The Forest of Peldain

He leaped from the bed and strode to the window. Far below was the harbor, with trade ships floating at anchor. Partly obscured by the headland were the naval docks, and there he recognized some of the ships that had carried his expedition to Peldain.

The sun had not long risen, and cast dazzling streamers of gold on the flat sea.

For long moments Vorduthe stared at the vivid scene. He did not turn until he heard the sound of the door panel sliding open behind him. What he saw then sent his heart leaping.

The Lady Kirekenawe Vorduthe had stepped into the room. She wore a simple sleeping gown. Her hair fell about her shoulders, and she was smiling.

She moved with all the grace and suppleness he had once known and delighted in.

“I woke feeling different,” she said. “So I knew I would find you here.”

Vorduthe himself had slept naked, as was his habit. Her eyes were traveling with hungry anticipation over his body, which was stirring.

He reached out. She rushed to him, her body warm and pulsing.

Together, they fell upon the low bed.

The angle of the sunlight falling through the windows had dipped by the time they finished their exertions. They relaxed, luxuriating in each other’s aroma.

Suddenly she touched his lips with her fingers. “You must go now. It is time.”

“No,” he tried to say, but wife and villa rushed from him. He was in darkness, suspended in warm liquid. His lungs ached with the need for air.

No more than two minutes could have passed.

He struck out for the surface. Mistirea was floating there patiently, and he waited while Vorduthe filled his lungs and regained his strength.

Wordlessly they swam to the shore. The two men stood dripping by the lakeside, facing one another.

“You encountered the spirit,” Mistirea said. “I can see it in your eyes.”

“Yes.”

“Can you hold it in bounds?”

“I do not know.”

“You must understand how to influence the spirit,” Mistirea told him. “Its power is that of a god, but in nature it is elemental, like a young child. You must be the adult that commands that child.”

“It no longer is so,” Vorduthe said, shaking his head. “The spirit grows. It is maturing like a living creature. It has thrown off its childhood.”

Mistirea’s eyes blazed with alarm. “Then you must command it as one man commands another! As a king rules a subject! Impose your will!” His voice fell. “I know you have the strength to do this. I am not mistaken in my judgment.”

“Perhaps.”

“Do not deny it. I am not High Priest of the Lake for nothing. Tomorrow you will dive again.”

He handed Vorduthe a thick-napped cloth with which to dry himself. Vorduthe did so and clothed himself. But he refused to accompany Mistirea back to the temple.

Instead he climbed the hill above Lakeside and sat on the fringe of Cog Wood, looking down. He spent a while studying the lake, noting the way it was cupped by the sloping terrain as if it had indeed been dumped from above, supported by an embankment to the west.

If he quieted his mind, after the manner that Mistirea had taught him, he fancied he could almost sense currents of thought running through the network of pale branches over his head. He understood Cog Wood now, since his immersion in the lake’s mind-jungle. Within the twisted boughs were what amounted to nerves, and they linked up to form a continuous skein throughout the wood. It was an attempt by the lake, at some time in the past, to create a vegetable version of a brain. Perhaps, he thought, the spirit had intended to transfer itself from the lake to this brain, but the wood had proved unable to sustain consciousness. It was like an arboreal version of some sessile creature, stupid and unmoving, but mentally sensitive to what went on around it.

Apparently even Mistirea did not know the meaning of this past experiment. It, like the sculpted hill-maiden, created at a time when the forest had been much less extensive than it was now, had become lost in the mists of Peldain’s history. It never seemed to occur to Peldainians to make a record of events, so that after one generation all was usually forgotten.

Vorduthe’s state of enforced calm did not last long. When it broke, his brooding feelings came tumbling through. He still burned for revenge, sickened by Octrago’s treachery—even though he could, to a limited extent, understand the motive for the tortured prince’s actions.

He had it in his power to exact that revenge. But if he did, Arelia’s turn would come. Not immediately—not for a hundred years, perhaps. But it would come, and nothing could stop it.

On the other hand he could exert himself to tame the being in the lake. Vorduthe was used to sizing up a newly met personality, and he sensed that the lake’s was not yet stronger than his own. As Mistirea said, it was susceptible. But then, Peldain would be saved, secure within its forest barrier, and Octrago would have triumphed.