Haith

When a beam of light strikes rain, it illuminates the droplets. If the rain is heavy, it will look like shattered glass, and if it is soft, it will look like a thousand small rainbows. 

The massive wooden doors that led to the Left Atria creaked shut behind Haith and Dr. Sydion. Before they had even turned around to watch their exit close, small shoots of ivy had begun to invade the hinges. The door was completely ensnared in green, leavy vines after just a couple seconds. The duo look at it, then each other, then back around towards their query. 

From outside, the Left Atria was a small series of rooms, contained in a space maybe 100 feet wide. Its walls were flat stone, shallowly carved with stars, configured in seemingly random patterns. Inside, the stars were not in the wall, but up in the sky.

The ceiling had disappeared and been replaced by an endless expanse filled with millions and millions of stars. They were ruby and gold, they were brilliant and subtle, they were loud and silent, and they were everywhere. They formed a canvas in the unreachable heavens, shifting in unknowable sequences and etching poems to the nature of existence.

Dr. Sydion said, “Intriguing,” and then let their gaze fall from the sky. The stars were beautiful, but Sydion was practical, and they had a job to do. Haith was still starstruck, so Sydion struck their cane against the ground, letting a loud clink echo resonate through the chamber. 

When an echo returns to its origin, it has been shifted by its surroundings, having taken the shape of its container. It can be soft or loud, but it is always new. This is why we say that echoes respond to us. 

Haith tore his eyes from the sky and blinked, then caught up with Sydion, who had kept walking forward. The room quickly gave way to a grove of sorts, giving no credence to spatial restrictions and stretching outwards farther than either adventurer could see. Sydion walked in the front, leading the pair into the heart of the greenery. Haith followed behind, contrasting Sydion’s pointed gait with his own careful walk, keeping an arrow nocked to his bowstring. They both disappeared into the foliage, only to emerge almost immediately in a clearing. 

Ants follow the pheromone trails of other ants when traveling. Therefore, when many ants want to get somewhere far, they walk in a line. It is a silent parade, yet the participants know all they need, simply by being a part of it.

The clearing was formed by a circle of oak trees, each one seemingly ancient. Sydion paused, walked to the nearest oak, and looked it up and down. Its bark was rough, rigid, and sharp to the touch, sporting deep rivets formed by time and their own natural growth. They could see a sliver of movement in the shadows of the rivets, but couldn’t make out anything else through their mask. “Owl,” they said, “take a look at this.” 

Haith returned his nocked arrow back to its quiver and slung his bow over his back. “My name is not Owl. T’was only the blind lemming mistaken over that clear of fact.” Nevertheless, he joined Sydion, (who gave him the strangest look someone wearing a full facemask could muster,) and peered into the oak. “Simply a tree. What is there to be amiss?”

“Something’s moving under the bark. What is it?”

Haith searched closer for anything out of the ordinary. He could not find it. “Just an ant column.” He stepped back and regarded the whole tree. “Just a tree.”

Sydion seemed satisfied, and moved on to the next oak. Once again, they called Haith to look at something moving, and once again, it was a column of ants making their way through the gashes in the bark. Sydion moved to a third tree, but before they could say anything, Haith took out a small knife and carved off the exterior of the bark. 

“Now you can see for yourself that there are just ants, before I am asked upon another time.” 

Indeed, there were ants. As soon as the top of the bark was removed, tens of columns of ants were revealed, all moving in perfect symmetry. Immediately, as if responding to the sudden exposure, they started moving erratically. The columns shifted and merged, forming sharp edges and fearful shapes in the writhing, steady mass of chitin. Haith cried out, and collapsed.

Sydion took a knee and immediately laid Haith out flat, assessing what had happened. The damage was as clear as day: Haith’s right leg had been torn up, and several gashes had been carved into his flesh. Sydion noticed a subtle movement underneath the gashes, but it quickly departed, revealing its true form as three lines of tiny black insects marched away from the bird, having done their grisly work. 

Sydion reached into their robe and pulled out a flask filled with thick, red liquid. They removed the cork and attached the flask to the bottom of their staff. As they removed the staff’s head, they noticed Haith reaching for his own bag and pulling out an eight-pronged leaf. Sydion nearly dropped their potion in grabbing Haith’s wrist, stopping him from applying the leaf to his wound.

“Foolish! Can you not understand I am hurt? Let the woodpecker search in her own fashion!” Haith released a pained squawk as he struggled to bring his hand downward, but Sydion would not let him. Firmly, they said, “That leaf is poisonous. If you rub it on your wound, you will make it ten times more painful.”

“I am well aware!” Haith screeched. “The pain transcends the flesh – I will be healed!”

Sydion took the leaf from Haith’s grasp and ripped it away, then turned again to their methodical task. “Whoever told you could not have been a doctor. Pain IS flesh. Be quiet and let me work.” Haith opened his mouth to respond, then seemed to come to a realization. Their eyes went dull, and they swallowed whatever retort they were about to hurl. It slowly sunk back into their throat, choking all other words, and even the squawk of pain they would have unleashed when Sydion jabbed their open wound with his staff, injecting the red liquid into the bird. Sydion wrapped the leg up with cloth, then stood up. 

“Are you strong enough to keep walking?” He said, almost impatiently.

Haith, still with dead eyes, got up without a word and nodded. Sydion took one last look around the clearing, making sure to keep a healthy distance from the trees, but saw nothing else. Seeing nothing else to be done, he walked back into the forest, with Haith behind him, arrow nocked to his bowstring once more.

In more tropical areas, it is not uncommon to be hit with a wave of humidity out of nowhere. It is warm, and it envelops everything like a blanket. It can be uncomfortable to some, but to others, the sensation is similar to being embraced by a loved one. 

The next clearing was reached after only a couple minutes of walking. Sydion and Haith stepped into a different world; one sporting more vibrant greens, with hints of yellows and red painting the spines of plants that seemed to have grown super-sized. Thick brown vines hung from a canopy formed by towering monoliths, with trunks as thick as a man and showing off bark whose burgundy color was both as deep and as sweet as dried blood. On the far side of the clearing, there was a pond full of blue-green water, blanketed by swaths of tiny insects.

Sydion, once again, started his methodical search of the grove for anything that could be of significance. He ran his hand over the bark of the massive canopy-trees, and found nothing. He kneeled down by the pool and stared into it, and could only see his own dark reflection. He gazed up at the canopy until his glasses started to fog up, but saw nought but layer upon layer of foliage. For all his searching, he could not find anything out of the ordinary, and it was not him who first noticed the beauty of the grove. 

Haith had stepped into the clearing just after Sydion, and while Sydion had entered a visually unique location compared to their previous encounters, Haith simply fell into a new dimension. The air was thick, and hot, and moist, like a sauna. Sounds were slightly muted, like they were traveling through a solid before reaching him, and when he moved he felt the slightest resistance, like the space that surrounded him wanted him to stay there, stay safe and close in its arms. He exhaled, and inhaled. The warmth flowed throughout his body, relaxing his muscles. His leg felt lighter. His thoughts felt clearer. Memories of his fellows holding him down while he pressed that leaf to his bloody wing were chased out of his head, replaced by a tranquil fullness. He closed his eyes, and stayed there for a while. 

That while ended when Sydion put a glove on his shoulder. “Come on, this place is empty. We have to keep moving.” Haith did not move, but opened his eyes. He looked up and down at his compatriot, taking in all his multilayered robes and coverings.

“You cannot feel this.”

“What are you talking about? Can you hear something?” Sydion asked, urgently. If Haith was feeling something, maybe it could lead them to The Voice. Haith, however, slowly shook his head.

“Take off your mask. Take off your robes. You will understand.”
Sydion drew back and grew professional once more. “I won’t do anything like that,” they said coldly. “If you’re done messing around, we have a mysterious voice to find. Come on.” They started walking towards the edge of the grove. However, when they reached it, they were met with a wall of wood. They turned around and looked at the opposite edge. There were gaps everywhere. They briskly walked towards them, but the space between the trees seemed to shrink between the massive trees, as though its size was only a visual illusion. Haith was looking at Sydion now, curiously. Sydion caught him looking and glared back.

“Stop just standing there and help me!” They said, annoyed. 

Haith tilted their head. “I attempted to, and you refused.”

Sydion grasped their staff, exasperatedly. “I’m not taking off my clothes, and that’s it. How about you help by trying to leave? Can you see the gaps between the trees?”
Haith looked around, then looked back at Sydion. “Through crystal, they would be pristine.”

If a plague doctor mask could roll its eyes, Sydion would be rolling them. “Can you?”

“Yes. I can see them.”

“Then try going through them!”

Haith’s eyes grew slightly sad. “This place holds onto us like a sugarvine. I do not want to leave.”

“Well, we have to!” Sydion was well and truly annoyed by this point – why wouldn’t this bird just leave?

Haith sighed, then looked around. “Thank you, for your presence,” he said to the air. Then he walked through a gap in the trees and disappeared into the forest beyond. 

Sydion rushed to the same gap, but found that it was too small to even fit their staff through. In frustration, they slammed their staff against the wood. The sound was caught by all the moisture in the air, and didn’t ring out once. 

They sat down by the pond, and peered into its depths once more. They were met again only with their reflection. Staring at it, and staring around, they were lost for what to do. There was nothing that made sense. This whole place didn’t make sense. They really only had one path left, as little as they liked to pursue it.

Sydion made sure that nobody was around, and slowly removed their glove. Instantly, they could feel the heat and the moisture from the air. It relaxed the tension they didn’t know they were holding in. They took off their other glove, and the same thing happened. They took a deep breath, lifted up their hat, unbuckled their mask, and slowly removed it. 

Haith was sitting with their bow across their lap when Sydion stepped through the trees. He raised his head, and regarded Sydion with his eye. They seemed less stiff, and their walk had turned ever so slightly less rigid. Haith said nothing, but rose and walked off into the forest. Sydion followed. 

Every day, sunflowers turn their heads to catch the sun when it rises. Throughout the day, they follow it, like a camera crew capturing a movie star. In their admiration, they nod it goodbye in the evening, then wait patiently for the next shoot. 

After an hour of walking, the pair strode into a massive open space. When before they had only encountered clearings, this was more like an entire meadow. The stars were once again visible, but with all of their beauty, they could capture the gaze of neither Haith or Sydion for more than a couple seconds. They were entirely focused on the landscape in front of them.

Rolling hills were blanketed with beautiful colors of every kind, like the world had sprouted up from a painter’s palette and was determined to make its father proud. Each of the patches of color were composed of hundreds and thousands and, in further reaches, millions of gorgeous flowers. There were more species than either adventurer had ever seen in their life – bells, violets, snapdragons, lilies, sunflowers, chrysanthemums, rhododendrons, tulips, daffodils, and an entire cast of alien blossoms that the pair weren’t sure even existed outside of this room. The colors were just as plentiful, if not more. There were perfect patches of pink poking through with purpose, serene spreads of silver slicing out of the soil, inviting islands of idolatrous indigo, cruel and cutting crimson caches, gorgeous gigantic growths of green, and every other hue available under our air opening outwards into illustrious arrangements. But, even then, this was not the most remarkable feature of the area. 

Every single flower was in motion. Each one slowly shifted this way and that, like it was swaying to get the perfect angle on the stars, and opened and closed its blossoms, sometimes slowly, sometimes quickly, like it was adjusting a camera to get the perfect shot. 

Haith and Sydion stared at the intricate dance for what seemed to them like hours. Eventually, Sydion remembered what they had come here for, and led the pair through a path that circled and wound through the fields. The subtle rustling of leaves and petals filled the air as they walked, and it gave the impression of a million tiny typewriters all working away at some grand manuscript. They walked for miles, or for days. Either one they could not be sure of. After they had been walking for minutes and years and mere inches, they came upon one massive flower. 

It was reminiscent of a corpse flower, that titan of a blossom that pours out terrible scents that could knock a grown man over at forty yards. It was shaped the part, for sure. However, corpse flowers do not have petals that constantly shift hues like a chameleon in protest with itself, nor does it give off a smell so sweet and whole and pure that it could bring a grown man to his knees with emotion. Haith was overcome almost immediately, and Sydion barely stayed standing, with most of the scent having been intercepted by his mask. Almost immediately, as if put in the trance that one enters when they know danger is present and death is near, they picked Haith up and started to carry them, fireman style, away from the flower. Once they had gotten a fair distance away, and Sydion could sense it no more, they put Haith down. He stayed on the ground for a second.

“Haith. Still alive?” Sydion crouched down and looked at Haith’s face, inspecting it for any signs of sickness or injury. Haith’s eyes were incredibly dilated, but shrinking.

“It was almost… perfect..” He managed to say. 

“No, it was almost deadly. Can you breathe normally?”

“The flowers.. they’re so close..”

“I’ll take that as a yes, because you keep talking. Disorientation and hallucinations may be a part of whatever toxin got into your system. Get up and walk it off. I don’t trust this place.”

Sydion offered a hand to Haith and pulled him up. Once it was sure that Haith was not going to fall over once more, they began their trek out of the fields, the flowers around them shifting and opening and closing all around them. 

Finally, Sydion and Haith reached the forest once again. By this point, they were wondering how much longer it could possibly go on. They were, surely, still in the castle, right? Neither party relished discussion much, but they began to speculate as they walked towards what was, hopefully, some sort of answer or clue to get closer to finding The Voice. Sydion threw out the idea that they could have gone through a portal when they first opened the doors and not noticed it. Haith said that, no, he would have felt the difference, and besides, even if they had gone through a portal, it wouldn’t explain the rest of the things happening to them. Being in this magical castle would. Haith speculated that in fact, they were going in circles, and the different clearings they had found had really just been one clearing, which had been refurbished and redecorated while they were in the forest. Sydion pointed out that the castle couldn’t have very well made a tiny clearing the size of the massive flower field, and even if it could, why not just make them separate in the first place? It was a good point. They both fell silent. Sydion was about to speak again when they finally reached the edge of the forest once again.

When I was very little, I got caught in a storm with my mother. Trees were bending ninety degrees and puddles were so deep that we had to drive an alternate way to get home. When I looked into the sky, it was a sickly green, and when lightning struck, it flashed pink.

The pair stopped just before entering the open space. Even from behind the trees, they could tell that this place was different. Everything about it was heavy. There was a constant sound of a thousand of gallons of water slamming the ground, turning soil into mud and trees into barren statues, mulching their leaves even before they hit the ground. A brilliant pulse could be seen through the branches, and ten seconds later, the unstoppable wall called thunder hit the pair. They looked at each other.

“I believe we may have to call this forest explored to its furthest extent for now,” Sydion said to Haith.

“Salmon don’t swim towards grizzly bears if they can help it,” Haith agreed. 

Both of them turned around and started walking back the way they had come. After three steps, they were startled by another, much brighter flash, succeeded almost instantly by the sound of a great whip cracking. They whipped their heads around again, (Haith with a considerably easier time than Sydion,) only to see a tree not 20 feet from them in flames. The storm was coming into the forest. 

They took off into a sprint. The rainstorm quickly engulfed the inflamed tree, dousing the it in water and subsequently breaking it down, tearing off its branches and leaving its roots in a muddy soup. 

Haith and Sydion ran as fast as they could, jumping over roots and picking their way through the thickets and branches. The storm pursued, slowly grinding its way over the landscape and reducing every obstacle the pair had just avoided or overcame to crushed matter. Flashes of lightning taunted them, illuminating the trees around them as if to highlight just how much was in their way, and the thunder that followed echoed throughout the world as if to remind them how much was in the storm’s way.
They ran until their chests hurt and their legs burned. The storm kept up with them. They had to keep going. Then Haith’s bad leg buckled. The storm was almost upon him. Sydion skidded to a halt and turned back to help and faced down a wall of sheets of brutal, torrential rain. They saw Haith disappear into that wall, and

The wind is noisiest in the Fall, when trees start shedding their leaves. It carries the leaves through branches and streets and grass and homes and the open sky, and so the leaves are able to see the world before they decay. 

reappear, as the rain was drawn back from his body like a curtain by a sudden gust of wind. It deflected the rain and folded it in upon itself, and as the storm tried to fight back, the wind wove around the storm and gathered up all the water and redeposited it into the clouds, and swirled the clouds around and around until a fearsome cyclone was formed, always inching away from Haith, who was on the ground trying to get up, and Sydion, who was watching the monstrous sight. 

Moles make molehills, termites make termite mounds, and people make mulch piles. It is in nature’s nature to stack itself. In doing so, every sensation produced by a single grain grows exponentially in a mound compared to experiencing every component of the mound in a row.

The storm fought against the cyclone, but it contained every bit of water and lightning and thunder that was being thrown at it. It constantly flashed and roared, but the flashes were dimmed and the roaring muted. The cyclone elongated and stretched and morphed into a tornado, then touched down in a place Sydion and Haith could not see. Dirt and sod and sediment and rock and rubble took to the sky, jumping up to the tornado as if they each held cables with which they intended to restrain the beast. The storm struggled and strained against the weight, but to no avail. Slowly, slowly, it slowed, until its sluggish form stopped rotating, and did not flash, and did not roar, and did not rain, and was still.

With this spectacle having run its course, Sydion helped Haith up once again. After checking in on Haith’s physical condition, as always, the pair did not say anything, for there was nothing to say. They walked through the ruined forest, towards the origin of the storm. Eventually, they found a place where the ground dropped down, and turned from mud into pockmarked bedrock filled with puddles. They trekked onwards, to the center of the bedrock, and there they found a lamp, shining a ray across a single remaining spot of rain. The light bounced through the water, and it looked like glass shards.

Below the lamp was a circular array of hundreds of marble seats, all damaged in some form. One of them had been stained with pollen. One of them had cracks all over. One of them had deep rivets running all throughout it. One of them had been pockmarked and dented beyond all recognition, and was sitting on its side. That one saw the lamp’s shining light focused on it.

Haith, almost as if in a trance, walked over to the chair and tried to flip it over. It was incredibly heavy.

“Doctor, a lemming does not plunge alone.” He beckoned to Sydion, who stayed in place.

“We’re here to find a clue to this Voice, and we’ve spent what feels like an eternity messing about in a forest, almost dying in the process. And all the while, you’ve been running about and getting yourself hurt. Well, I’m not going to enable it any longer.” They turned, and started to walk away, when they felt a slight warmth on their back. The lamp had shifted to them.

“Doctor, I have a feeling. It is the same feeling that I got when I watched those ants march in their columns and when I felt the embrace of air around me, and when I almost knew perfection, and even when I was being pummeled by the greatest storm I have ever seen. This is how we move on.”

“That’s ridiculous. It’s just-“

“I, like you, know what it is to trust nothing. But I ask you to trust me as you trusted me near the pond. It is the same.”

Sydion threw their arms up in exasperation. “It is not the same! I only did that to finally leave.”

Haith cocked his head. “You left nearly an hour after I did.”

“Well, then I will admit that it was nice! But it didn’t help us any more than fixing this stupid chair will!”

“But it will be beautiful.”

Sydion sighed. There was no convincing this bird. He strode over, grabbed the other corner of the chair, and heaved it upright in tandem with Haith. It fell into place with a splash. Then… nothing. There was no sudden change, no upheaval of scenery, no shift in decorum. The two stood in front of the rain. Although they did not notice it, it had changed. The beam of light shone through the water droplets, and created a thousand tiny rainbows. Sydion was right. There was no hint, nor clue, nor pointer of where to go next to solve this mystery. But Haith was also right.

The scene was beautiful.

At dinner, Sydion and Haith sat near the end of the table, contrasting each other with their garb. When asked about their travels, Haith spoke in tongues and riddles about how they had met a general, and a mother, and a mute genius and her darling husband, and a student who raged against his studies, and his friends, who could always calm him down, and a wise teacher. Sydion told everyone plainly how Haith was very adept at requiring medical attention. Haith laughed and said something unintelligible about lizards. After dinner, Sydion returned to their chambers and watched the fire dance as it held softly the hands of the furniture around the room and looked proudly on the shadows it created, dancing just as beautifully. Sydion thought it looked nice, and joined in, contorting their fingers into shapes for the fire to throw onto the wall. 

Shadows are technically the absence of light, but in reality, they are the result of two very present things, light and matter, working together to overcome the fact that they are wholly different and create something beautiful together all the same.