The Land of Broken Roads

Callius took the rough wooden wolf figurine and held it in both hands, clearly unsure what to do with it. Dirt knelt and hid a couple goblins a few feet away behind some dipping fern fronds.

“Come on, wolf!” said Dirt, planting the feet of his human in the ground. “Let’s see what’s over here.”

It took a few minutes for Callius to get the idea and Dirt had to do most of the talking at the start, but before long he figured it out. They had all sorts of adventures, which were not limited to fighting goblins. Sometimes they explored buildings large and small or fought creatures that Dirt could only name, like “elephant” or “tiger.” Callius would freeze for a moment and come back ready to mimic them, at least to the degree possible with the one animal to use.

Other dryads slipped out of the ferns to watch, and sometimes he could get one to be a goblin or a toy dryad, but they would only play for a few moments before stepping away again. Home and Dawn didn’t show up, but Dirt was having so much fun he hardly noticed.

When Callius suddenly shrank himself to the size of the toys and started walking among them, Dirt laughed aloud and set up the biggest battle yet—dryad versus everything else, including the toy dryads.

Callius won, because each time he punched or kicked a toy it’d go flying off into the ferns. The first time it happened, he glanced up at Dirt apologetically, but it had been a goblin so Dirt didn’t care. Callius was a little more gentle with the next ones, but they still ended up losing another one, and one dryad.

They played long into the afternoon, breaking only when it was time for Dirt to eat again. Dirt sat and gazed inward to watch the world of the toys receding from his mind. What a curious thing, that he could be so captivated. Did the wolves play games like that too? Imagination? Or did they only wrestle and race around?

Callius returned to normal size and sat next to Dirt, where he started picking up clumps of soil with his toes and flinging them away. “Would you call this a footful of dirt, friend Dirt?” asked the dryad, tossing another clump with his toes. “Or is it still a handful?”

“That’s a good question. I guess it’s a footful, because a handful is bigger. But I don’t think that’s a word,” said Dirt, taking another bite and chewing slowly while it stuck to all his teeth.

“How would you know?”

“I know all the words, I just don’t know what most of them mean,” said Dirt, around his mouthful.

“If footful isn’t a word, does that mean I’m the first person who ever did this?” asked Callius, tossing a lumpy little cylinder of black dirt high into the air, where it broke apart.

“Probably not.”

“How can it not have a word, then?”

“Maybe it wasn’t a useful thing to measure so no one made a word for it.”

“Why is a handful useful but not a footful?”

“I don’t know, but I don’t think I’ve ever picked anything up with my feet like that,” said Dirt. Then he had to try, of course, and squeezed a little clump of the rich black earth with his toes and tossed it forward. It didn’t go very far, so he did it again and again.

“If you don’t pick things up with your toes, what are they for?” asked Callius.

“So you can feel what you’re walking on, I guess.”

“Can’t you feel with the rest of your foot?”

“I bet you already know about toes but you’re teasing me.”

“Perhaps,” said Callius, suppressing a faint grin. “What do you think about this?”

The dryad lifted his feet in the air and his toes grew to finger length. He deftly picked up a big clump of earth with them and formed it into a tight ball, which he tossed back and forth from foot to foot.

“I think,” said Dirt, taking another bite around a smile of his own, “that if I could change my shape, I still wouldn’t do that.”

Callius picked up the boy figurine and stood up. He stepped a short distance back and held it up, comparing it to the real Dirt. It writhed and shook as the dryad reformed it, and when Callius gave it back to him, it was a perfect likeness.

Or rather, it was as close as Dirt could expect. He’d seen himself faintly once in a reflection, and other than that, only in Socks’ mind. The pup’s mental images weren’t exactly clear and thorough, either. Only things that were moving were easy to see.

“Thanks!” said Dirt, pleased. It made all the rest of the toys look pathetic in comparison, but it was a treasure nonetheless. “Can you do you?” he said, handing a toy dryad to Callius.

“How about you do it? A little more practice would be good for you.”

“Okay, but when I give up, will you finish it?”

“Nope!”

Dirt faked a scowl at the grinning Callius, which he could only maintain for about one second. As soon as he’d finished off his sap, Callius gave him some water in his cupped hands, and then he got to work reshaping the toy dryad.

It was much harder than he expected, and not even because using magic like that took a lot of concentration and willpower. Dirt discovered that he didn’t see things in as much detail as he thought he did. So much of the boy’s form was as good as invisible until he looked at it deliberately, from the shape of individual muscles to the countless lengths and proportions. He gave up before he was quite satisfied because his brain felt like it was going to start dripping out his ears if he mashed it up any harder.

Callius took it and looked it over. “Wow, this is incredible! It’s perfect!”

Dirt looked up to find that Callius had readjusted his appearance to match the doll, with huge crooked eyes and uneven shoulders and arms thicker than a goblin’s. The dryad tried to dance and immediately fell over, since he only had a knee on one leg.

“It’s just like me! How did you do that on your first try?” called Callius from the ground.

“I don’t know, but if I could change my shape, I wouldn’t do that either,” said Dirt, trying and failing to suppress a giggle.

“What do you mean? This is how I always looked!”

“And you’ve never been more handsome than right now.”

That got a good laugh out of Callius, which Dirt found infectious. Callius stood somehow and tried to dance again, pivoting on his kneeless leg and gracefully waving his goblin arms around. Dirt laughed until his stomach hurt.

Soon Callius turned himself back to normal, to Dirt’s relief, and for the next little while Dirt worked on his toys. None of them got anything like what Callius had done, but at least it was easier to tell what they were supposed to be. And there was nothing to keep him from improving them further.

They added a house like Dirt’s and played in and around that. Then Dirt used his magic to readjust the building into other shapes, which were mostly what he imagined the ruined buildings would look like if they were still standing.

By the end, Dirt got so confident that he tried to recreate that temple, the one hidden here in the forest, from memory. It came out pretty good, Dirt thought, and even included the pillars and part of the collapsed roof.

“Is that what I think it is?” asked Callius when he rolled over from juggling toy goblins with his feet. “When did you see that place?”

“Socks took me there. I bet I mentioned it before, but there was clean water and a road leading to it. Mother said not to go in, though, so we didn’t,” said Dirt, placing the toy Dirt in front of the empty doorway.

“We can’t get close to it and no one knows why,” said Callius.

“Really? How close can you get? We went right up to the doorway here and looked inside,” said Dirt, pointing at his wooden model. “It was too dark to see in there but I think Socks said he smelled something.”

“I can show you, if you promise to stay out of trouble.”

“Did the Mother of Wolves tell you anything about it?” asked Dirt.

“No,” said Callius, standing up and finally making his toes the right length again. Now they looked all stubby and useless, which bothered Dirt somehow. “She hasn’t spoken with us since helping you get mana the other day.”

“Maybe Dawn can ask her?”

“Maybe. She’s playing with the elementals today, but I’ll ask her later.”

“Wait, what are elementals?” asked Dirt. “And why haven’t I met one?”

“Oh, we’re not hiding them from you, friend Dirt. They just have almost no presence in the physical. They live in the magic world, and they are great fun,” said Callius, nonchalantly walking toward his tree.

Dirt followed and asked, “Only the magic world?”

“And the dream, and spirit. They’re alive. They’re just not physical. Are you ready?” asked Callius, resting one hand on his root.

Dirt took a long, slow breath to prepare himself. “Wait! I want… hold on.” He ran back over to the toys and took the boy, the wolf, and the poor imitation of Callius. “I want to keep at least these ones. Can you send them to my house with Home?”

“Sure can. Let’s go.”

Callius reached out and grabbed Dirt’s wrist and for the space of a heartbeat, Dirt was hurtling forward at impossible speed, bouncing left and right too quickly to react to. The root travel dropped him on his feet, but he was still reacting to moving forward and leaned backward to correct himself, causing him to fall hard onto his bottom.

Fortunately the ground was soft. He went to get back up and realized his hands were empty and his toys were nowhere to be seen. Callius grabbed Dirt’s wrist again and helped him to his feet.

“Hold on,” said Dirt, resting his hands on his knees to make sure he wasn’t going to get dizzy again. But like last time, he felt fine, other than a sense of being shaken way too hard. “Okay, I guess I’m fine.”

“Good. Let’s head over.”

“Who is this? Have I met this tree before?” Dirt asked, looking up.

“No, he was one of the later ones. And he doesn’t want to make any dryads right now because of what keeps happening to them.”

Dirt sent the tree a mental sensation of gratitude, but before he could converse much with it, Callius started walking out into the ferns.

They had to get far enough away from the tree trunk to see over the roots, but once they could, Dirt quickly spotted the ruined temple in the direct center of an open space between trees, a couple hundred paces from any of them. It was strange seeing it again, after so many littler ones.

The temple rose high above the ferns, compared to the other ruins. Nothing like a tree, but taller than any of the ruins from the city. It looked majestic here, solid and stately, a thing of men standing out starkly in such a wild place.

“If my dryad stops working, then don’t worry, because I’ll make another one and send it as soon as I can. It only takes me a moment. I just don’t want you to be scared if it happens,” said Callius, unconcerned.

“Well, now I’m worried, because your dryads stop working all the time when you decide to think hard about something.”

“Do they?”

“Yep.”

“Then never mind,” said Callius.

Dirt frowned at that, but Callius never slowed down and they were getting close. There was a pile of wood ahead, all logs of gray bark the same color as the trees, but…

No, not a pile of wood. A pile of dead dryads, thirty paces ahead. Twenty or more, strewn all over, with a pile of them at least five deep just rising out of the ferns.

Dirt froze in his footsteps and felt his blood run cold. Dread filled him, serious dread, and his heart raced faster than his eyes as they scanned for the threat.

The temple path was just beyond the pile of dryads, and a short distance down it reposed the old temple. It seemed taller than he remembered, the opening of the doorway blacker. It had been a calm place before, restful and mysterious. The pile of corpses had changed the ambiance considerably.

“This is as close as I get,” said Callius, stopping in his tracks.

“What… happened to them?” asked Dirt, his mouth dry.

“It’s not as bad as it looks. We just lose our connection if we go much farther than this.”

“So the trees aren’t hurt? They’re fine?” asked Dirt, looking up nervously for dead or falling leaves. One of them dying was a horror too great to contemplate. He’d rather see a thousand dead human skeletons than one dead, decaying tree.

“They’re annoyed, but that’s all.”

Dirt pushed away his dread, since there was nothing around that looked like a threat and it wasn’t a pleasant thing to feel. He walked ahead, leaving Callius behind, and approached the corpse pile. From up close, it looked more like wooden figurines than dead children, since they lost all suppleness in their joints and skin. Their glassy eyes contained no hint of a spark and stood in emotionless, unmoving faces.

“I’m not going in, but I want to get a drink,” said Dirt. “I’ll be right back.”

He stepped over the farthest corpse and onto the stone pathway, on the far end where it emerged from the ground. There was probably more of it buried underneath, but that knowledge wasn’t exactly useful. He enjoyed how cool the stone felt under his feet, entirely different from the warm stone of the city plaza, out in the sunlight.

Dirt passed the broken cistern with its reeking green water and made his way to the good one, cracked and dripping out the side. He was relieved to see the water was clean again—the dirt he’d left behind last time he drank here must have all washed out. He cupped his hands and drank, refreshed. The water was cooler than what the dryads gave him, almost cold, and it was more pleasant to drink.

Maybe he should make the temple his home, and then the dryads really would have to leave him alone when he wanted.

Which, now that he thought about it, wasn’t often. And who knew what sorts of things might come into his dreams if he lived here? It probably wouldn’t be Socks or Home.

Dirt looked at the temple, watching the doorway intently for any movement. Was there a creature in there, he wondered? Or was it something else, something that was a threat to wonderful things like dryads and wolves, but not humans? Humans made this place after all. Maybe there was a god in there.

Now that was not a pleasant thought. The sacrilege from under the city came back into his mind, that injured and suffering statue, fallen over into a heap of dead humans. If there was something like that in there, then he definitely didn’t want to see it.

He watched the doorway and did his best to fight his growing curiosity. What could be in there that made dryads stop working?

Dirt resolutely turned around and started heading back to Callius. Best not to find out without at least talking to Socks after getting him to ask Mother.

“Do you think anyone will want these back?” asked Dirt, calling out over the dryad pile.

“Maybe! Bring one!”

Dirt had to strengthen his body with mana, since it turned out they were a lot heavier when a tree wasn’t puppeting them, but he managed to pick one up. Not only was it heavy, but it was awkward, since all the arms and legs just froze in place and didn’t bend at all.

By the time he got back to Callius, it was starting to get more limber, which was unpleasant. He tried to set it down carefully, but mostly just dropped it.

“Get that one there,” said Callius, pointing at one of the closer ones.

Dirt retrieved it and no sooner had he put it down than it sprang to life, standing and brushing clumps of earth out of its leaf-fur.

“That’s him,” said Callius, pointing at the tree they’d come from.

“Hello, friend Dirt,” said the newcomer, his face mostly expressionless. He almost looked like he was sleeping, since so little of him moved.

“Don’t mind him,” said Callius. “He hasn’t had much time to practice yet.”

“Oh, that’s fine. It’s nice to meet you. I’m going to get a few more. Do you need any more of yours?” asked Dirt.

“No,” he said.

“Okay,” said Dirt. He went back and looked around for one that wasn’t that particular tree, but nine of ten were. No wonder he’d gotten annoyed and given up. Dirt found two different girls and carried them out, then went back and looked around for any more.

Dirt stepped backward, then again, before he realized what he was doing. He felt off-balance, like he was leaning the wrong direction and had to keep moving to correct himself. Backward, toward the temple. Another step.

“What?” he asked aloud. There was a slight tug, something pulling on him; not a suggestion but a real force. Gentle, but insistent. It reminded him of how Socks picked him up. He was not imagining it.

“Something’s pulling me!” he screamed. Dirt filled himself with mana and tried to resist, to walk forward out of its grasp, but the harder he pushed the stronger it got. “Help!”

Callius stepped back three paces, then shot forward at incredible speed, running fast as a wolf. In an instant, he picked Dirt up and tossed him forward as hard as he could, so hard the dryad’s hands left bruises on Dirt’s upper thigh and armpit.

It almost worked. Dirt hurtled through the air, but his forward progress slowed to a halt and Dirt fell straight down, where he dug into the ground with both feet and hands, trying to hold himself in place against the force pulling him backward.

Callius’ dryad toppled over, inert. “Callius!” Dirt screamed anyway, panicking.

The force pulled him backward, causing him to dig deep furrows in the ground. He uprooted ferns and collected them in a big pile that he dragged along with him.

Dirt looked all around for minds, hoping to see what was pulling him, but there was nothing around but trees and ferns, and some insects if he looked really closely. Nothing like the half-dead mind of the tentacle monster, nothing to tell him what was going on.

When the thing pulled him all the way back to Callius’ dryad, Dirt grabbed it with one hand and reformed the arm into a hasty spike, which he slammed into the ground. Finally, he stopped moving back. He shaped more of Callius into spikes, growing him all out of shape into something that his mind called a “plow”. Dirt dug in with all his strength.

The thing kept pulling, slowly increasing the pressure. Dirt filled himself with mana and strengthened himself as strongly as he ever had before. Power sparked and buzzed in him, filling him with glory and leaving him feeling scalded on the inside. He strengthened his muscles and his creaking bones, holding himself in place as hard as he could.

“Help!” he shouted. He couldn’t look around without changing his posture, and that’d let it pull him loose.

A vine slapped down onto his wrist and started curling around his body, winding under his armpits and circled down his chest. It wound under his groin and down one of his legs, and once he was solidly bound by it, it pulled.

Dirt looked up and saw a brand new Callius with one arm transformed into a bundle of vines that extended forward. Other dryads had gathered and were holding him in place. The vines tighted again and pulled Dirt forward, straining against the ever-increasing force.

“Strengthen your body against injury!” shouted Dawn, pacing distraught at the edge of the kill zone.

He tried, telling the mana inside himself to stop making him stronger and start making him tougher instead. The vines pulled him even harder, and bit by bit he began moving forward.

The strain was incredible. He could feel his guts twisting, his joints trying to come apart. Dirt focused on calming his mind and directing the mana with his will, making it strengthen his skin to keep it from tearing, strengthen his intestines to keep them from splitting open inside him.

Inch by painful, desperate, inch, Dirt moved forward. He heard the vines creaking against the strain and he could feel Callius’ resolve through them, feel the dawning fear the dryad could scarcely understand.

Something clacked gently along the stone pathway, walking in his direction.

He turned back to see a human skeleton wearing a robe of gold and a head-dress of golden leaves, eyes burning with blue flames that left trails in the air as it walked up the stone pathway toward him.

Dirt screamed with all his might, over and over, unable to do anything but experience abject terror.

It reached him and brushed a fingertip of bone along his flesh. Dirt screamed even harder, so hard it hurt his chest and throat.

The walking skeleton stepped two paces past Dirt, reached down to the vines that struggled desperately to save him, and severed them with a flick of its finger.

Dirt hurtled helplessly across the stone pathway and into the blackness of the ruined temple.