“Probably not. But we shall see.”
I ventured closer to Soldier’s Boy’s thoughts and aligned myself with him. I could not tell if he was aware of me or not. I tried to be very still and unobtrusive. I felt like a small boy trying to peer over his father’s shoulder while he was writing a letter.
He had Lisana’s memories and consulted them like a map. The path to her home had wound past a rise, and then between two immense trees. Only one of them was still standing. The other was an empty stump, like a rotted-out tooth sticking out of the forest floor. Soldier’s Boy walked between them and then paused, thinking. Uphill, he decided, because he remembered that she had enjoyed a good view of the valley.
She had stopped living in the village when she became a Great One. Too many unfulfilled dreams resided there. The man she had loved had not wished to be the feeder of the Great One, to live always in the shadow of her power. She had no desire to see his children scamper past her door each day. She had never truly taken a feeder. There had been villagers who served her, and all her kin-clan had been proud to have produced a Great One. She lacked for nothing; they saw to that. Food, jewelry, furs to sleep under, music to lull her to sleep, perfumes to stimulate her thoughts—she had but to express a wish for something and it was provided to her. In return, she served her people well and faithfully.
She lacked for nothing. Nothing except the simple life that she had once believed she would have. Nothing except a man who had turned away from her when power touched and then filled her.
A tremendous sympathy for her flooded and filled me. I had thought we were so different, but peering through Soldier’s Boy’s mind and sharing her memories, I suddenly found many places where our experiences touched.
Her home had been stoutly built of cedar logs. The roofs of such houses were sharply peaked and the eaves reached almost to the ground. Roofed with logs and thatched with moss, it had been, and as the years passed, ferns and mushrooms had grown on the roof and sprouted from the moss chinking. She had encouraged the growth. Her house was alive, an incarnation of the forest from which she drew her power. It had been fitting.
He passed it twice. I saw it before he did. I tugged, stamped, and poked at his awareness until he finally turned back. He was looking for her house as she remembered it, roomy yet snug, and with a well-trodden path leading up to it. It was long gone. I recognized the overgrown green mound as what remained of it.
In this rainy forest region, the folk built houses of cedar for a good reason. In favorable conditions, cedar doesn’t rot. In adverse conditions, it rots very slowly. Lisana’s house had been well built, of thick logs sealed with boiled pitch. Even so, time and the elements had had their way. Years ago, the front wall had boasted two window openings and a door. Trailing vines had overgrown them in a curtain of roots and tendrils, and eventually, moss had filled in the gaps. Soldier’s Boy found the door by touch, thrusting against the greened walls until he reached a place that gave to his push.
Likari watched him in silence as he thrust his arm in elbow deep and then tore away at the wall of foliage. It was not easy work: the roots were tough and woody, and the moss was thick, but eventually he had torn out a hole big enough to look through. He peered into darkness that smelled of damp and rich rot. Likari, near naked, had begun to shiver.
“Build a fire for us while I do this,” Soldier’s Boy suggested. Likari gave a relieved nod and ran off to collect twigs and dry debris.
Soldier’s Boy cleared the doorway and ventured inside. He blinked, letting his eyes adjust. The walls and roof had held, but the forest had still invaded. Cascades of pale roots had penetrated and actually strengthened the walls. More groping white roots dangled from the ceiling. The earth floor was damp underfoot. He could make out vague shapes that had been her possessions. There, against the wall, that would have been a chest of cedar-wood and that collapsed huddle of moss and mildew was where her bed had been. He found one of the windows and began to clear it to let more light in. The central hearth of careful dry-stone work had survived, but the smoke hole above it was blocked. The afternoon was advancing. He looked out of the low door. Likari had kindled a small fire and was perched on the rolled blanket beside it.
“Come in here! You see that? Climb up there and open it up for us. Once that’s done, we can bring the fire inside. We’ll be a little more comfortable tonight.”
The boy peered into the darkened lodge. He wrinkled his nose in distaste for the damp smell and the busy beetles and pale roots that dangled down from the ceiling. “Could not you just speak to the forest and bid it give us shelter for the night?”