The forest did not only give the shaman strength, though. The living network was also an extension of his eyes, his ears, his nose, his tongue, and his sense of touch, enhancing his senses of perception in ways that not even the most futuristic bionic technology could ever dream of doing for the human mind. This was not a constant flow of information, however; an unending, ever-raging tsunami of data like this would quickly overwhelm and destroy even the stoutest of minds. No, Lightning Bird only dipped his toes into the stormy ocean of information when he needed to, and even then it was only for very short periods. Even after centuries of mental training and conditioning, it was still an almost terrifyingly intense experience to completely link his mind to the gargantuan collective consciousness of the old forest for even a few seconds.
In these dangerous times, though, the network of trees, plants, animals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, insects, arachnids and microbes of which this biome was composed served as a more complete and intricate sentry system than anything that the hands of man could construct, and as overwhelming as it was to commune with this network, it was something that Lightning Bird did regularly in order to keep his friends safe.
Thus, as he drifted through the depths of the woods, a few miles from the cabin, drinking in with serene gratitude the tranquillity of this primeval place, the shaman paused for a moment to drop down onto to his knees. He drew in a deep, calming breath, filling his lungs to their maximum capacity, and as he closed his eyes, focusing his mind and allowing the crisp air to trickle from his lips, he dug his fingertips into the rich, crumbly soil.
He had done this tens of thousands of times before, but even so, the rush of merging his consciousness with that of the forest was as exhilarating as the first time he’d ever succeeded in achieving this sacred union. His every muscle locked up for a brief, terrifying instant, and, as it always did, his heart felt first as if it was about to stop beating, and then, in a fluttery rush, like it would thump wildly out of control, like an unprepared engine injected suddenly with rocket fuel.
The earthy tones of Lightning Bird’s surroundings came at once alive with vibrant, dazzling colour; millions of wispy strands of light, glowing in every conceivable hue were spread out through the soil, through the air, up the trunks of trees and intertwined like thousands of unravelled balls of multicoloured yarn through the foliage of every plant. Some strands were no more than a molecule in diameter, while others were as thick as hawsers, and the lines of the network were composed of every variation in thickness between these extremes. This network of shimmering veins, arteries and capillaries fanned outward to infinity in every direction, and Lightning Bird felt simultaneously as if he was a supreme god presiding over all of creation, and the tiniest, most insignificant microorganism suffocating under the titanic mass of a universe too incomprehensibly vast and complex to even begin to observe.
A mere taste of this intricacy, the tiniest speck of it on a mortal’s fingertip, ingested carelessly, would have been enough to drive even the hardiest of minds to insanity in seconds, but Lightning Bird was no mere mortal. Linking his mind to the collective consciousness of this vast web, he searched the forest, covering square miles in milliseconds and spreading his seeking gaze outward in every direction. He was not seeing, as such, nor feeling, entirely, and nor was he listening or tasting. Rather, he was checking the network for signs of anything amiss; traces of fear, or what in organisms like trees and plants could be translated into something like fear. Only one creature inspired universal fear in every living organism in this forest: man.
Lightning Bird found this fear, and he located it faster than he would have liked or expected. And, he sensed with a rapidly mounting sense of alarm, it was everywhere. With his breathing and heartrate quickening with alarm, he plucked mentally at multiple threads of glowing light, like a many-armed harpist playing a hundred harps simultaneously. Connecting to specific parts of the web in this way, he was able to pinpoint the location of the invaders … and there were hundreds of them, converging from all directions. All walked upon the ancient soil with boots of synthetic material, and all carried weapons of cold steel, its scent tainted with those of acrid gunpowder and slick oil. Delinking himself from the network as quickly as he could – for to do so too rapidly would shatter his mind completely – Lightning Bird severed his mental and spiritual connections with the millions of glowing strands one by one, until finally he was completely free.
He jerked his fingers out of the soil and jumped up, gasping, staggering and lurching on his feet for a few seconds, temporarily disoriented and uncoordinated like a half-anaesthetised patient after the intensity of the experience. He quickly regained control of his senses, though, and turned and sprinted back to the
