He had ascended half the remaining distance to the captive when the stub abruptly retracted into the side of the tree. The rope that had been looped around it promptly fell free.
Bereft of its support, Malone found himself falling. Looking down, he saw one massive branch rising to meet him and prepared himself for the impact.
Emitting a woody, groaning sound, it twisted out of his way, revealing only bare ground below.
Gritting his teeth, Malone yanked the looped end of the rope toward him. In a single twisting motion he passed the other end through the loop and tossed it over the branch that had contorted out of his way. The loop he still held in his hand. The shock traveled hard through his shoulders as the rope caught tight around the lassoed branch.
Clinging to the rope’s free end with both hands, he let his momentum carry him around in a sweeping arc beneath the branch. At the apex of the swing, he let go, timing his release with unnatural precision. The centrifugal force of the swing carried him up, up, until he once again began to descend toward the ground.
Instead, he landed cleanly on the sturdy branch that protruded outward from beneath the feet of the tree’s startled captive. As Malone proceeded to shake free and reel in the unnaturally robust lariat, the still-immobilized prisoner gawked at him in amazement.
“I venture to say, sir, that was the most extraordinary bit of aerial prestidigitation I have ever had the pleasure of beholding! Where in God’s name did you master such a technique?”
Malone shrugged as he coiled the rope, which displayed no sign of the stress it had been asked to absorb. “Here and there, friend. A bit o’ physics, a touch o’ the circus, a smidgen o’ magic.”
“ ‘Magic’?” The prisoner eyed his rescuer uncertainly.
Malone smiled, revealing teeth that were surprisingly white in stark contrast to the rest of his sun-burned visage. “Mebbe better t’ say a not-so-little birdie taught me. If we ever should have occasion t’ spend a bit o’ time together, I might try to explain.” He turned his attention to the ground, now far below. “But first order o’ business is to git down from where we are, most preferably in one piece. This here tree had a try or two at preventin’ me from comin’ up. I reckon it’ll make something of an effort t’ keep us from gettin’ down.”
“I shall be forever in your debt, Mr.…?”
“Malone. Amos Malone. You kin call me Amos. Or Mad. Where monikers are concerned, I ain’t particular. Kinda like Worthless.”
As the mountain man unsheathed an enormous bowie knife and began to saw at the branches curled around the captive’s body, John looked down toward the ground.
“Your horse? Strange name for a horse.” He squinted as the branch around his chest came away, cut through. “If it is a horse. At this distance I can’t be certain.”
“Like names, distance don’t matter where Worthless is concerned. You’ll find his appearance jest as puzzlin’ close up. Most folks do, though the majority choose not t’ git too close.” Under Malone’s ministrations, the lower branch soon fell away. “There.” He put out a massive hand to steady the former captive, whose muscles were cramped and knotted from hours of being held motionless against the trunk. “Easy. Watch your step. You climbed up. Reckon you kin climb down?”
Rocking his head from side to side to loosen his neck and shoulders, shaking his arms, John smiled. “There isn’t a tree in the Sierra I can’t climb or descend. At least, when they’re not actively engaged in countering my efforts.”
Malone nodded approvingly. “Then let’s be about it, afore this father o’ clothespins cogitates up some further mischief t’ keep us from shinnyin’ back down t’ mother earth.”
Despite Malone’s unease the tree did nothing to hinder their downward progress. This they accomplished at admirable speed, with Malone marveling at John’s talent for finding every possible hand- and foothold in the bark and branches. They were almost to the ground when something with the force of a spring-loaded bear trap slammed shut against Malone’s right hand.
Nearby, he heard John yell. A glance sideways showed the other man still some ten feet above the ground, only inches from the easy footpath that would have been provided by the nearest bulging root mass. Just his face, hands, and feet were visible. The rest of him was trapped within the side of the tree. Two opposing flaps of the deeply fluted bark had slammed shut around his body, pinning him in place.
Even as he deciphered what he was seeing, Malone found himself caught between a pair of similar parallel, vertical ridges. Though he reacted with speed astonishing for such a big man, his hips and back were still caught by the enfolding strips of bark. Soft it might be, but sequoia bark was also tough. Malone’s hands were free, but his knife was caught up within the fibrous restraints. He could kick at the tree, which he did, and he could slam his huge fists against the bark, which he did. He might as well have been kicking and punching the side of a mountain. Which in a sense he was, only in this instance the mountain was made of wood.
Imprisoned within opposing folds of thick bark, the two men were well and truly trapped.
He tried whispering certain words of power he knew. But they were intended only for the hearing of the great kauri of Aotearoa. He tried spit and curses suitable for persuading the inscrutable ginkgo. He tried forgotten languages and refulgent pleas. He recited relevant phrases from the Kalevala and Theophrastus’s Enquiry. Nothing worked.
The tree spoke: slow, subsonic, and triumphant. “BOTH WORM FOOD NOW.”
“Let us go.” Malone was dead serious. “Let us go or it will end badly for you.”
The sequoia could not laugh, but managed to express its amusement nonetheless. “MEATFOOD FOR WORMS, BLOOD AND BONE FOR ME. BUT I WILL LET YOU GO. IN A THOUSAND YEARS. PERHAPS.”
A more normal voice, one that propagated through the air, reached the trapped mountain man. “I am sorry to have gotten you into this, Amos Malone.” Straining forward and looking to his right, Malone could just see the other man’s face peering out from within the bark coffin that imprisoned him. “I have always gotten along well with trees, until now. Until this one.”
“It’s an ornery cuss fer sure,” Malone replied calmly. “Mighty tetchy personality fer a hunk o’ wood. I reckon it needs to be taught some politeness. You said you could call deer and bobcat. Any other critters?”
“Birds,” came the reply from across the tree. “Many birds.”
Malone shook his head sadly. “I reckon a few chickadees won’t be of much assistance in our current situation. More forceful intervention is demanded. Somethin’ considerable more powerful.”
Turning away from the other man and pursing his lips, he whistled sharply.
“CALL WHAT YOU WISH,” the exultant tree challenged him. “A DOZEN MOUNTAIN LIONS COULD NOT CLAW YOU FREE. A HUNDRED BEARS COULD NOT RELEASE YOU. A THOUSAND WAPITI WOULD NOT MOVE ME AN INCH!”
From the mountain man’s mouth came forth such a stream of sounds that the other prisoner could only listen, marvel, and try to identify them. In addition to whistles of varying pitch and tone, there were a series of clicks, a kind of toothy chatter, a multitude of chirps, and a positive profusion of peeps and patterings. To John it all sounded at once familiar and alien, as if he had heard the very same sounds only arranged in a different order, in different harmonies.
It was then that something drew the attention of his sight instead of his hearing. A line was coming toward them—a line just under the ground. The upraised soil formed a positive streak, as if whatever was causing it just beneath the surface was moving with unnatural urgency. A second line soon appeared, then another, and another, all converging at the base of the tree…where they proceeded, in silence, to disappear.
Looking up from his browsing, a querulous Worthless inclined his head toward his imprisoned master. With a knowing snort, he resumed demolishing the nearby ground cover. A
s he did so, he kicked irritably at the ground with a back foot. Thus inadvertently relieved of the massive steed’s unrelenting weight, the wolf that had remained pinned under the horse’s rear left hoof let out a long, tremulous wheeze and gasped several times for air. Righting itself, it staggered shakily toward the clump of brush that contained its badly bruised and still-whimpering brother.
John continued to struggle against his immovable wooden bonds while wondering what the whistling, chirping, chit-chitting mountain man was up to. And what could be the significance of those converging lines in the earth?
“What’s going on?”
Ceasing what John could only describe as an infernal chittering, Malone looked over at him.
“In the mountains, the catamount is more ferocious, the bear stronger, the wapiti more numerous. But those are the dangerous critters you see.” He cast his gaze downward. “Not everything thet eats, not everything with sharp teeth, likes t’ show itself. Try listenin’.”
John hesitated, then decided to do as the mountain man instructed. He heard nothing beyond the ordinary midday song of the Sierra: scolding jays, the songs of smaller birds, the intermittent sigh of the wind in the branches. He said as much to Malone.
“Try harder,” the mountain man advised him. “Focus. Listen deep.”
Closing his eyes, the other man complied, straining to hear whatever it was to which Malone was alluding. More of the same, it was. Except…just there, just then. Something else. Something below him. A sound in multiples, deep beneath, and this time recognizable.
The sound of chewing.
While he considered himself a man of many words, and good ones at that, John peered across the breadth of the tree at Malone and found that at that moment he had none. Leastwise, none that were suitable, or could be expressed in polite company.
Finding its way into Malone’s mouth, a wandering caterpillar quickly saw itself expectorated halfway into the next county.
“You say y’know about all the trees hereabouts, John of the mountains. Then you know that despite their great size, these giants soarin’ around us have one weakness and one only. Their roots are shallow.” He peered downward, listening intently even as he spoke. “ ’Tis all about the teeth, John-friend. Not as sharp as catamount teeth, not as powerful as a bear’s, but plenty sharp enough to do their daily work. One pair can’t cut much. A dozen pair would do better work still. A few hundred or so, now, all gnawin’ away together…After a bit o’ hard work, why, I reckon thet kind o’ activity would be sufficient t’ get the attention o’ any growth. Even one as humungous and disagreeable as our captor here.”
As sure as the color of Millie’s bloomers matched the flush of her cheeks, the great tree spoke up once again.
“WHAT IS HAPPENING? MAKE IT…STOP.”
“Let us go.” Malone’s tone was quiet but demanding.
“I WILL NOT….YOU MUST MAKE IT STOP!” A shudder traveled through the entire length and breadth of the enormous bole. “MAKE IT STOP NOW!”
“Let us go…now.” Malone was resolute. Nearby, Worthless let out a complementary whinny.
There came a rippling around him. Thick folds of bark drew back, back, until he could move freely once again. Swinging his arms and stretching, he climbed down the side of the aboveground mass of the nearest root. A glance showed that John, unprompted, was doing likewise.
Standing once more emancipated and on solid ground, Malone turned his attention not to the root he had just descended but to the earth at its base. As John looked on, the mountain man pursed his lips and emitted a series of chirps and whistles not unlike those that had emanated from him prior to their liberation. At his command, a single body popped out of the earth to stare at him, then another, and another, until at least a dozen of the subterranean denizens had responded to his calling.
John looked on in silent amazement as his towering companion knelt. The multitude of tiny saviors, a fraction of those who had done the necessary work, swarmed over and around him: ground squirrels, gophers, moles, and voles, their diminutive tongues licking and tasting of the mountain man. Two badgers emerged from the ground, wandered over, and nuzzled Malone’s boots. Then, one and all, they scampered and scattered back into their holes in the earth and disappeared.
In his life of observant wandering, John had seen many wonders, but nothing to compare with what had just revealed itself before him.
“Magic. There can be no other rational explanation.”
“Rationality’s somethin’ I find is frequently overused by way o’ explanation.” Malone indicated the temple of silent redwood giants beneath which they stood. “Now, these trees, this here place—that be a true definition o’ magic.” Rising from his crouch, he put a hand on the other man’s shoulder, his leathery open palm completely covering it. “Will you be all right now, John-friend?” He shook a chiding finger at his new acquaintance. “No more climbin’ trees in thunderstorms?”
Behind his impressive beard, the other man grinned. “Not without first asking permission of the tree in question, anyways. I thank you for my freedom, Mr. Malone. I think I shall write about you in my journal.”
The mountain man let out a grunt. “Waste o’ time, methinks. Nobody’d believe such a story. Doesn’t make no sense.” His face broke out in a huge grin.
“Until their existence was witnessed and reported upon,” John murmured reverently, “no one believed that such trees as these endured, either.”
Malone nodded once in solemn agreement. “Kin I give you a ride somewhere, John o’ the mountains?”
Having turned, the other man was already striding off toward the north. “Thank you, but no. My kit is nearby and hung well out of the reach of wandering bears. Also, I confess that the thought of being in any closer proximity to your steed unsettles my stomach even more than does spending time atop a tree in a Sierra thunderstorm. Good traveling to you, Mr. Malone, sir.” Halfway to the nearby ridge, he looked over at the singular sequoia that had imprisoned him, and for a while also, at Malone. “I can, however, assure you that in these mountains there is at least one tree that I will not be ascending again any time soon.”
Swinging himself up and into the saddle on Worthless’s back, Malone gripped the reins loosely in his right hand. At a gentle flick of the leather strands, the enigmatic steed started forward, a clutch of purple lupine hanging incongruously from his mouth. Raising a hand, Malone waved at the rapidly disappearing form of the other man and called out to him.
“I wouldn’t be too hard on the woody old grouch,” he shouted. “Even if his bark was worse than his height.”
BY ALAN DEAN FOSTER
Relic
Mad Amos Malone (ebook)
Pip & Flinx Adventures
For Love of Mother-Not
The Tar-Aiym Krang
Orphan Star
The End of the Matter
Flinx in Flux
Mid-Flinx
Reunion
Flinx’s Folly
Sliding Scales
Running from the Deity
Bloodhype
Trouble Magnet
Patrimony
Flinx Transcendent
Strange Music
Founding of the Commonwealth
Phylogenesis
Dirge
Diturnity’s Dawn
Icerigger Trilogy
Icerigger
Mission to Moulokin
The Deluge Drivers
Standalone Commonwealth Novels
Nor Crystal Tears
Voyage to the City of the Dead
Midworld
Drowning World
Quofum
The Howling Stones
Sentenced to Prism
Cachalot
The Damned Trilogy
A Call to Arms
&n
bsp; The False Mirror
The Spoils of War
The Taken Trilogy
Lost and Found
The Light-Years Beneath My Feet
The Candle of Distant Earth
The Tipping Point Trilogy
The Human Blend
Body, Inc.
The Sum of Her Parts
About the Author
ALAN DEAN FOSTER has written in a variety of genres, including hard science fiction, fantasy, horror, detective, western, historical, and contemporary fiction. He is the author of several New York Times bestsellers and the popular Pip & Flinx novels, as well as novelizations of numerous films, including Transformers, Star Wars, the first three Alien films, and the most recent one, Alien: Covenant. Foster and his wife, JoAnn Oxley, live in Prescott, Arizona, in a house built of brick that was salvaged from an early-twentieth-century miners’ brothel. He is currently at work on several new novels and media projects.
alandeanfoster.com
Facebook.com/AlanDeanFoster
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