The Trials of Ildarwood: Spectres of the Fall Read online

  Desperate to escape, Willen raced back in the direction from which he thought he had come, only to find a sudden bitter cold flowing deep into his lungs and coursing swiftly through his veins. With each step he took, his strength grew weaker and his vision faded, until finally naught but darkness could he see. And there, on the outskirts of the Ildarwood, he collapsed, all but certain that the last thing he would ever see was the ghostly faces staring down at him and a particularly strange bird that decided to land upon his chest.

  In the depths of Willen’s unconscious mind, he imagined himself standing inside a vast greenwood forest on a bitter autumn night. All around him, a sea of shimmering eyes blinked and watched as he walked toward a star far off in the distance.

  After pushing through the forest, Willen emerged outside a massive stone fortress with an Asterport high above and colossal doors beneath an arch directly ahead.

  “They’re coming,” a voice grumbled, and there beside Willen appeared Maysen in a suit of Ildarglass armor. Holding a golden shield in one hand and a matching Ildarstar lantern in the other, he stared out at all the eyes within the forest. “This is all your fault,” he said. “You could’ve stopped this, but no. You just wanted to let it happen.”

  Then a terrifying shriek burst forth from the skies above, and from the darkness soared a creature so immense that its wings blocked out the stars.

  “What is that?” Willen asked with alarm, but no answer did Maysen give. Only once the creature neared the Ildarstar above the fortress could Willen finally perceive its twisted frame. Composed of Ildarwood and Ildarglass, all grotesquely intertwined, it soared around the structure as the star both droned and pulsed.

  “Take him down!” a voice shouted from within the fortress. Then, in the blink of an eye, a wave of Ildarglass arrows rose up into the air and illuminated the blackened skies like a thousand shooting stars. With lethal precision, they found their mark, and with a wail like that of a newborn widow, the winged creature plummeted to the ground. Exploding into a flaming plume, it sent debris in all directions, leaving Willen to recoil with fear.

  “What’ve you done?” Maysen demanded as spectral soot and ghostly embers filled the air. “Do you have any idea what this means?”

  The next thing Willen knew, all the eyes within the forest were limping toward him, their ravaged bodies soon given shape by fire and embers. Clothed in soot, they stumbled and lurched toward the boy at the foot of the fortress. Then, fed by flames, they moved more quickly. In an instant, they were upon him as Maysen watched and shook his head.

  “What a waste,” Maysen muttered, and just as Willen prepared to scream out in agony, he awakened with a fright on the cold, wet ground inside the Ildarwood, once again surrounded by graves.

  Night had fallen on Ranewood while he had slept, and with almost every ounce of energy drained out of him, Willen struggled to find his way back home.

  “Well, look who finally showed up,” Maysen grumbled from the kitchen once Willen stumbled into the house. A pint of emberberry ale grasped firmly in one hand, Maysen wiped off his mustache with the other before sauntering over to the door. “Your mom’s been worried sick about you–again,” he said, staring down at Willen. “She’s out with the Asterguards, tryin’ to find you–again. And now, because you decided to sneak out of the house against her wishes, she’s got it stuck inside her head she’s a bad mother–again.”

  Then Maysen pushed his hand against the wall to block Willen from escaping, and moved so close to Willen’s face that Willen could not escape the horrid smell of half-digested ale wafting down upon him.

  “You swore this wouldn’t happen–again–and I told you what’d happen if it did happen . . . again.”

  “It actually wasn’t even my fault this time,” Willen insisted. “I got lost in the woods, and the guys just left without me, so—”

  “Do I look like an idiot to you?” Maysen asked with annoyance.

  “You mean, right this second or in general?” Willen countered, but before he could even crack a grin, Maysen slammed him against the wall and held him firmly in place.

  “That mouth of yours–it’s gonna get you into a whole lot of trouble one day, and you know what? I honestly can’t wait till it does, ’cause maybe that’ll finally be the day you figure out you can’t just do or say whatever you want. Now, your mom, she’d let you get away with murder if she thought you were just actin’ out after what happened to your dad, but in case you haven’t figured it out yet, I’m not like that. I knew a whole bunch of kids just like you growin’ up, and not a single one of ’em cared about anyone or anything other than themselves. And do you know what happened to them? Do ya?”

  Struggling to breathe, Willen could barely find the strength to shake his head, let alone answer.

  “They’re all gone, Willen. Every . . . last . . . one of ’em. And I’ll be honest: I don’t really care in the slightest if that ends up happenin’ to you too . . . but your mom does, so you either need to grow up and learn to act like a real man while you’re out in those woods, or you need to leave and never come back, ’cause I promise you, if you cause her any more pain, I will find you, and I will Break you myself, and no one will ever find out what really happened. You got that?”

  In response, Willen forced himself to nod, then collapsed onto the floor just as soon as Maysen let him go. Struggling to catch his breath, he swore to himself then and there that he would one day find a way to punish Maysen for his cruelty, no matter the cost.

  No words were exchanged between Willen, his mother, and Maysen the next morning on the carriage ride into town. Though Willen usually enjoyed staring out through the window whenever they traveled, the tension in the air was far too uncomfortable for him to find any meaningful pleasure in it that morning. So past the broken tower they traveled in silence, and past the haunted manor on a hill he had always wanted to visit. Then finally they passed the Old Ildarwood Bridge, still charred and crumbling from some great fire years before.

  When their carriage finally pulled up to the Astercourt not long after, Willen’s mother wasted little time getting everyone out and hurrying them up the stairs. Hundreds of people had gathered outside the Astercourt that day, and all of them seemed eager to push their way into the massive structure. It made no difference to most of them that a short older man nearby was desperately trying to guide them all in with a polite smile and a friendly wave.

  “Right through here, please! Thank you!” Mr. Brimberton announced with glee. “No need to push! There’s still plenty of time! Thank you! Hey, nice to see you, Barnie! Yep, you too! Hey, watch your step there, ma’am; there’s no need to rush! We’ll get started shortly! Thank you!”

  “What a zoo,” Maysen said with a huff as Willen watched Jarryn and his mother–a slender yet severe woman–push past everyone on their way up the stairs.

  “Come on,” Alma Gricker huffed back at her son. “We gotta try and squeeze inside before they get started. The Overseer and that wife of his get all sorts of moody if you’re not on time for their little show.”

  Following the masses through the front doors, Willen found himself wedged firmly between his mother and a scurry of strangers who were equally intent on finding a good spot to watch the beginning of the First Day ceremony in the Astercourt’s central atrium. Only once he had passed through archway after archway did he finally spot Alder Brent standing beneath the majestic, flowering tree of Ranewood on a large stone stage.

  Eager to welcome and delight a whole new batch of Ildarbound with his annual tale, Alder shouted, “Thank you, thank you, thank you!” as he raised his hands just enough to capture the room’s full attention. “Thank you all so much for coming here today. My name is Alder Brent, and I am the Overseer of the Trials here in Ranewood.”

  A brief round of obligatory applause immediately followed.

  “You’re all too kind! Thank you! Now, we’re here t
oday to kick off a new year of Trials with all these incredible young people, and I’m using the term ‘young people’ deliberately, because none of you are children in our eyes anymore. You are all now old enough to begin a journey that can take you anywhere your heart may lead, so long as you have the determination and the skills to survive the years ahead.”

  Survive? Willen thought, suddenly alarmed by what he had expected to be a boring speech. Even after his gruesome discovery the day before, he had not dared imagine that the Trials could ever be dangerous.

  “By the time your journey through the Ildarwood is complete,” Alder continued, “each of you will have the knowledge, skills, and life experiences necessary to become a valued member of our society, and I think I speak for everyone here when I say we cannot wait to see you again when you finally return home.”

  “Not everyone,” Maysen grumbled as more applause followed, though Willen could clearly see several other boys and girls his own age staring at the Overseer with mixed looks of horror and dismay.

  “So, why are we all here today?” Alder asked the crowd. “Why do the Trials even exist, for that matter? To answer those questions, we have to look back thousands of years, to a time before we knew the truth . . .”

  As he spoke, the Asterport above the main hall rumbled while an enormous metal barrier closed it off, and behind Willen and down each corridor, doors closed themselves to deepen the darkness of the moment. After that, the only light that remained came from hundreds of tiny glowing bumps along the trunk and many branches of Ranewood’s namesake tree, although even those began to fade after a few more seconds.

  “This is my favorite part!” Willen heard one woman whisper before he began to see movement through the darkness. Somewhere up ahead, he spotted what appeared to be a bright, flickering fire, but something other than a crowd was blocking his view of it. It took several moments for him to realize that everyone around him had somehow vanished, leaving him entirely alone in a great and wild jungle. From that point on, he could still hear the Overseer’s voice in his head as he watched the story that Alder told play out right in front of him:

  The first of our kind, if you believe the stories, was a young girl named An’tumbe, who grew up deep in the jungles of Ondala. It is said that no one born before her had ever been able to see the things that she could see, or hear the things that she could hear, or feel the things that she could feel.

  When An’tumbe came of age, she tried to tell the members of her village all of the things that she could do. But the villagers, they all laughed at her, none of them convinced of what she claimed. Still, one man in the village took pity upon her, and in due time, she became his wife. That year, An’tumbe had eight beautiful children–an even split of boys and girls. And when those precious miracles did at last stare up at her, An’tumbe was surprised to find that their eyes were all silver, just like hers.

  As her children grew, they too learned that they could see and hear and feel things that none of the other children in the village could. And so they came to understand that all the incredible things they could perceive were not merely illusions within their own minds; they were, in fact, inextricably intertwined with the world around them. It was a miracle, for somehow those eight incredible children had discovered an unimaginably complex yet invisible layer of our world that no one else before them had ever dreamed possible.

  Only then, once each of An’tumbe’s children truly began to understand what they could do, did they finally dedicate themselves to mastering their control over the mysterious spectral world. In time, each child learned to tame their own unique form of the ethereal silver substance only their family could perceive, and in the millennia that followed, the eight distinctive spectral elements they created came to be known around the world by these simple common names: Goldenfire, Stormspark, Frostwater, Crimsonwind, Kingswash, Spiritstone, Asterlight, and Nightsmoke.

  Now, legends say that on the first night of the children’s twelfth year, the family stood before their tribal elders to show them all the incredible skills An’tumbe’s children had come to learn.

  O’nya was the first of them to demonstrate what she could do. She stepped toward the evening fire, then knelt and pressed her hands together until a stream of blinding light burst forth from the very tips of her fingers. In an instant, it rose high into the midnight sky and illuminated the heavens with a million shining stars that have shone down ever since.

  “It’s a trick! It’s a trick! It’s a trick, I say!” yelled one elder of the tribe. “We should waste no more time with their deceptions!”

  Then An’tumbe approached the angry man and said, “Please do not go, brave Aska T’yk, for you are the wisest of the wise. Surely there is no way we could deceive you with mere trickery, so let us prove these are not lies.”

  So convinced was the man that he could see through any trick, he then approached her eldest daughter, Eshanti, and challenged her to prove him wrong.

  And so Eshanti stared directly at the man and said, “Think of that which you love most in this world, and I can make you hate it.” So the man, of course, thought only of his wife, who he loved more than all else in the world. Then Eshanti placed her hand upon his chest, and in so doing, she filled his heart with such a fury that it burned like raging fire within. Only once Eshanti stepped away from the man did his rage finally begin to subside.

  An’tumbe’s son Dhorube, they say, was next in line, and grinning widely at the man, he said, “Sing to me the words of your favorite song, and I can make you sing another.” And so the man began to sing a song well known throughout the tribe. But when Dhorube began to whisper in his ear, the man’s song began to change–just the words at first, then finally the tune–until at last a different song entirely was being sung. Only once Dhorube fell silent did the man’s first song resume.

  After that, Eluji dared approach the man, who had by then grown confused. “Throw your fist at me, brave Aska T’yk, and I can make you stop.”

  “I will not do it,” said Aska T’yk. “If I succeed, they’ll cast me out.”

  But An’tumbe knew the old man well and swore it was no trick. And so the man did try to strike the boy, but when Eluji raised his hand, the elder’s fist froze unwillingly in the air, and for a time, he could not move it.

  “More tricks! More tricks!” a woman claimed. “He’s helping them to lie!”

  And so O’mehsi stood beside the flames and tried to show them something none of them could refute. Without a word, she began to spin and spin, until the elders thought her mad. Then all the leaves and dirt around her began to swirl up into the air, as did all the smoke and all the sparks from the flames. Only once the girl stopped spinning did the wind dance finally end, leaving the elders to gasp in breathless awe.

  “Demon girl! Demon girl!” another woman shouted. “We must kill them here and now!”

  But An’tumbe’s dear boy Zayre knew precisely how to soothe the woman’s burning soul. Raising his hands into the air, he said, “Please look at me, dear Anja Daas, and I can bring you peace.” And so she stared into his tearful eyes until she saw her own reflection. Only then did she truly understand that she was a far greater threat to him than he could ever be to her.

  After Zayre returned to his mother’s side, it was his sister Imarre who dared approach the tribal chief. “There are no stones I cannot endure, nor any spears that can pierce my skin. Great Do’mun Ze, I ask of you, come forward and test my strength.”

  At first the chief dismissed the girl, but still, he was intrigued. And so he took his favorite hunting spear and tried to break the maiden’s skin. Only once he had failed his given task did Imarre dare step toward him, and with a single swift motion of her hands, she ferociously snapped his spear in two.

  This was the final straw for the village elders, who had by then all seen enough. “We cannot let them live, Great Do’mun Ze! What if they turn on us one
day?”

  And so it was that An’tumbe’s children came to learn these two most valuable lessons: people often fear those things they cannot understand, and they often fight those things that they believe they cannot control.

  Desperate to save her children, An’tumbe dared approach the tribal chief to help him find the middle ground. “You do not have to take their lives, Great Do’mun Ze. Their blood would forever stain your hands. Just cast us out, if that’s your will, and we will never come back again.”

  “I’ll let them live,” said Do’mun Ze, “and the wilds shall decide their fate. But you must stay, An’tumbe, and your life shall be their bond. If they come back, then you shall die, and they shall die, in turn.”

  And so with utmost sorrow, An’tumbe watched her children leave, sending their father as their guide. It’s said she cried so much thereafter that the entire world was filled with Silver from her tears, yet still her children persevered. Through vast jungles and deserts they traveled, and past unclimbable mountains and endless plains they trekked, till one by one their paths at last diverged. In distant lands with foreign tribes, they settled, each starting a family of their own. And in that way, they finally found the happiness that had eluded them for so long.

  But it was Asaude, they say, the youngest of them all, who could not ever find his peace in distant lands. Embittered still by what had happened, he became obsessed with terrifying visions of his revenge. And so, one night, he returned to An’tumbe’s village and summoned shadows so vile and corrupt that no form of light could ever break through them. It is said that the Blight he conjured that night slipped into each and every hut and inflicted upon the villagers nightmares so frightening that even their bodies bore scars come morning. And for those too young to be old yet too old to be young, the Blight did something else. Fueled by unbridled impulses beyond their control, they raged against their elders and wreaked havoc upon the tribe. And so much chaos did they cause that each and every one was soon cast out as well.