Chapter 17 - The Warped Forest

North of Penrith, Vanstead Dukedom of Augustein Year 995

Amara whistled as they walked through the increasingly dense trees. North of the mines, the forest once again took over, and the dirt path was completely overtaken by vegetation. Isolde kept walking confidently north, so Amara wasn’t too worried about getting lost. Instead, she admired the scenery around them and kept one eye out for signs of the Warped Forest and another out for a possible second Aberration attack.

Amara wasn’t sure what she was expecting. Even in Edith’s most detailed, most vivid descriptions, part of the allure of the Warped Forest was its ability to escape total description. Edith said it was a place that defied definitions and dissolved boundaries. A place that bridged the line between nightmare and dream.

Ahead of her, Isolde slowed down, and Amara matched her pace, head snapping forward again.

“I believe we’re close,” Isolde remarked. Her own eyes scanned the trees around them—tall, thick trunks and hanging leaves. “From what Wallace told me, there should be a small clearing up ahead separating the Warped Forest from the Arabesque Woods.” She turned to Amara. “We should proceed with caution. It would be rather unfortunate if we survived an Aberration attack only to perish because we failed to recognize our location.” Her eyes sparkled with humor.

Amara chuckled. “Yeah, that’s one way to put it.” She peered forward, and the trees did seem to thin up ahead, the shadows pulling back slightly to make room for the sky.

Isolde stepped forward, pace considerably slower now, and Amara walked beside her.

As Isolde had predicted, daylight streamed through larger and larger gaps in the canopy and between the tree trunks. Finally, Amara squinted as they crossed the threshold and stepped into a clear strip of tall, waving grasses. Sunlight beamed into her eyes, and Amara raised a hand to shield them, taking a second to adjust to the sudden brightness.

When her vision adjusted, she lowered her hand, and a wide grin spread across her face.

Across the narrow sea of grass, a second forest loomed in the distance, but “forest” didn’t feel like quite the right word for it. The ground was an inky void from which sharp shapes jutted out. The generously dubbed “trees” were coiling, twisting waves. One formed a wide arch over the forest’s top, another spiraled in jagged motions that dug in and out of the earth, weaving between dirt and sky. Spindly branches rippled and stretched like fingers. Lumps of pulsing dark matter shifted and swayed over the forest floor.

Amara watched as one of those shapes trembled, then fell apart in rough, scattered pieces. From each section that hit the ground, new coiling masses rose. A tree bent over to the side, the center of its trunk expanding into a thick, bulbous core. Spikes grew from branches. Silhouettes became soft, then hard again.

In its twisting, moving state, the forest looked alive, like a great slumbering beast whose breaths were mirrored in the pulses of the ground. The decay, rot, and the lack of leaves and greenery made those shapes stand out all the more starkly against the clear blue sky. It was an unnatural landscape that possessed a violent allure. This was a place where the living went to die and where those same corpses morphed into harsh approximations of life.

It was disturbing and, Amara thought, strangely beautiful.

Amara took a step forward, her feet crossing into the dividing grasses proper. The wind felt stronger here, or maybe it was because every movement felt enhanced by the shifting surroundings. Amara smiled widely.

“You were right, Edith,” she said quietly. “It really is cool.” Amara spun around and saw Isolde still waiting near the tree line. She waved at her enthusiastically, and the woman raised an eyebrow. Her eyes darted over to the trees, and after a moment of contemplation, Isolde stepped forward to join Amara.

“You seem to be enjoying this,” Isolde remarked.

“Damn right I am.” Amara laughed. “I used to hear stories about it all the time. Never actually imagined it very well.” She glanced over at Isolde, temporarily putting a hold on her elation to study the other woman. “You don’t seem to like it much, though,” she remarked casually.

Isolde smiled wryly. “I do also find it rather magnificent, albeit in an eerie way.” She shook her head. “Unfortunately, when I stare at those trees, I can’t erase the thought that this forest is merely another example of what the loss of magic does. Of how reliant the world is on it. How easily it breaks apart when magic is gone.”

Amara was silent for a few moments, watching Isolde, who didn’t move her gaze away from the Warped Forest. Amara’s eyes wandered down to the woman’s gloved hands, then down to her own uncovered ones.

She thought of Joan walking with the heavy thump of her cane, body wrapped in bandages and half her face permanently numb. She remembered Colm collapsing from exhaustion even more quickly than Joan did, how the colder seasons left him constantly shivering no matter how many layers he piled on or how close he sat to the flame.

The world ran on magic. It permeated every speck of dust, every drop of blood, and the loss of it began a steady disintegration before, eventually, death. She’d heard of former watchmen and even some Roses, retired after draining their magic reserves, who chose to end their own lives rather than continue to live and watch their bodies break down. It was why so many refused to use magic altogether, why ore, which could reduce the amount of one’s reserves used, was so highly valued.

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Amara turned to face the forest. She was well aware of her own reserves approaching the halfway mark. The experiments had drained them quickly, and it didn’t matter that her reserves were a little larger than average if her magic output meant going through them many times faster than someone with the variability to use less. She hummed to herself.

“You’re not wrong.”

Isolde turned to face her, her expression surprised. “I didn’t think you’d agree with me.”

“I mean, there’s not much to disagree with. You’re right about the magic thing, can’t exactly argue with that.” Amara shrugged. Her eyes traced one particularly jagged form that looked like a rough brushstroke painted onto the scenery. “I think that makes me like the forest more though,” she said.

“How so?”

Amara pointed at the twisting forms. “It’s kind of beautiful,” she said. “And if losing magic can create something like this, well, I think that’s uplifting, in a way.” She chuckled. “Goes to show you don’t have to go out quietly.”

“You—” Isolde stopped herself. She closed her eyes, then opened them again after a few moments of silence and shook her head with a smile. A breeze whistled past, and Amara enjoyed the feeling of the wind on her bare skin.

“Nevermind,” Isolde said. She turned away to watch the forest again. “I respect that outlook. It’s rather inspiring.”

“Well it’s definitely not as morbid as yours, that’s for sure.”

Isolde chuckled. “I’d argue it’s even more morbid.”

“Not as pessimistic, then.”

The two stood in comfortable silence for a while longer, watching the forest shift and reform itself over and over again in front of their eyes. Finally, Amara managed to tear her eyes away long enough to bend down. Isolde watched curiously.

Between the tall blades of grass, scattered stones littered the ground. Amara zoned in on one of the larger ones. It took a little tugging, but it was easy enough to dislodge it from the dirt. Amara stood again, the stone in hand. She eyed it, then the forest contemplatively. After a few test tosses, Amara reeled her arm back, then lunged, heaving the stone straight into the forest in the same motion. It flew across the sky in a wide arch before crashing into the ground, landing just between the undulating trees and rolling a few times before coming to a halt. Amara nodded, satisfied, and straightened again. She patted some of the dirt off her hands.

“Might I ask what you’re doing?” Isolde looked amused. Amara turned to her with a grin.

“Well, I figured since I’m already here, might as well get the full experience, right?” She pointed at the stone. “I want to see the whole process of how the forest warps things myself.”

For a second Isolde just blinked at her, then she chuckled.

“Ah, I see.” She smiled, shaking her head. “Unfortunately the forest only actively warps new objects when it’s expanding. It happens in pulses.”

Amara’s eyes widened. “Wait, so you mean I could walk in right now and be totally fine?”

“Theoretically, yes. But given the unpredictable nature of the movement, I would advise against it.”

Amara hummed thoughtfully. She turned back to the forest, eyeing the still perfectly mundane rock. “They were saying the forest would move in a week, right?”

“That’s the impression I got when I spoke to the tavern owner, yes.”

“So then—”

Before she could finish speaking, something shifted. Amara’s jaw snapped shut.

Up ahead, within the boundaries of the Warped Forest, the fallen stone began to quiver. It was only a slight tremble at first, so subtle that Amara might’ve believed it was a trick of her eyes if it didn’t grow steadily stronger until the entire stone pulsed. Its formerly hard surface began to wave, undulating and jutting out in spikes before pulling back. Its entire shape contorted, lurching and folding in on itself while other sections stretched into thin strands.

The way it moved and shifted, twisting and bending so sharply, reminded Amara of a twitching, convulsing body. James’s limbs flailing on the cell floor, her own arms jerking when the magicians made their first incisions. Twisting, jerking silhouettes outlined in burning flames, the blackened, outstretched arms in the aftermath of the destruction, raised towards the sky in desperation. The movement of small bodies in pain.

A sharp tug yanked Amara out of her thoughts. She blinked, clearing her vision and seeing the stone now morphed into one of those strange, shifting lumps. She turned her head and saw that Isolde had grabbed her arm. Amara’s first instinct was to yank her hand away, but her limbs felt oddly heavy, as though they weren’t her own.

“We need to go,” Isolde said, voice urgent. Belatedly, Amara realized that at some point they’d returned back to the Arabesque Woods proper. She couldn’t feel any of the tall grasses anymore.

Amara inhaled slowly, then exhaled, letting the feeling of clear air filling her lungs ground her. Her muscles slowly relaxed, and Isolde let go of her hand. Amara glanced back at the Warped Forest.

“What’s going on?” she said slowly. Isolde frowned.

“It seems the town’s estimates were wrong.” Her eyes shifted over to the warped stone, then back, her shoulders drawn into a line of tension. “The forest is already beginning to move again.”

Amara frowned at that. “How long before it reaches the town?”

“I’d guess a few hours at most.”

Amara’s hands wandered over to her bag, tightening and loosening her grip on the straps. “We have to warn them,” she said. Isolde nodded slowly.

“It would’ve posed a much bigger issue if we hadn’t been here to see it,” she muttered. The woman shook her head. “If we return now, the townspeople should be able to gather their things and evacuate with time left to spare.”

Amara nodded. She glanced back one more time at the forest, its distant, looming silhouette, before peeling her eyes away and sprinting down the path back towards Penrith.