Paragaea (32 page)

“What
are
they?” Leena said in a low voice. Less than half a kilometer from them, across the final stretch of broken pavement, stood what appeared to be a hedge of large metal bushes.

“Little sister,” Hieronymus said, wonderstruck, “your guess is as good as mine.”

“Benu,” Balam said from his position at the foot of Spatha's stretcher. “You have been here before. What, exactly, are we looking at?”

As they drew nearer, the strange metal objects came slowly into focus.

“They are the trees of Keir-Leystall, of course,” the artificial man answered simply. “Once, in ancient days, the long-forgotten culture of Keir-Leystall was a satellite of Atla in the far south, as was Hele in the Lethe Mountains to our south, and Scere beyond the Rim Mountains to the west. In days of unimaginable antiquity, the people of Keir-Leystall mastered the art of duplicating a man's mind, and recreating it in a machine. Similar skills were used in my own forging, I hasten to point out. And the ancients of Keir-Leystall further mastered the art
of fashioning mechanical devices so fine that they could manipulate the very particles that make up matter itself. At some point, as their culture aged to senescence, these two arts were combined in the creation of the oracular forest. History has forgotten whether the men and women whose minds were uploaded into the fractal robots were prisoners, patients, or priests, and whether they were being imprisoned, cured, or saved.”

Balam sneered, regarding the metal structures as the company drew nearer their goal. “Why doesn't someone just ask the trees which it was? Don't they hold all knowledge?”

“Well, you could try,” Benu replied thoughtfully, “but the answers could not be trusted. The trees, you see—at least those who have not retreated from all interaction with the outside world, about whom nothing can be known—are all quite mad.”

“And we come here to find the way to Earth?” Leena asked. “To ask these insane beings for answers?”

“I never said you were certain to find the knowledge you seek, Akilina,” Benu said. “I merely said that the answers you seek, if they are to be found anywhere in Paragaea, are to be found here.”

They had, by this point, neared the forest close enough that they could begin to make out details of the “trees” before them. They did indeed look like large metal bushes that grew upwards from the ground, branching into three branches at intervals, standing about four meters tall. At the tips of the branches, the air seemed hazy and indistinct, as though the branches continued to exfoliate smaller than the eye could see.

Without warning, when they were within a few meters of the nearest tree, the air around them buzzed with a sound like the voice of a swarm of bees. The nearest tree vibrated in time with each syllable.
“What do you want?”

Hieronymus stepped forward, and opened his mouth to speak, but before he could answer, the strange voice buzzed again.

“One of you is damaged.”
There came a pause, and the metal tree shimmered slightly.
“Would the damaged one be repaired? It is within our power to effect this change.
”

“Yes,” several of the company quickly said in unison. Balam and Kakere stepped forward, set the stretcher down on the ground at the base of the tree, and then retreated to the rear of the group.

“Very well.
”

The branches of the metal tree twitched, and then began to ripple slowly as if plied by a slight wind. Leena felt a whisper on her cheek, like someone had just run past her.

The company looked down at the supine form of Spatha, but she still lay broken and bloodied on the stretcher, unchanged.

“Um, guys?” came the voice of Kakere from behind them.

Leena turned, and saw Kakere standing naked, his robe reduced to powder that dusted the pavement at his feet. He held his hands out at arm's length to either side, his expression bewildered. His skin had a bluer cast to it than normal, though he seemed otherwise unchanged.

“This one had an unnecessary dependence on hydration, a faulty design. We have improved the model, and this one will be much more efficient hereafter.
”

“No,” Kakere said, stepping forward, pleading. “Not me! Repair her!” The fish man stabbed a finger at the dying Nonae on the ground at the tree's base.

The voice buzzed, wordlessly, with a distracted air.

“This one's phenotype appears to be operant.”

“Your pardon,” Benu said, stepping in, “but I hasten to point out the systemic imbalances, caused by trauma, which are preventing this one from operating at peak efficiency.”

The tree shimmered again.

“
We have had intercourse with you before, though you are now housed in a new shell.
”

“Yes, both statements are true,” Benu said, his voice laced with impatience.

“
Has much time has passed since our last encounter? The days pass so strangely, here.
”

“By my reckoning, nearly two thousand, five hundred and seventy-three solar years.”

“
That short a span? I thought it would have been longer.
”

The tree rustled, its hazy branches moving as if in a slight breeze, and it seemed to Leena that the mind within was contemplative.

“You will have to visit again. This has been most engaging. Good-bye.”

“No,” Benu said forcefully, as if scolding a recalcitrant child. “You must repair this one”—he pointed at Spatha Sekundus—“and then you will answer our questions.”

“Oh. Really?”
There followed a long pause, and Leena could feel her pulse sounding in her ears.
“Very well.”

The tree shimmered once more, and again the wind kissed Leena's cheek, and in the next instant Spatha was lying naked on the ground, her wounds healed. But not only her most recent injuries had vanished, but ancient injuries, too, were gone. Even the ix, the Nonae ensign on her cheek, was gone.

Kakere rushed forward, and helped Spatha climb to her feet. They stood side by side, looking up uneasily at the metal tree above them, too stunned to speak.

Hieronymus whistled low. “They are as naked and unblemished as the day they were born. They might be some Adam and Eve from the pages of myth, facing a newborn world.”

“
The world is newborn every day, and when one's perceptions cycle through a dormant phase, it dies again.
”

Benu glanced over at Leena. “If you're going to ask your question, you might want to do it quickly. I'm not sure how long the trees will remain this lucid.”

“
This
is lucid?” Balam asked, eyes rolling.

“Trees of Keir-Leystall,” Leena said, not wasting a moment. She stepped nearer the tree, coming almost within arm's reach of the
smooth, cool surface of its metal trunk. “Do you know of Earth, and the way between the worlds?”

“
Yes
,” buzzed the tree's answer.

Leena's heart skipped a beat, and she held her breath.

“
And no.
”

Leena's breath expelled in a defeated sigh.

“
We indeed know of Earth. Passage between that plane and our own is through transient gates. Predicting the appearance, duration, and characteristics of these gates is beyond our knowledge.
”

“So no one knows the way?” Leena cursed, her shoulders slumped.

“
No. The answer to your question can be found in Atla, and nowhere else.
”

“But no one may approach Atla,” Benu objected, stepping forward to stand at Leena's side. “Not since the citadel city burned the steppes of Eschar with cold fire and sealed the south away from the rest of the world.”

“
Not true, little machine. You forget, if you ever knew, about the Carneol of Hele.
”

Hieronymus and Balam exchanged glances with Leena, and they all looked to Benu, who only shrugged.

“
The Carneol is a gem used as the sign of office by the coregents of the Hele, but what even the rulers of the hidden city themselves do not know is that it is actually an ancient Atlan device. Hele was first settled as an outpost of the Black Sun Empire, long millennia ago, established to investigate certain”—
the voice paused, its branches rustling for a moment—“
peculiar characteristics of the region. The Carneol could grant its bearer free passage into Atla, a key to unlock the barrier long enough for entry, just as it did in ancient days, when the barrier was used only for defense, and not concealment.
”

Leena drew a ragged sigh. “So, if we steal the crown jewel of this place—Hele—then we can use that to sneak into the one place in all the world where the knowledge I seek can be found?”

“
Yes
.”

“Oh, delightful,” Hieronymus said, crossing his arms over his chest.

Kakere and Spatha edged away from the tree, moving to stand beside Balam, while Benu strode up and rapped the tree's trunk with his knuckles.

“What do you know of Atla, since the barrier raised?” Benu asked, an urgent tone in his voice. “Do the wizard-kings still rule their citadel city, or have they all fallen to dust, long ago?”

The tree was silent for a long moment, rustling slightly.

“
We have had intercourse with you before, haven't we? How long ago was it?
”

“We spoke only seconds ago,” Benu answered, exasperated.

“
That short a time? It seemed so much longer.
”

“Answer my question,” Benu demanded.

“
Good-bye.
”

The tree fell silent, and nothing they could do or say would make it buzz again.

None of the company had any desire to traipse into the thick of the metal trees, especially considering that the branches could remake their constituent elements with the barest touch, and that the collective intelligence with whom they'd spoken had been, according to Benu, the most rational and sympathetic of all the intelligences uploaded into the forest. The minds they might encounter in the metal forest's dark interior, were they to enter, might well remold their bodies in horrific, irreversible ways, and death would be the least of their worries. Without dissent, then, the company skirted the forest to the south, and then made for the southeast.

It was hoped that they could reach the trade routes, the main trunk of which ran from northeast to southwest in this region before turning back to the northwest once it passed the Lathe Mountains. Traffic along the main trunk was fairly frequent, and with some luck, they'd manage to catch up with a caravan of one kind or another that might be willing to give them transport.

The first night out from Keir-Leystall, Spatha Sekundus and Kakere sat apart from the others, some distance from the campfire, and spoke together in low tones. With his robes demolished by the manipulators in the branches' tips, the uncharacteristically quiet Kakere now clothed himself only in a makeshift kilt, his torso, head, arms, and legs exposed to the air; but after a full day of walking through the dry heat, he seemed none the worse for wear, displaying none of the symptoms of an Ichthyandaro in the throes of dehydration. Spatha, for her part, had seen her leather armor reduced to molecular dust, and now wore only a linen shift, belted at the waist with a length of cord. Her gladius and baldric, which had been on Balam's back when she'd been “repaired,” was all that remained of her former armory, and she now laid the sheathed sword across her legs, thoughtfully, as she and Kakere whispered together.

Leena rubbed the bridge of her nose, and then ran her fingers through her hair. It was matted and greasy, and longer than she'd worn it in years. She realized, glaring disconsolately at the campfire before her, that some part of her had just assumed she'd be home by now. During their long trek through the mangrove swamp, their flight from the Tannim township, the slog through the bubbling mud pits and volcanic gases…every step since she'd come ashore, more than a week before, she'd been convinced was carrying her closer to home. The miraculous trees of which Benu had spoken would surely have the knowledge of how to traverse the gulf between the worlds, and she could bathe, and shampoo and cut her hair, and all the thousands of things she'd done in her former life, when she returned home to the Soviet Union.

Now, her only prospect for ever leaving Paragaea behind was to travel another span of weeks or months, infiltrate a hidden city deep within a mountain range, steal the monarchs' crown jewel, exfiltrate, journey another span of weeks or months, circumvent a barrier that
had kept out all intruders for long millennia, and find someone willing to show her the way to Earth. Assuming, as Benu evidently did not, that anyone within the walls of the citadel city of Atla still lived.

Leena felt at times that the world contrived to make her path difficult for its own amusement. This was most definitely one of those times.

Two days later, they reached the main trunk of the trade route.

“Our destination lies some distance in that direction”—Hieronymus pointed along the road, such as it was, to the south—“and we'll be lucky to reach it before the autumnal rains begin, but we're on the path, at least, and that should be counted as a minor victory.” His maps were spread out across his knees as he crouched by the roadside.

“And how many more kilometers beyond that before we reach Atla?” Leena asked sullenly.

Hieronymus rolled up his maps once more, and returned them to his pack. “Trust me,” he said apologetically, “you don't want to know.”

Leena joined Balam, who stood at the center of the road. It was pitted and gouged, with great ruts dug irregularly into the hard ground, looking almost like widely spaced blast craters from mortar explosions.

“What are those?” Leena said, pointing to the nearest pit, which was easily as wide as she was tall.

“Tracks,” Balam said.

Leena whistled low. “What could have made such tracks? Some sort of large machine? A tank's tread of some kind?”

“No.” Balam shook his head, glancing up and down the road nervously, as though worried something might be coming. “Not a machine, but a beast. A very, very large beast.”

“Well, come on,” Hieronymus said, hitching his pack onto his back. “Let's not waste daylight, shall we?” He turned towards the south and started to walk along the roadway, taking care to skirt around the huge craters.

Benu followed close behind, and Balam went to join them. Leena took a few steps along the road before glancing back to see Kakere and Spatha lingering by the side of the road, looking northward with guilty expressions on their faces.

“Aren't you coming?” Leena called back to them, her thumbs tucked through the shoulder straps of her pack.

Kakere and Spatha looked at each other, nodded, and then turned back to Leena.

“No,” Spatha said with a shake of her head.

“Where would you go, then?”

“North.” Spatha pointed up the road with her sheathed gladius.

“Um, sorry?” Kakere smiled sheepishly at Leena, and shrugged.

Hieronymus and Balam came to stand beside Leena, while Benu lingered down the road, impatient to press on.

“Why?” Balam asked, idly tapping the emerald hanging from his ear.

The Nonae and the Ichthyandaro looked to each other again, and Spatha drew a heavy breath before answering.

“When the oracular tree healed my wounded body, it seems also to have mended my broken spirit. I find that I miss my people, and want nothing more than once more to hear the sound of my mother tongue. I may be the last of the Nonae, as I fear, but if I am wrong, and any more of my nation still wander the desert wastes, I would find them, and set about rebuilding. We were a proud people once, with good reason, and there is nothing to say that we could not be so again.”

“And you, Kakere?” Hieronymus asked, crossing his arms over his chest. “Do you intend to head into the north, as well?”

Kakere nodded, and smiled.

“But water is difficult to find as you head north from Parousia, and
near impossible once you reach the Eastern Desert. How would you survive?”

“That tree really did a number on me,” Kakere answered, gesturing to his bare, blue skin. “I've had barely a sip of water in the last two days, and I still feel perfectly fine. And on top of that, I've not had a single craving for alcohol since the tree touched me. I'm not quite sure what I am now, but I don't think I'm exactly an Ichthyandaro anymore.”

“That is as it should be,” Spatha said. She reached up and touched her left cheek, now smooth and unmarred. “Thou are no longer the fish man of thy earlier days, and I am no longer the citizen cadet I have been these many years. Perhaps we are each the first of a new model, each a new type of our species.”

Spatha reached out, and her hand found Kakere's. Their fingers laced together, and they turned to Leena and the others, hand in hand.

“I can't really explain it, but it's like some bond has developed between us, these past few days,” Kakere said.

“Since the trees of Keir-Leystall changed you?” Leena asked. She wondered what changes the strange machines might have wrought to their minds, as well as their bodies.

“Perhaps.” Spatha nodded.

“Or maybe even earlier, when you saved me from those Tannim,” Kakere said, looking lovingly at the woman at his side.

“Perhaps,” Spatha said, and smiled.

With that, the pair turned and started to walk towards the north. When they had gone but a few steps, Kakere glanced back over his shoulder, smiling broadly.

“Good-bye, everybody! It was really nice meeting you.” Kakere waved eagerly.

Spatha turned back, too, and nodded. “Best of fortune, Akilina, and may thou find the object of thy quest.”

Leena waved, awkwardly, and turned to Hieronymus and Balam, who watched the retreating pair with expressions intermingling confusion
and amusement. Kakere and Spatha were by now dozens of meters away, making good time across the uneven ground.

“Well,
that
was unexpected,” she said.

“It's like they say, I suppose,” Hieronymus answered, shaking his head. “The heart finds comfort where it may.”

“What?” Balam said. “You believe that this is of their own choosing, and not some desire implanted by the twisted trees of Keir-Leystall?”

Hieronymus shrugged. “Who can say? But I've seen stranger love matches in my time, both here and on Earth, and who am I to judge?”

Balam sighed, and his eyes followed the pair as they walked into the distance. “Pity. She was a magnificent woman, despite her sundry flaws.”

“Ah, take heart, old friend.” Hieronymus clapped the jaguar man on the shoulder. “She was much too dainty for the likes of you. I'm sure we'll find someone more to your tastes when we reach Hele.”

From behind them came the voice of Benu. They turned and saw him standing in the middle of the road a few meters away, tapping his toes impatiently.

“Should I begin work on constructing my next body now?” the artificial man called. “I won't need it for another thousand solar years, but at the pace we're going, we may not have moved from this spot by then.”

Leena, Hieronymus, and Balam joined him, laughing, and the company, now once more a quartet, made their way towards the south.