By the time Cali regained her wits, she had cleared the length of the tunnel. Momentum carried her through the archway, where she skidded to a stop in the glade. When she exited the tunnel’s shadow, and dappled sunlight hit her skin, the slavering presence melted away, replaced by the fragrance of flowers. Cali glanced to-and-fro, but found no signs of danger. In fact, she found nothing, except trees, well-tended garden beds, and an eerie sense of serenity. The most unnerving part was that the dirt beneath her feet was improbably suspended in midair; at least, Cali could see no branch holding it up. As the blood stopped pounding in her ears, she recognized Fen and Passi’s voices calling after her, and the telltale sound of footsteps. She turned, as the pair ran through the archway. 

Passi was a few steps behind Fen, and when the two halted after reaching Cali, e doubled over panting. While the older spreiban caught es breath, Fen fixed Cali with a quizzical look. “What was all that?”

Terror, the answer rose unbidden to Cali’s mind, but, that was not the answer she wanted to tell Fen.   Searching for an out, Cali glanced towards the space where the black box typically manifested. Nothing, ugh. And, aside from Passi’s panting, the two spreiban looked unfazed, meaning either the spreiban had not felt the hungering presence or they were accustomed to it. If she told a half-truth, at least she might discover which. Cali sighed. “This is going to sound strange, but I felt a presence in the tunnel.” 

Fen’s expression became incredulous. “I know the heartwood like a pod-mate, and I felt nothing.”

Passi must have recovered es breath, as e interjected. “Elder Fen, perhaps the fheadhain can sense things beyond your understanding. This presence might be responsible for the wasting of the Gyntaf and the affliction that plagues the twf.”

Gyntaf? Cali was sure she hadn’t that word before.  Her eyes followed Passi’s pointed finger to the centre of the glade, where a gnarled white tree stood.

Beside her, Fen growled “Of course, you would seek to blame an unseen force. Your leadership caused this blight, own up to it.”

Ignoring the spreiban’s squabbling, Cali stared up at the imposing central tree. Its barren branches bifurcated into a complex, dizzying, fractal pattern. A few stubborn leaves clung to the lowermost branches. One such branch bore a single plump, golden fruit; upon others, bulging, colourfully decorated cloth pouches were tied. Recalling the definition of twf, Cali realized the pouches must be gifts hung to seed more spreiban. Decaying fruit littered the grass beneath the tree.

Her observations concluded when Passi said, “In any event, welcome to the primeval’s glade.” E widened es arms in an expansive gesture. Apparently, the pair had concluded the quarrel for the time being.

In addition to the large central tree, a ring of stunted, white, birch-like trees occupied the perimeter of the glade. Each of these trees was surrounded by a garden bed, and, although the beds were well-tended, their contents were eclectic. Most held flowers, though none had the same mix of flowers; it was almost as if each tree had curated the garden around it.   

As her eyes drifted over the stunted trees, she caught a flicker of movement in her periphery. Turning towards the tree to her left, Cali watched in a mixture of horror and fascination, as the bark began to swell and contort. Over the course of a minute, the bark warped until the knots and furrows formed the visage of a face, mid-trunk. 

Transfixed by the unnerving phenomenon, Cali was startled out of her reverie by Passi’s voice. “Marvellous isn’t it? I never tire of seeing the primeval ones awaken.” 

Cali turned to the spreiban, who was grinning at her, and forced a smile. “Uh... yeah.” She tried to avoid meeting the spreiban’s eyes, and instead ended up getting an eyeful of the clearing. Her stomach somersaulted. All around the clearing, the trees were in various stages of metamorphosis. The aggregate was a sickening visual cacophony of pulsing and coalescing peridermis, set off by the occasional gout of oozing sap.  

Cali hurried to fix her gaze on anything else, and her eyes settled on Fen. E was staring at the transforming trees with reverence. Cali shuddered; she couldn’t decide if es reaction juxtaposed with the happenings was more or less unnerving than the metamorphoses themselves. To distract herself from the bodily horror surrounding her, Cali shut her eyes and focused on a mental recitation of her questions. She couldn’t afford to let the situation distract her; she needed answers. 

Several minutes passed. There were no animal noises or bird calls, just the grinding and popping of bark against bark, and the excited breathing of the two spreiban. Absent visual input, her brain began to generate grotesque images to accompany the noises. First, it conjured an image of bark-like flesh bulging and retracting in undulating cycles. Then, the motion stopped, the bark caught on itself and sloughed off in a long papery sheet, exposing flesh flensed raw beneath. The flesh bubbled and popped with pustules of sap. Horrified, Cali intensified her mental recitation, trying to block out the worst of the sounds, and suppress her overactive imagination. Thus, her first indication that the metamorphoses were complete was a voice like tumbling pebbles behind her. “Honoured fheadhain, I see these children have brought you before us.”

Opening her eyes, Cali turned towards the voice’s source. The speaker was one of the stunted trees. E stood proud and erect amidst a bed of multicoloured, tulip-like flowers, planted in neat, regimented rows. As she turned, Fen said, “Is e not kith?” 

Passi’s voice was jubilant as e said, “Elder Fen, are you doubting the primeval’s judgement?”

The primeval’s voice overpowered whatever retort Fen planned. “Children, do not bicker in my presence. Before my rooting, I met with kith, e feels different. More like the Gyntaf than any mortal vessel.”

Cali opened her mouth to introduce herself and was interrupted by Passi’s excited proclamation. “Precisely! And I’ve even witnessed em use the ancient magic with my own eyes.”

The primeval one let out a sound like the wind whistling through dry leaves. “Children, I wish to speak with the fheadhain without interruptions. You shall wait atop the stairs until I send em from this place.”

Crestfallen, the two elders began to slink out, like chastised children. As they passed through the arch, Fen’s eyes met Cali’s, and e shot her a look that seemed to ask ‘why didn’t you tell me?’ before the pair disappeared into the tunnel, leaving Cali in the glade alone— with the ring of primeval ones. 

Silence hung in the clearing for a moment. The primeval was the first to speak, the same primeval that had addressed her earlier. “Honoured fheadhain, I am Leken, speaker for the primeval ones and I must beg your assistance.”

Beg your assistance? Cali didn’t like the sound of that. “Cali, and I was promised you’d be answering some of my questions. So perhaps we could begin with that, and then move on to your request?”

All the around the glade leaves rustled, in a sound reminiscent of laughter. “None of us were born yesterday, honoured one. We shall answer one question, then you shall hear our request. Is this amenable?”

While she’d figured she wouldn’t get answers to all her questions, she hadn’t expected to have to negotiate to get answers at all. Flummoxed, Cali chewed at the inside of her lip. “And if I’m unable to assist you?”

The brows on Leken’s trunk furrowed. “Then you shall depart, and leave us to our contemplation; there is little enough time left to be wasting it.”  

“And you’ll answer more questions if I can help you?” 

Leken’s boughs shook. “Indeed.”

Cali brought her hand to her forehand, pinching her temples between her thumb and forefinger. Why was everything in the enclave a headache? Politics, a giant snake, and now this? “Very well.” She sighed. “Those terms are amenable. I want to know everything you know about the nearest kith settlements.” It was the most pressing question she had, rephrased to be as broad as possible. If she only got one question, she had to make the most of it. 

Bark scraped against bark and leaves rustled. Cali got the disquieting sensation that they were laughing at her. When at last the sounds quieted, Leken spoke again. “We know of none, not anymore. Now you shall listen to our request.”

None. Cali grimaced, was she to be stuck in the enclave after all? But what did not anymore mean? “Wait.” She said. “I believe my question encompasses the settlements you knew of in the past; tell me of those before you begin your request.”

In the creaking of wood, Cali heard what might be a sigh, before Leken answered. “As you wish, Grona, you were an aeolian pup when these events occurred, tell the fheadhain what you witnessed.”

She heard a gurgle of water from behind her, as one of the primeval’s slaked its thirst. Turning to the source of the noise, she saw a tree with a twisted trunk covered in raised, blackened lenticels. The protrusions gave the tree’s face a warty, or, if one was generous, a freckled appearance. Pendulous branches hung down, shading out the garden bed below, which was full of oddments of fallen bark and branches dotted haphazardly with assorted mushrooms, whose bulbous bodies lent splashes of vibrant colour to the gloom. The primeval’s face let out an ominous creak as e began to speak.

“Long ago, some pups would be sent from the enclave into the world. We were to go wherever the wind took us, and someday, return with knowledge for the enclave. I was one of those pups, and I lived among the kith. They had built an empire south of the heartwood, with glittering marble towers, and such an array of kith as you’ve never before seen. From the capital, you could stand atop the highest spire, and still, the empire would stretch to the horizon.” Grona’s face stared off towards the horizon, and es branches shifted, letting a little light into the gloomy garden bed in which e rested.

“But these things never last, the golden moon returned and the Kuohyøn awoke. Awoke, amid the sea of sand, hungering. Consuming what life it found amidst the wastes, it spawned scores of young. They arose, a buzzing, black cloud that blotted out the sun, with the Kuohyøn at the fore. A horror like no other. Great, hideous, feathered wings, stricken with holes, dripping befouling, black pus upon the land. In the night, I sometimes still hear the whistling of the wind through its wings, as it descended upon the city. The chittering of its mandibles. Smell, the horrible scent of rotting flesh.” All of Grona’s branches were quaking now, the leaves rustling against one another like a chorus of whispers. 

Grona’s eyes went wide. “I fled, leaving the kith to their fate. From a distant hill, I saw its maw swallow  the capital, and its children descend upon the empire’s bloated corpse. I know not if any kith escaped, for the few I saw were near death, their bodies stricken and rotting away with the befouling blight. I did not stay to see what became of my hosts, or my friends, terror drove me forth, and the Kuohyøn’s children chased me. But I was swift and cunning, and I reached the heartwood, where the denizens saw fit to swallow my pursuers. The jungle protects its own, as we protect it.”

Grona paused. Water gurgled through es body. After the sounds of moving water stopped, e let out a long satisfied breath. “A fortnight later, the golden moon left the sky, and Kuohyøn’s children perished, littering the land with their corpses. In the moon’s absence, Kuohyøn curled its chitinous form around the capital, where it still slumbers today. The once fertile land, now an extension of the sands. And we spreiban have seen no kith since. For how could we? Even if the kith ran, I know not where they could flee, few would dare the heartwood or the mire, and the denizens thereof would be quick to erase their trespass. And none but the hardiest of creatures can survive the sea of sand. The kith’s only hope would have been to flee this land and take boat across the expanse. A journey that no one has ever returned from.” Rivulets of sap leaked from es eyes and ran down trunk. “So much was lost that day. We might have learned so much.”

With a comforting tone, Leken interrupted es colleague’s mourning. “There was nothing you could have done, ‘tis but the cycle of the world.” The primeval’s voice sharpened, as e turned es attention back to Cali. “Now, you shall listen to our request.”