On the Hills of Eden

As the absolute dark of the night fought the disappearing light of the day past the horizon, Soleiman took to packing whatever he could while Rumi drifted off in comfortable slumber. Ideally, they’d leave the moment the sky lit up again, but realistically he knew it would be quite some time into the morning before either up them even so much as woke up. So, he instead decided on neatly arranging everything they didn’t need back into his bag, cramming item after item even as the bag’s fibres resisted the addition of anything more. That way, they would be more or less set to immediately get back to moving once either one of them woke.

Soaking a piece of cloth in a fair amount of alcohol, he took to cleaning off the metal pot he used to make the syrup earlier- though there was barely even anything left from when they’d ravaged it left for him to wipe away.

Nevertheless, not wanting to get a sticky coating of sugar over all of their other equipment, he did his due diligence and slowly rubbed away in the amber hue of the dying campfire.

Circular motions, all around the pot. Again, and again, and again.

Though the fire was getting uncomfortably small.

So much so that he couldn’t even properly see where he’d cleaned and where there were still little smudges of syrup.

He set down the pot and the piece of cloth, picking up his knife as he went back to the birch tree to scrape off a few more shavings to keep the fire alive for at least a few more minutes.

And when he did so, he struggled to see where his knife was. Standing between the fire and the tree, he had cast his shadow across the tree’s trunk, blending it into the rest of the forest. The darkness was so thick, so crushing that it felt as though it had besieged them, their fire being the last thing that kept the night that had fallen upon every other tree beyond their immediate circle at bay.

He shifted to the side of the trunk, letting the firelight illuminate the bark just enough so that he could see what he was doing. And he got to harvesting the pieces he needed, one shaving at a time.

But as he moved to the tree’s side, he saw something in the corner of his eye.

Part of the tree’s white bark had… shifted.

Soleiman took his eyes off of the bark momentarily, eyeing the strange protrusion poking out of the tree. Its white was uncannily clean, and the singular spot of black upon it almost as abyssal as the night behind it. Or was that just an effect of its juxtaposition against the darkness?

He shifted back, seeing as the protrusion remained fixed in place in his vision, almost as if it was circling the bark just as he was.

He stepped back, raising his knife slightly.

Then he noticed that its black spot was moving.

Following him.

And when he blinked, he saw it no longer.

Soleiman stood in place for a moment, trying to process what he’d just seen. It had almost felt as though his brain had bugged out, perceiving something that wasn’t there. That couldn’t possibly have been there. Its movements were far too smooth and consistent, almost as though it had been fixed to the insides of his eyes, set to follow his perspective with utter impunity.

He shook his head, in partial disbelief of what had just happened. On second thought, he probably really was just tired. He never got to drink Qingxi’s energy tea, after all.

And so he simply returned to his business, piling the newly harvested pieces of bark and poking them into the campfire. Feeding it slowly and gently like how a parent would feed their child.

He looked over his shoulder.

Nothing there.

Once he’d piled all the extra pieces of bark onto the fire, he sat himself back down again, picking up the pot and dabbing a little more alcohol onto the piece of cloth to get back to cleaning.

He checked to see if Rumi was still asleep.

She was.

He resumed his cleaning, the campfire slowly billowing in strength, the shadows retreating from their site. Though, perhaps that wasn’t such a good thing. Every tree that emerged from the darkness made him jump slightly, their long, slender forms obscured by the flickering of the flames and made just vague enough that he had to look twice to see if it really was just a tree.

The sounds of the woods began to grow, the whistling of the winds and the periodic rustling of the leaves now acutely aware to him. Each disturbance was a source of momentary panic and discomfort, of paranoia and fear. He looked over his shoulder.

Nothing there.

He checked to see if Rumi was still asleep.

She was.

And he cleaned the pot. Rubbing, rubbing, rubbing. Rustling, rustling, rustling.

Looking over his shoulders, checking to see if Rumi was still asleep.

Occasionally, a sound would really put him off. A brief rustle that sounded too much like the sound of a creature stepping onto a pile of leaves. A whistle of wind that reminded him too closely of the chants of the choir. As if the woods were singing to him. Calling for him.

In celebration.

He looked over his shoulder.

In celebration?

Rumi was still asleep.

Hurriedly, he finished the last few circles, hastily stuffing any Edenberries left on the tarp into the goatskin and plopping the two items into the bag. Shoving them into the bag, forcing them against everything else much to the dismay of the bag’s fibres. He even heard the sound of wood snapping, hoping he hadn’t just broken a piece of his armour.

He took for himself a blanket of his own, and looked over his shoulder.

He scurried to Rumi’s side, quickly unfolding the blanket and throwing it over himself and checking to see if Rumi was still asleep.

It was so cold.

Still careful not to disturb her, he slowly lay down on his side.

Nothing there.

He immediately shifted onto his back, immensely uncomfortable with the feeling of it facing the darkness.

The woods whistled. They whistled their lullaby. A celebration of sleep.

Whistling, whistling. Rustling, rustling.

They cooed him, soothed him.

But he could not sleep.

She was.

Soleiman jolted back up.

“Rumi. Rumi!” He no longer whispered. His calls just shy of being screams.

But it was cold, oh so cold.

So cold the winds carried away his calls and kept Rumi locked in her peaceful rest. For she had heard their lullaby. And they celebrated her sleep.

Looking around hastily, his eyes eventually landed on Qingxi’s sword. And of the three thin blue strings tied just below its handguard, one had begun glowing an entrancing neon light.

He lunged, grabbing it firmly and affixing it to his side, hand on its hilt as his eyes darted from tree to tree accusingly. He sat by the fire’s side, looking all about him.

Then, he heard as the winds booed. Jeering, whining and bemoaning his refusal to rest. His stubborn resistance, his unwarranted paranoia.

But he stood his ground. As the rest of the forest slumbered, he remained awake. Frightened into a constant state of utter vigilance, always distrusting of his surroundings. Unsure of even if he could believe what his eyes saw, or what his ears heard. Unknowing if what lay before him was real. Fearful all the same.

And as the flames continued to dance, their shadows fluttering across the barks of the trees before him and in the distance, Soleiman stayed awake. Occasionally, he’d rush off to one of the nearby trees, haphazardly slicing off a few chunks of bark to keep the fire going. So he’d have company to stay the night with.

And that he did, fighting off exhaustion with fear as he kept his guard up, looking over his shoulder and checking to see if Rumi was still asleep. There were some times where he thought there’d been something there, or that she had woken up. But that was never the case. Just more tricks, just more teases. He should just fall asleep, because everything was going to be fine.

As the night dragged on, the exhaustion began to build. The full weight of two nights of lacklustre to no sleep weighed down heavily on his eyelids, and oftentimes he only managed to pull himself from falling into slumber by fooling himself into thinking something was nearby. And with each moment, each look over the shoulder, each check to see if Rumi was still asleep, he grew more and more tired.

So when he saw a single Edenberry sitting politely by his side- presumably because he’d missed it when putting the rest back into the bag, he saw no reason not to eat it. A snack to keep him awake through the night, one that was safer to put into his stomach than it would to place it back into the goatskin, by now buried within the bag’s depths, where it belonged.

Sometimes he thought he heard voices in the winds. Not just a whistling or a single hummed note, but speaking, conversing voices. And other times he thought he saw faces in the distance. Features obscured by the shadows, briefly emerging from the ocean of dark to greet him bearing doll-like smiles or gruesome, horrified expressions before submerging back below the waves as the light of the campfire moved off of them. Each one fixed, like they were etched in stone. Unreal and uncanny.

Though at some point he began losing the ability to differentiate between what he could remember seeing and what he actually saw. He would recall seeing a face that never showed itself, and at other times the memories of a string of words emerging from the winds slipped completely through the cracks and crevasses of his mind.

Until they didn’t.

For at some point in time, the voices became real. Shouting, calling out- not to him, but to each other. Coordinating, moving as one. The voices of an army.

“Down here!”

He heard as fire whooshed behind him, and knew unmistakably that those voices conversing in the Plataic language belonged to the Hashashiyyin.

He scrambled, bolting from his position and diving behind a tree.

Then the very tree he hid behind quivered with the impact of two men landing against it, prompting him to shrink himself even further into a deep squat as he peered out from behind the trunk.

And true enough, two Hashashiyyin stood where their camp once was.

“Where the hell did the rest of them go?”

“I don’t know- they were just behind us a moment ago.”

The taller of the two cursed slightly under his breath.

“Did you hear any signs of those swamp freaks?”

“No, Sir. As far as I can tell they’ve yet to arrive at our position.”

The Merkezi and Hashashiyyin were fighting here? Hundreds of kilometres from the border along the Silent River?

“...Alright,” he sighed. “Let’s just go then, we can’t afford to stop anymore.”

“Understood.”

Wait, where did Rumi go?

Soleiman looked off to his side, eyes landing on where she should’ve been. But where she once lay, there was now nothing but piles of leaves and fallen vines. The forest floor none the wiser to the campsite just there moments prior.

“Here we- what the?”

Soleiman whipped his head back, now face to face with the Hashashiyyin, the radiant light of the noon sky above enshrouding their silhouettes in shadow. The tree he’d been hiding behind now no longer there.

Immediately, he stumbled backwards, falling onto his bum as he placed his hand on the hilt of Qingxi’s blade, preparing to draw it and to send the Hashashiyyin’s insides into the air.

“Get up, idiot!”

Soleiman eased up slightly, hesitating on unsheathing the blade. Before him, the two Hashashiyyin stood lax as ever, their arms down by their sides and their stances wide and open. And, rather unsettlingly, as his eyes adjusted to the shadow, he saw as their faces bore no ill will.

If anything, the looks they gave him reminded him of Pallas- whenever she got sick of his silly jokes.

“Get up! We need to go!”

Soleiman looked back down upon himself in confusion, finding himself clad in a light shadowy cloak. Its cloth so thin that it felt as though he’d been wrapped in a phantasmic veil.

Hastily, he got to his feet.

“Alright, let’s roll!”

The two other Hashashiyyin leapt from where they were, columns of mesmerising flame rolling out from their boots as they soared up onto the upper branches of the trees.

Though still unable to conjure together a cohesive thought amidst the hurricane of confusion that had engulfed his mind, he prepared himself, moving somehow in a way that felt perfectly natural to him.

And then he leapt after his two comrades, flames shooting from his feet too.

They leapt from branch to branch, spirals of smoke and soot and embers left trailing behind them as they made great headway towards…

“Where are we going, exactly?”

One of the Hashashiyyin looked back at him, unimpressed.

“Mesimeos. Haven’t you heard the reports?”

“What reports?”

“The ones on the Soteira. The ones saying it’s headed right this way, across from Porthopolis.”

…Pallas?

“Unh,” the other grunted. “And the last thing we want right now is to get caught between the Ahsuifat and that thing.”

What the hell was going on? What was he doing? Where was Rumi?

And the last time the term ‘Ahsuifat’ was used to refer to the Merkezi… was four decades ago.

The raging storm within his mind began to lash out, piercing headaches thundering throughout his skull and flashes of lightning piercing deep into the back of his eyeballs. It roared and writhed within his brain, grinding it against the inside of his skull and wringing it until he felt the pain shoot down his spine and across his back.

“Agh!”

He collapsed, falling from the branches and unceremoniously thrashing himself against the dirt. The thin veil did little to cushion the fall, though it resisted tearing and stretched impressively even as he felt sharp thorns scratch against his skin and knotted roots knock against his ribcage.

“Soleiman!”

The two Hashashiyyin quickly descended, squatting down beside him, their unfamiliar faces shrouded by shadow as they bent over him.

“What happened? Are you okay?”

He put a hand to his forehead, feeling the throbbing of his heart in his skull with his hands. Slowly receding, slowly fading back into the recesses of his mind.

“My head…”

One of the Hashashiyyin looked back up briefly, glancing over their shoulder.

“Can you stand?”

As soon as Soleiman tried propping himself up, the two men immediately wrapped their arms about him. But they were not helping him up.

They were holding him.

Hugging him.

“...Guys?”

One of the Hashashiyyin slowly let go of him, pulling his head back to look Soleiman in the eye as he felt Qingxi’s blade move slightly in his left hand.

And when their eyes met, Soleiman could tell that that was no human face.

Belting forth a shriek that tore the forest’s air, he slammed his boots into the chests of the Hashashiyyin, sending them flying backwards as he forgot all the pain that had brought him to the ground. He scrambled across the grass, desperately bringing himself to his feet as the two of them groaned in pain, slowly getting up themselves.

“What the hell?” One of them groaned, hand to his chest as he coughed slightly. He looked up, and his face was no longer the inhuman ceramic facade that had previously greeted Soleiman.

“Soleiman you rat, what was that for?”

“I… I thought-”

“Over there!”

The three of them whipped their heads about in unison, and from the depths of the forest came several men, each one with a cream white turban sat atop his head.

“Shit! Run!”

The two Hashashiyyin then engulfed the ground with their flames, leaping back up towards the canopies as they turned tail and made a break for it.

Soleiman, still stunned and unsure of what the hell was going on, forced himself forward, stumbling over himself and running close to the ground as he disappeared into a bunch of trees perpendicular to where the other two were headed.

He was frightened and bewildered, unsure of what to feel or what to think or what to trust- knowing nothing aside from the primaeval terror that was being chased down by someone, or something, that most definitely wanted him dead.

He bolted from tree to tree, veil flowing behind him in the wind, blade still firmly in hand. Each step rose above the underbrush, avoided any roots that jutted from the earth or thick vines and found home in a solid part of the soil. And each step he knew he had to push himself ever faster, for he could hear as the footsteps of the Ahsuifati soldier raced not far behind him.

As he ran, taking step after step, dodging again and again, he started speeding up. He grew faster and faster, the winds howling louder and louder. Calling out to him. In celebration.

The forest itself seemed to get darker, the light of the day receding and the shadows slowly encroaching upon him the faster he ran. And no matter how quickly he put one foot in front of the other he never seemed to be able to escape it. It was always there, a pythonic spectre that ensnared him and squeezed itself about him, tighter and tighter. Until he could hardly see what lay before him, and he simply ran on instinct.

And when he heard the footsteps of the pursuing soldier no longer, he slowed down, eventually coming to a stop.

He had stumbled back into their campsite, and Rumi was fast asleep.

By now, the campfire had really died down, reduced to a few twinkling embers that barely produced enough light for him to see his own hands.

He looked over his shoulder.

…

He looked over his shoulder.

…

He faced off with the masks in the dark.

They surrounded him and Rumi, just far enough that he could not quite make out their features, just close enough to appear apparent enough in the dying light of the campfire. Standing in wait for the campfire to die out.

Knowing he was in a race against time, Soleiman racked his brains. He could not continue standing where he was, lest the darkness consume him and leave him unable to fight back.

Or perhaps he could.

Feeling the hilt as he gripped it with his right hand, which had not once left the blade’s side, Soleiman raised his foot. Bringing it down upon the dying campfire.

And the world went dark.

The winds called no longer, and the shadows in the distance had melted completely into the abyss. It was just him, his thoughts, and the silence of the forest.

Quickly, he shuffled his way back to Rumi, kneeling down by her left side.

Silence, silence. And then a noise.

Soleiman released his hand from the blade’s hilt, revealing the three lightning blue bands- one of which was still glowing that same neon blue. The singular charge.

And in the absolute darkness, the glow of this one band bounced off of the amalgamation of ceramic facades that approached him. Reflecting off of its abstract, haphazard form, a mind-twisting combination of beautiful artisanry and delusional, organic randomness.

At once, he placed his hand back on the sword’s hilt, and drew.

In the dark, the winds roared back to life, this time not cooing or calling but roaring out in a living human fury. They whipped the space before him, and just before the blue light disappeared beneath his hand he saw as the cluster of masks shuffled back in fearful panic.

A thunderous clap split the deathly silent miasma of the forest, bringing it back to life as it rushed forward, cleaving the entity into an unknowable mess. Though he could not see, he heard well as the being cried out in a hundred different voices, howls and calls just barely audible under the rolling gale.

And just as quickly as the winds roared to life, they died back down. The silence of the forest slowly blanketing them once again, leaving Soleiman shaken and stunned and with his jaw locked firmly in place, his eyes almost rolling up into his skull as he shivered in response to the blade’s drawing of magic.

“Wha!” Rumi yelled, stolen from her slumber by the thundering call of the windblade.

“I- It’s me,” he managed, through gritted teeth.

“S-Soleiman?”

He breathed out slowly, the tension in his jaw and throughout his body slowly fading away. Enough for him to reassure Rumi, at least.

“Yeah Rumi, it’s me.”

“What was that?” she asked, half-yelling as she tried getting to her feet.

“Something was stalking our camp,” he said, shaking off his stiff shoulders as he tried to limber his joints up. “So I killed it.”

She gave no response.

He felt as her hand clumsily wandered its way onto his face, fingers poking his cheeks and lips and nose before hastily pulling back.

“Hold on a moment,” he said, groaning as he got back to his feet. Stumbling slightly, he continued. “I’ll try to light the fire again.”

After bumbling his way about the camp with great difficulty, shaving off a few small pieces of bark using Qingxi’s sword and blindly digging through the bag with his fingers for the flint and steel, they were able to see once again.

And just across from where Rumi stood, a black trail of some unknown liquid grime stained the grass, reaching all the way to a tree directly across from them. At the base of the tree, a grizzly mass of rotting black matter- steaming with disease and bursting at the seams with pus lay slumped, the several masks atop its boneless body cracked, split and stained with the black goo.

And as they stood, drinking in the horrors of the corpse’s mangled form, thorns so black they looked as though they’d been drenched in tar slowly emerged from the being’s body. Contorting its form, twisting it into an agonising position, and eventually lifting it well above the ground.

The two of them simply stood in place, in dumbfounded silence at the scene before them.

Then Rumi hurled.

Gagging, she bent forward, falling onto her knees as she began to empty her stomach’s contents onto the tarp below.

“Oh, crap- Rumi!” He hurriedly kneeled down to comfort her, though he didn’t quite know what to do with his hands when he got to it. And when the image of the corpse and the sounds of her vomiting finally clicked, he hurled too.

“I’m sorry-” Rumi said, cut off by another round of muscular spasms in her stomach. “Soleiman.”

“It’s okay,” he gasped, the last of the abdominal seizures backing away and leaving him to face the combined mess of both of their sicks directly beneath them. “But…” he trailed off, looking up at the corpse. “I don’t think we can rest here for much longer.”