Willing Prey
All was quiet in the forest of Oniren. Streams of golden sunlight were caught and brushed by soft leaves before finally falling to earth to illuminate a tiny beetle or mushroom. The trees ran as thick as eye could see, fading into a deep green shadow or sloping off into hill or valley. Stray particles danced lazily among the trunks, flirting with the sunlight as if it were a game to be caught while no one was looking. A bird warbled a pure note and suddenly took off, flapping wings echoing harshly through the sleepy forest. The bird screeched a cry of horror as it swept above the treeline, a warning to all in the area. A moment of silence passed, then a faint, wet groan. A crackle of branches. Then another groan. A traveler passing by the forest path would have seen a pair of glowing eyes glare out from the underbrush, then vanish. Monsters were afoot.
The creature finally emerged, scowling against the sunlight, shielding its eyes with a rotten, bulbous hand. Its fanged maw drooled constantly, trailing acidic spittle behind its shambling feet. The wind changed and the creature paused. It sniffed once, twice, then rotated its head in a northeasterly direction. There was its desire.
A huge yew tree stood in the center of a clearing, surrounded by buzzing insects and chirping birds. There was even a stag nibbling on some grass near the base. The only unnatural thing about this haven of nature was a series of ropes and pulleys draped over the tree’s thick branches.
The shambler approached the tree, hunger rising with its speed. The stag, alarmed, bounded off through a thicket, as the birds repeated the cry their brother had made minutes before. Only a few of the insects remained to try and make an easy meal of the creature’s unkempt filth. The creature ignored them. Time was of the essence.
When it reached the base, the creature looked round as if expecting a way of entrance. It clawed futilely at the yew bark as if hoping to uncover a hidden doorway. To its surprise, the ropes creaked above in response. A piece of carved stump that had blended in to the rest of the tree shuddered and was lowered by the vines suspending it. When it reached the bottom, it made a easy platform to stand on. The creature examined it for traps briefly. Deciding that the person who had lowered it genuinely thought the creature was a friend, the creature lifted a stinking foot and clambered onto the platform. As soon as it was on, the counterweight lumber activated and the creature was lifted gently upward.
The platform came to a halt at a seemingly random point. It was only through careful inspection that the creature was able to spot a thick branch that had vines tied onto it as a safety rail. The branch wound round the tree partway, vanishing into the depths of its thick trunk. The creature paced the perimeter of the path carefully, wanting to go unnoticed by the inhabitant of the tree for as long as possible. It peered into the mouth of the entrance. With its diseased eyes, it could only see a few shelves filled with bottles, lit by beeswax candle. It crossed the threshold, eyes darting across every shadow. The inside revealed more of the same: candles, shelves, and bottles. The bottles were each labeled with a handwritten symbol or word denoting their contents. Some were filled with seeds, some what looked like honey or swamp muck. Others had various organs inside, or viscous liquids. One or two looked like plain water, and the largest label of all was attached to a bottle that looked completely empty. The creature shuffled further inside, passing row after row, until it spied a small figure with its back to the entrance, grinding some dried-up something into powder. Hunger intensifying to the point of pain, the creature lurched forward, drooling all over the slick floor. It reached out for the figure, who turned around at the last second and screamed. It was a little elf girl, scarcely eight or nine years old, with shining blue eyes and deep brown skin that was further dyed by dozens of mixtures. The girl tried to block the attack with her arm, but the creature merely grasped the limb with ragged claws and sank its teeth into the fabric and flesh. The girl let out a bloodcurdling cry and struggled to escape, the fabric tearing.
The creature merely bit down harder, feeling the sweet taste of... what was that? The girl tore herself away--literally tore, leaving her own arm dangling out of the creature’s mouth--and reached out for a crook-ended staff. The girl spread her cloak, revealing both arms whole and well, and rolled behind the creature. Enraged and confused, the creature dropped the fake arm, but before it could spit out what it had taken into its mouth, the crook of the staff curved round the back of its head. The tip hovered inches from the creature’s nose. It had been dipped into something that smelled vaguely flowery. Bloodlust subsiding, the creature’s eyes relaxed. It stretched its jaws open in a yawn--and the crook of the staff jabbed into its mouth. The creature shook its head vigorously, but it couldn’t stop most of the fake-arm filling from being forced down its throat. It swallowed, dully noting that it had swallowed some of the flowery stuff as well. Suddenly, its entire head felt stuffy and warm. It stumbled, throwing out an arm, them collapsed onto the floor. The elf girl waltzed over to its prone form, standing over its decayed flesh. “Nice to meet you. My name’s Decanta.” the girl said, beaming. The creature burbled uselessly. Its will to move was spent. “I’ll ask for your name once the medicine has taken full effect. In the meantime, I’d like to thank you for your cooperation today, this could have been much more painful for both of us.” She shook her arm slightly. “Also, sorry about the mucky floor. I’ve had a lot of customers with your problem lately, and I simply haven’t had the time to clean.”
The creature was feeling very warm all over, almost as though it was burning from the inside. It flapped its limbs as its skin started to flake off and dissolve, turning into the same goop that was coating the floor. Color returned to the creature’s eyes, and the skin underneath the diseased grime shone with health. As the last of the infection was flushed out of the body, Decanta grabbed a hand and pulled the creature--now a man--upward. He rubbed his eyes and flung the last bits of decay off his hands.
“H--Hi,” he gasped, breathing deeply as if he had been locked in a coffin.
“Hi,” Decanta deadpanned. “You’re looking a bit better. Now what shall I call you, now that we’ve been so memorably acquainted?”
“Hufur. Hufur is my name.” Without the layer of stench, he had watery blue eyes and a round, honest face.
“I like that name.” Decanta grabbed Hufur’s hand once more and shook it briefly.
“What--what happened to me?”
“Not sure yet. It seems to be an infection spreading round this forest. I was hoping that you could tell me where you may have picked it up.”
Hufur searched his recovering memories for several seconds. “I was trying to get home from the market. It was getting dark and I decided to risk cutting through the swamp. I thought for sure that I would be robbed or attacked by monsters. I never thought I’d turn into a monster myself.”
“The swamp, eh?” Decanta scooped up a bit of slime from the floor with a spoon and dumped it into the swamp water jar. It floated at the surface, foaming. “You’re not the only afflicted person to have been in that area. Lots of strange things breed there, and not all of them stick to their own food group.”
“Do you think it’s a new disease?”
“Let me put it this way. If it’s a disease, it’s one I’ve never heard of. And that is very rare. I’ve been a healer for a very long time, and I’ve found a cure for everything from zits to decapitation, but nothing like this.”
“Do you charge for your services? As I said, I just came from market, and I owe you nothing less than my life.” Hufur excitedly turned out his pockets, but they were empty. Branches and swamp rot had taken most of his pants, and all of his money had fallen out.
“I charge whatever the person is willing to pay,” the child said. “In your case, a direction to look for the root of the problem is the most valuable thing I could have asked for. Besides,” she said, winking, “I have a feeling most of the coins will find their way to me anyway. Almost everything in the forest does. Come back when you want your hard-earned cash--or a new pair of pants.”
Hufur blushed, standing upright and moving toward the door.
“I must return to my family. Thank you so much, young girl. I will never forget this.”
“Nor I, Hufur. You seem a very nice man. Go home and rest.”
Hufur stumbled out of the exit, human feet retracing the steps he had taken as a monster. Decanta hooked her staff on a vine and pulled to release the platform. It would fall onto the ground and allow Hufur to go out the way he came--though hopefully he knew better than to go through the swamp a second time in a row. She settled back onto her desk, thin limbs perched on the chair like a bird.
“Nothing like this,” she muttered, and emptied a bottle over her shoulder. The clear liquid turned to steam as soon as it hit the floor, carrying the muck away on clouds that billowed out the door.
“Princess Nabla...” She said, allowing her smile to drop into a scowl for the first time, “What are you up to?”