'I want an answer, Erimenes.' Something in his tone convinced the spirit that the time had passed for light banter.
'Very well. I'm helping you because I want you to win. That should be obvious to even you.'
Fost began bouncing the jug up and down in his palm. Erimenes made choking sounds. 'Stop it! That horrid motion nauseates me.' 'Tell the truth.'
'I am, you fool!' Erimenes's voice lost its normal nasal overtones. Fost had never heard him speak this way before. 'Damn it, can't you see why I'm helping you? Before, it was all a game to me. No matter what happened, I couldn't get hurt. And I was the only one who mattered.' Silence. 'Are you surprised?'
'Hardly.' He set down the satchel and braced himself against a sturdy tree trunk.
'But that was before. Before I started to detect the black hand – or claw – of the Dark Ones in events surrounding you. By the time we left the Ramparts, I was starting to fear that what we faced imperiled not only humanity but me.
'And when Istu was released, there was no longer any doubt. The Dark Ones are mighty, and their malice is as infinite and ineffable as they are mysterious and unknowable. They could snuff me as you'd snuff out a candle flame. Or… or make me wish throughout endless ages for true death.
'No, my young friend, I cannot remain neutral in this War of Powers.' 'Why don't you join the other side?'
'Really, I thought you held me in higher esteem.' Fost's brows shot up. The spirit sounded genuinely hurt. 'I am human, or was once. And unlike Fairspeaker and his ilk, I don't delude myself as to what the Dark Ones intend for humanity.' Fost shuddered thinking about all he'd seen, all that was promised.
'To purge the Realm as they did the Sky City.'
'No.' Fost stared at the satchel in surprise at the contradiction. 'That is an aim, but far from paramount. They would purge humankind from the world, Fost. From the Universe, from every plane of being, if the theories espoused in my day of the multiplicity of planes of existence hold any truth. They intend no less than to return the Universe – Universes – to the primal Dark from which they sprang.'
'I see,' Fost said after a while. His voice almost squeaked through his constricted throat.
'So. Now that we've dealt with theology and cosmology, why don't you prod that lusty wench over there feigning sleep with your finger and rouse her so that you can prod her with a much more gratifying implement?'
Fost shook his head. In some ways, Erimenes hadn't changed. He had to admit being glad. To himself, at least.
Then Moriana rolled over, groping for him. He quickly slipped next to her and followed the sage's advice. After what Erimenes had said about the Dark Ones, this seemed more important than ever.
They rode boldly into the forest of Great Nevrym. The foresters were suspicious of unwanted guests, but Fost was known as a friend and there was little to gain trying to enter by stealth. Their mission was sad and aboveboard.
They were two days in when the foresters showed themselves. Riding through the forest was like moving along the nave of an enormous cathedral with the shunnak rising a hundred stories above their heads. Birds sang, squirrels chased one another along cool green avenues and at night scarlet tree toads a yard long crawled from their holes in the boles of the black anhak to trill timeless songs.
Fost had been aware of being followed, which told him no more than that the foresters didn't care if he sensed their presence. If they didn't want travellers to suspect they were near, it would take Ziore's perceptions to discover them.
They followed a broad avenue between the tall anhak. It seemed no different from any that ran through the wood, but by various subtle signs Fost knew this for the road to the Tree.
A young man rose from a bush and stepped into their path. He smiled, which relieved Fost.
'Good day,' he said. 'Seldom are these ways travelled by those who use feet other than their own.'
'Good day, Darkwood. I apologize for the princess and myself for riding mounts in these woods. But we have a message too urgent to bear on foot.'
'You, the Longstrider, say that? Oho, that's rich, indeed.' He wiped his eyes from laughter. 'But you must know, Longstrider who sees fit to clutter his good and proper name with the graceless noise Fost, that you'd be ever welcome to go upon these ways in any manner you choose.' 'Thank you, Darkwood.'
Moriana's gray was tossing its narrow head and whimpering. Feeling that she had to assert her part in these slow proceedings, Moriana shook back her hair and said, 'You may carry along the tidings that Moriana Etuul, Queen in exile of the City in the Sky, has arrived on a visit of state to the King of Nevrym.'
'Oh, indeed. Is that the way it is now?' Green eyes twinkled. He had seemed a young man at first but reading the fine wrinkles in his face convinced Moriana he was past forty. 'But that's something of a problem, Your Majesty. The man you seek does not exist.'
'But I…'She stopped in confusion, then organized her thoughts. 'I don't understand.'
The forest echoed with Darkwood's laughter. Fost grinned but kept an eye on her in case she decided to try to chastise this presumptuous groundling for laughing at her.
'Ah, forgive me,' Darkwood said. This time he pulled a scarf from a hidden pocket to dab tears from his eyes. 'But you see, Majesty, there is no King of Nevrym – unless you refer to the Tree, Paramount, Lord of All Trees. But the idea that a man could rule a forest, ah, you outwoods folk are droll. The man you seek is Grimpeace, ferocious to foe and fair to friend – and king in Nevrym, never of it.' Moriana smiled with visible effort. 'Please be so good as to guide us, Sir Darkwood.'
'So I shall. For none is allowed to travel the ways of the wood unescorted.' He smiled approvingly when she didn't try to claim they had done just that in the last few days.
They rode for several more hours. Still smarting from her humiliation over the matter of who was king of what, Moriana kept her twitchy greyhound at a long-limbed trot for the first several miles until it became apparent that the ever-smiling Darkwood kept up the rapid pace without breaking into a sweat.
'Great Ultimate, Fost, how did you ever manage to outrun a party of these folk?' she asked as she reined in the gray dog to a walk.
'I was young and in good shape,' he said, slowing to match her pace. 'Also I was scared cross-eyed.'
By design, the road took an abrupt turn around a dense stand of anhak so that the clearing in which the Tree stood appeared suddenly to view. Moriana gasped at the sight of it. Though he'd seen it before, Fost felt his heart clutch convulsively in wonder at the sight.
This was obviously the Tree. Next to it everything else was shrubbery.
It rose over a thousand feet in the clear forest air, a giant conifer with dark green needles and a red trunk. Their master of all trees was more than the symbol and pride of the Nevrymin, it was the seat of their government as well. For hundreds of feet its bole was honeycombed with entrances, passageways, small apartments and halls as grand as the Audience Hall of the Palace of Winds. The many tiers were a history of the foresters carved in wood. The Tree still grew and every generation a new level had to be hollowed out. Stairways and catwalks spiraled around the massive trunk. When Moriana realized that the antlike figures moving along them were people, wonder flooded back anew.
'Well, my friends,' said Grimpeace around a mouthful of good venison. 'Where do you go now?'
Fost and Moriana traded glances. It was a good question. Oddly, they hadn't discussed it on the way from Omizantrim. They had barely thought of it.
Each sensed that the life they'd known before had perished. The world had become a strange and awful place, a battleground for forces beyond their comprehension. Even if both survived, which seemed increasingly unlikely, they little knew what kind of world they'd be living in when this new War of Powers came to a resolution. If it ever did.
The message delivered, Fost and Moriana sat looking at one another on their side of a well-laden banquet table. It was a board fit for the Tree, forty feet long and eight across. No knife scars defaced it, as was customary at feasting tables, and spilled wine was hastily mopped up by attendants. In return, the wood, shining with a luminous luster, surpassed in beauty any piece of furniture Moriana had seen. Like the capital of the foresters, it was carved from the living wood of the Tree and kept alive by special magics known only to the Nevrymin.
'Where are we going?' Fost asked. Now that the news of the Hissers' defection was delivered, he didn't know the answer.
Moriana did. 'High Medurim,' she answered.
