"I don't hate angels. In order to hate, you must have been hurt to the extent that you are willing to poison your own body and soul, and a being that does not exist cannot hurt me. But those who believe that angels exist, or dare claim to be angels, have done more wickedness to me and my world than all the demons in Hell combined. That woman at the gates is a liar. Tell her to leave. Kill her if she does not."
—South, cambion Abaiss of the Southern Monastery, with regards to the arrival of the soon-to-be-infamous Golden Wizard nearly fifty years ago.
~ ~ ~ ~
"I truly cannot thank you enough!" Arlie brushed a stray lock of golden hair from her eyes and curtseyed again compulsively.
"Don't mention it!" The tinker laughed, shaking their head ruefully. "Look, in honest, don't!" They gestured to their cluttered cart. "You did me a favor givin' me something to listen to aside from the pans, miss."
Arlie giggled. "Oh, well, certainly!"
"I'm more worried about leavin' you on your lonesome." The tinker frowned, scanning the treeline around them. "The Greatest, Darkest Forest ain't a place for wandering strays. You sure you don't wanna come back to the town with me?" They gestured with their hook hand to the left path.
Arlie shook her head. "Thank you," she said earnestly, "it is very kind of you to offer! But I am hoping to make it to a coastal port, and your town is in the opposite direction!"
"Well, I do worry." The tinker bit their lip. "There's all kinds of dangers on the road, y'know."
Arlie couldn't suppress a sly grin. "I am quite confident that I can take care of myself, but I appreciate your concern!" She curtseyed once more and turned to go. "Thank you again! Good luck on the trip home!"
"I'm more worried about you gettin' lost!" the tinker called after her. "I'm not sure you know where you're actually headed! But, uh... good luck, I s'pose!"
Arlie rolled her eyes good-naturedly as she picked her way down the rocky trail.
Honestly. 'Getting lost.' As far as she'd come on her journey before meeting the tinker, the thought of her getting lost in some little forest was laughable to her.
~ ~ ~ ~
Arlie was lost in the Greatest, Darkest Forest.
The blonde traveler put a dainty, manicured finger to her pouty lips, considering the treetops. This forest was trickier than she'd expected. Certainly, it wasn't
so
dark—well, it was, but Arlie had pretty good night vision and there was plenty of natural sunlight filtering through the dense canopies—and it wasn't so especially twisted or frightening. Arlie had seen far worse.
And in fact, the forest was quite pleasant! The plants growing around her were exotic and strange—massive tufts with spiky leaves lining the stems like the feathers of a strange bird, stalks covered with colorful trumpet-shaped blossoms, and even a great old pine tree that appeared to be laden with signposts.
Granted, the latter was kind of her primary problem right now.
She pouted, staring up and frowning at the hanging signposts. Yes. That was a problem.
She had come to a fork in the worn rocky path. To the left, the path climbed up a steep incline, appearing to run alongside a winding babbling brook that disappeared underneath the path ahead. The path ahead rose in a kind of half-natural bridge, reinforced with countless layered riverstones, and traveled on to what looked like a more clear area. Lighter. Brighter. She nodded slightly, considering it. That had some appeal after this darkness. Especially since she wasn't sure how much daylight she really had left around here.
To the right, the path wound downward, away at a sharp angle from the other two paths. She wasn't sure what to make of a path so rugged and craggy. It looked like the kind of path one would follow to get to a cave full of vicious half-skeletal shriekbears or something.
But, she reflected, scowling back up at the sign tree, she wasn't sure which path she actually needed to take anymore.
Because it appeared that someone had gotten into the habit of stealing signposts.
She squinted. She could make out at least three different designs up there—all counterfeits, it seemed, or at least they had to be, because each one gave slightly different directions. Someone was messing with the path on purpose! Trying to get people lost.
She almost couldn't understand why anyone would bother with that. It really was too bad, in fact, she thought, shaking her head slightly. What was the point in causing that kind of distress to harmless travelers? Why would you try to divert them? They'd just end up filtering among the three paths at random, so it wasn't like you could guarantee they'd get dangerously lost. Why not put in a fake sign, and direct them henceforth to the most dangerous direction?
She swallowed, glancing at the extremely menacing path. Thorny briars and loose rocks covered the path, and she did not envy anyone who chose to walk it barefoot.
This was a problem. She honestly had no idea where she was really supposed to go, and more seriously, she had no idea where she was really going. Arlie liked to think of herself as a fairly linear person, as a rule. She was a good guest. When the people of a land told her to go east, she was happy to go east as long as she trusted they had a good reason for it. When the people of a land told her to stay out of the cursed barrows, she was happy to respect the wishes of the locals.
But when, she thought, biting her lip, a friendly tinker had told her she was liable to get lost, apparently she had taken for granted that they didn't really know what they were talking about. But in fairness, it felt like a reasonable thing to take for granted that a single fork would necessitate only one or two signposts!
"I mean, who even does something like this?" she muttered aloud, shaking her head ruefully. A terrible sadist, clearly. Someone who wanted to torment people, and nothing else.
Or perhaps, she thought, and her heart gave a little uncertain flutter, this was a deliberately targeted effort to mislead a specific traveler. Not her, surely. Nobody would know to expect ther, and even if they did, why would anyone want to...?
No. She shook her head. No, that wouldn't have any sense. Besides, once again, surely there were better ways to satisfy a petty grudge than to seek to terribly and cruelly inconvenience a traveler by forcing them to guess between three options.
Could there be a fourth location?A fourth option? It could stand to reason, surely. It could stand to reason that there could be a fourth path, a way that was being concealed. But what fourth option could there be? Arlie didn't know a lot about local magical abilities, but anyone who could actually glamour out of visibility a fourth pathway between the other three would
surely
possess the basic magical knowhow—or even fundamental common sense, for pity's sake—to conceal the twenty-odd direction signs hanging not twenty feet above her head!
It was a prank, she decided at last. A childish little prank to annoy travelers. She scowled up, hands sliding down to wide hips. She was almost indignant. The signmakers had clearly put great care into those signs, and to see them so flagrantly stolen by someone who clearly had very little appreciation for this really spoke to a meanspirited kind of attitude that...
She shook herself a little. This didn't really matter. She had places to be and explore and people to talk to and learn about. She had had a long day, and one random unpleasant prank didn't justify getting into a tizzy.
Still. Her tongue thrust into her cheek. She couldn't help but think... perhaps she could just go up there and retrieve the signs, for future travelers' sakes, and try to puzzle out which one was the real one, and put it back in the place where it...
She was interrupted in her thoughts by a loud curse—at least, she assumed from inflection and palpable anger that it was a curse, for the viciousness of the tone spoke greater volumes than the actual syllables—coming from the right path.
Arlie jumped, spinning to look down the ragged way. She hesitated, but only for a second. That shout sounded distinctly distressed.
