The Harpies

In canto XIII they nest in the thorn trees of the wood and eat their leaves, and in doing so they open the wound the souls speak from. In the game they guard nothing and hold no territory: they answer a sound, which is a branch breaking, and the one that comes down is always the nearest to where it broke. Whoever never breaks anything never sees them.

And that is the price written into the canto. The wood has no landmarks, the trunks are identical on purpose, and the fog leaves little of anything at a distance, so the only compass is the voice of whatever you break: the map you need to get out is bought branch by branch, and every page costs a raking of claws.

The arrow is the only weapon that touches them, and only while they are coming down: it breaks the dive and sends them back to the branch, and it is the one use the arrow has against something that is not a soul. And they no longer drop right onto you: they stop short of your eyes, because the pivot used to land on the player’s own axis and all that was left on screen was one wing, and a Harpy you cannot see is not a danger, it is a blindfold. The game’s note on one of them: they eat the leaves of these thorn trees, they make the pain and a window for the pain, and they take no notice of you until you break something.