Travels & Trespasses

Underland and the Forehidden Kingdom, Chapter 23

Underland and the Forehidden Kingdom is a serialised, young adult, fantasy novel about an overconfident bookworm who finds himself in a parallel world where words are weapons, ideologies form fortresses, and intelligence without integrity may just cost you everything. If you’re new here, you can start from the beginning or check out the index.

RECAP: After running from Wellworn & his imminent destiny, Keon is captured by his Mirror through his reflection and transported across the world to an unknown location. After an epic battle over who will control the Codex and ultimately their lives, Keon is physically overpowered and battered. Just as all seems lost, Keon’s empty stomach renders his Mirror inert.

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Keon had been running for a full half-hour since his Mirror keeled over. At least now he knew. Every time he ate, he was literally feeding it, which meant starving himself of food starved it of power. He could use that to his advantage. It didn’t look like he’d be eating anytime soon anyway. Wherever he was, it wasn’t the Eastern Monument. They’d travelled hundreds—no—thousands of miles from where he first encountered the Mirror, which meant he could be anywhere between here and there.

Skidding to a stop, he leaned his elbow against a tree, panting. The forest was finally thinning out. There, through the wooden pillars, he could begin to make out a clearing in the trees.

For what was probably the third time in the last thirty minutes, his fingers hovered restlessly over the harness to the Codex. He just wanted a peek; to be sure it wasn’t following him. Surely if that thing starved to death, it could only be a good thing, right? On the other hand, they were clearly connected. What if killing it also meant killing him?

Shaking the thoughts away, he continued at a steady jog towards the edge of the forest. One thing he couldn’t do without was water. He only had a few drops left in his flask and he hadn’t stopped to search for a stream. For all he knew, he could have passed one already.

The crunch of the ground beneath his feet drew him to a sharp stop. Daggers of icy wind suddenly jabbed at his body, forcing him to pull his damp shawl tighter across his shoulders. He flipped the hood over. Wisps of white mist streamed from his nostrils as he scanned left to right. Every tree ahead was blanketed in a thin layer of crystalline frost, their leaves shrivelling and fluttering towards the ground like giant snowflakes.

“Uh oh…”

When he finally broke through the trees, he was standing at the edge of a terrace overlooking a wide dell. A glistening river wove between the arcs and contours of undulating hills, running into the distance, its edges clawed with fragments of ice. And there, silhouetted against the luminous nebulae, stood a mist shrouded dragonblood tree. He exhaled in relief. It was miles away, but at least he had a destination. If he could reach the tree and somehow make contact with the Encampment there, maybe they could send word to Wellworn and the others. Wellworn. He hadn’t thought about himsince he was dragged half-way across the world by his Mirror.

He stuck to a path that kept him on the slopes of the hills, halfway between the surrounding forests and the river trailing through the valley. The way he saw it, if he was attacked from the forest, he could leg it down the hill and cross the river. If something came from the other side of the river, he could run for the forest. Those distant, ear-splitting shrieks told him Mysts were in the vicinity. If they showed themselves, he would plonk himself in the water. They wouldn’t cross it. 

He snaked his way across the hills, leaving a slithering trail of crushed frost in his wake. As he passed over the slopes, he eyed the river with longing. He was parched but couldn’t risk stopping for a drink until he was sure he was safe—and alone.

Suddenly, a glowing, blue apparition flashed in front of him. Keon slammed both hands across his mouth, almost falling backwards. It was a man sat on the grass, leaning back with his eyes closed! As quickly as he appeared, the man vanished.

The bloody hell was that?!

He waited, took a few steps to the side and carefully trod around the spot where the man had appeared, eyeing the glistening grass with suspicion. Dammit. Was that a TnT? Clearly, someone didn’t want him to make it to this dragonblood tree. Everything was out tonight!

As he made his way over the hills, more of the luminous apparitions warped in and out of existence, appearing and disappearing throughout the valley. Some lingered for several minutes, others for seconds. Mercifully, most of them were far away, and none of them had spotted him. Either they couldn’t see him (which meant they were Travellers) or he just wasn’t of any interest to them (which seemed good to him, but what did he know?). Whichever way he cut it; it was freaky, like walking through a shimmering valley of the undead. There were times he wanted to stop and stare. If they were dreaming, could he get some sort of insight into who they were and what they were thinking by watching them? Was that how mind-reading worked (if such a thing existed)? Did people swoop into Underland and read people like books?

As the river turned a bend to the left, Keon bounded over the hill’s edge and faltered. The frost dissipated. He’d reached the end of the road, so to speak. The forest loomed thick around a rocky waterfall feeding the river. A single, stony path crawled along its edge before disappearing into the forest. And there, stood right in the midst of it, was a glowing apparition.

This one was a girl. Maybe his age, maybe older. He couldn’t quite tell from where he was standing. She seemed confused or lost; incapable of facing a single direction for more than a few seconds. If she was a Traveller, he could slip right past her, and she’d be none the wiser. But if she was a Trespasser—well, no one ever really explained that part. Either way, he wouldn’t know until he got a little closer. There was no way around it.

He shrugged, shook his hands, clenched and unclenched his fists. Bouncing on the soles of his feet, he willed himself forward. Carefully. Slowly. He dared not make a sound.

As he drew near, her form bled into coherent view. Her hair hung past her shoulders and down her back. She was dressed in an oversized, hanging gown which revealed far more of her than he’d expected to see. Her hair was auburn. At least—he thought it was. Everything was tinted blue. She was barefoot, various beads, bracelets and necklaces dangling from every single place they could physically dangle.

He was practically crawling on the ground, his chest scraping the shrubs as he made his way up the incline, avoiding stones and dry-looking twigs. Just a few metres to go.

Suddenly she turned and disappeared into the forest. Keon straightened in surprise. Well, that was lucky! He waited a few seconds to be sure, then scuttled up the rest of the hill towards the opening in the forest.

“Hello!”

“FLIP ME!!”

He tripped on his foot and bashed into the adjacent tree trunk.

She materialised through the tree-line to his right! Had she tricked him? Did she know he was coming, or had he rushed in like a fool and exposed himself? One thing was for certain; she was staring right at him, which meant she was a Trespasser.

She clasped her hands behind her back and leaned in towards him. Her inquisitively wide, sapphire eyes scanned him with intrigue.

“I have never seen one like you before. Not up close,” she said in a syrupy-thick, flowery accent, cocking her head to one side.

“That makes two of us…” he muttered; his stare unmoving.

“What is that you are wearing?” she chuckled.

“Could ask you the same thing. You must be freezing.”

His eyes glanced up and down her barely hidden form.

She matched his stare, examining her garments, then twirled with glee.

“Not at all! It is quite warm where I am.”

“Oh yeah?” he said, an idea rapidly forming in his mind, “Where is that exactly?”

“To the unlearned eye, I am sitting in the middle of a forest in Parc de Parilly. But here…”

That explained the accent. She was French.

“What’re you supposed to be exactly?” he asked with a bent eyebrow.

She began to pace, her gaze sweeping the canopy.

“I am one of the Wise.”

“The wise?”

“One of the learned. One who knows.”

He eased his back off the rough tree trunk.

“Knows what?”

She stopped, cocking her head to the other side in patronising pity.

“More than you do it would seem.”

“You’re funny,” he said sardonically, rolling his eyes. It wasn’t too late to slip past her and try make a run for it. The question was, would she let him? He didn’t know what Trespassers were capable of, and the others avoided them for a reason. They were always looking for something, right? Information. Codices. The currency of Underland.

“Even still, I suspect you might be of use to me,” she said, turning away.

He shook his head.

“I doubt it.”

She frowned, amused.

“Why else would you be here?”

“Kinda lost…”

Idiot! Stop talking!

“Really?” Her eyes brightened as she took a step towards him. “Where are you going?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“Everything here matters,” she said, matter-of-factly. “And nothing is without consequence. So, if you are here, it is because you are meant to be here, and if you are going somewhere, it must be important.”

“Is it?” he said, eyeing her warily. “So why are you here then?”

She seemed to falter for a second, almost unsure of how to answer. Her nose crinkled as she scanned the floor, then her ethereal features smoothed.

“If there is something you want to change back home—but cannot—you have to do it here—at the source.”

That was interesting. He could think of a few things he wouldn’t mind changing back home.

“How do you do that?”

Her eyes locked onto his, a sense of common ground bridging the gap between them.

“It starts with a name.”

There it was. He wanted to swallow but didn’t want her to notice.

“Why’s everyone so obsessed with names here?”

“Names are keys to power,” she said, pacing in a circle around him.

He mirrored her steps, keeping her in sight.

“To name a thing is to control a thing. Others say that to invoke a name is to call upon the power of that name.”

“So, you’re here to find power?” He said, eyes narrowing.

She bent over and began tracing something onto the ground. Keon marvelled as the dirt and dust seemed to shift independently around her translucent fingers. First came a circle, then letters inside the circle. The letters surrounded another, smaller circle in which she scrawled several abstract, geometric shapes.

“What is that?” he said, leaning over.

“A sigil.”

He looked up.

“A what?”

“A signet. A seal. Think of it as a signature.”

“A name,” he said, ominous.

She smiled up at him beneath her brows and nodded slowly.

“Sometimes to change things in the world, you must petition those with power.”

Keon scoffed, shaking his head.

“I don’t believe in any of that stuff.”

“Yet here you are,” she said, perplexed. “Is that not a sigil you wear on your back?”

He tugged at the shawl; his head swinging left and right as he strained to see the insignia over his shoulders.

“Listen, I didn’t put that there.”

She frowned.

“Then who gave it to you?”

“That part, I’m still tryna figure out,” he said with a roll of his eyes.

She huffed a chuckle in fascination.

“Maybe you did.”

“Huh?”

She crouched down low to the ground and began scrawling several letters on top of each other next to the sigil.

“There are those among the Wise who can bring their desires to life. Like a seed planted in the ground, those desires can grow and take on a life of their own, acting independently of their authors. We call them Servants.”

This time, Keon couldn’t hide his visible gulp. She slowly rose, her eyes fixed on the symbol she’d scrawled onto the ground.

“Entities of pure thought.”

Mynds.

She broke her gaze and looked to him.

“I suspect that is how you are here now. This form is not really you, but a Servant created to carry out your will independent of your conscious mind.”

He scoffed a chuckle, glancing around to see if anyone else was hearing this.

“I told you, I ain’t into any of that stuff. And even if that was real, wouldn’t I know about it?”

She shook her head.

“For it to work, one must suppress all memory of ever having forged it. For instance, I will not remember this conversation tomorrow, but my will will live on; growing here at the source until I need it,” she gestured fancifully to the sigil.

“Listen yeah,” he said, palms up, “I ain’t a wizard and I don’t believe in magic…”

She stepped towards him.

“And what is ‘magic’ exactly? What is a ‘spell’ if not ‘spelling’, and what is spelling if not words and ideas? Words have power.”

“Like names,” he offered.

She nodded.

“Words can change the course of human history. A great orator can stir the masses to action. A news article can inflame the passions of a nation. Since the dawn of time, mankind has used words to control the world. It is how we created the Powers.”

His eyes narrowed.

“The Powers?”

She turned back towards the sigil, circling around it.

“Once, we called them ‘gods.’ Mankind has since forgotten their origins, but the Wise have always known the truth. They were entities that arose from the collective thoughts and desires of warring tribes. Servants that grew too powerful for their masters. Now, we the Wise can harness their power and invoke their names.”

Was she talking about Morningstars?

Her eyes flashed with intensity, exhilaration rushing through her ethereal form.

“Most live as though the Powers are gone or figments of the imagination, but they persist. Their sigils are everywhere, we just call them different things now. Logos. Brands. A group of people come together and focus their will, intent and desire into an idea. A symbol. Through that symbol, they then control the masses. Like magic,” she said with a snap of her fingers.

He licked the corners of his mouth in a futile effort to salivate his arid throat. His eyes flickered to find his thoughts. If she was trying to summon a Morningstar, he had to get away.

“Listen yeah—I can’t help with any of that. Like you said, I don’t really know anything.”

“I suspect you know something. Something you do not want discovered which is why you have sent a Servant. That is where you are going. I can help you find what you have lost…perhaps we can find the answers together.”

“Y’know what,” he said, scrambling. “I do remember something!”

She gasped, stepping forward.

“I knew it! I knew there was a reason you are here!”

He held up both palms to halt her.

“I can tell you what I know,” he said, “but you have to let me go on alone. No questions asked.”

She nodded intently.

“I’m not a Servant. Yeah? I’m really here. The reason you’re not—the reason you’re like this,” he said, motioning to her translucent form, “is because you’re trespassing. That’s what they call it.”

“Who?”

“The people I’m here with. That’s where I’m going; to get back to them. They call people like you Trespassers ‘cause you’re not supposed to be here—like this. This place,” he looked around, “It has rules and a ruler. A King. He’s the one who brought me here and he’s the one who gave me this signet. And this King—this King made the Powers. He made them. And he’s the only one who has power over them. They don’t fear us, but they fear him.”

A fragile confusion wracked her face as if he’d spoken in a foreign language. She backed away, her eyes seeing nothing in particular.

“You are lying,” she said. “Why are you lying?”

“I’ve seen it with my own eyes. This guy, yeah, he confronted this one called Helel ibn Shakar…”  

Her eyes widened.

“The NightBringer!”

He nodded vigorously.

“Yeah! And he was shook—I mean, scared. The NightBringer was scared, and he backed off. And all this guy had was a sword. This tiny man with a sword and this hench thing like a mountain.”

“You saw him?”

“Yeah! Yeah! And these Powers,” he continued, “these Powers were made to serve us. But they saw this world and our own as their turf. And so, they enslaved the minds of everyone to believe whatever the hell they wanted. Until…”

“Until what…?” she whispered.

He stared straight into those swirling, sapphire eyes.

“Until the King more powerful than the Powers came to set everyone free. His name has more power than any other name in the source. So, if anyone has the power to change anything…”

He faltered, eyes searching. Of course!

“…it’s Him.”

And suddenly, it was as though the day dawned and a star rose in his heart; its light bathing a hope he’d long relegated to the dark. That maybe it wasn’t too late. Maybe things could change.

She lurched forward, her head sticking out farther than the rest of her body as though she could wrench the answers from him with her eyes.

“What is his name?!” she hissed, “Tell me!”

He waited, scanning her translucent form.

“Wellworn.”

That same look of fragile confusion contorted her face. Then, it was as though an intangible wind began tugging at her ethereal form. She grew wispy, fragments of her body drifting away like steam. Her hands and feet vanished, followed closely by her limbs, her torso rapidly following until the only thing left hanging in mid-air was her shaking head.

“I don’t know that name…” was the last thing she spoke before she vanished. It wasn’t so much a sigh of incomprehension, but rather—Keon thought—a gasp of apprehension.

She was gone.

The path into the forest lay wide open. He bent over, hands falling in his knees. That was way too close. He took a few steps forward, stopped, then turned back to the sigils she’d drawn on the ground.

“Allow it,” he said.

He stomped over and kicked the shapes away until there was nothing left.

Logic said he should probably rest; that he couldn’t go on like this all night, but he didn’t dare shut his eyes; not when there were Mysts, Mynds and Trespassers everywhere. Who’s to say where he’d wake up? He doubted he could catch a wink of sleep even if he wanted to. Sure, he was putting on a brave face, but he couldn’t hide the trembling in his fingertips or ignore the rollercoaster turning twists in his stomach. He’d thought fast on his feet, but that Trespasser had freaked him out. Was this the kind of thing people did? Summon Morningstars for power?

On the upside, he was getting closer to the Encampment. Every now and then he’d look up through the canopy and catch a glimpse of the nebulous heavens framing the opaque outline of the dragonblood tree like a halo. The dull midnight mist rolled across the forest floor, its refreshing moisture bathing his feet.

The ground started to incline upwards. It wasn’t long before the angle got so steep that it forced him to crawl. As the incline grew, an enormous, moss-covered root twisted out of the ground like a wall. He’d reached the roots of the tree. On the other side, a melody of running water trickled down the hill. This time, he wouldn’t resist. He scrambled onto the wide root, straddling it. The river ran between two roots with banks on either side. Sliding down, he skipped over to the edge and filled his flask, careful to avoid his reflection in the water. When the flask had gotten its fill, he lifted it out and chugged his own. His gulps throbbed through his skull. In seconds, the flask was empty, and he was holding it beneath the surface for another refill, gasping.

Suddenly he lurched forward, nausea throttling him as a surge of pain ricocheted through his stomach. His cheeks filled with a sour soup of water and vomit. It was all he could do to hold it in as warmth bled from his back down through his feet. The flask slipped from his grasp and bounced into the river. He dropped to his knees. The heck was this?

His head snapped to one side and his jaw flashed hot then cold. Feeling his lip with the back of his hand, he saw droplets of blood trickle between his knuckles. Then came the tempest in his stomach again, doubling him over. He tried crawling away, but nausea restrained him. He felt himself tipping, about to keel over. What little was left in his stomach erupted from his throat as he fell.

In the instant before he hit the water, a terrifying realisation gripped him.

There was no mistaking it.

His Mirror was under attack.

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