The Sanctioned Path

The slow, silent march of the papery sentinel was the only way to estimate the unquantifiable interval that had passed. The construct moved along the newly marked route at its slow, methodical pace, each step clattering silently on the grey, scale-like flagstones. It moved with the unblinking, detached motion of an automaton carrying out newly issued instructions; there was no deviation, no backward glance. Zen watched, his thoughts racing with quick computations and well-considered conjectures. This conduct was a radical departure from the Grove's previously noted, almost tangible hostility toward any intruder. It was obvious that the "scan" had categorized him, changed his place in this mysterious ecology.

Zen concluded that following was a need rather than a choice. A different, perhaps less benign nature would surely take notice if you remained motionless, an odd fixture on this painstakingly planned grid, and soon. In addition to physically crossing a line, he had also permanently altered the Grove's opinion of him. There was no escape, no easy return to his previous posture of wary peripheral observation.

Zen took a long, steadying breath and forced himself to come out of hiding. As he retrieved his knapsack and its few, necessary contents, his actions were frugal, reduced to the bare necessities. He turned and dedicated himself to the route the sentinel had blazed after taking one last, lingering look at the relative chaos of the treeline he was leaving behind—a place that now seemed almost like a separate universe.

The invisible grid lines appeared to have a different character here, under his feet, or maybe it was his own eyes that had changed. The stones themselves seemed to emit a faint hum, a nearly inaudible resonance, a delicate contrast to the ambient pulse of the Grove that throbbed through the very air. He was drawn toward the core, constantly shifting edifice of black rock by the trail, which was hardly wider than a man's shoulders and snaked relentlessly inside. The structure loomed larger from this new angle, its chaotic reconfigurations seeming more detailed and, unsettlingly, more intentional.

Its form was a stark, pale silhouette against the dark, oppressive sky that seeped through the thin, yellowed canopy above, and the sentinel kept a steady distance ahead, maybe fifty calculated steps. It did not speed up or slow down, nor did it notice his existence. It served more as a living, moving waypoint than an escort, leading him along a particular, approved thread that was woven into the enormous, intricate fabric of the Grove's internal order.

Zen took in the small but profound changes in his environment as he strolled. Taller, smoother pillars of a chalky, white substance replaced the odd, leather-barked trees, rising from the paved ground like old, bleached bones. Large, brittle sheets of something like old parchment were attached to these bare monoliths like hideous declarations. They were covered in a thick, intricate script—a strange calligraphy that was painstakingly created but seemed ready to writhe into new shapes if he concentrated too much. A recurrent pattern, woven within the flowing, unintelligible language, was the bisected circle with its jagged diametric line. He immediately recognized the style; it was the same as the crude glyph that had been deeply gouged into the stone marker and scrawled on the ragged note he had found. "Posters," he thought, or maybe decrees. Proclamations that he was unable to understand covered the entire territory.

Other papery structures were passed by him. A few stood guard by the white pillars, their featureless heads turning slowly and unnervingly to follow his path, but none moved to stop him. Their prior level of alert seemed to have been suspended or completely overridden by a higher protocol. A sort of drab, apathetic acquiescence took the place of the intense, analytical inspection he had been subjected to since the first sentinel. It appeared as though his transit was now approved, a permitted journey through previously off-limits zone.

The smell of old paper and a slight tang of ozone intensified as the air grew drier. The steady hammering and grating noises coming from the main building—the unrelenting, grinding industry that seemed to be the very lifeblood of this sterile demesne—grew louder, more distinct. The ground was spotless; even the dust seemed to fall in neat patterns, he observed with a detached sense of astonishment. As evidence of the Grove's extensive, careful supervision, there were noticeably no stray twigs or fallen leaves that might have floated in from the surrounding forest.

The road started to wind softly inward, giving Zen a better, more menacing view of the swaying black rock structure. Now he could detect a clear, if obscure, structure to its motions—a complex, cyclical algorithm of disassembly and reassembling, as if it were constantly searching for some ideal, possibly unachievable, arrangement. This collapse and aggregation were not random. The pinpoint of light on his reader maintained its persistent, regular pulsating from someplace deep within, or maybe beneath that turbulent mass.

Finally, the front sentinel stopped. It was on the edge of a perfectly round, darker-paved space that surrounded the base of the main building like a sort of forecourt. This inner ring was different; low plinths with flat, angled tops were placed in concentric circles in place of the chalky pillars. One enormous, open page of the same delicate parchment, arranged as though for reading, lay on each pedestal.

Almost silently, the sentinel's featureless head angled toward the dark abyss of a small passageway that led straight into the foundations of the vengeful building. Then, with a very unnerving abruptness, it just stopped being. With its constituent leaf-like bits separating and fluttering to the ground, its papery structure appeared to unspool. An invisible current quickly and effectively carried them into the nearly imperceptible cracks between the paving stones, where they crisped, darkened, and crumbled into a fine grey dust as they encountered the dark stone. In a matter of seconds, there was no sign that anything had ever been there.

Zen gazed at the location where the construct had disappeared, feeling a fresh wave of intense discomfort. The authorized route had come to an end. The entrance to Warden's Grove's tenebrous heart was in front of him. Whatever intellect brought him here had brought him right up to the door. He was aware that he would have to take the following step by himself.