As usual, you couldn’t tell it was day under the canopy of the massive tree in the middle of the forest. I walked up to the tree trunk and repeated the poem that Noel had used to get inside. A door opened in the trunk. I looked up. It should have been day but the canopy was so thick, it almost felt like night. If I squinted, I could almost make out the moon. Or perhaps that was my imagination.

I passed into the door and entered a dark tunnel. In one hand, I lit a torch. In the other, I gripped the Dragon’s Tooth, tightly. The door closed behind me. I followed the tunnel, staring carefully into the darkness. The only sound I could hear was the crackle of the torch and the rough gristle of gravel underneath my now very well-worn hide shoes.

Eventually, I saw a light at the end of the tunnel. I snuffed my torch, crouched down low, and whispered to my loudly beating heart to quieten down. I put the torch on the ground. Gripped the Dragon’s Tooth with both hands. And snuck closer. The light was too bright. I could barely see anything until I was almost out of the tunnel. I took a deep breath and ran out of the tunnel, ready to stab with my weapon.

“Cas?”

“Huh?”

“What are you doing, outsider?”

I blinked my eyes. With my spear held overhead, I stared at Noel and the Immortal of Desire. The Immortal, in the form of thirty birds, blinked all at once. Noel turned around and frowned.

“Why are you here, Cas?” asked Noel.

“I—”

“Why are you wielding that weapon at us, outsider?” said the lead bird, its tone carrying a hint of anger.

“Wait, that’s the Dragon’s Tooth,” said Noel. “How did you get that from uncle Sharun? No, wait, why are you here? Weren’t you supposed to contact the other tribes? Don’t tell me you couldn’t find the tomb of the Mad King.”

“What do you mean, Noel,” I said, letting the Dragon’s Tooth fall to my side. “It’s over. We did it. We fought the Oracle and we won. She’s dead, Noel. We won.”

Noel’s eyes widened. “That can’t be. I just got here.”

“What?” I said. “It’s been two days. I brought over the other tribes, and—”

“Two days?” cried Noel.

“Something isn’t right,” said the lead bird. “How did you get in here without my permission? And what do you mean it’s been two days since Noel came to meet me? I need to—”

I heard a sound in my left ear.

“What’s that?” I said.

The sound grew louder.

Noel’s eyes widened. “I can hear it.”

It felt familiar.

The birds ruffled their feathers. A few of them took flight. “This isn’t good. This can’t be. This is my tree, this is my seal. Nobody can come in here without my permission. Not even the other immortals. Not even—”

Music burst forth, flooding my ears. Hand drums, strings, and wind. A strange percussion instrument tied them all together. The song had an irresistible rhythm; a chaotic cadence that flowed through the air like a tidal wave. It came from the front, before flowing all around me, forcing me to turn to hear it like a puppet being pulled by its strings.

It flowed as I moved; back and forth, up and down, we moved. My hair swept past my eyes. I blinked and my surroundings moved. The ground shook, the ceiling, the walls, the little fungus and roots; everything jumped and swirled and fell and moved. With the music that had no beat, the lyrics that I never noticed until they were there, in a song that felt familiar but was in a language I had never heard before. Even my translation magic couldn’t decipher it.

My eyes swam with the world and the music. Noel danced with the walls and the ceiling. The very air was dancing. My heart thumped to the rhythm. My brain sent spikes of pain and pleasure with the highs and lows of the song. Every part of my body threatened to dance away, ripping me apart in ecstasy.

Ecstasy. That was the word. An irresistible, uncontrollable, imperceptible but intense feeling of ecstasy. I’d heard it before. That word. That description. In the poem Noel used to get us inside this place in the first place. The poem I had used to open the door just moments ago.

My lips moved on their own. My faced smiled so widely my brain wondered if the grin would fly off on its own, which made my lungs chuckle, my heart beat wilder than ever before, and made whatever it was that I considered ‘myself’ panic in a playful, pleasurable way.

Fun. This was fun. I grabbed Noel and she grabbed me. We danced with each other, never minding if we crashed against something or stepped on a toe. The world danced with us, in tune with the music, beating thumping laughing crying screaming wildly into the night sky that tore open the ceiling like taffy.

We let go and danced alone. My feet went up and stomped on the ground. They stomped with the drums, but perhaps I had forgotten that these were hand drums. Whoever or whatever was playing began to speed up. Thump, thump, thump, became thump thump thump. Faster and faster, wilder and wilder, like a wood pecking woodpecker or a tap dancing tap dancer. My feet followed, faster and faster, faster and faster, faster and faster still.

And I wasn’t tapping my feet, I was stomping. One foot jumped into the air before hammering into the ground, forcing me to twist my body the whole way around to prepare the second foot, which came thundering down almost immediately. And so I spun as I crashed my feet into the ground, sending tattered chunks of hide flying through the air as my poor shoes finally frayed and fell apart.

My stomach lurched as I did this dance. My eyes, my heart, my lungs all screamed in joy, or was it pain, I couldn’t tell. The music went on and on and gathered steam like a charging bull, pushing harder and harder until my sense of self melted like a popsicle left out in the sun. My vision blurred until it too, melted. My heart, my lungs, my eyes, my self, everything melted into a thick soup that gushed around, still moving to the music.

And then it stopped.

The drums, the wind, the strings, the percussion. The sounds stopped and the world stood still. The soup solidified into me, Noel, the ground, the walls, the ceilings, and so on until my heart, my chest, my mind froze too. I panicked. My heart had stopped. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t breathe. There was no pain but the panic was real, it was intense, and it filled me with a strange, paradoxical feeling.

“You taught me to drink from your eyes, the ripe red wine of love.”

A wave of wine rushed forth and drowned me.

“Wrought in the heavens from pure moonlight, the whole world dances for you.”

The wine turned silver and it danced like a strobe light.

“Repentance torn to tatters, I can see nothing but you. With my feet in the waves, I drink from the sea.”

I was splashed with salty seawater as it crashed against the shore.

“I am drunk off your gaze, I am drunk off your love.”

Everything vanished and we were back in the room in the middle of the giant tree. I looked around, Noel was free too. I gasped and breathed erratically.

“I am drunk off this gentle feeling of intense ecstasy.”

I followed the voice. It was coming from the tunnel. The music was gone, but the words kept coming.

“This gentle feeling of intense ecstasy, I blame on your gaze.”

I blinked and the figure was gone.
“This gentle feeling of intense ecstasy, I am drunk off your gaze.”

The voice came from behind me so I turned around. A figure stood with their back to me. The Immortal of Desire was gone. The figure crouched to the ground and picked something up. A feather. A bright, multicolored feather. The figure brought the feather up to their face and I heard the sound of a deep breath. The figure exhaled.

“Thank you, Caspian Holm. I knew I was right to let you through,” said the figure.

A weight jumped off my chest. I finally felt like I could speak. “Who,” I sputtered, “what are you?”

The figure put its hands in the air, one of them holding tightly to the multicolored feather. “I am your benefactor. The one who pretended not to know about that stupid red thing’s plans. Oh, you have no idea how much I’ve helped the two of you.”

He turned around with his hands still in the air. “And you have no idea how much you’ve helped me,” he said as he gave us a dramatic, theatrical bow. He raised his head but kept his body in position as he said: “Thank you, Caspian Holm and Noel Jora, for letting me meet my beloved, once again.”

The God of Madness brought the feather to his lips and kissed it.

PeacefulCatastrophe

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