The Skrayling Tree (18 page)

Something of great importance to the fate of the multiverse, to their world and my own, had stirred them to speak. Little
of their words could be heard by any mortal ear.

They spoke four words, and those words took four days to utter; but that was not our only communication. The mighty heads
looked down at me. They studied me and compared me and no doubt recalled all the many others who, seeking their wisdom, had
come this way. My horse grew calm and cropped at the grass. I sat and listened to these Grandfathers and Grandmothers, the
very spirits of our origin, who in their roaring youth had fled away from the parent Sun to form the planets.

Their love of life had slowed, but it had not faded. Their thoughts were as substantially concentrated as their physical forms.
Each word translated became several lines
in even the most laconic of languages. In comparison old Melnibonéan was baroque and clumsy. Only a trained ear could detect
the slight differences of tone. I was forced to recall an old spell and slow down my own perception of time. It was the only
way to understand them.

With what they communicated supernaturally, I began to understand a little of what they told me. Why these first stone men
and women of the world had chosen to speak to me I did not know. I understood, however, that this was an important part of
my dream. I sat, and I immersed myself in a strange, but not unpleasant, communication. In those four days, heedless now of
Gunnar’s imminent leaving, I listened to the stones.

The first word the Grandparents spoke was:

WHERE THE WINDS MEET

A WOMAN’S HORNS DEFY

THE DESTROYER OF DESTINY

AND MAKE HER YOUR BEST ALLY

I had an image of a white beast, a lake, a glittering building, the whole lying in another natural amphitheater. I knew this
must be my destination, where I would discover the meaning of my dream.

The second word the Grandparents spoke was:

THE BLADE PIVOTS THE BALANCE

THE BOWL SUSTAINS IT

THE DRAGON IS YOUR FRIEND

I had the impression of a sword blade without a hilt, its tip immersed in some kind of basin while in the shadows a great,
yellow eye opened to regard me.

The third word the Grandparents spoke was:

ROOT AND BRANCH THE TREE SUSTAINS

BALANCE AND ALL LIFE MAINTAINS

I saw an enormous tree, a spreading oak, whose branches seemed to shelter the world. Its roots went deep into the core of
the Earth. Its branches covered another image, which was the same thing in a different form. I knew it was the Cosmic Balance.

And the fourth word the Grandparents spoke was:

GO MAKE TRUE

For a fleeting moment I received a glorious image: a great green oak tree against a sky of burnished silver. Then that special
vibrancy faded, leaving only the natural grandeur of the stark cliffs and the soft grass below. The Grandparents were silent.
Already they returned to sleep. With a sense of added burden rather than revelation I paid them my respects. I assured them
I would think upon their words. I admitted to myself that they made little sense. Had the rocks reached a state of senility?

Suddenly I was struck by the stupidity of my excursion. I had crossed the Devil’s Garden to save time. I had then lost a day
rather than gained one. The Norseman
might already be leaving Isprit. From the slowest of mortals, I became one of the fastest. I needed my stallion to do his
best.

Solomon had carried me all the way from Acre. I had acquired him from a Lombardian knight who, like so many of my crusader
comrades, had joined the expedition entirely for the land it promised. Finding the promised land a little barren, he had joined
the Templars, turned to disappointed drinking and gambling and from there to the inevitable duel. I had let him pick it. I
had long coveted his horse. Being of a weakly disposition, I also needed a soul or two for my sustenance and preferred my
food ripe.

The religious posturings of these brutes were as corruptly self-deceiving as anything I had witnessed. Religions so at odds
with mankind’s nature and its place in the natural order only produce a kind of madness, where the victims are constantly
attempting to force reality to confirm their fantasies. The ultimate result must be the ultimate destruction of the realm
itself. In their histories, wherever the banner of pious Law was raised, Chaos quickly followed.

Though their people were said to have visited Cimmeria, there was still every possibility that the Norseman would not be able
to help me. I would soon know.

I had been to Isprit before, but from the sea. The mountains became greener and more forested and the ride to the port pleasant,
if hurried. I arrived above the city just before sunset. The Adriatic stretched, tranquil pewter, beneath a golden sun. Protected
by a huge promontory, the port had been chosen by Diocletian for
its views and air. Parts of walls and columns along the harbor were clearly from Roman times. But where imperial sails had
blossomed on bulky triremes, the ships were now traders, fishing craft. There was only one reefed sail on a tall, slender
mast, her crow’s nest decorated with vivid dragons curling around the tip, where a black flag flew. The sail was recognizable
to anyone but an inlander. It was the typical scarlet-and-azure stripes on a white field of the old Norseman. Gunnar was still
in port.

From this height the town looked unplanned and ramshackle, a sprawl of huts and badly thatched houses standing among the marble
ruins of a vast Roman compound. As you drew closer, the real wonder of the place made itself evident, as did the rather pungent
smell of the dust heaps and sewage dumps inland of the harbor. None of this was noticeable, however, when you looked out over
a dark blue sea turning to a pool of blood in the dying sunlight. I rode down the old trade trail from the mountains into
that extraordinary port.

Several hundred years before, the emperor had built himself a palace here overlooking his private moorings and the Adriatic.
An extensive complex of buildings, its entire purpose was to comfort the abdicated emperor and help him forget the troubles
of the world, many of which were his own creation. The walls were high. There were cloisters and fountains; pleasant walks
and groves; benches and tables of basalt, marble and agate; temples and chapels. The baths were exquisitely luxurious. When
I had last been here the decay was less extensive.

When Rome’s power faded, the barbarians’ power over Isprit had grown. Byzantium lacked the resources to claim much in the
way of sovereignty, so the port had filled with free fishermen, scrap-metal shippers, slavers, timbermen, traders, pirates,
furriers and all the other honest and outlaw callings known to men. It was not an important port, strategically, but it was
a lively one. The ostentatious palace was now the core of an entire community. They occupied its rooms and galleries, used
its gardens for growing food, its halls for trading and meeting, its baths—those still in working order—for supplies of running
water. Even to me this infestation of brawling, squabbling, embracing, praying, shrieking, giggling uninhibited human life
had a certain charm.

The fountains had long since dried up. Some had been turned into the hubs of dwellings, their fanciful masonry in contrast
to the simplicity of the people. Pigs, sheep and goats were kept in pens on the outskirts, so the stench increased as you
approached but lessened as you reached the streets.

I rode through shacks and shanties of driftwood and stones which looked like the debris of a dozen sea-raids in which everything
of wealth had been taken. Yet there was probably more life here now than when the emperor came. In those imperial ruins the
fallen mighty had given way to the vital mob. This was one of the lessons I had tried to teach my countrymen. Their final
lesson came when I demonstrated their weaknesses and the strength of the new, human folk who challenged them.

I had led those human reavers. I had destroyed the Dreamer’s City. It was no wonder that I preferred this
dream. Here I was merely a leprous wizard with a talent for warfare. There I was the prince who had betrayed his own people
and left them scattered, homeless, dying from their world’s memory. My actions had allowed Jagreen Lern, who always sought
to emulate Melnibonéan power, to raise the Lords of the Higher Worlds, to threaten the Cosmic Balance in the name of the Gods
of Entropy.

The forces of Law and Chaos were not themselves good or evil. It was by their actions that I judged such Higher Lords. Some
were more trustworthy than others. My own patron Lord of Chaos, Duke Arioch, was a consistent if ferocious being, but he had
little power in this world.

The only lighting in the warren of cobbled streets and apartments came from the taverns and dwellings themselves. Behind the
oiled vellum of windows, the candles and lamps gave the twilit town a sepia look. I searched for a seamen’s hostelry Friar
Tristelunne had told me of. The smell of ozone was strong in my nostrils, as was the smell of fish. I was hungry for some
fresh octopi, which Melnibonéans had always eaten with great respect. The creatures possess intelligences greater than most
mortals. Certainly their flavor is considered subtler.

My own Melnibonéan appetites and impulses were forever at odds with the ideas I had inherited from my human companions. Cymoril,
while she was alive, never knew that cannibalism disgusted me. She had taken her place at the ritual tables without a thought.
I derived very little pleasure in the arts of torture cultivated by Melnibonéans
for thousands of years. For us there were formal methods of dying as well as of killing.

As a youth I began to doubt the wisdom of these pursuits. Cruelty was scarcely a trade, much less an art. My fears for Melniboné
had been practical. I had lived and traveled in the lands of the Young Kingdoms. I understood how soon they must overwhelm
us. Had that been the reason that I had joined the ranks of my enemies? I dismissed this guilt. I had no time for it now.

I found the tumbledown, straw-roofed shingle building with a dim fish-oil lamp illuminating a sign that read in old Cyrillic
Odysseus’s
, which was either the name of the owner or of the hero with whom he wished to be associated. The tavern had declined a little
since the Golden Age.

Not trusting the Dalmatians, I dismounted from Solomon to lead him into the tavern. It stank of stale wine and sour cheese.
The straw on the floors had not been replaced in months. There was a dead dog in one corner. The dog offered the advantage
of attracting most of the flies and covering up the worst of the smells. The majority of the other customers were collected
at a bench playing backgammon. A couple of men who sat talking quietly in the corner farthest from the dog attracted me. They
had the filthy fair hair of the typical Danish pirate, arranged in two greasy plaits which had enjoyed as much of their meat
gravy as they had. But they seemed in good humor and spoke enough kitchen Greek to make themselves understood. Clearly they
were not disliked, for the landlord’s girl was relaxed with them and told a joke which had them all laughing until they saw
me a little more clearly.

“Nice horse,” said the taller, his eyes narrowing a little, though he tried to disguise his expression. I was familiar with
the response. He had recognized me as the Silverskin. He was wondering if he was going to find out what it was like to contract
leprosy. Or have his immortal soul turned to roughage.

“I’m looking for a boy to keep an eye on him,” I said. “He might even be for sale.” I held up a silver Constantine. Shadow
rats appeared from everywhere. I selected one and told him the Constantine was his as long as the horse was safe and well
groomed. If he knew of a likely customer he would get a commission. Then I stared into the unhappy faces of the Vikings and
told them I was looking for a man named Gunnar the Luckless. The men understood this subtle snub. “He’s called Earl Gunnar
the Wald, and he has a liking for good manners,” said the younger, clearly wishing he had not been put in this position. They
were Leif the Shorter and Leif the Larger.

As the boy took away my horse to the ostler’s, I turned to one of the serving women and ordered a skin of their best yellow
wine. I, too, I said, appreciated good manners and would feel snubbed if they did not join me. The group with the backgammon
board, hearing us speaking Norse, displayed only a passing interest in me, having identified me as an outlander. I heard one
of them refer to me as Auberoni and was amused. I was no king of the fairies. The men were Venetian fishermen who had settled
here recently and clearly had never heard of Il Pielle d’Argent or his sword, which was still known in Venice as Il Corvo
Noir after its legendary
maker, who had not actually forged the sword but had made the fanciful hilt. A large body of opinion believed the sword had
taken its first soul from Corvo.

I dusted off the crusader’s surcoat I still wore and joined the wary lads, Leif and Leif, who typically had hands as carefully
groomed as their hair was greasy. I supposed if they ate mostly with their fingers, there was a point to keeping them clean.
Needing neither to shave nor, in the conventional sense, pass feces, few Melnibonéans were familiar with beards or urinals.
Many human habits remain deeply mysterious to us.

The Vikings probably thought me some effete Byzantine affecting Oriental manners. They had enough respect for my reputation,
however, and showed me perfect courtesy. Renowned for their love of poetry and music and fine workmanship, Vikings enjoyed
cultured living and hospitality. These two sea-robbers, though they served under one of the most evil captains known, were
well informed and told me they had discussed deserting Gunnar for crusading or working as mercenaries in Byzantium. But they
had no real choice. Their fate was to sail with Gunnar until the Valkyries came to carry them to Valhalla. They found a boy
to run to Gunnar.