The Woods Boy Pt. 07

Darkness.
I thought of the priest and what Brook did to him, for me.
There is...
A darkness fringed the dream, and above us great eyes appeared in the sky, two moons glaring down, searching. I'd seen them before and wracked my mind for where, but dream thoughts are as slippery as eels and I couldn't grip them. Brook was quicker, and pulled me to him, a sudden fear in him and now in me.
"He's here...." Brook's voice was mouselike. I held him to me as the scene about us swirled. We arrived in a large, circular stone chamber with a brazier burning at its centre. Before the fire stood the dark shape of a man, tall and broad, his bare torso traced with lines of cold light. He stood facing the fire, gazing into the flames as if hoping to see something in them. At first he seemed not to notice us, but after a few moments his head lifted in a start as if listening, before he turned to face where Brook and I stood, seeming to look through us. Then he smiled as he saw us, the empty smile of someone who had never really laughed, and his dark eyes, those same eyes, now held a look of surprise and cat-like interest.
"So soon?" He paced towards us, slowly, deliberately, before stopping a short distance away, as if uncertain about getting too close. His eyes flicked from Brook to me. "And both of you."
He circled us as he spoke, the lines of light seeming to pulse and grow brighter. His gaze fixed on Brook.
"You, I knew, would come here again in time. Sooner than expected but....you always were precocious." He poisoned the word. He looked to me next, and I felt the heat of his eyes, remembering the dark beast and the priest on the beach. "But you...." Those eyes searched me, but carefully, like he was afraid I would bite. "How did you come here, man of the woods?"
"What do you mean?" My voice echoed about the great space as his eyes bore into me. "Where are we? Who are you?" The man frowned before gesturing to Brook, still in my arms.
"He knows." The man smiled again, teeth glinting in the dim chamber. "Bruadar knows, or soon will." He laughed as Brook began to shake at the mention of that name. "It seems the old man did a poor job of protecting you."
Brook hummed with fear and confusion, the name echoing inside him, banging at the walls as if fighting to get out. "Bruadar, Bruadar...." it muttered and spat and raged as I tried all I could to soothe him. The man had backed away now, but watched intently as Brook writhed in my arms, willing himself free of something.
"He could hide you from yourself no more than he could hide you from me." The man's voice was gloating. "Soon you will remember, and then you will come, Bruadar."
The scene began to spin again as his last words echoed after us. "And as for you, man of the woods...." But whatever came next was lost in the dream storm that carried us from that eerie chamber and dropped us back onto the floor of the room at the inn in Irok, Brook and me glued together with night sweat, now cooling. He was shivering, and not just from the sudden cold of the room.
"Brook." I spoke it softly into his ear. "Brook, Brook, Brook..." The sound seemed to quiet him. He didn't speak and I didn't push him to, I just held him like that and gently said his name to him until the lavender light of dawn began to bloom against the window.
The others stirred, Bess first, stretching the night from her long legs, then Daylen by the hearth, sleepily lifting on fresh wood and kindling. Asprey still slept on the bed. I got up to check on him, pleased to see some improvement to his colour, and that his fever was much reduced. Whether it was the words of the woods witch or a good night's rest in a real bed that was the cause I couldn't say, and didn't care either way.
I sent Brook to fetch water, and to ask the innkeep to send up some breakfast. I figured I'd keep him busy until he was ready to talk about the dream we had shared. He seemed distant, felt distant, as I saw his face brooding, saw him gnawing at the memory, and I wanted so much to hold him again, but there are some things that shouldn't be rushed.
Asprey woke to the smell of food and I was glad to see him eat. I tended his wound and, though it was much improved, he wouldn't be fit to travel just yet. It was agreed that we would stay in Irok for a few days, perhaps a week, as the hermit healed. It would also give us time to provision ourselves and to ask about for news of the road north.
Brook stared at his plate the whole time, barely eating anything until I insisted.
"You need strength for the road." He gave a weak smile and ate a little more.
After breakfast we discussed our plans for the day.
"I want to look into provisions, and some warmer gear." I said. "Brook, you can help me with that. Then I want to try and talk to some of those northern folk outside the village, scout for news."
"I can do that, if you wish." Offered Daylen. "I think perhaps they will talk more freely with one of their own, no offence Bağdat caddesi travesti intended."
"None taken." I said, gratefully, secretly glad to have the task taken from me. I never was one for approaching strangers. "Thank you." I turned to Aspery, who was by now sat up in bed, a small pile of papers already beside him. "Will you be alright with just Bess for company, old friend?"
He smiled in answer and gestured to his work.
"Quite alright, Jack. I shall not even notice you are gone." To prove it he picked up one of the drawings of Brook's tattoo and began to study it. I glanced at Brook and saw that he, too, was looking with a new interest at the drawing, and I saw his lips silently make a word, a name from a dream. He sensed me looking and turned to me in a start and his eyes burned for a moment, before he breathed and became sullen again.
I couldn't blame Brook for his mood, I felt it too. That dream, or meeting, or whatever it was, had unnerved me. I felt I was stumbling lost into a world I didn't understand and where I felt powerless. I had pledged to protect Brook. I had...."It's a sacred act, to give a name." Pa's words again, and Pa's ghost again at my shoulder, lending strength. I shut the door on my fear and I stood behind Brook.
"Come on." I said softly. "Let's see what this town is like in daylight."
Brook seemed to get lost in wonder as we left the inn. The town was larger than the lakeside village, and busier too, with travellers from the north mingling with the locals and those king's lander traders that were still brave or avaricious enough to make the journey here. He stared wide eyed, a dazed expression on his face as he took in the bustle of the market square, a cauldron of life after the bleak journey here. He was about to stumble over a crate of cabbages when I grabbed his shoulder and pulled him aside, and that's when I felt it. I felt what he was feeling.
It was as if the world was no longer just sights and sounds and smells, there was now a deeper sense, one that seemed to beat like a heart through every person about. I felt snatches of emotion as people passed, of joy or frustration, petty glee or utter sadness. They were strands of scent on the breeze, they were distant voices and they were colours I have no other names for. I stood with Brook like that for an endless moment, sharing his wonder until, as if a door was being slowly closed, the voices dimmed and went silent. Brook turned to me, smiling with such naked joy it flooded into me and I grinned back goofy.
"That was...." He was breathless. "That was...."
"It sure was." I agreed. "But what was it?" Brook searched for the words but couldn't quite reach them yet.
"Let's...." He said, but rather than finish the sentence he grabbed my wrist and pulled me away from the market, down a side lane and up a slope to a quiet spot of ground outside the old temple. Once we were alone he spoke again. "Last night...."
"Yes." My heart sped at the memory. "What do you remember?"
"I...." He summoned his thoughts. "When he...when that man spoke that name...my name...." He seemed uncomfortable saying it.
"Bruadar..." I whispered and he flinched a little, but smiled.
"Yes, that." He looked north towards the distant mountains. "Something woke up inside of me, or it was like new eyes had opened..." He took my hand and held it, and I felt his warmth in my palms, and I felt something else too, I felt that sense I'd tasted so sharply for a moment in the market. It was quieter now, as if held in check by a hand finding its strength. I looked into Brook's eyes and saw a new confidence there. He had never looked so beautiful. "I feel it all around. You feel it too, don't you?"
I closed my eyes and in my mind I followed the tendrils of life that I now saw reaching from Brook in every direction, like he was at the centre of a great, silver web, and I was there with him, feeling the strands vibrate, seeing them shimmer.
"I was afraid at first." He said, still gripping my hand. "Like I'd been thrown into freezing water." He shivered at the memory and I recalled how he had shook in the dream. "But now it's like....it's like I've swum here before. I remember it, this place...."
I could feel his wonder nearly overflowing, and I saw that despite his words he was still struggling with whatever woke in him last night. He drew on my strength, steadying himself, and strange words came back to my mind, spoken in the dark of the woods from behind red, glowing eyes...'He is tethered to you. You must be his anchor.'
Brook finally released my hand, and the landscape returned to how it had been, though the colours seemed dimmer to me somehow after seeing them through his eyes.
We sat for a while, shoulder to shoulder as the shadows cast by the old temple shortened. I spoke again.
"Do you remember who that man was? In our dream?" Brook's eyes darkened and he furrowed his brow.
"He is somebody Bağdat caddesi travestileri that I know well." He spoke carefully. "Perhaps my whole life." I could feel him searching, going back to the stone chamber and scouring it for answers. He shook his head. "That's all I know..."
I put my arm around him.
"That's plenty." I shushed him.
We sat in silence for a while longer, looking out at the barren lands that lay ahead, our fated road. I saw that distant line of mountains, a smudge across the horizon, and I felt their pull.
"They're calling you, aren't they?" I asked, and Brook turned to me. He sighed.
"Yes." He sounded resigned. "I think the man, whoever he is, was right about that at least. I will have to go back there, to that place, that room."
I knew it was true, and it scared the hell out of me.
**********
We finished what business we could in the town before heading back to the inn, arriving as the short day was waning. We found the hermit still poring over his papers, sheets slowly filling with his spidery script. He looked up as we entered and smiled absent mindedly.
"Back so soon?" He asked, holding up another sketch and squinting at it in the dimming light from the window.
"Asprey, we have been gone most of the day." He looked around, as if for the first time in hours, a look of mild surprise on his face.
"Oh, so you have." He put down the sketch and rubbed his eyes, and I took a wick from the hearth and lit the candles that lined the walls. Brook had gone to sit next to the hermit, and was looking with interest at the sundry papers that littered the bed.
"Have you found anything?" He asked, and the hermit frowned.
"Perhaps." He said, and rifled through the papers, pulling several out of the scattered pile. One was the sketch he'd made of Brook's tattoo that morning at his house, and the others appeared to be taken from the body of the strange priest that Brook had....had done what exactly? My thoughts were interrupted as Asprey continued.
"When I was studying the body of that foul priest I discovered that he possessed a tattoo not unlike your own, Brook." To demonstrate he held the two sketches up, and there was indeed a striking similarity, though Brook's was more finely detailed. "On the priest, this mark was at the centre of a whole web of lines that ran across most of his body."
I immediately thought of the man in the stone chamber, and of the lines of light that rippled across his skin, and I felt a shadow of his searching gaze.
"Could these marks be connected to the....the power the priest showed?" It was Brook, reading my mind. Asprey thought for a moment.
"Yes, that had occurred to me too
And then after what you yourself did...." Asprey immediately regretted speaking. "I'm sorry, I..."
Brook put his hands up.
"Do not apologise." He said, softly. "That was...like I was sleep walking." He gave the hermit a strange smile. "Now I am awake."
Asprey raised a bushy eyebrow at this.
"You're....awake?" He asked.
Brook and I exchanged a look and silently agreed to tell the old man about the previous night, and about that day. When we were done Asprey looked dumbfounded, a rare thing to see.
"That is..." He said. "That is quite a story." He paused and thought for a while. "Brook, would you show me your tattoo again?"
Brook opened his shirt and bared his chest. The tattoo was glowing. It was faint, but there. It shimmered silver like moonlight on a near still pool. Brook seemed as surprised as anyone to see it, and he carefully reached his fingers to it, tracing the lines, his lips making a silent name.
"Webs upon webs." Said the hermit and Brook looked up sharply, fixing Asprey with a penetrating gaze.
"Yes!" He said, and Asprey visibly flinched, but didn't look away.
"That's the answer." Asprey said and Brook nodded. "It isn't one story, it's two, one on top of the other..."
Their eyes broke apart and Asprey slumped back, breathing hard. Brook looked distraught and quickly fumbled to find a cup of wine, but Asprey soon recovered himself and sat back up. He still accepted the wine, though. He picked up the drawing of Brook's tattoo again.
"Yes, I see it now. Two stories, one on top of the other. That is what had stumped me." Before he could busy himself with his papers again I sat beside him. I had something I needed to ask him.
"When you were in your fever, delirious, you kept saying something about the arrow that struck you...." The hermit frowned.
"Yes. It was....strange." He put the sketch down. "You were further ahead than I so you wouldn't have seen." He rubbed his eyes. "When the arrow struck me, we had already cleared the range of the archers by some distance. I had seen their arrows falling well short." He winced and clutched at his wound, and Brook handed him his wine. After taking a sip he continued.
"I only caught a glimpse of the arrow before Travesti bağdat caddesi it hit me, but..." His expression darkened. "I am sure I saw it change course, carried as by a gust of wind towards me." He let the implications of his words sink in. I well remembered the strange priest, and the way he had turned away the jar of fire with just a gesture.
"So, you think....." I said, fear stalking me. He nodded.
"I cannot be certain but, yes, it was uncannily like what we have seen before." This news was ill indeed. The thought that there could be more monsters like that priest on our tail, and so soon, sent a shiver through me. Brook, however, seem less worried. That confidence I'd seen before in glimpses now began to stand front and centre in his mind. Still, it could not fully drive the fear from me.
The door handle rattled and we turned to look, finding it was Daylen back from visiting the north folk. He had a grim look on his face but said little until we had fetched down for some food and wine. With a full belly and a half full cup he relaxed some and began to speak of his day.
"It seems the road has become even more dangerous since I came south." He sipped his cup. "And strange...." He brooded into the fire for a moment, the flames echoed in his dark eyes. "Folk tell of forests turning to stone, of pack animals going mad and running heedless into the wastes, and of the old tenples waking." His voice crackled like the fire, a glimpse at a deep passion. "The land is corrupted, they say. Poisoned by some evil." He turned his face away, hiding the tear we had seen. "I am sorry. I had thought I could leave my home behind, but it has found me even here." He looked at Brook as he said that, and a moment passed between them.
I asked Daylen whether he had thought about the route we should take.
"I fear the main road." He said. "It is said that the bandits now rove boundless, taking slaves, as you yourselves can attest."
"You have our thanks, Daylen." Said Brook, leaning forwards. Daylen shook his head.
"It was my duty." He said. "As for our path, I would prefer we keep to the forests that grow either side of the river. We can follow that for much of the way."
It was agreed, we would take the slow but safer path through the forest until we reached the foot of the mountains, before striking east towards...towards the rising sun.
It was full dark by the time our talk ended, and we made up our beds on the floor as before. I lay with my arms around Brook, hugging him to me. I closed my eyes and dropped into his thoughts, and he was there before me, expecting me, smiling. He was wearing a shirt and trousers of indigo silk, and they hung on his body like a warm breath. He walked slowly towards me and, taking my hands, he kissed me.
"I've missed you." He said and looked deep into my eyes.
"I'm right here." I said, and smiled. He kissed me again.
"I know." He said. I blinked and we were in my cabin again. Brook was making string by the hearth while I watched on from my familiar seat. He sensed me looking and met my eyes with a smile that melted me. He dropped his work and stepped over to me, that smile now seductive. He climbed onto my lap, his arms draping about my shoulders. I loved this side of him; the playful, horny side that liked nothing better than teasing me. His ass brushed achingly against me and he planted more soft kisses on my lips, my chin, my neck, his breath and tongue a fire-moth on my skin. I grabbed his hips and pulled him closer, the animal in me waking up hungry.
"Tell me what you want, pup." I growled in his ear and he shivered. "Tell me." He panted into my ear.
"Aw, fuck, Jack. You know. You always know." He was nearly whining for it now and the need in him pulled harder than I'd ever felt. Free from our bodies it was as if every touch, every taste, every thought went straight to my heart.
A blink and we were on the cot, Brook's naked body below me, cream skin brushed with dark hair, and that smile still there, waiting for my bite. I pressed down, my lips finding his, my weight on him. He gasped and writhed as I held him down, taking my fill and more. His need was mine now, our needs were each other's.
I fucked him then, and when I pressed myself inside him he wrapped around me, holding me there. The mark on his chest glowed and sent tendrils of silver light seeking out, reaching for me, before snaking across my chest and around my body until I resembled the man in the stone chamber with his aura of cold light. This light, though, was warm. It was the light of harvest moons and of firesides, and of their reflections in happy eyes. It was the light of love, and Brook was giving it to me. The cabin dissolved and we fell together, linked as deeply as two being could be.
We slept.
I was stood with Pa by the old apple tree on the rise above the west pasture. He was looking down at the stone that stood there, and the name carved upon it. It had been Ma's favourite spot to sit out the afternoon heat, he'd said, watching the ponies lazily grazing. I'd often see him sat there himself, talking to the air, to her. I had been too young to remember her, just a hazy recollection of comfort, of safety. I knew her mostly through Pa, and through his sadness. It was a deep pool, and I never saw the bottom of it.