The Warden

Chapter 7

The ancient forest breathed around Masis, its breath seeping out from amongst mossy beards and craggy lips. He wandered amongst giants whose verdant garments transformed sunbeams into green, muted curtains of light, the very atmosphere perfumed with growing life. Brooks and rivulets scampered here and there, while small creatures scurried about in the underbrush. At his approaching footfalls, they blurred up trees or under cover, squeaks or yips of fear or indignation barked out as they fled. But no matter how they scolded him, whether growls or grunts, their calls melded with the sylvan melody.

After the accident the previous day, after somehow saving his sister, Masis yearned for a place that he knew—hoped—would not change, a place he could safely assume would follow the rules and patterns that he had learned over the years. For within himself a great shift had occurred, a change so fundamentally deep instinct told him it could not be undone. Even now he struggled to understand, to grasp, what it all meant, for every creature that skulked in the woods about him had changed. In his mind, no matter where they hid, whether in a shrub or behind a tree, he Saw them clearly in his mind. Each animal stood out like a gem on the black background of his mind, turbulent bundles of light contained in their fleshy outlines. In his vicinity he could, with his eyes closed, point in the direction of every squirrel, hare, fox, and mouse, no matter where they stood.

What has happened to me? Masis asked himself, shaking from his core, at once himself and yet not, a foreigner in his own skin. What have I become?

As he meandered over familiar, worn trails, his hands lingered on saplings and old growths. His touch rooting him through them deep within the earth, lending stability, security that relaxed his body and calmed his breath, stilling the tremors for a moment.

The path wandered over fern conquered logs moldering into the ground, it tiptoed near cliffs bathed in the sun's fresh morning light, and skirted bogs frothing with the reclaimed life. It moseyed about until it spilled out into a small woodland grove, carpeted with clover and dotted rocks pillowed with moss. Ringed with maple and pine alike, the light came through the canopy unhindered, making the space a dazzling oasis in the midst of the forest. A small beck giggled its way through its center, making the air sweet with cool moisture.

This was Masis' sanctuary, a place of stillness when life became turbulent. Ever since he had discovered it when but a lad, this place had become his confidant, a place unknown to any other person where Masis could steal away during the daylight hours to pause and be. Expectations did not follow him there. Nor titles. Nor worries. Nor anything else.

Here only Masis existed. No matter how much he may have changed in the last few days.

Coming to the edge of the stream he tugged off his boots, hopping about precariously on first one leg and then the other. His jerkin followed and then his shirt. Masis stood there bare chested, Wilo's light warming his sun starved skin. Though only a little more than two feet deep and breath-snatchingly cold, he waded out to the brook's center, lowering himself onto his back, the water bearing him up in the slow current which he easily counteracted with languid strokes.

His eyes closed.

His breath stilled.

His heart slowed.

His mind emptied.

Carefully, hesitating as though approaching a cornered animal or preparing to touch something hot, he Looked inward. There, in the black recesses of his mind, shimmered his own light. Constantly shifting hues, it frothed about within him with no clear direction or purpose. Since saving his sister Masis had not tried to control it. He had let it be much like one does with breathing, letting the action fall to the body's natural processes. Now, tentatively, Masis took control. Resistance he had not felt the first time sprang up. He wrestled with it for a moment, gritting his teeth, until it settled under his control. It would tug from time to time as though to test his concentration, but Masis maintained a firm mental grasp on it. Masis' mind filled with its presence, a part of himself, an appendage, only just discovered, feeling at once alien and powerful but familiar and right, much like the first time he had grasped an axe.