did not blink.
'I think I must have been hit in the head.' Holding the arm that had suffered the most perforations, Cezer walked over to the young growth and ran his free hand along its bole, just beneath the first branch. 'I thought this tree said something.'
'That feels good, but harder, and lower down,' the sycamore instructed him. Instead of complying, a startled Cezer jerked his hand back. 'Shapeist,' the tree snapped accusingly. Branches rustling sharply, it promptly dumped a double handful of green-tinged autumn leaves on the swordsman's head. Reflexively, Cezer started batting them aside.
'This is very interesting.' A fearless Mamakitty approached the trunk. 'I've never had the opportunity to talk to a tree before. Scratch on plenty, but never talk.'
'Sadist,' the tree shot back. 'Carpenter's apprentice.'
'I have,' Oskar murmured. 'Many times. But this is the first time one has ever answered back.'
The young oak that had sprouted alongside the sycamore chimed in. 'Oppin is more loquacious than the rest of us. It is only fitting that he should be the one to greet you.'
''He'?' Mamakitty eyed the tree uncertainly.
'I'm feeling rather male today,' the sycamore replied. 'Tomorrow might be different. It's a pollen thing.' Its tone grew solicitous. 'Are you all right? The crannocks can be vicious.'
Turning, Cezer peered back into the forest. 'What are crannocks? I didn't see anything moving.'
A couple of unpretentious branches dipped low and pointed. 'Over in there. To your right. A little more. See those half dozen especially limber trunks, the ones with the distinctively slim branches? Crannocks,' the sycamore declared decisively.
Cezer took a wary step toward the woods, leaning forward and squinting in the indicated direction, ready to retreat at the first sign of a volley of thorns. 'There's nothing there but trees.'
'Not just trees,' explained the greenish oak impatiently. 'Crannocks.'
Standing close to Cezer, Taj spoke without turning. 'Are you saying that those trees are what attacked us?'
'Do you not see the thorns on their branches? Is your sight worse than ours?' The oak's tone sang of exasperation.
'Just because we're not used to—' Taj broke off wonderingly. 'Listen to me: I'm arguing with a tree.'
Alongside the oak, willow branches rustled. 'And you would lose. We are very adept arguers, having much time to practice such things.' In a more tolerant voice it added, with a dip of multiple branches that elegantly simulated a formal bow and which Cocoa could not resist taking a playful swipe at, 'I hope none of your injuries are serious.'
'No,' Cezer mumbled. 'Nothing besides a few pinpricks.'
'Could be worse.' Warming to the conversation, the sycamore cast leaves and words to the wind. 'You might have run right past the crannocks and straight into a coppice of spruce. Spruce are particularly irritable and can scratch you to death. Or cocobolo. They'll choke you until you can't breathe.'
'Or a grove of sequoias.' The oak was grave. 'An irritated sequoia will step on you without a second thought.'
Step on you? Oskar thought. There was a stand of sequoias not three miles from the home of Master Evyndd. Monstrous trees, rust-red of bark and immense of circumference. The thought of one somehow lifting a portion of its hundreds of tons of solid wood and deliberately coming down on a person brought forth an image unpleasant in the extreme. What was the term Master Evyndd had once used? Oh, yes—road kill.
Not that there wasn't a certain irony to be had in the thought of a tree dumping on a dog.
Ever suspicious, Mamakitty found herself addressing the sycamore. 'If there is so much hardwood hostility hereabouts, how come you three are content simply to chat amiably with us?'
'It's that very attitude that we ourselves hate,' the young tree informed her. 'It seems so futile to bottle up all that latent hostility in a trunk you can never escape. Still, that is how it is. The boughs of this forest are weighted down beneath hundreds, even thousands, of years of accumulated malice and ill will that are just waiting to be released on unsuspecting passers-by.'
'On us.' A grim-faced Cezer gripped the haft of his sword tightly.
'Not only on you.' This from a handsome sapling of indeterminate species that hugged the very periphery of the green-hued woodland. 'Have you never stopped to consider the eternal war that exists between trees? A silent fight it is; for space, for sustenance, and for sunlight. One growth's progeny crowding out another, ruthlessly suffocating or shading it to death. Roots wrestling beneath the surface in ceaseless and unseen combat for water. Several trees of the same kind cooperating to shut out the light that might fall on a representative of another species.' Agitated branches bestirred themselves. 'You mobile creatures fight, yes, but then you stop. Our wars are never won, and are ever ongoing.'
Taj ran a hesitant hand along the oak's undulating trunk. 'I never thought of it that way. To me, a tree branch was nothing more than a place upon which to sit and rest.'
'Typical mobile thought,' complained a stunted maple.
Oskar confronted the garrulous sycamore. 'Where we come from, and for that matter in any land we have visited, trees do not speak aloud. They don't point with their branches or deliberately fling their thorns at visiting wayfarers.'
'This is the Kingdom of Green,' the oak reminded him. 'Here trees rule, not mobiles. Is it so surprising that those who dominate should have the power to communicate with one another?'
'I suppose not,' Oskar replied. From within the forest came rustling sounds that he now knew were not caused by creatures moving through the trees, but by the trees themselves. 'Why are these crannocks so aggressive toward us?'
'Mobiles are not welcome in the Kingdom of Green.' The maple had, not surprisingly, a sweet, syrupy voice. 'They trample roots, break young shoots, snap off branches without a thought. They promote random murder and casual amputation.'
'Not to mention chronic cremation.' The willow shuddered visibly, its leaves trembling.
'But you feel differently.' Mamakitty addressed the oak.
'Yes, we do. We want only to live in peace with all forms of life, and to concentrate on that which we do best.' Bark undulated, wooden lips forming woody words of wisdom. 'Which is to sit and to think. Hence we of different mind find ourselves banished here, to the perimeter of the kingdom, where our growth is stunted by exposure to wind, storm, and potentially lethal mobiles.'
'We have to fight constantly simply to maintain our existence,' the maple added. 'The forest's more aggressive majority denies us access to the richer soil we need to put on rings and grow. So we remain small, until tree rot or root-bane overcomes us.' The words trailed away into sadness.
Oskar was not certain he had heard correctly. 'You say you were 'banished' here? How does one tree banish another?'
'Have you never observed a tree whipped by a high wind? Branches can be as flexible as any fingers, and much stronger.' By way of demonstration, the oak extended several of its own limbs and lifted a startled Cezer right off the ground. Presentation complete, it put him back down.
'We were all of us uprooted from our places of budding and passed through the woods from tree to tree, to be transplanted here—a lingering death for the rebellious instead of a cleaner, quicker demise. We cannot mature properly, nor can we spread our progeny. As soon as any of us drops seed, other trees see to it that everything we put forth is crushed too deeply into the earth to germinate successfully.' Branches dipped in anguish. 'For our beliefs we are condemned to a life of terminal depression. Several of our little circle have already died.'
The willow sighed. 'I still remember the year Ifrim deliberately exfoliated all his bark, allowing borer beetles to eat into his heartwood.'
'We're very sorry for you,' Mamakitty finally murmured, 'but we have strong convictions of our own that must be fulfilled. To do that, we have to pass through your kingdom and on to the next.'
The oak could not twist its trunk, but it could shake its branches back and forth. 'You will never make it. The forest of the Kingdom of Green is endlessly and unremittingly hostile to mobiles such as yourselves. Without the knowledge of where to step and what to avoid, you will all be reduced to fertilizer within a couple of days. You may enter the forest, but you will not come out.'
