Anthology: Love and War

Aron left the room, knowing what he had to do. For one more day, he would play the innocent. For one more day, he would pretend he had nothing burdensome on his mind. He even whistled again at his loom, which had the intended effect of reassuring Petal.

But as soon as night fell and Petal went to bed, Aron dropped his pose. He quietly secured both her window shutter and door with braces of wood. Taking up his lantern and stick, he hurried to the pond.

When he got there, he placed himself near the old beaver dam. There, in a high voice, he called out, "My love, my love, take me to your home." Then, his lantern lit, he crouched down and waited for the creature to rise to the surface.

It didn't do so, either because it was fearful of the light, or because it knew that it was not Petal who called.

No matter, thought Aron. He stood up. "You shall reveal yourself whether you like it or not." And, with that, he gripped his walking stick with two hands and started to break apart the beaver dam.

He stabbed at the dam repeatedly, prying it, pulling out the limbs, branches, and mud. The water rushed out of each break, swelling the stream on the other side. The pond itself slowly began to shrink, leaving behind a widening shore of mud that was laced with stranded lily pads and their limp stems. Several frogs left high and dry began burrowing by backing into the mud, their bulbous eyes disappearing last with a blink.

His heart pounding ever faster, Aron worked all the harder. "Come, come!" he called out over the increasingly loud rush of water. "Don't be shy! Let me see your fishy face!" He put down his stick and eagerly held his lantern over the surface.

He was rewarded for his efforts. He saw, swimming among an ever thicker riot of fish, a large, human-shaped something — no, two human-shaped some-things, both still vague in the muddy, benighted water.

For a moment, one of them seemed to be the pale form of Petal, and Aron had to remind himself that he had secured her in her room. He was tempted to run back to the cottage just to make sure, but the water was very low now, and he would see everything soon enough.

Finally, though, as the water dropped to a depth of a mere hand's span and the fish were bumping into each other, many of them forced out and flopping about the muddy shore, the two creatures began joining the frogs and burrowing into the mud.

"No! Where are you going?" cried Aron, stepping forward, his foot sinking in the mud with a slurp.

But the two forms burrowed deeper, even as the pond became only a mud hole, leaving behind a mere trickle of a stream that meandered among the stranded lily pads, flopping fish, and stunned turtles, which just stood there stupidly, not knowing which way to go. In the center of all that was the writhing mud, as the two creatures dug down to escape the lantern light, or the air, or Aron himself.

Eventually, the writhing slowed, the mounds flattened, and the ground was still. All was quiet. Even the fish lay exhausted, their gills opening and closing uselessly. Aron felt cheated not to see the face of the creature whom Petal had called "My love, my love," but he was satisfied that it would be a problem no more.

But who was that second creature?

Aron returned quickly to his cottage and, first thing, checked Petal's room. He saw, to his relief, that she was indeed there, curled up in her bed. So he went to bed himself and slept more peacefully than he had in a long time.

The next morning he awoke and went directly to his loom, waiting for Petal to rise and make him some breakfast. But she slept late that morning. Finally, his stomach rumbling, Aron called out, "Petal! Come on! Make your old father some breakfast."

She didn't answer.

Perhaps she knows what I did and is being spiteful, thought Aron. "Come on, girl! Up!"

She didn't answer.

Aron went to her room and found her still lying in her bed, curled up. Naturally, there were no puddles this morning, a fact that gave Aron much satisfaction.

"Up, my girl!" he called, walking over to her and brashly pulling away the covers.

His eyes nearly popped out of his head. It was not Petal at all but pillows set up to mimic her form.

Without a moment's hesitation, Aron dashed from the room, grabbed one of Petal's large gardening shovels, and ran to the dried pond.

When he got there, he saw what, in his eagerness, he had missed the night before: his daughter's gown, lying rumpled on the bank. He immediately stepped into the mud to get to the center, but the farther he went, the deeper his legs went into the mud. At one point the mud came nearly up to his knees, and he could hardly walk. But he pressed on, thinking only of his darling Petal lying buried in the mud.

Then, as he neared the center of the pond, Aron noticed something odd. There, right where he meant to dig, was a tiny green plant shoot. Or rather two tiny green plant shoots. They were entwined delicately about each other. And before Aron could pull his right leg from the mud, those two green shoots, right before his eyes, began to grow.

In a matter of moments, they transformed into long, elegant tree saplings, both still entwined about each other. But they didn't stop there.

They continued to grow toward the sun, their trunks thickening as they grew. And as they did so, they encircled each other. They put out ever more branches, tiny leaves, and even some reddish fruit that hung in clusters.

Soon, what had been two delicate shoots only moments before were now two sturdy trees in full-grown glory, their thick, nearly merged trunks coiled around each other, their roots bulging from the mud, their lofty crowns meshed and arching over the entire width of what had been the pond.

Aron pulled himself out of the mud by one of the roots. He gazed at the two entwining trunks and at the leaves overhead, which now filtered out the sun. "Petal," he whimpered, "forgive me. I believed my love was enough."

And there, in the shade of the two trees, Aron Dewweb sat and wept. By the time the sun had set and the moon had risen, sending its sprinkles of silver light through the two trees' crowns, Aron died of a broken heart, and little green leaves fell gently to cover him…

So ended Barryn Warrex's tale.

When Aril Witherwind looked up from his book, he detected in one of the old man's eyes a solitary tear. The half-elf himself sighed from sadness and had to brush away from his page a teardrop or two that threatened to make his ink run. "Well, I must say, that is not a story I expected from a knight," he said.

Barryn Warrex stirred, his eyes and ears once more seeing and hearing what was before him. And when he spoke, it was once more with his own deep but tired voice. "I warned you," he said. "It is what has been in my heart." With a creaking of his armor and bones, he slowly rose to his feet.

"Well, now it's in my book, as well," said the half-elf, blotting the page and shaking off his own sadness. "But as to the title. How about, 'A Tale of Eternal Love'? — no, no, too corny. How about, 'A Tale of Two Loves'? You see, it's about two kinds of love, get it?"

Barryn Warrex, not much caring what title the folklorist gave the story, trudged over to the flat rock where his helmet and shield were lying.

"Well, I'll have to give that some thought," continued Aril, tapping his quill feather against his downy chin. "By the way, this is most important: Should I put this story down as fact or as fable?"

The knight put on his visorless helmet, his grand white moustaches flowing well out from it on both sides like two elegant handles. "The story is true enough as far as I'm concerned."

"Well, I don't know," said Aril, squinting at the page through his spectacles. "It seems pretty incredible — even for the Forest of Wayreth. Perhaps if you had seen those Entwining Trees yourself, it would lend credibility —»