Danyais continued up the hill on foot, his feet sinking deep into the green mud. Soon, he was out of breath and each step he took burned his calves, the ground sometimes devouring him up to his knees. This hill is a muddy green fortress! Danyais looked back up at the oval cut in the translucent canopy. He slipped, falling forward, when his hand hit the ground it gave way, his arm sinking into the mud, and his face submerged momentarily into the green mud. He pushed himself back up and wiped his face and hands with his black traveling cape.

“Are you okay, Majesty!” Zander yelled from somewhere.

“Zander, why are you yelling? You have just lost me the element of surprise,” Danyais responded while spitting mud out of his mouth.

“You can blame your horse for the whole lost thing, all that heavy breathing and trampling it is making it so you can be heard back in Crest!” Zander yelled even louder, not caring if they alerted anyone now since they had the hill secured. Danyais placed his hand on the ground, trying to push up, but his arm sunk again into the soft ground up to his elbow. Danyais pulled his arm free, somehow managing to stand up, and turned back around to face the bottom of the hill where his men took up positions.

“It is not the horse making all the noise,” Danyais said back, knowing that Zander had picked this moment to enact his revenge on him.

“Out of shape, my king?” Zander said, trying to feign concern for his health.

“I am fine! It is just that the ground is not favorable!” Danyais yelled back at them. He was not sure, but Danyais thought he heard laughter from multiple sources. He turned back around and plowed ahead up the hill.

The closer Danyais got to the tree, he could see signs of a house carved into the tree. The house was done in such a way a person could not tell from a distance. There were windows cut into the tree, but there was no glass to reflect light. Moss hung in front of the lower cut windows, obscuring them altogether. He tilted his head, looking further up the tree, and noticed a thick broken branch. At the end, where the branch seemed to be broken, a thin trail of smoke leaked from it. Danyais saw other branches where smoke was faintly escaping. It was like an old trick Wendell had taught him when he was younger. If you build a fire in the hollow of a tree or at the base of a tree with a lot of leaves, then the smoke gets dispersed as it hits the branches and leaves, making it harder to be spotted.

As Danyais got closer, the ground dried out, offering his burning legs a reprieve. He passed another tree and was surprised to see a horse eating hay. A horse! The animal was housed in a stable carved into a smaller but still large tree sharing the hill. Danyais passed another tree, and he saw pigs were enclosed in a pen. A larger pig gazed at the muddy man curiously before flopping into a mud puddle and rolling over in the mud. Sending wet sloshing sounds and chunks of mud flinging at the other pigs nearby. The pig stood back up, looking back at Danyais as if comparing itself to his muddy appearance. Danyais looked at himself, shaking his hand, flinging some of the excess mud back at the pig who just grunted and flopped on its side. He heard chickens clucking, pulling his attention just as they darted into another tree behind a moss curtain. He could see the door leading to their coup.

Danyais turned around and looked at his men at the bottom of the hill and realized none of them could see what he saw from the site lines they had. The layout of this settlement is done in perfect concealment. He marveled, looking around at each structure again. Gazing at the ground, he saw the paths cut into the ground from continuous use, all leading back to the door at the larger tree. Danyais arrived at the door, taking a moment for him to find it, even though he knew it was there. He touched the door, feeling for a handle.

“A knock is what a civilized person would do when coming to a person’s home,” a raised voice said from behind the door, startling Danyais for a moment.

“I am King…” Danyais was interrupted.

“So, that is why you stand out in that gaudy silver-golden armor of yours, though it isn’t as gaudy as before,” the voice curtly said with sarcasm.

Danyais looked down at the armor he was wearing. The hill did maul him good as he ascended it, leaving him caked in green mud and grime. There were moments when he thought he would lose his boots to this accursed hill. Almost the entirety of his front body was covered in a layer of green mud, including his face. Danyais could make out the head of the dragon on his breastplate, the rest of his house emblem was below a layer of green mud. His gauntlets were just as green, and his cape was ruined. Danyais found himself in a position he was not used to. He felt a mixture of both embarrassment and annoyance. He hoped it did not sound in his voice when he spoke. “I have come in search of a pow…”

“Uncivilized,” the voice responded, cutting off his words again.

“Pardon me?” Danyais asked. There was a long moment of silence. Uncivilized is keeping your King outside waiting, Danyais thought at being annoyed by just a voice. There was a long silence, it was as if both people were having a competition to see who would cave in first. Feeling even more annoyed now, Danyais finally knocked on the door.

“Enter, the handle is at the top, and wipe your feet, else you can go talk to the pigs,” the voice said. Danyais scraped his boots against the ground the best he could and felt for the handle, pawing at the door as if he was some drunkard messing with a tavern wench. Where is the bloody handle? Even after being told of the handle’s general location, it still took Danyais a while for him to find the door handle, it being covered in moss, hid it most effectively. The door swung open. The door was just a little shorter than Danyais, and the light not being repressed anymore spilled out into the forest along with aromatic smells of herbs and meat cooking.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

Danyais crouched down to avoid hitting his head, stepping through the doorway. It is a house carved inside the tree! Danyais eyes darted back and forth, looking at everything, leaving him in awe. The tree was hollowed out, and there was a staircase cascading up inside to several floors carved from the tree itself. The room he was in was spacious enough for several people to occupy. There was a kitchen area off to the right that, even though it was small, it was spacious enough to allow at least three people to work comfortably prepping meals. The wood was all polished from use and oils; the floors higher up, were carved in half circles, extending about half the width of the tree to match the aesthetics of the staircase.

On the second floor, Danyais saw bookcases carved into the tree filled with books. There were plants drying, tied together with twine in batches or already dried hanging all around from hooks digging into the tree. Glass jars filled with different colors of liquids were being heated by flame, making bubbling sounds. There was a scent of pipe smoke faintly in the air. Books and scrolls lay on tables, and chairs and some were stacked to the sides of the stairs in such a way one can still traverse the stairs upwards. A man was sitting with his back facing him in a hooded robe, holding a long stem pipe in his hand, faint wisps of smoke rising from it.

“What do you want?” the man asked, turning to face him, lowering his hood. The man appeared to be younger than Danyais. His black hair was long and unkempt.

“I am in search of a magus, your master perhaps,” Danyais said to the younger man, stepping further into the center of the room.

“There are no servants here. You look nothing like your father,” the man amusedly said, standing up and walking over to Danyais. He circled around Danyais, inspecting him as if buying livestock from a farmer.

“My Fa-Fa-Father?” Danyais asked, bewildered about the sudden change of the topic in the conversation. Before he could follow up with a question, the man forged on with the conversation.

“It has been a while, but I do not recall your father being green,” the man said, motioning to a mirror.

Danyais walked over to the mirror and looked at his reflection. He already knew his breastplate was stained green with mud, but now Danyais saw his face. This is what the men were laughing about. No doubt, Zander had issued an order for the men to be quiet and not alert him about his stained green face.

“I inadvertently saved your life once,” the man said. Danyais turned to face him. A small clay jar with a wax seal was tossed at him, and Danyais snagged it out of the air quickly. “I guess I can save you from a green face now. This jar contains soap that will cut through the staining properties of the mud. Use it the next time you bathe,” he explained.

“I thank you, but how does one inadvertently save a life? I have a friend you should talk to,” Danyais said, smiling. This is the man we have been searching for, but how is he so young still? Few outside of the trusted King’s Guards or the royal family knew about the attempt on his life when he was just a toddler. “Clyden?” Danyais asked, still unsure if he was the magus he was in search of. The person he sought, by all accounts, should have been at the least in his seventies, if not older, and frail. The man before him did not even present a day over thirty and there was nothing old about him at all.

Sensing the curiosity in the King and the endless questions to come with those curiosities, Clyden spoke up rudely, “I know you must have questions, but know this. I will not answer any of them. I could spend a thousand lifetimes, and you wouldn’t even understand. Will you stop wasting my time now and tell me what you want?”

Danyais was at a loss for words. This man was crude at best. How Clyden talked to him infuriated him. If Clyden were to address him like this in the halls of his castle, the servants would beg for the honor to take his life. Danyais gripped his sword hilt, knuckles turning white from the pressure. Clyden looked at him blankly, not even showing a bit of care about Danyais obvious anger. Danyais bit the insides of his cheek to calm down, releasing his grip on his sword.

“Smart of you,” Clyden said.

“It has to deal with vrollocs. We only thought vrollocs were legends, but there is a dread horde marching on my northern kingdom. To make matters worse, eight months ago, a storm razed the entire southern portion of Loudas. The dead from the storm was unimaginable and the recovery efforts we had to postpone, but…”

“The living takes precedence,” Clyden finished saying. Danyais just had the words plucked from his mouth; it was a saying his father taught him.

“Can you read minds?” Danyais questioned him, worried the magus would take offense at some of the thoughts he had about him.

“Who do you think taught it to your father? Read minds? HA,” Clyden said, laughing and sneering at the king’s question. “Have you not asked for aid? What about Sukkan? Can they not help?”

Sukkan was another one of the other four great kingdoms in Gawraith. The desert nation of Sukkan, with its numerous underwater rivers, was positioned to the west of Loudas, spreading out along the Loudas’ northern borders and reaching almost all the way south. To the west of Sukkan was a mystery, the Firelands, a desert so harsh the Sukkanians even stopped attempting to cross it over four hundred years ago. The pair of kingdoms had a prickly alliance with each other.

“My emissaries have all returned with non-favorable replies. Sukkan does not believe such ‘legendary’ creatures can exist. In truth, they fear we are trying to lure their armies out to attack them,” Danyais said.

“They do not believe you? Why have you not sent the body of a vrolloc to them? It would be hard for them to say ‘legendary’ at the least. Why did you not go yourself or send your queen? Such an action would have shown the seriousness of your request. Lending it validity. It also would have made sure Sukkan wouldn’t have denied a monarch who came to ask for help,” Clyden said in a matter of fact perturbed nature. “How has your father taught you? Never mind, I am not your advisor,” he said, dismissively waving his right hand.

Danyais stood there dumbfounded, pondering the rapid succession of diplomatic solutions offered by Clyden in a matter of moments. The King was committing all the conversation to memory for future use. How could his father, King Ledan, allow such a man like this to not be at his side? He wanted Clyden’s aid in the coming counterattack. “Will you help us?”

“No,” Clyden answered bluntly, without even a thought of consideration.

“No?” Danyais repeated back, as if his hearing was faulty.

“No,” Clyden said again just as bluntly as before.

“If it is gold, I will pay,” Danyais said, countering with what most men want.

“My answer is still the same,” Clyden said.

“Then name it, and if it is reasonable, I will give it,” King Danyais said earnestly.

“No, I will not give aid to Loudas ever again,” Clyden said, his voice tittering on the edge of anger. Danyais looked dejectedly into Clyden’s eyes. “But I will get you back to Rose Claw tonight, it is all I can do,” Clyden said.

“Back to Rose Claw tonight?” Danyais said. The bold claim of Clyden’s statement left him stupefied as he repeated the magus’ words over in his head. Back home, tonight? When the weight of Clyden’s words finally processed in Danyais’ head, they caused his eyes to widen, and they would have dropped to the polished floor and kicked about if they were not firmly set in their sockets.

***