"This is getting me nowhere, guardian," he said. "We should start with a different lesson."

"We are, Kamahl," said the mantis, raising his arms back up to his meditative pose. "This lesson is patience, and until you have mastered it, you cannot proceed. You cannot remember in minutes what has taken your body a lifetime to forget. Go now and practice this technique. Do not return until you have mastered the lesson."

"How will 1 know when I am done?" asked Kamahl.

"You will know. The trees will tell you."

Kamahl left the heart tree and retired to his hut, where he found a bowl of fruits and vegetables fresh from the gardens. He ate the entire contents of the bowl then began working on his lesson. Over the next two days Kamahl practiced becoming a tree, wandered the clearing, helped in the fields when needed, and slept.

At the end of the second day, he was frustrated with the lesson but content with his life. The heart of the forest truly was an idyllic place. The inhabitants lived in peace, working together without conflict for the good of the forest. The druids in the field brought food to those in meditation then took their turn replenishing the forest's energy through thought while others tended the fields.

"If only I could master the meditation ritual," Kamahl told his nantuko guide when the druid brought him his evening meal, "then I would truly feel like I belong here. But I still have doubts that break my focus before I can enter the trance. I lose patience."

"It is difficult the first time," clicked the nantuko, "especially for someone who has lived his life constantly moving from one place to another. But I believe you are close. If you wish to belong here, then all you must do is accept that this is your home, and the rest will come."

"I definitely cannot go back to the mountains again," said Kamahl. "That life belongs to another now. And there is nowhere else I would rather be than here in the heart."

"Try again tonight," said the druid. "I believe you are almost home."

After he supped, Kamahl wandered down into the fields where he had toiled earlier in the day. He loved the smell of the fruits and vegetables, and he had felt more connected to the world while working the soil than while meditating in his hut. Taking off his new boots so he could feel the dirt between his toes, Kamahl began the meditation ritual. He imagined his feet turning into roots and his arms into limbs. He tried to draw nutrients out of the soil to feed the emptiness within his body.

Then Kamahl was no longer standing on the field, a brass-skinned man with a family and troubles and doubts about the future. He was a tree in a world filled with trees, connected to the world and yet able to travel through the network of trees anywhere in the world. His heart slowed, and time seemed to slow right along with it, but his mind raced from tree to tree, and he could see the world sweeping along beneath him.

The barbarians were rebuilding in the mountains, like ants scurrying around and over an anthill. Cabal members were scuttling from the pits to the shops, betting and buying their lives away. Order patrols raced back and forth across the savanna, looking for some purpose in their lives. Kamahl sped across the world and then settled back into the forest, checking in on Seton and Jeska. The centaur stood over Kamahl's sister, mopping her brow with a damp cloth as she slept.

Kamahl then found Laquatas, marching through the forest with the Order troops, the Cabal raiders nowhere near the mer. And, for that matter, Kamahl noticed, there weren't any nantuko warriors anywhere near Laquatas. Kamahl tried to listen to what Laquatas was saying, but it sounded like bees buzzing. He did hear a voice, though.

"Welcome to our world, Kamahl," said the voice.

"Who said that," asked the barbarian, looking around at the forest surrounding the mer's camp.

"I did."

Kamahl saw the tree next to him move as the voice responded. "Are you talking to me?" he asked the tree.

"Of course," came the answer. "Isn't that what you have been trying to do the last two days?"

"Well, yes," said Kamahl. "I guess I got distracted by those warriors down there and forgot why I was here."

"You will learn to ignore unimportant matters like the lives of the flesh," said the tree. "Everything that lives eventually dies, but in death you complete the circle and provide for the living, go on living at a different level."

"As food?" asked the barbarian.

"Perhaps," came the answer. "Or soil, water, air. Some believe the spirit is reborn to live another life and learn more of the mysteries of the world."

"Well, I am concerned about a mystery in this world," said Kamahl. "Where are the nantuko warriors that should be fighting off these invaders?"

"Thriss recalled them," said the tree. "But do not concern yourself with these mortals. You have just taken your first step toward something far greater."

Kamahl barely heard the last words of the tree spirit. He was racing back toward his body, back toward the heart. He must warn Thriss of the danger. Left alone, Laquatas could and would destroy the forest to get to the Mirari. He must be stopped at all costs. Kamahl must make Thriss understand.

As the barbarian's spirit left the Order camp, he sensed one last presence waiting in the trees but had no time to dwell on the implications of the discovery. It was a dark, shadowy figure that seemed out of place in the world and yet familiar at the same time-a beast that was dead, but not dead, an undead creature Kamahl had once called friend.

CHAPTER 28

After the scare of the previous evening, Laquatas was almost happy to be moving again through the deadly forest. The nantuko always attacked at the edge of the phalanx, where they only killed soldiers. And though the wall of troops between him and the attacks was getting thinner every day, at least the mer knew what was attacking and where. But, the beast could walk right into camp, bypassing all his guards, and be on the threshold of his tent without so much as raising an alarm.

Last night proved it was personal. The beast wanted Laquatas dead, and the mer was almost afraid to go to sleep at night. Almost. He did have his new jack, the nantuko warrior he now had complete control over. These creatures were the best warriors he'd ever seen. Nothing could get past his new jack. Nothing. At least that's what Laquatas kept telling himself throughout the day.

Laquatas spent so much energy worrying about his safety that it was afternoon before he'd noticed there hadn't been a single nantuko raid since they started the march that morning. In fact, he couldn't sense a single predator within miles of their position. Laquatas called a halt while he scanned in a narrow arc out as far as he could. He found nothing threatening within ten miles in any direction.

"Corporal," he called, "it appears we have finally beaten back the nantuko. We are clear of enemies. Prepare for double-time march. Let's take advantage of our good fortune."

"Yes, sir," came the reply.

The beast had seen the nantuko withdraw the night before. It had always known exactly where they were, for they were never far from its position, just outside the mer's sensory range. But the sudden halt and Laquatas's circular deep scan took the beast by surprise. There was nowhere to run, so it took a chance. If the mer was merely searching for predators, large animals moving through the forest, it could fool the scan the same way it fooled the nantuko-with complete motionlessness.

Dropping behind a fallen tree, the beast stayed still, hoping the decaying log would mask its own dead flesh. Not even breathing, for it truly didn't need to, the beast was nothing more than a lump of dead matter when the mer's scan passed over. Afterward, the beast raised its head up over the log and watched as the phalanx jogged off. It would take the creature all day and much of the night to catch up to them, but it never tired and never ate, so it had time to kill. And tonight it would kill, it promised itself and its surrogate son. Tonight it would kill the mer bastard.