The shouts and hoots of many creatures came from the tanglewood. A flock of birds wheeled about the canopy of leaves. In the heights, woodikin moved along ropes and platforms that led between lines of small, low huts that were cantilevered out from a number of thick branches. In the higher branches of the tanglewood, all was light and activity. Below on the ground was different. The thick tangle of branches above crowded out the light, plunging the floor of the wood into a deep gloom, allowing very little to grow there.
Talen and the others came to the outer edge of the wood, and the leader halted them. The many woodikin who had continued to follow them gathered around, watching. The woodikin troop leader yelled at the crowd. He yelled again, and the crowd moved back.
The lowest branches of this part of the tanglewood soared forty feet above the ground. Woodikin on one of the largest branches threw down a dozen ropes that were knotted every foot or so. A number of the warriors that had captured Talen and the others began to swarm up the ropes.
The leader watched them climb, then produced a knife and turned to Talen and the others. He licked his lips. “You will climb,” he said. “You will follow me. If you run, I will kill you. Agreed?”
“Agreed,” said Harnock.
“Agreed?” the leader prompted again, looking at Talen and River.
“Agreed,” Talen and River both said.
The leader bared his teeth, stroked his long moustache, then walked up to each of them and untied their bonds. He stepped back, watching them as if he expected them to run.
Talen rolled his back and shoulders. He rubbed his wrists where the cords had bit into them and swung his arms trying to get the feeling back into his fingers. He was parched. His spittle had dried at the corners of his mouth and around his lips. “Do you have water?” he asked the leader.
“You will not speak,” said the leader. “You will climb.”
Talen’s tongue was sticking to the roof of his dry mouth. But he didn’t want to provoke the leader. Nor did he want to fall. So despite his thirst, he began to increase his Fire.
“Up,” said the leader and motioned toward the branch.
Harnock motioned for Talen and River to take a rope.
Talen grabbed one that was close; he grasped the knots with his hands, pressed down on others with the soles of his feet, and began to climb. The leader watched them for a while, then took another rope. Like the other woodikin, he seemed to race up the rope with great ease. He beat Talen to the top and climbed onto the wide branch just as Harnock did.
Talen climbed onto the branch, then turned to help River up. She was sweating and grimacing and clearly not yet fully recovered from her brush with death.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
She gritted her teeth. “I’ll make it,” she said.
But he took her hand anyway to keep her from falling.
The top of the fat tree branch was lined with a crisscrossed runner of thin rope, almost like a long mat. As they walked, he became grateful for the traction it provided. There were also guide ropes looped through small sturdy branches that seemed to have been grown just for that purpose. However, the guide ropes were built for woodikin and were too low to use without crouching.
Talen looked down at the ground forty feet below and the crowd of woodikin looking up at them. Hundreds of feet above, woodikin traversed rope bridges and branches. It made him dizzy, and he focused on the branch in front of him.
“Come,” said the leader.
They followed the fat branch to the trunk of the massive tree, walked straight through a tunnel to the other side and followed another branch leading away. The branches did indeed tangle, growing from one tree to the next, wrapping and intertwining. However, it appeared that the growth wasn’t haphazard. There was an order to it. In the distance a perfectly arched bridge spanned a gap in the tanglewood. The arched bridge was still alive with greenery. In fact, the whole length was covered with living wood that had been trained into lattices.
They came to a branch that sloped from the lower branch to a higher one. Rope mats lined the surface. Guide posts grew out of the sides to hold the safety ropes. There were also bumps protruding at even intervals along the upper length of the branch. They weren’t blocky human stairs, but the leader and the other woodikin scrambled up the branch using them as steps. Talen and the others followed.
They traveled along another branch that split, up a bridge, across another branch, up a rope, another bridge—always up. Talen was sweating and panting from the climb. He watched River, making sure she didn’t stumble.
They finally joined a wide road, formed where numerous branches from two parallel curving lines of trees met. The road was wide and flat on the top, wide enough for ten woodikin to run abreast with ease. Supporting branches grew in arches above the road. Branches acting as struts grew up to it from beneath. As before, the rope mats lined the wood walkway although the rope here was more worn. He looked over the side of the railing to the gloom below. They were at least a hundred and fifty feet in the air.
Half of him was scared to death of what the woodikin might do to them. But the other half looked about in wonder at what the woodikin did with their tanglewood trees. From the outside, he’d expected all to be a dense wild tangle, like a huge briar. But here it was all graceful order. Great open spaces reached to the the sky and let in the light. There were houses, walkways, flowers and fronds growing in the crooks of limbs, and other plants growing into the flesh of the tanglewood tree itself. Tree limbs had been trained into a variety of shapes.
He passed a branch that led away from this main road to a line of huts standing perhaps twenty yards away on another branch. The huts had been, not built, but grown from a curving lattice of limbs and daubed with something to make them tight. A small flock of bright red and white birds perched atop a limb that grew out of one of the houses. They startled and took flight.
To the side of another house grew a knot of branches. A small woodikin child played among them. As they walked, the sound of odd pipes or flutes carried to them from the distance as did the hoots and chattering of other woodikin.
They finally came to the massive trunk of a tree and stopped. In the crook of a branch was a dry oval basin. Wooden cups were tied to the railing. The leader unplugged a tube that was embedded into the bark of the tree above the dry basin. Water flowed out of the tube. He filled his cup and drank. There were four other tubes. The warriors unplugged these and drank as well. Talen wondered how much water moved up and down the length of such a massive tree.
Talen tried to swallow, but his mouth was too dry. He despaired that the leader would refuse them a drink, but when all the warriors had finished, the leader motioned Talen and the others forward.
Talen took the cup from the leader’s hand and filled it. The sap was clear and fluid as water, but when he drank it, there was a slight bitter and leafy taste to it. Nevertheless, it was cool and felt wonderful on his throat.
He went to fill his cup again, but the leader plugged the tube.
Talen bowed. “Thank you,” he said, wanting so much to beg him to unplug the tube again.
The leader glared at him. “You will move.”
Talen and the others continued along this wide road, deeper and deeper into the wood, until they came to a place where an oval gap in the trees stretched at least fifty yards across. On the ground at the bottom way below, a few woodikin tended a small herd of spotted boar. From there to the top of the tanglewood, the branches of the trees surrounding the gap were filled with woodikin structures. Many were larger than the huts he’d seen to this point. However one at the top stood out from all the rest.
Up another level from Talen, at the top of a gigantic tree, grew a building five times the size of any of the others. Its limbs had been trained into graceful whirls and fanciful shapes. There was a wildcat, a bear, a flock of birds, a snake, and one bough
that wrapped around the whole thing that looked like a trailing swarm of wasps. Flowers and vines grew from crooks and crannies, trailing down into the air below, although some had turned brown with the change in season.
Armed woodikin stood on platforms below and around this building. The only path to the entrance was to follow a short bridge, wide enough for only one person, to a platform, and then a wider path from that first platform to another at the front of the house.
The leader left them and ascended to the house. As they waited, Talen listened to an odd but beautiful tune being played on some kind of flute in the distance with drums and then to a noisy flock of birds that flew into a tree only to rush out again.
The leader soon returned. He said, “You will put your hands behind your backs.”
Talen and the others did so. The leader bound them tightly with cords. “When you see the Great Queen, you will go upon the floor. Agreed?”
“Agreed,” said Talen and the others.
The leader grunted and walked up the bridge to the first platform. Harnock and River followed. Talen brought up the rear, but with his hands tied behind his back, it was difficult to keep his balance. He tried to soften his focus so he couldn’t see how far below the ground was. He watched River, hoping she didn’t fall. From a variety of positions around the clearing, a number of inhabitants of the tanglewood stopped to watch Talen and the others. The leader ascended to the second platform in front of the large house. Talen and the others followed and found a number of warriors standing there as well as some woodikin females.
On a large branch to the side of the platform sat a woodikin wearing a mantle of black feathers worked with others that were cornflower blue. A rope festooned with silver bangles hung at his waist. Behind him was a long rent in the tree. Wasps flew in and out of it, and Talen suspected the woodikin was one of the famed wasp lords.
The troop leader halted them in the middle of the platform before the house. It was obviously an audience area. Now that Talen was closer to the house, he saw that the figures of the wasps and other animals around the house had not been carved in the wood. The wood had instead been grown into those shapes. The skill to do such a thing was amazing. A silken cushion lay on a raised dais in front of the house. Behind that stood a door beautifully carved in filigree.
A large woodikin stood by the cushion. He and the troop leader exchanged words, and then the troop leader turned to Talen and the others. “You will go down.”
Harnock knelt on the platform. Talen and River followed his lead.
“Down,” said the leader and pushed their heads to the floor.
“Leave the talking to me,” said Harnock.
As they prostrated themselves, a shrunken old female arrayed in bright, multi-colored feathers appeared from one side of the wide recess and took her seat on the silken cushion. The woodikin on the platform bowed.
The old queen spoke to the troop leader for a few minutes. He presented her with the wurm’s egg. A number of the woodikin chirped at the sight of it. Then she turned to Talen and the others. “We finally meet, Strange Trader. The trees favor those who love them.”
Talen was surprised, not only to hear her speak Mokaddian, but that she spoke it so clearly. She had an accent, but he’d heard Mokaddian uplanders that were harder to understand than she.
“We cannot love like those who dance in their boughs, but we respect,” said Harnock.
“Maybe,” said the queen. “But maybe you still deserve death.”
Harnock did not reply.
“What did you and these other skinmen do to anger the Orange Slayers?”
One of the woodikin females spoke in low tones to the others on the platform. Talen suspected she was translating for the other woodikin.
Harnock did not look up, but spoke to the floor in front of his face. “I did nothing, Great Mother. The Orange Slayers are excrement eaters and do not honor their obligations.”
“Some would argue woodikin are fools to bind themselves to skinmen. Honor is not in a skinman’s nature. We might as well bind ourselves to toads.”
“I am not so wise as to be able to argue with a Great Mother,” said Harnock, still looking down.
“True,” she said. “And who are these with you?”
“A wife, Great One,” said Harnock. “And her brother.”
“Just a brother?”
“Nothing more,” said Harnock.
“And that is how easily skinmen lie,” said the queen. “The Orange Slayers seek him for their masters.”
Talen swallowed.
From the side of his eye, Harnock glanced over at Talen. He paused, made some decision, and addressed the floor in front of him again. “I ask you Great Mother to look at him. He’s a sack of skin and bones. A skinman child. If the Orange Slayers said they want him, I believe they did it to mislead you.”
“And why would they do that, Strange Trader.”
Harnock’s face turned bitter. He glanced over at Talen. “To hide the true thing they value.”
“And what is that?”
“Me,” Harnock lied.
“You?”
“What do they offer?” asked Harnock. “I’m sure I can pay you more.”
“Why do they want you?”
“Because they fear me,” said Harnock.
“And yet you run from them. Besides, you are an Orange Slayer friend. Why should they fear a friend?”
“There is a war among the skinmen, Great One. Me and mine fight against Mokad. Against those who raised your Orange Face enemies to power. The woodikin do not want me. Their masters do. Have your spies look. They will see Mokaddian warriors in your lands. They will see a Divine who uses two crows for eyes.”
“No Divine is supposed to come into our lands. That is the land agreement.”
“Nevertheless, he is there. You will see. You will see his crows. Help us, and we can strike a blow against your enemies.”
The queen thought. “Or I can give you to them to show our goodwill. I can make an ally.”
“Mokad does not make allies,” said Harnock. “Mokad only makes slaves. Just as it has made a slave of the Great Mother of the Orange Slayers.”
The translator finished Harnock’s words. Murmurs rose among the woodikin on the platform. The queen hooted once and silenced them.
Harnock said, “The Great Mother of the Orange Slayers wears a collar made by skinmen. The skinmen of Mokad use this to bind the wearer to its master. But not with the obligations of the woodikin. It binds the wearer against her will. Turns her traitor to all but the collar’s will.”
The queen considered Harnock for a moment. She said, “I have seen this collar you speak of. It gives the Orange Face Mother great power. But I have seen no master.”
“Do you think those who slaughtered your ancestors would give great power without a great price?”
The translator finished Harnock’s statement and the platform fell silent. In the distance, woodikin chattered and howled.
“Great Mother, what is their offer? I’ll give you more.”
She ignored him and said something in woodikin to the troop leader. Moments later he and a few of the warriors brought forward the packs Talen and the others had carried. They spread the contents out on the floor in front of the queen.
There was netting for hammock beds, some rope, food, flint for starting fires. All of the normal things travelers would carry. The leader opened Harnock’s sack and pulled out the small rough box Talen had seen and a sack with a few other things that looked like jewelry, but what were probably weaves.
The queen stood and surveyed the contents spread out on the floor. She opened the rough box with her toe to reveal another box of silver inlaid with graceful loops and whirls of gold. That had to be the Book of Hismayas. The queen picked it up.
“I beg the Great Mother to be
careful,” said Harnock. “There is an evil power in that thing. It has killed many skinmen.”
The queen turned it over in her hands. It wasn’t like a regular codex with a spine and pages. Nor was it a scroll. Uncle Argoth had told him stories of those who had died trying to open it. Talen’s own father had barely escaped that fate.
“What is this?” the queen asked.
Talen glanced at River.
Harnock said, “It carries the soul of a dead one who had great power. We go to deliver it to those that can set it free. I beg the Great Mother to close it up again. To put the evil away.”
The queen ran her hand over the silver and gold pattern once more. Then she put the book back. She looked at the other weaves and stirred them with her toe. She motioned at the contents of the packs on the floor. “This is what you offer? I can get more from those that live in holes.”
“I can get you wurm eggs,” he said.
She dismissed him. “You will go to the Orange Slayers.”
“Great Mother,” Harnock said, but she was walking away, back into her splendid house.
River spoke. “I can give you one of the black rings,” she said. “The ones that turn the Orange Face warriors into terrors.”
The queen stopped.
“River,” Harnock warned.
“I can make you a ring,” River said.
The translator finished this statement. There was a pause, a silence, and then the woodikin on the platform began to hoot and jabber loudly in their language. The queen considered River for a moment, then silenced the other woodikin on the platform. “Skinwoman, do you think I am a stupid grub?”
“It is a bold claim,” said River. “But it is true.”
The queen bared her teeth. “And I must trust your word alone that you can do this thing?”
“I do not make promises I cannot keep,” said River.
“That is what you say,” scoffed the queen. The wasp lord said something in a low voice to the queen. The queen considered it. “If you can make a ring, then you can awaken one.”
Raveler: The Dark God Book 3 Page 7