by S. E. Grove
“What is it?” Sophia asked, realizing that Goldenrod was referring to something else. Outside, the dank yellow clouds hung low, seeming almost to brush the treetops. “The clouds?”
Instead of answering, the Eerie threw open the window and leaned out as they slowed in anticipation of a passing train. She let the wind rush over her face, her eyes fixed on the middle distance, her expression intent and listening.
Goldenrod drew her head back inside just as Errol and Wren appeared at the compartment door. “Goldenrod,” Wren said as they stepped into the compartment, “I’ve consulted with Errol, and he agrees—”
“It’s not speaking, Richard,” Goldenrod said, in agitation.
Wren stopped, his mouth open, the sudden shock draining him of color. “What do you mean?” His voice was barely audible.
“There’s nothing.” She swallowed hard. “There wasn’t in New Orleans, either, but I thought it was because we were in the city.”
Wren dropped onto the seat beside Sophia.
“Can you explain?” Errol shut the compartment door behind him.
“Yes,” Goldenrod said, taking his hand. Sophia felt more unsettled by this than anything she had seen yet. She was used to the affectionate gestures between them, but now Goldenrod was taking Errol’s hand for comfort and strength. Her own was trembling. “I have told Errol and Sophia of the old ones,” she explained to Wren. “It was necessary, to follow Sophia’s Ausentinian map.”
He nodded, still in shock.
“As you know,” Goldenrod said to Sophia and Errol, “Richard and I met many years ago, when he was traveling near the Eerie Sea.”
“Yes, you said you were on an expedition there,” Sophia said to Wren.
“He was,” Goldenrod answered for him. “An expedition to persuade us, the Elodeans, to join the League of Encephalon Ages.”
Errol raised his eyebrows. “Then Elodeans are of the future?”
“Our origin is disputed,” Goldenrod said. “But the year of one’s Age alone is not what warrants membership in the League. Many pockets of the Baldlands are from the future, and the League has no interest in them. It was interested in us because we have part of the knowledge that the League protects.”
Sophia felt her pulse quicken. This was it. They would finally learn the secret that the League was concealing. Time and again, Wren had avoided speaking of it, but now, it seemed, the moment had at last arrived. “What is it?” she whispered.
“It has to do with the old ones,” Wren said hoarsely, “as Goldenrod calls them. The Climes. In the Encephalon Ages . . .” He paused. For a moment he stared at his hands. Then he looked at Goldenrod. “I don’t know how to explain.”
“Let me,” she said quietly. “The Encephalon Ages know what we Elodeans know—that Ages are sentient.”
“You told us,” Sophia replied eagerly. “And that people such as the Eerie might even be able to persuade them to do things—like the weirwinds.”
“That is one consequence,” Goldenrod assented. “But it is more complicated. Elodeans hold this knowledge as a kind of intuitive faculty. But in the Encephalon Ages, the ability to speak with and ultimately influence the old ones emerged as a form of defense.”
“Defense against what?” Errol asked.
“A defense against their influence upon us.”
Sophia caught her breath. “They influ—but how?”
“It is not malicious,” Goldenrod said earnestly, as if responding to an accusation that she was used to hearing. “The old ones are never manipulative or malicious. It is simply not in their nature. And they cannot direct our actions outright. They only guide and suggest. You have both undoubtedly felt it—you experience it constantly. You simply do not recognize it for what it is.” She leaned forward, her hand still clasping Errol’s, her expression passionate. “Consider arriving at the edge of a forest and feeling a sense of foreboding that you cannot place. Or when you see a fork in the road and something irresistible suggests you go in one direction. Or when you feel compelled to climb to the next hill, even though you have done more than enough walking.”
“Only in the wilderness, then,” Errol said.
Goldenrod shook her head. “The same would be true in a village or town. Although the denser the concentration of beings, the less powerfully we hear the old one’s voice. In cities, it can be near impossible. But surely you have walked by some dwelling and thought to yourself, ‘I never want to cross that threshold.’ The intuitive sense of dread or delight, the inspired pursuit of certain paths and roads, the certainty that we sometimes carry about where we are headed—these are all the influences of the old ones.”
“I have certainly felt such inclinations,” agreed Errol.
“So have I,” Sophia said. “I thought it was . . . instinct.”
“It is, in a way,” Goldenrod replied. “The old ones never influence us in ways counter to our nature, our will.”
“But nevertheless,” Wren broke in, his voice aggrieved, “in the Encephalon Ages, this influence was feared. And arts—the Ars—were developed to speak back. To keep the Climes from shaping our actions—and more, to shape them in return. It should never have happened that way, and it is a terrible way to live.”
Sophia could not make sense of any of it. “Why? What is it like?”
Wren shook his head. “How to explain?” he said helplessly. “Consider this—the Encephalon Ages can never be reached by those from other Ages, because they control the old ones so closely. Every approaching ship will encounter a storm. Every expedition will be lost in a blizzard. And in the Encephalon Ages, these manipulations abound for other purposes, not only for protection—every human intention for good or evil that you can imagine finds expression in the manipulation of the Climes.”
Sophia tried to imagine a world of human actions on such a scale.
“But this is not all,” Goldenrod said. “As I learned from Wren only weeks ago, as we sailed to Hispaniola . . .” She took a deep breath. “The League’s secrets are deeper than I had imagined.”
“In the early years after the Disruption,” Wren continued, his face still pale, “those who sought to control the Climes would gladly have stretched their reach to pre-Encephalon Ages who were ignorant of this knowledge. Until—” He looked at Goldenrod.
“One of the old ones stopped speaking.”
“It stopped doing anything,” Wren said. “It was still there—but only in body, and not in soul. It was a shell. A corpse.”
Sophia gasped. “The Climes can die?”
“Perhaps. We do not know. For all their advanced arts, the Encephalon Ages do not understand what happened. They only observe it. Whatever sense of spirit was in the Clime no longer existed. It was inert, without consciousness. Every living thing upon it withered and died. And so the League was formed,” he concluded, “out of the realization that, if human beings had only partial knowledge, the old ones might be irreparably damaged.”
“But then,” Sophia said, remembering what had begun the conversation, “is that happening here?”
Goldenrod and Wren looked at one another. “I don’t know,” she said. “When I encountered the Dark Age in the heart of the Papal States, I was baffled by a Clime that seemed to have no consciousness. But I did not know then what I know now. And moreover, this is different. I’ve never . . .”
“Tell us what you perceived,” Errol prompted.
“I have been listening since we arrived at the harbor, and I could hear nothing. I assumed it was because of New Orleans—such a crowded place. Full of so much human life. But now, away from the city, I should be able to hear. And there is only . . . silence.”
Sophia’s mind reeled at the possible implications. “Has this ever happened before in New Occident?”
Goldenrod shook her head. “Never. Remember, this old one is known to me—it is my home. I have spoken to it since
I was born. It has never met me with silence.” She turned away, hiding her expression, to look out the window.
The others followed her gaze. The open, unvaried landscape of northern New Akan seemed flattened by the ever-present anvil clouds. There was a slow, rolling movement within them, accompanied by a shifting patch of darkness, as if a giant serpent were tunneling through.
“What does Seneca say?” Errol asked, breaking the silence.
Goldenrod abruptly straightened, her eyes lit with hope. “I have not asked him!”
Without another word, Errol rose to retrieve Seneca, whom he had left hooded in the neighboring compartment. The three travelers waited, and moments later Errol returned with the falcon. Seneca peered at them unhappily, but perched on Goldenrod’s arm without complaint.
Goldenrod murmured quietly to the falcon, who made no sound but shifted his head back and forth, as if considering a question. Errol, Wren, and Sophia watched expectantly. Suddenly, Goldenrod’s face cleared. “Seneca can hear it.”
Wren let out a sigh of relief. “What does it say?”
“Nothing. It does not speak, but Seneca can sense something. A knot of fear, deep in its heart. The silence is intentional.”
“But surely that does not bode well?” wondered Errol.
“Much better than the alternative,” Wren said.
“It is deeply concerning.” Goldenrod stroked Seneca’s smooth feathers. “I cannot imagine what would provoke such fear that the old one would refuse to speak. But I agree with Wren—better silent than senseless.”
“Is this fear about something in particular?” Sophia asked.
“It is about a place. Seneca cannot say where—somewhere in the distant north.”
“This changes matters,” Wren said, sitting back with a frown. “I had made up my mind to return to New Orleans, but now I am not sure.”
“What is it you suspect?” Errol asked.
Wren and Goldenrod exchanged a glance. “We cannot rule out the possibility,” Wren said, “that this is an interference. That it is caused by someone from the Encephalon Ages.”
“It would make sense,” Goldenrod said pensively. “The strange weather. The silence. The localized fear.”
“How would someone cause this?” Sophia asked.
“It is the entire purpose of the League,” Wren said quietly, “to protect pre-Encephalon Ages from the kind of manipulations I described to you. To protect not only people, but the Clime itself.
“It may be that here, in New Occident, the League has failed.”
12
Tree-Eater
—1892, August 7: 17-Hour 20—
Having pondered the oral traditions of the Elodeans (Eerie) and the lore of the Erie, with whom they are often confused, I am now in a position to say definitively that the two are not connected—at least, they have been separate peoples for the last several hundred years. The Erie are one of many peoples who lived in the vicinity of the northern lakes well before the Disruption. The Elodeans (Eerie) are from a remote future Age on the western coast of this hemisphere. They did not travel east to find the Erie, as is sometimes suggested, for they had no particular reason to seek them out. Rather, they traveled east to escape a catastrophic natural disaster that occurred in their region soon after the Disruption.
—From Sophia Tims’s Reflections on a Journey to the Eerie Sea
THE LONG DAY was spent in speculation, but nothing new could be learned while speeding northward through the Indian Territories. The travelers could only conjecture. With a sense of foreboding, they watched the darkening clouds, listened to their rumbling whenever the train paused, and felt the air thicken with humidity and the faint scent of sulfur.
At sunset, Wren and Errol withdrew to the neighboring compartment, leaving Goldenrod and Sophia alone. Calixta had remained closeted for most of the day in her own compartment—sulking, worrying, or plotting: Sophia could not be sure.
Now, as the darkness overtook them and the flame lamps burned low, Sophia asked the question that had filled her mind since that morning. “I don’t understand how people in the Encephalon Ages influence the Climes. I cannot picture it. What does it look like?”
Goldenrod leaned back. “I have never been to an Encephalon Age. I have no wish to see such a place.”
“But you have some idea of what it’s like?”
“I do,” Goldenrod said. “The Elodeans are conscious of the danger—we are well aware of how the world would be distorted if we chose to abuse our intuitions. The arts Wren speaks of are familiar to us—we simply do not cultivate them as they were cultivated in the Encephalon Ages.” A flash of pain and what seemed like guilt crossed her face. “I know of only one instance in which some among us tried. It did not end well. Those Elodeans were cast out; they live as exiles now, removed to a place where they can do no harm.”
“But what is the harm? Wren only spoke of keeping outsiders away.”
Goldenrod unlaced her studded boots with evident relief and drew her feet up onto the bunk bed. “I will tell you a story that the Elodeans tell to children—a story about the danger of these arts.” Sophia curled up in anticipation on the opposite bunk as Goldenrod idly tapped the bells sewn onto her skirt. “It is a story from the far west, the place we come from, and it is about a wise man—a great wise man who was beloved and revered by his people. He was known for his cures and his knowledge of the elements and even his occasional ability to foretell future happenings.
“One day, a man who laid stone went out to the field where he was building a wall between a farm and the great Red Woods. The Red Woods are trees so tall that twenty people standing at their base holding hands are too few to encircle the trunk.”
This was something else Sophia found hard to imagine. “Are they real?”
“Very real—I saw them myself on a journey to the western coast. I stood at the base of one and looked up so far into the treetops that the branches blurred and disappeared into the clouds.”
“Amazing,” Sophia breathed.
“They are wondrous trees, and they make wondrous forests, full of great clearings like vast chambers and soft pathways padded with their fallen needles. Such forests are formidable, with all manner of creatures, and so the stonemason had been hired to build a wall between the forest and the farm, to keep the pastures safe. But when he arrived at the field that morning, he saw that a whole tract of the forest nearest him had vanished. He stared in shock; the entire landscape had changed. Stepping forward, he saw the base of the many Red Woods still there—only the trunks and tops were gone. But the trees had not been cut cleanly. They were mauled and broken. The stonemason could see at once that this was not the work of men.
“He told the farmer what had happened, and word of this strange occurrence spread. The next day, more of the forest had been destroyed, and the next day even more. Well, you may imagine that this confounded them, so the people gathered and sought out their wise man, taking him to the field. He studied the ruined forest for a long time, a ponderous look upon his face. He walked among the savaged trunks, examining the remains of the trees. In his mind, the wise man knew that this happening lay beyond his knowledge. He had no notion of what had destroyed the trees. But a wise man, he reasoned, could not admit to ignorance. His people counted on him for an answer. He had grown so accustomed to their adulation and respect that he could not bear the disappointment that might result if he admitted to ignorance. And so the wise man decided to invent an answer.
“He told the people that he knew well what had destroyed the forest. It was a dangerous demon called ‘Tree-Eater.’ The demon emerged only once every hundred years, but when it did emerge, there was nothing that could be done. It would ravage the forest until it had eaten its fill, and then it would return to its cave, sated, for another hundred years.
“Naturally, the people were terrified. They responded
as the wise man had hoped. Staying safely in their homes at night, they dared not emerge for fear of encountering the demon; and each morning more trees were gone, just as the wise man had predicted. The Tree-Eater had not yet eaten its fill.
“There was, however, one problem. A girl in the village—a girl no older than you are now—who was called Bumblebee, believed the wise man just as everyone else did, but she also believed that it must be possible to stop the demon from eating any more of the Red Woods. Bumblebee was not satisfied with the wise man’s advice to simply let the Tree-Eater eat its fill. She inundated the wise man with questions: What did the demon look like? Why did he eat trees? Did he eat every kind of tree? Could they offer him some other food to appease him? If not, could they lead him to a poison tree and end his destruction for good? The wise man answered her questions with elaborate explanations. The demon was a giant made of stone, and he ate only Red Woods, for only those could fill him. He had eyes of liquid gold and antlers upon his head that he used to tear the trees to pieces. ‘There is nothing you or I can do,’ the wise man said. ‘Trust me.’ Each time Bumblebee arrived to demand more answers, the wise man felt a growing guilt that gnawed at his heart: his lies could not be taken back. He was deceiving Bumblebee and the entire village. What if the force that had destroyed the trees was not content to destroy trees, but then destroyed the village, too? Though the wise man worried, his lies continued.
“And then the wise man’s fears were realized—albeit not as he had predicted. The villagers woke him in the middle of the night, pounding on his door. Bumblebee had gone to the edge of the woods in the middle of the night to confront the Tree-Eater—and now the demon had her in its grasp! The wise man, frantic and baffled, went with them. As he ran, a single question resounded in his mind: How could the Tree-Eater have Bumblebee in his grasp when the Tree-Eater did not even exist?
“When they arrived at the edge of the woods, the wise man stared in horror at the sight that confronted him. It was the Tree-Eater. As dark as smoke, as tall as a mountain, as hard as stone, the Tree-Eater towered over the Red Woods with his great antlered head and his long teeth; he dove down, over and over, breaking each tree with his antlers and then chewing it to pieces. He held Bumblebee in one of his stony, clawed hands. When the wise man approached, the Tree-Eater stopped. He crouched down, crushing the trees around him with his weight. As he leaned his massive head forward, the villagers cowered. The wise man, more out of shock than courage, stood his ground. The Tree-Eater stared at him with wide, golden eyes.
