The Farmer's Wife #015

Matthias was no stranger to forests. As a child he had spent much time in the forests just outside Galden, picking mushrooms with his mother or playing at hunter with the other boys. But this forest made chills run up his spine with every breath.

The moment they crossed the threshold and entered the trees, what dim light there had been seemed to vanish altogether. The darkness below the forest's canopy was not merely lack of light; it was a suffocating blanket that lay over everything, actively snuffing out any light that entered.

Matthias did not know where they were going. Valdis led now, occasionally uttering a brief prayer, occasionally stopping and closing his eyes as though waiting for inspiration. The others followed where he led, occasionally stumbling over a root or stopping to disentangle themselves from the vines that covered the forest's floor.

The forest was deathly still. No birds chirped in the trees, and even the crickets, if there were any living in this dark place, were silent.

Eventually, it became too dark to continue walking. They stopped to build a fire; it took an eternity of stumbling around in the darkness to gather enough twigs that weren't soaked through with sticky damp to dry out those that were.

Finally, a fire flickered dully in the space between two large tree roots, and they sat around it for a moment to rest.

"We are not far now from the deepest shadow, I think," said Valdis.

"How long?" asked Thanos brusquely.

"It is hard to say." Valdis shook his said. "With Aranaus' guidance I would have been able to tell you to the pace how far it is, but with only prayers and vague impressions..." Anya looked meaningfully at Matthias as he spoke, but he deliberately stared into the fire as though he had not noticed.

One of the trees nearby was a pitch-sap; Anat tapped into it with his knife and soaked several old rags from his satchel in the thick dark sap that oozed through the wound in the bark.

"You see?" he said to Matthias, smiling. "In the deepest darkness, this," - he gestured to the sap - "though dark itself, gives us what we need to bring forth light."

Matthias half-returned his smile, but his mind was fixed on the darkness behind Anat; he thought he saw the darkness itself moving of its own accord.

He broke off a few sturdy branches from nearby trees, and Anat wrapped the rags, now black with sap, around the ends. Lighting them from the embers of the fire, they handed torches to each of the others, took two for themselves, and set off through the darkness.