Gardens

If there was one place in the world where beauty was easy, free to any wanderer with trusty feet and the knowledge of woodcraft, it would be Gardens. The turf of Gardens rose and fell, sometimes in dramatic black cliffs, other times in sweeping crescents of green grass and wild purple heather. Forests and streams insinuated themselves into the landscape with an artisan weaver’s subtlety and prolificacy. Gardens remained largely unsettled. Contrary to the domestic implication of its name, it was tough land to farm due to the unpredictable weather, the rockiness of the soil, and the erratic lay of the land. The actual rights to most of Gardens were in the hands of an eccentric, old family by the name of RoGannon. They owned the only manor house—more of a tunnel network, really—in the entire expanse, and kept, for the most part, to themselves. Their family motto, which many scholars believe to be the only surviving parcel of the lost Uluanen tongue, read, “Ogo rom, oga ruia.” They claimed it meant: “The first deeds were the trees.”

What follows is an excerpt from the earliest account of human exploration in Gardens. It comes from the pen of an educated, pre-empire courtesan, famous for authoring the now collected, somewhat heretical Fifty-Seven Letters to the Law. Gardens is referred to, as it commonly was at the time, as “the Neverending.” A reference to how boundless and wild the land seemed.

Here it is:

Together, we indulged in soft mouthfuls of our former dog, and imagined what terror might be brought upon us in this, the furthest glade from civilization where ever Man has stepped. Man would be us. I’m Lusa and he’s Tarr. Isn’t he handsome?

It made us sick at first, the thought of Dreamer, cooked to crispy, hairless and dripping grease like a chicken. Honestly, it held no appeal. But when we found him in the morning, jaws still clamped around the tail of a silver cockatrice, it was the first thing that came to our minds. You see, we had water in plenty. Food was a different matter, as Dreamer had effectively demonstrated. You might think dogs have better instincts than to just put their mouths around the first sweet smelling plant that draws their nose. You’d be one part right. But you’d also be two parts wrong. Two parts that were bred out with howling at the moon and being vicious and resourceful enough to actually survive. And belaying hunger for caution.

We hadn’t actually roasted him. We’d boiled him. Believe it or not, we were trying to be moral about the whole thing. Tarr even quoted the Godek like the proper Drauv-dreading farm boy I’d seduced all those years ago on my way to trial. That letter is another one all-together, which I’m sure you’ll enjoy. [Editor’s note: a much guessed about allusion to a fabled fifty-eighth letter, which probably never existed at all.]

“Shun, they will: those bones that come to them blackened. For to be revealed by fire is a witch’s death.” He even folded his hands in the small of his back, like he was reciting for his mum. The whole display was rather adorable.

I fixed him with a cold look, I’m ashamed to say. I was rather heartless in my earlier years, though I think you’d understand that by now. “You really think he’s got a spot up on your mountain?” I asked him. “Tell me, do the Drauv have a bowl for him, with his name on it? A little dog den?”

Nevertheless, Dreamer was boiled, and tasted better than the first fruit to our lips. At my nagging, we didn’t waste energy burying him. His bones were laid respectfully under the protective brim of a rather large forest cap, squatting amongst the roots of a nearby rowan. I smiled a little to see him putting them in a semblance of the correct skeletal alignment. All curled up, like some dozing nightmare.

We’d broken off from our expedition eight days ago, in search of the river. We’d found it, but our handbell wasn’t working properly, and we had no way to know if the others would loop back for us, when their own searches proved fruitless. I’d decided—rather foolishly, I’ll now admit—that we would be able to find them by just cutting across Droji’s group’s path in a quick straight slant. It hadn’t worked, of course. There was no such thing as straight in that place. We were lost. [Editor’s note: Reference to a “handbell” in pre-empire writings is thought to be a simple colloquialism for a flare, a smoke rocket, similar to the “Fire Flowers” of the Drunnen Fire Bards.]

Our first meal in thirty or more hours was both welcome and discomfiting. We were glad of our momentarily satisfied tummies. Hanging in both of our minds, though, was the thought that if we’d finally come to eating group members, one of us would be next. I eyed his powerful right haunch critically, and decided he’d make poor eating. My much-softer body, on the other hand…He laughed when I suggested this. Just laughed.

That’s when we heard the drum. It wasn’t like music, but it was like a drum. Proving itself with another pounding echoing thrum, that seemed to strike each tree trunk and scatter into a billion sounds of leaves, acorns, blowing frosts and pattering summer rains. For the first time on our little foray into naturalism, I think we were both mortally afraid.

It was common knowledge that Men had never before ventured this far into the Neverending. We’d crossed the Silgun—the farthest any had ever come—on scarcely the third day of our expedition. I wasn’t sure, but I thought this was the twenty-seventh. So if you’re wondering why we heard a drum, and were instantly afraid, that’s why. Because if there was a drum, then we were wrong. And if we were wrong, then what else were we not right about?

What we came across then…I cannot begin to say what feelings it broke out of me. I only know I wept for three reasons: fear, wonder, and amusement.

It was only about six hundred feet downhill from where we stood. Through the dense forest, going as quietly as we could. In short, we crashed and collided our way toward an unknowable danger, the two stealthiest Malmadons ever to walk on a sea of fine Wrenxley glass. [Editor’s note: The mythical Malmadon was said to be made of the soil itself, stand three men high, and drink from a rope-like snout made of clay. It was completely un-quiet, and absolutely fictitious. One of Lusa’s favorite subjects for her ironies.]

We stood at the edge of a clearing, watching in awe. The trees hadn’t simply cleared. They’d been felled. Their trunks of varied sizes had been hollowed out, and skins stretched over them. I imagine that, to make them resonate, the insides and been hardened with some sort of resin. Standing before one of the largest drums was. A bear.

It nodded its head in time as it beat against the skin with its paws. It didn’t wear the casual, derisively stupid look of the other bears we’d seen in our travels. You know the one that says “I’m so dumb, I could just up and eat you, without rightly knowing why. I could just do it, that’s how dumb I am. I’m feeling rather dumb right now, care to…? That’s what I thought.” No, this bear was not like that. He stood on his hind legs, and his limbs were not clumsy, but rather graceful. His rhythm had picked up speed, and gained complexity as every fourth beat became a quick double-tap on the trunk’s woodier sounding side.

Soon, more bears started lumbering into the clearing, apparently intent on joining this insane battery. Tarr and I knew it was well past time to be gone. We’d been watching from the brush, but the sweat on both of our bodies must have stunk something awful in that great black nose of his. We were sure it had noticed us, and as we turned to leave, I thought it almost smiled at me. Just a little. Not a bear’s grin but a man’s. Not ferocious, but troubled, curious, and afraid.

But then we were gone. We thrust aside all hope of finding the others, who had first come with us—alas, you and I will be the last ever to think of them—and just resolved on finding the river. We’d follow that out to Monduvel, and leave the Neverending behind us. We’d done our share. We felt it was time to pass the torch on to some future gang of more prepared explorers. Who hadn’t just eaten poisoned dog.

[Editor’s note: Known for being fanciful, and falsifying a great many details of her stories for the sake of drama, or political statement, Lusa’s message here is puzzling at best. It does, however provide an interesting introduction to the legend and reverence with which Gardens is still regarded by Certain Men all across the world.]