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The Forest- Book I of Menchian Journeys

By Susan Prudhomme

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The Forest
Part I

Chapter I
Swept Away

The Forest lies in velvet mystery on the face of mountains and valleys, its mists spreading amongst the ridges like a sleeping, purring beast. Its trees grow in many sizes and shapes, ruling their regions according to their own grains; some offer reassurance, some mystery, some challenge. Yet all give shelter from the incursions of evil, and all whisper the truths of the One to the creatures living among them.
Bristles, covered thickly with brush-like needles that muffle sound, create a world of penumbra at the higher elevations; Glories, crowned with smooth large leaves that filter sunlight in happy riots and explode into living flame in autumn, nourish optimism and security. Pensives like to curl their roots along riverbanks and dip their long thin fingers into the passing water. Poetry comes easily among them.
Past the southern edges of the Forest, where men’s buildings and highways begin to obscure the land’s grassy golden beauty, dwell the twisted and sometimes gargantuan Gnarls, which men have named Oaks. Here the Forest’s shelter thins and breaks apart; the creatures who live in the open valleys have lost the power of speech, and the One’s ways are hardly known.
But northward, in the farthest still sanctuaries of green, not far from the jagged coastline, tower the giant Redbarks, their trunks soaring upward into the heavens. They are the guardians of deepest mystery, and wisdom descends along the rays of sunlight falling through giant limbs. Here, it is said, the very Abode of the One is close by.
Elsewhere in the Forest are inroads of darkness. Among the Graybarks it is quiet, certainly, but there is also fear. The smooth trunks rise erect and impervious, branching only at the heights. Their murmurs of the One are heard only by birds. The creatures at their base survive by their own wits, by lives of caution and careful discipline.
Here dwell the Menchians, a race of small people nearly unknown to their human cousins. Standing only the height of a doe’s shoulder, they enjoy a close affinity with the creatures around them. Their watchwords are “caution” and “prudence,” and the goal of Menchian life is to live long and peacefully. To fall prey to any predator brings the greatest shame onto one’s family, and befriending and caring for their four-legged neighbors is their accepted duty.
Into the Menchian family of Tanwarrel, Timkin was born. It was a fine family, austere and proud of their well-ordered and rule-bound heritage, boasting several generations with scions who died of old age in their beds. Like all his race, Timkin sported long and flowing gold-brown hair with large ears that protruded through it. His nose, too, was long and underlined with a sensitive mouth that yet hinted of some untapped strength.
Like all adolescents, Timkin was beginning to assume adult Menchian duties in his village, like re-stocking shelves in the storehouse or cutting brush to build barricades around the village. This latter task required leaving the shelter of the trees and being exposed to the eyes of any predator who happened by. Attention to safety was crucial.
As he worked, Timkin tried hard to be a good Menchian in every way, but he had one great fault. His eyes were forever drawn upward toward the treetops and the enticing blue sky above them, and, basking in dreams of mystery and adventure, he lost track of the prescribed safety precautions. To his great embarrassment, his mother went to the elders with her fears about him.
Her plea came one night when old Snufflepod was having dinner with the Tanwarrels. After her special rootbark pie, she took his plate, then wiped her hands on her apron, cleared her throat a little nervously, and said, “Snuffy, we’ve been friends for many years, and you know our son, Timkin, as well as anyone. He is a good boy, but he is a bit of a dreamer . .”
“Maretha, I really don’t think . . .” interrupted Mr. Tanwarrel.
“No, Hedling, I really need to say this. You know how he is, Snuffy. It’s dangerous to send him out to cut brush.” Glancing at her husband’s disapproving face, her words came in a rush. “Ever since he was born, I have had this feeling – an intuition, you might say, that something is going to happen to him. And he is different. I am so afraid we will lose him. Please find some other assignment.”
Timkin wanted to sink into the floor as his father said sternly, “The boy has to learn, Maretha. He has a duty to the clan, and the family name to uphold.”
“There, there, Maretha,” Snufflepod patted her hand, one eye on Timkin’s flaming face. “He’s a fine boy, and he will do right by his family, won’t you, son?” Timkin nodded. “Would you like a different assignment?”
“N-no, sir,” said Timkin, “I can do it, sir. I will do it.”
His father harrumphed and muttered that of course any Tanwarrel son could do whatever was needed, and Snufflepod smiled encouragingly. But his mother looked at Timkin with sad, worried eyes, and he wondered for the thousandth time what her intuition meant, or if, as his father always said, it meant nothing at all.
Timkin redoubled his efforts to be an obedient son and prepare himself to assume the traditional leadership role of the august Tanwarrels, but he just couldn’t help himself – his eyes would wander upward on their own to gaze into the patchwork of blue beyond the Graybarks’ sheltering umbrella. He felt a longing he didn’t understand, but its strange pain was sweeter than any other feeling he had ever had.
There was no getting around it. Timkin knew he was something of a misfit among his people. Of all his friends, he was the only one who secretly daydreamed about the wide world outside his village, but when he talked with other youth about his thoughts, they recoiled. Why would any Menchian, especially one from such a fine family, be curious about anything outside the village? Nothing good could come from such questions. They knew that if their parents ever heard about what Timkin was saying, they would be forbidden from associating with him.
Word of these conversations somehow reached his father. In great agitation, evidenced by the trembling of his mustaches, he drew himself up to full height. “Son,” he expostulated, “you are a Tanwarrel. Our people look to us as models. Do not shame us by leading your friends astray. Pay attention to the elders. Listen to them.”
That night, Timkin tried hard, concentrating with all his might on the elders’ words. With their gray heads and expansive bottoms, they liked to suck on their pipes before the fire of a winter evening, telling and retelling the stories of their people – of great teachers who had imparted the traditions and duties that had kept the people thriving for centuries. They also described the awful dangers beyond the village borders. But though he listened carefully, Timkin heard notes of adventure and excitement in the music of their stories that no one else seemed to notice.
Tonight, old Bearbottom was reciting one of their most chilling tales, the warning about the great monster of the river. This horrible creature lived in the wide stream that encircled about half the village, beyond the bend around which no Menchian ever went. No one had ever seen this monster and survived, but its roar could be heard constantly from afar. It was said to have a mouth as wide as the river itself, and to crouch across the stream, jaws wide, waiting to swallow up anyone so foolish as to come near. This story terrified the young ones and sent them scurrying to their mothers’ laps; it terrified Timkin, too – but it also drew him; for in his heart of hearts, despite the fear, he dreamed of seeing this monster for himself.
After that, Wickleaf told of the great Samrung, a mythical hero who had given the Menchians their small part of the Forest and told them to wait for him there. He would return someday when grave danger threatened to overwhelm them, and lead them to a land of permanent safety. Timkin loved this tale. It made his chest swell and his heart race, and he longed, beyond all Menchian reason, to see this Samrung and to be a hero, too.
Of course, he could not tell his parents about these dreams. They would have been shocked and mortified. Diligently, he studied the traditions and tried to pummel them into himself, to be a worthy successor to his father and grandfather before him, and to be content with this small domain of his people, and the shelter of the Graybarks rising around them, as the Samrung had allotted to them.
Timkin often spent his free time by the river, dutifully careful, as his parents would want, to find a spot around a bend where the awful, fascinating roaring of the monster was muted. He loved simply to watch the water flow, going he knew not where. In some places, it rushed and gurgled over rocks, while in others, it sped on its way like flowing glass. Like the glimpses of open blue sky, it evoked that quiet and mysterious yearning, and had the power to lull him away, for a little while, from duty and responsibility.
Timkin was waiting by the river one day for his friend, a young porcupine named Tine, to go looking for berries. He was drawn to stare into a deep green pool just below the bank, where the water swirled smoothly before rushing off through some adjacent rocks. The forest was unusually quiet, except for the buzzing of a dragonfly that Timkin could not quite see. Stretching out over the edge of the bank to look for it, he heard the buzzing a little louder and felt a bit of sun just beginning to warm his neck. Suddenly, just as he saw the iridescent blues of the insect, he felt his foot slip as the bank crumbled beneath him. His stomach lurched as he tumbled over the edge and reached wildly for a handhold that was not there. His clothing caught for an instant on a piece of greenery protruding from the bank, then cold and wet hit him hard and he was covered by rushing greenness. Bobbing gasping to the surface, he narrowly avoided a large rock before finding himself swept into the current and racing downstream.
Someone was calling his name. Looking back, he thought he could see Tine, dancing in agitation on the bank he had fallen from. Something hit him on the back and instinctively he grabbed for it, finding a large branch thrust along by the current. Panting, he gripped it hard, pulling his upper body among its twigs and knots. The village was slipping by quickly. Voices sounded, calling his name, but they were far behind before he could respond.
The rush of water carried him willy nilly toward the distant roar he had grown up fearing, which was becoming louder with every moment. Frozen with dread and clinging to his branch with all his might, Timkin found himself drawn closer and closer, surging into the very maw of the roar, expecting at any moment to see the river monster with its huge teeth closing down upon him. Instead, he felt himself churning amidst foam and spray and then, suddenly, there was none. For a brief instant, he was suspended high above a foreign landscape, then down he plummeted, pummeled and whipped by the falling sheets of water into a terrifying collision with the pool that caught them. Then there was darkness, but the darkness roared and swirled.
After some time, Timkin began to be aware that the swirling had stopped. In fact, though the fearsome roaring sound continued, his cheek rested on something warm and gritty. Sunshine tingled on his other cheek. He smelled earth. One eye opened curiously, to see pebbles in front of his nose, and the bases of a few grassy stalks. He opened the other eye and tried to raise his head, but immediately there was pain shooting up from the right arm, on which he lay. He lowered himself back down, panting a little, and took stock. He was lying half-in, half-out of the water. Carefully, he moved his legs a bit. Alright so far, he thought, but his feet were numb from cold. With his left arm he felt his trunk and head. There were tender spots, but no apparent blood. Gingerly, he braced his good upper arm against the ground and lifted.
There was pain again, but not so bad. He was able to struggle dizzily to a sitting position, and draw his legs up onto damp earth. Now that he was somewhat upright, he could see some rather nasty looking scrapes. The sun was very warm on his head and shoulders, which now rose higher than all the surrounding weeds. Where was the monster? Had he somehow escaped it?
No trees. No cover. Instinctively he glanced around searching for a protective canopy of some sort, his eyes briefly taking in the falls he had come over and the river boiling out the bottom, once again wide and smooth here where he had washed up. Across it, the bank rose steeply into a stand of trees. He looked for a moment longingly at their comforting dimness, but no, it was much too far across and he had no wish to enter the water again. On his own side, the bank was wide and lifted gradually onto a small grassy hill before bending steeply upward. There was larger scrub farther back, but only occasional trees standing far apart from each other. The only nearby cover would be provided by some fairly large boulders scattered along the river’s side.
Timkin began assessing these rocks to see which he could reach easily, when he suddenly became aware of a large black raven perched on one, its shiny black eye fixed speculatively on him. “Aha,” it croaked, “it took you long enough to notice me.”
Startled to find himself in company, Timkin tried to stammer a greeting, but suddenly discovered he could only weep.
“There, there,” remarked the raven, not very sympathetically. “I suppose you’ve had a bad shock, but then, that is what one might expect on a Journey, isn’t it?”
“J – J - Journey?” hiccupped Timkin. “Wha – what do you mean?”
The raven ruffled his feathers impatiently and his eye became even more piercing than before. “I was told to meet a person on a Journey. I expected someone stalwart and at least a little bit enthusiastic. Instead, I find a piece of flotsam sobbing for his mother.” He snorted. “Maybe you aren’t the right one, but I don’t see anyone else around.”
At the mention of “mother,” Timkin realized that was exactly the name he had been calling, and at the same time the tears began flowing all over again. The raven looked heavenward in exasperation, then stiffened and hissed, “Hawk! Quick, Dribbling-One, pull yourself into the shade of this rock.”
Timkin shrank back at the bird’s tone and glanced up himself. A dark speck floated high above beyond the hill. He began inching himself toward the rock in obedience to the raven’s command, while saying, “But a bird won’t hurt me, I’m too big for them.” As he came into the rock’s shadow, the raven hopped down to the ground and looked up at him with sad wonderment.
“A real innocent, aren’t you? Don’t know about hawks. Don’t know about making a Journey. Don’t even know who you are, I reckon, or where you belong, and I’m supposed to - - - Well, there it is, then. I guess I’m stuck with you. You can call me Parcaw - I’ll be around for a few days, anyway. Come on, the hawk is gone. We can only hope he didn’t notice you maundering around there. We need to get you up to the cave. Can you walk?”
“I do too know who I am,” responded Timkin stoutly. I’m Timkin Tanwarrel, a first-order Menchian, and I belong up there,” pointing toward the top of the distant falls, “in my home village, and I want to go back.”
“There’s no going back, Timkin Tanwarrel, first-order or not. There’s only forward, and for right now, forward’s a cave that you need to get to about halfway up that hillside.”
“No going back? What do you mean, I have to – “ Timkin strained his eyes toward the falls thundering over their high cliffs.
“There’s no trail, and no way up – unless you can fly like me,” chuckled the bird, preening his glossy black feathers. “Now,” he was again businesslike, “pull yourself together, see if you can stand. The cave is a little hike but not very far from here.”
Timkin wanted to argue more, but the bird appeared adamant, and Timkin wanted no more sardonic comments, if he could avoid them. He managed to pull himself up with only a small grimace, and looked toward Parcaw to see if he had noticed, but the bird was again checking the sky. “It’s clear,” he said, “come on.”
Painfully, but upright and holding his limp to a minimum, Timkin followed as the raven flew from shrub to shrub, rocking up and down on the slender branches as he urged the youth on in his hoarse, gravelly voice. The ground began to veer upward and the shrubs grew closer together. It was hard to keep from stumbling, and every time he put out his right arm to steady himself, a hot stab shot up into Timkin’s shoulder. Tears formed, but he kept them back. Finally, through their haze, he saw a sturdy looking branch lying on the ground and picked it up, finding some relief with this awkward walking stick. He did not see Parcaw glancing back with concern and the beginnings of respect, nor shaking his shiny black head in worry. “Such an innocent,” he muttered, “such a little guy. Ah well, that’s the kind the One loves best, blessed be He.”
The entrance to the cave was partially obscured by shrubbery and dead branches in haphazard combination. Inside, it was cool and dark, and offered an immediate feeling of relief and safety. There was a small pile of leaves and other jetsam against one wall, apparently blown there by some vagary of wind, though now all was still. Timkin gratefully made for it and lowered himself painfully into its sweet-smelling embrace. He tried to look around to get his bearings, but shock and weariness overcame him and he was asleep almost immediately.

The young Menchian awoke hours later into a chilly dimness. He sat up with considerable effort, easing his stiff and sore limbs into an upright position. Something slipped from his shoulders – a cloak of some sort. He pulled it around him and, glancing down, saw a broad leaf lying nearby, filled with a variety of nuts and berries. Parcaw. The berries were good, though different from anything he had tasted before. The nuts were familiar, in fact one of his favorites. Eating them brought back swift stabs of home.
Rising, Timkin inspected his cave as best he could in the evening light. The forechamber, where he was, did not seem very large, though he could stand upright and walk about. Toward the back was a greater darkness that might be a passageway, and from that direction came the sound of dripping water. Parcaw was nowhere to be seen.
Timkin made his way to the mouth of the cave and sat, cradling his hurt right arm, on a flattened rock. From here he could peer through the top of a scrubby bush into the surrounding landscape. Though muted now by distance, the falls still rumbled, and he could see the river tumbling blackly by. He appeared to be in a rather steep canyon, which on his side was rocky and sparsely grown. Across the river, the bank was a steep cliff with tree roots growing out of it, and above, a tangle of wild-looking trees with twisted trunks. Their branches reached out in all directions, often intermingling and grappling with each other, as though they were in some frozen conflict. Looking at them in the growing darkness, Timkin shuddered a bit and averted his eyes upward.
Stars were beginning to peek out. Their twinkling brightness was almost merry, and acted on him at first like happy music. As the night deepened, though, the stars became hard and bright, beautiful but cold. They hung in the vast velvet blackness, which drew Timkin’s eyes farther and farther into its depths. The universe, he saw, was monstrous and uncaring. He felt crushed in his tininess. Isolation and loneliness engulfed him. He was nothing, nobody. A speck on the skin of the world.
Shivering, Timkin grasped the cloak at his neck and began to stumble backwards. Suddenly he was very afraid. He wanted the security of his village, knowing others of his kind lived and breathed nearby. How could he get home? The raven had said he could not go back. But of course, he must get home somehow. He couldn’t live out here all alone. The thought terrified him. Where was Parcaw? Who was Parcaw, anyway? Why should he believe a strange bird?
He needed to go deeper into the cave, he thought, back where nothing ravenous could find him. Feeling his way, he came to the passage at the back, and crept in. He found he could still stand, but the sides were close enough to reach with both arms, and the ground fell away at a downward slope before him. Not quite in panic, but driven by an urgent need to go inward, Timkin felt cautiously with his toes and good arm, smelling the comforting damp earth smells and hearing the drip of water turn to a trickle, and then finally to a gurgle. The sides of his passageway opened out, and ahead his toes felt an edge and empty air that could mean a fall if he continued. Panting and sweaty with effort, he felt his way down to a sitting position, his back to the wall. Where was he? Deep in the hillside, but he could see nothing, only hear the water. It sounded like a small stream, somewhat lower than his perch. There were no other sounds. Good. He leaned back against the wall, his breath coming raggedly, and slid to a sitting position.
Those stars. He shuddered. Where was he? Nothing here was familiar. He was so alone. Out of the blackness, memories of home came flooding. Oh, home! Parcaw had said there was no way back. No, wait a minute, he said the way back was the way forward. What did that mean? Thoughts whirled in his mind – back – forward – where?
The elders had been right. The sky – now he saw it, it was so immense, full of those malevolent stars. And the river, so seductive, drawing him in and sweeping him away, into the very jaws of the roaring monster. He shuddered, remembering his terror.
But wait – what about that monster? Where was it? What had it turned out to be? Nothing. It was exactly – nothing. Swept out into nothingness, he had plunged into a place from which he could not return. The beginnings of elation fell quickly back into dark despair.
Timkin did not know how long he stayed there, mourning and afraid. A very pale light came and went, daylight filtering in somewhere. He became lightheaded and dizzy with hunger, but in the semi-light times he saw he could reach his hand to the little stream, and was able to quench his thirst. The darkness played tricks on him at night, with weird shapes and lights seeming to come at him out of it. A few times he thought he saw yellow eyes gleaming at him, and imagined he felt a hot breath, and shrank back in horror. But they always dissolved back into the blackness.
At times he thought of finding his way back out to look for food, but then the enormity of his aloneness would rush over him again and he found he could not. Into his confused mind, Parcaw’s words circled round and round, home, back, can’t go back, have to go forward, forward, where? Home, back, back, no, can’t. Sometimes his mother’s face wavered in his mind, her eyes full of sadness and her voice echoing, “I’m afraid we will lose him – lose him – - lose him.” Her intuition had meant something, after all. Her fears had been right.
Within him, he could see a thin, weak something like a little pole, nondescript, gray, featureless. That was who he was. A nobody, a no-thing. Lost.
Suddenly, what was that, was it a light? Yes, right over there, hanging above the stream. Growing, brighter. A light. A warm, comforting light, and something in it. What? Something small and weak, gray, featureless. It was growing. What was it?
Faint and dizzy, he tried to focus his eyes. The thing grew larger. It seemed to be related to him, in a way that frightened and disturbed him. He didn’t want it growing any larger, but it did. Then, miraculously, buds formed on its sides. Fascinated, he watched as branches grew from the buds, and the thing became a bush – no, a tree. Leaves covered the branches, like no leaves he had ever seen, gold and green of all shades, shimmering in their living intensity. The tree itself was now fully grown, hanging there in front of him. He wanted to run to it and hide himself in its branches, and he also wanted to fall on his knees before it and gaze on it forever. As he watched, a fruit began to form on its nearest branch. A beautiful, golden fruit, precious and glowing. In his amazement, he reached his hand out toward it; he could almost touch it, almost hold it. The tree began to fade, its colors dimming toward gray, its mass thinning and insubstantial. The wonderful, beautiful fruit stayed the longest, hanging there in front of him like a great, golden globe, the end of all his dreams, the desire of his longing heart. Then it, too, faded, and darkness enclosed him again.
Exhausted, Timkin fell back against the wall, his eyes staring into the black emptiness where the tree with its wonderful fruit had been. Once more, he wept, but now the tears were consoling and still tinged with wonder. Then he slept and dreamed of nothing.
He awoke suddenly. The gray light was just beginning to show, but he could see nothing yet. Except yellow eyes! There they were, glowing in the darkness just over to the right, near the passageway entrance. A phantasm? No, breathing, he could hear breathing, and smell a rank odor of death. A predator. Had it seen him? Controlling his breathing, he willed those eyes to turn and retreat back down the passageway, the way they had come. But the eyes continued to watch him, and the predatory smell of the creature filled the chamber.
“Come, Little Brother, it’s time to go.” The words, the first he had heard since Parcaw’s, jolted him. “You can’t stay here any longer, or you will die.” Go? Die? This was it, then. He would be a meal for some ravenous carnivore, the ultimate shame for his people. The eyes came closer, and the breath, warm and damp, was on his face. A wet nose nudged his neck. Frozen in terror, he tried to keep from whimpering, waiting for the teeth to begin tearing at him. He felt them. He felt them settling gently, ever so gently, near the base of his neck. He wanted to scream. Was the beast playing with him? There was a huge sigh, and the expelled breath went down his back. “Come on, then, Little Brother, I’ll have to help you.”
Timkin felt himself being lifted, then dragged. Now he began to struggle, thrashing about and trying helplessly, in his starved condition, to free himself. A gentle chuckle surrounded him. “Easy, there, don’t make me drop you. You’re heavy enough as it is!”
The way through the passage took less time than Timkin remembered. Soon he saw ahead the light of the cave entrance, and the walls widening out into the forechamber. He was dropped unceremoniously onto the little pallet of leaves. In his fright, he scrambled backward as close against the wall as he could, and turned to face his attacker.
She was huge, a great gray wolf panting a little from exertion, now lying alertly and looking at him with a rueful grin. “Hello, Little Brother,” she said, “I am Shenda.”

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