The Bone Forest (21 page)

But how could he have forgotten Fergus? Fergus, who had been his friend through the weeks of hatred and the months of pain; the young boy who had counted his friendship with Caylen so high that he had determined to break through his fear of magic, and follow Caylen across the river. "Wait for me!" he cried, and Caylen came to his feet in shock, and with a great cry of, "No, go back! No, Fergus, not now, not now!" he raced to the water's edge, the spear gripped tightly in his right hand.

"I'm coming with you," shouted Fergus, confusion painting panic on his face. He was ankle deep in water. "I said I would come with you, and I shall. I'm not afraid, Caylen, I'm truly not. I shall cross the river and we'll run together, just like we always said."

He came deeper, and the river rose against him. There were tears in his eyes, and the fear on his face grew visibly as he went toward the rapids. Behind him the men who had killed the stranger watched in silence, fearful for the boy's life, yet puzzled as to the courage of the lad, a courage that made him risk his life in the foulest waters they had ever seen.

"Oh Fergus, no… you
must
listen to me. Go back,
please
! Don't follow me, don't give me away… go
back
!"

But the boy came on, fear overwhelming reason, courage and the pursuit of honor blinding him to Caylen's panic, deafening him to the terrible words of his lifelong friend.

And Caylen saw that soon every man on the bank would know the illusion for what it was, and then there would be no haven for the boy, no place of refuge for the ghost of a girl that might one day spirit the life back into a people as distant and as alien from Caylen as were his own people.

And yet to stop him, to stop him… such a decision, such a tearing of heart and mind, to sacrifice his friend for the sake of freedom. And even then it was not resolved. For how could Caylen save himself except by using that same spear which was a symbol of peace, of compassion, everything that might make a nation great in greater times than these?

Even as he thought this, the stark images of the stranger's story became vivid again—the killing, the running, the cold-blooded murder of an hysterical girl by a man paid to do the deed, a man whom remorse, some awareness of the beauty he had killed, had changed from mercenary to guardian. He had run with the spear, creating in his own mind the legend of a supernatural presence in the blade. But there had been no magic, Caylen realized. The spear, a cold, dead weapon, was all that remained of her. It was the horn-helmeted man himself who threatened those who pursued him, a man with a memory that needed obliteration. He was dead now, and the weapon was just a weapon. Whether it was destroyed or not, whatever memory of Rianna remained in that far-off land would be the same. This spear, or another, what mattered were the words that spoke the legend.

Old enough to grasp this simple truth, Caylen was too young to realize that the illusion of hope was best served by less complex symbols. He flung the spear back to the far shore and watched as the strangers destroyed it. By the time Fergus had waded to the nearer shore, face aglow with triumph, the strangers were gone.

Caylen turned from his friend and walked quietly away from the river.

Time of the Tree

Tundra

All the signs are that the long winter is coming to an end. The great expanse of tundra, with its strange bluish hue, still shimmers and shivers in the biting winds of early morning. Yet to the south, below the swollen hill with its deep lake, Omphalos, there are signs of green. I am certain that a fresh and vibrant grassland is beginning to spread across the land. From my fixed point of observation it is hard to see so far to the south, but sometimes the cold and stinking winter wind, the stench of the fetid tundra, is replaced by the scent of new meadow and flowers.

I no longer feel so cold.

As the day advances, the tundra dries slightly. Its slick shine fades and I imagine that the air is filled with the buzz and hum of insects. The lake, though, remains full. I have abandoned my game of emptying the pool. The water is rich and ripe. If I could see clearly enough I imagine I would be scum-laden, dense green growth feeding on the stagnancy and the dead life that falls into its murky depths. But as further evidence of the coming of the spring, there are rushes at its borders. Again, seeing in any detail is hard, but the tiny growth is evident, and the wind from the caves in the north takes the tall rush-heads and blows them wildly.

I suspect that a migrating bird-life has already settled at the shores of the lake. To see this would be too much to ask. One thing, though: I have sensed a darker movement on the swathes of tundra, in the shallow valley between the Pectoralis hills. Since this is closer to my point of observation, and my lens is more effective, I can say with certainty that the shadow is
separate
from the land. It may be nothing more than that: the shadow of cloud. But I think I may have witnessed the first migrating herds of some cervine species, perhaps reindeer. My dreams are often filled with the eerie cries of the wild.

The Birch Accession

The first forests are beginning to appear, and with their growth they bring with them a strange sense of pain, and a new sense of time. I realize how much I have been living by the time of the empty plains; those centuries of silence, save for wind and water. How slow that time has been, following the retreat of the ice from the north of the land. Time has been as stagnant as the standing water on the peat. Time has been in suspension. Sunrise to moonrise, the land has whispered and shivered, and dried and become wet, but there has been no change. The bursting life of the forests had remained asleep below the skin of the land, the cells as quiescent as the marshes.

Suddenly that life has begun to erupt, and now at last I begin to live by the time of the tree. Now there is
vibrancy
. There is a
swaying
feel to time, a wind-whipped and vital sense to time, as if time is being
stretched
. It hurts. It brings a strange discomfort to the land, and to the perception of the land. The forests strain to grow. The trunks thicken and reach out and up. They spread, they expand, they quiver at their tips, and in their roots. They suck the memory of the forest from the cells below the land, draining the genetic code, feeding hungrily upon the mass of silent chromosomes.

Silent? Silent no longer.
The tree in the man
, that forgotten part of history, that unacknowledged presence of the primordial plant, has taken root upon the man himself, and the swathes of birch begin to spread. They are in the Pelvic Valleys; they cover the slanting length of the Man-Hill. They reach across the Thigh-Ridge Mountains, down almost as far as the sharp Bone-Ridge of the Calf-Plain. They reach across the Pelvic Plain as far as the lake in the navel itself. Omphalos.

The water gleams with a new and enticing light. It is silver, now. The smell has gone. When I dip my finger into its depths, the taste on my tongue is sweet. All foulness flees before the suiting spread of birch and spruce.

I am living by the time of the tree, yet I have no conception of how that time compares with the time of the world outside the land. For me—observing from the north—a day in the passage of the world seems to be… how
many
years, I wonder, in the time of the forest? Two hundred? Three?

Each day the winter woodland stretches north, surrounding the lake, covering the hollow of the Solar Plexan Plain, spreading up the Sternal Valley and over the Pectoral Hills, even surmounting the flattened mounds (like the barrows of some forgotten civilization) which top the knolls. Hard to see, these winter trees, yet their roots are like spikes into the flesh. They are like thorns. It is a thin forest, this, struggling for life in the cold air, consuming and taming the acid land that for so many centuries has covered the skin.

It is a long time since the ice retreated. Sharing time between that of the tree and that of the land, I begin to forget the accident that precipitated the glacial movement. The Ice Age is fading from memory, just as is the event that started all of this. I struggle sometimes to hold these unreal images in my mind: the "cold room" at my University; the high-tech lab where I worked on Primordial-DNA, those sequences of genes that retain memories of the primeval environment, codons that contain bizarre echoes of a world long since lost; the sudden alarm in the cold room; my own surprise, then slip; the slamming of the door across my body; the sensation of ice building up across my face and shoulders.

I know I was dragged from the freezer room, but I have no memory of that rescue. I know that ice had coated me from head to chest, a millimeter of ice, which slowly melted, a glacial advance that was thwarted but which somehow activated the hidden memory in the land below…

This is how the forest came into being. It is unbelievable to contemplate. Now, though, all that matters is how it will develop!

The Coming of the Wildwood

A milder climate envelops the microcosm of the land. Outside my room, it is cool and raining, a typical early summer's day. Inside, a dry, pleasant heat occupies that volume of space that has become the woodland micro-environment. The birch forest still occupies the high land to the north, but there is much pine, now, and its scent is
wonderful
.

The bristles cover me completely. They itch where they enter the softer skin below my chin. When the hairs of the human land dropped away they left me sensitive. I wonder, sometimes, if the trees have grown from the follicles of the hairs themselves. The tree-line ceases below my lips, but spreads slightly to cover my cheeks. My crown is quite bald, and is cold to touch, as if winter still holds sway there. When I brush my cheeks I wonder what damage I might be doing, but through the lens and in the mirror I can see the proud stands of pine, still extant after the brutalizing touch of the Giant, on whose corpse this world is starting to evolve.

The tallest tree rises from the skin by no more than a fraction of a millimeter. In profusion, though, they make my body shimmer green; the canopy is dense. But around the lake of Omphalos, and below, across the Pelvic Valleys and the stump of the Man-Hill, down across the ridges of the thigh, the forest has become softer; it gleams like velvet, and is gentle on the fingers. The wildwood, the deciduous forests, have replaced the scrawny evergreens. Now the trees crowd and fight for light. The elms and the oaks can be clearly seen. Around the Omphalos great stands of alder crush together. Over the flank of the land a stand of hazel has a touch like emery paper. The Scar of the Appendix is covered by a coarse thornwood, painful to the touch despite the minuteness of its size. Where the land grows colder, above the Line of the Eleventh Rib, a battle for supremacy occurs between the pine and the gleaming ranks of hornbeam and ash. But the wildwood is spreading north, and in the lower valleys it is dense and rich, the trees tall, some of them giants, rising higher than the canopy, the great standard oaks and elms that grow where destruction has occurred around them.

Sometimes I pass my hands above the land, letting darkness fall. I pour water over my skin; great floods. I moisten myself for comfort: showers of rain, sometimes storms. I wonder how the forest perceives these actions. I have ceased to sweat. My skin exudes the scent of sap, of undergrowth. I am in no discomfort. The creases in my body flow with water, small streams, rivulets, supplying the root needs of the body forest. I eat from cans. It is sometimes painful to walk. There is no growth upon my back, which remains a pristine, unconquered realm. When I lie, I lie supine, legs apart, arms to the sides, and in this position, like some slumbering god, there is a wonderful sense of peace.

Below my chin, below the relaxed face of the world, a terrible struggle for the light ensues. The sounds of the wildwood occupy my mind, the cries, the screams, the creaking, twisting growth of trees. These are the first sounds of the world. Among them I can hear the shrieks of birds, the howls of wolves, furtive movement in the dense, dank undergrowth.

At dawn all is silent; from Glottal Mound to the Phalangeal Rocks in the far south, the land is a rich and vibrant green, catching the light. The land rises and falls with peaceful steadiness, a gentle wind blowing across the virgin swathes of forest, catching the branches of the giant elms that reach so high above the canopy; watchtowers; guardians of the hidden world below.

The Elm Decline

There is a smell of woodsmoke in the air, just a hint,. penetrating the pungency of the rotting food and unwashed bedding of my room. I am used to the smells of my own decay, and so this new odor is sharp to my nostrils. In the slanting sunlight from the world outside I can see the tiny drifting coils of smoke.

Pain! Sharp pain, that takes me by surprise. It comes from the area around the lake. Through the lens I can see that it is from here that smoke is unfurling. The pain is a tiny focus, like a pinprick, a prick of fire.