Beneath the trees they gloze and gleam, And whirl and play and dance and dream Of wider woods beyond the sea Where they shall dwell eternally.
After he had finished, Maram rubbed his beard and said, 'I thought that was just a myth from the Lost Ages.'
'I hope not,' Master Juwain said.
'Well, wherever we are, it seems that we've finally lost the Stonefaces. Val, what do you think?'
I closed my eyes for a moment, trying to feel for the snake wrapping its coils around my spi^But my whole being seemed suddenly free from any wrongness. Even the burning of the kirax was cooled by the breeze blowing through the woods.
'We might have lost them,' I agreed. All around us grew fireflowers and starflowers and violets. In the trees, a flock of blue birds like none I had ever seen trilling out the sweetest of songs. I had only ever dreamed a place that felt so alive as this. 'Perhaps they lost our scent.'
'Well, then,' Maram said, 'why don't we celebrate? Why don't we break out some of your father's fine brandy that we've been toting all the way from Mesh?'
We all agreed that this was a good idea; even Master Juwain consented to breaking his vows this one time. Atara, who might have chided him for going against his principles, seemed happy at the moment to honor the greater principle of celebrating life. After Maram had cracked the cask and filled our cups with some brandy, she eagerly held her nose over the smoky liquid as if drawing in its perfume. Master Juwain- touched his tongue to it and grimaced; one might have thought he was touching fire. Then Maram raised his cup and called out, 'To our escape from the Stonefaces. Surely these woods won't abide any evil.'
Just as he was about to fasten his thick lips around the rim of his cup, a lilting voice called back to him from somewhere in the trees: 'Surely they won't, Hairface.'
A man suddenly stepped from behind a tree thirty yards away. He was short and slight, with curly brown hair, pale skin and leaf-green eyes. Except for a skirt woven of some silvery substance, he was naked. In his little hands he held a little bow and a flint-tipped arrow.
The unexpected sight of him so startled Maram that he spilled his brandy over his beard and chest. Then he managed to splutter, 'Who are you? We didn't know anyone lived here. We mean you no harm, little man.'
Quick as a wink, the man drew his arrow straight at Maram and piped out, 'Sad to say, we mean you harm big man. So sad, too bad.'
And with that, even as Maram, Atara and I reached for our weapons, the little man let loose a high-pitched whistle that sounded like tne trilling of the blue birds.
Immediately, others of his kind appeared from behind trees in a great circle around us two hundred yards across. There were hundreds of them, and they each held a little bow fitted with an arrow.
'Oh, my Lord!' Maram cried out. 'Val, what shall we do?'
So, I thought, this was why the Stonefaces hadn't followed us here: we had ridden from one danger into a far greater one. I decided that the woodcraft of these little men must be very great for them to have stolen upon us unheard and unseen. But why, I wondered, hadn't I sensed them stalking me? Surely it was because in trying to close myself to the Stonefaces, I had also closed myself to them.
'Put down your weapons,' the man said as I drew my sword. 'Please, please don't move.'
At another of his whistles, the circle of little people began to close around us as both men and women approached us through the trees. It occurred to me that their strategy wasn't the best, for many of them stood in each other's line of fire should they loose their arrows at us and miss their marks. And then, after watching the graceful motions of their leader as he stalked me, it occurred to me that they wouldn't miss their marks. There was nothing to do except put down our weapons as he had said.
'Come, come,' he told me from in front of a tree where he had stopped ten yards away. The others had now closed their circle some twenty yards around us. 'Now stand away from your beasts, please - we don't want to pierce them.'
'Val!' Maram called to me. 'They mean to murder us - I really think they do!'
So did I think this. Or rather, I sensed that they intended to execute us for the crime of violating their woods. It was sad, I thought, that after facing seeming worse dangers together, we should have to die like cornered prey in this strange and beautiful wood.
'Come, come,' the man said again, 'stand away. It's sad to die, and bad to die like this - but it will be worse the longer we put it off.'
There was nothing to do, I thought, but die as he had said. For each of us, a time comes to say farewell to the earth and return to the stars. Now, at the sight of two hundred arrows pointing at our hearts, each of us faced his coming death in his own way. Master Juwain began chanting the words to the First Light Meditation. Maram covered his eyes with his forearm, as if blocking out the sight of the fierce little people might make them go away. He cried out that he was a prince of Delu and I a prince of Mesh. He promised them gold and diamonds if they would put down their bows; he told them, to no effect, that we were seekers of the Lightstone and that they would be cursed if they harmed us. Atara calmly reached back into her quiver for an arrow. She obviously intended to slay at least one more man and end her life in a joyous fight. I did not. It was bad enough that I should feel the great nothingness pulling me down into the dark; why, I wondered, should I inflict this terrible cold on men and women who sought only to protect their forest kingdom? And so, at last, I stood away from Altaru. I stood as tall and straight as I could. I lifted my hand from the hilt of my sword to brush back my hair, which my sweat had plastered to the side of my face. Then I looked at the man with the leaf-green eyes and waited.
For a moment - the longest of my life - the little man stood regarding me strangely.
Then his drawn bow wavered; he relaxed the pull on his bowstring and pointed straight at my forehead. To the other men and women behind and all around him he said, 'Look, look - it's the mark!'
A murmur of astonishment rippled around the circle of little people. I noticed then that on each of their bows was burned a jagged mark like that of a lightning bolt.
'How did you come by the mark?' the man asked me.
'It was there from my birth,' I told him truthfully.
'Then you are blessed,' he said. 'And I am glad, so glad, for there will be no killing today.'
Maram let out a cry of thanksgiving while Atara still held her arrow nocked on her bowstring. The man asked her if she would consent to putting it away; otherwise, he said, his people would have to shoot their arrows into her arms and legs.
'Please, Atara,' I said to her.
Although obviously hating to disarm herself, Atara put her arrow back into her quiver and stowed her bow in the holster strapped to her horse.
'Too bad that we must bind you now,' the man said. 'But you understand the need for it, don't you? You big people are so quick with your weapons.'
So saying, he whistled again, and several women came forward with braided cords to bind our hands behind our backs. When they were finished, the man said, 'My name is Danali. We will take you to a place where you can rest.'
After presenting myself and each of the others in turn, I asked him,
'What is this place? And what is the name of your people?'
'This is the Forest,' he said simply. 'And we are the Lokilani.' And with that he turned to lead us deeper into the woods.
Chapter 14
We walked in line trailing our horses with the Lokilani swarming around us. With the abandon of children, they touched our garments and let out cries of surprise at Atara's leather trousers, and most of all at the steel links of my armor. I gathered that none of them had seen such substances before. They were all dressed as was Danali, in simple skirts of what appeared to be silk. Many wore emerald or ruby pendants dangling from their delicate necks; a few of the women also sported earrings but were otherwise unadorned. None of them wore shoes upon their leathery feet.
Danali led us beneath the great trees, which seemed to grow
still greater with every mile we moved into them. Here, in the deep woods, elms and maples mingled with the oaks. In places, however, we passed through groves of much lesser trees that were scarcely any taller than those of Mesh. They appeared all to be fruit trees: apple and cherry, pear and plum. Many were in full flower with little white petals covering them like mounds of snow; many were laden with red, ripe apples or dark red cherries. That they should bear fruit in Ashte seemed a miracle, and not the only one of those lovely woods. It amazed me to see deer in great numbers walking through the apple groves as if they had nothing to fear from the many Lokilani with their bows and arrows.
When Maram suggested that Danali should shoot a couple of them to make a feast for dinner, he looked at him in horror and said, 'Shoot arrows into an animal? Would I shoot my own mother, Hairface? Am I wolf, am I weasel, am I a.bear that I should hunt animals for food?'
'But what do you eat in these woods, then?' Maram asked as he shuffled along with his hands bound behind his back.
'We eat apples; we eat nuts - and much else. The trees give us everything we need.'
The Lokilani, as we found, wouldn't even eat the eggs taken from birds' nests or honey from the combs of the bees. Neither did they cultivate barley or wheat or any such vegetables as carrots, peas or beans. The only gardens they kept grew other glories from the earth: crystals such as clear quartz, amethyst and starstone as well as garnets, topaz, tourmaline and more precious gems. I marveled at these many-colored stones erupting from the forest floor like so many new shoots. They seemed always to be planted - if that was the right word - in colorful, concentric circles around trees like I had seen before only in my dreams. Though not very tall these trees spread out like oaks, and their bark was silver like that of maples. But it was their leaves in all their splendor that made me gasp and wonder where they had come from; the leaves on these loveliest of trees shimmered like millions of golden shields and were etched with a webwork of deep green veins. Danali called them astors. I thought that the astors - and the bright gemstones growing around them -
must be the greatest miracles of the Forest but I was wrong.
By a circuitous route that seemed to follow no logic or path, Danali led us through the trees to the Lokilani's village. This, however, was no simple assemblage of buildings and dwellings. Indeed, there were no buildings such as castles, temples or towers; neither were there streets, for the only dwellings the Lokilani had were spread out over many acres, each house being built beneath its own tree.
Danali escorted us toward one of these strange-looking houses. Its frame was of many long poles set into the ground in a circle and leaning up against each other so as to form a high cone. The poles were woven with long strips of white bark like that of birch. Around it grew many flowers: dahlias and daisies, marigolds and chrysanthemums - and other kinds for which I had no name. Someone had adorned the doorway with garlands of white and gold blossoms whose petals formed little, nine-pointed stars. It was an inviting entrance to a space that was to be home, hospital and prison for the next two days.
Inside we found a circular expanse of earth covered with golden astor leaves. A small firepit had been dug into the ground at the house's center, but there was no furniture other than beds of fresh green leaves. Danali explained that this was a house of healing; here we would remain until our bodies and spirits were whole again.
After setting a guard around our house, Danali saw to our every need. He had food and drink brought to us; he had our clothes taken away to be mended and cleaned.
That evening he led us under escort to a hot spring that bubbled up out of the ground near a grove of plum trees Several of the Lokiiani women climbed into the water with us and used bandruls of fragrant-smelling leaves to scrub us clean. One of them, a Pretty woman named Iolana, immediately captured Marams eye. She had long brown hair and the green eyes of all her people, but she was almost as small as a child, standing no higher than the top of Maram's belly. The difference in their sizes, however, did not discourage htm. When I remarked the incongruity of a moose taking up with a roe deer, he told me, 'Love will find a way, my friend. It always does. I'll be as gentle with her as a leaf settling onto a pond. Don't you find that there's something about these little people that inspires gentleness?'
I had to admit that, their bows and arrows not withstanding, the Lokilani were the least warlike people I had ever met They laughed easily and often, and they liked to sing to the accompaniment of each other's whistling or clapping of hands. They spoke with a light, lilting accent that was sometimes hard to understand, but they never spoke harshly or raised their voices, to one another or to us. Why they were so kind to us after nearly murdering us remained a mystery. Danali told us that all would be explained at a council to be held the next day, when we would be summoned to meet the Lokilani's queen. In the meantime, he said, we must rest and restore ourselves.
Toward this end, he later sent a beautiful woman named Pualani into our house. She had long, flowing chestnut hair and eyes as clear and green as the emerald she wore around her neck. They gleamed with concern as Master Juwain showed her the wound that Salmelu had cut into my side. With great gentleness, she pressed her warm fingers into my skin all around the wound, both in front and where his sword had emerged from my back. Then she had me drink a sweetish tea that she made and told me to lie back against my bed of leaves.
Almost immediately, I fell asleep. But strangely, all night long I was aware that I was sleeping, and also aware of Pualani pressing pungent-smelling leaves against my side.
I thought I felt as well the coolness of her emerald touching me. My whole body seemed to burn with a cool, green light. When I awoke the next morning, I was amazed to discover that my wound had completely healed. Not even a scar remained to mark my flesh and remind me of my sword fight.
'It's a miracle!' Maram exclaimed when he saw what Pualani had done. In the soft light filtering through curving white walls, he ran his rough hand over my side. 'This wood is full of magic and miracles.'
'It would seem so,' Master juwain said as he too examined me. 'It would seem that these people have much to teach us.'
As it happened, Master Juwain had much to teach them. When Pualani returned to check on me, she and Master Juwain began discussing herbs and various techniques of healing. She grew excited to discover that he knew of plants and potions of which she had never heard; then she invited him to walk among the trees so that she could show him the many medicinal mushrooms that grew in the Forest and nowhere else.
Later that day, after they had returned, Danali came to our house to escort us to a feast held in our honor. We all put on our best clothes: Maram found a fresh red tunic in the saddlebags of his pack horse while Master Juwain had only his newly cleaned green woolens. Atara, however, unpacked a yellow doeskin shirt embroidered with fine beadwork; it made a stark contrast with her dark leather trousers, but I liked it better than her studded armor. As for myself, I wore a simple black tunic emblazoned with the silver swan and seven stars of Mesh. Although I gladly left my mail suit in our house, I was more reluctant to abandon my sword.
The Lokilani, however, wouldn't allow weapons at their meals. And so Maram left his sword behind, too, and Atara her bow and arrows, and together we stepped out from our flower-covered doorway and followed Danali through the woods to the place of the feast.
The whole Lokilani village had assembled nearby in a stand of great astor trees.
There must have been nearly five hundred of them: men, women and children sitting on the leaf-covered ground and gathered around many long mats woven of long, green leaves. I saw at once that these mats served as tables, for they were heaped with bowls of food. Danali invited us to sit at a table beneath the boughs of a spreading astor, along with his wife and five children. And then, just as we were taking our places, Pualani walked into the glade. Her hair was crowned with a garland of blue flowers, and she wore a silvery robe that covered her from neck to ankle.
Although
we had supposed her to be quite young, she was accompanied by her grown daughter, who turned out to be none other than Iolana. With them walked her own husband, a slender but well-muscled man whom Danali introduced as Elan. He surprised us all by telling us that Pualani was the Lokilani's queen.
Pualani took the place of honor at the head of the table with Elan to her left. Master Juwain, Maram, Atara and I sat to one side of the table facing Danali and his family.
Iolana knelt directly beside Maram, and they both seemed quite happy with this arrangement. She gazed at him much more openly than would any maid of Mesh.
Without fanfare, toasting or speeches, the meal began as Pualani reached out to pass a bowl of fruit to Elan. I saw that at the other tables surrounding us, the Lokilani were circulating similar hand-woven bowls. There was much food to heap on top of our plates, which were nothing more than single but very large leaves. As Danali had promised, all of our meal had come from trees or bushes in the Forest. Fruits predominated, and I had never seen so many served in one place, blackberries and raspberries, gooseberries, apples and plums. There were cherries, pears and strawberries, too, in great abundance, as well as a greenish, apple-like thing that they called starfruit. And others. It was all quite ripe, and every piece I put into my mouth burst with fresh juices and sweetness. They made good use of the many seeds and nuts, which included not only familiar ones such as walnuts and hickories', but some very large brown nuts they called treemeats. Danali said that they were more sustaining than the flesh of animals; they tasted rich and earthy and seemed full of the Forest's strength. The Lokilani cooked! them into a thick stew, even as they baked a bread of bearseed and spread it with various nut butters and jams. As well, we were passed bowls of green shoots that I had thought only a squirrel could eat, and at least four kinds of edible flowers. For drink, we had cups of cool water and elderberry wine. Although it seemed this last was too sweet to drink in quantity, Maram proved me wrong. He let the Lokilani refill his cup again and again even more times than he refilled his own plate.
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