The Proving of Champions, Chapter 2
In which Fleta runs from a giant monster.
The beast’s footfalls shook the earth, and Fleta ran in the trembling gullies between enormous roots that stretched across the shadowy jungle floor. Braids of orange and red hair fell loose and streamed behind her, and her long navy tunic rippled like a sail in a storm. Trees loomed like mountains, blocking out the sun and sky with their cavernous canopy.
As Fleta ran, the last two seeds fell from her bag onto the spongy, mossy soil. One sprouted immediately. It shot up in the middle of the trail, exploding outward in a riot of thick branches, the earth around it sinking into a wide depression as the new tree devoured the soil. Within seconds, it was over a hundred feet tall and almost as wide, woven into the thick jungle around it.
Huh, Fleta thought. I should have thought of that.
The ground shuddered again, and the new tree cracked almost in two, clutching at the canopy around it with a ripping of branches. A sound shook the jungle, and it was so loud and so low Fleta heard it with her bones instead of her ears. The trunk of the freshly sprouted tree cracked.
I guess it didn’t matter anyway. Fleta winced. While looking back, she almost careened into a root the size of the Grand Promenade back home. Don’t think, run.
Fleta sprang a few dozen feet into the hair, landing on the inclined top of the root. When she reached the zenith of the root, she leaped again. Her feet began to sink into the soft loam as she landed, and she redirected her momentum forward with a flurry of light, carefully practiced steps. The ground was a lot squishier than she was used to. Spongy, almost like a trampoline, instead of the hard-packed dirt of the Marble Halls. She lost her footing and rolled.
Before Fleta could stand up, the behemoth’s head plummeted toward her, snapping off branches thicker than she was tall. The branches fell like a volley of ballista bolts around her, and she jumped to her feet, wobbling. The void of the beast's maw circled around her dizzy head. In a panic, Fleta jumped again. She collided with the beast’s nose. Fleta flattened as the beast’s ship-sized muzzle surged skyward. Gasping for breath, she clutched at the ridge of a scale next to her, but it fell away.
Fleta was in the air, a sea of leaves waving below her, the dark whirlpool of a giant maw receding. Let’s call that a draw, she thought. If I can survive the landing... Birds, or other creatures impossibly large and distant, circled amid the clouds. One began to dive, but Fleta was already falling back into the dark green canopy.
The leaves were the size of a royal quilt, less soft, but with much more give than a mattress. With a series of lightning taps, a roll, and a flailing fall onto the next leaf, Fleta managed to arrest her momentum with only a few bruises.
“Well,” she panted, catching her breath on a swaying leaf. “That went better than expected. I should have quit two days ago,” she sighed. “No time like the present, I guess.” Fleta looked around, but the top layer of leaves had already obscured the view. She considered poking her head up to get her bearings when the shriek of a disappointed bird overhead raked her ears. Instead, Fleta sighed. She lowered herself from leaf to branch to trunk and began climbing to the jungle floor hundreds of feet below.
Somewhere in the dark labyrinth of humongous trees below was an arch of enormous, woven thorns, carved with ancient symbols. The arch was her only escape from the jungle and the monstrous tarasque creature she was supposed to hunt.
Fleta’s legs flogged the leaf-strewn jungle floor for hours; the gulleys between the twisted roots should have been quicker to navigate. Fleta could run a league when most runners were barely off the starting line. Although she had spent two days in the jungle, most of that time had been wandering around looking for the tarasque until it found her The arch was maybe a half day away as the crow flew. Less at a sprint.
However, those two days had defeated Fleta’s limited forestcraft and exhausted her muscles. Some markings and signs she had made to find her way were already overgrown. Carvings in the bark of giant trees were covered in slithering vines, and small rock cairns were toppled by creatures or hidden by ferns that sprouted and sprawled overnight. Worse, Fleta’s hips and knees burned from hiking day and night with little more than fifteen minutes of sleep. Her quadriceps were numb with an echo of aching. Her stomach was both painfully empty and nauseous. Fleta would have collapsed long ago, but losing consciousness was dangerous. A large, vulture-headed boar with splintering tusks had almost swallowed her whole while she was sleeping yesterday. The massive toadstools and ferns that dotted the jungle floor gave little protection against predators that could hunt by scent, sound, or more esoteric senses.
Fleta stumbled to the nearest, mountainous tree. Covered with gnarls and ridges of bark, climbing or even jumping from outgrowth to outgrowth would be simple enough. After one hundred feet, her leaden legs began to slip on footholds, and she dared climb no further. Fleta curled up in the mossy crook of a broad branch, and she fell asleep with her pack in her hands in moments.
A sticky cord fell across Fleta. She awoke in a panic. Fleta gripped the white rope to free herself, but her hand stuck fast. When she pulled her hand away, she felt the web rip away her outer layer of skin. Fleta fumbled through the pack at her side. Another cord of white began to fall, accompanied by a loud clicking noise from the branches above. In a flash, Fleta uncorked a canteen. Arching her back, she struggled to douse the web forming around her. She felt the web slip a little, but a second cord fell and stuck even tighter as she writhed.
The broad, eight-legged shadow above her was the size of a horse. It perched on a branch ten feet in diameter several yards above Fleta. The Paragons only knew why it made that damned clicking sound, but it wouldn’t matter in a few minutes if Fleta escaped—a horde of monstrous fauna would erupt from the thick tangle of trees. Still wrapped in webs, Fleta kicked onto her feet. She crouched and sprinted down the tree with all the momentum of her impossible speed.
Fleta managed only three strides before the surprised shadow above braced six of its legs against the branch and trunk. Its hind legs began to twist the second strand of the web. As the world spun around Fleta again, the nerves and disorientation made her wretch. The web around her began to thicken, and the spider beast dragged her upwards.
Fleta shouted, cursed herself for a fool, and stretched against the webs so she could catch a large crease in the bark with her toe. As she steadied herself, a dusting of loose moss fell on the web, sticking fast. Fleta gasped in delight. Her legs flew into a blur, scuffing moss from the tree. Dusty moss fibers covered the grasping ropes in an instant. Fleta twisted and writhed with frantic speed, and the webs began to loosen.
The spider beast gave one more tug. The web ripped free. Fleta fell.
The jungle floor was a hundred feet below. She arched, flattening her body for more control, and she dipped her right shoulder to spin to the right, grabbing a branch. From there, she could run down the tree… but her pack was above, by the spider.
Even if Fleta was willing to give up her rations and bandages, she had no way to leave the jungle without a key for the arch. Fleta looked up at the spider, and its hairy, shadowy bulk was now crawling down the massive trunk. She looked at the clear path on the ground. She looked at her pack. Fleta glanced around at clusters of branches and leaves the size of houses, concealing any number of nightmare creatures.
“Pull yourself together,” Fleta muttered. She launched herself up the tree. She wasn’t fast enough to run far up a smooth surface, but rough ridges in the bark allowed her a combination of climbing and jumping in lightning-quick bursts. As she leaped from outcropping of bark to branch, she navigated around the tree, drawing the spider away from her pack.
Without the advantage of surprise and webs, the spider was far too slow to threaten a running Fleta. Fleta launched herself towards the broad branch with her pack, sailing past the slow arc of a gooey web. She grabbed her pack. Where was the canteen? She began to turn to search the branch when she saw another blast of web from the corner of her eye—time to leave.
Fleta dropped off the branch, arcing her body towards a low branch. She swung around the branch and dropped to the spongy jungle floor in a silent, three-point landing. She allowed herself one small smile of satisfaction and a moment to catch her breath. The canteen wasn’t visible in the murky depths of the forest floor, and Fleta didn’t have time to search each mushroom or leafy, bottom-feeding plant. The thunderous snufflings and chitterings of the forest waking up began to shake the wisps of fern leaves around her, so Fleta turned and raced along the gulleys between enormous roots.
Fleta’s legs gave out only a mile or two later. She wanted to sleep again, but this time, she didn’t dare. She stretched to keep her aching legs limber, and she bit her lip to stay awake. If she didn’t make the gate before she fell asleep, she might not wake up at all.
The fern-filled ground and layers of moldering leaves gave way to bare roots, massive, gnarled tangles of roots. Fleta descended into a maze of ravines and tunnels created by the crisscrossing roots, following the tell-tale thorns towards the archway of braided woody tendrils and spikes. Fleta felt light-headed. Some members of the order claimed the archway in the Marble Halls made them feel dizzy or faint, and perhaps the arch of thorns had the same effect. Or perhaps Fleta’s exhausted and starved body had moved beyond aches to a numb detachment.
In the shadows of a great hollow where vines and thorns knotted together, covered in dagger-sized thornes, the Gate loomed. It formed a thick, half-oval, twenty feet tall. Thorny branches stuck out at odd angles, creating a slight point at the top. A circular alcove, ten feet tall, led to a rough, low, and narrow opening. In all the jungle, this mass of thorny archway was the only wooden surface entirely free of lichen, moss, vines, and epiphytes. The dirt-caked coils of roots at the foot of the thorned Gate, however, sheltered clusters of small, deep purple, toadstools with white spots. They dotted the opening and the alcove of the arch.
Fleta’s stomach rumbled at the site of the toadstools, despite their unnatural color. She didn’t reach for them, however. One of the few pieces of Gate lore she recalled from her tutor was “Never eat the Gate mushrooms.” Her tutor, Zacharias, had not been able to explain why the toadstools were inedible because no one in living memory had been foolish enough to try them. It was enough to know that the purple fungi only grew around Gates, and Gates themselves were alien, ancient, and dangerous.
Above the recessed opening of the arch, a series of ancient carved runes marked the different realms to which the Gate might lead. Fleta took a small lamp from her backpack, a lamp that she dared not use outside the cover of the Gate basin. She raised the lamp, and she leaned forward as she held it close to the symbols over the opening. One symbol was two snakes, entwined in a circle, devouring each other: the Jungle. Here. Another held a man-shaped figure in a triangle, suggesting a temple of the Paragons. That was the Marble Halls. Home.
The seeds Fleta had brought with her served as keys for the Gate. According to Zacharias, all she had to do was stand in the alcove, hold up a seed, and think of the Marble Halls, and the portal to her realm would open. Of course, the head of her order, High Skald of Thorgarick had sent her to die. If she returned, she would be a failure at best. She might be exiled. Would the seeds she brought open other realms? The Gates were supposed to be dangerous and the other realms were alien and equally dangerous. Fleta knew now that the Jungle certainly was. But wasn’t there somewhere better? A safe realm?
She peered at the symbols. The Gate in Marble Halls had held a few of the same symbols; they shared, for example, the spiral star and the blind eye. Some were different, like the interlocking rings at the top of the arc of symbols. The spiral star looked… disorienting. The blind eye, ominous. But the interlocking rings might be okay. Didn’t those symbolize strong relationships? Or strong bonds. Or chains. Maybe try another symbol.
As Fleta mused, she pulled off her pack and began to dig for the seeds. She went through her pack once, twice, and a third time. “There should be at least one more!” She swore. “Maybe it’s just in a crevice.” She picked up the backpack, waving the whole of it angrily at the symbols. “Take me home, you shiftless thicket! Useless lumber, open up!”
The dark archway stood, impassive, and Fleta collapsed in a heap. She felt ready to sob, releasing one huge shuddering breath before it caught in her throat. The blind eye began to glow a pale, sickly green. The entire hollow shuddered and vibrated. Fleta could hear nothing but the low vibration; all other sounds had ceased. The opening in the arch glowed pale green as well, shimmering like water reflecting starlight. The other side of the hollow was only a faint suggestion of shadows beneath the waving purple light. A dark form lunged through, backlit by the shimmering portal.
“Nefu!” the shadow roared in a cacophony of deep voices. It had the form of a man, or several men in a roiling mass, walking upon two legs. A multiplicity of torsos spread from its waist, most well muscled, all rippling and pliable as if made of watery clay. The figures merged and split. The heads stared in all directions. All of the torsos stood on a single pair of legs, clad in dusty, gray, patchwork pants.
One head stared at Fleta, but a more animated one gazed upon the mushrooms. “Aqwi!” The arms of this excited head plucked a purple mushroom from the alcove and swallowed it without brushing off the dirt. Immediately, the chaotic mass of human trunks stilled, their eyes and mouths gaped wide. In the stillness, she noticed that the eyes were solid irises, dark, perhaps gray, but none of them had pupils. Just like the symbol on the Gate that was now dimming, then dark.
The Gate! The portal was dimming as well. She stood and hesitated. Was she really going to try to push past the creature?
“Um, excuse me?” Fleta paused just out of its reach. The moment stretched out, and the portal was barely visible. Fine, this was it. She crouched to sprint past, but three arms latched onto her arm as she passed. She screamed, and the creature dropped her. Fleta turned back to the opening. The green light was gone.
The creature took a few steps back. One of the central torsos began grabbing other bodies and pushing them into its ribs. The other torsos sunk into the central body, but a head or an arm re-emerged from time to time. With a furrowed brow, it quit fighting when it had obtained a roughly man-shaped appearance, except for an extra mouth and pair of arms.
Now, with a single face to focus on, Fleta could pick out more of the details. Or lack of details. The creature looked like an unfinished bust—if one were working with flesh instead of clay. The graceful curves of the human head were too flat or straight. The smooth plains of the face dimpled as if worked roughly by hand. Its un-pupiled eyes were a little too flat, and its mouth was almost lipless.
Fleta let out a laugh that turned into a bitter, empty cough, and she sunk back to the ground. “That’s it. I’m going to die.”
The creature nodded but made no other movement. It wore no shirt, and she noticed there was no discernable rise or fall of his chest. The Gate thing stood unnaturally still.
“You can strangle me in my sleep,” Fleta said. “I’m too tired to care.”
The creature nodded.
“You know, if you stay here, the beasts will eat you too.”
“Why?” The voice was a gravelly croak, but the word was clear.
“Why? They just do. It’s the Jungle. The monsters come, they always do. Whenever you stop, they come.”
“Move,” The creature said.
“I can’t. I can’t anymore. I haven’t really slept for days.”
“Days?” The creature cocked its head. “Days… is long time?”
“Yes, yes it’s long, you clod.”
“Can’t move?”
“No,” Fleta would have insulted him again, but she yawned instead. “I can’t take one more step.”
“I watch,” the creature said. “I move.” And with that, the creature scooped her up into its four arms, two curling around her legs to make a seat, another two pulling her against his chest. A third pair of arms emerged, grabbing her pack and placing it over its shoulders. One of the straps served as a pillow. Fleta blew out her lamp, and the creature placed it carefully in her pack. The creature smelled of sweat, and dust, and faintly of rotten eggs. It was half-naked, inhuman, and indecent. Its first steps were stumbling and unsteady.
Fleta fell asleep anyway.
The darkness and the shape of the girl in his arms were the only familiar forms to Alexei. He knew what a tree was, but he had never seen one. These trees stretched up like the pillars of night, like an army of silent daemons. That silence was the silence of the cavern halls of the Underside. Perhaps these… trees… were stalagmites in a cavern so large that the ceiling could not be seen. None of the stories told of trees in the Underside. None of them had described caves of this size, either.
Alexei absorbed most of the silence in shock. His feet were used to cracked stone and chalky dust; they rolled unexpectedly in the soft soil and strange… moss. He saw phantom green and purple spirit lights, and he heard phantom muttering and shuffling. His mind was so used to the flowing crowds of home that it kept painting familiar details into this vast, silent, darkness.
The girl had said beasts would come. Alexei tried to imagine them: people with horns, or claws, or scales. He imagined people with metal bits, and then he remembered: beasts. Animals. Things that were not people. Perhaps simpler. Often smaller.
Branches overhead swayed and creaked. The sound of creaking wood was almost familiar, but the deep creak of giant limbs was unnerving. The rustling of leaves was almost like the shuffling of crowds. Alexei could almost relax, as he wandered out of the tangle of exposed roots by the arch and into the gloom beyond.
A distant fern rustled out of time with the rhythm swaying of the gentle wind. Alexei looked, but nothing came forth. Was something there? Was it watching? Good. But What sort of creature would watch without wanting to be watched? Daemons, Alexei supposed.
Alexei walked and walked. He wondered when he would disappear. He wondered if he already had.
A.N. Sorensen
A.N. Sorensen