The walk to the great ash tree in the middle of the wood was oddly silent. No spirits loped over the snow, no trees shuddered and moved, no living animals chirped or grunted. The companions were silent as well, all lost in their own thoughts.
"Addie, look..." Gann said. They had come to the rise that came just before the great ash tree.
It was as though the entire forest had uprooted itself, all of the living essences of trees and earth had surrounded the great ash tree in the center. In the middle of the circle stood Nadaj. Only... it was not Nadaj. It was shaped like Nadaj, but it was as though a shimmering essence had been poured into a glass bottle in the form of her body. She stood there, translucent, amid the angry denizens of Ashenwood.
"I knew something was off with her," Adahni said. She stood there, nervously. Spirit animals, and other spirits, elementals and treants, flanked the Nadaj-but-not-Nadaj, but did not attack.
"As did I," Okku said, "I dismissed it as just a rumbling, a disturbance in the winds."
"What is it?" asked Safiya.
"It's what the Wood Man was protecting us from," Okku said.
"So when people say that the Wood Man is the protector in the forest..."
"He's protecting the rest of the world from that," Okku said, pointing with his paw.
"But what is it?" Safiya asked again.
"We are the outrage! The fury! The vengeance!" Nadaj shouted, but it was not her voice. It was a legion of voices, hollow and unearthly. Long have we festered, desiring only to protect, yet bound and suppressed by the one who purports to speak for these woods."
"Such power, unbound by law or leader," Kaelyn said, "It is the most dangerous thing in existence." The cleric gripped her weapon, white-knuckled.
"Where is the Wood Man?" asked Adahni. She wasn't quite sure that this strange being would answer her or even acknowledge that she had spoken, but it turned to her.
"He has failed. Has faded to nothing. Now we are all that protects. We are the need, the distress, the suffering!" Nadaj-but-not-Nadaj growled, "And you... you have come again to walk among us, to murder and corrupt us with your limitless hunger!"
The crowd of spirits behind the shell of the witch tensed all at once, poised to attack. Adahni flinched in spite of herself, "I wouldn't do that if I were you," she said. She felt her second stomach, the one that craved spirits, grumble. She'd been successful in suppressing her spirit-hunger for days, now that she was able to feed her regular body normally, but surrounded by the translucent telthor, she had the sensation of salivating. She felt a little guilty, knowing that this outrage in the forest was well founded, and knowing what she was about to do.
"We were threatened. We burned, we wilted, we yielded to parasites."
"Guys, you might want to look the other way," Adahni said to her companions, "I think I'm about to have an episode."
She felt her insides lurch, as though her body was about to expel her. This time, though, she was expecting it, and so it was not nearly as jolting as it had been before the spirit host outside the walls of Mulsantir. It was as though she was being spit out, and she floated above the Ashenwood, and could do nothing but watch as the curse took control of her body. Her body took the large spirits first, the elementals and the treants, seizing upon them and sucking them out of existence. Nadaj recoiled with every spirit she devoured, but raised her hands in the air and set the rest of them to attack her companions. She could do nothing, hovering, a small and insubstantial wisp floating above it all.
And then she saw something odd. In a flash, she was not in the Ashenwood at all. She was in a strange place, trapped, amidst the bodies of others. Her hands and legs were pinned, her face frozen, staring out over a vast and barren landscape. She tried to open her mouth to scream, but she could not.
And then agony hit her, not in her body, but in her heart. It was the first time she'd had her heart broken combined with the first time her father had been disappointed in her all tied together with the feeling she had holding her best friend's lifeless head in her lap. And she could not will it away as she could normally, feeling her hurt for a few days, and then letting it go. It was fresh, and raw, and awful, and unending. It could have gone on for a moment or hours or years, she would not have known. It felt as though time lost all of its meaning, and the only thing in existence was this jagged and bleeding pain.
And then it did end, and she was jolted back to Ashenwood, back to her body, where she was straddling the dusty neck of an earth elemental. She clung to him for a few minutes, but she was disoriented and soon it was able to buck her off its back, and she went flying and fell with a thud in the snow. Stars danced before her eyes for a moment, and if Gann had not been there to fell the elemental with his cudgel, it would have crushed her into the ground like an insect.
"STOP THIS AT ONCE!" a hoarse but powerful voice came booming over the wood. She looked, and at the top of the hill stood Dalenka, hobbling along, slowly but surely, on two feet and her cane. The spirits seemed to listen, too, to the commanding voice of the elder hathran. Everyone froze where they were, waiting for Dalenka to approach. She walked right up to ash tree, right up to that which had been the ethran Nadaj, and looked up at the entity, fury blazing in her now bright gray eyes.
"You are simply too old for this nonsense!" she scolded, whacking the shell that had been Nadaj with her cane, "This forest has stood for millenia, and still, the minute the Wood Man goes missing, you start acting out like a stand of saplings!"
Nadaj said nothing, but looked a little chagrined as the old woman read her the riot act.
"Now look what you've made her do," Dalenka said. She hobbled up to Adahni and offered her a hand up. Adahni took it, finding the old woman's grip surprisingly strong, "She's come all this way, ended your burning, expelled the frost giants, fixed the blight, and this is how you treat her? Not to mention driving me jabbering mad with your incessant chattering!"
The spirits retreated. With every word, magic came from the old hathran's mouth, blasting the spirits backwards. Adahni stood, taking stock of her bodily situation with both hands. There was a goose egg rapidly rising on the back of her head, and she was bleeding from a gash at the back of her neck. She would live.
"Be gone, there is no further need of you!" the old hathran commanded, and the spirits did her bidding, scampering back into the woods from whence they came. She turned to Nadaj, "And for pity's sake, let that ethran go! She's barely more than a child!"
Her words, again, worked some kind of magic. Nadaj jolted, this way and that, and then fell back, slumped against the tree. Her eyes flew open, as did her mouth. From her mouth poured some kind of magical essence, green and roiling. It flew from her, winding around the trunk of the great ash tree, and fading back into it. Nadaj, empty of that which had been possessing her, fell back, her eyes closed and her head lolling on her neck. At first, Adahni thought she was dead, but then her eyes flickered open again. They were no longer green as they had been before, but dark brown. She coughed, and took a breath, and stood up.
"What happened?" she asked. Her voice was different, too. Without the voice of the forest speaking through her throat, she sounded very young and childlike. Adahni felt a pang of pity.
"Good, you're not hurt," Dalenka said, "Come on then, girl, there's a lot of work we're behind on."
"You're just going to go?" asked Adahni, "Can you at least give me a clue as to what in the everloving fuck happened here?"
"The forest has a mind of its own," the hathran said, "It's temperamental. When the last one of you to come through here, and Wood Man went away, it was up to myself and Nadaj to keep it in line. It managed to knock me out, drive me half mad with its whispering, whispering, all day and all night, and take Nadaj for its vessel." She looked Adahni up and down again, "You're not like the others, are you."
"I like to think that," Adahni replied, "But I suppose that remains to be seen."
"You are," Dalenka said, "I can tell. But right now, we have other things we need to do. Nadaj?"
"What... what do you mean took me for its vessel?" Nadaj asked, "Who is this woman? Why is there a Red Wizard and a... a blue man here? What's Okku doing this far north? And what am I doing out here in the woods?"
"Hush, girl!" exclaimed Dalenka, "You and I have many long winter nights for me to explain what happened, once I've figured it out myself. But I have the feeling that this spirit-eater will not be here for much longer."
"Not if I have any say in the matter," Adahni said, shuddering, still adjusting to being back in control of her own limbs.
"I am not one to hand out praise like candy on the first day of winter," Dalenka said, "But that was quite a clever trick you pulled, with that song. What kind of sorcerer are you?"
"I'm not," Adahni said, "I'm just a fighter who sings silly songs. Or a bard with a terrible temper. I'm not sure which these days."
"We don't quite trust bardic magic, we of the hathran," Dalenka said, "But I suppose it has its place."
"But.. the Wood Man," Adahni said, "We've ended the burning, driven off the intruders, fixed the blight and sent whatever was possessing Nadaj out of her. Why has he not returned?"
"I do not know," Dalenka said, "It may be that he has been too badly hurt for too long. It may be he just doesn't feel like showing himself. But I can tell you this, he is growing stronger. If you will forgive us, it is a long walk back to the garrison. I am an old woman, and Nadaj may have been wounded in ways that are not readily apparent."
"Would somebody please explain to me what is going on?" asked Nadaj.
"Come on, girl, I'll tell you the whole sordid story on the way home," Dalenka said.
The young witch followed her mentor obediently. The companions watched them as they moved, one hobbling and the other walking slowly, until they disappeared into the trees. Adahni sat down in the snow, too frustrated to care as it melted and soaked through her breeches. Her brain had not had time to process what had occurred in the time she was outside her body. How she had gone from the damp, snow-blanketed Ashenwood to being trapped in a mass of humanity somewhere far, far away. Was it a dream? Or was that reality, and is this a dream? Where does a soul go when it has been displaced from its own body? She thought about what Dalenka had said when she was still in the throes of her madness. You are not two but three.
"Addie, look!" Kaelyn exclaimed.
She snapped out of it and leaped to her feet. The old ash tree had begun to shudder and sigh. The snow shed from its branches, and fell to the ground. A glow began at the roots of the tree, and the glowing became a blinding brightness. Out of the brightness, the skeletal branches of a tree formed, and the tree grew leaves and bloomed as though it were springtime.
"Wood Man?" Adahni peeped.
The tree moved, leaned over, ostensibly so he could hear her better.
"I am all that creeps or walks, lives or grows, sickens or rots or dies," he rumbled, as though he were whispered in her ear, "Will you always be here when I wake, devourer of souls? Gorge on my life a hundred times, and you will never be sated... nor will I ever die, while the forest exists."
"I've been here before?" Adahni asked.
"The faces change, but the hunger remains the same. Why did you slay the parasite and call me forth, if not to feast upon me once again?" the Wood Man asked.
"I thought that perhaps you could help me, tell me what is this curse I bear?" she asked.
"You still do not understand what you are," the Wood Man said. It was very strange talking to him, for Adahni could not discern a face or anything resembling one from which she could read expressions and get the full meaning of his words. It was like speaking with a stranger through a wall, with so much subtext lost. He did not seem bothered by it, though, and continued, "Neither did those other faces, which hid the same hunger that you bear. They called it a gift. You think it a curse. It is neither."
"Then what is it?" Adahni asked.
"It is your nature," the Wood Man replied, "Hunger is what you are. You were not always thus. But how your nature changed is not known to me. Yet... I sense a wrathful touch upon your soul... the wrath of the God... a dead God."
"And how would a dead God do that?" asked Adahni. She had a sketchy knowledge of the life cycles of Gods. She knew that other beings, spirits, and even people, could become gods through various means. And she knew that, while Gods could "die," it was not a death in the way that people or animals died. It was more like exile combined with a drastic diminution of powers. So long as there were people to believe in a God, he would never actually die.
"A dead boar may fall into a stream, putrefy, and corrupt the waters. A dead tree may topple and rot, providing life for a million swarming ants."
"A lovely metaphor, but I don't know that it's terribly elucidating," Adahni commented, "What dead God might have done this?" Not Cyric. Please not Cyric, she thought, remembering the horror that the cult of Cyric had wrought on her husband and his companions in the Circle of Blades.
"An unfamiliar God... a stranger to the forest. Chauntea, Mielikki, Lurue, these are Gods that I knew in their youth, and their wrath is different in kind," the Wood Man said.
"I've got to get rid of it," Adahni said, "How can I get rid of it?"
"You cannot defeat your own nature. You must be what you are, and in being, you must finally succumb. To change your nature, to return to what you once were... most such changes are impossible. Burn a forest to ash, and you can only plant anew. You cannot change its nature. But you can teach it to obey. Perhaps... you might discover a way to restore, as well as devour," the Wood Man said.
She felt her second stomach twist, full of the life force of the spirits she had consumed. She remembered how she had brought the guardian of the portals back to life, in the rooms beyond rooms in the shadow of the veil. The Wood Man was weak, having just come back from where he was hiding. She concentrated on herself, feeling herself full of the spirit essences. She looked up at the wood man, the shining tree before her, and willed him back to life. Before her, he grew, stronger, and more substantial. She could feel the energy flowing out of her and into him. He stretched his branches to the sky.
"Ahh, I can feel some of my old strength returning, from before the Spirit Eaters came to devour me, again and again," the Wood Man said, "Perhaps I was incorrect. Perhaps your nature is not the same as the others."
"My predecessor's debt is paid," Adahni said, "And now, let's move on. Out of this cold."
"I know of a lovely spot to travel through, down in the south of Rashemen," Gann said, "It is on our way to the Sunken City."
"I appreciate your eagerness, Gann," Adahni said, "But I think we could all use a full night's rest in a real city. And I should speak with Sheva before we move on."
"Very well, my lemming," the hagspawn replied, "But our night beneath the Mosstone has me thinking, perhaps something may be learned by scrying in the Wells of Lurue."