Final Solstice

by David Sakmyster

  Solomon shook the snow and moss from his khakis and the sleeves of his sweater, and wiped his boots on a mat of elderberry leaves. “Again I feel underdressed. I know it’s winter, but my motion to require the old dress code of white robes, belts of living vines and sandals has been ignored, I take it?”

  A grizzled face lifted and old, wizened eyes peered at him through a gray nest of bushy eyebrows. At least the Arch-Druid Louis Palavar had a face that looked the part: half Merlin, half Gandalf, but unfortunately with the powerful grace of neither.

  Palavar pursed his lips. “Avery Solomon. Not only are you late, an occurrence we’ve grown accustomed to, but your blatant disregard as to the proper order of things, such as making motions, has become more than tiring.”

  Solomon shrugged and approached the free chair, his assigned post opposite Palavar at the far head of the table. Carved from a massive sequoia stump, it made up for the distance from the arch-druid and the perceived slight Solomon refused to accept. He sat lithely, crossed his legs and set his staff across the armrests, then leaned forward to view the iPad screen set up in front of him, as the others had in front of them. Another anachronism, and as far as Solomon was concerned, a ludicrous attempt by the old-timer to appear in touch with the modern world. He glanced to his left, into the other room, a study which held the grand piano and an assortment of bookshelves, Solomon was again glad he’d missed any recitals by the old fool.

  “Let’s see,” he said after a pause, scrolling down the iPad screen. “What did I miss so far? Ah, the agenda. The usual items. Montgomery gave his redundant spiel on his efforts at the EPA, having infiltrated the agency and placed acolytes in the highest positions. So what have you done? Oh, you’ve got another appeal headed to the Supreme Court mandating further emissions restrictions! Wonderful.” He rolled his eyes and stared at the thin bald man in the drab grey suit sitting beside Palavar. “Great progress we’re making there.”

  “Solomon—”

  “Hang on.” He scrolled down. “Oh shit, did I miss Angelica’s update on the expansion of social media and her bold attempts to reshape college-age minds regarding the wonders of protecting the planet? Like that’s a difficult task, come on.”

  “Solomon—”

  “And oh, damn it, this I did want to hear.” Solomon glanced up, tightening his grip, two-handed, on the staff. “Louis Palavar gave his annual presentation detailing Hollywood’s master plan to saturate popular culture with earth-saving messages and ideas, subliminal and otherwise.” He chuckled. “How’s that going for you?”

  Palavar glared at him, and the two held each other’s stares as both sides of the table hushed and glanced from one to the other. Solomon had played his opening hand, and now it was the old man’s turn. But really, there was no doubt about what the next moves were going to be. Solomon had played them out in his head countless times in the past few days. Timed these chess moves down to the second, in fact. He knew Palavar only too well, and counted on him being exactly the rigid old fool that was.

  “Actually,” Palavar said, breaking the silence as Solomon knew he would. “We haven’t followed the agenda at all.”

  Solomon smiled, never taking his eyes off him. “Really? That’s not like you, deviating from procedure. Must have been something quite serious to force that decision.”

  “It was.” Palavar’s eyes hardened, a look like a hawk’s surveying everything. I’m sure he doesn’t miss anything. Or at least, he thinks he doesn’t. Solomon counted on Palavar’s overconfidence. He’d only get one shot at this, and if he failed, everything he had worked for would be in ruins. And the world would slip away forever from its true destiny.

  “Well,” Solomon spoke calmly. “Hope it wasn’t something I did.”

  “You tell us,” Palavar replied at once. “In fact, let’s jump right ahead to agenda Item Seven. Your report on what was supposed to be your effort to enhance awareness of Global Warming in the business community, and specifically, aiming to pass a resolution through the United Nations that would—”

  Solomon groaned. “Yes, yes, in time. I’d be happy to talk about all that. But as you said, that’s not what you really want to ask me, is it?” He glanced at a few of the others. At Angelica Briars with her lustrous scarlet hair pulled back and sparkling with what looked like pixie dust, but nothing could eradicate the crow’s nests around her eyes or the sallow hue to her cheeks. He glanced at the diminutive and gnome-like Morris Tildershines, who held rank over the ancient clan of druids in Britain and Scotland, at Heidi Noriesse who fancied herself one among the Valkyries and lorded over the dwindling clan in Eastern Europe, but had long since lost her muscle and her nerve, turning in her sword for a stylus and managing change with all the speed of a harvest snail.

  “San Diego,” Palavar said.

  “Jamaica,” said Belgar Tinman, adept of the Southern climes and self-styled Lord of the Sea—who for all Solomon cared, could drown himself in it for his lack of vision or action of late. In fact, nearly all of them were useless. They were cast from the same mold as Palavar, who unfortunately had too much power in selecting the council. It was only through extreme patience, foresight, cunning and occasional trickery, that Solomon had made it not only on the Council, but had advanced so far that they now considered him such a threat.

  But of course, they had underestimated his power, while overestimating their own.

  “Minneapolis,” said Harrison Nye, “Lord Master of the Mountains.” Whatever that title meant, Solomon had no use for him either and couldn’t remember anything from his semi-annual updates other than the usual whining about the ice cap levels and an obsessive fear of fracking.

  “Wonderful places,” Solomon said. “What of them? Can’t say that I’ve ever been, except once as a kid, driving through Minnesota to see the world’s largest ball of twine.”

  “So this wasn’t your doing?” Palavar asked.

  “Sounds like you’re suspecting me of powers far in excess of what I should possess.”

  “We both know what you’re capable of, Avery.” Palavar leveled a glance at him, and by calling him his familiar name in an attempt to humble and belittle, Solomon almost flinched, for a moment feeling a crack in his resolve. But he had to remember, had to stay on course. Palavar once held sway over Solomon’s destiny, but no longer.

  Palavar slammed his fist down. “The larger question is, why you’ve done this?”

  Solomon let the question go unanswered, then said, “Well, why don’t you enlighten me? Or have one of your lackeys do it?”

  Heidi grumbled, taking the bait. “For the self-same aim you have been espousing in these gatherings for five years!”

  “The Green Kingdom,” Morris whispered.

  “Dominion,” Belgar spoke, “over all.”

  “The Green Kingdom,” Palavar echoed. “Is a fable, a tale best kept in the realm of the faire-folk and lost in the parables of old. It is—”

  “—and always has been, within our grasp!” Solomon slammed his own fist onto the table, and formed a crack that shot halfway across, rattling water glasses and knocking over iPads.

  Palavar folded his arms and narrowed his eyes, which sparkled with a canine yellowish tint. And was that a feral hint of a wolf straining to break free of a very old, rusted cage? “We have been through this before.”

  “Yes, but perhaps your counter-logic hasn’t sunk into my thick skull,” Solomon said, leaning forward and making a show of clenching his fingers around the staff and spinning it slowly. “The part about the earth being largely indifferent and immune to the misadventures of the pests crawling all over it? That never sat well with me.”

  Morris cleared his throat, a bit sheepishly, but chimed in, perhaps hoping to diffuse the situation. “It’s well documented, and nearly irrefutable. Man’s been around what? Ten thousand years? Less than a blink of an eye in the earth’s life cycle. She’s hardly noticed us.”

  Solomon leaned back heavily, still spinning the staff. “Here we go.�
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  Belgar chimed in. “We do what we can, but let’s not fool ourselves. If our goal is to safeguard the earth, our job is laughably easy. Why? Because She can protect herself. Maybe not for the ultimate comfort of her temporary ‘pests,’ as you called them, but for herself, surely.”

  “All this talk of global warming,” Heidi said, twirling her blonde curls. “Laughable. The earth warms, the earth cools. She has her own temperature.”

  “But we’re a virus attacking her system. Man is a disease,” Solomon insisted. “And our planet’s flaring up in a fever, determined to fight us off.”

  “If that’s the case,” Palavar said, “let her. If the minute degree here or there is sufficient to shake off enough of us ‘pests’ to make any difference, then why are you fighting it? Why are you fighting us? We are trying to change the mind-set of an entire race, get them to see themselves as caretakers instead of mindless consumers with bottomless appetites. It takes time, and it will have the desired effect. Eventually.”

  “Eventually is too long!” Solomon countered. “And it won’t work. Because ultimately it’s false. The earth doesn’t care, as Morris here so eloquently said, and I agree. Man has been around for such a short time as to be almost unnoticed in the two billion years of this planet’s tumultuous history.”

  “See?” Morris blushed and grinned. “As I keep saying, and you all keep shushing me.”

  “All your efforts,” Solomon said, stealing his thunder, “what are they for? Maybe people will become self-conscious enough someday to stop driving SUVs, and maybe someone will find a way to make a cost-efficient electric car or make ethanol or wind power actually a viable alternative. But what of it? One more volcano erupts in the Philippines and spews more CO2 into the atmosphere than China produces in a decade, and we’re back to square one. Or the sun flares up in a sunburst that blankets the planet in radiation and blasts through widening holes in our ozone layer, and all those efforts are for nothing.”

  “So what are you suggesting, Solomon?” Palavar tapped his gnarled fingers on the table, tracing a groove in the ancient wood. “That we give up? That we turn our back on our role as stewards?”

  “No, I merely suggest expanding the role. Or perhaps … earning that title instead of playing at it.”

  “Watch yourself, Solomon. You overstep your limits.”

  “As we all should. Otherwise …” He glanced around at the others in the room, at the chairs and the arrangements, the vines and trunks, the leafy canopy overhead and the buzzing of insects and fluttering of butterfly wings. “We don’t deserve the power that goes with this responsibility.”

  Heidi stiffened and frowned. “But if the earth defends itself, if it shakes off the pollution, the ravaging of its resources …”

  “It does,” Solomon said. “Over thousands, millions of years … In those terms—the only terms the earth deals in—we will be nothing but a memory. Pollution? Hell, unleash every nuclear warhead, and destroy ourselves ten times over, and the earth will recover and it will be as if it never happened in a few thousand years. She hosts species after species and then they either die out or she kills them, and moves on.”

  “So again I ask: what is it you are fighting?” Palavar shook his head, exasperated. “You espouse the glory of nature and how ineffective we are in the face of its power, as is only right, and yet you sit there meeting after meeting asking to do more to punish humanity. Towards what end?” He narrowed his eyes, and his hand went from the table to his own staff—gnarled and twisted and ancient—leaning against his chair. “Do you seek then to upset the balance? To gain power and glory for the now, to force Nature to focus and take notice of this tiny moment in time when she is accustomed to seeing only vast epochs?”

  In the ensuing silence, Solomon rolled up his sleeve and checked his timepiece—a gold Rolex with a black face and a digital readout behind the spinning gears.

  It was almost time.

  “That, Palavar and dear Council, is exactly what I intend.” He sighed and looked at them all in turn before staring back at the arch-druid. “We may be newly upon the scene, but we were given a role—and the power to back it up. Power that is wasted on the likes of this …” He made a gesture toward the agenda on the iPad screen. “We can do so much more. The Green Kingdom can be restored. And just perhaps, we are meant to do exactly that.”

  Belgar frowned at him and Morris again cleared his throat. “I apologize, but as much as the idea intrigues, you said it—it can’t happen. Stop the pests, the rampant consumption and the runaway polluters and the destruction of resources, and nature will just step in and take up the battle, a hundred times stronger.” He shook his head. “There will soon be no green, the way things are going. No matter what anyone does about it. And what, do you propose damming the volcanoes and controlling the sun?”

  Solomon smiled. “Now you are thinking like a true steward.” He never took his eyes off Palavar. “Like a true druid.”

  “Enough!” Palavar spoke through grit teeth, yellowed and cracked. “We are tired of this endless debate. We know your objections, and you know ours. The mission is unchanged. We will work as always, behind the scenes.”

  “As always?” Solomon chuckled. “I know our history is a little vague and purposely shrouded in mystery, but I prefer to honor the one historical anecdote we do have passed down to us. When the Romans came marching into Britain, it wasn’t the local peasants and ragtag armies that eventually sent them packing. It wasn’t dumb luck that severed the head of the greatest empire at the time and decimated their lands with drought and froze their troops and starved their children and swept away their homes in avalanches of mud and ravaged their farms with wildfire. Ruined their economy and stretched their forces thin and hungry.”

  “We don’t know the facts of that, and can’t ascribe—”

  “We can, and we do,” Solomon insisted. “Those were men and women of action. Of defiance. Of power. They actually controlled the forces of nature, instead of just giving themselves titles over it.” He glared at Belgar and Morris. “Instead of sitting around in hollowed-out tree stumps debating the merits of passivity, they acted. As I have acted.”

  He stood up, raising the staff slowly. “Jamaica, yes. Minneapolis, yes! San Diego and many more. And you have no idea what I have planned next, but I promise you this … the Green Kingdom is at hand.”

  The room sank into stunned silence as Palavar reached for his staff, determination in his eyes. “Then I am sad,” he said, “that it has come to this. You have forsaken your oaths to protect the earth and its people. You have tarnished the name of this Council, betrayed its history and its purpose, betrayed your upbringing and your training, and—”

  “And I call for a vote!” Solomon shouted over him. “As is the right of any member of this ‘Council.’” Solomon turned his staff sideways, perpendicular to his body, as he glared at Palavar. “I call for a vote of no confidence in Louis Palavar, that he be stripped of title and staff, and thrust out into the black forest to wander in grief and loss, forever.”

  Palavar chuckled. “You may call for such a vote, as is your right. You know the rules, but you also know the consequences if such a challenge fails.” He glanced at the others around the table. “A motion has been raised. All in favor? And remember, you need a majority.”

  Palavar tapped his fingers on the staff as he stood up slowly. And he turned his staff sideways as well, squaring off symmetrically against Solomon.

  Overhead, the vines creaked and leaves rustled in a non-existent breeze. Solomon felt the earth under his shoes rumble. The soft dirt rippled as if roots moved beneath the table, assembling into position.

  He turned his wrist slightly to see the time.

  On schedule, he thought, keeping his arm steady, the staff barely giving a tremble. Palavar was attempting the same but his arm had to be getting tired.

  “All those in favor of Solomon’s vote?”

  Silence. A lot of eyes turned downward. Morri
s alone was fidgeting. He licked his lips, opened his mouth, but then met Palavar’s cold eyes, and lowered his own. No one looked toward Solomon, but he didn’t expect them to.

  A few more seconds ticked away.

  And then he sighed. “I guess that’s it then,” Solomon said. “The Green Kingdom dies.…”

  “No,” said Palavar. “Only you.”

  He pulled his arm back, straightened his grip and turned the staff lengthwise, then slammed it down hard upon the floor.

  Morris clenched his eyes and flinched as the others looked away. And at Palavar’s command, a mass of writhing vines shot out from the ceiling just as the dirt floor erupted with a battalion of roots. His legs encircled, and another thick root lassoed Solomon’s waist and dragged him back into the chair as a huge vine whipped around his staff and yanked it hard from his grasp.

  As he sat with a thump and offered no struggle against the roots and vines wrapping around his body, pinning him to the chair, Solomon followed the vines that stripped him of his weapon and deposited it cleanly into the arch-druid’s free hand.

  One vine snared his throat, snake-like, and squeezed.

  “I’m sorry,” Palavar said quietly in the aftermath, as the ceiling swayed with dozens of vines at the ready, as the floor rippled and the walls churned with thorn-riddled branches preparing to defend or attack, whichever the case should be. “But you knew the consequences. You were unprepared, and now …”

  “Now,” said Solomon, barely managing enough air in his windpipe. “We get back on track.”

  O O O

  Palavar frowned, mouth open. He cocked his head, trying to fathom why his adversary—seconds away from death—still seemed so confident. Then he frowned and glanced at the new staff in his left hand.