Khell watched her brother crouch down to poke through the pile of bones and armor on the forest floor. “So you say this thing mutilated your kill, then chased you? And then you beat it down with your mallet.”
“I don’t just say it, Sajin. That’s what happened.”
“Easy Khell, I believe you,” Sajin said. “It’s just really strange. I need a moment to swallow it.”
Khell crossed her arms and glared as Sajin used his knife to lift the skeleton’s gore-strewn spear and examined it.
He laughed and stood up. “This is insane. Let’s go look at the deer.”
The deer was much as Khell had last seen it. On its side, an arrow lodged in its stomach, and a gory mess about its belly where the skeleton had stabbed it.
“Shall we see what can be salvaged from it?” asked Sajin.
Khell grimaced. “I wouldn’t eat anything from this animal.”
“No, I suppose you’re right,” said Sajin. “Well, the trail seems to end here.”
“Not quite.”
Back along the path Khell found the point where the skeleton had happened onto the deer’s path from the north. “See? We can trace it back and see where it came from.” She started up the trail.
Sajin hesitated. “I… I’m suddenly not so sure about this Khell. We have no idea what this all means. Whatever is making ancient warriors rise and attack has to be extremely dangerous. We follow that trail and we’ll probably be killed.”
“I killed one by myself completely unprepared,” Khell replied. “Now there’s two of us and we know what we’re getting into. Don’t be soft.”
Sajin sighed and followed his sister on the path. “We don’t know what we’re getting into actually, but I can hear that stubborn tone in your voice.”
“Whatever is happening can’t be isolated, Sajin. Something is happening here, and this forest is our home. We can’t go hide from it and just hope it doesn’t get any worse. We’re going to find the source and put a stop to it.”
“Hey, I’m not arguing. We’ll find out what’s going on and we’ll do something about it. Let’s just try to keep our heads attached to our necks.”
As the afternoon wore on, and after losing and picking up the trail several times, the hunters came to a hill, at the top of which stood a wide pool wrought of white stone.
“The trail leads up,” observed Sajin. “Some rainwater will have been caught in the pool. We can refill our skins.”
But the liquid they found in the pool was not rainwater. It had a rich purple hue, and it swirled and eddied in a way that was hard to look away from.
“What has happened here?” asked Khell.
Sajin ran his gloved fingers through the liquid then held it up to the sunlight. “I’m not even wet.” Sajin looked back to the swirling purple water. He suddenly stooped down and squinted at it, then looked straight up to the sky. He spun around, looking up.
“What?” Khell asked, looking around as well. “What is it?”
“The water. It’s not reflecting this sky. Look.”
Khell saw spires of jagged black rock reflected on the water, but the hilltop fountain should have reflected only the partly clouded sky. She could also see the sun reflected seemingly from straight overhead, but in her own sky the sun was already slanting downward from the west. “This isn’t possible.”
“Well, it is. And this is where the trail leads. Are we still going to follow?”
Khell hesitated for only a moment. “We follow.”
“I was afraid of that. I’ll go first.” With that he swung his legs over the edge of the pool and dipped his legs in to the knee. Sajin looked back at his sister one last time, then slipped into the pool.
Khell leaned over the edge looking for a sign of her brother, but there was none. Then she noticed the reflected scenery had changed. In place of the jagged crags, she now saw trees in full bloom with softly glowing leaves, and the moon was in the sky instead of the sun. “No! Sajin!” she cried. She took a deep breath and plunged headfirst into the alluring pool.
The demon was but one of many infesting the gnarled old tree. It had been having the most raucous argument with its fellows about the nature of the strange liquid that had lately filled the ancient stone fountain. The argument had been raging on one night when a human suddenly emerged from the pool and flopped to the forest floor. She wore soft leather and carried a bow and a bag of equipment. She looked terribly surprised and confused to find herself here. It was delightful.
“Sajin!” the human shouted, looking wildly around. She turned back to the pool, perhaps to go back into it, but the liquid had vanished and she reached down to scrape the empty stone bottom.
With a surge of violent inspiration, the demon pushed its fellows aside and seized control of the tree’s limbs. It wrapped powerful wooden limbs about the human before she even realized what was happening. The tree’s inhabitants each shrieked in terrible glee as the human’s bones popped and cracked in their grip. The tree threw the body into its mouth of jagged splinters and crunched the it apart.
Its murderous urges briefly sated, the demon relented its hold on the tree’s movements. That had been simply wonderful, all the more so for the fact it had been entirely unlooked for. As the demons began discussing their hopes for a repeat of the incident, the strange liquid began slowly to refill the fountain.