The Book of Transformations (5 page)

The sun was sliding from the sky, the heat still unbelievably prominent. Cayce said that the cultists managed the weather in Ysla. Whilst around the Archipelago winds and clouds heaped ice and snow, here there was little but clear skies and intoxicating warmth. It was no wonder the cultists kept this island to themselves.

She had seen the process of manipulation and been mystified. Figures perched on a hill, tilting some device towards the sky and, on the next hill along, another working in tandem. Purple shafts of light had buried deep into any clouds that persisted, disintegrating them slowly or ploughing through into the heavens. Whatever they were doing, these acts were certainly keeping the weather favourable.

Lan didn’t spot where the city actually began. As they approached the urban fringes of the settlement, they passed through smaller hub communities – and Cayce explained that this was the real principle behind Villarbor; not one centralized district but lots of them, all small interconnected zones. Between each stretched small grassland meadows, which were punctuated by mats of purple or white flowers, then secondary growth forest and coppiced trees – and then majestic woodland. Now and then they became something more formal, gardens that frothed over into one another, coloured plants blending into the distance.

The smells, the pungency, the colours, the textures, were like nothing she’d ever known.

‘The gardens are remarkably pretty,’ she commented, still on Cayce’s heels.

He strode on and said, ‘They are not meant for aesthetic purposes – we use everything in this particular district for medicinal value. Each plot is divided up by the ailment they treat. Districts specialize, most for food, but others for purposes like this.’

They passed a single-storey house surrounded by one such garden, and three women standing in casual conversation.

‘Good afternoon, sisters,’ Cayce called out.

One of them, a dark-haired girl, seemed to act coyly towards him, waving but turning away quickly, her white skirt trailing her in an arc.

‘Guessing you’re a heartbreaker here,’ Lan observed, hoping that the casual conversation might open him up.

‘I have no idea what you mean,’ he replied.

‘You know. Girl saves herself for you, thinks of you a lot, tells all her friends how charming you are.’

Cayce shrugged and laughed. ‘I would, indeed, hate to be in such a position of power over another person.’

Power
– there it was again, a word that seemed electrically charged on this island, one spoken of with great disdain.

Into the forest proper and, after stepping between two giant buttress roots, they entered a zone that was clearly central to Villarbor.

Woodland towered before her, a million shades of green and brown that ultimately blended to become a dark haze in the distance. Thick, red-brown trunks extended upwards, losing themselves within a densely packed canopy. Alongside the trees, metallic structures extended like scaffolding. On others, vast ornate staircases wound themselves anticlockwise around the timber. Tracks had been cut between trees, in numerous directions, through an undergrowth of ferns.

‘What species are these?’ Lan asked.

‘Oh, we have various
Tsuga
,
Taxodium
,
Sequoia
. . . We have some rarer varieties further in.’

‘Why such interesting names?’ Lan stared up at the amazing textures to the bark.

‘These are, to our knowledge, the names given to the species when the seeds were stored, several millennia ago. Civilizations rise and fall, and after one particular fall, possibly due to some apocalyptic event, the landscape became devoid of forests. The forests of the world have since been re-grown. It is a sadness that we no longer know their original names.’

Clustered huts formed tree-crown dwellings. Walkways traversed the canopy and, above, unbelievably, people were wandering back and forth as if on the streets of a city. Food-filled baskets were constantly lowered and raised from the ground. Tiny lights cascaded down from branches, illuminating the more atramentous corners of the treescape – and Lan wondered how magical it would look at night. Within the gaps in the canopy, brown balloon-like crafts were gracefully lowering themselves towards respective platforms. People disembarked in their droves, mainly humans, but rumels, and the occasional Ceph too – from this distance, they all looked like insects.

Everything here seemed superbly crafted, and unique. The details carved into every structure were massively ornate, intricate geometric designs, or baroque and sprawling, as if the trees themselves had grown in that mesmerizing manner.

Lan turned to Cayce. ‘So what’s your house like?’

‘Nothing here is mine,’ Cayce laughed.

‘Well, where do you live?’ she asked.

‘Villarbor.’ He gestured to the forest.

‘You own the entire city?’

‘No one
owns
any of it.’ Cayce wore his usual serene expression. ‘There are no rulers to order us about. We share communal hab units grafted into sections of the forest. We choose where to live and, quite unlike Villjamur, no one has to pay a fortune to be in the most fashionable areas. We self-organize and choose everything about our way of life ourselves. Should any of us wish to live elsewhere, we can move and build other places, fashion them out of the forest providing others are not against this wish. One can make each place with as much craft and care as one desires.’ Cayce paused to contemplate his words. ‘When the first cultists came here,’ he explained, ‘around about the time Villjamur was established, they adopted the ways of the local tribes – the newcomers did not want to interfere with the natural way of the land, and that philosophy of self-organizing has evolved into what we have now.’

‘I understand, I think . . .’ Lan lied. ‘It just makes no sense without money and a governing body.’

‘We have found governments and traders do not have the majority’s interest at heart,’ Cayce replied. ‘We cope well – we organize, distribute, work mutually with other autonomous hubs and districts across the island . . . I know what you are thinking – this all seems impossible without money and without rulers. But, it helps that we are cultists, so we can do anything we want, because money does not dictate or place values. I had to run the decision bringing you here past assemblies of the community – because there is a reason we generally keep outsiders away, a reason we don’t like their influence or their ideas – and why I’m reluctant for you to converse with us too much: what we have here
works
well. The Empire is a hegemony, attempting to impose its dominance on the rest of the Archipelago, crippling island after island in order to sell the fineries you see in Villjamur, and you would do well to understand that. But out here, in Villarbor, it just would not be sustainable. On an island like this our systems would implode. Here, we take only what we need. We will have some food tonight and you may sample some of the delights the forest offers, and then you can return to Villjamur as one of the sacred few to have witnessed this place.’

*

Cayce led her into a humid tree grove. Fat roots had formed an organic archway, and citizens of the forest stepped out from between them, drifting along wide paths through the vegetation. The pace of life here was leisurely. People were standing idly chatting, gripping baskets of metal, hunks of bars and piping and cogs. Children played games among the foliage, whilst a handful of smaller ones sat down on the grass listening to a man for what must have been a lesson.

‘Presumably without money, these children don’t have to pay to be schooled?’

‘Certainly not!’ Cayce replied. ‘They have access to everything – it is extremely important that every child can learn to read and write.’

Lan was surprised, recalling the guilt of her own expensive education, despite the abuse she suffered. ‘What are they being taught?’

‘They’re being taught how to think.’

The treetops flared with purple lighting, which stretched under-canopy in flat pulses, and Lan’s heart raced at this electrical activity. No one else took notice of it.

They passed through an area that might have been an iren in Villjamur. Here it was something entirely . . . relaxed – a few rows of people openly weaving fabric or cooking food, stopping occasionally to talk to passers-by. Lan marvelled at the quality of decorative crafts on display, and the variety of fruit and vegetables. The choice.

Lan noticed that some of the wooden habs flickered inside, as if a smith was working steel – but she suspected it was magic being worked, rather than metal.

‘Is everyone here a cultist?’ she asked.

‘By your definitions, probably,’ Cayce remarked. ‘With one exception, I should add. On Ysla, we are
all of us
equal. On Imperial soil cultists use relic technology for their own gains, occasionally bartering their skills for positions of power, even to fight against others in order to further their agendas. One will find none of that occurs on this island – we do not express power over people in our communities, or even the local tribes.’

*

In the evening, Lan joined Cayce’s table at a large outdoor banquet, and basked in the balmy air.
Such a mild evening . . . It’s something I’d almost forgotten
.

Coloured lights and strips of bright material littered the forest clearing like a star-field. Children mingled with adults at a vast table shaped like a broken letter O, with people sitting both inside and out, mainly humans, but also a few rumels, and even one Ceph further down, who Cayce glanced to more than once. In the centre, a group of musicians played lute-like instruments, and drums and violins beat out loud melodies based on local folk songs. The forest vibrated with an energy that reminded her of the shows. There must have been a few hundred people there, each of them drinking and eating exotic foods – ones that could only really grow so far south, with such an altered climate. Succulent fruits and mellow-tasting mead, and thick stews and soft bread. The tables were overflowing.

And this was the first time she’d been amongst so many people, able to feel quite
safe
. Yes, she could think about herself now with great relief. There was no deep-rooted fear that she would be victimized. When people talked to her there still remained an echo of her former self-consciousness, and that would perhaps linger for some time, but for now she could cover it up with her interest in this other culture.

As incessant as midges, the locals attempted to quiz her about the outside world. Cayce kept suggesting that people leave her be, to allow her to recover in peace, and she softly smiled her apologies to them.

The discussion surrounding her was wide-ranging, though often concerning matters of organization: transportation, how many people would man the bridges the next week, assemblies to be held, union guilds, schooling, districts, skills. For the most part it seemed all these people did was plan what needed to be done, but there was a good deal of talk of spiritual practices and liberal arts. There was a lot of talk of the finer points of sorcery, too, but most went over her head. Conversations at some parts of the table flared into altercations and semi-rows, though elders stood up and softly waved for calm.
They all
seem a lively bunch on Ysla.

A name was suddenly whispered across the table, and the expressions on faces soured considerably and conversations quietened.

Lan leaned towards Cayce. ‘Who’s Shalev?’

As he struck alight a roll-up, Cayce observed the reactions of others along the table. Eventually, still looking their way, he answered Lan. ‘She is someone who was . . . of an unpleasant nature. She did bad things.’

‘A criminal?’ Lan asked.

‘We have no criminals here.’

‘What—?’

‘Keep your voice down,’ Cayce muttered calmly, and took a drag. ‘I said we have no criminals. We have no prisons. We do not punish in the same ways as the Empire.’

‘How do you stop people from stealing things?’

‘If no one owns anything, how can someone steal? If someone can have anything they want by asking, work, relic, or by doing it themselves, then there exists no need to steal. Most crimes are against property – and here, that is a non-existent term.’

‘Who decides these rules?’

‘We all do,’ Cayce replied. ‘We all have a democratic say in our own affairs, and this includes making the rules by which we live.’

‘I take it there’s no Inquisition here, so who the hell polices all of this?’

‘No, there’s no Inquisition. We have our own community body who see to it that everything is fair, and democratically assign a punishment according to the offence that is committed, and to ensure the victim is suitably compensated.’

‘What about murder?’

Something flickered behind Cayce’s eyes then.

Lan pressed him further. ‘Is that what this Shalev person did, kill someone?’

Cayce glanced at the others who were now listening in to the conversation. ‘No. Not just some
one
. Shalev was thought to have killed several people through her erratic practices. She was an unstable person, who did not fit in with our ways despite being brought up here, for the most part. Shalev is not an indigenous cultist. She came from a neighbouring island. She was difficult for many here to understand, and she was never popular because of that. Then her experiments became more reckless, and civilians were killed due to some of her relics. She failed to accept responsibility for her actions, and was exiled from all the communities across the island.’