Bodhi & Irenicus as children. : )
Tap-tap-tap.
No, please, not now. The specificities of Evereskan conjuration spells were a tricky matter to explain, and if he lost track now, his essay could be damaged beyond repair. Joneleth tried to keep concentrating on his work, but the sound on the window behind him had disturbed the web of interwoven images in his mind far too much already. He tried to take a firmer grip on his pen and go back to writing, but it was too late. He was emerging slowly from the state of deep concentration he had maintained for the last hour and a half, as if awakening from a dream, and the mental patterns and diagramms were already fading away and scattering in all directions, the connections between them severed and lost.
Joneleth stared down at his paper. The last sentence he had written seemed to not make much sense to him any more, when its meaning had been perfectly clear only seconds before. With dawning horror he realized that had no idea what he was supposed to write next.
Tap-tap-tap-tap.
Joneleth groaned and tried hard to keep his eyes on the paper and his pen moving. Maybe if she thought he couldn't hear she would give up and leave him alone. Maybe if he ignored it and closed his mind and concentrated really hard on the task at hand, the bothersome noise would go away. What sort of wizard would he become if he could let something like this disturb his concentration?
Maybe there would still be a way to salvage his essay. Maybe he could take quick notes of what he still remembered and try to rebuild the reasoning later. This could probably work, Joneleth thought, but then it would not be the same any more. It could still hold together, maybe, but it would feel like cheating, and Master Saevel had taught him never to settle for sloppy work. No, he would have to start his essay all over again.
Tap-tap-tap-tap.
Joneleth lifted his head this time. The noise was becoming gradually more insistent, and that last impatient tap on the glass pane worried him. He had to do something about it, very soon, or else she would resort to picking up stones from the ground and throwing them against the library windows, which was to be avoided at all cost. She could even have one in her hand right now.
Joneleth sighed and turned to the window. And there she was, of course, black hair fluttering around her heart-shaped face, pressed against the windowpane, her large dark eyes staring straight at him. When she caught his eyes she flashed him a wide grin and waved, almost losing her balance in the process.
He turned to the door and listened carefully for the slightest sound that could indicate that someone was coming, but there was nothing. The day's lessons were technically over, and his master would not be coming back until the next morning to check on his progress. Moreover, his other sister generally left him alone when he was at his studies and if by extraordinary one of his parents happened to come in, they would probably say it would do him good to spend some time outside of the library for once.
Laying down his pen and piling up the papers and books on top of each other so that the wind wouldn't flip through the pages, Joneleth got up from his seat and turned to the window. He opened the latch and bent outside to see Bodhi perched unstably on a bench, clutching the windowsill with both hands to prevent the fall.
'May I know what you are still doing in there?', she exclaimed before he could even say a word. 'Weren't we supposed to go and see the old oak tree today?'
Joneleth muttered something unintelligible.
Of course she would have come straight here. He had hoped that when she did not see him at the statue of Rillifane she would give up on her foolish plan and go do something else on her own, but apparently she had decided otherwise. Of course she would. Trust Bodhi to never abandon one of her little 'projects', however foolish and reckless it may be.
'I'm not sure this is a good idea. We could get caught, and –'
Bodhi put on her best indignant expression.
'Come on, Jon, you promised!'
Joneleth shifted uncomfortably and let his gaze drift in the distance, as far away from his sister's eyes as possible. Today was a fine day. A soft breeze fluttered through the trees and sunlight flowed brightly into the library and flooded his workplace. He had no excuse at all to not join her outside, even for just a little while.
'I'm not sure about it, that's all...'
'Ah, so you're scared now, aren't you?'
'Am not!', he replied indignantly.
'Hm-hm', Bodhi said with a triumphant grin jumped down from the bench.
'I'll just have to go on my own, then...'
She flashed him a wicked smile with her head cocked to the side and turned to go, humming a merry tune to herself.
No! She could not be intending to go out in the forest on her own, could she? What if she got caught doing something forbidden? Or what if she got lost and did not come back before nightfall and the rangers could not find her and...
'Bodhi, wait!'
She turned back and waved at him.
'See you later! I'll tell you all about it when I get back!'
With this she turned to go and didn't even bother answering when he called her again, only resuming her humming and pretending she couldn't hear.
No, no, no! Even now he could already see his mother's tearful eyes and hear her mournful reproach : 'Jon, you knew what she intended to do and you did not even try to stop her? How could you? Maybe she wouldn't have been so reckless, if only you'd spent more time with her.' Wonderful. A little distressed, he bent over the ledge to see where his sister was going, and saw her disappear behind the house, climbing down the suspended bridge that went away from the heart of Suldanessellar to the outskirts of the city. He couldn't believe his eyes. The foolish girl!
Joneleth attempted to haul himself up on the high windowsill, but quickly realized that this was not the appropriate method. He was not at all as agile as Bodhi, and there was still a good five feet fall down to the ground, not counting the unstable bench. With a sigh he snapped the window shut, slowed down near the table to make sure that everything was in order and rushed out of the library. He raced down the steps to the hall, and fortunately met no one inside the house, not in the corridors, not on the steps, not even near the half-open door to the large sitting room by the entrance hall. And yet it was not before the door snapped shut behind him that he could allow himself to sigh in relief. Now, after Bodhi.
He ran and came up to her just as she reached the other side of the suspended bridge, soon before she disappeared under the cover of trees in front of them.
'Bodhi, wait!', he called, a little out of breath. 'I'll go with you!'
She turned to him with a smile of surprise that soon turned into a smirk.
'There you go', she said. 'I knew you'd come with me after all. Come on, let's go!'
She resumed her walking in the same direction without even a backward glance and Joneleth started after her, feeling all at once annoyed and angry and cheated, struggling with his breath to keep up.
She led him to the outskirts of the city, where the shadows between the trees grew thicker and darker and the twittering of birds sounded weaker and thinner, as if stiffled by the thickness of the canopy above them. At last they reached the last circle of platforms and followed the suspended pathway in silence, hiding in the shadows of buildings and behind the trees, towards the hollow trunk that concealed one of the only passages outside of the city.
Bodhi was leading and Joneleth followed, terrified still that they might get caught. They were doing something completely and strictly forbidden, after all. And yet at the same time there was a strange thrill in it, bordering on elation, as they made their way cautiously along hidden pathways, unseen from anyone else. A cool wind swept over his face and he smiled in spite of himself.
Beside a tree no different than any other they had passed, Bodhi stopped dead in her tracks and he bumped against her.
'Ouch.'
Bodhi sighed and motioned him to stay silent, and he could almost feel her rolling her eyes dramatically, even though her back was turned to him.
'There we are. Only a few feet left, and we're free!'
Carefully he crept up behind his sister and peeked over her shoulder. There, only a few feet away, was a dark and silent archway filled with quiet shadows, hidden beneath vines and ivy at the end of a narrow path that crept away from the platform in a gentle slope. And in front of it, as he had expected, stood one of the elves that usually guarded the way out, armed with a sharp glinting spear and clothed with bright mail that shimmered a golden green under the forest light.
'Wait', Joneleth whispered into his sister's ear. 'How do you plan to go past him? They're not supposed to just let children into the forest, you know.'
Bodhi's shoulder quivered as she giggled soundlessly, and once again he felt the vicious anger swelling inside of him, but did his best to show nothing of it.
'They're doing watchturns, silly', was Bodhi's whispered reply. 'I've been watching them for a while now. This one always leaves his spot a little early, which will give us about half a minute before the next one comes up. Which should be more than enough, provided of course you manage to stop making so much noise, you'd think there's a mountain troll just behind me...'
Joneleth winced and struggled to keep his temper down and calm his breath, eventually achieving relative silence. He closed his eyes for a second and lifted his head, feeling the cool damp air sweeping soothingly over his face.
They didn't have to wait very long. It seemed to him that they had only been crouching behind the tree for a minute or two at most when Bodhi shoved her elbow into his ribs. He cast her a furious glance that she ignored deliberately.
'Hold on a few seconds, and...'
And indeed, when he looked once more over his sister's shoulder, Joneleth saw the sentry slowly moving away from the gate, glancing backwards from time to time. They dived back quickly behind the tree when he looked in their direction, and when they dared look again, he was walking away slowly along another suspended bridge on their left, towards another hidden gate away from the heart of the city.
'And... now!', Bodhi whispered as soon as the man was out of view.
She leaped forward without waiting for an answer, covering in a few light paces most of the distance that separated her from the entrance of the passage. Joneleth hesitated, casting worried glances in the direction where the guard had disappeared and then in the opposite way, afraid that his successor might appear any second around the bend. Half-way to the gate, Bodhi turned back and gestured him frenetically.
'Come on!', he managed to read on her lips.
A few more seconds and it would be too late. He did as she bid and followed her into the open space, the pounding of his heart against his ribs like the fluttering of a caged bird, and blood ringing furiously inside his ears. He ran as fast and as silently as he could, slipped behind a tree just after his sister and crept under the cover of bracken and ivy that would soon completely hide them from the city. The familiar wooden ground beneath his feet soon gave way to soft earthy ground, of layers and layers of leaves flattened by the many feet that had treaded upon them before, and the branches arched themselves above their heads, forming a vault that became darker and darker as they walked onward and downward. Earth then gave way to wood again, and they reached a kind tunnel inside the hollow trunk, wide enough for two or three armed adults to walk front without hampering each other.
On the other side the path rose upward again and through another curtain of ivy that kept the hollow tree hidden in darkness. They came out to light again under the forest trees, but instead of pausing now Bodhi ran off to the side and behind a large treetrunk a little away from the track, where she crouched upon the ground, out of sight from the passageway. Joneleth lunged after her and flung himself to the ground beside her, his head spinning and feeling a little sick. They had made it! They were out of Suldanessallar! He shut his eyes and pressed both his hands against his forehead, still not sure of what had happened.
'You could have ruined everything!', Bodhi burst out beside him, brimming with anger. 'Are you proud of yourself? Maybe I shouldn't have taken you with me after all.'
'Well, I didn't ask for it, you were the one who...' His voice trailed off into silence when his eyes met hers. 'Alright, alright. I'm sorry, now, are you happy?'
Bodhi nodded, and her features softened slightly.
'Alright', she said, a little more clamly, 'Let's just not talk about it, alright? Now, are we going to look for that tree, or what?'
She turned away from him to take a look around, and gasped in surprise. Joneleth imitated her and instantly forgot his anger.
He had believed at first that they had reached the ground already, but one look around showed him that they were actually seated on the rough surface of a gigantic tree-trunk, bent horizontally to form a suspended bridge over a vertininous gap. He tried closing his eyes for a second, but it only made matters even worse.
Other bark-covered titans rose up even higher and higher above their heads to gigantic heights, fir trees and cedars and cypresses and all kinds of evergreens, their intertwined branches forming a dark archway above, speckled with light, and staring up he could remember stories he had read, of pine cones so large they could knock a man senseless in their fall.
He could have stayed there for ages, keeping his eyes half closed and breething in the sweet scent of resin, only just listening to the dozens of little sounds that made up the strange untroubled quietness of the woods, the distant twittering of invisible birds and the soft murmur of dry pine needles cascading in the branches. To hear anything like this within the confines of Suldanessellar one would need to walk away from the dwellings and climb very high in the trees where he wouldn't be drowned anymore in the bustle of everyday sounds and the songs of his people, while here in the forest he needed only to close his eyes and...
'Jon', said an amused voice right next to him, bringing him back to the here and now. 'Stop gawking around, we've got things to do.'
'Um? Yes, of course.'
He blinked his surprise, looking around as if he hadn't expected to find himself in such a place at all. Bodhi shot him an amused glance, but from the look in her eyes it was plain that the same sense of wonder seized her just as well as it had him.
'Now let's go, shall we? You follow me.'
And so they carefully went down the narrow path along the giant tree trunk that led to the firm ground below, helping each other along the way. When his feet at last met the damp earth, Joneleth felt a great sense of elation sweeping over him, and of freedom like he had never known before. He looked up to his sister and they grinned at each other, drinking from the same pool of shared exhilaration.
They forgot all notion of time on their way to the heart of the forest and gazed all around them on the path with their eyes wide open. They marvelled at the gnarled roots and fallen branches that sometimes blocked their path and at the unknown species of weeds and brambles that slowed them down, the likes of which they had never seen before. Their gazes were drowned in the bushes on either side and among tree trunks straight and bent, thick and slender, covered in green moss and grey lichens, breathing and growing there in soft and comfortable silence. There were all sorts of conifers, some of which they had only ever encountered in picture books, that Joneleth pointed to his sister when they came upon them, and others that even he could never, in spite of all his efforts, recognize. They stopped at every turn and observed attentively all the birds and insects that they could find on their way, and collected fragrant herbs that didn't grow within Suldanessellar itself.
'I'll be a hunter when I'm older, and I can come back every day if I want to', Bodhi decided there and then, though she made such statements with such regular occurrence that there was no telling whether she was being serious or if that newest little idea of hers would have fallen into oblivion by evening, like so many others.
Joneleth did not even bother to answer, absorbed as he was by a new impression he had of being observed. The feel of a persistent gaze was seering and dripping down upon them from the woods themselves, and Joneleth, glancing back over his shoulder, half expected to see the trees rustling of their own accord and murmuring between themselves, exchanging impressions of kindly benevolence and only a little hint of amused reprobation. They were still elves of Suldanessellar, wherever they went, and in the forest near the city they were home and protected.
They were still very close to the city, even though it seemed like ages since they had managed to sneak past the sentries, and everywhere still could be felt the power of the Tree and that of the Lady who was its guardian. Here flowers grew freely and the undergrowth was covered with myrtle and sage and large thick grass, whereas farther away in the woods it was autumn already, or so the hunters had said. What autumn could look like neither of them had any idea – nearest to Suldanessellar itself there was only ever one season, and the songs of birds ever echoed in the forest.
At last they reached a running stream that leaped over the rocks in its gravel bed and went ever deeper into the woods. They followed it downstream, walking barefoot in the water until they reached a carved rock pool, lined with rushes and water lilies.
'There', Bodhi said, pointing towards the pool with her shoe, 'This way'.
Joneleth nodded and followed without question – she was adamantly sure of the way they should follow, and he knew her sense of direction to be unwaveringly reliable, most of the time. And it turned out she had been right after all, for a little while only after they had left the stone basin they reached a narrow glade, overrun with heather and juniper. The air was lighter there, and a few rays of orange sunlight seeped through the trees and fell on the grass.
There there stood a majestic oak, the only one of its kind in these surroundings, that grew unhindered by other species in the middle of the clearing. It had been struck by lightning apparently, ages ago. An entire side of it was all black and withered, and the surviving shoots had grown alongside it and formed new branches that had long overshadowed the deformed sculpture of glistening coal at their feet.
'There', Joneleth ventured to whisper after a while, still panting a little from the effort and doing his best to hide it. 'We've seen the old oak tree. Are you happy now? I think we should go back now, it'll be dark soon.'
But the familiarity they shared rendered all his efforts useless, of course.
'What, you tired already? Here, come and catch me if you can!'
And with this she erupted in joyful laughter and darted off between the nearest trees.
'Bodhi, wait!', he cried out after her. She had disappeared into the branches already and he could almost not see her any more, only just shadows of movements somewhere behind a thick screen of leaves. 'Don't run so fast!'
'You're too slow, little brother!', her voice erupted from somewhere in the shadows. 'You should get out of the library more often, you know.'
Yeah, yeah, I know. He was starting to become rather tired of so many people telling him just this – his mother, his father, even his own tutor sometimes expressed concern that he was taking his lessons a little too much at heart. And now her as well? He would spend as much time in the library as he very well liked, thank you very much.
Bodhi was still running well ahead of him, hardly visible between the trees. Joneleth called after her, but only her laughter answered, and he tried to catch her, but at every attempt she ended up infuriatingly one step too far for him to reach. He was painfully aware that each misled step led them farther and farther away from the city. At some point he was almost tempted to simply give up on the chase and retrace his steps, but he knew all too well that Bodhi's sense of direction was the only thing that kept them tied to Suldanessellar still. He would never be able to find his way back without her help.
After a while the light around them waned noticeably and Joneleth, crouched silently behind a fallen tree, felt a cold dampness fall upon them all of a sudden. Night was starting to fall at last, and way too quickly. He peered over the branches and looked up ahead, to Bodhi, standing still on the path and looking about her as if wondering where to go next. Joneleth planned his assault and crawled ahead in the bushes as noiselessly as he could, unseen from her. She still had not moved an inch. With a ringing warcry, Joneleth sprang from his hiding place and fell upon her. Bodhi issued a small cry and fell to the ground, not even trying to defend herself or fend off her brother's assault.
'Bodhi, what's wrong?', Joneleth asked, instantly sobered, as his sister scrambled up to her feet.
For a long moment she did not answer and simply gazed ahead in a strange immobile way that made him afraid that she had been bewitched. There was a crazed look in her eyes and she was shivering all over.
'...Bodhi? Are you alright?'
Of course, if she had somehow fallen victim to an enchantment, asking would be of no use, and he should probably walk back a few steps now, just in case she –
'Jon, look.'
Bodhi pointed ahead with a trembling finger. Feeling her immense distress within his own heart he looked up in the designated direction, but could see nothing at all that should have caused such a disproportionate reaction, nothing more than an empty clearing, similar to countless others that they had passed before.
'Well, what is it?'
'I...I was sure the old oak tree would be here, that's all.'
Joneleth looked back from the empty glade to his sister, alarmed by the crippling fear he saw in her eyes, the tightness of her expression and the tension in her body.
'Bodhi', he said, trying not to sound admonishing or reproachful, 'You can find the way back to Suldanessellar from here, can you?'
She looked up at him and waved off his concern with a falsely dismissive shrug. 'Of course I can.'
' Then maybe we should go back, now. It's getting late, and everybody will have noticed we're gone.'
'Or they'll think you're still in the library somewhere buried under a huge pile of books, and I'm out there causing mischief. It could be days and days before they start looking for us.'
The words had a ring of painful truth to them, and Joneleth started shivering in spite of himself. They would have to rely on themselves, then.
Going back to the old oak tree was not overly difficult after all, and after a little search their eyes fell upon the ancient tree standing in the middle of its enclosed clearing, whose simple desire to exist in spite of unwelcome surroundings had withstood even the lethal thunder.
'There, it should be easy now, right?', he tried to encourage her. 'First the stream and then...'
Bodhi nodded and they started on their way back from the glade in a direction that could well have been chosen at random for all he knew. Bodhi probably knew what she was doing, though. He had never at all been in the forest before, but nevertheless felt with sharp accuracy that it was Bodhi's realm more than his own. Soon they would reach the stream, and then finding the way back home would be fairly simple.
And yet try as they might, it seemed after a while that they were still going nowhere, nowhere Joneleth could recognize at least. Night had fallen completely and the air was getting colder and colder. There were strange shadows between the trees and curious noises higher up in the branches. All benevolence had gone from the woods, as if the trees had fallen asleep and their protection with them, and their surroundings were filled with ominous foreboding. Sharp branches tore at their clothes and the bushes and brambles hindered them and hurt their feet. Bodhi suffered the most of the two, having lost both her shoes at some point during the chase. She walked ahead still, stubbornly refusing to admit that they were lost and muttering things to herself under her breath.
'I'm sure we've been in this place before. Look, I'm pretty sure I can recognize that tree here, meaning the stream should be just behind, and...'
She ran ahead in that direction, unheeding of the bushes that hindered her, but in spite of all her efforts she could find nothing at all. Not a brook in sight, not even the faint sound of running water. Finally Bodhi stopped right in the middle of the track and ran her fingers through her hair, repeatedly.
'I can't recognize anything! Jon, we're lost! I have no idea where we are!'
Joneleth rushed to her and set his hands firmly on her shoulders, lookingstraight into her eyes and trying his best to calm her down.
'We're lost, they'll never find us. We'll never get home again. Jon, what should we do?'
'I... Bodhi, I think we've gone far enough for now. Why don't we go back to the old tree for a start?'
Bodhi nodded silently and they went back on their way. Finding the clearing again was easy enough, since Bodhi had taken care to remember the way this time, though she stopped enery now and then and looked back at him enquiringly before even changing direction. They were walking slowly now, and close to each other. After a while Joneleth took hold of Bodhi's hand, not daring to let go of her in the thick darkness that surrounded them. They both had sharp eyes and could see fairly well in the dark, but shivering branches and bushes obstructed their way, strange noises filled their ears, and they feared being inadvertantly separated.
By the time they made their way back to their starting point Bodhi was a shivering wreck, cold and tired with her bare feet damp and blistered, and he had to lead her and support her through the glade.
'There', he said gently, 'We're back.'
Bodhi yawned and cast a despondent look around the place, as if she could not recognize it any more.
'Jooon, I'm ti-red', she muttered at last.
Joneleth smiled and led his sister by the hand to the cover of trees that surrounded the clearing, under the branches of a giant pine tree.
'There, come here, we'll just sit down here and wait.'
'What?', Bodhi protested, resisting his pull, 'But we'll freeze to death!'
'Don't worry. We'll just sit here under the tree and wait for someone to come out this way. We'll be easier to find if we stay in one place instead of moving around, and we'll save lots of energy.'
'And how are they supposed to notice us, when we don't even have any light?'
'Don't worry', he repeated, 'I'll handle it.'
'Mmmhh', she moaned vaguely, folding her arms tight around herself in a vain attempt to fight off the cold.
Joneleth shrugged and went ahead to sit under the tree. Bodhi lingered behind in the open, hesitating still, but he had no doubt that she would soon be joining him, and so he set about to the task at hand. Searching the darkness, he looked all around him for a little bit of moss or lichen, but could not find enough to serve his purpose, and dared not get up again to look around the clearing for some more and leave his sister alone. Maybe if he added some pine needles instead...? That could work, although the smell was bound to be disagreeable. Which would still be better than nothing at all, though.
'Jon, what're you doing?', Bodhi asked, having finally decided to join him under the tree, or maybe realized that she was growing too tired to stand up in the cold any more.
He did not answer, simply muttered something to himself under his breath, and she sat by his side and watched him as he gathered the necessary components in a neat little pile in front of him.
'Jon, if you're trying to do what I think you're trying to do, you'll need more than –'
Joneleth smiled and said the word, adding in an improvised hand flourish for good measure. The dry moss and needles flared up in white green flames, giving off a distinct smell of scorched pine. Some of them fizzled and crackled and exploded under the stress of the sudden heat, in a most curious and interesting effect that he had not foreseen.
'Woah!', Bodhi blurted out and jumped back instinctively.
Looking at the flames with mingled suspicion and curiosity, she circled around the unnatural fire like one would approach a wild animal and extended a curious hand towards it.
'Bodhi, don't!'
'Ouch! It' real!'
Joneleth shrugged and said, 'Well of course it's real, what did you expect?'
'Wow, Jon, I had no idea you could do something like that!'
She was staring at him with her eyes wide open, all tiredness temporarily forgotten and the doleful look in her eyes replaced by keen interest and deep admiration. Joneleth shrugged away his discomfort.
'Now they'll be able to see us.'
Then started the long wait for rescue. The air was wet and thin drizzling rain started to fall, but under the tree they were relatively dry and not so cold. The fire itself seemed to have taken hold of all of Bodhi's attention, and when he finally dared to look up again Joneleth found her deeply enthralled by the flames, her eyes lost in the depths of the fire he had created.
After a while Bodhi settled down more comfortably against him and Joneleth sought to while away the wait by observing the flames and taking mental notes on how the variation of components had affected the spell, all the while taking comfort in what little light and warmth the fire provided. He dared not even for a moment slip into the warm and soft slumber that beckoned him, feeling strangely alert now that he had seen how fatigue had exhausted the last of his sister's strength and realizing that her safety depended entirely on his efforts.
The night was more than half-spent before someone found them at last and the soft white glow of a lantern drifted out of the woods on the opposite side of the clearing. Bodhi was sound asleep, nestled safely against his shoulder, and Joneleth did not dare to move, but there was no need to – their own fire made them visible enough, and the visiting light soon bent its way and started towards them.
A group of hunters emerged from the woods into the dim light, tall and slim with slender bows and hunting knives. They did not chide them for their recklessness and disobedience – that would be their parents' task, once they reached home a little while later – but Joneleth felt the deep sting of their unuttered reproach nevertheless. At their invitation he tried to rouse Bodhi from her slumber, but despite his efforts she proved impossible to wake, and he gratefully let one of them take on the burden of carrying her sleeping form back to Suldanessellar. Another one took off his own travelling cloak to place it around his thin shoulders, and he gratefully gathered the many folds of the huge garment all around him.
The lantern-bearer took the lead. The white lamp cast strange shadows and reflections on their hands and faces and on the blades they wore, on the black shimmering mass of Bodhi's hair and on her dark pupils when she opened her eyes and winked at him. Joneleth rolled his eyes and extiguished his own little magical fire regretfully, then hurried after the hunters to take his place among them on their way back home.