Khyte came out of his daze with a shoulder under each arm and his wound cleaned and dressed. Turning left, he smiled to see Inglefras back in her buxom self, though her hair was a darker green; looking right, he recoiled from the second Inglefras, whose hair was nearly blue, twisted and thrashed free, and went nerveless after two steps. Though they had carried him effortlessly, they struggled to pick up the shaking warrior.
When they said, "steady, love," in unison, the pleasurable sound of Inglefras harmonized soothed him, and they steadied him until he found his footing. Though he no longer resisted their vegetal strength, since Khyte found it hard to focus and balance—one moment his vision was blacked out, and the next the blurred world poured into his eyes—this took longer than you would think.
"Where is Inglefras?...my Inglefras?"
"Your Inglefras is not your Inglefras," said the one to the left.
"Our Inglefras is not our Inglefras, either," said the other, and they laughed. "Not anymore."
"Where is she?" Khyte demanded.
"She is not," the one on the right said, and they laughed again.
"He has gone ahead to make arrangements," said the other.
"What arrangements?" asked Khyte. "She should be at my side."
"Since the apothecaries and hotels will close before we drag you to Wywynanoir, he went ahead for your potions, salves, and room."
"Another could have gone," said Khyte.
"He insisted."
The other said, "If we expected to be your crutches, we'd have ridden kiuvathi."
"I can manage." When Khyte pulled free, stumbled ahead, and swayed, the dryads rushed to his side. but by a berserk stagger, he briefly forced them to follow closer than his own shadow. Every time he felt their touch, he increased his lurching velocity, and so prolonged their chase.
"You shouldn't walk unassisted," said one.
"He can't walk at all with a hole in his middle and such shallow breaths," said the other.
"To be fair, he isn't walking. He skipped all the way to running."
"Catch him!" vermilion
When vermilion Abyss light filtered through shuttered windows into the bright orange room, Khyte awoke in black silk sheets wet with sour sweat. As he poured a clay jug on the end table into a steel cup, the coarse handle, the cup's slick surface, and the action of leaning from the bed to pour cold water all felt familiar. This foggy memory of pouring drinks and the stench of his sweat made him wonder how long he lay in this warm bed.
Khyte sat with an effort, wincing from a burning pain under his pectoral muscle. When he touched it gingerly, expecting his finger to come away wet with blood, it came away bright green, not the sickly color of gangrene, but a healthier hue, caked on new soft skin, of asparagus, evergreens, and peas.
After Khyte stretched his taut legs and aching feet to the floor, and satisfied himself that he could walk without making a fool out of himself, he opened the door onto a hallway with many doors and shuffled to the landing. Though Khyte smiled in rapt relief at the sight of descending stairs, for it meant he was no longer on one-floor Nahure, he soon regretted the shooting pains in his tight calves and hamstrings, for the stairwell was so steep that it seemed not hammered and sawed by a rational carpenter, but grown into place by a plant less concerned with function than with surmounting the obstructions to its growth.
Though climbing two mountains, near-fasting for three days in the Abyss, battling goblins and elves, fleeing guards, and fighting traitors once would not have dented his iron limbs, Khyte now shook and clung to the balustrade. Was this how it felt to be old? Remembering the fable of Kurto the Young, who fell into a well to emerge in an upside down world as Kurto the Old, Khyte clutched at his chin, half-expecting a gray beard trailing to his navel. and found himself newly shaven. Though this alleviated fears as to the conditions of his care at the dryads' hands, it did not ease his nonsensical anxiety of waking up ancient, given that Kurto the Young was a rarely recalled fable from his all-too-brief childhood, which he felt he should not so vividly imagine, having become not only a man, but headsman, at thirteen.
When Khyte reached the last flight, a graybeard in sienna robes was having similar troubles going up. Not only did the feeble old man seem a fearful apparition conjured from his anxious imaginings of himself as an ancient; not only did Khyte think him familiar, though he could not place his name; but this spark of near-recognition set his heart pounding, his mind racing. Why was he so distraught at not knowing this old man?
"Hello. Do I know you?" Though Khyte wrung his brain, he could not place the old man.
"I should be honored if my name was not unknown to the valiant hero who values his life less than a seed. As the Tree-Women are also curious to meet you, we're due at the Bryntenysh Council."
Hearing this circumlocution prodded Khyte's memory. While he was much thinner, the barbarian could not forget the fat old merchant's intelligent, probing, eyes. "You're Sarin Gelf. But you're so skinny—how long did I sleep?"
"Though I'm not Sarin, he's like a cousin to me. Call me Garin, if you'd like."
While Khyte was not himself, he had the presence of mind to note the 'if you'd like.' 'Garin' had given a nom du guerre. "Have you lived in Wywynanoir long? How did you come to serve the dryads?"
"That story is unworthy of you, but a day may fall when you learn the truth of it."
Upon leaving the simply-named Orange Hotel for the bracing, invigorating breeze that rustled in the trees lining the avenue's central strip, Khyte savored the deadness of the hotel district and felt more like himself. There was an Alfyrian, penning a scroll; there was a dryad, cultivating a garden of yellow, sharp-petalled flowers; and there was a dryad street cleaner, disposing of squandered fragments of food and stray paper. After adventuring with false friends, and having played a true friend false, he was happy to lurk where only a few faces smiled to themselves and avoided his eyes. "Pardon the odd question, but do I strike you as young or old?"
"I'd say you looked thirty if I didn't know you've been through an ordeal, and if Inglefras wasn't known to me. You're twenty-six."
"While that's what I told Inglefras, I shared my birthday with a dozen other children taken as the spoils of war. When I came of age, I learned that my father adopted me for his barren wife after slaying my birth parents. Since the day I celebrate as my birthday is actually the anniversary of the conquest, I could be younger or older."
Garin looked at him oddly. "Why tell a stranger, not your lover?" When Khyte didn't answer, the old man continued, "perhaps I should preface that with 'pardon the odd question.'" This badinage irked Khyte, for in his tribe, the elderly were not given to levity.
"Though that's a good question, I'm also surprised to hear that Inglefras shared so much with a stranger. I guess you have one of those faces."
"One of those faces? Does she entrust me with secrets because my face looks like an iron chest? That's not very kind."
Khyte laughed along. "You know what I mean. You have a familiar face."
"I'll say I do." The old man's eyes smiled.
Unlike human and goblin cities, which favored the cool side of the spectrum, the streets of Wywynanoir held to a warmer theme of reds, oranges, and yellows. Though this presented a bright and cheery image, on closer inspection most buildings were darkened and shut. Not that any were locked; when Khyte was last here, Frellyx wanted souvenirs, selected one of the many curiously uninhabited houses, and burgled an exquisitely handcrafted wooden statuette, while Khyte wanted no keepsake, but took an ewer for his mother. In response to his blunt questions and rude theories on the deserted residences and storefronts, the few dryad residents never provided any satisfying answers, and raised a few enigmas of their own, as though they were quick to answer that the backward F embroidered on the left breast of their black tunic symbolized "sapling," none would elaborate.
Khyte's reverie was blown to pieces by the aroma of fried meat and a sweet, smoky smell he couldn't identify. It made his knees weak and his stomach clamor. Though bookstores, trading houses, and grocers were closed, a cafe was open, as if the dryads knew Khyte was ravenous.
Garin also seemed to know Khyte's mind, for the old man entered the cafe without any word, ordered Khyte a foaming beverage sprinkled with aromatic bark and an egg sandwich, and led him to a large octagonal table. Other than two Alfyrians drinking foamy concoctions in glasses as long as their forearms, the restaurant was idle. When one of the two dryads that staffed the counter brought the breakfast on a tea service, there was nothing for Garin.
Khyte wondered what the bird looked like that donated this breakfast, as he knew from his last trip that Ielnaronan beasts were headless, having eyespots just above the shoulderblades. On the Dryad World, only dryads had faces. Or the Tree-Women did; Khyte still had a hard time believing his beloved was only a cast-off from a true dryad.
"You call this place home," said Khyte. "Answer my questions."
"I'm only old, Khyte. Don't assume I'm wise."
Khyte frowned at this, but barreled ahead. "Why is Wywynanoir so gaudily painted?"
"Unlike you humans, dryads aren't mammals. Even to warm-blooded plants like your hosts, light means food and relief, and they prefer warmer and brighter colors."
"So if I built a light blue house here, it would look dreary?"
"If I was forced to speculate, then yes."
"Aren't these cities built for the benefit of their guests?"
"The dryads don't want an eyesore, and prefer to keep outsiders on their toes, so that Wywynanoir's guests don't become comfortable, burdensome expatriates."
"How many offworlders call Wywynanoir home?"
"I believe there are only seven."
"Counting yourself?"
"Let me see," said the old man, "you would think I should have started with myself, but I may not have included me."
After Khyte devoured his meal, he asked for a refill of the aromatic beverage, which he found nearly as stimulating, and more invigorating, than strong coffee. Before resuming their journey, he quaffed it on his feet, then left the tall glass on the counter.
"Garin, this absent-mindedness seems a pretense. You're a dryad."
The old man was quiet for a few moments. "You're a little more clever than I took you for, Khyte."
"You tripped when you said unlike you humans."
"I suppose I did. My focus was on improvising lies to advance this conversation, which I found very enjoyable. When you failed to see my true nature, I elaborated on your confusion, and found the weaving of lies organic, even tranquil."
"Were there that many lies?"
"No, but our entire acquaintance, brief as it is, is a lie. You believe you have known dryads when you have never met one."
"Other than you and Inglefras, there are two behind the counter and those from my first visit to Wywynanoir. Is old Sarin a dryad as well?"
"Though calling him cousin was more honest than most of my lies, and he was our agent on your world, you have not yet met a dryad."
"Why provoke me with nonsense? Inglefras was no human, and when last I saw her, no woman, either. What is Inglefras if not dryad?"
"Though you may see Tree-Women in Wywynanoir, no dryads have set foot here. What do you see above the rooftops?"
"Only trees."
"The highest branches, encroaching like voyeurs leaning in for a better view, are the youngest dryads. Deeper in the woods circling this play city are colossal dryads, with girths unmeasurable by three hundred feet of rope, that have lived longer than your tribe has recorded history."
Khyte stared aghast at the looming trees. "If those are dryads, what is Inglefras?"
"And what am I? Not that you care about that. Here is the truth of it: just as time is fleeting to the gods' eyes, so to your human perspective, everyday trees stand still, though they never stop growing branches, stretching roots and spilling seeds. In addition to this inexorable but imperceptible motion, the Tree-Mothers interact at the faster, animal pace of their warm-blooded seeds, the Tree-Women, which emerge from their shells with feet, hands, voice, and a female figure disguising a malleable, dual-gendered sexuality dictated from moment to moment by instinct."
"Inglefras is a seed?"
"No. Not only have you never met Inglefras, but she is not a Tree-Woman. The one you knew as Inglefras is a seed," said Garin. "Please keep up; it is important to understand. Inglefras is a Tree-Mother, and has never moved from her grove. When the Tree-Woman you knew as Inglefras started to fall in love with you, since it did not match the goals of her Tree-Mother, instinct turned her to the male side of her dryad nature."
"She became a man to reject me?"
"That thought is unworthy of you. Just as you eat, drink, and sleep when nature bids, no matter how steadfast your love, so she must hew to her creator's deeply ingrained will. Though this Tree-Woman is fond of you, to her Tree-Mother you are a wild dog that carries the burrs of a bush and unwittingly helps a plant to propagate. Similarly, the Tree-Woman clung to you by instinct, and to facilitate her survival, released aromas so addictive that you craved her more than food, air, or the esteem of your friends. Though it seemed inexhaustible love, you were only snagged by this essence, she was only snarled in turn by your passion, and in the eyes of her Tree-Mother, no matter how deeply you were embedded in each other, it was only by irresistible nature."
"I remember the strong scent of flowers outside her cell," said Khyte. Did that prick me into fear and violence?"
"While that was the hook, do not think you were not your own man, Khyte. Of the many to fall under her spell in Merculo's castle, all made promises, some plotted and schemed, but only you took action. The great authority of your passionate response made the fiction of your love persuasive; moreover, the extent to which you went in her defense moved both the Tree-Woman and the Tree-Mother to pity and to reflect that in this case, the fiction of love might be real."
Garin continued: "Unlike the seeds on your world, Tree-Women have a cultural mission; Tree-Mothers learn by sending out their seeds. While every Tree-Woman that returns adds to the dryad's fount of knowledge, those that don't merge consign their memories to oblivion. In helping this seed return home, you provided its Tree-Mother a service of incalculable value, a mission you assisted not only by risking death, but loss of self, boundaries other seed-bearers rarely cross, and dryads never cross, for though Tree-Women die many deaths, Tree-Mothers simply grow new bodies to send out into the Worlds. Which is not to say that in defending you against Eurilda, true Inglefras did not suffer by sacrificing two seed-bodies, as they are limited resources that take months to gestate. Suffice to say that our opinions on humans are changing, and one item on today's council agenda is Inglefras's petition to reassess the value of building relations with Hravak."
Khyte said, "Do you mean all the women—Tree-Women, seeds, dryads, whatever you call them—that rescued me were Inglefras?"
"Yes, though they differ by slight degrees. While they spawn with the mind of Inglefras, this consciousness diverges over time, just as your Inglefras spawned only with what her Tree-Mother knew several years ago and on her death will merge a fount of new experiences, and thereby enlarge the compass of the dryad's thoughts."
"They seemed to read each others' minds."
"Though they are like-minded when they spawn, afterwards their thoughts are their own until they merge with the dryad. Here we are."
Tree-Women milled around a domed building that looked woven, like a giant basket, from enormous red, yellow, and orange sheaves. Inside was a sizable amphitheater with row upon row of seats.
"Why meet in the hospitality city and not one of the dryads' own dwelling places?"
"Though our culture, as much as yours, is one of artifice, here it is a necessity, as we only have voice through our proxies. I would tell you more, but I must share my business with the council."
"Until later, Garin."
"If tomorrow never comes, I'll treasure this day."
Though Khyte nodded graciously, his smile flattened when Garin was out of sight, as their brief acquaintance, demarcated by the space of a single conversation, didn't merit a parting declaration that grandiose. Perhaps it was an unfamiliar dryad idiom, he reasoned.
Khyte wasn't expecting to find familiar faces in the thronged amphitheater, but he looked here and there anyway, in an effort to determine what shape this Council of Dryads would take. On the central dais were sixteen stone stools, but no thrones, lecterns, podiums, or even a table—in fact, none of the traditional trappings for speaking with pomp and authority. After the dome's seats were filled, the dais filled as well, with a white-robed, white-haired elderly Tree-Woman approaching first.
Thinking he might be asked to speak of his adventure to Nahure and how it pertained to the welfare of Inglefras, Khyte had a premonition of rude heckling and mocking laughter and grew anxious. While his ignorance on many matters might amuse dryads, he would be certain to offend if he couldn't speak politely about the truth of a dryad's nature. No matter how cumbersome it made his story, Khyte decided to avoid sex-signifying pronouns such as he, she, his, or hers, and use only the name Inglefras.
The elderly dryad sat on the outside arc of the circular dais, facing not the other councilor seats, as Khyte had expected, but outward, to the audience. Either this council was not a conversation, or the councilors would turn to business after bowing to the crowd. When she said, "I speak for the voice of Quhinei," the roaring susurrus of the audience quieted to receive her words.
The next said, "I speak for the voice of Teuren."
Having lost track of Garin, Khyte was surprised to see him make his way to the dais. "I speak for the voice of Inglefras." Though the old dryad's voice was flat and weak, it echoed in Khyte, whose heart hammered in recognizing Inglefras looking out of Garin's eyes. They shared not only emerald green eyes, but cheekbones, ears and chin, though these were coated with the wispy hair of pronounced age.
Although indicated several times by Garin, Khyte was not called to speak until the very end; moreover, the entire event, with the exception of his tale, was conducted in the dryad language. He was grateful for this time to compose his thoughts, as he had new concerns: while prior to the revelation that Garin was an Inglefras, Khyte was only concerned with how to conduct himself, he was now consumed with the idea that he no longer knew the beginning of his tale—was Inglefras peering out of Sarin Gelf's eyes? Had the merchant sent Khyte to save himself?...herself?...the dryad's all-encompassing sexuality flustered Khyte.
When the assemblage grew quiet, Khyte heard the echo of his name. "Khyte," Garin repeated. "We ask that you relate your adventures on Nahure, and what we found in the catacombs."
Khyte proceeded to the dais, where the councilors parted, gesturing for Khyte to address the council from the heart of the platform.
Khyte spun the story of many deceptions, from Sarin's invitation to adventure to Huiln's conspiratorial intentions, from the size-changing enchantments of Eurilda to the heart-enlarging persuasion of Inglefras, from the steep slopes of Irutak to the dizzying bends of the Alfyrian embassy and the gray catacombs under The Fair Well.
The voice of Teuren interrupted when Khyte described the manifestation of the Ebotu. "Do you still have this dagger entrusted to you by Sarin of Inglefras?"
Khyte offered it up on outstretched hands so those near the dais and in the mezzanine could see it.
"Noble Khyte," said the voice of Teuren, "though you have done much already, returning Inglefras's scattered seed, and sowing here your seed-memories for us to reap to the heart of the matter, would you relinquish this dagger?"
"If I yield that which is mine, will you do the same?" Khyte waited for the rumbling assembly to dwindle to a murmur before continuing. "I ask Garin, voice of Inglefras, for right of union to his tribe, and you, wise council, to sanction it with ceremony and honor. Know that it is Khyte, Son of Kulunun, Son of Vestari, Son of Cianagh, who pledges; bring Inglefras, seed of Inglefras before me to hear with her own ears, and to be seen with my wanting eyes."
Though Khyte wasn't sure what to expect, laughter was the worst result imaginable. When he looked angrily for the source of the booming laughter, there wasn't a dry eye or a face devoid of laughter, for dryads laugh in unison, just as humans applaud as one.
Even sober Garin—who had earnestly shared a sentiment Khyte could never say with a straight face, no matter how wizened or senile he became—was trying to rein in laughter under a mask of noble restraint. "Khyte, you ask the impossible."
"Why is it impossible? Do dryads not have cares nor desires, nor wed male and female?"
"Though male and female join to procreate, our feelings and urges are only echoes of our Tree-Mothers, whose cares and desires we signify. Think of us as memories and imagination breathed to life by the Tree-Mothers; we would not have you marry an image, no matter how arousing. Would not your tribe mock you for proposing marriage to an erotic image? At best, that would be pornography; at worst, idolatry. Even if the innumerable objections we could mount were surmounted, your own limitations are unsurpassable."
"What does that mean?"
The old Tree-Man furrowed his brow, wiped a tear, and rested his smile. "As I find myself tongue-tied. I will show you."
The old dryad knelt and whispered to the voice of Teuren, who said, "the Lesser Council is adjourned, and the Greater Council shall meet in thirty-nine rotations." When the dryads exited en masse, Khyte expected an awkward wait on the dais with the royal voices that denied his request, but as they stepped down, the crowd opened a path, and they effortlessly departed the amphitheater.
After the elders parted ways, Garin led Khyte down a broad avenue to the city's walls.
Everything about the walls looked new, from the stones to the paint to the gates, except the scaffolding, which on second glance seemed to be trees shaped by their service to the walls.
"When was Wywynanoir built?"
"Three thousand revolutions ago, or about 100 years in human reckoning."
"Why do these walls look so new?"
"Forgive me," said Garin. "I need the remainder of my journey for reflection. At journey's end, there will be no more mysteries."
"I understand," said Khyte.
Three hours later, they were still walking. Though Wywynanoir was obscured by the dryad forest, Khyte did not yet feel that they had left civilization for the wilderness, for he felt the gaze of the colossal columns. Moreover, as these were not trees, thinking it a woods felt both a lie and a grave offense to his hosts. He wondered what the dryads called this arboreal residence; surely their assemblage made some kind of city, if a sad, taciturn city.
Mulling over his lamentable proposal and the mocking that followed, Khyte told himself he couldn't be faulted for thinking the Tree-Women the true population, as they were the ones acting, talking and laughing. "Are we lost?"
Garin smiled. "No, I know this path very well."
"Hours ago, you said this journey's end is near."
"In my haste to be done, I underestimated the time. We are within two hours of our destination."
Khyte ignored the absent-minded dryad for the rest of the trip, and it was Garin that spoke next: "we have arrived."
While another world might have marked these clumped trees and profusion of waist-high grasses as a bleak backwoods, Khyte followed Sarin down the eroded path until they arrived at a titanic, walnut-brown tree, somehow darker than its shadow, for the Abyss-light stirred in its rustling leaves. Though the Tree-Mother was too much to take in at once, being several hundred feet around at the trunk, it was Khyte's upward glance that awed him, for though the girth tapered, a village might have nested in the first diverging joint, and the branches extended further than he could see. This tree was only the gigantic vanguard of thousands of enormous Tree-Mothers, and though most were dwarfed by the titan, they were yet so huge that Khyte could not have reached their lowest branches.
"Khyte, do not judge me too harshly, for this face has lived. Here is Inglefras. Here lies my name, my honor, my past and future, and all that I am." When Garin knelt between the broad roots, he burned white until the brightness took on his lover's likeness, and like the final, charitable act of a flower going to seed, Inglefras the seed broke into countless white threads. From the disintegrating sheaves, a spark went into the giant tree.
"Inglefras?" Khyte fell to his knees and fumbled at the thread, which was so dry it chaffed his fingers. Khyte wept, and allowed himself to understand. At the end of her journey, Inglefras had become not only male but old, and as Garin, enjoyed Khyte's company for another day. With this knowledge as the key, he saw that Sarin Gelf was an anagram of Inglefras, and that Garin also used word play to clue Khyte in: Inglefras was Garin Self. He wept until the Abyss-light rested on the horizon. As he had never grieved, in that moment he released all his unnamed grief, from the slaughter of his birth parents, to the loss of Huiln and Kuilea to machinations which he had approved, to the strange sense that Eurilda had taken something more than innocence, to all the joy he would never know with Inglefras.
By the time Khyte stood to depart, he had caressed the gleaming threads until they crumbled into powder. Where this dust had mingled with tears, Inglefras's remains were a paste, looking more like a rain-quenched campfire than a grave. When he turned to the overgrown path, a cracking sound—not like a snapped twig, but a broken door—put him on his guard. That someone was a spectator to his desolation and despair was too much for Khyte, and with the mocking dryad laughter of the amphitheater still fresh in his mind, he drew his sword and angrily stepped toward the sound, which crunched, then crackled, then pattered, as if a series of barriers were splintered by a battering ram. He followed the shattering noise around the trunk to a cavernous knothole, where four green women knelt in wooden fragments, and another hull shivered down the middle, toward the earth floor. When the seed burst with another loud crack, a fifth lay curled in the remnant. The Tree-Women were stamped with the image of Inglefras—exact duplicates, with not an eyelash out of place. Their likenesses were so cruel that he covered his eyes as they approached.
"Khyte!" While Khyte was no lesser man, to be stricken with madness upon hearing his beloved calling his name after her dust melted in his tears, even great heroes might have their minds riven when their name echoes in a dulcet chorus of the departed. When they embraced him, each was as warm as Inglefras, and each wore the scent of rose tea like Inglefras.
"Stop!" stammered Khyte. "You're not her! You're nothing!" Only moments ago, Khyte had feared that Inglefras was nothing, that he had fallen in love with a flower and grieved for nothing but love itself, and he had just clawed out of this deep well of narcissism, clutching his heart-spent, slaved passion as his right, when he was snared by this ten-armed affection.
"Khyte, listen," said one of the newly hatched, "while the good of the dryad usually subsumes the memories of the seed, when the memories of she you knew as Inglefras and Garin passed into our Tree-Mother, she remembered you with the Tree-Woman's eyes, and it is as if we were planted this day anew, as if she were a new dryad."
Another said, "This morning your proposal was an elaborate joke, but now we would go to war for love of you."
"And it may go without saying, but we accept," said another. "We will be not only bride, but bridal party, in whatever Hravakian wedding ritual you wish."
"But I don't know you," said Khyte.
"Look at me, Khyte, and know," she said. "I am Inglefras. You rescued me from King Merculo."
"And I. You leaped from the Alfyrian embassy for love of me."
"And I. You followed me into the catacombs."
"And I. You took the point of Eurilda's dagger for me."
"All of Inglefras, and Inglefras forever more, will know and remember you."
"And you must know us," they said, laughing.
Khyte was about to call it off, then thought better of it, seeing that he was surrounded by five love-drunk dryads, and who knows how many within earshot. And he was almost persuaded by their round-robin argument that Inglefras was all of these women. His tears had only fallen on one of her cast-off garments. If Inglefras was whom he wanted, more of her couldn't be a bad thing, could it?
"But quickly," one said. "The threat of war is real."
"What?" said Khyte.
"When we said we would wage war for love of you, that was no vain declaration. They are on their way, and The Dryad World will break before it bends."