Walking the Tree (40 page)

  "Why didn't they change the names?"

  "I think they still believed in Botanica. Just not the bone world they came from."

  They walked. Lillah missed the sun but was used to the light provided by the Tree.

  They came across some musicians. They played a hollow tune, three of them squatting in the darkness. It seemed without rhythm or reason, but Santala smiled.

  "You don't like this music? It is a particular sound, played on toe bones. It gives the sense of down on the earth, because of the kind of bone."

  Lillah tried to smile but she found the music discordant and unsettling.

  "Are you happy, you outsiders? Can you feel joy in the small things?"

  "Mostly we're happy. Botanica works well; the system we have makes most people happy. There is room for loners. Those who don't fit in find work as Tale-tellers, marketers, potmakers. I would love to be a Tale-teller."

  "But you know nothing of the past."

  "They are not curious. But I am, Santala. I want to know."

  "We came from another great island, from the sky, many, many hundreds of years ago. Those people came on a secret endeavour.

  "There were four men and three women. They gave themselves names from Botanica when they arrived: Rhizo, Cynthia, Platanace, Dickson, Tilla, Logan and Capri. We have lost their birth names, all but two: Ruth and David. They were people who understand the plants, the things that grow. They gave themselves plant names, and they called all their children, their grand children, all names come from the plants. The place names come from plants.

  "In this we have not grown apart. They knew of this island, this Tree and they knew it was the place for them. Legend says the Tree sprouted from their bones. Truth is, the Tree was already here.

  "They thought we could always have good air to breathe. The air was worthless on the place they left behind. They brought many seeds with them. This is why we have food all over the Tree, different food in different places. These people planted everywhere, and a wild hybrid grew. Mushrooms grow thick on the side you call shady.

  "If we travel further up inside the Tree, you will see strange boxes, many of them, the last remaining scraps of the belongings of the first people. We don't know what these things are. We don't know what they used them for. Some things we have used ourselves in small ways.

  "They came from a place where there were few Trees remaining. From outer rings in, they read the markings, the etchings in the Tree and added more, leaving their words behind. It is etched in places inside the Tree."

  All lit by the strange glowing stuff, Lillah thought.

  "We know little about the birthplace, only that there were many land masses, many people, and that their bones grew smooth together. One Bone disease, which killed them.

  "There came a time when the people of the Tree no longer wanted to remember the history. They wanted to begin again, untainted by the past. They call this time the Chase of the Rememberers. The Rememberers ran up the Tree, too old to climb, yet so determined not to die they couldn't stop climbing, escaping. Forced up, higher and higher, on the branches of the Tree. These stories of our past we found on the Trunk of the Tree etched and clear.

  "The etchings speak of visions: all possible futures present in their dreams, all possible pasts remembered and set into the Tree. They spoke of disease and of death, of great birds carrying our ancestors to the island, metal birds with a name we don't know.

  "They dug deep pit ovens as we do now, heating the stones until a dry Leaf shrivelled in an instant on contact. They ate great crabs, so large their shells could be used as a bath for a child. The flesh was sweet, and the early settlers etched stories and told tales of the intoxicating feasts they shared, sucking on crab's legs and swallowing great chunks of crab flesh until the mound of shells reached knee-high."

  "Why did we never question this on the outside? Why don't we know this?" Lillah said.

  "Most of you out there don't care where you came from. Most of you think it doesn't matter. But it's everything about who we are. And it's how we can change.

   "We all descended from the same place. These things happened beyond memory ago, when most of us lived inside the Tree. There were many factions and we have no record of what the arguments were. This is the nature of war, the nature of conflict. The conflict is remembered, not the cause. The cause is unimportant with the passage of time.

  "They fought, and there were deaths. Some small groups found safe havens in the Tree, but many others, tired of living inside the Tree, ventured out. The insiders would say they lost all sense and knowledge. Most people did this. The outsiders would say they saw sense, saw that living inside was wrong, and that outside, where there is sun and fresh air, is the only right place to live. They started eating fish. We would not eat fish.

  "All communication was not lost, though. As time passed, contacts were made and conversations held. There was transfer of insiders to outsiders, breeding between the two, for a long time, then slowly, slowly, the separation became complete. We forgot how to speak to each other and the outsiders began to believe we did not exist."

  They climbed out onto a branch way above the ground. Below them were people, strangers, living their fascinating lives.

  "But do I tell them? Will they listen, and will it change anything at all?"

  "They should at least realise there are no ghosts inside the Tree, just another Order, more Orders, living their own way."

  "There are some who do believe that. They have ghost-free places."

  Santala shuddered. "Some of the places… they are taboo. Places where people die of their nightmares."

  "That is in Pinon. That's what they tell us. Everybody has a different belief." Lillah felt suddenly overwhelmed by all she had heard. "It's so vast, inside the Tree."

  "There is more Tree than there is land."

  This was too much for Lillah to absorb. Too huge, too all encompassing.

  "It is a large land, so varied."

  "It is very large."

 

As they moved through and up the Tree, there were surprising patches of dirt resting in deep impressions in the Tree, or filling hollows.

  Lillah realised they were using a rib cage to dig. It provided deep, equal groves to drop seed in.

  "How does anything grow in here? It's hard for us to grow food in the shade."

  "This food has changed so that it no longer needs sunlight."

  "Does it give you enough life when you eat it? Sun-raised food has so much life."

  "We're alive, aren't we?"

  Lillah thought, You are, you pale weak creatures. But not like we live.

 

• • •

 

She saw a woman she thought was perhaps a Taleteller.

  The woman used a sharp bone to cut words into the Tree.

  Lillah watched her. "On the outside, it's the men who have these jobs. The women leave. The men stay. So the men have these important jobs."

  "We do not travel so much inside. We will meet together near the internal fire sometimes, but we like our small groups."

  "Children, though. How do you make new children?"

  "When we meet a lot of connections are made. And you outsiders leave your unwanted babies out. We want them."

  She etched with a sharp bone tool. Lillah ran her fingers over the story and marvelled at the woman's skill.

  "Clever, isn't she? Will you come to stir the beer?" Santala led Lillah through to another cavern.

  The bowl was enormous; a massive stone scraped and scraped till there was room inside for food. Santala picked up a bone spoon the size of his arm and stirred.

  A yeasty, fermented smell came off the mixture.

  "This will be ready in some months. It draws flavour from the stone and the stone helps turn it into something that will make us all happy."

 

• • •

 

The walking was slow, which was good because that way she could acclimatise to the changing light and the heat. The closer she moved to the centre, the hotter it got.

  She missed sunlight terribly. Lillah felt her hair dying, falling out, though in the half-light of their existence it was hard to tell. Her skin thickened, coarsened; she could feel the pores when she stroked her face. But the learning, the learning took all physical difficulties away.

  She found the spring that ran out into Douglas. Santala warned her about this stream. He said, "It is so pure it will hurt your throat."

  She sat by it, resisting the urge to swim in it, piss in it, dirty it for the murderous men of Douglas. But she drank, instead, and then lay down and let the dreams of future and past, of lovers and killers, fill her until she thought she would never wake up.

 

"Is that noise the leaves? Is there a wind out there? It sounds like talking."

  Her guide shook his head. "It's outthere. They whisper like that all the time. It's nonsense. We can't hear the words unless we creep closer. Sometimes we do it, if we're tired of the pictures in the Bark and bored with each other."

  "What do they say? Can you tell me?"

  He laughed. "Sometimes shocking. Sometimes very dull. Farting in the mother's bed. Tearing away Bark not loosened or given freely by The Tree. Bad thoughts and ideas; these things we hear. Terrible killings, sometimes. Sometimes I whisper back. Tell them things I don't want people to know. We hear the planning of a killing. Terrible killings. One place they leave seaweed oil in their ghost cave."

  Rhado. Lillah thought. I won't tell him my mother is from there.

  "We heard them, many of them, whispering about a boy and how they would kill him. They don't like those who are flawed, do they? They don't see the strength in flaws."

  "Those people should have been jailed."

  Santala smiled. "Jail. It looks nice, to us. Sitting in the water and the sun. It seems warm and cool at the same time."

  "You would think so. And at first it is. The prisoner thinks they have got off easy, that there is no worry at all. The water is refreshing the sun is warm, and they are not required to do any work. Most way-breakers are lazy. I don't know if that is the same inside the Tree as it is out. But they are mostly lazy, and try to get out of doing work."

  Santala nodded. "They are lazy here, too."

  "It may not seem to be a punishment. But it is terrible. They move ceaselessly, lifting one foot at a time out of the water, stepping and stepping."

  "Their feet would begin to rot, if they are there a while," Santala said.

  "The cages rise and fall with the tide, and their feet are often in the water. Once the foot starts to rot, when there are open sores, the salt water gets in and those people are in agony."

  "It's hard to tell that from this far back. It looks pleasant."

  "Sometimes it's not good to be close to a thing. Their feet are destroyed by it. You've seen that?"

  "I've seen them crawl from the cages. Yes. But I don't remember seeing their feet. I wouldn't like your life out there. You have so few freedoms."

  Lillah wondered how he could think such a thing.

 

Some crystals were set in the walls and Santala, using a bone tool, scraped them into a small bag.

  "This is our salt," he said.

  Lillah pitied him. "Our red salt can heal bruises," she said.

 

As they talked and long days passed, he led her through roots, tunnels and caves.

  "How do you know where you're going? We understand a straight line; this seems to be circles and spirals."

  "The Tree is a very complex organism. You must have noticed that from the outside. Many species merging to one heart. So my map is to follow the species. This track we're on takes us to jasmine, which is surrounded on most sides by almond. Almond leads to Rowan, and that's where we'll eat tonight."

  "Is it near the centre of the Tree?"

  "It will take us many more months to walk to the centre of the Tree."

 

They climbed and walked, dropped from branch to branch. Lillah felt warmer, uncomfortably so.

  "Thirsty?" he said. He seemed to understand her physical state. He handed her a wooden bottle to drink from.

  "We'll fill it at the next well."

  "Is there is fresh water in here?"

  "Of course. It's the source of all water you use on the outside."

 

"We're almost there," he said. "Through here, and we'll be there."

  It was very warm. Lillah couldn't understand where the heat was coming from, but she was too tired to form the words to ask.

  They stepped through a fissure and what Lillah saw there made her scream.

  "What's the matter?" her guide said, his composure gone for the first time.

  "Fire, the great burning fire! The stories are true. The Tree is burning from within."

  Lillah sobbed. She had never really believed these tales, and never told them herself, yet here it was. The Tree being destroyed as they watched. There was a large cavern, fifty steps at least, maybe a hundred going the other way. You could not walk in there, though, because the ground burned. There were no twigs or sticks, no logs burning. The ground was the wood of the Tree and it burned at a constant red glow.

  "Lillah, it's good. It's good fire. The wood here is so ancient it doesn't burn, just appears to. This flame has been alight since before I was born. One of my first memories is playing up against the burning block, because it was warm and I loved the crackle of it."

  "We hear that outside sometimes," Lillah felt calmer, knowing it wasn't her responsibility to save the Tree. "There are crackles about the Tree. Sometimes an internal Limb will shatter with dryness. That crackles."