mawgla, anyway?”
A distant voice answered back.
“Down here. In the cage. It trapped me when it fell. Cawten milked the vines and the cage broke apart.”
“What is wrong with you, Cawten?!” Awlen crabbed.
No answer came.
After a long pause, Mawgla’s voice came back, “I think Cawten’s dead.”
A series of broken chirps came from the tightening lips of the harpies, to which Grawla added, “Remember our vow, sisters: Each of our dead is owed a death from theirs. Death for Death!” The harpies overhead fluttered and shook themselves as they collectively began a slow chant picking up the refrain, “Death for death!”
A milky-wetness pouring down from their fluff ruffle, pearling over their feathered breasts, dripping down their metal shanks and curling down their legs to their claws.
“What do you have to say, Wood Pick?” Grawla turned cold eyes to the dryad, “Care to dance?”
Mawgla nudged the still body of Cawten with a claw as she pulled out from under the half-crushed bulb of the broken cage. No movement. Vacant black eyes stared up into the canopy, the wrinkled mouth gaping at some horror from beyond.
Syloam gathered Will up towards her feminine body, her arm shrinking back into a shoulder more in line with human form than a tree.
“This man belongs to me. I found him first. You have no right to take him from me.”
“If he belongs to you,” Awlen snarled, “then you should be willing to die for him.”
With these words, both Grawla, Dawlen, and Awlen launched themselves down on her, milky claws flared.
The harpy identified as Mawgla, caught Will by the flailing arm, as she flew up intending to join the attack.
Before Syloam hit the ground below, she had devolved into what appeared to be a rotted tree, no female form remaining of her.
Now Mawgla flew onward into the forest, dangling him painfully from beneath iron gripped and powerful grey claws, hooked with black talons and the others flew after her.
***
“Where is this Faerie Fade?” James asked.
“What even is a Faerie Fade?” Laura asked.
Maeven looked in the direction that Jeremiah had gone and then turned back to the group.
“It’s not far from here,” she told them, “As to what it is, I am not sure I even know, but it is what it does that makes it important for us to get there. At this point, however, I cannot tell you any more than that. We just need to get there as soon as possible. The forest is full of the Half-men kind. I have seen somethings in the forest that I have not seen in a long time, so we have reason to hope. Please follow me and stay close together and keep watch.”
“You haven’t told us anything,” Christie interjected, “How do we know that O’Brian will be able to find us, or that this Jeremiah can even be trusted?”
“Jeremiah can be trusted to do the right thing,” Maeven answered without hesitation, “As I told O’Brian and you, Begglar, earlier, Jeremiah is the one to whom I was referring when I said there was one who maintains a hidden cache in this forest where we can get supplies and the tools of war we need and perhaps some means of transport.”
Lindsey spoke up, “But you said that he would not be happy to see O’Brian again.”
“I said he may not be,” Maeven corrected, “I didn’t say would not be. It is true there is a history between them that I cannot get into now. But the cause they both serve is the same, and at least in that, they are unified. Both are stubborn men.”
“Aye, I’ll vouch for that,” Begglar guffawed.
“Their disagreement was in method only, that is about all I know. But as I’ve said, we need to get moving. I believe most of the satyrs are traveling with The Pan. They like to stay close to him, feel emboldened by him. And there are dryads in the forest, so they will most likely be anxious and stirred up. Those things hanging above us were meant to warn the satyrs, not us. Satyrs are addicted to dryads and the dryads will come to The Pan, and you can be that is just where the satyrs will want to be when that happens. Not even the scent of dogs will distract satyrs from pursuing a dryad, so, we have a good chance to avoid any significant number of satyrs for the time being. Now let’s get going. Follow closely. Keep up and stay as quiet as you can.”
***
The Pan cast a dark shadow over the cowering trolls, as he glared at them through sightless eyes. His hooves sinking deeper and deeper into the soft mud of the bank as he had moved threateningly over to Grum-blud and Shelberd. Massive hands the size of shovel blades hung fisting and unfisting at its sides ready to throttle and pound the two creatures and tear their bodies apart. “If what the asses say is true,” The Pan growl, rumbled, “What will you give me in trade for their loss? They were unique in my kingdom, and there are not many left to serve me. How do you, small toad, hope or plan to ever make up for that?”
From deeper in the forest, voices came crying out, again interrupting The Pan.
“Master, master!” a group of harpies flew over the heads of the dryads, and satyrs gathered below.
Irritation again, The Pan growled, “What is it?!”
The dryads hissed and crouched, then turned angry shouts of rage towards The Pan, “Betrayer! You are in league with these flying hags! You cannot deny it now.”
“ENOUGH!” The Pan roared, and the ground and trees seemed to quake with the sound as all assembled and near felt the vibrations from the noise.
In the weighted silence, finally one of the swooping harpies, spoke up, loud enough for all to hear, “Surface Worlders are in the forest! We’ve caught one.”
***
“There it is!” Maeven said, moving faster through the forest.
They’d left the roadway, and had moved quickly and quietly through the woods, trying to follow Maeven’s shifting form through the dappled light.
Before them, at the midway point up a small rise, between large, very old towering trees, forming four wall-posts, holding an ornately woven ceiling formed of living vines and trees, was a kind of cupola with a woven back wall but no fore or sidewalls, leaving these sides open to the forest. It was a place one might associate with a wedding ceremonial canopy, like a Jewish chuppah or an arboreal worship place. In the back wall was a single doorway, fashioned by bowed branches. On either side were the paired casements of two windows, four total, that had partial coverings and the forest beyond appeared through the tops of these. No further building or enclosure extended beyond the back wall.
“Get under the canopy, all of you. Quickly. We will be safe there.”
“What is this?” Matthew asked, “There are barely any walls.”
“The Faerie Fade. An ancient place of weddings. A very powerful place of protection.”
***
Artifice.
Syloam blinked, cracking apart the pieces of deadwood she’d wrapped her duplicated body in. Being very careful not to touch the scarred sides where the harpy milk had touched, she reformed herself from twisting sinuous roots out of the hollow core husk of the fallen log. Had she lain there any longer, the dead rot would have extended through the old bark and killed her. The fools had almost dropped the Will creature.
It had been difficult, but she had caught the Will with dead arms, and it had fooled the harpies. Had they but looked harder, they would have noticed that the body had very little green on it—mostly a film of lichen. The deadfall had served her needs. She hoped her fallen sister would not mind being used in this way. “Truly,” she whispered with a hiss as she lifted once again from off of the forest floor, extending herself with vines reaching into the trees, “Death for death!” Only the death would be for the one called Mawgla. The one carrying her Will.
Excavatia 