Somehow, I managed to fall asleep. Suisei woke up at the crack of dawn and made sure the rest of us were up soon after. There wasn't any need to eat, or dress, or wash: we'd already cleaned ourselves the night before after finishing our chores, and the leaves and petals covering our bodies obviated any need for clothes.

The other krummholz slept on the floor of Night's central chamber. Most of them woke up after we called for them, and Ileene and Mr. Himichi took care of the stragglers by giving them a good tickle. We headed out to the Glade as soon as everyone was up.

Treefather Stone's light-wisp swelled as Stone made a yawning sound that seemed to stretch his branches like arms.

Suisei spoke up first. He bent his head-leaf back and crossed his scabrous, bark-covered arms before he posed his question.

"I was thinking over what you told us yesterday," he said. "There were two expressions you used without explanation: aegises and twee-fee. What are they?"

"Are you sure you should be asking them, Dr. Horosha?" Ileene asked. "We might need to answer more of their questions in exchange."

Tree father Silence's wisp circled around us. "Oh no, you don't need to worry about that. After all you've told us, we're more than happy to answer as many of your questions as we can."

"Agreed," Stone and Night said.

"As for Suisei's question…" Night said. The Treefather's wisp floated toward us and grew into a mass of swirling colors that soon coalesced into an image.

It was one of the hummingbird people—male, by the red throat coloration. He stood shoulder to shoulder with us, wearing a frilly lace collar and a coat whose wide sleeves billowed around his arms. Glyphs ran along the coat's hem and central seam, and his somewhat goofy-looking breeches ended in dainty shoes form-fitted to his claw-toed feet.

"This is a twEfE," Night explained.

"They're the hummingbirds!" I said.

"As for the Aegises," Silence said, "they're a fusion of Vyx modules and biology. It's a privilege reserved for only our most skilled warriors. The chosen few partially merge with individual Vyx module, greatly enhancing their strength and abilities. It's a dangerous process, for sure; not everyone who undergoes it survives, but those that do become a force to be reckoned with."

"I don't think I've seen any of those," I said.

"You will," Stone said, "given enough time."

Ileene's eyes suddenly widened. She waddled up behind me in a hurry and whispered: "Dr. Howle, you didn't ask them about the Sword, the one you found here."

"Oh! I'd plum forgotten!" I said.

"How could you forget?" Ileene asked. "I thought you remembered everything now?"

It was only then that I noticed it.

"Good grief, you're right!"

I noticed the Treefathers' lights had closed in on us, to eavesdrop.

"What seems to be the problem?" Stone asked.

I shook my head. "I think whatever interference was and is keeping me from sending us back to my body is also interfering with my enhanced memory abilities." I waved my hand dismissively, which meant having to shove it out through my body's leaf-robe. "But that's not what I wanted to talk about." I glanced at Ileene, and then at Suisei, and then turned to face Treefather Night.

"You recall me telling you about Suisei and the Sword of the Angel, don't you?"

"Yes, Genneth," Silence said. "We are old, not senile."

I nodded and gestured at my companions. "As we were looking through the maze, I found a large, cylindrical building in a garden guarded by twEfE, and only twEfE. There was some kind of portal inside, and next to that was, the Sword, a second Sword. Do you know anything about it?"

Silence and Night's wisps drifted over to Treefather Stone.

"I do not," the elder Treefather replied, "and if I did, I no longer remember."

"Would Treefather Day know?" Mr. Himichi asked.

"Almost undoubtedly," Stone said.

"Speaking of which," Night said, "it is high time for you to depart. I don't know how much longer you will remain connected to the Vyx, which sets time at a premium."

"I understand," I said.

Night's wisp floated over to the krummholz. The puppets shivered in its presence.

"Listen," he said, and the krummholz all stiffened in attention. Night then floated his wisp over to us. The puppets turned in place, tracking the wisp's movements like sunflowers tracking the Sun. "You will take these four to Day's Glade," Night said, "do you understand?"

"Yes, Treefather," the krummholz chorused.

"There," Night said, "that takes care of that. Hopefully, Day should be able to give you more useful information."

"And, even if he can't," Silence added, "he'll certainly appreciate the company."

Silence's wisp flew in circles around us. "I can't begin to tell you how wonderful it has been to meet you all," he said. "We will be discussing you and your story for a long time. Now, get yourselves ready to go. Like Night said, you don't have all the time in the world."

"How will we get to Day's Grove?" Suisei asked.

"The krummholz will show you the way," Stone replied.

Despite the Treefathers' insistence, I couldn't just leave. They'd done so much for us, and all we'd given them in return was manual labor. Besides… I was still worried about the fact that I was technically part of the ancient enemy their society existed in order to destroy.

So, yeah… I didn't want to leave without voicing my concerns.

Stolen novel; please report.

"Even though I want to stop the fighting," I said, "I'm still a wyrm. Doesn't that make me your enemy? Even if you lacked the power to strike me down where I stand, I'm pretty sure you could have done a real number on me. Why haven't you? In fact… why are you helping us at all? You don't owe us anything."

"The Vyxit believe the process of being transformed into a Blight serpent destroys any semblance of the victim's identity. Once the serpents' eyes turn silver, their souls are gone."

"Or so we thought," Silence interjected.

"I did not realize you were victims," Stone said. "As I told you yesterday, we've never seen golden-eyed wyrms."

That was one of several mysteries the Treefathers had dropped into our laps. Apparently, to the Vyxit's knowledge, all wyrms were silver-eyed. Obviously, that set me wondering: what was different about my world that led &alon to let transformees like myself retain our sense of self?

At the same time, it didn't entirely surprise me that the Vyxit knew so little about the wyrms, considering the countless millennia they'd spent hunting &alon. As the Treefathers explained, wyrms were almost unexaminable: too dangerous to capture, and too quick to fall apart when they managed to be killed.

Honestly, at this point, knowing what little I now did about the Vyxit and their perspective, I was nothing short of amazed at how compassionate and understanding the Treefathers had been, given the circumstances. The world would have been a far better place if everyone had hearts as noble as theirs.

Even so, I'd be lying if I said there wasn't a part of me that worried this was all some kind of complex machination designed to manipulate me into doing something that I'd eventually come to regret.

"Before I was a wyrm," I said, "I was a neuropsychiatrist, a doctor of the mind. If you don't mind me asking: how can you change your mind so easily, especially about something as central to the Vyxit worldview as this?"

"I haven't changed my mind, Dr. Howle," Night said. "I prefer to follow the facts, and if that means my current beliefs are wrong, I must reform them accordingly. For that, I thank you. I enjoy learning when I am wrong." Night's wisp hovered close to me. "In many ways," the Treefather continued, "I think we're kindred spirits. Both of us were unmoored from the lives we once knew. We lost our worlds, our very existence, to the Blight."

"But don't you want revenge?" I asked, lowering my head. "I want it, too—or at least, I would, if I believed I had a chance in heck of getting it, and that getting it wouldn't hurt any innocents in the process."

"It's like I said before," Night explained "I don't believe in revenge. I want to secure a good future for the Vyxit. In all the eons of the Long Hunt, nothing like this has ever happened before. If what you say about your unique connection to the Blight is true," he added, "I believe it is a sign."

"Of what?" Ileene asked.

"That a season of change has come," Night replied.

"That would hardly be the only one," Stone said. "Things are not as they once were. No one comes to the forest anymore. The Vyxit have grown cold to us; eons pass without any visitors. For a long time, I have felt that something had gone wrong, or, perhaps, that we are in dire need for something to go right."

"At the risk of being a dreamer," Silence said, "perhaps you might bring that long-awaited change, Dr. Howle."

"Even dreams can dream," Night said.

I bowed to the three Treefathers.

We all did.

"Thank you," I said, "for everything."

"Go in peace," Stone said.

Silence chimed in as I walked toward the krummholz. "Where do you think you're going?"

"To Day's… Glade?" I said.

"Not like that you won't!"

The krummholz started their chant, "Hep-ho! Hoop-ho! Hep-ho! Hoop-ho!" Slowly, they approached us.

Closer. And closer. And closer.

— — —

For a second, I was genuinely worried that I'd somehow messed up and that things were about to take a turn for the worse. Fortunately, I was wrong on all counts. However, that's not to say nothing unexpected happened.

I stood in the middle of the glade, looking up at Treefather Night, with a hefty, dark red fruit in my grubby wooden hands. The fruit was Night's. The krummholz had stacked themselves on top of one another in a living ladder. Mr. Himichi insisted on being the one to climb up and pick the fruit from the Treefather's branches.

"It's not like I get to show off my rock climbing hobby every day," he said.

The krummholz had since disassembled their living ladder and gathered around us.

The fruit had some real weight to it, not to mention a tough, but smooth, skin.

"I've copied some of my memories into that fruit," Night said, "so, please, be careful with it."

"What do I do with it," I asked, "aside from being careful?"

"Keep it close by while you travel to Day's Glade," Night said.

"And make sure the krummholz don't do play with it,"

The krummholz' leaf-robes rustled as they snickered.

"We understand." Mr. Himichi gave a charitable nod.

"When you arrive in Day's Glade," Night said, "give the fruit to the krummholz. They'll know what to do with it."

Treefather Silence's light-mote warbled to and fro in front of the krummholz, as if scrutinizing them. "Just don't give it to them until you're in front of the other three Treefathers. I worry about what they might do while Day and the others aren't around to keep them in line."

"Is there anything else we should know?" Suisei asked.

"Yes," Silence added. "Don't let them play catch with it. You wouldn't believe how many perfectly good memory fruits they ruined just because they got the bright idea to play ball with them."

"Gotcha." I bowed once more. "Again, thank you for this. It—"

"—Say no more," Night replied. "Making good use of our aid will be the best gratitude of all."

"Now, go," Stone said. "Day awaits."

Then the krummholz lined up and set off on their march, and my companions and I followed behind them.

"Hep-ho! Hoop-ho! Hep-ho! Hoop-ho!"

It wasn't long before we were back in the place where we'd first arrived in the Treefathers' forest. However, it wasn't until we'd gone a good way beyond that point that the land truly began to reveal itself.

The Treefathers' forest really was like something out of a fairy tale. Nearly every tree in sight was ancient, with sprawling branches festooned in hanging mosses and epiphytes. Orchidic flowers grew in nooks in the trunks, and in the crannies where branches met. Six-winged butterflies flitted about in the dappled sunlight, showing off the wings like dancing coins, glistening in silver and gold. Where one of the mouldering elders had fallen, newer, thinner growths sprang up in excited clusters, eager to one-up their forefathers.

The krummholz hep-ho'ed along a fallen log, crossing over a misty cataract. The land swept down into a many-meadowed plain, scattered throughout with socially-distanced trees and boulders three times our height.

I held onto Night's memory-fruit throughout the journey. At one point, Ileene offered to carry it, but I declined. I didn't want to risk dropping it, or worse, giving the krummholz a chance to pick it up.

"Don't worry about it," I told her. "I'm fine."

As I expected, the krummholz were lousy conversationalists. Oddly enough, they seemed to be aware of this.

"Used to talk more," one said. "Now talk less."

I wonder what that was about.

Fortunately, the four of us had plenty to talk about.

"Why do you think we turned into krummholz?" Ileene asked me.

"The Treefathers were Archived, and shaped this space with their will," I said. "Perhaps that's why we were transformed when we entered."

Eventually, I decided to grab our conversation by the reins and change the topic.

Something had been bothering me for a while. I turned to Suisei. "Suisei, there's something I've been meaning to ask you."

"Go ahead."

"When I was fighting that twEfE at the refueling station, she took my plexuses and threw them back at me. Isn't that against the rules, or something?" I asked. "How does it work? Is there anything I can do to counter it?"

Suisei stared at me. His head-stalk and its twin seed-leaves folded slightly, and bent backward a little. "She did… what?"

"You weren't watching?"

"I'm sorry," he said. "I was sparring with Yuta at the time."

Focusing, I summoned the memory of the fight. It took a bit of effort—likely due to whatever difficulties I was having with my powers at the moment—but, eventually, a crack opened up in the air, quickly expanding into a window through which my memory manifested.

Even the krummholz watched my memory of my battle against the twEfE warrior. The memory played out in third person view, with my mind having interpolated the missing details as best as it could.

The twEfE swooped, darted, flitted, and stabbed. Now that I was no longer on the receiving end of her martial arts, I was really able to appreciate just how beautifully she'd fought—and how fiercely.

Even so, while everyone else was focused on the twEfE's deft movements, I couldn't help but stare at myself. My body had so little of me left in it. If you cut out my head, I would have looked almost totally wyrm, albeit a somewhat lanky one.

I probably had only one or two more major meals left before my transformation was complete.

Now that was a sobering thought.

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