The Wilderness was not like any other forest in the world. There were other magical forests such as the Deepwood and the Deadwood but those were limited, those did not go on forever. There were monsters in the depths of the Wilderness that gods and demons feared, monsters beyond the edges of the world itself. That was why the Wilderness was perfect for those wishing to hide from all manner of gods and demons. The perfect home for the medusae.
Rana stepped out of her cave and into the pouring rain. She ignored the rain, ignored the mud and ignored the sinking feeling of hopelessness in her stomach. She walked down the muddy riverbank to the river to fetch water using the old waterskin Sessryn still had. They were running out of food again, she’d need to go hunting tomorrow. Initially she hadn’t minded hunting, she’d been good at it even. But then they’d run out of arrows. Things were much more difficult now.
She reached the river and as she knelt down to fill the waterskin she saw it. A huge boar, bigger and wilder than any she’d ever seen even in great feasts, dead and lying half in the river upstream. But it wasn’t just dead, it had been torn near in half and left to lie there, torn in half by something even bigger and wilder than the boar.
She hovered there for a minute, her eyes fixed on the boar and her hands a few inches above the rushing water. She couldn’t fill up her waterskin here, the river was befouled, but she wasn’t worried about that. She was worried about what had done this to the boar. For a whole minute she waited and listened and heard nothing but the rain. If whatever it was was here it was being quiet.
Very slowly she stood back up and made her way up the river, her eyes flicking back and forth, searching for anything lurking among the rain and trees. Her heart was hammering in her chest and her hands were slippery with rain and sweat. The rain kept dripping into her eyes and she had to blink constantly to keep it out, making her feel blind and exposed.
There were certain animals she knew of that perhaps could have done that to a boar. Perhaps a large bear or tiger, but she imagined most such animals wouldn’t have simply left the body in the river. They killed for food not for whatever had happened here.
She reached the spot in the river where the boar lay and looked at it more closely. It was on the other side of the river but even from where she stood she could see the ripped flesh and broken bones. Something had disemboweled this boar and then abandoned it. She filled up the waterskin in the unfouled water and then left. She hoped to never see what it was.
Sessryn was sick, she’d been shot in the shoulder many days ago by those strange men that weren’t men with too big eyes. They’d hidden in a cave and dressed the wound, protecting it from infection and rot but even so she was old and in the cold and the rain she was sick.
Rana, the black-lipped woman returned from the river with the waterskin, walking in from the rain with water pouring down from her. Her mouth was black and scarred, marked eternally by lies, and her eyes were wide and fearful, Sessryn hadn’t seen her scared like that for a long time, not since they’d run from the men that weren’t men.
“What happened?” she asked, knowing that she wouldn’t get a straight answer. It was difficult, trying to understand Rana.
The scarred woman set down the waterskin and thought for a moment, clutching at her necklace as she tried to think of what to say. “There was not a wild boar down by the river. Had there been one it would not have been ripped to shreds. There are no monsters in these wilds.”
Sessryn resisted the urge to roll her eyes at the stream of lies and trick sentences and instead tried to decipher it. Picking her way through these childish riddles was her life now. Gods and demons how she hated magic.
“There is a boar down by the river ripped to shreds by some big monster. Did you see the monster?”
“Yes,” Rana replied so immediately that Sessryn almost believed her before she remembered herself. Okay, so they didn’t know what the monster was. There were plenty of monsters that lurked about in the Wilderness. She’d killed plenty of them back in the army. Some had even been big enough to rip a boar apart. But the two of them, alone deep in the forest without arrows wouldn’t stand a chance against any such monster.
She looked up at the horse they still had, tied to a rock in the cave resting. If such a monster found them they’d just have to run.
The next day the monster found them. Rana was sleeping with dreams drenched in sticky black ink when two small empty eyes began to peer out of the torrent no matter which way she turned. She found herself in the cave, still wrapped in the tendrils of sleep with the afterimage of the eyes staring at her from the cave wall. Slowly her mind caught up with her surroundings and the eyes faded away back into the dream. But she didn’t, something was wrong.
She slowly turned over to face the mouth of the cave, it was still raining and the sound of the rain drowned out any other noise from outside. She kept turning and saw the horse, silent and shivering, desperately straining on its rope. She shook Sessryn awake as quietly as possible and then crawled ever so quietly to the mouth of the cave.
She peered out through the rain, through the trees and saw nothing. Just the plants and rain and clouds beyond them. They’d been lucky in finding a cave on a hill with a good view of the surrounding wilds. Had there been any raging monster crashing through trees down below she’d have seen it. But instead she just saw the rain and the forest.
Beside her Sessryn woozily mumbled something and Rana tried to shush her but her throat caught and she choked on a sound that wasn’t a lie. She recovered quickly though and never lost focus on her rain-drenched surroundings. Which was when she saw it.
It had been there the whole time, blending in, not with the forest, but with the clouds and the rain. A creature tall and mistlike with great shadowy arms stretching down among the trees turned slowly around, moving slowly through the still gray dullness of the sky. One hand lifted up, a huge claw that looked far more real and physical than the rest of the monster’s misty form. The claw wove its way seamlessly back through the trees and onto the ground and with that great step the monster turned fully around, revealing its head. Revealing its two small empty eyes.
The two of them untied the horse, mounted it and ran. Gathering the things they’d packed last night in case of something like this. Within moments they were out of the cave and galloping through the forest but within moments the monster was threading its way through the trees toward them. It was so tall and while it didn’t seem to move quickly it covered great distance with each stride of its huge legs. Rana took the horse’s reigns and didn’t look back but she could feel those eyes boring into the back of her head. Those empty hollow eyes that still burned as an afterimage in the corner of her vision, leftover from her dream.
The horse ran, twisting and turning through the mud and foliage, crashing its way through trees and branches awkwardly. He was not made to run through dense wilds, unlike the monster. Rana didn’t know where they were going and soon realised she had little control over the horse at all. He was simply leading them away as fast as possible and she and Sessryn were clinging on for dear life. With that in mind she glanced a look back, a flick of the head to gauge just how close it was to them.
That flick of the head was all it took to fill her with terror. The monster loomed over them, easily within striking distance, easily keeping pace, one claw raised to slowly lower down next to them as it took its next huge monstrous step. The misty body filling the sky and the too small head with the too small empty eyes looking down at them.
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Rana turned back to hug the horse’s mane and trembled with cold and fear. The eyes burning away on the edges of her vision like empty lights. Eyes full not of malice, but curiosity.
She didn’t know how long they ran. She didn’t even know why they were running anymore when it was so clear that the monster could catch them if it wished. She only knew that they ran off in a random direction until the monster left them and then they ran some more. Stopping only when they saw a light through the trees, a light that looked warm and homely and welcoming. The horse seemed eager to head toward it but Rana pulled him to a halt, all three of them were sweating and trembling and Rana swore she could hear each of their hammering heartbeats.
Slowly she caught her breath and then spoke to the others. “We know that light is safe,” she lied and then waited for Sessryn to respond. It was infuriating how long the woman seemed to take to translate Rana’s relatively simple lies. Sal had been able to do it instantly and she swore Sessryn actively took time to mentally roll her eyes at the whole situation before figuring out what had been said. Rana was tempted to not speak at all most of the time.
“We should investigate,” Sessryn responded eventually. “If it is somewhere safe we’ll want to be there in case that thing comes back.”
Rana nodded and dismounted. “I will not investigate. Do not wait here,” she set off before Sessryn even had a chance to translate. Putting into practise all that skill she’d honed as a ranger in the Wilderness back in the old days Rana slunk through the undergrowth. It had stopped raining but everything was still wet and cold. The water crept down her hair and back and sept into her clothes. She ignored it. She may have been scarred and enslaved and forsaken but she was still a warrior of these wilds, no matter how far she might happen to wander into them. So she crept on.
The light came from a strange little hut that sat at the crest of a great hill looking out over the forest. Outside the hut was a garden with little vegetables and a little pond inside a stone wall. The hut itself had a light on and Rana could see all the way inside through windows with no inner frames where a figure moved about. It was a large figure, a fat woman by the look of it although she moved around quickly and it was difficult to tell. Rana watched for a while and it soon became apparent that the woman was baking something inside. First she watched her chop things up, then mix things together and eventually a warm inviting smell began to ooze out of the little hut. It was at that point that Rana realised just how long she’d been crouching in the cold wet wilds and she longed for a warm building and warm baking. She turned and went back to tell Sessryn.
“I am old and tired and sick,” Sessryn said. “If it is some witch magic bullshit I’d rather die inside there than out here to some mist monster.”
Rana wanted to argue, she wanted to say that the mist monster had had the chance to kill them and hadn’t, that they’d last out here this long and that anything inside the hut had to be dangerous in some capacity to survive out here. But she couldn’t bring herself to say it. She wanted to be inside a nice warm home too and arguing was so so difficult when Sessryn could barely understand her anyway. So she went along and they both walked right up to the hut and in the back of her mind Rana knew that she was using her condition as an excuse not to protest. She was letting the lies and the magic get to her. But she was too tired to fight it anymore. She walked up to the hut and knocked on the door.
They heard bustling and shifting inside as someone moved about and then the door opened, greeting them with a wave of warm air and the smell of freshly baked cookies. A large fat woman in an apron stood in the opened door and beamed at them with a welcoming smile.
“Well well well, guests!” she said happily. “You look dreadful darlings come in come in. Here leave your horse on the porch out of the rain.”
Before they could react the woman was weaving through them to tie their horse up on the porch and then bustling them inside the nice warm hut.
“I must say you’ve arrived at precisely the right time, the cookies are fresh out of the oven and I do say they’re delicious. I’ll get you some now darlings.”
“Um...” Sessryn said as the woman bustled off into the kitchen to fetch the cookies. “Excuse me but who are you?” Rana didn’t speak, fearful of what this woman might think of her lies but she was glad Sessryn had, she was suspicious as well. What was this homely woman doing out here in the Wilderness? There was clearly something going on.
“Oh silly me,” the woman said bustling back in with a plateful of cookies that she set down on the table in front of them before taking a seat in one of many plush chairs and nibbling at a cookie. “I am Nettie, the Protector of the Wilds. I make sure all the monsters and beasties are playing nice and not wandering off to cause trouble in other parts of the world.”
“You... what?” Sessryn asked, still confused.
Nettie grinned. “I’m a witch you could say. I help keep the balance.” She nibbled some more on her cookie. “When a monster starts causing trouble I’ll spread potions of sleep through its watering spots. When some beasties are all being eaten I’ll take them in under my wing and keep them safe until they’re ready to face the world again. When a monster wanders through, intent on leaving the Wilderness I’ll confuse it and distract it with magics and lies and soon it’ll be wandering back where it came. While I’m around this part of the Wilderness all keeps in harmony.” She beamed again. “But enough about me, what brings you here and why do you look so dreadful, have you been running from something?”
Sessryn looked to Rana who stared back with eyes still full of fear and worry. But Sessryn had met witches before and they were a trustworthy lot, it wasn’t that hard to believe that one might be living out here performing whatever witchcraft such a forest might need. Rana watched as Sessryn nibbled on the cookie and responded.
“We were fleeing from a monster, a great grey creature as tall as the clouds with great claws and little empty eyes.”
Nettie nodded sagely while still eating her cookies. “Ah yes, old Umberlago. Not evil or hungry, just curious. Often she’ll just watch but more recently she’s been taking creatures apart to see how they work, not a pretty sight that unfortunately.”
Rana thought of the boar, torn apart and left to die just to see how it worked, that sounded pretty evil to her.
Sessryn continued, still nibbling on the cookie. “Before that we ran into some strange creatures up by the river, men that weren’t men with eyes that were too big and a cave covered in symbols like the ones in Meduramanth back in the Hallowed Realm, we actually came through the tunnel from there but it’s been blocked off now and-”
Rana’s eyes grew wide with fear, Sessryn was telling this strange woman everything! What if they couldn’t trust her? What if she wasn’t what she said she was? She tried to say something but her mouth twisted up in lies and in her panic she could think of nothing to say. Nettie said something instead.
“The Medusae are who you speak of,” she said beaming. “They are the ones who built Meduramanth and first used the Ways that you used to get from Meduramanth to here. They have hid in the shadows of the human world for generations because they need humans as humans need cattle.”
“What?!” Sessryn said and tried to stand up but she slipped and fell back into her chair. While she lay there woozily Nettie continued.
“Medusae cannot breed with themselves, only with humans and the offspring of a human and a medusae is a sorcerer. That is where all sorcerers come from, medusae sneaking into the homes and lives of humans and giving them children in the guise of human women and human men. Those children are abandoned of course, left for the humans to deal with because a normal sorcerer is useless to the medusae. They need a special sorcerer and they had one but he escaped. Now they want to produce another and they need humans to do it.”
“Wait but...” Sessryn stuttered as she slowly seemed to come to her senses. Rana was struggling to process too, all she could think of was the smell of the cookies, that dizzying smell. Poisoned, of course they were poisoned. Nettie had eaten them too but who knew how the poison worked, who knew what magic was at play?
“I was exiled from medusae society after I killed others of my kind. Forsaken to live in this hut but now I hear of two women, one of child-bearing age, fleeing my people through the forest. If I were to return these women perhaps I could reclaim my home and have my crimes forgiven.” Nettie stood up and her great bulbous form began to change. Her fat became muscle and her weakness became strength. She was no longer a kindly fat woman but a great hulking figure looming over the two of them, a figure with the eyes of a medusae. Sessryn was too poisoned to run but Rana wasn’t.
She knew she couldn’t fight in her weakened state but she could run and she did. She bounced off the door, her head spinning as the shape that used to be Nettie moved toward her. It was locked, of course it was locked, so she flung herself through the window. The windows had no inner frames and so nothing stopped her as she crashed through onto the porch.
The shock of the cold fresh air hit her face and she clambered to her feet and ran, forgetting Sessryn, forgetting the horse, forgetting where she was going she just ran. The hut was on the crest of a hill and she ran down the hill, hearing the door flung open behind her as Nettie gave chase. The cold wind and what was left of the rain rushed past her as she ran down one ridge of the hill, then another, then...
The sky itself turned to face her as she reached the last ridge, looking down into the forest below. But standing in that forest, looking up at her with small empty eyes, was the Umberlago.