#29 Myriad
How many miles to Babylon?
Four score miles and ten.
Can I get there by candlelight?
There and back again.
Yes, if your heels are nimble and light,
You can get there by candlelight
The first step takes Yarina to a dark cave aglow with faintly luminescent lichen, and her right boot cracks something small and chitinous that goes “oy, fucker, watch yer step!”
The melting wax runs down her fingers and then drips somewhere else as her left foot takes her many miles south, and a couple more up. She’s falling and the daylight is blinding. Her body spins and jerks in the updraft. She clutches the candle for dear life and takes another step, precariously kicking off of a passing cloud.
The impact when her feet meet the barren ground judders her bones and buckles her knees — she was falling fast — making her half-stumble forward. Fortunately she blows the wick before taking the involuntary step.
The diaphanous quire of ten thousand faint chimes tells Yarina she’s in the right place before she even lifts her gaze. Pocketing the candle — still good for the trip back, she hopes –, Yarina looks around.
The petrified forest towers over her, extending for not even old Yaga knows how far in many directions. The nervous expression gives way to childlike wonder. She’s almost happy. It’s beautiful in full bloom!
The little crystal flowers crowd the branches in a myriad of shapes and colors. Some dot the ground, standing lonesome amid the inert ash. Seeing this, Yarina remembers to cover her face with the scarf Yaga thrust in her hands. The ash shouldn’t be dangerous now after millennia coating the forest, but Yarina is on a mission and won’t risk petrification after spending all her savings on the Babylon Candle from the hairy little man.
The ruby roses in the thorny bush can cure weak hearts and limp dicks, so she heard. The sapphire lilies can hide a caravan from evil eyes on the road. Many flowers, many miracles and wonders to choose from. Yarina has to stop for a bit and gather her thoughts.
She knows she’ll have time to come back and pluck her fortune from the stony boughs after she finds what she actually came for. She’s on a tight schedule. Yaga’s wound from that scum of the earth murder hobo hellbent on gold and glory gets worse by the day. “Blessed blade” his obtuse and now defunct arse — it was poisoned with light, which is another thing entirely.
A black onyx hellebore, Yaga instructed her between surges of pain and heavy breathing, is what she needs. It’s a special thing that for some reason grows on parasitical vines that curl around the stone trees. They are rare, and they swallow light with such voracity that even a self appointed holy-warrior’s weapon is no match for it. Now Yarina has to find one amid the ten thousand gleaming chimes.
No time like the present, she thinks with a sigh, and starts humming a finding cantrip.
