13. Chapter 13:
Chapter 13:
As we came closer an closer to the lake, I began to notice that it seemed almost as if the things that were following us around grew larger in number, the sound of their scurrying and the sheer destruction they left behind in their way growing increasingly greater and greater as the seconds flowed past, and we came closer to the lake.
As we ran, I asked Foxglove whether she knew anything about these rodents. "Why are they following us? Do they work for the conglomerate?" I asked, expecting her to say that they did.
"Not really. They have made themselves into mercenaries, Their colonies are almost like mills, churning out different types of fighting mice to supply whichever side pays them the most." she said, looking around her to see tens of tiny eyes reflecting the rising sun around us.
"What do they get paid in?" I asked, suddenly interested in this strange system, I told myself that I would write down these facts in my notebook if ever I got the chance, because I had begun to exercise the urge I had always had to learn more about the world around me. "Seeds, and grain, mainly, thought they do accept meat and fish and certain rare herbs or fungi. Terrible little things. We used to have a small brigade of them fighting with the weasels, paid in fish. Once the conglomerate paid them more than us, they killed the entire camp the very next night, the soldiers that they had been fighting with for a yearn or so. No loyalty. Disgusting creatures." Foxglove said, sneering as the described the rats and mice.
"Can we try and convince them to let us go? What do you think?" I said, excited by the possibility that we might not be in as much danger as I thought. "No. They tend to work in a series of contracts, telling them how long they need to do their master's bidding before staying on or switching sides - our great mistake was that we did noty give them a contract, and we gave them the payment first." She went silent, and began running in front of me, making it seem as if she was determined to defeat the mice, who seemed to have done so much wrong to her.
Once night fell again, the rustling of the woods around us made the very air feel as alive as ever, the air shaking and pulsing with the beat of hundreds of feet and the swish of hundreds of tails. Suddenly, I bumped into what seemed to be a wall that came out of nowhere in front of me while running. Foxglove was next.
We stopped, and tried to get to the other, but were pulled apart by whatever force had taken us. I heard those distinct squeaking sounds in my ears and I soon realised what had happened.
I felt the feet pitter around on my skin, and the little hands, almost like miniature versions of my own hold down my legs and make it almost unbearably hard for me to lift them. Suddenly, we were moving, the wind rushing towards my face at a startling speed, and I noticed that the ground was rushing past so fast it almost looked as if it was not moving at all. behind me, I saw Foxglove, held down by hundreds of rodents too, bearing their long incisors at me when I looked at them, their eyes a ghostly pale grey, reflecting what little light there was back into my eyes, like tiny beacons signifying some sort of malign force.
As the mice and rats beneath me began to decelerate, I found myself in a large clearing in the woods, piles of logs stacked quietly in the corner of the broadly rectangular clearing, and the cutting itself looking relatively recent. I was taken to a strange looking structure in the centre of the tent, where the heady fumes and artificial darkness immediately knocked me into a strange and restless sleep, that I could possibly hope to resist. I t felt as if I had a fever, yet, I was cold and my skin did not sweat at all.
The next time I opened my eyes, I saw Foxglove asleep next to me, twisting and turning every few minutes in a ways that suggested that something was going on inside of her head. Her eyes swirled wildly behind her eyelids, and I feared that some sort of deathly illness had come upon her. I shook her by the shoulder, trying as hard as I could to wake her. After a while, she awoke, opening her eyes and looking around ion bewilderment. "What should we do?" she asked, bringing her head closer to mine so that nobody else could possibly hope to hear what she had said to me.
"I think we should try to reason with out captors, they haven't killed us, so they may want something from us." I suggested, still unsure that it was a good idea, even though it was the best out of a few options I had considered.
"ok then, help me up." i pulled her up to standing, and she checked herself for any injuries and then instructed me to do the same. She then took a big whiff of the air around her and contemplated it.
"some sort of hynoherb was used to send us to sleep. They are notoriously bad for actual sleep, but can knock you out very easily, especially if you are already tired." she said, beginning to walk towards the only exit we had.
The room around us was a deep mauve, gilded in gold and with silver dangling elements scattered around the room. It seemed strangely mystical, and it made me incredibly uncomfortable. What it reminded me the most of was a small fortune-teller's tent I had seen back when I was young, and I guessed because of the heady fumes around me that whoever had had us brought here was not exactly the most conventional of people to say the least. The door itself was a grand, pleated thing made out of a fold between two curtains that had ben sewn together using some sort of brilliant blue metallic thread. it slid open to the sides, on hinged made of cloth, and we walked into a small atrium, the top of the tent billowing out as the wind blew over it, and the echoes of our footsteps travelling a short distance before being absorbed into the soft folds of the walls. The walls here were scarlet, and even more building-jewellery hung around us. I dared not take any of it, even though I knew we were surely alone because I was afraid of what may happen if they found out. It was only even more terrifying because I did not know who they were. I would soon find out.
"Do you think we are alone?" I asked Foxglove, trusting in her more innate responses to situations.
"No, of course not. Something is watching us. I just can't shake the feeling that I almost know what it is. It is so similar, aargh." she said, trying to catch the thought that was quickly slipping away from her by squeezing her eyes shut and racking her mind.
We heard a soft swishing sound, and saw that what we had thought to be a wall was actually just a curtain, and it was being pulled apart, enlarging the room, as well as letting in more light and scent.
The scent itself was somewhere between some exotic spice, and the warm friendliness of warm bread. I was put immediately at a conflicting ease. I knew that I should be alert and definitely not relax - I could not afford to be relaxing, the situation was too dangerous - but I could not help myself.
I glanced towards Foxglove, who was looking at me with a fiery intensity I had never seen before. I got back to my senses, and tries to peek around the slowly opening curtain to see what was being revealed. Small grey mice streamed out, and surrounded us, preventing us from leaving.
Once the curtain was open, I was able to see what was behind it. The entire area was swarming with a variety of small mammals and birds, every surface infested with tiny maggots and beetles which these creatures ate. In a large wooden cage at the front of the area sat two dejected looking foxes and a war-torn stoat, looking at each other silently. I was bewildered - where were we? At the back of the area, I saw another pair of curtains, held together with small clips made of beetle pincers and with purple plumes of smoke emanating out of the gaps that remained.
A large rat scampered up to me, and motioned for me to follow it. Foxglove was also told to come with me. As we weaved past hordes of small creatures, rushing this way and that, climbing, falling and digging everywhere, making up or their short lives by doing everything at double speed, their hearts racing just as fast as their minds, moving their paws here and there to try and make the most of the time they have alive. As I looked down at them, I saw a multitude of tiny fights and many short stories playing out before my eyes. I saw a small scuffle between voles, using rocks as hand-axes. I saw two beautifully feathered warblers singing at a lone female, trying to court her passions with their high trills and melodies. On a ledge filled with bottles of various shapes and colours sat a squirrel, carefully peeling an acorn for its child.
The rat led us to the curtain, and scampered in, leaving us waiting outside. "What do you think is behind the curtain?" I asked Foxglove, naively expecting her to be able to tell me what awaited us. "Something I cannot quite tell apart from the world around it - some strange perversion of the separation of life and death, for it reeks of decay and death while also seemingly walking alive, as alive as you or me." she said gravely.
The rat hurried back out again, and unclipped the curtain, placing the clips on its ear for safekeeping. The curtain were pulled apart, and we were ushered into the inky darkness.
Inside, a night-black raven stood on a small stool behind a desk. On the desk, there was a large black pot, with a maroon liquid held inside. Near the raven, stood a strangely familiar crow. Foxglove looked the crow straight in its milky-white eyes, "I think we have met before." she said. "Ah! Yes. All Three of them are here," the crow said, echoing his earlier cryptic sentiment. "I will let Fa Raven do the rest." he said, walking back towards the raven on the stool, and hopped off of the table, and tottered out of the area, closing the curtains as he exited.
"Look at me." The raven said, its voice so low I barely heard it and more felt it every time it opened its mouth. A rough, gravelly texture seemed to be present in the corvid's mouth, and Fa Raven seemed as if they had much power, and were not afraid to use it to accomplish anything and everything they desired.
I looked at the raven intensely, its eyes the same milky white as the crow's, and its feathers iridescent in the candlelight. What was most noticeable, however, was the fact that their body was rotting. A wing had a large hole in it, in which many small insects seemed to feed at all times, Fa Raven's beak was cracked along one of the sides, and the flesh of Fa Raven's chest left the heart exposed to the air, the entire sternum having been eroded away by years of decay. Fa Raven's heart seemed to beat at a rhythm both too slow and too unpredictable for what I would have thought possible for a living creature, but Foxglove's statement made me weary of what Fa Raven might actually be.
"That crow told me about you." They said, looking in turn from me to Foxglove and back. They stirred the mixture with a spoon seemingly made from the bones of a deer, and tasted some, pouring the gelatinous mixture into their decaying beak and letting it run down to the throat.
"Now all three are here. We shall begin. I have some things to say." Fa Raven almost had a mischievous glint in their eye when they said this, and it made me inexplicable nervous.
"There are only two of us here, Fa Raven." I said, trying to correct them. "But I see three." they said, looking at me. I wondered whether his eyesight was just as bad as the other crow's or whether this was some sort of drawn out joke, used to wear us down before the conglomerate killed us. If it was, it was a terrible one.
"There are only two, Fa Raven," Foxglove piped in, "Stuvlok here, and me - Foxglove. Otter and halfling." She tried to motion to herself and I, but the knowing smile on Fa Raven's face did not change. It unnerved me to no end. I heard the crow cackling somewhere far away, and I began to feel a deep pit of anger boiling away somewhere near my lungs, and getting ready to erupt if this continued.
Fa Raven rummaged around near them, and found a small packet of something, wrapped in Ghili Leaves and tied together with a thin rope. "Eat it, Stuvlok, And you will know."
I really had no other choice, so I carefully untied the rope, the knot slipping away under my fingers, I raised the moist leaf folds up and away, and a small object fell into my lap. it was a sea-like blue, and had the texture of packed sand. I placed it in my mouth, and began to chew, the coarse grains rubbing against my teeth. It did not taste of much, but did leave a distinctly bitter aftertaste I could not quite place.
The raven leaned over to me, and put its opaque eye to my eye. I was frozen with terror. I did not dare to move while the raven looked into my eyes. As quickly as Fa Raven had come, they went away, and I was left dazed and scared. I looked to Foxglove, who seemed just as bewildered.
"You have two inside of you." The Raven said, pointing at me with their wing. "What do you mean by that?" I said, desperate for some sort of answer to explain what was happening to me.
"I think you already know." Fa Raven said, looking at me with those pale eyes.
"I do not think I do." I said.
"Stuvlok," The Raven said, "There is a Witch inside of you,"