Chapter 18 - Oasis

Mossy trees tower around us, rising out of a bed of tall ferns. It is warm and humid. Butterflies are lazily flapping through the mist, and plump red fruits hang from vines. The air smells like flowers, and moss, and rot.

That telltale scent of the rot of death lingers around me. I have been following my nose deeper and deeper into the rainforest, searching for the source. The trees don’t have rotten roots yet. The infection must be in its earliest stages.

“Ayla look!” Ruby says, pointing up into a tree.

Following her finger, I see a bird. It’s rather large, and very colorful, bright red with blue and yellow wings, and a hooked beak.

It sees us looking at us and squawks.

“Welcome to the oasis! Welcome!”

I stop in my tracks. “You can talk?” I ask, suddenly reminded of Luna.

“Molly can talk, yes! Molly can talk.”

“Mice to meet you Molly. We came here to rest for a bit and learn about the heartshards, but I smell something bad, the rot of death. I wanted to cleanse it first. Do you know the source?”

“The Elder Tree is sick! Very sick!”

“Where is the Elder Tree?”

“In the cave! Follow Molly!”

Molly flies off, and Ruby and I follow.

The bird shows us to a cave deep in the forest. It’s an unassuming hole in the ground at the base of an old gnarled stump. Sure enough, I can smell the rot wafting out of it.

“Come on Ruby, let’s go cure this Elder Tree,” I say.

“Stinky cave!” Ruby says, following me in.

We step inside the cave, and aside from the smell, there is still no sign of the rot. The walls are covered in lush green moss and spiderwebs. Roots come out of the ceiling and coil around.

A steep narrow diagonal tunnel spirals down into the earth. We carefully descend, making sure not to slip on the moist floor. Eventually the tunnel flattens out, and opens up into a wider area.

“Ruby?” I don’t hear her footsteps all of a sudden.

I turn around, and she isn’t there. “Where did you run off to?” She was behind me just a moment ago. I go back up the spiraling tunnel looking for her.

There is a branch I didn’t notice before, a small side passage.

“Ruby, you really need to stop running off. It’s dangerous!” I call out, crawling into the tunnel.

After squeezing through, I come out into a larger cavern, lit by glowing mushrooms.

“There you are,” I say, standing up, but it isn’t her.

It’s me.

A perfect copy of myself stands in front of me, except it smells like rot. Instead of a dress made of fate and moonlight, she wears one of dense fungal threads. Her skin is pale like death.

My copy smiles at me, and my heart stops. I reach for Wish, but it isn’t there.

I go to surge my lightning and moonlight, but I don’t know the runes.

I don’t have any of those things yet. I am only eight years old, after all.

“Ayla, you need to stay here. If I’m gone, who will protect your mom?” Dad says, hand on my head as he messes up my hair.

“We can’t protect her though. We fail,” Rot-me says.

No. I was just a child. Of course I couldn’t protect her. It’s Dad who should never have left us.

“Get away from me!” I scream, lashing out at my copy.

And then the soldier punches me in the stomach. I crumple onto the forest floor.

He pulls out a dagger and cuts Mom’s dress down the middle.

“Don’t watch Ayla, please,” Mom says.

“She was so brave, so wise,” Rot-me says, holding me from behind. “She knew what was best. Tell me Ayla, what did we learn that day? What do we do when facing an unbeatable enemy?”

“Get away from me!” I scream.

“No no, that’s wrong. Struggling just makes it worse,” Rot-me holds me tight, wrapping a hand around my throat. Fungus grows in my windpipe, choking me. “I’ll let you breathe when you decide to say thank you. Be good, just like Mom was. You can’t escape now.”

No, Mom was wrong that day. She should have fought. Maybe she could have beaten him.

There are some things worth fighting for, even if it means risking something even worse.

I thrash against Rot-me’s grip, but it only gets tighter, and I still can’t breathe.

“Wanna hear a secret? Mommy is pregnant.”

“If she had never been raped, our beloved sister would never have been born at all. We would be all alone. Can we really wish it hadn’t happened?”

No! Ruby would have found a way to exist either way! Nothing can stop that girl!

“You believe in her so much, but she’ll betray you. It’s inevitable,” Rot-me says.

I’m choking to death. The fungus is infesting me now. It’s deep inside my lungs.

“And besides. You can do nothing to stop me now. You have already lost.”

What is this thing?!

It makes me watch. All my most horrible memories, every moment where I have truly suffered, it replays them over and over. I can do nothing but listen to the soldier’s grunts, watch Ruby be carried away by Karalga, watch Scald kill the Marmothi I couldn’t save.

“We are already broken,” Rot-me says. “We put up a front of being pure of heart, but look at all the things we’ve seen. We aren’t innocent anymore. We have defined ourself through the hardship we have overcome, but that just means we are defined by our suffering.”

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No! I refuse to listen to your nonsense! You cannot break me!

“Do you really think all those terrible things made you stronger? How pitiful you are.”

They didn’t make me stronger. Sometimes suffering is just suffering, and there’s no silver lining.

I am strong because of what I have done, not because of how I have suffered.

And you cannot take that away from me.

Luminous Authority!

The illusion is dispelled, and I return to reality.

Agony. Sheer agony.

Every inch of my flesh is infested with fungal tendrils. They stab through my arms and legs, through my eyes and ears, into my mouth and everywhere else. They worm through my muscles and my organs and my heart and my brain. I cannot move.

And Ruby is in the same state, but the tendrils are withdrawing from her. They’re releasing her.

My sister opens her eyes, and she’s not my sister anymore.

“Ayla. I don’t like you,” Not-Ruby says. “So know despair before you die. Look closely, sister. The one you love most has become one with me. She is mine forever. You though, you have rejected my sublime love. You do not even deserve to rot.”

Not-Ruby stabs her hand into my chest, and rips out my still-beating fungus-infested heart.

“How does it feel to fail? I want to see the look in your eyes. Show me, Ayla.”

Laughing, she crushes my heart into paste.

I take my last, sputtering breath.

No.

This is not what happens. I refuse.

But my blood is not moving in my veins. I am dying. I have at most a few seconds left.

Time Acceleration!

It’s just prolonging the inevitable. I have to push harder.

I push back the moon with everything that remains within me.

Time grinds to a complete halt. Ruby’s face freezes in an expression of indignation.

Then I push even harder.

Time Reversal!

As time rewinds, I can see how this happened. Ruby and I both passed out from breathing spores in the air. Then the tendrils slowly came out of the walls and floor, and they took their sweet time infesting us.

I push the moon back as far as I can, harder and harder. We walk backwards up through the spiraling tunnel, and when we are in the forest once more, I finally reach my limit.

I collapse on the moss, panting heavily.

“Ayla clumsy!” Ruby says, laughing at me suddenly falling down.

I climb back up to my feet, heart pounding.

It didn’t happen.

“Ruby, this cave is a bit stinky isn’t it?”

“Stinky cave!” Ruby says.

“Why don’t you stay outside. That way you don’t have to breathe the stink. Ayla will go in.”

“Okay!”

Easy enough.

This problem has an easy fix. Don’t breathe the spores.

Luminous Authority!

As I walk down the tunnel, the air is purified around me. I won’t fall into the illusion this time.

At the bottom of the spiraling tunnel, there is a cavern, and in the cavern, I find a man.

He seems to be half man, half tree. His skin is made of wood, and his arms and legs branch into roots that go up into the ceiling of the cave.

His eyes are closed, and the rot is thoroughly infesting him, growing out of his body.

Is he going through the same thing I did? Is that thing forcing him to relive his worst memories?

I shouldn’t get too close, just in case he’s fully corrupted.

Moondrops!

I blast droplets of purifying moonlight into him, keeping my distance. He gasps for breath as the fungus is purged from his body, and he looks up at me, wincing in pain.

“Are you still you?” I ask him.

“Yes, I think—” he coughs. “Thank you for saving me. Who—” he wheezes. “Who are you?”

“Call me Ayla.”

His eyes take me in, then widen slightly. “You’re a primogenitor. Sorry, I have not heard of you.”

“I’m only fourteen, so that’s no surprise. What about you? Who are you exactly?”

“Oh, did you come across me by accident? How lucky I am. My name is Yigg. Like you, I am a full-blooded spirit-kin. The word primogenitor might be inappropriate in my case, as I have no intention of ever creating a lineage. This forest is, and will always be, my one and only child.”

“How did you end up rotting?”

“A man came through here and cursed me, infected me with the putrid magic of an Old God. Vorfaul the Soul Defiler, I believe. I resisted for as long as I could. I fear that had you found me any later than you did, I might have been lost.”

“Was his name Sephtis?”

“You know of him?”

I clench my fist. “Yes. You could say I’m hunting him actually. He killed many people I love.”

“A quest for vengeance? It pains me to see this in someone so young.”

“Not just vengeance. Someone has to get rid of him. If I don’t do it, I’m afraid no-one will.”

“He travelled north, towards Lorencia. My sense of time has been impaired, but I would guess this was about two or three months ago.”

“I thought so.” I frown. “How powerful was he? He cursed you, and you say that you’re an immortal spirit-kin?”

“I’m not much of a fighter, I’m afraid.” Yigg coughs again. “But I am not entirely defenseless. He was powerful enough that I was utterly helpless against him. I did not have the ability to purify his rot, as you seem to. Perhaps you would stand a chance, but you are so young. Please be careful. It would pain me if you were to throw your life away.”

“You don’t have to worry. I like being alive.”

“Good, very good. Well by all means, please stay here as long as you like. This forest is meant to be a sanctuary for weary travelers.”

“I’ll stay for a little while. There’s something else I want to ask about. I was told that this would be a good place to learn about the heartshards.”

“Ah, yes, I am somewhat familiar with them. Though I am by no means an expert.”

“What are they, exactly?”

“What do you know of the World Heart?” He asks.

I shake my head. “Nothing.”

“The World Heart is an artifact on which the laws of the spirits are inscribed, the laws that govern reality itself. It lies very far to the west of here, deep within the shattered realm.”

My eyes go wide. Yigg continues.

“The heartshards are simply fragments of this artifact that broke off during the cataclysm.”

“I have some questions,” I say.

“Ask away.”

“The heart of the world is broken? What was this cataclysm? What caused it?”

“The cataclysm was an event that destroyed half of the world. As for what caused it, I cannot even begin to guess. However, one thing is clear. The heartshards are invariably infected with the influence of the Old Gods. Removing this influence will result in the activation of the heartshard’s self-repair function, causing it to return to the World Heart.”

“Oh, yeah, I did that once.”

Yigg raises a twiggy eyebrow. “Did you? You gave up a priceless treasure, you know.”

“It was kind-of by accident. Besides, it just felt right. I saw the Moon Sister. She thanked me.”

“Well of course she did. The spirits hope for the World Heart to be repaired, and for the influence of the Old Gods to be purged from reality.”

“Hold on, are you saying that if all the heartshards are purified, the Old Gods won’t be able to influence anything in this world at all?”

“I cannot say for certain, but many have speculated this to be the case.”

“How many heartshards are there?”

“In the world? I have no idea. Hundreds perhaps.”

“Wow, good thing I’m immortal then.”

Yigg laughs. “Surely you jest. Do you intend to purify every heartshard yourself?”

“Yes,” I say, and I have never been more certain of anything.

Yigg looks me in the eyes, and I can see him slowly realize I’m serious. “You would make an enemy of every world superpower, every great sage, every covetous dragon. This undertaking means fighting the entire world.”

“Then that’s what I’ll do.”

“Why?” He asks.

Where to begin?

“My sister is a devil, and I want to protect her. My home village is overrun by the same rot that was infecting you just now, and I am beginning to seriously doubt that just killing Sephtis will be enough get rid of it. And my best friend, I think this might be the reason she gave her life to save mine and make me a primogenitor.”

Yigg takes a deep breath. “Very well. Do you know of Karma?”

“Karma?” I ask.

“If you wish to fight those who wield heartshards, without having one of your own, then Karma will be your only advantage.”

“Tell me,” I say, heart pounding.

“The spirits unerringly follow their rules. They function through contracts, and they like their contracts to be balanced. When a contract is unbalanced, Karma is transferred to rectify that.”

“So it’s like money? But for spirits?”

Yigg laughs. “It is so, so much more.”

My eyes go wide. I can’t help but think of that time I pulled on the fate thread that connects up to the moon, and called a shooting star. I had felt an unexplained sensation of loss back then. And when I purified the heartshard, I felt the opposite, a sensation of gaining something I never knew was missing, gaining so, so much.

“I think I understand,” I say.

“If you have truly purified a heartshard, you will already have Karma in abundance, at least relative to most.”

“But it’s not like normal magic. Once I use it up, it’s gone forever.”

“Indeed. Use it wisely.”