Author's Note: Dear Readers, I begin by oppologizing, for here I am about to bore you all with the insecure disclaimer that so often plagues the work of amatuer authors. Out of consideration and sympathy, I will be brief. This is the first story I have ever written. It began as simply a way for me to express what little creativity I can muster, and became a world that I now escape to every evening as I sit at my computer. For better or for worse, I started showing the first 800 words or so to my friends (the beginning of the story, up to the first bullet-break). Contrary to my expectations of mocking and rigorous humor at my expense, every opinion came back to me possitive. To further my delight, they wanted to read more. So, through the gracious encouragement of my friends, my work continues. I ask that if you read this story, please review it, as I value every concise opinion that I receive, whether favorable or otherwise.

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Tari Harp turned over in her bed, unable to sleep. There was a persistent buzzing in her ears tonight which she tried to ignore. Now lying on her back, she looked around the quiet room. Sturdy log and mortar walls and a thatch roof comprised her little room. In the daytime, the window across from her bed would reveal a sprawling view of a large green valley peppered with oak trees at the bottom of the hill on which the house stood, though now she saw only the deep pitch blackness of a cloudy spring night.

A small shelf in the corner held her rock collection, along with a few plants that she cultivated for her own enjoyment. She gazed for a while through the darkness at the thick green stalk of a flower that was not in bloom, then let her gaze gradually rove over the stones. They were many different shapes and sizes, no two the same. She lived in a small cabin in a mountainous area of the country where rocks were ever in abundance; she had collected them since she was little.

The buzzing grew louder. It now sounded like whispers that were too quiet to be understood, but loud enough to be told for whispers nonetheless. It was always worse at night. These noises had not always been there, but by now it had been so long since her mind was completely quiet that she could not remember what life was like without the terrible noise. She had not dared to tell her mother for fear that it boded ill for her sanity. She had been only fifteen years old when it began, too young to be going insane like her grandmother and mother had done. Now, five years later, she was still too young to die of her own mind's torture, or so she hoped.

Tari's Grandmother had never mentioned buzzing, but she had heard things other people did not. In the days before she died, when her illness was at its worst, those who came to tend her would often find her screaming in terror at someone who was not there. Once she lunged at open air and fallen so hard that she broke her ankle. She died two days later. Laid up because of her ankle, she was left alone for most of a day while Tari's mother went to town to shop for the winter. Tari was out tending her garden, and did not know what had happened until that night when she came in for supper. Her grandmother was lying on the floor in Tari's room. A look of utter terror was on a face still warm and wet with tears, and her fingers were mangled, where she had apparently been clawing while crawling on the floor, her abused ankle now badly disfigured. Her heart had stopped.

Teri turned over again and stared at nothing. Her mother died barely a year later. Rather than screaming and clawing, however, Seda Harp suddenly went totally dumb. But Tari knew it was the same strange fever of the mind that she had seen only a year prior, for though Seda never spoke a word for months, the look of haunted, frantic panic that was constantly present on her face was a mirror of her grandmother's. That look was burned into Tari's mind, and she recalled it on nights like this. Nights that would be quiet were it not for her own mind's countless voices.

Tari heard it begin to rain outside, but was not surprised. She had seen the signs of its coming for the last several days, had worked extra hard to secure the cabin before it arrived. It was going to be terrific, this storm. The mountains were well known for vicious winds and rains and snows, but she suspected this would peak the rain season for the year. She sat up for a while, watching as the great poem of nature grew in intensity. Rain began to fall; thunder began to rumble distantly over the snow-capped mountaintops. The rain was a quiet music, the thunder, a soothing lullaby. She allowed the sounds to wash over her, and they were familiar and welcome. When the wind blew fast enough, and the rain beat hard enough, and the thunder roared as though a great battle was taking place somewhere above the clouds, she could not hear the strange whispering in her mind. She let her head fall into the pillow, face turned to the window so she could watch the lightning illuminate the trees. At peace, she soon fell asleep.

Untouched by the sporadic flashes of lightning from the window, the shadows gained eyes and watched her dream.

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Tari awoke feeling better than she had in months and, shaking the sleep out of her head, she was puzzled that she felt so content. Twisting her neck, she surveyed the sky outside and saw that the storm clouds were still billowing endlessly on the horizon, though the thunder had stopped. Dreary as it was, she could tell that it was nearly midday. She had not slept deeply in more than two years, nor even for an entire night through without waking, let alone for the entire morning hours. Not since those mysterious whispers had worsened . . . .

With a jolt, Tari sat up in her bed. The sounds were different. No longer was there a fly thumping faintly around in the recess of her mind, as on most mornings. Nor could she make out the faint whispers that had plagued her the night before. There was a strained silence where they should have been. A wall, a barrier, was erected between herself and that place where she had so long feared that insanity was hiding.

Relief mingled with shock flooded her. "Is it gone? Did I beat it?" she said softly to herself.

Tari paused a moment and listened intently to that blessed quiet. So long the whispers had haunted her, but she only ever expected it to get worse. When she awoke in the morning it would often be dulled and far away, as though it were only just waking up as well, but it always came back, some times worse than others, by nightfall.

I won't get my hopes up, she thought cynically. In an hour it will come back.

But it did not return. And as she went out under the cloudy sky to survey the damage from the storm, she couldn't help but notice the wonderful sounds of the squirrels hopping from limb to limb in the trees, the happy trickle of the spring as she collected water to bring to the cabin. Previously, she could not tell that these small, pleasant sensations were being dulled, and now they came back to her with a clarity and a purity and a simple sweetness beyond anything she could ever remember.

With her long legs supporting a tall, thin, slightly gangly frame, Tari was not a classically beautiful woman. Her face was pleasant to some, but she was not one to care for her appearance like the girls in town. Her life was simple, and that was how she preferred it. She went about the tasks of her day methodically, caring for her plants and feeding the hens in their small coop half way down the hill, then approached a fenced lot behind her cabin to feed her young dapple mare, Flower. Finished, she went inside and prepared a quick stew to sit down and eat.

When the sun reached a finger's height from the horizon, Tari dressed lightly but warmly in thin, sturdy wool, and prepared to set out into the mountains. Her trade was that of an herbalist. Though a valuable trade, she did not need money, since her mother had left her a substantial sum. She liked the work because it was important to many as the best healing that was known. Also, not many were able to do it; the knowledge required often took half a lifetime to accumulate. Tari had learned much from her mother and her grandmother, however, and the small town nearby which she supplied could hardly afford to ask for better. Besides, she needed to do something constructive; Tari could not abide being idle.

She strapped a bag to her belt for collecting samples from the hundreds of various plants that grew in the prolific valleys and rich, shady mountainside soils. Sheathing a small dagger above her left breast, onto a diagonal leather strap leading around her left shoulder and right midriff, she set out on a well-beaten trail into the wilderness. Taking measured steps as she traveled downhill, careful and sure, she gazed around at her surroundings.

She knew this part of the forest well. Having played here as a child, she knew every tree, boulder, cave, and clearing in the area. Paths that she had kept beaten for years twined through the trees. She still walked along them for pleasure when the urge arose, but this place was too tame for the things she was after, and she rarely found useful plants here; she walked on.

After three hours or so, Tari estimated that she was about two miles from her cabin. Now deep in the forest, on the southern slope of a small, unfamiliar mountain, she began to watch the flora closely for anything useful. She soon discovered a small selection of roots, leaves, and mosses and gathered them carefully into the sack at her waist.

"A sassafras root, creepsbane and dreamweaver leaf . . . ," she murmured thoughtfully, stuffing the sleep aid into the pouch last. "I haven't found some of this stuff for half the year. Godwin will be thrilled." Marco Godwin was the pleasantly fat innkeeper in the nearby town of Maynod. He and his wife, Laan, also managed the town's only trading post, so they most often bought Tari's entire stock when she was in town.

Seeing that her daylight was dwindling, Tari decided to turn back. She had an acceptable store now, and would add this to her findings from the past week to deliver to Maynod tomorrow. She began the trek home, feeling extremely cheerful.

A full day was nearly spent, and the strange block was still there. One whole day of hearing nothing but the sounds of nature surrounding her. She felt suddenly free, as though fear had held her captive, and only now had loosened its grip. Elated, she turned and bent down, cupping her hands to drink from a slow stream that she had just jumped across.

She closed her eyes and brought the water to her lips and drank deeply, letting the icy cool water cleanse the clammy spring warmth from her body. Feeling refreshed, she opened her eyes--

And saw a shadow flicker across the running water. She turned and looked around quickly while drawing her dagger and rising cautiously to her feet. She always felt totally safe in these wilds, but there was still cause for caution. Among the dense trees, bears, wolves, boars, and poisonous snakes were only a few dangers. The shadow had moved quickly and she had not heard any leaves rustling, so she thought that it must have been a bird. But Tari knew that it was not wise to underestimate the dangers of the forest, and stood quietly, trying to watch every direction at once.

The sun was now dipping below the horizon, and the trees and underbrush blocked much of the dim light that would otherwise have lit her way. Tari began to walk slowly forward, in the direction she thought the shadow had moved. Nothing stirred in the brush; even the air seemed to have stopped moving. It occurred to her how odd this was. Normally there were many crickets and locusts serenading each other in the trees, or perhaps an occasional owl’s hoot. The forest was dead silent.

There was a thicket about ten paces from her where something could have hidden; she moved toward it first. An ominous feeling was building in the pit of her stomach. She had been in this wood hundreds of times. She had encountered dangerous animals before and they did not frighten her, but never had she found the woods this silent. She stepped lightly, moving silently onward.

A twig beneath her foot snapped with a crack, making her jump. "Fool," she whispered, collecting herself. Chastising herself for being so clumsy, she took another tentative step--

There came an identical snap. She did not jump this time, only looked at her feet again in confusion. She had not stepped on anything--

But just then a broken branch fell to the ground a few inches in front of her nose. Then came a sudden rustling from the tree branches above her, and she looked up just in time to see something large, slimy, and black swing toward her. She caught one brief vision of a large mouth filled with a dense row of serrated teeth, then she felt a great impact on her chest and she flew backward to smack hard into a wide oak tree several paces behind her. Her head whiped back and hit the great tree with a sickening smack, and she slid to the ground, dazed. Through blurred vision she watched the creature, the thing, whatever it was, stalk toward her. Dully, she tried to lift her dagger in defense, and only then realized that it had fallen from her hand. Her arm did not seem to want to respond anyway. In fact, the world seemed to be getting darker, slipping away. She fell backward into a dark pit, the light at the top grew smaller and smaller, and when it finally winked out, Tari dreamed.

She was back beside the stream. Her eyes turned, and she saw her own body lying on the old oak’s trunk, saw a small trickle of blood running from the back of her head. She felt rather weightless. A sharp spike of fear ran through her, but was quickly stifled by an utter calm that seemed to permeate her from the outside. Am I dead?, she thought. If I am, I wish I wasn’t stuck here. Seems a dull place to spend more time than I have to.

She was stuck, however, because she could not move at all. In fact, her vision moved again, and she could do nothing to control it. It looked away from her body, back to the stream, and fell on her attacker. For the first time, Tari managed to get a good look at this creature. The thing was not tall, only up to her waist, but it was thick and muscular in a wiry way like a lizard and covered in slimy black scales. It had a long, coiling tail with a sharp, evil-looking spade on the end, and short, thick arms and legs, like an alligator. Its face was squashed flat, split in the middle by its mouth. Two gaping nostrils lay under beady, brown eyes which gazed hungrily on her own prone body under the tree.

The thing was moving closer to Tari now. No . . . I’m moving towards it!

To her horror she couldn’t turn and run, or even feel her legs at all. The thing grew closer and closer as she unwillingly crept silently up behind it and then -

Of a sudden, her vision dipped as she crouched and sprang forward at the creature. What happened next happened very quickly. A slim hand that was certainly not hers struck out, stiffened fingers flying toward the back of the thing’s head. The revolting lizard must have sensed the motion, though, because at the last moment it turned to look behind it just in time for a finger to poke straight into its right eye. Far from being harmed, the creature became infuriated. It reared back its bulbous head and shot a stream of oily black liquid from its mouth straight at Tari’s face.

She could not explain what happened next. One moment, she was watching the odd goo fly directly toward her eyes, and the next she was standing on the other side of the creature, her hand that was not her hand darting out again to strike the back of it’s head, right for a small hole partially covered by a thin film of scale.

Obviously as confused as Tari, the thing did not have time to react as what she assumed was its ear collapsed with a horrible crunch. It gave an ear-piercing shriek and tore away with frightening speed, disappearing into the cover of darkness in the thick underbrush.

Tari’s vision sat watching the brush where the vile creature had fled. By now she had realized that she must be watching this scene through someone else’s eyes. This did not make any sense to her, because quite apart from the fact that she seemed to be inhabiting someone else’s body, she knew that no one else had been present when the thing attacked her, and that there normally was not another soul to be found in the entire mountain range past Tari’s own cabin. She did not have time to mull over this, however, because her vision was fading again. Smaller and smaller the world became, and once again she was falling. Again the tiny pinprick of light winked out and then--

Tari opened her eyes to find peaceful darkness surrounding her. It was full night now. Though the clouds had cleared, the stars and moon managed only faint illumination in the dense woodland. The woods seemed to have come back to life again as well. The crickets and locusts had returned, and she even saw a jackrabbit approach the side of the stream and enjoy a drink before hopping off again, apparently considering her to be no threat at all.

With a soft groan, she sat up a little and, reaching behind her head, gently probed the wound, but to her amazement felt only unbroken skin. Now that she had a thought to spare for it, her head did not hurt at all. Wondering if it had all been a dream, she tried to sit up and promptly fell right back down again. All the strength seemed to be gone from her limbs, as though she had run for miles, and she suddenly realized how very tired she was, as if all the energy had been sapped from her body.

Something very strange is happening. Wish I knew what, she thought, frustrated. As she leaned back against the tree, now feeling too tired to even move, she wondered what the creature had been. She heard many stories about strange horrors living in the mountains, as well as elsewhere in the world, for that matter. She had lived here since she was a baby, and it was the only world she knew, apart from the very little that her grandmother and mother had told her of other places, but she had never seen any evidence of anything horrific until today.

Most of those stories were fanciful tales the old men loved to relate while enjoying free drinks at the inn; drinks purchased by their eager, usually youthful, listeners. She always disregarded those tales completely. Now, for the first time in her life, Tari wished that she had paid more attention to them. Perhaps one would have warned her to look out for alligator-like monkeys with spaded tails. Some of those tales might have mentioned out-of-body experiences.

Too late now, she thought with a grimace.

Tari knew that it was not a good idea to sit around in the middle of the forest late at night, especially at the site of the attack, but, try as she might, she could not muster the strength to get up. Quite the opposite, the full weight of her weariness was coming to rest somewhere just above her eyelids, and she was in no condition to resist as sleep overtook her.

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Tari awoke quite intact under the old oak, and, judging from the sun shining through the trees, had overslept for the second night running. This would otherwise have pleased her greatly, but seeing as the events of the previous night were still fresh in her mind, she promptly decided to get home as soon as possible.

She carefully raised her arms and stretched and yawned, wiggling her toes, noting with some satisfaction that her strength was now completely restored. Shoving up from the ground, she stood and prowled around the area for a while, finally finding her dagger hidden from sight under a small, leafy bush. Clasping it snugly back into its sheath, she checked the sack at her waist and was relieved to find all of the previous day’s findings still safe.

It was then that she noticed a small black puddle nearby, and stepped up to it cautiously. After a moment’s thought, she removed a clear glass vial from her bag. If nothing else, it was proof that she had not dreamt the whole thing up. As she filled the vial with the mysterious liquid, she noticed that it had eaten through a couple inches of dry leaves and dead twigs, and was now resting on bare soil underneath that was now chalky white from its touch.

Tari shuddered, trying not to think what her face would have looked like if that vile fluid had found its target.

At least, whoever’s face that was I was borrowing.

This brought her thoughts back to the stranger who had saved her only to run away, but she forced it back out of her mind. The whole thing made her uncomfortable, and she wanted to deal with the problems facing her before worrying about anything else. Not wanting to waste any more time, she set out at a briskly for her cabin.

Perhaps because of the residue of nervousness from her recent experience by the stream, or her quick, refreshed mind, the trip home seemed to take days, though she knew she must be traveling twice as fast as she had come. After what seemed an eternity, she began to pass through more familiar woodlands and felt safer. Her cabin atop the hill gradually came into sight, and never in her life was she so glad to see it.