Iohmar stares long and hard before he remembers the appearance of the rot, the withering of the trees.
The sight of the world when the rippling creatures slipped from their borders.
20
Heart of the Woods
In the deepest forest, where the heart of the woods is thickest, the trees ancient and sleeping and powerful, Iohmar finds ripplings.
It is so small a thing, small enough he did not sense it and the trees did not wake and cry out to him: a finger of their border, crawling among the trees, eating at the mosses and grasses and lichens, not disturbing the great trunks but withering the smallest leaves and causing the fruit to rot in upset.
Putting his hand to the nearest tree, he leans his forehead against the damp bark, much as he did with his parents’ trees in the great orchard. It sleeps, even under a gentle wash of his magic, slow and sad and always thinking. A nearby branch twines around him but does not drag him close, instead pushing him toward the border, the abomination cutting the air. No sickness has reached the trees’ hearts, and Iohmar almost weeps with relief he found the ripplings before greater damage could be done.
Did the shadows find the rot?Was the shadow child leading me to warn me? It still has not reappeared.
Creeping closer, Iohmar raises his hand to the barrier, unable to bring himself to touch it. There is scant light here, not enough to catch along the mirrors and voids of their bodies. He senses them now, little creatures too small to be of terrible harm to him should he come into contact with their draining bodies. They’re not much like the great rippling beasts he faced protecting his mountains and nothing resembling the ones that stole away his father and mother.
But they are many. And they will grow. If he does not push them back, they will feed on the heart of the woods until the trees and flowers and grasses and all manner of creatures are consumed. And Iohmar’s lands will die and become theirs.
They will swallow him up. Him and Galen and Rúnda. Lor.
Iohmar shudders.
Memories from his sickness are upon him still, ever present. He did not tell Rúnda of them, or Galen. But he thinks of his mother’s voice often, the way his father held himself when he walked, the sensation of their magic in the mountains and trees.
His scars weigh upon his skin. Now, they press against the insides of his robes, aching at the closeness of the monsters. He doesn’t know if it’s a real sensation or imagined. But he hurts. One of those creatures could slip from their border as they did by Rúnda’s sea. They could approach Lor.
He imagines his son seeing them. One swallowing up his little fingers, the soft skin and the smile he turns upon Iohmar each day.
Iohmar digs his talons into the border and rips.
He has not trimmed them these last few weeks, distracted by Rúnda and Lor and magic and feasting, and they always grow quickly when his magic is in sharp display.
A hollow shattering pierces the bruised air, so high-pitched and deep it doesn’t reach him until his ears ache in protest. Not a physical, living thing in and of itself, the border does not break. It is an extension of the ripplings’ inverse magic, fortified by Iohmar’s to keep them out if possible and dissuade them if not.
His claws leave streaks convulsing and shimmering, casting off light from somewhere Iohmar cannot see. The barrier withdraws a few paces within itself, away from the heart of the woods. A scar is left upon the forest floor from where they consumed the growth. The soles of his feet tingle and ache when he steps onto the rotted ground.
“How you dare come here,” he whispers, though neither he nor his parents discovered if they can speak or understand. He steps forward, palms raised, prepared to pull roots from the earth and trees from far away to drag the border back. Magic tingles along his skin, begging to be released.
One rises before him, face-to-face. Iohmar is so close the creature must feel his breath. It’s a shapeless, lifeless form, rippling in and in and in on itself, the sound of its body as breaking glass. All air leaves Iohmar’s lungs. He has not been this close to one. Never this close. Not since . . .
Not since he gathered his mother’s flowers from the rotted fields of Rúnda’s kingdom.
“Why will you not leave me alone?” he whispers. Silly, childish, and worthless, speaking such things to a mindless monster.
It twitches. Had it a form or recognizable body, Iohmar would’ve sworn it cocked its head at him. He tilts his own in return. Small as they are since last he forced them back—matching his height instead of towering as trees—Iohmar is less panicked by its size and power than by the terror accompanying it. He lowers his hand.
The creature watches him, but Iohmar knows better than to reach out. Long ago, he watched his father do as such, watched his finger shrivel to a lifeless husk. Iohmar remembers what was done to his folk centuries later.
“Why?” he whispers and again is met with a strange twitch.
Others swarm, rippling across their lifeless ground, nonthreatening as they can be but causing his skin to crawl. This one is still—as near to still as ever he’s seen. Never has he known one to be so quiet and unmoving.
Softly, he lets his magic wash over the borders. He does not press past, does not wish to threaten and provoke an attack, but touches gently at the place his land meets theirs.
The creature slams into the border.
Knocked to the rotting ground, Iohmar calls for his trees, waking the slumbering giants about him. The nearest is pulled awake, perhaps for the first time in centuries, and crashes its giant trunk against the border, uninterested in capturing their king, only in coming to his aid. Branches are swallowed within the shimmering air, but trees wake under his call, beating themselves against the shattering border until it slithers back.
Rising, Iohmar rouses all manner of trees and vines and roots, past the heart of the woods and from his twilight forests, wrapping around and dragging back the convulsing border until it is far from his lands, back in their own, and the long streak of rot they left is a lifeless, wicked scar cutting the forest.
My forest.
The creatures are still watching, hovering within their border as it’s pushed back and pushed back.
“Leave me alone,” he tells them, not caring how they do not comprehend. He is too angry. How am I so angry? When they fail to back away, he screams, “Leave me alone!”
Trees toss themselves against the border, ground trembling, and the ripplings flee so deep within their own lands that he no longer senses their magic or even a shred of their existence.
Iohmar curls against the mossy trunk of a fallen tree and weeps.
Returning to his mountain, Iohmar slips into his chambers by the glass roof and finds the edge of Lor’s crib. It is midnight now, the entire day and evening lost to the heart of the woods.
Galen is asleep in the willow chair, chin on his chest. All the lands must have felt the impact of Iohmar’s magic, the way in which he dragged the rippling barrier away from their trees. His caretaker will have waited up for him.
Iohmar is grateful he fell into slumber. He cannot face him.
