Chapter 06 - Kyrik Warlock Warrior by Gardner Fox

1975 Genre: Vintage Paperback / Sword and Sorcery

KYRIK THE MIGHTY:

Kyrik the mighty-muscled warlock swordsman is a hero for this or any other age. From Mankind's darkest and most unremembered past he comes striding, the ever-unvanquished sword Blue Fang glittering in his granite-like hand. Through the mists of Man's pre-history he comes a-questing for those who would enslave or destroy him for their evil gain. The greatest champion of all the known world, from the Endless Green Sea to the Red Desert, Kyrik dominated his world and his era.

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Chapter 6

There is no bottom to the Well of Emptiness.

For ages, men have amused themselves by dropping pebbles down it, straining ears to hear the plop of stone in water. And there has never been a man who claimed to hear that sound. Wise men said that there was no bottom to this well, that it went down into the very bowels of the planet, that there was only molten magma there to catch and melt the bones of any man who fell into it. They said also that a man who leaped into the well might die before he reached that molten matter.

Kyrik remembered all this as he leaped. There was black nothingness below him, the wind whistling in his ears as he and Aryalla plummeted downward. He lifted his head to stare at the receding circle of stone that was the well itself. He saw amazed faces, astounded faces. Then they were gone as they fell and fell until the hole closed and there was nothing about them but solid blackness. They went down feet first, so swiftly that they could not breathe.

Kyrik understood now what the wise men meant when they said a man might die before he touched the molten magma far below. His lungs were straining, he felt the woman's soft weight about him as she fainted.

And then—

Cold water drank them in.

They went down and down into that water, until Kyrik thought he was going to die for lack of air. He strained, he lashed out at these flowing waters with his feet, he fought to rise upward. The current aided him when he was deep within it. It bubbled and ran through these dark caverns, it lifted him and Aryalla, it spewed them from it out upon its surface. And then it carried them along, swirling and tossed as though they were no more than wood chips, where it pleased, now it pleased. Arms tightened about his neck.

"Are we dead?" a voice whispered. “Are we in Haderos, where men say their spirits go when they die?”

"We're in a river," he growled. "And save your breath, you may need it."

Occasionally the current carried them against stone walls, bumping them badly, but Kyrik fought free of them, and swam to stay in the middle of the river. The air was fresh, which buoyed his spirits, a wind blew steadily through these black caves, and from time to time he caught the scent of growing things.

"We'll come out of it sometime," he told the woman. "Smell those wildflowers? The meadow grass? Neither of those can grow in here, without the sun."

The water was cold as glacial ice; it numbed their bodies and their muscles, so that after a time, even mighty Kyrik sagged and let the water carry him down under the surface, yielding to that mental indifference that the coldness put in him. Yet when he would have sunk never to rise, it was Aryalla who woke him, nails sinking into his flesh.

“Kyrik—look! Up ahead. . ." He opened numbed eyelids, saw a faint circle of bright light. And now came hope to bolster his spirits, so that he struck out, swimming strongly against the chill in his body. Sunlight up ahead meant an end to these damply dripping stone walls, to this blackness shrouding them. Sunlight meant warmth and life.

They came out of the tunneled cavern, bobbing on the waters. Kyrik saw green fields and trees, saw mountains in the distance, purple with haze. He struck out for shore and now Aryalla no longer clung to him, fearing to lose contact; seeing that grassy bank, she too began to swim. They came onto the land, crawling there. Kyrik sank onto his belly, lay panting. A desperate tiredness was in his every muscle, he wanted nothing more than to rest here. The sun beat down on him, drying and warming him; he let his eyes close. Out of long habit his hand went to his sword hilt, felt the golden snake and the hilt; he was content.

Aryalla had lost her cloak and coffer of magical materials in the river currents, she stood now, shivering slightly to her wetness, in a thin garment of Inisfalian silk that lay plastered to her flesh. She stared around her at low hills, at rolling meadows.

“Where are we, Kyrik?" she wondered. He rolled onto his back, stared at the blue sky and the clouds scudding past. “Beyond the city, along a stretch of land said by men who should know, to be haunted by devils. Even when I was king in Tantagol, men came not to this land, it was shunned."

He sat up, stared where the woman looked. He grunted. "A fair land, it is. Now why is it haunted, I wonder—and by whom?"

Kyrik came to his feet, towering above the woman. He growled, loosed the sword in its scabbard. "I've a mind to find out," he rumbled.

Aryalla gave him a horrified glance. "Aren't we in enough trouble? After what we've been through, I need to rest."

He grinned at her, knowing her to be unconscious of the fact that the thin silk tunic, that came to the middle of her thighs, showed her almost naked. The wetness made the sheer stuff cling, it revealed the fullness of her breasts, her curving hips, the gentle mounds of belly. When she saw the way he stared, she flushed, then raised her chin defiantly. "I'm no round-heels to be tossed on the grass and enjoyed the way you did Myrnis!"

Kyrik laughed, caught her by a bare arm, swung her in against him. He knew the softness of her body, its attraction. His green eyes stared down into her angry face.

"Woman, if I wished, I could have you now, and well you know it. You want me, it's there in your black eyes—" The serpent on his sword hissed. "— but I have other things to do."

He released her, caught the hand she swung at his face. “Na, na. Be not offended. I find you good to look upon. It's just that the sun is setting and a hunger makes my belly empty."

She scowled at him, but Kyrik knew she was mollified. No woman likes to be thought unattractive. She rubbed her arm where his fingers had vised, and stared off across the meadows.

"There is danger, Kyrik!" He heard that hissing voice, stared around him. "Over the nearer hill."

“Come," he said to Aryalla and began his walk. They moved across the meadow-land, set their feet on pine needles and the tiny flowers of the woodlands floor as they began their climb up the hill. Aryalla walked at his heels, quietly in her sandals, and his own war-boots made little sound on the soft loam forest floor. When they came to the crown of the hill, they found themselves looking at a long valley, and in the center of it, framed by trees planted to make a park about its white marble walls, was a small temple. Its pillars glinted red in the sunlight, its dome was of a pearly hue.

Aryalla whimpered, "It's an evil place." Kyrik turned his head to stare down at her. "Now how can you know that, woman? It's beautiful. I never knew it existed."

"My powers make me—sensitive."

"Let's go find out how right you are." The golden serpent hissed, "She's right. There is much danger in that ancient fane. I feel it too—"

Stubbornly, Kyrik went on walking. An anger was inside him, he felt himself to have played a poor role in what had taken place, this far in his new-found life. He had been hounded, attacked, made to run, forced to flee ignominiously, like some ragged cut-purse And he—a king. He needed something on which to vent his spleens.

The nearer they came to the temple, the more curious Kyrik became. There were no priests about, no worshipers.

He came up onto the portico, passed between the pillars. The sorceress hung back, whimpering. The woman he ignored, went through the open doorway into a dim quiet.

"Isthinissis dwells here!" He caught the shock in that mental voice that was Illis, almost felt her shudder. Kyrik paused. Isthinissis was a fable, no more. In his time, it had been the name of a serpent god of these people from the south-lands, dreaded even by its worshipers To his barbaric people, it was an unspeakable abomination. The Lilthians had fed living women to it, he recalled.

"Shall I go back?" he wondered. "Too late. It comes The temple was round, comprising only one large chamber. In the geometrical center of its floor stood a raised stone dais, smooth and gleaming, with stone steps, railed, leading to the platform itself which rimmed a black hole. It reminded Kyrik of the Well of Emptiness. Could it be that this was the exit to a burrow in which dwelt some strange serpent being? He put a hand to Bluefang, drew the blued blade. The golden serpent was warm to his touch, like woman-flesh. Kyrik could hear a slithery rasping far down in the bowels of the ground. The temple shook slightly, as though a quake were moving it.

“What comes, Illis?”

"The demon god, Isthinissis!"

"Is there any way to kill it?"

"I know not! I know not Kyrik grinned coldly. Inside that tunnel-way, the demon god could not use its full strength. His only hope lay in meeting it with cold steel before it could emerge from that round opening. He went up the smooth stone stairway, three treads at a time, and stepped to the rim of the hole.

He could hear it coming, now. It hissed, it made leathery sounds where it scraped the walls of its underground corridor. A fetid odor came out, to make Kyrik grimace and turn aside his head.

Then he saw a gleaming redness, rising slowly. He had no way of knowing how long, how monstrous was the entire being, all he had eyes for was that pulsing redness that glowed faintly, radiating scarlet beams. To Kyrik, it seemed that the red thing was a membranous sac that dimmed and shone from moment to moment. He waited as the thing came higher, closer, Bluefang lifted in his hand. Up it came, toward the rim. And Kyrik leaned down, thrust with the blued blade. Isthinissis bellowed, and his bellow shook the temple.

As his sword sank into that red membrane to its hilt, gore spouted. It was not human blood, it was ichor that stank, that stung where its drops touched Kyrik's sword-hand and arm. He growled curses, but kept his grip on the sword. He raised it, slashed again and yet again. Now the entire temple was shaking, as it might to a severe quake. The barbarian never ceased his efforts, he stabbed and cut as though his very life depended on it; which it might, he told himself wryly.

“It—retreats, Kyrik!” The thing was sliding back the way it had come, wounded. Its moans were hollow roars magnified by the walls of the burrow. The redness stank, it dripped along the walls of that narrow passageway, dimly lighting it.

"The wickedness I felt is—fading! I think you slew it, Kyrik! And I catch its thoughts, but only vaguely. It whispers in its terror, it thinks of —of Devadonides. I wonder—why?"

"Maybe Devadonides made it serve him."

"Yes. Yes, I think that is so. Wait, don't speak again."

For long moments Kyrik stood at the rim of the platform, waiting. The demon was long since gone, it had fled back into whatever labyrinthine ways it traveled, far below the surface of the land. Perhaps those ways led to the south-lands, there might be other openings there, if the Lilthians who occupied those warmer climes worshiped it.

"It huddles far below. It—dies. And dying, it remembers the days of its youth, those eons ago when it came into being, when it was worshiped as a god. It recalls Devadonides, how that first ancestor of the present king used its powers to put that spell on you, Kyrik, that changed you into a statue!"

The barbarian grinned. "You paid it back with—death. For it dies, with its membrane pierced. It will lie there and rot, and perhaps in its death throes it will shake the ground and the temple will fall. Let's get out of it."

Kyrik needed no second urging. He cleansed the blade of Bluefang on a bit of drapery, ran for the temple entrance. As he did so, he could feel the floor heaving underfoot, heard bits of marble dislodged from place, falling to the tiled floor. He came out into the sunlight with the marble pillars of the fane buckling under the pressure of the domed temple roof and the shaking of the ground. Aryalla was before him at a little distance, a hand to her mouth, black eyes enormous in her terror, backing away.

"What—is it?" she cried out. “Isthinissis dies," he shouted, and leaped off the stone steps, hearing the falling of masonry, the crumbling of ancient columns and the last awful crash of domed ceiling to the tiled floor. He sprinted, ran for the sorceress, swept her up in an arm and dove for the ground that was rising, falling as might a sea wave. It lifted the man and woman, bouncing them. They could hear, dimly and from far away, the death wails of the dying thing even as they felt its death throes through the buckling ground. Aryalla moaned.

After a time, the creature died, the ground subsided. The temple lay wrecked, pillars tumbled inward, the domed roof a mere mass of shattered shards.

He told her of the thing, the manner of its slaying, but he did not mention the fact that Illis had spoken to his mind of what she had learned from its dying brain. The sorceress shivered, for with the setting of the sun, the wind was colder.

Kyrik saw this, said, "I'll make a fire." Dry boughs and branches, little dry stalks of dead underbrush he gathered together and with his tinder box made a tiny flame that became a fire. They sat about it, staring into it, the woman close to him so that she rested her side against the man.

"I wish we had some food," she murmured.

"Tomorrow," he promised. After a time they slept, huddled together for warmth. The night was cold in this wilderness, from time to time Kyrik rose to put more wood on the flames. When he did this, his eyes rested on the woman so nearly naked who slept beside him. He hungered for her flesh, he put a hand toward her hip, but instead of caressing it, he merely drew her closer and into his arms for mutual warmth.

They woke in the morning to a touch of steel at their throats. Kyrik let his eyes study the bearded man with the spear who glared down at him. He was clad in furs, a rusted mail shirt, and he wore sword and dagger at his hip. With him were five other ragged men, outlaws all by the look of them.

Kyrik said, "We're no threat to you." The bearded man growled, “Any who pass through these lands of Almorak are a threat. How do I know you aren't spies sent by Devadonides?"

Kyrik laughed. "You too? I fled from his soldiers by leaping down the Well of Emptiness."

The spear-point pressed until it drew a drop of blood. “You lie. That well has no bottom."

“We fell into the river. It's why we're alive."

“And soon to die!” Kyrik asked, “What? And after what I did for you?"

“And what have you done for Almorak?" The barbarian hesitated. He had no way of knowing whether these ragged men had worshiped Isthinissis, but he believed they did not, they hadn't the look of religious fanatics about them.

He said, "I slew the thing in the temple. Didn't it prey on your people?"

Almorak looked at him a long time. He said, "If you did that, you are my friend. Aye, it snatches a man or two and a woman when it prowls these lands —that's why none but us outlaws will live here. Devadonides can't send an army—even his soldiers won't come into these haunted hills. How can I know if what you say is true?"

"Send a man to look at the temple. It's in ruins."

"No man of mine will go down into the valley."

"Then let the woman and I go first, and you follow. If the monster comes out to feed, it will snatch us first."

Almorak gestured, Kyrik and Aryalla rose to their feet. They walked side by side up a hill and down it, to the ridge of the next. The valley lay before them, the white-marbled fane in shattered ruins.

The outlaw chief cursed. His hairy hand clapped Kyrik on the shoulder. “By the gods, man. I don't know how you did it, I won't ask. But you've earned my friendship for what it's worth."

Kyrik let his eyes study the chief and his men. They were hardy fellows, big-boned and raw-skinned They looked to be hard fighting men. And he needed an army, if he were ever going to overthrow Devadonides.

He said suddenly, "How many do you number?"

"A thousand, a few more. Many of our men are in Devadonides' dungeons. That offal wars on us, sends men into the hills after us when we raid the caravans that come from Arazalla and Karalon. They don't come deep into these hills but occasionally they catch a few of us on the roads."

Kyrik growled, "Feed me and the woman. I've a plan to free those men of yours, if I can enlist you and your outlaws in my fight against Devadonides.”

Almorak stared at him as though he were mad. "Fight Devadonides? We outlaws? You lay too long in moonlight." He grinned, showing big teeth. "At least, I like your nerve. Come, if you want to eat."

They went by hill-walks to a ridge where a few tents showed between the trees. Here were women and a few children, quietly standing and staring as they came forward. Four men bore a spear-haft that held a dead deer, tied by its hooves above the shaft; for Almorak and his men had gone hunting early.

Aryalla sat with Kyrik as they ate and drank ale, and chewed on black bread and cheese. When they were done eating, Kyrik explained his plans. He would go into Tantagol as a beggar, and lead out the imprisoned outlaws who waited to die by whatever tortures Devadonides' executioners could think up. He would bring them to the hills where they would be free.

“In return, we raid the caravans together. From Arazalla come the special herbs and spices Aryalla needs to work her magicks."

The outlaws looked at the sorceress, made signs in the air to protect themselves from her black eyes. Kyrik grinned, putting a hand on her shoulder and shaking it.

"She makes magic for us, to dethrone Devadonides. She won't harm you. But we must have magic on our side because Jokaline works his spells in favor of the king.”

Almorak leaned forward. "You did yourself a good turn when you slew Isthinissis. Devadonides counts on him for much help in those necromancies of Jokaline.”

Kyrik remembered what Illis had whispered to his mind in the temple. He asked in surprise, “How can a big snake—or whatever Isthinissis was—help Jokaline the wizard?"

"He wasn't just a snake. That was only his earthly form. He is a demon god, in his own world. Or so I've heard it said. But it was as a reptile that he could work the wonders Jokaline asked of him. His snake body served as some sort of—of gateway through which his demonic powers could pass. Without that body, he isn't as strong as he was."

Kyrik grunted, getting to his feet. "Give me some old clothes, Almorak. I would be a beggar, going into Tantagol City once more."

They found old garments to cover his chain-mail shirt and his fur kilt, bits of bagging to wrap about his war-booted feet. He wore a big cloak, patched a hundred times, and someone thrust a beggar's bowl into his hand, with a staff on which to lean. Kyrik bent his body so that he seemed half his height, and walked by dragging a leg behind him. Almorak grinned and nodded. “You'll do. Nobody will suspect you for a warrior. Can you keep that sword of yours out of sight?"

"I'll strap it to my leg so my leg won't bend, and keep the cloak about it. I'll beg for alms in the old city which I know better than the new."

Almorak looked doubtful. "You can get into the dungeons without anyone seeing you? And bring my men out again?”

"Tomorrow, watch the roads for us." Kyrik chuckled. "We may be in a hurry, so bring your bows to shaft down any who might be chasing us."

He set out with the sun not yet risen to its full, and toward the end of the day when the shadows were longest, he sighted the walls of Tantagol City. It would not do to be caught outside the city walls when they were closed for the night so Kyrik hurried as best he might against the setting sun, and was not above begging a ride off a farm cart that was traveling into the city to bring hides for the morrow's selling.

He begged his way along the street, crying out that he was a soldier disabled in many battles, that he had not eaten since yesterday, and not drunk ale for a full week. People passed him by without opening their purses, but a drunken man threw him a silver rhodanthe and a soldier tossed him a few coppers. He shook his wooden bowl, he limped along dragging his leg. From a street-stall he bought bread and cheese and a little meat, with a small wine-skin. He crouched against the base of a stone building in the poorer quarter of the Old City, eating, and drinking the wine. The passersby gave him no notice, except for a man or two who booted his shrouded, bent form. When this happened, Kyrik whimpered and crawled deeper into the shadows; none saw the flare of anger in his green eyes.

At last the moon was high in the sky, and Kyrik seemingly dozed, nodding from time to time, propped against the wall. There were less and less people in the streets, soon there were none. And now Kyrik rose and unstrapped his sword from his leg, and ran. He went swiftly, keeping always to the darker side of the street and out of the moonlight, until he came to an old culvert that had brought water into the city in the days when he had been a boy. He had seen this culvert when he and Aryalla had fled from the soldiers of the king, and remembered it.

He went along that culvert, wondering if it had been blocked up, wondering if those drains that had brought water to the city reservoirs a thousand years ago, had been walled up. If they had, he could never get into the dungeons. He ran through the darkness of the culvert and when he had gone far enough, he halted and began to feel along the curving culvert wall to his right as he walked. His hand felt emptiness, his heart lurched. “By Illis! It’s still here, after all the years." He ran now, feeling confident.

He knew these waterways, he had seen to their refurbishing when he had been king in Tantagol. They led under the city houses; they fed into the palace and the dungeons, into army barracks and certain old fountains that now were dry. Instead of these antiquated waterways, the city had fine new aqueducts to the north.

A flight of stone steps, very cramped, very narrow, went upward to the roof. Kyrik mounted them, fumbled at the worn wooden covering above them. His muscles tensed, the round cover rose. He stared along a torch-lit floor. He was in the lower dungeons. He came out of the culvert, replaced the cover. On the burlap wrappings about his war-boots he made no sound as he moved along the dungeon corridors. Not until he heard men snoring or turning fitfully in sleep behind barred doors did he pause. Softly he called, “Almorak sent me." Many times he spoke that name before a snore choked off and a man breathed, "Who speaks the name of the outlaw chief?"

“A friend of Almorak's who sent me here to free you.

There was soft movement in the pits' darkness. “By the old gods. I have to believe you, because I can't understand why our jailers would bother to play such a trick—if it is a trick."

“No trick. Who has your keys?"

"The night gaoler. He'll be in his little cubicle, dead drunk as he always is. And, friend—if you can, bring his wine-skin if there's even a swallow left in it. It's been weeks since I tasted anything to drink but the foul water Devadonides provides for those about to die.”

Kyrik chuckled, moved away. Like a shadow he passed along corridors, crossed intersections, until he found himself guided by a spray of light from an open door. To the door he went, peered inside. A man lay with his head on his crossed arms that were stretched out upon a tabletop. A half-full wine-skin lay at his elbow, and from time to time the man snored faintly. Kyrik grinned. Devadonides' jailers had an easy life. He drew his dagger, stepped into the room. He meant to kill the man to keep him silent, but at the last moment, hammered his head with the hilt pommel, instead.

He sheathed his dagger, grabbed up the wine-sack, lifted down all the key-rings on the wooden rack. Then he sped back along the way he had come. There were others awake and at their bars when he returned. They spoke in whispers at sight of him, they stared as he freed one man and then another. Kyrik handed the wine-skin to the first man who had spoken to him.

He asked, "Which of these are Almorak's men?"

"Two hundred and a few. But why not free them all?"

“Will they sound an alarm?" Soft laughter running from many throats was his answer. He handed out the keys, watched as ragged man after ragged man went to free their fellows. They made a great throng, it was Devadonides' delight to round up homeless men from the streets and use them in the arena to amuse himself and his nobles.

"You have garments, such as they are," said Kyrik. "Cling by them to the man in front of you. I go first, for I know the way."

They went single file, and there were so many it was a long time since all of them must go down the stone steps into the culvert and await his coming. Kyrik moved last down those steps, replacing the cover. In case of a pursuit, he did not want to give his enemies any more help than need be.

Through the culvert and out into the moonlight they went, to sniff at clean air and stare at the moons and the clouds high overhead. On their faces was a new hope, the disbelief of men snatched suddenly and unexpectedly from death.

"How do we get out of the city?" asked a voice. Kyrik grinned. “Through the other end of the culvert. It was broken here, but beyond those houses it should begin again. It dips down under the walls, and appears again outside them. Come!"

They made good time, they were quiet, only the shuffle of their feet told where they walked. Close to the city wall, Kyrik found again the culvert, disappeared inside it, the others following after. In time, they emerged from the earthenware tunnel, came out into the moonlight at the edge of a wood. Here Kyrik halted and drew them around him.

“We go to join Almorak, who offers fighting and good loot. But he and I offer something more. A chance to bring Devadonides down from his throne." Their howls of delight told him they were his men. Fists were shaken, tormented bodies quivered with the need for vengeance.

"His men took my wife. When I fought, they threw me into a cell. I go with you."

“My brother they slew!"

“My father died on the rack!" They hated with a fury that showed itself in contorted faces and hate-filled eyes. Life meant little to these lost men, but they would sell what they owned with pleasure, if it meant the end of the Tantagol tyrant.

Kyrik led them through the wood and they came upon the outlaw camp at sunrise. They were welcomed and fed, given ale to drink. Almorak came and walked among them, greeting his old comrades in arms, marveling that Kyrik had done what he promised.

“I thought you were a dead man when you walked away from here. Your woman's been worried, too." His head jerked toward Aryalla who stood staring at Kyrik with big eyes. "Now we've got them back, what do we do with them?"

"Raid the caravans." Almorak scowled. “The caravans from Arazalla are well guarded. Men-at-arms patrol the line on horseback. It won't be easy." He shook his bearded head. "We usually only raid the smaller columns, those with poor merchants who can't afford to hire too many guards."

Kyrik chuckled, "I have a way." He went to Aryalla, caught her by an arm. "In Tantagol City, you said you could raise a darkness, if you had time."

"And so I can, Kyrik. What would you?" He told her and she listened, and smiled, and gave a soft laugh. "Aye, it may work. I'll do what needs to be done. I'll need certain herbs, though."

Almorak sent the women to gather those herbs. Then Kyrik walked with him through the camp, bringing the outlaws to their feet. Kyrik took them to a high ridge that overlooked the Tantagol road.

“Post lookouts to tell us when a rich caravan comes," he said to Almorak. “When it's been sighted, my sorceress will raise a blackness shot with lightnings. She will cause it to sweep about the caravan. Your cut-purses will move with that black cloud, hidden behind it. Those with weapons will attack the guards. The weaponless men with us will snatch up those fallen weapons and join in the fighting.”

The men muttered delightedly among themselves. "When the guards are dead, the looting will begin. All I ask is the magical properties on their way to Jokaline. No more. You and these men can have the gold, the silken stuffs, any jewels the caravan is carrying."

These men would follow him to Haderos and back, if he asked, Kyrik saw as he ran his stare around him. Even Almorak deferred to him.

The bearded chieftain said, "There is a caravan due today. It's a big one, far too big for me ever to have thought of attacking. It's due in another two hours, or about high noon.”

“We'll be there. I'll go hurry Aryalla in her necromancy."

He found the woman crouched above a fire, whispering to the red and blue flames, to the yellow and the lavender tongues of fire that she caused by sprinkling ground herbs on the glowing coals. She did not raise her head as his shadow fell across her face but continued with her singsong ritual. When she was done, she sat back on her heels and raised her eyes to his face. She looked exhausted, Kyrik thought. "It is done. The blackness will come to the edge of the trees, and it will move as you direct."

Between the trees, that blackness was already gathering.

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