In Search of Auria (4 page)

The soldiers ordered me to stop, but I acted
as if the command was not directed to me. The villagers on the
street sensed the quarrel that was about to take place and started
to skim away. When that happened, I realized that one way or
another the soldiers were going to catch up to me. I had no choice
but to confront them and try one of my sloppy lies.

“Hey, who are you?” asked one of the two
soldiers. His blue plated armor was shiny and unscratched. Had he
ever fought in it?

“Well, I am a traveler… a wayfarer.”

“A wayfarer? Where do you come from?”

“I come… from the south.”

“Which town?”

“Well…” I put the image of the balorian map
on my mind and tried to remember the names of the southern towns. I
just shot out the first thing that came to mind, “Borleng. I’m from
Borleng.”

“Oh, really?” said the other soldier, “It’s
been some time I don’t pass by there. That’s really south. Tell me,
is the tavern of the old hunchback still open?”

“Of course! The tavern is open; the man,
older; and the back… hunchier.” I had no idea what he was talking
about, but I had to play along. Maybe they would leave me be.

“I see you are also well armed with sword
and shield, traveler.”

“Well, I want to protect myself during my
journey. And in Borleng beasts are appearing lately. Everyone is
armed.” They stayed in silence and I nodded to walk away. But just
before I turned, they asked me one more question.

“Since it has been such a long time I
visited Borleng, can you tell me if there are still a lot of liars
there?”

“Well, uh, I couldn’t tell…”

The soldier took out his sword and raised
its tip to my neck. “Liar! You’ve lied from the very beginning.
Borleng is on the north, the old hunchback doesn’t exist and there
is an outpost right beside the town. There is no need for people to
be worried of beasts. Now, tell us who you really are!”

At the commotion, the villagers around us
scrambled in a hurry. I exhaled in dismay, admitting the lie. The
soldier held the sword loosely, totally confident that his ugly mug
would intimidate me into confession. I smacked the sword away with
my gauntlets and kicked him in the groin. Before the other could
react, I hooked a punch to his temple. The moment he touched the
ground I ran away. But I only took a few strides before hearing the
soldiers cry for help, “After him!” “He’s a spy!”

Dodging and pushing people away, I glanced
over my shoulder to see three new soldiers chasing me. At the end
of the street was a food market. Merchants stood behind their
fruit, vegetable and meat stands. Passing through I knocked down
tables, produce stalls and any other thing to impede the path of my
pursuers. After the market, I turned right to a narrow alley
between the carpenter and shoemaker shops. I almost jumped over an
elderly man that was in the way, but he spread himself against the
wall to let me pass. On the other side of the alley was a tiny
flower shop, bustling with flora. It had a myriad of flowers placed
in pottery of different shapes; the flowers with round pots were
hanging from the edge of the roof, and the ones on the floor were
in cylindrical vases. When the soldiers finally got there, their
pulsing eyes weren’t able to see me.

“I’ll alert the others about this
scoundrel,” I heard one of them say. “You two keep looking.”

I kept still until the noise of their
footsteps faded into nothing. I was well hidden. I put daisies over
my shoulders and squatted behind a big vase with a great sunflower.
I shook off the daisies and trotted around the shop. There was an
exit just behind it; a hole on the stone wall that led to the
flower garden on the east of the village. It had to be a
quick-access the gardeners used between the garden and their humble
shop. I bent and went through the hole. Once outside, I didn’t dare
to stand and expose myself. I kept close to the dirt and continued
to the edge of the fields. There, I escaped into the forest.

It had been a close call. If I were in a
similar situation in the future, I couldn’t let it happen again. I
either had to completely avoid soldiers, or, as bad as it may
sound, become a better liar. I circled around the village by the
copse of trees and continued northwest. This part of the woods was
rocky and thick with sapling. If the balorian soldiers were still
searching for me, the rugged vegetation would make it difficult to
find me.

The map wasn’t helping me much; no routes in
the area except for the one coming from Vieris. But, if I kept
going northwest I would come upon a series of streams. From there
the map was more detailed.

#

In the following hours of my hike, I
constantly veered my sight to the evening sun. It dropped faster
than I would’ve hoped, and soon enough it got dark. I wasn’t
expecting to find any shelter in the area, so I took out my blanket
and prepared for another cold night. But luckily, I discovered a
tall, hollow stump. It seemed lightning had broken it in half.
There was a hole at its base and I managed to crawl through it. The
inside wasn’t dirty… it was completely nasty. It had become a moist
home for worms, snails, beetles and spiders. I was not afraid of
bugs, but I didn’t like sleeping with them, either. I brushed out
the creepy-crawlies and cleaned the most comfortable spot. To make
sure a wolf or a fox did not enter the shelter, I wedged my shield
on the hole.

I sat against the hollow bark, waiting for
sleep to bring me rest. In the meantime, I grasped a necklace I
wore hidden beneath my clothes. It was a wood chip held by thin,
woven vines. The chip had a delicate carving of trees at the
bottom, the sun at the top, and four dragonfly wings in between.
Touching and feeling the carving brought back memories of the day I
first met Auria.

I could see the sky through the top of the
hollow stump. Stars shone bright and intermittently, and the night
breeze gently fell upon me. I covered my body with the blanket and
leaned my head back. I clutched the vine necklace I wore, feeling
the carving on the woodchip. The past resurfaced, and I remembered
the first time I met her…

*

“Kill him!” yelled the commander wearing the
multiple horned helmet, as balorian soldiers flocked Tally’s plaza.
Sebastien, The Beast, laid on the ground wounded; his moans muted
by the stampede of his fellow men. Fearing that the enemy might
overtake him, Erik ran for the edge of the cliff and jumped. The
balorians abruptly stopped on the edge. They weren’t as crazy, or
brave, as Erik. The river below was harsh and merciless. He kept
his eyes on it as it got closer and closer. And finally, with a big
splash, his body stabbed through the waters. He tried to swim to
the surface, but the strong current made it impossible. He sank
deeper, losing his air and his hope of surviving. His sight
blurred, his body stiffened, and the echo of the cold waters
sloshed in his ears. Suddenly, he felt his arm being yanked, like
if something had wrapped around it. With the rush of the moment,
Erik thought it as a rope. One pull brought his body up to the
surface. Upon reaching the bank, Erik realized he wasn’t being
rescued; he was being dragged as food. What had wrapped around his
arm was the tongue of an enormous frog. The amphibian had hair all
over its back, three small horns on its forehead, and it was
pulling Erik into his wide, enormous mouth. Erik grabbed hold of a
rock, resisting the pull.

“You stupid frog, I’m not letting you eat
me!” he yelled. The tension on his arm loosened when the frog
stopped pulling and began walking towards him. Then, from above, an
arrow fell right on the frog’s tongue. The fiend let go of Erik’s
arm with a whelp and hopped into the river. Above on the cliff, the
horned helmet commander punched an archer in the face.

“I said I wanted the arrow through his
skull, not the frog’s tongue!”

Erik rose up and ran downstream as balorian
archers fired arrows from atop the cliff. He ran and ran until
finally he was far and safe from the enemy’s range. He walked on
the east bank southward, following the current. He got to the point
where the upland evened out with the bottom, but there was present
another obstacle. The miaflorians called it the Forest of Agony. It
was a vast and gloomy forest that no man dared enter. With enormous
trees rising hundreds of feet to the sky, and mysterious creatures
lurking within, everyone knew better than to go in. Since the trees
were so high and wide, they blocked out the rays of the sun,
leaving only a dim atmosphere that left foolish wonderers lost
forever.

Erik’s main camp was on a grassy plain
situated right on the other side of this forest. He had to make a
choice; either take a five day walk downriver to reach Pollen City,
or go through the forest to reach the camp in one. He had to think
about it. He removed his chainmail armor and rested on the ground,
meditating on his options. And after a drink of fresh river water,
he took his sword and shield and entered the feared forest. The
sunlight made the edge of the woods appear lucid, but as Erik
continued, visibility quickly toned down. He wasn’t even thirty
meters in and it had already turned into a bleak nature. It was
like if the darkness in the forest radiated more than the light of
the sun.

#

After hours of walking in the forest, Erik
had lost his sense of direction.

“Yep, Erik,” he said to himself, “To go
through a pitch black forest that no one has ever come out of. That
was the
obvious
choice.”

He had passed upon beds of mushrooms, a
family of deer, and even a glowing pond. But, it appeared he was
nowhere near the other side.

“Man, what is it with this forest? There’s
still supposed to be daylight and it looks like dusk.”

In front of him was one of the giant trees
that made the forest famous. The trunk rose to the darkness above.
The roots were dark brown and as tall as a cottage. Erik took a
break from all the walking and sat on a rock. The giant roots were
shrouded with moss and toadstools, but he noticed something strange
where the root met the trunk. There was a curtain of ivy hanging
near the bottom of the trunk, but in the most perfect way. It
didn’t seem natural. Erik went and inspected it. It was a perfect
square of climbing plant, just as high as Erik. He pulled it to the
side to reveal a staircase behind. It went up all around the tree
like a spiral.

“A staircase?” Erik questioned. “A monster
couldn’t have created something so precise. Did a person make it?
If so, maybe they can point me to the right direction.”

With caution, Erik proceeded up the stairs.
The wall against the bark had holes in different segments to let
the air flow. Erik climbed for ten minutes, but he still hadn’t
reached the end. He had to rest a couple of times since his thighs
burned with exhaustion. He noticed that the higher he went the more
clear it became outside through the air holes. He kept going until
finally there was a door at the top end. It was decorated with
carvings of butterflies sitting on mushrooms. But, the door had no
knob. There was light seeping through the frame, though. Could it
be from a lantern or was it rays from the sun? Had the stairs
brought him to the top of the forest? He wouldn’t know until he
opened it. He gently pushed to have the sun blind him. He raised
his arm to block the light. When his sight regained focus, he saw
there was a big chunk of the trunk missing, creating a landing. It
was open without a railing or anything. One could walk over the
edge and fall to the bottom. Erik walked out, the wind pushing him
back and rustling his clothes. The stairs had brought him up to the
canopy. The branches of the trees were long and strong,
intertwining with each other. They were so verdant that they
actually blocked the sun for the forest floor. Upwards the tree
would still go on, but at least now Erik could see the sky. It was
so clear he took a moment to admire it. Then, a strong gust threw
him back against the trunk. That made him remember he was still in
a very high place. The wind opened another door opposite to the one
of the staircase.

That could be the entrance to a
house
, thought Erik. He dashed to the door and entered. This
new room, like the staircase, had been carved into the tree.
Everything inside was made out of wood or plants. In the center
there was a round dining table with four chairs. The carpet had
been made from red and green bindweeds weaved together. In the left
corner, behind a vine curtain, was a hole in the floor which I
guessed was a latrine, and beside it a wooden container filled with
water. On the opposite corner was growing a giant white mushroom.
It had a pillow on top and a blanket made out of leaves. Lastly, on
the wall of the bark there was a painting frame that reached from
the floor to the ceiling. At the top, the painting showed birds and
butterflies floating with the sun. At the bottom, trees and flowers
grew and bloomed. And in between, four dragonfly wings shone in a
myriad of colors.

“Who would do all of this?” Erik asked
himself, “To carve stairs and a whole room? It would just be easier
to build a wooden house at the bottom. Anyway, I guess no one’s
home.”

He wondered inside and sat on one of the
chairs. At that moment his stomach growled. He hadn’t eaten
anything since before the battle at Tally Village. Frustrated and
tired, he hugged his stomach and let the side of his head drop on
the table. And there, looking at the mushroom bed, he noticed there
was a stool with a bunch of nuts and berries on top. Erik jumped to
the stool and gobbled the berries and nuts without thinking it
twice. It was a lifesaver. He munched like a dog that hadn’t eaten
for days.

All of a sudden, there was a noise from the
bark, a creaking. His military instinct turned on and he grabbed
the handle of his sword. The noise came from the painting frame. It
was slowly being lifted outwards. The frame had hinges on the top
that made it open upward. But, Erik couldn’t see who or what was
opening it from the outside.