It was cooler under the canopy where the sun came down dappled. Lucas liked it that way. Too much sunlight was exhausting. And anyway, the woods were a great place to avoid people. While many of the townsfolk frequented the edges, most of them were rather superstitious about leaving the near and well worn trails to reach the deeper parts. Lucas could not blame them. Even he did not know what things might be lurking in the shadows.
After he made it far enough to be certain Wren was not trying to follow and fetch him, he veered off the path towards a short and hollow tree. Reaching into a hole in the side, he drew out the things he had stored there—a small backpack, a short bow, and a quiver. Jonack and Chizzy had not forbidden him to have these things. How could they when he kept it all secret?
Once he had his things situated, Lucas started off at a brisk and quiet pace. Now that he was ready and moving he could think. He knew quite a bit about the more common kinds of monsters, but that knowledge did not extend to shadow imps. Though there was no telling where it had gone, he figured that the best way to find a strange monster would be to look in strange places. Keeping an eye on the various shadows scattered over the forest floor, he drew a mental map, connecting the dots between the locations he would need to reach.
The creek wound down from the mountains, gathering in pools and spilling out again, joining and growing until it fell down below the surface and spilled out into the great canyon Hale'lo many miles away. Lucas traced it backwards, uphill towards the mountains. Three miles and an hour out he found it—the gap in the rocks marking the cave entrance. Jonack had warned him not to explore caves without light and rope and company, but this was not exploring. Lucas had gone through this one—it was small, with no veering paths. And anyway, he did not want to bring anyone in case he found what he was looking for.
Ducking under the limp grass that hung down low over the opening, Lucas crawled into the dark. Soon mud from the creek soaked into the cloth on his knees and elbows, smearing across his face when he brushed against the walls. Feeling with his hands, he followed the tunnel as it widened, curved upwards, and came out on a nearby hilltop. No shadow monster.
Another hour or so upstream, the water came over a sheer rock, dropping some thirty feet around an overhang. Lucas checked there too—followed the sound of the rushing water, crept carefully over the wet ground, climbing until he came through the falling water to the hollow behind. There was no monster there either.
At the top of the hill where the creek spilled over, Lucas sat and ate the dried meat he had left in his pack a few months ago. The water below made a good sound, almost the same as the trees did just before a thunderstorm when the wind came up strongest. The sheer rock face cut a hole in the canopy, leaving a space where he could look out over the way he had come. He could see the edge of the forest, the faint shapes of the Greydawn cornfields in the distance ahead. From there, the woods spilled out unbroken, covering the ground as far as Lucas could see east and west and south. Except in one place.
Just southeast of Greydawn was a circle of ruins. Lucas had only seen it once—the first time, when he stumbled upon it by accident. He gave it a wide berth after that, wary that dangerous creatures might have attached themselves to such an unusual place. Even now, looking down at it from several miles away, it gave him an uncanny feeling. It was the only other place he could think to look.
After his lunch, Lucas clambered back down the hill, followed the creek back the way it had come until he found the right stream splitting off from it. It was a longer way around, but he knew better than to cut through unknown territory to get to where he was going. He could get lost without the creek to guide him.
It was late afternoon before he got near. The trees around looked the same, if a bit wider, a bit more gnarled. There were not as many squirrels as he would expect—no sign of animal life except for a few birds fighting overhead. Two crows dove at a red-tailed hawk which must have gotten too close to their nest. The crows were smaller, but their ferocity won out in the end. They pushed the hawk high and away—it was hard to see where through the tree canopy. Lucas traced his eyes after its screams, turned his head and caught sight of his destination.
Even in broad daylight it looked unnatural. The trees around it grew thick and sickly. Some of them seemed to contain the vague outline of a face. It might be that the stones from the ruins reached underground, making the forest come in wrong. Lucas pulled an arrow from his quiver anyway, placed its edge against the string of his bow. There was a story his father had told him, and the echo of it pressed against the corner of his vision. There was some kind of winged tree-monster in this part of the world which flew away if you tried to cut it down. He took a hesitant step forward, then another and another. The trees did not react, probably would not if he left them be.
It was not far from the edge to the heart of the ruins. There seemed to have been only one circular building—a tower or a silo and maybe a barn—but whatever it was had been so horribly broken down and overgrown that it was difficult to tell. There was no trace of the monster he was seeking, except that it was too quiet. He should not be able to hear his blood thumping. Maybe he had picked up a hide-behind on the way over. Those were technically monsters in the way that bumble bees could technically sting. Their main purpose in life was to follow behind solitary travelers and prickle the hair on the backs of their necks, warping and twisting to fit perfectly behind some other object the minute their prey turned around.
Unwilling to end his search and unsure how to continue, Lucas bent down and brushed aside a portion of leaves and vines and dirt to get a better view of the broken floor. It was purple grey and smooth as glass. It was nice—too nice to be a silo, or even a town hall. The quality of the stone was more reminiscent of some kind of mosaic art. Perhaps there was a pastice story hidden here under all of the leaves and thorns. And if this was a picture, surely something exciting would be in the middle.
Walking to the center of the floor, Lucas began pulling up the undergrowth, using his knife to cut away the small trees which had sprung up between the cracks in the stone. It was hard work, but not any harder than his steady hike had been. He found another rhythm in the cutting, in the pulling back. Moving steadily forward, he cleared inch by inch, looking for a pattern in the stone. There were cracks in the reflective rock, contours which might have sketched out a shape, but the farther he went the more he was convinced that there was no pattern to the lines. The rock was just broken. It must have all been one piece before, and time the only artist to touch it.
Looking up from his work, Lucas stopped. There was something glinting in the bushes ahead of him, sparkling like sunlight, but falling up instead of down. Reaching forward, he pushed back the tangle of briars. There was a sort of golden stick with spikes all over, sitting pressed into a small raised pedestal. The whole thing would not have reached his knee if he stood up. He sat staring for a moment, trying to parse through the faint light the object emanated, and its three small arms which met like a crossroads, the fourth arm which dove through the rock and into the ground, the curved and cornered glyph carved into the raised stone. There was a memory buried somewhere—he had seen something like this, leaning against the wall behind his father's chair.
The realization startled him to his feet. He petered there for a moment, then turned and walked briskly away. It was a sword, a magic sword if he was right about the glow. His initial assessment had been correct—he had no business in this place. A shadow imp would not need a sword of light, but that did not mean it would be unguarded, and Lucas did not fancy meeting whatever thing the treasure belonged to. The minute he made it out of the circle of ruins, he broke into a sprint.
Nothing chased him—at least, nothing tangible. He ran on anyway, slowing only when the underbrush thickened and the tree trunks looked less sickly pale. Only then did he remember why he had gone to the ruins. It was late afternoon, and the shadow imp had not been at any of the strange places he knew of. He was not particularly excited about returning to Jonack's house. Chizzy would be angry that he had left without warning again. He had to keep searching—he had no intention of facing her wrath for nothing. Without any other option, Lucas stopped for a minute to think through the forest and its paths, to plan the best way to cover as much ground as possible before nightfall. The woods were familiar, and in an instant he had settled on a course and set off again.
He scoured the forest until the light grew dim, until he could no longer make out the dappled shadows that the leaves cast onto the forest floor. Then he turned, headed north towards the village, still looking for his prey. The roots threading through the worn dirt path were more difficult to avoid now that the colors of everything were fading to grey, but Lucas had a good sense of balance. Whenever he started to trip, he shifted his weight to his other foot and kept moving forward.
When he came around the last hill, saw Greydawn splayed out before him through the silhouettes of the trees, the sun was just visible over the curve of the horizon. Lucas did not look directly at it, but he could feel its presence in the corner of his eye as he made his way through the last bit of the trees and out into the meadow. There were lights in the windows before him, and the shifting of the corn sheaves in the wind was just audible over the thrum of the night bugs. The sun winked out, sharper than it should have, and the world snapped into darkness.
Afterwards, Lucas would never quite be able to parse out what he had done next. The memory was too muddled to make sense of. Still, given the events which transpired afterwards, it was certain that he did not make it home that night.