CHAPTER EIGHT
Bound for the River Rhône, the party rode for three more hours into the deepening night and coolness, coming down from the plateau via a steep trail with precarious switchbacks into a forest so thick that the bright light of the stars was blocked out. The two soldiers ignited tall flambeaux; one man rode in the van and the other at the rear. They continued their eastward progress while eerie shadows seemed to follow them among the massive gnarled trees.
“Spooky, isn’t it?” Aiken inquired of Raimo, who was now riding beside him. “Can’t you just imagine these big old cork oaks and chestnuts reaching out to grab you?”
“You talk like an idiot,” the other man growled. “I worked in deep forests for twenty years in the B. C Megapod Reserve. Ain’t nothing spooky about trees.”
Aiken was unabashed. “So that’s why the lumberjack outfit. But if you know trees, you must know that botanists credit them with a primitive self-awareness. Don’t you think that the older the plant, the more attuned to the Milieu it must be? Just look at these trees along here. Don’t tell me they had hardwoods eight-ten meters across on the Earth we knew! Why, these babies must be thousands of years older than any tree on Old Earth. Just reach out to ’em! Use that silver torc of yours for something besides an Adam’s apple warmer. Ancient trees… evil trees! Can’t you feel the bad vibes in this forest? They could resent our coming here. They might sense that in a few million years, humans like us’ll destroy ’em! Maybe the trees hate us!”
“I think,” said Raimo with slow malevolence, “that you’re trying to make a fool outa me like you did with Sukey. Don’t!”
Aiken felt himself hoisted up from his saddle. His chained ankles caught him like a victim on a rack. Higher and higher he rose, until he was suspended dangerously close to the branches overhanging the trail.
“Hey! It was only a joke and that hurts!”
Raimo began to chuckle and increased the tension still more. Squeeze. Pummel the glacial mind-grip of the Finno-Canadian and make him let go, let go, let go!
With a crash that made the startled chaliko squeal, Aiken plummeted back into his saddle. Creyn turned around and said, “You have a penchant for cruelty that will have to be curbed, Raimo Hakkinen.”
“I wonder if all your kind would think so?” inquired the former woodsman in an insolent tone. “Anyhow, you can make this little shit stop bugging me. Tree-spooks!”
Aiken protested, “A lot of old-time cultures believed that trees had special powers. Didn’t they, Bryan?”
The anthropologist was amused. “Oh, yes. Tree cults were almost universal in the ancient world of the future. The Druids had an entire alphabet for divination based on trees and shrubs. It was apparently a relic of a more widespread tree-centered religion that derived from utmost antiquity. Scandinavians revered a mighty ash-tree named Yggdrasil. Greeks dedicated the ash to the sea-god Poseidon. Birches were sacred among the Romans. The rowan was a Celtic and Greek symbol of power over death. The hawthorn was associated with sex orgies and the month of May, and so was the apple. Oak trees were cult objects all over preliterate Europe. For some reason, oaks are especially vulnerable to lightning, so the ancients connected the tree with the thunder-god. Greeks, Romans, Gaulish Celts, the British, Teutons, Lithuanians, Slavs, they all held the oak to be sacred. The folklore of almost all European countries featured supernatural beings that dwelt in special trees or haunted the deep woods. The Macedonians had dryads and the Stvrians had vilyas and the Germans had seligen Fraulein and the French had their dames vertes. All woodland sprites. Scandinavian people believed in them, too, but I’ve forgotten the name they gave them…”
“Skogsnufvar,” said Raimo unexpectedly. “My grandfather told me. He was from the Aland Islands, where the people spoke Swedish. Full of dumb fairytales.”
“Nothing like ethnic pride!” chortled Aiken. And that brought on another row, as the forester lashed out again with his enhanced PK function and Aiken fought back with his coercive power, trying to make Raimo ram his own forefinger down his throat. At last Creyn cried, “Omnipotent Tana, enough!” Both men groaned, clutched at their silver torcs, and subsided like a pair of whipped schoolboys, silent but unrepentant.
Raimo pulled a large silver flask from his pack and began nursing from it. Aiken curled his lip. The forester said, “Hudson’s Bay Company Demerara, one-fifty-one proof. Grownups only. Eat your heart out.”
Elizabeth’s cool voice requested, “Tell us about the Skogsnufvar, Bryan. Such an awful name. Were they beautiful?”
“Oh, yes. Long flowing hair, seductive bodies, and tails! They were your standard archetypal anima-female menace, luring men into the deep woods in order to sleep with them. And ever after, the poor chaps were completely in the power of the elf-women. A man who tried to leave would sicken and die, or else go mad. Victims of the Skogsnufvar were written about well into the twentieth century in Sweden.”
Sukey said, “Welsh folklore had such creatures, too. But they lived in lakes, not forests. They were called the Gwragedd Annwn and they came up to dance on the water in the misty moonlight and lured travelers into their underwater palaces.”
“It’s a common folkloric theme,” Bryan said. “The symbolism is easily grasped. Still, one has to feel a bit sorry for the poor male elves. They seem to have missed out on a lot of good dirty fun.”
Most of the humans laughed, including the guards.
“Are there any parallel legends among your people, Creyn?” the anthropologist asked. “Or didn’t your culture produce tales of enchantment?”
“There was no need,” the Tanu replied in a repressive tone.
An odd notion occurred to Elizabeth. She attempted to slide a microprobe through Creyn’s screen without triggering his awareness.
Ah Elizabeth don’t. These petty aggressions games idle scrabblings for superiority.
(Innocent incredulity scorn-colored taunt.)
Nonsense. I am old tired civilized of goodwill to you and yours even ultimately crushable. But others my kind not. Beware Elizabeth. Reject not Tanu lightly. Remember puffin.
Puffin?
Child poem your folk from human educator among us long deceased. Lonely bird only one of kind ate fishes bewailed solitude. Friendship proffered by fishes if bird refrained devouring. Deal accepted meal habits changed. Fishes only game in town for puffin.
As you Tanu are for me?
Affirm Elizapuffinbeth.
She burst out laughing and Bryan and the other humans looked at her in blank astonishment.
“Somebody,” Aiken remarked, “has been whispering behind our minds. Are you going to let us in on the joke, lovie?”
“The joke’s on me, Aiken.” Elizabeth turned to Creyn. “We’ll have a truce. For now.”
The exotic man inclined his head. “Then permit me to change the subject. We are approaching the bottomlands of the river, where we’ll have our night’s rest in the city of Roniah. Tomorrow we shall resume our journey in a more agreeable fashion, by boat. We should arrive in the capital city of Muriah in less than five days, if the winds are right.”
“Sailboats on a turbulent river like the Rhône?” Bryan said, aghast. “Or, is it calmer here in the Pliocene?”
“You’ll have to judge that for yourself, of course. However, our boats are quite different from those you may have been accustomed to. We Tanu are not fond of water travel. But with the coming of humanity, safe and efficient boats were designed and river commerce became extensive. We now use boats not only for passenger travel but also to ship vital commodities from the north, especially from Finiah and from Goriah in the area you call Brittany, to the southern regions where the climate is more to our taste.”