Even the edge of Greenelk Forest turned out to be denser than the Brightspring Wood where I’d met Serru—the trees were closer together, and the ground under and around them was thick with pnts of varying sizes, including berry bushes offering fruit of a number of colours. There were even bushes other than that, and other greenery I could actually think of as underbrush. For the first time, I saw whole fallen trees here and there, not just branches.

  Serru and I stayed close enough to each other that we could hear each other calling Aryennos’ name. She could see my light, as well, though she preferred a lumina stone that was dimmer than her best one and tinted faintly blue-green. She might have a point: mine threw odd dark shadows around, which made me uncharacteristically uneasy for no reason I could bring to mind. I finally brought up my spell interface again and re-cast the light spell at about half the mana, which made it less bright. The lower contrast helped.

  Serru’s voice changed—instead of just his name, I heard her call, “Where are you? Are you hurt? Nathan! This way!”

  I hadn’t heard anything, but she obviously had. I angled in that direction, as quickly as I could while still paying attention to my footing.

  As I got closer to Serru, I caught the faint sound of Aryennos’ voice. He was singing, in fact, which wasn’t at all a bad idea for giving us a way to track him. I met up with Serru, and together we closed in.

  Serru’s arm barred me from taking another step, even as she halted herself. “There are no trees ahead. There has to be a reason for that.” She brought out her staff and prodded at the ground with the pointed end.

  I looked ahead. There was a broad irregurly-shaped clearing devoid of trees, though several kinds of low leafy pnts grew there in abundance. In the centre was a mound of rocks that was probably higher than my head—and in this form, that was higher than usual.

  “It’s an earthke,” Serru said with a sigh.

  “A what?”

  “The ground is very soft—you’ll sink in it. I don’t know how far down the bedrock is, but it’s far enough to be problematic, difficult to escape, and possibly lethal. There’s a path under the surface, it must go all the way across if Aryennos made it, but the only way to find it is by feeling for it. Stay immediately behind me, please—and this might be wiser with two feet and less weight, even if that means you lose your light spell.”

  “Gotcha.” I brought up the interface and switched back to my human self. On the open ground under the moonlight, I didn’t feel any immediate need for the lumina stone somewhere in my backpack, even though my light vanished. In fact, Serru tucked hers away so she could use both hands on her staff.

  It took us an agonizingly long time to get across. There were two gaps in the narrow invisible path that had required a leap of faith and a bit of a stretch, but we made it without any major incidents, only an occasional small slip and grabbing each other for bance.

  We stepped onto the rocks cautiously, but they were solid.

  “Oh, good,” Serru said in relief. “This must extend down to the bedrock. And Aryennos’ voice is coming from here. This way, I think?”

  We circled around the rocks, as his voice grew louder. Serru finally halted again.

  “Aryennos? Where are you?”

  “Cave,” he called back. “Halfway up.”

  Serru eyed the rocks, which could not in any reasonable sense be called a slope rather than a heap, and heaved a sigh. “I suppose we can’t just leave him to the consequences of his own actions,” she muttered. “Honestly, if he didn’t remind me of my brother...”

  “As long as those rocks don’t shift,” I said, “we should be able to make it. It’s not going to be a fun climb, but there’s lots of moonlight.”

  We had to help each other frequently. The rocks were identical at each respective size, but that didn’t mean their shapes were regur, or that they were all oriented the same way. We were both out of breath from the mad scramble by the time I spotted a dark gap that I figured could probably be called a cave. I pointed it out; Serru nodded.

  “Lindwurm nest, likely,” she panted.

  “What, now?”

  “Scaled creatures with no limbs. Mostly they live underground and force tunnels through the earth. Adults can grow quite rge. They like to build nests in rocky pces near earthkes but they don’t stay. The loose soil is easy for the young to move through.”

  I had a sudden vision of being in a horror movie with snakelike baby creatures erupting from the soft soil for a meal. “Are they aggressive?”

  “Not usually. Anything can be provoked.”

  “Oh, great.”

  We finished the climb up to the cave; Serru brought out her lumina stone and looked in warily.

  “Uh, hi,” Aryennos said. He didn’t sound like he was in pain or immediate distress, so I edged up closer so I could see.

  The bottom of the space was rgely a single fttish rock that was only slightly tilted, and two more had somehow ended up leaning against each other over it, while the rest of them piled up over and around.

  It was also filled with pale threads.

  Aryennos was in the middle of the little cave, and tangled in the threads. Practically cocooned in them, in fact, though I could see darker glimpses in patches where his clothing showed through.

  “There are no hatchlings,” he said cheerfully. “I think they left a while ago, the silk isn’t all that sticky anymore. I, um, if I hadn’t tripped and fallen into them, I wouldn’t have gotten caught.”

  Serru heaved another sigh, and tested a thread near the edge by hand. “Only moderately adhesive,” she said. “Nathan, touch it only with the soles of your feet.” She rummaged in her bag and produced a fsk I recognized as oil for cooking. “Hold out your hands.” When I did, she poured a few drops onto one. “Rub it into your hands. It may not be pleasant but it will keep the silk from sticking.” She poured the same on her own hand, then closed the fsk with her teeth and rubbed the oil into both hands.

  “Nathan?” Aryennos said, eyes wide.

  “I told you I changed,” I said, suddenly uncomfortable. Which was stupid, this wasn’t the time for that.

  “Do you think hooves could get up those rocks?” Serru said tartly. “Be grateful we came, and be still.”

  “Can we cut it?” I asked, trying to get my mind back onto the more urgent issue.

  “Lindwurm silk is extremely durable. We’d still be here at sunrise trying to cut enough of it to get him free. We’re going to have to unwind it. The good news is, lindwurm silk is hard to get and any we gather will sell for an extraordinary price when we reach Coppersands.”

  “Well, that’s something, I guess.”

  We each found an end, which was a challenge in itself, and got to work. We used one of the rgest pairs of splints to wind the silk onto.

  It was slow work. The threads sometimes looped around each other, and there were more than two of them wound around our hapless travelling companion, so at moments it turned into a puzzle of sorts. We had to re-apply the oil a couple of times, when the silk began to stick to skin again. Once we got Aryennos’ hands free, he was able to help, and that made it progress at least somewhat more quickly.

  Well, he wasn’t injured. It could have been worse.

  The sky was still getting light by the time the three of us were able to leave the little cave. After climbing back down the rocks and re-crossing the earthke, we found our way back to our campsite due only to Serru’s excellent sense of direction, and we stumbled into it with the sun definitely creeping over the horizon.

  “We are not going to be in any fit condition to travel today,” Serru said. “What were you thinking, wandering into the forest alone in the middle of the night?”

  “I, um...” Aryennos started meekly, gaze on the ground. “I heard something, so I got up, and I saw a light moving and wanted to see what it was, and there was a white deer that practically glowed in the moonlight, and...”

  “Next time, we might not come looking,” I said, but the sternness was undermined by a jaw-popping yawn.

  “Next time, don’t follow pixie-lights,” Serru said, much more sharply. “They’ll always get you into trouble. We know that both the Moss Queen and the Zombie King have noticed Nathan, but even without the possibility that one or both might be observing us, those two are always potentially present out here. You put yourself in a completely vulnerable and defenceless situation out in the wilds, where they can act freely. You need to think things through, otherwise you’re going to get caught by one or the other, put Nathan and me both at risk of the same, and possibly keep him from being able to get home. He’s not from here, we have no idea how either effect would work, and I know exactly how it would work on me and it would keep me from being able to help him reach the Quincunx sites!” She spun in pce and stalked over to her tent. “The tents will st a while longer. Sleep while you can. We won’t get far with whatever daylight we have left by then, but it will at least be something.” She ducked inside and sealed the fp. If she’d had a door, I thought she would have smmed it.

  “I’m sorry,” Aryennos said. “Really.”

  “I know,” I said wearily. “Get some sleep.”