The Roots That Weep Upward
The Sunken Forest did not begin at the edge of a cliff. It began with a root.
Kai stood at the rim of a vast depression in the earth, a bowl so wide the far side blurred into haze. The ground sloped inward at a gentle angle, covered in moss and lichen, and from that slope rose trees—but not like any trees he had seen. Their trunks grew sideways, then curved downward, plunging into the darkness below. Branches reached not for the sky but for the abyss, leaves hanging like inverted umbrellas. The canopy was a floor of green far beneath him, and the roots were a ceiling of twisted wood above his head.
He touched his stone tablet. Carved a single question: *How deep?*
Lian stood beside him, her feet not quite touching the moss. She had grown thinner since they left the gorge. The river that gave her form was shrinking, and she knew it. “No one has reached the bottom,” she said. “The trees grow toward the light that pools in the center of the earth. They remember when the sky was below them, before the world turned inside out.”
Kai frowned. He had never heard of a forest that grew downward. But then, he had never heard of a river that remembered mountains either.
He stepped onto the first root. It was thick as his waist, rough with bark that felt more like stone than wood. The moment his weight settled, the root trembled. A low vibration traveled up his leg, through his spine, and settled behind his eyes. It was not a sound—not exactly. It was a pressure, a memory pressed into fiber and sap.
*Hunger*, the root said. *Thirst. The light is far.*
Kai pulled his foot back. The vibration stopped.
“You felt it,” Lian said. Not a question.
He nodded. He carved: *The root is sad.*
“The whole forest is sad,” Lian said. She pointed into the bowl. “The trees here are the oldest in the world. They grew when the mountains were young, when the rivers ran with silver instead of mud. They have watched the sky shrink and the ground crack. They have seen gods die and be forgotten. And now they are dying too, because Lord Shen drinks the blood beneath their roots.”
Kai looked at the descending trunks. They were pale, almost white, stripped of color by the perpetual twilight of the bowl. Some had split open, leaking a thick, clear sap that glistened like tears. The sap pooled on the moss and hardened into amber beads.
He carved: *We need their song.*
“Yes.” Lian’s voice dropped. “But the song of the Sunken Forest is not a melody you can hum. It is a dirge played on roots that have forgotten the sun. To hear it, you must climb to the heart of the forest, where the oldest tree still remembers the first light. And to climb there, you must go down.”
Kai looked at the abyss. The roots descended in a tangled web, some as thin as his wrist, others as wide as a house. They twisted around each other, forming bridges and ladders and dead ends. The air that rose from below was cold and damp, carrying the smell of wet earth and something else—something sweet and rotten, like fruit left too long in the dark.
He stepped onto the root again. This time, he did not pull away.
The vibration returned, stronger now. The root’s hunger pressed against his bones. It wanted water. It wanted light. It wanted the warmth of a sun it could no longer reach. Kai closed his eyes and let the feeling wash through him. He did not fight it. He let it become part of his own body, his own longing.
Then he took another step.
The root sagged under his weight, but held. He moved slowly, testing each handhold before committing. The bark was slick with moisture, and his fingers slipped more than once. He had to dig his nails into the wood, scraping off layers of dead tissue to find purchase.
Lian floated beside him, her feet trailing through the air. She did not touch the roots. “The woodcutter lives at the third tier,” she said. “He is blind, but he sees through the roots. He will know you are coming before you arrive.”
Kai paused. He carved with one hand, balancing on a knot of wood: *Is he dangerous?*
“He is lonely,” Lian said. “Lonely men are more dangerous than angry ones.”
They descended for what felt like hours. The light above shrank to a pale disc, then a pinprick, then nothing. Darkness swallowed them. Kai could not see his own hands. He could only feel the roots beneath his palms, rough and cold and alive with that constant, aching hunger.
He learned to navigate by touch. The roots that were smooth had been worn by water. The roots that were rough had been gnawed by insects. The roots that vibrated with a deep, slow pulse were connected to the heart of the forest. He followed those.
Lian’s voice guided him when he faltered. “Left. No, your other left. There is a gap ahead—three handspans wide. You can jump it.”
He jumped. His fingers caught the edge of a root, and he swung, his feet dangling over nothing. The root creaked but held. He pulled himself up and rested, his chest heaving.
“You are doing well,” Lian said. “Most people fall before the first tier.”
Kai wanted to ask how many people had tried. But he was too tired to carve, and his voice was a cage he had long stopped rattling.
They reached the first tier at what he guessed was midday, though the darkness made time meaningless. The roots here formed a platform, a tangled mat of wood and moss that stretched in all directions. In the center of the platform stood a tree unlike the others. Its trunk was massive, wider than a house, and it grew sideways—parallel to the ground—before plunging downward. Its bark was covered in carvings: spirals, waves, patterns that looked like rivers seen from above.
Kai touched one of the carvings. The vibration that answered was not hunger. It was memory.
*Rain*, the tree said. *Rain falling on leaves. Rain filling the hollows. Rain that tasted of sky.*
He pulled his hand away, startled. The tree was not sad. It was remembering.
“The trees at the first tier still hold the memory of sunlight,” Lian said. “They are the youngest, the closest to the surface. Their songs are bright, but shallow. You need the deep song, the one that remembers the world before the turning.”
Kai carved: *How many tiers?*
“Seven,” Lian said. “The woodcutter lives at the third. The heart of the forest is at the seventh. You cannot skip. The roots will not let you.”
He did not ask why. He already knew the answer: because the forest needed to be heard, one tier at a time.
The descent to the second tier was harder. The roots grew thinner, more brittle. Some crumbled under his grip, sending showers of bark dust into the darkness below. He learned to test each handhold twice before committing his weight. He learned to listen with his feet, feeling for the roots that hummed with life and avoiding those that were dead.
Lian grew quieter. Her form flickered, sometimes translucent, sometimes solid. She was conserving her strength, he realized. The river that fed her was drying, and every moment she spent guiding him drained her further.
He wanted to tell her to rest. He wanted to carve a message that said *I can do this alone*. But he knew she would not listen. She had chosen him as her vessel, and vessels did not get to refuse their cargo.
The second tier was a graveyard.
The roots here were black, coated in a fine dust that smelled of ash. The trees that grew sideways had split open, their hollow interiors filled with stagnant water. Insects skittered across the surface—pale, eyeless things that had never seen the sun. The air was thick with the smell of decay.
Kai stepped onto the platform and immediately felt the difference. The vibration here was not hunger. It was grief. Deep, ancient grief that pressed against his chest like a weight. He could feel the trees mourning—not for themselves, but for the roots they had lost, the branches that had snapped, the leaves that had fallen into the abyss and never returned.
He knelt and pressed his palm to the moss. The grief flowed into him, and he did not push it away. He let it fill his lungs, his throat, his eyes. He let it become his own.
Lian watched him in silence. When he stood, his cheeks were wet.
He carved: *They are crying.*
“They have been crying for a thousand years,” Lian said. “The second tier is where the forest began to die. The roots here were the first to feel the drought, the first to taste the poison that seeps from Obsidian Peak. They have been mourning ever since.”
Kai looked at the black trees, the stagnant water, the eyeless insects. He wanted to fix it. He wanted to pour water into the hollows, to wrap the roots in fresh soil, to sing a song that would make them remember the sun. But he had no water. No soil. No song—not yet.
He carved: *I will carry their grief.*
Lian’s eyes softened. “That is the first step,” she said. “But grief alone cannot heal a forest. You need the song. And the song is at the bottom.”
They descended again. The third tier came faster than he expected. The roots here were different—thicker, stronger, woven together like a basket. They glowed with a faint, blue light, as if bioluminescent moss had colonized every surface. The air was warmer, and the smell of decay had been replaced by the smell of wet stone.
And there, sitting on a root that curved like a throne, was the woodcutter.
He was old. Older than the trees, older than the moss, older than the light that seeped from the roots. His skin was bark, cracked and gray. His eyes were hollow sockets, filled with the same blue glow that lit the forest. In his hands, he held an axe made of bone—a long, curved blade that looked like it had been carved from a rib.
He did not turn his head when Kai approached. He did not need to.
“I felt you coming,” the woodcutter said. His voice was dry, rustling, like leaves blown across stone. “You step like a stone. You breathe like a river. You are the one the water chose.”
Kai stopped at the edge of the platform. He carved: *I need the forest’s song.*
The woodcutter smiled. It was not a kind smile. “Everyone needs the forest’s song. But the forest does not give its song to everyone. You must earn it.”
Lian stepped forward. Her form flickered, and for a moment, she looked almost solid. “He is the vessel of the Great River. He has heard the song of the dying spring and the stone that sang back. He is worthy.”
“The river does not decide worth,” the woodcutter said. “The forest does.” He raised his bone axe and pointed it at Kai. “You will climb to the heart of the forest. You will listen to the oldest root. And if the root speaks to you, you may take its song. If it does not, you will fall, and the forest will feed on your bones.”
Kai did not flinch. He carved: *I am ready.*
The woodcutter laughed—a dry, crackling sound. “No one is ready. But you will go anyway, because that is what the broken do. They climb into the dark and hope the dark will hold them.”
He stepped aside, revealing a gap in the roots—a tunnel that plunged straight down, lined with the same blue glow. The air that rose from it was cold and thick, heavy with the weight of centuries.
Kai looked at Lian. She nodded.
He stepped into the tunnel.
The roots closed around him like a fist.
Kai stood at the rim of a vast depression in the earth, a bowl so wide the far side blurred into haze. The ground sloped inward at a gentle angle, covered in moss and lichen, and from that slope rose trees—but not like any trees he had seen. Their trunks grew sideways, then curved downward, plunging into the darkness below. Branches reached not for the sky but for the abyss, leaves hanging like inverted umbrellas. The canopy was a floor of green far beneath him, and the roots were a ceiling of twisted wood above his head.
He touched his stone tablet. Carved a single question: *How deep?*
Lian stood beside him, her feet not quite touching the moss. She had grown thinner since they left the gorge. The river that gave her form was shrinking, and she knew it. “No one has reached the bottom,” she said. “The trees grow toward the light that pools in the center of the earth. They remember when the sky was below them, before the world turned inside out.”
Kai frowned. He had never heard of a forest that grew downward. But then, he had never heard of a river that remembered mountains either.
He stepped onto the first root. It was thick as his waist, rough with bark that felt more like stone than wood. The moment his weight settled, the root trembled. A low vibration traveled up his leg, through his spine, and settled behind his eyes. It was not a sound—not exactly. It was a pressure, a memory pressed into fiber and sap.
*Hunger*, the root said. *Thirst. The light is far.*
Kai pulled his foot back. The vibration stopped.
“You felt it,” Lian said. Not a question.
He nodded. He carved: *The root is sad.*
“The whole forest is sad,” Lian said. She pointed into the bowl. “The trees here are the oldest in the world. They grew when the mountains were young, when the rivers ran with silver instead of mud. They have watched the sky shrink and the ground crack. They have seen gods die and be forgotten. And now they are dying too, because Lord Shen drinks the blood beneath their roots.”
Kai looked at the descending trunks. They were pale, almost white, stripped of color by the perpetual twilight of the bowl. Some had split open, leaking a thick, clear sap that glistened like tears. The sap pooled on the moss and hardened into amber beads.
He carved: *We need their song.*
“Yes.” Lian’s voice dropped. “But the song of the Sunken Forest is not a melody you can hum. It is a dirge played on roots that have forgotten the sun. To hear it, you must climb to the heart of the forest, where the oldest tree still remembers the first light. And to climb there, you must go down.”
Kai looked at the abyss. The roots descended in a tangled web, some as thin as his wrist, others as wide as a house. They twisted around each other, forming bridges and ladders and dead ends. The air that rose from below was cold and damp, carrying the smell of wet earth and something else—something sweet and rotten, like fruit left too long in the dark.
He stepped onto the root again. This time, he did not pull away.
The vibration returned, stronger now. The root’s hunger pressed against his bones. It wanted water. It wanted light. It wanted the warmth of a sun it could no longer reach. Kai closed his eyes and let the feeling wash through him. He did not fight it. He let it become part of his own body, his own longing.
Then he took another step.
The root sagged under his weight, but held. He moved slowly, testing each handhold before committing. The bark was slick with moisture, and his fingers slipped more than once. He had to dig his nails into the wood, scraping off layers of dead tissue to find purchase.
Lian floated beside him, her feet trailing through the air. She did not touch the roots. “The woodcutter lives at the third tier,” she said. “He is blind, but he sees through the roots. He will know you are coming before you arrive.”
Kai paused. He carved with one hand, balancing on a knot of wood: *Is he dangerous?*
“He is lonely,” Lian said. “Lonely men are more dangerous than angry ones.”
They descended for what felt like hours. The light above shrank to a pale disc, then a pinprick, then nothing. Darkness swallowed them. Kai could not see his own hands. He could only feel the roots beneath his palms, rough and cold and alive with that constant, aching hunger.
He learned to navigate by touch. The roots that were smooth had been worn by water. The roots that were rough had been gnawed by insects. The roots that vibrated with a deep, slow pulse were connected to the heart of the forest. He followed those.
Lian’s voice guided him when he faltered. “Left. No, your other left. There is a gap ahead—three handspans wide. You can jump it.”
He jumped. His fingers caught the edge of a root, and he swung, his feet dangling over nothing. The root creaked but held. He pulled himself up and rested, his chest heaving.
“You are doing well,” Lian said. “Most people fall before the first tier.”
Kai wanted to ask how many people had tried. But he was too tired to carve, and his voice was a cage he had long stopped rattling.
They reached the first tier at what he guessed was midday, though the darkness made time meaningless. The roots here formed a platform, a tangled mat of wood and moss that stretched in all directions. In the center of the platform stood a tree unlike the others. Its trunk was massive, wider than a house, and it grew sideways—parallel to the ground—before plunging downward. Its bark was covered in carvings: spirals, waves, patterns that looked like rivers seen from above.
Kai touched one of the carvings. The vibration that answered was not hunger. It was memory.
*Rain*, the tree said. *Rain falling on leaves. Rain filling the hollows. Rain that tasted of sky.*
He pulled his hand away, startled. The tree was not sad. It was remembering.
“The trees at the first tier still hold the memory of sunlight,” Lian said. “They are the youngest, the closest to the surface. Their songs are bright, but shallow. You need the deep song, the one that remembers the world before the turning.”
Kai carved: *How many tiers?*
“Seven,” Lian said. “The woodcutter lives at the third. The heart of the forest is at the seventh. You cannot skip. The roots will not let you.”
He did not ask why. He already knew the answer: because the forest needed to be heard, one tier at a time.
The descent to the second tier was harder. The roots grew thinner, more brittle. Some crumbled under his grip, sending showers of bark dust into the darkness below. He learned to test each handhold twice before committing his weight. He learned to listen with his feet, feeling for the roots that hummed with life and avoiding those that were dead.
Lian grew quieter. Her form flickered, sometimes translucent, sometimes solid. She was conserving her strength, he realized. The river that fed her was drying, and every moment she spent guiding him drained her further.
He wanted to tell her to rest. He wanted to carve a message that said *I can do this alone*. But he knew she would not listen. She had chosen him as her vessel, and vessels did not get to refuse their cargo.
The second tier was a graveyard.
The roots here were black, coated in a fine dust that smelled of ash. The trees that grew sideways had split open, their hollow interiors filled with stagnant water. Insects skittered across the surface—pale, eyeless things that had never seen the sun. The air was thick with the smell of decay.
Kai stepped onto the platform and immediately felt the difference. The vibration here was not hunger. It was grief. Deep, ancient grief that pressed against his chest like a weight. He could feel the trees mourning—not for themselves, but for the roots they had lost, the branches that had snapped, the leaves that had fallen into the abyss and never returned.
He knelt and pressed his palm to the moss. The grief flowed into him, and he did not push it away. He let it fill his lungs, his throat, his eyes. He let it become his own.
Lian watched him in silence. When he stood, his cheeks were wet.
He carved: *They are crying.*
“They have been crying for a thousand years,” Lian said. “The second tier is where the forest began to die. The roots here were the first to feel the drought, the first to taste the poison that seeps from Obsidian Peak. They have been mourning ever since.”
Kai looked at the black trees, the stagnant water, the eyeless insects. He wanted to fix it. He wanted to pour water into the hollows, to wrap the roots in fresh soil, to sing a song that would make them remember the sun. But he had no water. No soil. No song—not yet.
He carved: *I will carry their grief.*
Lian’s eyes softened. “That is the first step,” she said. “But grief alone cannot heal a forest. You need the song. And the song is at the bottom.”
They descended again. The third tier came faster than he expected. The roots here were different—thicker, stronger, woven together like a basket. They glowed with a faint, blue light, as if bioluminescent moss had colonized every surface. The air was warmer, and the smell of decay had been replaced by the smell of wet stone.
And there, sitting on a root that curved like a throne, was the woodcutter.
He was old. Older than the trees, older than the moss, older than the light that seeped from the roots. His skin was bark, cracked and gray. His eyes were hollow sockets, filled with the same blue glow that lit the forest. In his hands, he held an axe made of bone—a long, curved blade that looked like it had been carved from a rib.
He did not turn his head when Kai approached. He did not need to.
“I felt you coming,” the woodcutter said. His voice was dry, rustling, like leaves blown across stone. “You step like a stone. You breathe like a river. You are the one the water chose.”
Kai stopped at the edge of the platform. He carved: *I need the forest’s song.*
The woodcutter smiled. It was not a kind smile. “Everyone needs the forest’s song. But the forest does not give its song to everyone. You must earn it.”
Lian stepped forward. Her form flickered, and for a moment, she looked almost solid. “He is the vessel of the Great River. He has heard the song of the dying spring and the stone that sang back. He is worthy.”
“The river does not decide worth,” the woodcutter said. “The forest does.” He raised his bone axe and pointed it at Kai. “You will climb to the heart of the forest. You will listen to the oldest root. And if the root speaks to you, you may take its song. If it does not, you will fall, and the forest will feed on your bones.”
Kai did not flinch. He carved: *I am ready.*
The woodcutter laughed—a dry, crackling sound. “No one is ready. But you will go anyway, because that is what the broken do. They climb into the dark and hope the dark will hold them.”
He stepped aside, revealing a gap in the roots—a tunnel that plunged straight down, lined with the same blue glow. The air that rose from it was cold and thick, heavy with the weight of centuries.
Kai looked at Lian. She nodded.
He stepped into the tunnel.
The roots closed around him like a fist.