Chapter Six

A Man Stuck in a Tree

"Where's Bobbit?!"

Arnold's face was awash with sweat as he looked from left to right, right to left. His heart hammered against his chest, and all he wanted was to waddle home and have some cake.

"But it's not even brunch anymore!" His stomach was a collapsed star. He was surprised he even had the strength to lift open his eyelids.

He had returned to the cusp of the woods. While this looked like where Daring Dyan had seen Bobbit, Arnold could not find the lad's trail. The hairy lout was certainly not within earshot!

"Do I ask the fay...?" Arnold glanced over at the nearby woods. Even to untrained eyes, there would have been a heaviness to the air. Fay were but one of the many mystical creatures that called the leafy place home.

"Let's not," Arnold mumbled after chewing on his bottom lip for several moments. They were just as likely to bar him from returning home as they were to help him track down Bobbit.

He wiped his sweaty forehead with the thick ropes of his beard. This was not the first time Bobbit had wandered off without so much as a peck of breakfast or brunch. The lad seemed to alternate between lying down like a log and mad explosions of adventurous energy.

"He'll be the death of me," Arnold said, and he perked his ears up once more. The woods and the surrounding fields were full of noises, but none of them-

"Oh?"

His pessimism was interrupted by an unusual cry for help. Arnold called the shout unusual because most humans who made it this close to the woods found themselves either gobbled up by Dragonbraves, bewitched by lantern hooks, or turned into fertilizer by treants. Only with the fay's guidance could someone like an overzealous orphan make it all the way to Arnold's door.

"Let's see what this is about!"

Arnold focused on the distant shout. When he had a good idea where the noise was coming from, he pinched the fabric of reality and puuuulled the world closer to where he was standing.

"Please, please, pleaaaase!"

A human's cry immediately rang between Arnold's ears. He found himself in a lonely clearing flanked by angry oaks. The only shade in the clearing belonged to a rather crooked and sickly tree.

"Pleaase, pleaaase, pleaaase!" the human wailed, seemingly from behind the tiny tree. "Someone! Pleaaaase, someone help meeee!"

Arnold sniffed the air, and his eyes widened with delight. Bobbit's unwashed stench was thick in the air!

"Did you tease this poor soul?" Arnold wondered aloud. He waddled around the tree...

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...but nobody was there.

"Y-y-you! Please! Ser!" The human's voice trembled with manic energy from behind Arnold. "Gods be good, please help me!"

Arnold turned around...

...but he still did not see anyone.

"Did you bury the lad...?" Arnold muttered darkly. He looked down at the mossy ground, and the human barked in frustration.

"Look at me, damn you!"

Arnold looked up from the ground and found the voice.

The human was not hiding behind the tree. They were not hiding on top of it either. The young man was inside the tree. It was as if his body had been fused to the sickly oak's twisted trunk.

"Get me out of here!" the young man wept. His tears rolled down the oak's bark. "Pleaaase!"

"This isn't Bobbit's work," Arnold said, stroking his white beard thoughtfully. "What are you doing in there, lad?"

"What am I doing?!" The young man's face had the starved look of a poet. One of his hands poked out from the tree, but the rest of his body remained hidden. "Please, ser! Please!"

"Shouldn't be here," Arnold said with an emphatic nod. "What mischief are you up to, eh?"

"I don't know what you are," the young man began as fat tears rolled down his face, "but have meeeercy! Please, free me!"

"Have you seen my Bobbit?" Arnold snorted, spat, and squinted at the young man. It was not hard to imagine how he had ended up inside the tree.

"Your... your what?"

"Black hair." Arnold sniffed the air. Bobbit's scent cloyed to the tree like a bad perfume. "You must have seen him. I can smell the lout on you like piss!"

The young man's starved face softened for a moment in remembrance. Arnold tugged on his beard impatiently.

"You mean... that man?" The young man's face quickly hardened. His expression turned gnarled with frustration. "That creature?! Are y-you the one it mentioned?!"

"Left me a trail, eh?" Arnold said excitedly as he waddled closer to the man-tree. "What did he say, lad?"

"No!" the young man shouted. "Get me out of here!"

"Afterwards," Arnold said gruffly, borrowing Daring Dyan's own words.

"Not afterwards!" the young man said. His partially free hand balled into a fist. "Get me out now!"

Arnold spat. He was not about to play this game a second time. It was already time for lunch, and he had little more than a few crumbs rumbling around his belly. He needed to finish this Bobbit business now.

Magickal energy filled his fingertips as he battered down the doors of the man's memories. This is what Arnold should have done with Daring Dyan!

And it felt as if an ogre slugged him in the chest. The insufferable human's life flashed past with barely a squeak and then Arnold sank deep, deep, deep into the roots of the earth. Arnold could feel himself being swallowed by the overwhelming history of the world. He was swept down root after root...

...and then Ra-Hemi pulled him out of the young man's memories.

Arnold retched a rainbow splatter onto the ground. Beside him, the shadowy black kitten licked one of its paws.

"Gods..." Arnold fell backwards, completely spent. The world spun around him even when he closed his eyes. Ra-Hemi's rough tongue tickled his nose.

The young man was screaming and shouting, but Arnold was too tired to understand. No more than a few seconds could have passed, but Arnold had spent several lifetimes trapped within the memories of the earth.

"Gods..." Arnold rubbed his burning eyes. "You're a tree, lad."

It had been obvious one of the fay had put the young man inside the sickly tree. Arnold could never have known, however, that they had fused his soul to the tree, as well. The young man must have pissed them off spectacularly.

An hour passed before Arnold felt strong enough to stand. Ra-Hemi, the Devourer of Dreams, had returned to his shadow. The young man had stopped shouting and was watching Arnold nervously.

"That... That creature from earlier," Arnold said sheepishly. "What did he, uh, say?"

The young man could not shake his head, but he tried. His starved lips were a thin line.

"Come on, lad!" Arnold whined. "I've spent the whole day lookin' for him! I already missed brunch!"

"Get me out," the young man said, holding back still more tears. "Get me out of this cursed tree, and I'll tell you what he said!"