Excerpt from Alexan’s Seventh Journal, Tour of the Small and the Strange.

Gnomish eyes are so pretty. The colour of their irises are a function of what sort of mana they possess, but it doesn’t take away from how they look.

Possessors of wind get a brilliant blue with flecks of yellow. Water-aspected have deep bluish-green. Fire grants rich red eyes that glitter like gemstones, and earth seeds give a deep golden brown. Light and dark mana seem to be a bit more rare, but are no less pretty. White gives a look like mother of pearl, rippling faintly with rainbow light. Dark mana gives irises that are black, but glitter with speckles of white that almost look like stars.

Heterochromatic eyes are rather rare, but interesting in their own right. What gets to be really pretty is with the very rare Gnome who comes to possess three colours, like my friend Krish.

Unnamed Tal

Perkay stopped at yet another junction of tunnels, holding up a disk with a floating needle that pointed which way to go, eventually. Perkay just had to wait for the needle to pick a direction. With Easil’s injury, he was no longer able to give them an idea of the airflow, seeking the free-flowing open and avoiding stagnant areas.

Nolsa could have done the same, but her spellcasting was slower than Perkay’s disk. The needle bounced around for a moment before settling on the left path and they started moving once again.

Tal’s eyes kept drifting to the head of the shadow hawk just poking out of Perkay’s backpack. It still hadn’t woken up. When asked about it earlier, Perkay had only replied with two words. “Needs recharging.”

“So why didn’t the Gnomes contact us the first time we came down here?” Tal asked, just trying to distract himself. He really wanted to talk to the sentinel, but that apparently wasn’t going to happen quite yet.

“How long were you here, and where ‘here’ were you?” Perkay asked, annoyance creeping into his voice. “Did you perhaps stop by and knock on their door?”

“Well, no,” Tal started to reply.

Layessa cut him off before he could continue. “Don’t be silly, you were into the roots before we even got word of your escape.”

“Oh yeah, sorry, the days sorta blurred together,” Tal admitted.

The flap on Tal’s back was tucked against his back, the rucksack left open for Easil to breath. When Easil wasn’t injured, he and Layessa were able to get away with crouching on top of everything packed into the ruck sack. With Easil hurt, Tal and Layessa had moved things around to hold Easil still and comfortable. It was a bit tight for the two Gnomes in the pack now, with Easil resting securely on his back.

Layessa had actually wiggled down into the pack so she was ‘standing’ next to Easil where she could look after him.

“Pwah, that’s not good,” Perkay complained.

“What is wrong?” Nolsa asked.

“Oh, ugh,” Tal grunted as it caught him next.

“Ah,” Nolsa said as she realized what was bothering them. The smell of the rot had made its way to each of them in turn.

“Do we head back?” Tal asked.

Perkay shook his head. “Maybe. We will see how bad it is, then make that decision.”

Turned out, it was pretty bad.

The solid wood of the tunnel had given away to a pulpy, sodden mass. Not that it was consistent. Some varieties of wood had dried out and turned brittle. Most had turned into a soft mass that stank to the heavens, while some other patches had turned into expanding colonies of white spores. Whole sections of the tunnel had fallen away and there was even a gap that allowed the faint white light of the barrier in. The rot continued as far as they could see, the degradation following the tunnel around a far curve.

There was no way it would be safe to traverse this space.

At first Perkay’s decision had confused Tal. He’d thought the old Erlkin just hadn’t wanted to sacrifice the progress they had made, yet once he’d caught the scent, Perkay had moved past two separate forks in the tunnels without a second glance.

Now it was clear that the craftsman had wanted to see the rot personally. Perkay knelt at the edge of the rot, inspecting the dividing line between healthy and dying wood with intense concentration. His left hand rested on the wood just touching the edge of it while his right hand hung from the cane.

“How old are you Tal?” Perkay asked suddenly.

“Just over sixteen years,” Tal answered.

“Hmn,” Perkay grunted, watching the wood for several more moments before moving. Finally he stood and turned to face them. “I’ve seen what I need to see, let’s go back to the first fork after we got a whiff of the rot.”

“What is it you needed to see?” Nolsa asked.

“The rot’s movin’ faster with every generation of chosen,” Perkay answered. “That walking blight think’s he’s got nearly forever ahead of him, but this tree is goin’ to rot into mulch while he’s lost in his illusions.”

“You’ve been watching it? The rot?” Tal asked.

Perkay turned his head sideways as he replied, letting Tal see his sour expression. “Yes, I have. Been watching it for as long as I’ve been alive. I was always lookin’ for the best wood, makes sense I’d be the one to find the worst of it.”

“The patches don’t seem any larger?” Nolsa questioned. “You’re not that much older than myself, and while I haven’t seen it, I often speak with the foragers.”

“The foragers are Gnomes,” Perkay replied. “They’ll see two generations of chosen, maybe three. I’ve been watching for over four hundred years. There is also a second difference that makes it harder to spot.”

“A second difference?” Nolsa asked.

“The rot is deeper now. Thicker, heavier and stinkier,” Perkay laughed as he said it, but there was no mirth to his voice. “When I was a young kid with not a patch of darkness to my fur, you could still walk through the rot. It would sink under your hooves, but that tunnel we left behind just now would have carried our weight. Now you’d slip through it like you were standing on parchment! Only strands of hardwood roots keep it all from collapsing and falling to the barrier.”

“Can I ask you something, Perkay?” Tal interrupted.

“Don’t ask me if you can ask, just spit it out, Human,” Perkay said with annoyance.

Tal still hesitated, but he’d already gone too far to stop. “Why didn’t you help the other chosen?”

The old craftsman stopped, his cane striking the wood hard as he paused. He didn’t look back, but Tal could see the old male’s shoulders rise and fall as he took a deep breath.

“Boy,” Perkays started, “there’s no use in helping someone who won't help themself.”

“That there’s the Twist.”

Tal jerked as Perkay spoke for the first time since Tal had asked about the other chosen. He’d almost fallen asleep while walking!

The rest in the little alcove in which they’d slept hadn’t been long. On top of just how long they’d spent running before Perkay had saved them, Tal and Nolsa were still exhausted, and Easil was still in need of dedicated care.

Perkay had brought them to an open walkway to make it this far, into a root tunnel that was missing its top half. It gave them a better view of the free hanging roots under the trunk at least, better than their first escape into the roots. The curved bottom of the remaining root created a secure road through the network of the roots of the Hollow Home.

Tal and Nolsa looked where Perkay was pointing, his cane held into the air to indicate their destination.

The Twist was a good name for it. Located near the central root that extended straight down from the trunk above, the Twist was a junction of several tendrils that twisted and turned to create a giant knotted ball of wood.

“How do we get there?” Tal asked.

“We step up here,” Perkay replied, stepping into a natural-looking gap in the curved wall of the wooden half-pipe. He walked over the edge of the tunnel wall and stepped on a smaller tendril of wood that wound its way haphazardly towards the Twist.

“That’s barely wide enough to walk on!” Tal complained. “Will it even hold our weight?”

“Oh, it’s maze wood,” Perkay answered, walking along the tendril with care, but no hesitation. “Stuff is like iron with a little nurturing, even if it won’t take dark mana. It’ll carry our weight just fine.”

Nolsa smiled at Tal as she stepped past. “It’s probably an easier walk for the Gnomes, we’ll just have to be careful.” She stepped into the same gaps Perkay had used and walked out into the open, following the old Erlkin along the twisting path.

Tal swallowed the lump in his throat and climbed onto after them.

And found it surprisingly stable. Tal could feel what might have been a slight shiver of footsteps from the three of them, but was so solid he could have just been imagining it. It was also difficult to see at a glance, but the top of the root was actually flat. He could see the natural wood grain, but it lacked the usual dips and bumps that Tal had to deal with just about anywhere in the tree that wasn’t settled.

Tal kept his eyes on the path, careful to mind his balance and his pace. At least he didn’t feel tired anymore, not with his heart thumping with fear. The tangle of roots under him didn’t exactly ease Tal’s fears.

“Hey Perkay, if I fall into the barrier, what happens to me?” Tal found himself asking, the words coming out on their own.

“Oh, you don’t want to do that,” Perkay answered, his tone jovial, as if he was enjoying himself! “We have records of tryin’ to push or grow things into the barrier with wood magic. I helped make those records! Never underestimate how effective a tree can be at diggin’ its roots into things!”

“And what happened?” Tal pushed.

“Oh, once the tree got far enough, the barrier pushed back!” Perkay answered. “It was quite a show, seeing the light bulge out and gobble that tree up until only a rotting stump was left. Watchin’ the process is what gave me the idea for how to age things like the glider, amazing what you can learn by payin’ attention! Doesn’t work on people, fortunately enough. Not sure why.”

Tal stared at the Erlkin in horror.

Perkay wasn’t paying Tal any mind. Instead he was rubbing his chin with his left hand, lost in thought. “Funny now that I think about it, that rot was much the same as what we see in the tree nowadays.” He shrugged as the moment passed and continued on his way.

Nolsa laughed quietly, the sound cheering him up. “More than you wanted to know, Tal?”

“Yeah,” Tal admitted, “it was.”

That elicited another laugh from Nolsa.

Nothing more was said as they traversed the relatively narrow top of the root, winding their way around until they arrived at a curve that rested against the Twist. Right in front of them was a junction of three roots twisting around themselves, but Tal couldn’t see anything that suggested a way through.

“This is it?” Tal asked.

Perkay had a hand over his mouth as he inspected the wood. His head shifted left and right until he seemed to spot what he was looking for. Satisfied, Perkay raised his cane and tapped on a slight dimple in the wood.

“Knock, knock,” Perkay said quietly, mostly to himself.

There was no immediate reaction, but Perkay didn’t seem to be in a rush. He waited, so Tal and Nolsa waited.

And waited a bit more.

Tal opened his mouth and took a breath, but before he could speak, there was a dull, muffled clunk.

Tal’s mouth continued to hang open as the juncture of three huge pieces of wood opened outwards, resembling the opening petals of a flower bud. Tal hadn’t been able to see the seams of the door at all.

A little old Gnomish woman stood on the floor just inside the door. Her hair was done up in a tiny bun and her face was as wrinkled as they came. Her eyes however had not dulled with age; she looked up at them with the bright red of her irises standing out like gemstones.

“Come in! Come in!” She waved at them, taking several steps to move to the side as she waved at them. “Old Perkay and our present chosen, you are welcome to this place! And Teacher Nolsa as well, I’ve heard of you! Be a dear and give me a lift would you? These old bones don’t like moving so much anymore.”

End Chapter