Chapter 2

“If you are surrounded by darkness, take your head out of your ass.” -Anonymous

The first sensation was darkness followed by a pungent smell of trees. Aden stood unmoving and let his eyes adjust. As he waited, the silence around him came to his attention, but he was not surprised. Any creature of nature would have immediately frozen in place with the sound of a portal opening and closing in the same instant. Portals sounded as unnatural as they felt, Aden thought with a slight shiver as he stepped out from under a broken roof.

The night was slightly chilly. Looking up, Aden caught a glimpse of the moon through a leafy canopy. The branches were far above his head, too high to gauge in the dark. A breeze caused the leaves overhead to rustle yet Aden felt nothing on the ground. After a moment more, the croaking and chirping returned. A bat’s high-pitched scrying came from somewhere in or above the canopy.

Aden decided that all was well in this little piece of the world. He could discern the trunks of trees and they were large. He saw little undergrowth nearby, but the light did not penetrate well enough to let him see far. Great pools of darkness surrounded him, giving him comfort. They matched his mood.

Using small steps and with his arm extended, Aden sidled towards the closest trunk. He did not want to trip over an unseen root. The bark was rough to the touch, rougher than he expected. He stretched out both arms to take a measure of the girth of the tree. He doubted that his arms made it halfway around.

With little undergrowth and at least one huge tree in a cool environment, Aden surmised that he was in an old growth forest in the northern latitudes. For a stranger in a strange land, his location was a gracious start. He sat down with his back to the tree and flipped his hood over his head. Setting his internal phyzeec mechanisms to start the healing, Aden closed his eyes and fell asleep.

Thankfully, he did not dream.

As he awoke, the trills of unfamiliar birds sounded all around him. Lifting his hood and slowly placing it back, he watched dun-colored birds flit through the trees. Some had flashes of color. A woodpecker drilled into wood somewhere in the distance with a staccato cadence. Looking up, the trees were majestic as they rose from the forest floor and reached into the blue sky.

Taking a few moments to appreciate the fresh air, Aden tried to stir in a slow and orderly manner. His body ached and his face was tender to the touch. With relief he noticed the swelling appeared to be under control and shrinking. Taking a deep breath, he braced himself for the protest of a bruised ribcage. The complaint was muted.

Standing up was not too bad. His torso ached but his legs were fine. His belly rumbled. Aden did not want to move from where his two feet were planted; what was the point? His world had turned to dust. All that he had once treasured was gone and worse, most of it had been worthless, rotten. He was adding salt to his wounds and he recognized it, shutting off the train of thought. Aden figured he would have many more rounds of this conversation in his head in the days and weeks to come.

He walked, seeking a game trail or a path through the forest. The forest floor dropped and as Aden scrambled down, he heard the trickling of a stream. Here the bushes were thick, and he had to make several false forays to find a path to the water. He found it. The stream was wide and shallow although the current seemed a bit swift. He touched the water with his phyzeec and found it clean and drinkable. Stripping off all his clothes, he waded out into the water and gave himself a cold bath. Using a bit of sand and a smooth stone, he scrubbed every part of his body that he could reach.

As he shivered on the riverbank, he could not decide if he had commenced with a purgation or a renewal ritual. Was not a priest supposed to know the difference? The thought of Brule and his priesthood brought bile up to the back of his throat. Aden was afraid he was going to vomit the water he just drank.

In a gesture of redirecting his traitorous thoughts, Aden scooped up his sack and his clothes before crossing the stream. The footing was slippery and the current in the middle was strong. The other bank was muddy, although clear of the bushes that thwarted his path on the way down. As he dressed, Aden took time to study the water both upstream and downstream. Upstream he spied an unnatural formation, perhaps the ruined stanchions of a crumbled bridge. Trusting that the casters had only meant good for him, he wondered if they had deposited him near an ancient road. Such a location would be ideal for a traveler.

Where was he? He had stepped from the noonday sun into total darkness yesterday. He could easily be halfway around the globe, which meant he was also out of reach of Brule and his puppet master Swindlow. He scowled.

He walked upstream and stood underneath the curiosity. The formation could easily be ancient work, but time and decay had left only an impression of what might have been. The climb would be steep if he tried to go straight up. Instead Aden turned to his left, betting that the creatures of the forest had the same problem. He mentally patted himself on the back when he chanced upon the game trail that traveled upward in a zigzag.

The top of the rise was too flat and straight to be natural. The edges had crumbled, and the surface had been scraped clean. Yet the great trees had not intruded. The ancient builders must have had impressive skills, Aden thought. He turned left and began walking west.

The north side of the road was thick with bushes that nestled up to the edge of the road and they were thick with black berries and some round red ones. Aden scanned them and concluded that only the red ones were poisonous to him. He ate out of need only. Shoving mouthfuls in his mouth, he barely took the time to chew and swallow.

When his frenzy had passed, Aden gathered himself together, straightening his back as was his habit. He turned west and walked again. One foot plodded in front of the other in mindless repetition.

With surprise, he jerked his head up and realized that the sun was setting in the west. He had walked the entire day without a thought in his head, without paying attention. The trees were still standing as sentinels on either side of the road, but the road was turning southward and sloping downhill.

In the fading light, Aden stepped out from the trees and looked out upon a wide valley that was opening before him. Far down was a river but he was not interested. He scanned the sides of the road and found a thrust of rock just a bit further down on his right. The sky betrayed no hint of rain to come, which let him choose his first roost. After scrambling to the top of the escarpment, Aden was only mildly startled by the circle of stones and the blackened scorch marks of a fire within. Nothing was fresh.

With profound exhaustion, Aden sank to the ground. He curled up in a ball and slept. This night the demons came to chastise him in his dreams with humiliation and abasement. He could not wake up and he could not escape them.

He barely moved the next day. Hunger forced him to climb down from the rock after the sun rose, but he took as little time as possible to quench his thirst and slake his hunger before returning to the little circle of dubious safety, a dead fire of other years and seasons. Only on the third day did he chance a bath at the river and take the time to catch a couple of good-sized fish.

Piling wood inside the circle of stone, Aden flicked flames in its midst with barely a thought of using phyzeec. After scaling and gutting the fish, he watched the flames play along the dead wood’s edge. The yellow flame swirled and dipped as bark peeled back. The deep brown of the wood lit with a reddening burn that slowly turned grey. Thin sheets of ash waved in the flame until they came loose and fell softly to the ground.