Part Four
Chapter 30
THE GREAT FENS
During the rain season, nothing could match the great river for sheer brutish intemperence. It gathered together the disparate drops with long relentless tentacles and bound them into one single-willed mass of power, giddily carousing and careering off to some magnetic dark debauchery. It laughed at dry prisoners and sneered disdainfully at all else, when it stooped to attend to anything other than the mob-intoxicating clarion call: "On! On! and Down!" indiscriminately snatching up as souvenirs whatever unfortunate things took its fancy or stupidly got in its way. The river alone knew penultimate independence. It alone could indulge in any and every fey whim: magnanimously replenish an entire plain here, while savaging another there; lovingly etch intricate traceries onto delicate sculptures, or hungrily scour out whole mountainsides with voracious grinding teeth; gently polish the hardest stone to a reflecting surface, or tear entire forests up by the roots. It was all as one to the river, when it was inebriated with the rains.
But nothing lasts forever. The hardest rock cracks, the greatest beast falls and, ultimately, forever itself passes. What is beyond forever spawns its own rocks, beasts, and time, over and over, and simultaneously: a dizzyingly perplexing lacework bridging the defining voids, impossible to follow, suffocatingly pervasive; steadily bludgeoning all attempts to map it with the blunt club of infinity until finally all that is left recognizable is the serene voice of Now.
Even the riled hedonism of the river, then, had to take pause eventually. The great falls offered the river a spectacular opportunity to spend the last of its unguided energy in a mad suicidal leap into the blue, and the river eagerly accepted. Engorged by the runoff, and enraged by the forced constriction of the mountain channel, the river filled the normally shallow lake to overflowing, and the falls widened to stretch across its entire width. The water leaped unhesitatingly, streams splitting into glistening globules in selfish ambition, split further to drops by the whistling wind, bashed to smithereens by the determined rocks on the cliffside, eventually conquered completely and drifting harmless to the bottom as the softest mist, more tame at last than the rain it was born of far, far away.
At the base of the falls, the river relaxed, sated, idly gathering itself into a slew of aimless meandering waterways. The channels divided and rejoined and divided again, content to loiter about, sleepy. The mist was eerie, cast about a great distance from the actual falls, muffling the sky, burdening everything with its heavy, inescapable, numbing wet touch. The very air seemed to sense it was overmastered, and ceded its prerogative of occupation to the stifling moisture, and retreated a safe distance to await the end of the rainy season, when it could reclaim the falls. An ennui seemed to weigh on the region, a slowness, heaviness. The rage the river had known above was inconceivable here below.
Here the river, even during the wet season, could tolerate life. So things grew and flourished; in the water, and on the tufted islands. Calculating eyes broke the placid surface of the water, waiting with deceptive languor. Massive boles thrust upward, as if to give the lie to the delicate fringe of fronds they supported. Frozen explosions of green and yellow shoots fought each other for a foothold on anything solid. Tiny things darted over land and water alike, and raced up the shoots and boles to peer out through moist eyes in relative safety. Something sounded off in a grating rasp, somewhere.
The mist blanketed everything, not only with moisture, but with a pale, omnidirectional light, and with the penetrating dull shush of the falls. The noise of a truhthalig's plash carried a long way only to sound muffled and, ironically, nearby, to listening ears. Curious plops, skreeks, and coughs assaulted the already overburdened atmosphere by dank, sunless day, to be replaced by even more curious wails and chirks by starless night.
And the damp was a living presence: sly, strangling, inexorable.
Monwyrt sat up with a lurch, awakened as if by a thunderclap. Before he knew what he was, he found himself under water. He had upset the carefully negotiated poise of the little craft with his sudden movement. He found the surface of the water with one flailing hand and instinctively thrust his foot down to search for support. It found the bottom, but that offered no help: it was a gelatinous muck which accepted his leg up to the joint with an even-tempered grace. Monwyrt gulped in a mouthful of turbid water, which seemed to enervate him and give direction to his efforts, for when he kicked again the mire reluctantly released his leg and allowed him to get his head above water.
The little boat floated patiently nearby, and he soon had boosted himself over the edge of it, and right back into the water on the other side. Disgusted, he spied out the nearest shore, and swam over to it with the boat in tow. Coughing, he crawled out onto the soggy bank, dragged up the boat, and sat down to take stock of things.
His knife was sheathed on his leg, his pack was tied across his back. He strained at the wet thongs, and succeeded in removing the pack, to a great feeling of relief. By the feel of it, everything was in its place inside. He noticed the ram floating still a little way out in the water, and he quickly swam out to retrieve it and returned. Then he looked at it, confused. It was not his ram.
The boat was not his batohram, either. It was a tiny affair, hardly long or wide enough for him to lie down in. No wonder he had fallen out of it!
But before he had time to consider that, his attention was diverted. In a blast he was assaulted by the heavy odors of the fen. A great cloud of black water out where he had sunk his foot in the muck was drifting toward shore, releasing a rich putrescent stench. A host of unidentifiable scents conspired to choke him: an almost blinding fog of stagnancy hung around him, the mucilagenous reek of some slimy and seemingly nearby creature dismayed him, and everywhere the smell of the mist only intensified, rather than purified, the stultifying taste of decay. His disgust grew to revulsion.
Frowning, he stood, partly in hope of obtaining a more commanding view, but mostly because of an instinctual feeling of a need to move. The sounds, scents, and sights, all strange to him, seemed to bear down and oppress him with a tangible weight. He could not see the sun; he could not determine the direction of the falls (in fact he didn't recognize the low hissing sound he heard as that of the falls); he was baffled by the appearance of the dark leafy, tangled foliage, none of which he knew; the thick aromas of what could only be game (but what sort?) baffled him. The river itself, or what he could see of it, refused to reveal its intent, and loitered idly, without direction. Monwyrt tried to inhale slowly as the terrible truth broke over him.
He was lost.
Where was he? He tried to remember. Where had that little batohram come from? How did he get down the falls? The last clear thing in his memory was the resounding crack of the pairsh breaking, and then... what? How long had he slept in that wayward craft? He noted with some relief that he was not particularly hungry - but with that thought he suddenly recognized one of the pungent odors in the air around him, and he hurriedly tore open his pack. "Moc! Tungebunge!" he swore in a confused fury. His meat, the dried thriddahype, was a malodorous, massy smear of decayed pulp. Crying tears of frustration, he heaved the ruined meat far out into the waiting water, where it fell with a wet slap. Almost immediately there was a violent thrashing of water at that exact spot, which just as quickly subsided. How could the meat be rotten? In the mountains, it took over three hand-days to begin to spoil, and could yet be eaten for perhaps another hand-day with caution. Monwyrt glowered to himself as he reasoned that he was not now in the mountains. Obviously, everything was different here.
But where was here?
He shook his head and arms, vainly trying to shed the clinging moisture of the mist. He was soaked. Everything about this place was hateful to him, and suddenly a simple, clear, and concise goal arose in his mind, and rallied him: Get out! Get out now, get out fast, just get out of this land. He picked up his now nearly empty skin, hesitantly but determinedly filled the water-bladder with the noisome river-water (for there was no better water to be found), and walked off, away from the river, into the dense web of the jungle growth.
He felt better right away. The mysteries of his arrival there were replaced in his mind with the challenge of leaving, and the fear and confusion of being lost were, if not completely banished, at least temporarily diminished to a comfortable insignificance. He soon found himself in a dense forest-like atmosphere, which, too, was comforting to a degree. But the limbs and leaves overhead were like none he had ever seen, and the undergrowth was so tangled and antagonistic that he soon began to curse it loudly. Now and again his foot would come down on a spot which had appeared to be perfectly solid but which turned out to be merely scum floating on the surface of water, and Monwyrt would know that he had struck the river bank again. In most places it was impossible to tell where the river was by looking at the foliage: it grew right out of the water the same as if it were dry land, and Monwyrt found himself plunging in over his joint many times. It seemed the river was everywhere.
After exploring in this fashion for some time, Monwyrt realized at last that he was on an island. He would have to go back to the boat. He was gratified to find the little batohram right where he had estimated it to be: his sense of direction had not failed him, at least, once he had some idea of the lay of the land. In a way he was relieved to be going back into the batohram. He could escape the wet, clinging and tearing tendrils of the undergrowth, and perhaps he could even seek out some evidence somewhere of a current, of an outlet stream from this horrid fen. Then a depressing thought occured to him.
What if this place, here, was the end of the river? Could this be the goal of his journey? The idea sickened him.
"No," he thought, "I've got to look for a way out; there's got to be a way out!"
Monwyrt pulled the craft to the water's edge, and gingerly stepped in. He found that only by moving with excrutiating deliberation could he sit up and handle the ram, thereby maneuvering the unsteady craft. Gradually, though, he adjusted to the temperament of the beast, and paddled off into the flood.
Two days later, Monwyrt had found no way out. The fen seemed endless. The water wove about uncounted tiny islands a chaotic web of disinterested marshes and stagnant channels. He had escaped the constant mist of the falls, but it was supplanted by a steamy haze which covered the stars at night, but allowed a faint yellow glow from the sun to penetrate it. Monwyrt could at least chart some semblence of a straight course by day, even if he didn't know which direction to take.
But if he showed no progress on the problem of getting out of the marshes, he was being presented with another problem which demanded his more immediate attention. He was very hungry now.
He successfully tried to snare one of the mysterious scurrying creatures, only to discover that there was not enough of it to bother eating, and besides, his spearcastan strike would not bite on any of the soggy tinder he could find. He soon gave up lighting a fire. He foraged for weodthuf, finding only a black root which looked suspiciously like beckyrev, which he threw away mournfully. He parsimoniously munched some fronds and shoots, "like a vashlymoss," he thought to himself. That succeeded in killing his appetite, but did little to alleviate his hunger. Amongst the proliferation of bushy brambles he was surprised to find not a single berry of any description. But finally, as the shrouded sun was setting on his third day in the fens, he came upon a beautiful sight: a giant bushy blowantreow-like growth, with limbs bowing almost to the ground, laden with fruit. He rushed up to it and hastily pulled one of the dangling pods off of a branch with trembling fingers. The sweet-smelling juice ran out with the slight pressure of his grip. His mouth watered.
But he didn't eat it. He remembered all too well the near disaster of the beckyrev, and this fruit reminded him too much of blowanslaep (even though it was a different color and size) for him to be comfortable about eating it. Why, he wondered, in a land seemingly filled with wildlife, when not a single berry or edible root could be found, was this fruit apparently untouched? He dared not even lick the juice dripping from his hand. The taste of it was maddeningly enticing to his keen senses. "Moc!" He threw the sweet pod against the bole with a splat, and tried to shake the juice from his hand.
It was getting dark, and Monwyrt decided to sleep nearby for that night at least. He was hoping to witness some creature eating the fruit: then he could gorge himself. He rolled up in the skin at a safe distance downwind (as best as he could judge: the air was uniformly still all through the fens), and began his vigil.
The tight pinch of hunger made it easy for him to stay awake at first, and he heard innumerable cries and rustlings as the blackness of another starless night set in. Even with his inner lids open, Monwyrt could scarcely make out the ground a few paces away, and he couldn't see the object of his vigil at all, but his hunter's ears and taste were as sharp as ever, and he waited patiently. But his very motionlessness seemed to numb the twist in his insides, and the nighttime noises fell into a kind of mesmerizing cadence, and he finally succumbed to the weakness brought on by the hunger, and fell fast asleep.
"There it is, you ebeshee ufobee! We'd have found it last night if you would have listened to me!"
"Icsee! except you were pointing the other way!"
"Adospee!"
"Orpensnucestee!"
Monwyrt drowsily shook himself awake. It seemed that he woke up in the middle of a dream in which two soothing, rich voices were quarrelling about something.
It was beginning to get light. The hazy sheen of the sun was not yet discernable, but the morning was on him. He was disgusted at having fallen asleep. He would have to try to tell by inspection whether anything had approached the fruit during the night. His collapsed stomachs ached when he rolled himself out of the skin.
"I'll be cursed if I'm going to let you get there first!"
"What does that matter? You'll be cursed anyway!"
Monwyrt threw himself flat on the ground in an instant. It wasn't a dream! There were those voices again! They seemed to come from somewhere quite nearby, but he was puzzled. He listened intently, scarcely breathing.
"Wonderful! The acabee, just as you promised!" a third voice, quite distant from Monwyrt, high-pitched and rough, came from beyond the fruit. "Inabinaniltrinaquinaquaterunustree my good colleague, you have once more shown your genius!"
Monwyrt craned his neck to see who or what this newcomer might be.
"Not at all, most excellent Inabinaniltrinaquinaquaterbinatree," yet a fourth voice responded politely, if shrilly, from somewhere very near the third. "We have only you to thank for finding the acabee, and your unerring good sense!"
"Cursed right, adospee!" returned one of the beautiful voices.
"Hurry up, ofaexedee! Beat that orpensnucestee!" enjoined the other rich voice.
Monwyrt whirled about. The two beautiful voices came from no direction at all, seemingly, and were much clearer and more intelligible than the others. But suddenly he heard the rustling of foliage on the other side of the fruit, and he tasted an unknown and curious scent in the air, and he turned back to peer in that direction.
"Today, as always," squawked the third voice, "let us take advantage of our remoteness, and dispense with this cumbersome formality. Please, simply call me Binatree."
"Call you Simple, more like!"
"What magnanimity!" courteously gushed the fourth voice. "Of course, I can only agree on the condition that you grant me the same familiarity. If you could be so kind, call me Unustree!"
"Vapid twit! Nothing could please me more than to do so!" said Binatree. "Except you dropping dead!"
"At least then I'd be rid of you, you ermisvee! So kind of you say so!" rasped Unustree sincerely.
Monwyrt crawled stealthily toward the voices. The two courteous, ugly voices and the two venomous but melodious voices seemed to be interweaving their conversations, somehow, without affecting either. He positioned himself behind a large frondy bush, and cautiously spied out onto a curious scene.
Two rather tall, and very odd-shaped (to Monwyrt's eyes) creatures were crashing through the undergrowth on long, spindly legs which bent backward at the joint (like a thriddahype's rear leg, Monwyrt noted). They jostled each other for position, each trying to hinder the other's progress by grabbing and slapping with pudgy hands on short, stubby arms. Their heads were disproportionately small, Monwyrt thought, for such tall beings, and their legs were outlandishly long and bone-thin compared with their fat little arms and hands. But it was their huge mid-sections which startled and amazed him the most.
Perched precariously atop the two towering legs was an immense, round, billowy ball covered with some sort of dust-colored fuzzy stuff which riffled and waved with the slightest movement. Monwyrt blinked his eyes in disbelief as the entire bodies of the creatures came into view through the thick vegetation. Their somewhat tubby torsos rose suddenly out of the top of these great bags of fluff. He guessed that they were perhaps twice his height.
As he watched them advance through the foliage on a line perhaps both hands-and-feet paces ahead of him, it became apparent that they were making for the same fruit that he had been watching. He hungrily watched to see what they would do.
Binatree and Unustree uttered no further comments while they approached the acabee, but Monwyrt was aware of the constant sniping of the other two mysterious voices, vivisecting each other in their peculiar tongue. Try as he might, he could not detect a scent or determine the direction from which their voices were coming, but his attention was soon given wholly to what Binatree and Unustree were up to.
They ran up to the fruit; one of them (Monwyrt didn't know which), seemingly couldn't stop in time and charged directly into the branches and fronds, raising simultaneous screams of laughter and pain from all four voices. But when they plucked the fruit with their pudgy fingers and stuffed it into their mouths, both at once, Monwyrt suddenly understood.
"Oh, acabee is so good! Mmmmn!" Binatree sighed in appreciation.
"I can't believe how sweet this is! Icsee," Unustree agreed. "Acabee almost makes it worthwhile to be assigned to the Mists."
Monwyrt sat back, stunned. The beautiful voices and the harsh voices were one! He was hearing, somehow, Binatree's and Unustree's thoughts. The sweet voices seemed to hate each other, while their speaking voices were so courteous, that he had never dreamed that they could be coming from one body, but it had to be! They all four were agreed on one thing though: the fruit was delicious!
Monwyrt was immediately deleriously hungry.
He peered out at the ravening creatures. Should he try to wait until they had gone? They were very big. But they didn't appear to be equipped with sharp teeth, or claws, or horns. He could see no evidence of a knife. Their short arms wouldn't even be able to reach down to him, he noted: he could probably stand upright between those stalk-like legs. Their feet didn't appear threatening, either; they were nothing but great flat trencher-like flaps. He wondered if they would be good to eat. There seemed to be a pack or bag or pouch of something slung behind them, somehow. Monwyrt weighed the possibility of some kind of weapon being secreted there. What should he do?
Finally, his great hunger decided for him. He rushed out of hiding. He flung himself on the fruit-stalks with all the energy he could muster, taking the precaution only of keeping to the side of the bole opposite the creatures. He completely squashed the first fruit in his haste to pluck it, but pushed the pulp into his mouth anyway with only the slightest hesitation. It was delicious! He quickly picked another and ate it whole, then another. The sweet cider ran down his face as he was overcome by its luscious flavor. It was too late now, he thought to himself: if this was blowanslaep, he might as well eat as much as he could before he blacked out. He feverishly grabbed at the pendulous pods, alternately piling them on one arm and cramming them into his mouth as fast as he could swallow. In an instant he had completely forgotten the tall creatures.
But they were now aware of him.
"Ercusstee!"
"Odee cipiacee!"
"What's that?!" they shouted together, and instantly retreated into the foliage in a cloud of leaves and fluff.
"Curse you and your acabee! Binatree, good colleague, have you an opinion as to whether that monster detected us or not?" Unustree whispered hastily when they had hid themselves in the undergrowth, legs folded beneath them, a safe distance away from the acabee.
"My acabee! The acabee was all your idea, aexfee! I dare say it didn't appear to," Binatree answered. "although we certainly made no effort to be inconspicuous. Of course it saw us, you mindless ermisvee! If it weren't for the acabee it would probably be eating us right now instead!"
"Icsee, coming to the acabee was all my idea, and you admit it saved our lives! Thank you, oedusfee! Well spoken and gladly heard," said Unustree.
"Not at all, ebeshee. You're too kind!" replied Binatree.
"I beg to differ: you are too modest! Orpensnucestee!" returned Unustree.
"Please," Binastree gently remonstrated, "let us leave off this unseemly bickering. In your dreams!"
"Lick my tail! Icsee, you are quite correct once more: we must attend more directly to the matter at hand. Like, how to save our wretched hides!" Unustree acceded.
"So very glad you agree," Binatree smiled warmly. "Now, is the thing still at the acabee? Or is it about to attack us this instant?"
"How the odee cipiacee should I know? Please, you take the honor of looking out. And have your head handed to you." said Unustree.
"Right. Like I'm eager to be torn apart. No, Unustree, you sacrifice too much on my account," complained Binatree. "You must have the honor of seeing first. And I'll have the honor of fleeing first."
"No, don't be silly; you must look first," Unustree said nobly. "I'll be right behind you! Two days' run behind you!"
"While you're back there, lick my tail! Please, you go, I insist!" Binatree inclined his head. "I don't deserve it!"
"Don't get me started on what you deserve! Not true, not true; you do yourself a great disservice! As if that were possible!" said Unustree.
"Not at all - besides," Binatree said with sudden inspiration, "you are after all my superior! Superior adospee."
"Ercusstee! One mere point! What's one point?" cried Unustree, foreseeing himself losing the argument. "Rank, you must concede, can have nothing to do with this!"
"Ha, ha, ha. On the contrary, my most excellent benefactor," interposed Binatree, "I can not conscionably stand by and suffer your humiliation at missing this opportunity to demonstrate your admirable qualities. If you have any."
But Unustree saw it another way.
"Rank, eh? I really hate to do this, really, but you are forcing me to; and, as you say, I do outrank you," Unustree scolded. "Therefore, I feel it my duty to see to it that you not let this exciting, and undoubtedly educational, opportunity pass. As your superior, I must order you to look for the monster. Suck on that, orpensnucestee!"
"I say!" ejaculated Binatree. "You only outrank me by a single point! You were quite right, I feel, in pointing out that rank can have nothing, nothing at all, to do with this honor. You mayn't forgive me for saying so, but I have ever felt, in our extensive rides together, that we were as equals! Thank the Orsnumquammee that isn't true!"
"Ufobee! Am I correct, in interpreting your empassioned solicitation, that you are suggesting we look out together?" asked Unustree.
"I'm suggesting we run away! together or otherwise. Your command of the situation once again astonishes me!" praised Binatree. "I could not have thought of that myself. It is too good of you to attribute it to me."
"Ermisvee! Your idea or mine, it matters not a whit," said Unustree magnanimously.
"You are too kind! and too ebeshee!" said Binatree.
"Not at all! Orpensnucestee!" returned Unustree. "Let's look now." They cautiously peeked out through the fronds.
Monwyrt continued eating.
"Ercusstee!"
"Odee cipiacee!"
"It's big!" they gasped, together.
"What is it?" asked Binatree.
"Your mother! I don't know!" said Unustree.
"Why doesn't that surprise me? It's big!" remarked Binatree. They stayed motionless, watching Monwyrt eat and eat, for some time.
Unustree broke the silence. "It's big!" he noted. Binatree nodded appreciatively.
Some moments later, Unustree spoke again.
"Now what? What do you suggest we should do about it?" he asked.
"We? I'm unsure where our duty lies," Binatree answered. "Perhaps I should report back to Bisuree for instructions while you continue to observe it. and die!"
"In your dreams! I can't allow you to seem to have deserted your post! As your superior, it is my duty to report back," said Usunee.
"Perhaps if we both present testimony a better understanding of the situation will arise," offered Binatree. "One of us left here would be insufficient to contain the monster, and would be liable to be lost with it in following it if it were to wander, anyway. Sounds good."
"Sounds good, indeed. As you wish," acquiesced Unustree. "Of course, if asked, I shall have to give you all the credit for the idea."
"You are too, too kind. Traitor!" acknowledged Binatree.
"You don't deserve me, it's true. Not at all!" said Unustree. "Let us depart discreetly, shall we?"
"Let us depart hastily, and damn the discretion! After you!" Binatree held out his arm, ushering Unustree ahead.
"Always! No, after you!" Unustree politely returned.
"As it should be! I must insist - you should initiate our return expedition retreat," Binatree urged.
"No, please, allow me to follow you," pleaded Unustree. "Move your tail!"
On the other side of the acabee, Monwyrt loosed a resounding belch.
"Well, all right, just this once! Eeeeeee!" Binatree burst out, hurriedly rising and racing away in a flutter.
"Eeeeeee! Wait for me!" squawked Unustree, crashing through the foliage after him.
Monwyrt heard the noise of their escape, and was relieved, but also disconcerted a little. He wondered if they were soon to return with others like them. He had paid little heed to their conversation while he had been eating, though he was aware of it. But full stomachs went a long way toward easing his apprehensions, and he went on with his meal, and resolved to set up camp nearby. He could scout out the surrounding area, perhaps do a little hunting, and try again to kindle a fire, with a ready supply of food as long as he stayed near the "acabee." There seemed to be no strange side-effects from the fruit. He patted his bulging stomachs contentedly, and sat down.
Somewhere, above the hazy sky, the sun was not yet to the zenith of its arc.
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