Since last he had departed this cave mouth, it had grown, like all else. Now it seemed the throat of a volcano. Steep sides of mud, shot through with roots, descended to a deep black pit. It would seem an easy enough descent, but when Kamahl's boot dislodged a stone, it rolled down to be snatched up and crushed by the root tangle.
The forest again spoke through his staff. / do not wish you to descend. I wish to keep the sword.
Kamahl nodded gravely. "With the Mirari, what you wish is what will kill you."
No. What I wish is what will kill you.
Kamahl lifted the staff, tucked it to his waist, and hurled himself out over the root network. The white tendrils came alive. They rose and reached. Kamahl flipped over and fell, slipping just past the snapping roots. He plunged. A tip snagged his armor and yanked him back, but he whirled the century stalk and broke its hold. Planting the butt of the staff in the steep wall, Kamahl vaulted down into the blackness.
He passed the hoary lip of the hole and dropped for ten pounding pulses until his feet struck stone. He rolled along a smooth pathway, a wall rising to one side and a sheer drop falling away to the other. Kamahl came to a stop in a small alcove. Sitting there, he panted and waited for his balance to return.
The bright heat of the forest had given way to the dark chill of the underworld. Mutating magic clawed at his flesh and would have twisted or destroyed Kamahl if not for the century staff.
He rose, his eyes adjusting to the light. Staff in hand, he strode out of the alcove and down the tortuous path. Ahead, the trail ended. Wide-spaced peaks jutted above a sheer drop. Kamahl jumped to one, then another, then a third. He bounded to a narrow lip of stone on the far side and ran down a slope of loose scree. At its base, he entered a deep, twisting cavern. While the rocks above had been jagged and broken, shattered by the traumas of growth, these passages were smooth, as if they had been melted. As Kamahl took a few more steps, he realized why. The stone itself was waxy, not hot but quick-growing, changing, moving.
He stood within the cancer itself, and the cancer knew him.
The stone beneath his feet shifted. It withdrew into shallow wells, the edges of which formed claws that clutched Kamahl's feet. He leaped and barely got free, his left foot trailing blood. It would pay to be quick now. He ran. The passage was morphing around him, struggling to close.
Ahead, a narrow section pulled in like a drawstring pouch. Kamahl leapt, leading with his century staff. It rammed through the opening. Kamahl followed. Arms, head, waist-the rock closed over his knees. Growling, Kamahl wrenched himself and his staff through the valve, which slammed shut behind him. He rose quickly, planting the pole for balance.
Through it, the forest spoke. If you think it is hard to get in, imagine how hard it will be to get out.
Kamahl marched on, snarling, "You will let me out. If I succeed, you will be different than you are, and you will let me out."
The chamber before him would have been utterly dark except for its inhabitants: numinous orbs and luminous ectoplasm-the ghosts of the wood. Millions of ghosts. On its own, nature was ravenous. The law of the forest was kill or be killed. When that law was sped up exponentially, the result was genocide. Not just individuals but entire species had ended up in these caves. Spirit hares leaped and dived through the air. Ghostly wolves lurked among archways. Spectral elves sat around a remembered brook and poured their laments to the sky. Every spirit made a keening wail.
The sound tore at Kamahl. Shreds of creatures twisted around his staff. He strode on like a man through sleet.
You will not pass these caves, Kamahl. Though your body advances, your soul is winnowed away.
"These are your aborted children, Krosan. Don't you hear their cries?"
Don't you hear their cries? Their maddening cries?
"I hear them, and I will end them. I will stop this mad growth and the killing it brings."
Growth is growth. Growth is the be-all and end-all. There is no such thing as mad growth or bad growth.
"When growth brings death, when it destroys, it is mad."
The forest grows more in a month than in a century. It has brought more creatures into being than in a millennium.
"And it has ushered out a hundred millennia of species. If this growth continues, the whole forest will be destroyed before winter."
You have given me six months to live. I give you six seconds.
With sudden fury, the spirits in the cave rushed upon him. Ectoplasmic hands grasped the staff and struggled to rip it free. Kamahl held all the tighter, whirling the pole in an arc before him. From its powerful pith flowed the true energy of the wood. It gathered the tormented spirits: In its simple strength, they sensed the old forest, the home they longed for. Like cobwebs wrapping around a stick, the ghosts mantled the staff. They roared and spun in hopes of returning to the way things were. In a scintillating white mass, they covered the head of the staff.
Kamahl advanced into utter blackness, his way lit by the pulsing souls. Their howls were maddening. Still he bore them. As potent as they were to the ears of an outlander, they would be doubly so to the heart of the forest.
Ahead the passage opened into a huge cavern whose ceiling and walls were lost in blackness. The floor was slick and utterly flat, and it gave off wisps of mist. A rotten stench filled the air.
Kamahl had reached the bottom of the labyrinth. He knew what lay at the bottom-or more rightly, who.
There, half sunk in the glassy floor, lay the corpse of Laquatus. Like all else in the rampant forest, this dead thing had grown horrifically. The body was huge. Its feet were as tall as Kamahl. Its legs were as wide around as ancient trees. All across its flesh, scales had turned to leaves, veins to vines, flesh to humus. The corpse had become a forest giant composed of compost. Worse yet, the giant moved. It possessed life but not true life. Its belly quivered with maggots. Its fingers trembled with the shouldering hunger of rats. The gasses of decay filled its chest and came hissing from its lips. In eye sockets, things swam.
Kamahl had the strong impression that if not for the Mirari sword through the thing's heart, it would rise.
It would, Kamahl. Draw that sword, and you will have a giant to fight.
Kamahl did not respond. He had come to stop the rampant growth. He would do so, whatever the cost. He stepped out upon the smooth floor and found it to be unutterably cold. It was ice. The natural fluids of this deep place had been frozen by the unnatural chill of that corpse. Kamahl's boots cut shallow marks into the ice as he went. He walked cautiously, fearing to break through into the black waters below.
The spirits atop the staff moaned all the louder.
"You threaten me with a corpse. I threaten you with spirits," Kamahl said, edging his way along the giant's legs. "The corpse is the creature I killed." He lifted his staff. "The spirits are the creatures you have killed."
Not even the Mirari sword, not even your spirit staff, will stand against this giant. You will never escape this cave with the sword in hand.
Kamahl gritted his teeth. "You have invested me with the power of transformation," he said as he approached the giant's fuming chest, "and now I use my gift upon you."
Holding the spirit staff high in one hand, he reached the other to the Mirari sword. It dragged at his hand, as of old, and begged him to take hold. The sword's seduction had only grown, bedded here in the heart of the wood.
Kamahl had also grown, but inwardly. He would not be so easily enticed again. Grinning with determination, he eased his fingers around that so-familiar hilt. His hand tightened. Flesh touched metal, and mind touched mind.