Dawn of Wonder (The Wakening Book 1) (68 page)

“The threat of a Fenn invasion was one thing, but talk
of Castath itself being unstable was too much for him. Clearly, he has plans
that are threatened by the concerns I raised through Culver. I don’t believe his
interest is the peace of the city, in spite of his constant declarations. I am
convinced something else is brewing in his political pot. Something he is
prepared to defend with extreme measures. If we threaten to spread a warning of
danger, I fear we will not see the end of one day in Castath.”

“I hate to admit it,” Osric said, “but every word
strikes true as a javelin. We will need to tread very carefully upon our
return. I almost repent of bringing Tyne.”

“Because I’m a woman?” she asked. “Would you
rather have left Liru without suitable company?”

Osric opened his mouth only to hang wordless and
confused. This was a kind of battle he had never learned to fight.

Tyne grinned and lobbed a stick at Osric who snatched
it from the air and tossed it back into her waiting hand. His confusion melted
into a smile and Aedan wondered, as often before, what the general was waiting
for.

–––

Midsummer was bursting around them and,
unfortunately, above them. The cloudbursts were regular and heavy, driving them
often to huddle under rocky overhangs or hide in swaying woods that chattered
with rain and whistled in the gusts of heavy downpours. Afterwards they would
steam themselves beside huge fires if they could find enough dry wood, otherwise
they shivered beside little smoky fires that produced little heat and drew much
teary coughing. On a few occasions, the wood was so wet that Merter didn’t even
bother to attempt lighting it.

But the rain seldom lasted and it was not uncommon
for a stormy morning to be followed by a golden afternoon. When riding through
open sections, Aedan’s eyes would often wander out across the hills, and beyond
them to the spine of the DinEilan mountains, growing blue once more with hazy distance.

Yet it often seemed to Aedan as if something of
this wild land was still nearby. It was in the way the horses lifted their
noses at night and began to stamp and jostle, in the way he found himself
spinning around to look behind him into the darkness. He couldn’t shake the feeling
that the camp was being watched. It was a long time before this unease faded
and he was able to relax.

Fergal took up his lessons again, and Osric and
Tyne resumed their training – though Aedan had to be careful with his injuries
at first. Merter also began sharing some of his woodcraft skills, taking not
just Aedan, but Liru too when tracking or hunting. His first lesson was to
teach her to walk quietly.

He pointed out spoor and explained the habits of
creatures from mice to gazelle. Aedan was constantly impressed by how easily
the ranger spotted tracks from the saddle that most rangers would only have
seen from a crouch, and that were hardly visible to Liru when she put her nose
to the ground – slight shifts of thin dust on the clay, blades of grass only
marginally bent, a dead branch missing a corner of its bark where a hoof had
trod.

Even more fascinating than the search for what and
where, was the study of when. Merter showed how to determine the age of many
kinds of tracks and taught the importance of understanding the environment. Dryness,
he said, was often – and mistakenly – taken as a primary indication of age. But
prints dried at different rates according to many factors like soil type,
shade, wind, humidity and such, so that an hour-old print in one environment
might look like a three-day print in another. Young trackers had often been
fooled in this way and stumbled onto the camp of someone they thought to be
leagues ahead of them.

It was during one of Merter’s lessons that they
came across the oversized bush where the stone carving of the locust had
rested. The locust was gone. At first they thought they had the location wrong,
but then Merter found the earthy patch still riddled with crawling things that
had lost their shelter. Deep gouges in the soil lead away along a vague
hollowed impression of bent grass and broken stalks.

“No wonder it looked so real,” Aedan said with a
slight tremor as he began scanning the nearby trees.

When the rest of the party joined them, Fergal
stood for a long time looking at the vacated resting place.

Aedan stepped beside him. “Do you think,” he asked,
“that maybe the storms that have returned after all these centuries are causing
these animals to wake?”

“It’s a reasonable hypothesis,” Fergal replied
without looking up.

“What woke the bigger snake though?”

“Maybe it was struck twice. Maybe it never entered
the deep hibernation of the others, and all the handling caused it to stir
while it was being laid out in the museum by the curators.”

Aedan shivered. “But then how did the smaller one
wake? Do you think it could have been struck recently while deep inside the
museum?”

“There was a hole leading to the open, remember.
If it had been raining during the storm, water could have carried the lightning
below easily enough. I’ve heard of that kind of thing happening on farms. Let’s
not get fixed on the double-strike idea though. Perhaps the first snake was
just a light sleeper, and perhaps the others are now all emerging from their
hibernation. Something that I vaguely glimpsed when you pushed me through that
doorway – and thank you for that – there was a long scar on the larger snake’s
head. I suspect it was the first and last cut of the skinner, and doubtless, it
was this that woke the beast.”

“Maybe that’s what made it so hostile to people,” Aedan
said.

“I don’t know that hostile is the right word.
Basic hunger would be sufficient explanation for the animal’s actions.”

But Aedan could not forget the way the second
snake had behaved after being woken more gently. The look in its eyes had not
been animal. And he wondered …

Then he remembered something from a long time back.
“When we first came through DinEilan, we heard a strange call just before
morning. My father said it had the pattern of a woodland fox, but it was too
deep. He said there was no fox big enough for a voice like that. I think I
understand now. Think I also know why it sounded lonely.”

Fergal grunted. “So then there are at least four
of these monsters loose in DinEilan. Two snakes, a fox and a locust. And let’s
not forget whatever it was that uprooted trees and did away with the rangers in
that first confirmed report. I doubt that even a horse-and-a-half sized fox could
have uprooted a tree. It must have been something bigger.”

“Maybe the same creature Merter wanted to look for
when we spotted those trees moving after the Fen attack?”

“Maybe.”

“There’s something else I’ve been thinking about,”
Aedan resumed, encouraged by Fergal’s patient ear. “Back at Badgerfields in the
Mistyvales, there was this giant tree that grew near the manor house. Nobody
knew what it was, but we called it a pearlnut. Sometimes I thought it looked a
bit like a plane tree with that mottled-looking bark and those fresh green
leaves, only that the bark didn’t flake and each leaf was as big as a blanket,
and instead of those prickly seeds, the tree produced the most delicious nuts
you ever tasted ...”

Aedan reached the end of his breath without
getting anywhere near his point. The last words were pushed out like the final
drops from an orange squeezed dry. His face was red and he sucked an
undignified breath. Placing a theory before the man he now knew to be the
chancellor was unnerving him more than a little.

“The thing is,” Aedan pursued, “there were no big
trees nearby, but there were others like it miles out into the forest, a huge number
of them, far more spread out than any of these strike-point copses – I could
see them when I climbed high enough, though it was really difficult to get …”

He shook his head and reached for his point. “It
makes me think our tree was an offspring from a seed that had been carried. If
that’s so, then could it be possible these giant creatures could reproduce too?”

“And fill the land with the thunder of their
walking?”

“Yes, or slithering.”

Fergal blew out a slow breath. “I find myself
caught between excitement and dread at the prospect. But tell me – these trees
that you saw out in the forest, were they all the same species?”

“I – I, yes I think so. Why”

“Because it confirms a suspicion I’ve had. It’s
likely that more than one species was struck but only one of them has spread. I’ve
been wondering about incompatibility with the environment – if some of these
new species might not struggle to survive, and if it would be possible for them
to adapt within days. The biggest problem is actually not adaptation but
correct internal functioning. With animals, massively oversized offspring are
almost never healthy and they usually die young. These creatures, it would
seem, have overcome this – possibly their internal proportions are changed –
but even so, the environment may not accommodate them.

“It falls outside the scope of your studies, but a
diversion into the natural sciences won’t harm you. Here are some examples that
should illustrate the point. Take the enlarged birds – both seed and insect-eating
types would now have beaks too blunt and cumbersome for their accustomed sources
of food; bees would crush any flowers they attempted to visit; mosquitoes would
not be able to land soft and undetected when they drop like acorns; moles’
tunnels stay open in loamy soil, but if they were many times wider they would
collapse – that’s why sappers have to use wooden support beams.

“Consider trees for a moment. A tree with a tap
root that grows to several times its normal height would need to sink its root
to several times the usual depth – and most locations would not have soil deep
enough. This might explain the numerous dead giant trees. There are many more
examples, but these should suffice to illustrate the difficulties of survival.”

“But … the snake seems to have done it.”

“Quite right. I don’t say that it is impossible,
only unlikely. The larger of the snakes is one that has clearly managed to make
the rapid adaptation. And it appears to have done more than just adapt. The
changes in its form make me wonder if we are even correct in referring to it as
a snake any more …” Fergal thought in silence for a while. “But let’s put that
aside for now. We were speaking of adaptation. Once the former inhabitants of Kultûhm
were no more, it might have learned to take deer, or even hunt in the lake.
There are some very big fish there – maybe even some horrifyingly big ones if
the same lightning struck the water. It’s possible that it has learned to slow
its metabolism, possible that it hibernates for long periods.”

“So … do you think the pearlnut tree was the one
that was able to adapt?”

“It appears likely, but much more investigation
would be needed to confirm it, investigation that is not going to happen,
because, as I understand, nobody goes into Nymliss.”

“Uh … that’s not exactly true.”

Fergal shook his head and sighed. “What else did
you find in there?”

“I never went as far in as those giant trees –
that would have taken days of winding through the forest, so I can’t really –
uh – confirm anything, but I did once find the tip of a big skeleton. At least,
I think it was a skeleton.”

“So this tree of yours then is the only example we
have of possible propagation. I certainly hope you are wrong. Even if only the
mole vipers began to multiply – can you imagine how our world would change?”

Osric stepped up. As his heavy boot thumped down,
something that had bothered Aedan for years finally dropped into place.

“It’s a trap!” he exclaimed without thinking of
the consequences. “Those huge bronze jaws with the giant teeth and the spring
by the Lekran ship …”

Osric and Fergal spun on him.

“How did you learn about
that
?” Osric
demanded, almost in a shriek. “Not even Dun is allowed in there. Construction
teams were blindfolded and carted in. Only …”

Fergal began to laugh and dropped his head into
his hands. “Ah, Osric. I think we should have known better by now, don’t you?
How do you think he found out? That academy is yielding its secrets to young Aedan
like an overburdened plum tree tossing down its fruit.”

Osric held up a finger in front of Aedan’s face,
his lips tight as if he was about to explode with threats and warnings. Aedan
could see them gathering under the surface, wrestling for front position,
getting jumbled and crowded. Eventually they combined into a soulish “Bahh!” of
disgust. Osric shook his head and marched away with thumping strides, crushing
the grass underfoot.

“Well could it be?” Aedan ventured.

Fergal was still grinning – at least his eyes
were. “A trap you mean?”

“Yes.”

“That is a most disagreeable thought. But I do see
the logic of it. Our best guess back then was that it was intended for
crippling rival boats somehow, but the design never seemed ideal for any
application we could imagine. Though I don’t think I want to know what could be
caught in a trap that size, your suggestion is the simplest so far, and the simplest
explanation is often the correct one. But this has reminded me of something. One
of the builders once made a peculiar report – he found a spear embedded in the
woodwork of the deck.”

Aedan dropped his head and looked at the ground,
preparing for some red-hot words, but all he heard was a thoughtful “Hmm”.

They spent the next two days keeping watch for the
newly awakened locust. There were a few false alarms – the large shape of a
mottled crane was twice mistaken for the oversized insect as it beat its ponderous
way across the sky, but nothing of the locust was seen.

After a particularly muggy day and a late-afternoon
cloudburst, they were drying themselves off before the fire when Aedan
remembered something he had kept losing between the cracks in his thoughts.