The Crystal Sorcerers (20 page)

The second day out from Portus, they had crossed such a region, dividing the forest of the ocean, the Portus Woods, from that of the Druid Woods. Ikawa had been filled with a dark foreboding at the sight of it.

It seemed as if the trees were locked in a slow-motion combat. Roots reared up out of the ground, drilling straight into the hearts of rival trunks; branches snaked upward, struggling to block the light of their rivals, winding in to strangle and choke. The forest was a vast litter of dead limbs and broken trunks piled up like jackstraws. As they took a break from their march, Ikawa had nicked a trunk around which a root from a rival was trying to curl, and in their one hour stay he was amazed to see the root had grown several inches.

There was even a strategy to this slow motion struggle: Roots came up around an attacked trunk, reaching out to coil around the offending limbs and strangling them in turn. It was a region he was glad to flee.

Though all the trees were of the same species, there were many trunks that were different, as if they were manifestations of different organs. Some had silvery bark, the bottom sides of their leaves nearly mirrorlike, projecting bursts of light downward into sections of the forest where new saplings were arising to replace trunks that had died.

Sections of the forest were covered with spindly vines which Deidre carefully guided the party around, warning them to stand far clear of any of the vines' golden orchidlike blooms, which contained a pollen that could induce a paralytic state. The vines were parasitic, moving through the forest like some strange disease, their needle-sharp tendrils driving into the trunks of their host, draining out the life-giving nutrients, and then quickly moving on through the branches when the tree reacted and attempted to strangle the invader.

Ikawa looked back up again, trying to somehow judge the direction of their travel, but with little success.

Mark, urging his mount forward, came up to ride beside his two friends.

"If I knew the old coot was going to be friendly, I think I'd actually enjoy this place," Mark said, looking over his shoulder at a vast pulsating array of mothlike insects which had started to gather behind the party nearly an hour back.

"Say Deidre, what are those things?" Mark asked, pointing back to the moths.

"Just what they look like," she said with a smile, and then turned her attention forward.

"A fountain of information," Leti whispered.

"You notice there's been a hell of a lot more of them following us?" Mark said. "They've been coming in from every direction."

"Other things, too."
Saito came up to join the conversation, pointing to a large flock of grey birds that kept circling and filtering through the trees, winging in low over the party, moving as silently as bats in the night.

"Something's building up," Leti said, keeping her voice pitched low.

Ikawa nodded in reply. He kept looking about, yet was so confused by this strange world that he could make no sense of what he was looking for. All he could tell was that somehow the forest had become watchful.

Deidre put up her hand to motion for the party to stop.

On the ground before him Ikawa saw a shard of white sticking out, covered by a latticework of roots that had a curiously disquieting appearance to them.

"I'd suggest we stay straight on the trail here," Deidre said softly, "and pass the word back to the rest of the party to keep quiet--and for heaven's sake, don't drop anything."

Ikawa sensed a ripple of conversation going through the Tals, and several of them whined softly like puppies that were suddenly afraid.

"Say, Captain,"
Walker hissed, pointing to the ground, "tell me I'm wrong, but those roots look like they're shaped like skeletons."

"You know, he's right," Ikawa whispered, looking at Leti.

The floor of the forest for several hundred yards ahead was torn and convoluted by roots that seemed to come together to form skulls, limbs, and entire bodies, both human and Tal. Scattered here and there and covered with a sprinkling of leaves, white fragments of bone were evident.

"What happened here?" Leti asked, her voice low but insistent.

Deidre, without looking back, pointed up. "See those white sacks in the branches?"

Ikawa followed where she pointed and saw dozens of great white globes, like inverted parachutes, hanging several hundred feet above him.

"Doiga--large stinging insects," Deidre whispered. "If something upsets them they come out by the millions and swarm over their victims. The roots of Uldrasill take what is left. Somebody from the last party through here most likely upset them.'"

"Upset them?"
Walker whispered.

"Laughed too loud, or jumped on the ground and they felt the vibrations. Sometimes they'll attack because they simply feel like it."

Walker
for once said nothing, looking straight up as they passed through the danger zone. The scene of the struggle was finally behind them, and Ikawa felt he could breathe easier again when the white nests were no longer in sight.

"I'm going to swing out to the back of the party just to keep an eye on things," Ikawa whispered. "Imada, come along with me."

Imada started to protest, looking over at Vena, who rode quietly by his side, but the look in his commander's eyes told him that it was an order.

Leti and Mark nodded as the two pulled over to let the others pass.

"Imada, you're fairly good with things of nature," Ikawa asked softly. "Tell me what you're feeling."

"We're being watched, Captain. Those grey birds, for one thing; and have you noticed the pleasant chatter of the forest has died away?"

Ikawa paused, realizing that Imada was right. The wonderful singsong cries and woodland sounds had dropped away into an oppressive silence.

"Even those clouds of moths," Imada continued. "It feels like they're part of something as well."

The party continued past, and as each rider drew abreast, Ikawa whispered a warning.

"I think we'll walk for a stretch," Ikawa announced, swinging down from his Tal, who looked at him curiously.

"Legs hurt," Ikawa said
,
looking into the creature's eyes, knowing that the Tal would undoubtedly announce what was being done to his comrades, and to Deidre as well.

Kochanski, the last in line, drew abreast of the two and swung down off his mount to join them.

"I hope you don't mind, Kochanski," Ikawa said quietly, "if Imada and I speak in our old tongue."

Kochanski, understanding immediately, said nothing.

"That's better, I feel we can talk freely now," Ikawa said in Japanese. "I don't trust the
Tals,
or anything else around us at the moment."

"It feels strange to hear our language again," Imada replied with a smile.

"Your lady--is she well?"

Imada slowed his pace. "Why should you ask?"

"Oh, just that Leti has been concerned for her. She senses some sort of distance on Vena's part, a drawing away."

"There's nothing wrong," Imada
said,
a bit too forcefully.

"There
is
something wrong, my young
friend,
otherwise I would not be hearing such defense in your voice. Would you care to talk about it?"

"Just a lovers' spat," Imada said, and Ikawa could sense the lie.

"I think it's more than that. Leti feels there is something not quite right about Vena, but she can't seem to place a finger on it."

"It's none of her business," Imada replied sharply, and then, embarrassed at his outburst, he looked away.

So something is wrong, Ikawa realized. Imada had always been the most gentle-spoken of all his soldiers. Granted, he had grown since their arrival here, but he was still more of an innocent child than a man.

Ikawa could te
!I
as well that this was no lovers' spat. The Vena that Imada had described so enthusiastically was not the woman riding up front, not even the woman he had met so briefly upon their return from the raid. He felt somehow that Vena was made of glass, and one sharp blow would shatter her to reveal something underneath. It was Leti who had first voiced the thought, and he found now that it was even taking hold in him as well. He knew that Imada was hiding something, a deeply troubled feeling that there was something wrong with the girl he loved so passionately.

"There--do you hear that?" Imada
hissed,
stopping and looking off to his left.

"I didn't hear anything," Ikawa said, suddenly alert, but seeing nothing in the gloom.

The druid smiled as the head of the party drew past. How blind they were! Not fifty feet away, and all of them so totally unaware.

His granddaughter flashed a bright smile.
The little fool.
Her arrogance will be the undoing of her yet,
but he could not help but shake his head affectionately. She truly had the spirit of an imp, almost flaunting a warning to the others and laughing that they were not even aware that since crossing under the Doiga the group had been surrounded by his sorcerers.

The girl was right, though. There was a demigod with them, one of Jartan's brood to be sure, and he felt a bitter wave of disappointment. Killing them would have been such interesting sport. Perhaps he would have thrown several to the Doiga; his pets must be hungry again. Of course it would be amusing as well to take others to the border and tie them between a trunk of his beloved Uldrasill and watch as his own tree and the next tree, Bughala, wrestled over the tidbits. Or even better, he could train a root to enter his victim through the soles of his feet, gradually growing inside the man's body, tracing its way up through the veins, slowly eating him alive until the root finally tangled the beating of his heart.

Haven had given him so many amusing ways of dispatching his foes. Now they had found him out, and Caesar had finally sent his assassins to finish the battle started two thousand years ago.

The Druid chuckled softly at how innocently they were walking into the trap, following his granddaughter like little lambs to the slaughter.

He felt the demigod's gaze sweep past him, probing into the gloom, pause but for a second, and then continue on.

No, he couldn't tangle with an angry Jartan, damn him. If he killed this woman--and it would be so easy to do--Jartan would come storming over here and tear Uldrasill apart. He patted the hollow trunk he was standing in with affection.

"No, my beauty, we can't let him hurt you." It would be like Jartan to rouse the druid's rivals--the accursed Vir, master of Bughala, and Wormteeth, master of Wilvika--to join him, to press Uldrasill back and destroy the kingdom he had built. Those two ungrateful bastards! Turning on their own father and moving away, like his other sons with the Essence, each to a separate tree.

So he'd have to take them alive for now and find out who the real assassins in the party were. Maybe then this demigod would realize the nature of the company she kept and get the hell out of where she didn't belong.

Smiling, he softly whistled.

Kochanski stopped.

"I just heard something."

"It was a voice," Imada announced, "No, not a voice, more like a bird call, but a voice as well."

"Don't move," Ikawa whispered.

A fluttering of wings snapped overhead and a blizzard of white engulfed Ikawa, blinding him. The moths that had been following them flooded the trail and then swept past them.

A loud shout echoed from the front of the column.

"Into the trees," Ikawa hissed, and he leaped straight upward, soaring for the high canopy of the forest, Imada and Kochanski following him.

It seemed that in that instant the forest, which had been brooding in silence, exploded into life.

Part of the canopy overhead, adorned with the mirrorlike leaves, shifted, sending a blinding column of light into the middle of the party. The group was shouting, covering their eyes for protection. The vast column of moths circled in upon the group, joined by birds which added to the confusion. Other birds swooped in, holding sections of flowering vines and dropping them into the confused mass.

It happened with such stunning quickness that Ikawa could barely believe that the struggle was over. His comrades tumbled from their Tals, convulsing from the effects of the paralytic vines and then lying still.

Gaining the high branches, he motioned for the other two to join him.

Only one rider remained upon her mount: Deidre, who sat at the head of the column looking back at the fallen group and laughing softly.

From out of the shadowy forest several dozen forms stepped into the light, led by an old man leaning on a staff.

Ikawa felt himself trembling with rage, though he was still not quite sure what had happened. Never had he been so surprised by an attack, and never so completely overwhelmed by it before he even had time to properly react. He could see Leti lying by her Tal, and in rage he raised his hand, pointing it at the druid.

"Tie them up carefully. I want no accidents," the druid said.