The air felt fresh against his face.
He and his apprentice watched the trader disappear into the distance, laughing drunkenly, riding high atop his new white horse.
Ermos cleared his throat. "Well then Pash, it will be a long walk, but I suppose we had better get started," Ermos said.
"Right now?" Pash asked, unable to hide his excitement. It had been a while since they had quested.
"Of course. There's a market on Friday."
Like that, they followed the road to its completion and then they stepped into the untamed lands beyond.
They journeyed through vast seas of tall grasses. Across rivers swollen from the floods. Through canopies of bamboo and through great bramble palisades. Friday came and went. They walked for so long that their feet bled. Well, it was only Pash's feet that bled. He tried to show them to his master but Ermos had frankly dismissed it as disgusting.
The Stone Tree was deceptive. It always seemed to be near, for it was always there upon the horizon, but after a day's travel, it seemed no closer. Even after a week, there was no noticeable change. It was not until Ermos and Pash entered the Untamed Forest did they finally begin to make progress. But that progress was slow. For five hundred years, entry into the Untamed Forest had been expressly forbidden. It still was. As a result, the land was wild and overgrown. There was no clear path anywhere. It was an endless war with the branches in front of them.
It took them many more days of relentless marching before they finally stumbled into a large clearing and once more caught sight of the Stone Tree. The tower was so close by now.
"This is it, master," Pash said quietly as though he was afraid the tower would hear what he had to say.
"That it is, young Pash," Ermos agreed, reaching for the stones within his sleeve. He thought he could feel the magic pulsing through them.
The tower shot high into the sky, slicing through clouds like a terrible grey sword. There was not a single window on it, only that same grey stone brick and an infection of creeping vines.
Rings of gemstone gargoyles stood sentry above a giant's shield for a door. Two slabs of monstrous black wood came together, standing so tall that they accommodated for nearly a third of the Stone Tree's massive height. Even from a distance, they could see the large swirling runes that dominated the centres of both doors. They would glow blue every few moments before fading back to a dull white.
A guard of cherry blossom trees encircled the bottom of the tower, naming itself as the final obstacle.
"Draw your sword, Pash," Ermos told his apprentice, "things might begin to grow more interesting from here."
Nervously, Pash unsheathed his slender blade. "Do you think they're still here?"
"Who?" Ermos asked.
"The Teachers."
Ermos chuckled at that, holding the first of the low hanging branches up out of the way so that his pupil could pass through. "Of course not. They lost the war a thousand years ago."
"But what if they had just hidden here? No one would know, would they?" Pash pointed out.
"Even tortoises can't live for a thousand years, Pash. They're dead. Very dead," Ermos assured him.
"...Could you defeat a Teacher, master?" Pash asked quietly.
The further into the ring of cherry trees they went, the darker it became. The branches bound themselves together thickly in a ceiling that blocked the light of the sun. In such darkness, their pink petals were less than pretty. They grew eerie.
It was strange to see so many cherry trees together, Ermos reflected. They never seemed to be particularly dominant elsewhere.
A lone bird started a song.
"I don't know," Ermos said absentmindedly.
More birds soon joined in. It was a harsh tuneless sound, more like a scream. It violated their ears.
"Damn birds," Ermos muttered. They were in the branches right above their heads. The noise was downright intolerable.
With a suddenness, they all increased in volume at once. It was like a toddler screaming as loud as he possibly could. It was an awful noise. They were forced to cover their ears with their hands just to endure it.
Even that wasn't enough. It was such a harsh sound that it was immobilizing. Pash was crouched to his knees beside him as he struggled to endure it.
Ermos looked up into the branches. There were hundreds of birds, if not thousands. He wanted to dive at them with his sword and cut them down, but the sound would have brought him to his knees long before that.
And then he remembered the red nuts that he had been snacking on. He reached into his pocket and slid one deep into the canal of his ear. It was uncomfortable, but with another nut in the second ear, the noise was dampened substantially. It afforded him an immunity that gave rise to a gloating smile.
With his hands free, he drew his sword and cut down the branches in front of him, clearing the way for their escape. Pash staggered behind him.
The trees ended suddenly, long before Ermos had expected them to. From the outside, they seemed like they extended back for quite a distance, but in reality, they were not that deep at all. It was a wide moat that made up the rest of the distance. Ermos almost fell straight into it.
He was forced to come to a sudden stop as the ground in front of him gave way to the gaping hole. He held out his arm to halt his apprentice. A cluster of stones fell over the edge in their place. It was a few seconds before they hit the water.
Ermos dared to inch forward for a better look.
There was a sheer drop of jagged stone, a solid few seconds of falling, and then one would end up in the swirling black waters of the moat. It moved like a whirlpool, propelled by a current that shouldn't exist, faster than even the strongest rivers. No boat could ever make it across.