Fillafonro Branchercamp's Arc

Chapter 1 of 2

Fillafonro Branchercamp pressed his ear to the grey trunk and heard the spirit breathing beneath the roots. For years he had studied where the old power slept under Terrinia. He was close now. Just a few feet of soil separated his hand from the sleeping force he meant to wake. But the forest was dying, and a dead forest keeps its secrets buried. He dug with both hands. The dirt came up cold and black. Roots crawled through it like grey ropes, and they moved. One coiled around his wrist and tightened. He tore free and fell back. The moss on his sleeves had gone brown at the edges. His mushroom hat drooped over one eye. The roots were smothering the spirit. He had felt its breath grow fainter each day. If the sickness spread further, the power below would suffocate before he ever reached it. He needed the roots alive. Living roots would loosen. Dying roots would only clench harder around anything they touched. Fillafonro remembered the mushroom. He carried one in his pouch, wrapped in a leaf. Its cap glowed soft, dusted with what looked like crushed stars. He had found it in the last green corner of the wood. Old lore said its dust could feed sick earth. He had never dared test it. Now he had no better plan. He built a small fire and set his iron cup over the flame. He filled it with rainwater. Then he crumbled the glowing cap into the water and stirred with a twig. The brew turned pale blue. Sparks rose off the surface and drifted into the dark. The smell was sharp and green, like crushed grass after rain. He poured the brew into the pit he had dug. The liquid sank fast. For a moment nothing changed. The grey roots hung still. Fillafonro held his breath and watched. Then the roots stirred. The nearest one flushed from grey to brown, then to living green. The change spread outward, root by root, like fire running backward into life. The soil warmed under his knees. The tight coils loosened and drew back into the earth. A smell of sap filled the air. The spirit's breath below grew stronger. He felt it push up through the softened ground, steady now, no longer choked. He had saved the forest's roots. He could reach the spirit at last. But the green did not stop spreading. It raced past his pit and up the trunk and out through the whole wood. Every tree woke at once. Branches groaned and stretched. Far off, something huge shifted in its sleep. Fillafonro had wanted to wake the spirit gently, alone, on his own terms. Instead the whole forest was rising, and it was rising angry. The ground beneath him began to heave.