"Our friends here could not understand each other's speech," Mora answered, "then Fairaan said that he understood us in his own language when we were in contact through a tree. We decided to try conversing while in a tree, in this case with a tree, but we didn't want to draw attention to a bunch of catatonics sitting around a tree in the yard. It works wonderfully - we were conversing with the tree spirit and discussing other possibilities when you cane in."

"Excellent! Small potted trees can be used where no trees grow naturally or where the trees have been killed by fire or war and no new saplings have grown yet. Even out in the middle of the sea. And we needn't be concerned about coming in contact with peoples whose languages we don't know at all."

"Mother," interjected little Shuah, "why is everyone talking to one another like little children?"

"Well, Shuah," her mother replied, "we're still talking like grown-ups, but the little tree makes us sound like children to you and it makes you sound like a grown-up to us. We can understand each other better this way; isn't that nice?"

"I guess so, mother, but it seems very strange."

"It seems strange to me to hear you talking like a grown-up too, but we'll just have to get used to it."

"Be that as it may, mother, I'm getting quite hungry, will we be eating soon do you think?"

"Oh my!" exclaimed Mora, "It's been so interesting it's grown way past lunch time. Let's have a break, eat together, and then we can really get together again after our meal."

We had a fine lunch; everyone talking away with a lot of translation going on and Shuah sounding like a three-year-old again. During lunch, Malcolm told us that there was still no trace of Tintinel or the priests.

When lunch was done we all left the house for a while, the Tirkenez family and Buden to check on their horses, Aril, Lira, the gnomes and myself to be seen about the farm, and Malcolm to wander about letting it be known that we were all going to visit together in the house in the afternoon. Then we all gathered again with the little tree (Shuah was put down for a nap.)

The entertainers were long known to Malcolm and Mora and were greatly trusted, so we quickly brought them up to date on all the happenings and enlisted their aid, which they were glad to provide. "Have your seen or heard anything out of the ordinary in your travels?" asked Malcolm, "More out of the ordinary than the usual, that is."

"Well said." Piro replied, "In the circles we travel in the out of the ordinary is pretty common. However, nothing related to the things you've told us come to mind. How 'bout the rest of you?" They all shook their heads no.

"Our main concern is Bolgar's timetable." Malcolm told them, "But we really would like to know if Bolgar is actually planning to take over the whole world or just the lands we come from - does he even know about this land? He has had long to plan and has been very careful to keep his plans secret; either he doesn't know about this country or he's been very successful in secretly recruiting. We need to know if this land is safe from Bolgar, at least at this time, or if he's been exceedingly cunning.

"He has been exceedingly cunning in our land I may say. We only found out about his plot by luck, though he's been working on it for several hundred years. However, if he is plotting here too, he would have much less control this far from his headquarters. Hopefully, slip-ups would be more likely. We must be alert for any signs of his presence here.

"I'm sure you are sad about Tintinel's disappearance, but there's good news too. Just before I came here I got news by way of the trees that Lemuel had gotten well on his way; he's going to find a tree every night he journeys and contact us - except when he stops by the northern Dwolim.

"Also, the gnomes are continuing to explore the underground country we found. We'll have excellent contact with them once enough gnomes can be trained in 'tree-popping.' They have contacted Sola-Proom, the Watcher, and they will attempt to find out Bolgar's plans. Sola-Proom says it may take some time; though they have means of doing a certain amount of spying they have to be very careful - one slip-up could cause the destruction of their entire people. He was also elated that more of his people have been found; they will want to get in contact with them. I'm sure they will also want to send some of their people to learn to contact the trees if they can.

"So far humans and gnomes have been able to learn. Victorius was able to do it as soon as he knew it could be done, unicorns are remarkable, even in his weakened state. We are contacting the dwarves to have them send some trainees - there should be no problem, they're closely related to the gnomes. Buden, would you like to try learning to contact the trees like we're doing now on your own?"

"Yes, I would." Buden replied, "It's a wonderful help in understanding across the languages. From what you said about Lemuel I assume you can also speak across distances - this is a great advantage in war. But what if the enemy learned to do this also - can they use this ability against us?"

"Well, let's ask the tree spirit here a few questions. Tree spirit, first, you do not use names, but names are very important to us so we would like to have something to call you, as we do Grandma Walnut back at my retreat. Do you have something you'd like to be called?"

"This tree was brought here from a place overlooking the sea; I would like to be called Sea-view. To answer your as yet unasked questions: I don't know if we can resist entry once the method is learned, we can only try. But I do know that we cannot be forced to communicate with others; we can refuse. It doesn't matter if someone harms or even kills our tree - it doesn't hurt us, we just find a new seedling."

"Do you miss your home by the sea?" asked Mora with some concern.

"Yes. That is, I did. All this makes up for it and more. All your small trees will feel the same. Actually, we have all enjoyed being together and your great care of our trees. Just a few of us have missed our old habitations. Some haven't missed them at all and those whose trees were stared as seeds here are perfectly happy since they chose to be here."

"I'm glad to hear that, I've tried, of course, to do the best I can for the trees. I'm thrilled that now I can talk to the spirits within them and see what I'm doing right or wrong."

"You have done well by our trees. There are stories from the first trees you started with about mistakes of course, but you've done well since I came here."

"In our land," said Malcolm, "we are recruiting those we can trust as fast as we can to defend against whatever Bolgar is attempting. If we have enough time we must send Justin to the Great Tree; she says it will greatly help our cause if he can visit her. Have you folks any stories, rumors or legends concerning a great tree on an island in the ocean?"

"There is such a story among my people," said Budin, "but it's just a story and has no clues that will help you find the tree. We have not thought of it as a true story - I gather we were wrong."

"Then I think a trip to the coast is in order. If we can find some honest well-traveled sailors, perhaps they may have word of the island we're seeking.

"Ah, there we can help you;" said Piro, "we have many friends around the docks and aboard the ships. We know the honest and the semi-honest - the others are not our friends. We have just come from Gwim on the coast south of here and our next stop is Garnet Bay on the coast north of here; it's a busy port with many sailors, merchants and dock workers. We're good friends with several honest ship captains; it would be a great help if one or two were in port.

"We do have a regular route, but a somewhat irregular schedule. We can stay a bit longer than usual here and as long as needed in Garnet Bay where we can surely, one way or another, find the possible location of the island if it's known at all."

"That sounds very good. Since I've done about all I can back at the retreat to get things moving, Mrs. Penny is very competent to keep them moving, and we can keep in close contact through the trees, I will go with you to Garnet Bay. Aril, Lira and Justin can go too; there's nothing like travel to broaden the mind and strengthen the body - especially if some minor difficulties arise. I'm going to treat this country as semi-safe for now. Even if Bolgar has agents here they're not likely to trouble us. Justin is certainly safe from the priests here. That leaves just the normal dangers - unless there's an evil wizard plotting to take over here too... I think we will have no trouble protecting ourselves from common dangers. We'll use the next few days for preparations, magic, ethics and riding lessons and working hard at training in tree popping."

And that's what we did. The conversation broke into several groups and they constantly changed as someone in one group heard something interesting in another group and switched. It was not as noisy as it would have been if we were really talking; the group where you were taking part was clear while the other groups were muted.

We used the little trees for training and conversations the next few days and got to know all of them. Mora had quite a few in a special building behind the house. Some had metal frames that gradually bent the limbs to make the trees look more balanced and beautiful.

Everyone learned tree popping fairly easily, I think we were getting better at teaching it. By the time we were ready to leave everyone could do it on their own.

But I'm getting ahead of myself - the days leading up to the trip were interesting too.

Read Part Four 

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