“You must either stare directly at the stream and follow it, the whole way, or else stare at one following it. Do not look any other direction. Do not do anything more than blink!” Tweedle instructed after just a few steps.
“Why’s that?” Agent Davison asked curious. He was a trained agent and focused and didn’t think that would be a difficult task, but it was odd. He’d not heard of magic paths like it before, even among his dealings with faerie folk. Though he had heard of various spells that might force some particular behavior, chant or other odd requirement in order to see or participate in something magical.
“Because…” Tweedle took a moment and turned around. “If you don’t you won’t be coming back from this trip. You’ll be turned into a mountain Jogah… or worse.”
“A Jogah?!” Davison spurted. He tried to imagine, even in a faerie forest such as the one he was tromping through, what possibly had power to trans mutate a human into a spirit faerie and could think of none of which he knew.
“Yes!” Tweedle hissed, still much less pleasant after the killing of the toadstool faerie than he was beforehand. He turned back to his march up stream. “And don’t make me look away again. We’re about to start the path. That’s the last time I’ll answer you. Just either keep your eyes on the water or on me until I tell you we’re there.”
And so they did. For another fifteen minutes or so. Davison couldn’t check his watch to be sure, but he was pretty confident. The full moon was also nearly straight above them at that point as well.
~~~
“We’re here,” Tweedle Dum spoke softly in a raspy voice. He trod out of the water to his right and stood a little on the bank.
Agent Davison made sure to keep his eyes on Tweedle until he’d stepped out of the water, just in case Tweedle was playing a bit of a Simon-says game with his life as a human at stake.
As he looked around, Jackson could see the little stream seemed to flow either around or from within a little mound of boulders and a pile of dirt amidst it. It might even have been a sort of island in the middle of the stream, just large enough that he could not see the source or end of the water on the other side.
But mostly the space was occupied by a gigantic oak tree. He wasn’t sure of what breed. It might have been an enormous Great American Oak, but he thought they didn’t have any amid the Rocky Mountains. At least not in their current location. He wondered if perhaps it was Bur Oak or maybe even just an extremely old scrub oak that managed to keep growing. But the trunk alone had to have a near five-foot diameter. The branches rose out of site and the canopy it created spread nearly one hundred feet. It was truly a grand representation of the forest flora, and he knew instantly that this was indeed the old man of the forest. It would have been hundreds if not a thousand years old. Its leaves, like the scrub oaks and few maples around it, were yellowed and brown, already having lost most of the Fall color, and the branches were just beginning to drop them.
“Hercule. The Old Man of the forest,” Tweedle announced reverently.
Suddenly, Agent Davison’s watch glowed so brightly red it was nearly enough to work as a flashlight, though it wasn’t needed with the moonlight. He checked it and there shone a very large blip just before him on the face with a tiny one next to him. Since the LED’s were always the same size regardless the size of the faerie folk it detected, nor whether it was red for threats or green or blue or yellow for other indications, he knew that the tree must be absolutely loaded with faerie folk.
Looking up into the boughs of the great tree he could see very little in the way of faeries but he did catch some movement. He also heard distinct twittering in response to Tweedle’s pronouncement. And since they were marked as red, their intentions were definitely hostile.
Then the great tree awoke. The wood groaned and moaned as it began moving slowly, bending branches as though it were stretching them. Finally a pair of eyes blinked open and flicked around the vale before landing on Tweedle and then the imposing human figure. They were dark and glowing an eerie iridescence in the shade of its great branches under the moonlight.
“Dum?” Jackson asked.
“Wuh?” he responded breathlessly in awe.
“What is this?”
Tweedle Dum slowly turned his head upon his neck like it was running on some sort of animatronic gearing and he grinned at Davison as he responded. His sharp little teeth shone threateningly. “Dinner! That’s what this is!”
The tree came alive just then. Davison jumped back and finding an increasingly steep slope behind him he began scrabbling up the hill backwards, for the first time that night truly surprised as Hercule, the Old Man of the Forest stretched four or five “arms” of 10-inch thick branches towards him. Its great mouth split and creaked open and a bellow from its inner depths, much like a gigantic burp rolled forth.
Smelling the dichotomous fresh soil emitting from the rot inside the great tree, Agent Davison began panicking. He thrashed his arms around him as the branches equally wrapped and squeezed him back. The smaller fingers of sticks and twigs poked into him, causing pain and irritation. Wondering at first if the smaller pieces of wood were actually penetrating him, actually stabbing him, he fought and broke many of them. Hercule scowled at him and redoubled his efforts to encapsulate the little human in his thick, woody grasp.
And then the human was off the ground and slowly, almost mechanically being pulled into the gaping mouth. Faerie folk were giggling and laughing themselves almost out of their perches up in the tree, so jovial was their celebration. A chant began among them as the human was stuffed, slowly, menacingly into the gaping maw, kicking and screaming. “T’sor Kiel! T’sor Kiel!” they practically screamed. Of course Agent Davison wouldn’t have recognized the words even if he could hear them above his own struggle, but it roughly translated to “Chew him!”
Instead of any sort of chewing though, the human was relatively gently slid into the gullet of the tree. At first it seemed somewhat soft and flexible inside, but there was plenty of room, so Davison was able to calm his nerves a bit, though he was still breathing heavily and might actually have been on the verge of a panic attack. Never had he considered what it would actually be like in the story of Jonah and the Whale from his youth, but he suddenly felt sure it was a lot like his present situation.
Knock, knock, knock! came a muted sound through the trunk. Then, by listening very closely, he could just make out Tweedle Dum saying, “Remember not to digest him, Hercule! Just keep him overnight.”
At first, the agent was relieved. He wasn’t actually being ingested into this great cumbersome beast of a tree. But then he realized, he was going to miss his appointment to see Imps if he was retained overnight. So as the faerie folk outside could be barely heard reveling in their capture, Jackson determined his plan.
~~~
After a few minutes of reveling, the majority of the faerie folk began flying, climbing or walking off to other regions. Had the human IPMA agent checked his watch just then, Tweedle recognized, he would have noticed red blips either turning off as the threat diminished or wandering off the face of it out of range. The little faerie hoped he had not. While he was tasked with standing guard over Hercule for the next twenty-four hours to ensure the human was not free to roam wherever he wished and Tweedle found the prospect very boring, he also did not want the agent to make any escape attempts too quickly. It would be nice to make him suffer a while. Make him believe he had finally met his doom.
A curious thought crossed Tweedle Dum’s mind as he sat down near the stream to watch: I wonder what that human will do if he needs to make a stream or do a dewie. Hercule was not likely to take too kindly to being treated like an outhouse.
~~~
Meanwhile, inside the trunk, Agent Davison was indeed checking his watch. He’d very quickly regained his senses and he had the very suspicion of the faerie folk outside the tree’s innards that Tweedle had feared. Indee
d the little red blips continued to dim or to wander off the watch’s scope. Eventually, all red had gone and only one little blip of blue remained. Jackson imagined that was probably the signature from the enchanted stream nearby. He wondered if the blue magic-in-use indicator would register something such as the water, but he put that aside in his mind for the time being. There was no telling what magic was registering so there was no need to fuss about it until more information came forth.
For now, it had become time for a disgruntled, strong human to fight the faeries back with a human’s strongest asset: ingenuity.
Knowing he shouldn’t actually set fire to the tree from the inside while he was still in it, Davison began flicking his lighter in short bursts along the wooden walls of his imprisonment. It would seem either faerie folk were too trusting of humans to check their pockets, or else they didn’t understand what pockets were for, because Davison still had his entire repertoire of utilities on him, aside from the knife he had previously used to make a point with Tweedle Dum.
The tree creaked very slowly and seemed, at least from the inside, to rotate its torso. It was as if Hercule was simply trying to shake off an irritant much as cattle might shimmy a fly off its back, only in slow motion. But as Jackson continued to ply the flame to the wood here and there in longer and longer stints, the tree came back to life. It grumbled, and to the human if felt as if an earthquake was rumbling on all about him.
Having had his effects noticed, yet no opening of the mouth occurring, Jackson got a little more persistent. He applied the heat to little knobs and hangings-on of wood fiber until they started flaming up, and then he’d blow them out.
Hercule was getting downright angry now that he was brought full awake again and to top it off, foul-smelling acrid smoke was pouring from out of his nostrils. Smoke that smelled remarkably like himself burning. He started coughing and squinted his eyes tightly, yet he kept his barky lips pressed as tightly together as he could manage to prevent the human from escaping. Swallowing wasn’t an option. He’d already been briefed by both the little pixie in charge and the goblin queen herself on the expectations with this one. They were saving him to send a message back to the other humans to back off from their affairs. But he also couldn’t let the ugly creature go.
Jackson kept at it. Increasing the amount of time he let the wood burn, and the same time beginning to peel away pieces of wood, both to ignite, and hoping that the tearing of wood from wood would be still more of an irritant and force the demonic future desk to release him. It appeared to work as the tree hacked and started convulsions. Agent Davison prepared himself for a head-first jump through the tree’s open mouth at the soonest opportunity.
~~~
Outside, Tweedle had noticed something was wrong. Hercule had started squirming, much too early to Tweedle’s tastes. He stood and approached the tree, still somewhat leery of the branches and a possible demise inside the Old Man of the Forest’s gullet for himself, let alone the human captive. But as he neared smoke started trailing out of what might have passed as tiny nostrils in Hercule’s face. The tree huffed and its branches shook to and fro as though trying to eliminate pests from the trunk.
Finally, with a great sound of combined wood creaking and a large faerie-enchanted tree groaning, Hercule’s great maw opened up. What seemed to be spittle, mixed with a cloud of gray smoke billowed forth. And then…came the human. He had obviously jumped up through the tree’s mouth as though Hercule himself were practicing his projectile vomiting distance shooting.
Jackson landed more head and hands first, so he tucked in and rolled forward, springing up into a standing position. He stood for only half a second before he was running full bore at Tweedle Dum. Dum realized the intent too late as he was stammering an attempt at a derisive joke and an insincere apology to the human. In the grab he squeaked like a dog’s little chew toy. Then he started flailing with his tiny fists on Davison’s back as the human continued to carry him up the side of the ravine out of reach of the Old Man of the Forest.
Agent Davison grasped at Tweedle Dum and slapped him hard to the ground as though he were spiking a football after a successful touchdown run. “There,” he breathed heavily and planted his hands on his knees for a second, “thought you had me didn’t you?”
Tweedle looked at the human, cocked his head and raised his eyebrow. Then he noticed the slight smile on the human’s face and chortled himself. “You know, for a human you are pretty clever. I may even be starting to respect you a bit.”
Standing up straight drawing in a deeper breath, Jackson replied, “Awwww…and I thought you were going to say you might be starting to like me a bit.”
“Well,” Tweedle gestured casually with one upturned hand. “That too, I suppose. C’mon.”
He turned his back to the human, not allowing any more respite after trial number 2 and began the climb up the next trail. They’d traveled for about half a minute, then Tweedle turned around and awaited the IPMA agent’s climb to catch up.
“I’ll tell you what, Jackson!” he started.
“Oh yeah? What will you tell me, Tweedle?”
“I’m going to tell you my name. My real name.”
“Is that right?” Jackson smiled and stopped to fold his arms. “Well, let’s hear it then.”
“My real name is Puck,” the faerie grinned in a friendly manner. He held out his hand as if in offer of a handshake.
“Puck, eh?” It was now Davison’s turn to cock an eyebrow in skepticism.
“Mmm-hmmm,” the little faerie hummed in reply and stretched his hand out even farther.
“Alright,” the agent answered, still smiling and shook the creature’s small, cold hand. “Puck it is then. Lead the way.”
After Puck turned and climbed the next hill and held aside a branch for the human he started to bound just a little more quickly towards their final destination: trial three. The human eyed his back the whole time.
“That’s not really your name is it, Puck?” asked Davison very casually, focusing more on the trail and the obstacles in it.
“No, not really,” replied Puck as he too scurried forward watchful of slippery or painful things in his way.
“I didn’t think so,” the IPMA agent finished.
~~~
They climbed, mostly in silence for nearly another two hours. Obviously Puck wasn’t concerned with any specific human deadline like midnight or “high moon” or something silly. As he thought about it, he felt it might have been just a bit presumptuous on his part to feel that there was. But Puck had earlier told him he would see imps that night, and so he was sure that before the sun rose he would.
When they did finally arrive in their apparent final goal, Puck slowed down and stood in the middle of a small clearing surrounded not just by trees but also a number of large boulders that made for a fairly imposing corral. Davison felt a bit like he’d been lead right smack-dap in the middle of another trap. But Puck was equally unsure by his body language.
“What is it?” Jackson asked.
“I’ve not been here before. I’m not sure I got it right,” Puck replied in hushed tones.
Jackson started to suggest something but his voice was cut off but the chattering of what sounded like many hyenas and then a loud, reverberating female voice exclaiming, “You got it right little Pixie! It’s Devil’s Night. No sense in deceiving a fellow faerie partner in tonight’s festivities is there?”
From the shadow of tree and stone across from them several shadowy figures began moving into the clearing. The lead had the attractive hips and figure of a female, coyly moving into the light. Her stature was a good head taller than the majority of the goblins approaching with her. Goblins! Thought Jackson with an honest sense of dread. He’d heard their descriptions. He’d seen representations. He’d been given warnings all his career in the IPMA. But Davison had never actually seen one before even from a distance, let alone close up like th
is. And if rumor could be believed they’d never been seen in ones anyway—they always traveled in packs.
Human eyed sprite, who timidly returned the gaze, mouth open. Perhaps Puck was really feeling some guilt or apprehension about bringing Davison directly into the camp of a pack of goblins. But that could only be dealt with if Jackson actually survived.
“So I take it you lot are my last trial for tonight?” he asked bravely.
The Goblin Queen strutted towards the human, pulling out from behind her left hip an arched blade of steel about twelve inches long on a rough-looking leather-wrapped handle. Her figure and confidence captivated Agent Davison, but her facial features retained significant goblin outcroppings, bumps and a somewhat football-shaped oval head. Long ears protruded away and to the back of her head. A nose hooked out much more than any human he’d ever seen, but it was not entirely unpleasant. Her eyes irradiated a flash of purple and blue as she walked in the moonlight and the irises were much larger than any human, nearly hiding all of the whites. Her chin was strongly masculine shaped, but again, in the context of faerie, still attractive to Jackson’s eye. How is she so beautiful? he pondered.
The majority of her body was wrapped alternately in tight black leather bindings and more loose, aged brown skins, the largest of which was draped about her shoulders. Agent Davison could not tell if that was to emphasize large shoulders as much as they appeared, or if she really did have a menacing, muscular architect to her shape. Her feet were also tightly laced with black leather. Only her forearms remained mostly bare, though hands seemed to have tattering’s of whatever remained of gloves. Her hair shone brilliantly silver in the moonlight, and though difficult to see from the front, appeared to continue spiking out from both her head and her neck as though it were some great lion’s mane.
“What’re ya gaping at, human?” She seemed to purr and growl at the same time. But the dialect was much more American than he could possibly have anticipated from a Faerie Folk, let alone a goblin, who were rumored to communicate in clicks and guttural, awful sounds rather than either English or Faerie.
Once she’d stepped within about twenty feet of him, her height was another tell that she was likely more goblin than human. Though a head taller than the other creatures about her, she still stood under five feet tall. She slowly raised the back side of the scythe-shaped blade around to her left ear and seemed to scratch at it with it. Cocking her head she grinned a sideways grin and awaited her answer.