Fate’s Pawn

"It's a dangerous thing, going out your front door."

"Because the road might sweep you off on some adventure without time for breakfast?"

"Well... I was thinking more of the monsters, but yes, that too."

-Back There Again, a Halfling's Tale

To Raziel the forest didn't seem packed with monsters ready to eat his brain. Though maybe that was just because Hoeru knew how to lead them around the monsters. The way adults talked about the forest, you'd think there was something waiting in every bush. There was an enormous wall around the city, and one of the town's knights had given them a stern speech about being careful not to wander off, but all in all, there didn't seem to be much besides trees and squirrels around.

Hoeru led the group. His senses were a lot stronger than a human's, especially for sound and smell. If there was anything nearby that might endanger them, Hoeru would know about it long before anyone else. They didn't go far into the woods. They only walked for an hour or so before stopping in a large clearing. In the center there was a great oak whose trunk was bigger around than most of Peritura's buildings. It grew up and out in sweeping coils so that the outer rim of its leaves touched the leaves of the trees at the edge of the glade. Age radiated from it in ripples of calm stillness, the kind of feeling that exists only in the presence of something or someone who has seen great trouble come and go.

Dominic was at the head of the group. He was a slender man with dark curly hair that he kept in a ponytail at the back of his head, though strands of it were always escaping. His clothes were wrinkled and he had bags under his eyes, but Raziel knew better than to underestimate the man. Dominic's tired, rumpled look wasn't exactly an act, but the sage's gaze was as piercing as a high pitched note and nothing slipped past his attention.

He led the group close to the tree and sat on one of its roots. Miyo, an elf that helped with classes from time to time, came to stand beside him. The two city guards that had been sent with them hung back towards the tree line. Dominic gestured for the group to sit. He spoke quietly with Miyo for a few moments before turning back to the class and beginning his lecture.

"Today we are going to practice control. We do have a few new students joining us, but don't let that fool you into thinking this is only a lesson for them. There isn't a single one of you who doesn't need more practice in this area. In fact, no one, not Miyo, not I, not even old Baroma himself couldn't benefit from attaining greater control of themselves. You might be saying to yourself, 'But Dominic, don't you mean greater control of their magic?' No. That is not what I mean. Magic is just one part of yourself. I don't care how much dexterity you have in your fingers, you can't play a flute without controlling your breath. So we're going to begin with a simple exercise. I want you all to find a quiet place in this clearing to sit and listen. I didn't say a place to sit and talk. Ward, if I see you within fifty feet of Cassie during this, we'll be having some words."

That drew a round of soft chuckles. Ward was in the middle of whispering something to Cassie and both of them turned red at the sudden attention. Dominic waited briefly for the noise to die down before continuing.

"Go, find your spot, sit still, and listen to the music around you. Try to find your place in it."

Dominic waved them off, and they all began to wander away. Unsure where to go, Raziel simply started walking. He tried to avoid getting close to anyone he knew. He couldn't risk talking to anyone. One of them might give away the plan.

Raziel made almost a full circuit around the tree before a spot that caught his eye. One of the tree's enormous roots was coiled in such a way that it made a shape like an 'm' with a pair of pockets separated by a five foot tall curl of thick root.

He chose the outer pocket and sat down, leaning against the root. He had to wiggle around a little to find a spot that was comfortable against his back, but when he did find his place, it was as though the tree had grown to fit him perfectly. He had his father's book with him. He thought about taking it out and looking through it but decided against it. No need to alert Dominic or Miyo to the plan. His mind quickly drifted.

This hadn't been what he'd expected. He'd thought they'd be learning to throw lightning or call forth fireballs. Or maybe fly.

There were birds singing all around, but only in sporadic bursts so that it seemed like they were randomly shouting at each other, not making music. It was the trees, their leaves rustling together like whispering voices, that gave Raziel something to focus on. He closed his eyes and tried to find that place inside him that was calm, if not still. He wasn't sure how long it took but when he felt it, it was unmistakable.

Even so, it was difficult to quantify what he was feeling. Or maybe hearing. Touching? Raziel finally settled on sensing, but none of the words he could put to the sensation felt right. It was a presence, that much he was sure of. He'd felt that type of thing from his grandfather when they practiced magic together and faintly from people further away. But this was different. Slower. His grandfather had, at the time, seemed to be something solid and unmovable as a cliff face, but compared with this, he was just a leaf in late fall, holding its shape but crumbling at the lightest touch.

It was, of course, the tree at his back that Raziel was sensing. Being struck by its awesome and awful enormity, the realization came to Raziel slowly. And, as he put a name to the presence in his mind, something changed. The smallest of ants, marching across unfamiliar terrain, looking up and seeing the great eye of the human whose arm was the continent on which it walked, might have felt something similar to what Raziel felt as the tree took notice of him.

Raziel flung himself away from the tree, his heart pounding in his ears. His breaths came in great gasps as he crab walked, trying to escape the tree's roots but unable to pull his eyes away from it. When he ran into something solid, he almost screamed as he tripped over himself.

"Peace."

It was just a word, but nevertheless, Raziel felt his nervous, panicked energy drain away from him, like water disappearing into sand. As his strength drained, he eased back down onto the ground until he found himself looking up at Miyo. The elf smiled gently at him, a reflection of the sensation her word had infused in him. He looked from her and back to the tree in a mixture of amazement and horror.

"It's- it's alive," he heard himself say.

"You do know that plants are living creatures, don't you?" Miyo said, her accent tinging the words with a lilt. She sat beside him and also looked up at the tree, though with less apprehension and more appreciation. Raziel said nothing for a while, trying to quantify the difference between what he'd just felt and what he normally felt from trees and grass.

"I mean, it's... it looked at me. It felt me."

"This one is aware, yes. Look around. Tell me what you see."

Raziel hesitated to take his eyes from the tree for an instant, like it was a huge cat stalking him. When he did, he saw the forest with fresh eyes and began to notice that there were differences. There was an old saying that started with "the grass is greener," but here it was literally true. The grass was greener. The trees around the glade were bigger and taller, though that was easy to miss next to the great oak. It wasn't just that, either. Even the air here felt fuller, like one breath here would be enough for three back in the city.

"It's all... more... alive?" Raziel said.

"There's more magic here," Miyo said, nodding. "It's difficult to say which comes first. Some people say the magic creates places like this and others say that the place creates more magic. Regardless, in such places the magic often settles on, or comes from, a particular place or object. Whether it's a rock or an animal or a tree, that thing becomes a spirit."

"Is it going to eat my brain?" Raziel asked. Miyo briefly gave him a blank, confused look. Then she let out a surprised, bubbly laugh.

"No. This old oak isn't like that. He seems to like visitors. I think... he finds us intriguing. The way you might like to look at a butterfly. Your reaction is not uncommon. This one is old. It's strong. Its roots are deep. It can be startling to find out how small you are."

Raziel stared at the oak, trying to comprehend what his senses, physical and magical, were each telling him. To his eyes it was just a tree, and that perception in his mind warred with the impact of what he had felt only moments before. Before that moment it had only been a big tree. Mostly important as something to lean on. Now....

"Respect is the beginning of wisdom," Miyo said, a smile in her voice as she walked away.

It took Raziel a while to feel comfortable even touching the tree. When he finally did, he felt silly. The tree didn't bite him, didn't move. Once he had calmed himself enough to try sensing it again, it was still difficult to take in. He thought it returned his curiosity in its vast, slow way.