Forest For The Trees (Book 3) (48 page)

It would still be enough, he could see.  The vastly
reduced effect had opened a second crater on the mountainside.  A wide fissure
split the cliff face, widening by the moment, sending cascades of stone
plummeting hundreds of feet.  Soon the entire northern face would be embroiled
in an avalanche for the records.

Xenos studied the lurching Citadel.  It had broken in
half.  Anyone still alive in the stasis control cavern must have their feet
dangling in open air.  Massive pieces of the Citadel littered the plain for
half a mile.  Building-sized fragments still rained down on the fleeing armies
of Arronath and Galemar both, every soldier on the field running to escape with
his life.

He easily climbed along the slanted peak that had once
been unscalably vertical.  At the tip, he sat cross-legged to wait, his entire
body reconstituted to deal with any physical force it might encounter.  From
there he could watch the doomed fortress bear down on those who were about to
die.  It would be a magnificent blessing from god.  A marvelous harvest.

Laughing as he had not in many years, Xenos rode the
diving Citadel toward its final impact amidst a swarm of agitated Wyverflies.

Book 06

Rovasii

The hovering butterfly shone in the brilliant
sunlight.  Its wings shimmered between metallic green and oily iridescent
pink.  Lightly it flapped in a drunkard’s unsteady meander until a long tongue
darted from a cluster of leaves.  A forest lizard reeled in its catch.  It
swallowed the butterfly.

Moments later, its eyes bulged and its body
shuddered.  Scales from lip to tail rippled as they changed to silver.  Seconds
later, over fifty sharp needles burst through the lizard’s body from within. 
The needles grew to five inches in a single heartbeat.  Blood coated the metal
points in rivulets that flowed over the impaled reptile and down the tree bark.

Colbey leaned close to examine a single eyeball
skewered on a needle tip, inches above the socket it had been ripped from.

“This is a growing problem,” Thomas noted from behind
the younger Guardian.  “We are still too few in number.  With our manpower so
low, we can’t properly maintain the seals.  Some of the barriers have been
deteriorating for the last year.”

“How many other species have broken free?” Colbey
asked.

“Not very many,” Thomas admitted.  “But it is
symptomatic of larger problems in the future.  To date, the only serious
erosion has been where weaker seals abut the boundaries of areas with far
stronger ones.  The holes are still minor.”  He pointed at the lizard, now a
gristly parody of a hedgehog.  “Only insects and small creatures have found
their way out from their areas and into new grounds.”

“The spikewings won’t be the last,” Colbey predicted. 
“If the erosion continues unchecked, we will have larger and more dangerous
creatures on the loose.  Not only into neighboring seals, but into the outer
forest as well.  Into the Euvea groves and beyond.”

Thomas nodded.  “The damage can be kept contained up
to a point.  We have enough Guardians left that we can keep the seals from
collapsing completely.  But until we train new members, we won’t be able to
fully repair the damage.  Only patch the holes we find fast as we can.”

“That…”  Colbey paused.  “It will have to do.  Our
seal masters are gone, their knowledge with them.  We can never rebuild the
seals.  We
must
keep the seals that remain intact.”  He clenched his
fists hard without noticing.

The senior Guardian did notice.  He had carefully
observed Colbey’s every slight habit since his return.  His protégé had taken
long strides along recovery’s path…though there remained a considerable
distance yet to travel.  Colbey’s hair continued to hang in straggling locks
from his neglect for personal upkeep.  Each morning he shaved only because it was
policy in both the scouts and the Guardians.

His mind had broken free of the endless spiral toward
self-destruction, which was the most important step of all.  Ghosts still
haunted Colbey day after day, but they were the shades of his actions rather
than fictions crafted from an increasing burden of survivor’s guilt, a sense of
unfulfillable duty and a burning rage with no outlet.  Those fragments of
shattered sanity had come back together.  They were tender, raw, still healing
and, perhaps, might never reconcile their breakdown.  Colbey might never find
the strength to forgive himself enough to become a whole man once more.

Only duty kept him going.  His desire to live was
tenuous.  Colbey was convinced that dying was the proper justice he deserved. 
He only worked hard enough for three Guardians because he owed penance.  A
penance he could never fulfill.

“Nothing is ever lost forever,” Thomas countered. 
“Forgotten for a time, yes, but elsewhere the knowledge continues to live on. 
Our seal masters are passed-on.  In order to rebuild what we have lost we will
need to reach out beyond the forest.”

“Bring in
outlanders
?”  Colbey was aghast,
tearing his eyes away from the lizard to stare in astonishment at Thomas.  “To
the village?  To the
Euvea
?”

“Outsiders have made homes in the village before,”
Thomas replied calmly.  “Before your time, and before mine.  Those who have
proven trustworthy have been welcomed.  What we need most at this point are men
who are disheartened by their kingdom, who are willing to leave their world
behind to enter ours.  Men who will blossom as inheritors to a legacy fraught
with responsibilities.  Men willing to disappear from their lives to become
villagers.  And among them, we need to find ones with magical talent who are
trustworthy.  Ones knowledgeable in the ways of seals, or capable of learning
what they must.”

“A trustworthy mage?”

“We must.  When the next winter outside the forest
begins, I will send out the surviving scouts to scour the fringe towns.  The
outer lands will be entering a calm with the snows dampening their farming and
warring alike.”

“They will never find such a one!  There
are
no
trustworthy mages in the outlands!”

Thomas saw the opening he had hoped for.  He quickly
evaluated the younger scout and reached a decision.  It was finally time to
bring the matter up.  Colbey had reverted in large part to his former trainee
persona.  A persona that had been pure once, springing from a time before the
corrosion ate at his being.

“No trustworthy mages, you say.  None at all?  Are you
telling me the mage you spoke of, the man you worked side-by-side with, is
untrustworthy?  How did he betray your trust?”

Colbey’s lips twisted in a bitter grimace.  “He…he did
nothing to…obstruct me.”  The words were pulled from his soul at tremendous
cost.  “He apparently acted in accordance to his stated aims.  But that hardly
makes him a man we could place our faith in.  If we brought him into the Euvea,
he might very likely change.  Become like all the rest who ever sought our
village out.”

Thomas pierced him with a hard gaze.  His ‘harsh
instructor’ expression.  Colbey flinched noticeably.  “You are still clinging
to the arrogant views you touted when you climbed so nimbly through the scout
training classes!  The apartheid belief that we alone possess the strength of
character to fulfill the duties passed to us from our forbearers without
suffering corruption.  The same egotistical isolationism that drove you to
believe you were alone in the world while surrounded by potential allies.  Allies
that might have willingly offered you aid had you asked it openly.”

“I…they…asked for aid?  None of them are half the
warrior our weakest scout is!”

“And why does that disqualify them from a Guardian’s
needs?”  Thomas pretended to ignore Colbey’s shaking hands.  “Does a Guardian
turn his back on a villager simply because he weaves hangings for our
doorways?  Should a Guardian ignore a potter because she is unlearned in our
martial ways?  No!  I taught you better than that.  Though non-combatants, every
member of a community can lend significant aid to any larger effort.”

“How can you have expected me to…to work with those
communities
the outlanders pretend is civilization?  They rob and rape each other every day
and ask the gods why such punishments were delivered on them.  Never have they
stopped to look at themselves to see the root of their problems.”

“What I expect from you is nothing more or less than
this; we gave you the highest training in order to make you into a Guardian. 
Therefore, I expect you to act like one.”

Colbey could only hold the gaze a moment before
looking away at his boots.

“You should remember the classes you went through with
your fellow yearlings.  Did we teach you nothing save combat skills?”

“No.”  Colbey’s reply was soft.

“That is because a Guardian is more than a mere
high-level scout.  Being a Guardian means
being
a Guardian!  Can you
look on your actions after leaving the forest and say, with truthfulness, that
you made full use of the knowledge we taught you?”

“I wasn’t any place I could—”

“Colbey!”  The hard bark cut the younger man’s excuse
off sharply.  “Whether in the groves, the sealed areas or places utterly alien
to you, we trained you to be able to deal with any situation you might be
thrown into.  Did you fail to learn your lessons?”

The slight shakes in Colbey’s hands spread to his
forearms.  After a long silence, he replied quietly, “Guardian Thomas, I have
failed in my duties.”

“You were a lone man fighting a hydra with too many
heads to slay.  No man can last forever under such a burden.  It is for this
reason that Guardians are meant to work in pairs.  A partner is there to lend
support beyond a simple extra sword.  The fault can’t be said to be yours
alone.  I erred badly when I allowed you to leave on your own.”

“No!  I…I am to blame for everything that happened. 
My actions…are my shame and mine alone.”

“Your shame.”  Thomas was pleased Colbey had brought
the conversation back full circle.  It saved him the trouble of attempting to
lead the words.  “From what you confessed, you betrayed many in ways no
Guardian would have allowed.  Your madness led you kill unnecessarily, to
inflict pain deliberately.  But most unforgivable,” Thomas announced with his
full authority, watching Colbey shrivel before him with each accusation, “you
betrayed, as completely as it is possible to do so, the one man you had formed
a bond with.  The closest thing to a partner you had.  This mage you claim is
so untrustworthy.  Only lucky chance stopped you from torturing him until you shattered
his mind worse than your own.”

Colbey dropped to his ankles, crouching in the
leaves.  He had covered his face with his hands, a gesture he’d spent most of
his time employing in the eightdays following his return.

“Whether this mage is selfish and power crazy, or
noble and pure, he did nothing to warrant your betrayal.  A Guardian never
commits such crimes as you did.”

Thomas knew his words were lancing the younger man’s
heart.  Here was the overwhelming core of Colbey’s self-hatred.  Unless he surmounted
it, could find a way to purge it from his soul, it would eventually destroy
Colbey as surely as any other mortal injury.  It would finish the destruction
begun when his mind had fractured.

The senior Guardian held his breath, watching to see
if the amazing trainee he had felt fortunate to train would bend or break.  At
last, words sobbed out from behind the quivering hands.

“I…I know it…”

Raw pain filled the words.  Colbey repeated the
phrase, sobbing it over and over in a crucifying litany.

Thomas allowed it to continue until Colbey’s voice
cracked.  He knelt down beside his junior, speaking firmly without touching any
part of Colbey’s body.

“A Guardian must take responsibilities for his
actions.  I see you, a broken shell crumbling under a heavy debt.  I say this;
a debt must always be repaid.  Until you have repaid yours, you are useless to
anyone here.  Only a clean conscious can work effectively as a Guardian.  The
choice is yours, but you know what course you should embark on.”

“The…”  Colbey hiccupped on the word.  “You need
everyone you have to maintain the seals…”

“The rest of us will do what needs to be done.  Are
you capable of the same?”

Thomas rose without further word and stalked away
along the narrow path.

*        *        *        *        *

Colbey felt hollow.

His work for the villagers.  At least it had
meant
something!  Now…

It had been stripped away.  There was nothing left. 
He was ostracized in life and death alike.  No welcome would be offered him by
the remaining Guardians.  No welcome would be offered him by the souls of the
villagers when he finally died.

He was anathema.

Beside him, faint steel webs had already begun growing
between the needles protruding from the forest lizard.  Soon it would be
encased in a wire cocoon.  From pain and death would be born a host of new
life.  A young spikewing swarm emerging from the carcass.

Might Thomas be right?  Could the same possibly be
true for him?  Was there any counterweight that existed that could possibly
oppose the dark side of his soul’s scale?

He did not know.