A Stroll through Castile Woods
by Unknown Author
woven canopy of sweeping branches and trembling leaves, he sensed a decline in the air that told
him night was coming. Furthermore: a cold, mercilessly dark night.
“Well, I reckon we ought to set up camp sometime soon,” PM ventured. His dark
complexioned companion looked up, recognizing the tone of caution that people unconsciously
used with him. It came, Cil knew, from the mist of silence he carried about him wherever he
went – a void, an absence of knowing, as if his very existence were one large mystery. Perhaps it
“The night will be hard for the others,” Cil spoke quietly. “In these woods, the darkness
becomes impenetrable, and the cold beyond any chill that has rested upon the fine villages from
which you come.”
PM frowned. “We have one tent. It’ll suffice for the night, I’ve used the tent before and it is
extremely accommodating. And mark you, it is only one night - that time, I used it for ten!”
“Ten in any other place, but scarcely one in Castile Woods. And I hope it is only one, for
the sooner we pass through this place the better. It is an ill forest, and I have doubted your
directions since they first led us here.” PM, finding little success with his stained and torn map,
had requested the help of Loraine’s mayor before their departure. The mayor was indeed a
cordial middle-aged man with a knack for retaining information, but his advice was bound to
have a few holes in it – reason being, he had never set foot outside Loraine. Nevertheless he was
able to recall some snippets about the whereabouts of the Dark Castle, which he then wove into a
thorough set of directions for PM’s eager mind. The ardent young knight had forgotten that the
mayor did not seem entirely serious about the quest to begin with.
Now cold, weary, and famished, PM could only sniff in reply. “Not exactly helpful to the
situation at hand, you know. We’ve got to get a camp started, unless you want to continue
trudging through here right up to the blessed dawn.” Brushing a leaf off his sleeve, PM looked at
Cil with what he believed was a quiet but authoritative gaze.
At that moment the girl, the one called Luna, ran light-footed from where she had been
brooding in the back of the group. “Paladin, I think I’ve spotted a good place for a camp. Slightly
hidden by some trees, not too far from the river, what do you think?” As she said this, she stood
with an air of forced sophistication that would have made a younger Cil chortle with laughter.
This girl, and her all too obvious intentions on PM, amused the observant Cil to no end. Yet as
vigilant as he was he was also aloof, and gave no sign of mirth. He glanced at PM, who seemed
to be deliberating Luna’s report.
“Whatever you’re deliberating on, PM, you’d best decide quick. From what Luna says
though, this place is no different from many in the forest – and about as safe, but it’s as good a
place as any to set up camp. Come on.” Cil strode decisively past the two, tracking back and a
little to the east for a place that matched Luna’s description.
On his way he passed the foreigner, Ham Sandwich they called him. The brightly-clad lad
looked up with alert eyes as Cil nodded at him, seeming to understand that Cil was leading the
way to a potential rest spot. With a polite smile Ham Sandwich threw a glance behind him - to
make sure the others were following - and obligingly followed Cil to his destination through the
darkening foliage. “Smart fellow,” Cil murmured. He often wondered about the stranger’s
brilliant eyes and attire, for from where could such an enigma have sprung? The minstrel called
himself a traveler to most, yet he knew little of the lands beyond the great seas.
They arrived at the appraised spot - which, he could tell instinctively, smelled of danger.
Only one as inexperienced as Luna would suppose it to be a safe haven.
Luna and PM arrived close behind him. “…was thinking I could sleep in the hollow over
there, and you could get the tent... there, and Cil could –“
“Nice plan, Luna, if you wished to die tonight.”
The girl blanched in terror as Cil swept around with an almost cruel expression on his
face – or perhaps she twisted it to become cruel in the growing shadows. Cil made an impatient
gesture. “Do you see that giant larch tree? It’s frozen from a century, aye, maybe more, of this
infernal forest’s winter. It’s waiting to fall over. And do you see what would happen if we set up
camp on a thin stretch of land that covers the very last inches of its roots, the only ropes keeping
it from plummeting and crushing the woods in a hundred foot radius?”
Cil shook his head at their dumbfounded silence. “It gets ever darker, we must find
another place.”
PM, unconvinced, waved his hands with frustration. “How, pray, do you intend to find a
better place? You said yourself night is a treacherous thing in these lands, we can’t spend the
next few hours being nitpicky about where we sleep!”
Wordless, Cil surged forward, taking out his simple flute and humming a small tune.
Within moments music was filling the air, a stirring melody of lost ways and never ending roads,
a song that sought a safe haven – as light as the settling evening chill, but dark too, with the
urgency of night pressing upon it. Cil always found his way best through music. Even as he
played upon the flute, his steps forward grew in certainty and grace – the others scrambling
behind – as before their uncomprehending eyes the strange thief became a musician. At last he
halted before a humble clearing among lower bending trees, perhaps a ten minute stroll from the
domain of the frozen larch. Cil played a decrescendo and let the music dwindle into the night air.
He slipped his flute back into the bundle upon his back, and turned to his bewildered companions
with the traces of a smile on his indecipherable features.
“I’ve done the best I can do, what do you think?”
Rather dazed, the company looked about them helplessly. Even the more experienced
among them could find little difference from the previous spot Luna had suggested, yet the
sudden beauty of Cil’s music had drawn them into an unheralded but strong feeling of security.
Wordless, they set about preparing for the night.
By this time, the shadows had set in earnest. All that remained of daylight hung
uncertainly among the trees, slender shafts that threatened to vanish any second.
“So...” Luna had been standing around expectantly as the others moved quickly about the
clearing, setting up a rather messy camp. When no one paid her any heed, she bristled for a
moments with humiliation, then tried again.
“So guys...” She felt herself heaved to the side as Ham Sandwich bumped into her
carrying a large stack of firewood. He peered brightly around the stack, addressed her gallantly
with a strange-sounding apology, and quickly caught the wood as some of it tumbled out of his
“No fire,” Cil spoke suddenly. Everyone froze and looked at him. “No fire. Dark things
roam here at night, and you want anything but to attract their attention like that.”
“How would you know?!” PM growled. Somewhere in him he knew it was practical, one
had to trust the seasoned traveler, be weary of the danger he had felt walking through Castile,
blah blah, but he had so looked forward to the warmth and comfort of fire that all logic fled
before his frustration.
“Exactly,” Luna piped. “It’s not like you’ve been all over the place and know everything.
No one does,” she added, with what she pleasantly thought was a touch of mystery.
Cil shook his head. “You all know very well what I mean. No fire. Unless you
wholeheartedly give up on this quest.”
On that lighthearted note, it was agreed that the company would have no fire for the
night. Luna clenched her hands. No fire... no light for her journal! Blindly she stumbled over the
branches that Ham Sandwich had set down.
“Watch it, Luna,” PM said sourly over a canteen of water. Castile Woods seemed to have
dampened his spirits permanently, and now his deep blue eyes brooded with a distinct kind of
moroseness. He stopped washing the canteen all of a sudden and looked at Luna with renewed
ferocity. “And what, pray, are you doing?! ‘Strong, capable, high-qualified archer mage’ – by all
the Deios in the sky, if that doesn’t describe you – PERFECTLY!’” His voice wrenched with this
flailing attempt at sarcasm, PM threw the canteen down and stomped into the trees.
Cil chuckled very lightly. Luna looked at him, her face pallid with fright. “Um, what was
“This place makes everyone a little mad, haven’t you noticed? Especially our dynamic
leader. He’ll return, however, so you needn’t worry. In fact I’d advise you both to get some
“Exactly what I was going to say before this whole fire fuss began! We have to decide
who’s going to sleep where! I mean, we only have one tent, right? And personally I love the
outdoors but I think the tent had better go to someone with delicate health.” She coughed
convincingly.
Ham Sandwich and the minstrel looked at her. Almost disbelieving, they shook their heads.
“Fine! Have the tent, Luna,” and with what sounded suspiciously like laughter they walked over
to opposite ends of the clearing, readying blankets and sleeping bags.
Cil tossed in his sleeping bag. The night of Castile Woods would let no one sleep tonight
– no one who knew of its powers. The minstrel had yet to discover this, but in any case he could
sense the futility of trying to sleep when sleep would never come. So after a few moments, when
the soft breathing of the others could be heard stirring the leaves, he leapt up silently and
vanished into the shadows.
Or rather, took a few steps into the trees. Presently he saw Paladin come back, cooled
down from his rage by the flattering and appeasing company of his own assurances. By a stroke
of fortune he had returned unscathed. The bold young knight glanced around, gathered his
blankets, and retreated tiredly to a corner of the clearing.
Now Cil stepped further into the trees, feeling in the air an irrepressible restlessness.
“The question is,” he mused silently, “What am I doing with a bunch of inexperienced
whelps on a quest to...” here he broke off chuckling, “...defeat the Dark-Bringer? Here in the
middle of Castile Woods – aye, the middle of night. Anyone back at the Homestead would think
I’d lost my mind.”
The Homestead was a hidden center of sorts for all thieves in every walk of life, from
little-known robbers with obscure pasts behind them, to the most famed and elusive bandits of
the land. One might even call it the most welcoming of places in Azucia. If one could ever find
Half-swathed in his own thoughts, Cil unknowingly stepped between two erect larch
trees. Had there been any light, he would have been bewildered by their commanding presence,
as well as the seemingly deferential ground granted them by surrounding trees – something about
this place, it spoke of a gate. But the woods were nearly pitch black, and between the larches Cil
stepped.
Blinding tendrils of moonlight shone into his eyes, almost sending the thief backwards in
their intensity as he found himself looking into the dazzling countenance of Oscura herself. Yet
Cil gazed intently.
“Who could have known Oscura could be so bright,” he murmured. Suddenly he found
himself face-to-face with a pair of tumultuous eyes, shot through with a scintillating thousand of
“And yet it is,” the voice was surprisingly caustic, almost commonplace. One would have
expected to hear it anywhere but here, in this obscured lane of forest. “But anyway, while you’re
standing here do you think you had better look away? I mean, the faces of the Deios themselves
can be, oh, at the least, blinding.”
“Everyone knows you can find the answer to almost anything in the faces of the Deios,”
Cil replied impatiently. He moved to the side so that those vivid eyes no longer obscured his
face, which still turned upward into the light. “It’s the next thing to enlightenment we have in
these lands.”
The surprising voice and eyes seemed to laugh. “Good! I’m glad, you’ve gotten some
sense knocked into you over the years. Seriously, I think only a year ago you would have turned
and ran away a long time ago. Something about finding your own path, sticking to the shadows
from whence you came, blah blah – ”
“Well I was right. And you’re making the light fade...”
“AHHAHA. You blame it on me? Actually, how is that even a bad thing? You should be
all enlightened and all-knowing right now, right? You just looked into the face of Oscura herself.
Can’t let you stand there all night, y’know?”
Receiving no response, the cynical voice went on. “You’ve got a destiny to fulfill, a quest
to complete, some answers to find and some minds to illuminate. Or did you still want to become
a musician?”
Clenching his eyes tightly, Cil stood precariously still as Oscura’s silver light grew
dimmer and faded into blackness, the blackness that was Castile Woods.
By some barely perceptible tones, the voice softened. “Did you?”
Cil opened his eyes – they were the same as ever, and yet he looked about him with
greater sense of certainty, till his eyes rested on the stranger beside him. “Of course I did. That’s
why I became a thief, oh wise one.” He looked directly into those bright eyes and told her
earnestly, “And that’s how I was able to find this madman Paladin. I’m going with him, there’s a
quest we have to complete altogether.”
She sneered. “All hail the Enlightened. I’m pretty sure I just said that. The question was,
do you still want to be a musician?”
Laughing warmly into the darkness around them, Cil spoke unreservedly. “I already am,
you old friend. I never needed years of expensive training or widespread acclaim –”
“Which you technically already have, as a guy who runs around taking people’s stuff,”
she remarked.
“Well you get the point. Now mightn’t you leave me alone for the time being? I think
you’ve accomplished your purpose. Thanks for checking in, though, as ever.”
“Sure thing, man. I’ll just fly back to my little house, never mind I just helped you attain
the greatest realization of your life.” Lit by the brilliance of her eyes, he saw her shrug
innocently.
“I said thank you. And now in all seriousness I can see these shadows begin to lift, for
dawn is approaching. Go back to Oscura’s Court, friend. A land cast in Lustra’s light is no place
for you and your insolent – ”
Cil heard a sudden burst of music, the wry laughter of his companion, as she sped
through the disappearing mists to the faraway realm of Oscura’s Court.
The morning began to lighten in earnest. Silently Cil strode back through the two larch
trees, tracing his dwindling path back to the camp. He never even knew the name of his
companion, the one with the scintillating eyes, yet she had been like a childhood friend to him
for as long as he could remember. Guiding him with her cynicism and advice – the priceless
advice of a courtier of Oscura, she had seen him evolve from an ambitious peasant with a talent
for song, to one who despaired of music and turned to minstrelsy and thievery.
It was strange how he even knew her, yet he had accepted long ago her mocking presence
– for with it he had maneuvered through the many obstacles of his life. But whenever she left, he
pursued his path more doggedly than ever.
Straight into a camp of heavy-eyed, nightmare-shaken youngsters who now him eyed
with suspicion.
“Where were you?” Luna asked accusingly. PM and Ham Sandwich glared at him from a
few feet away.
Cil shrugged. “Why, I went for a stroll this fine moonlit night. In any case, I don’t
suppose we should get off our well-rested asses and back onto the road? Unless you want to
spend another night here.”
Scrambling out of their blankets, they attempted to gather their things in a dignified
manner.
- 9:45 PM
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