The Forest of Peldain

by Barrington J. Bayley

  Yet the Eye of Peldain held him to his bargain. Every day he dived into its turbid, tepid depths, and it was as if he dived straight into a secret land below the lake; he no longer encountered the entity at all.

  The seeming hours he spent with his wife Kirekenawe meant far more to him than the remaining day here in Lakeside, which paradoxically took on the aspect of a drab dream in comparison. They sailed and swam, they dived in the shallow coral reefs abounding in the Hundred Islands. Sometimes they found themselves somewhere in Arelia, even in Arcaiss—but never again did they meet in their villa: neither of them wanted to come upon the helpless form of Kirekenawe in her quarters. The favorite venue, whether selected by the lake or unconsciously by themselves, was an idyllic little island Vorduthe had never in fact seen, and which he was fairly sure did not really exist: a paradisiacal setting complete with lawn-like meadows, perfumed trees and leaping deer.

  Only when pressed did Kirekenawe give him news of the rebellion that King Krassos was fighting to contain. The sea battle, apparently, had been inconclusive. Early on Vorduthe had caught a brief glimpse of damaged and partly burned ships in the harbor. He gathered, however, that there was no immediate danger, and he felt confident that Arelians, as always, would prevail.

  Today’s would be the sixtieth sojourn, in the dream life, in the distant Hundred Islands.

  Vorduthe stopped walking. He looked at the troop leaders one after the other. “You are forgetting that with Octrago’s accession to the throne the situation will be changed. He will be in a position to redeem his oath of allegiance. He promised to engineer a way through the forest so as to give regular communication with Arelia, and he should be given a chance to prove his word.”

  “The project is impossible,” Kana-Kem said flatly. “In any case, only a fool would trust him.”

  These words were close to insubordination. “Enough!” Vorduthe snapped. “I, and I alone, will decide on any action.”

  Dismissing them, he strode toward the lake.

  All Vorduthe’s misgivings vanished as the lake’s surface closed over his head. A poignant feeling assailed him. Then his consciousness was drawn inward, into sleeplike trance.

  He “awoke” on their dream island. He was standing under a water-fruit tree, near a patch of silky tassel-fern. A young leaping-deer with a dappled fawn-colored coat nibbled the moss.

  He did not see Kirekenawe at first. But suddenly there she was, gazing at him from the edge of a small grove. Her smile, as he caught sight of her, was wistful, almost pained. She wore nothing but a short kilt of blue-and-purple grass, whose strands moved sensuously as she came toward him.

  “Quickly!” she said breathlessly. “Quickly!”

  He let her draw him into the silver tassel fern and they sank down in its softness. It was a perfect bed for love-making, and she gripped him with a desperate ardor, more intense than she had ever shown him.

  Usually she liked to prolong the pleasure but now she worked her body with impatient eagerness to satisfy them both as soon as possible. Then, her skin filmed with perspiration, she lay back gasping, gazing at him with soft, sad eyes.

  When she had caught her breath she sat up. “Husband, there is little time,” she said. “This is our last meeting.”

  “What are you saying?” he growled in alarm.

  Sorrowfully she sighed, shaking her head. “It is not fitting that I should hide the truth from you now, at the very end. I have been less than honest with you—I did not want our newfound happiness to be marred by something we could do nothing to change.”

  While he stared at her aghast she went on: “The sea battle against the rebels went worse than I told you. It broke Arelia’s naval strength. Since then the savages have taken island after island… how could I tell you this, and make you unhappy? Now the worst has happened. The savages have landed on Arelia… King Krassos is dead, Arcaiss is burning and I can smell the smoke… the Orwanians have reverted to cannibalism, husband…”

  Vorduthe recalled with a shock his drugged dream in the forest. “You must have yourself moved at once to a place of safety,” he ordered.

  “Too late, they are in the house. I hear the servants being murdered. In moments they will enter my room. Good-bye, husband. I die in happiness, knowing what we have enjoyed together!”

  “No!”

  Vorduthe clutched at his wife. But suddenly she was not there. He was alone in the tassel bed that was hollowed out by the press of their bodies.

  “No!”

  This time he cried his protest at the sky. And as if in answer, the world around him trembled and flurried. There was an impression of swift motion. Then he seemed to be looking down on the room where his paralyzed wife lay.

  It was impossible to read any emotion in her impassive face. One servant remained with her: a young waiting girl who crouched near her mistress wearing an expression of stark terror. She shrieked as into the room there burst a band of grinning brown-skinned Orwanian primitives, their teeth filed, practically naked except for their weapons.

  Laughing, three savages dragged away the kicking, screaming servant girl. The rest turned their attention to Kirekenawe, stripping off the sheet that covered her, playing with her white body. They seemed puzzled at first that she did not move. Then, reaching agreement, they carried her down to the courtyard, where fires had been lit under cooking grids… and one Orwanian took a black flint knife to slice off her nose and chew it raw.…

  At this fulfillment of his earlier premonitory vision Vorduthe’s spirit recoiled into the sky among the wheeling birds. The majestic nazarine blue rippled, went dark, and then he seemed to break through a barrier and knew that for him the dream was over.

  Images assailed him. He had caught the entity in the lake unawares and knew that the dream had been no fiction; it really had happened—was happening. He saw too how the entity viewed Thelessa: as a dazzling oceanic jewel, a world sapphire, a paradise whose climate varied scarcely at all throughout the year, whose waters remained gentle and pacific. By comparison Vorduthe caught a sense of what other worlds in the heavens were like, tilted somehow with respect to the sun so as to produce extremes of heat and cold all in the same latitude; their seas sloshed about pendulum-like by the near presence of yet other worlds that loomed visibly in their skies.

  The entity claimed the whole of Thelessa as its territory, regardless of any bargain struck with Vorduthe. Peldain was to be turned into a single riotous jungle where the vegetable products of a fevered imagination would be given full rein. If any human beings survived, it could only be as hunted animals.

  I should have brought you back sooner. I have been inattentive.

  The green-gold voice was as smooth and calm as ever, but behind it, keeping pace with its words, was an elemental rage that could not be contained or disguised, a tempest of ever-changing plant growth. The soul in the lake, once a man, had lost its humanity long ago. Vorduthe could dimly understand why. The descent into the subconscious involved a descent into primeval forces. The entity had surrendered itself to the raw wish of primitive life to survive and grow at the expense of anything else.

  I see you have resolved to take the part of the High Priest, at last, the voice continued. You think you can control me.

  In his anger and grief Vorduthe was indeed ready to fight the entity for mastery. But the voice only chuckled.

  It is too late, Lord Vorduthe of Arelia. When first you dived into this lake you might have succeeded. But love made you delay, and now I have learned to avoid your will, just as I once learned to avoid Mistirea’s. So good-bye, Lord Vorduthe, noble of Arelia.

  The voice faded and Vorduthe found himself out of trance state and alone in pitch darkness, warm liquid all around. His lungs had not yet reached the limit of their endurance, but he knew that the entity would never admit him into its presence again.

  The lake’s stratagem had worked. While Vorduthe was distracted with delight in Kirekenawe it had been familiarizing itself with his psyche, abs
orbing a part of him so that his mind could not be used as a weapon against it. It was maturing fast. Probably, Vorduthe thought, no one would ever influence it again.

  It was time to depart. For the last time he soared, toward daylight and fresh air.

  The High Priest’s eyes became hollow as Vorduthe, standing dripping on the lake’s mossy shore, confessed his failure.

  “Yes, I had thought there was something wrong,” he said in a ghostly voice. “So it was all for nothing. Peldain will die.”

  “No,” Vorduthe said. “There is still something we can do. If you had not lost the habit of work in the physical world these past generations you would have thought of it yourself.”

  Mistirea stared uncomprehending when Vorduthe first explained what he meant. When it came home to him that the thing was possible, he was dumbfounded.

  “But the Eye of Peldain has always been with us!” he protested.

  “Do you still think of it as a god? If so it is a malign god.”

  “It is a god in a sense, a god that must be appeased… yet strange to say, once it was a man.” Mistirea nodded, evidently thinking he was telling Vorduthe something new. “Yes, it is so. You know the hill that is shaped like a woman, in the valley beyond the Clear Peaks? Legend has it that the hill was so sculpted on the orders of the lake long ago. Though no longer a man, it became hungry for the shape of a woman. It wished to caress such a woman with the branches of the forest.…”

  Mistirea came back to the point. “The lake alone can restrain the forest! What would happen if your plan were carried out?”

  “But it is not true that the spirit restrains the forest, as such,” Vorduthe told him. “Rather it is the other way about. The lake is the forest’s soul, its driving force. If that force is removed the forest will remain deadly, certainly, but it will have no directing intelligence. It will be unable to evolve; men will be able to drive it back, perhaps even to burn it down. In any case we can prevent it spreading.”

  Vorduthe began to dry himself. Mistirea stood still, thinking hard.

  “It must be done secretly,” he said at last. “If the King should hear of it—”

  “What of your own acolytes? Could they be trusted?”

  “Some, yes… others, no.”

  “My men will carry out the work,” Vorduthe promised. “Even if the palace should learn of it, it must still be carried through, and that means fighting. My men alone will not be enough to hold off the King’s force, but if even some of your acolyte warriors joined in there might be a chance. Can you get us our weapons? Even more important, we shall need suitable tools.”

  “Very well, then, we are joined in conspiracy,” Mistirea agreed somberly. “If you are wrong, Lord Vorduthe, may the gods you worship help this traitor!”

  Chapter Sixteen

  It was near dawn of the fourth night when the white-coated acolyte came from Lakeside and touched his brow in the cult’s formal sign of respect.

  “Our cause is betrayed,” he told Vorduthe. “One of us whom Mistirea trusted went to Prince Askon and revealed all. The Prince is on his way here with all the force he could muster.”

  Vorduthe cursed under his breath. Mistirea had experienced extreme difficulty in judging whom he could confide in. The cult members, long trained in reverence for the lake, found the turn of events confusing.

  “And Mistirea?”

  “He is gathering your men and those of us we can trust. They too will shortly be on their way here.”

  “Wait. I will return with you.”

  Bending his head, Vorduthe stepped into the low, cramped tunnel, shored up by timber props, that ran horizontally into the sloping ground. Two men came toward him dragging sacks of earth. Even by the light of the lamps he would not have been able to see the other two who were digging at the tunnel’s end. They were too far in now, hacking away with tree-grown hardwood tools that were actually meant for replanting trees, but which served their present purpose well enough.

  During the daytime the entrance was blocked and concealed. Much easier and quicker would have been to dig straight through the retaining bank, but Vorduthe had elected to start farther down the slope so as to reach a greater depth. By his estimation the tunnel should be about ready to break through.

  If he was wrong then the outcome would depend on who won the forthcoming fight. From the cache of weapons stored just inside the entrance he took a sword and strapped on the waist belt and harness. He stopped the two earth-shifters, briefly told them what was happening, and went outside.

  In the west the glow of dawn was beginning to challenge the blazing stars. He and the acolyte walked up the slope, skirting the looming bank until eventually they were able to view the dully gleaming, perfectly flat surface of the lake.

  They were in time to see a column of men moving among the tree-houses and coming toward the lake. To Vorduthe’s military eye they looked like a mob for they came along in a crowd and not in rank and file as Arelian warriors would. Some were garbed in the honey-colored armor of the palace guard, a few in the brown bark cuirasses worn by cult acolytes when in combat order.

  Heading them was Askon Octrago, also in honey armor and a coroneted helmet of the same color.

  “You would have done better to arm yourself for your errand,” Vorduthe observed dryly to the acolyte.

  Then, from another direction, Mistirea and Troop Leader Kana-Kem were seen leading a mixed group of seaborne warriors and acolytes round the corner of a large community house. There were about forty Arelians, together with approximately the same number of Peldainians, all armed.

  The two groups spotted one another and halted. With feral glances at both Vorduthe and Mistirea, Octrago stepped from among his men. The High Priest, too, moved forward, crossing about half the distance between them.

  Octrago’s caustic words were crisp on the cool morning air. “Here we have the whole treacherous nest, it seems. Tell me, High Priest, was it for this that I exerted myself? Crossed the ocean? Dared the forest? Well, no matter. You had best not oppose me now. Stand aside while I finish this business once and for all.”

  “You misunderstand what is happening!” Mistirea’s voice was pleading and he addressed not only Octrago but those following him. “We must render the forest harmless, and this is the only way! It should have been done long ago!”

  “What!” Octrago’s face showed that he was genuinely incredulous. “The forest is our protection against the rest of the world! Our ancient hedge—against such as he!” He gestured violently at Vorduthe, glaring. “Your duty is to keep it within bounds, not to strip us of it!”

  “It cannot be kept within bounds any longer. We are the lake’s prisoners, under sentence of death!” Mistirea puffed out his chest and his voice strengthened. “Listen to me! All I have done, I have done for the sake of Peldain—”

  “Your brain has been addled by this lying foreigner,” Octrago growled, interrupting. “All this is for the sake of Arelia!”

  He made a signal to a man behind him. A lance was hurled, catching Mistirea in the chest. He staggered, clutched at himself, then fell to the ground.

  With a great shout on both sides, the two forces rushed at one another. The shock of their meeting sounded out a clash of metal and the thudding of lance and sword on timber shields, followed by the grunts, growls and groans of men in mortal combat.

  To the Arelians, this was the revenge they had been itching for. They fought like demons, like maddened tentacle-fish, wanting only to hack, stab and kill. The acolytes on both sides had less enthusiasm; they did not like to cross swords with their former intimates and more than one fled the field.

  The palace guards, shaken at first by the extent of Arelian ferocity, proved a stiffer foe. Skilled by long practice in the use of shield, sword and lance, they added Arelian as well as Peldainian blood to the stained moss, and the encounter turned into a confused melee.

  Octrago, however, neatly dodged the fray. He came on straight for Vorduthe, and the unarme
d acolyte standing by the commander’s side turned and ran, terrified at the sight of the advancing prince, who shouted a challenge.

  “Now we shall have a reckoning, Lord Vorduthe!”

  Having longed to meet Octrago on final terms, Vorduthe was almost glad to see the prince so oblivious of his country’s best interests. His sword dropped into his hand and he stood firm to meet the attack.

  Neither man carried a shield, but Octrago was quick to take advantage of the fact that he was wearing armor and Vorduthe was not. In the growing daylight his blade shimmered and flickered faster than the eye could follow in feint after feint and, though wise to most tricks of Arelian swordsmanship, Vorduthe found himself forced back by the wild and reckless onslaught.

  The rush ended in a straight thrust to the heart which Vorduthe barely deflected in time and Octrago’s point gouged his shoulder. With renewed rage he went on the attack. They came to close quarters. For some moments the two men swayed together, then they sprang apart, weighing one another up warily.

  “The lake! Look at the lake! The lake!”

  All fighting stopped as, in silence, those on both sides obeyed the hysterical shout that had come from among them. The rim of the sun was visible on the western horizon now. By its light the surface of the lake shimmered, rippled, swirled.

  Taking care to keep Octrago visible out of the corner of his eye, Vorduthe half-turned to look behind him. A flood of green liquid was pouring down the sloping terrain from the tunnel that had been dug in it. The diggers, having been carried by the onrush, were picking themselves up, staggering and sloshing to safety.

  The same voice as before let out a despairing wail.

  “They are draining the lake!”

  “You have murdered the soul of Peldain!”

  This last came from Octrago. Face contorted, he came at Vorduthe with such berserk fury that the Arelian commander was forced into the lake. Octrago followed him and seemed to have abandoned all thought for his own life. Soon the two were up to their waists and slashed wildly at one another, floundering.