“Who’s there?” Mr. Malikum looked up to see two men dressed in leather tabards branded with the image of a peregrine falcon. The holstered knives in their belts were not there for ceremony. The larger one, with a scar that ran from side to side over his scalp, was also wearing a smirk that he was not quite able to hide.
“Are you Mr. Malikum, father of Arktorious, the plumber’s boy?”
“Yes. I am. What is this about?” Ark’s father tried to sit up in his cot to face the unwelcome visitors, but the effort proved too much and he collapsed back.
“We’ve come with some unfortunate news,” said the first, as if he was reading from a script.
“It appears that your son has met with an accident,” said the second.
“He tripped and … fell off the edge.”
Mr. Malikum played his part well. “Oh my word. No! You mean he’s …?”
“I’m afraid so, sir.”
The sir was delivered with a curl of the guard’s lip, and to add further insult, the other guard pulled out a few bronze coins and chucked them casually onto the bed.
“Naturally, there’ll be an inquiry. Pretty straightforward, though. It appears that the stress of work became too much. He jumped!” And to emphasize the point, the guard jumped suddenly on the spot, thumping down forcefully on the thin boards.
Mr. Malikum didn’t disappoint. His shoulders shook as he huddled forward, scrabbling at the sheet covering his legs to wipe away nonexistent tears.
“Councillor Grasp is most sorry for your loss.” Speech over, the guards swung around and marched straight out of the house without so much as a backward look at the whimpering man. Outside, they nearly tripped over a young girl playing with a stick figure made out of twigs. She had tied a bit of string to it and was pushing it along the edge of the branch.
“Wheee!” she said over and over again, pushing the figure off the edge and then pulling it back up again.
“Poor kid,” said Alnus, the younger of the guards, as he rubbed his mustache.
“Squit me! Alnus going soppy over a sewer rat! Whatever next? We’ve got more serious matters to attend to.”
“Like what?”
“Like drinking ourselves stupid!”
“Yeah. Suppose so.”
“No ‘suppose’ about it. Come on! Let’s leave this Diana-forsaken heap of hovels. Job done.” The guards fell into step together and sauntered off into the gathering gloom.
“Father. I’m sorry.” Ark rose slowly from behind the worn curtains.
“Sorry? Why? You’re alive. That’s what counts. Now get yourself changed and stick the kettle on. Once we’re warmed up with a brew, you can tell me how you died!” There was a flicker of the old spirit in his father’s eyes.
After putting on some dry clothes, Ark moved the kettle back to the hot plate on top of the iron woodstove and waited until it whistled. Tea was a rare pleasure, even when bought secondhand. Arborium wasn’t completely cut off from the outside world. Its borders were as porous as a sieve when it came to supply and demand. The mud-pirates who lived in the twilight world a mile below at the bottom of the trees were only too happy to act as smugglers. They filtered through spices and coffee from Maw and delivered them to the dumb butlers that provided the only means of access to this country high aboveground. The two spoonfuls of the dried leaves now covered with steaming water had traveled far, just like the woman Ark had overheard. The difference was, a pot of tea didn’t present an absolute threat to their way of life.
The roughly carved wooden cup warmed his hands and as Ark sank to the floor, he realized how tired he was. It was time for the truth. He told his story for the second time that day.
When Ark had finished, his father stayed silent for a while, studying the leaves at the bottom of his empty cup as if they might reveal the future.
“What now, son?”
“What do you mean, ‘now’?” Ark was close to tears again as the despair closed in. “I can’t go back to work. I can’t earn any money. I can’t feed you and Shiv and Mom. I might as well have been banished to the Ravenwood for all the good I can do this family.”
“Hush. There’s always something you can do.” His father might be crippled, confined to his cot-basket, but there was a strong edge of certainty in his voice.
“What? The moment I walk out of here, there’ll be a price on my head. I’ve failed you. I’m just a —”
“You’re just a child. I know.” His father shook his head, then gently pushed Ark’s fringe of black hair aside to study the boy’s face. “And yet, there was always something different about you. There was me climbing a branch to work out why twigs kept clogging a drain, while the wind tried to pluck me off the tree like a feather!”
Ark had heard the story a hundred times. Usually, it was reassuring. Now it filled him with unanswered questions.
“And there you both were, swaddled in a feather-lined nest and smiling up at me with your strange green eyes.”
That whirlwind of an afternoon fourteen years ago, Mr. Malikum the plumber had gone out with a wrench and come back with two babies. His wife was shocked, then delighted. Who were they to refuse a gift of the trees?
“You were a miracle. Though why someone left you out there in the cold, Diana only knows. And your poor sister, Victoria, caught the fever. It took her so quick….” He shook his head, remembering.
After a day of mourning and the blessing of Warden Goodwoody, they laid the body of the baby out on the branches, dressed in rags, sacrificial food for the ravens. Apparently, Ark had screamed through the whole ceremony, only falling silent when the first bird came tumbling from the sky. Instead of claiming its clot of flesh, it had snatched his sister’s body and lifted off into the air, while its companions circled and cawed ferociously. Sometimes he tried to remember his last glimpse of his lost twin, but the picture in his mind was forever full of indistinct, swirling black feathers.
“You know we always loved you like our own?”
Ark nodded. Mr. and Mrs. Malikum were his dad and mom. And Shiv was his real, living sister. It was enough, almost. But Dad was right. Who would abandon them in the middle of nowhere? The question had nagged him through all his short years. But the answer was obvious. It was someone who obviously didn’t care. That was all he needed to know.
“We’ve always managed before and we will again. For tonight, there is nothing we can do except hand it over to Diana.” He briefly closed his eyes. The subject was closed. “Now then, have you eaten today?”
Ark shook his head dumbly. The chase had done him in. He was starving.
6• POISON GAS
Petronio had no difficulty keeping out of his father’s way the following morning. He slipped out after breakfast and joined the busy branchways, his own head crowded with the events of the day before.
When the guards had brought back the news of Ark’s death, Petronio had been mildly surprised by his own reaction. He looked for regret but could find none. In fact, he was significantly more upset at his treatment from the two new guards. To be dragged in front of his father like a naughty schoolboy was an affront to his pride. He would not forget that moment, that was for sure. When the time was right, he’d make them pay dearly.
Petronio shouldered his way through the throng, squeezing past several frustrated horsemen, a cart piled high with onions from the scaffields and a bleating flock of sheep stuck in the sea of faces. He was amazed that more people didn’t tip over the edge as they scurried to work. The safety ropes helped, but council lane-widening programs didn’t stop the sheer numbers using them.
Why couldn’t some of these commoners move out of Hellebore and reinhabit the old plague settlements out in the wilds? The disease had long gone, apart from the odd isolated outbreak, but Dendrans were a superstitious bunch. And in the capital, there was work to be had, so they congregated like flies. Petronio gritted his teeth and pushed on through. If his father took over as president of a new republic, perhaps he might begin with a
bit of forced population reduction.
Petronio looked up to see how little light was filtering through the leaves. The clouds were thick and gray today, threatening a repeat of yesterday’s storm. Down here, several levels below the canopy, the lack of light turned the walkways and roads into a land of shadows that the hiss and flare of gas lamps did little to dispel.
The School For Surgeons was imposing in the distance. Vast windows shouted its importance and status. The wooden structure was six-sided, rearing up on an impressively engineered platform that was supported between four sturdy trunks. The operating theaters took over the top floor, skylights capturing the greater share of daylight. Trainees like him had to make do with the darker lecture halls on the ground floor. As he pulled open the outer door, the familiar smell of formaldehyde folded around him.
Inside, he nodded at a few faces as he took his place on the tiered seats rising in a semicircle around the main podium. If only he could tell his friends what he’d heard. They’d be more than impressed. But friends was really too strong a word. All the young men here were careful around Petronio, knowing full well his father’s reputation. He would never admit it publicly, but he liked the way his fellow students treated him. Fear was a useful weapon.
This morning was General Studies and the elderly bald eagle of a lecturer was wittering on about a bunch of stuff that Petronio knew backward.
“The evolution of the forest and the Dendran society that depends on it bears examination,” droned the lecturer in his dried-leaf voice. “We came from the trees and strangely, after many thousands of years, we have returned to them. For the explanation behind this new direction, we must thank our great philosopher Darewin.” The teacher tapped a picture on his corkboard of a man doing something dull in a library.
Petronio didn’t bother hiding his yawn.
“At that time, the earth was poisoned by those who went before. How could the trees and our ancestors live off water from rivers long dead and soil that was dirtied by cities? Desperate times bred both desperate measures and inspiration! Trees have always fought for their share of light. As Darewin put it, only the strongest triumph.”
Petronio nodded. The old fuddy-buddy was making sense at last.
The lecturer paused, pointing to another picture of a sapling that would have looked insignificant but for the minute figure of a grown man next to it. “The superstitious say that the trees are conscious. They knew the earth was polluted and to survive they must dig deeper with their roots. As the rest of the world was turning into one huge city, something different was happening in Arborium.”
The keener students were taking notes, but Petronio’s mind wandered from the mention of growing ever higher to the notion of falling. He tried to imagine Ark’s strange leap into the unknown. What split-second thoughts had propelled him over the edge? It was a long jump from being a pushed-around nobody to taking your own life. Or was it? Petronio’s hands instinctively made the sign of the Woodsman Cross: Earth Over, Sky Under, Leaves to East & West. But then he stopped and determinedly folded his arms. What was the point in ancient, useless habits? Prayers were for the weak. He had his future to consider now.
“The philosopher called it ‘evolution,’ a fascinating process wherein the trees that developed deeper roots and taller trunks survived, as did the Dendrans by removing themselves from the foul earth into this cradle of branch and twig. We could almost say, if you’ll permit me a pun on Darewin’s behalf, Trees Who Dare, Win!”
There were a few groans, but no one laughed.
The lecturer carried on regardless. “The religionists tell other stories, clothing facts in a fantasy of goddesses and trees that think for themselves. And some families still follow the old superstitions. It is pure barbarism, sacrificing a boar to appease the Raven Queen! Those ravens really are not ‘birds of death,’ merely by-products of nature!” His smirk was at last rewarded with a few intellectual guffaws from his audience. “Precisely. Dendrans can believe what they wish, but my task is to deal with reality. So, whatever your take on the origin of species, one remarkable change emerged. It was as if this new genus of tree had a built-in code for self-protection. The skunk emits a revolting odor from a gland near its back passage to ward off predators, yes?”
This raised a few titters from the more loutish lads in the audience.
“And the hedgehog becomes an impenetrable phalanx of spears. So it is with our hybrid trees. As they grew ever taller and the original humans abandoned their old, ground-dwelling ways, it was noticed that travelers to the shores of Arborium would immediately fall ill as they set foot upon land. And why was that?” He pointed his marker pen directly at Petronio.
Every student’s face swiveled around, expecting the usual sarcastic, clever response.
“Gas … sir.” The manner in which Petronio addressed his lecturer did not hide his contempt. And he would get away with it. No one gave the High Councillor’s son a detention.
“Exactly, young Grasp. The roots of these new species delved deeper into the earth’s crust, burrowing beneath our ancestors’ dirty landfills, searching for clean sources of water and minerals. But the roots, almost with minds of their own, made another discovery. They finally pierced reserves of undiscovered gas. For the tree dwellers, it was a defining moment with infinite possibility. The trees themselves had no use for it, but for the human parasites who populated the canopy, it was the leverage needed to get off the ground: a free source of heat and power! The trees provided warmth, habitat, and clean water for all the creatures emerging to live high up in the canopy. In turn, we newly evolving Dendrans could defend the forest from outside interference. Give-and-take. Nature truly is remarkable, though we can safely leave the realm of talking trees to children’s tales.”
The old man smiled and scratched at a scab on his shiny head. “But the cleverest piece of the puzzle was yet to come. Somewhere in the trees’ biological makeup, the roots that tapped the gas also instituted a filtering process. The gas was cleaned up, so to speak, the waste siphoned out and released as a harmless odor by the leaves. Harmless to Dendrans and other tree dwellers, that is. And so, this relationship has worked well for generations and those from outside who seek to infiltrate our country now pay the ultimate price of … asphyxiation!”
A few of the boys made deliberate strangling noises as they clutched their own necks.
“Yes, yes. Very amusing, I’m sure. But perhaps you wouldn’t find my words so hilarious if our little nation was under attack, hmm?”
If only the lecturer knew the half of it, mused Petronio.
A bell sounded and everyone started packing up their books.
“Your essays by tomorrow, please,” the professor called over the hubbub. “Remember, you are supposed to debate the difference between the so-called religious creation myths of Diana and her dark consort, Corwenna, compared to the hard facts of evolutionary dendra-chronology.”
The pupils ignored their teacher, pouring out of the hall for break. One of the other students offered Petronio a cheroot. He had no objections to a bit of false friendship, especially if it involved a free smoke. He joined the small group of boys in their secretive puffing outside and drifted along with them when they headed to the corner of a public square. Tables were laid out along one side in preparation for the lunchtime trade. A waiter sweeping the floor free of pigeon droppings and twigs scowled at the students, making it plain that it was not their custom he was after.
Petronio leaned back against a support column, not joining in with the banter. He watched the ever-moving flow of Dendrans pouring across the boarded platform and carefully stubbed out the cheroot. Starting a forest fire was in no one’s best interests. Petronio debated whether he could be bothered to hang around any longer when a figure caught his eye. It was a Holly Woodsman with hood up and trailing cloak, purposefully crossing the square. Nothing unusual about that — except there was something in the way the Woodsman moved, appearing almost to glide, rather than stride.
Then Petronio’s eyes traveled down to see not rough sandals but expensive, neat, fur-lined boots.
“Excuse me, lads. Gotta go.” Petronio didn’t bother to say thanks. He never did. The figure had already vanished from view. He ran across the square, not knowing quite why he wanted to follow. It was just instinct. Around a corner, the branch split. Left or right? Petronio sniffed the air like a hunter. A scent hung there. It seemed familiar. He veered right and followed the twisting branchway, trying not to run. Up ahead, the Woodsman came back into view, moving with the same intent pace. At each turning, the Woodsman took the fork that seemed to lead ever farther off the beaten track until even Petronio began to wonder where they were.
An old, weather-beaten sign warned that the way ahead was closed for repairs. The Woodsman ignored it, climbed nimbly over, and continued down the disused branch line. Petronio paused, his eyes nervously scanning the treescape. If he kept following now, it would be more than obvious. Up above, a couple of wild timber goats were perched on high branches that looked like they wouldn’t support a sparrow, let alone a cloven-hoofed mammal. The goats didn’t even bother looking at the stranger below, too busy grazing on the fungus blossom that covered the bark.
A sudden cry from farther along interrupted Petronio’s indecision, followed by a thud. Robbers? He doubted it. His father ran the protection rackets with an iron fist. Criminal free enterprise had been stamped out. Maybe it was the ravens. But whoever heard of a raven attacking a priest?
There was another cry, closer now. “Help!”
Instinct again. Petronio leapt over the warning sign and ran wildly down the line. The figure had collapsed. A horrible rattling sound was bubbling from the Woodsman’s throat. Only as Petronio drew closer did he remember where he’d first come across that scent.
“My … lady?”
“Help … need …” The fine, thin fingers with bright red nails were scrabbling toward a leather bag at her side.
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