Chapter 2
At first he thought the darkness itself was liquid, dripping from a million branches and twigs and pooling in vast shadows on the forest floor. He realised with some surprise that it was raining here, but metres from where he stood on the outside where only a few lazy straggling clouds floated lost in the sky. Yet here the rain poured steadily. His clothing was a thick woollen affair to protect him from the bitter winds of the hilltops, even so it did not stop the curious water from dripping down his neck shocking his body with its icy cold temperature. After a few minutes his eyes adjusted marginally to the grim low-light of the forest floor. He could make out a tree from a tree and could see the slushy brown carpet of leaves at his feet well enough to move on in search of the lone and wounded member of his flock that he thought to be near.
Seconds and minutes ambled by unobtrusively. But the animal was nowhere to be found. As he slipped and slid over giant roots and the slimy mossy remnants of fallen oaks, Falk slowly became lost. He reacted to the situation as most would. More time ticked by and he told himself to stay calm, he told himself to breath deep breaths of the moist dank air and to focus now not on the lost sheep but on simply getting his bearings. But there were no bearings to be had. Each gnarled grey trunk looked much like another, light gathered in places but was drowned in its luminosity by the swathes of darkness which held dominion over this place. So more time ticked by and despair began to gnaw away at his enforced calm. Falks breaths became shallow, his heart drummed the fear inside of him, the trees heard it and they seemed to close in further on him, suffocating his ability to think clearly until he resorted to crashing wildly through the undergrowth in an attempt to be free.
Then all of a sudden he burst through a wall of bracken and landed in front of something that was definitely not a tree. Feet there were before him, feet which joined onto legs that went up and up into a body and then a head, but this was no person. The figure in front of him was painted silver, painted silver over a surface that as he laid his hand upon its rough contours Falk knew to be wood. The figure was of a man and was incredibly lifelike considering its rough material and silver colouration. Most lifelike at all were the sunken eyes which seemed to glow with moon-like evanescence. His despair was momentarily forgotten within his confusion, the statue was not of a likeness to anyone of fame he knew. What curious mind would have carved such a thing and then left it in the most remote of places never to be seen. Upon closer inspection Falk saw that the carved clothing of the statue was reminiscent of the attire of the cities of the south-lands, rarely were such folk spotted in the bounds of the north.
As Falk stood mystified he looked about and realised that this wooden silver figure was not alone, his eyes made out another two, then three, then half a dozen more dotted about in the forest nearby. Before long Falk realised to his amazement that there were dozens possibly hundreds of the silver statues in the woods. As he walked around them, now oblivious to the rain he noted that there were statues of men, women and children but that here and there dotted amongst them there were statues of things that were not human. Beings with more arms than they should have, or with the heads and bodies of beasts but standing upright. Stranger statues still met his eyes, things that looked like fiends, forms not of this world or any other, all tentacles and claws carved from wood and cased in a silver paint seemingly immune to the elements.
A host of silent silver figures stood rooted on the forest floor, Falk walked beneath their quiet glowing stares. The forest seemed lighter, whether or not it was the statues creating their own illumination, or that the trees were more permissive in allowing the light to pierce the canopy here Falk did not know. But he could at last see far off through the trees, and he saw that the gathering of statues extended just as far as his eyesight. Then Falk noted a statue that was different to the others in its dimensions. Certainly it looked human but as he neared it he saw that it was very much taller than a person. The figure filled a clearing with its width and in height it was lost above the trees. As Falk looked up he could see that the statue of the giant extended up above beyond the canopy. It was this break in the ceiling of the trees that was allowing so much light to flood the area.
The vast statue loomed over him as he approached. Three full grown men could have fit in just the giants boot, its knee alone was many feet beyond Falks reach. Like all the others it was carved from wood and painted silver, smooth in places, rough and bark-like in others. As he stood in the shadow of the giant a sound came to Falks ear. It was a rhythmic thumping with a familiarity he could not place at first but the more he listened the more it sounded like a heartbeat, a deep, slow , ponderous heartbeat. Falk stepped closer to the statue of the giant to better discern the sound but as he lay a hand on the feet of the colossus a voice from behind broke his concentration.
“Who are you, so bold in your curiosity that you would lay your hand on that which is mine?”. The voice was distorted and had a rasping tinny sound to it.
Falk spun and searched for the source of the question. There was another clearing, separated from the one in which he now stood by a thin line of trees. Through those trees Falk saw a figure, but this was no silver statue, this entity was alive and moving with a purpose.
“Speak and come closer, come closer and speak, do anything but do something, do not stand and gawk for you compound the rudeness of your intrusion with your silence” he spoke with his back turned to Falk.