Forged Paradise- Part 3

 

3.
The Chasm

Maxim staggered back from the pool of water. He reached a shaking hand and touched his face, ensuring himself that the flesh there was still warm and living. Even the warmth of his own skin could not break the image of the ghostly figure, its fingers reaching towards his as he bent over the water, the whispery voice echoing like all the ghosts in the woods. 

He looked around desperately. The ghosts still lingered, waiting for him. Their cloudy eyes followed his movements.

“Don’t worry,” the tri-tone voice wasn’t a surprise to him this time. “Everyone feels a bit jarred when they reach enlightenment.” The being no longer hid himself. The gray mist that lingered through the forest floor thickened into his form, tall and gnarled as the trees around them. Only its eyes, somehow lighter while still being black, seemed stable, the rest of his form shifting in the wind. 

“Enlightenment?” Maxim echoed, then hated himself for it. “How can this be enlightenment?” His words slurred slightly, his tongue no longer wanting to question. 

“Maxim,” the figure said. It tutted him. “You must make your own way. I did. They all will too, by the time they are old.” It gestured to the ghosts in the trees, the gray mist trailing from its hand. 

Mist crowded around Maxim’s ankles, clutching at his legs, shooting up his spine like ice. “What are you?” 

The figure bobbled its head back and forth. “I am nothing. You are nothing. They are nothing. And if we are all nothing, we are everything. Do you understand?”
“No.” Maxim said. 

“You will, in time.” The figure drifted around him. 

“I don’t want to,” Maxim said. “I am returning to the king’s path.”

The figure laughed, the sound grating and loud. The ghosts shied away, nervous whispers passing between them. “Maxim, Maxim, Maxim,” it said. “Where will you go?” 

“Home,” Maxim said. “I’ll go home.”

“Home where?” 

The same fuzziness that crept over his tongue rooted itself in his brain. “I can’t… I can’t remember.”
“The woods are all there is, Maxim,” the figure said. It rested its hand on Maxim’s shoulder. The touch was feathery and heavy and warm and cold, and Maxim froze beneath it. “We must simply make the best of them.”

“I have to cross the chasm.” Maxim couldn’t tell if the words made their way out of his mouth, but they pounded in his brain. He scrambled backwards, away from the figure. Then he turned and ran again. He tripped, got up, and kept running. He tripped again. His coat caught on bushes and pulled backwards, catching around his throat and choking him. Maxim ripped himself free of it. 

His hands were too thin now, the bones protruding lopsided from the pale skin. Mist clung to him, seeping into him, changing him. Maxim yelled in protest. The sound, shapeless and animalistic, rattled in the trees. He had to get out of there. He would make his way out of the forest, no matter what that figure said. 

He had been free of it once, hadn’t he? The fuzziness in his brain was getting worse.

The trees around him all looked the same. They leaned towards each other, extending branches towards each other, twisted into some sort of corrupted roof. Maxim reached a clearing and left it, then reached another clearing identical to the first. He looked back. All he could see was trees around him. No more did the ghosts follow him, no more echoes of the figure’s voice haunted him. 

He was utterly alone.

The trees leaned closer, pressing towards him. Maxim stumbled forward, then turned and stumbled back the way he had come. Which way was forward. He chose a direction and ran again, plunging through the underbrush. 

The trees grew farther apart as he ran, the path opening up wide ahead of him. The rugged dirt grew smoother under his feet, slightly slick and damp. The gray mist that surrounded him grew thicker, blocking his eyes, sinking around his skin. 

Ahead of him he could see the lights of Little Vertim through the trees. The forest was ending. He was nearly home. Maxim threw his hand out, shoving branches aside, and flew free of the trees.

A yawning pit split the ground before him. Maxim skidded, trying to stop, but the ground was slick and even, the bare area offering not even a handhold.  Maxim teetered for a moment on the cliff’s edge.

Then he fell into the chasm.

Someone caught his wrist. Maxim jolted to a stop, his shoulder wrenching painfully. He spun above the darkness. A strong hand heaved him back up out of the chasm. Maxim could grab the edge again. His feet scrambled and found purchase. 

Then he fell to his knees on solid ground at the edge of the chasm. He breathed hard, digging his hands into the surface. The ghostly pallor left them. Caked in mud, cut from grasping at rock and branches, they were still his hands. 

“Maxim,” a deep voice said. A hand rested on his shoulder, pushing for him to stand. He scrambled to his feet, looking into the face of his rescuer. The skin of the man’s face was rough and creased with time. His brow was high, his eyes clear. He was a few inches shorter than Maxim, but his step was sure, his posture firm.

Maxim followed him shakily away from the mud and into the forest. Once there, he collapsed to his knees again. “My king,” he whispered. 

“My child,” the king said. “You have wandered far.”

“I left the path.” A lump rose in Maxim’s throat, narrowing the words. 

“You did.”

“I listened to the stranger,” Maxim said. “I am sorry.” 

“You are forgiven.”

Maxim looked up into the king’s face. “My lord?” He whispered. “Why did you not let me drop into the chasm?”

“I hold on to my own,” the king said. “That is why I maintain the path. That is why I protect the bridge.” 

“They said the chasm bridge was out.”

“And you trusted them?”
Maxim dropped his face again. “I failed you. I doubted.”

“I know,” the king said. “I have always been there. I saw you in your deepest pain. I saw you in every moment. You were never alone.”

“Why… why didn’t I see you?”

“You didn’t look.”

Maxim looked, then. The king’s hands were scratched and bloodied. Scars traced his forehead, cuts like the gashes on Maxim’s arms and legs from his flight, the cuts on his feet from the moments he ran. The king’s eyes, though, were only full of compassion. “My Lord,” Maxim breathed. 

“I am the one who sees. You were never alone on the path, Maxim,” the king said. “And you never will be. I will walk it with you, even when you cannot see.” 

“I am unworthy of your care,” Maxim said.

The king lifted him to his feet. “I paid the toll for you to walk the path, Maxim. Trust in that. Now go on your way. Walk the path. I will never let you fall.”

Maxim looked around. The trees around him melted, shifted. Lights led the way before and behind him. Warmth filled his body as his coat and shoes returned. He looked down at himself. The tears in his pants mended, the mud gone. All was made right.

In the distance, barely lit by the lamps, he saw the chasm bridge, firm over the yawning pit. 

He looked back. The king had disappeared. A settled warmth rested in the center of Maxim’s chest. He looked back at the forest, listened to the howls of the ghosts. Then he walked, his steps firm, across the chasm bridge and into the lights of Little Vertim, home again.