The gnats continued to hum about me, trying to settle and sting as I climbed up onto one of the huge stumps. I could have hosted a dinner party for twelve on top of it. The additional height gave me just enough of a vantage to see into the forest beyond the barrier of brambles.
Only in my dreams had I seen such a place. The trees on the hill above me made the stump I stood on seem a sapling. The trunks of some of the trees were as big around as watchtowers, and like watchtowers, they soared toward the sky. Their lower trunks were straight and limbless, and the bark was rumpled and fissured. High over my head, the bark looked smoother, and that was where the branches began. The smoother bark was not rough and brown, but a softly mottled blend of greens, hazels, and red-brown splotches. The leaves were immense, at least the size of dinner platters. The branches of each tree interlaced and meshed with others, forming a dense mat of foliage overhead. Beneath those trees, there was little underbrush, only deep carpets of leaf mold and a silence that seemed part of the permanent twilight under those behemoths.
Never in my life had I seen such trees.
Yet I had.
Not in this flesh, but as my other self. I knew it, and then the knowledge flickered away from me. I reached after it, knowing it was immensely important, but again it was concealed. I took a deep breath and sat very still. I closed my eyes for a moment, focusing my concentration. He was part of me; we were one. What he knew, I could know. What was the significance of the trees?
My eyes flew open.
The trees were alive. They loomed over me. There were faces in their rumpled bark, not faces such as men had, but the faces of the trees themselves. They looked down upon me, and I cowered. They were so full of knowing. They knew everything about me. Everything. Every despicable thought or deed I’d ever committed, they knew. And it was within their power to judge me and punish me. And they would. Now.
I literally felt terror flow up inside me. Like an engulfing flood, it rose through my body. My feet and legs felt nerveless. I sagged and staggered where I stood. When I was a boy, I had experienced nightmares in which my legs turned to jelly and I could not stand. Now, as I collapsed, I discovered that it could happen in real life. The fear that washed through me loosened every joint in my body. I barely managed to crawl to the edge of the stump, dragging my useless legs after me. I fell from the stump to the thorn-choked earth. The thorns tore the flesh of my hands; their tiny teeth snagged in my clothes and tried to hold me back. I sobbed and wallowed toward Clove. My horse stood regarding me with distrust, his ears folded back at my odd behavior.
More than anything, I feared my horse would abandon me here. “Clove. Good boy. Good horse. Stand, Clove. Stand.” My words came out in a hoarse, shaky whisper. I wanted to weep with terror; it was all I could do to control myself. I managed to get to my knees. Then, with a huge effort, I surged to my feet. My quaking legs would not take my weight, but I was close enough that I fell forward against Clove’s side. My nerveless hands gripped feebly at my saddle. “Oh, good god, please help me!” I moaned, and somehow found the strength to drag myself upright. I got a foot in a stirrup and, while I was only half in the saddle, urged Clove to move. He did, meandering confusedly while I clung, shaking and sobbing, to his saddle. I was inexpressibly grateful that he moved in the correct direction, away from the end of the road and the hideous, crouching forest that waited there. Waves of blackness threatened my consciousness. I was ashamed of what a coward I was, but could not help it. I focused all my thoughts, all my efforts, on getting my leg the rest of the way over the saddle, and when I did and hauled my weight up onto Clove’s back, the first thing I did was urge him to a gallop, heedless of the uneven surface and how my panniers jolted behind me. Up ahead of me, standing across the road like a barrier, I suddenly saw a group of road workers gathered in mass. They stood like a wall, whooping and laughing. Clove’s good sense more than my direction made him slow his pace and then halt before we overran them. It was all I could do to hold onto the horn of my saddle. My breath still rattled in and out of me. Tears of terror had left tracks down my cheeks. I opened my mouth to shout a warning to them, and then could not think what to warn them about. The fellow who had spoken to me earlier asked with false solicitude, “So, did you find the end of our road? Did you like it?”
I had the barest edge of control of myself. Shame warred with the last fading shreds of panic. What had frightened me so badly? Why had I fled? I suddenly had no idea. I only knew that my throat was parched and that my shirt stuck to my back with fear sweat. I looked around at them, confused by what I had felt and done and deeply insulted by their grinning faces. One of the guards took pity on me.