Draven, with Callix standing silently beside him, listened to these strange words and felt his coward’s heart sinking in his breast. He had seen the marks on Oson’s throat and similar marks on Itala’s. He did not doubt Akilun’s words. Perhaps there was some comfort in this revelation, no matter how horrifying.
Callix, his voice thick in his throat, asked, “Can you stop him? This Yukka, this beater . . . can you kill him?”
At this, Akilun met Callix’s gaze and nodded. But his face was very solemn. “I can, and I will if you ask me to.”
“Then come at once!” Callix cried.
But Draven, reading more of the truth in Akilun’s eyes interrupted with a sharp, “No. No, tell me first what you are not saying. Tell me what you fear to say.”
Akilun bowed his head. “The moment I step into your world, Yukka will know. The light I carry is powerful, and he will sense it. And he will kill his current victim at once, swallowing down the last of her pain to make himself strong before he faces me.”
Draven and Callix said nothing. Both thought of Itala lying so helpless in her agony, clutched in Yukka’s invisible fingers.
“I can kill the beater,” Akilun said. “But it will cost Itala’s life.”
The light of the lantern no longer mattered. The shadows all around loomed enormous once more, and the two mortals felt themselves powerless against them. When at last Callix could find his voice and speak, he said only, “Then there is no hope.”
“Indeed that is not so!” Akilun was quick to reply. “There is always hope. But this hope is a dangerous one, and it requires a man of rare courage to face it.
“Here is your choice, mortals. You may invite me to your world, knowing full well that Itala will die but that I will conquer your foe, thus sparing both of your tribes and offering them a future. Or . . .”
Here, as his voice trailed off, Akilun plunged his hand into a pouch at his side and withdrew a candle. Neither Callix nor Draven knew what it was, for candles were unknown among their people. But they watched as Akilun held the wick into the depths of his white-gleaming lantern. A bright flare nearly blinded them, and both men raised their hands to shield their eyes. When they could bear to look again, Akilun held out the candle, which was quite tall and thin. Wax melted and ran down its sides, and from the wick bloomed a white flame.
“I offer you the light of Asha, which is taken from the hearth fires of the Moon herself,” Akilun said. “It is not so powerful as the lantern’s glow, but it is equally true.
“One of you must bear this light down into Yukka’s pit. You will find this pit by its marker: a single, leafless tree, not dead yet like unto one that is dead, standing in a lonely place. The pit will descend in a spiral stair around its roots, and he who carries this light must pass all the way to the end of that stair. There he will see many grotesque sights, but these he must not gaze upon too long. Instead he must look for the roots of the tree . . . and to them hold this light so that they catch ablaze!
“Yukka will be taken by surprise. He will have no time to think or to prepare. He will want to kill the girl but must focus all his strength on protecting the roots of that tree. He cannot pause to kill Itala, not if he wants to survive.
“But he must not survive. You must make certain that he remains in the pit even as the tree burns and all collapses around him. He must be buried and dead or he will return to hunt again. Only take care!” Here Akilun’s voice became imperative. “Take care that you, whichever of you ventures down, are not caught in Yukka’s grasp. For he is not bound by the laws of mortals, and he can cross great distances in the blink of an eye. You must make certain he is buried, and you must make equally certain that you are not caught in the trap meant for him. As soon as you have seen him, flee. Do you understand? Flee, or you will die in the pit along with Yukka.”
Akilun stood in silence then, holding out the candle. The choice he offered lingered in the air between him and the two mortals.
Then Callix made a forward step and took the candle in his hands. The running wax dripped on his gloves, and he grimaced but did not allow the light to drop. “We will slay this beast,” he said. “We will save Itala.”
Akilun nodded. Then he turned where he stood and shined the beam of his lantern into the forest. A path opened up through the trees and the shadows, straight and true. At the end of it, Draven and Callix saw open ground.
“That is your way, the passage back into your world,” Akilun said. “Follow it swiftly. I will wait and listen to the wind until I hear word of Yukka’s demise. Then I shall enter your world myself and see what I can do to repair the damage left in the beater’s wake.”
He clasped both men by the hand in farewell. But though Callix proceeded first, carrying the candle, it was Draven whose hand Akilun held onto longer than necessary and to whom he whispered with perilous urgency: “May Lumé light your way and Hymlumé bless your steps. And may you hear the Spheres singing your true name in the darkest reaches of your world.”
Draven gazed into the worlds held in Akilun’s eyes and believed he saw the very Spheres of which Akilun spoke.
But he knew his true name. Had not his father declared it already at the dawning of his manhood? He let go of Akilun’s hand and followed swiftly behind Callix.
The liberation of stepping out of the strange Wood and back into their own world was enough to leave both young men gasping. But their relief was short-lived, for the moment they caught their breath, they found that they stood upon a bare incline. The voice of River Hanna rose up from below, filling their ears. Both knew exactly where they were.
Ahead of them, a goodly distance away at the top of the promontory, the bare branches of the twisted tree clawed at the sky.
Callix, clutching the candle with one hand and supporting that hand with his other, turned a sickened gaze upon Draven. “We are on the hillside,” he said. “We are near.”
Draven, however, looked out across Hanna to the territory on the far shore. The sun was setting heavily now, and he wondered if it were the same day. For they had stepped outside of their world, outside of their time. Could not many days have passed in what felt like mere minutes?
Could Itala even now be dead and laid out in her funeral canoe?
He saw the curling smoke of Rannul’s fire pits, and his heart reached across the distance to that darkened sod house where he had last seen his sister. He knew—somehow he knew that she must still be alive. Even if only just.
He turned to Callix then. “Give me the light,” he said.
Callix did not obey, only tightening his hold on the candle. “There is no reason for both of us to descend into this pit. Akilun said only one was needed.”
“You are right,” said Draven.
In that instant he flew at the Kahorn prince and wrapped his great arms tightly around him. Callix gave a cry, but he was pinned in Draven’s hold. He dropped the candle in his efforts to twist free, and for a heart-wrenching moment he feared the light would go out. It did not, however, but lay burning upon the dirt even as Draven and Callix fell, striving against each other. More than a year had passed since their last fight and, despite his outcast cowardice, Draven had only grown stronger, while Callix’s shoulder had never fully healed from the wound inflicted by Gaher’s ax. He felt the weakness of it as he tried to fend off Draven’s blows.
It was no use. Draven struck him across the head, and Callix fell unconscious beneath that blow.
Draven sat back, breathing heavily. For a fearful moment he wondered if he had slain his sister’s beloved. But a quick check for a heartbeat told him that Callix lived. Indeed, he might not remain unconscious for long but could wake shortly.
Draven grasped the prince under the arms from behind and dragged him back among the trees. There he propped him against a trunk, removed his own belt, and bound Callix with it as tightly as he could. Then, wiping sweat from his brow, he turned and hastened back up the incline. He caught up the candle in passing and felt the life of
its flame pulsing through the wax, down into the palm of his hand.
Alone he approached Yukka’s twisted tree.
The tree rose above the center of the pit, its long roots clutching the stony ground. A steep descent spiraled around it into darkness so deep no mortal eye could discern the bottom. It might easily cut through the rock of the hill all the way down to the river far below.
As Draven approached the tree and the pit, his hand clutching the candle shook. He muttered curses upon his cowardice with each faltering step, but no curse could give him courage. Nevertheless, sore afraid, he drew near to the tree. He felt as though it laughed at him mockingly in the language of trees.
A foul stench rose from the pit; the stench of agony made sweet. Draven’s stomach churned, and he doubled over, heaving. But he had not eaten in so long that his stomach held nothing to give up. Even so, some moments passed before he could draw himself upright and, holding the candle out before him, kneel on the pit’s edge.
But there was no use in trying to see what waited below. He would have to descend.
Out of habit rather than belief, he breathed prayers to the airy gods. Then he took a first step down the incline, afraid that his foot would slip, for to all appearances the way down was slick and smooth, offering nothing for a man to rest his weight upon. To his surprise, however, he felt something solidify under his foot. So his vision changed even as the light of the candle reached out before him. The smooth rock became a jagged but sturdy stairway.
He continued his descent, casting his shadow behind him. He felt the pale ghost of a life in the tree roots reaching down into the rock on one side, and utter death in the soil on his other side. He had not realized until now how much life could be found in dirt and stone . . . not until it was sucked away, leaving behind that which surrounded him.
Soon the light of the opening above was a pinprick. He felt darkness closing in overhead, pressing close on the edges of the candle light. And what a small, frail light it was! Nothing like the glorious lantern. Oh, if only he had been given that light to carry then maybe he would not fear. But this one was so little.
Little like Itala. His fierce sister. She never let her size define the boundaries of her courage.
She had known, Draven thought. She had known what the monster was. The further he descended into the pit, the more certain he became. He recalled the clutching fingers on his own throat and knew that it should be he lying prostrate in pain, not his sister. But she had known. She had seen it, perhaps. And she had attacked it—brave, foolish, reckless girl! She had attacked the invisible monster and taken its curse upon herself to spare him.
“I won’t let this beast be the end of you,” Draven whispered. The closeness of the rock and roots around him made his voice seem small. But he growled the words even so. “I will set you free!”
He thought perhaps he must soon reach the level of the river and wondered if he would find himself up to his neck in water. But the next moment, all thought of the river vanished from his mind, for he stepped out of his world entirely. At the same moment, the light from the sky far above vanished.
Draven looked up the way he had come but could see no glimpse of the world he had left behind. The darkness of the pit was all around him, and it was the darkness of another world. A world where Faerie beasts lived and breathed and hunted. A world fit for the likes of Yukka and his evil hungers.
The sweet stench of pain was much stronger now. Even the flickering candle appeared affected by it, for its white light took on a greenish hue. A wild thought entered his head: Without the light, there would be no shadows. For shadows cannot exist without light. If the light went out . . . so must the shadows. There would remain only emptiness, and emptiness could not be so frightening.
It was so clear, such a perfect thought. Draven, standing on those rough stones far from air and sky, stared at the candle in his hand and felt the urge to put it out. To grind it into the stone wall beside him. To kill the light and thus kill the shadows. Surely then he would be safe.
He could not move, so strongly did the thought take him. He could only stand immobile and stare at the flame while darkness clawed in on all sides.
But as he stared he thought he glimpsed something. The white fire he held became, however briefly, the brilliant glow of the moon on a warm summer’s night . . . the moon in the depths of winter . . . the moon on the verge of autumn or at the first birthing of spring. He saw the promise of change and the promise of sameness joined in one magnificent orb suspended in the night sky, ever shining.
A bit of the candlelight caught in his eye and embedded itself there, gleaming bright. And so he could raise his gaze and look on to the next step and the one after that. He could continue his descent, though his heart continued to quail in his breast. The candle lit his way.
It was then that the visions of which Akilun had warned him began.
Let us not speak too closely of those things Draven saw. Let it be known only that they were indeed ghastly, gruesome, presented in the full gore-laden glory in which such beasts as Yukka delight. Draven saw the pain of children—the flight, the capture, the brutal end. He saw these visions vividly, as though they happened even now, as though they continued happening over and over without end.
He knew then that he must have reached the bottom of the pit. For only in deepest depths could such things exist. A full garden of pain from which rose that sickly aroma. A mortal man would not have been able to bear it, would not have survived more than a few moments of those appalling sights.
But the candlelight was bright in Draven’s eye now. Though he trembled with every step he took, he did not fall. He raised his candle high, searching for the exposed roots of the tree which must somewhere emerge from the stone into this cavernous space.
“It’s too dark,” Draven muttered. Raising his voice, he said, “I need more light.”
Even as he spoke, both the candle and the gleam in his eye brightened, illuminating more of the space around him. The dreadful visions retreated to the very edge of his sight, and he clearly saw all the twists and turns of the caves here at the bottom of Yukka’s pit.
He saw the tree roots, spread out much further than he had imagined. Indeed, the tree itself in the mortal world up above was not half so big as any one of the enormous root extensions plunging from the cave ceiling into the ground. They were like the towering pillar trunks of the oldest, straightest trees in the forest. Small tendrils curled around them, natural-growing yet forming shapes and patterns too weird, too hideous to study closely.
These, then, Draven must set ablaze.
While the peril of Itala’s position pressed heavily upon his mind, urging him to hasten about his task, Draven stood still, surveying the great roots. These spread apart from one another, each one a good six meters from the next. There were seven in all, and he would have to run the distance between them to set them on fire . . . and then somehow sprint to the spiral stair and climb back up before all this gave way.
He looked over his shoulder. Though he had taken only two, maybe three steps into the cavern, the stairway seemed much farther away than it should. The idea of putting more distance between himself and his only escape route made Draven’s heart quiver with dread. Perhaps he could set fire to only one of the roots and it would be enough.
But that was a lie. A lie brought on by the sickening perfume all around him. A lie brought on by his coward’s nature. He would never concede to such an impulse.
So he strode to the farthest root and stood before it. Though the tree up above had appeared all but dead, this root throbbed with sucking life. All the twists of its tendrils pulsated like veins. It did not look like any tree or root Draven had ever before seen. It looked animal. No, not animal. Far too unnatural for that.
Whatever it was—root, pincer, blood-sucking mouth—he knew that it was fixed not upon the stone to which it clung, but upon Itala herself. This root was as much a part of the invisible Yukka as those grasping hands
of his.
Draven held up the candle. He touched it to the twining coils of wood and flesh made one. But the root was so big and the candle so small! How could a blaze possibly catch?
Leaning in, Draven blew gently on the flame so that it grew. He blew and he breathed a command that was almost a prayer: “Light it up, little flame! Light up this darkness!”
Suddenly the fire caught. With a blast that flung Draven from his feet, the root went up like a torch, flaming from floor to ceiling.
And in the sod house . . .
In the darkness . . .
Crouching on the mortal girl’s chest . . .
Yukka sat up. His nostrils flared. His eyes gleamed. His hands tightened their chokehold.
He uttered one long, otherworldly scream that sent every man, woman, and child of Rannul falling to their knees. Then in a clap of thunder, he was gone.
Itala lay alone in the house, her face pale as death.
Draven scrambled to his feet, his arm upraised to shield his face from the tremendous heat of that fire. Smoke swiftly filled the caverns, making the walls seem much closer, much smaller than before.
Coughing, desperate to clear his lungs, Draven flung himself at the next root. He set the candle to it, and it caught fire much more quickly than the first. The blast of it knocked him back again, and he felt his skin blistering. The pain was immense, and the stench of his pain blended with the other perfumes in that poisonous air. But again he got up and again he continued to the next root, and the next.
Soon only one remained untouched. It glowed an angry red and white in the firelight, and the heat reflecting from its surface was so great that Draven could hardly bear to approach it. He felt the skin burning away from his hand as he extended the little white candle.
Just before the tiny flame touched the twisted root-skin something appeared behind Draven. Something with long fingers caught him by the shoulders. His ears filled with a shrieking unlike any voice he had ever before heard. Claws pierced through his thick fur cloak, down into his skin, and he screamed. He felt a rush of renewed power behind him as his pain fed into the beast on his back.