Into the Deep Wood

“We have to leave,” Marat said, standing at the cottage window.

Val sat on the bed, her feet tucked under her, chin resting on her knee.

“Marat, I have to show you something,” Val said as if she did not hear a word.

He raised an eyebrow in annoyance, turning to her. Something about the way she’d said it felt off.

“Show me what?” He asked.

“Avgusta.” She looked dazed, as if in a dream. “She showed me through a cellar, in the big house...”

“A cellar?” He took a seat next to her. His eyes ran across her face, trying to predict her words.

“She said it was the Wound down there. She told me that I cannot tell you because it is the heart of Chelkalka. Because it is a birthright. She made me swear it on my name.”

His face froze in disbelief.

“Are you an idiot?” He asked, his voice strained.

“I think I may be,” She said, “I did not want to, but she swore on her name that it would not hurt you if you did not know.”

“And the Hag promised you what, Val? A soft bed and hot dinner?”

His words made her cringe, even knowing that he was right.

“I think we both kind of make… shit decisions sometimes.” She sighed.

“Alright, wait, the Wound? Where the Nothing had torn through this world, and you went down there?”

“I did not know what it was when I swore!” Her voice had grown higher in pitch and defensive tone. “For all I knew, there were some very special sacks of potatoes down there! Gods, Marat!”

“Where is it?”

“I can show you.”

“No, how far? How close are we to the Wound?” He stood, beginning to pace.

“There is a narrow gorge, it is hidden as the city has been built over it. The tunnel does not lead far, and you can see the sky.” She said, and she saw his face pale.

“All-Father preserve us…” He muttered, “We are right on top of it. Val, you truly do not understand.”

“Then tell me!”

He remained standing and rubbed the bridge of his nose, a habit she learned not to mean pleasant things.

“You’ve been to the Deep Wood. In it is a Wound buried far inside its thick forests. You weren’t even near it and look what happened. The Nothing-touched are birthed there, Val. It seeps corruption.”

“I’m sorry…”

“As am I.” He sighed. “Where a Wound bleeds, the land spoils, and with it the people. It feeds on what is to spread what isn’t. We cannot stay any longer.”

She twisted a bit of her skirt between her fingers nervously.

“What’s happening, Marat? What is happening in this place?”

“They’re feeding it. And I do not know what that means or what sorts of vile things it yields. But they are feeding it. The people and the land must be corrupted to the core. These aren’t just superstitious farmers thinking that a vodyanoi is their fish god.” He sighed even more heavily. “We have to leave, and we have to do so now.”

“They will not let us go.” She said. “They say that we are not held prisoner, but they will not let us. I know this.”

“I do not think they will either. Not since the All-Mother showed this place to you. Not since they knew that you are Golden.” He agreed. “But, I will figure out a way.”

He stood, beginning to pace again.

“I want you to show it to me.” He said. “Tonight. And, after, we will leave.”

In the evening, Marat had tried to retrieve Aditi, but without luck. The stableboy claimed she had hoof rot and had been taken to a man on a farm at the very edge of the region.

It was as if everything was going wrong.

It was not until very late in the night, when the streets were deserted that Val led Marat to the big house. The doors had been kept well and often oiled, so they did not make much noise as Marat snapped a small metal piece in the lock, and it clicked open.

They entered, and the smell of stale dust rose from the floor.

Marat lit a small lantern that illuminated the room. In the corner, it revealed the cellar door. It was locked.

“Gods…” Val whined, becoming increasingly frustrated with the misfortune they’d had along the way. Had she not known better, she would think that Legho was walking in the hills nearby. And then, she remembered her name-promise.

Oh gods…

“Shh.” It was more of a statement than a command.

Something snapped, and he pulled the lock loose.

The door was heavy, and Marat had to strain to pull it up. It had not eluded Val that the frail All-Mother had done so with almost casual ease.

They descended the stairs, Marat walking ahead and holding up the lantern, its flickering flame casting shadows across his face. It had smelled damper and mossier than before, and the walls of the tunnel seemed narrower.

There was no rustle in the trees, no stir among the grasses, just silence and unnatural stillness.

Marat paused, trying to search out the Nothing.

It hit him so hard that he recoiled, grunting and doubling over.

It was all over, suffocating, encircling them and closing in over their heads. He did not need to try and find it, as it had found him instead.

“What do you hope to find?” Val asked as they walked down the path to the coop.

“Answers. No one knew this Wound was here. No one knew that Golden came only from the River Cities. We cannot leave until I can see it for myself.”

Where the walkway split off, Val pulled on his sleeve.

“This way, I have to show you something,” She said.

“Forgive me if I am weary when you say that.” He said, but stepped to the side allowing her ahead.

They came up on the coop, but there was no movement within. Val opened the door, motioning for Marat to walk ahead with the light. The smell of rotting straw and feces hung low in the air, sticky and viscous, and it immediately stuck to their skin and hair.

At first, Marat saw nothing, but then, in the corner of the room, on a raised post, something stirred. The phoenix flapped its wings rapidly, startled. It let out a pathetic creak.

Marat only stared at it blankly.

“We are at the heart of the most dangerous place known to man and you show me a chicken.” He said, his eyes first jumping to Val, then back to the creature. He saw its lack of eyes, the brightness of the reflecting lamp light, and like Val, realization dawned.

“This cannot be…” He stepped forward, whistling softly to it, calming it and keeping it from escaping. “ This is… All-Father, I did not think… but, is it very young?”

“I don’t think so.” Val shook her head. “I think they are just this size.”

He turned to look back at her, his face like an excited child's. The bird scampered away just as he reached it, making a very unpleasant screech at Marat, who flinched away in shock.

“We do not have time for you, rare as you may be,” he muttered but still pursued the bird, grabbing for it as it would flap and get just out of his reach.

A hunter indeed.

As his hands closed around and another screech cut through the air, she was shocked to see that he plucked one of its feathers. The bird struggled in distress, squealing and squalling and making it nearly impossible to hold on.

“What are you doing!” Val hissed.

“I’m sorry, little one,” He told the bird as another feather came out. “I truly am.”

“Marat, let it go!”

He turned to her, four of them in his hand. He let go of it, and it angrily flapped, kicking up dust and pellets from the floor.

“We cannot afford not to. A feather like this is one of the hardest things to find - I’ve seen two in my lifetime, and we are about to wander directly into and try to break free of a cursed place. Your life is more of a concern to me than his. Let's go.”

She frowned, looking back, but the phoenix was gone from the coop.

They moved on, keeping hands hovering over hunter’s knives, their skin smelling of yarrow - although the concoction was of little comfort here. The stillness of the trees was more than unsettling, and the light of the lantern got lost much closer to them than one would expect.

It was as if the shadows had snuffed it out the farther they went in.

Rustling came from their right, and Marat froze, listening, but nothing came forward.

“What are you looking for?” Val asked.

“It's mouth.” He answered shortly, his head jerking at any little noise. There were no birds here, and even insects were eerily absent.

“What does it look like?”

“I don’t know,” Marat admitted, “Very few have lived to tell of the Wounds. In the Deep Wood, it is a tree, its trunk so thick that a hundred men cutting through it would take a hundred years.”

He paused, grinning at the idiocy of the statement.

“Or so they say.”

A foreboding feeling gripped Val’s stomach, and something twisted emphatically inside. She felt a tug as if some invisible force had gotten its tendrils over her… again. She said nothing, although her entire body went numb at the memory.

“It’s calling to us, pulling.” He said, taking a deep, uncomfortable breath. “We cannot stay here too long, or it will succeed.”

As they entered the trees, the darkness overcame the lantern’s light. It barely glowed now - only allowing them to see their next step and no further. The air became thick, making it difficult to breathe. The pull became more centralized, whatever it was - it was ahead.

“Stay here.” Marat told her, “I do not know what we will find.”

But she shook her head.

“Wherever you go, I go.” She said, her words not up for debate.

Marat understood that arguing would only eat up precious time and only let out a frustrated exhale.

A low rumble rose ahead as if someone had lit and closed the gate to a large furnace. As if flames were trying to escape their metal cage, they vibrated through the trees and their bodies.

Marat put the lantern out and set it against a tree. His blade was out.

They walked for only a few more minutes before a clearing ahead shone moonlight through the trees, a black wall looming at the opposite end.

Their lungs grew full of air that felt like lead, and both had to stop, winded.

In the clearing, partially circled by the wall, was a large chasm. It was so wide across that two horse-pulled carts could stretch and never touch the other side. It looked overgrown from each side by moss and crawling plants winding through the jagged rocks that lined it inside.

The feeling intensified with every new step, nearly doubling them over. They were only able to take a few more before it got so bad that the breath felt sucked out of their chests, their stomachs twisting. The corruption was too strong here.

Marat turned to motion for them to return, but as he did, he saw Val’s wide, frightened eyes. She pointed past him at the chasm. He followed her gaze until his eyes adjusted to what she saw.

It was not a wall nor a stone barrier that circled the hellish hole. But instead, before them lay the body of a massive sleeping serpent, its scales each the size of a small shield. Its body rose and fell with its steady breaths, the rumble rolling through the trees and the stones lining the crater, echoing like a steady thunder.

Only a few of its coils were in the clearing, but it could be seen where the body split off in three directions and at the end of them, the vague shapes of three heads - tucked between great oaks on the other side of the dell.

“All-Father preserve us…” Marat muttered, his words barely audible, but in that moment, louder than he would have preferred.

Marat frantically motioned for them to turn back. Upon reaching the lantern, a strike of a phoenix feather and their walk turned to a run. They did not stop until the tunnel entrance was visible enough to reveal the wooden walkway within it.

“My gods…” Val panted hard, thankful that the internal pain had lessened and nearly disappeared the further they got from the sleeping giant. “We have lived above that for months…”

“Looking at it, I think a girl per year may only be a snack.” He said dryly. His eyes scanned the ground, looking for something. As if making a last-second decision, he began hurriedly gathering branches off the ground and stacking them against tree trunks.

“Help me.” He breathed out.

“You mean to set this place on fire?”

“I mean to make a distraction for us to leave,” Marat answered.

When they ran out of dry wood nearby, he shoved one of the phoenix feathers in her hands.

“Throw it into the flames - it will burn brighter and longer. Too much of this wood is damp.” He said, holding another in his hand.

“I do not know how Marat,” Val admitted, embarrassed.

“Just command it. Nothing-touched things know their master and won’t answer to anyone else until they have a new one.

He held it by the stem, allowing its barb to rest on the crunching foliage, and flames engulfed the wood as if they’d been dormant underneath.

It was as if the feather’s barb had liquified into dripping flames in Val’s hand. The fire licked at the parched and damp wood and caught almost immediately. She held on to the stem, even with the heat threatening to burn her fingers. A moment, and it solidified again.

“But, the phoenix?” She looked back.

“Flames cannot hurt a phoenix, Val. The wood is not burning fast enough, and the flames will not last unless fed.” Marat looked down at his palm, where the precious feather rested lightly. “We have no choice.”

With that, he threw the feather onto the fire, and they roared hungrily to the sky, engulfing the whole of the tree and spreading quickly to the next.

“Go!” He grabbed her hand, and they disappeared into the cavern.