Shem remained distant and aloof—being unwilling to associate himself with the bad memories that Ifunka and Ffen aroused. Each of them continued to ascend through the monastic hierarchy: after five years, all three of them became junior monks and, within the previous year, they had each been initiated as full monks, also called metve or ‘trees’. Their future within the monastery, therefore, seemed assured and their perpetual tranquillity determined. Yes, they got into some minor adventures, skirmishes and mishaps, particularly in relation to Ifunka Kunug and his thuggish associates, Gashiff and Wigash. They even encountered some unusual forest creatures, had strange dreams and sometimes visions, and had interesting encounters with villagers, farmers and travellers, such that these might themselves form an interesting and lively book of stories or anecdotes, but which would detract from the flow of this narrative. Suffice it to say that the boys’ lives were relatively uneventful—that is, until one evening in the late autumn, when the trees began to shed their leaves, browned and reddened with a dusky beauty, when the cool northern wind began to give tidings of winter to come, when something occurred which chilled the bones of every monk and novice, every villager and planting, with its utter suddenness and horror.
Since his initiation ten years ago, Ifunka and Brother Ushwan had become quite close, with the latter, being from an educated and genteel family, acting as a mentor for the boy. Ushwan was more wordly-wise than Wiffka, being aware of the noble houses and their activities and scandals, the politics of Ritvator and the capital, Kubbawa, and being well-versed in the non-religious arts and literature, such as love sonnets and ballads, popular literature and military arts (e.g. archery and fencing). While he did not teach Ifunka all of these, he lent the boy many books that came from his private collection. Indeed, due to Ushwan’s noble ancestry and wealth, he had been granted many privileges which other monks would be deprived of. His cell, much larger than the rest, not only had large bookcases, but also a round table at which he could dine privately, and a second bed for guests, which occasionally included female relatives from Ritvator, though in fact these were not always relatives but often female acquaintances with whom he maintained a regular correspondence.
Ifunka used to dine with Brother Ushwan at least twice a week and, so it happened, he was on his way to Ushwan’s cell, which was at the very top of the tvagshaff, having splendid views of three directions, with windows on each side but one skylight in the ceiling, giving an openness and freshness to the room which few other cells could boast. When he reached the door with its intricately-carved name board above the lintel, he knocked thrice with his staff. There was no response. He knocked again, slightly louder than before. No response.
“Brother!” Ifunka called. “Brother Ushwan! Are you otherwise engaged or sleeping?”
There was still no response.
“Very odd, very odd!” he muttered. “Where can Brother Ushwan be? Where can he be?”
He began pacing up and down and then decided to visit the monastic library, which Ushwan occasionally frequented in the evenings. He rushed down the lift and two flights of stairs, reaching the capacious bibliotheca that lay on the far side of the tvagshaff, spread over three floors. One entrance, however, was on the ground floor and the other in the basement. The door creaked as he opened it, not wishing to disturb any reading monks within, but the room proved to be untenanted, save for the library assistant who was stoking the burning embers of the fire within the hearth. He was a junior monk, about twelve years of age, thin and lanky with closely cropped black hair and a dark forest-green complexion with dark, black eyes. He bowed to greet Ifunka and said:
“Welcome Brother, how may I be of assistance?”
“Brother Ushwan—have you seen him?”
“Not these past seven hours,” replied the assistant. “He came this morning to return two books.”
“May I see them, Brother? They might provide a clue as to his whereabouts.”
“Certainly, Brother.”
The library assistant searched through the lending scroll which hung from a hook on the wall and found the two books listed: A History of Bandits and Criminal Gangs in Ritvator Province, and The Adventures of Biffka Wentoff: The Notorious Cutthroat. When he went to retrieve these books, however, he found that both of them were missing.
“That’s odd,” said the library assistant. “I put them both back on the shelf marked ‘crime and criminology’, yet the space is empty.”
“So someone must have come back here within the last seven hours and stolen or borrowed the two volumes.”
“They can’t have been borrowed. There’s no record on the roll and both I and the other library assistants are meticulous in recording all borrowings lest any book go missing. They’ll have my head for this! The librarian will send me straight to the monastic dungeon!”
“Hold on,” Ifunka urged. “Brother Ushwan probably wanted to check the books again. Perhaps he returned several hours ago and borrowed them again—sub rosa—quite covertly.”
“Why would he do that?”
“I don’t know… unless someone wants to hide his location and has stolen a vital clue. Where was he headed when he left?”
“He seemed in a hurry…. said he was going to speak to the Abbott.”
“The Abbott? Very odd. Perhaps he was going to tell the Abbott something important… Thank you, Brother Feng.”
Ifunka rushed out of the library and headed for the towering home of the Abbott where he had been sentenced to two years’ confinement within the vineyard prison. There he was confronted by the same taciturn doorman whom he had earlier encountered. The doorman looked at Ifunka and simply shook his head in the negative.
“Sir!” Ifunka protested. “Make way!”
The doorman shook his head.
“Then pass on my request to the Abbott: Brother Ifunka Kaffa requests an audience.”
The doorman shook his head.
“If you will not convey my message, sir, or make way, this staff is going to find its way into that face of yours.”
The doorman shook his head yet again; Ifunka, in a rage, struck the man with his staff, hitting him on the shoulder, but the man moved not. He struck again, this time thrusting into his chest; yet the man remained standing, like a rock.
“What make of Tremna are you?” he shouted, aghast.
“He is more tree than man,” came a voice. The Abbott emerged from behind the doorman who moved aside. “I would appreciate it if you do not assault my doorman again. He may be quite sylvan in nature but he still has feelings, eh Beshk?”
The doorman nodded and disappeared into the entrance hall.
“Well, well, Brother Ifunka!” said the Abbott. “The prisoner-turned-monk! Would you like to renew your confinement in the dungeon?”
“Father,” Ifunka put on his humblest air. “I merely wish to speak with you, but your lowly servant disdained to even convey my message.”
“I desire not to be disturbed. I hope that is perfectly clear.”
“I do apologise, sir. You see, I cannot find Brother Ushwan. I’ve looked everywhere…”
“Worry not…” said the Abbott, interrupting him. “I’m sure he’ll be around somewhere.”
“That’s just it, you see,” continued Ifunka. “He was going to speak with you—I know not what about. Where did he say he was going after he left?”
“Nonsense!” the Abbott exclaimed. “Brother Ushwan has not come to speak with me. What an insolent suggestion. Speak to me about what precisely? I have no time to chitter and chatter with monks. He can save his idle prattle and be gone! No time! What a suggestion! Look for Ushwan no more. He’ll turn up when he turns up. Now, I bid you adieu or you’ll end up in the dungeon!”
With the door closed in his face, Ifunka came to the unfortunate realisation that the Abbott was either unnaturally callous or was intimately involved in Brother Us
hwan’s disappearance. Ushwan had become a good friend, just as Shem had been, and for each and every one of his friends Ifunka would risk life and limb and spill his very life-blood in the dust to preserve the life of any one of them. Moreover, he would spill the life-blood of anyone who endangered his friends or killed one of them. He vowed within himself that, though a monk, he would see the Abbott rent limb from limb and bone from bone if he had anything to do with Ushwan’s disappearance; nay more, he would go upon the path that Ffen had wanted to follow, and would reduce the monastery—tvagshaff, granaries and all—to rubble and burning embers. A determination sprung up within the pacified heart of this solitary green monk—a determination born of patience tried and passions unrequited, of pent-up anger too long suppressed and distaste too long masked with pungent peacefulness. So burning now with revivified zeal, he considered his next move.
‘Where would Brother Ushwan go?’ he thought to himself. ‘He was reading two books about criminals. Last month I told him my childhood story about bandits who killed my aunt and uncle. He must have been trying to find out who these bandits were. Why would he see the Abbott? Perhaps to tell him something he had found in those books. The Abbott, fearing the information, hid the books so it could not be rediscovered. Why though? It doesn’t make sense. Either he left of his own accord or the Abbott made him disappear. Which could it be?’
He looked around him and surveyed the scene: the novices driving ffentbaff-cattle, debating senior monks sauntering along, squawking dish-ducks waddling across the grass and sundry solitary monastics who aimlessly wandered to and fro, moving as they listed, oblivious of the world and all that is therein. The thick mass of Shivka Forest to the north, south and west lay with all its amplexive vastness. Its glorious, dark-green expanse seemed to beckon him, like a predator luring its prey into the bosom of danger. It called out to him like a siren perched upon some wind-swept crag.
‘Could it be,’ he pondered. ‘That this same urge came to Ushwan? Did he plunge into that vasty forest? Why—what did he seek?’
Ifunka walked to the forest edge, which is called betv in Tremni, and peered into the dense boles and undergrowth which seemed to extend forever, in every direction, forming as it did a sub-forest or maff within the ‘greater forest’ or metvka which surrounded it. Being an essentially plant-like race, the Tremna considered themselves one with the forest—brothers of the trees—hence their monastic hierarchy of plantings, saplings, etc. Even as the Great Spirit brought all beings into existence ex nihilo (i.e. from utter nothingness), so did it breathe a breath from Itself into each created thing. All living beings: trees, ffentbaffs—even wubgi-worms and riffta-snails, or the smallest microbes, is endowed with a living spirit which pulsates, vibrates in the core of its innermost reality. Forests are, then, realms of the spirit where a host of living beings grow and thrive with the power given them from Great Spirit. The attraction of the forest, therefore, was keenly felt by every Tremna who longed to feel the life of each spirit which dwells therein. The whole outlook of the Tremna was spiritual—not material—but this was even more so of priests and monks who spent their entire lives in spiritual contemplation. Ifunka resisted the urge and walked back to the tvagshaff in order to find Ffen, who might aid him to find Ushwan. So hurriedly did he run that the grass beneath his feet seemed to leap with him as the sombre tvagshaff loomed overhead. He dashed through the door and rushed to his friend’s room but, after bursting in, he found it untenanted. He next hurried to see Brother Wiffka who, he found, was enjoying tea ere the sun began to plunge beneath the horizon.
“Welcome, Brother,” Wiffka greeted him. “Have you come for tea?”
“No indeed, Brother,” Ifunka replied. “I was looking for Ffen and then you… you see... it’s terrible. I can’t find him.”
“Ffen is missing?”
“No, not him, Brother. It is Brother Ushwan who is missing. He borrowed two books… I think he’s been kidnapped!”
“Slow yourself, Brother; you sound like a crazed webk-cat. Slow your speech and resolve your thoughts into clarity.”
“Ushwan has surely been kidnapped by some dark force.” Ifunka had gained control of his power of expression. “He borrowed two books, both to do with bandits in Ritvator, and then returned them today—seven hours ago to be precise.”
“What are the titles of these volumes?”
“A History of Bandits and Criminal Gangs in Ritvator Province, and The Adventures of Biffka Wentoff: The Notorious Cutthroat—He then visited the Abbott but the Abbott himself claims not to have seen him. I fear he has discovered some unpleasant truth and has been removed as a result.”
“Or killed.”
“Great Solis forbid it! And what of Ffen? Where is he? I should find Shem as well, even though we haven’t spoken much in ages.”
“Calm down, my boy. Let us think before we act. If the Abbott is involved in any way, your life is now in danger. We must act swiftly but also sensibly, lest the sword of fate, which even now dangles precariously above our heads, come crashing down and cleave our brains in twain! So—we must try to find Brother Ushwan post haste! Think, my boy, where could he be?”
“The forest,” Ifunka replied straightaway. “Where else could he have gone? Even now, the spirits of the trees call to me, even as Vukt begins his perennial descent into the underworld.”
“Beware the call of the trees, Ifunka. Many a wanderer has heeded their calling and vanished into the depths thereof. The tree spirits are not sensible to our world. Their call is a wild call, like the call of the sea with its crashing waves and impenetrable depths. Its summons are not rational—explicable. Rather, it is like a mighty pull, even as the pull of Ffash and Tvash upon the tides. It’s magnetic. If Ushwan has succumbed to this call, woe be unto him!”
“’Tis not trees which stole him away, Brother, but malice! And I will eat the heart and drink the blood of any one who has hurt my friend!”
“Violent thoughts lead to violent ends, Brother,” Wiffka warned him. “The Tamitvar says as much when it commands: ‘kodkumimileiminkaim karog lishavtilei—gelff pamsha Tamitvaryengilei’ (love unto him who hatred gives—this is the heart of the Tamitvar).”
Ifunka was silenced by the weightiness of this argument.
“So, you must have told Brother Ushwan about your story,” Brother Wiffka surmised.
“How did you know?”
“I have also continued to ponder this issue but did not think to search those books you mentioned—or maybe I did. I can’t remember. But, in any case, Ushwan has found something which I have not. The Abbott has evidently silenced him or sought to silence him as a result. Or perhaps—”
“What—what is it?”
“Ifunka, where was it you said your Uncle’s house was?”
“Near Laffka Hill.”
“Hmmm… what if…” He thought for a moment and then went to his desk and pulled out a large, meb-vellum map of Tremnad, which he rolled out flat upon the desk. He held it open with four carved stone paperweights and then placed a red glass counter on Laffka Hill, another on the monastery and then, pulling out a notebook in which he had kept a record of murders and disappearances over a twenty year period, he placed a red counter for each on the map, indicating the location of the murder or disappearance. After he had placed the fifteenth and last of these on the map, Wiffka gasped, for the pattern which emerged formed a perfect circle around Shivka Forest and the adjoining southern maff called Gaffga.
“Look!” he cried. “All the murders and disappearances form a circle round Shivka and Gaffga forests, with each one perfectly equidistant from the centre. If we trace two lines through the circumference thusly, we reach the centremost point thereof. Logically, this is the source of the murders and abductions.”
“But Brother, you’ve said that the Theocratic dispatches haven’t mentioned any of this.”
“I have found scattered reference
s and corresponded with brothers in other monasteries over the last ten years. Only now, with Ushwan’s abduction, does the full picture emerge. The Theocracy is deliberately hushing this all up and the Abbott must be following the official line. If we’re not careful, he will have us both killed, and probably Ffen and Shem as well, in order to keep this story from breaking.”
“Then come, Brother Wiffka, we must leave!”
“No, Ifunka, I must stay here. I am not as young as you are and must accept my destiny, whatever that may be. But here’s what you must do: find Ffen and Shem and seek out the fount of these murders and abductions. There, no doubt, you will find great evil and only through your faith in the Great Spirit will you be able to overcome it. Take this with you—”
Wiffka removed a thin, short sword with a curved steel blade and bronze handle, this style of sword being called a gishk.
“It was my father’s blade. He was a knight of the Order of Inta. As such, this was a blade of oppression but now let it be a sword of justice. Keep it well and only unsheathe it in times of need.”
“I shall, Brother,” Ifunka almost choked with tears. “I shall miss you Brother Wiffka. You’ve been like a father to me.”
“Now, now,” he comforted him. “Weep not on my account. I’m just a simple monk and we are all children of the Great Spirit who has breathed life into us and sustains us through His all-amplexive and almighty power. Trust in Him and all your worries will become like unto ice which melts under the warm rays of the sun above. Fear not, for the Great Spirit is closer to you than your life-vein, even though He is exalted above place, form or time. Here, take this map to guide your way.”
Green Monk of Tremn, Book I: An Epic Journey of Mystery and Adventure (Coins of Amon-Ra Saga 1) Page 10
