green-hued light could not entirely obscure the fact that its trunk was an odd grayish hue, with a highly distinctive scale-like bark. Branches grew up rather than out, and many were themselves thicker around than all but the largest trees. It was very simply the biggest ambulatory thing Oskar and his companions had ever seen.
And it was coming straight toward them on short but immensely powerful roots.
'It is the greatest of all trees—a kauri!' The willow fairly threw itself forward, scrabbling across the ground at a speed Oskar would not have believed it capable of mustering. Its three panicked companions followed frantically in its wake.
Having seen how Oskar had liberated four of the iconoclasts among them, the trees of the forest had somehow conspired to set into motion the most monumental of their own kind, an ancient and monstrous member of the pine family. Samm's axe was useless against such a perambulating colossus. It would take the giant weeks, not moments, to make a dent in the gigantic girth. As to the tree's actual intentions, Oskar did not intend to linger to find them out.
'Run!' he heard himself shouting. The warning was unnecessary, as everyone had already taken flight, sprinting to escape the lumbering wooden massif. It was enormous, he noted, but slow, the leafy crown swaying back and forth with each uncertain step. Though he missed the ability to move rapidly on all fours, he soon saw that he and his friends should easily be able to outdistance the oncoming colossus.
He looked back over his shoulder only when Cocoa screamed. What he saw sent his heart leaping into his throat and choked off his next breath.
The kauri was falling. It was sacrificing itself, descending in a dreamy but rapidly accelerating arc of inescapability. It was so broad none could evade its bulk, so tall that Cezer and Mamakitty, running in the lead, did not have room enough to escape its reach. The majestic bole toppled completely in a matter of seconds, smashing into the ground with a thunderous roar that could be heard throughout much of the Kingdom of Green, taking mature trees, dozens of smaller saplings, and a whole thicket of bushes down with it. Impacted dust and dirt rose fifty feet into the air, while splinters flew at lethal velocity in every direction.
Then all was quiet once more. A few woodland dwellers crept from their hiding places to have a look at the fallen giant. Slowly settling dust motes danced in the sunlight that was now able to reach the forest floor in the wake of the colossus's suicide. Of bipedal travelers and their accompanying quaternion of talkative trees, there was no sign save for some splintered branches and a mighty axe that, in the absence of its owner, lay useless and forlorn amid the settling debris.
After some time had passed, it occurred to Oskar that he was not dead. He ought to be, he knew. The last thing he remembered was the falling bulk of the kauri blotting out the light and then, silence.
Opening his eyes, he saw nothing. At that moment even heavily green-tinted darkness would have been welcome, but this was deeper than that. It was as black and solid as a wall. It pressed tightly against his mind as well as his vision. Experimentally, he tried wiggling his right hand. Nothing moved, not even a finger. He could barely flutter his eyelids. But his tongue flicked freely within his mouth, and a strong second effort allowed him to move his jaws slightly up and down. His limbs, however, were trapped in place. He could not even scratch at the confines of his prison.
The rest of his senses proffered only sketchy information. He heard nothing, but his nose brought to him several pungent, distinguishing odors. Primarily of cellulose, but also of sap and dust, of decaying mold and diligent insects. There was around him an overwhelmingness of wood. Extending his teeth as far as he could, he gnawed at the material that held him prisoner. Definitely wood.
Then he heard a voice, sharp and clear in his ears. Mamakitty sounded more positive than she had any right to. 'I think we're inside the tree that fell on us.'
'That's something of a contradiction, isn't it?' Smothered by the all-encompassing darkness, Cezer was subdued, but still defiant. 'If that mother of all splinters landed on us, which certainly fits my last recollection, then it should have squashed us flatter than that old rubber ball we used to play with in front of the Master's house.'
'But it didn't.' That was Cocoa speaking, Oskar noted. 'I can't move a hand to touch myself, and I can't see a thing, but I don't feel flattened. I certainly don't feel dead.'
'You don't sound dead, either,' Mamakitty observed. 'Samm, can you reach your axe?'
The slow, even voice of the giant was reassuring as always, if not on this particular occasion especially encouraging. 'I don't even know where it is. When the tree came down, I tried to jump clear of the trunk. Obviously, I failed. When I jumped, I threw my axe aside. Not that it would matter if it had been entombed with me. I can't move my arms or legs.'
'So we're trapped inside the fallen tree,' Cocoa observed. 'We're alive, but unable to move. Breathing, but incapable of freeing ourselves. I'm not sure I wouldn't rather have been flattened. At least that would have been quick.'
'This is more of Master Evyndd's magic,' Mamakitty murmured knowingly. 'It is protection of a sort I would deem peculiar, unless we can somehow free ourselves from these wooden bonds. Samm?'
'I'm sorry, Mamakitty. Even if I could somehow reconstruct my former body, I see not a single hole large enough to slip a worm through, much less my previous self. As for breaking free, I cannot move even a finger. This is no flimsy wooden cage that holds us, but a tree as thick and solid as it is huge. We will not break free by chewing at its interior with our teeth.'
Cocoa's voice fell. 'Then we are well and truly trapped here, to survive an unknown while longer until we expire from thirst and hunger.'
'Maybe our four wooden friends had the easier way out.' Straining, Oskar felt that his eyes might be adapting to the absence of light. Another contradiction, he scolded himself firmly. 'You'll notice none of them have said anything since the treefall.'
'Maybe they managed to escape.' Taj was more hopeful than sanguine.
'I don't see how,' Samm hissed softly. 'The fleetest among them was not as quick as you or I.' His ponderous sigh rippled through the dark wood. 'I fear they'll be of no further help to us. Kindling makes a poor guide.'
'What does that matter?' groused Cezer. 'What we need now is a giant drill, operated from the outside, to liberate us. If I could reach my sword, I might be able to at least start to cut us free. But as Samm has pointed out, while our hands are not tied, they are completely immobilized. All we can do is talk. That will open only old wounds, not a way out.'
Silence descended within the imprisoning expanse of the fallen tree as a sense of utter hopelessness came to dominate the thoughts of the entombed. We've failed you, Master Evyndd, Oskar thought glumly. Not Cezer's elongating blade, nor the cats' ability to meld with shadows, not Samm's great strength, nor his own unique talent for inspiring movement in other trees, were of any use to them now. They would be mummified within the kauri, interred out of sight and mind of the rest of the world. No one would find them, no one would know what had happened to them, and no one would care. And why should they? After all, the adventurers were no more than common household pets who had momentarily been raised above their station.
For a little while, that raising had given them dignity and abilities beyond understanding. It appeared now that it was all for naught.
He was not certain when Taj began to whistle. It was a pleasant change from the episodes of deathly silence, and certainly more uplifting than Cezer's sporadic whining. Oskar appreciated the songster's attempt to lighten their mental burden. If nothing else, a little buoyant minstrelsy would help to raise their spirits. He would have thanked Taj, but he was enjoying the tuneful warbling too much to interrupt. Apparently, everyone else felt the same way.
Time passed, until a subtle vibrating in his ears caused Oskar to wonder if the inevitable loss of cognition, with its concurrent mental disturbances, had begun to take hold of his mind. As the noise intensified, however, he came to the conclusion that it was a real sound and not a deranged figment of his lonely imagination.
'Mamakitty?'
'I hear it also.' Though careful and qualified, her positive response was heartening. 'What it is I do not know.'
'Kind of a wild, clucking noise,' Cocoa ventured.
