World Enough, and Time

by James Kahn

  Between the flow of the grog and the flow of the music, Joshua needed no prodding. When the others paused to catch their breaths, he sang out:

  “The Hunter is a cheerful sight, His hearth is warm, his fire bright, His songs they fill the winter night, Among the leaves so green-o”

  At which immediately he was joined in chorus:

  “So it’s hey down-down, ho down-down, Hey down ho down derry deny down, Among the leaves so green-o.”

  And on and on until, eventually, everyone tired of singing, and settled down to some serious storytelling. Jasmine was a great success at this, regaling her listeners with Aesop’s fables until the cows came home.

  Granpan made it halfway through the story of the fox and the lion when he started feeling chilly. The fire was dwindling to coals. Palm began cuddling up to him, and before he knew it, they were making their own loving heat under the cover of cool night and warm voices.

  Sugarpine found Josh again before too long. He was heavy with wine, light with music, deep with kinship, staring at the residual raindrops that hung on the tips of the willow leaves and sparkled like ripe tears in the firelight. As she snuggled into his weakly protesting arms, he felt the pressures of his trek dissolve into the temporary past and future. All he knew for the frozen moment: her chest on his chest, the wind on his back, starlight through the trees; and the calming susurration of soft-spoken background conversations like waves on the shore.

  Sunrise.

  Jarl strolled among his minions, growling jokes, biting ears. When he came to the breakfast coals where Joshua, Beauty, and Jasmine sat quietly talking, he stopped, smiled, sat. “My animals like you,” he nodded at them. “I hope you will stay with us.”

  Beauty, with even force: “We will not, sir.”

  The Bear-King lost his smile. “Then, sadly I must…”

  “You must convene a court, your Honor. We claim the right to trial by pack.”

  This was an ancient prerogative. If an animal so offended the social order that other animals began to turn on it, it could claim a tribal judgment rather than fight or flee. These judgments were binding and immediate. If the judgment was death, flight was no longer an option. This was before the time of Animal-Kings, though, when packs ran wild, and chaos burned across the land, in the years after the Ice. It was the way animals policed themselves and purged themselves. When the Kings came, there was no more need for pack-trial: the Kings were the Judges, they made the Law; or rather, the Law flowed through the Kings. Still, trial was an ancient prerogative. And Beauty Only to defend ourselves, only when forced. Such is our story.”

  There was a pause while the jurors rustled, whispered, scratched. Finally Jarl spoke. “I will waive my own opening statement on behalf of the Forest. Witnesses-For the accused, come forward and speak.” A long silence filled the glen, as animals looked up and back to see who would speak for the three who would fly in the face of Jarl’s wishes. Nobody moved. Only the leaves whispered urgently to each other, passing their opinions like an excited gallery. Just as Jarl was about to speak again, D’Ursu Magna stepped forward. “Animals, I speak for Beaute Centaur.” There was a hush. D’Ursu Magna was a Chieftain, and greatly respected. All animals gave him ear. “Some great time ago,” he went on—animals had only vague understanding of past or future beyond a span of days—“there was a great War. I fought with honor as did many of you, under our wise King Jarl, alongside countless brave animals, against the Humans who had for so long enslaved us, caged and humiliated us, experimented on us, bred us for their pleasures and our misery. In this noble War, my captain was Beaute Centauri.

  “A braver warrior did not exist, nor a truer animal. Many times when I was wounded, he saved my life at his own peril—once, on the Plains of Babar-Diin.”

  Many animals murmured here. Even creatures with the shortest of memories, who didn’t exactly remember the battle, still kept its feeling with them. D’Ursu continued: “Neither did Beaute Centauri ever break trust with animal, though he were sorely tested. In the second year of the War he trusted me to lower him by rope into the pit of the Mosian Firecaves, that he could retrieve a casket of gems hidden there, that we might use the stones to barter with the Humans for hostages. The fires taunted him all around, but he never flinched, saying only for me to lower him a little lower, for the jewels were not far.” There was silence, now, a collective shudder: the image of fire out of control, of an animal swinging in a pit of flame, he had spoken loudly enough so that many animals heard him. Heads turned. A silence fell.

  Jarl thought a few moments, staring at the ground. Finally he looked up. “And as it is your right, so you shall have it.”

  The jury, selected by Jarl, sat semicircle either side of his throne, facing the accused. They numbered eight: Granpan, Willow, Windo; Three-claw, an old Bear; Droo, the Owl; Gray, the She-Wolf; Louise, an Ursuman warrior; and Rool, a Rool. They sat somberly, four on a side, poised like the King’s judicial claws. The rest of the animals stood crowded around, listening, watching.

  Jarl began the proceedings. “This gathering is called not because your King would have it so, but because it is mete.” He paused for effect. The animals were quiet. “The accused have been asked to share our den, but have refused that they may revenge, in violation of Natural Animal Law. Furthermore, in their pursuit toward this end, animals have died. Accused, what say you?”

  Josh stepped forward. He addressed the jury. “My name is Joshua, Human, and Hunter, and Scribe …” He told their story completely once more. The animals listened attentively.

  When Joshua finished, Beauty said only, “I have nothing to add. Our mission is private, of no concern to you. We wish only to be on our way, to reclaim our people.”

  The jurists turned, then, toward Jasmine. She spoke briefly. “I’d just like to emphasize a few things. First, the idea of revenge should be irrelevant to your considerations. Whether we three feel vengeful or not is a matter for our hearts, not your verdict. The issue here is plain: animals attacked my friends’ families and killed without Justice. We have hunted these animals since then to save what family is left.

  “Second, I joined in this hunt because this Human saved my life, though he didn’t have to. It’s important for you to know this—his spirit is good.

  “And last, we have killed no animal without Justice. Fed the creatures of the forest like no other image.” Again, D’Ursu went on.

  “He carried small beasts on his back wherever he walked, just to give them rest. Once, we two bore a message of great import from Skorl, the Bear-Prince, to the western packs. Humans caught our sign, but Beaute Centauri ran howling into the north, leading the enemy wide that I might steal away in safety with our command. It even happened that—”

  “Enough!” roared Jarl from his throne. “This begins to tire us, D’Ursu Magna. It weighs not on the question at hand.”

  D’Ursu glowered at his King, but remained silent. The whole glade seemed to hush. Finally, D’Ursu spoke again; more quietly, but very near defiance. “He never spoke falsely, nor killed without Justice. He could have killed me in battle yesterday, but did not—again, to his own risk. If he says his hunt is just, I believe him. He has not the smell of deceit or Human sickness. He wishes to leave. Let him leave.”

  The animals all began chattering at once. D’Ursu Magna was a powerful voice in the Forest. But there was a more powerful voice. “Silence!” growled Jarl. There was silence. “Next witness,” he called.

  Beauty stepped forward. “Your Honor, I would like to speak.”

  “Defendants may not Witness their own acts,” the Bear-King reminded.

  “It is not myself I Witness,” said the Centaur, “it is Joshua. In the same War D’Ursu Magna spoke of, I also was wounded, near death, alone in hostile territory. My life was saved by this Human—my enemy. Under great danger to himself he harbored and nursed me—me, an animal and his sworn enemy—out of his love for me, and the animal virtues. Animals: this is no ordinary Human; this one ab
ides in the Heart of the Forest.” Beauty’s last line was a reference to an old animal legend with which all were familiar—in which it is said that the Heart of the Forest beats only once every millennium; that to find the Heart, one must see it as it beats; that to see it, one must first know what it looks like, and that to know it, one must abide in its very center at the moment of its beating. It was a special legend, and for Beauty to speak this way evoked a special response from every animal, even those with no love for the Human race.

  Jarl waited a considered moment, then called once for any last Witnesses-For, then called twice; and as his jaws opened for the last call, Sugarpine the Nymph stepped before the throne:

  “Wisdom,” she whispered, “I would speak for the Human.”

  “Address me not,” he growled soft as down. “Your words are for the jury.”

  She took one step back, to face the whole panel. “Friends,” she spoke barely more boldly, “last night he was tender to me.”

  There was a passage of time waiting for her to continue, but she did not. “Go on, child,” Jarl prodded.

  “That is all,” Sugarpine apologized meekly, then quickly retired back into the animal crowd.

  “Very well,” Jarl harrumphed. “Final call, Witnesses-For.”

  There was a small commotion in the middle of the gathering. The commotion worked its way forward quickly until it spewed into the arena a small surprise witness: Fofkin, the Elf.

  “Your Renowned Masterfulnesses,” squeaked the playful Elf. “I am Fofkin, prince and pauper, cousin to Siskin, your own beloved Elf. I came to your happy camp with me friend, Rool, three nights ago, or four, or maybe six. And I know these travelers.” He did a little somersault for emphasis. “Yes I do,” he went on. “Bad animals stole off me Mary. A Vampire, an Accident, and a Never-You-Mind. And these kind people stopped us nice as you please and said they were chasing the bad animals and they would get me Mary back if they could, and a fine fare-thee-well. I never kept a strong hope for me stolen darlin’, Your Very Highnesses, but these two had a moment to spend a kind word on our Troubles-we-never-asked-for, whilst they were surely boggled and bound with Troubles of their own.” He sat down lightly, dropped a single tear to the leafy ground, and added, “I didn’t even know they were here until the Trial started, but your Bountiful Skynesses, I hope you’ll let them go so they can find me Mary and send her home to me.” He did a double somersault, and, with a small commotion, vanished back into the crowd.

  Jarl cleared his throat. “Is that all?” his voice rumbled, suggesting that that had better be all. No one answered. “In that case,” he continued, “Witnesses-Against.”

  Three-Claw rose from his place beside Jarl. “He killed my sister,” he said, pointing at Joshua. Josh recognized Three-Claw, now, as one of the Bears who’d been singing the dead into Heaven last night. “It was battle,” replied Josh. “It was with Justice.” “Not if your mission was without Justice,” Jarl interjected. His impatient voice sobered the very leaves. “It seems to me,” he went on as if he’d been asked, “that the crux of this trial rests on the justice of your journey. Character witnesses for and against are neither here nor there. What this body must decide is the question of merit in a quest intimately involved with Venge-right. My position is clear on this matter: it has no merit; it must be stopped. It is part and parcel of the Human drive to control and it has no place in a free animal world.”

  “May I humbly submit, your Honor, that your years as a Human captive, forced to dance before jeering crowds, have colored your vision.” Only Jasmine dared speak this way against the force of Jarl’s vision. “Your Honor,” she continued, almost tauntingly, “you sound almost vengeful.”

  Jarl stood to his full height, and it was a frightening figure he cut. Not an animal breathed. “You mock me, Sister,” he almost whispered.

  “She meant nothing …” Beauty began, breaking an oily sweat.

  “I meant for Jarl the Wise to see that revenge is relative, like time,” Jasmine’s voice rose. “Animals know only of the present. Humans, to their grief, stand on the precarious moment as if it were a peak, and from the crumbling precipice view the panorama of the past behind, the future below. It’s a dizzying spectacle, your Honor, from a lonely post.” Something in the way she spoke caught them all—the jury, the audience, the Judge. Something that made the strangeness of her words familiar. “An animal struggles in the Now—it eats, loves, fights. For a Human, the struggle is as far as can be seen in all directions: a past battle, just there, over in the landscape three weeks down the mountain is as clear—or clearer—in the southern light as the battle raging in the cloud-shrouded moment he’s perched on. And there, there’s a winding path leading right from that past battle, up over the peak, and down into some future valley. The two events are connected, though, the past and the future, and revenge is one of a thousand paths that connects them.”

  The image was illuminating to all the curious creatures, but to none more than Josh. “And Scribery is another path,” he marveled.

  Jasmine nodded. “The religion of Scribery is one of the most ancient Human paths over the mountain. With it, vast expanses of the past were mapped, myriad future courses plotted. It was a road well traveled once, but it got lost in a crossing of too many paths, and now it’s just one of a thousand again.

  “Religion was always a popular Human way to connect the slopes of history and destiny. So was magic. And genealogy. And astrology, and governments and crusades. And revenge. All caught up with one foot on either side of the mountaintop, connecting the two never-quite-reachable Cities—Before and After.

  “And every animal here knows that walk.” She turned her gaze on every member of the jury; even on Jarl’s towering visage. Beauty felt Jasmine’s words drive into his chest like a spear, underscoring his fear and confusion about Human origins of the Centauri. Joshua felt himself clearly—a stark, visual image—standing on the mountaintop viewing the scene: the people, some dead, some yet unborn; the dreams, the memories, the plans—all spread out around him, below him, gentle plains, craggy gullies, steep drops, distant shadows. It made him swoon. And every animal there did know that rise with the view into both valleys. It was a short walk for some, stretching only from lunch to dinner with a sheer, black dropoff on either side. But others—Jarl, for one—could remember earlier years, could envision what might yet come.

  “I am old, your Highness,” Jasmine spoke slowly, putting feeling in her voice. “Older than you, older than this forest, older than the Ice Change. I’ve seen much, to my joy and grief. Many years before the Coming of Ice there was a great confrontation between Human and animal, called by some the Clone Wars. The animals were sick of the Human-sickness; and the Humans, to rebuild their numbers, made thousands of copies of themselves, called Clones; and the animals, in fury over what the Humans had done over the years, killed them all but the children. It was a vengeful act, Jarl, and all the animals joined in. Such is our heritage. Do not deny it: you can master that part of yourself only by knowing it.”

  Jarl sat back down slowly into his willow-throne. He felt the Neuroman’s words. Perhaps it was only a question of distances, then. Perhaps there was something animal in the way of revenge. Or something Human in himself?

  “Jurors,” said the Bear-King. “Have you any questions of the accused?”

  Granpan shook his head No.

  Windo puffed his pipe. “It’s a pretty sight from way up there, I don’t doubt, but down here there’s no fall-in’ off. You can have your stony paths. Only tell me this. When I’m down here hindside to o’ your peak, is your next step the one that starts the rockslide on me and mine?”

  Jasmine smiled at the winsome Hobbit. “I think maybe your peak is higher than mine to begin with. I could never hurt such a one as you, until the day the rocks fall up.”

  Willow spoke next, to Joshua. “Have you ever killed a tree?”

  “None I didn’t have to, to keep the breath of Ice off my back,” he told he
r honestly.

  Three-Claw said, “You killed my sister. She should be alive, but for your journey. Where is the Justice?”

  “Should is a word I gave up long ago,” Jasmine answered sadly, “when I realized how little of anything I understood. I don’t know, Bear-friend, where is the Justice.”

  Droo, the Owl, was next, saying, “Droo-roo hoor hoor thooew who who ooo …” It was a long, involved question dealing with epistemology, which partly due to dialect, no one else really quite got the gist of.

  Rool fell asleep.

  Gray, the She-Wolf, lowered her eyelids. “And when you find these animals who stole your pack … you will kill them?”

  Josh and Beauty nodded firmly.

  Gray went on. “And this will satisfy you? This will end your search?” It was clear Gray thought otherwise. Humans, she knew, were never satisfied, and never ended their searches.

  It was Beauty who responded. “I cannot answer to those questions. Things have happened to me in recent days that make me wonder if satisfactions will ever be mine. I know neither who I am, nor what is expected of me. Only that I must find my Rose.”

  Josh nodded. “It’s unfinished business. You wouldn’t wound a Caribou and then leave him to wander. You’d stalk him and kill him.”

  “Not if I weren’t hungry,” said the Wolf.

  “There are different kinds of hunger,” said Josh.

  Louise, the last juror, said simply, “How will you go to find them?”

  “South, into the Terrarium,” said Jasmine. “We believe they’re heading for the new animal.”

  Jarl came put of his brooding shell. “Go, then. I have learned something of myself today, which I must consider. Good journey and good sleep.” Saying which, he closed his darkening eyes and hibernated.

  “Well,” grumped Granpan, “I suppose I won’t be winning any gold back now.”

  Jasmine laughed as she strapped her épée. around her waist. “When you storm the Doge’s palace you’ll have all the gold you want.”