The deep zone did not get quieter the further in he moved.
It got more attentive.
That was the accurate word for it. The forest around him had the quality of something that was aware of his presence and was observing it, not with hostility but with the specific interest of an environment that did not receive many visitors who made it past the first encounter. The slow pulse in the bark of the trees continued its rhythm, and he had stopped trying to identify what cycle it matched and accepted that it matched the mountain's cycle, which was not a cycle he had a reference for.
He had been moving for approximately twenty minutes when the second entity appeared.
