Page 106 of A Trade of Blood

We trundled north acrossthe country roads in the Orbiis cart. Then the violet, shimmering forest broached the horizon, like an amethyst sea reaching high tide and spilling down the rocks. I eyed the tops of the forests. Here and there I could spy the hint of structures, shrines, statues. Ana’s words of caution lingered in my thoughts, and I fought the urge to shudder.

“You recall that the seams of the forest are quite narrow, Kol,” said Tauri, his eyes fixed on the trees. “Hardly more than four or five span at the widest point. There will be five of us entering today, and we shall have to move in single file, with the officer bearing the thurible at the fore so the seam will part. I assume you are not trained in bombard use?”

“No, sir. Though I’ve had training with bows.”

“Pity we have no bows with us, then! But close combat will be difficult. I’d be wary of drawing your sword. Though…I hope it will not come to that.”

We stopped at the line of the forest, and two members of the expedition dismounted, slid masks on their faces to protect themselves from the forest’s fumes, and began to ready their smokes. I tried to find solace in the familiarity of their movements: pouring the reagents into the thurible’s chimney, and then setting a bit of sparkwood floating within and putting fire toit.

The strange, shimmering quality to the smokes. The acrid taste ofit in my mouth. I knew all this, I told myself. I’d done this once before. There was no reason to fear.

Yet then Tauri spoke: “Ready yourself now, Kol, and don your mask so the airs won’t trouble you! Just remember—keep to the path, follow us, and…if you see anything strange off in the wood, disregard it!”

All the courage I’d mustered vanished in an instant. “What do you expect to see?” I said, startled. But Tauri was already standing before the tree line, his bombard balanced in his hands.

The boles of the trees ahead began shivering, as if fearing the caress of the smokes. The officer at the fore unpacked an unusual fretvine apparatus much like a frame, and after hanging the thurible from its center, her compatriots raised it high and fastened it about her neck and shoulders so the thurible swung just a few smallspan above her head.

I felt a flicker of amusement at that: when I had first met the Orbiis I had almost mistaken them for a parade of cultists, off on some pilgrim’s rite. Now we were on another parade, with one member bearing holy smokes swinging from this strange artifice bound to her body, and many mystic sites ahead.

The officer moved toward the trees. Once again, a handful of branches began to part, as if bent backward by an invisible hand. The tiny path of the seam emerged, and our party ventured forward—with Tauri, I noted, second in line behind the officer with the thurible, and me behind him. I slid my mask upon my face and followed. The trees closed behind us, and we were lost.

—

We walked forwhat felt like an hour without speaking, surrounded by the churning trees, the flickering purple leaves, and the swirl of the shadows about us. Again, the queer geometric nature of the wood weighed on me: it was as if I wasn’t wandering through a forest but rather navigating some endless spiderweb, adorned here and there in bursts of indigo.

A mad thought wormed its way into my skull—You are being stalked. Hunted. Something is there, just past the reach of the light.

My reason responded—It’s the forest. It doesn’t want us here. It moves againstus.

To which my worries answered—Then you admit the forest has a mind, a will. It follows you now, watching you. Intelligent, and angry, and so, so old.

Enough.

I cleared my throat and asked, “How far until the first landmark, sir—the Hand of Gaddar?”

“At this rate,” said Tauri, “we shall be there in twenty minutes.” He gazed off into the wood. “Though we now come to a rather denser portion of the forest, according to the map your immunis made for us. I would advise you to keep your eyes on the path, Kol.”

I did not know what he meant, but I did as he said, focusing on the heels of his boots as they beat upon the leaf-strewn path.

Then I began to see—no,sensewas the better word—stone forms coalescing in the trees.

Structures. Shapes. Contours and outlines.

I took in a breath as I gazed fixedly at Tauri’s heels. They were like statues, I thought, but not any kind I’d seen yet. Though I didn’t look directly at them, I somehow gleaned that these statues about us were wrought in such a fashion that they defeated the eye, or perhaps the mind. The dimensions were all wrong: you could not see them and comprehend which point was close to you, and which one distant. Simply glimpsing them out of my periphery made my bowels water and my eyes ache, and it put a thread of fear in my soul.

“What are they?” I whispered.

“I do not know, Kol,” said Tauri. “There is a point in the paths I’ve walked where we can see things of this likeness, but only from a distance. We do not approach them, as a rule. This is the closest I have ever been to them.” He took in a slow breath. I wondered what it did to his augmented mind to behold such things. “We have termed themformless,orteknasma.They seem to have had no practical use toour reckoning. Their unusual shaping pleased the old ones, perhaps. Like an aroma or taste or sound may please a common mind, the sight of these…activated something within the Khanum. I can’t say more, for I don’t know more.” I heard a click of his throat as he swallowed behind his mask. “Let’s hope that the Hand of Gaddar is less punishing to our minds!”

We continued on, the trees parting before us and closing behind us. I began to sense a pattern in the statues there in the trees: they somehow mimicked movement, as if they all formed a vast stone colossus, crawling through the trees to my right. Perhaps it snuffed at the forest floor, seeking our scent.

No, no,I told myself.This is madness. They are but stone. Abandonit!

Eventually—blessedly—theteknasmafaded into the trees. We continued on. Tauri would sometimes speak aloud, asking if his folk tasted anything new upon the air, but all said they did not. The forest overwhelmed all particulates, they told him.

“I hope,” he said quietly, “that Jalin did actually go this way! Though I wonder what he made of such sights.”

Then, finally, the trees parted, and the great hand emerged.