Meredith went into the forest, to prepare the rebel fleet.
Chapter 33
It rained that evening and nothing could be seen through the veil of the forest. Had Gylain’s forces been able to pierce it, they would have seen the rebels hustling about, finishing preparations for their attack. The rebel city was built into and around the Great Goliaths. There were no entrances except a tunnel that ran underground into the southern tree. A wide roadway was built inside this tree, which wound its way to the top until it opened into a cavernous entry room – the front gate of the city. The room was circular – three hundred feet in circumference – with a pillar of the tree’s heartwood left standing in the center. A single, roughly hewn door opened to the outside, to a small platform.
It was no more than five feet wide, and the stairway of the city began from it: bordered on each side by several layers of ropes and secured below with stout Atiltian boards. As it rose, it came across other platforms, each with a simple door leading into the tree. There were thousands of these doors. What they opened to was as various as any city: some were small apartments, others giant warehouses; some were shops, some manufactures. The entire rebel population – those who actively opposed Gylain – dwelt within the trees, carrying on their trades as they had done before.
Yet this, as every other city, was divided into sections. Part is private, part is public. In the rebel city, all private buildings were carved into the trees. Above, in the canopy, was the public city. It was here that the city truly blossomed. In the center of the four trees, near the beginning of the canopy, a central platform was suspended in the air. This was the public square, and the beginning of the Treeway, which branched out of it to its various routes. In the forest, the canopy was always between the sky and the ground and was always made from sturdy branches, for the ancient trees were themselves sturdy. The rebels built a road along these branches by securing a boardwalk or a platform across them, creating a smooth path far above the ground. There were three major thoroughfares of this walkway, each starting at the rebel city. The first went to Thunder Bay, the second to Eden, and the third to the temple ruins and the rebel port.
In the city itself, the canopy was covered by the Treeway. In some areas, there was a waterfall, collecting the rainwater which flowed over the canopy until it found a hole to fall through. Below these waterfalls, the rebels had constructed a trellis, or a framework, upon which hung the
When Blaine Griffith spoke of spreading a thick netting between several buildings, it was not an unusual thing among the rebels. For in their vertical city, they had many such nets stretched between the trees, to catch those who might fall. They were hundreds of yards across, and the ropes which held the weight were two or three feet thick, woven from the fibers of the Atiltian
There were innumerable rope ladders hanging in the rebel city. By climbing these, the rebels also became expert archers, for their arms were steady and sure. Yet, for those who could not or would not climb the ladders, there were elevators. Quite simply, these were platforms which would travel across a rope, from one section to another. Sometimes the rope was a pulley, running from a high branch to a lower one, and the elevator simply was pulled up or down. At other times, the rope was extended between two trees, and the platform hung on a wheel that ran along it.
Yet the marvel of the city was the high town, the uptown, or the Tops, as they called it. Built above the canopy, it was the resort, the view of the city. On every side the forest could be seen, the canopy of the lesser trees spreading on before them until it washed away into the horizon. The clouds could not only be seen here but could also be felt as they sailed by. The sunsets were unpolluted, the stars unmasked. It was, for the rebels, paradise.
In the western tree, five hundred feet from the ground, there was a door in the tree. It appeared the same as any other door in the city, yet it contained a special room. It was the war room, where Blaine and his lieutenants planned the strategy of the rebels. At this time, there was a briefing taking place concerning the night’s mission. Among those present were Willard, Ivona, Horatio, Clifford, and Blaine.
“You speak of the danger of the rebellion,” Ivona said, “And of the coming conclusion. Yet when I look about me, I see a city that is safe and peaceful. What do we fight for, if we ourselves have freedom?”
“It is a mighty city,” replied Blaine, “But do not be mistaken – for every person among us, a hundred live in Eden, wishing to join us. Yet there is no room, no resources. Atilta is a maritime power, and even its economic strengths come from Eden. Gylain controls it, but as he prospers from its wealth, he becomes harder to overthrow. Already his army is larger than that of Spain, the Slovaks, or the Northmen. Indeed, much of his army comes from those countries. Even de Garcia, the rebel hero of old, came from Spain. We are a small island: everything we have is imported – even our fighters. Gylain’s only weakness, therefore, is domestic insurrection – in a word, the rebellion. But even that cannot long stand against him, for he grows in power as we are weakened.”
“He is greater in the traditional sense of strength,” Willard said, “But we can harass him with quick, local attacks, and spread him about for the final battle. All we can do is fight and trust fate to guide our hands.”
“I would rather trust to God, than to fate,” Ivona replied.
“To trust in fate is to trust in God; yet to trust in God is not necessarily to trust in fate.”
Ivona shook her head with a laugh and lowered it to conceal her broad smile.
Willard saw it, however, and laughed to himself.
“If everyone were as pleasant as you in disagreement, Ivona, than I could hardly stand a peaceful exchange.”
Willard was no longer the wild forest man. His face was open to the air and its Roman frame exposed. His chin was squared, coming together slightly in the center. His nose was narrow and came down at a perfect forty- five degrees, climaxing in a respectable point. Before, his hair had shadowed his eyes, yet now they also were revealed. They were large and set closer to the nose than to the ear, but not to an awkward degree.
His early education had always shone through his rough exterior, like a sunset through a dirty window. Yet now the window was clean and his majesty plain to all. His voice was deep as the owl’s and melodious as the warbler’s, rolling from his tongue with the rhythm that comes with the knowledge of authority. His passions were subdued and his compassions inflamed.
Yet his hermitage also shone through, for he was not given to flattery or politeness. Instead, he was terse and almost taciturn. His stride was long, his step swift, his eyes cold, and his conscience undecided between the laws of the forest and those of man. Both were dim parallels to the laws of God, yet each differed in opposite directions.
In the forest, a pot of honey was worth a man’s life; in the city, a metal crown. In the forest, survival was the reward of the strong and death the fate of the weak. In the city, power was the reward of the strong and slavery the fate of the weak. Which was worse? Neither, for between Hades and Hell there is no difference. Between the love of self and the hatred of others, there can be no distinction.
Ivona, on the other hand, was purely a follower of God’s law. She did not desire money or power, for she realized that the desire behind both was contentment. “Money is a medium of exchange,” she always said, “Traded for what you desire. Yet I desire only God and he can give me what he will. I would use faith, not money. The road to contentment is not possession – for the more you have, the more you want. Therefore, the only way to desire nothing earthly is to have nothing earthly.”
What Ivona struggled with was the desire for love. Her heart longed to be one with another. She longed to serve and to be kind; to prefer her lover as much as he preferred her; to be filled with the contentment that comes only when the desire for contentment has gone; to yield herself, her thoughts and her actions, to another, and combine them to make something greater; to forget her own wants in the face of the wants of others.
She wanted, in a word, to commune with God and to follow him. But her heart was weak, and the spiritual so distant at times she felt alone, though she knew, mentally, that she was not. She desired a love in the physical realm that was born in the spiritual. But when her heart longed the most for a touchable love, a simple sentence would echo through her mind –
