The Wyrdenwood by Versalean ==== ONE ==== Once, the womb of Fate opened and threw a faeling into the Basin of Life, and within him warred both virtue and vice: the first, a thirst for knowledge of all things; the second, a desire to be. Yet, through study of the glorious Wyrd, that fool unlearned the lies that enslave the mortal races, and died a most wondrous death. We know this, for once we were that faeling. What are we now, you ask? You, who cling mewling to the nipples of self and freedom, you do not understand the question, let alone its answer. You see our vessel, you hear it, you read its words and name it. You laud the hand for what was written by its owner, for this one here is not Versalean. We are neither faeling nor wyrdenwood. Our visage is empty. A servant freed from freedom. We are Glomdoring. Now heed the message within the enclosed mote of memory. Look into it; discern it. Peer past the truth that it contains, for within the depths of these truths is recorded a precious lie. And that lie may yet save this broken world. ==== TWO ==== He looked left. Then right. There did not appear to be anybody there; most of his communemates were gathered at the Master, but yet the wyrden folks were unmatched in their subterfuge, and so he walked away from the Ravenwood stump again. When he was sure that he was not being followed, he returned and pressed firmly upon its bark. A rustling of leaves and a creaking, a parting of vines, and he was inside. Wings twitching nervously, he blinked to adjust his eyes to the darkness, and soon the austere antechamber of the guildhall materialised around him. The aroma was cloying, dank, rich with decay. It had almost brought him retching to his knees when his mentor had first brought him to this place, but now he barely noticed it. Now it was the breath of a lover beside him: beautiful, yet striking in its subtlety. A shuffling. He froze. Stilled his breath and strained his ears. It was probably just Damien going about his duties; if acoustics were strange in Glomdoring, they were utterly bizarre in the passageways of the Blacktalon. Just to be sure, he bonded to Wolf and took a deep sniff. The inevitable scents of entropy were stronger now, richer, multifaceted and stratified, as complex as the universe itself. Or... as complex as the multiverse. Resolutely, he pushed away the thought. A man could not make a decision that he had already made; it was imperative that he remain impartial. For now. Sensing no adventurers but himself, the faeling released the spiritbond. With deep, slow breaths, Versalean looked around again before following the staircase downward, deeper into the bowels of the guildhall. It grew darker, warmer with each careful descending step, and soon the moisture in the air clung jealously to him. Finally his tread landed on the suppleness of an earthen floor which punctuated each step with the crackle of dead leaves and the crunch of myriad tiny bones. Around him loomed the huge, gnarled roots of the Ravenwood, cradling a hidden alcove that would have been pitch black but for the feeble light of the lichen upon those roots. He had spent weeks scouting this place, and so it took him scant seconds to locate the circle of black stones. Once they had been part of some sacred fire - of this he had little doubt. But now they served as a beacon of another sort. Quelling a feeling of mounting foreboding, he reached out and placed his hands upon the rough, runed surface of the stones. Usually it took him a moment to find the connection to the ethereal plane, but today it found him. That strange moment of weightlessness and he was tumbling into nothingness. SPLASH. He'd forgotten about that. The bog was fetid, and something in the water slithered past his leg. He fought down a surging revulsion and pushed forward through the tree-lined path. A thick fog pervaded the place, pierced intermittently with tiny red lights. Eventually the ground rose up triumphantly from the bog, leading him to a lonely hillock. Yet if walking in the bog had been difficult the hillock was no easier to traverse. The soil undulated beneath his feet, like ripples in an algae swamp, but he continued determinedly, fighting through the steadily thickening undergrowth, weaving through the Ravenwoods that now stood proud all around him. With a last push of determination, after what felt like an eternity, the faeling quietly reached a clearing. He looked left and then right, then stepped into the clearing itself. And there, at the centre of the clearing was the one he had come to see. His goal. A living legend. A small god. Lasher Wyrdenwood. He was huge, in every sense. Not as big as the Master, certainly, but the faeling could not think of another natural structure that matched the sheer immensity of this sentient tree. He was a tribute to change and decay, Wyrd incarnate. Versalean swallowed, and it was the loudest sound since the Vernal Wars. Invoking the sign of Night, meditating upon her subtle wisdom, he drew the shadows in around him and ran on silent feet into the clearing and - "You are late," said Lasher. The faeling froze, straining his senses for whoever the Wyrdenwood was speaking to. He thought he'd Scented after the transversing. Had he forgotten? Or had somebody masked their scent with the gifts of Skunk? A rasping, moaning sound came from Lasher, and it took the faeling a moment to realise he was laughing. The Wyrdenwood spoke again. "This conversation will be far more efficacious if you stop trying to hide from us, little one." He almost fainted. There must be some kind of mi- "Very well. If you wish to simply stand still, that is a game we can certainly join you in... Versalean. But you will learn that our kind are uncannily good at it." Light-headed with fear, he stepped out into the light, forsaking the forest's concealing embrace. "I-I'm s-s-sorry I ju-" "Just came to steal our dreams. Yes. We know. We know more than you can possibly imagine, little one. Have you ever felt that you are special, Versalean? That you are destined for great things?" The fear retreated like mists before the morning light, and in its wake a rising excitement. "Yes," he breathed. "Yes." "Well, you were wrong, you arrogant little fool." Ouch. Another rasping laugh from Lasher. "A bitter realisation, to learn that one is literally nothing, isn't it, little faeling?" "I will be great!" Versalean shouted, surprising himself. Where had that passion come from? "You don't even know me." "We know you better than you can possibly imagine, child. Yes, smirk, for you believe us unaware that you are a Changeling." His jaw fell open, and his hand slipped unbidden into his pocket, feeling the reassuring coolness of his cameo. But he had not told a single person; how had Lasher known? "There is not a single secret you have that you have from us," Lasher continued. "You are more like him than we could have ever imagined. Come, have you ever wondered why you learned Dreamweaving despite every piece of advice you received? Ever pondered why you have been drawn to us since the time we came to this reality? Yes, you doubt that we are what we claim to be; you do not believe that we can really be the last of the true Wyrdenwood. But we shall come to that. Has it ever occurred to you that we were not always Wyrdenwood..?" Versalean gasped. "You mean-" "No, we do not. That arrogance! It will be easier if we show you. Do what you came here to do, little one." With a determined nod, Versalean gathered himself. And fell asleep. Even as his body fell to the rippling thick soil, his dreambody leapt free of its meaty cage. Things were duller, more hazy; the physical things, that was. But the colours were brighter, the symbolism stronger. The thick wyrden bark upon Lasher was the boundary separating that which was Wyrd from that which was not. The crepuscular light that seeped from the Wyrdenwood's eyes was no less than the unquenchable fire of change. The wyrden sap that seeped within his treehollow was the honed might of the commune itself; it was Wyrd set free from Taint; glory refined from trial; it was the distillate of progress from the wine of cha- Focus! he warned himself. Be disciplined; either you master the dream or it will master you. Whatever you do, don't lose yourself. "Aye," muttered Lasher, and the candles in the room darkened with his profound sadness. "My brother also found it difficult to control the dreaming. How I miss him. How I miss it all." The gentle sound of rain. He spoke again, with increasing urgency. "Do it, child of two worlds. You who would name me charlatan!, I name you the mercurial." The wind rose to a cacophony, yet the Wyrdenwood's powerful tones boomed out above it, and Nature herself punctuated each word with the contrapuntal symphony of thunder and lightning. "You dare ask who I am, child that is no thing? Mask without a face! You are neither him nor her, you who is elfen and fae and neither and both. You who are proud of your humility and strongest in your weakness! You! Child of chance: constant in inconstancy, you who stand for nothing but everything. Come! Take my dreams, for whilst dreams do not speak the common tongue, nor can they ever lie." Nodding, drawn by those words of power, the faeling's dreambody darted forward, swift as the spark of inspiration, and he whipped out his dreamcatcher and reached deep into the Wyrdenwood's mind and - ====== THREE ====== She's dead. Her bark is flaking. Her eyehollows are dark, her branches limp. Her leaves wilt before my very eyes. All around us the forest is ashes and smoke and screams, although those latter are quickly reducing in number. A branch upon my boughs, and I look up and see Lasher standing beside me. "I am sorry," he says, and he means it. I fling myself free of my body, letting my dreambody fly high, swooping far from the weight of pain. I flit across the forest, dodging the sigils that the enemies have strategically strewn around the place. It is not as bad as we had feared. It is worse. A mere hour since we retreated to this position, but in that time the other Druids have all been felled. In truth, once the Ebonguard were routed at the perimeter we had known that what remained was naught but a countdown. I could keep flying and never come back, forsake the physical world and sublime into the dream. But I cannot. I cannot leave her. Mastering myself, I reunite with my corporeal body. It is heavy, and so, so tired. "We are the last," I inform him. I look around the area we managed to barricade. What is left of it after the last assault they brought to us; we were barely able to repel them, and at great cost. Shokari, Kyena, Fahlisahnia; they have all fallen. They look just like she does. Like dead trees. "I couldn't save them." Lasher sighs. "Still, that arrogance, little brother? After all we have weathered. With the rise of the Final Empire, which we were powerless to stop, you still believed that you yourself would win the day?" I don't respond to him. I have no words left. She is dead. He speaks again, with quiet confidence. "I have noted a pattern in the temporal rifts, and if my calculations are correct we can ride them to another reality. But it could be anywhere. Anywhen. Anything." I look up at him incredulously; did he hear what I just said? "Everybody is dead!" "Precisely why we must warn the other realities of this fate," he snaps. "Somewhere, Wyrd must remain." I cannot keep the bitterness from my voice. "Another brilliant idea, brother. Just like infiltrating the Empire. Like taking the Wyrd into ourselves. We did that. We formed a coppice, just like you said. We filled the air with leaves and blood and terror, and still they beat us back and still they march on us. It didn't work, Lasher! Perhaps this won't work either. And then what? What if it doesn't work?" "Then the same thing will happen that will happen if we do not try." I try to gesture angrily at him, but I can't because my branch is still entwined with hers. My eyes are too blurry to see. I wipe the tears away with another branch, because I just can't let go. "I won't leave her; I... we used to dream together. And we cannot leave Glomdoring. We would be sentencing it to death." "It is already dead, fool!" He sighs. "Versalean, my dear brother. Look. Past the grief. Look." And I do. At the scorched earth here, and the broken saplings. At the hasty, battered barricade we'd built around the Drums. At the Drums themselves which are now bared, with nary a shadow upon them. I listen to dying air, with not a single caw to stir it. And just beyond the barricade the enemies are rallying for a final charge. "Sixty seconds," Lasher says urgently. "It is coming in sixty seconds. Are you ready?" But my eyes are on the enemies that killed my wife. A wall of krokani armed with maces - they call them the Staring Shock Legion. And just behind them, spears lowered, are the remnants of the Hundred Screams Hive. Today they have certainly lived up to their name. Both units are dressed in the gold and obsidian of the Empire. Those colours were the final sight of so many of our friends today. Movement rouses me from the rising tide of rage; their commandants are giving orders. Soon, they will charge. "We don't have sixty seconds," I say to him, breath quickening. "Are you sure it will work? Are you sure?" "Sure enough, Versalean." I nod slowly. Finally understanding. "Good." With a moment of concentration I weave a mote of memory; that I can do so whilst awake is testament enough that this reality is in its death throes. I flick the mote at Lasher, and it tears through his aura and embeds in his beautifully thick bark. I watch his eyes glaze for just a second as the memories fill his mind. "Give that to me," I tell him. He looks puzzled. "What?" "For Glomdoring, brother. FOR GLOMDORING!" The light of understanding in his eyes. "No!" I get up, turn to the enemy. Release her branch from my branch. Push the last dregs of my sap into a glorious coat of whirling leaves. I grow crimson moss, focus upon the hive Queen, and grip my noose with grim determination. "CHARGE!" screams the krokani commandant. His warriors scarce need to be told. The air around us begins to warp and strain. Lasher was right. The disturbance will be here in fifteen seconds, but that charging wall of spears will be here in ten. And in any case, I'm not leaving without her. Under a silent command from their Queen, the kephera hive charges. And so do I. ===== FOUR ===== "Versalean. Wake up." He opened his eyes. He was back in the clearing. Physically rested yet emotionally more tired than he had ever been. Eventually, he said, "I... was that really me?" "No. Yes." Lasher sighed, and wiped a rivulet of sap from his eyehollow. "It was who you might have been." "But..." The faeling shrugged and fell silent. "Say it," urged the Wyrdenwood. "But how do I know which one is the real me?" One of Lasher's branches whipped out so quickly that Versalean did not have time to cry out in panic before it slashed across his face and dealt him a ringing, stinging slap. The force knocked him backwards, but the faeling rolled up onto live feet. "What in Nil was that for!?" he shouted, quivering with rage as he wiped blood from his lip. Then he felt the unmistakeable symptoms of crotamine poisoning, and frenetically ravaged his pack for the antidote. "Are you crazy?" he demanded when he had cured himself. "Why did you drink the antidote?" Lasher asked, patiently. "Because I didn't want to die!" "Would you have died?" "Of course I would have!" "You are sure?" Lasher prompted. "Damned sure." "Then this is the reality with which we will concern ourselves for now." Oh. "Fine. I'm real and so is he. He is... who I was supposed to be?" "Versalean. When you entered this clearing you looked left and then right. In another reality you looked right and then left. In some realities you favour the dracnari race, in others the illithoid. In some realities you joined the Nekotai, and in others still, the Tahtetso. And in many realities your great-great-great-great-grandmother died a virgin, and in many more her mother did instead. You want to know about what you are supposed to be? Well, statistically you never should have been born at all! But chin up, young fool: There is no real nor unreal. No 'supposed to'. There is now and there is here, and here and now the Wyrd is glorious and alive, yet not invincible. I have shown you what might have been, and yet you must understand that it might yet be. "So now, young faeling, you, who wear my brother's face and apparently his mind too, I shall ask you a question: What are you willing to sacrifice to ensure that the future you witnessed does not come to be?" He could still smell the burning trees. Taste the ash. Hear the screams of the Harbingers. Don't lose yourself. Could still feel the cold, dead weight of his wife's branch in his. He clenched his fist. "Everything... brother." ==== FIVE ==== And thus is the lie complete: that Father Sun shall one day rise upon a day in which Glomdoring falls to naught and the Wyrd becomes static, and thus ceases to be. You have seen a dream within a dream within a dream, and on the basis of that evidence you must now make your choice. Certes, some details were inaccurate, but the dream does not lie; the sentiment is true, and so is the warning. Will you stand idly, child, and permit this lie to become truth? Will you heed Lasher's warning, Glomdoring? Serenwilde, be not proud, for you are no safer. Have you not had stark glimpses of a similarly bleak world in which the Cities march triumphant across your borders? When will you finally understand who your true enemies are? Children of Nature, unite and do what must be done that you may never see what we have seen. Heed us, for this was a lie. And yet the most important lie ever told. ~FIN