The Rose Cord

by J. D. Oswald

His hands.

  They weren’t indistinct, like those of the other riders. His body was as he would expect it to look, complete with tatty travelling cloak and heavy cotton trousers, but his hands were somehow different. They glowed for a start, colours swirling in thick patterns around the edges of his fingers. He lifted them up to his face, the better to study them, aware somewhere that he had dropped his reins. It was as if a second thick skin of light clothed him, and as he looked closer, so he saw that it continued up his arms, over his body, down his legs.

  Looking around at the captain again, Errol now saw a similar light clinging to Osgal, but it was a thin thing, little more than a flush on his featureless face. The other riders had it too, in greater or lesser amounts, but none of them as thick and vibrant as Errol’s.

  The more he studied it, the more he could feel the swirling patterns as an extension of his skin, like another sense. He shuffled in his saddle, feeling the light swirl around him like an envelope of warm water. And as he moved in it, so it changed shape, swelling and tightening around him to take on a different form, a more natural form, but one that pulled him backwards with an indefinable weight spreading from the middle of his back.

  Looking over his shoulder, he saw for the briefest instant what looked like wings of light, then with a sickening sense of vertigo he slid off his horse.

  ‘By the Wolf! There he goes again,’ Errol heard Osgal say just before the ground knocked all sense out of him.

  Benfro had thought he was in the middle of impenetrable forest, but he hadn’t followed the curious squirrel for more than five minutes – just time to push his way through a thick swathe of rhododendron bushes – before they stepped out into a vast clearing. The ground rose slightly from the edge of the trees, culminating in a point perhaps three hundred yards away, although it was difficult to gauge distance accurately in the failing light. Rising from the top of this small hill and dominating the whole clearing was the biggest tree Benfro had ever seen.

  ‘Come, come,’ the squirrel said in its high-pitched chirpy voice. ‘Mother see you now.’

  The great tree rose up into the sky, its leaves reaching out two hundred yards in all directions from a trunk a half a hundred thick at its base. The canopy should have shaded the ground beneath it, but in the strange light he could see everything with equal ease. The squirrel reached the point of the tree’s furthest reach and a supple branch dipped down to the ground as if to welcome it. The joy that swept over Benfro as it jumped into the leaves and disappeared almost brought him to his knees. It was a great wave of emotion, the blissful welcoming of a loved one returned. He was bathing in its reflected splendour when the voice spoke quietly in his head.

  ‘It’s many years since a dragon last visited these woods,’ it said not unkindly. ‘Even more since one came from the sky.’

  Benfro didn’t know what to say. He just stood, gawping, his senses overwhelmed.

  ‘Who are you?’ he said eventually, realizing as he did quite how rude it sounded.

  ‘Have I been forgotten? Has it been so long?’ The voice carried a note of great sadness in it.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Benfro looked around, still uncertain where the voice was coming from. ‘I meant no disrespect. My name is Benfro. Did you send the squirrel to fetch me here?’

  ‘My little Malkin? No, I didn’t send him. He’s a great wanderer and a mischievous meddler in other creatures’ affairs. He tells me that you crashed into the forest and were obviously in need. He was right to bring you to me. I’ve no quarrel with dragons any more. Your kind are always welcome to my shelter.’

  ‘You’re the tree.’ Benfro finally understood.

  ‘Not just any tree,’ the voice replied, the merest hint of petulance in its voice. ‘I am the world tree, the mother of all.’

  Benfro stared up at the giant before him. Standing at the fringe of its reach, he couldn’t see the top, only an endless wall of leaves towering over him. Where before he had thought it an improbably sized oak, he now saw leaves, flowers and fruit from a dozen or more different species. And those were just the ones he recognized. There were beech nuts, apple and cherry blossom, great fat pears dangling from low branches and enormous hairy chestnut casings fully as big as his fist. The foliage varied from almost black spines as long as his tail to great wide leaves fluttering gently in the night breeze.

  The closer he looked, the more he could see. Thousands of birds slept in its branches, heads tucked under wings or just staring blankly ahead. Dormice, squirrels and curious long-armed creatures with thin agile tails leaped, scurried and generally busied themselves foraging. Occasionally they would meet something larger, usually resulting in a sharply truncated chirrup of surprise. Benfro found himself walking under the great lower branches, drawn by his curiosity ever closer to the great trunk that speared up ahead of him like a great wooden barrier.

  ‘You’re weary,’ the voice of the tree said. ‘And I suspect hungry too.’ Now that he knew where it was coming from, he realized the voice sounded very much like his mother’s. Not so much in the sounds – it was after all appearing in his head, not coming through his ears. It was more the inflections, the choice of words, the concern. It soothed him like a warm blanket on a chill night, smothering the tiny voice of fear and wariness that lurked in the depths of his mind. It was too calm, too comforting, too safe to be afraid here. No harm could possibly come to him.

  ‘I haven’t eaten in several days,’ he said as he reached the great trunk, stretched out a hand and touched its massive bulk.

  ‘Then come, enter my home. Let me provide for you. And in return you can tell me what brings you here.’

  Benfro could not have sworn the opening wasn’t there before, though neither did he remember not seeing it. Nor had he seen it open, but it stood before him, as natural as any cleft in an ancient tree might be. It was easily big enough for him to walk through and it led into the heart of the tree. As if someone had lit a candle around the corner of a long corridor, flickering light beckoned him in. Hesitant, he stood at the entrance in a quandary. Everything felt right, peaceful, welcoming, yet he couldn’t help remembering the things he had stumbled upon, the dangers that lurked in the most innocuous of places.

  ‘Caution is an admirable trait,’ the tree said in its soothing voice. ‘But I assure you I mean no harm.’ As it said the words, an odour wafted from the passage so sweet it weakened Benfro’s knees. It was stewed apples smothered in honey. It was chestnuts roasting on an open fire. It was the sweet tang of lemons and the expensive musk of spices he could only associate with great feast days. His stomach lurched and groaned at the promise of such delicacies, taking over the reasoning from his brain and relaying orders direct to his legs. He was several paces down the passageway before he even realized he had moved. The flickering light in the distance grew with each pace, and before long he reached the point where he had thought the corridor turned. He stopped, steeling himself to step around the corner, and gasped at what he saw.

  He had entered a vast space, bigger by far than the village hall he had once considered the biggest thing it was possible to build. Grown out of the centre of the massive trunk, it rose up in a great arc, a dome of heartwood eaten away by millennia of insects and decay. Strange fungus sprouted from the walls in huge fans of luminescent flesh. They cast a green pallor over the whole which combined with the rich moist aroma, the heady scent of compost and the spicy smell of the wood to give an almost drowsy feel to the place. It was warm, and the soft floor deadened sound so that all Benfro could hear was the slow rhythm of his breathing and the regular thumpity-thump of his hearts.

  In the middle of the great hall, apparently growing from the floor, a large table was laid with a feast. Wooden bowls were filled to brimming with fruit and nuts; platters spread with salad leaves and spicy herbs. Some plates steamed, their contents mysterious but promising much by their lush aromas. Benfro walked politely to the table, although he really wanted to run, grab, shove as much food into his fa
ce as he could without suffocating. Table manners had always been of supreme importance to the dragons of the village and, even starving, he couldn’t bring himself to be impolite.

  A large bench ranged along one side of the table, just the right height for Benfro to sit comfortably without damaging his bruised tail. At the table’s head sat a single chair, far too small for any dragon. It was ornately carved of a wood so dark it was almost black. He stared at it, wondering what manner of creature could possibly sit in such a seat, for while it was undoubtedly a chair, it had no space at the back for a tail, and its high sides would have crushed even the smallest of vestigial wings. With a terrible lurching in his empty stomach, Benfro realized the chair was designed almost perfectly for a man to sit in. And then she appeared, shimmering into existence in front of his eyes.

  She was a curious creature, far smaller than Benfro would have expected, yet tall and long-limbed where the men he had seen had been stocky and muscled. Her skin was almost white and smooth as the surface of an egg. She had long hair of palest gold which grew only from the top of her head but flowed down to her waist, tumbling over the back and sides of the chair. Her clothes were a fabric of rich green, embroidered with a motif that looked like ivy growing over her body. Her face was thin with eyes like a cat’s, more green and gold than yellow. Her ears poked through her fine hair, slender and rising to pointed tips. She smiled at his open-mouthed stare, her thin red lips parting to reveal smooth, perfect teeth, white as polished old bone. Raising an arm, also encased in green, she motioned with the flat of her hand to the food spread out on the table, her long fingers curving almost back on themselves and revealing elegantly manicured talons that nevertheless spoke of razor sharpness.

  ‘Eat, Benfro, eat,’ she said. ‘You look starved near to death.’

  Not wanting to cause offence, Benfro sat himself at the bench and reached for a plate of steaming white vegetables, speared one with a claw and popped it into his mouth. The taste exploded in him, wiping away all sense of decorum. For a full hour he fed, mouthful upon mouthful, stopping only to drink from a huge flagon of water, cold as ice and strangely, pleasantly sweet. He ate until he could feel his belly scales parting under the strain, and yet the table seemed just as full as when he had started. All the while the pale figure watched him silently, an indulgent smile on her face. Finally he could eat no more and a comfortable weariness began to settle on him.

  ‘That’s better,’ the tree said. ‘You had me worried for a while. I thought you had no aura left.’

  ‘No what?’ Benfro asked, trying hard not to belch aloud.

  ‘No aura, Benfro. No spark of life. No glow. You were so drawn in on yourself I thought you might be lost. It’s amazing what a little food can do to restore vitality.’

  ‘Well, thank you for that most generous meal.’ An embarrassed heat spread around Benfro’s neck and behind his ears as he remembered his manners. He was starting to feel bloated now, stretched to a point not far from pain.

  ‘It was nothing, really,’ the tree said. ‘These are the gifts of the green, nature’s bounty. I merely pass them on. Now, young dragon, it’s time for you to tell me your tale.’

  Benfro recalled they had a bargain. And while he wanted nothing more than to find a comfortable corner in which to sleep for a thousand years, he was aware of his obligation. He knew also that sleeping so soon after eating, however right it felt, would only leave him feeling worse when he woke. Better by far to try and stay awake until the tightness around his waist subsided.

  So he told his tale, beginning from the moment he had first become aware of the true danger the warrior priests posed to him and his kind. He stopped many times to slake his thirst at the flagon, which yet remained brimful however much he drank. His voice did not echo in the great hall, and there were times when he found it hard to describe what had happened, but he ploughed on as best he could right up to the point where he had stood in the clearing, gazing up at the magnificent tree. All through his tale the tiny figure watched him without interruption. She leaned forward, head resting on her hands, hanging on his every word. When finally he fell silent it was as if the whole world had been holding its breath.

  ‘What a splendid story, Sir Benfro, indeed.’ The tree clapped her hands together. He was struck by the way she used the honorific, the title that Father Gideon had misused, that his mother had given him, that Magog had so casually assumed of him. It sounded right, as if he was truly an adult now and worthy of the name.

  ‘But you’re exhausted,’ the tree continued. ‘You must rest now. You’ll be safe here under my protection.’ She waved a hand and the table disappeared, revealing a patch of soft ground covered with fresh leaves. When Benfro stood, his bench vanished too, as did the chair, leaving the strange creature that was the tree standing. Something about her struck a chord deep in his memory, as if he had seen her before, though he knew that was impossible. Her stance was like that of men and yet she couldn’t have been more different.

  ‘Once more I must thank you for your hospitality,’ he said. ‘But I can’t help wondering … You are the tree, yet you have taken on this form. Why?’

  She fixed him with a stare that was almost stern, a frown wrinkling the skin above her eyes for a moment before smoothing in what Benfro guessed was a decision made. In front of his eyes she changed, not so much melting as becoming different. It was at once slow and impossibly fast, so that Benfro felt he had watched her grow throughout a lifetime and yet for only a fraction of a second. Now in front of him stood a dragon, magnificent and huge. The villagers, even his mother, seemed plain by comparison with this creature, which was so beautiful he could feel the strength going from his knees even as he gazed upon her.

  ‘I could have taken this form.’ The tree now spoke with the pure deep tones and intonation of a dragon of the highest breeding. ‘But I though it would only confuse you. None such as this has walked this land in many, many years.’

  ‘Ammorgwm.’ Benfro spoke the word as barely a whisper, but a flicker of a smile spread across the broad face looking down at him.

  ‘That was a name I took, once upon a time.’ The smile faded as she shrank back into the form she had taken before, her voice now coloured with a sadness like autumn leaves. ‘But it caused only grief and pain. Something you’ll understand in time, I’ve no doubt; you’re linked to that story by your parentage. Now I take this form when dealing with the world outside. It was an idea I had a long, long time ago. The last of this race withdrew from Gwlad aeons ago, though once they graced the land with their beauty and intelligence. And I find the form comfortable. Do you like it?’

  ‘Yes,’ Benfro said more out of politeness than truth, though he didn’t find it objectionable either.

  ‘Good,’ the tree said, and around the vast room the fungi started to fade to darkness. ‘Sleep now, Sir Benfro. We will speak again.’

  The blackness wasn’t total. A faint luminescence still hovered in the air, somehow closer than the distant walls. For a moment the tree stood there, her white skin glowing in the dark, then she too faded away to nothing. Suddenly weary beyond caring, Benfro settled himself down into the bed of leaves. They were soft and warm and gave off a sweet lavender aroma as he turned, once, twice, to find a comfortable position.

  He was asleep before the third.

  8

  One particular tale of the mother tree is perhaps worth repeating, since it helps to illuminate the otherwise rather dull mind of the average dragon. It is said that if one seeks the tree, and if the tree thinks the seeker worthy, then it will appear and welcome him in. It will provide sustenance, knowledge and whatever it is that the seeker truly desires. In return it will ask only for a story.

  Many dragons claim to have set out in search of the mother tree, yet in all my travels among the villages and settlements of their slow kind have I encountered only one who claimed to have actually succeeded in their quest. An elderly creature styling itself Sir Crempog, he told of months spent wanderi
ng through the great forest of the Ffrydd, following tracks only animals knew and scavenging what food he could in that terrible place. Delirious with thirst and weak from too long without food, the young Crempog finally stumbled upon a clearing at the centre of which stood his great tree. Water flowed around its roots and fruit of all varieties hung from its lower branches, easy for him to reach. He fed well, his health almost magically restored in moments, and as he fed the tree told him all about the world beyond the forest: of the oceans and mountains and plains of wind-rippled grass, of great cities and halls of stone, of creatures older even than dragons and men. Then, when the tree asked him for his tale, he told it of his journey before settling down to sleep.

  Waking on the morrow, the dragon found himself alone in a clearing in the forest, with no sight of the great tree to be seen. A track passed beside him and he had the choice of two ways to go. He had no way of knowing which direction led home and which wandered off into the rest of the world. A part of him longed to explore, for the tree had shown him many splendid things in his dreams. And yet he yearned more for the security and certainty of his village and the small nest of sad creatures he called family. So he set off, and the path took him home in less than two days’ walking.

  Father Charmoise, Dragons’ Tales

  Try as he might, Errol couldn’t regain the strange sight over the rest of the journey. With the passing of days he tried, but his strength was building all the time and he no longer nodded off in the saddle quite so often. His riding improved too, and he quickly developed the ability to wake up and correct his seat before falling off.

  Their route took them through the high country, the sparsely inhabited borderlands in the Dwyrain mountains, which divide the Twin Kingdoms from Llanwennog. For days they rode along the increasingly snow-capped ridge tops, skirting the actual border as if looking for a suitable place to plunge down into the enemy’s lair. Now, finally, they reached a wide valley that cut a great semicircle through the mountains. At its centre a massive cone of rock thrust up from the flat valley floor, and clustered around this like insects attracted by some decaying carcass lay the town of Tynewydd.