David Farland - Lords of the Seventh Swarm

A vast dew tree filled most of this cavern, its trunk at least a hundred yards wide, rising up and up till it met the roof, then proceeded through the stone. The hoary roots of the tree splayed from it in every direction, like twisted fingers emerging from a purple hand, and among the roots were knobby pale growths, like knuckles.

Felph just stared. This tree, here in the stone cavern, was totally unexpected. And it was so huge. Everywhere its dark roots seemed to wriggle across the floor-veins and arteries. Something large, like an anteater, with an enormous snout, trundled along the ridge of one twisted root.

Wings flashed in the darkness around the bole of the tree.

Life. With the green rains and the unexpected forest, the movement of animals within that room, Thomas got the impression of abundant life, everywhere beyond that veil.

“Of course, of course there would be creatures here,” Felph said. “There can be no death in that room.”

Felph glanced up at the top of the chamber, far above, and Thomas followed his gaze. A machine covered its roof-vast and hoary. Thomas saw huge piping carved in the stone, engines whirring silently overhead. He could not guess the purpose of this great machine, but he could guess part-all along its edges, the green rain fell. As if the rain dropped from this machine.

Lord Felph seemed reluctant to enter the room, to pass through the veil of green light or perhaps he was merely curious. Experimentally, he held out the butt of his pulp pistol, so sheets of rain fell over it.

The green drops seemed not to spatter the gun, but merely to pass through.

In wonder, Felph said, “Well, I’ve never seen anything like this, nor heard of it.” He glanced at Thomas, as if to ask his opinion on whether they should proceed. Thomas could tell him nothing.

I am but a simple man of Tihrgias , he wanted to say. What do I know of such things?

Surprisingly, Thomas’s Guide let him speak. “Och, man, let’s tuck our tails between our legs and scurry out of here,” he said. Then he could say no more.

Karthenor had told Thomas to protect Felph. Perhaps a word of warning fulfilled that commandment.

Felph frowned. “It’s an energy field of some kind. I’ve heard of physicists who’ve tried to create stasis fields-holes in the universe where time ceases to exist, but they always collapse. Anything stored in such holes is destroyed.

But…see-” Felph pointed to his left, to a corner away from the tree, in an area of the vast chamber where Thomas had not even looked. There a mass of white bones lay in huge piles. Among the bones were strange, dusty, birdlike faces, staring out at them. “Qualeewoohs died there and rotted. Over the centuries, their bones fused.” Felph shook his head. “If the corpses are fossilized, time exists beyond this veil. So I wonder what the veil accomplishes?”

Lord Felph regarded the fossils thoughtfully. “And the bones make me wonder. Qualeewooh legend says that if one drinks the Waters of Strength, the Waters give eternal life. But if that is true, why is this room little more than a grave?”

Thomas shivered as he began to understand what treasure Felph sought. It frightened him to follow a man so obsessed.

“Tell me,” Felph said. “Do you think it could be true, that the Waters let some part of you-your spirit-travel to another dimension? If that is so, it may be that this energy field is really the portal, not the Water. Or perhaps the Water acts as a catalyst for a physical change that can occur within this room.”

Felph laughed giddily. “After six hundred years of seeking this end, I find myself frightened to enter this chamber.”

“Do not enter,” Thomas warned.

Felph ignored him, began talking rapidly. “You know, I have studied Qualeewoohs for centuries. They say ideas have life. The seeds of ideas exist outside us, and are planted in our minds by gods. The Qualeewoohs wear spirit masks to make that task easier.

“But they say in time, thoughts grow and take flight on their own.” Felph gazed past the barrier. “Most human biologists seem to believe that the Qualeewoohs’ sayings are a metaphor, a nice way to say we must not simply follow our heart, but should give it wings.”

Felph muttered under his breath. “I have sometimes wondered: could it be a metaphor for what happens when one drinks the Waters of Strength? Could the thoughts and intents of your heart take flight, transform into something else, some more pure and lasting form of life that exists beyond this dimension? The Qualeewoohs say their ancestors fly `between the stars.’ I’ve pondered that. Space. Empty space. Could they mean their ancestors exist in a realm without matter? Or in a world human science cannot yet weigh or measure. And if that is true, what would be the advantages of transferring one’s consciousness to that realm? And what might be the penalties? And would it be wise?”

“Do not go,” Thomas said one last time. He meant that Felph should not go into that new realm he spoke of with such glassy-eyed wonder. The notion terrified Thomas.

But Thomas’s words jarred Felph. He spun, gazing at Thomas as if he’d never seen him. “Of course I’ll go. This body is but a clone. This life one of many I can spend as I want! If the Waters kill me, what does it matter? Why shouldn’t I go?”

Thomas could give no reply.

Lord Felph turned and strode through the green rain, passed through, turned and stared back at it in surprise.

Thomas could only follow.

He touched the green veil with one hand, felt something cool, like a cold wind washing through him, like a million icicles piercing every fiber of his being. As he passed through the wall of shimmering rain, he felt a tug, as if he’d just pushed through a tangle of vines only to find something, something insubstantial, left behind.

Thomas, too, turned to look back, for he feared he’d see his body dead on the floor, on the other side of the veil.

But the corridor he’d just passed through was empty. Felph chuckled nervously, then turned and marched over the ground.

In the distance, among the folds of roots about the great tree, Thomas heard strange, hooting calls. Something made a noise like breaking glass, and Thomas thought he glimpsed shadowy movements, as if small animals scurried, but he could not see clearly in the half-light. The green shimmering rains did not give much radiance, not enough to see well by.

The ground crunched oddly beneath their feet. The floor was littered with white stones. Thomas hiked through the chamber as if by moonlight, and Felph raised his glow globe till it flooded the path at their feet with piercing whiteness.

At Thomas’s feet, an ancient purple skull stared at him from shadowy sockets, silver Iines engraved over every surface. Around the skull were bones, white bones of ribs and wings. These made the odd crunching. Thomas leapt aside in horror, jumped on a tangled mass of rubbery root instead.

Felph began breathing heavily, as in fear. “I’ll do this,” he whispered. “I will walk between the stars!”

He climbed a rubbery root, began jogging, waving his hands as he tried to balance. He followed the roots toward the great tree. “Dew trees always set their roots in water,” he explained as he ran, his shadow writhing behind. “The Waters must be just ahead.”

Thomas followed more clumsily. Something whistled over his head, and he felt beating wings, looked up to see some batlike creature with translucent wings flap past his shoulder.

It was not a long journey, but an arduous one. As the roots increased in thickness, Thomas found himself walking higher and higher above floor level, until he was dozens of meters up. Creatures scampered into hiding as they passed, lone- snouted furry things that had bored holes the width of a hand into the roots of the dew tree. From some of these holes the dew tree exuded a, sweet-smelling liquid; shrimplike insects in hundreds of sizes and colors huddled around these holes to feed, each waving a dozen small pincers at Thomas as he passed.