Seeds of Earth (5 page)

On the pebbly slope near the zep station, Chel
was
met by a young female Uvovo dressed in plain green garments and wearing a Benevolent amulet. She looked anxious surrounded by the taller, bulkier Humans, but her face brightened when she spotted Chel. She introduced herself as Giseru and led him up to a
lohig
pen where an elderly Human stocksman tethered out riding pair and lashed on the saddles with almost care less expertise. Moments later, Chel and his guide were heading out of town and along a broad, rutted track that led into a bushy gully and the wooded hills beyond.

Chel had to suppress the urge to laugh as he gripped the reining rod and followed Giseru through the trees.
Lohig
were six-legged creatures whose segmented bodies were protected by bony plates, and whose large dark eyes were veiled by flickering inner eyelids. Beneath the canopies of Segrana, they usually grew no larger than hand-size, but such marked divergence was found in several strains of plants and animals common to Umara and its forest moon. Chel had spoken with a few Human ecologists and heard them speak excitedly of this or that theory which tried to account for these differences. While they acknowledged that once the Uvovo had inhabited both planet and moon, they failed to understand that Segrana too had once held sway on both worlds and that the loss of that blessed presence was the root cause. The Humans spoke of 'die-back' and 'extinction events', but Uvovo legends told of a vast and terrible conflict, the War of the Long Night, a struggle between the Ghost Gods and the Dreamless which led to the burning of the world that Humans now called Darien. Human record-keepers and teachers knew of the Uvovo's legends but did not understand them, just as they came to visit the high homes,of Segrana but did not hear her song.

He smiled ruefully, knowing that was not strictly true. There were a few whose perceptions ran a little deeper, like Lyssa Devlin or Pavel Ivanov, who might one day glimpse the outlines of the greatness of Segrana. Yet there was one Human, a female scientist called Catriona Macreadie, whose qualities of intellect might one day allow her to comprehend it.

The
lohig
he was riding ambled along with a steady, padding gait even as the track grew uneven and steep. The sun was high enough to be midday in a mainly cloudless sky, sending bright spears down through the layers of foliage. Insects buzzed and spun in the warm forest air, feathered
hizio
trilled in the high branches, and
ubakil
hooted mournfully to each other off in the distance. He smiled to hear these mingled sounds, the patchwork melody of the forest's denizens, while off at its edge he detected a calm, persevering voice, faint but unmistakable, the voice of Ibsenskog, Segrana's daughter-forest.

His guide, Giseru, said little as they wound their way through bushy undergrowth, ascending a trail that ran alongside a small stream. The trickling sounds of water over stones were a restful whisper merging with the susurrus of the wooded hills but the voice of the daughter-forest was strengthening with each passing moment. After a while Chel heard a hissing, splashing sound and before long the trail came out on a grassy bank near the foot of a waterfall. Narrow but smoothly made steps led up the sheer rock face, which the
lohig
managed without difficulty. Insects wove patterns in the warm air, and at the top a bushy slope led into a tree-shaded gully that tapered to a fissure full of the sound of rushing waters. But logs and shaped pieces of stone had been put in place as a rudimentary but solid walkway. It was dark in the fissure, its rough walls bearded with moss, beaded and glistening in a mist of water droplets descending from above. Then a notch appeared on the right and up they climbed, roughly hewn steps curving round to emerge on a grassy knoll with a large boulder at their backs. To one side, the ground dropped away to the rocky gully, the waterfall and the wooded hills, while on the other it dipped gently into a small, flowery dell beyond which lay Ibsenskog.

Segrana's daughter-forest stretched almost the entire length of a high mountain valley. Fifty years after the reseeding, Ibsenskog and the others had become the lushest, most flourishing places on Umara yet were still only comparable to the sparser regions of Segrana, tracts where the medleys of living things were less numerous. Chel paused for a moment or two, letting the lifesong of the daughter-forest sink into him, feeding ears, taste and smell with its sweet richness, even as he knew it to be only an echo of Segrana's enfolding, never-ending song of celebration. Eyes closed for a moment, he smiled.

'Listener Faldri awaits us, Scholar,' came Giseru's voice.

In surprise he opened his eyes and saw the tall, cowled form of a Listener standing at the edge of the forest, near the path that led into its green embrace.

I knew that the Benevolent Uvovo were the wardens of Ibsenskog,
he thought.
But I did not know that Faldri would be here.

Giseru was already steering her
lohig
down into the dell, so Chel urged his mount into motion, his eagerness to enter the forest now tempered by reluctance.

The Listener was leaning on a long stave of red markwood and seemed not to acknowledge their arrival, even as they dismounted and tied the
lohigs
to a notched pole. Only when Giseru led Chel over to bow to his right side did the Listener respond - by turning away and striding unhurriedly towards the forest shade.

'Underscholars will attend to the creatures,' he said. 'Come.'

Giseru looked faintly embarrassed but Chel just smiled patiently and followed.

Faldri is testing me,
he thought.
Whether he intends to or not.

Curtains of fine-tendrilled
gumaus
hung from branches to either side, supporting a variety of other dependent plants and blooms from which fragrance drifted. As they walked, packs of small red-furred
igissa
scampered and leaped from tree to tree, making masses of foliage sway and rustle. Squeaks and drones, whistles and clatters, the exuberant sounds of Ibsenskog's wildlings over which the lifesong of the forest itself flowed, spilling through his thoughts. He was about to ask Giseru about the local water pattern but Faldri dismissed her, then wordlessly beckoned Chel to continue to follow. He thought that Faldri intended to avoid con versing with him entirely until, a short while later as they climbed a curve of bark steps, he spoke.

'You have made significant progress since attaining your scholarhood,' he said. 'Despite choosing to serve in the Warrior Uvovo.'

The Listener had pulled back a little and now the two walked side by side. Faldri had been Chel's teacher and their relationship had not been an amiable one.

'I chose to serve Segrana and the Great Purpose, Listener,' Chel said. 'I merely judged the Warrior clade to be more amenable to my temperament than the Benevolents.'

He was trying to sound conciliatory by downplaying his preference for the Warrior Uvovo. But instead comments seemed to provoke anger.

'Judged}'
the Listener said, slowing to look directly at him for the first time. Chel was taken aback by the changes wrought in his old teacher by the Listener husking: the lengthened features, the sunken eyes, the paring away of excess. 'Judgement is for Listeners, not Scholars!'

Then he was moving ahead, striding up to the top of the rise. 'Hurry - no dawdling! It will soon be time for the
zinsilu.'

With his longer legs, Faldri was over the crest ahead of Chel, who had to break into a run to catch up. On the other side the path led down into a great dark mass of leafy undergrowth, bushes and small trees intertwined with climbing plants and borrower-weeds. Faldri ducked into a dark opening and Chel followed. A lumpy path wound down through mossy trees and came out at last in a clearing dominated by three big
vaskin
trees standing around a still pool. Listener Faldri was kneeling between two of the trees, eyes closed, wide, thin-lipped mouth murmuring, long-fingered hands held · out, palms up. From some high opening in the canopy light filtered down and as he drew near Chel could see a fine mist of droplets falling between the three smooth, straight trunks.

Chel felt a growing quiver of uncertainty. This was utterly unlike his previous
zinsilu,
which had been fascinating discussions between himself and senior scholars on the direction of his learning, held in comfortable surroundings. This place reminded him of the few times he had taken the
vudron
vigil, except that the presence here was stern and brooding rather than tranquil and contemplative.

The fur on his scalp and neck prickled as he advanced. Faldri remained as he was, hands extended, lips muttering, his features just visible beneath the cowl. Chel halted at the edge of the pool, which he saw was not entirely still, its surface trembling very slightly now and then. Looking up he could see the falling mist and a shifting silvery radiance from above. Chel stood in silence for several moments before deciding to speak, but Faldri, eyes still closed, forestalled him with a fluid gesture. Wait.

Long moments passed. Chel inhaled and exhaled in a slow rhythm, calming himself, smelling and tasting the odours of wet wood and green leaves. Then Faldri ceased murmuring and drew an audible deep breath.

'The gate is now open, Great Elder. Your servants await.'

The Listener's voice seemed to resonate in Chel's ears. His senses hummed to the lifesong of the daughter-forest which gathered in strength, climbing up his body like a slow fountain of energy, rising through his limbs, his veins, his spine. And suddenly he knew that he was in the presence of sacred Segrana . . . and another. There, in the radiant mist above the pool, was a hulking, stooped form draped in long folds, an indistinct image.

Chel stared in awe and panic. Faldri had called out to the 'Great Elder', and Chel suddenly realised that he was looking at one of the legendary Pathmasters.

But the histories say that the last of them died after the War of the Long Night,
he thought.
How could one still be alive after thousands of years}

'There is no death,' came a sighing voice. 'Only a change in how the universe dreams about us . . .'

In reflex, Chel bowed his head, his thoughts in a whirl. The long-lived Pathmasters were the third huskings of the Uvovo, which only the wisest, most enlightened of Listeners could achieve. But the War of the Long Night had decimated the Uvovo and destroyed much of the ancient strength of Segrana, without which the third huskings could not be carried out. The surviving Uvovo had been confined to the forest moon, their history fraying and fading into legend after the Pathmasters were gone, their knowledge shrivelling into litany, their customs into ritual, until the Humans came.

'Dreams persist,' the Pathmaster sighed. 'The stronger the dreamer, the more resilient the dream. Some dream outward dreams, seeking unity with the eternal; others dream inwardly, dreams of hunger and conquest, of pain and the escape from pain. Some do not dream at all. Cheluvahar, do you dream?'

'Great Elder, I . . .' Panic seized him, mind suddenly blank. 'I have dreamed lately but the details escape me for now.'

'I know, I see them.' The voice faded to a whisper as the floating image of the Pathmaster tilted its hooded head to look upward, revealing a face far removed from Uvovo appearance, a cluster of bony ridges and two dark pits that might be eyes. Then the voice came back, stronger and sharper. 'A ship is coming to these worlds, a ship from the Humans' home stars. It bears a great evil, the eyes of a new breed of Dreamless who hunger for power and dominion as their abominable like did in the past.'

The Dreamless.
The word sat in Chel's mind like a piece of ice, melting dread into his thoughts while his heart thudded in his chest.

'Great Elder,' he said. 'Will the War of the Long Night return?'

'No. This peril is more similar to the cause that led to the original Great Purpose, which is far more than that which you have been taught. Just as the Segrana you know is not the Segrana that once was. Nor do these Dreamless possess the shattering might of their longvanished kin, yet it will be more than enough to turn the night sky into a vista of desolation. They secretly rule a vast empire and are as relentless as they are cruel and cunning.'

The peace of the tree-guarded pool and the ricli lifesong that enlivened Chel's senses seemed in stark contrast to all that the Pathmaster was saying. Yet his thoughts circled back to why he was here, why he was being told these things . . .

'This is your
zinsilu,
Scholar,' said the Pathmaster, as if Chel's inner thoughts were clear as written words. 'A
zinsilu
such as has not been seen for a thousand generations. Scholar Cheluvahar - are you ready to serve the Great Purpose with all that is body and all that is mind? Are you ready to place your trust in a convoking of the Listeners and to obey their edicts?'

Chel felt swept up by the gravity of the Pathmaster"s demand, but he breathed in deep, steadying himself.

'I am, Great Elder.'

'Good - I am pleased not to be disappointed. When we are done here, you will return to your work at Waonwir, which the Humans call Giant's Shoulder - do not concern yourself with events subsequent to the arrival of the Human ship. In two or three days you will be asked to leave for the daughter-forest to the north, where a secret husking chamber is being prepared . . .'

Suddenly he stopped, hooded head swinging towards Faldri. 'Ah, so you are shocked, Listener, outraged at our plan.'

Faldri stared up at the misty form. 'Only anxious for all our fates, Great Elder. This Scholar shows talent and promise, yet he is young and lacking in the experience required of a Listener . . .'

'This is not about husking forth more Listeners, Faldri,' the Pathmaster said. 'We are planning the creation of a new clade, the Artificer Uvovo. Once the Warriors and the Benevolents had artisans aplenty among their ranks, before the War of the Long Night took them all. The arrival of the Humans has led to a regeneration of such skills amongst the younger scholars, skills that will prove crucial in the times ahead. Those who might be considered Artificer Uvovo already exist, scattered around the Human towns and working in the daughter-forests and . . . other places. When Cheluvahar husks forth, it will be as a Listener of the Artificer Uvovo, nor will he be alone, since other scholars are undergoing similar examinations today'