The Blood Trails

Chapter 2 - Shen

"So do you have a name?" Peter asked.  Watching the Sairy do another flying circle.  He couldn’t help but crack a smile.  He wasn’t sure what it was capable of but the Sairy seemed harmless enough, he actually appeared cute—maybe that was why the city left them alone.  No threat.

The Sairy grinned, his soft eyes watching Peter kindly, "A matter of fact I do! I am Shen the great Sairy of, well I'm a Sairy!" he squeaked, Peter couldn't help out a quick laugh.  The pain from his ealier encoutner with another forest creature already almost forogtten.  Shen flew off a bit in one direction before spinning around. When Peter didn’t follow Shen spoke up, “Well, come on!”  The fairy boy was friendly, hell, he was surprised it didn’t ask for his name.  Should he mention it?

As the weight of the heavy threat from the grim hand faded Peter cracked a more obvious smile, maybe this adventure wouldn’t be so bad after all—the map was right, help was on the way.  “I’m Peter, Peter Trent.” He spoke out as he followed the dim glow of the Sairy’s wings.

The glowing wings nodded up and down as if recognition, but the Sairy didn’t speak back—it just kept signaling for Peter to follow. The trees continued to get bigger and bigger the further it led him, the trunks getting so large it would take him ten to fifteen minutes of walking to get passed one of them. After a while they reached a small clearing in the shape of a perfect sphere with one massive tree located in the center, it appeared to be at least ten times larger than every tree around it. "This is Soulwick! The one biggest of them all, and the one that most Sairys live in! You can stay with me tonight, you're always welcome here!" Shen said giving a big grin. Peter felt uncomfortable that something he'd never seen before was being so nice to him. Was this what the map meant when it said help is in your path? It all seemed to, convenient.

A few more of the little creatures hummed around the opening, most much higher than the surface.  A couple of faces glanced in Peters direction, most were young, they didn’t look more than the age of young adults.  A few appeared older, but the vast majority looked like minors.

As they moved through the clearing Peter sort of figured Soulwick was the biggest of all trees, it did make the trees that took him fifteen minutes to walk around appear puny in comparison. It was one of the most amazing things that he’d ever seen, though he couldn’t see the top he felt it could probably match, if not surpass, the size of some of the buildings in the inner city—and a few of those reached into the outer atmosphere.

When he was a hundred or so feet from the thick bark Peter saw a door carved into the side. Hundreds of mysterious symbols surrounded the age-old door created from the bark of the tree itself.  Shen had Peter follow him up to the door, Peter could now see dozens of Sairys flying amongst the outer rim of Soulwick some darting up into the distance and others trailing back down. The door opened smoothly and Peter went inside with Shen leading. The door was followed by a path which carved itself about fifty feet long before opening up into the inside of the tree.  The inside of the tree was a huge dug out cavity as high as the eye can see and long enough to easily fit a sports stadium. About 100 feet up the giant core of the tree remained and doors covered the outside walls as well as what he could see of the core which appeared like a pole stuck directly in the center of a bottle.

Once Peter passed through the hallway from the entrance he could see thousands of Sairy's inside flying from door to door above. The wooden doors above were like the entrance one, made with the bark of the tree, with the exception of the symbols—the doors inside had none. There were rows and rows of them as high as the eye can see, most of them closed but a few open with Sairys inside or nearby. All the Sairys where so busy they didn't even notice Peter walked right into their probably sacred living place.

Were these creatures always this busy?  He still couldn’t believe that there were so many of them and he’s lived on the planet all his life—yet he’s never heard or seen them before.  These Sairys weren’t even discussed in school.  It was like they didn’t exist.  But they seemed so friendly, there was no way he was the first person to venture out into the forest and run into them.  “Are you guys always this busy?”  Peter finally asked as Shen allowed him to ogle at the madness that was the inside of Soulwick.

The Sairy did a spin and smiled back, "There's a festival going on tonight! Right there!” Shen pointed a small finger at the center of the tree, which was at the moment empty—but had even more of the Sairys floating around, crowding.  Shen pulled his metal stick out of a pocket and flicked it once.  A circular symbol appeared in the air before vanishing and the humming from his wings went quiet.  “Much better!”  he pocketed the metal and moved along the wall of mostly closed doors on the first floor. 

Peter then noticed most the other Sairys flew around silently too, maybe the humming was bothersome even to its creators and they created a… spell… to mute it.  Shen started pointing in various directions as Peter got a couple of looks and smalls miles from passing Sairys.  The silent boy who led him to Soulwick was no longer silent at all, he seemed a bit too excited to reveal all the secrets and ins and outs of Soulwick and its inhabitants.  Did they give every person to stumble into their forest this treatment?

After Shen showed Peter around the ground floor he led Peter to what must have been his own room. Shen's room happened to be on the first floor, a good thing too because the tree wasn't designed for someone to walk around in, it has no stairs to the upper floors. Shen's room was quite simple, it had an eight foot roof, one reasonable for a person, and it did seem to have a larger door and living space than most the doors and rooms on the floors above.

The room had a single large white feathered bed in the center. A bed that made no logical sense with the general size of a Sairy.  He was starting to think this room was some kind of guest room designed for a person, maybe even him.  Did they know he was coming?  Across from the bed there was a dresser drawer with a flipping mirror above it, the trademark on the side of the dresser showed that it was bought from the city. A single small door to the far side of the bed, and more towards the outer shell of the tree, led to a small bathroom.  In the bathroom was what looked like plumbing and electricity even though nothing to connected to the bulb hanging above by a thin string, or to the pipes which stopped at the tree's edge, not bothering to drill into the wood. Other than the abnormal source of electricity the room seemed like a fairly normal single-person room, almost like a motel. A bathroom, a single bed, and even a small fridge he just noticed located on the far side behind the bed. He admired the fridge to notice it also wasn't plugged into anything but still worked, it also had trademarks that said it was from the city.

“This room is for you!”  Shen smiled, hovering over the bed.  So, the room wasn’t Shen’s after all.  “You can use it whenever you want for a long as you want, you’re always welcomed here!”  Peter figured getting a nice bed and a room was much better than what he was originally planning—a tent outside when the sunset.  He played with a small cube in one of his pockets—he made sure he had everything he needed in the cube before taking off.  He wasn’t stupid and didn’t just walk off blindly—he wanted to make sure he’d actually make it to whatever his destination was, whatever was over those mountains that the map said he desired most.

Shen did a few more excited circles around Peter and flew to the door. “Do whatever!” the little boy smiled as he began to leave, “just be back here in about an hour—then I get to take you to the festival! How neat?”  Shen flew out, steel stick ready, and with a flick a small symbol formed in the air and the door pushed itself closed. 

Shit?  Did he just get locked in the room?  Peter went for the door and pushed—it slid smoothly and easily open.  No.  He closed the door again and look around the room.  Shen’s hospitality was just too much—something was going on here.

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