And so Kamahl waited, crouched in the tree, barefoot and covered in mud, twigs, and leaves. He waited for the forest to revive, for danger to pass. Finally, a brown form moved through the leaves. The barbarian slowly raised his upper body until his back was up against the trunk of the tree, keeping his legs bent beneath him.
It was only a squirrel on its way to look for nuts or on its way back home after foraging. Either way, it meant that the danger had passed. The forest, in its own way, was telling the barbarian it was time to move along. Confident that the patrol was gone, Kamahl moved off from his perch in the crook of the tree, running along the limb and springing as the branch began to bend under his weight. For a moment he floated through the air, his arms spread wide, feeling the rush of wind the squirrel must have felt as it glided through the trees.
But the barbarian couldn't fly or glide and had to rely on his arms, legs, and magic to navigate the treetops. His perfectly timed jump sent him past a lower branch on the nearest tree, which Kamahl grabbed with both hands, allowing the momentum of his legs to swing him around and up to a handstand. Bending at the waist, the barbarian lowered himself onto the branch.
Springing up to grab the next branch, Kamahl swung up onto that limb and then sprinted down its length and launched back into the air. As he began to fall, Kamahl shot his arm out and called forth a vine. The barbarian swung past the next tree and twenty feet higher into a tree beyond.
After several hours of moving from tree to tree through the upper reaches of Krosan, Kamahl began to notice a subtle change in the forest. No longer did he have to spend so much time jumping directly from tree to tree. He could move greater and greater distances on the vines, for the trees were now growing farther and farther apart, leaving much more open space up in the bows.
In fact, in many instances he had no choice but to swing from one tree to another. Where once the leaves from different trees intermingled at the ends of their branches, now it was rare that the barbarian could even make it safely from one tree to another without the help of magic.
Kamahl leaned against the trunk of an oak and surveyed the forest, scanning his surroundings with both his eyes and his ears. Looking left and right, he noticed the trees nearly lined up like rows of wheat in the fields he and Balthor had ridden through on their trek to the forest. Were these trees planted long ago by the guardian? Did Thriss have some control over the plants as well as the animals? Kamahl did not know, but he was certain that this was not a natural occurrence. It looked more like a garden-a very large garden.
The barbarian also noticed that it was much brighter than it had been in the outer parts of the forest. The conclusion was obvious-with fewer leaves, more light was getting through.
Listening to the sounds of the forest, Kamahl noticed one final change. Where the denser, darker parts of the forest had, out of necessity, been governed by silence most of the time- for most of the larger predators hunted as much by sound as by scent-this lighter area was much more alive with the chittering of squirrels, the songs of birds, and the constant rustle of leaves as the small inhabitants moved freely in and around the trees, unconcerned about predators.
Kamahl made a decision. It was time to leave the trees and make the last leg of his journey on foot. He had, over the last few days, turned into a wild animal. With no one to talk to and the constant danger from nantuko and other large predators, the barbarian had become something feral-less human. Now he must regain his humanity and leave the trappings of the wild behind.
Kamahl scrambled down the trunk of the large' oak tree, quickly descending the hundred feet between him and the floor of the forest. Kamahl slowly stood up to his full height, flexed his arms up over his head, and stretched out the muscles in his back. He then pulled off the vines he'd tied around his body and dropped them to the ground. Covered with mud and sweat, his feet and hands red and callused from days spent in the trees, and his hair disheveled and full of twigs, Kamahl knew he was still a sight to behold, a wild man from the deep woods.
Looking down at the vines he dropped, Kamahl noticed that even the ground here was different from the wild portions of the forest. Moss and bushes had given way to ivy, flowers, and even grass. In the middle of the row of trees, the barbarian noticed something else-a well-traveled path heading straight north.
For the first hour on the path, Kamahl remained tense, expecting an attack from behind every tree. But as every tree passed and another ambush didn't take place, he began to relax, to stretch out his tense muscles, to walk straighter and taller again.
As Kamahl's tension eased, he began to enjoy the walk and spent more and more time gazing at the tamed wilderness around him. There were patterns in the ivy on the trees. The vines and leaves wove in and around each other to form loops, lines, and swirls that all worked together to create some intricate design the barbarian could not figure out.
Even the flowers seemed to be placed in precise positions. Kamahl could see a panoply of colors lining the path in an intricate, alternating pattern of reds, blues, yellows, and purples. The patterns must mean something to someone, but Kamahl could not decipher what, perhaps because he could only see this one, small section. The meaning might become evident only if he could see the whole forest. Kamahl was now certain that the entire forest had been created by a gardener, albeit one who worked with trees as easily as flowers.
Traveling down the path, wondering at the enormity of the work required to tend this garden, Kamahl suddenly came upon the heart of Krosan, never seeing the end of the path until it was upon him. He hadn't known what to expect when he started on this journey, and even Seton's reverence for the place hadn't prepared him for what he saw as he left the woods and entered the heart. Kamahl stepped into a huge clearing larger than all of Cabal City. That entire city, from the docks outside the east gate to the gently rolling hills rising up from the west gate would fit inside the heart of Krosan.
Looking to the left and right at the tree line, Kamahl could see a gentle hint of a curve as the trees at the edge of the clearing arced ever so slightly around what Kamahl felt certain was a perfect circle. Looking up, Kamahl expected to see blue sky, which he had not seen since entering the forest several days earlier. Instead, he was surprised to see that the entire clearing was still covered by leaves high overhead.
Huge trees dotted the clearing, spaced hundreds of feet apart. The trees that grew perfectly straight, high up into the sky, with no foliage until the very top. There, these amazing trees sprouted long branches in every direction, looking like hundreds of spokes on a wagon wheel. The thousands of wide leaves that grew out of these branches made a roof over the clearing that kept the heart secluded from the outside world, yet allowed light and water to trickle down to the idyllic garden that spread out in front of Kamahl.
Then something made Kamahl's body tense. Between two of the pillar trees that held up the roof of the heart, the barbarian saw a group of nantuko. Kamahl couldn't tell what the mantis creatures were doing, but he didn't think they'd seen him yet.
There was only open ground between the barbarian and the nantuko. He could slip back into the trees and try another route into the heart, but something inside told Kamahl to proceed, so he willed his body to relax and strode forward, keeping a close eye on the nantuko as he moved.
The mantis group didn't seem concerned about the approaching barbarian. Kamahl was certain one or two of them had glanced his way as he walked up the path, but they were busy working and seemed indifferent.
Once Kamahl got closer, he could see what had them so preoccupied. They were working the land. One mantis was guiding a stream of water through the air to a point above the plants where it sprayed onto the ground in a fine mist. Kamahl could not see the source of the water. It seemed to magically appear in the air and went where the nantuko gestured.