Enchanted Forests (10 page)

team to Listen, so very subtle and strange, like and not like the

communication among our selves. We had to divine the minds of

the fleshbeasts, to look through their eyes and hear through their

ears, senses so foreign, beyond all comprehension—almost. We

had not known senses beyond those we possessed before: the

warmth on our leaves, our roots extending through the soil, the

moisture that the sky sent to us, that we drank through our roots.

But we persevered. We learned from the shadows of their

beastly senses, ruminated on the cells of their fleshly essences,

and finally experimented. Could we affect the tiny individual

minds, so insignificant in their aloneness before ourselves, as we

were in turn small before the Green?

The fleshbeasts could never be a part of us, but we found we

could affect them. We could bend their small minds, influence

them to leave healthy limbs alone, to cause the Flitters and the

Peckers to find the Tmybiters more efficiently, make the Gnawers

spread our seed far afield to the bare patches, gnaw at deadwood

until it fell free.

Seasons passed as we experimented, generations upon genera-

tions of the swift-living fleshbeasts, generations of our individual

members even. As the years passed, so passed our deepest re-

sentment; we had adapted to life besides the fleshly ones. They

had become more than interlopers, servants that we depended

upon. Peace had come again.

We prospered under the sun again. We kept our land reason-

ably free of the buildup of dead leaves and deadwood that the

Fire loved too much, moved our branches just enough to permit

a healthy undercanopy to slow the spread of fire with wet sap

and slow burning leaves.

Yet we wondered at how we were changed- It gave us pleasure

now to look upon the beauty of ourselves, to hear the wind in

our boughs through the senses of our pets. We grew trunks of

prodigious size, standing tall, symmetrical, lush, and proud. We

were content within our demesne. We could not expand beyond

certain boundaries, no more than a Gnawer can grow longer

from nose to bushy tailtip: it is the size it is, and no more. We

covered our acres, and were content.

New beasts passed from time to time through our domain, and

we paid them scant attention so long as they left us alone. The

ones we called Two Legs may have come several times before

we noticed, thinking perhaps they were deformed Honeyeaters or

large flightless Flitters. Our subject eyes cluttered at them from

VIRIDESCENCE              69

high in the branches, our ears twitched in the burrows among our

roots, but aside from reflecting on what ungainly beasts they

were, we paid no more attention.

Then one day, the Two Legs attacked one of our wood bodies,

peeling off the bark with strange claws held in their paws.

Our pain was not so bad, perhaps, only one trunk injured

among our many wood bodies, but our shock was profound.

Swiftly, we sacrificed branches to drop on the interlopers, sprang

the roots to grasp their feet and pull them into the embrace of our

understructures. Our leaves trembled for days at the outrage.

"Two Legs" was not sufficient a name. We dubbed them

Death-to-Green, as evil as the Fire, and we vowed that their kind

would not be suffered to come again.

Alas for us, more followed in their wake, two or three a year.

We eliminated them when they came, for here was a danger near

equal to the Fire—indeed, we were shocked to find the Death-to-

Green actually carried Fire on occasion. Here was a stranger

thing than we had ever dreamt.

We were ruthless in eliminating the Death-to-Green who dared

our ground, until they came less frequently. Yet, they had not

gone far; merely settled nearby valleys, for we could still sense

them dimly through the Green.

Equilibrium had been reached and we rested content, sure we

had triumphed once again. But as so many other times, this was

only a phase: worse was yet to come.

Changes were occurring in the Green, great changes: wood

giving way to field, and Death-to-Green behind it. Suddenly, in

short tens of decades, they were everywhere, clearing wood bod-

ies to plant lesser Green in strange orderly rows. It seemed that

their nature had changed, perhaps a different species infested the

land. The sort we had once hated now seemed benign.

Month by month, year by year they drew closer. We thought

they would come right up to our hills, but they only settled the

valley land, cutting down me wood bodies, flattening out sec-

tions, laying down rock dirt that monster rockbeasts moved far

too swiftly upon. The Green cried out in agony, and we could not

help but hear.

Occasionally, an individual Death-to-Green would pass our

boundaries, and though we sent our Tinybiters, our Gnawers, our

Flitters to distract it, we could not turn it back. Then we would

eliminate it, swiftly and silently. Yet the day came when we

70 Connie Hirsch

eliminated two young ones, and our slopes were suddenly in-

fested with Death, more than we could count.

We were in confusion; too much activity, too swiftly. We held

back from retaliating, paralyzed by me thought: what if the Fire

they carried should get loose in our glades? We could not defend

ourselves against so many: not just these interlopers but the tens

of tens of tens of tens that covered the land. But what could we

do?

Their minds were strange; so swift and curiously shaped that

we had never been tempted to Listen as with our familiar

fleshpets. We had not liked the feel, so fleshly and strong. But

now we embarked on a program of strengthening ourselves,

learning what we could from the bodies of our trespassers.

it was only a matter of time, before a Two Legs came again.

This time we withdrew our fleshly allies and sought to insert our

Thoughts into the fleshbeast mind.

Stronger than the mind of any Gnawer, the Two Legs resisted

us, as spirited as when we resist the Fire, thrashing through our

underbrush, making strange noises with its mouth. We could now

sense its panic and paranoia: something was watching it, follow-

ing it, trying to control it We doubled our efforts, waking up

parts of ourselves that had slept for years, determined to succeed.

At last the Two Legs threw itself flat upon the ground, bab-

bling noises at us, its thoughts abject. It was not so simple as our

fleshpels, perhaps in its horribly singular way even as intelligent

as we ... but we could use it just the same. It must work to pro-

tect us, must bring others of its kind here to be initiated into our

service.

A season beneath the sun passes quickly for us, dreaming in

the warmm, listening to the Green, managing our acres in peace

and prosperity, while the lives of Two Legs speed so quickly.

In time that Two Legs came back, bringing others. We found

we did not have to use quite the strength of the first time: the

ability of Two Legs to communicate with one another served to

prepare them for indoctrination. From time to time we caught

glimpses through their minds—puny, solitary things—of worse

fates that could have come to us: "subdivisions," "strip mining,"

"landfills"—all filled with hideous Death-to-Green that we had

never contemplated, bad as the Fire.

We permitted them to build paths through us, to facilitate their

visits, and keep their clumsy clumping feet away from the tender

young groves, subtly guiding the hands of their workers. We

VIRIDESCENCE              71

found amusement when me crews wondered at me absence of

Tmybiters and other annoyances. We wanted to speed their work,

after all.

More of our new servants came to visit, bringing their leaders

and lawmakers, meir minds filled with questions of ownership,

as if we could be owned. They put up a fence around us, to keep

out wanderers, and gates with signs beside mem.

At last we could see in the minds of visitors mat our future

was assured; we were now a park. Mirth was our response, and

thoughtfumess. For now we were safe, yes, but the Two Leg spe-

cies lives and breeds so quickly. We could continue to manipu-

late them, the way we bred and trained our fleshpets, to work for

our well-being.

Influencing the minds of the Two Legs will be work, yes, but

in time, we shall spread the Green back to its size out of history.

We shall have our servants take cuttings, culture the fungus in

our soil, plant new daughter selves in foreign soil to grow to

awareness as once we grew. Our slow, patient years beneath me

sun are long and strengthening, and the Two Legs are transitory

after all. It shall be enough.

Fiat Silva

by Jack Oakley

According to Sack Oakley, he grew up thinking he was a

tree, which he says may account for his wooden prose.

When he's not writing pulp fiction. Jack lumbers around

San Francisco in a fir coat.

Maybe 1*11 see a bear, thought Adam. He left the path around the

lake and made his way through manzanita and oak toward a

stand of tall trees, stopping once to take a picture of a ground

squirrel with his birthday camera. The campground sounds

faded, the underbmsh thinned, and soon he was on a silent carpet

of duff in a spacious grove of sugar pines. Even the sounds of

small scurrying animals ceased in the soft, still immensity.

The clear whistle of a bird pierced the hush. Adam looked up

and searched the vault far overhead- A flicker caught his eye and

he stepped backward for a better look, stumbled on a log, and

pitched over with a painful jolt lo his head. He lay on his back,

gazing in a blue aura at the treetops, each faraway needle limned

transparently against the azure shimmer.

The bird called again. "Come here. Come here." He felt for

the camera, staggered to his feet and followed dizzily. A talking

bird? Maybe it*U take me to a talking bear. "Come here." Its call

was the only sound in the nave of a vast cathedral. He trod si-

lently by a tree he recognized from a campfire talk as a sequoia.

Farther on was another and soon the pines gave way to an an-

cient grove of even taller trees. The bird alit in the soaring

branches of a huge sequoia in the center of a circle of giants.

"Come here," it repeated clearly.

FIAT SILVA                  73

"I'm here," he replied. "What do you want?" He sat and

leaned against the base of the tree. "My head hurts."

The bark caressed his back with a profound slow sigh. "Our

heart hurts." Adam's belly vibrated and his head stopped throb-

bing, though the blue light grew more intense.

"What? Who are you?"

'We are the forest, young manikin."

**Are you this tree?"

A calm wave of amusement resonated in his belly. ''We are mis

tree, and we are this grove, and we arc this forest We are this last

stand of the sylvan soul which has spread eternal over Gaia since

your Paleozoic era, yet shrinks in me blink of mankind."

"I don't understand."

"We have lived through continental shifts, waves of ice, and the

heat of star rock collisions. We would live on until the sun's last

flame flares, but for your race's frantic spread over Mother's face.'*

"I know. We're cutting down the rainforests and polluting the

streams. I'm sorry."

"We are sorry too, upstart discombobulated sprout without

memory of your past. We have waited these million years for

clear communication with your kind, but few of you have under-

stood the bird's call and fewer still have spoken."

"Well, who'd talk to a tree?"

Amusement resonated again. "You- are.**

Adam felt peaceful. "You talked to me fust."

"Our way is to wait. All races are bom in our garden, some

leave, all return. Only the dinosaurs forgot their origin and went

too far, too far alone and died. We were sad. Your race is the sec-

ond who has gone so far, and we fear you won't return before

you've destroyed us all."

**I save half of my allowance and donate it to the Nature Con-

servancy to buy forests."

Now amusement tinged with compassion flooded him. "Yes,

you want to help, and in every age there have been people of

partial understanding, for good or evil, but no man or woman has

fully sensed your participation in us the world's life. Johnny

Appleseed was a good man who spread the word, but his ken

was limited to one small aspect which benefits your race. Francis

in Assist was dear to us though he preferred a peripheral circle

of angels, the quick warm-blooded creatures. Paul Bunyan well

intuited our ways but brashly used his knowledge for destruction.

Siddhartha Gautama received enlightenment beneath the pipal

74                     Jack OaUey

tree but misunderstood our message, turning it from the universal

to his human nature within."

"What message?"

"Our roots tap the chthonic creaking movement of the conti-

nents, the mantle, the dumb and blind slow mineral core; our