Treetalker-chapter two
Garibart buried his nose in his third pint of beer, sipping slowly this time. The first two drinks had gone down his throat at astonishing speed, attesting to a long acquaintance with the art of drinking. Ally had been duly impressed. She took tiny sips of her cold cider and waited patiently. Eventually, after his thirst had been quenched, he would be amenable to answering a few questions. Meanwhile, she was content with sitting in the darkly paneled recesses of Baudy’s Bitters Bistro, her back to the row of open doors overlooking the plaza, watching the marketplace in the mirrored tiles that lined the back wall behind Baudy’s cedarwood and brass bar. Baudy, the owner, had been studiously polishing the same spot on the bar for the last fifteen minutes, watching them without overtly staring.
As far as Ally could tell, she and the old man were not in trouble for bothering the Great Tree. Yet. She kept a careful eye on the rapidly growing crowd that hung about, just outside Baudy’s establishment.
This was Risingday, the first day after Restday. The market had been closed yesterday, so a crush of early morning shoppers had arrived at the plaza this morning, hoping to replace their stocks of milk and bread only to find the merchants disinclined to doing business, intent instead, on a fool of a girl who managed to get eaten by a tree.
Ally grimaced at the memory. Sometimes the level of her own stupidity amazed even her.
She watched the faces in the crowd as their heads came together to talk in soft voices not loud enough to disturb the still air inside the bar. She recognized most, was able to put actual names to more than half but it made her stomach hurt to see them look at her like she had grown a tail.
It was an uncomfortable feeling, this, to be the focus of the market’s gossip network; ironic, if one considered that gossip was a source of her bread and butter. All this attention did not bode well for her business enterprises. How was she going to get her life back? Much of any runner’s success lay in the art of staying invisible.
She was never going to be invisible again. The scars made sure of that. She rubbed the still tender white lines, wondering, not for the last time, why they were not raised and gnarled scars like Garibart’s. His scars were impressive. There had been a moment, there, at the wall, as the old man pushed himself to his feet with the aid of his staff, when the crowd began to shout questions in tones of rising hysteria and Ally was sure things were about to turn ugly. Garibart had turned to face them, raising his arms high and wide, shaking the loose sleeves of his robes back so that they fell away, revealing the incredible network of scars on his arms. Treetalker, the people at the front of the crowd with the best view had murmured over their shoulders. Other words had followed: Healer, Holy man, Wizard. Garibart had grabbed her wrist and twisted her arm to show them her new lines. Cries of dismay and wonder had rippled through the crowd. Without letting go of her arm, the old man had walked into the press of people and the crowd, as if by magic, had melted back, clearing a path, but only for a moment. They feared Garibart, perhaps, but they knew Ally. They had closed ranks behind her and followed.
That was how they had all ended up here, at Baudy’s. After a moment of panic and a quick calculation, Ally had directed their steps to the nearest shop front with an exit out the back, in case things got dicey. She had used that back way a dozen times and knew all its pitfalls.
Ally had no desire to walk into that crowd again.
She shuddered, remembering the hands that had reached out of the crowds, remembering the feel of fingers touching the skin on her arms, touching her clothes, touching her hair, remembering the whispered invocations, the sighs of wonder, the looks of blind religious fervor on the faces of the people she thought she knew. She walked out of that crowd with one overwhelming certainty filling her mind. They were wrong. This was all wrong. Scars or not, she was still Ally, an orphan, a runner, a child of the Market. Inside her, nothing had changed.
Ally frowned down into her glass of cider. None of this business made any sense. It felt like sneaking into a street play in the middle of the last act. Without having seen the rest of the play, the finale always seemed hysterically incoherent. Ally had never wanted to go back and watch the first act more than now. It was becoming painfully obvious that her education had huge gaps that needed to be filled.
The old man put down his half empty glass with a sigh and wiped the foam off his upper lip with the end of his sleeve.
“Well, well, well,” Garibart declared loudly to the empty room, “I have not had this much fun since I was a journeyman Walker. What is next on our agenda? Any castles you need storming? Dragons need slaying?”
Ally did not know anything about castles or dragons. She added the words to the long list in her head that needed explanation when she found the time to ask.
“There is a room behind the bar with a door into an alley that leads into Northtown. For a small sum, Baudy will keep the crowds at bay while we make our escape,” Ally suggested.
“Nonsense,” the old man said. “Treetalkers never skulk in dark alleys. We walk with our heads held high in the light of day.”
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the crowds are still pretty thick out there. They look….hungry,” Ally said tensely, watching the eyes of the crowd. Hungry. That was what was making her so uncomfortable. It was as if she were a sausage and they were a pack of hungry dogs. The hairs on her neck stood on end, at the thought.
“Hmm,” Garibart looked out at the crowd and shrugged. “They all think they’ve had a religious experience. Addles people’s minds, that. To be expected, what with your mother announcing your existence in such a spectacular way.”
“Plants can’t have kids. That tree is not my mother,” Ally stated flatly, but not quite able to keep the ache out of her voice. She looked down for a moment, running her finger through the condensation on the side of her glass while she got her emotions in check.
“Oh, really? You are certain of this because…..why? Don’t tell me. Let me guess. You spent the last forty years of your life studying the history of the Great Trees and know everything there is to know about them?” Garibart hit his forehead with the palm of his hand. “Oops. Sorry. That would be me. You, on the other hand, are an illiterate, uneducated hooligan. I don’t know what she was thinking, keeping you secret for so long.” Garibart groused.
“Explain how it is possible, if you know so much,” she growled. “Start at the beginning and don’t leave anything out.”
The old man laughed.
“It would take days to explain it. Even I do not know all the particulars.” He shrugged and took another sip of his beer.
“She wants me to fix what happened ten thousand years ago. Start there,” Ally suggested.
Garibart shook his head vigorously.
“Put that idea out of your head. It is impossible.”
“Tell me,” Ally insisted.
Garibart smiled a sly smile. He would tell her what he wanted her to hear and no more. Nothing, it seemed, would come easy from this man.
“Ten thousand years ago, in the end days of the last great Technological Society, a madman came up with a brilliant, irresponsible, unethical, unscrupulous, and highly nefarious plan to ensure the well being of humanity, not only in his time but for generations afterward. His name was Lenard Birch. He was a geneticist with training in botany and medicine. His research started out simple enough. He wanted to solve the problem of limb regeneration in humans.”
Ally was already confused. Most of the technical words meant nothing to her. It must have shown on her face.
”You know. Chop off an arm, grow it back, that sort of thing,” Garibart explained. “I will not explain the science, for I barely understand it myself, but the end result was that he placed human genetic material into a tree seed and, after many tries, managed to grow himself a Tree that was more human than tree.”
“What?” Ally gasped. “That’s…..”
“Horrific? Yes. Amoral? Most definitely. Illegal, even in Lenard Birch’s time. It was clear, from his notes, that he was risking death or worse, though I am not sure what was worse than being put to death. But it was also very clear that he had the kind of tunnel vision peculiar to men of genius. It did not occur to him that the creatures he created would have the consciousness of a human locked in an inanimate body. By the time he realized his mistake, he had secretly planted thousands of seeds on every continent as well as all the major island chains. They were called Dreamtrees, back then. Fall asleep under a Dreamtree, wake up healed of whatever ails you. Or don’t wake up at all. The myths of trees eating humans arose from those grim times and are with us to this day. For Birch, a few deaths were the cost of doing business. When the trees began to have psychotic breaks, he ignored the facts, calling it ‘statistical anomaly’. It was only when certain trees turned all the land within a fifty miles radius into barren wasteland, that he had to admit he had erred. By then it was too late. The mistake could not be undone. He dedicated the rest of his life to establishing a society for the aid and preservation of the Trees. Treetalkers are descendants of those first brave souls.”
Garibart paused, a thought he did not wish to share unspoken on his lips. He sipped his beer, staring off at the unseen distance for a moment.
“Lady Le’alba said she was the First Tree. What does that mean?” Ally prompted finally, hating to break into his thoughts but needing more answers.
“I am not sure. There is a hierarchy amongst the Great Trees. They do not tell us walkers why that is, but a First is something to be respected.”
“She said she has been working on something for ten thousand years. Could she be the first tree that Birch planted?” Ally asked.
“Highly unlikely. The first trees were nothing like the present day Trees. Evolution and natural selection have refined Birch’s original design. The Great Trees did not become virtually immortal until thousands of years after Birch died.”
Ally cocked her head. In the stillness of the bar, the sound of the crowds outside formed a wall at her back that seemed as solid as stone. Ally’s brain went all fuzzy and suddenly, it seemed as if Garibart’s words flew out of his mouth like colored balls to bounce and rebound and rebound again in the enclosed space. Some words seemed more solid than others, more sure, more true. Truth. Ally slipped sideways and found her awareness floating in the center of the room while her body still sat looking at the Treetalker.
This was a disquieting sensation but she was too busy watching the word balls bounce around the room to care. She plucked the True Words out of the air and listened to them again. Two things became instantly clear. Le’alba was indeed ten thousand years old, but so too, were all the other trees. Garibart’s history was wrong. She opened her mouth to tell him so when a memory washed through her. It was just a bit of a memory, a flash, no more. She stood in the middle of large, well manicured park, her toes buried in the earth, her leaves fluttering in the breeze high above. A city rose up at the edge of this garden, towers of steel and glass, a thousand times taller than she. Magical machines whirred through the air and sped by on the avenues. But this was merely background. Her attention was focused on the man who stood at her base, his hands pressed against her rigid sides, a look of deep remorse on his face. Tears were running down his cheeks. A name came to her. Lenard.
“Hey! Alimanda!” Garibart was snapping his fingers under her nose. “Don’t ask for a history lesson and then doze off. Its rude.”
Ally swatted his hand away, annoyed at being jerked so rudely away from the memory. There had been something more to it. Something she needed to know. She had almost had it.
“My name is Ally. I was not dozing,” Ally hissed in frustration. “I was trying to remember Lenard Birch.”
Garibart looked at her oddly.
“How can you remember Lenard Birch? He was been dead for almost ten thousand years.”
“I don’t know,” Ally said, “I think they are Le’alba’s memories. She put something in my head right before I woke up.”
“She put….,” Garibart breathed. “What? What did she put in your head? Tell me!”
“I don’t know. Stuff. But just now, I was wondering if Le’alba knew Lenard Birch, and all of a sudden I remembered him, like I knew him.
“Describe the memory in detail, please,” Garibart commanded.
Ally pressed her lips together. Bossiness seemed to be Garibart’s major character flaw. She wondered if he had any friends.
“It was just a flash,” she said impatiently. “The feelings were strong, though. Beloved, she was thinking.”
Garibart looked at her skeptically.
“You’re having me on, aren’t you?”
“Why would I do that?” Ally asked indignantly.
“Because you are a street urchin well versed in the wiles of the con games and you would play me if you thought it was to your advantage,” Garibart suggested.
Ally opened her mouth to protest her innocence but then closed it again. How could she deny what would ordinarily be the truth?
“OK. You say you know Tree history. There must be an image of Lenard Birch in the books you study. He was thin and,” Ally closed her eyes, trying to glean as much as she could from the rapidly fading image in her mind. “tall, I think. Its hard to tell from her memory. Long nose with wide nostrils. Gray hair. Balding on top. No beard or sideburns. He wore funny looking circles of glass over his eyes, held on by wire that hooked over his ears. Bushy eyebrows, the one on the left a little more crooked than the right, like half his face was always surprised.”
Ally opened her eyes. Garibart was staring at her, expressionless. She was becoming familiar with his face and the minutia of all his facial muscles. Ally was a veteran card player, having won her share of pennies from the runner’s Restday card games. This expression was his card shark face, the one he used to hide intense feeling.
She let Garibart chew on his thoughts for a moment. She had other concerns. Something pressed at her. Literally pressed, as if a pressure wave was rolling down upon them, not of sound or air, but tangible, none the less. It was as if she had a new sense she could not define.
Ally noticed the crowd had gone silent. Her eyes flew to the mirrors. Heads were turning towards the south arch. In the quiet, a high pitched whistle cut through the air. Ally leapt to her feet. Runner’s signal. Danger. Three short tweets followed. Scatter, it said.
“Bad stuff coming,” she said, grabbing the old man’s arm. Garibart eyed her offending hand but did not move.
“Did we not already have this discussion. Treetalkers do not….”
Dahni squeezed through the crowd, darted into the pub and slowed down only long enough to grab Ally by the arm.
“Guard! Time to be scarce,” he barked, yanking her towards the back of the bar.
The old man spun in his chair and lunged after her escaping form. Ally squeaked in surprise, having forgotten how fast he could be when he put his mind to it. She spun away and ran. He caught nothing but the tatters of her sleeves. The acid weakened threads snapped off in his fingers.
“Alimanda!” roared the Treetalker, leaping to his feet.
Ally did not stop. The old man seemed to think his rank gave him immunity. She wished him luck but she did not want to be around if he was wrong. The Guard patrols were not to be taken lightly, even if one were an innocent. Patrolmen personalities tended towards the brutish. They would break a few heads, twist a few arms, arrest any who protested and then let the officers sort it all out at the Guard Post.
The Guard hated it when things got messy. The drama under the Tree, in their minds, would qualify as a mess. They had been drawn to the excitement of the crowds like flies to honey and since she was at the epicenter of the crowd’s interest, it did not bode well for her or the Treetalker.
Dahni did not slow as he approached the back wall. Instead, he grabbed a corner of the bar, and, let his momentum spin his body around the end. Still going at top speed, he dropped to one hip to slide feet first towards the small swinging door set under the shelves of spirits. Baudy used the door to roll his kegs out of cool storage in the back room. It was a tight squeeze for an adult but a perfect fit for two twelve year olds. Ally copied every move Dahni made and was so close behind him she had to bend her knees to keep from jamming her feet into his back. Just as their momentum began to lag, Dahni did a tight roll onto his hands and knees and scrabbled as fast as he could through the small doorway, Ally on his tail.
In the space of a heartbeat, they were at the alley door, Dahni’s fingers groping in the gloom for the key Baudy kept hanging on the wall.
“What did you do with the brat?” Ally asked, breathing hard.
“Sent him home the minute you went mental and crossed the wall, didn’t I? What were you thinking?” Dahni hissed, throwing open the door.
“I didn’t….,” Ally protested.
Dahni put the key back and pushed her out the door.
“Whatever. Go!”
They sprinted towards the other end of the alley. Ally shot a look over her shoulder. Neither the old man nor the Guard had followed them. Baudy appeared for a moment, waving them hastily on. Garibart was not coming. Baudy was locking the door to cover their tracks. Unaccountably, Ally felt a wave of deep sadness wash over her. She had been getting used to the idea of hanging out with the irritating old man.
Garibart stood in the center of the bar, fuming. The escape of his new apprentice was just one more thorn in his side, one more irritation to his already irritated mood, a mood that had been building from the moment he entered Omen City. Did these people know how to do anything properly? Where were their teachers? Where were their healers? They could be forgiven a certain amount of ignorance, since their Great Tree was obviously unstable, but still, a Treetalker should expect a certain level of respect and decorum, no matter what city he entered. It seemed apparent that Lady Le’alba had not been enforcing any of the contracts held between man and Tree.
Cries of fear and yelps of pain drew near. Garibart scowled and took a firmer grip on his staff. The Guard, whoever they might be, were about to be schooled in the ways of polite society. The press of people in front of the bar broke up as people began to disappear into shop fronts and vendor kiosks. The main promenade in front of the bar cleared quickly.
The Treetalker did not have long to find out what a Guard was. Six large, muscular men, with short, heavy ended staffs in hand, sauntered along the avenue and came to halt in front of Baudy’s bar. They were dressed alike down to the buckles on their blackened leather boots and the black feather hackles on their scarlet felt berets. Interesting, thought Garibart. Some enterprising fool of a war lord had managed to build himself a small army. The situation in Omen City was much worse than he thought. Not for the last time, he wondered at the game the Lady Le’alba was playing here. Her domain seemed to be in desperate need of a moral compass.
One of the bigger Guardsman had a teamster by the scruff of the neck and seemed to take great pleasure in shaking the poor man about every time he posed a question to him. It took a few hard shakes but eventually the abused man gestured towards Garibart.
Garibart glanced over his shoulder. Baudy was back from seeing to the children’s needs and now he stood, pale faced and impassive behind the solid barrier of his bar. From his expression, Garibart gathered that the brutish behavior of the Guard was a regular occurrence and that Baudy had resigned himself to the worst.
Garibart stood on one foot and nonchallantly leaned into his staff. The Guard consulted amongst themselves, eying him from the safety of the street. Garibart pulled free one of the strands of soft rope he kept wrapped around his waist just this purpose and crossed it around his shoulders to tie it at the back of his neck, effectively binding the loose sleeves up and away from his forearms, revealing his scars but more importantly, freeing his hands for close in combat. This, as it was meant to do, made the soldiers quite nervous. Another round of whispered conversation followed. Well, at least they were experienced enough to recognize the implied aggression of his robe rearrangement. He wouldn’t feel so bad when he laid them in the dust.
Still, they did not approach. Garibart took pity on them. Picking up his staff, he rested it on his shoulder and sauntered out into the bright sunshine of mid morning.
“Blessings of the OneMother, on you gentlemen. I am looking for the Treetalker Compound. Would you be so good to point me in the right direction?” he said heartily.
The bravest of them stepped forward, singling himself out as the first man Garibart would take out of play.
“Gentlemen, is it?” he scoffed arrogantly. He pointed to a rune on his collar. “Ain’t no officer. These are sergeant marks. You can call me Sergeant Dillard. You’re obviously an outlander, otherwise you’d know its a punishable offense to disturb the peace of the Market. Where’d you stash the kid?”
“Kid? Are you perhaps referring to my apprentice?”
“Apprentice. Hah, that’s a good one,” snorted the brute who still had the wagon driver by the collar. “Riff raff and street vermin, more like. Runners are only good for squashing.”
“I begin to understand, now, why the Lady Alimanda did not wish to tarry and enjoy your ever so very pleasant company,” Garibart said pleasantly. He turned his head slightly to address the large guardsman who still had the teamster in a choke hold. “Could you do me a favor and release that man, please. I think he is starting to turn blue,” he asked politely.
A gleam came to the Guardsman’s eye.
“Why? He a friend o’ yorn?”
“I am sure I don’t know him but I am a healer and it would be a shame to spend time resuscitating him under the Great Tree when I would really rather be looking for the Lady Alimanda.”
“You stay away from that Tree. It’s off limits to the likes of you,” Sergeant Dillard growled.
“Oh, in that you are quite mistaken. I am fairly certain I am one of the few people here able to step foot under your Great Tree and not come to harm, right now. Did you know your Tree is quite annoyed with what she sees going on around her. What have you done with her Treetalkers?”
“There are no Treetalkers in Omen City. Like my mate said. Riff raff and vermin. They got rousted out a long while back,” the sergeant sneered.
Garibart pressed his lips together. The teamster was still choking. The old man never took his eyes off the sergeant, but with a shift of weight in his knees, and a deft movement of hands on staff, the large brute staggered and fell to his knees, holding his aching head. Things happened quickly after that. Any who made the mistake of raising their clubs to him were summarily disarmed and given a nice ringing blow to the top of the head. The teamster fell to the ground, but he had the presence of mind to roll out of reach of his abusers and then scramble away on all fours. Garibart saw him disappear behind a tent kiosk as he felled the fourth Guardsman.
He let the weighted end of his staff whistle through the air and come to a halt just a hair away from the sergeant’s ear. The last man standing had the good sense to back up out of range of the old man’s staff.
“Now, where were we?” Garibart asked genially. “Ah, yes. No Treetalkers. But surely you must have wise men to give you advice? Who gives you counsel? Who mediates your disputes?”
Sergeant Dillard glared at the Treetalker, his mouth moving as if he was chewing something bitter. Garibart waited patiently.
“Go ask at the Library,” spat the sergeant. “Ask to see the Wizards.”
There was an odd gleam in the man’s eye. Garibart suspected that he would like these Wizards far less than Guardsmen. Garibart sighed. A sane man should have shown a little respect to an old man with a big stick who knew how to use it. What was he to do with this man? He was experienced with highwaymen and thieves from his days on the road as a Treewalker, but confronting a thug with delusions of authority was new, even to him. Garibart considered killing all six but then he looked down and realized he did not have to.
Hair thin vines were growing out of the cracks between the stone slabs that paved the ground of the plaza. The supine men were completely engulfed. The sergeant, caught unawares, now wore boots of green.
Garibart looked up at the Tree.
“Well. Look who decided to show up at the party. A little late, don’t you think?” Garibart said, lowering his staff.
A haughty little shrug rolled out of the deep recesses at the back of his mind, followed by the familiar caress of Tree talk.
“My child needs a mentor. You are being foolhardy. You do me no good, if you get yourself killed.”
“Yeah, and its my fault you let this place go to crap. These people barely know you exist.”
The sergeant looked puzzled for a moment by Garibart’s one sided conversation. He looked back at the Tree and then finally looked down at his feet. A guttural scream escaped his lips. The last remaining soldier, realizing his danger, backed away from the advancing vines and then turned tail and ran.
“These people worship false gods and believe in false promises. An old demon has reared its ugly head, here. Would you have me execute the tainted? It might satiate the hunger of a thousand trees, that bloodbath.”
“Do not kill this one,” Garibart said, looking into Sergeant Dillard’s panic stricken face. The guardsman was watching the bodies of his mates melt through the stone. The digestive abilities of the Trees were frighteningly efficient. “She will spare your life if I ask,” the Treetalker said softly. “Go tell your people the Lady Alimanda Silverhair, the child you call Ally, is not to be touched on pain of death. I need her found and brought back to me. Look for me at the this Library place you spoke of.”
“Yes, yes, anything,” hissed the sergeant desperately.
Garibart looked down. The vines receded reluctantly.
“Oh, if you betray us,” Garibart added, “just know that the root systems of the Great Trees run for hundreds of miles underground. You will have to run very far and very fast to escape Her anger.”
With that, Garibart turned around and sauntered back into Baudy’s Bistro. He needed another of Baudy’s excellent brews. Negotiation was such thirsty work.
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