Istu Awakened

by Robert E Vardeman;Victor Milan

  Moriana had picked a stocky red dog with a short, smooth fur and heavy tail for Fost. The animal wasn't quite a war mount but had the breadth of jaw to fight and looked durable enough to bear Fost's weight over a long haul. Also, it was an intelligent beast able to compensate for its rider's lack of experience. In travelling with Jennas, Fost had grown expert in riding the immense war bears of the Ust-alayakits, but riding a bear and riding a dog differed as much as flying a Sky City eagle and piloting a Zr'gsz skyraft.

  For herself, Moriana chose a gray courser, huge of chest and narrow of skull, that could run down an antelope in a sprint. The beast was utterly neurotic, fearful of anything that lived except when it grew hungry enough to hunt, at which times it used its two-inch fangs to good effect. Moriana seemed able to gentle the creature, though it was prone to emit a shrill, unnerving keening for no apparent reason.

  The mounts proved sound and the travellers made good time. Though time did not matter for them on this journey.

  At least, they pretended it didn't.

  By unpoken agreement, Fost and Moriana had neither past nor future for the duration of their ride. But Fost privately broke the pact. There was a question that nagged him day and night and refused to go away.

  The night they camped in sight of the dark line of the Great Nevrym Forest, Fost lay awake after Moriana drifted to sleep, sweetly exhausted from a bout of passionate lovemaking. For a time he watched the constellations perform their slow, circular dance overhead. Then he slipped into the forest. The scattered shunnak trees loomed above the mighty black anhak comprising most of the forest. There were few of the giants; had they grown close together they'd have prevented any light from reaching the thickly clustered trees below.

  'Erimenes?' he called softly.

  'Are you fishing for compliments, my boy? Your performance was adequate, I'd say. What it lacked in finesse, it certainly made up for in vigor.'

  Fost sighed. Moriana slept a dozen paces away and was unlikely to be awakened. What he wanted from the garrulous genie might take a long time to extract - if it could be done at all.

  'Why?'

  'Why what? Why was the Universe created? Why does evil exist in the world? Why did -'

  'No,' Fost said sharply, cutting off the spirit's diatribe before it gained too much momentum. 'Why did you help us when the Hissers held us captive? Or any other time, for that matter. Of late, you've been assisting more and more and hardly ever pulling your stunt of trying to get me killed in some grisly fashion.'

  'It is out of the goodness of my soul. I would say heart, but alas! that noble organ has been defunct these fourteen centuries. Besides, I'm often moved to pity by the bumbling way in which you approach life. I wish to help you as a child wishes to help a sadly uncoordinated pup learn to walk without falling over.'

  Fost made a rude sound.

  'You and Istu are equally noted for philanthropy,' he said.'And I've caught you at last! You've been dead thirteen hundred and ninety-nine years, not fourteen hundred. Ha!'

  Erimenes uttered a weary sigh.

  'I have, since coming to know you, celebrated yet another anniversary of my tragic demise. Thus I came round to the fourteen hundredth year of my death. I wish I could remain thirteen hundred ninety-nine - or properly, fifteen hundred and seven - indefinitely.'

  Fost ground his teeth together. Trying to pin down the shade when he wanted to be contrary was like trying to grab an eel. The more so now when he couldn't yell at the spirit without waking Moriana.

  'Answer the question, you old dotard,' Ziore said from Moriana's pack laying nearby.

  Erimenes sniffed and said haughtily, 'I did.'

  Moving quietly and carefully, Fost picked up Erimenes's jug.

  'Erimenes, I want a straight answer from you. And I want it now.' 'Or what?'

  'I want an answer, Erimenes.' Something in his tone convinced the spirit that the time had passed for light banter.

  'Very well. I'm helping you because I want you to win. That should be obvious to even you.'

  Fost began bouncing the jug up and down in his palm. Erimenes made choking sounds.

  'Stop it! That horrid motion nauseates me.'

  'Tell the truth.'

  'I am, you fool!' Erimenes's voice lost its normal nasal overtones. Fost had never heard him speak this way before. 'Damn it, can't you see why I'm helping you? Before, it was all a game to me. No matter what happened, I couldn't get hurt. And I was the only one who mattered.' Silence. 'Are you surprised?'

  'Hardly.' He set down the satchel and braced himself against a sturdy tree trunk.

  'But that was before. Before I started to detect the black hand - or claw - of the Dark Ones in events surrounding you. By the time we left the Ramparts, I was starting to fear that what we faced imperiled not only humanity but me.

  'And when Istu was released, there was no longer any doubt. The Dark Ones are mighty, and their malice is as infinite and ineffable as they are mysterious and unknowable. They could snuff me as you'd snuff out a candle flame. Or... or make me wish throughout endless ages for true death.

  'No, my young friend, I cannot remain neutral in this War of Powers.'

  'Why don't you join the other side?'

  'Really, I thought you held me in higher esteem.' Fost's brows shot up. The spirit sounded genuinely hurt. 'I am human, or was once. And unlike Fairspeaker and his ilk, I don't delude myself as to what the Dark Ones intend for humanity.'

  Fost shuddered thinking about all he'd seen, all that was promised.

  'To purge the Realm as they did the Sky City.'

  'No.' Fost stared at the satchel in surprise at the contradiction. 'That is an aim, but far from paramount. They would purge humankind from the world, Fost. From the Universe, from every plane of being, if the theories espoused in my day of the multiplicity of planes of existence hold any truth. They intend no less than to return the Universe - Universes - to the primal Dark from which they sprang.'

  'I see,' Fost said after a while. His voice almost squeaked through his constricted throat.

  'So. Now that we've dealt with theology and cosmology, why don't you prod that lusty wench over there feigning sleep with your finger and rouse her so that you can prod her with a much more gratifying implement?'

  Fost shook his head. In some ways, Erimenes hadn't changed. He had to admit being glad. To himself, at least.

  Then Moriana rolled over, groping for him. He quickly slipped next to her and followed the sage's advice. After what Erimenes had said about the Dark Ones, this seemed more important than ever.

  They rode boldly into the forest of Great Nevrym. The foresters were suspicious of unwanted guests, but Fost was known as a friend and there was little to gain trying to enter by stealth. Their mission was sad and aboveboard.

  They were two days in when the foresters showed themselves. Riding through the forest was like moving along the nave of an enormous cathedral with the shunnak rising a hundred stories above their heads. Birds sang, squirrels chased one another along cool green avenues and at night scarlet tree toads a yard long crawled from their holes in the boles of the black anhak to trill timeless songs.

  Fost had been aware of being followed, which told him no more than that the foresters didn't care if he sensed their presence. If they didn't want travellers to suspect they were near, it would take Ziore's perceptions to discover them.

  They followed a broad avenue between the tall anhak. It seemed no different from any that ran through the wood, but by various subtle signs Fost knew this for the road to the Tree.

  A young man rose from a bush and stepped into their path. He smiled, which relieved Fost.

  'Good day,' he said. 'Seldom are these ways travelled by those who use feet other than their own.'

  'Good day, Darkwood. I apologize for the princess and myself for riding mounts in these woods. But we have a message too urgent to bear on foot.'

  'You, the Longstrider, say that? Oho, that's rich, indeed.' He wiped his eyes from laug
hter. 'But you must know, Longstrider who sees fit to clutter his good and proper name with the graceless noise Fost, that you'd be ever welcome to go upon these ways in any manner you choose.' 'Thank you, Darkwood.'

  Moriana's gray was tossing its narrow head and whimpering. Feeling that she had to assert her part in these slow proceedings, Moriana shook back her hair and said, 'You may carry along the tidings that Moriana Etuul, Queen in exile of the City in the Sky, has arrived on a visit of state to the King of Nevrym.'

  'Oh, indeed. Is that the way it is now?' Green eyes twinkled. He had seemed a young man at first but reading the fine wrinkles in his face convinced Moriana he was past forty. 'But that's something of a problem, Your Majesty. The man you seek does not exist.'

  'But I. . .'She stopped in confusion, then organized her thoughts. 'I don't understand.'

  The forest echoed with Darkwood's laughter. Fost grinned but kept an eye on her in case she decided to try to chastise this presumptuous groundling for laughing at her.

  'Ah, forgive me,' Darkwood said. This time he pulled a scarf from a hidden pocket to dab tears from his eyes. 'But you see, Majesty, there is no King of Nevrym - unless you refer to the Tree, Paramount, Lord of All Trees. But the idea that a man could rule a forest, ah, you outwoods folk are droll. The man you seek is Grimpeace, ferocious to foe and fair to friend - and king in Nevrym, never of it.'

  Moriana smiled with visible effort.

  'Please be so good as to guide us, Sir Darkwood.'

  'So I shall. For none is allowed to travel the ways of the wood unescorted.' He smiled approvingly when she didn't try to claim they had done just that in the last few days.

  They rode for several more hours. Still smarting from her humiliation over the matter of who was king of what, Moriana kept her twitchy greyhound at a long-limbed trot for the first several miles until it became apparent that the ever-smiling Darkwood kept up the rapid pace without breaking into a sweat.

  'Great Ultimate, Fost, how did you ever manage to outrun a party of these folk?' she asked as she reined in the gray dog to a walk.

  'I was young and in good shape,' he said, slowing to match her pace. 'Also I was scared cross-eyed.'

  By design, the road took an abrupt turn around a dense stand of anhak so that the clearing in which the Tree stood appeared suddenly to view. Moriana gasped at the sight of it. Though he'd seen it before, Fost felt his heart clutch convulsively in wonder at the sight.

  This was obviously the Tree. Next to it everything else was shrubbery.

  It rose over a thousand feet in the clear forest air, a giant conifer with dark green needles and a red trunk. Their master of all trees was more than the symbol and pride of the Nevrymin, it was the seat of their government as well. For hundreds of feet its bole was honeycombed with entrances, passageways, small apartments and halls as grand as the Audience Hall of the Palace of Winds. The many tiers were a history of the foresters carved in wood. The Tree still grew and every generation a new level had to be hollowed out. Stairways and catwalks spiraled around the massive trunk. When Moriana realized that the antlike figures moving along them were people, wonder flooded back anew.

  'Well, my friends,' said Grimpeace around a mouthful of good venison. 'Where do you go now?'

  Fost and Moriana traded glances. It was a good question. Oddly, they hadn't discussed it on the way from Omizantrim. They had barely thought of it.

  Each sensed that the life they'd known before had perished. The world had become a strange and awful place, a battleground for forces beyond their comprehension. Even if both survived, which seemed increasingly unlikely, they little knew what kind of world they'd be living in when this new War of Powers came to a resolution.

  If it ever did.

  The message delivered, Fost and Moriana sat looking at one another on their side of a well-laden banquet table. It was a board fit for the Tree, forty feet long and eight across. No knife scars defaced it, as was customary at feasting tables, and spilled wine was hastily mopped up by attendants. In return, the wood, shining with a luminous luster, surpassed in beauty any piece of furniture Moriana had seen. Like the capital of the foresters, it was carved from the living wood of the Tree and kept alive by special magics known only to the Nevrymin.

  'Where are we going?' Fost asked. Now that the news of the Hissers' defection was delivered, he didn't know the answer.

  Moriana did.

  'High Medurim,' she answered.

  CHAPTER TEN

  'Whoa!' cried Fost, motioning for a halt. Moriana's greyhound squealed in terror as she reined in harshly. In a single fluid movement, she dropped her bow from shoulder to hand and pulled an arrow from her quiver. By the side of the track, Darkwood stood looking on with his habitual smile. He didn't unsling his bow.

  Heart racing, Moriana followed Fost's gesture. She expected enemies. What she saw made her heart leap, but not from fear.

  A unicorn stag stood on a knoll to the left of the path. The trees grew sparsely there. The great beast stood between two of the black, gnarled anhaks and gazed down at the travellers, one forefoot raised.

  Something in the animal's attitude told Moriana the posture was not that of a creature poised for flight. It regarded them with disdain, its eyes huge and amber, set in the capacious skull on either side of the single straight horn. Its hide was a glossy chestnut and its throat and wide chest glowed silvery. A long tail ending in a tuft of auburn was held curled over the animal's back like a manticore's sting.

  'Will you shoot, Lady?' Darkwood's smile had taken on the tilt they had come to associate with some private jest. 'Their flesh is a delicacy beyond compare.'

  Moriana looked at Fost. His mouth was compressed in a curious fashion as if he tried to suppress a grin. Erimenes swayed at his side.

  'Shoot!' the genie urged, his eyes gleaming with spectral blood-lust.

  'No,' begged Ziore, floating beside Moriana. 'He's too magnificent!'

  Moriana lowered her bow, relaxed the string and slid the arrow back into its sheath.

  'She's right. I could only slay such a beast if I starved. Never for sport.'

  As if it heard her words, the stag dipped its horn once and vanished as abruptly as it had appeared.

  'You chose wisely, Highness,' said Darkwood. 'You'd never have hit him.'

  Moriana's mouth tightened. This groundling made jokes at her expense, and she didn't care for it.

  'You forget I'm Skyborn,' she informed him haughtily.

  'Oh, I know that, Lady, and I know well you could put three arrows out of three through my chest with that monster bow of yours. But skill counts for more in hunting the Nevrym unicorn than cleverness of hand and eye. You'd have missed him, this I know.' His grin widened. 'Even as I'd know you'd next have seen him charging from that clump of blackleaf.' He pointed at a clump of shrubbery twenty yards distant. 'With his head down and blood in his eye. And I know a unicorn's fighting horn will pierce a quarter inch of the finest North Keep plate as if it were parchment.'

  Moriana started to protest. Thinking she'd suffered enough, Fost put in, 'They're intelligent. And very cunning.'

  'Intelligent? Nonsense. They're mere beasts.' Erimenes sniffed his contempt for such a notion.

  'And are the war eagles of the Sky City mere birds?' Darkwood shook his head. 'No, my friend. You've now met the third part of the triumvirate that rules Nevrym.'

  'The third?' asked Moriana, intrigued despite her anger.

  'We're another.' Darkwood doffed his triangular cap and bowed. 'The last is the trees, of course.'

  'The trees?' Moriana scoffed.

  'He's telling the truth. Do you think you could find your way to the Tree again unaided?'

  'Of course.' She glared at Fost. She was a veteran warrior. Once she'd passed over terrain she knew it by heart.

  'Of course,' agreed Darkwood, in an infuriating imitation of the woman's voice, 'provided your intentions were peaceful toward the forest and its various inhabitants. Were they otherwise, your part
y might wander lost until you died of starvation.' He smoothed straw-colored hair back from his forehead. 'Only foresters can find their way unimpeded by the trees' magic. And where our allies of wood don't want us, we generally don't go.'

  'But your people are well armed and prepared for invasion.' Moriana was genuinely puzzled. The many-tiered keep carved into the heart of the Tree was meant to serve as a fortress, its outer walls dotted with arrow slits and its interior honeycombed by well-stocked caches of emergency stores. Most of the humbler dwellings of the foresters were built like birds' nests high up and secure in the embrace of anhak limbs, reachable only by ladders.

  'It's not unknown for Nevrymin to settle their little differences by force of arms. We are individualists at heart and not prone to taking commands of others.' Reminded of this, Moriana recalled that most battles the Nevrymin fought were internecine. That was the key to the seeming puzzle of a jovial king in Nevrym named Grimpeace.

  It had been Fost who explained this to her.

  'He's a friendly man, but he's friendly because we come as friends. He earned his name by the way he imposed order in Nevrym when he acceded to the Tree twenty-three years ago. The Nevrymin all respect the Tree, but they're divided into factions as antagonistic and rivalry-ridden as tenement blocks in The Teeming. North Nevrymin, Central Nevrymin, Eastcreekers, Coastrunners, a score in all. Few of the factions were inclined to pay much heed to the authority of a boy who'd scarcely started to sprout his first growth of beard. They learned what the young king offered was a grim peace, indeed. Since then, banditry and sectional strife in Nevrym have been at an all-time low.

  'Then, too,' said Darkwood, all trace of mirth vanished from his blue eyes, 'it isn't unknown for Nevrymin to guide outwoods foes along these ways in defiance of tradition and the trees.'

  'What kind of man would do that?' asked Ziore in wonder. Her empathy gave her an appreciation keener even than Fost's of the sacred nature of the compact between men and beasts and trees.

  'You've met one, I fancy.' Darkwood's voice turned winter cold. 'Fairspeaker by name.'