Джефф Вандермеер - The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities

The wind blew stronger, and the tree grew taller. Ambrose made his fingers uncurl from the revolver, though he kept his hand close. It was important not to appear with weapons in hand, for that in itself might sway the Waldgeist to enmity.

Then the ground shivered and sank beneath Ambrose. It was an unwelcome sensation, delivering sudden uncertainty, and even worse, the sharp memory of being buried alive. Wildly, he looked around, and saw that just as in the etching in the grimoire, the king-oak and all the trees around the glade had risen from the surrounding forest, as if a disc had been cored out and lifted straight up.

Ambrose looked down, and saw the earth crumbling beneath him. His fingers closed on the revolver and he managed to get it halfway to his head before he was suddenly pulled down, taken into the earth as a shark drags down a swimmer, without mercy or any possibility of resistance.

The ground closed over Ambrose’s head, the revolver landing with a thud to mark the spot. Grass grew in an instant through the bare soil, eager tendrils of green wrapping around the blued metal of the gun, until in a moment it was covered in green and lost to sight.

Deep underground, Ambrose screamed and screamed and screamed, all inside his head, for his mouth was shut with soil. He relived the sudden concussion of the German shell, the blankness in his ears, the earth silently cascading into the dugout, the last glimpse of Peter’s terrified face, the lantern snuffed out in an instant . . . and then the darkness, the pressure of the earth, everywhere about him save for a tiny air pocket between two fallen beams, where he had pressed his face.

Then there had been the terrible, never-ending time of being trapped, not knowing whether he would ever see daylight again, or breathe the clean air, untainted by earth and fumes and the slowly building stench of the corpses of his friends as they began to rot around him. Alone in the earth, held in an implacable grasp and wreathed in silence. Slowly dying, but not quickly enough for it to be an escape.

Now it was all happening again.

But it was not the same, some fragment of Ambrose’s still-screaming mind observed. He was completely buried in the earth, this time, and so should already be well on the way to asphyxiation. But he felt no need to breathe.

Also, he could hear. He could hear his own heartbeat, beating a sharp tattoo of panic, but he could also hear the movement of the earth. But there was something else, as well, something that, as his panic lessened, he realised was a voice, the voice of the Waldgeist .

What he heard was not words, at least not in any human language. It was the sound of the forest, of the wind, and the trees, and the birds and the insects, somehow ordered and structured to become something that he could understand.

The Waldgeist of the primeval forest was whispering to him, as it took him into its embrace. Its true heart was down in the tangled roots where he lay, not in the tree above. He could feel those roots now, twining around him, gripping him lightly, but ready to rend him apart should the spirit’s feelings change.

It wanted to know why he had awoken it, and for what purpose.

Ambrose told it, not bothering to open his mouth. It took his explanation and went into his mind for more, its presence like a sudden shadow on a summer’s day, cool and crisp as it slowly spread through his memories and mind. Ambrose’s panic shrank before this shadowy touch, and he grew quiet, almost asleep himself, the Waldgeist growing more awake.

As the tree spirit wandered in his thoughts, Ambrose relived them, too, slowly and sleepily. All the wonders and horrors of his life, from his earliest recollections to the events of the last few days. All were examined by the tree spirit, and as they progressed, in no particular order, Ambrose felt that each memory, and everything he had done or not done, was being weighed up and catalogued, added to the Waldgeist ’s careful inventory of all the other living things in its forest domain.

Eventually, it finished looking. Ambrose was very tired by then, so tired that he could barely formulate the question that constituted his mission, visualising each word in his mind as if he were writing it down on an order pad, the question carefully contained within the rectangular grid.

No answer came. Ambrose tried to ask the question again, but he was too tired. Fear and panic had exhausted him, but now he felt a different weariness. He was warm, and comfortable, and the tree roots that cradled him felt as familiar as the ancient armchair by the fire in the bothy, the one with the sheepskins laid over its creased and faded leather upholstery.

Ambrose slept, and did not dream.

When he awoke, it was with a start. There was bright sunshine on his face, making him blink, and the blue sky above was bordered with green. He sat up and saw that he was at the foot of the king-oak, which was once again bent and bowed by the passage of time. There was no sign of his revolver or athame, but when he stood up, and checked himself over, everything else seemed to be unchanged. The grimoire was still in his tunic, as was the map. There was some earth caught under his Sam Browne belt, and his uniform was somewhat mussed, but that was all.

Everything else looked normal. There was no risen disc of trees, and though he could feel the Waldgeist, it was very faint. It slept again, and was sleeping very deep. Whether he had convinced it or not to remain quiescent, it would take far more than the blood of two thumbs and the ritual he had used to wake it now.

Ambrose frowned, but it was a merry frown. He didn’t really understand what had happened, but he knew his object had been achieved. He also felt surprisingly good, almost as happy in himself as he had been in the far-off, golden days before the War.

He clapped his hand against the king-oak in friendly farewell, and set off along the path. Several paces along, he was surprised to find himself whistling. He frowned again, and stopped, standing still on the path. He couldn’t remember when he had last felt like whistling.

There was a rustle up ahead. Ambrose’s attention immediately returned to the present. He snuck off the path and crouched down behind a lesser but still substantial oak, regretting the loss of his revolver. Someone was coming very cautiously up the path, and it could be a German anarchist as easily as Kennett, and even if it was Kennett, Ambrose couldn’t be sure of his intentions, and he was no longer so ready to just let Kennett kill him. There would be time enough to join his friends.

“Ambrose?”

It was Kennett. Ambrose peered around the trunk. Kennett was coming along the path, and he wasn’t brandishing a weapon. But very strangely, he was no longer wearing the same suit with the grey homburg. He was in tweeds, with a deerstalker cap, and there was something about his face . . . a partially healed scar under his eye that hadn’t been there . . .

“Ah,” said Ambrose. He stepped out from behind the tree and raised his hand. “Hello, Kennett. How long have I been away?”

Kennett smiled, a smile that, as always, contained no warmth whatsoever, and was more an indication of sardonic superiority than any sense of humour.

“A year and a day,” he said. “Just as the grimoire said.”

“Not the copy you gave me,” said Ambrose.

“Naturally,” replied Kennett. “You might have refused to go. But from the whistling, the general spring of the step, and so forth, I presume the cure has been efficacious?”