Chapter 51: Neville – The Webs of Time
Neville didn’t recognize the forest. He couldn’t tell if it was day or night because the thick crowns covered up the sky, sun and moon. There was no undergrowth, only cold moss covering fat roots. Winter must be over because there were no storms, or maybe the storms couldn’t penetrate that wall of ancient trees.
No matter how far he walked, Neville was always at the same place. He moved, of that he was certain, but the place never changed. He felt like he was stuck in quicksand. Quick darkness. In there Neville was nobody, he didn’t even exist.
Then why did he move? Neville noticed something white and bulky sitting on a large root. The moss must be icy under the man covered in white.
‘Hello,’ called Neville. The man didn’t move and Neville walked up to him.
The white stuff covering the man mixed with his beard, which joined his chaos of a hair, which Neville soon recognized.
‘Master Mage,’ he called.
The magenearly crushed under the layers of white web. Neville tried to raise the strange curtain, but as soon as he touched it, he was captured. Instead of freeing the old man, he was humself cocooned by the white webs.
‘Hullo,’ said the mage. ‘What have we here?’
‘Are you dreaming again?’
‘I’m awake. You?’
‘Me, too.’
‘You don’t look awake.’
‘Neither do you.’ Neville pushed the web with his elbow. ‘What is this?’
‘Centuries,’ said the mage. ‘I was supposed to have become dust a long time ago and the ages resent things that shouldn’t see them. They make a cocoon, like a tree trunk growing around an axe.’
‘Do trees grow around axes?’ asked Neville.’
‘If they don’t die and if they have time, they swallow everything that hurst them.’
‘And this?’ Neville still held the webs with his arm, which was beginning to tire. ‘Why did it swallow me?’
‘Time is volatile,’ said the mage. ‘It is quick and changes shape every instant. To go near it is a risk.’
‘How do I get out?’
The mage slid a nail through the web, tearing apart hundreds of little threads.
‘If only the story would pull me to the surface,’ he said, ‘I’d know what to do.’
Neville pushed the tip of his black bow against the web and used it to hold the white away, like a tent.
‘A magic bow,’ said the mage.
‘You gave it to me.’
The mage shook his head.
‘I didn’t do anything. It used me to get to you. It is a common mistake to think that only darkness gives birth to strange creatures, but magic, too, gives birth to unforseen stuff.’
‘You don’t seem to like my bow.’
‘I dustrist everything magic,’ said the mage. ‘Nearly every mage dies of magic, most before they’re even born.’
‘This bow has kept me alive in the Mouth of War,’ said Neville. ‘Thanks to it darkness has not swallowed me. In the dream you seemed to like it.’
‘Now I am awake. But the answer is in the dreams.’
‘Whose dreams?’
‘Every dream.’
Neville pushed the white webs with all his strength but they didn’t bulge. He poked them with his bow but they only twitched like they were ticklish.
‘We have to get out of here,’ said Neville.
‘Sooner or later Yukari will find me. She always does.’
‘This Yukari you mention,’ Neville asked, ‘is it Nakamura?’
‘Is there another?’
‘Several. Many women from Tinsa claim to be the real Nakamura. They have the same features, the shape of the eyes, black hair, small nose.’
‘Yukari doesn’t like it when people say her nose is small.’
‘Will she find us?’
‘She will.’
‘When?’
‘Sometimes in a few days,’ said the mage, ‘but there was once when it took her a decade to find me.’
‘A decade!’ shouted Neville. ‘I don’t have all that time.’
‘What’s the hurry? Do you want to die crushed by a dragon? He won’t even notice you, but maybe the bow will work like a thorn.’
‘Better to die by dragon than to die by darkness.’
‘You think?’
‘You don’t?’
‘Hm,’ did the mage.
‘Surely magic is better than darkness.’
‘Magic is ancient water,’ said the mage. ‘Sometimes it drowns one or thousands, but we find it normal because it’s been there since forever. From the sea you expect tsunamis; from the earth, lava and ash. Darkness is new water, bedless river, shoreless wave. The world is still adjusting to it, the same way the wind spreads at the beat of newborn wings. Magic is not your ally, archer, nor is darkness against you. Water simly is: it is us who drown in it.’
‘You’re wrong,’ said Neville. ‘The darkness in the Mouth of War kill and torture. They don’t let the war end.’
‘If I shape magic so it harms someone else, it is my responsibility, not magic’s.’
‘You think somebody constrols the darkness?’ asked Neville. ‘Who?’
‘I can’t see. These cursed ages, fogging my vision.’ He pinched the white web. ‘The answer is in the dreams, but I don’t know the answer. ‘
Then he narrowed his yellow eyes and stood up.
‘A magic creature is crawling in this forest flooded by darkness.’ said the mage. ‘What risk it takes!’
Neville stood as he could, pressed down by the ols man’s resentful centuries. He leaned on his bow and the web was torn above his head. There stood a tree that hadn’t been there before, with black wood and leaves of a green so pale that they shimmered in the darkness.
‘It came for you,’ said the mage. ‘Do you have a name?’
‘Neville.’
The tree reached in ahd plucked Nebille from the cocoon of ages.
‘I have a name too,’ said the mage, ‘but I can’t remember it.’
The web folded itself around the mage and the tree began to run. Its roots rolled on the ground like a dozen rattlesnakes. Neville held on to the trunk, which hummed in fear. They were surrounded by darkness and the tree lost its strength like a human underwater. Darkness clawed Neville and tried to hold down the tree.
The forest closed in and darkness took over. It made no difference if Neville closed or opened his eyes. He couldn’t see. Even the tree’s shimmering leaves faded out one by one, like candles in the wind. Neville pressed his face against the humming wood and tried to think of the people he loved.
He couldn’t remember anyone.