Forest For The Trees (Book 3) (65 page)

“A walking plant?”

“You have a severe case of hostile environment in this
forest,” Dietrik mused, sounding unimpressed.  “It is enough to make me swear
off all vegetables.”

“As it suits you,” Colbey returned.  He squatted over
his carapaces, flicking them one after the next into the flames.  Marik could
see that they landed in a star-shaped pattern on the burning twigs.  Had that
been coincidence, deliberate, or an unconscious reflection of the scout’s
thoughts?

Dietrik watch Colbey over the fire.  “How much time
until sunrise?”

“The length of a summer day.”

“Then we have plenty of time before dawn,” Marik
added.

“Yes.  Time enough to say what must be said.”

They waited.  Both sensed that Colbey would speak
without their spurring him like a recalcitrant horse.  He only needed to
collect his thoughts.  Or his determination.

Marik considered the man who had trained him in
superior fighting techniques, both physical and mental.  Despite the
dislocation that had bludgeoned his brain the entire day, he had noticed the strange
differences in Colbey.  A third man had entered his body, where before there
had been two whom Marik knew of.  The first had been the distant, cold and
ruthlessly efficient scout who epitomized the warrior’s essence.  After him,
though Marik had not recognized it until much later, had been the Colbey who
was rash, sloppy, brooding and excessively brutal.

What characterized this third man who resided within
Colbey’s shell?  There was a worn-out feel to him, although it never showed in
any of the scout’s actions or movements.  Marik struggled to define why that
sensation seemed to radiate from Colbey.  In the end he decided it was in the
scout’s eyes.  There was a quality there that reflected a soul who had seen far
too much of the naked world without the illusions of civilization people
desperately crafted.

Also, there was the simple fact that Colbey had spoken
as many words in this single afternoon,
or night?  Which is it?
, as
during the entire time Marik had known him.  Even during their sword lessons,
or during the days in the Green Reaches when he practiced the scout’s stamina
boosting technique, Colbey had delivered as few words as could be gotten by
with.

Marik waited patiently, certain that the story Colbey
meant to weave would likely raise as many new questions as it answered.  But
the answers that came would doubtless be spellbinding.

“In the center of the Euvea groves lies…or, I should
say…
once
lay, a village.  Since the days before Galemar, this village
existed in the Rovasii, living secretly in the forest’s heart.”

“How can—” Marik began, incredulous, yet Dietrik cut
him off.

“To what purpose?  In order to remain hidden, it must
have required unparalleled skill.”

“Yes.  That was the third task set to the Guardians. 
This village was comparable to the fringe towns.  It contained bakers and
weavers, glassblowers and woodcarvers.  Healers, herbalists, and those skilled
at animal husbandry.  But unlike the outlanders, the village’s welfare was
always paramount.  On a child’s thirteenth birthday, it was required that he or
she begin a decade-long service.  It could be as simple as keeping the
buildings in repair, following skills to which the youth was most suited, or
they could serve with the scouts.  Only those with the talent would be allowed
to serve, and it was a position in which those who earned it took pride.  The
scouts were the soul of our village’s heritage.  They were held in the highest
regard by every villager, for to act as a scout was to fulfill the ultimate
duty to the village.

“One-third of each year’s youths would qualify to
become a scout.  Three hard years of training would begin the day after the
Grove Festival.  The difficulties we faced…”  Colbey trailed off momentarily. 
“I could speak until dawn telling you of those years.  And they are
inconsequential to you.  There is no need to go into details.”

“As thrilling a tale it might be,” Dietrik
interrupted, “I would be keen to know how any of it affects us in our present
circumstances.”

Colbey stared into the fire without seeing either of
them.  “I tell you this so that you might understand how I came to be what I
am, and what need pressed me to do what I did.”  When neither continued
interrupting, he continued.

“The duty of the scouts was explicitly clear.  We
patrolled the Euvea, watching for the occasional outlander who had entered the
grove’s fringes, or worse, slipped between the sealed areas to penetrate deeper
than we wished.  Too, we were the caretakers of the ancient trees, seeing to it
that the natural order remained undisturbed.  Once our training fully
completed, we were assigned sectors of the grove for which we were
responsible.  It was our duty to know what transpired in our sectors each day.

“Those proficient at scouting were allowed to test
their skills in the seals classified with level one dangers.  One-third of the
seals are so classified, thus each scout was carefully monitored by the
overseers.  Watching to see who possessed skill enough to go further.  The
Guardians were glad for the extra manpower to assist in the less dangerous
areas.  Working behind the seals was their second most important duty.”

“Guardians?” Marik ventured when Colbey paused.  “I
heard you mention that phrase before.”

“Yes.  The Guardians were the highest class of scout. 
Fewer than one in five scouts had the skill to advance so far.  Mastering the
ways of the Guardian required further years of training.  Intense training,
imparting the higher skills and toughness of mind a Guardian needs to survive
in these,” he indicated the land around them with a sweeping hand, “the
harshest environments imaginable.”

“It seems like a waste of effort,” Dietrik observed. 
“These seals contain the blighted places, do they not?  Let the forest go to
hell however it wants to, as long as it does it privately.”

“Unfortunately, it is not so easy as that.”

Dietrik grimaced.  “Life never seems to be.”

“The seals are no simple barrier.  No impassable wall
against which the life within might wash against futilely.  In truth, the seals
are delicate creations.  They only work so long as each seal is crafted for the
specific distortions which they contain.”

“Does this make any sense to your mage’s mind, mate?”

Marik shrugged.  “I’m not sure.  What does that mean?”

“It means that if too many changes occur within the
sealed area, the seal containing it will fray and eventually collapse.  Liken
it to a suspension bring upon which people continue to walk, while none of the
earlier depart.  Soon the weight will be too much and the ropes will snap.”

“Gods.  Then these monster plants would be roaming the
whole Rovasii, wouldn’t they?  Not only the Euvea trees!”

“Indeed,” Colbey agreed.  “Should imbalances occur, it
is to the Guardians to set them to rights.  Increased breeding or declines in
certain populations due to overfeeding, certain plants spreading to take over
an entire area…these things will eventually collapse the seal if left
unchecked.”

“But what about that one seal you mentioned?  Filled
with poisonous gas?  The way you said it sounded like you people could enter it
freely before.  That must have been a massive change!”

“If we are unable to control the area, then the seal
masters had the power to alter the seal’s nature.  The seal is adjusted to
contain the new environment, the definitions of the seal rewritten.  Doing this
was always a great risk.  Manipulating a seal can easily destroy rather than
repair it.”

Dietrik looked askance at Colbey with a diamond-hard
eye.  “And keeping these seals intact only constitutes the
second
duty
you Guardian chaps worked at?  What under the heavens could you possibly think
is more important than keeping these
aberrations
under lock and key?”

Colbey at last glanced away from the flames.  His
expression composed equal parts amusement and apprehension.  “Are you so
certain you wish to know, mercenary?  You strike me as uncomforted by the
realities I have already forced upon you.”

“Well, he might not, but I do!” Marik asserted.  “The
Arronaths aren’t wandering around the forest looking for herbs and tasty
mushrooms!”

“For all we know,” Dietrik heatedly shot back, “a
tasty mushroom is a rarity in their homeland!  But it seems too right likely to
me that these blighters are after these bloody seals.  It sounds as if anything
that
wants
to exist
can
in this forest.  Who knows what monsters
would be valuable to them when they already have bulls walking on two legs and
dragonflies that can carry off a horse?”

“No,” Colbey uttered softly enough that the fire’s
crackling nearly covered it.  “If it were so simple, they never would have…” 
He cracked his neck anew.  “There is no question of what they are after.”

“What then?” Marik wanted to know.

“A remnant.”

“Old carpets and tailor scraps, is it?” Dietrik
snorted derisively.

“An artifact that should not have survived its time,”
Colbey returned.  “From a war that once engulfed the world.  Neither of you has
yet asked me why this hidden village chose such inviolate seclusion in the
first place.”

Marik nodded.  “I’ve been curious the whole time, but
I was waiting to see if you would tell.”

“A war so all-encompassing that adequate records do
not exist anywhere.  Or, anywhere so far as Merinor is concerned.  Who can say
what knowledge the Arronaths keep on their side of the water.  Other kingdoms
of Merinor might remember with clarity beyond Galemar’s, since they claim no
Basill Cerellas in their history, destroying clans, boundaries, memories,
ancient sites and buildings alike in one massive swath.  Even we, who cherish
our ancestral duty, have forgotten vast stretches of the histories.”

“Well, how much is that?” Marik asked.  “Half? 
Three-quarters?  What’s left?”

Colbey’s gaze grew as frosty as he could ever remember
feeling during the previous years.  Dietrik, sounding no less exasperated,
snapped, “If you can’t remember, how are you supposed to know what you’ve
forgotten?  And what does it matter in the longer run?  Get on with the tale, I
say.”

“What we remember was taught to all the children of
the village,” Colbey resumed with an annoyed twitch, “not merely the scouts
alone.  It would take until dawn several days hence to retell it completely. 
What is important is this; there were no corners of any land that escaped the
war’s touch.  Countless kingdoms, clans, tribes and religions were allied
together to oppose a force equally composed.  Hundreds of groups, if not
thousands, were forced to choose one side or the other.

“The village’s ancestors were one such group of
warriors dedicated to fighting the oppressors.  Their purpose in the larger war
was to take and destroy an enemy stronghold that had been established in this
ancient forest.  It was a vital duty, for a powerful mage held the stronghold,
which served as a key resource to the enemy forces.  This mage populated the
stronghold with his personal army, a collection of skilled warriors numbering
thousands, naming themselves the Sordel’lei.

“It was no quick battle.  The village’s ancestors were
led by men from other parts of the larger alliance, men who brought with them
skills beyond those of ordinary warriors.  For many years, both the ancestors
and the Sordel’lei strove to vanquish the other.  It was not until the war’s
final moments, when the spine of the enemy’s power was shattered in a foreign
land, that the Sordel’lei were at last outsmarted.

“The mage lay slain, yet his final act was to shred
the titanic magics he had imbued throughout his strongholds scattered across
the inner forest.  Several were destroyed.  Others went wild.  Their effects
were unpredictable and chaotic.  It may well have taken his conquerors with him
into death were they not so quick to think and act.”

“I see where these distortions came from then,” Marik
mused.  “Whatever magics he had spun into his fortress refused to fully
collapse, and for some reason they are still around today.  I can’t imagine how
they have lasted as long as they have without maintenance, but a spell that’s
been damaged…it could end up doing most anything at all.”

“That was the problem the ancestors were faced with,”
Colbey agreed.  “They set to determining what and where, to isolating what they
were unable to unravel.  At first they intended to report what had happened and
request aid, yet with the fall of the enemy armies, the alliance that had held
fast against overwhelming strength soon fell to pieces.”

“What do you expect?” Dietrik observed.  “You take
away one tent pole and the rest topple.”

“Leadership dissolved when each ruler disagreed with
the others on how best to handle their new freedom.  The ancestors were
forgotten about along with countless other small forces.  As well, it was
apparent that the ancestors had failed to neutralize the dangers posed by the
central stronghold by killing the mage.  Its powerbase still lay intact.”

“How can a fort be a threat with no bloody soldiers
inside it?” Dietrik demanded.