Summoning Call of the Forest

The air of the woods filled with Kika’s pan flute. From her perch near the gate of a ruined castle, a joyful, major-key, tune, sounded throughout the area. Upon a golden morning within Fae’Una, where the childish kerhite play in communion with the life within. Under the canopy of the wood left by a spirit of Efore, Kerhite’Yonhe, the magic innate dances.

Woodland creatures, big and small, gathered around the kerhi - wood made flesh in the form resemblance of hun children, from the rich spirits that swarmed Fae’Una woods. Kika sat, her long, green, hair, flowing down her back against her simple homespun shirt and shorts.

Within her audience stood another child. He stood, almost peeking around a tree. His blond hair barely kept, and his blue eyes pierced through the air towards her. He too wore the simple, earth-toned, shirt and shorts of kerhi. He watched, almost as entranced as the woodland animals around him.

Upon seeing him she paused her playing. “Renti?” She called to him. “Don’t be shy.”

He walked up to the girl. She smiled. “You aren’t with the others? She asked.

He shook his head. “Their with their fae guides.” He said. “I don’t have one.”

“Really?”

“If I did, I can’t see or hear them.”

“Well, you can always listen...” She thought for a moment, then said to him “Wait! If you’re willing, I can teach you how to play! Perhaps that will get the fae guide to come to you.”

“Oh! Really?” The thought excited Renti, the young lad almost bouncing on the thought. Then reality hit: “I don’t have a pipe.”

“A pan flute like this can be made.” Kika replied. “We just need to visit the march where there are horsetails a plenty!”

So the two spent the afternoon in a pond fed by swamplands Fae’Una bordered. “Shouldn’t we be careful?” Renti asked. “Everyone else’s fae guides don’t let them go here.”

“The protection of Kerhite’Yonhe doesn’t go out this far.” Kika explained. “But, we should be fine so long as we don’t swim out very far. And look!” She pointed to a patch of horsetails, where the segmented, round, stems, waved along with the slight breeze and scant tide. “We didn’t need to go very far to find them!”

With a few stalks pulled out from the waters that they inhabited the stems were then taken back to the main grove where the huts that they slept in where. The process to turn them into a functional wind instrument took until the evening of carving and resin setting, then leaving to dry.

“Kika.” Renti asked as he waited for his instrument to be ready. “Why weren’t you with your fae-guide like everyone else?”

“Who said I wasn’t?” She replied.

Confusion wrinkled his face. “We are always with our fae-guide.” She went on. “Everywhere we hear, and see, the fae, and the louder among them guide us.”

“Us.”

She looked to her shoes. “That’s right.” She said. “That louder voice you don’t see or hear.” The longness in her face didn’t last as she looked back up and said “Perhaps it can be coaxed with music!”

So was the plan. Once ready, Renti spend many an afternoon with Kika learning to play and engaging in duets. All as the animals watched on.

A faded memory Renti held onto as he trekked towards Castle Anataya, alongside the last few moments of Fae’Una.

---

“Tag, your it!” Kika patted Renti on the shoulder, then sprinted away, despite the No-Touch-Backs rule being in effect. Her long, green, hair, flowed around her, and fell upon her faded green shirt and shorts as she stopped and spun around to watch Renti scooped the grove.

Off of Kika he turned his glance to Bello and his ripped shirt and pants, dirty red hair, off-copper skin and red eyes. “You want this, blondie?” Bello taunted in a stance.

Renti’s eyes then fell on Lori. A white girl in a homespun dress, white hair in pigtails and eyes with iris as white as the scalara. She simply stood and went from looking at Renti to looking adjacent to herself.

Next Dori and Fixa. The two each glared on partly at Renti, and partly in opposing directions. Their violet eyes scanned as their peach-skin reddened from running around for a time. Dori’s brown dress had flowers woven in as Fixa’s brown trousers had stains from falling upon the dirt.

Lastly Axel with his hands on his hips. His own cotton shirt and pants juxaposed to his dark skin, his black hair in dreadlocks decorated with snail shells. Dark eyes too looked upon Renti intently.

Calculations ran through Renti’s mind. A predator’s instinct scanned each of his fellow kerhi - children of the forest. The blue eyes that dotted his peachy, suntouched, face, just moved to each target. His feet digging in as he readied a sprint. The green shirt and shorts standard wear for the kerhi shown with the wear of someone not afraid to tumble to the dirt.

And, of course, it had to be Bello. The little rascal had to stand there, swaying to a fro, gesturing towards Renti with a crooked index finger. A wide, toothy, green known for spooking the others.

Not Renti. It didn’t take long before his own instincts kicked in and he bee-lined it for Bello. Dirt crunched as the two ran. Bello sprinted through the dirt paths, jumping into wooded thickets and across stomps. Renti followed, the distance between both boys closing ever so gradually.

Upon climbing up on a tree fell from a previous lightning storm Renti tapped Bello’s leg while saying “Tag, you’re It!”

Bello did not react as Renti slowed down. The rascal ran into a dirt pathway while calling back “You have to touch me, idiot!”

“I did!” Renti huffed as he climbed over the fallen tree, almost leaping over it as he resumed his chase after Bello. It would be a he said she said to try to argue it.  He thought. The others might not have witnessed it.

Bello ran into the direction of the wooden huts that made their home in the woods. Kika called out “Hey! You can’t leave the grove!”

Renti gave chase as Bello entered one of the huts, closing the door on him while laughing.

“Bello! This isn’t funny!” Lori called out. “Follow the rules!”

“Or what?” He called back.

“We won’t play with you!”

He laughed. “Like the rest of them will go with that! Besides, its the weird guy without a fae guide!”

Renti didn’t stand very long at the closed door before he gave it a swift kick. The door buckled, though still held with a thump sounding from the other side.

“Ow!” Bello cried out!

The other children stood around, eyes wide with horror as they looked at each other in confusion. Renti kicked the door again, this time it gave at the hinges, revealing a Bello scrambling to his feet as he took a leapt pace out a glassless window.

“That’s my hut!” Axel grumbled.

Renti knew not to waste paces and by-passed the hut entirely, chasing after Bello as he hit the path leading back into the grove. From grass to dirt the two weaved their feet, and soon the boys were in arms-length of eachtother. In that moment Renti leapted into the air, gripped Bello by the shoulders, and pressed him into the ground.

The others surrounded the two, eying the scene before them and eachother. Bello’s cheek touched the ground, Renti lying on his back, partially pinning him to the ground. The blond boy knelt to a knee, only saying “Tag. You’re... It!” in stacotta.

“Hey! You ain’t suppose to grab us!” Bello cried as he got to his knees. “Its against the rules!”

Kika shook her head. “Really Bello? Really?” She spat. “You hid in Axel’s house, left the grove, accused Renti of lying when he tagged you the first time, and you have the nerve to cry about the ‘rules?’”

“Oh shuttup!” He said as the two stood to their feet. “Why you standing up for the faeless?” Bello then shoved Renti. The other boy took three forced paces back to avoid falling.

“You’re not following the rules. Why should I?” Renti simply asked. Rhetorical more than anything.

“I don’t want to play anymore.” Lori whined as she walked in the direction of the huts.

“Hey Dori, wanna try the new board I got?” Fixa asked his twin.

“Sure.” Dori replied and followed Fixa.

“Now you’ve done it!” Bello squalked while pointing his finger at Renti. “You ruined the game! You ruined everything! We were having so much fun and then you had to arrive!” He then stomped off in a random direction.

Axel started walking towards the huts. Renti followed behind him. Axel stopped several paces, turned, and asked “Why are you following me?”

“Your door needs fixing.” Renti replied.

“And you’re going to... what...”

“Fix it.”

“Oh bugger off, you’ve done enough.” He then continued to the huts.

Renti walked towards a pond that laid near the grove. He sat on the edge of the water, his eyes upon the waterlilies as horse and dragonfiles buzzed around them, avoiding the odd green frog as it hopped upon lillipads that sprouted from the greenish water.

“Renti?” Kika approached, her tone solemn, calm. “You ok?”

“Yeah.” He replied, his eyes not meeting hers.

She slipped off her shoes and took a seat next to him, letting her feet dangle into the murky and cool waters.

“Bello’s got some nerve, don’t he?” She said. “I mean, he’s the one that ruined the game, not you. I mean. What’s the point of rules if you’re not going to follow them, right?”

“And what do you do when someone doesn’t follow them?” Renti replied.

“Exactly!” A smile came upon Kika on that thought. “You did nothing wrong.”

Renti’s grimace said otherwise. “Kika? Is Bello right? That I ruin everything?”

“Absolutely not!” Her face straightened as her green eyes pierced with indignation. ”Perish the thought! He’s just being a bully!”

“Everyone else seemed convinced though.”

“Nevermind them! They’re just going with it, either just to not be a target, or they agree with him.”

“That because I’m faeless I shouldn’t be here?”

“Its stupid.” Kika looked in Renti’s direction. “All kerhi have fae guides. I guess for some it takes longer to be in tune.”

“I guess... yeah.” A tear went down his eyes. “Then I can feel the spirits too. Until then, I’m different.”

“No, you’re not different.” She said, taking his hand. “You’re special.”

The two looked at eachother for a time. Then they looked to the water, and upon the setting sun. A moment passed before Kika asked “Ren? Would you ever want to leave the forest?”

“I can’t.” He replied. “I’m kerhi, like you. My life is tied to these woods. I would die if I left.”

“True, but... if you could, would you?”

“Maybe... I mean, like, not forever.” He replied. “Just to see what’s out there. There is this... this world that is beyond the wood, right?”

“Yeah, there is.” She replied. “The stories the fairies and the like tell.”

“Kika? Something wrong?” Renti couldn’t help but ask, his face long.

“Oh! The sun is down!” She exclaimed. “Dinner will be soon.”

Renti gave a faint smile. “Yeah, lets eat.”

The two stood up. Kika’s face looked long as they walked towards the huts where the dinning hall would be ready. There the kerhi children all gathered to consume the steamed vegetables and roasted meats - bounties of the woods.

At the end of the meal Bello approached Renti with bits of dried horsetail crumpled in his hands.

“Here stupid!” He almost laughed as Bello sprinkled Renti’s pan flute onto the blond’s head.

“Bello! What is wrong with you?” Kika screamed. “He worked hard on that!”

“He made me lose the game!” He called back.

“You were cheating!”

“I just did what the fae guide said.” His eyes went right at Renti. “Like he would know!”

Renti balled a fist while looking back. A moment passed before he just stepped away from the dinner table and walked out of the dinning hut while Bello chidded onwards “You’re always hanging out with the loser the forest clearly rejected! You take him to your private hangout and not me?!”

The remains of the pipe still in his hair Renti found his way to his own hut, set aside from as long as he could remember. As he walked something about the night felt off. Upon twilight a dark, violet, haze crept upon the wood. The peace that breathing could bring wanned as he entered his hut and sat on the edge of the bed. The question she asked at the pond echoed in his mind:

Would you ever want to leave the forest?

He let his head hit the pillow of down and went to sleep. A fitful one where a vision of a figure clad entirely of black rode upon a large, black, warhorse, away from a grand castle left in flames. Riding towards a helpless Renti brandishing a blade coated in foul magics.

“Renti! Wake up!” Echoed a small fae spirit rapping on his face.

He rolled out of bed and sat up, looking upon a floating ball of white light radiating so brightly that it obscured her hand-sized body. A ball that bounced within the room.

“Kerhite’Yonhe, the Great Tree, summons you.” The little creature explained once Renti’s blue eyes looked upon the fae with focus.

“The Great Tree?” He bounced from his bed, surprised to hear that. “Does that mean, I’m finally getting a fae-guide?”

“I don’t know.” The fae replied. “I only know he requests your presents, and you need to get to him.”

Renti wasted no more time as he rose to his feet and marched outside towards the grove where the spirit of the forest, the Kerhite’Yonhe, stood. Passing the huts of his fellow kerhi along the way, noting that Kika watched him from the front of her own hut. The long look in her eyes slowed him for a brief moment before the need to not keep the guardian spirit of the forest waiting overruled wondering what the matter was.

Soon he set foot onto the sacred grounds. Other fae spirits floated around the giant tree, all in their own communion. The Kerhite’Yonhe loamed high, his massive trunk, thicker than a hut, piercing the sky past the canopy. Molded within the bark a few features resemblant of a face groaned through as Renti took his place in front.

“Renti...” The great spirit spoke. “Special young one. Kerfora reborn. A peril dawns upon the Fae’Una. One that casts its blight upon the lands. Born of the dark lord, seeking power through any means necessary.

“Tis be thy destiny to prevent this.”

The green-dress boy stared, his expression long and neutral as his breathing sped up. “Great... Kerhite’Yonhe...” Renti got out. “I but a kerhi... and one who... doesn’t have a fae-guide...”

“No... Renti. Thou art not.”

Renti stared, his blue-eyes widening. He looked to the fae that escorted him into the grove, who sat upon his shoulder, watching onward as the massive tree’s lush, green, foliage, turning brown before them. Many of the fellow fae swarmed around, some pacing in anxiety while others bowed solemnly.

“What is happening? What do we do?” Many of them uttered.

“I am cursed.” The giant tree spoke onwards. “A foul magic comes upon these woods. Poisoning it. A gloom demanding destruction less its caster gets what he is looking for.”

“No...” Renti uttered as the fae all panicked.

“Kehite-Yonhe is dying! How is this possible?” Others spoke within the panic.

“My spirit wans, and these woods will lose their sacred magics. But hope is not lost...”

Within the rotting trunk an opening formed upon the roots. Several fae fell upon the ground nearby, the light powering their bodies fading. A few kerhi entered the grove, faces wide with fear.

“Renti!” Kerhite’Yonhe commanded. “Take it! What the vexer seeks. Take it! Bring it to Castle Anataya in the centre of the Una Plains.”

“Vexer?” Renti mouthed as he approached, seeing something glowing within.

“Why can’t whoever is doing this just have it?” The fae friend asked, resting upon Renti’s shoulder still as he walked up. “Let them have it, and spar our wood?”

“The dark machinations in play shant be satisfied.” The grand tree replied. “A worthless placation that will grant the vexer far more power to destroy.”

Within the soil Renti knelt down to hold in his hands a fist-sized emerald. Cut in an elongated gem that had a faint glow emitting from it. A strange energy pulsed in his hand as he held it.

“Great Lohne...” Renti stood up and placed in his pocket the strange object. “I wish to obey, but, I can’t leave the forest... I’m kerhi. My essence is bound to you, and the wood...”

“No! Tis not true!” The tree called back. “You were gifted to us by the hun for this purpose. The breeze blows darkness. Now, get this to Imadandra, the Fairy Queen, whose fountain is near Anataya Castle, before the dark lord steals it!”

“What...” So many questions raced through the boy’s mind. None that would be answered as Kerhite’Yonhe turned completely grey, his foliage falling as he withered.

“We need to go.” The fairy said.

Renti marched through the path back to the huts. Several of the kerhi already reverting back to their forms as small trees rooted to the ground. Along the path Bello stood to greet him. “What did you do to the Great Kerhite’Yonhe?” He called out while pointing at Renti.

“I didn’t do anything!” The young boy replied. “He was like that when I arrived!”

“Sure he was! Sick and dying! Now because of you we all lose our...” His joints stiffened. His jaw hung midspeech as his arms became branches and his feet grew roots. The transformation ended with a small tree in the vague shape of a child.

As if instructed by instinct he raced to the ruined castle in the wood. There he found Kika standing there, her pan flute in hand.

“Aren’t you leaving?” She asked.

“Kika... I’m sorry.” Renti replied. “It was the last thing the Great Tree asked.”

“Don’t be sorry Ren.” She said. “I knew this day would come.”

“You knew the wood would be cursed?”

“No. That you would leave.”

“Huh?”

Her green eyes looked to a mount near the castle. “A mortal from outside entered the wood.” She said, then grunted in pain. “She died, and her body gifted to the forest. She brought with her a gift, one that the Kerhite’Yonhe took.”

“A gift.” Renti’s eyes landed on that mound, then looked back upon Kika. “It wasn’t...”

“Renti. You had no fae-guide, because you were never tuned to this place. That is why... you... are faeless.”

“Why be my friend at all?” He asked as he watched her stiffen.

“You needed one.” She replied. “The Kerhite’Yonhe accepted you. I know not to question that wisdom. So I accepted you. An animal that could pass for a being of spirit.”

Her arms started stiffening, her legs rooting to the ground. “We kerhi are beings of wood. Spirits that, when the magic leaves, we return to wood. But you will continue. Because you are special.”

“I don’t want to go.” Renti throw his arms around her as her skin became bark. “I don’t want to leave you!”

“You have to go.” She replied. “If you don’t now, worse things will happen.

“But... take my flute. A piece of me. Take it and play it. And think of me.”

She then became a full, little, tree. The pan flute around her neck. He took it off of her as it remained dried horsetails and played her off, the joyous tune she always played that brought the woodland animals to them.

He then felt a shadow loam over him. Renti didn’t think as he put the instrument around his neck and marched off through the trails and thickets. Not once did he look back as the trees gave to plains. A brief moment of dread came over him once he found himself many paces from Fae’Una and stomping in the grasslands of Una.

He was never bound to the forest. He was never kerhi.

---

Part of the Anataya Chronicles, a series of short stories by Shannon Frances Smith around the Kingdom of Anataya. To read past entries.