Juureth

Enlil stood in the pale moonlight, looking out across the fields of grain when his hound let out a single warning bark.

Something was amiss.

He turned to see the sleek grey hound pointing in the other direction, completely motionless. Curious, Enlil strode over to his companion.

“what is it girl?” He asked.

She remained motionless, her focus never wavering from a point somewhere off behind the nearest row of grain. He followed her gaze with his eyes, peering through the dim light of the half moon, trying to determine what had spooked her.

He stared for a long minute. When a slow breeze rolled in, building gradually to a bluster, it caused the heavy heads of grain to sway more turbulently. That’s when enlil thought he noticed something.

A solitary figure, draped in dark clothing, standing amidst the swaying grain.

In the darkness it was difficult to make out much detail, but something about their presence felt off. He couldn’t place it. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end as a chill shot down his back.

There was something innately wrong here.

Enlil placed a hand on his hound’s neck and felt her trembling. It was not the kind of tremble when she awaited a command to herd the cattle or catch a pest. This was erratic, frenzied, like she couldn’t decide if she should attack or bolt.

A deep sense of disquiet washed over the elven farmer and he looked up to find the figure again.

It had vanished.

He drew a soft gasp and scanned the field in the moonlight, wondering if he had imagined the whole thing. His heartbeat quickened and his mouth felt dry.

The disappearance did not comfort him. If anything, the thought crossed his mind that he was being stalked by some predator, some supernatural creature come alive from the tales told to little children to get them to obey their parents. But this lacked the air of innocence of those tales. It felt real and menacing.

His hound began to growl and Enlil felt his blood run chill.

He looked down to find her pointing off to the left now.

The wind whipped the heads of grain furiously, creating a storm tossed sea in the moonlight. The dark figure stood closer now. But Enlil experienced the inexorable suspicion that this was not the first figure. This one seemed taller, broader, hulking in comparison to the first.

He couldn’t help but think of a pack of wolves closing in on him.

And he wasn’t too far off.

Something about this second figure seemed lupine, predatory and inhuman. It’s limbs hung at an awkward angle, the shoulders rolled forward, and the posture hunched. The dim silhouette of its head did not reflect the aspect of a person, but more that of an animal.

His hound barked again, a paniced, terrified sound and Enlil spotted a third figure. His hound paced back and forth, backing toward him and he realized that they were surrounded. He saw what he thought was the first figure reappear, closer again and still just as menacing. A fourth figure materialized next to it, its form writhing and eldritch in the grim moonlight. Then from the edge of the grainfield a woman emerged, slight in stature, pale skin gleaming in the moonlight, hair dark and wild, hanging in tangled braids down to her waist.

She moved with a lithe grace that felt ancient. As with the other figures, Enlil felt a predatory air about her. It felt misplaced for someone so small. Enlil estimated that she stood no higher than his elbow, making her small even for human standards.

Despite her diminutive stature, Enlil sensed power in the woman.

She took a few steps closer and spoke. Strange words spilled from her mouth, words laced with power that seemed to pull at the very fabric of Enlil’s soul. The wind ceased blowing and the night became still.

As she spoke, the other figures emerged from the rows of grain and stood beside the woman. Enlil saw each more clearly now. The hulking figure looked like a cross between an enormous wolf standing upon its hind legs and a grotesque perversion of a man. Another feminine figure stood only a few inches taller than the woman and looked like a fresh corpse, it’s eyes a gleaming white. Another seemed to be a man, but in the place of his head, a writhing mass of shadowy tentacles stirred ceaselessly. The final figure, another woman, stood a head taller than the first woman, her face gaunt and eyes darker than midnight. Each stood arrayed in rough-spun linens, animal pelts, and bone accoutrements.

The woman called to Enlil, holding out a hand. He wanted to run, but his legs felt like lead. He felt a pull in every inch of his being, like gravity drawing him toward that outstretched hand. He tried to turn away, but even his eyes refused to move.

Despite everything within him that said to run, he took a single halting step toward the small woman. Then another. He walked like a puppet fighting its master until he stood just a few feet away from the small woman, flanked by the other figures.

She spoke again, her strange tongue pervading Enlil’s mind. He fell to his knees before her. He felt the eyes of the others on him now; heard their grotesque whispers at the edges of his mind.

He looked up at the small woman, who stared back at him and asked a question, cocking her head to one side.

“I- I don’t understand.” He whimpered.

She tilted her head to the other side. “That is because you are not listening.” She hissed.

Images played in his mind, dancing just behind his vision, images of his own life, his children, parents, his wife. Every moment that he had ever witnessed, every choice he ever made, all of his emotions washed over him in a wave. It was only then that Enlil thought he understood who this woman and her strange companions were.

“Are you death?” He asked.

“No,” she said, drawing it out, “but you are dead.” She gestured behind him and Enlil slowly turned where he knelt to see his own body crumpled in the grass, his hound curled up next to him.

He turned back to the small woman and asked, “how- what happened to me?”

“I do not know,” She said plainly, “but you are not finished.”

“Who are you then, if not Death come to claim me?”

“We are,” she paused, considering her next words, “the Coven. We speak to you through a fold in the Weave of the universe. We have a work for you to do. You will become a juureth, a being reborn of the forest.”

“Reborn?”

“After a manner of speaking.” She replied, cupping his chin with one small hand. She then placed the thumb of her other hand between his eyebrows and let her palm and fingers spread over his forehead and into his hair.

Her touch sent lightning through Enlil’s veins and his eyes rolled back in his head. He sensed the movement of time, but he was unsure whether that was forward, backward, or some sidelong shift. He became vaguely aware of the hands of others upon his shoulders and the strange words that their owners whispered. His mind opened into a vast darkness that surrounded him. He could see nothing, but he felt the presence of the small woman looming over him. She was vast and ancient, and she was not alone. The others of the coven surrounded him in body and spirit; each as ancient and alien as the last; each overflowing with an immense power, bending the fabric of space and time around him.

He sensed another presence: one more demanding, hungrier, and more terrifying than the others. It filled his mind, dwarfing the coven, seeking to devour him, to end his existence and swallow him in the void of non-being. But just as it seemed that he would be lost, that hollow non-being vanished. He felt a deep vibration starting at the crown of his head and radiating down and outward to his extremities.

His eyes snapped open and the vibration stopped.

He knelt in a forest clearing, surrounded by five individuals that he did not recognize.

A small woman with dark braided hair and runic tattoos removed her hands from his forehead and chin and stepped back as the others withdrew their touch as well.

“Where am I?” asked Enlil, his own voice sounding like the groan of an ancient oak in the wind.

“Morvaen,” responded the small woman, “the home world of the thaevaaki, the kindred of the Weave.”

Enlil felt strange; stiff and alien. He looked down at his hands and gasped. His entire body seemed covered in rough bark. As he moved, the bark split and fell away, revealing a smooth reddish wood that writhed like exposed muscle. To his amazement, the wood and bark gave way to ruddy-brown skin. He stood and shed the bark encasing his body, standing bare amidst the coven and tall as a tree.

“Welcome, Enlil juureth, spirit of the forest. You are a spirit no longer, but made new and immortal.”

Enlil looked from face to face, images of dark figures in a field of grain stirring in his memory with each one. Slowly, recognition settled in.

“My wife? My Children?” He asked.

“They live.” Said the small woman.

“Will they become the same when they die?” He asked, gesturing at his body.

“I do not know.” She replied. “The will of the Weave is not always clear. We see it as if shrouded in mist, only fully seeing that part that is most present.”

Enlil took in the forest surrounding them. The pale light of an overcast day filtered through the canopy overhead. Autumn colors painted the trees: golds, oranges, reds and maroons above a carpet of brown. Thick mosses wrapped around the trunks of nearly every tree within sight, blanketing exposed boulders and fallen logs. Without realizing that he had strode past the circle of little and closer to a nearby tree, he reached a ruddy-brown hand out and felt the damp moss clinging to the trunk, sinking his hand deep into the cushion of miniature trees. Somewhere deep within his being he heard the ancient name of it in a tongue that he now realized belonged to the little woman. He stilled to listen more deeply and a chorus of whispers rose within his mind, not menacing or foreboding, simply naming that which surrounded him.

Hundreds of questions flooded his thoughts, but he gave voice to only one. “What now?” He asked, the sound of his voice coming out like the creeking of a tree in the wind. He turned and saw only the small woman remaining, wild hair hanging in tangled braids.

“We leave you.” She said. “You have much to ponder. The Weave continues to work within you. There will be changes, revelations, and your mind will open in ways that you never could have imagined as a mortal. Take your time, you have as much of it as you could possibly desire.”

She turned and began to walk away.

“Wait!”

She stopped and looked back at him.

“Am I dead?” He asked.

“Yes and no.” She responded. “It will make sense in time.” Then she left him standing in the clearing.

Enlil watched her go. When she disappeared from sight he stood alone in the forest, watching the leaves fall slowly around him still wondering if this was the afterlife or if he truly had been reborn, his own ghost inhabiting a new body on a different world.