They trudged onward, their footsteps falling into the hypnotic rhythm of long travel. The recurring streams and creepy toads gave way to deeper woods, where trees crowded so close that their branches seemed to whisper amongst themselves. Time stretched like honey from a broken jar, the dim light neither brightening nor fading, as though the day had been caught in amber.
Sydney maintained his bearing with the dedication of a soldier whose training ceded no territory to the supernatural. She kept to the shadows, finding comfort in the uncertainty of darkness rather than the waking nightmare that surrounded them. Between them walked Aelfric, his torch creating a sphere of assumed safety that seemed to shrink with each passing moment.
Riven paused often to study the moss on the trees, seeking some hint of direction in its growth. But even this woodsman’s trick proved useless. The green patches formed patterns that shifted when viewed, like words written in a language that refused to be read. The horses, having exhausted their capacity for fear, settled into a dull resignation.
After what had seemed like hours, the party emerged as though from a fever dream, their perception crystallizing hesitantly on the scene before them.
The oaks still stretched their breadth in a display of stolid might. The scent of pine wove amidst beech and maple. The sky had returned to some shade of normal. And there - impossibly - sat the giant tree stump.
It waited for them like an old friend’s gravestone, unchanged, still etched with lichen and moss. The canopy rustled as if suppressing a fey giggle, though none of them felt a breeze.
At first no one spoke.
Finally, Riven broke the silence. “The sun, it’s been behind or to the left of us the whole time. I made sure of it.”
“This is impossible.” Sydney’s sword hung from a loose grip.
She drew her daggers in hopeful anticipation of encountering the charlatan responsible for this madness. “We’ve been walking for hours.”
“Have we?” Aelfric asked softly, his eyes fixed on the stump’s rings, circles within circles, like the path they’d seemingly walked.
“There is only one way to know.” With a resolved look on his face, Riven hustled away from the group, making a beeline for the edge of the forest. His stomach tightened as he approached the threshold.
Penetrating through, he beheld the same plain, the same sun, and the blue sky they had left behind, however long ago it was that they first set foot in these bewitched woods. Birds sang and crickets chirred. Riven exhaled and wiped the sweat from his brow. Having reestablished his bearings, he set to return to the group.
But as he drew closer to the outer ring of trees, he couldn’t shake the notion that he would enter the woods, only to emerge miles away from them. The trees murmured in the wind, their branches casting shadows that appeared to reshape the very paths beneath them. The forest seemed like a labyrinth that rewrote itself with every breath of air, each gust threatening to scatter trails like autumn leaves.
His heart thrummed harder. He started to run. As he did, he frantically scanned the woods before him for any sign of his companions. His legs ached and lungs burned as he barreled forward. Catching a glimpse of them, he ran even faster, his boots throwing up clods of dark earth and rotting leaves. When he finally reached the group, Sydney spoke first.
“What is the matter? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Riven leaned on his staff, gasping and wheezing. She watched him with a puzzled look. But Aelfric made no such gesture. Even the horses seemed to understand. There was something wrong with these woods. Something that could only be imagined by the most twisted enchanters or the most capricious of fey.
“It was as before,” Riven said, in-between breaths. “Outside. But the forest itself - it has a sentience, a knowing…”
“It watches us,” Aelfric said, his eyes spanning the vast canopy overhead.
“We make camp here,” Sydney said, though his voice carried less authority than usual. “This is the only familiar landmark in this domain of shifting certainties.”
“Sleep?” She gave a harsh laugh, her daggers catching what little light filtered through the sinister green sky. “In this place? It would be like falling asleep in a dream; who knows if we’d ever wake up?” Despite Riven’s balm and stitching, her fresh wound burned, seeming to echo the pulse of this confounding realm.
But exhaustion made the decision for them. They settled by the stump, relying on the reassuring presence of their bedrolls and blankets. When night fell, Riven took first watch.
He sat cross-legged on the stump. Eyes closed, he sought to calm his breath and mind, as much as was possible in this place. He slowly settled into meditation and allowed his consciousness to expand. As he lingered on the fringes of normal awareness, the thought occurred….what if, in this more vulnerable state, the illusions took hold and imposed on him a sort of madness?
And then, he was gone.
Where usually he found comfort in this communion with nature, tonight he sensed a presence, its thoughts pressing against his. The riddle’s words surfaced in his mind.
Twice to the north star’s ancient light,
Once east where dawn bleeds morning bright.
He tried to push the verses away, to focus on his surroundings, but they circled like hungry wolves. In his thoughts, he replayed the day’s journey - had it been minutes? Hours? The forest had stretched time like a bowstring, making moments feel like days…
Days.
His eyes snapped open. The rings of the stump beneath him seemed to vibrate with meaning. Riven gazed into the darkness between the trees, where shadows moved like living things. The forest watched him back through countless eyes, patient as only immortal things can be.
He noticed movement at the edge of his perception. Turning, he saw Aelfric sitting against a nearby tree, knees drawn up to his chest. The boy’s eyes reflected pinpoints of starlight that managed to pierce the canopy.
“You should be sleeping,” Riven said softly.
“The forest won’t let me.”
Riven studied him. The torch lay extinguished beside him, yet something about the boy seemed to hold its own subtle luminescence.
“Back at the streams,” Aelfric said, “with the toads. You felt it too, didn’t you? The way it watched us through their eyes?”
“Yes.” Riven shifted on the stump. “The forest is aware. More than aware - it’s…” He trailed off, searching for words to describe something that defied description.
“Teaching us?” Aelfric offered.
The words hung in the air between them, heavy with implications that neither fully grasped but both somehow knew to be true. Somewhere in the darkness, leaves rustled with what might have been approval.
“The riddle,” Riven said. “We’ve been reading it wrong. When it gives directions, it speaks of days. The elven city is not in one particular location that can be approached. We cannot slowly draw closer, we can only…”
“Arrive.”
Their eyes met. Riven remembered how elves would acknowledge deep truth - not as discoveries, but almost as recollections of things they had always known.
In the morning, as the others were breaking down camp, Riven told them about his insight.
“You want us to travel blindly through these cursed woods, scraping meaning off of a crumpled parchment tossed in a drawer with some maps because the forest told you?” Securing her bedroll to her saddlebag, She had the look of someone eager to cut their losses and move on to the next scheme - one in a different locale. Shadow’s lips vibrated, seemingly in agreement.
Riven stared at her with his hands on his hips, tilting his head, lips pursed. “You know, now that you mention it, when trying to decipher an obscure riddle in an enchanted forest, it would make sense that the forest itself may have the best answer.”
Aelfric glanced from one to the other, his face blank.
“She raises a valid concern,” Sydney said “I have no doubt that you discerned the intention of the forest, but how can we place our trust in an…entity? …that is not even consistent in its own nature. It would be so much easier if we had a map.”
“There is no map because there is no location.” Riven said.
“What if there is no city?” They turned and looked at her.
For several moments, no one spoke.
“My mother came from this city,” Aelfric said quietly, his gaze distant on unformed memories. “I will go.”
He strapped on his pack, the torches clinking within. Turning to Riven, he said “I may need my bow.”
Riven stood for a moment. He cast a glance at Maple, who was looking at the boy. “I will carry it for you.”
Aelfric gave him a warm smile. And, with that, he headed north.
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