David Grace - The Accidental Magician

"Chom, what's it like where you live? Your people live in the forest, don't they? Are the forests like this one?"

"No, not like this. There are no hometrees here."

"What's a hometree?"

"It's what we build our homes in, where we live. How we live together."

"You mean you hollow out the trees? Wouldn't it be just as easy to live in buildings?"

"Hollow out the trees? You mean kill them and live inside a dead shell? No. No Fanist could live that way. The trees are our homes, our friends, our protection, our companions. We care for them. They care for us. They are part of our life. We would not be what we are without them. We would be something different. The Fanist without his community, without his hometree, is an outlaw and renegade."

"You mean a criminal? I didn't know you had them. I've never heard of a Fanist going bad."

"Not a criminal, an outcast. Often they settle near human villages as weather predictors. They are out of harmony, ones who are so different, who think so differently, feel so differently, that they are not of us any longer."

"I don't understand. You mean an outcast does not follow the rules? If he obeys the laws, what does it matter if he lives in a tree or a house?"

"We are so different. I do not know if you can understand me or if I can understand you. Let me tell you about how we live, how a community is born, and perhaps you will see what I mean.

"A community exists. Call it a village or a town. It is not either of those things, but, in any event, it exists. Like any other people we are born and we age. Each of us, when we reach a particular stage in our life, is overtaken by the urge to explore-but explore is not the right word. There are no exact human words, you understand. I simply translate into the nearest human equivalent.

"This urge ranges from a mild curiosity in some individuals to an all-consuming obsession in others. The individual discusses these feelings with an adviser or mentor or parent-again, none of the words is quite right. Each person looks to a particular older member of the community whose attitudes, learning, wisdom, whose entire personality for some reason appeals to and gains the respect of the young one. This person then becomes someone to whom he goes for advice.

"The mentor discusses the feelings of the young person with him and suggests several prospects-not just a particular place to explore but a philosophy of exploration: should the young one look for new foodstuffs, spectacular landscapes, dangerous adventure, the learning of a new craft or skill. You see, the mentor must find an area of challenge which will both satisfy the urge for exploration and also yield some benefit both to the individual and to the community.

"Once the path has been chosen the person commences the journey, the trip of life. For some it might be no more than a study of the berry fields a league or two from the community, while another might set off across the Island Sea for a trek into the Hidden Lands."

"Then that's what you're doing-you're on your trip of life?" Grantin interjected.

"It is my time."

"Well, what is your mission? Surely you didn't start out with the idea of helping me?"

"A trip of life is a very personal thing which may not be discussed," Chom replied hastily, remembering Ajax's warnings of the need for secrecy. "Perhaps you will understand if I explain further. The more adventurous, strong-willed, and determined the individual, the more ambitious his trip of life. Those who are adventurous but foolish or unlucky or weak often fail to return. That is a good thing, for it improves the race. The dangerous, the weak, and the foolish do not return to found a family. Each of us is enjoined by the highest strictures to return with our report, and in this way we increase the knowledge and wisdom of the community."

"Your theory's not necessarily correct," Grantin said. "What about the timid ones who only go as far as the berry patch? They always return to breed. Doesn't that result in your becoming a race of timid weaklings?"

"An intelligent observation, but no. All those who return do not necessarily found a family. The more dangerous the trip of life, the more useful the wisdom returned, the easier it is for the individual to find a mate. Those who visit the berry patches often are unable to find mates and breed not at all. But who knows? Upon occasion startling knowledge has been obtained by quiet and contemplative individuals, and they have earned great respect by reason of their scholarly reports. Also, there is even a further benefit to our custom.

"Sometimes on the trip of life an individual finds a place which he prefers to his own community. After making his report the individual, if he is sufficiently bold, resourceful, and ambitious, leaves the community to found a new settlement in such a place. Upon the satisfactory establishment of a home the individual then takes a mate. If he is successful and the place is good a new community of strong stock is founded. If he has underestimated the hardships or picked a bad place he dies or fails to find a mate, and, again, the race is strengthened. In this way have we prospered through the ages."

"What about those who don't undertake the trip, who don't want to? What happens to them?"

"Those are the renegades, the criminals, the ones who wish to take no risks or to have a mate without earning the right, who give nothing back to the race. These are the ones who would destroy our whole world."

"What do you do with them?"

"They are forbidden to breed and removed from the community so that, through ignorance or error, they are not accepted as mentors by the young. They live out of contact with Nahra, the soul of the community, the empathy with the land."

Grantin's head was filled to overflowing with the Fanist culture, and still there were more questions. What did all of this have to do with Fanists living in trees? And how did they mate? Were only males expected to go on the trip of life? What was Chom doing here in the Gogol kingdom? It was all too much for Grantin now. The afternoon was wearing on. The morning's high spirits had dissipated. No longer listening to Chom's lecture, he shifted his attention to the forest.

As if the Black Pearl River were a boundary between the outer reaches of the forest and its main domain, the character of the woods had changed. There was a subtle deepening in the sky as the leaves grew more dense. The trees themselves were closer together and their trunks thicker and more gnarled. Mosses of rust and deep green festooned many trees, as the trapped air was humid and dank. The bushes and small plants had thinned greatly. The forest floor was dotted with mushrooms and other forms of fungi. The dominant color of the terrain had changed from green to the brown, white, and gray of dead leaf and mold. Though it was now only the eighth hour Before Dark, already a damp breeze presaged Pyra's setting.

By unspoken agreement Chom and Grantin increased the pace, as if in hope that the landscape beyond the next bend would be more hospitable. In point of fact the surroundings did change as the afternoon waned, but not for the better. By half past the ninth hour a twilight gloom filled the spaces between the trees. Although Pyra would not yet set for an hour and a half, Grantin and Chom had nothing like that much time to find a place to camp.

Uniformly covered with dead leaves, the trail could be discerned only by the fact that it provided an alley between the close-grown trees. Ahead the path curved to the right and, without warning, descended into a steep gully. Along the bottom of the ravine trickled a small, muddy stream. Chom's extra set of arms again proved their worth in ascending the far bank. Here the dead leaves made the walls slippery and Grantin found it difficult to obtain purchase. Only after working his way fifty yards or so downstream was he able to make use of the protruding roots of a great jonquil and scramble to the top.