The Forest of Peldain

“Deception? No, more a case of altered emphasis. One must marshal one’s arguments carefully when speaking with kings. Arelians have a horror of Peldain’s coastal forest. Overcoming that horror was my first difficulty.”

“Clearly you have some kingcraft yourself,” Vorduthe said bitterly. It was hard not to feel hatred when he thought of his destroyed army.

“My motives were honorable.”

While speaking, Octrago was sketching on a boulder with a piece of sharp stone. “Here is the lake and here is the palace—though ‘palace’ is your word. We call it the king’s tree. The approaches are through these avenues, thus and thus—it is straightforward enough. I will draw this map again when I find a convenient piece of tree bark, and your men can all study it. What do you think?”

“How many armed men may we expect to find within?”

“That I cannot say. Neither do I know whether Kestrew will have any stationed on guard round about, but no doubt we can find out. At any rate I am certain your men will give a good account of themselves.”

“How shall we find out about the guards? By sending scouts?”

Octrago sucked his lower lip thoughtfully. “I will go into Lakeside ahead of you. I must take Mistirea into a place of safety among friends. There I will make inquiries, and return to you.”

With a sour smile Vorduthe shook his head. “You and the High Priest remain with us. You are our guarantee that all is as you say.”

“How sad to find you so distrusting,” Octrago sighed. “I hope this mood will disappear when we rule Peldain together.”

“I am sure it will since, as you agreed with King Krassos, I shall have military command. You must then trust me.”

“Well, I know you for an honorable man,” Octrago murmured.

Contemplating the coming action, Vorduthe realized that the whole enterprise would now hang on one stroke.

Still, that was the kind of situation he liked.

Late in the day the terrain began to rise and to break up into a region of knolls and ridges. It was a bare and dusty landscape interspersed with clumps of verdure. Octrago led the party up a ridge and into a curious wood, the like of which they had never seen.

The trees were small, like Arelia’s fruit trees, but were twisted, seeming to writhe, and were bleached in color, seemingly without bark. The tortured, convoluted branches all joined up overhead and seemed a single network, and greenery grew only on the topmost part.

It was like walking under a low, vaulted ceiling carved by an insane mason. To Vorduthe, the sight resembled nothing so much as an enormous exposed brain.

Remembering the forest, the men were nervous until they assured themselves that the trees of this wood, however weird in appearance, were as still and passive as any in Arelia. Vorduthe, however, could not avoid an oppressive feeling, and he noticed that the men became subdued and quiet.

Glancing at him, Octrago paused and leaned with one hand against a tree trunk that was like a column of frozen wriggles. He let his gaze wander over the elaborate canopy.

“This is called Cog Wood,” he informed in a distant tone. “You feel it, don’t you? I can see it on your face.”

“Feel what?” Vorduthe asked him.

“Its presence. I told you before that the trees can hear our thoughts. Now, if you are quiet in your mind, you may hear this wood’s thoughts. Yes, it thinks—after a fashion. These wooden sinews—” he gestured to the overhead twisted branches—“are the cranial channels of a kind of brain. Tree touches tree and branch joins branch so that they become as it were one tree. Do you not hear it thinking?”

“No,” Vorduthe said, but he was half-lying. There was a feeling of presence, as though the wood were alive and watching, and it was an oppressive feeling.

Octrago, however, seemed in no hurry to leave the place. He sauntered between the narrow trunks, looking about him as though attempting to attune himself to the vegetable mentality he claimed existed—a claim Vorduthe could not take seriously, especially considering the beliefs of the cult Mistirea represented.

They came atop the ridge, descended a series of terrace-like depressions, then broke from the tree cover.

Below them lay Lakeside, spread out on land that sloped very gently to the east. Half wood, half town, the buildings merged with the trees almost without distinction. From Octrago’s rough map Vorduthe recognized the king’s tree, or palace—a large construction, probably of several stories, bedecked with verandahs and, in a gorgeous display, broad-leaved branches.

To the east of the town was the lake, irregularly shaped, its east shore sustained by raised banks. The oddest thing about it was its color: not blue, or grayish like some muddied waters, but distinctly green, so that it seemed at first like a discoloration on the spread moss.

For what remained of daylight they remained on the slopes overlooking the town, keeping out of sight. Night came, and the massed stars appeared, making the lake gleam unnaturally.