The Seal of Bewitching Slumber : Episode Two (Part Two)
The aria of the Shirim - Roman is drawn deeper into Lethenwood to finish the trial
Previously,
Roman, wielding his powerful NIER bested the Onyx serpent in a battle at the center of the glade of Lethenwood
Slowly, the natural harmony of the glade returned. The wind flowed gently in whispers, carrying the grateful chirping of distant birds, and the air itself seemed to bestow an easing melody—a repentance for the raucous it had unwillingly assailed Roman with before, while under the tyranny of the Serpent.
The once-bloodthirsty horde of leaf, wood, soil, and stone now lay still—resting in their places like spent warriors returned from war, each to their coves, gently restored to life by the low afternoon sun. Even the green of the grass and firs had returned to sight.
This was the Lethenwood he’d been told tales of—a healing sanctuary from the ancient war.
This was the Lethenwood he had always dreamed of escaping to… He was finally here.
My reward for triumph over the trial…
A wisping sonance began to weave, settling like samaras in the air, charming like the incanted melodies of the hidden order of Shirim. An order which the elders said had discovered its power in Lethenwood.
Roman sensed its faint song, and the tales of that order echoed in his mind:
It was said the Shirim sang songs that could speak to nature and the elements, heal, breach space and realms, manifest the secrets of the mind, move the hands of the soundoulus...even conjure things into being. But these were only whispers, for the order had long possessed the means to conceal themselves, a necessity after being thronged by many nearly led to their ruin. Of all the other orders, they were the most hidden, their powers the most sacred.
He wondered if their song reached out for him now, while they remained veiled by their concealing tomes.
Unsure of his next steps but excited by the thought, he found himself drawn towards the hushed song. At first, it seemed to emanate from a scattered and encircling, unseeable choir, their faint siren-like warbles teasing him from every side. But as his ears began to discern its most prominent tone, he took a step towards it; and the voices gently swooned to his right. He retreated a step, and now they echoed from behind him. He turned, and they danced at his back. As he turned yet again, they sprit-fully drifted once more—is this a game they play? Or a jesting riddle?
Or perhaps a test? He stood still, and the faintness of the song began to resolve not by the loudness of the melody, but by the stillness of his thoughts. What began as melodic warbles brushing his ears bloomed into a strange canticle in an unknown tongue—a chimeric aria, spun from a luring voice, its melodies intoning secrets and solace in lyrics beyond his knowledge.
Is this some forgotten song of the Shirim? The words are strange—have I wandered into one of their hidden lairs? The Shirim were believed to have abandoned this glade a century ago.
As he questioned, the melody gently overtook his senses, like a gentle hand brushing across his chest, drawing him desirously toward it. Its path winded deeper into the wood, between the shafts of trees and beneath the highest branches. His footsteps fell in time with the rhythm of the aria, each step drawing him deeper into its thrall.
And with each step his heart pondered on the visage behind the song; as its many voices had become one, and her notes fell on the canvas of his mind like the delicate strokes of a brush…
... Her voice was soft, each vowel and consonant of the aria settling into place as gently as a fallen flower petal. Her lips moved with care, her eyes soft and as green as the glade. Strands of her hair, twisted into fine locks, rested in perfect order on her bare shoulders.
Could it be one of the Shirim calling to me?
The thought teased his mind, growing into a surging desire with every step he took— no longer did he question the strangeness of the song.
Transfixed, his perception dissolving into a dense fugue, he nevertheless took brief note of four curiosities:
a young rabbit nearly limp in the jaws of an eyeless fox;
a white doe, crowned with diamonds and shod in golden hooves, impaled by a blood-red arrow;
a three-tailed bluebird with a broken wing fallen into the snare of a spiders web;
and twin badgers with glowing eyes locked in battle against a horde of writhing adders.
Yet even as he passed these strange sights, the aria drew his thoughts to remain tethered to the lure of the song…
…Until finally, he stood dwarfed beneath the shadow of the tallest fir in the glade. Rooted in a maze of sprawling mounds—tangled undergrowth peeking and twisting through the soil—he looked up, unable to see beyond its vast, reaching branches. Wrapped around its immense and broad trunk were spiraling steps, beneath which hung effervescent buds, formed like glowing teardrops, lighting the way—for twilight had fallen.
Down from the canopy fell the enrapturing aria, brushing its gentle breath against his face, beckoning him upward. And so, he obeyed—the beautiful form of the muse clear in his mind. Surely she was one of the Shirim, calling to me with her secret lovesong.
With thirst, he hastily mounted the steps, eager to meet the hidden siren of Lethenwood.
The height of the stairs carried him beyond the canopies of all other trees—so high that they resembled low grasslands veiled in moonlit mist. When he looked up, the top of the canopy was still far above him, as distant as the length he had already climbed.
But he could finally see the base of the loft perched above—a pearl held by the entwined fingers of the highest branches. He stopped to catch his breath, and as he gathered the thin, cold air, the song ceased, swallowed up into a haunting silence. After an unnerving pause, he heard
a blood-curdling scream.
At once, he realized the lethal height he had climbed, and how the steps grew narrower with each ascent. Below, the tops of the trees revealed themselves as pointed blades, their knife edges starkly illuminated by the threatening light of the crescent moon.
Then, finally returned the sound of a familiar dread— tree trunks and stones breaking beneath the plated bellow of the obsidian serpent, circling in the obscured depths below.
Once more, he heard the tortured wail of the muse, her luring song warped into terror—and still, he chose to continue the deathly ascent, refraining, refusing to acknowledge the tormenting taunts of the serpent’s mind, whispering thoughts and images of countless ways to die.
I could fall and be impaled by tree. I could fall and be shattered on rock. I could fall into the mouth of the serpent.
"No! I must save the Shirim!" And the serpent responded in a hiss that filled the dark glade below like laughter.
Defiantly, his feet took hold of the next step, which felt at the more brittle beneath him—and the raucous wind returned with fury. His foot slipped, and for a moment, he felt the vast distance between him and the ground. But his hand caught a step. Fighting against the wind, he pulled himself upward, inch by inch, until he reached beyond the highest branch and stepped onto the high encircling porch of the pearl—finally planting his feet on something solid.
Another scream erupted from behind the smooth polymer wall. "Help me Roman, please hurry!" the pained voice quivered. Roman rushed against the wall, looking for the entrance, but could find no door or window. "Open the door!" he pleaded, "Or show me where it is!
He followed the pounding on the wall and pressed against its surface, smooth and seamless, shimmering like polished pearl, as though it were part of the very fabric of the structure. It opened, sliding back with a subtle, almost fluid motion, disappearing into the wall, revealing... an empty loft shrouded in darkness. There was no one; both the aria and the screams had gone silent. And then the door slipped closed behind him with a muted thump.
“Have you hidden yourself from me? There’s no need to fear me... I heard the call of your song, and then your scream. I came to help you!” But the only reply was the wind wrapping against the wall, and the serpent's laugh-like hiss, a joyous taunt echoing in the darkness.
Roman was alone. Much of the loft was obscured in shadow, while the rest was set in pale grey moonlight spilling through a viewport set high in the encircling upper deck. He could see the ladder that led to the upper deck, above that the frame of a skylight that was closed. And at the center, he could just barely make out an oval table in the middle of a pit— perhaps I'll find light there...
Below, at the base of the tree, the serpent wrapped its twisting belly around the trunk, squeezing it, grinding bark to dust. The sharp crack of snapping and breaking filled the glade as the serpent's grip began to shred the armour of the tree. But this was not enough—with another laugh-like hiss, the serpent began to change.
Its blackened scales began to come alight, effulgent symbols revealing themselves in a sinister magenta glow—
a spiked stone monolith;
a crooked tree, bare of leaves, with ghastly dead branches above and upturned roots below;
a three-armed vortex.
Its body churned and slithered against the wood, the hot symbols igniting the ground bark like tinder—then the bark itself—until the entire trunk began to burn ferociously, flames climbing up the branches. Pleased, the serpent released the tree and encircled it, its eyes joyfully reflecting the flames like a warped mirror. And it waited.
Roman, still unaware of his new choice for death, searched the pit. Somehow, the table and moonlight had vanished in a new dark; all light was gone, swallowed by a dense black smoke he couldn't yet perceive.
Then suddenly, a pale magenta light grew beneath his feet. Eyes pricked by the malevolent light, he looked down to see a symbol drawing itself in mystical flames. He stood at the center of an eye, a sharp hook piercing its pupil—and Roman knew the Onyx Serpent had beguiled him once more.
A searing crawl quickly rent through his skin, a sensation of his flesh boiling. The polymer walls burned into a faint glow, quickly superheating into a hot yellow. The heat of the burning rune weakened the floor, bowing and melting it under him. He was now in an inescapable furnace.
At once, Roman reached his hand, manifesting his NIER. But its light was weakened. Choking on the smoke, he spoke an arcane word, to conjure a warding sphere around him. The entire loft jolted into a tilt. In a deafening crack— the tree and everything in it began to fall. Roman tumbled helplessly with the collapsing canopy, falling branches trailed by dense smoke and orange smoldering flames, melting or shattered polymer– if it were not for the fledgling shell of the ward, Roman certainly would have been eviscerated by the flames or scoured by the trees.
Two choices for death remain— the ward hit the ground and shattered with the sound of lightning thunderously cracking earth, his NIER careened into the dark. Roman's body hit the rough ground sharpened by shattered trees and cracked rocks. Burning debris crashed around him. He fought to his feet, unbroken but choking on the smoke. Looking up, he beheld the long neck and head of the serpent towering above him— hissing victoriously. Death by serpent it is.
The serpent brandished its teeth— their sharpened, curved, dark crystals. Its swirling tongue taunted Roman's mind with images of pain and torment, impaling and maiming, and all the cruel ways it would reward Roman for his folly... and then the head fell on him.
Roman screamed in agony, gasping from smoke on the words, "I thought.. to help the Shirim...It's not my fault...the song..."
"Roman. Stand." bellowed a voice in the dark. "Roman..." the voice softened. He felt a hand take him up. The sound of ripping wind and roaring flames began to fade, along with the suffocating hand of the smoke around his throat— yet the taunting hiss of the serpent lingered, only truly to fade days later...
Roman opened his eyes, letting in the warm sunlight filling the rotunda. His first sight was the old grey eyes of his uncle, Aaron— filled with pity. His brown, leathery face, beard, and hair as white and thick as soft cotton, looked down on Roman with compassion, underneath stern, whitened eyebrows.
"I take it I did not pass?" repented Roman.
The compassion in Aaron’s eyes tucked itself away like a secret between uncle and nephew, giving way to a necessary sternness of which Roman was all too familiar.
"Did the serpent beguile you?" Aaron asked, only barely masking the exhausted disappointment of a mentor who desperately wanted his pupil to advance. Roman remained silent.
Aaron stood, returning to his seat, kneeling in his place around the circumference of the stepped marble pit where Roman knelt at its center. Roman looked around the pillared rotunda at the elder men and women flanking him— south, east, west, and north where his uncle knelt. The voices in the wind.
He removed an ebbing pearl from his temple, and they removed theirs.
A female elder questioned, indifferently, "Were you beguiled by the Onyx Serpent?" Humbly Roman stood, reluctantly letting the words slip, "Yes." faltering, "I was beguiled."
Aaron stood, the head of the order and administrator of the trial, "Then you have failed the trial of Aspilos for the third time. Tell us how you were beguiled. Tell us what you saw."
END CHAPTER TWO