CRACKIn the darkness outside the hut, the stone circle broke with a sound like lightning.
HSSSSSSSSSSA swarm of
something rushed like snakes through the grass, out of the woods, toward the hut. They darted in an ambush from all sides.
The walls of the hut trembled and crumbled. The sharp tips of tree roots pushed through the walls and snaked into the room. Bits of wood and plaster crumbled to the floor in their wake. Jars and boxes crashed to the floor. Strange liquids pooled around their feet.
"
RUN!" Yurei screamed, even as she beat at the invading roots with an iron poker. One of the roots grabbed her around the waist and suddenly yanked her high into the air and out through the thatched roof, leaving a hole where she had gone. The iron poker clattered to the floor.
A long thick root, like an anaconda, swirled around Simon's feet and flung him to the ground as it wrapped tightly around his legs. It wrapped itself higher and higher over his body -- it was around his waist, his chest, up to his neck, tight and unforgiving as a hungry snake. When the spiral of root reached his chin it yanked him along the floor and pulled him, speeding through the grass, out into the dark forest air. He would hear the trickle of water pass by; the chitter and screech of an excitable night forest; something big rushing and gnashing its teeth, left behind in an instant. The root dragged Simon -- encased in living wood -- along through leaves and branches, under bushes and over rocks. Once, he might see a swarm of fireflies rush past -- but otherwise there were only sounds, and darkness, and the scrape of dried leaves and sticks in his hair as he was pulled along the ground.
And then, suddenly, the ground stopped. There was nothing to see but darkness, but there was nothing but air beneath him. He had been pulled over the edge of a high precipice. The sounds of the forest were left behind. Simon would have the distinct feeling, in the complete darkness, that there was a gaping chasm below him, hollow and deep and dark as nothingness.
The root released him, and Simon had nothing to hold onto, nothing to touch or see or hear; only empty space all around. He fell down, down . . . down, into darkness.
And then, as he fell, just in front of him in the distance there appeared a small green light.
PerynIt was quick like a blow to the head.
Peryn's sleep was soon shattered by hot, crippling pain exploding in his skull. A piercing light flashed behind his eyes. A terrible, trembling horror ripped through him like knives of ice. Blinded, he would feel as if he were falling, falling from an impossible height, down and deep into a hungry hot chasm stretched wide to receive him like the great maw of a beast. Its damp swirling breath smelled bittersweet, like chocolate laced with a hint of cinnamon ...
He awoke at night, to the sound of
two people arguing. He lay on a metal platform that was covered in roots and vines and moss, that was ticking from deep within it. Above him, a red glowing lantern hung by a thread from the bough of an ancient gnarled tree. All around him, there was a deep and dark forest. He might catch a glimpse of an owl laying its claws on a small silver box at the edge of the platform. But there wasn't time to investigate further.
Peryn & TalanThe tree roots that covered the metal platform suddenly shifted, like petrified snakes suddenly come to life.
GRRRROOOOOAAAAANNNN CRACK!The platform creaked under the strain of the roots, and then -- quite suddenly -- there was no floor beneath Starbuck, Talan and Peryn. Only dark, empty space.
The metal platform fell out from beneath them, and in the time it took to take a breath, the red light of the lantern and the ground itself rushed away above them. They fell, deep into still, black nothingness. The spot of the lantern's light was gone high above. There was nothing but dark and empty space.
Until, in the distance to their left, they might see a small green light.
While the great wolf stared at Kituo -- and the lantern glowed green in his trembling hand -- the metal platform under his feet suddenly gave way with a tremendous, shattering
CRACK. The roots that crisscrossed the broken platform had shifted, and with a great yank had further destroyed the metal and thrust it down into the deep dark abyss below. In a moment there was nothing beneath Kituo but empty, gaping darkness. He -- and the lantern gripped tightly in his hand -- fell.
The wolf's howl faded above him.
The lantern glowed bright while he fell, and fell. In its light, he might see the flash of eyes rushing past him. A jutting stone appeared in the light, and Kituo narrowly missed being gouged by its sharp point. A swarm of fluttering butterflies appeared and then disappeared in the green light. Leaves glimmered and rushed past. There seemed to be no end in sight.
And then, in midair, their fall began to slow. As if weightless, Simon, Kituo, Peryn and Talan floated down into the darkness.
Bubbles, glimmering with a golden light, rose up from the darkness below. They surrounded the travelers and swirled gently around them. The air seemed to be getting thicker, and smelled like musky incense. A warm wind swirled around them, and the three were gently falling closer and closer, until the green lantern that Kituo held illuminated them all. First Simon drifted into the light of the lantern -- then Talan and Peryn, from the opposite side, was blown closer by the warm wind. Bubbles swirled all around them, as if it were they that had slowed the fall.
The lantern light illuminated treetops, and glimmered on water far below; they heard the rush of a waterfall, and the whisper of leaves in the wind. As they descended at last toward the ground, fireflies appeared and swarmed overhead. The fireflies gathered on the boughs of the trees -- millions upon millions of them, like a star-encrusted sky -- and gave a golden light to the still forest that they now found themselves in.
Their feet touched the grass, and they were standing on the bank of a small creek that glimmered by the light of the fireflies overhead. The trees here were slightly different -- dry and cracked, but full of deep green leaves. Their branches were covered in bright glowing fireflies. There was no ticking here: no sign of human interference, or that any human had ever set foot here at all.
Each of the trees had a face peeking out from the trunk. They were not living faces, but masks: white masks that seemed to be growing out of the bark. Each tree only had one mask, and each mask represented a different animal: a wolf, a badger, a deer, a hawk, a bear. One touch might release the mask from the tree, so delicately were they attached.
The travelers were being watched. A few yards away, someone -- or
something -- stood very still. It was shaped like a child, with horns like a bull -- but it was entirely ghostly white, translucent and glowing. The ghostly child flickered and turned its faceless head, looking from one traveler to the next, and its long translucent coat lifted in the breeze.
