A Spiritual Encounter

Anyone else would have described the cave as silent. No creatures dwelled in hidden recesses. No water dripped down through minor fractures in the rock. No sounds from the forest beyond the cave mouth found their way down the narrow, winding cleft in the cliff face that led to this silent sanctuary.

To Raegan, it was anything but silent. To her, the silence of the cave was merely the medium in which the chaos in her head could accurately be heard, free from the numerous distractions that extraneous sounds provided.

The faun was cross-legged, as if seated, and yet she hovered in the air as power was channelled through her slender form. Loose stones from the cave floor, caught in her aura when first she levitated, now orbited gently about her.

As a priestess of Leshavit, Raegan was instinctively in tune with the natural world in all its forms. Life and death. Growth and decay. The ebb and flow of the forest was hers to witness. And yet with the ability to observe nature in all its forms came an obligation to do so. It flowed through her in a perpetual stream; a sea of chaos that was almost impossible to decipher. Almost.

And so, in the silence of the cave, Raegan focussed on the clamorous cacophony and channelled the power Leshavit had gifted her in an attempt to unravel the patterns amongst the pandemonium.

It wasn’t just sounds. Visions flashed across the inside of her closed eyelids. Snippets of emotions. Unquantifiable data at the level of a hunch, a sixth sense. All came through at an individual level, magnified in their repetition until Raegan could sense the prevailing state of the entire forest realm.

Her eyes snapped open. She had detected an anomaly, one that could not be ignored.

She allowed the channelled power to dissipate and her body drifted towards the cave floor. She uncrossed her legs as she descended to land lightly on her cloven hooves. A brief fumble in the pitch blackness of the cave located her staff and she used this to feel the way before her until the light from the outside world reached her. Such was her haste that she did not wait for her eyes to adjust to the relative glare, instead resorting to squinting at the world through narrow slits to chart her progress.

The camp wasn’t far from the cave. Close enough to keep a wary eye out for intruders; far enough away that any noise from it would not permeate Raegan’s sanctuary. Judging by the racket that was emanating from it upon her approach, that was just as well.

“A dog!”

“A cat!”

“A horse!”

Raegan came upon the camp suddenly. It wasn’t in a clearing, as such, but more a spot where the trees were arranged in such a way as to best host the triangular waxed skins that were lashed to them with ropes to form the tents that were their temporary accommodation. The skins were painted brightly, with individual markings denoting tribal allegiances and accomplishments, and served to differentiate who each shelter belonged to.

The faunish travelling tents were arrayed in a rough arc curving away from the cliff in which Raegan had taken refuge. They’d been at the site for several days as the priestess meditated and it had developed subtly over that period. A firepit had been dug in a relatively clear section away from the tents and evidence of the various meals they had scavenged from the surrounding forest were scattered about it. Dried out trunks of fallen trees or else sizeable rocks that had broken from the cliff face had been hauled in to form crude seating about the fire and Raegan’s companions were arrayed upon them now, taking it in turns to shout at the lone figure who was the centre of their attention.

All were fauns, though beyond their racial similarities they could not have been more different. Lithe Jayda shared a log with burly Hoff. The two were always at one another’s throats and Raegan had often wondered if there was something more between them, in potential if not yet in reality. Nominally, Hoff was the leader of the troupe. He certainly considered himself to be. In reality, that role often fell to Jayda and people took their lead from her, much to Hoff’s chagrin.

Close by, perched on a massive boulder, sat the pudgy figure of Chubbs. The faun’s diminutive stature was further emphasised by the size of the seat he had chosen to sit upon and was highlighted all the more by the way he swung his legs, nowhere near reaching the floor, in a childlike manner.

The fourth and final observer wasn’t seated at all. He had taken himself off away from the rest and was leaning against a tree. To Raegan’s mind, Toydal - or Mr Toodles, as he insisted on being called - tried so hard to be aloof from the others it was almost comical. She could see right through that. For all that he was stood away from the others, he was still engaging in proceedings and was joining in with the shouting with far too much enthusiasm for the persona he wanted to portray.

The final member of their party was the object of their attention. The strange-looking faun was on all fours, walking back and forth in the confined space. Every now and again he turned his unusually-shaped bovine head to the sky and his mouth formed a silent “O”.

“Klaus, what are you doing?” Raegan asked.

The strange-looking faun paused to place a finger to his lips and shake his head before resuming his ambling progress.

“We’re playing charades!” Chubbs burbled happily. “A wolf!”

Klaus shook his head.

Raegan sighed. “A cow.”

Klaus stopped and beamed as he pointed in her direction. There were groans from those assembled.

Chubbs frowned. “He was howling at the moon.”

“He was lowing,” Raegan corrected.

Klaus grinned and mooed happily.

“You call that a cow?” Toodles huffed from where he was still leaning nonchalantly against the tree. “You should let me have a go. With my acting prowess-”

“Like your musical prowess?” Hoff laughed. “It makes sense for Klaus to act them out. He won’t guess them. He doesn’t speak!”

“I’ve seen him speak to Raegan,” Chubbs chimed in.

“Well that’s Raegan,” Hoff countered. “Doesn’t help us in charades.”

Raegan tuned out their bickering and turned fond eyes on Klaus. They had been inseparable since he had first been taken in by her village as a child. Now she was a priestess and he was her guardian. So much had changed but their bond was as strong as ever.

She felt eyes upon her and shifted her gaze to find Jayda looking in her direction. She wasn’t sharing the banter of the others and regarded the priestess with narrowed eyes.

“What’s wrong, Raegan?” she asked. “Have you seen something?”

Raegan nodded. “There’s an anomaly deeper into the woods. A big one.”

Jayda nodded, placed thumb and forefinger between her lips and gave a short, sharp whistle. The bickering ceased. All eyes turned to her.

“Pack up. We’re moving out.”

“Hey!” Hoff protested. “Fancy running that by me?”

Jayda smiled and bowed mockingly. “My apologies, oh fearsome leader. Raegan has detected something wrong in the woods. We need to investigate. What would you have us do?”

“Oh,” said Hoff, his brow furrowing. “Right. Well, let’s pack up and move out, then!”

“As you command,” Jayda acknowledged, flashing the bigger faun an infuriating smile.

Raegan was impressed. For all that her companions engaged in a wide variety of tomfoolery, when there was a need to they operated with a precision that would have put the soldiers of the Commonwealth to shame. Tents were unpegged and skins folded safely away. The firepit was filled in. Their ramshackle seating was repositioned into a less organised arrangement. When they were done, it would take much more than a cursory glance to detect that they had ever been there at all.

It didn’t take long for the forest to change. Anyone exploring the depths with no sense of direction might wander for hours and see no difference. But Raegan had a very specific direction. Every now and again she would stop, channelling power through the malachite jewellery she wore about wrists and throat to ensure their course remained true. About them, the trees became denser. Trunks towered higher and clustered together, as if themselves in fear of what lurked amongst them, and in doing so they blocked out more of the sun’s failing light.

“I don’t like this,” Chubbs muttered, clutching his short bow close as if for comfort.

Beside Raegan, Klaus mooed his agreement.

“It doesn’t bother me,” Toodles retorted.

Usually such a comment would spark banter amongst the group. Toodles was someone who would make a statement contrary to any prevailing accepted norms just to be different, up to and including the colour of the sky. It was telling to Raegan that none of them did. This place sucked the joviality out of everything.

“I’ve found something!”

Jayda’s voice came from up ahead, dulled but the oppressive foliage about them. The swift-footed faun had been scouting ahead, leaving Hoff to guard their rear. Now she came back towards them, a worried expression on her features.

“What did you find?” Raegan asked.

“Ruins,” Jayda replied.

“Like Stormguard?”

Jayda shook her head. “You’d best come and look.”

The ruins were unlike those of the old Tauber capital. Indeed, they were unlike any Raegan had seen before anywhere and she prided herself in her knowledge of the settlements that nature had reclaimed throughout the Darkwood. The stones were dark and covered in lichen. Vines traces patterns across their surfaces and punched through weak points in the mortar. The foliage was dense all about but a path could just be made to an archway.

Raegan regarded the chipped and scoured markings above the entrance where whatever had once been etched there had been obliterated. Clearly the inscriptions had been inflammatory enough to someone to provoke the effort required to erase them.

Chubbs shivered. “I don’t like this place.”

Jayda shook her head. “Me neither. Is this the right location?”

Raegan closed her eyes and took a moment to channel power through the malachite that adorned her. The assessment didn’t take long.

“This is it.”

“Well?” said Hoff. “What are we waiting for?”

And before a word of warning could be uttered, the brawny faun shouldered his way through the curtains of creepers, leaving the others with little choice but to follow.

Beyond the archway was a wall to prevent sight to the interior. Paths led right and left, with both opening out into a central courtyard. Huge blocks of stone and ornamentally carved masonry, mostly concealed by the  plant life that had grown around them when nature reclaimed the site, were scattered across the space. Murky pools oozed fetidly in hollows in the uneven ground. Around the perimeter, collapsing walls appeared to be holding back the encroaching forest. It was a battle that had been going on for some time, by the look of it, and one that nature would inevitably win. At intervals, the ruins of circular towers gaped towards the sky, the dark archways to their interiors hostile and uninviting.

“It’s a castle,” Chubbs breathed.

“A folly, actually,” Hoff corrected him. All eyes looked his way. “This isn’t for living in. There’s nowhere to shelter. It’s built purely for show. It’s a folly.”

Silence greeted the statement.

“What?” Hoff protested under the weight of their combined stares. “I know stuff, too!”

“Good knowledge, Hoff,” Jayda congratulated him, patting him on the back as she passed him in the direction of the nearest tower.

“What’re we looking for?” asked Chubbs as the troupe spread out to search the ruins.

“Something that shouldn’t be here,” Raegan muttered.

She stayed where she was, scanning their surroundings as her companions explored. In truth, she didn’t know what to expect. There was an anomaly in this place, something that the woods didn’t like. Something unnatural. She’d felt it in her trance-like state in the cave. Now she was here, she didn’t need her powers; she could sense it all about her. It was the smell of rain, the glimpse of something out of the corner of your eye. Some knowledge of the presence of something that your senses couldn’t quite get a hold of.

“He hit me!”

Raegan’s head snapped around at the protestation.

Hoff stood, slightly obscured behind a heap of ruined masonry. Raegan caught a flash of pink as something darted out from behind it and into the all-consuming darkness of the looming doorway of the nearest tower.

“I didn’t touch it!” Hoff protested, raising his hands as if in evidence.

“What was it?” Jayda asked. She began to approach Hoff’s position, picking her way deftly across the uneven ground.

“Everyone to me!” Raegan commanded, urgency in her voice. “Now!”

Her eyes had not left that dark doorway. Large ears twitched as she strained for the slightest indication of what was to come.

“He hit me!”

The accusation rang out again, echoing this time about the tower’s interior. Other voices joined it.

“He pushed me!”

“He called me names!”

A hacking cough rang out in response and then a large, bloated shape was pushing its way through the archway. A tattered and stitched gown hung from her corpulent form. A bonnet rested upon her head. A patchwork handbag rested over one arm. What flesh was visible was the pale blue of the dead. Wide eyes stared out of a pudgy face that appeared to have had makeup applied, the eyeshadow and lipstick somehow making the creature seem even more grotesque.

“Who’s been bullying my babelings?” the figure demanded.

About the apparition's feet, three figures cavorted. The pink thing Raegan had seen dart into the darkness was a wrinkled creature. A bonnet sat atop its head, a rattle was clutched in one pudgy fist, and it sucked the dummy in its mouth furiously. The second was a ball of a babeling, as the creature had called them, with huge ears. As Raegan watched, it sat down and began to cry. The thing’s mouth expanded until it seemed to take over all its features as it devolved into a bawling tantrum. The last of their number was the strangest of all; an odd, fish-like creature with legs and arms and a protrusion that sprouted from the top of its head and culminated in a bioluminescent glow.

“Psychopomps,” Raegan muttered.

She’d done her research. Ever since the shades had started emerging in greater numbers, she had been collating information from every source available. Particularly the spirits. Raegan hated spirits.

The pomps, as they were known, always seemed to accompany the larger ones of their kind, to whom they were in thrall, and disappeared as soon as the latter were disposed of. The trick was getting to them. The little ones were babelings. The larger one was known as Nanny. She had to be their target.

“Hoff, get out of there!”

The burly faun had not reacted to her initial instruction to fall back and even now was locked in the indecision of fight or flight. His pride won out and he raised his massive axe over his head, preparing to strike. Nanny fixed him with her big eyes.

“Go to sleeeeeep,” she crooned, in a voice that was neither gentle nor soothing, “go to sleeeeeep, close your tired, weary eyes…”

Raegan watched as the energy drained from Hoff's limbs and the axe slowly drifted backwards, as if his arms could no longer muster the strength to hold it aloft.

Nanny suddenly stopped singing.

“Nap time!” she announced, and brought her handbag around in an overarm swing directly towards Hoff’s unprotected skull.

Jayda was between them in an instant, shouldering the larger faun out of the way and rolling beneath the deadly arc of the handbag.

Within the folly’s walls, all chaos broke loose.

Across the courtyard, one of the pools of water exploded upwards, cascading sheets of water towards the darkening sky. As the deluge subsided, Raegan could make out the sinuous form of a merfolk. This one she did recognise; Sen’Ara. She was accompanied by her own psychopomp, a web-footed, round-eyed, fish-type creature sporting a monocle and a beret who immediately began to advance from the pool in wet, slapping steps.

In other circumstances, the sight would have been comical, but Raegan knew that this was no laughing matter irrespective of how things appeared.

Behind the pomp, Sen’Ara fixed her huge, pale eyes on Hoff, who was only just picking himself up from the floor, and began to sing. The melody was hauntingly beautiful and appeared to contain harmonies and harmonics that would be impossible for any regular voice to achieve. Hoff seemed beguiled by the sound and stumbled on erratic legs towards the merfolk, axe trailing a groove in the earth as he dragged it along behind him.

He was stumbling to a halt when another creature leapt out from a nearby tower at him. This was the most horrific shade yet. It had the body of an old man, magnified in size, and yet seemed to have no skin. Muscles and sinew were laid bare as limbs transitioned into bird-like feet and clawed hands. Its head sported long, pointed ears and beady eyes. It had a beak in place of its nose but this was in addition to its mouth rather than in place of it. It carried a sack over its back, from which a variety of body parts protruded, no doubt the remnants of victims the creature had collected as it went about its grisly business.

Abra Cadaverous, Raegan’s mind supplied, and she watched in shocked inaction as the long, claw-topped stick the creature carried lashed out towards Hoff, striking him in the shoulder and sending him reeling.

As Hoff tumbled away, another pomp popped into existence at the site of impact. This one was a mass of miniature full plate armour with a helmet that obscured everything about the creature’s appearance except for a mass of disjointed teeth exposed in a huge grin between the top of the breastplate and the bottom of the helm. Where plated legs should have been, there was instead the spindly limbs of a bird and a fan of feathers protruded from the armour at the rear. A great sword bigger than itself was carried in one diminutive hand.

It landed with many a clank and clang and picked itself up hurriedly before advancing on the downed Hoff, its greatsword held aloft threateningly.

Raegan shook her head to free herself from the shock that had frozen her since the shades had appeared. She channelled energy from herself into the ground, pushing hard as she sought the seeds of life below the surface. She found what she was looking for between the advancing pomp and the prone Hoff and surged energy into that focal point. Immediately, fresh shoots forced their way from the dry ground and reached for the sky. Raegan pushed harder, stopping only when a dense thicket separated the faun from his diminutive would-be assailant.

Raegan span around. “Chubbs, give me a hand!”

But Chubbs was having problems of his own. In the dim light, she could make out the faint outline of a ghost; an incorporeal skeleton torso shrouded in pale, flowing grave clothes. It was chasing the fleeing Chubbs around a sprawling tangle of masonry and plantlife as the young faun screamed in terror.

Away to his left, Klaus was swinging wildly at an odd creature, even by the standards of its kind. At first glance it was a humanoid jester, bedecked in multi-coloured motley with a painted face and a gigantic ruff about its neck. A second glance revealed a second face; a great big face with a pointed nose and chin that was leering most discomfortingly from the creature’s backside. As Klaus swung his cowbell flail, the jester rolled away. The result was the pair appearing to chase one another around a broken pillar, all whilst a part-eaten teacake, replete with arms and legs and a most angry face set into the delicacy’s buttery surface, jumped about the pair screaming, “eat me!” at the top of its, presumably, lungs.

The sound of a pipe drew Raegan’s attention and she glanced the way of Toodles, who was attempting to play a lullaby to a creature that was half man and half lion. In truth, he took on the appearance of an old man, stooped and wizened, but who had the mighty mane of a lion about his head, from which huge ears protruded. A lion’s tail and great clawed feet rounded off his leonine appearance. He was holding a hearing trumpet to one ear and appeared to be listening intently, though to what Raegan could not say.

Before Toodles could play more than a few notes, a small, imp-like creature interjected itself between him and the lion man. It had a huge sousaphone, easily as big as itself, wrapped around its body and it blew into it with a huge puff of its rosy cheeks. The noise it made could only be described as a dreadful din and was to be expected. What was less so was the way the wall of sound it produced pushed at Toodles, sending the faun tumbling back towards Raegan’s position.

“Fauns, to me!” Raegan yelled, backing away.

This time the others did listen. Jayda had succeeded in half-carrying, half-cajoling the injured Hoff away from his the armoured pomp and even Klaus heeded the call of the priestess he had sworn to protect.

“Jayda, target the bigger ones!” Raegan instructed, gathering power about herself.

Jayda unslung her bow and notched an arrow, but before she could release the lion man opened his mouth in a silent call. Immediately, the psychopomps surged forwards in a mass of chattering voices and bounding bodies, responding to a command that only they could hear and obscuring the lines of sight to those to whom they were enthralled.

Raegan sent a blast of energy towards the walking teacake and it vanished with a pop, but with a gesture from the jester it was back in an instant and scurrying to rejoin its fellows. Following Raegan’s lead, Jayda sent a shaft towards one of the babelings but it fled with a cry of, “I want my nanny!” and the shot skittered wide of its target.

Jayda growled in frustration and drew her hunting knife, breaking away as she tried to keep as many of the advancing foe in her sight at once as possible.

“It’s no good,” she said, as the fauns were corralled back towards the crumbling walls, “there are too many of them and they just come back if you kill them. What are we supposed to do?”

“You could just ask for help.”

Raegan whirled about at the familiar voice. There, sat atop the wall and limned in moonlight, was the vulpine form of Dranyer. The strips of her green dress fluttered in a breeze that was not felt by anyone else present and a mischievous smile played about her features. Demigod. Spirit. Trickster. Raegan did not trust the shapeshifter one bit but she was right; they did need help.

Before she could give voice to a reply, a shape detached itself from the shadows. It was terrifying to behold; a quadruped form of muscle and sinew. Four long limbs culminated in ferocious claws and where its head should have been there instead was placed a huge, antlered stag skull, from which baleful eyes regarded the mass of pomps parading before it.

“Wendigo,” Raegan breathed, as the creature bellowed its rage and charged.

The pomps showed no fear - Raegan wasn’t even sure if they were aware of the emotion - but neither could they put up a fight against their aggressor. The Wendigo slashed out left and right and each time it struck a pomp they popped out of existence. The more the Wendigo banished, the more ferocious it became and, despite the best efforts of those behind to resummon their minions, they could not keep up with the Wendigo’s wanton destruction.

“Now!” Raegan screamed, unleashing her power through the diminishing crowd of pomps to the summoners beyond.

The others followed her example. Jayda fired arrows. Hoff hefted his axe and charged with a roar. From atop the wall, Dranyer lent her own magics to the cause. Now engaged, the shades could no longer summon more pomps and the Wendigo made short work of the remainder of them before also turning its attention to the others. The tide of battle had swung in the fauns’ favour and one by one the shades popped out of existence under the onslaught until finally none stood against them.

Raegan gazed wildly about the clearing, expecting more foes at any moment but detecting none. Her companions were chatting amongst themselves, relishing in their victory and savouring the fact that they were still amongst the living. It was surprising how quickly the horrors of the minutes before had been suppressed.

“See, Priestess?” Dranyer called from her place atop the wall. “Not all spirits are bad.”

Raegan turned her gaze upon the trickster. “I didn’t say they were.”

Dranyer laughed. “I can practically hear your thoughts. You’re welcome, by the way.”

“Thank you,” Raegan said, the words forced onto an unwilling tongue, “but I still don’t trust you.”

Dranyer leaned back on one hand and placed the rear of the other dramatically against her forehead. “Forever maligned! What does a girl have to do to get a little faith?”

“You could start by giving us information,” Raegan suggested. “You know far more than you let on. Think of the good you could do.”

“Good and bad aren’t concepts I adhere to,” Dranyer replied, and a smile played about her lips, “and telling the full facts doesn’t fit the prototype of deity or trickster now, does it?”

She got to her feet, her every movement slow, graceful and controlled.

“I’ll tell you something, though,” she offered.

“Do tell.”

“You promise to believe me?”

Raegan frowned. “You promise to tell the truth?”

Dranyer laughed. “Take this as you will, then. You may not trust me now but there are times coming when you with have need of my aid and other spirits like me.”

“What do you know?” Raegan asked, urgency in her voice. “What’s coming?”

“Worse than you faced today,” Dranyer promised. “Much worse.”

And before Raegan could question her further, Dranyer’s form began to shift. It was like looking at the pictures Raegan had seen the more talented faunish artists construct; an image within an image. Seen at first it was one thing and then, when your eyes had been staring for a bit, it became something else and suddenly it was as if the image had never been any other way. That was what it was like watching Dranyer change form. One moment she was a woman; the next she was a fox. It wasn’t quite clear what had occurred it between for it to be so.

The fox seemed to smile at Raegan - a difficult feat for any creature with a snout - and then it dropped over the wall and out of sight, leaving the priestess much to reflect upon and none of it comforting.