I acknowledged with a nod and slung the pack over one shoulder. It dug into the tender skin there. Having finished in the workshop, we made for the cabin.
As I stepped out of the door, voices of child-like commotion filtered through the trees. And as I made my way along the covered walkway, Holly screamed.
Immediately, I tensed, but the soft echoes of laughter that followed soon put me back at ease.
Once back in the cabin, Uncle Fyorn and I got to talking again. Many small things he revealed to me as we put away the dishes that he had set to dry. Pleasantries aside though, I had a purpose to fulfill, and I’d spent half a day already just dancing around it. The others could be back any minute. To heck with the dishes, I told myself. The time had come.
“You need to see this,” was all I said. I walked over to the table. At last, I pulled out my bog stone, unraveled the leather, and placed my curious find square in the middle of the slab. My uncle’s eyes lit up with the first flash of light, as wide as an owl’s. He gaped in wonder at the trail of sparks that followed after.
“How… wherever did you obtain such a thing?” he said.
“Well,” I started, “I was with Gariff on Blackmuk Creek and… well… I heard the wind blow up and a crow caw and… well… it made me look and then, well… I fell into a sinkhole full of bog bodies and… when I got out, this stone was just sitting there, caught up in some gnarly old tree roots, then –” Fyorn interrupted.
“Sinkhole? Bog bodies? Tree roots? What sort of tree roots? What did they look like?”
Remembering is one thing, describing, quite another. Fyorn seemed to get that.
“I was hoping you could tell me what it is,” I said. And when I tried to answer his questions and describe the event more fully, I fumbled every word. The woodsman put up his hand to interject, his voice calming.
“Enough,” he said. “Clearly, it was not chance alone that brought this fanciful stone to you. Nud, I can tell by the way it happened that there are Wilder forces at work here, and that it was meant to be… the Mark, the stone… everything – gift or bane, the Hurlorns have chosen,” he said.
“Meant to be? Hurlorns? What are Hurlorns?”
The translucent gem flashed a trail of red sparks, on and off like a firefly. Fyorn fixed his eyes on it. His voice was telling.
“I do not mean to say that it was meant to be in the sense of the greater cosmos or the grand scheme of things, heavens no. How could I even speculate on such a thing? I mean it in the sense of what might be the next best thing though… a higher consciousness in our midst, but it is just out of reach for most. We do not tap into it… not usually, but it is no less there because we are naive.”
His mystifying words might have confused even the Diviner. Fyorn read my puzzled expression like an open book. He let out a heavy sigh.
“I think it is time you learned something of Hurlorns,” he said, “since they seem to have included you in their plans.”
“Plans?”
“Yes, Nud, plans. Maybe ‘designs’ is a better word. Have a seat.”
I took the middle seat against the wall and Fyorn took his directly across from me, the stone between us. He rested his elbows on the table and sat forward, hands folded together, his thick fingers marred by fresh nicks and old scars.
“Hurlorns are far more than just trees,” he began. “That much is obvious. The sages of Gan have studied the most common sorts extensively: ‘Sleepers’ they are called. A holdover from the days when behemoths walked these lands and hunted them for food, it is generally believed that early Hurlorns were more like giant bugs than trees, slow moving terrestrial invertebrates that fed on swarms of insects and vegetation. They had no hope of outrunning or outsmarting the crafty predators that pursued them. However, over time, the early Hurlorns adapted. And they developed some interesting defenses nonetheless.”
The light continued to flicker on and off intermittently as he spoke, with five or ten seconds of dormancy between every flash-stream, usually. It was becoming part of the background, part of what was normal.
“First off,” he continued, “Hurlorns evolved ways to blend in with the forest by mimicking features of the vegetation they consumed – green and brown coloration and the ability to remain absolutely still, for instance. As time went on, they also developed ways to pass messages over distances and to warn one another of a predator’s destructive path. The messaging became more complex over time, and the distances greater. Having become observant and thoughtful, Hurlorns began to record the knowledge they gained and share it amongst themselves so that any one of them could access the whole – the beginnings of the consciousness I speak of. It took millennia upon millennia to evolve the capability into what it is today.”
“At some point, there was a kind of divergence. As the behemoths got better at searching, some Hurlorns became better at hiding, even taking on the physical traits of trees – exoskeletons like bark, appendages like roots and branches, long narrow bodies and even leaves of a sort. A portion gave up movement altogether – content to live out sedentary lives. Those ones are the Sleepers.”
“Others, well, they continued to become smarter. It seemed to happen all at once, actually, according to the sages who look into the past through the natural record.”
The stone flared up super-bright with Fyorn’s last words, and then stopped just as abruptly. A long pause in activity followed, during which I processed what he was telling me. The tree creature I saw was real, I thought to myself. I had known it all along. No words passed between us until, finally, I broke the silence.
“How would the sages know all of that?” I asked, skeptical.
“Oh, they have their ways,” said Fyorn. “Fossil records, for one. Perhaps brain cavity measurements, movement patterns – I do not know. I have to confess I cannot say how they disentangle the past to such detail, but I will say this: if given the luxury to study a problem for a hundred years, I imagine you might have a pretty good handle on it.”
He certainly had a point. Another bright flare-up occurred… Fyorn waited for the flickering to teeter off, before continuing.
“When prodded, Hurlorns tell a different story of their coming, more myth than fact if you ask me, but if looked at the right way it pretty much matches up with what the sages are saying, although with a little more drama.”
“Behemoths,” I said. “What happened to the behemoths?”
“No one really knows,” said Fyorn. “Perhaps their food outsmarted them.”
I chuckled. “Why doesn’t everyone know about them – the Hurlorn trees?” I said.
“Remember Nud,” said Fyorn, “it is in their nature to remain hidden and to whisper secretly amongst themselves. You will never breed that out of them.”
“Then why did a Hurlorn tree reveal itself to me?”
“You do not say ‘Hurlorn tree,’ Sir Nud… it’s just ‘Hurlorn,’” corrected Fyorn. “You can say ‘tree’ as well, if you like; that will not offend. They feel a close kinship with trees.”
“Okay,” I replied.
“Unless you’re talking about Spirit Hurlorns, that is,” he added. “They are totally separate… much more sophisticated… and ‘trees’ simply won’t do for them.”
“All right then,” I said. “Are there any other kinds to worry about?”
“Only one,” said Fyorn. “But there hasn’t been one of those for… well… since I was about your age.”
“What happened to it?” said Nud.
“The forest has many secrets,” he explained. “Sometimes, the secrets are best kept that way.”
He knows, I decided, but for some reason he can’t tell me, or won’t tell me.
Fyorn took a moment to confirm that none of my friends had returned. Following that, he stood up and casually strode over to the lantern to dim the light. When back at the table, the woodsman furrowed his brow as he watched the bog stone flicker on. Arms crossed again, he just stood there and drew in a deep breath, as thoug
h to speak. When the words came out, something in his voice had changed. He sounded different, more serious. For many and most, such gravity in tone would not be a strange thing. But for Uncle Fyorn it made all the difference. He had never been so completely earnest with me as he was in that moment.
“Nud,” he said, “the Mark of the Hurlorn is something most often reserved for bearers of precious knowledge that the Hurlorns value, knowledge that must be preserved at all costs. It is received from time to time by great heroes and sages, and those that have performed some great service and proven their worth.”
“I am no hero or sage,” I replied, “and I am not sure who I have proven my worth to. I’m only fifteen and the aide to a diplomat of the smallest community anywhere.”
“Fifteen,” repeated my uncle, and then he raised one eyebrow. “Humph.”
“You have a mark too,” I said. “What precious knowledge do you possess that must be preserved?”
“Well Nud,” he said, amused at the brashness of my query, “first you must understand that Hurlorns are known to mark their own as they see fit, and for the most part without any discernable rhyme or reason to it. Being obvious is not their way – that much I can vouch for personally. There are times though when, in retrospect, I can say that they saw something coming, and in their own way planned for it by selecting the talents needed to deal with the situation well in advance. I do not know why a Hurlorn chose to mark you, Nud. You are a most peculiar and unprecedented choice. I am sure the Hidden King would not approve, but something tells me he was not consulted. As for myself, the Kith are the exception. We receive the Mark as a matter of course to bind us to the Hurlorns and to our brothers who came before us. It is not so much for our knowledge of great things as for our services rendered. Our community is one in the same with the Hurlorns. We are joined.”
The woodsman picked up the rough, amber-like gemstone. He wore a weighing expression as he observed it emit another series of flashes. I had seen that look on his face before when he spoke with Paplov, discussing delicate political situations and wondering what to do without setting someone off. He seemed to be deliberating. Raising the stone to eye level, he rolled it repeatedly in his hand, the hand on the same arm that bore the Mark, and he examined each facet one by one. Then something changed.
Fyorn suddenly tensed. His eyes widened, like fear. His head jerked up, the vessels in his neck bulged, and he drew in a frantic breath. The lantern snuffed out completely as wood all around the cabin began to twist and creak – the floorboards, the walls, everything. I stood up. The light itself brightened, almost burning. The heavy table slid. And his arm… his wrist… the Mark there began to bleed. Blood trickled down his arm. He let the stone drop.
And it fell.
The next instant, a deeper darkness flooded the room with a chill like death in winter. I heard the stone clatter on the table. My bones turned to ice.
A long minute passed, and then everything went back to normal. Dim, yellow light spilled forth from the lantern, and daylight filtered through cracks around the shutters on the kitchen window. The warmth of the woodstove returned. And the mysterious stone from the bog resumed its usual pattern of flicker.
Fyorn held his wrist, blood dripping through his fingers and onto the floor. His breaths were heavy and quick. I ran and got him a washcloth. With a concerned look, he rolled up his shirtsleeve, took the cloth and wrapped it around his arm. I tied it for him, tight, then pushed the table back into place.
“Are you all right?” I said. I had never seen him so much as flinch before in all my life.
He nodded. “Everything is fine,” he assured me. Fyorn took a deep breath and exhaled.
“What happened?” I said.
“I don’t know really, Nud,” he replied. “I don’t know for sure. It was like… it was like a ringing; a ringing that became stronger and stronger until I was ready to burst.”
Carefully, slowly, he took his seat. I sat back down across from him, grabbed the stone and put it back in my pocket.
“I know what you mean,” I said. “I felt something like that too – before. Like a buzzing in my head. Weird things happened.”
“They will not stop happening,” he said.
“Someone could get hurt. Should I destroy it then? Put it back in the bog? Give it to you?”
“It is not meant for me,” he replied. “That much is clear.”
“What, then?”
For a long while, he just breathed, without answering.
“Can I get you some water?” I said.
Fyorn waved off the gesture. Finally, he spoke.
“This is your dilemma to solve, Nud,” he said. “There is no second-guessing the Hurlorns, so just do what you need to do.” He rubbed his chin.
“Your friends,” he continued, “they seem like a good bunch. Can you trust them to keep a secret?”
I wasn’t sure how to answer that. I certainly did not want him to discover how careless I had been at the Flipside. I just nodded.
“Good friends are important in the world,” he added. “May I see your stone again? Don’t worry; I won’t touch it this time.”
I took it out and held it for him. He gazed at it – into it, more like, all the while applying pressure to his wrist.
“A natural beauty in the rough,” he said as the next flurry of flashes lit up the cabin. “I have never seen anything like this.”
“I will have to find out more in Gan,” he went on. “Best to keep your stone under wraps for the time being. As I alluded to, I suspect there is a deeper meaning to all of this. On the off chance you happen to find any others, please do bring them here, to me, for safekeeping.”
“Really?” I said, unable to conceal the disappointment in my voice. After all, we were planning a treasure hunt.
“If you are wondering about value,” he said, “I am fully certain the sages of Gan will offer more than a fair price for such rare wonders, after determining exactly what it is you have found.”
That works, I thought. Gariff will like that – a guaranteed buyer already.
“They might even cut and polish something like this to adorn the king’s crown.”
“I have it on good authority that it’s some kind of ancient tree gum,” I said.
Fyorn raised an eyebrow at that. “Ahh,” he said, nodding in acknowledgement. “I am not completely surprised to hear that.”
The woodsman grabbed my hand and closed my fingers around the stone.
“I do not know what more to tell you about this,” he said, “except to say that what you have found is something unknown to Men. I can tell you something more about the Mark though. Of that, I have done my own collecting for my own reasons, as you have seen.”
Uncle Fyorn laid his left arm flat on the table, slowly undid the cloth, and showed me his wrist. The bleeding had stopped. His mark seemed to spread out radially from mid wrist. On the dark edges that defined the boundary, green tendrils curled up and out, then dove sharply into his skin, as though the image had been stitched on. He wiped the area as clean as he could, then nodded at my arm.
I also laid my left arm on the table, the Mark fully exposed. Mine appeared faint compared to his. From a central axis instead of a point, pale dots with fractured geometry branched out in elaborate looping patterns that curled in on themselves, smaller and tighter until they disappeared. There were no tendrils.
“According to the archives in Gan,” he explained, “the Mark will grant you a choice at a time when choices do not exist, in true Elderkin fashion. You may choose, one day, to live among the Hurlorns – as a Spirit Hurlorn – or instead, pass on to whatever fate awaits you. It will be your choice. Those rare and unique Hurlorns who once walked the earth on two legs as you and I do now, who then cross over to become custodians of the forest, are the uncommon exception rather than the rule. They grow to become the keepers of our knowledge and history, captains of our forest guard, and may even become great leaders.”
The id
ea seemed magical and wondrous.
“You mean… I can be a Forest King? A Tree King? King of Trees?”
“In a manner of speaking, but not so much a king. The King is in Gan, remember?”
I nodded.
“And there is no ‘King of Trees.’” The woodsman shook his head and smiled. “Heavens no. But… in good time, among the Spirit Hurlorns one may grow to become the Green Dragon of Deepweald. I do not know how that happens.”
“That’s a myth,” I said. I hadn’t heard of Hurlorns before, but the Green Dragon was legendary.
Fyorn’s eyes met mine in a steady gaze, his words unhindered by my doubts.
“And when the day finally comes to cross over,” he continued, “your former life must be abandoned. That is the oath taken to receive the gift of renewal. There is no turning back once you decide to follow that path.”
My uncle smiled and put his hand on my shoulder, then patted it.
“And one more thing,” he said. “You can just call me Fyorn now. You are no longer a child. You do not need a made-up uncle.”
I could not help but feel a little empty.
CHAPTER XVII
Interlude – The way around
What does it mean to wake up in the morning? Are you the same person that you were when you fell asleep? – of course you are. Your memories tell you so and your body is still your body. But what if one day you awaken in a body that is not your own and you still remember everything about yourself. Are “you” still “you”? Is that reincarnation?
I can’t answer that yet. Little by little though, the pieces will come together. The recipe for Spirit Hurlorn Incarnation – or “tree-incarnation” for short – isn’t something you just serve cold. You have to heat it up a bit, add sauce and spices, and then let the idea simmer for a while. Oh, how I miss a real meal cooked to perfection on a potbelly stove! As I said, it will all become clear, soon enough, in the telling.
You are probably wondering why I bothered to ask if there is such a thing as magic. Well, consider this: To take an incarnate form such as mine, you have to first perish… sort of… and then transmute. Magic didn’t bring me here. It might look like magic and smell like magic, but it isn’t magic – unless perhaps you’re a savage. Then to you, magic is a good enough explanation. It’s all you’ll ever get out of me. Trying to explain more to a savage wouldn’t be worth my time – precious time – a savage would never get it. But you’re smarter than that, aren’t you? Think about it. Magic would be kinder – like the good magic in faerie tales that wakes sleeping princesses and transforms animals and animated china back into the people they once were. Get those thoughts out of your head. It just looks that way.
SPARX Incarnation: Mark of the Green Dragon (SPARX Series I Book 1) Page 13