Phillips Harbour.
Sunday, October 18, 1868. Afternoon.
The largest pieces of the balloon must have been cleaned up already, because the field where the attack is reputed to have taken place is largely clear. A waist high fence surrounds the field, but as Slate paces down the road alongside it, she spots something and gestures to it with her muzzle. Look, is that part of the balloon? A brightly-colored scrap of silk flutters in the wind, trapped under a fallen limb near the treeline beside the river. Shall I jump the fence for a closer look?
After tending to the injured chimpanzee, Bernice returns to the church where she'd left Slate. The young doctor has taken it into her head to investigate the site where Caliban was attacked.
The largest pieces of the balloon must have been cleaned up already, because the field where the attack is reputed to have taken place is largely clear. A waist high fence surrounds the field, but as Slate paces down the road alongside it, she spots something and gestures to it with her muzzle. Look, is that part of the balloon? A brightly-colored scrap of silk flutters in the wind, trapped under a fallen limb near the treeline beside the river. Shall I jump the fence for a closer look?
Bernice lifts her hand to shade her eyes, peering across the field. "Good eye, Slate! Yes, let's see what we've got here." The young woman tugs in the strap on Old Henry, securing it to her back and pats the Morgan's neck with her free hand. "I just hope the trail hasn't gone cold. Or... given what happened to poor Caliban, maybe I do."
What do you think it was? Really? Slate takes a few paces back to get a head start, then canters to the fence and vaults easily over. The hind leg that the coyote had injured early in the month gives her no trouble at all on the landing. She trots across the field to the edge where the silk is caught, coming to a halt to let Bernice have a look around. Now that they're in the field, a few other scraps, scattered here and there among the trees and overgrown weeds, catch their eye.
Bernice allows herself a little smile as Slate carries her up and over, the horse's vibrance and energy reminding her of simpler times and familiar joys shared out in the countryside. "I wish I knew what to think, my friend. The wounds on Caliban were terrible, left by a mouth much larger than any bear or cat you and I have seen. Given the size of the creature, it could have crushed the chimp like a toy, but he was left alive. Girard's information, bless his heart, gave some insight into this Game we're playing, including the notion Players aren't supposed to kill one another. It leads me to believe the creature or creature's master might be playing, and are thus mindful of this rule." The athletic young woman throws her leg over the saddle as her horse slows, dropping down gracefully in a swirl of skirts near the colorful remains.
But the truce was over on the 15th, wasn't it? I thought that's what he came to warn you about. Why he quit the Game. Slate whuffles anxiously, her ears flicking from side to side as she tests the breeze.
There's more fabric caught here than Bernice had realized at first -- the tatter is a couple of feet long and a foot or so wide, although part of it has become wound around the branch. It was roughly torn asunder by whatever ripped it initially, although the tear looks like it was mostly along the grain of the fabric and at the seams. Additional holes have been poked and torn through itl whether that was at the time of the attack or by the elements afterwards is hard to say.
Dr. Townes steps over to the large piece of cloth fluttering where it's snagged, taking hold and attempting to free it for a closer look. "I think it's still frowned on to kill fellow participants. In any case, whatever might have caused the beast to show some restraint, I'd bet it's more than it seems... and it seems rather a lot." She peers at the rips and punctures, squinting at the edges for signs of burns or indications of cuts versus tears. "Whatever did this, it's frightfully powerful. Silk is strong stuff." The doctor begins casting about the clearing for other clues... indentations in the soil, broken plants, and other things she can use to track.
Freeing the silk doesn't take much time. From the marks on it, it looks more as if it was torn up along grain and seams. As if whatever it was had started with a cut or puncture, then ripped down along that rather than cutting it up, or ripping it apart by brute force against the grain. This piece has damp edges and puncture marks that might be teeth; hard to say.
Slate turns in a circle to survey the field. Are you sure you want to find this thing?
The immediate vicinity doesn't have any good indicators of a trail -- the remnants of silk seem to have been scattered all over by the wind, so they don't indicate which way the beast came or left.
"Believe you me, dear... I would like nothing better than to march right out of this field and not stop until I'm home and in bed. Possibly under the bed." Bernice fingers the edges of the fabric. "I may have made a hasty assessment, though... the cloth is torn along where it's easiest to do so. So the creature might not have had to exert that much force. Still, that'd indicate intelligence, which is a good sight more frightening in some ways." Rolling the silk up into a bundle, Townes begins roving around the clearing in a widening spiral, pausing every so often as she picks her way along.
Oh good. A smart giant monstrous beast of unknown origin. Powerful enough to crush that chimpanzee's neck, and I don't think he looked like a weakling. Is it too late to go back to Savoy? Slate follows her mistress along as the doctor searches.
Bernice chews her lip, fully aware of just how strong chimpanzees really are. "Would that we could, sweet Slate... but we're in this to the end." The doctor stalks about for a while...
After fifteen or twenty minutes, the Morgan gives a bemused whuffle. Shouldn't we be looking for traces closer to where the attack happened? Bernice looks up, noticing that she's ranged a good third of a mile from where they got the silk, without finding anything of use to go on.
Maybe her preoccupation with musing on the creature's nature has made her lose her place, or perhaps she's just been following a badger's trail, but when Slate brings Bernice out of her reverie, she wears her vexation quite clearly on her rounded face, looking both startled and a little puzzled when her head pops up from a clump of tall weeds. "Did I...? Oh, fiddlesticks. What's the matter with me? Thank you, dear, I'm glad one of us isn't backwards! I wonder if I could get a third opinion, actually."
A third opinion? Slate looks nonplussed as they return to their start point and Bernice resumes her efforts to find some sign of the strange beast. Finding the trail is a task made more difficult by the fact that she doesn't really know what she's tracking. It's also exacerbated by the number of human footprints in the area: a lot of people have been tromping around this field, probably while gathering up most of the balloon. At last, she finds one print not human -- nor that of any animal she knows. It's near the softer dirt by the river, and has been half-obliterated by a booted human stepping through it. It's a little large for a bear track, and the pad is the wrong shape. What she can make out of the shape of the pad is actually more lupine than anything else -- but it is far too large for a wolf.
"Well, here's something..." says Bernice, though she doesn't sound thrilled to have found it. Kneeling by the print, she reaches down to stretch a small, delicate hand across it, finding the span of her fingers dwarfed. "It looks canid. About the right ratio and number of toes, with non-retracting claws. But the size of it, my God..." She stands again, shouldering her rifle. "I think a pack would have left more prints, so my guess is it was alone. So probably not the huntsman's hounds." Looking back at her horse, she nods and smiles. "Yes... surely something living around here must have seen the commotion. Let's see if we can find somebody."
Slate drops her muzzle to the ground, nostrils flaring. Even those ... hounds ... in Savoy weren't this large, she whickers. Bernice didn't see any prints from those beasts at the time, but she suspects Slate's right. The hounds of the Hunt were big, but still in the realm of the plausible for a dog. Whatever this thing is, it's a monster.
The woods and fields in the area have the usual amount of wildlife: birds, mice, insects, squirrels, rabbits. With her usual patience, Bernice persuades some of these creatures to stay to chat with her. Unfortunately, most of them have memories so short as to be useless for her purposes, or so alien that they're not helpful: scent pictures that even Bernice can't translate into human language.
About the only concrete things she manages to gather are that the beast, for one, smelled more-or-less like a wolf -- not exactly a wolf, but closer to that than to any other recognizable animeals. For another, the wolf-creature was female.
Bernice tries to sort out if there were any humans present, but she can't really tell for sure from talking to the animals. It's been three days, and even the animals that remember the wolf thing remember it as 'scary thing to be avoided as soon as sighted'. No one seems to have hung around watching it. Humans had been through the area, but discussions with the witness don't make it clear whether the animals mean that the humans had been there long before, long after, or during the time that the beast was attacking Caliban.
Chatting with the locals is pleasant by itself, and though she'd hoped for something more substantial, Bernice returns to her steed's side with a couple good new facts and a bundle of savaged silk she stows in a pouch. "Well Slate, I think we've got about as much as we can here. I think it's time for a visit to the deep woods, at the least to pay our respects, and hopefully for a bit of news. Maybe we can get back to town by suppertime, we can get you something a little less bland than feed and I can break bread with the locals, maybe find out a little about that row with Mrs. Everchild."
Slate whickers, casting an eye to the horizon on the west. The sun is already closing upon it. Back in time for supper? Only if you do less communing than is your usual wont. Nonetheless, she sets off gamely enough, alternating between walking and trotting to pace herself as they had north and into the old forest.
Bernice follows Slate's gaze to the setting sun, and suppresses a laugh. "Small wonder the wild folk don't hightail it when they see me coming by now. 'It's the chatterbox! Run!'" She pats Slate's side, grinning. "I'll try to make it short. We'll not be out too much after dark, if I have my druthers."
As usual, when they enter beneath the boughs of the old oaks, maples, walnuts, and other leafed trees, sounds take on a muffled cast. It's as if the canopy of brilliant red and orange leaves cancels out noise, leaving the travellers in silence. Even Slate's hooves do not crunch as she trods through fallen leaves. She's slowed to a walk now, perhaps because they're at their destination, or perhaps out of a kind of reverence.
The feeling in the air is different this time from their last visit. There's still a tension in the air, expectancy or feer. but this time, Bernice doesn't feel like that tension is surrounding her, specifically. Instead, she finds the woods putting her at ease. The silence feels welcoming, enveloping her in its protective cloak. She and Slate do not stand out. They belong. A light breeze blows down from the north, refreshing even though the day is cool.
Bernice's being slips among the myriad entities that weave into the ancient stand of trees like a raindrop landing in a puddle, and her mind opens to the forest around her, the awkward and out of place feeling that hovers around her in town draining away as she lets the peace and silence in surrounding her in. The layer of tension above it isn't ignored. "I think things have been happening," Bernice murmurs, both to herself and to the woods, and she kicks a foot out a stirrup to drop herself quietly to the leafy ground.
The stillness of the forest is so powerful that Bernice has to wonder if could've landed noisly had she tried. The north wind whispers to her, (Change is in the air.)
(But we remain,) comes a counterpoint from the south.
The doctor nods soberly. "It's as I feared. I've learned much since last I came here, and the more I learn, the more questions appear. The new moon's set things into motion, and a dangerous game is afoot now, agents of change beginning to meet and clash. The victor may well determine what happens here."
Ahead of them, the great oak of the Still Forest rises. It's a majestic giant, centuries if not millenia old and stalwart. It speaks to her: This place
(will not) says the south.
(Change,) finishes the north.
Bernice acknowledges the medley's assertion with another nod as she walks beneath the stretching boughs of the forest's heart, stepping amongst leaves and acorns. "Has much transpired here? I've met some of these agents, these Players, and I've been trying to find out what they're up to. As time grows short, I've been taking riskier gambits. One of the people trying to Open the way has given in and gone on his way. He's also told me of some powerful entity he called the Hill, something that seems able to steal minds."
We are the Still Forest. Time does not grow short for us, the oak says. (We endure,) adds the southern voice.
(Hills are older than trees, but even the Hill knows change coming,) comes carried by the north wind. (An axe will kill a tree is quickly as a man. We are not immune to time.)
The young woman tilts her head. "You know the Hill, then? What is it? And though you'll endure, is there something I can help with, something that concerns you? I felt it when I came here..."
It is nothing. We will outlast this, too.
(We know the Hill, more than we would like. It has been here before even us, but it is not benign. Men worshipped it once for its power, but to their cost. It devours souls. Beware,) the north warns.
(Whom we would protect, we would keep from the Hill,) adds the south.
Bernice touches her chin thoughtfully. "I know two men who approached it, and I'm not sure what their reasons were. It cost them dearly. I'd like to stay well clear of it, but has anything stood as proof against it? If people seek its power, then perhaps its power should come to an end."
Others have thought the same, and sought to destroy the Hill. They are gone now. The oak's branches stretch against the sky, the setting sun lighting its fall plumage in a blaze of orange and yellow fire. But the Hill remains.
(We keep from the Hill, and we remain.)
Bernice mulls these thoughts over solemnly. "And were there some that weilded its power? Are they gone now? If none can claim it, then I'd just as soon leave it well enough alone. I want no part of the thing." The doctor tips her head back to watch the fading sun's rays play amidst the oak's crown, enjoying the splendor but reminding herself that while the forest may be timeless, she isn't. She'll have to go soon. "There's a woman with a white cat... she's been finding stones from various places, and building piles of curious things here and there in places of strange power. Have you seen what she's up to? Has she disturbed you at all?"
(There are three who went,) the north wind whispers, as she asks of the Hill. (And three remain.)
The oak's leaves shift in the wind. Unresolved. The events of a moment ago cannot be seen as complete, nor as examples.
(And yet ... three remain).
(And two of those have already fled. The Hill shall outlast these ones, too,) the south says. (We know of your woman and her cat. She wished to bring her magic here, but we rejected it. We will not be drawn into your mortal Game.)
Bernice nods, dropping her fist into her palm. "Good. She must have notions like... like Girard did." It takes the doctor a moment to get past thoughts of the frenchman and focus on the important thing. "She intends to Open the way, I'm sure of it. Her magic is dangerous, isn't it? I considered wiping away the ... thing she made, but I don't understand the power it sat over." Three survived the hill... Horus and Girard... and Hale remains. A chat with the Reverend has become that much more priority.
(She Plays.) The south is cold, like the coming of winter.
Opener, Closer, it is all the same to us. We will remain when your Game is ended, the oak says, stalwart. We will not be drawn in.
(So we think (wish) (hope). That it is not our Game.) The north wind ruffles Bernice's hair.
(It is not our Game,) echoes the south, but with conviction.
Bernice's auburn locks flutter with the north wind, briefly mimicking the fall foliage above her. Though the south current washes cool across her, she doesn't flinch away from it. "It's true... I realize that now, I understand better. You do not Play, that is for we ephemeral things to do. You can effect it, however. I'm a pair of hands that belong to you, became yours when you accepted me, that you didn't have before. You can will them."
The stillness deepens, as the voices of the forest silence. Bernice senses they've withdrawn from her, but she's not sure if they've truly quieted, or if their speech continues on some plane she cannot perceive.
Bernice simply settles to the forest floor and stretches out in the leaf litter. She lays back and pillows her head on her hands, looking up through the canopy above as the sunlight dwindles. Rolling her head a little, she casts a glance over to Slate, offering the horse a reassuring smile. "We might not get back in time, but I'll still fix us a nice dinner."
Slate whuffles and tosses her mane. I want a nice currying out of this, too, she negotiates.
The doctor laughs lightly. "You drive a hard bargain, as always. I promise, I'll give you a good working over." She lets her head roll back so her green eyes can return to the canopy, watching the sunlight creep away.
Slate noses at the leaves in search of anything tasty to nibble at. A quarter of an hour later, she's nipping at a half-buried patch of clover, while the elongated shadows blend together when the sun disappears entirely behind the trees of the far horizon. The voices of the Forest remain silent still.
Bernice stretches, then brushes off some leaves that settled across her, clicking her tongue at her horse. "I suppose it's time for us to be on our way, Slate," she says, gaining her feet and then stretching a few more kinks out. "Elders, if you can hear me, I'll return soon. If you have a task for me, I'll attend to it."
The forest makes no reply as Slate returns to her mistress's side and Dr. Townes mounts her. It's not until they are almost to the edge of the forest that she finally hears the northern voice again. (Return soon,) it whispers. (And explain again to us why you Play, Closer. We will listen then.)