The Cycle of Arawn: The Complete Epic Fantasy Trilogy

by Edward W. Robertson

  But there was a heavy emphasis on gloves, particularly ones that were either fingerless, or that had rough, high-friction pads over the fingers. He tried on a pair with small claws that snugged tightly over his fingertips. He waggled his fingers and turned to drop some bawdy witticism, but no one was there to hear it and he wasn't about to out himself by speaking Gaskan. He tugged off the gloves and replaced them on their shelf.

  Dante wandered back to observe the intensifying conversation. Ast and the tailor dickered back and forth, pointing at clothes, themselves, and the world at large. After a crescendo of overlapping speech, they went dead quiet, stared at each other, then nodded. Ast passed over a knife and a bracelet and the tailor handed him an armload of clothes. They gave a cursory glance at their new wares, then touched hands. Bargain concluded, Ast turned and walked out from under the tarp.

  "Were those your personal items you traded?" Dante said. "Why not pay cash?"

  Ast smiled sidelong. "Do you think they accept Gaskan silver? They don't even use coins. Metal is drawn from the ground."

  "They seemed to have no problem using metal for tools."

  "People are happy to discard morals in exchange for practicality. But money is symbolic. A pure representation of what a culture values."

  "So all our cash is worthless?"

  Ast shrugged. "We may be able to exchange it in the city. This place is rather backwoods, if you'll forgive the pun."

  On the walk back to the others, Dante inspected the clothing. It was very plain, dyed in drab earth tones, and though he wasn't familiar with the fabric, it didn't take a Weslean expert to realize it was rough-spun and cheap. Unless they found a moneychanger, their purchases would be limited to whatever they could trade for. And most of their tradeworthy goods had been lost in the battle with the kappers.

  Back at camp, Somburr eyed the clothes while Lew gazed toward the giant tree. "What was it like being that high?"

  "We didn't get above the roots," Dante said.

  "Why not? What's up top?"

  "People who look down on attempts to climb the literal social ladder," Ast said. "These clothes will make us look less conspicuous. It will be less of an issue in a big city, where they're used to dealing with plenty of people they don't like."

  "How can they live like that?" Dante said. "Cramped in those roots? It felt like getting squeezed to death by a giant wooden hand."

  "To me, it feels little different than the slums of Narashtovik."

  "Tell me more about the upper branches," Somburr said. "Is this a caste-based society, then?"

  Ast shook his head. "The lorens provide free food and shelter, if that's all you want out of life. It leaves its denizens with too little work and too much time to socialize. But we're here for knowledge, yes? To do business. We can avoid getting sucked into the games."

  They dressed in their new clothes, which more or less fit, and continued past the village-tree. On the other side, a dirt path cut through the forest floor. Ast said it would take them to the capital, a city called Corl. As they walked on, Dante gazed at the numerous lorens and discovered most showed evidence of human habitation. Clotheslines hanging between branches. The whack of axes. People pulling strings attached to the big leaves to dump rainwater into buckets. Living in a tree dozens or even hundreds of feet in the air struck Dante as beyond foolhardy, but there was no arguing with what he was seeing. Somehow, they made it work.

  Between the road and the lack of snow, they made more miles that day than during any three in the mountains. The hills dropped and the temperature rose, staying above freezing. They went by several more single-loren villages, but didn't stop until they'd reached Corl: capital of Spiren, the westernmost district of Weslee.

  There was no mistaking it. The body of the city was comprised of no fewer than a dozen of the biggest lorens they'd yet seen, massive and ancient, branches interlocking to form bridges in the sky. The central pillars carried spiral staircases around their trunks. A score of satellite trees showed signs of habitation as well. One of these appeared to be entirely dedicated to the lifting and lowering of people and goods, an industrious tangle of ropes, platforms, winches, wheels, ladders, nets, and stairs. People called back and forth from the branches, guiding sacks and barrels up into the tree.

  "I am seeing this," Somburr said.

  "Me too," Lew said reverently.

  "I'm not speaking poetically. I mean I'm going into the city and seeing it for myself." He raised his eyebrows at Ast.

  "I have no authority nor desire to tell you otherwise," Ast demurred. "Shall we stable the ponies? Or sell them?"

  "We'll need them for the way back," Dante said.

  Anyway, for the moment, they had enough money to absorb the stable fees without issue. Ast had managed to swap a bit of Gaskan silver at one of the lesser loren towns in exchange for local currency. Which turned out to be teeth.

  Not just any teeth, of course. The species varied, but all were carved by Spiren's Department of Scrimshaw according to their value: lorens, mountains, or the wolven sigil of the king (a man known only as the Minister). According to Ast, since forgery would be so easy, it was punished by the removal and carving of the forger's own teeth, which were then put into circulation. Somburr had found this delightful.

  Apparently the highest denomination of Spirish currency was the seed of the lorbell fruit; for the most part, they were seedless, but on very rare occasions, one held a round black pit capable of growing a new tree. The version used as money was carved with a highly stylized four-pointed star and supposedly infused with a nethereal signature known only to the court sorcerers. The lucky few residents who found a seed in their daily meal of lorbells were required to bring them into the Department, where they were exchanged for tooth-coins. At a much lesser rate than the value of the seed, of course. But given that the penalty for hiding a loren seed was the same as for cutting down a loren tree, hoarding and forgery were unheard of.

  On its face, it was confusing and barbaric. To Dante, it glared like noon on a pond. It was about the Minister asserting control over the loren, the heart of Spirish life. About claiming it as his and thus co-opting its might and authenticity.

  Spirish political manipulation was beyond the scope of Dante's interests, however. Right now, all he cared about was finding a stable. Ast located one in the root system of an outlying tree and paid its master in teeth. As the ponies were led away, Ast asked the stablemaster something and he replied with what Dante recognized as directions, though the language still moved too fast for him to pick up more than that.

  It was enough for Ast, though. He took them around two lorens to a third perched near the edge of a startlingly deep canyon. The loren's trunk was carved with a six-foot image of an owl, but as the tree continued to grow, it had distorted the image, giving it a totemic feel. People came and went on the staircase wrapping the trunk. Ast headed up.

  The plank stairs had distressing gaps between them, but the treads were deep, the steps were a good eight feet wide, and the outer edge was fenced with posts and rope railings (though these didn't look sturdy enough to stop your fall if you were determined to lurch into them). The stairs wound past a number of landings leading to oval holes in the trunk. These could be enclosed by four quarter-doors, but most were open to the day, inhabited with people kneeling at low tables or snoozing in hammocks tacked to the walls.

  There was very little space in any of them, but Ast said the apartments at this level were a single rung up from the root-slums. Dante supposed the confines of the trunk-rooms weren't as bad as they seemed. Many of Narashtovik's residents lived in tighter quarters than these actual holes in the walls. It didn't matter. After all, the entire city was their home.

  Ast stepped off the staircase onto a branch thirty feet wide. People milled about on its worn surface, talking, laughing, stopping for drinks and trinkets at the stalls and airy shops strung along the branch, particularly at the hub where it forked into smaller sub-branches. The scene was muc
h like a major thoroughfare of Narashtovik or Dollendun. Except most of the stalls were roofed with giant leaves. And there was nothing on the sides of the street except for open air and a forty-foot drop to the ground.

  Lew threw his arms out for balance. "Well, this is terrifying."

  "Quit gawping like a yokel," Dante said. "Those kids over there don't have a problem with heights."

  "Maybe because they've fallen over the edge before. On their heads."

  Ast glanced back at them, scowled, and increased his pace. Lew gritted his teeth and managed to lower his right hand to his side. His left still stuck straight out, wavering any time the lazy breeze sent the barest gust.

  His horror was short-lived. At the first "intersection" of the main branch and two off-shooting but still substantial side branches, a structure claimed the plaza. It was a wooden frame sheltered with shiny cloth tarps, and it stood in the middle of a colossal tree-city, but its function was obvious in all languages: it was a public house.

  Dante wasn't certain of the wisdom of drinking beer while strolling around four stories above the earth, but he certainly believed in the general wisdom of the tavern. They parted the fibrous tarp and entered. Inside, people sat on their feet beside long, bench-like tables, drinking from squat cups. Ast pointed toward a vacant bench. While Dante and the others sat on the leaf-mat provided to preserve their knees, Ast went to the bar, set a handful of teeth on it, and brought them a round of sweet cider that tasted vaguely like bread. He then returned to the bar to speak with the woman behind it.

  Dante had nothing to do but drink and look around, so he did that. The space was not large and he was privy to several of the alcohol-amplified conversations around them. The locals all seemed to be speaking Third, and of course there was the whole tree thing, but the people wouldn't have looked out of place in Narashtovik, pale-skinned and dark-haired. A bit thinner-boned, though. Perhaps they'd spent too long in the trees.

  As he gazed about, Dante got a few looks back, especially when Lew or Cee said something to each other in Gaskan. No one caused them trouble, however.

  Ast came back and knelt beside Dante at the table. "It's difficult to ask about what you wish to know."

  Dante sipped. "So I've discovered."

  "As usual, the monks are those most interested in wisdom. I've secured directions to a temple where they may have some idea what the hell you're talking about."

  Ast had the habit of delivering his wit in the exact same tone he used to present facts, and it was a moment before Dante laughed. "Let's go."

  "First, you must finish your drinks. There is nothing more suspicious than a man who leaves the pub with ale still in his glass."

  Dante recognized this as one of life's deeper truths. He finished his mug and eyeballed the others until they did likewise. Outside, the breeze had picked up, and between that and the alcohol, he had to fight not to wing his arms out for balance like Lew.

  "We have a climb ahead of us," Ast said. "The temple is on the Fourth Loft."

  "You don't say," Dante said.

  Ast glanced back, confused, then did a double take. "I forget all of this is new to you. Right now, we're on the First Loft. The lowest division of this loren's branches."

  Lew risked a quick look up into the foliage. "How high is the Fourth Loft?"

  "Every tree is different. That is one of the beauties of Spiren. Typically, a loft spans roughly fifty feet of height."

  "Is it too late to go stable with the ponies instead?"

  They returned to the great staircase wrapped around the trunk. While there were far more people making this tree home than Dante would have believed possible, the stairway's traffic was light. People seemed content to stick to their own loft, for the most part, hanging out on its various flats (the word Ast used for the flattened branches) before returning to their rounds (the hollows in the trunk) to sleep or catch a bit of solitude before venturing back into the communal areas.

  As they climbed, laughter and the clatter of industry sifted in from all sides. From above and below, too. And from the other lorens. Dante found it difficult to grasp the idea of living in three dimensions. Assaulting such a place would be virtually impossible, too. Not only would you have to fight your way up the chokepoint of the stairs, but you'd have no shelter from all the limbs overhead, fighting gravity the whole way while the city's archers rained hell on you from behind the cover of branches and thick leaves.

  Fire was an option, but it had been showering on an almost daily basis since they'd descended from the mountains, and dew clung thickly to the leaves. A good nethermancer might be able to whack through a loren's mighty trunk, but he doubted any had the power to do so in an instant. And a place like this would have defenses against that, too.

  He didn't know how the Minister or history or culture had conspired to convince these people to live their lives in trees. But a part of him was jealous Narashtovik was so exposed in comparison.

  The first three lofts were indistinguishable to Dante's eyes, but the fourth was insulated by a gap in the stairs. A guard stood at either end, armed with a bow and a short spear with a spiked head that looked capable of doubling as a climbing instrument. Ast paid the first guard a toll and the guard gestured across the space. The guard on the opposite side pulled a lever in the trunk and a set of stairs ratcheted down, clunking into place. As soon as their group crossed, the man cranked the stairs back up, once more separating the Third Loft from the Fourth.

  Ast stopped to ask the second guard something. Directions again. Dante couldn't follow it all, but got the gist their destination was on the outer edge of a nearby flat.

  The toll was only a couple of teeth, but that and unseen social pressure conspired to keep the lofts segregated. Most of the rounds on this level had their doors shut to the eyes of the public. Fewer catwalks and ladders connected the rounds. People's dress was more colorful. Some of the shops on the flats had solid wood walls, roofs composed of woven leaves and sealed with pungent resin. The ground waited two hundred feet below, but even at this height, the winds weren't enough to sway the loren.

  Ast climbed off the staircase onto a flat that bore a single compound situated eighty feet out from the trunk. A doorless wooden gate stood before a house-sized structure with a high, conical roof. Behind it, a couple of long, single-story buildings stretched into the wild profusion of leaves. A lone man was in front of the main building, broom rasping as he swept debris to the side of the platform. Watching dust and leaves swirl over the edge, Dante understood why the higher the loft, the richer its residents.

  Ast stopped and turned to them. "This is a Shrine of Dirisen. The monks are famed for their lore. Please treat it as you'd treat any other temple."

  "Are you sure you wouldn't rather I use the spittoon?" Cee said.

  Ast gave her a dubious look, decided she was probably joking, and continued. As they neared, the monk stopped sweeping and turned to face them, resting his fists on the top of his broom and his chin on his fists. Ast spoke to him in Third. The monk glanced across the rest of their group. The two men conversed for a moment, then the monk padded inside the shrine.

  "He's checking with the others," Ast said.

  "What did you say to him?" Dante said.

  "That we are pilgrims from a far-off land searching for stories of the Black Star."

  Dante nodded. It was closer to the truth than he preferred, but at this point they had few options. Sooner or later, they would have had to lay it out for someone. Considering how difficult it had been to locate information in their homeland, perhaps "sooner" was preferable than "later."

  The monk came back after a few minutes. He shook his head and shrugged at Ast. Ast frowned at the smooth bark coating the ground. "He says he's never heard of it."

  "But this is where the Hanassans told us to go," Dante said.

  "They told you to go to the Shrine of Dirisen in Corl?"

  "They said the answers would be in Weslee."

  Ast kept his expres
sion neutral. "Weslee sprawls for hundreds of miles. It's little smaller than Gask. And Spiren is just one corner of it."

  "He's never even heard of it?" Dante said. Ast shook his head. Dante gritted his teeth and glanced at the confused-looking monk. "The Black Star? Cellen?"

  The monk could only shake his head. But a face poked through the doorway behind him. The second man was older, white whiskers spangling his face. The first monk glanced at him and immediately stepped aside.

  "Cellen?" The old monk's gaze bore into Dante. "Where are you from?"

  "Kirkit," Dante said, drawing on their cover story.

  "A Kirkitian speaking Gaskan in Weslee."

  Dante locked up. Because the man was speaking Gaskan, too. The old monk raised his eyebrows at the first monk, who blinked, then disappeared inside.

  The man walked into the daylight fighting through the leaves. "You get one chance to tell me the truth."

  Dante nodded slowly, buying himself a couple of seconds to think. Flies buzzed in the leaves. The moment had come out of nowhere and sounded too good to be true. Like a trap. But Dante had no choice—not if he wanted to find the object that might let him live forever.

  Or so he convinced himself.

  "Gask," Dante said. "Narashtovik."

  The man's eyelid twitched. "Why have you come so far?"

  "To find Cellen."

  The monk's face was as motionless as the trunk of the loren. "I don't know," he said, loudly and in Third.

  Like many of the tree people, he wore baggy trousers and overshirt, but his wrists and ankles were cinched tight, presumably so they wouldn't snag when climbing around. He reached into his left sleeve and produced a small scroll of parchment and a charcoal pencil.

  He said something else apologetic, still in Third. As he spoke, he spread the scroll on his left palm and scribbled without looking down. He removed the pencil and the scroll snapped shut. He held out his hand. Dante shook and palmed the paper. The man bowed and went back inside the shrine.