Elysia

by Brian Lumley

  De Marigny shook his head. 'We've no idea,' he said. Then he frowned. 'Did you say "lumberlike"? And do. you know someone who's that way - as you've described, I mean?'

  `Fact is,' said Hero, 'we do! And that's not all, for - ' he paused. De Marigny had shown the questers how to tune in to the clock's scanners, and now Hero said: 'But look! There's Lathi's Chrysalis dead ahead. Can we hover a bit while I ask a question or three? It all has bearing, I 'assure you.'

  De Marigny hovered the time-clock over Lathi's paper vessel, while Hero called out 'Lathi, it's Hero here.'

  `And Eldin,' sang out the Wanderer, glowering at Hero. 'Nice job you did back there on that black Leng "pirate".'

  Lathi under her canopy was utterly beautiful — the visible parts, at least. She turned her face indolently up toward the hovering time-clock, said: 'Hero., is that really you in there, who sang me to sleep with your beautiful songs in Thalarion the hive? And you, Eldin, who contrived to burn Thalarion to the ground while that sweet-tongued rogue sang? Then stay safe where you are and come not aboard Chrysalis. I have neither forgotten nor forgiven. If we were allies once ... well, that is over now. And where you two are concerned, my termen have standing orders. Now you are intruders, trespassers over Thalarion the land. Be gone from here.'

  `Not so fast, Lathi,' growled Eldin. `And stop making us out as the villains of the piece. Believe me, we've no great wish to stay in Thalarion. But first tell us this: how fares the Tree?'

  `The Tree? The Great Tree? Him? What would I know of him, great shambling forest that he is? My termen are forbidden to go near him! He has roots under Thalarion the new hive, in which he holds firestones, great flints he'd strike if I stole so much as a leaf from him! Aye,' she sighed, `and his the sweetest, most succulent leaves in all the dreamlands.' Then her voice hardened: 'And who to blame but you, Wanderer, who taught him these ... these pyrotechnics in the first place?'

  Rah!' Eldin was delighted. 'Is that so? Well, good for him!' he said. 'You threatened him with fire, now he threatens you!'

  And Hero added: 'We're on our way to see him right now, Lathi, and doubtless he'll tell us whether you've been giving him a bad time or not. And if you have, be sure it's not just his firestones you'll need to worry about. And if you thought my cradle-songs were sweet, just wait till you hear my warsongs!'

  That was that; the time-clock fared north-east de Marigny turned over in his head all he'd heard. And in a little while he asked: 'Are you saying you're taking us to see a tree?'

  `A Great Tree,' Eldin corrected him.

  `And as I was about to tell you,' said Hero, 'he has kin in Elysia.'

  De Marigny's heart gave a great leap. 'Titus Crow has told me about Elysia's Great Tree!' he exclaimed. 'In the Gardens of Nymarrah: a tree to make a redwood seem the merest sapling!'

  `That's our boy,' Eldin nodded. 'Or his cousin, anyway. And by the time we're over that range of hills there, we should be able to see him ..

  Eldin was right. Just across the hills north-east of Thalarion, a prairie rolled to the horizon. Broken only by receding lines of foothills that would rise ultimately to Leng, the plain was lush, golden and green; and standing there majestically, more than a third of a mile high, the biggest tree de Marigny and Moreen had ever seen.

  Superficially, and apart from his massive height and girth, the Tree was pretty much like any other; but on closer inspection, magnified in the clock's scanners, de Marigny saw that there were several anomalies. The leaves of the giant, huge to match his other dimensions, were soft-edged and lined with a 'fur' of sensitive cilia. Tough, slender tendrils hung down to festoon the shaded area between the lower branches and the earth; tendrils full of a slow, sentient motion, seeking out dry, dead leaves and carefully removing them, casting them aside. A haze of pollens (though no flowers were visible) hung suspended everywhere, dust-motes in the sunlight, giving the Tree a shimmer almost like that of a mirage. But he was no mirage. And then there was that wide ashen swath — the Tree's `track', the way he had come, inch by gradual inch, since all those years ago when first he took root here — leading off to the north, where the earth was no longer green but dry and crumbly. For Great Trees need a lot of nourishment.

  Not knowing how the Tree would react to the time-clock, de Marigny carefully set his strange craft down just outside the three-hundred-foot radius of his brandies. There The Searcher, Moreen, and their passengers disembarked; but while the three men approached with some caution, Moreen at once ran through the calf-length grass and into the Tree's shade. In Numinos all creatures had loved Moreen; she had even charmed Ithaqua the Wind-Walker to an extent. She was the veriest child of Nature and loved all Nature's creatures. But an intelligent, indeed telepathic, Tree? — she could scarcely control her excitement.

  Small roots underfoot felt her weight, her motion; the under-leaves 'smelled' or 'tasted' her texture, translated these impressions, recognized her type; the Tree felt her excitement, her wonder, and knew she was a friend. Instantly long, supple tendrils uncoiled from on high, looped down, caught her up. She was lifted effortlessly, borne aloft like a tiny child in the arms of a giant. A soughing no, a vast sighing — filled the Tree's branches.

  `Moreen!' Alarmed, de Marigny started forward.

  `Easy, Searcher!' cautioned Eldin. 'Moreen's safer with the Tree than she'd be with ... why, with Hero here!'

  `Oaf !' said Hero. 'But he's probably right: the Tree's the very gentlest soul in all the dreamlands.'

  Now the three were in the Tree's shade; cool tendrils touched them, tasted, quivered; there was an almost magical dusk all around, where the Tree's pollens were honeysuckle sweet.

  `Tree,' said Hero, 'it's Hero —'

  — and Eldin!' (from the Wanderer.)

  — and we've brought these friends to talk to you.'

  `Hero?' answered a throbbing yet ethereal voice from nowhere from everywhere — as tendrils fell faster and touched all three. 'Eldin! Both of you, yes, and one other; but not a permanent dreamer, this one. No, a real man —and a girl, too — from the waking world!'

  Moreen was nowhere to be seen, but her glad cry fell from high, high overhead even as the Tree's strong lifting tendrils grasped the three men: 'Henri! Oh, let him bring you up! This place is wonderful! Come see!'

  But they were already on their way, wound up like bobbins on threads and passed higher and higher into the Tree's heart. Breathlessly they were whirled aloft, then suspended motionless for a moment until they got their breath back, finally deposited light as feathers in the crotch of great branches a thousand feet above the ground. And: `Shrub sapiens,' gasped Eldin. 'Boisterous, isn't he? For such a big 'un!'

  But the Tree only chuckled in their minds. `Hero and Eldin,' he said again. `My very dearest friends! And de Marigny and Moreen. Well, well! Visitors again, after all this time. Men to talk to — and a real girl!'

  `You've heard of us then?' said de Marigny. 'Of she and I?'

  Transmitted to de Marigny's mind by touch, coming to him through leaves and cilia and tendrils, there was mental affirmation as the Tree said: 'Oh, I've heard of you, Searcher. Indeed, I've been expecting you!'

  De Marigny couldn't contain himself. 'So Atal's alien thoughts from outside did come from Elysia after all,' he burst out. 'And they concerned me?'

  The Tree read his meaning clearly. 'You and your young woman, yes, and the time-clock, too,' he answered. But now de Marigny detected a certain reluctance a note of sadness in the Tree's touch — and his heart sank.

  'There's nothing you can tell us, is there?' he said. 'If you know I'm The Searcher, then you know what I seek. And your sadness can only mean that you either can't or won't help me.'

  'I can't, and I can,' said the Tree. 'I can't tell you how to get to Elysia, no — but I can help. That is, I can narrow down your search a little.'

  `Tree,' Moreen cut in, 'I don't quite understand. If someone — that other Great Tree, maybe? — spoke to you from Elysia, and if you in turn talked to him ... I mean, h
e must have known where you were, and vice-versa.'

  The Tree followed her meaning and his leaves trembled a little as he considered how best to explain. 'A thought is a thought, child,' he said. 'I read yours by touching you. If I couldn't touch you I couldn't talk to you. But I am more attuned to the thoughts of one of my own race. He found me, yes, though not without difficulty, and once the connection was made I could talk back. But as to his location and how one might go there ...' (a mental shrug).

  'Another dead end,' de Marigny's shoulders slumped. But then he lifted his head and gritted his teeth, still unwilling to accept defeat or even consider it. 'A dead end, yes — but there's something very wrong here. I mean, I know there's no royal road into Elysia — that one makes one's own way there or not at all — but is there any sense in their taunting me? The Elder Gods, I mean? I'm given clues that lead nowhere!' He turned a troubled face to Moreen. 'No man knows Titus Crow like I do, and yet even he ...' He shook his head. 'Something's wrong! Titus and Armandra both, they say find Sssss and he may have something for you. We save Sssss from the Hounds of Tindalos, and he's been told to direct us to Earth's dreamlands — told to do that by the weird pilot of some other time-clock from Elysia. In the dreamlands we go to see Atal, the very priest of the. Temple of the Elder Gods but even he has been shut out. "Ah! — but maybe Hero and Eldin can help us," he says. So we save the questers from Gudge '

  'Narrowly!' put in Eldin.

  — and in return they bring us to see the Tree. Now the Tree can actually talk to his cousin in Elysia, but be can't tell us the way there, and so —'

  'Wait!' said the Tree. 'I could talk to him — when he sought me out. And perhaps I could have sought him out, given time. But not any more. I tried following his thoughts

  their essence — back to their source. Not because I wanted to learn his or any other's secrets, simply because I was lonely. But out there in the voids, in the star spaces between the worlds, the thought-trail petered out. And he has not come again. No royal road, you say? No road at all, not now! I'm sorry ...'

  'What about Serannian?' said Moreen. She took de Marigny's hand. 'There's still Curator, in his Museum.''Curator?' said Hero, Eldin and the Tree all together, and with almost the same speculative edge to their voices.'But that's it!' said the Tree, getting in first. 'That's the message Elysia's Tree gave me before he ... closed down. "Tell them to speak to Curator," he said, "in Serannian."'

  'Speak to Curator?' Eldin grunted. 'Huh!

  'What the Wanderer means is no one ever spoke to him,' Hero explained. 'He has a keen mind and he's a nice mover

  and his line in weaponry is at least as good, maybe better, than yours, Henri — but where speaking's concerned he's a dummy. Why, I strongly suspect that most of the time he doesn't even know people are there at all!'

  'Except when they maybe, er, annoy him,' Eldin added with some feeling, at the same time looking away.

  'Moreen might be able to speak to him,' said de Marigny.

  She looked doubtful. 'I can talk to all creatures of Nature,' she said. 'Of if they can't talk, at least I can understand them. But a metal man? I'm not sure.'

  'Anyway,' de Marigny was determined, `we have to try. Tree, I'm sorry but I can't stay - not even for a little while.'

  'He's right,' said Hero. 'Kuranes will be anxious, waiting for our report - and there are all those lads to be picked up off Zura's coffin-ship, and -'

  - And my mission's more important than all of that,' de Marigny cut in. 'It's not just for myself and Moreen any more. It's for everything. I have to get to Elysia!'

  `That's good enough for me,' said Hero.

  `And me,' agreed Eldin. 'Let's go!'

  'Your visit was welcome anyway,' said the Tree. 'I'll always remember you, Searcher, Moreen. And if you should ever be in Earth's dreamlands again .. .'

  `We'll always come to see you,' Moreen promised, -when and if we can.'

  They didn't prolong it. Farewells were short. As quickly as he could which was very quickly indeed, de Marigny picked up Kuranes' men from the deck of Shroud II and left Zura to brood alone over her Charnel Gardens. Before noon they were all back in Serannian

  Kuranes met them on Serannian's sky-floating rim, the wharves not far from where the Museum jutted on its vertiginous promontory. And no need to inquire after Kuranes' pleasure at the sight.of his men, the questers alive and well, and Moreen and de Marigny as they trooped from the dock; his absolute joy and relief were visible in every word and gesture. As to his gratitude to de Marigny, that was beyond words; but desperately eager though The Searcher was, still the Lord of Ooth-Nargai calmed him and led him and his party to a wharfside tavern where a meal was quickly ordered and almost as quickly made ready. Famished, Hero and Eldin fell at once to their food and drink, but de Marigny was scarcely interested in eating. Instead, and assisted by Moreen, he took the opportunity to tell Kuranes all that he had not yet grasped of his mission, also all that had happened through the previous night and morning.

  When he was done Kuranes nodded. Pirates they weren't,' he said, 'not in the true sense of the word. Their vile acts of piracy were a simple ploy to keep honest men and ships - maybe even explorers and settlers - away from Zura's hinterland; away from that old volcano, which will doubtless be used as a fortress by the Cthulhu spawn when finally they force themselves upon the dreamlands ... If it were allowed to go that far! But that must never be. So, when Admiral Limnar Dass gets back with my armada from the moon, then I'll -'

  `Eh?' de Marigny looked puzzled. 'But you told us your ships were plentiful and it was crewmen you were short of. You said you'd disbanded them all or something, that they'd be better employed repairing dreamland's moon-ravaged cities ...'

  'Ah!' Kuranes looked confused, caught out. 'Well, yes, that's what I said,' he agreed, 'but not quite the whole truth. In fact, something of a large distortion. You see, if you'd been taken by Gudge and his lot, and if they'd questioned you - perhaps forcefully - about dreamland's defences ...'

  `You didn't want us telling them that your ships were engaged in mopping-up operations on the moon, eh?'

  'Something like that,' mumbled Kuranes. 'Not a mopping-up operation, exactly. Just a show of force, to let the moonbeasts know we can get at them any time we choose, if they ever decide to go against us in the future.'

  'I see,' said de Marigny. 'And while the bulk of your fleet is there, doing whatever it's doing, at least one moonbeast, Gudge, has been here, preparing a stronghold for the Great Old Ones. Well, that's at an end now, anyway.'

  'It will be,' Kuranes agreed, 'when Admiral Dass gets back and I have him bomb that shaft and block it forever! Until then ... well, what has all of this shown us, if not how badly you're needed in Elysia, eh?'

  'How's that?' de Marigny raised his eyebrows.

  'Cthulhu has always been a great influence in men's dreams,' Kuranes stated the obvious. 'Indeed, he's responsible for most of what's nightmarish in them! But not since the Bad Days has he made so bold, attempting to influence the dreamlands and through them the thinking of men in the waking world - so greatly. In the affair of the Mad Moon, and now in this. The uprising, certainly an attempt at an uprising, must be very close now. He prepares the way for himself in space and time, and in all the parallel, worlds. The Crawling Chaos is abroad, the stars are very nearly right, and strange times have come again ...'

  'Kuranes,' said de Marigny, 'you can help me. No one knows Curator and his Museum better than you.' I need to see him, somehow talk to him.'

  Kuranes' turn to raise his eyebrows. 'The grey metal box?' he guessed. 'Did Atal tell you about that? A box with hands like those on your time-clock?'

  `It is a time-clock of sorts,' de Marigny nodded. `I'm sure of it. For some strange reason of their own, the Elder Gods have chosen to lead me a mazy chase into Elysia. Maybe I have to work for what I want work hard for it - and even though I'm needed there, still they're making me earn my right of passage. Maybe it's that ... and maybe it's something el
se. I don't know. But I've been told to speak to Curator.'

  'Nice trick if you can turn it,' said Kuranes - and he saw de Marigny's face fall. 'It would be no good my holding out false hopes,' he said. 'It's just that I don't know anyone who ever spoke to Curator - and got an answer! What's more, since the advent of the cube, now locked in his chest, he hasn't even been seen. Who can say where he is? He may or may not be somewhere in the Museum. But where? I don't know where he goes. Nor why. Nor how. Sometimes he's not seen for months at a time.'

  Will you come to the Museum with us anyway?' Moreen begged.

  'Of course I will, child,' said Kuranes at once. 'But it seems only fair to warn you: if Curator is not there - if we can't find him - then there's no help for it.'

  When Kuranes, The Searcher and Moreen left the tavern, Hero and Eldin were hard at it, while the astonished proprietor brought them plate after plate and flagon after flagon ...

  6 Curator and the Dream-clock

  At the sea-wall, where the time-clock stood under guard of half-a-dozen pikemen, Kuranes pointed across the harbour to where a great stone circular structure stood on a promontory at the eastern extreme of the sky-island. Beneath the three-tier building the rock of Serannian was a comparatively thin crust less than fifty feet in depth, and beneath that — nothing. 'The Museum,' he informed. 'Only one way in and out: along that narrow causeway over the neck of the promontory — unless you're a bird, that is! Thieves think twice and then some more, before tackling the Museum. And then, when they've seen Curator, they don't even think about it any more. Most thieves, anyway . ..' And he glanced back the way they'd come and smiled a little. 'Hero and Eldin tried it on once twice in fact —since when they've given Curator and his Museum a wide berth.'