Tundra

Something shifted out of the surrounding leaves, and Erasmus realised that what he had taken to be trees were not vegetation at all. With springs of oak in their hair in place of feathers, other asymmetrical faces lunged out of the gloom; faces so twisted that they had at first been mistaken for ugly knots of timber.

‘I travelled on a sunbeam into the Dreaming,’ said the druid who had invited him to east, narrating over the top of the ensuing scuffle, ‘an astral plane, a collective meditation where there can be no ageing. I left my body behind, but only druids ever know what happens inside a barrow. You dare try to attack me! You shall not be privy to our secrets.’

Erasmus acted fast. An elbow into each of the lumbering dead druids doubled them over, and a shoulder under each as they crumpled sent them flying. He was surprised at how easy it was. Evidently, they had expected him to be slower, less expert and somehow dulled or encumbered by the fungus he had consumed. Without a moment to spare, Erasmus turned on the first druid, wrestling him to the ground in a shower of sparks. Magic, too, had no effect on him.

‘Now,’ he said, ‘you will tell me how to ingest this fungus in such a manner that it will not lead to possession. I am not easily affected by your poisons, but I know there’s more to all of this than that. That fungus is what sustains you. You will teach me how.’

‘Or what?’ the dead druid cackled. ‘You’ll kill me? I am a vessel of the Otherworld. Southerner. I am eternal.'

'I won't kill you. I see now that you're already dead. What I will do is tear your head off with my bare hands, and carry it with me as a warning to any of your peers as to what happens if you cross me.'

'I don't have the answers you seek, Southerner,’ the druid replied, choking as Erasmus strangled him. Erasmus drove his grip home tighter, so that the druid gasped for breath, and his neck threatened to snap. 'Wait, wait,’ he spluttered. ‘I can’t help you, but there is one who knows. You'll find him at Sentinel Rock. Had you just told me what you wanted, I would have sent you there anyway.'

'Why?'

'I don't know what you've done to my familiars.’ He shook his head at the too easily dispatched men, who had become crows curled up on the forest floor. ‘Or why you seem immune to the Otherworld's attentions, but once you get to Sentinel Rock, it won't matter. If you're asking about eternal life, it means you can die, and if you can die, he will kill you.'