A Forest On Fire

The Swamps of Ei-Vihaa

 What was that, in front of her? In the marshland, standing tall? Was it a woman or a man? She could not tell. She could not see its face; it was shrouded in darkness and shadow. Neither could she perceive if it were real. It carried a heavy presence, but it, itself, was light. It was still, deathly still, but dispersed a feeling of restlessness, like someone who is bound. It was content, as content as is possible for anyone to be, but something was rising in its chest, building and bubbling just underneath the surface, pushing against the paper-thin barrier separating it from eternal freedom with a relentless fervor incomparable to anything she has ever felt. It was pushing, climbing, rising, clawing, biting, scratching. But it was still, silent, waiting. It was perplexing, this figure, this phantom. It was dusky, dark, but it was not evil. Nor was it good. 

Émile awoke.

He had been having this dream ever since he had arrived in Austria and had seen that figure, that phantom in nearly all of his sleeping moments. It had become a familiar sight, somewhat comforting, somewhat foreboding. Often, when his dreams went without this pinnacle of the future, Émile would find himself thinking, wondering about it. He wondered what it meant- nothing good, certainly, he thought- but, most often, what it was. It appeared human, but it did not feel so. So foreign, in fact, it felt comparable to the sigh of those monsters, of those telé'l that plagued his existence. Could they, too, be plaguing his dreams?

Émile doubted it. Perhaps it was just a recurring nightmare, albeit a calm one, but nothing more. Still, why now? Why not when he had a reason to fear them, should they, indeed, be the cause? He no longer shook in their presence; he no longer wailed at the their terrible heads. No, now, they feared him, as it should be, and as it shall be. They had no right to appear before him, even in his dreams.

Lim was dead, but he had died peacefully. He had died a few months after they had entered Austria. He was sixty-five; old age was his bane, so they said. It astonished Émile, how much of their lives had been spent traveling. He had entered Mongolia at the age of fifteen; now, in the Austrian Empire, as the President of the International Association of Hunters, he was a man of thirty-four. Certainly, too, was age creeping upon him, just as it had done with Lim.

Only when something is perfect does it begin to bother you. You may accept it, you may tolerate it; one might even welcome it. But deep down, in the depths of something you don't even recognize as yourself- as something other, rather-, you wish to reject it, to destroy it, to erase it. You are suspicious of its perfection, of its sublime purity. It disgusts you. It disgusts you in the way a mirror disgusts you. That is, you disgust yourself.

These were the thoughts tugging on Émile, pushing and pulling him every which way. He did not know how to deal with them or, even, where they were coming from. It was a sudden, unexpected change. He did not like it. It was as if something different from him entirely was thinking for him, taking control of his mind. It confused him. He did not know what was happening. Surely, it had nothing to do with Lim? He did not care for the man, never did. Lim was dead. Why start caring for a corpse? But he knew Lim was not the cause. Call it a distraction, an attempted persuasion to convince himself he knew what was happening, to convince himself he had somewhat of an idea, when, really, he did not.

It made Émile angry, for the change in his thoughts, in even the way his body felt, startled him. As such, he sought a solution. It was said that the hunters were after lourierre, but it was never explained why they were after it or how they knew of its existence. They are after it because of Émile's dreams. One night, he had the dream again, but it was different; the figure revealed itself to him, spoke to him. It was an elderly man, ancient, possibly eighty or ninety. He spoke quickly, but his voice projected powerfully. The old man introduced himself to Émile as Torvald Baptiste. Torvald told Émile that something was coming, something stronger than the telé'l, something that made them look like puppies in contrast. He told them what it was called- the kuollaan. Torvald gave Émile the name of a kuollaan, which he found he did not remember upon awakening. Before Émile awoke, the man told him that he must find something called lourierre. That was all.