I took one last look at the view of the Chasm from atop our workshop as I made sure that the numerous pouches on my belts were secure. I turned around and put on my bag of supplies. It was time.
Alessi stood behind me, holding onto the fluttering wings of a large, colorful glider. In just a few minutes we would start our adventure into the depths of the Chasm. I was mildly terrified and highly ecstatic. My silver-haired companion looked extremely giddy and determined.
“Ready?” I asked, joining her on the glider.
“Ready, captain!” She yelled in Ukrainian, grinning wildly.
I wondered if she was putting on a front for me, being extra-positive.
She didn’t see the Still Forest, didn’t really know the phantom-ruled cold, dark necropolis that waited for us if we broke our necks. Was I losing my Urbex spirit? Had I been broken by my misfortunate encounter with the hollow phantom?
No. It would take a lot more than that to completely shatter my desire for adventure. I would get to the Twisted Forest, beat it and go on. I would triumph over the Chasm and its wilds and get myself a proper metalworking workshop!
“At the count of zero, step forward with me! Five, four, three, two, one… zero!” I barked.
We moved in perfect unison, running toward the edge, the connections I've made between our souls allowing for perfect synchronicity of motion.
My heart thrummed as we leapt from the edge. The wind grabbed at the glider’s wings as we plunged down and then forward. The bamboo-style wooden branches composing the base of the glider creaked, held tightly together by leather belts.
A large, red, flying millipede veered away from us, terrified by the high-cendai runes that functioned as our capes and also the monstrous butterfly-style face with many red eyes that we had painted on the glider’s wings.
We passed a chimera hunting party as we circled the side of the Chasm. It was mostly made up from boys about our age. I saw Isahcs there and waved at him with a grin. As he looked at our painted glider his eyes widened. Other chimera boys looked our way, bewilderment, amazement and confusion painted on their faces.
Some of them had never seen flying, armor-covered girls before. None of them had ever seen chimera fly without Bonulich wings on a large, absurd-looking, colorful two-person glider such as ours.
In a few moments the Chimera hunting party was gone. We passed the first ring of mountains and circled the rim of the glowing clouds that slowly spun around them.
“Get ready,” Alessi yelled as we descended deeper and deeper into the Infinite Chasm. “The gravity well is going to shift soon!”
I nodded, turning the glider. I had taught her about gravity myself, after she had explained to me that on the lower levels, the abyss no longer became a hole that one fell into, but an endless road that one simply walked forward on.
About ten rings into the vast abyss, the gravity shifted from being straight down to basically supporting everything now growing on the side of the gargantuan tunnel that we were in. I knew that gravity pulled toward greater mass regardless of the mass' orientation or configuration. The gravity shift somewhat confirmed my theory that Andross was a hollowed out planetoid or a Dyson sphere, the shell of which was made from some sort extra-heavy, hard material.
In a few tense moments, I was no longer flying down the Chasm, I was flying through it, not down but forward. I caught an updraft of air and flew above another ring of mountains.
A flock of enormous, dark dragons appeared higher in the open sky. I steered the glider closer to the clouds, trying to avoid the impressive, dangerous beasts that could swallow us in a single bite.
I slowly counted the rings in my head as we passed them by. Each ring of mountains seemed wider, bigger, grander and more imposing than the previous one. Thirteen. Fourteen. Fifteen…
Another ring of mountains passed below us, suddenly opening up to a vast expanse of truly titanic trees that connected with each other in bewildering, impossible labyrinthine spirals. The forest was akin to a deep, green ocean that went on and on and on. Some of the trees looked truly gargantuan, too big to…
“The Twisted Forest!” Alessi yelled. “Don't look directly at the trees! Land before we get to the edge, over there!”
I directed the glider down, landing us down onto mossy hills that faced the forest.
“Welp,” I said looking back to where we had flown from. A ring of jagged mountains rose upwards, completely blocking the way back. “Climbing back over those mountains is going to suck.”
Looking at the rings of the chasm above the mountains gave me a slight migraine. The perspective looked completely messed up, screwing with my eyes. There was definitely something deeply unnatural about the Chasm, some kind of truly abominable magic holding it all together.
“The Folding trees are very large,” Alessi waved a hand at the forest in front of us. “We can climb to the top and use the glider to take off from a very tall tree.”
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“Shouldn't we have landed atop one then?” I asked.
“No,” My sister shook her silver, gemstone hair. “Landing atop the forest is… very dangerous. The bigger trees are older, more alive than others. They can strike dragons down with their whip-like branches. Down here at the edge the Folding trees are younger, more docile. If you can dominate a Seed, then we can use it to go up a truly arcane tree without being struck down. The forest does not attack its own children.”
“Right,” I nodded. “This stuff would be good to know ahead, you know.”
“I’m sorry,” Alessi shook her head. “The ancestral knowledge comes to me when I see something. Even in Still trance I cannot pull all of the information from the little star buried deep in my soul. It’s just not how the chorus works.”
“Hoo… okay,” I stretched. “Let's take the glider apart. We’ll use it as a tent until we get us a lovely Folding Seed.”
As we started to dismantle the glider, I observed the vast forest rising in front of us. It was distinctively alien. The roots of the trees that bore into the terrain in front of us were entwined in absurdly elaborate spiral and fractal-like patterns. There was no green immediately in front of us, just a flat, vast landscape of brown roots with patches of moss and lichen.
The forest itself started far, far behind the roots. Odd, shimmering, green halos shone above some of the trees drawing my eyes to them. Many of the trees went up and up and up.
My eyes started to water looking at them because there was MORE forest in view than what was reasonable. The larger trees seemed to warp space unnaturally going up into the sky at impossible angles that made my eyes hurt. It was like looking at an Escher painting.
“Don’t look directly at the treeline above the roots,” Alessi commented. “Folding magic messes with perception. The forest confuses flyers that come too close, disorienting and forcing them to land.”
“God damn eldritch magic bullshit. Why can’t things exist in three dimensions like they’re supposed to?” I turned away from the forest, huffing. “How did… our tribe even get through this abomination of a terrain on foot many centuries ago? Surely… the tribe didn’t fly over it. Girls weren’t allowed to have wings back then either, right?”
“Girls were… are not allowed to fly. Men did not use their wings here either. Eunisii Ei guided us through this forest,” Alessi said, her voice distant. “She used her magic against the trees, made necklace amulets for everyone that confused the younger Seeds.”
“Would be nice if she gave us one of those,” I mulled, untying another knot on the glider. “I do not like that woman’s teaching methods. Everything is on hard mode.”
Alessi ignored my commentary, lost in some distant ancestral memory. “The amulets did not protect everyone. Eunisii tied our hands together with ropes, bound mother to child, father to mother, sister to brother. Some could not resist the allure of the sap emanating from the Folding Seeds. They tore the ropes with their teeth and claws and ran into the forest, their eyes wild, never to return again. Some were taken by the thousand-root Seeds that sprung at us from above or below. Some vanished without a trace.”
“Hang on… us?” I looked at Alessi.
The silver-haired girl turned to me, examining as if she was looking at me for the first time. “Turn away from this forest, child. You will find nothing but death there. Our tribe was tormented, decimated by this place… only a few hundred made it through...”
“You’re not Alessi… Who are you?” I demanded.
“I am Relaii Ie Tokimorimïtuti! This forest took two of my daughters and my mother. I curse the arch-cendai for what she has done to us. She’s dragged us through this gods-forsaken place to satisfy her curiosity! She wanted to see what’s at the end of the Chasm, wanted to reach the blue sky! Her greed for power be damned! I could do nothing, nothing at all. I could not even say goodbye to my children and parents for this abominable forest took them from me!”
Alessi’s eyes filled with tears, her fists closed and opened. “Heed my warning, my future descendant! Do not go into this place… for it is cursed, filled with horrid Folding Trees and their vile children that are far more devious than you can imagine. You WILL die here or lose everyone you’ve ever loved and suffer until the end of your days, begging for the end!”
I gulped, the voice of some long-dead chimera speaking through my sister’s mouth ringing like the bells of approaching doomsday in my head.
Alessi’s eyes dimmed. She blinked. “Urm… well that never happened before. That was a rather… strong memory. I don't understand... it was almost as if my ancestor was speaking through me. How could that be? What changed?”
"The anti-phantom barrier," I pointed at Alessi. "It's an absolute magic shield, keeping all magic inside it, containing and magnifying it... like a resonance wave. I think it might be amplifying your chorus of ancestral memories."
"Oh," She glanced at the forest, ignoring my words. “I… I’m scared…”
“We don’t have to go in there… maybe we can set a trap for the Seeds out here and…” I started to speak.
“No,” Alessi interrupted me, suddenly looking directly at me and speaking in Ukrainian. “Juni. The Folding Seeds do not come out here. This forest had hurt my ancestor, but I am not her. I am stronger than Relaii Ie… because I have you at my back, not a cendai who does not care for her people… but a cendai-sister with a kind heart who knows how to use… science. The things you have taught me about the true nature of the world… I believe that they can outdo whatever this forest throws at us.”
She tapped the beetle-shaped bottles tied to belts around her glittering armor. “I am afraid… but I am more than Relaii Ie. I carry her soul and the souls of a thousand generations of mothers that came before her and those that came after her. Using their combined wisdom, I will find this forest's dark heart and I will set it alight with the fire that cannot be put out. I will make it pay for everything it’s done, make it suffer for all of the lives it has taken!”
I smiled at my sister’s stoic declaration. Under my tutelage Alessi had grown up determined and focused.
“Does this forest even have a heart?” I asked.
“Every tree is connected to the other, all paths lead to the heart in the end,” Alessi said, gritting her teeth. “Eunice took the tribe there… She sacrificed most of our people to it so that the forest could grant her passage through it. She spoke to the damned thing, like it was alive, like it was her best friend!”
“Oh,” I gulped. “That’s a bit of a detour for us, no?”
“No,” Alessi said. “The biggest tree will also be the tallest one in this forest.”
“I don’t think it’s a good idea to set a forest on fire while we’re in it,” I said.
“You could plant a Dominion Sapling near the Heart,” Alessi said. “The soul-connection has no distance limit, right? You can trigger the bottles to ignite from afar. You don’t… you cannot truly grasp what this forest has done to my ancestors… their pain is MY pain… their loss, MY loss. This place is pure evil. Eunice sacrificed three of her monchi to it… they could still be alive, their bodies used by the Heart of the Forest as life-fuel.”
“What?! How?” I gasped.
“The heart is just like the Seeds… but it… she can keep something alive, for a very, very long time,” Alessi said. “This is what the Mother of All Folding and god of the forest said to Eunice. That her roots will… feed on the gift of the three little sparks and the others… for one hundred thousand winters.”
“So…” I looked at my sister, raising an eyebrow. “You... want to kill a god?”