The Revelation of the Vine: Graft

Chapter 22: The Sleeper Awakens and the Corruption Stirs

  Vhalrin sat up and looked around; his eyes met mine for a moment then passed to Teion, and then Jurgen, as the rest of the group rushed over. An air of an excitement filled the nook under the tree as everyone huddled around the Veilian who had his mind's eyes re-opened. Jurgen and I walked over to Vhalrin, and both extended a hand. "Rise up, Vhalrin Lemniscata, Knight of the Vine," we said together. He clasped our hands, and we pulled him to his feet. "That sounds a lot cooler when you both say it," Teion remarked. "Thanks, Vhalrin said, looking at each of us with a semblance of worry hidden underneath his smile, "But we seriously need to talk." His voice came out so confident it surprised everyone. "I remember why I came here." "Wait," I said, catching what he had said. "What do you mean came here?" "I mean, I wasn't trying to get into the Mist. I was trying to get out." "Alright then, Vhalrin," I said, backing off to let him speak at his own pace. He did just have his memories rewritten into his mind, after all. "Tell us what you know." A rising curiosity gnawed at the front of my mind, but I could sense a faint desire to silence him from revealing what he was about to say. A strange and twisted desire that was not my own, and I determined to fight it, for as long and as hard as I could. "Well, we can skip my name," Vhalrin began, igniting a few laughs, but the look on his face was totally serious. "I'm already too late to warn you about the false tear, but not about the real one." His comment caused quite a stir among the Knights, and even in me. That thing that hit the Rime this morning was a fake. Another real meteor was coming. And of all the times, why did it have to happen during the Sowing? "Another meteor -- the real tear -- is going to fall at dawn." He said, "I know this because a group I belonged to in Veil --The Seekers of the Vine-- found out. We uncovered a terrible secret concerning the history of the Knights of the Vine, and I was sent on a mission to cross the barrier and find the Order. The barrier is a product of technology and the Corruption. It's an artificial Breach in the Vine, meant to keep you out, and us in. The study and manipulation of Corruption has been going on for a very long time in Veil." "I'm sorry, Vhalrin," I said, hating to interrupt, and feeling kind of stupid for having to ask questions, but the Corruption was making it hard for me to focus. "What is this Veil you keep referring to?" "Oh, right, you guys call it Old Atmos. It's my home -- was my home. We call it Veil." "So, you really are a Veilian," I said with shock. We didn't call people who had the Blink Veilians because we knew about Veil. We did so because it seemed like a veil had been pulled over them; like they were shadows of their true selves. "Yea," He replied, "Who would have guessed. Anyway, the barrier surrounds the entire continent, and it rips away the memory of anyone who gets caught in the mist it emits. No one has ever made it through; not since I've been alive and not since anyone I know can remember. "There is a way through, though, but it's a very narrow path and it changes constantly. It revolves around the barrier, so you only have a limited opportunity to make it. We'd only just discovered the path a few months before I was sent through, but it was a risk I had to take to warn you all. Obviously, something went wrong, and the path I was told to take had been changed. I even remember the feeling of having my memories torn away by the barrier. It was horrible. That's one thing I wish I could forget again." The story was incredible. To think that all this time Old Atmos -- or Veil -- had been some kind of Corruption-research-testing-ground was inconceivable. Who knew what kind of terrible abominations had been created over the past eleven-hundred-years. I wanted to know more, but my curiosity would have to wait; if the real tear was truly coming at dawn, then we had no time to lose. "Alright everyone get ready to move," I said, "And Vhalrin, thank you for the tremendous sacrifice you made to bring us this knowledge. I'm sure we all see you differently now; I certainly do." "To me, it's all been worth it," He responded, "The chance to become a Lemniscata is worth any risk to a true Seeker." The group gathered their belongings, and Vhalrin went to put on his new bodysuit that Jurgen gave him. My mind swirled with thoughts about Veil, and every so often I would have to swat down a twisted notion spawned by the Corruption. By the time we left the tree, the first orange beams of dusk's light were just beginning to refract through the mist; night was coming to the Dale. We jumped across the stones, and over the glistening water, as the howls of wolves and hoots of owls began to rise into the air. Once we crossed the water and made it to the clearing, we turned north and headed into the trees. The long shadows of the forest stretched over us, dulling the dimming light under the canopy, as smoke and vapor curled around the air. Looking back, I could see the hazy colors of the Lemniscus tree glowing in the distance between the trees. I said a silent goodbye to the tree and its fruit, unsure if I would ever see them again. The forest was filled with an assortment of sounds. Chirps, hums, and croaks mingled with the snaps, cracks, rustles and crunches of our movement, as we pushed through the overgrowth of the woods. The occasional call of a bird, hoot of an owl, or howl of a wolf echoed through the trees. The faint and constant trickle of flowing water underlay it all, as we followed the river to its source. We pushed our way through as far as fifteen miles when the final, purple-grey light of dusk faded from the sky. There were many instances where we had to Vine Surge to progress through the denser thickets of the forest, but so far nothing had required a detour into the Vine phase. The way to the Keep was so heavily guarded by the terra-formed environment that only Lemniscata could get to it. "Oh man, what in the Vine is that?" Tenbu asked as we approached a gnarled, barren oak tree that towered in the midst of a group of thorns and scattered pines. Its long, spiny branches stretched out over a small clearing where the ground was covered in dead bushes and dried leaves, phasing in and out of view within the swirling mist. Thin, pointed stems like fingers scratched the air, as a cool wind descended down from the north and blew through the forest. A sudden chill crept up my spine. The cold winds never made it down here before. Swirling black smog suddenly rose from the shadows under the gnarled tree's branches. It reminded me of the smog that covered the spiders in the cavern, and . . . Kivan. Dozens of ooze-covered bats burst forth from the smog, fluttering into the forest and surrounding us in a vortex of black wings. Their piercing screeches echoed around us, assaulting our ears. A horrible feeling rose up within me, as the Corruption suddenly became strengthened by the company of its kin. A heat began to flare in the side of my ribs where Kivan's Shadow-Shard struck me, injecting the venomous Corruption into me like a cancer. The void-scarring in that region of my body prevented my soul from completely repairing it. It had altered my DNA. I had figured out that this was what must have happened to Kivan somehow. Maybe the spiders got to him somewhere down in the cavern after he fell, poisoned him, and turned the Corruption loose upon his flesh. Maybe he hadn't even been killed. I only remembered two rises in our power from fallen allies. Unless he had somehow been slain coincidentally, or otherwise, intricately planned during one of those rises, I don't see how he could have been. How, or why, he succumbed so quickly, whereas I had only just begun, only just started to make sense. The fruit wasn't afraid of me and hiding its light, it was giving it to me, helping me to keep the Corruption at bay. Now that I had left the sanctuary of the tree it was beginning to take hold even stronger. I felt myself slip into the background, as twisted thoughts that barked evil commands raced around the forefront of my mind.