Keelwell Park was not just a single city park. It was a collection of small neighborhood parks stretching along both sides of the Dark River branches known as the North Dark River and South Dark River. The Dark River split into twin branches around a mile northwest of the city. The northern branch entered the city in the northwest corner at the North Tower Bridge. The southern branch entered the city just south of the central West Gates. Both locations where the river’s branches entered the city passed between sturdy stone towers. The towers were built to serve as protective barriers to restrict unauthorized entrance into the city. The towers had thick iron grates permanently secured in place at the foundations of the towers to prevent anything larger than medium-sized fish from entering, but allow the water flow to pass. The wide grates had to be cleared of debris that occasionally blocked them. It was not a popular job.

  The shallower and faster-moving southern branch winds through the city, creating a natural border between some of the wealthiest businesses and estates on the northern banks and the poorest human slums on its southern banks. It eventually drains out of the city through the south wall into the marshes and Shark Bay, along with a great deal of sewage waste.

  I prepared myself for the park visit by gathering things I thought I would need based on readings and memories of my childhood. Collecting my bundles, I was soon on my way to where the North Dark River ended in Park Pond, not far from the western edges of the Diagonal. Nobody knows precisely where the water went from the Park Pond since it flowed in slowly and steadily from the North Dark River, but it never seemed to overflow the pond’s grassy banks. Rumors ranged wildly, but civil engineers conjectured that some natural cracks or caves deposited the waters into the sewer tunnels below the city.

  Several years ago, an expedition set out to determine where the water went. A small group dove into the pond using water magic provided by the elementalist guild. Still, none of the explorers ever returned, and the search to solve the great mystery was abandoned. The band of five explorers included a geology professor and a lifetime friend of my father’s.

  Other than that sad memory of the park, I had many joyful memories from my earliest childhood on the banks of that northern river.

  There was a special tree that I wanted to visit that sat upon the edge of Park Pond on the banks where the North Dark River terminated. I was taken there as a child by my mother on many occasions. My mother had spent much of her early life among the elves and gained a love of woodlands when she was an apprentice and journeyman druid. However, her vocation changed when she fell in love with my father.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  Dad had gotten lost in the Darkenwood south of Esterfeld, a small community serving as the last human habitation before the wilds. He and his class had been collecting rock samples for various projects when he was separated from his professor and peers and encountered a hungry bear.

  My mother was on a walkabout, a practice where druid and ranger apprentices spent increasing amounts of time alone in nature. She was nearby and rescued him, but not before he had been seriously injured. She did not yet have healing spells but did her best to nurse him back to health over the coming week, and had simply fallen in love with him. She abandoned her calling and stayed with him in the city after seeing him safely return home. They were married sometime after his return but before his posting as Keelwell’s Royal Librarian. I came around several years later in their marriage.

  There was always a special connection and love of nature for my mother, and she would take me on long walks when I was very young before I entered my magical and jewelry studies around seven. One such time alone with her was a summer sunrise spent at Park Pond, where she introduced me to her secret friend, a dryad who lived in the giant tree by the pond. The dryad had been living in the tree as the city was founded, and its buildings and population had slowly grown and expanded around her.

  To my mother’s knowledge, no other dryad lived in such proximity to a city anywhere in the realm. It was a mystery how the dryad had survived. My mother helped her, and with the assistance of my father and his influential family, she made sure that city laws protected the park areas.

  I spoke with the dryad on several occasions. Her voice was like liquid music in my mind, and while I never sought her out when I was alone, I thought of her often. I never told another person about the dryad, and I’m not sure even my father knows about her to this day. However, through his own magical means, my master knew of her, and while we did not speak of her often, I could at least mention the dryad, knowing that her secret identity was safe.

  Legends about dryads often depict them as young and especially dangerous to young men or anyone who trespasses around their homes. This dryad was quite old-looking and gentle with me. My mother said that she was very old indeed and also weak because of the city and pollution around her. My mother considered excess noise, light, smoke, and an assortment of waste products and litter to be forms of pollution to nature.

  The city provided all those pollutants in unfortunate abundance.

  The park started to the northwest, across from the Round and Diagonal, so the walk to the pond took only a few minutes for me from the guild hall. I could have walked up to Park Lane and into the main park area or even along one of the grassy paths that led around a large copse of trees surrounding the pond's southern section. Since I wanted to meet with the dryad, I instead strolled through the woods and hummed an Elven tune my mother sang to me as a child.

  I meandered slowly among the trees, humming softly and gently touching leaves and bark, careful not to damage any new sprouts on the ground. It was still a little chilly outside, but I had removed my boots and walked barefoot among the earth and mosses. Several trees had started to sprout early leaves, and we were not too far away from the first day of Spring or Winter End, depending upon your passion for a particular season.

  The wooded area was not small, but neither was it overly large. It covered the equivalent of several city blocks. Over the next hour, I circled the area, coming ever closer to the dryad’s tree but never directly approaching it.

  At the end of the hour, I sat down on a mossy mound near her tree, out of sight of people walking in the park. It was right where my mother would bring me when she met with her dryad friend. I sat down, still humming slowly and low, barely audible to someone nearby.

  I removed a wooden bowl and set it down before me. Into it from a leather pouch, I poured rainwater collected from large fern leaves a couple of days ago in anticipation of this eventual visit. Beside the wooden bowl, I placed an earthenware jug full of local honey. I removed the lid and left it open before me. Finally, I opened a cloth bag full of walnuts, which I slowly began to crack open, and placed them on a cloth I had washed without soap, using more rainwater to cleanse it.

  About half an hour later, I noticed a slight shadow fall across the cloth before me. I looked up slowly and saw the elderly dryad's features. She was staring at me with a look of both fear and hunger.

  I did not expect to see her so quickly, and I was unsure if I would see her during my first visit. If I were not careful, all of this effort would be for naught…