John Nassari

CHAPTER 1

Hazel froze on the moonlit tree branch, bracing herself for a quick death. Below her, on the shadowed forest floor, she watched the unworldly shape sniff and snort, wisps of smoke rising from its fur. It had appeared out of nowhere, emitting a putrid stench. She held her breath, careful not to make a sound, praying its burning stare wouldn’t find her among the leaves.

Then it vanished. She remained suspended in disbelief, her heart pounding in the silence, questioning what she had seen. Yet the unsettling feeling that something was terribly wrong lingered as if the ancient forest itself paused in fear with her. She scanned the tree huts, barely visible in the high branches. Receiving no reply to her urgent bird calls, she clutched a vine, swung her legs forward, and descended cautiously to the ground.

She knew she had to warn the others but was torn between choosing the night watchers or the Mothers’ hut. She ran towards the campfire, towards her father, the chieftain. As she approached, relief washed over her at the sight of Faygon and his band of young warriors.

‘Father! I had to leave my post. I needed to warn you, to warn everyone. There’s something out there. This is no Highlander assault. It’s worse.’

‘Isn’t that a relief!’ came the mocking voice of Killian. ‘Will you use the delusions of a headstrong girl as an excuse to increase the watch and divert more men from the hunt, Faygon?’

‘You forget your place, Killian,’ Faygon growled, his voice laced with fury. ‘And you forget our history.’

‘On the contrary, Chieftain, I refuse to let paranoia cloud my judgment. It’s about time someone reminded you that…’

A bloody talon came through Killian’s chest. An instant later, he was yanked into the darkness.

‘Move, Daughter!’ Faygon bellowed, pushing her. ‘Awake the clan. Save the children.’

Gripping twin swords, Faygon sprinted in the direction Killian had vanished. Hazel dashed toward the great sycamore, towards the sanctuary for Mothers and infants, determined to ensure their safety.

Out of nowhere, a fireball illuminated the night sky, devouring treetops. A sentry horn blared. Agile figures bounded on all fours. Foresters scattered in all directions, struck down by the darting attackers.

Something barrelled into her, and she went crashing to the ground. Her bow snapped beneath her and she rolled to her feet, her knife drawn.

‘Run! They will kill us all!’ She recognised one of the tribe’s strongest fighters, his face a gibbering mask of terror.

Hazel stood transfixed as a shape swooped down and carried him away. A creature resembling an ape, but with a horned nose, burst into the open area. From elevated positions, a group of archers unleashed arrows at it. The ape was undeterred, roaring defiantly, leaping into the branches to attack them.

Only when her back bumped into a tree did Hazel realise she’d been retreating from it all. Foul forms were uniting from all directions. Smoke blanketed everything, stinging her eyes. Could she hide? She wondered if she could shroud herself in the ruins of her tribe’s home, below the aura of orange flames.

A deafening explosion reverberated above her, and the Mothers’ hut burst outwards; from the gloom overhead, she felt a weight on the branch above her, shuddering the ancient wooden bough. Then a figure in blood-red armour, towering half the height again of the tallest man, landed on the ground before her. At first, she thought some great knight had come to save them, but as it turned its enormous frame, its slick helmet revealed the contours beneath. A Forester ran at it and was sliced in two by a single sweep of its blade. It savoured the scent of death, and only now did Hazel notice the bulging sack it carried. The hessian writhed, and from it rose the sound of terrified mewling – the babies! The young of the clan!

Hazel fought the urge to charge at the thing and sweep the bag away from it, but her survival instinct won, some guilt-competing impulse for self-preservation. From the dark scuttled spiders, except massive ones. They paused at the dead Foresters, spinning webs around them and lifting them onto their hairy backs to carry.

She knew she had just moments left to live, to fight or to be slain where she stood.

Then, Hazel noticed the handle jutting against her pelvis. She grasped it, twisted, and pushed, revealing the hidden storage space within the tree’s base. She slipped in, greeted by the mingling aromas of ripe fruit and musty air.

Tears streaming down her face, she grappled with her fear and guilt, hearing her clan’s dying cries outside. She, a chieftain’s daughter, hiding in a storage nook while her people fell. Steeling herself, she wiped her tears and peered through a slit. In the flickering orange light, new creatures circled the red-armoured giant, casting her kin’s bodies onto a mounting heap.

What she saw next made her gasp.

Two apes roughly handled her father, pushing him before the giant. Despite his right arm being a mere stump, with tendons like roots, and his body marred by wounds, her father stood defiantly, embodying resilience in the face of agony.

One of the apes raised a curved blade and pointed. ‘We did not kill this one, sire, because it fits the profile you wanted for your experiments.’ It spat on the ground, its free hand nursing a welt across its cheek.

The armoured giant let out a harsh, grating laugh, but the voice of another spoke. A voice emanating from the thin frame of a man concealed beneath a hooded purple robe. There was a jaded intelligence in that voice that instilled terror, eroding any remaining glimmers of hope.

‘Bring him closer. Hmmm,’ the voice whispered, ‘a druid adds body and taste to my special formula.’

Faygon scowled at him.

The man’s cowl nodded fractionally, voice amused. ‘Chieftain knows himself by another term, perhaps a tree-diviner?’

All around, the creatures chuckled.

‘He’s a proper bark licker!’ one sniggered.

Faygon somehow pulled free of the red giant. He drew his knife, but instead of attacking them, he held it to his own throat. ‘Scum. You will not take me.’

The robed figure’s tone filled with annoyance. ‘Careless! You didn’t check him for a weapon?’ he hissed at the horned creatures. ‘Extinction Day looms upon mankind, so I had hoped to keep this souvenir.’ He redirected his attention to a gangly figure cleaning its talons, a creature similar to the one responsible for Killian’s demise. ‘Are there any others left besides the babies?’ he asked.

‘Nar,’ it spat. ‘I think not.’

‘You think?’

‘The cursed trees obscure my sight, Master. It is unclear. There is one faint heartbeat that eludes us close by; it could be an animal or perhaps something more. I do not like it. We should leave, sire.’

‘A witness? How amusing, a hunt! I want my souvenir. When this one finishes himself off, conduct a detailed search in case there is another survivor.’

Faygon had been standing tensed and ready, but now his widening eyes jumped to Hazel’s hiding place, the blade loosening in his grip.

Hazel watched. ‘Do it, Father. Please,’ she whispered.

But instead, he unleashed a resounding howl and charged at the robed figure, brandishing the dagger. The red giant intercepted him before he could reach his target, but even as he was restrained, weapon stripped away, Faygon continued to fight and yell.

‘Ah! What skills you have to last this long, and such bravery. My souvenir may not know what he is but is a druid all the same. How fortunate! As your soul burns in the transformation, consider that those talents will make you a leader in my army. You should have taken the chance when it presented itself and ended your life,’ said the robed figure. ‘An eternity of torment awaits you. Come,’ he snapped at his demonic battalion. ‘He will make a fine servant!’

A fiery doorway materialised beside the hooded figure, emitting a blue glow. The gangly demon paused at the entrance, seeming uncertain about stepping through.

‘But sire, what if there is a witness? We never leave one alive.’

‘True, but the time arrives to take credit for our work.’

One by one, the creatures passed through the door, hauling the sack containing the babies of Hazel’s clan and the bodies of her kin. Then her struggling father, whom she knew had just made the ultimate sacrifice for her, disappeared into the unknown. An eternity of torment, that thin figure had said, and she believed him utterly.

Finally, the robed figure stepped through, and the doorway vanished, and she was left alone in the forest. Overwhelmed with grief, she collapsed to her knees and began to sob.

CHAPTER 2

Forty leagues away, in the walled city of Rathnell, Girvyn tried to get some sleep. He could hear his uncle pottering in the lounge. The bitter smell of wood smoke wafted into his bedroom. It wasn’t a huge house like some of the noble mansions on the far side of the coppice: a two-bedroom, single-floor cottage. But it was big enough, and it was all theirs.

Suddenly, he lurched, feet kicking sheets away from his body. His face distorted into an expression of agony.

‘No-no-no! Please, not again!’

He shut his stinging eyes, willing sleep to take away the pain, but then he saw something in the vista of his eyelids. What was that? Stars beckoned like a night sky. Was he losing his vision? Finally, after all these years of headaches, he would be blind…at fourteen.

If he could somehow find sleep, it would relieve the…

In a snap of a finger, he was gone.

‘Hello?’ he called out. ‘Is anyone there?’

Where am I? What just happened? He found himself in an endless expanse of milky space. The floor was white, too, but not the uneven floors he was used to in the castle. This was smooth and perfect.

Why bare feet? He wiggled his toes, felt the surface under his feet, felt the rustle of his clothes. The sensation of cloth on the skin felt so real.

What was this? A hallucination? Had he died? Was this a lucid dream? It didn’t feel like a dream. Dream memories are recalled upon waking, and he was sure he was awake. Yet, the headache had gone in a blink. Normally, the pain took time to subside.

He reasoned, he must be dreaming.

A calm logic took hold. If this was a dream, he was the author. This meant he was in control, and unlike so many of his dreams, it wasn’t a jumbled composite of his day. It wasn’t particularly frightening. It was just weird.

He was on the verge of setting out, to walk into the vastness, when he heard a noise.

Swoosh. Swoosh. Swoosh.

He looked up and saw an object hovering in the space above him. He watched it curiously; it was a rectangular picture, like a piece of art that had fallen from the grand assembly hall and was rotating in mid-air. But not an abstract painting, not paint at all, this looked real.

He listened to the throbbing rhythm of the swoosh, felt the wind generated from the object’s constant turning.

More pictures popped into view, but he was captivated by the first one. Both sides showed a chamber; leaking walls, strips of glass hanging from the ceiling. It was a cave. He had seen pictures of them in a book in the Rathnell library, titled: “The Hidden Realm: A Celebration of Hoppenell’s Cave Structures.” Girvyn laughed to himself. So that was what he was doing: making dreams out of remembered illustrations. It made sense.

Before he knew it, he was transported into the picture.

It wasn’t glass he was looking at but shards of stalactites hanging from the ceiling. He wondered at the colours and textures of the cave and the echoing “plop plop” of water drops from a hollow below him.

Perhaps this was what he needed to do to return home, to wake, see his uncle, explore the cave until the dream ended. Pebbles crunched as he stepped forward; he followed the cave trail, barely noticing the walls leaking, trickling like tears of pain.

Slowly, he began to get the feeling he was not alone. In the white space he’d felt protected, as if it was secure, or even, he dared think it, safe like home. Whereas here, this place through the window, felt wrong. He couldn’t shake this feeling, and it got worse.

A survival warning kept him from screaming. If he was being observed, he didn’t want whoever was watching to perceive any weakness. Equally, that analytical part of himself, supposed that he was doing this to himself.

He attempted the deep breathing technique his uncle had taught him to combat stress. This situation was unfamiliar, but stress was not; it was an old, unwelcome companion. He tried to think rationally to regain his composure: soon he would be awake, or the dream would change; this would all be forgotten.

But when?

He noticed that the illumination within the cave was residual light from a lower cavity, hinting at the possibility of an exit. He crouched down and crawled through the short tunnel until he came outside the cave. It was dark, save for what seemed like moonlight, but he couldn’t see a moon. He caught a stench on the wind. It almost made him retch. What recess of his mind had given rise to this?

A track led in front of him. He edged along it, longing for return. Even the headaches were better than this. He held his breath, straining to listen. Something sounded. There it was again: moaning emanating from obscurity. On either side of the track, whispers danced at the edges of words.

Hands reached out of the earth, clenching and unclenching.

Wake! Wake! he ordered.

Nothing happened.

Nor did the hands try to grab his feet.

Was his mind adding extra props to scare him?

He sped along the path, feeling the rush of adrenaline coursing through his body. He tried to divert his thoughts, focusing on pleasant memories like playing chess with his uncle or a forest trail at sunrise. He kept moving, grateful for the moonlight that guided his route. Gradually, a building emerged; a towering edifice blending with the night sky.

He dug his thumbnail into his palm, and experienced pain. Wake up! Wake up! he urged, desperate to change the course of this bewildering narrative. He frantically patted his pockets, searching for a weapon, a dagger, or even a pencil, attempting to will one into existence, but to no avail. Nothing changed, no matter how hard he thought or what he attempted. If this wasn't a product of his own actions, as he increasingly suspected, then whoever or whatever had created this reality must possess intelligence. Were they inside that structure? With a growing sense of resolve, he convinced himself that stepping towards it was a better course of action than aimlessly wandering further.

The door slid open, both left and right panels retracting, revealing a passage lit by flaming torches. A new sense of unease replaced the previous disquiet. He heard the door close behind him. He swung round, but it didn’t reopen.

Who opens their door to a stranger? And why is it now shut? The sense grew again that someone, or something, was watching him.

He waited a minute, listening, and then continued. The corridor grew colder as he walked further. Soon, his breath formed in the dim light ahead of his face. At the end, he found a dome as vast as the sky. Rising from the ground to the apex, glinting lights dotted the blackness. Observing the entirety of it would strain his neck to the limit. The closest lights were to his left, seemingly the easiest to reach. Could they offer an escape back to his bedroom? He had to find out, to see, or risk being trapped indefinitely.

The light emanated from glass containers, and now he was close enough to see what was inside.

Each housed a monster.

All remained still, yet their eyes tracked him. He realised he wasn’t just an observer; they could see him! The overwhelming danger struck him like a blow. Fear crept through his mind to where all his worries festered. He felt himself sway and grasp for breath. ‘No, please, not here. No-no-no-no-no.’

Concentrate on breath. He heard his uncle’s voice, trying to ease him out of his panic attack. He saw his uncle’s warm, concerned face in his mind’s eye. Concentrate on breath. He did. Saw his feet, then saw his hands. He was on all fours. He needed to move, hide.

Get up! he urged.

He raised his head, looking at the monsters in the glass boxes; they weren’t watching him any longer. They were staring somewhere else. He followed their gaze to another part of the chamber and frowned; it was as if a fragment of cloud had detached from the sky and been trapped here. There was a snap. A spark cracked through the cloud. The air thickened, emitting a pungent scent.

Get up! Run! he heard himself urge again.

Something was unfolding; a growing heat, vibrations, crackles cut the air. Girvyn sprang to his feet and dashed toward the glass boxes. One stood empty, and he thrust his palm against the door, forcing it open.

He’d barely managed to climb inside and shut the door when a brilliant light erupted from the disturbance. In that blinding moment, he saw hundreds of glass containers illuminated in the chamber, and then the radiance subsided, revealing a blazing blue doorway, sizzling sparks snapping along its frame.

Through this strange door, he saw a fiery forest. A beast with a wolf’s head entered the chamber, followed by spiders carrying corpses on their backs. The dead wore the attire of the forest folk. Girvyn had never met a Forester, but he’d seen illustrations in the city library.

Then he noticed one person alive, a man being led by a giant in red armour. The Forester was missing a left arm.