Seek the Emerald Gate.
Seek Orliat.
Find yourself.
Max stood at the base of the tree that had stopped his violent crash through the forest and let the words echo in his head.
Find yourself.
Seek Orliat.
Seek the Emerald Gate.
Max looked out at the jungle. All around the stuttering path his body had carved through the undergrowth as he fell, the forest was a riot of colors and textures. The tallest of the trees stood straight as pillars of stone, extending leafy branches only at their very tops where they could reach the sun. Beneath them smaller trees formed a second canopy with gnarled branches spreading out to catch what little direct sunlight filtered down to them. Their branches were draped with vines and moss and bursts of vibrant yellow flowers in an array of shapes, from bells and bulbs, to long, narrow tubes, and feathery clusters. Beneath them the forest floor was a snarl of saplings, shrubs, and vines crawling all over each other. The riot of plant life left only a few narrow spaces between clusters of undergrowth.
Seek the Emerald Gate, the stone beast had said.
How? Max wondered. Where?
Was he supposed to just pick a direction and start walking? And why was he here? What was happening to him? Why was it happening to him?
Why?
Why?
Max stood beneath the tree that had caught him and stared out into the jungle while his mind wandered in circles. If he had to, he thought he could pass through the undergrowth by making his way between the bushes, but he didn’t like the idea of walking into the forest naked, shouldering through those wet, waxy looking leaves without knowing what might be lurking under or behind them. Each bush could be filled with crawling, biting, stinging things. The whole steaming jungle would be.
Max frowned, then cocked his head, listening. He heard nothing. Through the silence that dominated the jungle, he heard a breeze pass into the upper canopy. He looked up, waiting for its refreshing coolness to filter down from the heights and pass over him, but the trees grew still and the air around him remained undisturbed. The jungle grew quiet again.
Quiet.
But that didn't seem right. He couldn’t think of the names or descriptions of the creatures that should be calling out to each other, but he knew jungles were noisy, chaotic places. This one, nearly as quiet as the sea of poppies he had left behind, felt strange.
Does nothing live here?
Max peered up into the trees again, scanning the branches for signs of movement. He saw nothing in the canopy and nothing in the trees nearby.
Max sank down into a crouch in the bowl-like depression between the roots of the tree that had stopped his fall. He hugged his knees, unsure what to make of a jungle apparently devoid of life. Had he never been in a jungle like this before?
He frowned. He wasn't sure.
Why can’t I remember?
Part of him was sure he’d been to a jungle of some kind before. He must have. He had a word for it, and he had expectations associated with jungles. He knew that they were hot, humid places crowded with trees and plants, fruits and flowers.
Max looked around again. All of that seemed to be true.
But he also knew they were loud places, wild and wonderful and dangerous, filled with creatures of every variety and description.
So why can’t I remember any of them?
Maybe he hadn’t ever been in a jungle before. Maybe he'd only heard of them from people who had been before.
Max felt his mind slam to a stop again as he discovered another gap in his memory: he couldn’t remember ever knowing another person.
He tried to remember a face, a name, a relationship. But nothing came to him.
That doesn’t make any sense. Of course I know…
Crouched at the base of an ancient, twisted tree, Max let himself drift. Something would come to him, he knew. It had to.
But nothing did.
Emerging from the other side of that mental void, he could say only that he was sure other people existed, even if he had no recollection of knowing any particular people. That had to be true. If it wasn’t–
Max’s mind shuddered away from that thought. It was too big, too strange. He needed to set it aside, along with the other things he knew he didn’t know: where he was, where he came from–who he was. He needed to focus on what he did know. The positive. The possible.
So what do I know? Max. My name is Max.
Is that all?
Yes.
With creeping horror, Max looked around again at the vibrant colors of the jungle. He knew nothing. He was alone in this strange place, he knew nothing, and he couldn’t trust his intuitions. He was still convinced that a jungle should be loud and busy and dangerous, but without memories he couldn't know, couldn't ground any of his hunches in reality. All he had were his eyes and his ears, and they told him that this place was empty.
Max could feel a tide of hysteria rise up in him. He looked up at the canopy and the sky beyond, trying to face the direction he had last felt the presence of those watchers.
“Hello?”
He waited, but he could feel no trace of that collective presence.
“Who are you?” He could hear the hysteria bleeding into his voice and making him shrill. “Why are you doing this?”
Nothing.
Seek the Emerald Gate. Find yourself.
Max pressed both hands to his face and took a deep breath. Shouting questions at the sky wouldn’t do anything but magnify the fear and dread he was only just barely managing to contain. Searching the void of his own mind wouldn’t bring him answers. He couldn't know whether jungles should be bustling, noisy places. Couldn't know whether this place where he'd landed even really was a jungle. But he would call it that. For now. What other choice did he have?
Maybe it was good that nothing appeared to live nearby. Maybe he’d been lucky. Or maybe however had done this to him, his tormentors had taken pity on a naked man with no way to defend himself from the dangers that lurked just out of sight.
Or maybe all the creatures of the jungle were now laying in ambush, waiting for him to step within range of tooth and claw.
“No, no,” Max said, unclenching his fists. He pushed away the images of bloody teeth and sharp, disembodied claws. “Not helpful.”
The sound of his own voice was reassuring. That was real, immediate, verifiable. It was proof of at least one truth: he remained in control of his own body. That was good. His thoughts, his intentions, could still lead to actions. To results.
Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators!
He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I need to start moving.”
More specifically, he needed to start moving in the direction of the ‘Emerald Gate.’ He looked around at the riotous colors of the jungle, the brilliant green of the distant canopy high above, and the stark splotches of yellow flowers clinging to bushes and dripping from vines.
Which way?
Does it matter?
Max looked at the closest hole his tumbling body had gouged into the earth as he skidded across the jungle floor.
“Not that way,” he said. But he hesitated.
Why not that way?
He’d come from that direction, so the ‘City of Shards’ might be in that direction. He’d almost landed in it as he fell.
But the stone beast hadn’t told him to look for the City. It told him to look for the Emerald Gate.
Max turned his back on the sight of his broken fall through the jungle. He had to move, he had to start making progress, and with no other way of making his choice, he associated the evidence of his descent into the jungle with “backward.” The opposite direction, therefore, meant forward.
Max took a deep breath. Nothing felt good at that moment, but making a decision helped. Just a little.
Stepping carefully to avoid gouging his bare feet on fallen branches and protruding roots, Max picked his way around the trunk of the tree. On its other side he paused, his fear and anxiety momentarily forgotten. Instead of a flat extension of the same dense foliage that framed the path of his crashing descent, the forest floor sloped downward and a trail appeared where the undergrowth thinned. At the bottom of the slope he could see a stone arch, and through that he could see a slice of bright sunlit grass. He couldn’t be sure, but the grass didn’t seem to be directly on the other side of the arch. It seemed some distance away, as if the arch stood at the rim of a second slope and the grass carpeted a little valley beyond. To each side of the gate, dense islands of undergrowth and the trunks of great trees blocked Max’s view of any other portion of the valley, but through their upper branches he could see that the trees stopped entirely at the edge of the valley. Beyond them he could see blue sky.
The stone arch didn't resemble the fleeting vision he'd been shown of the Emerald Gate, but it looked to be in good repair, at least from a distance.
“That seems much more promising.”
Stone construction meant he was near civilization of some kind. Shouldn’t it? And well maintained grass meant people must have been there recently. Maybe they'd be back soon. Or maybe they were still there. Maybe someone lived there.
Max chose again not to dwell on the fact that he couldn't remember ever meeting another person or that he couldn’t remember ever living anywhere himself. He did his best to smother the little spike of fear in his chest and he set off down the slope toward the arch and the grass beyond.
He went slowly at first, holding his breath and listening for sounds of life as he squeezed through the undergrowth at the top of the hill. He stepped sideways and gingerly lifted branches out of his path, trying to minimize contact between his bare skin and the dark, scratching leaves of the bushes. When nothing scurried into flight as he passed, and nothing leapt out at him to latch teeth or claws into his skin, he began to relax and breathe a little easier. When he reached the path that led between the thinning underbrush, he straightened with a sigh of relief.
Still picking his path carefully to avoid wounding his feet, he wondered who he might encounter beyond the gate and how many of them there might be. Maybe there would be no one. He could find anything there. A village or a manicured estate. A fortified keep. A sculpture garden. A cemetery.
Max drew a deep breath and dismissed all of these possibilities, choosing not to wonder, yet again, how he could know what these places were without having memories of visiting anything that resembled them. He would just have to gather his nerve, step through the gate, and see what lay beyond. He would deal with whatever he discovered as he found it.
It can’t get worse, he thought.
But his courage began to falter as he neared the gate. Now that he was closer he could see through the trees that the gate was actually a portal through a stone wall that stood nearly three times his own height. He could see through the trees that stood next to the wall, and beyond them he could see another bank of trees beyond a patch of bright blue sky. Together they seemed to mark the boundaries of the valley, which meant the sunny space beyond was only a few hundred yards in diameter. Most of the space seemed to extend to the right side of the gate. Not a hub of civilization, then. A village or an outpost of some kind.
Would they know what had happened to him? If not, how would they react to a naked man walking alone out of the forest? Would they let him close enough to explain his situation and beg for help? And if they refused to offer charity, what could he offer in exchange for food and shelter? Max looked down at his naked body. Labor, maybe. He had nothing to claim as his own but the strength of his body. He could only hope that would be enough to earn him a meal and something to cover his nakedness.
But he might not have to beg, or work, or explain himself. They might be expecting him. Waiting to welcome him and offer him food and shelter.
Or maybe they were waiting for their latest victim. Waiting to press him into service, or make some use of his body in ways he couldn’t begin to imagine.
“Maybe, maybe, maybe…” he muttered to himself. “And maybe not.”
He couldn’t know. But better not to plunge directly through that arch and into the unknown, he decided. Just in case.
Max stepped to the right side of the path and made his way toward the gate, listening as he went. He could hear nothing but the gentle breeze passing through the arch and cooling the sweat rolling down his skin. When he reached the gate, he leaned a shoulder against the warm stone and peered through the portal at the left side of the valley. As he suspected, the stone wall ran the length of the valley’s rim. The slope leading down from the wall was a patchwork of wildflowers in a variety of pinks, blues, violets, and yellows that gave way at the bottom of the slope to an unbroken carpet of bright green grass.
Max looked down at this verdant display, drinking in the colors and bright sunshine that was so stark a contrast to the dimness of the jungle. As he looked he listened for the sounds of activity in the rest of the valley. When nothing came to him on the breeze he began to edge slowly into the arch.
Max’s disappointment was immediate and crushing. At the center of the valley was a cluster of trees with squat trunks and bushy, bright red crowns. They were arranged in a rough grid with enough space between each that two or three people would pass between them at once.
An orchard.
The trees had clearly been planted by someone with cultivation in mind, but the valley was devoid of anything that resembled human habitation and there were no signs, at least from that distance, that people had been there recently.
Max straightened and stepped into the arch to better study the orchard, no longer concerned about his nudity.
An orchard might still be a good sign.
It meant there were people in the region capable of clearing the jungle and managing fruit trees for decades at a time. And the grass. It was too short to be wild, surely. That meant someone came here regularly, that they would return in a matter of days–or maybe weeks–to manage its length.
And in the meantime, those trees could feed him. He didn’t recognize the trees by their leaves, but the fact that someone went through the trouble to raise them meant they probably offered some practical value. Fruit, most likely.
“Maybe. Hopefully,” Max said as he considered the trees. “Only one way to find out.”
Slowly, scanning the valley for movement as he went, Max stepped out onto the grassy, flower strewn slope and began making his way down to the orchard. The grass was soft and pleasant to walk on after his short, halting walk through the jungles carpet of jagged stones and deadwood. The grass came up past his ankles, but when he stopped to look at it more closely he couldn’t tell whether it might have been trimmed recently. Unsure how to interpret that, he continued down to the floor of the valley where the grass was noticeably shorter. Another good sign, he decided, even if it told him nothing definite.
Max turned his attention to trees at the center of the valley. Their leaves were almost perfectly circular and they were a striking shade of red he hadn’t yet seen anywhere else in the jungle. They were darker than the poppy flowers out in the plain, almost the color of fresh blood. As he neared them, he could see that each of the trunks was covered in smooth gray bark and studded with black dots.
No, not dots, he realized as he got closer. They were short, conical spikes. Max paused, startled. Spikes on a tree. Is that normal?
Slowly, he walked closer, scanning the ground and the branches for signs of fruit. It wasn’t until he was within ten yards of the nearest tree that he saw small, hard looking orbs hanging among the lowest branches. They were the same red as the leaves of the tree, but they were dappled with rough gray splotches and hung from the upper branches of the tree by thin, bright green tendrils.
Max had no way of knowing whether the fruit was ripe, or if it was even edible, but his mouth flooded as he imagined biting into bright, juicy fruit. Sometime tart, he hoped. Something soft and sweet and fresh tasting.
He moved closer to look up into the branches, then yelped as he stepped on something sharp. Lifting his foot, he found a woody brown pyramid stuck into his heel.
He pulled it out carefully and turned it over as he gingerly put his foot back on the ground. The thing was hard and smooth, with black spines growing from the tip of each of its four corners, almost like someone had joined the bases of four fat spikes so that, no matter how it fell, one would always be pointing up .
“A caltrop,” he muttered, wondering as he did whether that was the right word. Something dangerous you throw on the ground to hurt other people. Was that right?
“Or a dangerous little nut.”
Max peered into the grass all around him, hunting for a rock or something else hard enough to crack the thing open and see whether there might be nut meat inside, but he looked up when he heard a creaking sound above him. It took him a moment to realize one of the splotchy red orbs was being pulled up into the branches of the tree as the tendril it hung from began to coil and loop around itself. Max watched, fascinated, as the tendril wound around itself in loops and coils, tightened into a dense knot between the fruit and the branch it hung from. The creaking sound grew louder as the knot tightened until, finally, with a loud bang, the red orb popped.
Bright pain slashed across the left side of his stomach and exploded into the middle of his right thigh. Looking down he found a bloody scratch on his side. In his right thigh he found another of the sharp brown pyramidal spikes embedded half an inch deep.
“Not a nut,” he said
Horrified, he plucked it out and threw it away into the grass. As he did, the tree above him filled with the sounds of green tendrils groaning and coiling around themselves.
“A tree full of caltrops.”