Towering mangrove trees marked the gateway into Vall. They huddled together into one great wall, a barrier between seawater and the brackish bayou. The sea bowed to them, breaking into winding rivers that curved around silt sandbars. Gele rowed down the estuary, wary of the fat crocodiles watching him. But, the beast seemed far more interested in the fish that meandered around the thin mangrove roots. Grasses grew out of the soil and water, far taller than Gele. They were a stark purple, with a sheen that reflected off the calm stagnant river. Engulfed by the raw wilderness, the plantlife giggled as the breeze walked past, each blade of grass sharing a secret.
A pungent stench loomed over Gele. Sweat dripped down his forehead as the muggy air whisked around him. The swamp was no friend. The mangroves ruled the land and rivers, perhaps twice as tall as the Galu’s woodlands. The canopy was a deep red, trapping Gele under its roof. Red vines coiled around the trunks and branches. Among them, a crimson snake stalked him. It could only be seen when its blue tongue slipped from its mouth to smell the air. Owls with royal purple feathers rustled as they took off, sending soft noises soaring with each flap. Bats screeched a second later, and they rushed overhead like arrows. Their shouts chained together, a single terrible song. It did not take long for the owls to silence it.
Untamed bushes dotted the riverside. Inside the maze of shrubs, red hairless cats followed a boar. Squealing, the piglet leaped into the water, splashing through thick blankets of algae. The cats continued the hunt, running along bridges of fallen trees and ending the pursuit with one quick lash of their claws. Gele did not care to watch. Yet, in the aftermath, he caught a glimpse of the river’s bottom. Golden catfish fled from the boat. And manatees bumped the canoe’s hull. Giant wine-red salamanders—about seven feet long—patrolled the river’s bottom, mouths gaping open to catch the small fish who could not escape their jaws.
Mosquitoes buzzed in Gele’s ears as he stowed the canoe near a nest of thick brush. A fallen tree blocked the waterway. And, once he saw a horde of alligators farther down the river, Gele was pleased to travel on foot. That is, until every step sent him sinking in the thick mud. It took no time for him to be knee-deep in it.
Meanwhile, Sawyer pranced leisurely above the bog. “I remember so many places like this. Fuck mud, glad I never had to bother with it again,” she groaned as she watched Gele struggle. “But, I have to admit, I miss this more than most things in life.”
“It’s cold,” he muttered. The mud had now climbed up to his waist.
“Yeah,” Sawyer chuckled, “careful. I’ve had mud that goes up to your neck. Far preferable compared to cannonfire, I’ll say.”
“Now, of all times, I wish I was a spirit.” Gele reached for low-hanging branches, just in case.
Luck embraced Gele as the mud only became more shallow, leading to moist soil that did not try to swallow him. The swamp curled back, its territory conquered by the onset of endless jungle. Colossal trees built Vall’s rainforests, tall enough to scratch the clouds and with sturdy scarlet-red trunks so wide Sawyer could phase through and hide inside. They dwarfed anything Gele had seen before, Gulw’s palace, the Anima, even Allecros’s fire-spitting watchtowers. At their peaks, purple leaves fanned out, blotting out the sun with a thick violet roof. The majesty of the jungle smothered the Second Sea, replacing sea monsters with the giants’ quiet domination. “Like where the harpies used to live,” Sawyer muttered to herself, “but an entire world away.”
In between the ground and sky, red iguanas perched on branches and shared their space with skinny tree rats. They shot hisses and growls at each other, never allowing a second of silence. Cicadas blared their songs, trying to be heard too. Broad-winged moths fluttered through, blanketing the treetops as a swarm thousands strong. Yet, with the advent of one colorful bird—plumage bright like brimstone—the army of moths retreated into the sky, vanishing above the leaves.
Whilst making their escape, some moths fluttered down, identical to the cascading leaves. They dipped into the tall, shoulder-height grass and hid with their matching purple wings. Then, they scurried back into the air, gathering on the trees once more, around spouts hammered into the rough, bumpy bark. Buckets hung underneath, collecting the sap as it fiddled out drop by drop. The moths were drinking it now, having their own little feast. Gele stood atop a fallen limb. He looked out as far as the maze of overgrowth would let him. Every tree was tapped, and not one was left unharvested. The jungle had shifted in his eyes, no longer lush untamed wilderness but a farm at maximum efficiency. So many buckets, orange sticky blood, used for what?
The sweet smell of sap became all-consuming as he wandered through the high grass. “People could be near,” Sawyer whispered, wary that some could even hear her words. Cautious, Gele crept crouched and striding on the tips of his feet. Nowhere on Galu was like this. It was as if he had shrunk. The open ocean made him feel big, with how empty the plains of gray water were. Here, however, every blade of grass closed in, and chirps and rustles quarreled in an endless cacophony. The ground shuddered with each step as if the dirt was breathing. For a second, Gele felt something creep up his skin. A feeling like the Anima, like drinking Emned’s tea. All around him, he could sense it. And as the branches danced in the wind, he could have sworn the trees were watching, the soil and grass too. Everything here had invisible eyes, even the breeze. The draft came wistfully, tugging on his deep blue scarf. Gele followed it, having no other guide among the wilds.
The wind treated him well, leading him and the spirit to a clearing. There, the Second Sea was a refreshing blue, with white fish schooled into one great mass, matching the clouds. There were no monsters in the sky today. Yet, as Gele looked out among the clearing, he saw where they had gone.
Stone statues—high as Gele’s waist—dotted the violet meadow. About a dozen or so, they were placed with no clear pattern and had near to no similarities. One had tiny eyes and a hollow mouth devoid of teeth. Another had a narrow head and sharp fangs. And Sawyer walked right up to one with a person’s face, with scales carved into the stone. Though, the statue had spindly fins on its cheeks and no eyes at all. Flared gills on their neck made them a mermaid, or maybe a chimera.
Gele knelt down to inspect them closer. Chips of paint covered the stone, but storms and time had washed it away. Were these monuments to sea monsters? And if so, which waters did they come from? Gele! Sawyer heard it first, a rustle in the brush. Gele rose to his feet and brought himself closer to the ghost. Nothing else moved. Deeper in the jungle, he saw bones through the thicket.
Sawyer led the way to them, urging Gele to keep low. A skeleton lay quietly on the forest floor. Ants held it now, running along the white bridges carrying leaves and seeds in their jaws. Only a ribcage and a skull remained. Everything else was gone or buried beneath the dirt and leaves. A whale? Gele assumed, thinking of the night he met Sawyer. The spirits sent a carcass down from the Second Sea. No, this was too small, a baby perhaps? When examining the teeth and the twisted neck, Gele glanced back over to the statues, and he saw a creature resembling the bones. The morphed head was recreated in the monument. Carved lines matched fissures and broken spine. Glancing up at the Second Sea, Gele could only see it thanks to a small window in the canopy.
Stolen story; please report.
“Falling from the sky, a terrible fate,” Sawyer tsked. “Part of it must have hit the trees, or it would have exploded on impact. Maybe this one was eaten whole and crashed down inside something bigger. Whoever lives here made these statues of the corpses. Why? What’s the purpose?”
“Sawyer, do you see any other skeletons?” Gele asked as he scanned the dense void of purple. Statues populated the jungle, some squat and as short as the mushrooms that surrounded them. Others, in contrast, were pillars of basalt that leered at Gele from ten feet off the ground. A gnarled face adorned each stone monster, moss warping their scowls even more so. No matter where Gele went, he was being watched. He cursed that fact under his breath.
Though the statues made no straight path, Gele followed them as if they were one. Eventually, he would find Vall’s people if they had not already found him. Sawyer crept with him but occasionally climbed trees in order to gain vantage over the endless grass. “I used to do this as a girl, in the woods far outside the city,” she said proudly. Gele saw memories of old oaks and dirt footpaths as she spoke. “Used to spend all day up there, whittling with my pocket knife. Birds were good friends, same as squirrels, and. . . Wait, Gele, look!” She pointed far across the jungle. The memories disappeared and Vall took back its place in reality. Through Sawyer’s eyes, Gele saw it.
A spire of dead wood ruled atop a hill over another clearing of stark purple grass. The canopy of the charred tree had been stripped away by fire, leaving only a withered peak of black soot in its place. The trunk was as wide as Sawyer’s Harpy. And even though it clung to only a fraction of its true height, the tree could produce three whole warships from what remained, maybe more. But it was a mistake to assume the jungle’s emperor had died. Mushroom stalks clung to the bark, growing lush in the humid air. They reanimated the tree as a foundation for their new ecosystem.
Something else is living in there, Gele realized as he approached. Every step forward sent his skin shivering. This thing was not just a tree. Beneath the rot, the old bark twisted like ripples in waves. Mushrooms swirled, changing colors from brown to red to deep lustrous orange. Was it real? Gele blinked. The whirlpools inside the tree were still there, now glistening in colors he had never seen before. Waves of frigid air came seeping out from under the roots. A winter he never felt, like the snow of Chorllow, it brushed against his skin. The statues of sea monsters joined them too. They encircled the decayed shrine. Each of the basalt idols bowed their heads and lowered their tails. Again, the bark and mushrooms seeped, shining new colors. Changing hues and brightness in a momentary flash. The jungle unraveled behind Gele as he advanced towards the spire. He invited Sawyer to join him but met eyes with a ghost paralyzed by panic. “Never,” she croaked, aghast, “never have I experienced this before.”
Gele pushed forward, curiosity surmounting fear. I have already faced the unknown. He thought of the water, the Second Sea, the sacrifices, and the rituals. There is an endpoint to everything, even if I will never reach it. He was standing right before the dead tree. Someone, maybe eons ago, carved pictures into the old wrinkled bark. Masked figures ran with spears up the mountains of fungi to kill monsters with indiscernible shapes. Little pictures fought wars that spanned each root. Eras of clashing armies were remembered on the nearby trees. Sap trickled down the warriors like rivers of orange blood. The sweet smell was intoxicating, fresh, and free. But, that fragment of bliss vacated Gele’s senses when he reached the gate to another world.
Under the tree, a hovel of clay and stone bricks nestled itself under the dead tree and its web of roots. A hole that seemed far too large to be a doorway tore the cracked and slouching wall. Close to collapsing, the opening beckoned Gele closer before it all rotted away. Beyond it was a tunnel that went deep down below the earth. Air seeped out, in a rhythm akin to gasping, with such a chill that ice coated the burrow’s walls. At the end, or what Gele guessed was the end, a radiant orange light flickered, near blinding and, thus, incomprehensible.
One step and he would tumble, sliding on slick ice that would take him to the blank orange void. What was down there waiting for him? Was something staring back up at him? The hair on his chest and neck stood up as goosebumps prickled. His heart thrashed inside his chest. But something in him, either mind or soul, felt the pull. He stood on the precipice of it and readied himself for the plunge.
“Gele!” Sawyer screamed, shrill and afraid. Gele knew she would call him back, but then she shouted, “behind you!” Reflexes drew him back before reason did. Pivoting, he looked at the maze of jungle and noise. And there something stood, blending in perfectly with the stone leviathans and monsters.
She was purple as the grass she leaped out of—like a woman made from wood and vines. Gele thought her a golem at first. Clay and chalk painted her whole body, patterned stripes of violet and green tangled together into a hypnotizing flurry of snaking lines and endless swirls. Not even the fish of the coral reefs could rival the vibrancy in the paint. Yet, Gele could still see the old scars and rippling muscles. Lean and wiry, he was reminded of the old blacksmiths, the ones who stood at the mastery of their craft. The women carried two tools: a sword crafted from the jawbone of a long-dead beast and an axe with a head of sharpened flint. These weapons hung at her sides, held lightly in her grasp, and bound to her wrists with leather straps. Her stance, relaxed and limp, mimicked a wilted flower, undisturbed by the breeze. Gele stood frozen in turn, staring at her. He could not read his enemy. Aside from the paint patterns, all she wore was a leather breechcloth, tattered sandals, and a mask that concealed her face.
That wooden mask haunted Gele with a petrifying glare. The eyes were wide circles—rings of animal teeth cycled around the woman’s real eyes. Two long ears perched above them at the top, like a lynx. The mask had no nose or mouth, though, only the big daunting spirals on a field of violet speckled with dark green. The woman’s face remained concealed, but shaggy black hair grew down to her shoulders, decorated with feather charms. If her hair did not move in the wind, Gele would have thought she was a statue. All she did was watch him. And, from behind the mask, raspy breaths echoed in the silence.
She’s waiting for me, giving me the first move. Gele and Sawyer thought the same thing at the same moment. The spirit tapped her fingers against the empty scabbard on her belt, thinking of how Gele could close the distance. His own response, though, was to raise his hands. “I do not wish to fight,” he muttered softly, unsure of what else could be listening. “I’m from Galu. I’m a dancer. My name is Gele of Melaopel.” Would calling himself warrior be more helpful? The blue scarf felt tight around his neck as it collected sweat. The muggy air helped none.
“Invaders are not welcome on Vall, Gele of Melaopel,” the woman hissed. Her voice was stern and fierce, like sizzling coals. “I am Coan, the Warlord of Vall.”
Gele lowered his hands, “I will leave and never speak of what I saw here.” He did not know what he feared more, Coan or the dead tree he now held his back to.
“But you have seen too much,” Coan broke into a run, surging forward. Her sandals stomped against the ground with each step.
Gele, instincts screaming at him, lunged to the side, nearly springing off the ground. He thrust his foot out, trying to kick the warlord away. Sawyer yelled something, but it was too late. There was no chance for escape. Coan had already caught up to him. And as he tried to dodge, the jawbone snapped to the side and ripped into Gele’s flesh.