The Skrayling Tree Read online

  Though he was inclined to ramble on, he was full of interesting tales and explanations, making up for his years of silence. Now that I knew we sought the Kakatanawa, I devoted myself to finding Ulric as soon as possible. There was a remote possibility that we would arrive before he did, such was the nature of time. But somehow Ayanawatta’s endless words had comforted me, and I no longer felt Ulric to be in danger of immediate harm; nor was I so convinced that Prince Gaynor was behind the kidnapping. The mystery, of course, remained, but at least I had an ally with some knowledge of this world.

  I reflected on my peculiar luck, which again had brought me into another’s dream. I had been attacked by that wind, I was certain. An aerial demon. An elemental. Ayanawatta was supremely confident. No doubt, since this was his final spirit journey and he was back in his familiar realm, he had defeated many obstacles. I had some idea of what the man had already endured. Yet he bore the burden of that experience lightly enough.

  A current in the lake took our canoe gently towards the farther shore. Resting, Ayanawatta slid a slender bone flute from his pack. To my surprise he played a subtle, sophisticated melody, high and haunting, which was soon echoed by the surrounding hills and mountains until it seemed a whole orchestra took up the tune. Crowds of herons suddenly rose from the reeds as if to perform their aerial ballet in direct response to the music.

  Pausing, Ayanawatta took the opportunity to address the birds with a relatively short laudatory speech. I was to become used to his rather egalitarian attitude towards animals, his way of speaking to them directly, as if they understood every nuance of his every sentence. Perhaps they did. In spite of my fears, I was delighted by this extraordinary experience. I was filled with a feeling of vibrant well-being. In spite of Ayanawatta’s company, it had been ages since I knew such a sense of solitude, and I began to relish it, my confidence growing as I was infected by his joyous respect for the world.

  By evening we had reached the reedy mouth of a river on the far side of a lake. After we drew the canoe ashore, Ayanawatta pulled some leggings and a robe from the pack. Gratefully I put the leggings on and wrapped myself in the blanket. The air was becoming chilly as the sun poured scarlet light over the mountain peaks and the shadowy reeds. The sachem carefully restarted his fire and cooked us a very tasty porridge, apologizing that he should have caught some fish but had been too busy recounting that disappointing meeting with Hawthorne. He promised fish in the morning.

  Soon he was telling me about the corrupt spiritual orthodoxy of the Mayan peoples he had visited on an earlier stage of this journey. Their obscure heresies were a matter of some dismay to this extraordinary mixture of intellectual monk, warrior and story-teller. It all turned on certain Mayan priests’ refusal to accept pluralism, I gathered. Any fears I had for Ulric were lulled away as I fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.

  In the morning, as good as his word, the Mohawk nobleman had speared us two fat trout which, spiced from his store of herbs, made a tasty breakfast. He told me a little more of his dream-quests, of the stages of physical and supernatural testing he had endured to have reached this level of power. I was reminded of the philosophy of the Japanese samurai, who at their best were as capable of composing a haiku as of holding their own in a duel. Ayanawatta’s dandified appearance in the wild suggested he cultivated more than taste. He was warning potential enemies of the power they faced. I had traveled alone and understood the dangers, the need to show a cool, careless exterior at all times or be killed and robbed in a trice. As it was, I envied Ayanawatta his bow and arrows, if not his twin war clubs.

  After we had finished eating, I expected us to get on the move. Instead Ayanawatta sat down cross-legged and took out a beautiful redstone carved pipe bowl, which he packed with herbs from his pouch. Ceremoniously he put a hollow reed into a hole in the bottom of the bowl. Taking a dried grass taper from the fire he lit the pipe carefully and drew the smoke deeply into his lungs, then puffed smoke to the Earth’s quarters, by way of thanks for the world’s benevolence. An expression of contentment passed over his face as he handed me the pipe. I could only follow his example with some dread. I hated smoking. But the herbs of the pipe were sweet and gentle to the throat. I guessed they were a mixture containing some tobacco and a little hemp, also dried spearmint and willow bark. I was no smoker, but this beneficent mixture was a secret lost to Ulric’s world. A peace pipe indeed. I was at once mentally sharpened and physically relaxed. This world remained intensely alive for me.

  In a short while Ayanawatta stood up with stately dignity. He was clearly in a semi-trance. Slowly he began to sing, a rhythmic song that sounded like the wind, the whisper of distant water, the movement of distant thunder. As he sang he began a graceful dance, stamping hard on the ground while performing a complicated figure. Each nuance of movement had meaning. Although I had not been prepared for this display, I found it deeply moving. I knew that he was weaving his being into the fabric of the worlds. These rituals opened pathways for him. Unlike me, he had no natural gift for travel between the realms.

  This particular ritual was, however, over swiftly. He made a somewhat shy apology and said that since we were traveling together, he hoped I would forgive him if he performed similar rituals from time to time. It was as important to his religion as my need to pray quietly to myself five times a day.

  I had no objection. I knew of some cultures where people devoted their entire lives to learning ways of entering other worlds and usually died before they could accomplish anything. What I had been doing naturally since I was a young child had been inherited from my parents. Such movement was virtually impossible for most people and very difficult for everyone else. We moonbeam travelers have little in common but our talents. We learn the disciplines and responsibilities of such travel at the musram.

  Even with my poor sense of direction it did not take me long to realize, as we set off downriver, that the current was not flowing from north to south and that judging by the position of the sun we were probably heading east. Ayanawatta agreed. “The road to Kakatanawa is a complicated one,” he said, “and you’re wise to approach with the appropriate charms and spells. That, at least, is clear from the prophecy. It isn’t possible to go there directly, just as some moonbeam paths are more circuitous than others. And, as yet, I haven’t worked out where to expect to find either the giants or the dragon. I intend to dream on the subject as soon as possible.” He did not explain further.

  With me settled in the front of the canoe, we were now paddling downstream at some speed, with huge stands of pines rising on both sides and the water beginning to dash at the rocks of the banks. The air was misty with white spray, and above us great grey clouds were beginning to build, threatening rain.

  Before it finally started to rain, the river had turned a bend and widened and had become lazy, peaceful, almost a lake, with the tall mountains massed in the distance, the forest making swathes of red, gold, brown and green as the leaves turned. All this was reflected in the depths of the river. Heavy drops soon fell into the gentle waters and added to the sense of sudden peace as the narrow torrent was left behind. Our paddling became more vigorous, just to keep us moving at any reasonable speed.

  While I understood that my journey could not take place with any special urgency, I remained nonetheless anxious to continue. I imagined a dozen different deaths for the man I loved as we actually headed away from the Kakatanawa territory. Yet I was a dreamthief’s daughter. I understood certain disciplines. The direct path was almost never the best. I kept charge of my feelings most of the time, but it had never been harder.

  Ayanawatta being unusually laconic, I remarked over my shoulder how much more peaceful the river had become. He nodded a little abstractedly. I realized that as he paddled he was listening carefully, his head cocked slightly to one side. What did he expect? Was he listening for danger? There could be no alligators in these cold waters.

  I began to ask him, but he silenced me with a gesture. The wind was r
ising, and he was straining to hear above it. He leaned to his right a little, expectantly. Then, not hearing what he thought, he leaned forward to where I was now positioned and murmured, “I have powerful enemies who are now your enemies. But we have the medicine to defeat them all if we are courageous.”

  I shuddered with a sudden chill. It occurred to me to remind him that I was not here to help him in his spirit journey but to find my kidnapped husband. Before my mother vanished, presumably absorbed at last into a dream she had planned to steal, she would have been a more useful ally to him than I. Now, of course, it was unlikely she even knew her own name.

  All too well, I understood the Game of Time. Mother had taught me most of what I knew, and the mukhamirim masters of Marrakech had taught me the rest. But it was sometimes difficult to remind myself. Time is a field with its own dimensions and varying properties. To think in terms of linear time is to be time’s slave. Half of what one learns as a moonbeam walker involves understanding time for what it is, as far as we understand it at all. Our knowledge gives us freedom. It allows us some control of time. I do not know why, however, there are more women on the moonbeam roads than men, and most of the legendary figures of the roads are women. Women are said to be more able to accommodate Chaos and work with it. There are honorable exceptions, of course. Even the most intelligent man is inclined on occasion to hack a path through an obstacle. But he is also, in the main, somewhat better with a stone lance when it comes to dealing with large serpents.

  This last thought came as I watched, virtually mesmerized, while a long, gleaming neck rose and rose and rose from the river until it blotted out the light. Vast sheets of water ran off its body and threatened to capsize the canoe as, with a shout to me to steady us, Ayanawatta took one of the spears from beneath his feet and threw it expertly into flesh I had assumed to be hugely dense. But the spear went deep into the creature, as if into a kind of heaving, wet sawdust, and the water bubbled with the thing’s hissing breath. It groaned. I had not expected such a noise from it. The voice was almost human, baffled. It thrashed violently until the spear was flung free, and then it disappeared upstream, still groaning from time to time as its head broke the water, trailing a kind of thin, yellow ichor like smoke.

  “I haven’t seen anything close to that since I was in the Lower Devonian,” I said. I was still shaking. The word devour had gained a fresh resonance for me. “Did it mean to attack us?”

  “It probably hoped to eat us, but those are known along this river as the Cowardly Serpents. It takes little to drive them off as you saw, although if they capsize your canoe, you are in some danger, of course.”

  Much as I was trained not to think in linearities I was aware that in this realm gigantic water-serpents had long since become extinct. I put this to Ayanawatta as he paddled to where his spear floated, shaft up, in the reedy, eddying water. A strong smell of firs and the noise of feeding birds came from the bank, and I drank in the simplicity of it to steady myself. I knew the supernatural better than that which my husband insisted on calling “natural,” but I felt resentful that I was being forced to take extra risks as I sought to save him. I said as much to Ayanawatta.

  The Mohawk prince reassured me. He was simply obeying the demands of his dream-quest. This meant that my own dream-quest was in accordance with his, which meant that as long as we continued in the current pattern and made no serious mistakes our quests would be successful. We should both get what we desired.

  The wind was still blustering and slapping at our clothes. I drew my blanket closer. Ayanawatta hardly noticed the drop in temperature. As for the “prehistoric” nature of our dangers, he regretted that some sort of crisis had occurred. Such anomalies were becoming increasingly common. He believed that the source of our own troubles was also causing the disruptions. The great prairies offered natural grazing and ample prey for predators. They were, he admitted, generally moving south these days, and the altering climate took increasing numbers of those that remained.

  I said that I had noticed it growing colder.

  Still apparently oblivious of the chill, Ayanawatta sighed. “Once,” he said, “this was all unspoiled. Those serpents would never have come this far downriver. It means you lose all the river game, and before you know it the whole natural order is turned upside down. The consequences are disastrous. It becomes impossible to lead any kind of settled life. Do you see any villages on the banks these days? Of course not! It used to be wonderful here. Girls would wave at you. People would invite you in to hear your stories…”

  Grumbling thus, he paddled mechanically for a while. The encounter with the river serpent had not so much frightened as irritated him. Even I had not been terrified of the beast. But Ayanawatta’s sense of order and protocol was upset, and he was becoming concerned, he said, about the wind.

  Again he surprised me. He had a habit of noticing everything while appearing to be entirely concerned with his own words. For such people, words were sometimes a kind of barrier, the eye of a storm, from which part of them could observe the world without the world ever guessing.

  The wind was the king of the prairie, Ayanawatta continued. The most important force. He suspected that we had somehow engaged its anger.

  He paused in his paddling and took out his flute. He blew a few experimental notes, then began a high, slow tune which made use of the echoes from the distant mountains and turned them back and forth so that once again it seemed the whole of the natural world was singing with him.

  The wind dropped suddenly. And as it dropped, Ayanawatta’s flute died away.

  The extraordinary scenery seemed to go on forever, changing as the light changed, until it was close to twilight. The river ahead had begun to rumble and hiss. Ayanawatta said we would have to bypass the rapids tomorrow. Meanwhile we would make camp before sunset, and this time, he promised, he would catch whatever fish the serpent had left us.

  In the morning when I awoke Ayanawatta was gone. The only movement was the lazy smoke from his fire, the only sound the distant lapping of water and the melancholy wail of a river bird. I felt the ground shiver under me. Was this the sound of the rapids he had spoken about?

  I rose quickly, hardly able to believe I was not experiencing an earthquake. I heard the chirping of frogs and insects, steady, high. I smelled the smoke and the rich, earthy pines, the acrid oaks and sweet ash. I heard a bird flap and dive, and then I heard a disturbance in the water. I looked up and saw a hawk carrying a bird in its talons. I found myself wondering about the magical meaning of what I had seen.

  The earth shuddered again, and wood snapped within the forest. I looked for Ayanawatta’s bow and arrows, but they were gone. I found one of his lances, still in the bottom of the boat, and armed myself with it. As I turned, however, it became immediately obvious that a stone lance, even a magic one, might not be much use against this newcomer. Out of the thick woods, scattering branches and leaves in all directions, a fantastic apparition loomed over me.

  While I was familiar with the Asian use of domestic elephants, I had never seen a man seated on the back of a black woolly mammoth with tusks at least nine feet long curving out over an area of at least twenty feet!

  The rider approaching me was clearly a warrior of the region, but with subtle differences of dress, black face paint, shaven head, scalp lock worn long, a lance and a war-shield held in his left hand, his right hand gripping the decorated reins of his huge mount. It was impossible to judge the rider’s size, but it was clear the mammoth was not young. The old tusks were splintered and bound but could still very easily kill almost anything which attacked their owner.

  My heart thumped with sickening speed. I looked for some advantage. At the last moment the mammoth’s trunk rose in a gesture of peace. At the same time the painted warrior raised his palm to reassure me.

  The mammoth swung her weight forward and began to lower herself onto her knees as the newcomer slid blithely down her back and landed on the turf.

  His tone wa
s at odds with his ferocious black mask. “The prophecy told me I would meet my friend Ayanawatta here but only hinted at his companion. I am sorry if I alarmed you. Please forgive the death paint. I’ve been in a fairly intense dispute.”

  This thoroughly decorated man had a similar grace of manner to Ayanawatta, but something about his movements was familiar to me. His posture, however, was more brooding. His paint was a black, glowing mask in which two dark rubies burned. I held on to the spear and took a step back. I began to feel sicker still as I recognized him.

  Silently, fascinated, I waited for him to approach.

  CHAPTER THREE

  A Prince of the Prairie

  Do not ask me how I came here,

  Do not ask my name or nation,

  Do not ask my destination,

  For I am Dawadana, the Far Sighted,

  Dawadana, Seer and Singer,

  Who bore the lance, the Justice Bringer,

  Who brought the law out of the East,

  Sworn to seek but never speak.

  W. S. HARTE,

  “The Maker of Laws”

  He was, of course, the same youth I had seen at the house. His face was so thickly painted I knew him only by his white hands and red eyes. He did not appear to recognize me at all and seemed a little disappointed. “Do you know where Ayanawatta is?”

  I guessed he’d failed to find fish in the river and had gone hunting in the woods, since his bow and a lance were missing.

  “Well, we have some big game to hunt now,” the newcomer said. “I’ve found him at last. I would have reached him sooner if I had understood my pygmy dream better.” This was offered as apology. He returned to his mount and led the great woolly black pachyderm down to the water to drink. I admired the saddle blanket and the beaded bridle. Attached to the intricately carved wooden saddle was a long, painted quiver from which the sharp metal tongues of several lances jutted. Beaver and otter fur covered the saddle and parts of his bridle. The mammoth herself was, as I had thought, not in her prime. There were grizzled marks around her mouth and trunk, and her ivory was stained and cracked, but she moved with surprising speed, turning her vast, tusked head once to look into my eyes, perhaps to convince herself that I was friendly. Reassured, she dipped her trunk delicately into the cold water, her hairy tail swinging back and forth, twitching with pleasure.