The Forest of Peldain

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.