Today she was inside the dream.
That was what it felt like to Maeneb, although it was perhaps not so much dream as memory. Once the Riders left the close-knit woods behind, and the trees lengthened and become more widely spaced in stately isolation, it was like some clear, sharp recollection of when she was a child and everything was giant. But she had never come here as a child.
On that first visit, eleven years ago, Farwithiel had filled her both with wonder and a sense of drowning. Maeneb had had no consciousness of coming home. Nor did she now. She was stuck between two countries, two heritages, and belonged to neither.
All she had left to her was her task. Farwithiel stripped everything else away. The trees grew still more massive, more majestic: she saw before her striped ranks of great pillars, pale gold and red and grey and silver-white and earth-brown. Trees that grew nowhere else, that had no name that she knew of. Some rose above huge buttresses of roots; others held out enormous horizontal branches in defiance of gravity; a few tall ones had no boughs at all save at the top where they rose into the mist that kept them hidden.
It was not silent. There were small animals: Maeneb saw the signs of darrowfox and badger, cat and slinking fangol, although the muffled voices that she detected from them – with more colour and less shape than human voices – were subdued and wary. Even the horses knew that this was no ordinary forest. Yet the birds were carefree, half-seen flashes of brightness that swooped and frolicked high up in the branches.
She glanced round at the other riders. Rothir had Eled in front of him today, and all his attention seemed fixed on his friend. But Parthenal gazed upwards with a slightly stricken look upon his face. He felt it too, then: the awe that turned an individual to nothing. You had to fight it or accept.
In front of Parthenal and held up by his arm Yaret swayed in the saddle, pale and sweating. Her eyes were closed but her lips moved, murmuring inaudible words. She looked more feverish than yesterday.
Tiburé too was pale, though not with fever; and it would hardly be with fear. Tiburé was a fighter, not an accepter. Maeneb knew that submission was difficult for her, even to the Farwth. Perhaps especially to the Farwth. But you could only be here on its terms.
At least it seemed they had its leave to enter. They had not been sent through wayward paths to the outer reaches of the forest. That had happened to Maeneb once, on a previous visit; the Riders had not been allowed in, but had found themselves back in the thin scrubland east of the Thore. Both she and the land had felt desolate: abandoned and alone.
But this time they were not abandoned. They were approaching the heart of Farwithiel, the horses’ soft tread muted by the dense mulch of leaves underfoot. And still the trees grew silently before them and made them diminish in comparison. Maeneb realised with something of a shock that the path that opened to the Riders between the mighty trees seemed to be leading not to the habitations of the Wardens but to the Farwth itself. She bowed her head and mentally prepared what she must say.
There is no need, the Farwth said. I know it.
They all stopped. That meant they had all heard it, perhaps even the horses. Yet the voice had been soundless. It was the strongest and most unforgettable of all voices that Maeneb had ever known, yet she heard it only in her mind.
She looked round at the others. They were all staring, except for Yaret. Even Eled’s eyes were wide and wondering.
“What do you know?” said Rothir aloud. Tiburé made a shushing gesture at him with her hand. But he ignored her and went on. “Do you know our plight? Will you help us?”
I know your needs, the Farwth said. I cannot help them all.
“We do not ask you to help them all,” said Maeneb. She found that she was trembling, and had an idea that if she had not been sitting on the horse her legs would have given way beneath her. This was worse than the last time, which had been only a few weeks ago. But last time, the Wardens had been here to mediate.
She felt the path beckon. The Farwth was inviting them further in.
“Come on,” she said breathlessly, and with a surge of resolve she made Shoda move. They walked on, a small, thin string of horses with too many riders. Too much damage in their midst. The Farwth could not help them all.
Still, they were here, and there was a wonder in that fact alone, because she was closer now to the Farwth itself than she had ever been before. The tree trunks had grown to the breadth of houses, their bark engraved with intensely intricate patterns of cracks that were many inches deep. The lowest branches, close above their heads, were thicker than the horses’ bodies. Maeneb felt alarm at that vast tonnage of timber just overhead; she knew that it was in the Farwth’s control. If it wanted to release a branch and crush them all, it could. She had to trust that it would not.
And then ahead of them the forest seemed to close in and to concentrate itself. Between the massive trunks rose a thickening multitude of stems and looping vines and twining creepers and aerial roots and clustered leaves, all forming a dense, impenetrable gathering of wood and stalk and foliage. It might have been all one tree were it not that there were so many varieties of leaf and bark. It was perhaps six hundred yards across: a mile around. It smelt strongly sweet and earthy, fragrant, wet. A fine rain dripped from the outer trees. Everywhere was damp.
The heart of the Farwth, she thought; although the Farwth was much greater than this. They had already been walking through it for hours, for the Farwth was in part Farwithiel, although Farwithiel was not the Farwth. It extended for many miles in each direction; and deep underground, by its roots, it reached much further – for it was connected to all the land north of the Darkburn and east of the Thore, and maybe beyond that too. Thousands of square miles. From those long linking root systems it gathered knowledge, accumulating it in its slow store. How old the Farwth was could not be told. Ten thousand years perhaps. Maybe much older.
Maeneb had never had a home. She had fled Caervonn with her mother when it fell. But even before that, her mother had never been accepted fully by the aristocracy of Caervonn, because of her strange half-breed illegitimate child. By Huldarion she had been accepted: and to Huldarion they went when he set up his base in exile in the tents of Thield. But that was hardly a home either.
Now, standing before the rustling mass of the Farwth, she had stepped inside a dream where the strange became familiar, a long-known, long-lost, forgotten part of her. She was so used to seeing herself as of little importance that submission to the Farwth came easily. Not that it actively demanded submission. But its size and power were humbling.
She could not help herself. “I am nothing,” she said silently.
You are Maeneb. That is more than a name. The words must have been for her alone to hear, because there was no reaction from the others.
“I have often felt less than a name. Less than a Warden. Less than a Rider.” She could say this because she knew that only the Farwth heard it.
But she was aware that it was foolish of her to make that confession, especially now. It was not what she was here for. She had a job to do. So she spoke aloud.
“We come to beg your mercy, Farwth.”
Behind her Rothir stirred.
“We do not beg for your mercy,” he said strongly. “We ask you for your hospitality, for two of us who are badly wounded.”
I know it. This time it was evident that all could hear the voice, including Eled who looked up in awe. Only Yaret still seemed oblivious.
“Then you know that they need care,” said Rothir. “Will you send your Wardens to us?”
They waited.
Do you command me?
“You know what I am thinking,” Rothir said.
Do you think that you can bend the forest to your will?
“I can if necessary.” The way in which he said this frightened Maeneb.
You would risk that damage for the sake of two sick people?
“For whom I am responsible,” said Rothir.
“For whom we are all responsible,” put in Tiburé, with a frown at Rothir, “and for whom we–”
I see your heart, the Farwth said, which is more than you do.
“Then you see my resolve,” said Rothir.
You do not understand it yourself. And forcing me to do your will would not benefit you in the long run.
“We are not trying to force you,” said Tiburé, with another admonitory frown.
Rothir ignored it. “I am not interested in the long run.”
You should be. Humans often forget to look the longer distance.
Rothir stared at the Farwth. He drew in a long breath and said evenly, “True. I will not try to force you. But will you help us now?”
The Wardens will be sent. Lay the wounded ones down over there.
Maeneb turned around. As if stirred by an unfelt wind, vines and creepers moved aside from the trunk of a gigantic tree that might have been a beech if it were smaller. She saw that it was partly hollow: inside its wide mouth there was enough shelter for several people to lie down or even stand in.
This type of shelter too was something new to Maeneb. Last time they had been permitted to stay only in the Wardens’ cottages: strange structures woven out of living willow, two or three miles away. She had never expected to be allowed to linger this close to the Farwth.
“Why?” said Tiburé. “Why are you doing this?” She sounded almost accusing.
They will rest better here. They are harmless. I know them both.
“You know one of them,” said Maeneb. “You know Eled, who came here with us recently. But the other one is called Yaretkoro, and is a woman from a far land–”
Near the Bander Forest. I know it also. And I know her through her ancestor that was called Madeo.
“The bard?” said Rothir. “Her ancestor?” He looked at Yaret who seemed not to be hearing any of this. Her head was lolling and her body was held on the horse only by Parthenal.
“Help me get her down,” said Parthenal roughly. Rothir jumped off Narba and together they lifted her to the ground where she lay in an untidy heap, ragged and bloody. They carried her inside the hollow tree, which was lined with moss, and yet was dry where everything else seemed to be damp. After setting her down, they next helped Eled in and propped him on the cushioned mossy floor beside her. He winced; a rare groan escaped him as Tiburé tried to ease his broken leg.
Maeneb felt superfluous. She could not assist the others. She was useless to the injured. There was nothing for her to do here: it had all been done without her, even the negotiations.
“Thank you for getting us this far,” said Parthenal quietly to her, and she nodded. At least she had not failed in that.
And now she could see a group of Wardens walking towards them through the trees: so the Farwth must have sent for them some time ago. To her relief her father was not amongst them.
You are more than your father’s daughter.
Maeneb stood stock still. Nobody else seemed to have heard. She thought there was no more to come, but after a while the great voice added, as if thoughtfully:
A human is of many parts, just like a tree.