Hungry Heart - Book #3 - Ch. 5 (Patreon)

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Chapter Five – A Journey Through the Heart

With each blink of his eyes, the forest around him changed. Duril stopped for a moment to admire the silver leaves of a tree like no other he had ever seen in his life. During the short time he closed his eyes to inhale the fresh pine-like scent, it appeared that the tree had changed into something else. Its leaves were now golden and majestic, and they smelled like summer, but Duril quickly noticed the burnt tips, a sign that autumn was near.

As far as he knew, it should still be summer, but he was in no ordinary place, and nothing of what he saw here was like anywhere else.

“Here, can you see it?” the voice asked. “Have a sip.”

Duril crouched and looked at the tiny spring flowing from a smooth rock that reached as high as his hip. He ran his hand through the water, then cupped his palm and brought it to his lips. It tasted heavenly and new energy coursed through him once more. “It’s delicious,” he said.

He turned his head to see where the spring was heading and noticed a pool formed not very far away, almost under his feet. Cautiously, he walked toward the precipice and looked down. The tiny spring became a waterfall, and foam formed at the foot of its falling, making small droplets of water rise and reflect a tiny rainbow right above his head.

“So beautiful,” he whispered as he took in his surroundings.

“I only like beautiful things,” the voice insisted. “Come, I want to show you more.”

Duril followed the voice down a steep slope that brought him to the pool he had seen from above, and from there, along a river that flowed quietly. The noise of the waterfall was already muffled, as if he had traveled for miles already. The forest around him was no longer a greenhouse; plants and trees and bushes sprouted everywhere, and as Duril walked on, they blossomed, then their flowers turned into fruits, and now, when he looked closely, the fruits began to hang low on the boughs. Without reaching for one, he knew they had to be delicious, but he felt satiated after having that nectar made by the tiny bees and that handful of water.

“And this is where I grow the fish,” the voice said as they arrived at a natural dam creating a small pond, protecting it from the river currents.

“Everything is amazing,” Duril said. “And you do all these things by yourself?”

“Yes, all alone,” the voice replied, and a tinge of anxiety could be heard again. “But I’m no longer alone. You’re with me.”

“You told me you play with your friends and end up forgetting the time. Why do you say you’re alone?”

“I’m not alone; I’m with you,” the voice insisted.

“Were you lonely before?” Duril asked, bent on getting some answers, regardless of the reluctance his host manifested in what seemed to be a measure of protection.

“Let’s play!”

One large fish broke the smooth surface of the water, splashing droplets everywhere. Duril expressed his amazement by letting out a small shout. It was obvious that his host kept things hidden, for reasons that he was intent to reveal.

“It must be a lot of work to create so many beautiful things by yourself,” he said after the fish landed back into the pond, and the water closed above it, resuming its mirror-like appearance.

“It is. But it’s what I love to do the most,” the voice replied.

Duril sat on a patch of moss covering a large rock and stretched his legs.

“Are you tired already? But I’ve shown you so little!”

“I’m not tired, but I want to ask you a few things.”

The voice remained silent for a bit. “Ask me,” it said, but just like a child told to stop playing, it sounded miffed and annoyed.

“Do you only like beautiful things?” Duril began.

“Yes. Only beautiful things. Forests are beautiful, trees are beautiful. And fish, too. And fruits, and oh, all the flowers. Have you seen the flowers?” the voice sounded increasingly excited.

“Yes, I did. But what do you think of me?”

“Of you?”

“Yes. See, I don’t have half an arm,” Duril pointed out.

“It didn’t grow yet, right?” the voice asked, seemingly puzzled by that statement.

“No. I just don’t have it anymore. I had it once, but I lost it during a war from a long time ago.”

“War?” The voice didn’t appear to understand the meaning of that word. “What is war?”

“Something horrible, wrong, and ugly,” Duril said.

“Then I don’t want to hear anything else about it,” the voice replied. “Let’s talk only about beautiful things. Like the fish, the bees, and the flowers.”

Duril pondered for a moment. “Do you ever feel hurt?”

“What is hurt? Is it another ugly thing?”

“It’s not always like that,” Duril explained. “Some hurt is needed because it helps you grow.”

“Grow? Like a tree? Or a bush? Or a flower?”

“Yes, like that,” Duril replied.

“But they don’t hurt,” the voice said, slightly confused. “They’re happy while they grow. I watch over them, all of them.”

“Yet, for a tree to grow big and strong, it must lose its leaves, and some branches might weaken and die. What does the tree do when that happen? Doesn’t it get rid of the dead leaves and branches so that it can grow stronger?”

“No!” The voice was petulant now. “They never hurt because I don’t let them!”

Duril had a hunch now that the voice knew a little more than it was willing to let on. It recoiled from learning new things, and Duril wanted to understand why that was. There was a history here waiting to be uncovered, and he couldn’t wait to delve into the secret that held the forest in that magical state like a possessive mother.

“They are your children, aren’t they?” he asked out loud.

“Every one,” the voice said with pride.

“How about the visitors? The ones inside the oak?”

“They’re not mine,” the voice denied quickly.

“Can you tell me more about the old oak?” Duril decided to change tack for now. Whatever secrets the voice was keeping, they had to be about those tiny creepy crawlers. Whenever he tried to guide the conversation toward that particular topic, the voice became wary, and like a child who must have done something wrong, it was trying to hide it, whatever that thing was.

“The old oak is my home when I’m sleepy,” the voice said promptly, a bit relieved that it didn’t have to explain more about those creatures it considered ugly and unwanted visitors.

“But isn’t it dark inside? You love the light,” Duril pointed out.

“I do, but the old oak keeps me safe, and everyone else.”

“I see,” Duril said thoughtfully. “But how did the old oak come to be? It isn’t you who made it, is it?”

“No,” the voice replied. “I don’t know who made the old oak, just that it is there, and it always protects me when I go to sleep at night.”

Duril fell silent. He looked around some more. Everything was beautiful indeed, but, he realized that very moment, an undercurrent of staleness appeared to be creeping in, marring the beauty in places. A fish jumped out of the pond and fell in the grass. Duril expected it to twitch and fight for its life, but it became still the next moment, only its tiny mouth opening and closing. He walked to it and picked it up gently to put it back into the water.

“Leave it,” the voice ordered, somewhat sharply. “If they don’t want to stay and play, I don’t want them, either.”

“But it’s dying,” Duril said, trying to reason with his mercurial host. “Don’t you want it to live?”

“I’ll make others. Just leave it there.”

Duril stared at the fish in his palm. It wasn’t a big one, barely a youngster. “No,” he said. “I’ll put it back.” He was about to do exactly that, when tough roots sprouted from the ground and made him stumble and fall. The fish slipped out of his hand and, when Duril looked up, he couldn’t see it anymore.

With a wince, he grabbed his knee and rubbed it after getting to his feet. “Why did you do that? It wasn’t very nice,” he chided the voice.

“You made me do it,” the voice accused. “You shouldn’t put dead fish in the pond.”

Duril wanted to argue that the fish wasn’t yet dead, but as the strangeness of the situation commanded, he doubted that he would get anywhere by arguing with his unseen host. “What do you want to show me next?” he asked.

“Now, I want us to play,” the voice declared, no longer upset or annoyed, but cheerful and content.

“What do you want us to play? What games do you like most?” Duril asked, more and more curious about finding a way to the true heart of the voice. By now, he had a slight idea that, for reasons unknown, the voice was trying to hide its true nature, and that was where this new quest commanded him to go.

“I like making things and have others guess,” the voice replied. “Do you want to play with me?”

“I do,” Duril agreed.

“But you promise not to play with dead fish, yes?” the voice insisted, that tinge of anxiety once again strong in it.

“I promise,” Duril replied.

Whatever the voice was, he doubted it was malevolent in any way, but still, he sensed that he should be careful. His few days with Zukh Kalegh had helped him discover a different side of himself, a side that was attuned to dangers in a way that he hadn’t been accustomed to before.

***

Toru felt curious and excited like he hadn’t been in a while as he took in the various trees that had to have souls in them and stopped in front of the one called Willow. For some reason, that tree seemed to look at everyone from above, like he was some sort of king. “Are you a king?” he asked directly.

Claw guffawed at his assumption. “Willow and Beast used to be my best friends while I was roaming The Quiet Woods as a cub and even later. Willow’s no king. He might pretend to be one, though, putting on airs and holding his nose high.”

Toru snickered when the tall tree extended a branch and smacked Claw over one ear, not as hard as Beast was capable of, from what he had seen, but still in warning.

“Are you trapped inside?” he asked the tree, even though he was pretty sure that he wouldn’t get a direct answer.

Alive. Not. Trapped. Lighty was still dutifully filling its role of trying to talk to them where the trees couldn’t.

“This is so complicated,” Toru complained. “Should we just say every word we know so that Lighty can tells us what happened here? Are Willow and Beast treeshifters?” he asked.

Claw shook his head. “They’re genuine bags of fleas just as much as myself. How they came to turn into trees is beyond me. I guess they got up to some really naughty things while I was away.”

The tree Claw had told them had to be Beast moved slowly and crouched while using one branch to gesture at them to follow his example.

“I suppose we should try to find out more,” Claw concluded. “Let’s just sit here, in a circle, and pretend to be wise.”

Toru had a feeling that Claw didn’t have to pretend to be wise at all. However, that could be a learning experience for him, and it mattered to be all eyes and ears. Along with Beast and Willow, a few other trees crouched in the same manner, forming half a circle. The rest of it was completed when Toru, Varg, and Claw sat across from them.

“Somehow, the way I see it,” Claw began, “you people decided that it would be fun to turn into trees.” The bearshifter waited until Willow waved a branch in a sign of denial. Claw sighed from the depths of his soul. “I was really hoping it would be something silly like that, but it looks as if we didn’t get up this morning to be lucky. So, if that’s not it, is it a curse?”

They all waited, Toru leaning forward so he wouldn’t miss a thing. “If it’s some dark evil threatening you by coming out of the ground, I’ll deal with it,” he said proudly. The trees didn’t move, and he waited in vain for Lighty to confirm his suspicions. Seeing how everywhere they went, they ended up fighting the same evil in one shape or another, he wouldn’t be too surprised to learn of something like that.

No evil.

Not only him, but also Varg and Claw turned their heads toward the tiny lighting bug.

“But they are ugly trees now instead of bears,” Toru pointed out, trying to make sense of what was happening. Beast pushed his forehead with the tip of a branch, making him fall on his back. “Hey,” he protested, “you’re mean!”

Claw helped him back to his place. “I don’t think what’s happening here has to do with the thing we’ve been fighting against until now. At least, these folks don’t think so. That doesn’t mean that they have never been wrong before.”

Claw’s assumption earned him a smack from Beast, which made Toru laugh out loud. It looked like the wise bear wasn’t spared such treatment, either. In a way, Toru was starting to like Beast a lot.

“All right, I’m not sure I deserved that,” Claw said wryly. “But come on, people, you’re not telling us anything. And who’s also here? Is Shearah with you?”

Shearah.Lighty landed on Toru’s shoulder.

“So it is. The old witch might help us,” Claw said with conviction. “But which one are you, Shearah? Lighty, aren’t you going to help us?” The bear began touching every tree in the circle. “Is this you?”

Shearah Shearah Shearah Shearah, Lighty repeated without stopping for a breath.

It was Varg who seemed to know a little more about what made the tiny bug react like that. “Claw, I think you’re looking at it the wrong way.” He opened his palm and Lighty flew to it. “I think your old witch is right here.”

Toru watched the tiny bug flapping its wings in contentment. “Wow, you’re not only an old witch, you’re a tiny witch!” Everyone laughed at his words. “What? It’s true,” he defended himself.

“Well, that gets us somewhere indeed,” Claw said and leaned over to Varg to stare at Lighty who was now revealed to be Shearah, the old witch. “Ah, if only you could tell us about everything that happened here, Shearah.”

“I can tell you.” The new sonorous voice still came from the little bug, but it was no longer just a soft whisper.

“Wow,” Toru said with unbridled surprise. “You can talk now? Without having to hear us saying all kinds of words?”

“I can, indeed. All I needed was for someone to call me by my real name,” Shearah said.

“So you didn’t like it that I called you Lighty,” Toru said, somewhat miffed to discover that. “I’ve never named anyone or anything before.”

Shearah laughed and flew back to him. “I was happy you gave me a name, young tiger. It brought you near the truth, and I’m honored to have been the first to receive a name from you.”

That made him feel better about it all, so he smiled, happy with himself and the tiny bug who was, in fact, a tiny witch.

“Well, are you going to keep us waiting, Shearah?” Claw asked, showing as much impatience as Toru did sometimes, which made him grin. After all, the bearshifter was not always as calm and measured as he liked people to believe. Right now, all of them wanted to learn about the forest and what had happened.

“I’m going to tell you everything I know, but I must warn you that I don’t know the whole truth, only what I’ve learned by what I witnessed.”

“We’re all eyes and ears,” Claw insisted. “Now, tell us, how come you got turned into a bug, and my friends into trees? And why did they look like Vrannes, for a moment, there? And when did all this start happening?”

Varg chuckled and placed a hand on Claw’s shoulder, as if in an effort to slow him down. “Maybe if we let Shearah tell us everything, we might hear the story of it all.”

“It’s not an easy to understand story, so gather round, my friends. And Claw, it’s good to see you again, after such a long time,” Shearah said. “I thought we’d never have the happiness to have you back among us, adventurer.” The last word she said with a hint of a smile in her voice.

“But here I am, so don’t keep us waiting,” Claw urged her to talk. “What happened to The Quiet Woods?”

“Is it the evil we fought in Shroudharbor? Or the one that almost killed all the orcs?” Toru questioned. It was his turn to be impatient, and he wanted to learn for sure whether they would have to fight the same enemy or if there was something else at work here.

“You people have some incredible stories to tell, isn’t it so?” Shearah said. “But hear ours, first. As far as I’m aware, and seeing how much of an old witch I am, I don’t know of any evil that has caused our downfall. Only the usual faltering of one’s heart.”

“That sounds mysterious enough,” Varg said. “How about you tell us everything?”

“There’s nothing I want more,” Shearah agreed. “To say that I’ll start in the beginning would be wrong, so I’ll just tell you the things I remember, the way I remember them. You’ll take from them what you will, but know that my heart only speaks the truth.”

“Just don’t keep us waiting,” Claw moaned, and Toru snickered. Yeah, the bearshifter could be as impatient as a child when it concerned something he wanted to know about.

“It all started, as far as my memory serves, some decades ago. The wind spirit Shearah, as you know, Claw, was sleeping her restful sleep inside the old oak we were at earlier.”

“The one that dragged Duril inside,” Toru said accusingly.

“He’s unharmed, I assure you. The old oak was the protector of these lands long before there was such a thing as The Quiet Woods.”

“But how?” Claw wondered out loud. “I thought the wind spirit created the forest out of the seeds and saplings she brought and nothing but the desert lay here. How could an old oak be out here, in the desert?”

“And yet, it was. One of the wonders of this old world we live in,” Shearah explained. “The eagleshifters who took Shearah to her resting place inside the oak knew of it, and they had been around before The Quiet Woods came into existence. But you know that story, Claw, don’t you? You and your willful friends couldn’t be convinced to spend one day without giving your parents something to grieve about.”

“They did tell us about the wind spirit, and how she had to rest one day. Also, they told us about how they took her there, in that hour of need. But not for one moment did I think that the old oak was here before the forest was created.”

“It was,” Shearah said with conviction. She had chosen to rest on Toru’s shoulder, and that made him feel important since all eyes were on him. “It was among its branches that the wind spirit Shearah got caught one day. She thought it to be lonely, out in the desert, all by itself, so, at first, she just played and brought a few oak saplings from other places, to keep him company. Only they couldn’t grow, because the soil was so unforgiving, nothing but sand that got too hot in the day, and too cold in the night.”

“What did she do then?” Toru asked.

“She started to think, unwilling for one moment to leave the old oak by itself out there in the desert. The oak tried to tell her that it was old and just a vestige of a world long gone, but she was stubborn in her ways, and so she discovered how to make water spring from the ground and turn sand into black rich soil in which the saplings could grow.”

“Such astonishing tales of our beginnings, and you never cared to share them with us before,” Claw said, a bit slighted for being overlooked.

“You left us at a young age. Your friends, Beast and Willow, learned of these things when the time came.”

Claw looked away, his eyes filled with regret. Toru felt the need to touch him and reassure him that he hadn’t lost anything, but he thought that it might not be entirely true.

“I see. There’s a price to pay for being an adventurer, then,” Claw half-joked.

“Everything happens for a reason, just as you came back to us now, when we need you the most. And rest assured, we’re not ones to keep you from following your heart. We know that adventure is what makes it grow,” Shearah added.

Toru examined the trees around, wondering if they understood what the old witch was saying in their name, too. By how they stood unmoving and solemn, he thought that they did.

“But let us go back to what I must tell you about what happened to our forest.” Shearah stopped for a moment like an old person struggling to put together memories of times long past. “The wind spirit, as you know, Claw, never finished her work of turning the entirety of Eawirith into a paradise, as her ambitions were too high and didn’t take into account the fact that for beauty to exist, some ugliness has to be in the world, too.”

“Ugliness?” Toru scrunched up his nose. “Why would anyone want that?”

Shearah laughed. “We need it, young tiger, because it’s part of us, as well.”

***

Varg was all eyes and ears, just like his companions, while his mind worked at putting the pieces of the puzzle together so that he could understand what was happening. He believed the old witch when she said that she could only tell them what she remembered, as history never belonged to a single individual. It was just too bad that she was the only one who could talk for now, as he bet that all the trees sitting around them had their own bits and pieces to offer.

The single soothing thought was that it didn’t appear that the evil they had confronted in the past wasn’t, at least this time, the culprit for whatever happened to the forest Claw held so dear. A single look at his friend and companion, and he was now aware how much the bearshifter valued his place of birth. Not that he hadn’t thought as much before, but now, seeing his eyes full of uncertainty and hope at the same time, only strengthened that belief.

Whatever was at work at The Quiet Woods, the old witch Shearah was right. They must have traveled there for a reason, and it couldn’t be only chance for them to have arrived when they had.

Shearah continued her story. “It was always a sore point between she and I. I kept telling her that we must have a bit of ugliness in our lives, too, that it was just a part of us.”

“Was it because of that you kept on making those ugly birdhouses?” Claw asked.

For a moment, Varg held his breath, expecting Shearah to berate Claw for judging her work so cruelly. But the old witch laughed. “I’ve always done my best with those, just so you know. But yes, in a way, I do believe that I rebelled against her and her idea of perfection that seemed so doomed to fail.”

“Is it because of that she lost her powers?” Toru asked, with the curiosity of a child. “That she needed to rest inside the old oak who grabbed Duril?”

Varg chuckled and pulled Toru into a hug. “Everything you hear or say ends up with you back at him, isn’t it?”

“How could it not?” Toru retorted, and that earned him a kiss on the temple.

“Of course, how could it not? Shearah, please, put our boy’s mind at ease and tell him again how the old oak has no intention of stealing his favorite man.”

“Young tiger, your friend is safe. Shearah would never hurt anyone. Everything that’s happening around us is the result of her good intentions. As we speak, he follows a journey through her heart that might give him, and us, the answer to whatever is happening around us.”

“But it is a strange curse, isn’t it?” Varg asked. “Claw has noticed how the forest never changes… and that no real growth happens.”

“Indeed. Let me return to the story of how it all happened, or at least what I ended up learning on my part about it.”

“Can you talk to the wind spirit who sleeps inside the oak?” Toru asked. “Even though she’s asleep?”

“She doesn’t want to talk to me,” the old witch explained. “She knows that she wouldn’t like what I have to say.”

“Ah, so she did do something wrong!” Toru exclaimed. He didn’t appear too pleased by his own conclusion, so Varg squeezed his shoulder in sympathy.

“Let’s hear the witch and everything she has to say, and then we will figure out what is to be done. What do you say?”

Toru agreed with a curt nod. Always ready for action, he didn’t appear in the slightest willing to wait for too long before doing something that would bring back his precious Duril. Varg knew the reason, but impatience was not very helpful under the present circumstances. They had to listen to the old witch’s story first and draw their own conclusions.

“So, what happened those decades ago?” he asked.

Shearah remained silent for a few moments, and then she started again. “Shearah had been sleeping for centuries and centuries when it happened, the change that brought our beloved forest to the state you see it in today. She was considered by everyone to be mostly a legend, and only the fact that The Quiet Woods continued to exist at the edge of such an overbearing desert made them continue to believe.

“Because of her being asleep, the forest lived its normal life, day in and day out, as she had ordered things to be. There was no intervening hand from the outside, nor many visitors. After all, to get here, visitors had to cross Zukh Kalegh, and if they come from the other side of Eawirith, from the sea. The Scarlet Peaks don’t hold many people, and the hermits living there have no impulse to travel here.”

“But there is also the other side, to the east, where many human settlements lay on the way to Scercendusa,” Varg pointed out, remembering what Claw had told him about his travels as a young man.

“Yes, indeed, and that is the only peaceful road that leads here,” Shearah agreed. “But what use would people used to the beating hearts of big cities have for a forest as quiet as ours? The very few that came here complained that they feared they had lost their sense of hearing after spending only a couple of days among us,” Shearah explained.

“And what happened those decades ago? Did you suddenly receive an unexpected visit?” Varg questioned.

“You can say that. You see, master wolf, the wind rarely causes trouble in these parts. It knows that part of its soul lies here, among us. But a scent of burning rose one day from the far west, and with it, the wind brought the strangest saplings we have ever seen.”

“Saplings?” Varg raised an eyebrow. He threw a questioning look at the trees around them, all gathered there in the hope, most probably, that they would be able to release them from that unnatural prison.

“Yes. As it happens each time a new seed or creature arrives here, I took some of them to the old oak. It is one of our old beliefs that if anything new coming to our forest is capable of taking root in the shadow of the oak where Shearah sleeps, then its fate belongs with us.”

“So, did the saplings take root? And what was so strange about them?” Varg continued to ask.

“They looked to be half plants, half creatures. They had small teeth and claws lining their soft bodies.”

“Vrannes,” Varg murmured.

“Yes, Vrannes,” Shearah confirmed. “They came here, brought by the wind.”

“That must have happened during the war we waged against Knaeus and its bloodthirsty trees,” Varg commented.

“We know nothing about a war,” Shearah said. “But for us, it looked like the saplings were looking for a home, and as we did with any creature or seed ending up here, we wanted to make the forest into their home, as well.”

“And did the saplings grow and eat everyone?” Toru asked.

“No, nothing like that happened. They were hardy creatures but found it difficult to take root. Still, in the shadow of the old oak, they began to thrive. They didn’t eat anyone, but one day, the wind spirit inside the hollow trunk, rose to life again.”

“How was that possible?” Varg asked.

“The new life growing around the trunk of her sleeping place called for her. The saplings needed her care.”

“And what did she do?”

“She came,” Shearah said, “with a gust of wind.” For a moment, she stopped. “And then, frightened by the way they looked, she tried to trample them to the ground.”

TBC

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