"astory23" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kellgren Corey)

[ In this chilling piece of science fantasy, up-and-coming writer Corey Kellgren gives us a look at a strange world confronted by a nasty new life form. ]

"That’s no natural moss, Kinden. Some accursed casparas malaise, I’ll warrant," said Currah, crumbling a patch of the stuff in both hands. "Soft, though. Maybe we could use it for pillows."
Kinden smiled at the slightly built runner. "Thanks for bringing us, Currah. I know you’re needed at home. Get going."
Currah bowed, straightened, and loped off into the forest without another word.
Kinden turned his attention to the task at hand. The e’lien knelt at the side of the dying sourwood, running sensitive hands over a hoary patch of skin not yet afflicted by the alien growth. All about them spring was in full cry, the richness of flower and leaf a stark contrast to the slumped, wilting creature before them. Slipping easily into the life-trance, Kinden summoned the tree’s tenuous pulse.
Appalling.
Carefully, delicately, he sensed the path of the moss’ penetration, following the branches of illness twined deep within the stricken tree. The moss was inflicting terrible damage - yet the plant was not even struggling. Its potent natural defenses lay prone, unable or unwilling to fight off this insidious infection. There was more. Set squarely against the wave of pain that was consuming the living wood was a stream of pleasure, raw, unadulterated joy that it was being destroyed in this bizarre manner.
Kinden lifted his hands from the bark, stepping back, sucking in a deep, shuddering breath. This tree was violating an immutable law of nature. It was reveling in its own suffering, basking in the torment the moss was inflicting on it. Quite simply, it was enjoying its slow execution.
"Are you well, Kinden?"
Kinden glanced up at Tavig and Tor, unsure which had spoken. There had been raids in this part of the forest, and his wife Lydia had insisted he take a pair of armed hunters along.
He didn’t answer, but turned back to the.....moss. As often as it became necessary in these war-torn years, Kinden never grew accustomed to staring into the bleak face of death, be it plant, animal, or even casparas. Grimly, he scoured this alien parasite with his eyes. There were three distinct colonies of this, this moss, clinging to the side of the sourwood. Each spanned roughly the size of a shield, protruding only a hair’s width from the bark. They were, as Currah had said, curious in hue, a bright, almost luminescent green that occurred in no work of nature Kinden was familiar with. Neither did it grow along the northern portion of the tree, as proper moss was wont to do.
Tor shifted uneasily. "Have you identified this blight, friend?"
"No. I have never seen its like. We’ll take samples and return at once. You have your specimen bags? Good."
Resolutely, Kinden blocked out the awareness of the life-force of the ‘moss’, shoveling a few daggersfull into a leather pouch at his belt. The few bits that brushed across his bare skin were soft and crumbly, and seemed to scrape willingly away from the ruined bark beneath. For the present, Kinden wanted only to transport a quantity of the noxious stuff back home, where he could study it properly. He straightened up, tightening the strings on his pouch. "That’s plenty. Let’s go."
###
When they approached the outskirts of the city, they found the community in an uproar. Warriors scurried to and fro, brandishing weapons and crying out in fury. Kinden collared the first lad that ran within reach of his long arms. "Keggan! News, and quick!"
"Murder, sir. Currah."
Kinden’s heart went numb. "Say again?"
"They’d not share such with a mere boy, but word is he was stabbed by casparas. Stabbed good, too."
"Where?"
"South. Shase is looking for you, I hear."
"You know where?"
"I heard."
"Take me there."
Keggan sped off with Kinden close behind. The youth wound his way through the town proper, down Grayson’s Pike, over the chattering rush of Tinkers Creek, plunging a short way into the bright calmness of the SouthernDells. Kinden’s mind sprinted on ahead as his feet carried him onward. Casparas, casparas in the community? It was unheard of in Kinden’s lifetime. If the foul creatures had penetrated this far into their defenses to slay the little messenger, there was evil afoot indeed.
"Kinden!"
"Greetings, Shase."
The graying, quick-eyed leader of the Grayson Federation stepped out from a phalanx of grim warriors, most with bow or blade at the ready. "Who is this?"
"Keggan. Told me where to find you. Run home now, boy."
"Yessir."
Shase watched the slowly retreating back of the youngster, guarded eyes sliding to Kinden reluctantly. "Currah is dead. Casparas work if I’ve ever seen it. Come."
Kinden fell in next to Shase. They picked their way through a thin tangle of thorn bushes, into a small clearing, sunlight sighing down between the leafy boughs of the overhanging beech trees. Warriors fanned out on either side. Kinden gasped, fell to his knees. Bowing his head, he clutched a handful of dirt into his left palm. "Sky and soil, preserve us."
The scene was horrific. A pair of hunters, heads turned away, stood watch over the mutilated corpse - Currah, presumably. The fleet-footed little courier had been stabbed with brutal repetition, obscuring his features. His clothes, and the floor of the forest, were soaked with blood. Kinden felt an uneasy stirring in his bowels as he approached the body. Yet he was e’lien - healer, scientist, alchemist, mage - and it would alarm the hunters if he allowed his fear to show. "What knowledge have you gathered concerning this crime, Shase?"
A slow shake of the head. "I have a trio of our best trackers in the area. The Guard is cordoning off the lower end of the valley, and a general alert has gone to the outlying farms and hamlets."
Kinden knelt down next to a blood-spattered dagger. "Is this Currah’s weapon?"
"It is."
"So at least one of the murderers is wounded."
"Correct."
"Thus you should have them in hand soon enough."
Shase averted his eyes. "Let us hope so. There has been fighting in the south. Later this evening we must send troops to aid in the defense of the borderlands. There will be scant manpower left for such a search, afterwards."
Kinden straightened. "There is nothing I can do here. With your leave, sir?"
"Good day, Kinden."
Kinden retired to his own grove, shaken to the core. Vivid images of Currah’s battered body haunted him. Without effort or desire, his imagination conjured up the murder scene: three or four of the wizened little brutes, holding Currah down, working him over, crowing and leering as the gentle courier weakened and died. Other images crowded in thick; Currah at his side tending the wounded in the SkyRange; beneath the community tree with his new bride, Kellia; lounging in the shade eating an apple, for which he had possessed a great fondness. Kinden tried to shake off the evil mood. While the murder of his friend was a matter best left to the Guard, the moss was a riddle he might be capable of unraveling. And it would take his mind off of what he had just witnessed.
There was no sign of Lydia, nor was there a message from her. No matter; his wife was more than capable of taking care of herself, war or no war.
Kinden moved straight-away to his cluttered work bench, drawing out the three samples of the moss they had removed from Naarian’s stretch of woodland. For a time, working on this mystery would keep him distracted from both Currah’s murder and the escalating war with the casparas. The e’lien emptied the contents of the first pouch out onto the cold granite of his work area. Drawing his belt knife, Kinden carefully separated the bright green moss into four mounds, each destined for a different experiment. Already, his mind had begun to churn out procedures, ideas, theories, cures. First, find out if it was intelligent. Then, what family of plant it belonged to. This accomplished, he might have some clue into its make-up, and thus an idea of how to contain the deadly thing. Finally, he would call on his talents as e’lien, immersing himself in the life-force of the moss, drawing his own consciousness into that of this alien form.
Soon, he would possess the secrets of this insidious creature, such that it could be countered or eradicated before it spread. Kinden did not relish the prospect of meshing so closely with this moss. Slowly, he reached for the nearest clump.
###
"Kinden. This is Aloiche. Aloiche, Kinden."
Kinden took the proffered hand and pulled out a chair, as did Aloiche. Shase took a seat on the edge of his desk, hands busy with a calming-stone. "I am sorry to pull you from your work, Kinden, but Aloiche is one of Naarian’s settlers. I understand you are studying the blight that has befallen his land. Is there any news of the moss?"
"I only arrived last night."
Aloiche nodded. "I do not mean to press you, e’lien, but the matter grows more urgent. The sourwood is dead."
"Dead?"
"Perhaps an hour after you left, sentries reported that the tree was no longer living. Now we have other news: a trio of young willows down by the stream have become infected as well, and a small grove of maples. The settlers are in a panic, for fear that the blight will fall on our fields and orchards. It is our livelihood, and without our grains all of the Grayson Federation will be in for a difficult winter."
Kinden bowed his head wearily. "I did not mean to be short, Aloiche, nor is Naarian’s concern for his people misplaced. It is the moss. It is a most difficult puzzle for me to unwind."
"What do you know?"
"I regret to inform you I have uncovered little of interest."
Aloiche leaned forward in his chair. "Please, e’lien. We must tell our people something."
Kinden stared down at his hands, trying to keep his voice quiet and even. "I do not wish to alarm you unduly at this early stage of the investigation, sir."
"Then the news is not good."

"It is not. Never have I encountered such a creature. I have found no way of destroying it without doing grave harm to the host. I do not know how it travels, how it infects, where it is from, or what it may do next. I do not know of the extent of your familiarity with the e’lien, Aloiche, but it is not a skill to be taken lightly. Merely by coming into contact with any living entity, we can ascertain its injuries, its hungers, its state of health, its structure, even its intelligence. The soul of no creature is opaque to an e’lien. No creature, that is, but this moss. The essence of this predator is elusive, and frustrates my efforts at every turn. Our craft relies heavily on our talent, whereas science and magic play minor supporting roles. Without the use of my talent, I am forced to lean on inadequate tools from the physical world. That is what I have learned, sir."
Aloiche sat perfectly still, face settling into a mask of grim anger. "So there is nothing you can do."
"No. Such conventions are inadequate, not useless. I will utilize them to the best of my abilities."
"Very well." Aloiche rose.
"Kinden? I would have a word with you, if I might."
After the door closed behind Aloiche, Shase moved around his desk and sat down. "I thought that you should know. There was another clash on the borderlands last night."
"What news?"
"We don’t know yet. Word is that a runner’s due in this morning. There will be a crier at the meeting tree at noon."
"Thank you, Shase.
Kinden didn’t return to the grove, but spent the balance of the morning walking in the wilderness that bounded the community, visiting favorite sites, discovering new ones, allowing the tension and frustration of the past day to settle into the cool, distant calculation of a scientist and e’lien. The forestland his people so treasured soothed his jangled nerves, and for a time he forgot about moss and war. Only just in time did he glance up through the canopy to see the sun inching towards its zenith, and Kinden turned his steps back towards the village, where a good many people had already gathered about the meeting tree. Kinden kept to the edge of the swelling crowd, unwilling to spoil his morning walk with idle speculation and wild rumors. Patiently, he waited.
It was not a long wait. Within minutes, young Dervon hurried up, the throng parting respectfully before the willowy runner. Quickly he gained the meeting tree, hauling himself up onto the platform ringing its trunk, standing above the crowd as if on another’s shoulders. "Townspeople! Those of my craft are scattered far afield on many urgent errands, so it falls to me to relay word of our plight."
"The casparas have attacked in strength along the southern frontier." A gasp of horror went up from the crowd, and Dervon raised his voice to be heard over the noise. "Thanks to our brave men, we have held the line. Only the outpost on the southeastern tip of the forest was lost to us, and grave casualties were borne by our attackers. Thankfully, the toll on our own forces was light. Eighteen men were wounded, two gravely, in the assault, while one life was lost to us. Before you sup this evening, lend a thought for the widow of Tavig, late of Kerman’s Gap. There were seven points of....."
Kinden felt a prickling along the back of his neck, and Dervon’s words were lost in the sudden rush of blood pounding in his ears. Tavig and Tor. The hunters who had accompanied while he sought the moss. Currah. Tavig. Both dead. Slain, seemingly, by the casparas, the only two casualties in the current struggle. Surely just bizarre coincidence. Surely, surely.
"Dervon!"
The force of Kinden’s shout halted the runner’s monologue.
"How did he die?"
The attention of the crowd shifted to Kinden and his morbid question. Dervon cocked his head quizzically. "I don’t know, e’lien."
Kinden was already striding away at a great pace, mind buzzing with unanswered questions. The e’lien spied Fulsomn, the archer, as he moved away, and shouted a hasty message over his shoulder. "Fulsomn, old friend! Do me a favor and seek out Shase! Tell him I may have important news, soon, and to send someone to my grove immediately!"
The archer’s assent echoed after Kinden as he sped away.
The casparas possessed a strain of talent similar to those of an e’lien, men and women who worked with spirits, magic, and an instinctual, inborn talent to manipulate and observe the natural world all around. Kinden had heard of them, met one once at a parley. The man had seemed decent enough, and he and Lydia had spoken of them upon occasion, wondered what they were like, and what role they played in their own society. They had imagined it much like their own.
Plainly, they were not.
His own people venerated nature. The casparas had perverted it.
There was little doubt in Kinden’s mind. Plainly, his first mistake had been a basic and fatal one; assuming that the moss was merely one more creature, another strain of life arisen from the primal ooze of evolution to claim its rightful place in nature. Yet unlike anything Kinden had studied, he had been unable to pierce its potent defenses. This opened the possibility that the moss was no work of nature, but a creation of men. And who would create such a monster?
The casparas, of course. This was no random fit of life, but a virus designed to bedevil the talents of an e’lien, a demon conceived in some casparas lab and set free to work its evil on his people.
Kinden slowed to a walk as he came into his grove, moving straight-away to his workbench where the remnants of the moss still lay. It would be short work to prove his theory. Yet the larger question remained. Had the casparas killed Currah and Tavig? Or was it the moss?
It was an answer that Kinden was personally interested in.
Less than an hour later, Kinden straightened up with a sigh, reaching around in a vain attempt to loosen the muscles of his neck. "Hello?"
"Here, Kinden."
"Good afternoon, Hesson. I didn’t here you come in."
"You were rather involved. I didn’t want to distract you."
"Did Shase send you?"
"Yes."
"With what orders?"
"He put me entirely at your disposal."
"Good. I need you to go fetch Shase, and as many of the Grayson Elders as you can dig up quickly. I’ve an earful for him, Hesson."
"It will be done."
"And Hesson?"
The guardsman, already several steps into the woods, paused.
"Ask Shase to send his fastest runner east, to Naarian. Tell him that the forestland about the sourwood and willows that have taken ill is to be burned, a half mile out from the original infestation, in all directions."
Horror marred Hesson’s features at the thought of such wholesale torching.
"Without exception. Go!"
The hunter fled into the sun-strewn afternoon.
Kinden turned away wearily, making directly for the cupboard, pulling out bread and jam, knife and cutting board, retrieving a jug of milk and slab of butter from cold storage.
The e’lien’s mind whirled as he ate. Neither Shase nor the Elders would easily accept his grim news - that the casparas had turned to evil far beyond their former cruelty. For he had, finally, seen into the soul of the moss, and looked upon the blueprint for the destruction of his people. The moss was to be loosed upon the agricultural lands of the east, to wither their crops and sicken their livestock. At the same time the moss was to eat into their precious forestlands, to create havoc and blight upon large tracts of their proud realm. Only then, weakened and hungry and dispirited, would the casparas come in force, to bring his people to their knees, to enslave those they could and drive the rest into the barren wildlands to the east.
Yet there was a tiny corner of the moss that had resisted his probes, that had refused to yield to his talent or his force. Contained within that bit of protected cells was a secret Kinden wanted most desperately: was the moss killing him?
Kinden looked down at his hands bleakly, and could almost see the thin thread of green running in the veins beneath his skin. Currah and Tavig. Both had handled the moss. As had he, and Tor.
There was only one solution. Find a cure. Quickly.
The preliminaries would occupy his mind while Hesson gathered the Elders. Kinden gathered up milk and butter, replacing it in the coldbox. His mind raced ahead to possibilities, perhaps a spell Lydia had been working on, if he could find her notes, to cure....
Kinden recoiled from the knife, and the jam slipped from his hand, glass jar shattering, sending gobs of jam spraying about the floor of the grove. Kinden shook his head, almost laughing at the stupidity of leaving the blade unsheathed on the counter.
Something cold and distant began to stir in the back of the e’lien’s mind.
As Kinden stared at the small cut, the clues that had eluded him began to fall into place. A trickle drop of blood, sparkling ruby-red in the sun, welled from the point where the skin had been pierced.
And it didn’t hurt. No. No, indeed.
It felt good.
Kinden, smiling, picked up the knife once more.

---

Corey Kellgren lives in Minnesota with his motorcycles, lilac bushes, fishing gear, Wham! tapes and a lovely girl named Molly. His short stories have appeared in Odyssey, Papyrus, and Eternity, among others.

MOSS
by Corey Kellgren
© 1999 - All Rights Reserved

[ In this chilling piece of science fantasy, up-and-coming writer Corey Kellgren gives us a look at a strange world confronted by a nasty new life form. ]

"That’s no natural moss, Kinden. Some accursed casparas malaise, I’ll warrant," said Currah, crumbling a patch of the stuff in both hands. "Soft, though. Maybe we could use it for pillows."
Kinden smiled at the slightly built runner. "Thanks for bringing us, Currah. I know you’re needed at home. Get going."
Currah bowed, straightened, and loped off into the forest without another word.
Kinden turned his attention to the task at hand. The e’lien knelt at the side of the dying sourwood, running sensitive hands over a hoary patch of skin not yet afflicted by the alien growth. All about them spring was in full cry, the richness of flower and leaf a stark contrast to the slumped, wilting creature before them. Slipping easily into the life-trance, Kinden summoned the tree’s tenuous pulse.
Appalling.
Carefully, delicately, he sensed the path of the moss’ penetration, following the branches of illness twined deep within the stricken tree. The moss was inflicting terrible damage - yet the plant was not even struggling. Its potent natural defenses lay prone, unable or unwilling to fight off this insidious infection. There was more. Set squarely against the wave of pain that was consuming the living wood was a stream of pleasure, raw, unadulterated joy that it was being destroyed in this bizarre manner.
Kinden lifted his hands from the bark, stepping back, sucking in a deep, shuddering breath. This tree was violating an immutable law of nature. It was reveling in its own suffering, basking in the torment the moss was inflicting on it. Quite simply, it was enjoying its slow execution.
"Are you well, Kinden?"
Kinden glanced up at Tavig and Tor, unsure which had spoken. There had been raids in this part of the forest, and his wife Lydia had insisted he take a pair of armed hunters along.
He didn’t answer, but turned back to the.....moss. As often as it became necessary in these war-torn years, Kinden never grew accustomed to staring into the bleak face of death, be it plant, animal, or even casparas. Grimly, he scoured this alien parasite with his eyes. There were three distinct colonies of this, this moss, clinging to the side of the sourwood. Each spanned roughly the size of a shield, protruding only a hair’s width from the bark. They were, as Currah had said, curious in hue, a bright, almost luminescent green that occurred in no work of nature Kinden was familiar with. Neither did it grow along the northern portion of the tree, as proper moss was wont to do.
Tor shifted uneasily. "Have you identified this blight, friend?"
"No. I have never seen its like. We’ll take samples and return at once. You have your specimen bags? Good."
Resolutely, Kinden blocked out the awareness of the life-force of the ‘moss’, shoveling a few daggersfull into a leather pouch at his belt. The few bits that brushed across his bare skin were soft and crumbly, and seemed to scrape willingly away from the ruined bark beneath. For the present, Kinden wanted only to transport a quantity of the noxious stuff back home, where he could study it properly. He straightened up, tightening the strings on his pouch. "That’s plenty. Let’s go."
###
When they approached the outskirts of the city, they found the community in an uproar. Warriors scurried to and fro, brandishing weapons and crying out in fury. Kinden collared the first lad that ran within reach of his long arms. "Keggan! News, and quick!"
"Murder, sir. Currah."
Kinden’s heart went numb. "Say again?"
"They’d not share such with a mere boy, but word is he was stabbed by casparas. Stabbed good, too."
"Where?"
"South. Shase is looking for you, I hear."
"You know where?"
"I heard."
"Take me there."
Keggan sped off with Kinden close behind. The youth wound his way through the town proper, down Grayson’s Pike, over the chattering rush of Tinkers Creek, plunging a short way into the bright calmness of the SouthernDells. Kinden’s mind sprinted on ahead as his feet carried him onward. Casparas, casparas in the community? It was unheard of in Kinden’s lifetime. If the foul creatures had penetrated this far into their defenses to slay the little messenger, there was evil afoot indeed.
"Kinden!"
"Greetings, Shase."
The graying, quick-eyed leader of the Grayson Federation stepped out from a phalanx of grim warriors, most with bow or blade at the ready. "Who is this?"
"Keggan. Told me where to find you. Run home now, boy."
"Yessir."
Shase watched the slowly retreating back of the youngster, guarded eyes sliding to Kinden reluctantly. "Currah is dead. Casparas work if I’ve ever seen it. Come."
Kinden fell in next to Shase. They picked their way through a thin tangle of thorn bushes, into a small clearing, sunlight sighing down between the leafy boughs of the overhanging beech trees. Warriors fanned out on either side. Kinden gasped, fell to his knees. Bowing his head, he clutched a handful of dirt into his left palm. "Sky and soil, preserve us."
The scene was horrific. A pair of hunters, heads turned away, stood watch over the mutilated corpse - Currah, presumably. The fleet-footed little courier had been stabbed with brutal repetition, obscuring his features. His clothes, and the floor of the forest, were soaked with blood. Kinden felt an uneasy stirring in his bowels as he approached the body. Yet he was e’lien - healer, scientist, alchemist, mage - and it would alarm the hunters if he allowed his fear to show. "What knowledge have you gathered concerning this crime, Shase?"
A slow shake of the head. "I have a trio of our best trackers in the area. The Guard is cordoning off the lower end of the valley, and a general alert has gone to the outlying farms and hamlets."
Kinden knelt down next to a blood-spattered dagger. "Is this Currah’s weapon?"
"It is."
"So at least one of the murderers is wounded."
"Correct."
"Thus you should have them in hand soon enough."
Shase averted his eyes. "Let us hope so. There has been fighting in the south. Later this evening we must send troops to aid in the defense of the borderlands. There will be scant manpower left for such a search, afterwards."
Kinden straightened. "There is nothing I can do here. With your leave, sir?"
"Good day, Kinden."
Kinden retired to his own grove, shaken to the core. Vivid images of Currah’s battered body haunted him. Without effort or desire, his imagination conjured up the murder scene: three or four of the wizened little brutes, holding Currah down, working him over, crowing and leering as the gentle courier weakened and died. Other images crowded in thick; Currah at his side tending the wounded in the SkyRange; beneath the community tree with his new bride, Kellia; lounging in the shade eating an apple, for which he had possessed a great fondness. Kinden tried to shake off the evil mood. While the murder of his friend was a matter best left to the Guard, the moss was a riddle he might be capable of unraveling. And it would take his mind off of what he had just witnessed.
There was no sign of Lydia, nor was there a message from her. No matter; his wife was more than capable of taking care of herself, war or no war.
Kinden moved straight-away to his cluttered work bench, drawing out the three samples of the moss they had removed from Naarian’s stretch of woodland. For a time, working on this mystery would keep him distracted from both Currah’s murder and the escalating war with the casparas. The e’lien emptied the contents of the first pouch out onto the cold granite of his work area. Drawing his belt knife, Kinden carefully separated the bright green moss into four mounds, each destined for a different experiment. Already, his mind had begun to churn out procedures, ideas, theories, cures. First, find out if it was intelligent. Then, what family of plant it belonged to. This accomplished, he might have some clue into its make-up, and thus an idea of how to contain the deadly thing. Finally, he would call on his talents as e’lien, immersing himself in the life-force of the moss, drawing his own consciousness into that of this alien form.
Soon, he would possess the secrets of this insidious creature, such that it could be countered or eradicated before it spread. Kinden did not relish the prospect of meshing so closely with this moss. Slowly, he reached for the nearest clump.
###
"Kinden. This is Aloiche. Aloiche, Kinden."
Kinden took the proffered hand and pulled out a chair, as did Aloiche. Shase took a seat on the edge of his desk, hands busy with a calming-stone. "I am sorry to pull you from your work, Kinden, but Aloiche is one of Naarian’s settlers. I understand you are studying the blight that has befallen his land. Is there any news of the moss?"
"I only arrived last night."
Aloiche nodded. "I do not mean to press you, e’lien, but the matter grows more urgent. The sourwood is dead."
"Dead?"
"Perhaps an hour after you left, sentries reported that the tree was no longer living. Now we have other news: a trio of young willows down by the stream have become infected as well, and a small grove of maples. The settlers are in a panic, for fear that the blight will fall on our fields and orchards. It is our livelihood, and without our grains all of the Grayson Federation will be in for a difficult winter."
Kinden bowed his head wearily. "I did not mean to be short, Aloiche, nor is Naarian’s concern for his people misplaced. It is the moss. It is a most difficult puzzle for me to unwind."
"What do you know?"
"I regret to inform you I have uncovered little of interest."
Aloiche leaned forward in his chair. "Please, e’lien. We must tell our people something."
Kinden stared down at his hands, trying to keep his voice quiet and even. "I do not wish to alarm you unduly at this early stage of the investigation, sir."
"Then the news is not good."
"It is not. Never have I encountered such a creature. I have found no way of destroying it without doing grave harm to the host. I do not know how it travels, how it infects, where it is from, or what it may do next. I do not know of the extent of your familiarity with the e’lien, Aloiche, but it is not a skill to be taken lightly. Merely by coming into contact with any living entity, we can ascertain its injuries, its hungers, its state of health, its structure, even its intelligence. The soul of no creature is opaque to an e’lien. No creature, that is, but this moss. The essence of this predator is elusive, and frustrates my efforts at every turn. Our craft relies heavily on our talent, whereas science and magic play minor supporting roles. Without the use of my talent, I am forced to lean on inadequate tools from the physical world. That is what I have learned, sir."
Aloiche sat perfectly still, face settling into a mask of grim anger. "So there is nothing you can do."
"No. Such conventions are inadequate, not useless. I will utilize them to the best of my abilities."
"Very well." Aloiche rose.
"Kinden? I would have a word with you, if I might."
After the door closed behind Aloiche, Shase moved around his desk and sat down. "I thought that you should know. There was another clash on the borderlands last night."
"What news?"
"We don’t know yet. Word is that a runner’s due in this morning. There will be a crier at the meeting tree at noon."
"Thank you, Shase.
Kinden didn’t return to the grove, but spent the balance of the morning walking in the wilderness that bounded the community, visiting favorite sites, discovering new ones, allowing the tension and frustration of the past day to settle into the cool, distant calculation of a scientist and e’lien. The forestland his people so treasured soothed his jangled nerves, and for a time he forgot about moss and war. Only just in time did he glance up through the canopy to see the sun inching towards its zenith, and Kinden turned his steps back towards the village, where a good many people had already gathered about the meeting tree. Kinden kept to the edge of the swelling crowd, unwilling to spoil his morning walk with idle speculation and wild rumors. Patiently, he waited.
It was not a long wait. Within minutes, young Dervon hurried up, the throng parting respectfully before the willowy runner. Quickly he gained the meeting tree, hauling himself up onto the platform ringing its trunk, standing above the crowd as if on another’s shoulders. "Townspeople! Those of my craft are scattered far afield on many urgent errands, so it falls to me to relay word of our plight."
"The casparas have attacked in strength along the southern frontier." A gasp of horror went up from the crowd, and Dervon raised his voice to be heard over the noise. "Thanks to our brave men, we have held the line. Only the outpost on the southeastern tip of the forest was lost to us, and grave casualties were borne by our attackers. Thankfully, the toll on our own forces was light. Eighteen men were wounded, two gravely, in the assault, while one life was lost to us. Before you sup this evening, lend a thought for the widow of Tavig, late of Kerman’s Gap. There were seven points of....."
Kinden felt a prickling along the back of his neck, and Dervon’s words were lost in the sudden rush of blood pounding in his ears. Tavig and Tor. The hunters who had accompanied while he sought the moss. Currah. Tavig. Both dead. Slain, seemingly, by the casparas, the only two casualties in the current struggle. Surely just bizarre coincidence. Surely, surely.
"Dervon!"
The force of Kinden’s shout halted the runner’s monologue.
"How did he die?"
The attention of the crowd shifted to Kinden and his morbid question. Dervon cocked his head quizzically. "I don’t know, e’lien."
Kinden was already striding away at a great pace, mind buzzing with unanswered questions. The e’lien spied Fulsomn, the archer, as he moved away, and shouted a hasty message over his shoulder. "Fulsomn, old friend! Do me a favor and seek out Shase! Tell him I may have important news, soon, and to send someone to my grove immediately!"
The archer’s assent echoed after Kinden as he sped away.
The casparas possessed a strain of talent similar to those of an e’lien, men and women who worked with spirits, magic, and an instinctual, inborn talent to manipulate and observe the natural world all around. Kinden had heard of them, met one once at a parley. The man had seemed decent enough, and he and Lydia had spoken of them upon occasion, wondered what they were like, and what role they played in their own society. They had imagined it much like their own.
Plainly, they were not.
His own people venerated nature. The casparas had perverted it.
There was little doubt in Kinden’s mind. Plainly, his first mistake had been a basic and fatal one; assuming that the moss was merely one more creature, another strain of life arisen from the primal ooze of evolution to claim its rightful place in nature. Yet unlike anything Kinden had studied, he had been unable to pierce its potent defenses. This opened the possibility that the moss was no work of nature, but a creation of men. And who would create such a monster?
The casparas, of course. This was no random fit of life, but a virus designed to bedevil the talents of an e’lien, a demon conceived in some casparas lab and set free to work its evil on his people.
Kinden slowed to a walk as he came into his grove, moving straight-away to his workbench where the remnants of the moss still lay. It would be short work to prove his theory. Yet the larger question remained. Had the casparas killed Currah and Tavig? Or was it the moss?
It was an answer that Kinden was personally interested in.
Less than an hour later, Kinden straightened up with a sigh, reaching around in a vain attempt to loosen the muscles of his neck. "Hello?"
"Here, Kinden."
"Good afternoon, Hesson. I didn’t here you come in."
"You were rather involved. I didn’t want to distract you."
"Did Shase send you?"
"Yes."
"With what orders?"
"He put me entirely at your disposal."
"Good. I need you to go fetch Shase, and as many of the Grayson Elders as you can dig up quickly. I’ve an earful for him, Hesson."
"It will be done."
"And Hesson?"
The guardsman, already several steps into the woods, paused.
"Ask Shase to send his fastest runner east, to Naarian. Tell him that the forestland about the sourwood and willows that have taken ill is to be burned, a half mile out from the original infestation, in all directions."
Horror marred Hesson’s features at the thought of such wholesale torching.
"Without exception. Go!"
The hunter fled into the sun-strewn afternoon.
Kinden turned away wearily, making directly for the cupboard, pulling out bread and jam, knife and cutting board, retrieving a jug of milk and slab of butter from cold storage.
The e’lien’s mind whirled as he ate. Neither Shase nor the Elders would easily accept his grim news - that the casparas had turned to evil far beyond their former cruelty. For he had, finally, seen into the soul of the moss, and looked upon the blueprint for the destruction of his people. The moss was to be loosed upon the agricultural lands of the east, to wither their crops and sicken their livestock. At the same time the moss was to eat into their precious forestlands, to create havoc and blight upon large tracts of their proud realm. Only then, weakened and hungry and dispirited, would the casparas come in force, to bring his people to their knees, to enslave those they could and drive the rest into the barren wildlands to the east.
Yet there was a tiny corner of the moss that had resisted his probes, that had refused to yield to his talent or his force. Contained within that bit of protected cells was a secret Kinden wanted most desperately: was the moss killing him?
Kinden looked down at his hands bleakly, and could almost see the thin thread of green running in the veins beneath his skin. Currah and Tavig. Both had handled the moss. As had he, and Tor.
There was only one solution. Find a cure. Quickly.
The preliminaries would occupy his mind while Hesson gathered the Elders. Kinden gathered up milk and butter, replacing it in the coldbox. His mind raced ahead to possibilities, perhaps a spell Lydia had been working on, if he could find her notes, to cure....
Kinden recoiled from the knife, and the jam slipped from his hand, glass jar shattering, sending gobs of jam spraying about the floor of the grove. Kinden shook his head, almost laughing at the stupidity of leaving the blade unsheathed on the counter.
Something cold and distant began to stir in the back of the e’lien’s mind.
As Kinden stared at the small cut, the clues that had eluded him began to fall into place. A trickle drop of blood, sparkling ruby-red in the sun, welled from the point where the skin had been pierced.
And it didn’t hurt. No. No, indeed.
It felt good.
Kinden, smiling, picked up the knife once more.

---

Corey Kellgren lives in Minnesota with his motorcycles, lilac bushes, fishing gear, Wham! tapes and a lovely girl named Molly. His short stories have appeared in Odyssey, Papyrus, and Eternity, among others.