Page 3354

From there, the tale split into different tellings. Some were clearly meant to portray Skapa more sympathetically, and others very much not. Unfortunately, it was impossible to tell what the truth was, anymore, even with the benefit of reapers and their long memories.

The problem, Dozer thought, was that Skapa himself was simply too famous. At this point, he was more like a mythic hero than an actual person, because throughout the course of recorded history, he had been the center of many such tales, though admittedly the tale of Skapa and the Forest was likely the oldest.

It certainly didn’t help that many storytellers seemed to have shoehorned Skapa into their fairy tales, most probably in an appeal to popularity or perhaps an attempt to give their story a greater sense of legitimacy.

Where this forest was concerned, however, many had long since come to the conclusion that the wisps from the tale were, in fact, the very same beings as the Dulvani.

And the Dulvani, rather unsurprisingly, hated that. They claimed to have no relation whatsoever--or that the tale itself was entirely fictional.

Dozer was obviously not the first treasure hunter to have come to this place, and the Dulvani had a reputation for being quite inhospitable to those seeking wealth from their forest. In fact, they were known to be utterly brutal in their isolationism. Certainly not the soft, friendly, fairy-like creatures that they were too frequently portrayed as in stories about them. He’d heard they would execute hapless travelers who cut down even a single tree for a campfire during the winter.

And looking at the sea of felled wood all around him, there was no doubt in his mind that they would now be holding a grudge against him for a very long time to come.

So be it, though.

He was not here for their forest, but if it continued to get in his way, he would continue to annihilate it. And besides, he'd left the trees as stumps. He hadn’t uprooted or burned very many of them. He just needed clear sight.

That was the real nuisance of Jaskadan. The ardor that flowed through it, obfuscating everyone’s senses and disorienting them--or even, at times, projecting hallucinations. After losing three decent soldiers to the forest, he’d decided that enough was enough. He didn’t need the extra hassle when the Mendocava were already being plenty annoying on their own.