The Bird and The Dragon

11-345 The Three Kings’ Land

The trees’ straight shadows reached the river, which passed the forest in a carefully sealed, stone-inlaid channel. In the East, a trench separated the trees from the water. Its purpose was to prevent the roots from reaching the river. On the western side, the forest grew to the shoreline, which it followed keeping an even two-meter distance from the water with no pruning required. Patrik and Esrau walked by the grassy embankment between the river and the trench.

The disagreement about the dragon threatened to grow into a conflict when the nocturna chose sides between commander Wratski and Esrau, who still called himself a captain. Wratski had named the subject a strategic decision and thus her responsibility. Esrau on the other hand had foresworn his oaths to the seventeenth dropship troops and was establishing a new company.

Patrik had discovered that the dragon had a solid connection to the nocturna culture, history, and way of life. For the nocturna, the decision to leave the old behind was not a simple subject. It was not only about the perceived loyalty but about the planetary biological machines and their maintenance, for these subjects were strongly affiliated with the Three and the nocturna. The nocturna didn’t shy from an internal conflict, but they shared a feeling of responsibility towards the forests, and any action to shake the ecological system was frowned upon.

In the north Anhava had physically recovered, but his mind often lost itself to alien memories, which prevented him from regaining his duties as the commander. Patrik had taken that position, but now he was helping Esrau as a token of trust, telling the ainadu side of the story to the nocturna.

Astrida had things under control in the North. She didn’t question Agiisha or Patrik but kept things strictly professional. Patrik was missing the intimate moments and times when Astrida had shown the personality she usually hid behind the role her position required. The man hoped it was only a matter of time before he got Astrida to forgive him for siding with the attack on Agiisha.

“I understand your concept of honor, but killing Wratski would be the simplest solution to this problem,” Patrik said to Esrau while they walked on. His bone and muscle had healed, but the wounded arm was still weak and the cut in the shoulder blade had left a colored scar where his skin dried and itched.

“It would only turn them against us. I understand the necessity of our cooperation, but a forced solution will not work. We must continue persuading them; you gave a good speech today, your best one so far,” Esrau’s appraisal was honest.

Patrik had perfected his role as the enemy who had learned the truth about history. He told the nocturna about the ainadu past and their rebellion, the life under the dragons’ reign. Patrik based his speeches on Khiandri’s stories and the scarce northern literature. The more Patrik had learned the more he had found he sympathized Agiisha. He still did not accept the dragon’s betrayal of Khiandri and didn’t trust the creature. Under the evidence, however, Agiisha’s actions were almost justifiable and Agiisha was the lesser evil compared to her siblings.

A small flock of birds flew out from the forest before them. A dozen fist-sized birds with pale wings circled over the trench like guided by a tether and continued their flight back to the forest. Patrik had never seen birds fly from one forest to another, they always seemed to stay inside one forest like they knew where they belonged. A little later the same flock appeared farther along the embankment and again they performed their circling maneuver to disappear between the trees.

“What are they doing?” Patrik asked.

“That indicates disruption in the signals.” Esrau stopped and raised his binoculars when the flock of birds appeared again. Patrik waited controlling his initial urge to flee. The forest whose birds behaved oddly was one of the dangerous, but necessary ones. It synthesized the widely used powder which was used together with other substances to build lightweight, but strong structures that could be molded to almost any shape before they cured.

The forest was prone to fires and explosions; preventing direct water contact with the root system was one of the main precautions. The forest was also known to emit poisonous gas in response to any disturbance.

“Is it safe anymore?” Patrik asked.

“The perimeter is stabilized and the forest itself is under proper care. It is but a minor trouble.” Esrau answered, but Patrik was considering if he should swim over the river just to be on the safe side.

Esrau noticed his anxiety. “It is not going to explode. But I must check a thing. You never know if you find people injecting unknown substances in the roots.”

“Those folks don’t know what they are doing,” Patrik agreed, deciding to trust the nocturna and Esrau laughed aloud.

“I didn’t let you burn then, and it will not happen today. Come with me, knowledge might even cure your fear of the forests.”

Esrau turned to walk into the forest using the natural corridor between the tree rows. Patrik had already learned to recognize the actively producing edge trees from the thicker and darker control trees, which often had birds nesting in their vine-covered branches. There were also other tree types, the wide-stemmed ones affecting the liquids in the root system, the trees that stored the growth factors, and the mothertrees to initiate and guide the entire process.

Patrik had never seen a mothertree. Without exceptions, there was always a clearing of five or more missing trees in the middle of the forest, bare from the undergrowth and impregnated with the forest’s products. Years ago he had seen a clearing where soil had been almost solid from the metals and stuck to a magnet in long strips.

“The smell is normal,” Esrau commented and proceeded to the fifth row from the edge. The trunks were close to fifteen meters tall and their branches pointed steeply downwards, covered by long needles. Patrik thought the trees resembled shaggy, heavily used bottle cleaners. Even their uneven coloring in different shades of green fitted the image.

The nocturna stopped beside a specimen, whose trunk spread as a group of protruding, heavily veined roots like the tree was devouring the soil with tentacles.

“Touch it,” Esrau pushed the branches away.

“Is it supposed to be warm?” The bark under Patrik’s fingers was coarse but surprisingly soft and had vertical, warm areas.

“This is the normal temperature. Now we’ll check the liquids.” The nocturna gave Patrik a serrated knife and ushered him to cut the bark open near the stem.

“Have you forgotten the last time I worked with the trees?”

“I would like to experiment with your matrixes, but in another forest, strategej.”

Patrik pushed the blade into the pointed place. Penetrating the bark needed considerable effort and the cut started to leak warm, tart gas. Patrik took a step back, but Esrau gestured for him to continue. “Go on, the flow will soon stop.”

The leakage stopped, but its smell filled the air when Patrik opened the bark and wedged the thick slip open with his knee under Esrau’s guidance. The tree below was dark, fibrous, and growing in segments, which followed the roots. They vibrated slowly.

“You’ll get used to the smell. Now cut between the two thick nodules. Try to reveal the layer below. Carefully, it might spill.”

Patrik could taste the awful odor in his throat, but luckily, he was losing his sense of smell. He took a grip of the knife with his better hand and cut. Pale, sticky liquid busted out carrying white grains.

“It is harmless unless you heat it. There is nothing that would live inside the human body,” Esrau said. Patrik cut deeper and cautiously removed a piece of the fibrous structure. Underneath was a yellowish, sponge-like layer, connecting to the fibers with countless, hairy filaments. Esrau kneeled next to Patrik and pressed his fingertip to the cut, it gave way and red liquid rose.

“The red indicates the metabolic normal for this forest. It could be lighter in color, but this one grows in an old collision crater, so the environment is not optimal. But do you see how those filaments stay red? They should turn blue when they are exposed to air. It means that there is a leakage somewhere. You can close this one.” Esrau said.

“What do you mean by leakage?” Patrik filled the cut he had made with paste from a tube Esrau gave and glued the bark back in place. Esrau’s explanation was turning the forests in his head from erratic monsters into controllable organisms, something you could learn to use.

“A tree has fallen somewhere in the forest, and the root system has failed to seal it.”

“And that forces the birds to fly in circles?”

“Indeed. These primitive forests lack most of the finer details of the control system and their responses are often illogical and sometimes outright dangerous. Let’s find that tree.” Esrau rose and walked away.

The forest covered almost a square kilometer. Finding a fallen tree was supposed to be easy as the trees grew in neat rows, but no trunks were on the ground. Patrik and Esrau walked to the northern part of the forest, where they found a whole tree was missing. A fresh stump was protruding from the ground, leaking liquid and smelly gas. Fibrous shreds were around and at least three ruined sawblades were abandoned on the ground.

Esrau looked around frowning. There were tracks of the trunk having been lugged away.

“Should that one be there?” Patrik pointed to a metal pipe almost buried in the dried liquid and the residual tree material.

“Now it makes sense. Kristal burners. But why have they taken the trunk?” Esrau said.

Patrik understood the liquids had been collected. “Is this that drug they sell as an intoxicant in Shibasa?” he asked incredulously. The South provided a wide variety of drugs but falling a tree in the middle of the continent felt inefficient and unnecessarily complicated production process.

“This is but a raw material for that. The refining process starts with burning the liquid. The gases from the burning process are capable of exploding. Because of that the kristal is burned outside the inhabited areas. This looks like someone has decided to try the old recipe of the inwood and this is a wrong trunk for that one.”

“Yes, kristal is illegal, but I don’t follow you, Esrau. I haven’t spent my lifetime climbing the trees like you.”

“Your little sister Marci can hear the forests’ communication and the artificials. The inwood is a cheap version of that, where a drugged person is put inside a trunk where he or she lies in contact with the filaments. A living tree is used, mind you, and certainly not a production unit like this one.”

Esrau explained a little more about the old forest maintenance protocol, which had been turned into a mind-expanding experience. It was believed to create contact between the forest and the olds. “You get only an asphyxia and a species-related poisoning. Luckily, these tree-fellers have gone to the safer area to do their testing,” Esrau sighed.

“Is this a common phenomenon?”

“It’s seasonal. Now we have to wait and if they get into trouble, we’ll help. Sometimes the stupidity of humankind is unaccountable.”

Patrik shook his head at the idea of drunken people in the forest. He agreed with Esrau. It was probably best to let things proceed towards their natural end. If Esrau tried to prevent anything it would only encourage new people to test such forbidden protocol.