The Forest of Peldain

She threw down the bell-shaped flower she had been playing with and sat up with her arms around her knees, staring out to sea. “With so many of the seaborne warriors away on the campaign, the Mandekweans saw an opportunity to revolt. King Krassos sent the remaining warriors to subdue them, not knowing that the Orwanians had secretly joined the rebellion. Near to the Mandekwe reefs the fleet was surprised by Orwanians using fire-canoes. Some ships were burned, some driven onto the reefs, and some managed to put their forces ashore only for them to be destroyed by a larger combined army.”

Vorduthe too sat up. “Then it is as Korbar predicted! Except that it was not planned by Octrago…”

“Since then the King has been busy training more warriors and gathering his forces. The rebels have taken some smaller islands and it is known they are assembling a seaborne army of their own. There will be a big sea battle soon. Then, I expect, all will be restored as before.…”

Suddenly she jumped up and peered toward the horizon, shading her eyes. “Look! Sails!”

Vorduthe followed her example. He could just see a line of sails which quickly passed out of sight. It was, without doubt, a war fleet.

“We must get back to Arelia quickly,” he burst out. “I am needed!”

Her laughter was tinkling, amused, and slightly sorrowful. She turned her eyes to him. “We can do nothing to help, husband. Have you forgotten? We are here, but not here. Elsewhere I lie on my bed, with servants around. As for you, in truth I do not know where you are. Yet somehow I feel that I do not dream all this alone. I feel that you are alive, and with me. Am I right?”

“You are right,” he told her. “I am with you. At the same time I am in Peldain, on the other side of the forest.”

They sat down again. Haltingly, he told her the story of what had happened since the day his army rolled its engines and wagons into the predatory forest. She listened intently, fascinated, and was silent after he had finished.

“Now I must suffer the frustration of knowing what happens in the Hundred Islands, without being able to come to the King’s aid,” he added ruefully.

She turned, and clutched his arm. “Let’s forget all that,” she urged. “Yours is a strange tale, but is not this a better reality than we knew before? Let us enjoy it while we can—together!”

Suddenly Vorduthe realized how thoughtless he had been. His intense joy and delight at being with his wife again, at seeing her restored in her dream body, still could hardly match her own. It was inconceivable that he could rob her of what she had been given. The problems of King Krassos—or of Peldain—dwindled to insignificance.

The sun was lower in the sky, which had darkened marginally to a deeper blue. He sensed that the meeting was over, and took her hand.

Then sleep overtook him.

But he did not wake with aching lungs back in the thickness and the warmth. He was in the green-gold haze, still with no need to breathe.

You see, the lake said, it is as I told you.

“What are you?” Vorduthe demanded, framing the question in his mind. “Is it true that you fell from the stars? That is hard to believe.”

“It is true, in a manner of speaking,” the lake answered. “I will tell you all, as a gesture of good faith. Once I was a man, not so different from yourself. I came to this world from a world among the stars, in a ship that could fly through the air like a bird. There were no men on Thelessa then. It was I who brought them here.

“Yes, I was a man, but a man with an uncommon ambition. Men are mortal, and my aim was to be immortal like a god. Since it is individuals that die, I needed a body that was not individual, and that would last indefinitely.

“The answer lay in vegetable existence. Vegetable life has a level of consciousness which to us is like deep sleep. This I used as the foundation of my immortality. Upon this sleep I erected the structure of the subconscious mind, the dreaming state, in preparation for receiving my waking consciousness.

“The arrangement is not dissimilar to the human pattern, but the project needed a long, long time, much longer than I had to live. I created the lake as an interim measure. It is not water: it is a biological soup of chemicals upon which I imprinted a replica of my conscious mind, and it is in tune with the great subconsciousness of the forest. This connection already gives me great powers, as you have seen. When the forest is matured I shall take full possession of my new, everlasting, ever-growing body, and the lake will become redundant.