The Reign of Magic. Wolf Awert
would grow. One day, something happened. Perhaps it was a bolt of lightning or a storm, nobody knows any more. Either way, some of the old trees burned down and there was a clearing in the woods. The sorcerers planted three Mylantos trees in that clearing. The king never knew what happened with the seeds. He had grown tired of the whole business and left the forest with his party. He went back home and never came back here. What we know today we know from the people who live here. The Old Forest of Ancient Trees was always important to these people, for they felt what was special about the place and declared it sacred.
“The Mylantos grew far quicker than the old trees. Their branches wove together and cast shadows on the ground, and the children of the old trees could not grow. Now there are only Mylantos. But the last of the ancient trees noticed that the Mylantos moved in the wind and sometimes the leafy canopy opened up. Light would soak the ground, and darkness would be dispelled for a while. So they began to move, and so the ancient trees still move. They move towards the light to survive. They are the only trees on Pentamuria that can grow under Mylantos.”
“So both trees now live together in peace.” Nill liked the nice end to the tale, but the druid shook his head sadly.
“I do not know if there is peace. I cannot feel it. The legend claims that the trees were giants and connected the earth to the sky. What we see here and call the “ancient trees” are small, tough warriors, fighting for their lives. These are no giants any more. What you feel are their cries for help, their anger. That is why people call this place the Valley of Unhappy Trees. They know the forest. I do not believe that there is peace here. There will be peace when the ancient trees are alone again.”
Nill liked Dakh’s stories. Something in the way he told them turned the words into song. But he never quite understood what the druid was trying to convey, and this annoyed him. He did not want to seem obtuse or stupid.
“I did not feel anger,” he said, “but certainly desperation. And sadness, too. Why do I always feel like you’re trying to tell me something with your tales? I rarely understand what you really mean.”
Dakh-Ozz-Han plucked a fresh blade of grass from the earth. “I am not trying to say anything. The stories are the ones who want that. That is why there are always people to keep telling them, and every new person sees a different message in them. But that is also the reason that we keep telling stories about the early days of man.”
The druid gazed up toward the sky. “Many generations ago, Shubalo the Seer showed the future to mankind. He did not tell what he had seen. He wrote a song of what would no longer be. The song is sung by druids and other peoples, and has been for many hundreds of years.” And the druid began to sing a few lines in his rough voice.
Where once was magic, still is now
It conquers and defends
King will fall and Circle sleep
And ev’ry reign must end.
With no order, sorrow comes
Into darkness flees the light
When the world is crumbling down
No one retains their might.
Nill shook his head, confused. “That is a song for dancing. But who would give a dance-tune such dark lyrics? Did Shubalo really know the future?”
Dakh opened his hands and looked into his palms, as if to show that there was nothing there. “We druids believe that man once knew his distant future, but the knowledge has been lost. In the tales of the tribes some of the old prophecy is still intact. But I begin to wonder. More and more prophecies are reaching the light of day. Bits of stories that everyone knows, but are still new. Signs inscribed in stone tablets or rocks. And I wonder how we could have missed that? Prophecies made by great mages are truths. But as with all truths, there are more than one.”
Nill shook his head again. “Either it’s true or not. There is no in between.”
The druid smiled. “No, my young friend. It is not as easy as you would think. The opposite of a truth is not a lie, but another truth. As such there is always the possibility that a prophecy does not come to pass, or even to stop it from happening. And that is what the mage’s Circle is trying to do.”
“How?”
The word exploded out of Nill in his excitement and curiosity, shooting through the air loudly and leaving an empty silence in its wake for a moment, which was then filled with the quiet rustling of the fire. Dakh jumped.
“What did you just do? Just now?” he asked sharply.
“Nothing,” Nill answered as innocently as he felt. “I would like to know how the mages intend to stop their destinies from happening.”
The druid exhaled, shuddering. “If you don’t learn to control your abilities quickly, you won’t even have a destiny.”
“That bad?”
“That bad!”
Dakh-Ozz-Han hummed a melody to himself. The notes came from deep within his throat and had little to do with music as Nill knew it, but he could not resist their effect. He felt his energy draining and had difficulty in staying upright. “What are you doing with me?” he yawned.
“It was a difficult day. We will talk more tomorrow.”
Nill agreed, but before he fell asleep for good he jerked up again.
“Wait!”
Nill had remembered what he had wanted to tell Dakh-Ozz-Han all along. First the sadness, then Dakh’s tale, then the strange discourse about truth and lies had pushed all else aside, and so he burst out: “There is an ancient magic in this forest!”
“Leave it for now,” the druid mumbled.
“No, no, I felt it. It was in the movement of the branches. It looked like they were reaching for the light at first, but really it was a dance of souls. I danced with them, and I know it wasn’t about sunlight any longer. I felt like an olm or a dragon, or a…” His eyes fell shut and he heard Dakh’s answer as a distant grumble. One word managed to get through to him.
“The tough warriors are very old,” the druid said. “Their memories reach back to the parts of time that man had no access to. It is possible that they granted you some. You seem more accessible than most people.”
“Accessible”: there was that word again. Esara had said the same after the runes had danced and he had fought the demon. “What does accessible mean?”
Whatever else the druid said to him, he did not hear it.
The next morning they had left the Valley of Unhappy Trees behind them and were glad to be back in the sun. With every step some of the despair lifted, and before long Nill was singing loudly.
“Vitality is best when it comes back,” the druid said simply.
They marched towards the rising sun, the unending mountains to their left in the distance, a small jagged crown on the horizon, and on their right the familiar hills that looked like the backs of a grazing herd of rams from this distance. The landscape kept to its yellowish green and the shrubs and bushes looked like those they had passed already, back near the village. The only things that had changed in the forest were Nill and Dakh-Ozz-Han. Nill had left behind his timidity before the mighty man, and Dakh had begun to teach Nill. He mostly did this with short signs, little more than a nod of the head.
Once, Dakh stopped moving suddenly and craned his neck. Nill looked around but could not see what had caught Dakh’s attention. Once the druid had shown no obvious signs of wanting to keep walking and the calm of the moment had spread across the hill, Nill heard the wind. It was blowing across the land differently than usual, and as such sounded unfamiliar. Nill nodded, the druid smiled, and they continued their walk. That was all that happened. But what could cause the wind to blow differently? The question stayed in Nill’s mind all day.