Old Green World (15 page)

He ventured into the wilderness, the land beyond. It was free of roads and of any trails he could follow, but he had a clear destination. His path hung obviously in the air, as if marked with rope.

He was able to manage the first mile or so well, and he let himself get confident. Before long, though, he noticed that brush surrounded him up to his waist, for as far around as he could see.
This is why we have soldiers
, he sighed. He drew the machete: he had hoped, irrationally, that he wouldn’t need it. His arm started to feel tired even before he started chopping. He preferred it to the exhaustion of clearing brush with his mind, though.

He hated the forest.
I don’t hate it
, he told himself.
I love it, of course, like we all should, system or no system, it’s what the world is before we interfere with it, it’s what we all come from. It’s what I come from.
He thought these words with his official mind, his Adept orthodoxy that celebrated, aggrandized the forest even as it planned how to wipe it out.
 

His informal, human mind, on the other hand, noticed the humidity and lack of useful landmarks and dwelled on all the biting insects and big animals it might encounter. Also, it was bored. It daydreamed of London, his library, his comfortable rooms, a nice warm lunch from a kitchen, a well-kept bottle of wine.

His home city was a pattern drawn on his nervous system, a map he could navigate without effort, a union of landscape and atmosphere and mind. Here, though, every step forced another moment of awareness, a study of the mud and roots and brush that would trip and scratch. Every step reminded him of his mission, his path, and of the current situation, which might lead to the end of the world as he knew it. There was pain in every bit, every second of the reality around him. He took a moment to wipe his brow, close his eyes, let the pain wash across. Then he went back to hacking at the forest.

And it was just hours of it, hours of him and the green and the knife, chopping and clearing. Even the forest around him, the knife in his hand, became invisible; it became one moment of chopping and clearing, the same moment over and over again.

He started to slow down in the subtle changes of early sunset. The light still accommodated him, and would for a couple of hours more, but he was tired. He finally came to a clearing, an auspicious spot where the pine trees had grown hundreds of feet, the ground beneath them a soft blanket of needles. He made camp, built a small fire, and took out some of his provisions. The food was basic: some bean cakes, dried fruit, and a little wine from the skin he had brought. He wasn’t so much satisfied after eating as less hungry.

He sat still for a while. He let himself fall away. He relaxed the matrix of needs and preferences and insistences and regrets that was “Niall.” He let himself just be experience for a while: the coolness and quiet of the clearing in dusk, the depth and vastness of the forest, the moisture of the life and decay around him.

With surprise, he realized his own happiness. He realized that, after the struggle of the brush and in the exhaustion of his own body, he had joy in being here.

A vision came to him. The clearing became a village, a set of longhouses nestled in the trees, warmth and smoke from cooking fires, the smell of peat. A bigger fire burned at the edge of the village, where the clearing met the trees. The fire burned in a holy place, a space surrounded by stones, deliberately arranged in a circle, with decorated limbs at the cardinal points. A dozen villagers sat within the circle, parents and children listening rapt to a shaman telling a story.

Niall knew that his face lay beneath the tattooed runes that adorned the shaman’s face, that he was himself the shaman. His Adept robes were gone; he wore animal skins. His face and body were softer, his arms bare of their coats of hair. He spoke with a different voice, a more imposing tone. This Niall was practiced at telling stories. He was in the middle of a story, and he spoke these words:

The wise woman went into the forest to talk to it. She went to the oldest and largest tree and put her hand to it.

“Why are you here? What have you come to ask of me?” asked the forest.

“When we live with you, we get sick. When we live away from you, we get sick. You turned my sister into a dragon. What are you doing to us? Why is this happening?”

“I don’t understand your questions. I am the forest. This is what happens.”

“What is the purpose of all this? What do you want us to do?”

“Want? I don’t want, I don’t need. I am patient and vast. I am complete. I do not care. Your questions are all about what you want, and what your people want.”

The wise woman struck the tree. “I’m tired of this, of you. I just want a world I can understand. Do you hear me? I want to understand.”

The forest was silent.

The vision popped like a bubble. He sat alone in the clearing again, feeling the atmosphere, and his breath. He felt the tension and coldness and stomachache of the truth: that this was exactly where he was supposed to be, where they were all supposed to be; that, despite all their machinations, they would all eventually return here, to the vastness and silence of the forest.

+ + +

He woke the next morning, cooked some bacon over the fire, and brewed some tea from a sachet of herbs he had brought all the way from London. It was his favorite blend.

As he drank his tea, a fox came into view, approaching the clearing from the forest. He looked at Niall tentatively, then back to the woods, then back at Niall. He held his left foreleg in midair, ready to launch an escape. Niall smiled, then, on an impulse, tried reaching out and connecting to the fox’s mind. He picked up some flashes of sensation, strong smells, the taste of blood, textures touching the bottoms of his paws. Then the connection broke, and the fox fled.

Niall shrugged. He knew it wouldn’t really work. It never did. He drank from his tea, then began to break camp to head out again. He took his time. It wasn’t terribly far.

He set out. He walked for about a half hour through the big canopies of trees before coming to the village.

It was a small village, with a longhouse in the center of it and some smaller cabins around. There was a big pit for cooking, some skins hanging from lines.
Was this the village in my dream?
Niall wondered. He looked on impulse for a holy circle. He saw a clear spot, a couple of stones, not enough to establish a pattern. Their holiness had gone, or was kept secret.

He made himself deliberately noisy. “I am a traveler,” he said in Baixan. He saw a couple of faces peek out from the door of the longhouse, then dart back into darkness.

A long pause followed, blanketed in the sounds of bird and breeze, and of frogs and nature rutting. A bird cried something that sounded like despair, and a breeze kicked up. Niall spoke again. “Peace. I wish to change nothing.”

A man emerged from the longhouse door. He was as wide as it. His head was shaved closely, and he carried a sword. He wore armor. It was White Island armor, of high quality. Niall recognized it.

“If you wish to change nothing, then you should leave now,” the man said. “We know your agenda. We know you came from the Islands to desecrate the ancient place. We’re staying here. The boy shaman has come to us and told us. He told us what you are doing. We’re staying here.”

Niall considered addressing each point in series, but thought better of it, and skipped to: “I’m a friend of the boy shaman. I just want to talk to him.”

“You leave us alone. He’s a part of us now. Go away.”

“I’m asking with courtesy because I’m not eager to fight.”

“Leave us alone. There’s no green here, no reason. Go back to the ancient place and keep on with your blasphemy. You don’t need us.”

Niall felt the stones at the clear spot behind him. He connected to them, lifted them, brought them to him. They orbited around him: concurrent, irregular orbits, with a small but constant increment of acceleration.

“I’m a shaman, too,” Niall said.

“I know this already,” the man replied.

“I just want to talk to him. I don’t want trouble. No one wants trouble. Right?”

The man struck his sword against the side of the door and cursed in Baixan. The curse was florid, and Niall was impressed.

“Follow me,” the man said.

They walked to the far edge of the forest and into the brush. The path was subtle, but the man knew it and followed it easily. He fidgeted with brush that wasn’t in his way.

“I’m not going to hurt him,” Niall said in Baixan to the man. “It’s going to be all right.”

The man struck a branch with his sword.

They came to a clearing after about ten minutes of traveling. Some large trees had been felled and reduced to logs and mulch. Some sunlight shone through the opening in the canopy. Greens and tubers grew in a small patch of land. A tiny cabin sat near the patch, covered in dyes.

“Hallo!” Niall hollered to the cabin. The man brandished his sword and snarled at Niall. Niall raised his hands and took a step back. “Sorry,” he said.

The man left him and went into the cabin. Niall admitted to himself that he was tired, and leaned against a tree.

After a few moments, Niall spoke again, still audibly, but more softly this time. “Hallo, Albert? It’s Niall.” and then a little bit louder, “I know you remember me, Albert! You hate me.”

Not long after, a figure appeared at the doorway, leaner than he was before, but still as big a presence. He wore a red beard across his face, but still a boy’s beard. His hair had been cut close. It looked like he was keeping it with a knife. None of it was enough to be called anything more than unshavenness. “I don’t hate you,” Albert said. “I don’t hate anyone. Go away.” The man stood near Albert, sheltering him.

Niall smiled to himself and took a few steps closer. “All right, Al? May I come over?”

Albert turned away from Niall to the man and spoke to him in hushed tones. The man spoke with a disproportionate intensity: Niall felt the agitation pulse out from him. The man and Albert spoke in whispers for a while. Finally, the man put his head against Albert’s shoulder for exactly five breaths, then walked out from the way they had come. He didn’t look at Niall.

“I just want to talk,” Niall said.

Albert shrugged.

“I brought some food. It’s town food, from the Old City. Would you like some?”

“I’m fine for food,” Albert said. “I guess it would be nice to have a change.” He started back into the house. “Are you coming in?” Niall followed him into the house.

Niall came as far as the doorway. “You look terrible. I guess you haven’t managed to make any soap yet.”

Albert stared at him and didn’t look away.

Niall paused for a second. “I’ll stop. Sometimes I find it makes things easier. We’re all uncomfortable, always. Sometimes a little stupidity helps.”

“You want to talk?” Albert said in a monotone, nodding toward a bench for Niall to sit. “Go ahead. Hurry up, so you can leave before the sun falls.”

“I thought you might offer me some tea first,” Niall said.

“I guess you would need a break, wouldn’t you? I’m surprised that you could make it all the way here, the shape you’re in.”

“I did fine. We can’t all be strapping child behemoths,” Niall said, more testily than he intended. He realized his reactions, took a breath and relaxed. “I suppose I could use a sit.”

“Do it, then.”

Niall sat on the bench. Albert stood and stared at him, and Niall stared back. “I wasn’t kidding about the tea,” Niall said.

Albert shrugged and went outside.

Niall looked around the house. It had a simple wood frame and a roof shingled in bark. A decent number of furnishings decorated the house. A hammock stretched across one corner, and a table and bench occupied another. A book sat on the table, as did a couple of earthen cups, which looked to be from the old Baixan city, and a simple wooden bowl and fork, whittled. The cabin was clean, and more civilized than he had imagined it would be. A handmade broom sat by the door, and some weavings decorated the walls. They were new. Niall knew the handiwork, the traditions of Viru.

Albert came back in with a pot. “Here’s your tea,” he said.

Niall pushed both cups toward him. “It’s our tea,” he said. “It’s pine tea, isn’t it? I can smell it.”

“I never run out of pine.” Albert poured it and they drank silently for a while.

“Do you want to know how I found you?” Niall said to break the silence.

“I don’t have to ask,” Albert said. “I know already. You know everything. You see inside me, right?”
 

“There’s plenty I don’t know,” Niall said, adding, “boy shaman” in Baixan.

“I don’t know what that’s about. They call me that,” Albert said. “I think maybe they haven’t seen many people like me. Red hair.”

“There’s plenty I don’t know, but I’m not stupid,” Niall said, and then let Albert connect.
You can hear
, he said silently to Albert.
You can hear this.

You have dreams, right? Alien dreams, with sensations and emotions you can’t imagine? Dreams of a forest, like this one, but not this one. It feels like the parent of this forest, if such a thing could exist, doesn’t it? And you can hear the forest always, waking or sleeping, right? You hear it talking to you, but you know that can’t be possible. You think you’re going mad, because you don’t want to accept the things right in front of you. Am I wrong? Is that how you are?

Albert pushed back from the table and stood. He held himself and stared at Niall. Then he ran out of the room.

Niall stayed in place for a moment, sipping his tea. He stared at the doorway, at the space where Albert had been and left. He listened to the forest, the breeze through the leaves, gentle enough. It was a nice day. He felt the murmurs of birds and of tree frogs.

Then he rose and walked out of the doorway, behind the cabin, through a cluster of trees to a clearing, cool and shaded, a bed of pine needles making a soft floor. Albert lay there, flat on his back, staring up at the sky.