Shards of Felwyn

The Grim Cavern

Cosmo knelt on the ground in a small clearing within a dense forest as the sky began to explode with the vibrant colors of twilight. He shouldered his bow and sighed. A swift buck had been evading him for the majority of the evening and, now that dusk was almost upon him, he grew impatient. The tracks told him that he was no more than fifteen minutes behind his target.

Cosmo was a young orphaned boy of sixteen with curly brown hair and dark brown eyes. His clothes were worn from an evening of hunting. His white tunic was stained with grass and mud and the ankles of his dark brown pants were still dripping with water from a river he was forced to cross. Cosmo had lived on the island of Coeden for his whole life and often spent the afternoon attempting to hunt, often to no avail.

A sudden movement caught Cosmo's attention from the corner of his eye. He quickly nocked an arrow, searching for his target. A shadow slowly crept along the edge of the clearing. Cosmo pulled the arrow back, not making a sound.

Come to me. A deep voice resounded through the forest, followed by a billowing wind. Flocks of birds were roused and took to the skies. The arrow released from Cosmo's grip, but he had already lost his concentration. Sailing past the deer, his arrow embedded itself within a nearby tree. The deer quickly fled and, for a moment, Cosmo wondered if he should have done the same.

Immediately, Cosmo felt as though he had slipped out of reality. Slowly, the ground started to move below him. He didn't even realize he was walking until he had reached the edge of the clearing. The trees began to sway and the darkness of the forest seemed strangely inviting as he stepped further within the void.

Enter, and see. The voice pulled Cosmo from his trance just as quickly as it had put him in it. Cosmo felt as though he had just awoken; however, he found himself in completely different surroundings. He had traveled to a part of the forest he had never been to, with twinkling fireflies, hissing cicadas, and dark, drooping trees.

A cave loomed before Cosmo under the dark branches of the forest. He began to feel a strong impulse to enter the cave, as though the voice from the forest could tell no lies. He began to feel all hesitation slip from his mind as he stepped closer to the mouth of the cavern. Slowly, every shred of reality Cosmo had ever held on to was torn from him, until he realized he was no longer inside or outside of the cave. He felt as though someone was drowning him in his own senses.

You are close. Come further. The voice called out to Cosmo and immediately everything stopped. Where once was turmoil within him was now tranquility. He opened his eyes and he sat in a solemn graveyard, cross-legged. Gloomy trees hung over him and a thick mist hung in the air. Birds flitted from tree to tree and insects chirped and buzzed in the grass. Cosmo sighed and stood up, only to find that he hadn't moved a muscle. Trying to get up once more, Cosmo discovered he could not move his body at all. He blinked and found him no longer in the cemetery at all.

When Cosmo opened his eyes, he found himself atop the tallest mountain he had ever seen. The clouds rolled peacefully above him and the wind rushed through his hair. He was sitting cross-legged once again, perched on a small outcropping in the steep cliffside. This time, without even moving a muscle, his body stood up and leaped. The wind whistled past his ears and he opened his mouth to scream, only to find he wasn't falling through the air at all.

Dark grey rock surrounded Cosmo as he lay flat on his face. The world tilted sideways and he slid into a river, immediately ripped away by a strong current. He felt the cool water evaporate on his skin under a hot sun as he opened his eyes on a bright sandy beach. The sand evaporated away before his eyes and Cosmo felt tears rolling down his cheeks.

Cosmo took a deep, shaky breath and he opened his eyes. He found himself once again at the burial ground, surrounded by the deafening noise of silence. The birds and insects had all left and the air carried no breeze through the trees. He got up, actually standing up this time, and walked to a large and dead tree in the corner of the cemetery. The tree formed a mouth and shallow eyes sockets in its bark.

It is clear you are not yet adequately prepared. The tree spoke in the same voice as before. Cosmo struggled to hold his grasp on reality. He refocused on the tree as his mind was tearing itself away from it.

"How can I be prepared? I don't even know what you want!" Cosmo clawed at the sides of his face, his head pounding. His vision started to blur and the ground started to slowly fade away from his view. The thumping of his heartbeat echoed in his ears.

Return when you are prepared. You will know when the time has come. The face in the bark melded back into the trunk. Cosmo took a step back, feeling weary from the mental strain.

"No, wait!" He called out to the voice. The voice did not respond and Cosmo's vision went black again.

Expecting to find another illusion beneath his hands and feet, Cosmo found it odd to wake up to a sense of reality. Opening his eyes, he saw the entrance to the mysterious cavern before him. It was daytime now, the sun cloaking the clearing in bright yellow rays. Birds chirped with the rising of the morning sun and the grass was still cool with dew in the shade Cosmo lay in.

You must leave this island and never return. I have given you one of the most precious things to the people of this land. Power. The voice once again resounded through the forest.

Confused at what the voice had meant, Cosmo got up and looked around, noticing a glimmer in the grass directly in front of the mouth of the cave. In the ground lay a brilliant hexagonal gemstone with a dark purple sheen. It was about the length of Cosmo's hand and just fit within his grip. Thinking he could sell it to make up for the cost of losing the buck, Cosmo had already begun searching for a path back to Coeden.

As far as for what the voice had instructed him to do, Cosmo's hands were tied. He couldn't leave the island even if he did trust the voice. He tried to remain unshaken by the warnings by distracting himself with the gemstone that now laid in his hands. The voice said that it had given him power, which meant that the stone had to have some kind of magical properties. However, Cosmo had never encountered anything to do with magic other than the enormous Spirit Tree in the center of Coeden. It was a place where many people had their homes, built on one of the many boughs large enough to provide housing.

At the very top of the Spirit Tree lived Coeden's elder, Lan, a man Cosmo knew very well. Whenever Cosmo had a question, even as a child, he would climb the hundreds of stairs to the top of the Spirit Tree to pester him all day with queries. This morning, he planned to do the same thing with the gem he had just found.

* * *

Birds flitted around the blue petals of the Spirit Tree above Cosmo's head. He had just trekked past the last dwelling on its colorful branches. It was still early morning and the bustling of families both behind him in the tree and below him in the city could be heard from the creaky wooden staircase he now climbed. The branches above him creaked with a gust of wind and Cosmo was showered with glimmering blue petals.

Eventually, Cosmo reached the top of the tree, where the branches spread outwards and created a large platform, shrouded by the top branches of the Spirit Tree. The ground was still grass, despite being hundreds of feet off of the ground. Several different flowers bloomed here, creating the facade that he was once again on the ground.

Lan stood in the center of the grove, cross-legged and with his eyes closed. He wore a loose blue robe with white trim on the ends of his sleeves. The only hair on his head was a thin white beard, causing him to look significantly older than he already was. Lan opened his eyes to see Cosmo at the very top of the staircase.

"Ah, Cosmo. It has been so long since you last visited." Lan spoke sarcastically and smiled. "I sense you have something important to show me?"

"You're not going to believe this, Lan. Something extraordinary happened to me last night in the woods. It was so... surreal." Cosmo then explained all that had happened the previous night to Lan. At the end of his tale, he revealed the gem to Coeden's elder. "Do you think anyone in the marketplace would buy it?" Lan remained silent for a long time.

"You should not sell this gem." Lan broke the silence. His face had become serious.

"Why not? It's a beautiful crystal and the magical properties could only help in selling it." Cosmo rebutted. "It is magical, right?"

"Listen to me, boy. This stone is probably the most important thing you will ever lay your eyes on. Do you have any clue what you have found?" Cosmo shook his head. "Then it is time I tell you what the books from the Ancient Times say."