By Hannah Christensen
Humans let flow their own streams of words, pour out word in rivers. They are creatures of motion, creatures of change, and all they do or say tumbles out in a living stream upon the world, to leave its mark, large or small. Their words and actions gush forward, always flowing forward, never able to be pulled back again.
I, on the other hand, have roots. I catch words, grow them, and when the time is ripe, drop them like sweet fruits into ears below.
Beneath me now is a peddler who often follows this path. He tips one of my pitcher shaped leaves to his mouth and whispers, “Good morning.” The words drop gently in, where they lodge at the base of the leaf. I seal them safely off and cap them with a liquid layer of minerals. Copper, mainly—common in the soil here, but of good use. Just like his words. The man waits patiently below until the carrier sap dries and crumbles away, dropping the flat metal cap into his outstretched hand.
He smiles. I taste the sweetness along the velvety bristles of my branches, but also smell the contours from his face. When I focus, I can make out more detail with my oldar than a bat can with its sonar. The wilted leaf drifts to the ground. I bend a new one toward him, hopeful. He begins to lift a hand, but then his head jerks to the side. Distress pheromones come so strongly it is hard to sense him drawing away. For a moment I worry one of Yasha’s servants has come so far, but then I feel it. The sharp stomping footsteps reverberate to my roots. Waves of fury and indignation wash over me. I cannot blame the peddler from moving one, and hope that widow Minka is going somewhere else for once. I am considering the cost of dropping all my leaves low enough for her to reach when she seizes one and begins to hiss into it.
“That pudding brained Kasia wouldn’t recognize a rotten eel if you filled her nose with it!”
The words twist bitterly down into the base of the leaf. I can feel their caustic poison wizening the receiving pod. I seal off that leaf’s base as quickly as possible. Too many words like that will make a purge necessary. The wilted leaf falls away, and a large grain of salt falls into the widow’s hand. Spluttering, she throws it away and reaches for another leaf. “Worthless!” she exclaims.
I seal that one off, this time with a copper heavy layer, hoping that will content her and encourage her to go away. She does not throw the copper fenfig[1] away, but grabs another leaf. It all comes from that old saying, “Give your words to a fenfig tree for safe keeping.” People come to me with secrets that lay heavy on their tongue, with words better left unsaid, with advice they could not get an ear to listen to, with confessions they fear to lay bare. They do not understand that giving their words to me does not keep them from growing, from coming to fruit. It merely changes where that fruit will land. My leaves change the course of the words, but do not keep them from flowing.
Widow Minka rants into the cupped leaf until it is weak and yellow and crisp around the edges. She is offended when it crumbles in her hand and leaves behind no fenfig, not even a morsel of salt. The tip of the swollen base oozes dark fluids. When she walks away, I begin sealing off the branch. I hope one of my friends will come along and take it to be burned.
Fenfig trees do not often have friends. We are wide scattered, even before Yasha began his destruction. Even from my perch on the cliff, it is rare that I scent a trace of another of my kind. My two friends are Kelemen the magi, whom has not passed by for crow’s grip of seasons now, and Gavril.[2] I feel the voices of two of his Delivered[3] now.
“Now remember, they must get to the Amber pass.” The kargosh’s voice was almost as twitchy as its long, pointed nose. “The Amber pass. It’s the Yellow River that Yasha’s soldiers have been seen heading up.”
The chamgadar it is talking to sways in almost a waddle as it hurries along. Its long tail writhes in excitement. “Yes, yes, send the Roamers to defend the Amber pass at once.” The squat creature turns its pudgy nose upward. “It sound’s like an emergency, doesn’t it?”
“Absolutely. Remember to go to both the Broadleaf and the Mudhollow encampments. Don’t lose any time.” The kargosh pauses to stretch up on its powerful hind legs and test the air with long, delicate nose and even longer, more delicate ears, though crisscrossed with scars.
“Right.” Anticipation shimmers from the chamgadar. “Broadleaf and Mudhollow.” It bunches itself up and springs for my trunk. Its sharp little claws dig in enough to tickle.
“Wait! Not up there! You’ll vex the flimmers!” The Kargosh runs a tight little circle. “Linu!”
“This way is faster. Broadleaf, Mudhollow, and—Amber Pass!” The chamgardar leaps from my branch and spreads wide the folded skin web hidden in folds of velvety fur to soar toward the treeline below.
“Linu!” The Kargosh wails. “Lord Gavril cares about the flimmer birds.”
The words drop to the ground, unheeded, as the chamgardar lands heavily on a branch and scuttles higher. The words are too good to waste. I send out a root runner to save them from settling into the ground before I can get them safely into a leaf.
Sounds of disturbed flimmer birds mark the path of the chamgadar through the treetops. From the shrill calls, more than one egg has been damaged.
In a spray of days, the distress coming from the south grows. Now it is more than the chatter of disturbed birds. The very air is acidic harsh and strained with fear. It is not yet as oppressive as the air that pressed against my seedpod when I wafted up from my progenitor’s twig, but I fear Yasha has made his mark yet again. I scent especially for the distress call of dossamer trees. Gavril scattered dossamer seedlings all throughout that valley after he thrust out the servants of Yasha in his youth. It was the dossamer trees that have drawn the lead from the ground and allowed life regain its hold in the valley. One day I hope to receive the pollen to grow offspring[4], but without dossamer trees the valley will be no place for roots to dig in. There are already few enough good places for fenfig trees to grow.
One day the flimmer birds begin to shrill again. The sun has not moved far after that when I hear scolding.
“Get down, Linu! If we all fall sick from fever flies, I shall know who to blame.”
The sultry smell that accompanies grumbling grows, bursting out into the open surrounding Gavril’s messenger creatures. The Kargosh is still scolding.
“If traveling through the trees is so much faster, why did it take you so long to get back?”
“I wasn’t traveling the whole time. I stayed to help with the battle. Only it wasn’t a proper battle. Those goons didn’t dare try to come upriver with us in the pass battlements. Then they sabotaged themselves by catapulting at the sides of the cliff walls and bringing the rocks down to dam up the river.” For the length of a bee’s hovering over a flower, the sultry smell dims and gives way to a more somber musk. “If I hadn’t taken to the air, I would have died when the battlements fell.”
“The battlements fell? Is the pass safe? How many dead and injured?” The kargosh’s tail curls tightly.
“We only found one wounded.” The chamgadar waddled faster. “I stayed to help until they sent me back to bring word to Lord Gavril. They sent me because I was the fastest. You would go faster, too, if you weren’t always going around ditches and boulders and tree trunks. Why do you think Lord Gavril has you practicing on your balance?”
The kargosh sits up sharply, the runs around to face its companion. “We ought not to climb trees. You know what Lord Gavril says about the flimmer birds.”
The chamgadar ignores it, even when the kargosh races in circles around it.
I taste the air from the south, comparing it to this news. Is this the distress I have been smelling? Perhaps. There are many who would feel distress at the attack and collapse of the pass, and the flooding of the area would cause more disruption, from both the rooted and agile.
In the following days, the winds bring news of distress from several directions. There is blood and smoke from the mountains in the north, and the valley below frequently has disruptions from wandering enemies. I am too high up for them to touch me, but it has been long since the enemy’s creatures have troubled those marshlands. Visits grow sparse, as those few whose business demands them pass by this isolated way hurry to finish their work and return home.
A few days after the north winds begin to blow more clear, Gavril comes to visit. He is almost as weary as the first time we met, with the scents of war thick about him, but does not carry the stench of despair he did that time[5]. He lays his head against my trunk. The edges of his weariness dissolve slightly. “It is good to see you, friend.” He lets the words drop gently into a leaf. They are good words, words good enough to grow a flower from one day. I drop a golden fenfig into the folds of his clothes, but he does not move to take it.
“Yasha has certainly inflicted losses, but has not been able to get a foothold past the mountains.” He reaches beneath his leather jerkin. “We also were able to make a rescue during the battle. Meet Inder.” He pulls out a kachwa. The little creature’s head is pulled as far as it will go into its soft, oval shell. Its feet are bare of claws and raw. An aura of decay lingers around it. “Look what Yasha did to him, the villain. He had wedges of some vile alloy strapped to his feet that sickened the ground where they splintered off as he tried to dig. Two of my men lie dead from handling it. Yasha’s army drivers themselves quailed when threatened by it. Inder is strong indeed to not be dead.” Gavril gently rubs a finger down the soft shell. The kachwa studies him with its head still pulled back, but seems calm.
“He needs more time to heal, but has been too agitated at my place. Even the back garden has too many visitors.”
Fenfig trees tend to be solitary, but that varies from individual to individual. I know of that garden. The soil there is good, and there is place for a tree to stretch its branches. There would be many words there, perhaps too many, but Gavril would cultivate good words in those of his household. Perhaps one day I will ask him if he would house a seedling there, if he does not need the space for his many rescues.
I carefully select a ripe fruit held close with a curled stem. Uncurling the woody branch, I drop it on the ground near Gavril’s feet. The collected words waft up.
“People, people everywhere! I can’t get away from them.”[6]
“Exactly.” Gavril’s smile permeates his whole being. “I was hoping I could leave him your care. You get fewer visitors than I do, and I think he would be comfortable here.”
This time I pick the words from a washerwoman pleased with the silver fenfig I had just dropped to her. “I’ll do business with you anytime.”
Gavril laughs. “Business, is it? I’ll expect regular reports, then.” He sits down and settles with his back against my trunk to administer one last dose of ointment to the creature’s injured feet. At first the kachwa tenses, but then slowly relaxes until its head is mostly out in the open. “He’s eaten most of the grubs I’ve fed him, but only nibbled at the parsnip roots.”
My own roots curl in sympathy.
“Don’t worry.” Gavril lays a comforting hand against my bark. “He won’t hurt you. All he’ll want from your roots is a place to hide.” Gently he places the creature on the ground where it hurries to prove Gavril’s prediction true. Hidden under a looped root, it tucks itself in slowly falls to sleep.
Over the next few days it rarely comes out, and then only to seek food. The poor creature cannot grub about in the dirt properly for meals. I drop a few fruits nearby to help attract bugs. The first few times it startles into its shell at every burst of words, but in time only cocks its head up at me. I wonder if this is a creature that Yasha has stripped of speech, or if it is naturally silent. It does not have the look of a naturally dumb beast, but I do not know much of kachwas.
Gavril is right about the creature’s strength. In a few weeks, its feet smell freshly healed and have the beginnings of claws scratching from the edges. Still, it is wary of even scratching up the dirt and prefers to spend the greater part of the days resting in the shadows.
It is good to have the comfort of a companion, especially as the distress from the south grows. The dossamer trees are crying out, and I worry. Gavril does not come to visit. Wafts of war drift down from the north from time to time, so he is certain to be busy. Still, if the dossamer trees are in distress, the south merits his attention, and soon, especially so soon after the death of so many Rovers.
The visitors are still far between, so I am glad to see Gavril’s kargosh coming down the path. I look for the proper words, but it seems to be going in the right direction. Perhaps word has come to Gavril already and he is sending a messenger to investigate.
The kargosh slows down and twitches a look back. Then it stretches up against a tree at the bottom of my rill and begins to climb. Its ascent is slower than that of the chamgadar, but moving along the limbs it picks up its pace. When it comes to a nest, it hops over, clearing the nest nicely and only slipping a little in the landing. Approaching the end of the branch, it picks up speed. The nest bounces causing the bird roosting there to trill a protest.
Just as the branch grows too thin to stay on, the kargosh leaps for the next tree. It crosses the gap, but does not make a secure landing. With front legs curled tightly around the branch and powerful hind legs thrashing, the kargosh is jolting a nearby flimmer nest so hard the eggs tumble out one by one.
A shout rises from the nearby path. The passing woodcutter throws down his ax and runs toward the thrashing creature. Taking off his jacket, he swings it at the kargosh. The kargosh startles free and falls. The woodcutter pounces and throws his jacket over the stunned creature.
“I always thought this truck with the enemy’s creatures would end in no good,” declares the woodcutter. “Wait til I show him what his precious talking animal’s been up to.”
The kargosh’s protest is weak even for being muffled in a coat. This will delay any action toward the dossamer trees. Suddenly I worry that everything is a distraction, a diversion from the dossamer trees. If they are in danger, the entire valley is in danger. Yasha does not need to hold it to destroy it, to send decay creeping back through the land, even to the tips of my roots.
I feel the pain almost as if I had already lost a seedling. I search, but cannot find the right words. The woodcutter is out of reach now, on his way back up the path to the village. I must find another way.
The only other one nearby is the resting kachwa. It does not sleep, merely rests beneath my roots. I do not know if it is able to make such a journey, but I must ask. This is, after all, a creature of movement, while I am rooted. Carefully, I uncoil the fruit grown from words when Gavril first introduced me to a dossamer seedling: “Meet the restorers of the land. We just have to protect them from sulphoid.” He will understand. I gently uncoil the stem to lay the fruit softly on the ground, in tact and unspoken.
The kachwa opens its eyes and pushes its nose out a little, watching.
I find another fruit. This one I drop, letting the words back into the air. There is the sound of a throat clearing, then, “Lord Gavril, I…no, let me try again.”
I wait.
The kachwa stares at the intact fruit.
I wait some more.
It slowly pushes out of its shell and comes forward to gently pick up the fruit in its mouth.
My leaves shiver to smell the valuable words enclosed in danger, but I wait some more.
The kachwa awkwardly tucks the fruit into the front of its shell. Its neck pushes out at a clumsy angle now. Plodding out into the open, it shuffles around for a good place, and then begins to dig.
At first the progress is slower that the creature’s walk, but little by little the speed picks up. Even underground, I can track the creature’s progress. My roots feel the digging, the scraping of the earth. Soon the kachwa is favoring a toe, but does not slow. I hope the trip will not destroy the healing gained in its feet, but more, I hope the message gets safely to Gavril.
The sun falls and rises, and is low again before a commotion of men bearing staves and swords and torches hurry down the road at my feet and into the valley. Hope grows.
Almost a week later, the men return, slower and more strung out, but not in smaller numbers. Last of all comes Gavril with a Rover and one of the warriors of his household. He pulls away from them, waving them on as he walks his horse up the rise to where I stand.
“Thank you for the message,” he says. “We almost lost the dossamer trees. Yasha poured sulphoid[7] down one of the mountain streams that empties into the Yellow River. With the dam there, it was poisoning the whole area. It took days to burn away enough to get at the rocks and break them open.” His shoulders sag as he remembers the labor. Then he looks up, a flicker of humor lightening his weariness. “You didn’t do as well with your trust, I fear.” He opens a saddlebag and carefully pulls out the kachwa. “Poor Inder doesn’t look particularly better than when I left him with you.”
All but one claw is gone, and the creature’s feet smell of fresh blood, but its head is out and lifted.
Gavril carefully places the kachwa on the ground. “Do you want another chance?”
I stretch a stem out, barely catching the words in a leaf before they hit the ground. My friend’s mouth drops treasures.
“I could carry him around with me, but I think he would rather a place more solid than the back of a horse.”
The kachwa finds a nook in my roots, but does not pull under cover. Legs planted and head still out, it looks pleased and well established.
I will gladly house this creature of motion for my friend. We will do well here together, with a place to collect sun on our leaves and listen to the world moving by. We will listen and watch and guard together.
I am a fenfig tree, and my roots grow firm.
[1]Entymological note: The word ‘fenfig’ in time morphed into the word ‘pfenning’, which in turn devolved into ‘penny’
[2]Kelemen would not manage another visit in his old age, but in time the tree would find another friend in a boy named Tomi
[3]Ever since as a boy hunting down the creatures of the enemy, Gavril had shot a gilahri spreading acid death to everything it touched, only to find it muzzled and smeared heavily in the same poison it spread while trying to escape the pain, he had made it a point to try to rescue the captured creatures of Yasha. The fighters he still made war on.
[4]Fenfig trees grow their fruits first, which can be preserved for years next to the trunk high up. The seeds remain infertile until a flower is grown and pollen received into it. A seed pod then develops, and the fruit drops away to leave room to develop a silky sail. Even on a prolific fenfig tree, comparatively few fruits are chosen for flowering.
[5]When Gavril first came on the fenfig tree, he had been waging war with Yasha’s armies, who always retreated to their strongholds in the southern valley to come attack again. Discouraged, he debated within himself whether it was better to abandon his homeland to seek a place where Yasha’s arm did not reach, or to encase his land in walls and fortresses, and eventually be surrounded and besieged as Yasha’s might spread. His wonder at finding a fenfig tree so near when none had been seen or heard of for decades gave him heart, and he decided that rather than retreat, he would throw his mantle of protection farther out, and clean out Yasha’s armies from their valley fortresses so that they could no longer attack from there.
[6]These words were from a frazzled hermit. Immediately afterwards, he stepped back and exclaimed, “And now I’m talking to a tree!”
[7]Gavril’s mother had died of sulphoid poisoning from a contaminated pool. He himself had accidentally discovered the way to purge the waters years later when, as the men debated whether they should stay or flee, he had run to the pool that had poisoned his mother and yelled, “Yasha, you took my father, you took my mother, you aren’t going to take my home, too!” and then threw a firebrand into the water. He was as taken aback as anyone to see the entire surface of the water go up in flames, and went back without his eyebrows to tell the village.
Octopencil 