Chapter 157: Green dawn [3]
’Height it is then’.
Clayton wove a trunk from the turf, growing it up under himself like a lift. The wood knew what he wanted and gathered.
And then, pushed by his will, he rose above the terraces, above the arch, and above the garden’s lines.
The plain sprawled forever, but it was not empty now that he knew how to look. Threads of trained growth stitched the land in places, rings marked old seats. Some shone faint, some bright.
He saw movement too.
Herds of something like antlered ferns flowed over a ridge and vanished like a tide. On another side, he noticed a band of upright forms walking in a line near a distant stand of spike-trees.
They moved as one. Not human, not Behemorph either, but old-bred servitors, perhaps.
There was no flash of Ember, no burst of Soren’s heat, and no arrow cutting air. There was also no laugh out of place where Kaelin would be; his companions were still nowhere to be found.
The plain kept its secrets.
He came back down and let the lift melt back into grass.
He took a different path out, following a narrow run of moss that hummed fast. After a quick analysis, he reckoned that it was the quicker route.
It liked feet and weight, and it carried a faint scent of resin. The road makers had marked it for those who knew.
Hours became less solid. He measured by growth instead; five new leaves, six dozen root hairs, and one fresh cambium ring in his main stem.
He crossed a stream that talked about trout that were not fish.
He passed a grove where leaves wrote riddles on themselves and erased them when he looked too hard. He skirted a low sink full of spores that did not touch him because the law here remembered not to sting kin.
At dusk, if it was dusk in a place like this, the air finally cooled. The gold in the sky deepened to copper, and the green band brightened until it glowed.
And then, he felt a tremor, small and familiar.
Not earth, not law either, but impact.
He turned toward it.
A stand of blue reeds hid the source. He pushed through, careful not to cut his leaves on edges that felt eager to taste.
A shallow basin lay beyond, ringed by low stones that had been grown, not placed. In the center, something had fallen and burned a circle of dead grass.
Clayton moved closer and stopped.
A figure lay there, chest rising. Not human flesh, rather, Aspect made body.
His skin was like emberglass, with hair like a crown of red sparks that did not drift. His fingers tipped with metal heat.
Clayton didn’t need any elaborate introduction to know who this was as he felt a feeling of relief wash over him like a tide.
’Soren’.
Even in this almost unrecognizable form that didn’t have any remote physical connection to the Soren that he knew, Clayton still recognized him.
He sent a root gently under his back and lifted him. Soren’s eyes snapped open, bright and wild, then steadied when they found Clayton’s crown.
Just like Clayton recognized him immediately, Soren also recognized him as soon as he stared at the monster plant towering above him.
"Clayton," he said, voice rough.
"You fell hard," Clayton said with a slight chuckle.
Coming from the throat of a monster plant though, whatever they had in place of that, it sounded like the sound of two dry woods grinding against each other.
Unlike in Trial I when Clayton couldn’t even communicate due to his plant form, this form was clearly more advanced than back then.
Maybe it was because he was a Luminous Seed Awakened now, but his plant form this time gained the ability of speech.
To Clayton, that was a great cause of relief.
Soren glanced at his hands, flexed them, and winced. "How can you move so well? It’s so disorienting, everything moves wrong here."
Clayton chuckled. Hearing him, he perfectly understood how he felt since he had been in the same situation a long time ago.
"It will move right soon," he said. "Just breathe, let the place in."
Soren closed his eyes and sat still. The fire under his skin calmed, and then, slowly at first but gradually, the light at his hairline stopped throwing sparks and began to glow steady.
He opened his eyes again. "Better," he said with a grin.
Clayton nodded. "Good."
Soren looked past him at the sky and shivered once, not from cold. "Feels old," a slight feeling of dread and trepidation in his tone.
"It is," Clayton said.
They did not hug, they did not waste words. Afterall, no matter how peaceful this world may look at the moment, they were experienced enough to remember that there had never been any mention of a safe trial in Echoterra.
So, Soren stood as Clayton lowered him to his feet. Then, they both listened.
The basin carried sound well, and it told them nothing else was close.
"Others?" Soren asked.
"They’re out there," Clayton said. "No bearings yet."
Soren’s jaw set. "We’ll find them."
"We will," Clayton said.
They left the basin together and moved back to the moss road.
There, Clayton slowed his stride to match Soren’s first steps in this shape. It was awkward at first, but with a mentor like Clayton teaching him the ropes though they were essentially different with different physiques, Soren learned fast.
To be sincere, though he didn’t show much of it outwardly, Clayton was stunned when he saw Soren the first time.
Not just for being shocked’s sake, but because this confirmed another of his worst fears. ’This means it’s not only me that woke up in a weird form’.
’My Aspect is related to plants, I woke up as a plant. Soren’s Aspect is related to fire, and he woke up as a glassman with fire powers’.
’Does that mean the others will also wake up as direct representations or the closest visual representation of their Aspects?’
Thinking of this, Clayton could not help but shudder as he thought of the Aspects of his closest companions.
’Don’t tell me... Veyra woke up as an arrow?’
’Damn! What of Torren? Don’t tell me he woke up as an Axe!’
If Soren knew his thoughts at this moment, maybe he would have been also terrified but hopefully, he couldn’t read thoughts.
By the time they reached the arch again, Soren’s weight had settled as he more or less adapted to his new form. His fire no longer felt like a hazard to the world around him, they did not spread and bite the plants anymore unless he explicitly asked it to set them ablaze.
They did not go back through the garden though.
With Clayton leading the way, they circled the edge of the garden where the law was thinner. Clayton did not want to wake more memories without need.
The land had been kind to him because he had been careful compared to his first few days and hours in Trial I.
Unless something drastic and unexpected happened, he would love to keep it that way.
And then, Clayton met his first night in Echoterra for Trial III.
Night came like a veil drawn slow.
The sky did not go black, rather, it went deep green, then blue-green, then something like the inside of a leaf held to the sun.
The bands overhead sharpened into rivers of light as faint specks moved in them like seeds on current.
Clayton chose a stand of low shrubs that hummed safety. He grew a hollow under them, cool and dry. He sank roots and opened his leaves wide.
As for Soren, he sat in the hollow’s mouth and watched the horizon with eyes that glowed.
"Sleep," Clayton said. "You need it for tomorrow".
"I will," Soren said, and yet he did not move for a long time, just staring at the surreal visage of the night sky here.
And then, his head dipped once and the ember crown dimmed to a coal.
Clayton did not sleep. Plants do not, not in the way of men. Rather, while Soren slept, he simply rested. He drank the sky and listened to the ground.
He learned more of the language.
He learned syllables of pressure, phrases of moisture, and the questions asked with phloem that were answered by capillary rise.
By midnight, if there was a midnight here, he could read the road songs as he adapted incredibly fast to the new realities of this trial. Having faced two subsequent trials like this one, he was better equipped to face them.
This did not mean that the trial was done though. Clayton knew that they were just starting, but starting on the front foot was never bad.
If you think otherwise, ask professional track and field athletes.
Sometimes a head start can be the all-important difference between gold medal and silver medal. And when so much was on the line, every advantage mattered.
As he learned, he understood the difference between welcome and warning, and the difference between oath and rent.
And then, at some moment, the earth under him suddenly tightened like a muscle.
Not danger, not yet, but attention.
’Here we go’.