Barrington Bayley - The Forest of Peldain

I see you have resolved to take the part of the High Priest, at last , the voice continued. You think you can control me .

In his anger and grief Vorduthe was indeed ready to fight the entity for mastery. But the voice only chuckled.

It is too late, Lord Vorduthe of Arelia. When first you dived into this lake you might have succeeded. But love made you delay, and now I have learned to avoid your will, just as I once learned to avoid Mistirea’s. So good-bye, Lord Vorduthe, noble of Arelia .

The voice faded and Vorduthe found himself out of trance state and alone in pitch darkness, warm liquid all around. His lungs had not yet reached the limit of their endurance, but he knew that the entity would never admit him into its presence again.

The lake’s stratagem had worked. While Vorduthe was distracted with delight in Kirekenawe it had been familiarizing itself with his psyche, absorbing a part of him so that his mind could not be used as a weapon against it. It was maturing fast. Probably, Vorduthe thought, no one would ever influence it again.

It was time to depart. For the last time he soared, toward daylight and fresh air.

The High Priest’s eyes became hollow as Vorduthe, standing dripping on the lake’s mossy shore, confessed his failure.

“Yes, I had thought there was something wrong,” he said in a ghostly voice. “So it was all for nothing. Peldain will die.”

“No,” Vorduthe said. “There is still something we can do. If you had not lost the habit of work in the physical world these past generations you would have thought of it yourself.”

Mistirea stared uncomprehending when Vorduthe first explained what he meant. When it came home to him that the thing was possible, he was dumbfounded.

“But the Eye of Peldain has always been with us!” he protested.

“Do you still think of it as a god? If so it is a malign god.”

“It is a god in a sense, a god that must be appeased… yet strange to say, once it was a man.” Mistirea nodded, evidently thinking he was telling Vorduthe something new. “Yes, it is so. You know the hill that is shaped like a woman, in the valley beyond the Clear Peaks? Legend has it that the hill was so sculpted on the orders of the lake long ago. Though no longer a man, it became hungry for the shape of a woman. It wished to caress such a woman with the branches of the forest….”

Mistirea came back to the point. “The lake alone can restrain the forest! What would happen if your plan were carried out?”

“But it is not true that the spirit restrains the forest, as such,” Vorduthe told him. “Rather it is the other way about. The lake is the forest’s soul, its driving force. If that force is removed the forest will remain deadly, certainly, but it will have no directing intelligence. It will be unable to evolve; men will be able to drive it back, perhaps even to burn it down. In any case we can prevent it spreading.”

Vorduthe began to dry himself. Mistirea stood still, thinking hard.

“It must be done secretly,” he said at last. “If the King should hear of it—”

“What of your own acolytes? Could they be trusted?”

“Some, yes… others, no.”

“My men will carry out the work,” Vorduthe promised. “Even if the palace should learn of it, it must still be carried through, and that means fighting. My men alone will not be enough to hold off the King’s force, but if even some of your acolyte warriors joined in there might be a chance. Can you get us our weapons? Even more important, we shall need suitable tools.”

“Very well, then, we are joined in conspiracy,” Mistirea agreed somberly. “If you are wrong, Lord Vorduthe, may the gods you worship help this traitor!”

It was near dawn of the fourth night when the white-coated acolyte came from Lakeside and touched his brow in the cult’s formal sign of respect.

“Our cause is betrayed,” he told Vorduthe. “One of us whom Mistirea trusted went to Prince Askon and revealed all. The Prince is on his way here with all the force he could muster.”

Vorduthe cursed under his breath. Mistirea had experienced extreme difficulty in judging whom he could confide in. The cult members, long trained in reverence for the lake, found the turn of events confusing.

“And Mistirea?”

“He is gathering your men and those of us we can trust. They too will shortly be on their way here.”

“Wait. I will return with you.”

Bending his head, Vorduthe stepped into the low, cramped tunnel, shored up by timber props, that ran horizontally into the sloping ground. Two men came toward him dragging sacks of earth. Even by the light of the lamps he would not have been able to see the other two who were digging at the tunnel’s end. They were too far in now, hacking away with tree-grown hardwood tools that were actually meant for replanting trees, but which served their present purpose well enough.

During the daytime the entrance was blocked and concealed. Much easier and quicker would have been to dig straight through the retaining bank, but Vorduthe had elected to start farther down the slope so as to reach a greater depth. By his estimation the tunnel should be about ready to break through.

If he was wrong then the outcome would depend on who won the forthcoming fight. From the cache of weapons stored just inside the entrance he took a sword and strapped on the waist belt and harness. He stopped the two earth-shifters, briefly told them what was happening, and went outside.

In the west the glow of dawn was beginning to challenge the blazing stars. He and the acolyte walked up the slope, skirting the looming bank until eventually they were able to view the dully gleaming, perfectly flat surface of the lake.

They were in time to see a column of men moving among the tree-houses and coming toward the lake. To Vorduthe’s military eye they looked like a mob for they came along in a crowd and not in rank and file as Arelian warriors would. Some were garbed in the honey-colored armor of the palace guard, a few in the brown bark cuirasses worn by cult acolytes when in combat order.

Heading them was Askon Octrago, also in honey armor and a coroneted helmet of the same color.

“You would have done better to arm yourself for your errand,” Vorduthe observed dryly to the acolyte.

Then, from another direction, Mistirea and Troop Leader Kana-Kem were seen leading a mixed group of seaborne warriors and acolytes round the corner of a large community house. There were about forty Arelians, together with approximately the same number of Peldainians, all armed.

The two groups spotted one another and halted. With feral glances at both Vorduthe and Mistirea, Octrago stepped from among his men. The High Priest, too, moved forward, crossing about half the distance between them.

Octrago’s caustic words were crisp on the cool morning air. “Here we have the whole treacherous nest, it seems. Tell me, High Priest, was it for this that I exerted myself? Crossed the ocean? Dared the forest? Well, no matter. You had best not oppose me now. Stand aside while I finish this business once and for all.”

“You misunderstand what is happening!” Mistirea’s voice was pleading and he addressed not only Octrago but those following him. “We must render the forest harmless, and this is the only way! It should have been done long ago!”

“ What! ” Octrago’s face showed that he was genuinely incredulous. “The forest is our protection against the rest of the world! Our ancient hedge—against such as he!” He gestured violently at Vorduthe, glaring. “Your duty is to keep it within bounds, not to strip us of it!”

“It cannot be kept within bounds any longer. We are the lake’s prisoners, under sentence of death!” Mistirea puffed out his chest and his voice strengthened. “Listen to me! All I have done, I have done for the sake of Peldain—”