Journey to the Water Interlude Two: The Spirit Wilds

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Khalim was lost.

The sky was dark, and glittering with stars he did not recognize. A forest of huge trees, older than the earth itself, encircled him with darkness and the smell of green things growing. 

He felt neither hunger nor thirst. That was a small mercy. Though he knew it must be an illusion, his feet pressed into the rich soil, and a cold, damp wind tugged at his clothes. He had acquired, in the center of his tunic, a ragged, burnt hole, through which the chill cut at his skin. It was the memory of the conjured lance of Malang, the war god of Phyreios, who had recognized the god inside Khalim and sought to slay him. Khalim remembered how the lance had burned, and the force of it had taken him off his feet. The cold was far preferable. 

Voices filled the wood, chattering in languages he did not understand, mingling with the calls of birds and the low, threatening growls of unseen beasts. The undergrowth shifted and moved, and shadowy shapes darted in and out of sight like small, quick animals. Khalim thought he had heard someone call his name, some time ago, but he had not heard it again. 

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“I don’t know where I’m going,” he said aloud, and hearing it made his predicament all the more real. He had wanted to leave the realm of the First Hero, and that desire had gotten him this far. Perhaps he would wander this wood for the rest of eternity. Here, it was always night, just as the citadel had been bathed in perpetual twilight, and it was so, so cold. His home had always been warm, even in the rainy seasons, so warm that Phyreios had felt wintry whenever he’d walked into the shade. The door to his mother’s house had only a curtain on the door to keep out the insects.

I’m never going to see her again, am I? Even when she passed on—or had she already?—he had no idea where he might find her.

But Khalim had known they would not meet again when he told her goodbye, beside the bridge that crossed the river and joined with the road north. She had not wept, then, but he knew she would, after he was gone and would not see her. It was not a vision that had told him he would never return, but a terrible, icy weight that had dropped into his belly as he walked over the bridge—his first taste of cold. 

As much as he had wanted to turn and run back home, he hadn’t even looked over his shoulder, not once in the six months that he walked over the rice fields and through the desert, chasing the far-off iron mountain. The god he carried had commanded him, and he had obeyed. This was what it had earned him: to be a wandering spirit lost in the wilds of the world beyond. 

Maybe he should have stayed in the citadel. It was safe, and it was small, and hadn’t that been what he had desired all along? He had only dreamed of leaving Nagara in the literal sense, as the First Hero urged him onward with visions of the fall of Phyreios. He had wanted a home of his own, a place to do his work, and to take care of his mother. He had wanted, with all the ardor of a lonely youth, a husband or a wife, though the touch of his god had frightened most everyone away—everyone but Eske.

He found a place between the roots of a tree, underneath a branch with leaves as wide as the span of his arms. Though no rain fell in this dream of a forest, the shelter provided a little warmth, and the wind did not bite so harshly beneath it. He had been walking for days, perhaps weeks, possibly years—time flowed around him, but he could not tell how quickly it moved. He tucked his legs underneath him and wrapped his arms around his shoulders. 

He would rest, Khalim decided, and figure out where to go from here. He wasn’t going back to the citadel. He would sooner wander for the rest of eternity than return to that blank white prison.

The brilliant stars wheeled in erratic spirals above the trees. The ground shook as something huge walked by out of sight, a great dark shape that shadowed the sky and passed on as quickly as it had come. It carried a lantern as big as a house, burning with a flickering violet fire. 

Khalim shivered. Once, he had believed that his god would protect him from any harm. He was alone now, and the moon-faced owl’s warning rang in his ears: you’re likely to get your face stolen. Or worse.

“Help me!”

A small, high voice cut through the gloom like a knife. It whimpered like a small child or a trapped animal, weak and quivery with terror. 

Khalim got to his feet. He had no sense of direction in this place, but the sound came from somewhere behind him, farther ahead on the path that he had been forging for himself. Whether that led deeper into the wood, or toward a way out, he did not know. The roots grew thick across the ground, a lattice of knots and tangles waiting to ensnare him. If I caught my ankle, would it break? Would it hurt? 

He did not know. He found the thickest root and climbed atop it, following it toward the source of the sound. “Where are you?” he called. 

No answer came but the high-pitched whimpering. It must be a child, he thought, or the ghost of one. He hadn’t seen a human face since the statues at the citadel gate, and they were hardly recognizable as the men they once had been. 

The root ended in the trunk of a tree too large to see around. With no guidance but the distant cries of distress, Khalim chose left, placing his hands on the furrowed bark to keep his balance as he climbed over roots and under low-hanging branches heavy with fans of thin leaves that grasped at his hair and a strange, elongated fruit, crooked like the fingers of an old man.

He had expected a child, lost in the forest. What he found was a heavy iron trap, its spiked jaws closed around the thin, furred leg of a mammalian creature. Its cries came from beneath a plate of bone, like a mask, over its face; behind the mask lay two glassy, dark eyes that mirrored the starry abyss overhead. Two long arms ended in three fingers each, all covered in the same dark fur, and they scratched feebly at the trap. It was difficult to say, as the creature hunched over its injury, how large it was from head to toe. It turned its bony mask and small, bright eyes to Khalim, and emitted a piercing cry like steam escaping from a pot. 

Khalim held up his hands, showing they were empty. “It’s all right,” he said. “I’m a healer. Or, I was, I suppose.” 

He knew he no longer carried the First Hero. But for the first time since he had departed the world, he realized he no longer had his magic. His hands fell to his sides, cold and ineffectual.

The creature whimpered. It put its face into its arms, and its narrow shoulders shook. 

Khalim might not have been the healer he once was, but he knew how to set a bone and bandage a wound. He knelt down, slowly, beside the trap. 

Its teeth had pierced thick fur and skin, and blood trickled slowly from the wound. So it is possible to be injured here, in the world beyond the world. A pair of long fins held the trap steady against the forest floor, and the rounded edges of its heavy hinge gave it the look of a large-eyed fish breaching from the water. 

The creature cowered, falling into a terrified silence. 

“It’s all right,” Khalim said again. “Hold still, and I’ll get you out.”

He placed his fingers between the iron teeth. The jaw resisted, rusted metal creaking in protest, and then it gave way. He could hold it for only a moment before his hands slipped and it snapped shut again, a hair’s breadth from the ends of his fingers. 

The creature was free. Khalim hadn’t thought that he had held the trap long enough, but it sat beside the clenched metal jaw, examining its wound through its pale bone mask. 

“May I see it?” asked Khalim.

It said nothing. Perhaps this was a spirit who could not speak, unlike the moon-faced owl. Strange; he was certain he had heard it cry for help. It remained still as Khalim crawled closer and took the thin, furry leg in his hands. 

“You’re lucky,” he said. “It’s not broken. Keep it clean, and it will heal up in time. All I have is my shirt, but it’s clean enough. There wasn’t any dirt in the citadel.”

No answer came. He hadn’t expected one. He spoke to soothe the creature, mostly, and also himself. How many more of those traps lay between the roots, waiting for him to pass through in the dark? Who might have placed the iron jaw here? 

I am a healer, he thought as he tore strips from his clothing and tied them around the bloody mess of the creature’s leg. I don’t know anything else, but I know that.

That done, he stood up and held out his hands. “Can you walk, little one?”

Three claws hooked around each of his thumbs, and the creature placed its weight on its legs and fell forward against Khalim’s arms. It was light, like a bird, and it trembled with a fast, nervous pulse. 

“In that case, I’ll carry you for a while,” he said. “We can look after each other.”

It wasn’t much larger than a child, and weighed almost nothing. Khalim’s hands went around its chest as he picked it up. Its arms draped over his shoulders, and its legs clenched around his waist and through the crooks of his elbows. The mask was cold and damp when it lay its head on Khalim’s shoulder. 

“I suppose I should keep walking, then,” Khalim said, mostly to himself. “I won’t get out of this place otherwise. You don’t mind, do you?” He turned his head to the creature. 

In a soft, sibilant voice, it said, “Where are you going?”

Khalim nearly dropped it in surprise. It shouldn’t have startled him—the owl had spoken, after all, and this creature was shaped more like a human being than it had been. Its mouth was hidden behind the mask, and its small, glittering eyes met Khalim’s. 

“I don’t really know,” Khalim confessed. He climbed up onto the root of the great tree, his gaze fixed on his feet, searching for more traps. “I was in the citadel of the First Hero for…I’m not sure. For a long time.” A narrow pass between the trees opened up  before him, and he climbed down. The creature’s claws linked together at his chest, keeping it in place. 

“I guess I’m looking for someone,” he continued. “He’s probably not here in this world. I hope not. But I want to find a way to tell him I’m all right. I don’t want him to worry.”

The stars were spinning faster, as though the eternal night sped through an hour with each passing second. Lights danced across the forest floor. Far in the distance, obscured by trees, Khalim thought he saw the purple glow of the enormous lantern bobbing as its bearer continued its mysterious rounds. 

“I’d like to tell my mother I’m all right, too,” he said. “She always worried about me.”

The creature nodded its small head, its mask scraping against Khalim’s ear. “I can help you,” it said. 

Khalim turned. “So you do speak! Do you know this place?”

It stretched its neck forward and looked him in the face. Beneath the edge of the bone mask, it smiled, showing rows of needle-sharp teeth. “I will show you the way.”

Back to Chapter XIV: The City on the Hill

Forward to Chapter XV: Under Salmacha

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