October 4, 2008
Into the Forest.
“Here’s your garlic, your stakes, and your flask of holy water, freshly blessed by the parish priest. Oh, and a map.” The shopkeeper, an eccentric woman who spoke with an accent only slightly less thick than most of her fellow locals, shoved the items into her customer’s arms, then turned back to her crossword puzzle.
A little irked, Keith Hunter stalked out the door, precariously holding onto the assorted items. Once outside, he set the objects down on a low wall and looked them over before stowing them in his pack. The garlic was firm and fresh; the stakes were of a startlingly high quality; the holy water was now emptied into someone’s garden. In Keith’s experience, it never worked that well anyway. The map Keith almost discarded; he already had one of his own. When he went to pick it up, though, it unfolded enough for him to see that, unlike any other map he’d found, it actually showed the interior of Central Forest.
Keith stared at it for a moment, then shrugged, refolded the map, and stowed it in a pocket of his pack. Perhaps it wasn’t so surprising that the locals would have a better grasp of the terrain than others would.
Shouldering his pack, Keith strode off into the gray Forest afternoon.
April 10, 2008
Forest of the Impaler.
It is dark in the forest, even at noon. The trees grow thick here, and even the mountains do not see the sun. The roads from the nearest villages run strangely here; they twist and turn like a creature in agony, seeking to avoid some nameless menace lurking beneath the old pines.
Villagers look at you askance when you ask them how to get into the forest. They try to counsel you out of your madness – The way is dark! The road runs ill! None enter and come back! – but you will not be persuaded. They do not give you directions. You go anyway.
A young woman whose house stands apart from the others, almost into the forest itself, is the only one to see you off. She hands you a pack laden with strange supplies – cold iron and odorous garlic not the least of them – and grins at you as you step off into the underbrush. You nod your thanks, and press on.
There are no sounds in this forest, save what you yourself make – The beating of a heart. The crunch of a footstep on pine needles. Breaths that grow raspy as the day passes. – but you do not let that, or the lack of sight, or the eerie shiver running up your spine dissuade you.
You are skittish in this gloom. The faintest imagining of a footstep behind you has you spinning in frantic fear. The softest whisper of air on your neck makes you shiver in uncontrollable horror. An approaching clearing fills you with a nameless dread.
Finally, you step out into the light of the clearing. It is an oddly murky light, hazy and red. It is more than enough, though, for you to see the spikes.
Hard wood. Cold iron. Those you are used to, but not in such a simply horrific form. The wood is smooth and strong, long and thin. The iron, harsh and sharp, grips the top of the wood lightly, coming to a merciless point. One would be enough to send you sprinting back to the village.
A hundred have you rooted to the spot in fear.
They seem rusted, though, and the ground in the clearing is soft and hard in turns, and strangely uneven. You look down, and the only thing preventing your knees from giving out in horror is the simple fact that you don’t want to be any closer to the ground than you have to.
It is covered in bones and rotting, torn flesh. The rust is not rust, but old stale blood. Some fear keeps out even the flies, but that merely makes the sight more horrific.
“They were on the stakes, once,” says a calm voice behind you. You turn, and find yourself face-to-face with the young woman from the village. “As the seasons turned, they rotted and fell from their lofty final perches.”
You merely stare.
She gives you a one-shouldered shrug, flicking back her wavy brown hair. “I’ve seen it before. It’s the Forest of the Impaler, and his castle lies beyond it.”
You had heard the stories, of course. They were the typical superstitious exaggerations of backwater folk, or so you’d thought. Obviously, they knew more than you did.
The woman smiles, her light green eyes crinkling in amusement as she watches your thoughts flicker across your face. “Don’t think too badly of him. He doesn’t do this to everyone, you know. Only the ones who would bring him harm.”
Your voice comes out in a strangled croak. “You know this . . . ?”
She shifts, bringing her left arm out from behind her back. “I’m his daughter, of course,” she smiles, and in her hand is a long, smooth pike.
Irina Dragonsson turns towards her father’s castle, licking the warm blood off her hands with a merciless smile on her face, leaving her new artwork behind her.
December 30, 2007
Forest (Justification).
It is dark – but most deep forests are dark.
The trees press close – but that is almost the definition of deep forest.
Cold fog clings to you – but the sun cannot reach to dissipate it here.
The ground is damp beneath you – but there is fog coating everything with dampness.
What light filters down is red – but then, it only hits the right angle at late evening.
It is just a forest – but you still cannot stop yourself from seeing skeletal fingers in the branches scraping you; you cannot stop seeing their straight trunks as rigid poles; you cannot stop hearing the voices of the damned in the moaning of the wind.
You cannot stop seeing blood.
Your vision blurs again – the forest is a forest of spikes, each topped with dead bodies; the fog has faces and hands and voices; the ground and the air are thick with blood…
You shake your head, and walk on. It is late; it is just your imagination…
