“So it will be. Goodnight.”
“Goodnight,” and they went to sleep on the forest ground.
Chapter 22
The distance from the willow grove to the road was a few miles. As the canopy overhead blocked most of the sun, the forest underworld was left in constant twilight. At dawn, however, when the sun was still low on the horizon, it pierced the canopy and came through with little splashes of color. Thick mosses grew where the light struck the trees, joining the palette of wildflowers that crowned the ground. On the whole, they presented a uniform appearance; but upon closer inspection they were infinitely varied, each with its own living patterns and intonations.
The early mornings were the time of song, when the nocturnal birds had not yet turned in and the day birds were already about. The song of the forest was not written in an artificial time scale invented by men, nor was it played on the artificial wave lengths designated by men as notes. Rather, it was played to the rhythm of life, and its only notes were those of nature. It was a symphony in its progression, a waltz in its simplicity; a ballad in its meaning, a sonnet in its sweetness.
In an hour, the three travelers reached the road. The sobriety of the forest weighed heavily on them, and they could not bring themselves to break the silence. It was another hour, therefore, before they were disturbed from their inward reflections. The day was getting on, and they approached a bend in the road, around which they heard the sound of travelers.
“Quick,” and Willard hastily motioned for Ivona to clear the road. She was entirely concealed before the other travelers came into view.
Three men composed the approaching group, dressed as poor forest laborers. Willard recognized the bent nose and unruly hair of the first as the features of the mysterious Innkeeper. The others were unknown to him, though he was not entirely unknown to them. One was a tall, strong old man with a weather-beaten face and an officer’s demeanor; the other, a young and intelligent man.Seeing who was among them, Willard hastened forward and gave the Innkeeper a low bow.
“These are among the friends of the forest?” he asked.
“Yes,” the Innkeeper answered with a nod of his head. “There are none more true, on the seven seas or the thirty-two.”
“Good,” Willard answered, giving the other men a look of hurried introduction. “I have good news, Innkeeper. Are you heading to Lord Milada’s, perchance?”
“Yes, we are; and it is not too far. I’d guess we will be there, before old Lucifer loses his hair.” What this metaphor meant was beyond Willard, but he knew the Innkeeper’s meter, like that of many aspiring poets, was more important than his meaning.
“Tell Milada his daughter is safe, for she is with me. We journey to rescue Oren Lorenzo from Castle Plantagenet. Have the Fardy brothers hurry to Eden with whatever forces they can gather, for we will need them in the battle.”
“The lady is found, what joy profound! But where is she, that with you be?”
“Hidden off the path,” Willard said, turning to the forest and beckoning for Ivona to show herself.
She appeared in a moment, to the Innkeeper’s great delight. Then they parted, unwilling to attract the attention of spies. The old man never even threw off his hood to greet the young woman. It had been fifteen years since he saw her last, he thought, and she would not recognize him as her father’s old comrade.
“It has been too long,” he muttered as he walked away, “Too long for even an old man like me.”
Then came silence, as they parted into the forest, consumed by the trees.
“How do you know the crazy old Innkeeper?” Ivona asked, once they were a good distance from the other party.
“There are not many people in the forest,” Willard answered. “And what few there are come across each other from time to time.”
“I suppose he will bring word to my father that I am found.”
“Would you have it otherwise?”
“No,” she hesitated, “Yet though my shame tells me I need to face what I have done, my pride tells me I should avoid it.”
“You have an easy choice here, I believe, for the quickest road home is forward. There are hardships ahead that will outweigh your misdeeds, when you are reunited with your father. By that time, there will be more important things to remember than a foolish flight.”
“True, but still I am convinced of the failings of my flesh. While it is my deepest desire to seek refuge in the arms of my father, that is the last place to which I run. The pride of men is only broken down by the dangers of life.”
“Yet you are no man.”
“Indeed, but I am a woman. Is that not twice as damning?”
“Perhaps, if the judge is a man.”
They fell silent for a few moments. Willard looked about them to see that they were alone.
“Here is where we turn from the road,” he said. “We near the city, and the rebel outposts. To the forest we go.”
He walked into the forest at an acute angle, and the three left the realm of man once more. It was as if they had been above water and suddenly dived below it. The one was of civilization, the other of the wild. There is an awe that comes when one is put into a place where man has no stronghold, where man is but a lone foreigner on enemy ground. On the road, there was a slight gap in the trees overhead that allowed a sliver of the sky to come through. It was narrow, yet it was the sky. In the forest, however, there was no sky but the branches. One was surrounded on all sides by living plants; living plants that seemed to breathe and talk, to walk and sway about; living plants that were imbued with the magical as no other plant is except those in the ancient forests of Atilta.
And yet its magic was not in the sense of something that touched upon the supernatural, but rather a thing that was entirely of the natural, without the impurities of civilization. Its was a pure nature that flowed from a complete organic existence, untouched by man. There was the city of Eden, and the rangers of the forest, with their Treeway. Yet on Atilta, the vast reservoir of the forest was far greater than the blowing sand of man. All through the years the waters remained untouched, unfilled by the silt and sod of humanity that had slowly brought a drought to other lands. The forest was a fountain of youth for Atilta, and it was only by the forest’s deep foundations that Atilta was able to remain the last unspoiled creation, the last Garden of Eden, the last Olympus, the last Atlantis. Those who lived in Atilta did not realize what made their land special, what made it living. They remained in Eden, at that time the nautical hub of the world. It was the paradox of Atilta: the capital was the center of the civilized world, the forest the center of the natural world.
“I hear a growling,” Willard said after several hours of silent marching, “And by experience I know it to be Horatio’s stomach calling for his lunch. Let us rest.”
There was a meadow to the east, and the nearest side them was bordered by a large willow tree, whose little fingertips covered the area around it. They sprawled out under its shade, and it kept them from view of those more than a few yards away, while giving them a clear view of the meadow. The latter was a hundred yards across, covered with a mixture of short wildflowers: some golden discs, some blue bells, others red hearts. A few deer were grazing in the meadow, and, above all, the sky was clearly visible.
“To think men cultivate the earth,” Ivona sighed, “When all is perfect without them.”
“But its beauty is wild. Civilized beauty can only be made by destroying things.”
She was silent for a moment, meditating on the scene.
“Do you consider me beautiful?” she asked after a moment.
“Yes.”
“And of what type is my beauty: wild or civilized?”
“It is partly of both. Your skin is wild, yet its features are civilized; for the beauty of the first is its pattern, the second its expression. Your hair is civilized, for it is kept together neatly. But your eyes,” he paused, “Your eyes are the buds which cover the willow’s branches,” he pulled one from the tree beside him and rubbed it in his fingers. “They are the smooth stone which is found at the bottom of a stream, that the water ripples past. They are the fog which covers the ocean on a summer night. They are of the wild.”
