The Forest of Peldain

Chapter Ten

For all of the following day Vorduthe’s force remained in possession of the stronghold, having slain half its garrison and taken the rest prisoner. The men rested, and chose additional weapons from the captured armory—daggers, lances, bows and quiversful of arrows. Broken-up furniture provided sufficient timber to build a funeral pyre for Lord Korbar and the two dead serpent harriers. The ceremony was held on the fortress roof, and while the smoke rose to the sky the men gathered round, asking anxious questions.

“What are our prospects, my lord?” Donatwe Mankas, a troop leader, pressed Vorduthe. “Our numbers are negligible and the Peldainians in this castle, at least, were not without fighting skill. We alone could not conquer a whole country.”

Octrago was elsewhere in the fortress and Vorduthe was expected to speak frankly. Yet it was difficult to be hopeful. A sad vision had come to his mind. He pictured the fleet from the Hundred Islands returning to the landing place, waiting at anchor a few days, then departing with the news that the expedition had failed to appear. No one—not King Krassos, not Vorduthe’s wife, nor any Arelian—would ever know what had become of the costly army that had so bravely set forth.

He motioned the men closer, and spoke while the flames flickered on his face. “We cannot go back, we can only go forward to whatever the gods have in store for us. But in one respect matters lie in our favor. We have in our possession both the claimant to the throne and the high priest of this country, and that may well be worth a thousand armed men.”

He paused before continuing. “I sense much underhandedness in the way the Peldainians conduct their affairs—Octrago and Mistirea, at any rate, are hard to pin down. Now we are blunt soldiers and strangers to deviousness. But one thing we can resolve—we serve King Krassos to the last, and if Askon Octrago betrays us he dies, king or no.”

That was his last word on the subject and he ordered the men back to work, preparatory to their departure next day. It would have been impracticable to take prisoners on the march, so he set about stripping the fortress of its weapons. The catapults were smashed, and the boulders that were stored in the stones-chute sent rattling down the cliff face. It would take some time, he reckoned, to fill it again.

He also dealt with the poisonous vapor that was contained, it developed, in the barrels stacked in the first storeroom he had entered. It was stored in the form of a horrid jelly which had to be burned in the vats in the forecourt, so as to give off a dense deadly smoke that flowed to the lowest level.

Octrago offered the information that the jelly was derived from a tree resin. “Nearly everything in Peldain comes from a tree,” he smiled. “Only stones and metal come from anything else.”

Vorduthe recalled the furniture he had seen, with its grainy, rough-finished quality. He had inspected Mistirea’s desk, for instance. It almost seemed to have grown into shape, for he had not found a single join. He guessed it had been carved from a single piece of wood, carefully chosen by some patient craftsman.

“You are cut off from the sea here,” he remarked. “Many of our materials come from ocean life.”

He ordered the barrels rolled farther along the cliff, and their smelly contents poured over the edge.

Early next morning the war party wound its way down the big newel that was drilled through the interior of the cliff. At the bottom was a short tunnel whose exit was barred by a massive slab of stone. This was raised by means of an ingenious counterbalance, and they walked out into daylight.

Here it was even more striking how absolutely the fortress dominated the region. The path along the foot of the cliff was no more than a narrow ledge. It bordered a drear swamp stretching as far as the eye could see, plentifully dotted with trees, or possibly they were only bushes, of a squat, splayed appearance. Vorduthe thought them sinister enough to avoid at all cost, even had the swamp not been impossibly marshy.

Seeing him scan the terrain, Octrago smiled his understanding. “The bog is deep,” he said. “Nothing would get through it, not even a boat. And yes, those bog-trees are death to touch, although they don’t compare in deadliness with the trees of the forest. They are sticky-trees—even a bird that alights on one never gets away. Still, we needn’t worry about that.”

He pointed to a narrow swath of firm ground that divided the swamp in two, extending from near where they stood to the horizon. It was raised slightly above the general level, and was marked at intervals by rough stone pillars. Vorduthe guessed it was an old causeway.

But why had it ever been laid? Ultimately the trail led over the mountain pass and to the strip of open land lying between the Clear Peaks and the forest—too small a territory to be worth a major feat of engineering, notwithstanding the sculpted hill. Still less did it seem worth building a mountain fortress to guard the route.

The arrangement would make more sense if larger territories to the east were the intended destination. But on the map of the island Octrago had drawn back in Arelia, eastern Peldain was entirely given over to the forest, with only the Clear Peaks themselves free.

They moved away from the tunnel entrance. Suddenly there were startled yells from a number of serpent harriers, who had looked up to view the castle overhead. An avalanche of human bodies was tumbling down the cliff face. They crunched sickeningly on the rock pathway, spattering it with blood and leaving it piled with smashed limbs.

“They are disposing of their dead,” Vorduthe said grimly. “Expedience is all, apparently.”

The war party set off in good order along the causeway. Octrago and Mistirea marched side by side, the High Priest wearing a purple cloak. Vorduthe stayed close by them to eavesdrop on any conversation, but either they had nothing to say to one another or they were wary of speaking in his presence.

As time went by the rotten, sulfurous smell of the bog became overpowering. Occasionally huge armored beasts, their long snouts crammed with teeth, broke surface and regarded the travelers with beady eyes. But only once did one of the monsters heave itself onto the causeway to confront them, and it was soon driven off using lances.

Before the sun had reached its height the party had crossed the swamp and the land began to alter in character. The ground was sometimes mossy, sometimes grassy, much as in the forest except that trees grew only in rare clumps and seemed entirely innocuous.

The sun shone strongly and behind them the tips of the Clear Peaks were still visible, shining whitely. A change of mood had come over Octrago. He smiled often, and became relaxed. Suddenly, to the immense surprise of all the Arelians, he began to sing—a flowing song in an alien scale, with words which, though they were sung in their common tongue, Vorduthe could not fathom.

At midday they halted to eat and drink of the supplies taken from the castle. Vorduthe sat with the Peldainians, some way apart from the others.

“It is time we outlined our strategy,” he said.

“Indeed we have need of very little,” Octrago said good-humoredly. “In two days or less we shall be in Lakeside.”

He was speaking of the capital of Peldain which lay close to the sacred lake, though as far as Vorduthe could make out it was less of a town than Arcaiss, for instance. Indeed the mode of life of the Peldainians was something still to be clarified.

“And there you still intend to claim the throne from your cousin Kestrew?”

“With your assistance, yes,” Octrago answered, with a glance at Mistirea.

“You are returning with no larger a force than you left with,” Vorduthe reminded him. “How much resistance may we expect between here and Lakeside? And how much support can you rally to your cause?”

“We shall meet virtually no resistance, but neither shall we receive support,” Octrago informed him. “My face will not be familiar in the villages along the way, and I shall preserve my anonymity. As I have explained, there is no standing army in Peldain, and with luck news of our coming will reach Lakeside no faster than we shall get there.”

“You say Peldain is not a warrior country, yet that is not the impression I received in the mountain fortress,” Vorduthe commented.

“Fighting skills are preserved among the acolytes of the cult, traditionally to protect the High Priest, and the nobility learn swordsmanship mainly for sport. You can form your own view as to how the acolytes performed as compared with your own men. And my cousin Kestrew will no doubt have gathered a band of ruffians about himself. How great an adversary that will present at this stage is hard to say. Do not despair—we have two great advantages. We have a band of disciplined fighting men—my previous followers could not really claim to be that. And perhaps even more important, we have the High Priest.”

“And where was Mistirea at the time of your departure?” Vorduthe asked.

Mistirea kept his eyes downcast and did not speak. “He had already taken himself off to the retreat in the mountains, probably to avoid the civil disorder, or else to avoid taking sides,” Octrago said dryly, and Mistirea did not gainsay him.

“If everything you say is true, he could probably have decided the issue and saved you much trouble,” Vorduthe observed. He pondered. “Tell me about this religion of yours. What gods do you worship? And what is the significance of the lake, ‘the eye of Peldain,’ as you call it?”

Octrago looked at the High Priest as though expecting him to answer. But Mistirea only made a small gesture indicating that he should speak.

“The lake has more than one title,” Octrago said to Vorduthe. It is known as ‘the eye of Peldain’ because the human eye is like a pool that reflects the soul, and so the phrase really refers to its surface. In the depths of the lake dwells the soul of Peldain. That is our god, if you like, but it has no other name.

“The High Priest has a special duty. He must regularly dive into the lake and commune with the presence there. Only he can do this, for only he is familiar with the spirit. By this propitiation the affairs of the realm are kept in good order. If it is not done, or not done successfully, all will be chaos. Peldain will be destroyed.”

“And the populace believes this?”

“Absolutely.”

Vorduthe nodded. This he could understand. Superstitious beliefs were a reality for the less sophisticated inhabitants of the Hundred Islands, too.

“Then the absence of Mistirea is cause for considerable unease, I imagine.”

“You are correct. And there lies our strength.”

Continuing, they found themselves walking through open countryside with no hint of a road or trail. The air became warm and balmy, the scenery like some other-worldly paradise with numerous little lakes and streams, strange trees and plants.

Habitations also came in sight, in the form of hut-like houses, always accompanied by a small grove of the unfamiliar trees, of which there seemed to be an extensive variety. Human figures were also sometimes visible, watching the passing procession with curiosity, but Octrago ignored them.

He kept well away from any houses until, near the end of the day, they came to a fair-sized village. At first Vorduthe did not recognize it as such and thought they had entered a spacious wood in which people walked. But, spread out between the trees, there were dwellings of various kinds.

“Do not announce me,” Octrago warned the Hundred Islanders. “Remember, I am incognito.”

At the column’s approach the villagers drew back, though they seemed more bewildered than afraid. Mistirea broke ranks and stepped toward them, raising his hands in greeting.

“Do not fear, good people. These men are not here to work you any harm.”

“It is the High Priest!” someone exclaimed wonderingly.

“Have you returned to us?” pleaded another.

Vorduthe wondered why Mistirea was recognizable while Octrago, a claimant to the throne, was not. Then he remembered that the High Priest’s cloak bore the identifying cult emblem. He might, even, be a more famous personage than Octrago.

“Will all now be set right?” a middle-aged woman in a purple gown asked anxiously.

Mistirea lowered his head. “I am here, am I not?”

A mood of relief and merriment flitted over the gathering at these words. The villagers lost their nervousness and flocked around the serpent harriers, but received only noncommittal replies to their questions as the warriors had been ordered. Octrago led the way to a spacious arbor laid out with tables and chairs. This, it turned out, was a place of public relaxation where refreshing drinks were served. As many of the soldiery as could found places in its shade; the rest settled themselves on the moss outside.

A beaker made of a very hard and shiny dark-brown wood was set before Vorduthe. From a large green gourd was poured a cool amber liquid.

He drank, and found the delicious fluid running down his throat almost of its own volition. It had a tangy, acid flavor that was quite irresistible.

Octrago laughed, then quenched his own thirst. Vorduthe idly examined the beaker. It was a fine piece of work, its polish brilliant and perfect, with only one blemish on the outside of the handle. It must have taken many hours of work to produce.

“You have expert craftsmen here in Peldain,” he remarked.

“Craftsmen? We have very few craftsmen at all.”

Octrago pointed through the open side of the arbor to one of the smaller trees growing just outside it. At first Vorduthe did not know what he was trying to show him. Then, looking closer at the tree, he suffered a shock of understanding.

Hanging from the tree, after the manner of fruit, were dozens of beakers identical to the one he had just drunk from.

Octrago again laughed to see his astonishment. “My lord, some facts relating to my country I confess I have not told you. In Arelia it was a matter of amazement to me to see how much labor was involved in everyday life. Practically every item of use had to be painstakingly made by hand—even providing food cost endless time spent in cultivating or fishing.

“Here life is more commodious. Know, my lord, that the interior of Peldain is a garden where human needs are all provided by nature. Look about you. Our trees give us more than our food and drink. Clothing, utensils and dwellings all are grown for us by some type of tree or other. That beaker you just drank from, the platters on which our supper is shortly to be served, the table and chairs we are using—all are grown to shape by our trees. Even the knife to cut your food is tree grown, complete to its edge of tough wood.”

He pointed to the blemish on the beaker’s handle. “See, that is where it was plucked from the branch.”

Vorduthe looked at the beaker again, then at the table. He remembered Mistirea’s desk in the castle.

“Clothing,” he echoed.

“Well, only the simplest garments are actually grown complete and to size. The clothing trees produce fabrics in shapes which may be easily stitched together. Observe, they are of excellent quality. It is easier than weaving grasses, is it not?”

The garments worn by the village Peldainians were not elaborate: loose tunics and breeches for the men, simple flowing gowns for the women. Only two colors were represented: purple and green. That trees could produce the silky material, perhaps as the lining of pods, was not hard to grasp.

That rough furniture might be cut from suitably selected trees was also comprehensible. But the furniture he had seen was anything but rough. And household utensils? The vision of the green-leafed tree yonder was beyond belief. More credible would have been if the beakers had been tied in place as a piece of trickery.

As for houses… Vorduthe let his gaze wander to the dwellings within view. They were tidy little cottages, some with several rooms, solid and shapely.

“They are obtained thus-wise,” Octrago said when Vorduthe questioned him. “A single house-tree grows only one room—though the type of room differs according to variety. The trunk develops a hollow, then expands and takes the shape of walls, floor and roof. Doors and windows develop, the doors on bark hinges and the windows filming over with transparent resin. When mature, the trunk’s connection with the root withers. The leaf-bearing branches also fall off. It may then be moved to wherever it is needed. If several rooms are placed together they bond into one structure in a few days, and the rooms also root themselves to the ground. Meanwhile, the roots left behind generate new trees.”

“So no one has to work,” Vorduthe said, as he mulled over Octrago’s extraordinary revelation.

“Not as people in the Hundred Islands work. Life here is pleasant and easy-going. You will soon grow accustomed to it.”

Vorduthe grunted, far from pleased by the suggestion. Though he had never thought the three or four hours worked per day by most islanders particularly arduous, it was what distinguished civilized life from the habits of primitives, who before coming under the rule of Arelia had preferred to laze around all day and would not work at all unless forced to it.

A more disciplined sense of social organization would doubtless be of benefit here, he thought.

“But you have some craftsmen, I presume.”

“We have metal-workers. The craft goes by family and brings great esteem. But there are not many such. Also there are a few people who work in stone, but not nearly as many, as in ages past when the mountain stronghold was built.”

“Someone must tend these marvelous trees. Indeed, someone must have bred them in the first place.”

Octrago shook his head. “They have always been here, and no one tends them. They are a natural feature of the country.”

That was not possible, Vorduthe told himself. They could only be the result of some extraordinary art of tree culture practiced in a forgotten past. It was peculiar to hear a man of Octrago’s intelligence aver otherwise.

“Is there not a drawback to being so dependent on nature?” he said. “How many different kinds of appurtenance can the trees produce? What if a new type of utensil is wanted? It would not be available.”

“Almost anything can be provided,” Octrago said with a smile. “It will sound strange to you, but the trees are sensitive to our thoughts. If something new or different is needed, then after a while—a quarter of a year, perhaps—a tree begins to grow it.”

“Incredible,” Vorduthe muttered.

“Even weapons,” Octrago added. “We have trees to grow bows and arrows.”

“You do? Just the same, I can see why you say Peldain should be easy to conquer. People who are not used to hard work do not fight well. They become soft.”

He brooded. There was something almost sinister in this idea of trees which responded to thought and thereby sustained an entire society. He felt an urge not only to find a way of wiping out the coastal forest but to cut down every other tree as well, if he managed to gain possession of the country.

But he was forgetting. King Askon would be ruler, subject only to the will of King Krassos.

Well, there might eventually be room for much alteration there.

The villagers were mingling with the seaborne warriors, who had begun to take liberties with the young women, to the displeasure both of parents and the young men of the village. Vorduthe intervened before there was bloodshed—his men were in no mood to tolerate hostility. Once they were fed, with a generous hospitality he now realized was no more than normal behavior here, he separated them. Not far away was a pleasant pool, fed by a clear stream, which the villagers used for bathing. He ordered the men there, so they could wash away the sweat and grime of their long ordeal.

It was an opportunity every man used with enthusiasm, including himself. After he had enjoyed himself in the water he returned to the bank where he had left his weapons, armor and garments. He found Mistirea standing there, watching him sharply.

“You swim well,” the Peldainian High Priest remarked.

Vorduthe grinned. “Everyone in the Hundred Islands swims well.”

“Of course. Here it is not a necessary attainment… for most. Can you dive?”

“Naturally.”

“How deep? How long can you stay under?”

“Long enough to find pink shells in the coral shallows,” said Vorduthe, still grinning. Mistirea frowned. Shells and coral were foreign words to him.

Suddenly he stripped off the purple cloak he wore, followed by the shift-like robe beneath it. Naked, he stood on the edge of the pool, and Vorduthe could now see more clearly how magnificently muscled he was about the shoulders and torso.

With barely a pause the old man plunged into the water, then swam strongly to the middle of the pool, keeping his distance from others who still disported there. It was evident he was a much-practiced swimmer. He floated for a moment, then flipped himself over and disappeared beneath the surface.

Vorduthe kept his eye on the center of the expanding ripples where he had been. Time passed; the ripples smoothed over. More time passed. He scanned the pool: Mistirea had nowhere reappeared.

Alarmed now, he called to the serpent harriers in the pool, urging them to dive in search of the missing priest. As they were about to obey him Mistirea suddenly surfaced, in the exact spot from which he had vanished. He spent a moment or two filling his lungs. Then still swimming easily with vigorous strokes, he returned to the bank to stand before Vorduthe.

“Can you stay down that long?” he demanded.

“… I am not sure,” Vorduthe confessed.

“You will dive. You will dive deep and long.”

To his vast surprise the dripping High Priest placed both hands on Vorduthe’s shoulders and stared with an almost insane intensity into his eyes.

“You are Peldain’s salvation,” he said in a low, urgent tone. “I and I alone am able to recognize you, and this I know.”

His hands dropped. He stooped to retrieve his garments, then turned and strode away, leaving Vorduthe gazing after him in bemusement.