The Last Green Tree

by Jim Grimsley

  “That’s right,” Dekkar agreed, speaking quietly, his voice making her shiver, though it sounded like his ordinary voice. “This is one ally keeping another in line. He’s showing his hand with the trees as well.”

  “Rao?” Figg asked.

  Kitra could no longer bring herself to look in the direction of the priest’s calm voice; she was staring fixedly upriver, where a burning boat hurried toward them, lighting the landscape as it rushed downriver with the current. The mantis that was following the Erra Bel, the one from the farm, nudged the flaming wreck away from the boat. Keely had pointed the mantis out to them a while back, and now she was watching it, too. “Or it might be an ally helping another with an internal enemy,” she said.

  “That’s even more likely.” Dekkar paused in front of her; she felt him watching and shivered.

  When he was close like that, at instants she heard some sound, the briefest possible snatch of music, so overwhelming; her skin went to bumps and she hugged herself. These moments were like the glimpse of him she had gotten when he reached into his pack, or when he was talking so earnestly to Pel. She said, “I doubt the trees all agree with each other about this war.” Her voice sounded much calmer than she felt; speaking soothed her, in fact, and being answered by Dekkar in his easy tone soothed her more, though she was still trembling.

  “Perhaps some of them feel tricked, as your rebels did.”

  “We’re near our landing point.” Pel spoke without turning to face them; the boat was moving much too fast for him to take his eyes off the river. Their speed slowed and Kitra felt the lurch of the impeller beginning to brake. Along the riverbank distant fires flickered, and the underside of the smoky clouds glowed overhead.

  Through her ran a sensation of sinking, as if she should already be in tears; the whole landscape reeked of terrible events, from the lights in the sky and the fires along the southern horizon to the crashing of shadowed marauders along the riverbank. The gentle disk of light still radiated from Dekkar, more obvious now, serenity in the glow, but he at its center still fearsome, forbidding. She drew closer to Figg, who put an arm around her, a hand on her shoulder.

  She put out of her head any need to think about what she was doing, what it meant to feel such affection for Figg without questioning it.

  Ahead, at the prow of the boat, was a fork in the river and a series of docks and buildings along the promontory of land; a few scattered boats floated at the docks, lit by rows of globe-shaped lamps. She should recognize what part of the river this was—she had sailed very far up the Silas on her second journey here—but her head was foggy. Maybe this was a fork of the Silas around an island or maybe the place where one of the tributaries fed into the main river. The buildings were clearly one of the trade posts the trees maintained; they frowned on cities inside Greenwood but allowed settlements of a certain size. Pel drew up the boat and backed the impeller to stop; the Erra Bel drifted in the water, and Pel turned to look at Dekkar.

  On the docks stood formations of syms, a hundred or more, staring through the muck and the dark at the riverboat. A few leaned on canes or crutches and some were bandaged or splinted. Some were helping other wounded out of boats on stretchers, carrying the stretchers into the buildings near the docks.

  A pair of the syms stepped out of their formation, walking down a long pier into the river; the boat was holding its place some meters off the end of the pier, rocking a bit in the flow.

  She found herself staring at one of the pair, only gradually seeing the shape of the head, the familiar features in the alien face: her brother, wrapped in that altered skin of his, his body half plant, half animal, but clearly he and no other, waiting at the end of the pier. Heart in her throat, she stood, walked to the glass. “That’s Binam,” she said. “That’s my brother.”

  “Which one?” Figg asked, stepping beside her.

  “The taller one. The other one is a female—used to be female, I mean.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “You think I wouldn’t know my own brother?”

  “He’s here to greet us,” Dekkar said. “He’s here because you’re here, Kitra, because they think we’ll trust him enough to let him on board.”

  “How do they know I’m here?”

  “Their allies know a good deal about us by now, I suppose.”

  She looked at Dekkar’s face for the first time. Distant he did look, but he knew her and she felt for a moment she had nothing to fear from him; she knew the panic would return, but for the moment she breathed without a feeling of constriction. “Then will you let him on board?”

  “Yes.”

  She felt her eyes filling with tears and nodded. Her heart pounded and she covered her mouth with her hand, leaning against Figg, getting her breath.

  “Are you ready?” Dekkar asked.

  She nodded quickly, wiping her eyes.

  Pel piloted the boat to the end of the pier, backing the impeller while he opened the cockpit and threw out a mooring line. The woman sym tied the boat to the dock and Kitra opened the side canopy, a ladder sliding up.

  Binam stood there, watching with no emotion she could read. The only sign of agitation he showed was in his mouth; the corner of his mouth quavered a bit until he saw her. He tried to smile, glancing at her friends, at Dekkar in particular. “May we come onto your boat?” he asked.

  Kitra looked to Pel, who nodded, swallowing. She reached a hand to her brother, flushed with the moment, uncertain what expression she was offering him, whether happiness or uncertainty.

  His skin had the same cool, smooth texture she remembered. He showed no sign of having aged; his weight was the same, his grace, his care in movement, placing each foot as if there were some delay in the sensation reaching him, placing the next step with the same caution. The other sym, the woman, moved with no such hesitation. “We welcome you.” He was shivering as he spoke. “We welcome you in the name of trees who did not wish this harmful war on your people.”

  “What’s happening along the shoreline?” Kitra asked. “We saw the mantises destroying gardens, expensive plantings.”

  He glanced at his partner, and she cocked her head. “What you call mantises we call feeder-breeders, which is close to what their masters call them.”

  “They were attacking the gardens.”

  “To punish us. Because we don’t want this war.”

  “Though it’s too late now,” said his partner.

  “Excuse me,” Binam said, “This is Kowon, for whom I am second. She’s here to treat with you.”

  She stood considerably shorter than Binam, her skin mottled, the color of an elm leaf, whereas Binam was a darker green, more the shade of a water oak. Bowing her head a bit, she stepped toward Dekkar. “Honored Prin,” she said. “Welcome to Lower Land of Flowering Silas.”

  He studied her, and Kitra kept hold of Binam’s hand, kept him well behind Kowon, afraid of what might happen, of what Dekkar might do.

  Binam, following her gesture, drew her to the back of the boat, away from the others.

  Two realizations came to her when he embraced her, comforted her. First was that she felt the absence of Figg keenly, that walking away from him caused her a sensation of loss; this was remarkable not only because of his age but because he was a man. The second was related to Binam, that in his presence she felt less of a flood of emotion than she had expected. She felt glad, but not ecstatic; she felt relieved, but not overjoyed. She loved him, but she missed the feeling that she was about to rescue him. He hardly appeared to need her. In fact, he had sought her out.

  “Is it true the Dirijhi moved your tree?”

  “No. The Earthlings did that. The chalcyd creatures, the flocks. With sym helpers.”

  “Earthlings?”

  He nodded. “These allies of ours. They come from Earth. At least, that’s what they claim.”

  “Rao?”

  “Yes. He’s their God.”

  “He’s here?”

  “We think so. They c
laim so, the chalcyd.”

  She remembered Nerva, mouth open, sinking those teeth into Keely; she shuddered. “Those things are here, too?”

  “Yes. I suppose they’re our bosses now.” He spoke in an even tone, almost lightly. The makeup of his body was familiar to her from before, the feeling of muscles in the wrong places, of his chest not quite moving as it should when he breathed, which was rarely, since only a portion of him relied on animal respiration. Stoma on his shoulders and arms opened and closed at intervals. “They killed my tree when they moved us. He lived for a while in new ground, but he got root sickness that the others couldn’t cure. It killed his brain completely.”

  Her heart was pounding. “He’s dead.”

  “Yes. That makes me a widow.”

  “A what?”

  “That’s what we call a sym without a tree.”

  “But how do you eat?”

  “His tree body still grows for the moment; he still makes sap.”

  “But you’re free of him. Are you sorry?”

  He cocked his head at her, looked at her quizzically, lips pursed. “It’s been a long time since I thought about freedom.”

  “What do you mean? You remember how we parted last time, don’t you? You told me you were a slave and I told you I would come back for you.”

  “Yes, I remember.” He hung his head a bit. “That was a long time ago.”

  “I’ve come back twice since, but not to your part of Greenwood. I didn’t have any way to get you out.”

  He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. I wouldn’t have gone.”

  “What?”

  “There’s no need to think about it anymore. I wouldn’t have gone with you, anyway.”

  “Why?”

  “Things change. The trees and syms had to pull together when the invaders came.” He released her, listened to the quiet voices near the pilot’s console, watched the others. He tried to shrug, the movement not quite right. “I would have had to stay and fight.”

  “Why?”

  He gave her a wistful smile now. “This is my home.”

  She was confused: to feel her long-held image of him change on top of all the turmoil of the past few days was too much. She ran a hand through her hair, took a breath. On the docks, some of the syms were milling about. From one of the lit buildings beyond spilled a group of syms in a rowdy mood, a rare sight; it appeared they had been drinking a bit, so maybe the building was a tavern. Groups were keeping watch on the river and others on the trees. “Why did they move your tree?”

  “The Dirijhi bred for him a long time. I told you. He was created to be a prodigy with numbers, with their form of mathematics.”

  She looked at Keely, who was holding his math box in his hands again. He liked to keep it close; he and Dekkar appeared to trade it back and forth. “For Rao. To serve Rao.”

  “Yes. He was brought here to be part of a group of trees rooted specially together. Part of making that thing in the sky that chased you. As far as the trees are concerned she’s a monster, but she’s one of them, in a way. My tree was in the first planting to try and make her, and a lot of them died.”

  Pel was tying a second mooring line to the pier, and Kowon moved toward the steps as if she was ready to climb them and exit the boat. She signaled with her hand and Binam acknowledged. “We should head to council now. Are you coming?”

  “Council?”

  “Yes. The trees want to talk to the Prin master. That’s what Kowon was asking for.”

  “He’s not Prin, exactly.”

  Binam cocked his head, arched what remained of a brow.

  “Never mind.” She shook his head. “Yes, I’ll come. I’ll be glad to be off this boat.”

  “Do you have a hood for that biosuit? Pull it up if you do.”

  She reached for the hood, slid the one-pass netting over her head, sealed it. The others were doing the same. “Where are we going?”

  “Not far. To the dumb-tree grove.”

  “The what?”

  “The dumb-tree grove. Made of trees that don’t have a brain. It’s our version of a public building.”

  Keely was standing beside his bunk, Zhengzhou kneeling in front of him to help adjust his one-pass hood. The Hilda had come to life and was waiting behind him. He climbed out of the boat, the patch of green stuff on his face gleaming in the harsh globe lights; it looked supple but somewhat like Binam’s skin, a stiffer texture. Keely moved as if he could see well enough, but he held his head perfectly motionless; his seeing had nothing to do with his eyes. He carried himself with the same distant air Dekkar had. Just now he ran up and handed the math box to Dekkar again. Dekkar petted his hair a bit, knelt in front of him, said something nobody else could hear. Keely nodded, ran back to his keepers, walking hand in hand with Zhengzhou and the Hilda.

  Kowon led, Dekkar at her side, Keely after, and the rest followed, along with all the syms loosely in formation as if they were a bodyguard.

  “What happened to the child?” Binam asked, staring at the membrane, so as they walked she explained, quietly, that Keely, too, was a math prodigy, brought here to fulfill some purpose related to Rao. She told the story of what had happened since the war broke out, including what she knew of the attack on the farm.

  He told, in his turn, his own story, that shortly after her visit ten years ago he had learned of the Dirijhi’s allies, that they taught a way to fight Great Irion, a way to win back the world from the Hormling and make the Dirijhi masters of it, if the Dirijhi joined with them. “They claim they can take control of Heaven Gate,” Binam said.

  “You mean the Anilyn Gate?”

  “Yes. We call it by the other name. But that’s what we mean.”

  Up a long path they walked, past intact gardens and immense old Dirijhi, some of them multitrunked, supported with buttress roots, virtually groves. Syms kept the walkway carefully maintained, clean round stone bordering slate tiles set in earth; between the tiles grew moss, chamomile, creeping jenny, green creeper, lichen, mouse-grass. On either side, living trees grew twisted together to make vaults, colonnades, arbors; farther along, older growths of dumb-trees, started by the oldest syms and carefully tended all the decades since they came, climbed toward common points to create vaulted chambers, each more spectacular than the last, one after another mounting the terraces of the hill.

  The uppermost terrace was tall and narrow, walls woven of living evergreen, carefully groomed and pruned, the smell of cedar and pine pungent in the air. At the center of the chamber was a hot-stone hearth, no flame burning since the Dirijhi did care for any form of smoke; the rocks were heated using microwave technology provided by the Hormling; pots of water among the rocks provided constant moisture, pleasant to the syms, and there was also a larger pool for bathing. Some of the injured syms had been brought here for nursing, their pallets lined at the edge of the pool on the rocks or the grass.

  The syms who had accompanied the party from the docks seated themselves in a pattern, groups of six or nine alternating in a ring, eleven groups in all, and the rest stood behind. Kowon stood in the middle of the circle with Dekkar; Kitra took her place near him with Keely and Figg. Binam patted her hand, touched his cheek to hers, and walked to Kowon’s side. The two of them sat together near the focal center of both groups.

  “We’ll link with our trees now,” Binam said to Dekkar. “Then we’ll all join together, in order to talk to you. Since my own tree is dead, I’ll be the channel for the rest, with help from Kowon. My sister has seen this happen before, if you have any questions.” He closed his eyes, slow and languid.

  For Zhengzhou, at least, the fact that Binam was Kitra’s brother came as news. There had been no time to talk to her about any of that part of the affair at hand, given all the events of the night. Perhaps this was news for some of the syms as well, though this would have been difficult to discern.

  Dekkar beckoned for Kitra to join him. She felt an edge of the apprehension return.

  “What do
es he mean, you can explain this? You’ve seen a conference of this kind before?”

  She nodded. “Once. The trees are linked to their syms and to one another. They can conference with one another without the need for speech as we know it; the trees communicate in long, complicated protein molecules. It’s a slow process, though they’ve used Hormling technology to speed it up a bit. The trees will speak to each other and to their syms in that language. My brother and Kowon will be the voices through which the trees speak to us. Since the trees make words fairly slowly, Binam and Kowon will be speaking for more than one tree.”

  “Welcome to the Hall in Lower Land,” said Binam, eyes only partly open. “We are the living grove around you. We would name ourselves but our names do not translate well into your speech. For instance, my name is She-He-Who-Of-The-Sap-Tartly-Rising-Fills-The-Sky-Leaves-With-Bronze-Veins-Juice-In-The-Morning-Dove-Nest-Maker. This is only part of the name. You see? Therefore you need only try to hear what difference you can in our voices.”

  “Perhaps if we let the translators share the work,” said Kowon.

  “Agreed,” said Binam, though in a different voice.

  Binam again, tone lighter. “So, we are come together with the Hidden Master to speak in Earnest Council.”

  Dekkar nodded his head. “You give my title correctly. How do you know?”

  “Some of us were servants of Rao,” said Binam.

  “In the early days,” Kowon said. “Before we saw him clearly.”

  “We have no quarrel with your people,” Binam said, almost hurriedly, agitated. “Pardon me. I should not interrupt.”

  “No, indeed, you should not,” said Binam in another voice.

  “Excuse us,” Kowon said, “we must reinforce our protocols.”

  They were silent again, their eyes closed. The day or night had got still, no wind at all. Overhead the intricately woven branches of the dumb-trees reached toward the peak of the chamber with something near symmetry, bands of diamonds spiraling away from a point. One lone sym was high above them, pruning or grooming the evergreen branches, hanging on with one arm and both legs and pruning with the free arm.

  “Once again, we apologize,” said Binam.