The hut beyond the curtain did not change much in appearance, safe for the room being much smaller. He saw a couch and two cushioned seats in a room with a table and some spherical bushes, now dead. It looked very much like a room for conversations between just a few people, maybe consultation or relaxation in preparation of a séance. He saw the door with the black curtain but also saw something that interested him: at one wall stood a small table with a huge snail shell on it, bigger than his head, possibly as large as his torso. He stepped close and inspected it. It had the surface somehow scoured or etched away, revealing underneath a layer of mother of pearl alive with rainbow. Holes had been drilled into it and Lirran recognized the Hatsui script. The sheer size of the shell allowed for many lines of writing, each of them hundreds of words long; Lirran needed to read only a few to recognize the story of Tsitsir. By the beauty, size and completeness, this shell would be worth a fortune among any scholar and Kaza would be jumping with joy to just see something like this, let alone receive it.
He realized his mistake when he saw his hands reach forward.
He flinched back. This was not his. He was thinking of theft. Greed had twinkled in the far back of his head, but it was enough for the spirits to latch on.
Thoughts want to be thought, acts want to be acted.
He would not succumb to it. Without a stern hand and mind, they could roam freely and seduce the unaware.
He turned to face the room. It was empty to the corporeal eye, but he closed his eyes and saw the red background of boiling will of the living world, feeding the spirits beyond the boundary by flowing into the impressions left behind by the powerful minds that had once been here, like water gathering in a footprint into a puddle.
I will not fall into this, my mind is its own, my will has its own shape.
He brushed the black curtain aside and stepped through. He came into a small room with only a wardrobe, open and empty, a door outside, and a bowl of wood with stagnant foul water, possibly a washing bowl for someone to ritually cleanse themselves before leaving into the heart of the forest. He would have to go on without such a ritual.
Outside he found a hanging bridge of living vines and branches, wild and entangled thick enough to bear the weight of even Kaza’s barrel.
Beyond the bridge was a forest so thick that he could not see beyond even a single tree.
It was a balancing act across it and as Lirran neared the other side, he felt the will of the forest growing stronger, from a backdrop into a whirl that threatened to sweep him away.
Standing before the wall of green, he exhaled and gathered himself. Even the deepest parts of the woods in his hometown only felt scary because they were dark. Now he was more aware than ever of the dangers that lurked just beyond the threshold and he himself was more apparent to them.
He remembered what his Navigator had said: “Nature raw will seek entrance through your body.” And after just walking through the old grove, he knew what that meant. Undoubtedly, she had spied ahead of him while appearing present in the material realm, she knew what awaited him. If he stepped before the forces deep in the woods, his own material nature would be his downfall. He thought of the washing bowl. There were rituals here that had to be observed, just like in his own homeland, where rituals were repetitions of agreements made with the spirits. Without those agreements, the spirits beyond the threshold here were free to do as they wish with him.
Mind and body are one at the foundation. But that also means he can avoid the danger to one with the other.
Lirran reached into his vestments and pulled out his idol. It was in a bad state of disrepair and rough treatment, but the fish bones and tufts of his hair were still visible. He knew who he was. He sat down on the entrance to the thicket and relaxed.
This close to the ancient place, the boiling will in the background was bubbling with violence and greed. Forces of staggering power lurked and waited for their next feast, kept only in check by their competition with one another. A thousand swirling torrents spun only in place, if they were to ever unite into one single stream, they would sweep all the trappings and traditions of civilisation aside. A dangerous place to throw a wayward stone into.
A stone he could be, he had been a stone many times before, but never as much as here and then. He was willing to-
Lirran noticed soon the oddity of his thinking. In the fight against the loss of logic, he also had to hold on to his own identity, not just his awareness. He grabbed the thin thread of his consciousness and pulled himself onto the sands of the beach.
The bay looked very different in this place. The sands were encroached upon by roots, vines and other tendrils, all the impressions of the very material trees Lirran was surrounded by. The forest of hungry maws was split by an entrance formed by these roots and the entrance itself was blocked off by a gate of brambles.
Lirran knew what he was seeing, from tales and warnings of his old master to never dream too close to the holy sites. Places of power were locales that were so inundated in tradition and purpose that their immaterial echo was organized by the thoughts being thought there. This revered place had been the site of so many rituals that they had taken a permanent shape. Semi-permanent, at least, for here as he had felt in the seer’s dwelling, he felt a force pushing in, one of two sides to a contract, the other one being no longer present to uphold it.
He moved towards the bramble gate. It was withered and dry, he could simply grasp the vines and crumble them to dust. The entry was no longer barred and any lost soul was free to wander blindly into the lair of raw nature.
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Walking through the corridor of tendrils, Lirran felt the constant demand, the need to feed from all around him. Things wanted him to stray from the path forward, wanted to consume, but in their lack of food, started to strangle each other, like trees keeping each other in check, interwoven in greed, not co-operation as in the halls of the treefolk, where this nature was tamed.
He kept wandering through this widening hallways until he came upon an even larger free space, like the trees giving way to a throne room, pillars of chaotic greed flanking it on both sides, and stairs leading up a spot where not a throne stood, but a massive flower bud still closed.
Human hands had not built these halls but their thoughts of reverence, Generations of seers addressing a singular being had created a singular being, now with a will concentrated enough to manifest into royalty to be addressed.
Is someone coming?
With his insolence against the established order, he had agitated a being that would not engage in the senseless feasting all around, no, this being sought only a specific kind of food. It was no mere impression of a living being that had its own body, but the combined echoes of thousands of thousands of minds. He had to play a role he had never been shown.
Like a hand extending forward, the frontmost petal opened, dripping at the tip with nectar like a tongue with saliva and the interior breathed a pink haze his way.
Mind and body are one, but only at the foundation.
All he had was hope that it would help, but in absence of surety, hope would have to do.
The mists and haze of the bud dispersed, settled on the surface of Lirran’s mind as dew of sweet nectar, granting a taste of what lied further inside. A petal lowered its tip to Lirran’s feet as if to sway him further into the bud and its haze. To him came a voice from within the bud.
Won’t you come inside? Crawl in! Feast on all you wish! Here lies joy, here lies sweetness, here lies pleasure.
More thick nectar flowed out at the side of the petals like through the slits between grasping fingers.
Lirran focussed his whole mind on defying the entity before him. I stand before you with no body, there is no dick for you to tug me by, daemon! All I need is to leave this place.
Here lies strength, here lies power. Do you not wish to cleave your path through the flesh of your enemies? Take from me all you wish, ravage me and gain strength.
Lirran shook his head even stronger. You only offer me everything because there are no more rules for you to follow. Where is the one who keeps the pact? Where is the long end of your chains?
But the entity ejected more haze, more syrup gushing forth, dripping and pooling on the floor to Lirran’s feet. We can forge new chains to bind us, come and wrap us both in them, offer yourself for a new pact and seal us both in eternity.
Lirran looked to his hand. He knew he had his strength and summoned it forth. The moonlight shell, with sharp edge and tuft of hair, became apparent in his empty palm. He held it out in front of him, covered his own view into the bud that was undulating and quivering with a demand for a body. You cannot take over my will, it is subdued to another, to a being more powerful than you. You will not get ingress to the material realm through me. Now tell me where the keeper of the pact is! Tell me where your chains lead and your starvation will end.
The petals began to waiver, jitter and tremble in angry hunger. Come and forge us anew, no need for an old order, a new one shall sprout from the fertile flesh of this land.
Lirran kept his shell held up. Your starved desparation is apparent, I can see your desire. Tell me where the previous keeper of the pact is!
Nectar was encircling his feet now, a sensation ran up his legs, where they met it prickled and thrilled. Lirran knew he would not be able to keep this sensation of sweetness from his body much longer. The rosy petals were spreading apart even further for him, he could almost feel the wet softness glide over his outstretched arm. Only the shell kept it back. He went into himself. He had to unleash his will, not keep it shackled. The entity had promised him strength to cleave apart those that would stand in his way, but he knew of something already within him that would do the same.
Your hunger will spill into the lands around you! Lirran went down into himself and summoned from memory the flame that devoured his childhood. A pain seared up in him and drove away all other sensation. With fire and axe they will come and descend upon you, take revenge for your violation of the pact. He saw in his mind the pillar and walls engulfed in red heat. You will burn if the pact is not restored. Memories are your reality, I have seen the fire that consumes flesh and wood alike. He saw the bed burning, the chairs and the table, the copper pot melting in the blaze, heard the screams that rent his heart apart. Ash and nothing else will remain of what gives you life. Your portal to the material world will burn! He saw his mother’s face immersed in flames as he ran out the doorway. You will be closed off! Forgotten! Before a new sprout grows this far from the other side you will be gone like ash in the wind! You cannot feed off just the trees, you were born of us, you need us. You need the one who keeps the pact! Lirran focussed further on the pain and despair, the terror in his heart, that within moments, all he had ever held dear was being torn apart, and he pushed it forward, pushed it out of him, to not let it consume him again. He was not the one that needed to burn, at least not any longer. Then he saw the flames burst with the strength of his pain from within the bud. The syrup and nectar turned to oil, burning brightly into the eternal night of the world beyond the threshold.
The petals flailed and thrashed with flame, like his mother’s arms had. He heard her screams and all other emotions in him died. Only sadness and despair remained and clashed against the deep desire the bud had tried to entice him with. The prospect of the joys of life seemed frivolous and meaningless in the face of this memory. The darkness that had once threatened to pull him in deeper was choking the petal’s place in smoke as impenetrable as rock.
Then the entity brought forth a last scream. SPARE ME! TAKE THE FLOWER!
Lirran relented. He closed his mind to the memory, the last few licks of flame singe his heart before they finally gave in. The flames before him blew away in all directions and pushed him back to his body stronger than any wind he had felt before.
Lirran fell forward and hit the forest floor with his forehead. He needed a moment to find his balance between material and mental, but he finally found it and saw before him, on the path that was otherwise trampled shut and dead, a single flower sprout.
It was a bright purple, not unlike lavender, and sat at the end of a single stalk like a bud, not unlike clover. He knew he had his token and his answer, but deciphering it would not be his duty. He used the shell of his icon like a small shovel and picked the whole flower, soil and all.