More Tales of MU

…or, How To Recognize Different Trees From Very, Very Close Up

If I needed a sign that we really had passed a boundary when we crossed the creek, the greater frequency of green men on the other side was a pretty good one. They lumbered around in groups of two and three. They also grew bigger, nine or ten feet tall, with proportionally longer limbs and a faster walk. It wasn’t a huge difference in speed. Maybe a turtle’s pace instead of a snail’s. I began to see how they could pose a threat, though.

“Your axe may prove uncommonly useful, if you can throw it accurately, should we find ourselves hard-pressed,” Iason said when he saw me eyeing a trio of the green things shambling towards us less than twenty yards away.

“I can throw straight,” I said.

“I would recommend a horizontal spin, aimed at the main trunk,” he said. “It functions as the spine of the creature. Sever it and the vegetative brute will collapse.”

“You want me to try it now?” I asked.

“No,” he said. “The dust that is released when they break a limb gets in the air and it draws the presence of others, who will draw on their reserves of endurance and push themselves to the limit to get to the probably scene of a fight. Attacking a green man is always the last resort, reserved for those situations in which the monsters cannot be defeated by walking briskly.”

“Right,” I said, eyeing the monstrosities. Growing familiarity wasn’t making them less creepy. “Let’s get a move on, then.”

“The farther we move from the stream, the less you will see of them,” he said as we set off again. “Because they do not put down permanent roots, they do not range too far from water.”

“So they might pop up anywhere along the river, then,” I said.

“Yes.”

“Maybe you should tell me what other sorts of creatures we’re likely to encounter, instead of letting me almost run into them,” I said.

“But hearing is not the same as seeing,” Iason said. “And in any event, I could spend the whole trip describing interesting creatures we might encounter, only to be interrupted by an as-yet-undescribed creature we do encounter.”

The woods became thicker and more difficult as we left the rocky neighborhood of the stream farther behind. I noticed that Iason, while being flashy as ever with his vaults, jumps, and swings, was being more careful—he was looking before he leaped.

His caution failed him when he choose to descend a steep ridge to the ground twenty feet below by going the direct route. He used a sturdy branch that hung in his path about halfway down to arrest his fall, then swung out and aimed for a large tree stump in a clearing as a landing platform.

The stump had other ideas. When he was halfway to it, it reared up and bared a jagged maw at his booted feet. He couldn’t change his momentum mid-air, so he spread his legs wide and landed sprawled with the monster between his feet.

Iason scrambled backwards. His hand went to his hilt. The ground wasn’t the best place to draw a rapier from, and I don’t know what either of his stickers could do to the thing. It was four feet tall and a good three feet around, with a mouth that could have swallowed a gnome whole. If it wasn’t actually made of wood, it was something hard and bark-like. There were no eyes or other vulnerable parts that I could see.

I kind of hoped it was wood, because my axe had some relevant enchantments there. He’d asked if I could throw it straight. From up on the ridge, I showed him.

The silver axe flashed through the air, flying end over end. It hit the stump on the edge of its top, right above the middle of its maw, and it bit deep with a thunk that echoed all the way up to me. Looked like it was wood, after all. The thing’s mouth moved like it was roaring, but the sound was timbers creaking. The axe jerked itself out of the notch it had dug, and winged its way back towards me.

Iason was up on his feet, his weapons drawn and ready, but he seemed to have grasped the difficulty of applying them. He danced back and to the side as the monstrous tree lurched forward on bunches of tiny, root-like feet. It looked ungainly, but it was not slow and lumbering like the green men.

It was more like a vicious dog.

As soon as the axe haft hit my hand, I cocked and threw again. I tried to hit it lower on its “face”, hoping to damage the gnashing maw, but the mouth was recessed too deeply towards the center. The second blow caught it right on the upper “lip”, splitting the wood deeply, but it didn’t seem to impair its bite at all.

Iason darted forward and speared one of the feet with his rapier tip, then twisted the sword to the side. The thing made more noise, but it was hard to say it was slowed. It had feet all around its outer edge, and for all I could tell, it might have had more underneath.

I was spry for a human, but I wasn’t going to take Iason’s path down. I made another throw, which hit the top, and then started following the ridge down. The axe found me on the way. As soon as it was back in my hand I started running. I was down in the clearing with Iason and the beast in seconds. He was spearing more of its feet, all in the same area. It actually seemed to be limping a bit as it chased after him, biting the air.

I threw my axe and hit it solidly in the back. It shuddered and groaned. Iason threw his dagger right at it, and it shivered like it was going to shake apart.

“Iamie!” Iason said. “We need to hit the guts, inside the maw.”

“Let me try to come around where you are,” I said.

The thing shook off the effects of the dagger throw and charged at Iason, who threw himself to the side. It immediately turned to follow him. The thing was pissed.

“Try to lead it towards me!” I yelled.

“Never!” Iason said. “Throw me the axe!”

“That doesn’t work!” I said.

“Then flee, and I will catch up to you,” he said, barely twisting away from a lunge. The thing was following him too closely and he was moving too unpredictably for me to risk throwing again.

“Don’t be noble,” I said.

“You said you would run if I told you to!” he reminded me, and almost lost an arm for the distraction.

This wasn’t working. If I couldn’t get it to face me, there was more than one way to fell a tree.

“Okay, but try leading it straight away from me!” I said.

He did. As soon as I was sure there was a straight shot, I lined up my axe for a throw over the head of the wood monster, right in line with the back of Iason’s head. I cocked back, and threw.

“Iason, duck!” I yelled. The axe whizzed over the monster, and he hit the dirt just in time.

I did, too, going down into a crouch.

The axe stopped mid-flight and started back. I held my open hand low to direct its return flight as the monster surged towards Iason. I couldn’t see it, but its maw had to be open wide.

The axe struck home. It impacted the creature’s vulnerable insides, causing the same terrific shudder that Iason’s little dagger had, multiplied times ten. It kept shuddering, and over its creaky protests I could hear the thok, thok, thok of the axe head hitting wood.

Then the back of the monster exploded outwards in a shower of wood chips and gooey stuff like the inside of a pumpkin, and the axe sailed back to my waiting hands. The monster’s tiny legs gave out and it tipped backwards, then settled onto the ground.

I approached it cautiously. It wasn’t moving, but it hadn’t fallen over. It didn’t seem to be balanced to fall, though. It didn’t react when I approached, or when I tapped it with the axe, or when I sunk the blade into its top.

“An inspired solution,” Iason said, getting to his feet. He was trembling.

“You weren’t afraid, were you?” I asked.

“Of the maw monster? Not a bit,” he said. “Of you and your axe? A little, sweet Iamie. Tell me, what would you have done if I hadn’t ducked?”

“Mourned?” I said. “Elven reflexes, though. I figured the worst case scenario would be a glancing blow.”

“I suppose you’re right,” he said, smiling a shaky smile. “I think I should die of embarrassment before I died of a blade thrown by a mere human.”

I gave him a mock-slap on the cheek, then threw my arms around him and kissed him.

“What, apart from the quality of my character in general, merited that?” he asked.

“You ducked when I told you to,” I said. “On top of being glad you’re not dead, I appreciate the trust.”

“I ducked when I deemed it prudent to duck,” he said.

“Don’t ruin the moment,” I said. “Anyway, for all I know you tripped.”

“Do not ruin the moment,” he said.

“So what was that?” I asked, pointing towards the dead trunk.

“One of the forest’s hazards,” he said. “I do not know that it has a name.”

“I thought we were going to see faerie folk,” I said. “Not tangle around with evil plants.”

“I did nothing to downplay the hazards we would face, Iamie,” he said. “And you should not underestimate the dangers they pose, either. There are more subtle traps than bark that bites.”

“I know the stories,” I said.

“Do you?”

“Yes,” I said.

“When you met Ursula, did you wonder at the fact that she did not get all up in your face, as the saying goes, when she was threatening you?” Iason said.

“I didn’t give it much thought,” I said. “I figured she was a typical bully with minions to push around.”

“That she is,” Iason said. “But such people usually prefer to act tough, at least. Did it not seem strange that she didn’t even make a show of bravado?”

“A little, I guess,” I said. “Since you mention it.”

“Decades ago, when she had only been in Treehome for the space of a few weeks, she met a strange little man in the woods,” Iason said. “I have never heard a clear account of what their quarrel was—or rather, I have heard too many accounts of it—but the long and the short of it is that she kicked him in the rump. He waited until she had finished laughing, and then he asked her if that was the best use she could think of for her legs.”

“And she was stupid enough to say yes?”

“She was stupid enough to kick a little old man in the woods,” Iason said. “What do you think?”

“So he took it away from her, then,” I said. “The use of her legs.”

Iason nodded.

“They have been lifeless ever since,” he said. “She has enough followers to carry her from her loft to the tower. During the cold months, she will stay in there for weeks at a time, making things miserable for any who would use the dining hall. She has been here longer than any other middling, and she refuses to leave until the spell is broken.”

“Her family can’t afford to have a curse removed?”

“Fae magic is not so easily undone as a baleful enchantment or infernal curse,” he said. “It hews so much closer to the nature of things than the sorts of magic perfected by men. A long time ago, elves were said to practice the magic of the fae, but we moved away from it as we discovered its limitations.”

“What do you mean, limitations?” I asked. “I thought it was more powerful.”

“More difficult to counter,” Iason said. “That is not the same thing as being powerful, which is not the same thing as being limitless. The most powerful creatures of fae magic are frequently the most strictly bound. Now, the sort of binding that was laid upon dear Petros’s cousin cannot be readily dispelled by mortal magic, but it can be defeated by the proper key.”

“Which is?”

“It is one of the more traditional forms,” he said, and he cracked a smile. “And something which I fear must translate to a life sentence for Ursula.”

“What?”

“Can you not guess?” he asked. “You said you know stories.”

“It isn’t, uh, true love’s kiss, is it?” I asked.

“It is!” Iason said, and he threw back his head and laughed. “And she, she demands that each young woman who journeys to Treehome kiss her. She browbeats and threatens if necessary, thinking that one of them, any one, has to be her true love.”

“Sweet Khersis,” I said, shaking my head. “Does she really think that’s going to work?”

“Evidently,” Iason said. “It is a classic piece of sidhe work: just as their gifts are double-edged, so are their hexes. You take an odious, unlovable person and force them to seek out a person who will love them truly and selflessly. If the subject undertakes to improve himself, he walks away with his true love. If not, he remains a prisoner of his own vices indefinitely.”

“What happens when Ursula comes of age?” I asked. “Won’t she have to leave?”

“I do not know,” Iason said. “It would be interesting. Most would be ashamed to remain in a middling hold once they have attained adulthood. Would she be more ashamed to remain, or to go forth into the world as she is? I couldn’t say. The approaching dilemma might be enough to drive her to seek out the other method of release.”

“What, suicide?” I asked. Taking leave of the world was accepted among elves as the logical and natural end to a long and accomplished life, but it was as unthinkable for young ones as it was among most races.

“Not quite that drastic,” Iason said.

“What, then?”

“Seeking out the man and apologizing,” he said.

“Do you think that would work?”

“I’m certain it would,” Iason said. “Sidhe rarely lie about such things, if they ever do.”

“What, you mean he told her this?”

“Yes, he offered to remove it on the spot if she would say she was sorry,” Iason said.

“You’re shitting me,” I said. “Why wouldn’t she do that, if the alternative was to wait who knows how long for her to find true love?”

“Shitting you I am not,” he said. “Why wouldn’t someone of her ego assume that true love would be an easy thing to come by? I do believe it to be the first thing she’s ever wanted and failed to receive in her life.”

“That’s almost pitiable,” I said.

“What?”

“The whole ‘rich kid gets everything but love’ thing,” I said.

“You feel sorry for her?”

“I said ‘almost’,” I said. “Look at what she’s done in the meantime, turning Treehome into her own private harem? Making people bring her food and fight her battles for her? She’s turned the hex into a gift all on her own, the gift of never having to get off her ass.”

“So you might have found some more respect for her, if she tried to improve herself instead of wallowing in the hex?” Iason asked.

“I might,” I said. “I mean, she’s a bitch, and she could very easily still be a bitch even if she wasn’t playing Little Empress, but she’d at least get points for trying.”

“Points for trying,” Iason repeated. “Interesting.”

“What is?” I asked.

“Nothing,” he said. “Hand me the pack again.”

I did, and he pulled out another roll and started breaking it up in his hands.

“What, are you going to leave a trail of breadcrumbs?” I asked.

“Does that even work in the stories?” he asked.

“No.”

“Then no, I am not doing that. Come along,” he said. He kept right on crumbling the roll. “It isn’t much further to the ruins.”

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