Hero of Dreams (16 page)

“Come, come,” said Eldin gruffly as the Tree lapsed into a troubled silence. “We’ve told you our tale, as you requested, and there doesn’t really seem to be a lot you can do to help us. So why not unburden yourself on us? We can listen as well as you, you know. And who knows? There may even be some way hi which we can be of assistance.”

“Once we know the problem-” Hero conservatively answered.

And so the Tree set about to tell his tale:

“My forebears,” he began, “grew on a remote world far away in space and time. And their world was vast and there were many of them. Indeed, they were as a forest! Long-lived, the very oldest of Earth’s great trees are as saplings by comparison. There came a time, however, when our world began to die, as all worlds must in the end. The air grew chill and the ground froze with the winter of the world, and spring nevermore came. One by one the race of Great Trees died, and sheets of ice moved inexorably across the whole planet.

“On one small island in what had been the tropics, in an acreage sufficient only to sustain them, stood the three last Trees. In the heart of their topmost branches they tended their life-leaves and mourned the new Trees which might have been but now were doomed. And each day the dying sun’s rays were fewer and the cold more penetrating.

“Then, by some miracle of chance, a ship of the Elder Gods found the world of my forebears. The ship bore one of the Chosen Ones of (he Elder Gods, who was a man. He was the white wizard Ardatha EH, also the last of his people, which had been great in primal Pu-Tha. And he had found his way to Elysia alone and unaided, for which reason the Elder Gods adopted him. And now, because he was restless and a wanderer by nature, he ventured out from Elysia among the worlds of space and so came to the world of the Trees.

“There Ardatha Ell found the last Trees, all three of them, and there he remained while they withered and died, for he was much too late to save them. And he comforted them in their dying, which is why the race of Man will always be held dear in the hearts of Great Trees wherever they are found.

“And before they died, the Trees asked a further boon of Ardatha Ell: that he take their life-leaves with him on his voyage and plant them in warm and gentle worlds where there would be men and women to talk to. He agreed, and when the three Trees shed their life-leaves and settled down to die, gathered up the golden life-leaves and bore them to his ship.

“Thus, when Ardatha Ell left that frozen world circling under its cinder sun, he carried with him the entire future of the race of Great Trees.

“Now eventually, he returned to Elysia, home of the Elder Gods, and mere he planted one of the three life-leaves in the mountain-girt gardens of Nymarrah where it grew into the most fortunate Tree! I cannot swear to this, however, but such are the rumors I’ve heard over the centuries. Of the second Tree I can tell you nothing, for no word of him has since reached me; but I assume that indeed Ardatha Ell planted him also. And of course I myself am the third Tree, whose life-leaf the white wizard planted here in Earth’s dreamland all those thousands of years ago on his way back to Elysia.

“Now I nurture my own life-leaf, which you may see if you desire, against the time of my dying, when I will release it to drift on the winds of dream to some lovely land, there to live and grow in splendor. And alas-the day of my dying may not be too far away …” The Tree paused.

“Come now,” cried Hero, suddenly aghast at the thought of this magnificent creature’s dying. “Explain yourself. What can possibly harm you here on this verdant plain? And why would any one or thing desire to harm you in the first place?”

“Why indeed?” whispered Aminza. “For you must be the very gentlest of beings.”

“Patience, my children,” signed the Tree in a soughing of branches, “and let me finish my tale …

“When first Ardatha Ell planted me here the plain was warm and green and lovely; even as it is now, with one exception, of which I shall speak presently. My rooting was lengthy, however, and centuries passed before the great network of roots which supports me became established. Even then nothing of me showed above the surface for my life-leaf had long returned to dust. And it was just as well that I remained-so to speak-dormant, for all that long time.

“For in Earth’s waking world the Northmen were in their ascendance, and they were fierce dreamers. They brought with them snow and ice and mammoths, and for a time it seemed that I, too, like my long dead parent Tree, must shrivel and die in the cold which the northern dreamers brought with them.

“But at length other dreamers came from warmer lands of the waking world, and gradually the climate of the dreamlands swung full circle. Then I put up my trunk and first leaves and drank of the hot sun and cool rains and drowsed in the heady nights of this, Earth’s dreamland. And I was favored here, so that I grew quickly and began my long, slow walk.”

“Your walk?” gasped Hero incredulously. “A giant like you, and so firmly rooted?”

“Indeed,” the Tree answered. “Why, you yourself have followed the road I took!”

“The path of dry and crumbly soil!” rumbled Eldin. “The dead track we followed from the hills to the north.”

“Correct,” said the Tree in a nodding of leaves. “That was my road. I have walked-however slowly-in the manner of all Great Trees, for that is how giants such as we survive. So great are we that the nourishment we take from the soil rapidly deplenishes it, which means that we must move on or perish. And once the walk is begun, it may only end in the days of our dying. For ten thousand years and fifty miles I have walked, less than one inch every day, and now my journey is almost at an end.”

“But why?” cried Aminza. “Are you grown old?”

“No, child, not that,” the Tree chuckled, however sadly. “1 am a mere youth in the number of my years.”

“What then?” growled Eldin. “Why must your walk end here?”

“Because of Thalarion!” the Tree answered, unable to mask a certain bitterness from the three adventurers. “But there, they are so many and I am only one; and what is my life compared to so many of theirs? Nor shall I truly die, for all of my memories, the memories of my entire race, are locked in my life-leaf.”

“What of Thalarion?” asked Hero, fascinated with the Tree’s tale. “How may the life of Thalarion’s peoples so drastically affect your own?”

“I will explain,” said the Tree, and presently continued:

“I have told you of my walk; its mechanics need not trouble you. But as I move along so I send my roots on ahead-deep in the earth, often for distances of many miles-seeking pastures which are favorable to me. Of course, this is a long and tedious process. Certainly it would seem so to you. Also I have my tendrils, many of which are longer than you could possibly imagine. These I send out over the surface, seeking ways between hills and shallow fords across the rivers which may lie in my path. Already I have forded one such river and passed through one such range of hills.

“To the south, beyond the last hills and standing on the shore, there towers Thalarion, the eidolon Lathi’s city. Some years ago, knowing nothing of Lathi or her city, I sent my rootlets there, my long tendrils also. My rootlets discovered the earth to be dry, dead and honeycombed with strange tunnels, and my tendrils found the city where it sprouts above. Ah, and the denizens of that city, they found my tendrils!

“The Lathi’s brood, you see, eats only green things, and ray tendrils were green and tender. When my tendrils were cut and I felt the pain, then I drew them back to heal them, but in so doing I alerted the eidolon Lathi to my presence. And from that day to this I have known no peace. For it would seem that of all the flesh of all the green things in Earth’s dreamland, Lathi and her people prefer mine.”

“That’s monstrous!” Hero burst out, leaping to his feet. “We’ll not permit that. Why, there are green growing things galore on this plain! And you say they cannibalize you?”

“Indeed,” the Tree sighed. “But please sit down.”

Hero sat, but the muscles jumped in his face and his agitation-that of his companions, too-was an almost tangible force in the forest-gloomy air.

“Daily they come,” the Tree continued, “in their hundreds they come, and I bow down my branches so they only take the older leaves which are dying; but I can feel in them the desire, the lust for my younger leaves and tender shoots. And ever that lust grows stronger.”

“When do they come? When?” roared Eldin, unable to contain himself a moment longer. “Damn it, they’ve a surprise in store!”

“They come in the morning, after the sunrise, and always they leave before noon. And such is their harvesting that I am no longer strong enough to protest it. They sap my strength, you see, forcing me constantly to grow new buds with which to replace the older, stolen leaves. And if I did not bow down my branches, why, then they would steal whatever they could reach! And I would be devastated …”

“And they know you for an intelligent, lovely being, these people?” asked Aminza, horrified. “Do they speak to you?”

“They know it,” the Tree answered. “And they speak to me, aye, to give me their orders and tell me to bend to them.”

“Are you telling us that men do this thing?” Hero cried in outrage and disbelief.

“Ah!” said the Tree. “They are men, yes, of a sort. But not real men; not like you. They are Lathi’s Ter-men.”

“Not real men,” Aminza mused. “And earlier you said that I was a real girl. Now what did you mean by that?”

“I meant what I said,” answered the Tree. “That you are real, while the eidolon Lathi’s handmaidens are not.”

“Explain that later, if you will,” said Hero impatiently, “but first tell us why you do not fight back. After all, you have these massive branches, and the great tough tendrils that bore us aloft. Why, Tree, you’re a mighty army!”

“I’m a Tree,” the Tree sadly answered, “and trees burn!”

“They threatened you with fire!” Aminza gasped.

Suddenly, Eldin, who had been quiet for a while, yawned a great yawn that had him stretching his limbs in all directions at once. “Damn, I’m tired,” he said by way of an apology. “It’s all the walking and talking, I fancy. You know, you two, if we have a fight on our hands in the morning it’s best we get some sleep.”

“No!” protested the Tree at once. “You must not fight for my sake. And the Ter-men are far too many. As for feeling tired: that is my fault. My leaves breathe air but the air which they give out-it is filled with the dust of dreams. Men may sleep as they never slept before beneath a Great Tree!”

Now, in sympathy with Eidin, Aminza and Hero found themselves stifling yawns. In another moment it was more than they could do to keep their eyes open. “But this is no good at all,” protested Hero as he stretched himself out across the great branch. “There’s so much to talk about, to be explained.” And he yawned again and blinked eyes that refused to stay open.

Aminza, lying with her head on Eldin’s massive chest, mumbled something quite unintelligible and Eldin himself began to snore. His snoring was almost volcanic as his waking voice, but Hero’s eyes had closed and he did not hear it.

Out of the darkness a great fur-lined leaf descended, covering all but the heads of the three where they lay in their dreams within dreams; and not one of them heard the Great Tree’s sigh before he, too, went to sleep …

The Eidolon’s City

CHAPTER V

Hero awoke with a start and quickly stood up. The sun’s rays from the east penetrated the Tree’s high branches and sent stray beams glancing through leafy shade. Hero peered down at his companions where they lay and saw that they were rubbing the sleep from their eyes. He stretched and stared about-up and down, left and right-at this vast arboreal world which was the Tree. Something had awakened him, but what?

“I awakened you,” said the Tree’s voice in his mind, and Hero saw the slender, sensitive tendrils where they coiled upon his shoulders.

“They are coming. Lathi’s Ter-men approach!”

“Then you’d best get us to the ground,” Eldin rumbled, climbing to his feet. “We can’t fight them up here!”

“You can’t fight them at all,” answered the Tree. “I thought that was understood? There will be a hundred of them for each one of you.”

“And are we simply to stand and watch it?” asked Aminza. “I don’t think I could bear that.”

“You are to leave me,” said the Tree, “and save yourselves. I’ve known of many wanderers who entered Thalarion, but none who came out again. No, you must go back the way you came, or at least give the city a wide berth before you continue on your quest.”

“Yes, well no sense in arguing,” said Eldin. “You just put us down, right?”

Without another word being spoken, great creepers fell from on high, wrapped about the adventurers where they stood with their packs, lifted them from the great branch- which they could now see was broad as the height of three tall men-and lowered them dizzily into green wells of air. They were passed creeper to creeper with never a pause, and as they went so the great central stem of the Tree-its trunk-rose up above them, like a wall of brown bark. More than a hundred feet through its center, that huge trunk, and at last they stood beside it on firm ground.

“Farewell,” said the Tree, “and go quickly. Live long lives and be happy. One day you may meet my life-leaf, grown into a Great Tree in his own right, and then we shall talk again.”

“Who said we were leaving?” Eldin growled. He faced Hero and the two grinned their wolfish grins. They shrugged their packs down onto the ground; and then … Swords whispered from sheaths and adrenalin flowed in the veins of the dreamers like fiery quicksilver.

Breathlessly, Aminza said: “David, give me your long knife.”

“No one invited you, girl,” said Hero. ‘Tree, take her up again at once!”

“You are very brave and very foolish,” answered the Tree as he snatched Aminza off her feet. “But you are right about the girl. Yours is not the way she should go.”

“But I want to! I want to!” cried Aminza furiously as the Tree’s tendrils quickly drew her up into the forest of branches above.

“Now then,” Eldin rumbled when she was out of sight and sound, “where are these Ter-men?”