Over the next few weeks, Denholm learned so very much about the Darkwood so very quickly. Food became the hardest part, since he lost everything he packed before he’d even met that Trickster. He’d had the best luck finding berries, since they were brightly colored and quite common. Still, his belly voiced its complaints at the lack of diversity in his diet often. Once, he found a corpse of a mongoose, but it was too moldy and rotted to eat. Not to mention that he had no way to start a fire to cook that meat in the first place. He was pretty sure, though, that if he didn’t find something substantial soon, he was going to starve to death. Water, at least, came easy. There were simply just so many creeks and rivers about that it was more of a question of when than if he was going to be able to have a drink.
He slept on the ground most nights and was woken frequently by noises that he rarely could imagine the source of. Most of the time, he simply lay awake thinking about his mistakes. Always, his thoughts circled back to the Trickster. Its masked face, vertical eyes, even the strange clothes it wore were so clearly preserved in his memory. Some nights, he felt that there was something watching him, and he couldn’t sleep at all then. The safest he had felt anywhere was in the hollow of a tree he found and managed to pile up enough branches in front of it that, for once, he was confident nothing could get in. The problem became how little space there was to sleep in there. There were two options: curl into a ball so tight his back ached all night, or sleep sitting up with his back propped against the uncomfortably hard wood.
None of that had been the worst of it, though.
In all this time, he hadn’t seen, heard, smelled, or in any way noticed a sign that there were other people out here. The quiet was killing him. Of everything, it was the worst. And it was made so much more unbearable by the realization that the presence he missed the most was, of course, the one he had taken from the world. But at the same time, she was what was keeping him going. He would have given up long ago if not for the chance to bring her back, to see her again and feel her presence beside him, to play silly games with her that had no point besides being an excuse to be near one another.
Denholm stood, now, on the edge of a chasm some twenty feet across, gritting his teeth and staring down at the darkness. He glanced side to side, unhappy with how few places he saw where he could cross it. There was a large tree fallen across, one that was wide enough that a minor fault in balance wouldn’t mean his death, but it was visibly rotting, with huge chunks falling off the bottom. In the other direction, there was a green and healthy tree that had obviously fallen across much more recently, but it was as thin as Denholm’s thigh.
Denholm, for the first time since he had been on the edge of giving up, fished into his pockets and then held up his key, and found he didn’t hate to look at it anymore. Now, instead of a reminder of his failings, it was a symbol of his quest.
“Well, I don’t suppose you can help me?” he pleaded at the piece of metal.
He almost put it back in his pocket when he paused, noticing something strange about it. When inspecting it closer, he saw something incredible. Denholm turned it over and over in his hand until he realized what he was seeing. The front end of the key was glowing softly. Confused, Denholm continued to play with it.
It took him an embarrassing amount of time to try pointing the tip of the key in different directions, but when he did, he gasped and dropped it. Denholm fell to his knees and almost tipped over into the chasm trying to catch it. As he watched it spin away into the darkness, he thought he really lost it.
Until, of course, like he should have known, a familiar weight appeared in his pocket. His panic quelled, this time, Denholm stepped back from the edge before experimenting again.
And found it was doing the exact same thing.
It was glowing more or less, depending on where he pointed it. As if… as if it was trying to lead him somewhere. Denholm made sure he was reading the course it wanted him to go right, and then began off, following the glow back into the woods. Thankfully, wherever it wanted him to go, it was not across that horrible canyon.
He followed the lead of the key for what felt like hours, but when he looked up at the sky, the sun had hardly moved. The glow was getting brighter and brighter as he went. Denholm’s mind was racing with possibilities, but one stood out the most among them all. He was pretty sure the glow had been present even before he had asked the key for help.
His best guess was that the key glowed only when a god was nearby.
If only he had taken it out of his pocket more in these past few weeks… well, he was kicking himself now for not doing as much. Perhaps he had passed by more than one god already without even noticing? Denholm shrugged the annoyance away, forcing himself to stay focussed. The only thing that mattered now was following the lead of his key. It wasn’t like he even knew for certain what it was leading him to yet. Denholm paused. What if the key was leading him to another Trickster?
From there, he carried on with much more caution.
The trail took him over rises, through gulleys, and alongside a small creek that ended in an equally small waterfall dribbling off the edge of a series of mossy cliffs. From this new vantage point, Denholm could see out over vast swaths of land. It was all the same, densely packed with dull colored trees that suffocated and obscured everything at ground level. He glanced at the key and… it had changed.
Had he strayed off course? No, he was sure he hadn’t. And yet, as he looked down at it, the glow was not as bright while pointing it out over the edge. Confused, he waved the key around. This time, the glow was brightest pointing sideways along the cliff's edge, even a little behind where he was now. Denholm frowned, watching it with a hunch growing in his mind. He gasped. It was moving. The glow was getting duller, but he was still holding it pointed in the same direction. He readjusted, following the track he thought it was moving. It glowed brighter again.
His hackles prickled. The god–or whatever he was chasing after–was not only close, but it was moving.
Denholm crept along, ducking behind tree trunks at the slightest noise. Yet each time he peaked out again, he saw nothing. He knew all he was hearing were the same small noises the forest always made, but he couldn’t help being skittish this close to his prize. Eventually, he found himself standing on a small, deadfall-ridden hilltop, barren of grasses and moss but covered in plenty of forlorn trees. He scanned ahead of him, sure he must be close enough to see it now. The key was not only as bright as an open flame now, but also noticeably warmer than his hand.
A hum came through the air, causing Denholm to shirk behind a rotting tree stump. It was layered, as if it came from several sounds mashed together, most of them low and wide, but some high and taught bits peaked through the flurry of noise as well. Denholm peered out. He still saw nothing. Nothing.
Nothing.
And then there was color.
Sliding through the trees, moving towards Denholm at an angle, was a mass of color that broke up the muted surroundings. It was a ghostly emerald color, and it drifted like a leaf. Before he could get a better look at its appearance than that, fear got the better of him and he hid behind the stump again. Until he heard a voice.
“Hello?” the hum died, as if to make room for the words. “I can hear you breathing.”
Denholm reflexively stopped and held his breath, eyes so wide they felt soon to pop out of his skull.
“Will you come show yourself to me?” the voice asked.
Denholm did not reply.
“I did not mean to scare you,” it said. “If I did, I am sorry.”
Denholm dug his nails into his palms.
“Please, will you come out? It’s too rare to meet one not like myself out here.”
Denholm shook his head, grinding his teeth, wracking his brain for what to do. The voice was feminine, oddly resonant, musical even, but with off-pitched tones mixed in. To call it inviting would be wrong, but he certainly heard no hostility within it. Not that that meant anything. The Trickster had sounded kind at first.
But he also needed to breathe.
Denholm slid the key out of his pocket, held it close to his chest, closed his eyes, and pictured her face. Then he stepped out from his hiding place. Brave, now, but only for her. Without that goal in mind, he would never have had the courage to reveal himself.
The being turned to face him instantly. It was… well, not unlike he might have pictured a roving god or goddess. It’s form was vaguely in the shape of wide, billowing dress, and the ‘cloth’ or whatever it was made of, rippled with life. The color was a whitish green that seemed to glow from within and stood out even from the green leaves on the trees above them. It was perhaps ten whole feet across and eight feet tall, and floating a few feet above the ground at that.
Still holding the key to his heart, Denholm slowly began his approach, careful not to appear too eager.
“Are you a god?” Denholm asked, breathless from fear.
The being twitched, though it did not move to approach him, or attack for that matter. “I have been called that. Are you a human?” It had a distictly feminine voice.
Denholm nodded. “I am.”
“I see so few of you. Why did you leave your home? The answer is never quite the same, and it has been some time since I have heard the story of one who has left.”
“I…” Denholm couldn’t even say it. It all felt so painful, and his reasons so stupid and juvenile now. “I don’t want to say.”
“A simpler question then. What is your name?”
“Deholm.” He came to a stop perhaps ten strides away from her, which might have been too uncautious, but he would bet to use this key he needed to be even closer. “Why do you… look like that?” he asked, because it was all he could think to say.
As if triggered by his statement, its body suddenly began to morph and change, and rapidly. One moment, the god appeared as a floating tangle of dripping wet vines. The next, a broad man clad in armor who only existed from the waist up as a floating specter and wielded a spear wreathed in ribbons of light. And then another form, a woman with a long dress that billowed in wind that didn’t exist. The only constant between each newly taken form was that the substance of it always stayed the same: a milky whitish-green that emitted some kind of smoke ever so subtly.
“I can look how I want. Would you prefer it any particular way?” she asked.
Denholm had to force himself not to run. “Is it… you? Or was one of the other ones the real you?”
Again, it changed. The last and final form it took was more similar to the woman’s form than any of the others, but still not that similar. It gave the vague impression of a disembodied dress, but the billowing ends were more like the vines from its first form, and, well… there was no one in it.
“This is how I usually am,” she said. “I prefer to drift like a leaf in the wind more than anything else, and any assumption of humanity is removed. It might sound strange, but I like the ambiguity. But for you, I think a touch more humanity will do only good.” And just like that, she had a face again, though now it was disembodied, floating just above the neck-line of the dress-shaped form.
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“Ok,” Denholm said, feeling his body beginning to shake as he worked up the courage.
“What is that in your hand?”
He flinched, then found himself waving around the closed fist in question. “This? Nothing.”
All at once, her form became completely motionless, all of the windless rippling ceasing. Now frozen utterly, she spoke with a voice like earth and smoke, all prior humanity shed from it. “You have a key.”
Denholm’s lip quivered. “I have a key.” He opened his shaking hand and plucked it by the thick back end, holding it up in front of him.
She smiled, and damn him to a thousand deaths if her smile didn’t remind him of someone. Denholm tried to point the key at her, but could only bring it halfway. It felt like Silvi all over again. The goddess’s eyes watched the key ceaselessly. He floundered, unsure what he was supposed to, or even wanted to do with it.
“So you wish for passage into the power of godhood?” she asked.
“What would it do to you?” Denholm found himself asking, his resolve bleeding away as he thought of Silvi, lifeless in the mud.
“It would weaken me, but only as much as it strengthened you. No power would be lost. Some would say gods could do with less power.”
“So… would you try to kill me if I unlocked your power?”
That humming sound came from her again, though this time more melodious. “Some would. I’m not as attached to mine as them.”
Denholm could hardly believe what he was hearing. “So you would let me use the key on you?”
The cloth-like substance of her body shuffled back and forth, as if thinking. “I might. I suppose I couldn’t stop you. You do have a key. But I would like to caution you first. Power, on the outside, seems only positive. But within, much of the time, only misery will lay. You think you want power, yes? For what reason? Is there a purpose you have in mind that is worth the misery it will cause you? So, what is your answer?”
“I have a purpose for it,” Denhom said, unable to keep the desperation from his voice.
“Well. I believe you. And that is a rare thing, now, isn’t it? To have a purpose. Can I ask you, if you don’t mind, was it you who tricked the Trickster or the Trickster who tricked you?”
Denholm forced himself to stop clenching his jaw before he could break any teeth. “What?” he asked, breathy and hoarse.
“You get a key either way,” she said.
Denholm didn’t respond.
“Well,” she went on with a deeper hum underpinning her words, “I think we can both agree you don’t need to say which it was. That aside, what is this purpose that has such a firm hold on your heart to push you to these lengths? You are a long way from anywhere, Denholm.”
“I need to bring my friend back to life.”
“I’m afraid… I don’t think this power will do what you want.”
Denholm’s lip quivered. “Then take me to a god who can do it!”
“There are ones capable of that, but only in specific circumstances. Tell me, did she die inside an oasis? Or out here with you?” she asked.
Denholm frowned, confused, until he realized… “The Glade?”
“Yes. Did she die there? Or out here?”
“Yes, the Glade. She died inside the Glade,” Denholm said.
The goddess looked away. “Then she is out of all of our reach.”
“No!” Denholm demanded, legs growing weaker under him. “She died, b–because of a Trickster! But you’re going to save her! You! You… have to…” Every word rang more hollow than the last, even in his own ears.
She waited until Denholm was breathing slower to respond. “What happened to her?”
Denholm’s eyelid twitched. “I… was tricked,” he said in a small voice.
Slowly, as if not to startle him, the goddess drifted closer, frowning deeply. “I am sorry.”
Denholm could feel himself beginning to shake uncontrollably all over. “Then I don’t want it.” He tried to throw the key away, but the familiar weight appeared in his pocket a moment later. He pulled it out again and looked down at it. He then looked up at the goddess again and held the key out to her. “Can you destroy it for me? Or get rid of it somehow? I don’t want anyone else to have it either, but even if you can only make it stop reappearing in my pocket, that would be enough.”
The goddess's face fizzled into a new expression, now gazing quizzically at him.
“Please,” he begged. “If it can’t bring Silvi back, I don’t want it.”
“What do you want, then?”
Denholm looked back towards the direction of the cliffs.
A sharp, one-note hum drew his attention back to her. “The Trickster made you do something horrible. Is that what happened?”
“Yes.” Barely a whisper. “But it was my fault.”
“Everything is, and always will be,” she replied. “But you didn’t mean for this to happen, isn’t that right?”
“No,” Denholm confirmed. “I never wanted to hurt her. I never wanted to hurt anyone.”
“But you did seek out a Trickster. You sought to take the power of a god. And you must have wanted to use that power to get something else you wanted before you lost your friend. When one wants more, someone is going to get hurt. Those who once stood in your way of getting it, for certain.”
“I didn’t want to use power to hurt anyone!” Denholm was unable to control himself any longer, rage and sorrow flowing into his words in equal measure. “I wanted to reunite the… ‘oasis’ you said they were called. I wanted to bring back the roads and have people from other places trade with the Glade. I wanted to be able to trade the bullfrogs I used to catch for… something.” It sounded so silly now. Denholm’s eyes dropped to his feet. “I… just wanted to have done something good. I wanted people to like me.” And just like that, Denholm was crying. Not a balling or a wailing cry, a more lifeless one. Silently, motionless. He watched his vision blur and felt the drops sliding down and falling off of his face.
“So why throw away that dream now?” she asked, humming with a note of regret.
Because it had never been about the dream. It had been about becoming someone who was worthy. Only now, after all this time searching for a solution, he was finally forced to accept that the only person he cared about being worthy for was gone.
Denholm shook his head, clearing the tears.
And then he started walking.
“Where are you going?” Her curious voice from behind.
“I want to see the view again,” Denholm said, not bothering to turn and face her while answering. “This forest is too dark.”
By the time he reached the edge of the cliffs again, the view had become far less enchanting than it was just a short time ago. Dark clouds hung low in the sky, and the sprawling swath of visible landscape was largely obscured. It seemed only a few minutes ago the sky had been clear as far as the eye could see.
“Don’t stand so close to the edge,” she said, startling him. Denholm had been so engulfed in his own thoughts he hadn’t even noticed her following him nor the fact she was now floating so close behind him. Funny, how meeting a goddess in the flesh could become something forgettable, an afterthought, so suddenly and unexpectedly. Denholm forced himself not to look back at her, or down, keeping his eyes on the horizon instead. In his peripheral vision, he couldn’t help but notice her green, glowing form slide into place beside him.
“The sun disappeared so quickly,” Denholm said, words scraping in his dry, cracking throat. He hadn’t had a good drink since yesterday.
“Yes. And it’s about to get a whole lot darker.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Just watch, it won’t take long.”
Denholm frowned at that. Yet as he watched, in minutes, the clouds had somehow grown even twice as thick as they just were, casting the land in such darkness it seemed impossible that it was midday, and yet it was. “How did you know?” Denholm asked her.
“I have lived out here a lot longer than you. Now watch. The best part is almost here.”
Again, Denholm postponed the inevitable out of curiosity. It was silly, in a way. What did a few more minutes matter? And yet, he was curious.
The dark blanket of clouds grew only ever more dense and oppressive, until all at once, it let loose a flurry of snow so thick it was like the sky itself was falling. Denholm’s neck prickled, though the feeling was distant and muted. It almost made him as sad as any of it that he had never seen something so beautiful and cared for it so little. He watched as the first flakes hit the ground–flakes that were more like gobs, each the size of a leaf. The snow fell so thickly that as soon as it was upon them, he could see no further than ten feet, and it was literally inches deep within the time it took Denholm to draw just a dozen breaths.
“It’s like it just switched from fall to winter in an instant!”
“It did,” she said. “The further you stray away from an oasis, the more chaotic things become, and we are very, very far now. This is only one example. Surely you have seen some of these things already, yes?”
Denholm nodded weakly. “Spiders the size of dogs. I saw some of those. They were in a little pack and going somewhere. They didn’t notice me, thanks to Silvi. All that hide and seek with Silvi.” Denholm felt like his chest was seizing. The cold, the pain of knowing he had failed and there was no way to bring her back, it all came together, suffocating him like a blanket made from boulders. The memories came back to him perfectly in this moment. Despite usually being scattered of mind, Denholm could remember the slightest details now. The sound of her laugh when he found her hiding in an outhouse. The voice of the cook, screaming at them both as they ran away. Denholm had spent the entire night with Silvi after that, and it had taken until morning to convince her the cook wasn’t going to come burn her house down just because they got caught playing on his property. And so many more memories, all rushing in, all piling the dread and regret higher and higher inside him, just like the snow. Denholm inhaled slowly, and then out even moreseo, breath misting in front of him. He was ready.
“I could conjure for you a warm fire,” she offered.
“That’s kind of you, but I don’t want a fire,” Denholm whispered. “I just want it to be over.”
Denholm stepped over the edge.
The chill air whipped against him as he fell, faster and faster. A screeching howl trailed after him that sent shivers through him even in the face of his imminent death. He opened his eyes, only to see the whitish-green form of the goddess flying down through the air after him, her dress rippling blindingly quick. In the glimpses he saw of her in those moments while he was tumbling, he realized her green tendrils were reaching out to him, trying to save him. Why? What reason did she have to care whether he lived or died when even he didn’t?
Denholm closed his eyes.
And hit something soft.
He sank deeply into it, decelerating just gradually enough not to shatter every bone in his body. An instant later, he realized the soft thing he landed on had a spring to it, a mighty spring that bounced him back, sending him high up into the air, flailing. At the apex, just before he started to fall again, he looked down to see what he had hit and found a toad the size of a house there. He could still see the imprint in its bulbous back where he had sunk into the flesh before bouncing out of it. There was a faint glow to the massive creature, and it was not fully opaque, like it was not fully real, though it obviously had substance to it.
He hit the toad’s back again, face first, but this time bounced back only a few feet before he landed on it again. Denholm grabbed for purchase, but there was none. Only slimy, slippery flesh. He couldn’t keep himself from sliding down its back, nor from plunging into a much less forgiving snow bank.
Cold surrounded him. Snow was in his ears and nose. Slowly, he pulled himself upright. The toad was gone, and the goddess was just touching down next to him.
“You did that,” Denholm said, dancing between accusatory and grateful.
She stayed silent, giving the impression she was studying him.
Denholm took her moment of pause as an opportunity to turn and run. The snow was already up to his knees. Around him, the white flakes fell ever quicker, building the blanket of white inch by inch, making each trudging step harder than the last. He didn’t know where he was going, just that he needed to get away. He frequently glanced over his shoulder but saw nothing of her trailing him.
It didn’t take him long to find something suitable: a stream running just deep enough for his purpose. Denholm stopped on the bank, staring down at the frigid-looking water. It wasn’t frozen over in the middle yet, but near the shore, ice was already forming. Winter really was coming all at once.
He gritted his teeth and clenched his fists. This wouldn’t be as quick as a fall, but he didn’t care anymore. After looking around for her one more time and finding himself alone, he cast himself into the currents. Denholm fought back the urge to panic, forced his body to go limp and drift instead of swim. The water was so cold he couldn’t believe it wasn’t frozen already. The current twisted and turned, carrying him deeper, grazing against boulders as his body begged for oxygen. Until something stopped him.
A huge pair of jaws was wrapped around him, toothless but abrasive like sand. There was no mistaking what was happening, he was being eaten by some kind of giant fish. Oddly, he found the prospect of dying this way worse than drowning, so he fought and struggled, but it was all completely useless. This beast was many times his size, and he completely at its mercy.
Until he was flying through the air again, thrown along with a huge spray of water. He landed on the bank, coughing and heaving even though he had only inhaled a fist's worth of water. Whether thankfully or not, he hadn’t filled his lungs, so after expelling the offending ice water, he was left free to look around. Standing next to him, looking down, using her more human form, was the goddess.
Denholm, whelp, and single-minded in sorrow as he was, tried to crawl back towards the river. The goddess responded by lifting off her feet and gliding through the air, placing herself over the river in front of him. He flinched as a huge, glowing catfish surfaced its head from the water just under her. That was the beast that had grabbed him and thrown him. And now that he could see it clearly, it was exactly like the toad had been, partially transparent and glowing. Her doing again…
He slumped down on his side, shivering madly, watching the catchfish as it descended back into the depths.
She drew his attention back to her as she began to glow brighter from within, her dress growing tendrils that reached out in all directions, her eyes crackling with lighting and fire. Before, everything she had said, even her appearance, had seemed uncaring and aloof. Now, she finally looked like a wrathful god from a story. Denholm couldn’t help but be given pause in the face of something so majestic and imposing. Even so, he needed it to end.
Denholm forced himself to stand and face her. The two of them stared each other down, her face impassive, his twitching and shivering. With his legs heavier than they had ever been, he began forward.
“Denholm. STOP!” Her shout was more than deafening. It impacted him in the chest with enough force to knock him onto his backside. And as he sat there, wide-eyed, the entire forest canopy shuddered under the power of her voice, causing all the snow built up on all the branches to shake free. Seconds later, Denholm and the goddess were consumed as a flurry of white fell over them that put the blizzard already taking place to shame.
