Джефф Вандермеер - The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities

“We’ll follow the footpath,” said Ambrose, indicating the way. He folded the map and slipped it in with the grimoire . “It goes to the . . . the agreed rendezvous.”

Kennett nodded and turned to the anxiously waiting lieutenant.

“Send one section to patrol the perimeter of the wood to the west and one section to the east. Keep one section here. Your men are not to enter the wood, no matter what you hear. Cries for help, orders that sound like they come from me or the colonel, all are to be ignored unless we are actually in front of you. If we do not come out within three hours—my watch says ten twenty-two, set yours now—return to Solingen, report to your CO, and tell him to immediately contact General Spencer Ewart at the War Office and relay the code phrase ‘defectus omnes mortui.’ ”

“But that’s . . . uh . . . fail . . . failing . . . failure . . . all dead,” said the lieutenant, busy trying to scribble the phrase in his notebook and set his watch, all at the same time.

“Did I ask you to translate?” snapped Kennett. “Do you have the code phrase?”

“Yes, sir!” replied the lieutenant. He closed his notebook and managed to successfully set his watch, his platoon sergeant surreptitiously leaning in to make sure he’d got it right.

“Finally, fire two warning shots over the heads of anyone approaching. If they continue, shoot to kill. It doesn’t matter who they are. Civilians, women, children, whoever. Here is a written order to that effect.”

“Yes, sir,” said the lieutenant. There was considerable doubt in his voice and his hand shook a little as he unfolded the letter, his eyes flickering across the typewritten lines before widening enormously as they came to the short signature—just a first name and a capital letter—at the bottom of the page.

“Yes, sir!” he repeated, much more vigorously.

“Presuming we return, I’ll want that back,” said Kennett. “Carry on.”

The lieutenant saluted and whirled about, speaking quickly to his sergeant, who a moment later began to bellow orders. Ambrose ignored the sudden bustle of military activity and began to walk towards the footpath. His eyes were on the fringes of the wood, looking for signs of arcane disturbance. But there were none visible. This part of the wood was composed of beech trees, their trunks green and mossy, their foliage a darker green. The light changed under the trees, gaining a soft, green tinge, but this was the natural magic of leaves and sun, not anything sorcerous.

It was also cooler under the canopy of the forest. Ambrose led the way with Kennett a dozen yards behind. They walked in silence, save for the occasional squelch of soft ground, or the snapping of a fallen twig where the footpath wound through higher, drier ground.

A half-mile or so in, the beeches began to give way to oaks. They were much older, and grew closer together, the footpath leading into relative darkness. As they left the beech forest behind, Ambrose noticed that it was quieter among the oaks as well. All the bird-sound had vanished, and all he could hear were his own and Kennett’s footsteps. Then, not much farther on, Kennett’s footsteps stopped.

Ambrose looked back. Kennett was leaning against the broad trunk of one of the ancient oaks. He nodded and waved Ambrose on. Clearly, this was as far as Kennett cared to go into the heart of the wood, and, as he was far more in practice and so currently more attuned to the occult than Ambrose, this probably meant he had sensed the locus of the Waldgeist somewhere close ahead.

Indeed, no more than fifty yards ahead, there was a forest glade where the oaks parted around a clear expanse of grass. In the middle of this small clearing was an incredibly ancient, stunted tree, a king-oak that could well be thousands of years old. Blown over by some long-forgotten storm, it still lived, its branches spreading horizontally, its trunk twisted and gnarled, its bark as hard as iron.

Ambrose could feel the Waldgeist now, the sense of the sleeping spirit that had been born of thirty million trees, and would not fade until the last of those trees was gone. Humans had decimated the primeval forest, but the spirit still remained. It only slept, and in Ambrose’s opinion, it would be best left to do so. But he knew he had no real choice. If Lady S wanted the Waldgeist awoken, then it had to be awoken.

He knelt by the trunk of the king-oak, and paused, just for a moment, to gather his thoughts, mentally going through each step of the ritual. Satisifed that he had remembered it all, he laid out everything he needed on the forest floor.

First of all was the silver athame, his sacred knife, the one he had used in Turkey and thought lost when he was at the Front, only to find it had been stored away in the D-Arc armoury against his later use. They had always presumed he would come back.

Second was an acorn from this same wood, though from long ago. It was so old it was almost petrified, and though he had been assured its origin had been checked by thaumaturgic assay, as well as in the D-Arc records, it was the one element that he doubted. If it was from somewhere else, it might well help to raise the Waldgeist, but it would not be a friendly awakening.

The third thing was not in the ritual. Ambrose took his revolver from its holster and laid it down, to be ready at hand. If things went very badly wrong, he intended to shoot himself. It would be a far quicker and kinder way to die. Ancient spirits were not known for their sense of mercy.

That done, it was time to start. Ambrose began to recite the words of the waking ritual. His voice was steady, and he spoke carefully, as he sliced the end of his left thumb with the athame and let the bright blood drip onto the ancient acorn. As the blood dripped, the words became a chant, rhythmically repeated over and over again.

The acorn soaked up the blood like a sponge. When nine drops had fallen, Ambrose cut his right thumb and let another nine drops fall, without faltering in his chant. The guttural Old High German words sounded very loud in the stillness of the wood, but Ambrose knew it wasn’t so much the words themselves that mattered. It was the thoughts behind them, the blood, and the aged seed.

He finished the chant at exactly the same time he pushed the acorn into the soil with both his bleeding thumbs, and sat back.

Nothing happened. Ambrose waited, sitting cross-legged next to the ancient oak, his hand on the butt of the revolver, ready to lift it up to his temple and fire.

A slight breeze swooped down and rustled the leaves on the low, spreading branches. It was cold, ice-laden, and out of time and place, in this splendid German summer.

“So it begins,” whispered Ambrose. He could feel the Waldgeist stirring all around, the spirit waking in the wood. He looked up and saw the branches of the king-oak lifting, and then a moment later the trunk groaned and creaked, as it began to straighten up. It was becoming the great tree of old, when it had stood sixty feet high or more, tall and straight and strong.

If it was a typical manifestation of a tree spirit, the tree itself would respond to Ambrose’s summoning, either to whisper with the soft sussuration of leaves, or to pin him down with a heavy branch and send a thousand green shoots to penetrate his body, slowly growing through skin and flesh until they did fatal damage to some vital organ. Or, even worse in some ways, the Waldgeist might force itself into Ambrose’s mind, remove everything of his personality, and create for itself a human puppet. That was likely one of Kennett’s main reasons for accompanying him, to guard against this eventuality with his revolver and its exploding silver bullets.