Chapter Six

LANDER JUMPED TO his feet. “What?”

“That hill you’ve been dreaming about, I know where it is.” Yban’s eyes were shining, his enthusiasm catching.

“Can we go?” Lander didn’t want to get his hopes up, but he wanted to know what the significance of the cave was. If the forest had been showing it to him, the place had to mean something; Lander was sure about that much.

Yban shook his head, but he was smiling. “I knew you’d want to go right away.” He moved to the side of the cabin. “We just need a torch and we can leave.”

Yban had a torch ready in a few seconds and after lighting it on the campfire he offered his hand to Lander. “Shall we?”

Lander was vibrating with excitement, as his skin felt too tight. He’d chastised himself already about getting his hopes up, but something was closehe could feel it. He grasped Yban’s hand, still feeling warmth travelling up his arm whenever their fingers intertwined. He couldn’t stop smiling, and when he looked at Yban, the man answered with another smile.

Lander squeezed his hand. “Let’s go, then.”

As usual, once they’d left the clearing behind, Lander had no idea where they were or how to go back. He held tight to Yban’s hand and followed him, the man walking with a purposeful stride. Lander was still convinced he could probably go wherever he wanted with his eyes closed.

“We’re almost there,” Yban said after a while.

Lander didn’t know how much time had passed. The wind had picked up and was rustling the trees’ branches, the leaves making a sound that gave Lander chills. There was something distinct in the air now, almost as if it had a taste and smell.

He was about to ask Yban about it when he got an unprompted answer. “A storm is coming.”

“We’re not turning back now, are we?” Lander didn’t want to wait any longer, not now he knew the cave was real and they could find something there.

“Of course not.” Yban squeezed Lander’s hand. “We’ll be caught in the storm no matter what we do, but when we make it to your cave we can take shelter there until it passes.”

As soon as he’d finished speaking, lightning broke, creating weird shapes out of the shadows of the trees surrounding them.

“Come on, we’re almost there.” Yban started walking faster, almost dragging Lander by the hand until he caught up with his pace.

By the time they’d made it to the foot of the hill, the rain had started falling in earnest. Lander didn’t even take time to appreciate being able to see the sky again. They’d been somewhat protected by the trees before, but there was nothing to shelter them on the way up the hill. The road Lander had seen in his dream was still there, only it was completely abandoned, and he could tell no one had walked over it in years. Grass was growing everywhere, and if Lander hadn’t seen it before, he probably wouldn’t have known the path was there.

Thankfully, the grass actually made it easier for them to climb up the hill. It was slippery, and they had to walk in a line and be very careful, but at least it hadn’t turned into the muddy mess it would have been if the grass hadn’t grown all over it.

Both of them were soaked to the bone when they finally made it to the entrance of the cave. Their torch had gone out in the rain, but Lander could see light coming from the back of the otherwise dark cave.

Yban’s hand on his arm stopped Lander when he was about to walk in towards the light. “Let me go first, please?”

Thinking about the many times Yban had demonstrated his knowledge of the forest to him, Lander conceded without hesitation.

They walked in slowly, minding their every step. The light was coming from around a corner, and when they turned it, they came face to face with a woman. She was painted on the wall, her hair a halo of fire around her face. Other than that, she seemed so real that Lander thought her eyes could follow their movements.

When he gazed at Yban, he looked more shocked than Lander had ever seen him. His mouth was open in a silent O shape and his eyes, focused on the painting in front of them, looked huge in the light coming from below.

There was no one else there, but it didn’t look as if that fire had been burning for a long time, so who had lit it? Was there someone else in the forest? If so, how come Yban had never encountered them in the twenty years he’d been here?

He wanted to ask every question running through his mind, but Yban spoke before he had the opportunity to do it.

“Mari.”

Lander blinked. “What?”

Yban finally looked at him. “Not what. Who.” He pointed to the figure on the wall. “She’s Mari.”

By now, Lander should have been used to not knowing what Yban was talking about when it came to the forest, and he was starting to feel ashamed that he was always the one asking questions of the other man.

However, he didn’t have to ask this time, since Yban decided to explain without prompting.

“She’s an old goddess. I heard before that she lived in this forest, but I had never seen any proof of it. I didn’t even know this cave was here.” He sounded awed.

“What is she a goddess of?” As ashamed as he’d felt before, once Yban started telling a story, he could think of little else but the man and the voice doing the telling, which still felt like a caress to Lander.

“A lot of things. People used to know her as Mother Earth, and themselves like her children, since she was the one who loved and took care of them. She was also said to control the weather and predict storms.”

Lander shivered. That may have explained the storm they’d got on their way here. Had she known they were coming? He shook his head. She was a legend, wasn’t she? But then, he’d thought the lamias had been a legend too, and they’d turned out to be real.

Lander observed the fire again. Try as he might, he couldn’t get the idea that someone had to have been here before them. “Who do you think lit that fire?”

Yban interrupted his observation of the Mari likeness to look at the fire burning beneath it. After a few seconds, he said the last thing Lander had been expecting to hear. “No one.”

“What? What do you mean ‘no one’?”

Yban took Lander’s hand and pulled him closer to where he was standing. He then pointed to the fire. “Look at it, Lander. Really look at it.”

Lander didn’t know what Yban wanted to accomplish by that, but he got closer and studied the fire. When his mind processed what his eyes were seeing, and he finally understood what Yban had been referring to, he gasped and looked back at him. “That’s not possible,” he continued talking before Yban could interrupt him. “I mean, obviously it is, but a fire shouldn’t be burning with nothing to feed it.”

Yban came closer and one of his hands stroked Lander’s back, the touch relaxing him in record time. “You need to remember that logic doesn’t always work in this place. You’ve been here long enough to know that.”

“You’re right. It’s just that it’s still a shock.” Lander wanted to think he wouldn’t be the only one to be shocked when they found a fire burning with nothing to burn.

“That, I understand.” Yban smiled at him.

Lander felt the urge to kiss that smile and feel it on his own lips. But he couldn’t, not here. Instead, he asked, “So, if she’s a goddess, shouldn’t we…you know, pray or something?”

“It was your dream that brought us here. I guess we could ask her for help?” Yban looked at the figure on the wall. “People usually brought her gifts, but I don’t think we have anything to offer her.”

“What kind of things did they bring her?” Lander’s curiosity had been piqued.

“All kinds. Mostly things they could find in nature. Women who wanted to get pregnant but couldn’t brought her pebbles and asked for a child.”

A plan was starting to take shape in Lander’s mind. “Do you think the offerings could be something non-material?”

Yban shrugged. “I guess so. Why? What do you have in mind?”

“Well, she showed this place to me in a dream, so I’m thinking she wanted to be seen again.” Lander tried to put some order in his thoughts, so he could explain himself to Yban. “I’m thinking we could ask her for her help getting out of the forest, and once we do, we can tell everyone about her, make sure she doesn’t lay here forgotten again.” He took a deep breath and gazed at Yban. “Do you think that would work?”

Yban mulled the question over for a moment. “What I think is that we’ll never know if we don’t ask. It doesn’t hurt to try.” He looked at Mari again and squeezed Lander’s hand. “Go on, ask her.”

Lander had feared he wouldn’t know what to say, but the words came to him from somewhere deep within. “Mari maitea, we come to you for help. We thank you for showing us the way, and we ask that you indulge us once more and show us the way out of this forest so we can spread the word about you. You won’t have to be alone anymore. Mesedez, Mari. We are in your hands.” Lander bowed and took a step backwards.

“Where did that come from?”

Lander startled a bit. He’d been so focused on his request he’d almost forgotten he was not alone. He recovered quickly “I have no idea.” He looked down at the fire once more. “Shall we go now?”

Yban nodded. “I believe so. I remembered something else from the old legends.”

“What is it?”

“When people came to visit Mari, there were rules to follow. One of them was that they had to leave the cave the same way they’d entered. So we have to walk backwards until we’re outside.”

Lander nodded and let Yban go first. They walked without talking, retracing their own steps backwards. About to turn around after finally passing the entrance, Lander saw a massive flash of light out of the corner of his eye, followed by a scream. He turned around so quickly he almost lost his equilibrium, but Yban was nowhere to be seen.

A part of the ground in front of Lander looked completely black, as if it had been singed. Lander ran to the edge of the terrace where the cave stood and looked down. Yban was sprawled on the ground below him, his arm bent in an unnatural angle. But he was holding it and trying to sit up, so at least Lander knew he was conscious. “YBAN!” Lander grimaced, imagining the pain when Yban moved his broken arm. “Don’t move. Wait for me!”

He ran down the road as fast as he could without actually sliding down or falling himself. He wouldn’t do Yban any good if he broke his own arm or leg. He finally came to a stop in front of Yban and kneeled. “Let me take a look.”

Yban was breathing hard and sweating. “It’s broken. There’s nothing you can do.”

Lander huffed, frustrated. “I can heal it. Just let me see.”

At first Yban looked at him as if he was delirious, a shocked expression on his face. But in the end he extended his arm, breathing heavily from the pain, and presented it to Lander.

Lander moved his hand carefully over Yban’s arm, trying to remember everything he’d studied about resettling broken bones. He’d only done this once before, when one of the dogs that roamed the village had fallen into a trap and broken one of her legs. Lander had managed to calm her, and he’d fixed it for her. Finally free of pain, she’d rewarded him with a happy bark and a few licks of his face before leaving, running freely again.

He found the break in Yban’s arm and was grateful it was a clean one and the bone had broken only in one place. He concentrated, thinking about how the bone should look when it was fully healed, and pushing his magic in slowly, persuading the bone pieces to come together once more, like they belonged. He then started repairing the tissues that had been torn when the bone had broken and ripped through them.

By the time he’d finished, he was the one sweating and gasping while Yban stared at him as if he wanted to see into Lander’s head.

“Are you feeling better? There can be some pain left, but it should go away in a few minutes. Just give it time.” Lander would need more than a few minutes to recover from using all that magic himself.

“Why didn’t you tell me you could do that?” Yban sounded more curious than accusatory, and Lander’s muddled brain could at least think that was a good thing.

“Because I can mostly only do small things.” He pointed at Yban’s arm. “Bigger things, like that, drain me of energy.” He noticed the surrounding light changing by the way the shadows played over Yban’s face and his expression; which was a mix between confused and shocked. “We should go back.”

When Yban nodded, Lander got up from his knees and tried to ignore the way dizziness swept all over him, making the world tilt. He knew he was losing that battle when his vision started to turn black, and he only had time to make sure he wasn’t facing the edge when he fainted.