"Welcome, I thought you'd be here about now, though I was just guessing when you'd leave Garnet Bay. Come along with me another mile up the trail and we can have a nice visit, just so you aren't too snoopy."

"Why are you so concerned about us being snoopy? asked Lira, "Or is that being too snoopy?

The old man laughed merrily, "Not at all, my dear, a most reasonable question, and one I was going to address anyway after introductions. My name is Olu Kifran; you can call me Olu. I perceive that you are not a native speaker of our language and thereby I shall be afforded at least one interesting story today. I presume this other who looks like you twin is indeed just that, are any others among you non-native?"

"Yes, I am," I told him, "I come from the same place Aril and Lira come from. I won't tell you which is which because I can't usually tell them apart. I'm Justin and our friends are Rose, Mima, Bret and Krager; they're all from Garnet Bay."

"I'm very pleased to meet all of you. I'll be happy to hear your stories and to tell you mine. You see, I don't have any problems with the normal back and forth inquisitiveness of social interchange, but at my home you may see strange things. I expect you will have questions, they're welcome, but any snooping beyond what I'm willing to tell you is considered snooping. With that settled, let's be off."

And off, indeed, we went, up the trail Olu had disappeared up two days before. The path was too narrow for more than one at a time, so we couldn't talk much. As we walked along I began to feel the surroundings were subtly different, but I couldn't put my finger on just why.

By the time I had come to the conclusion that it was the trees that were getting stranger and stranger we came to a clearing of rolling meadow with a stream flowing through it and next to the stream a great tree with more forest behind. It had a huge trunk with windows and a door in it; obviously Olu's home. But as we approached it became apparent that the windows and door and the porch and everything else had not been built into and on the trunk but had grown there.

"Now you can begin to see some of the strange things I mentioned, my home being one of the chiefest. I will happily tell you that I can change the growth of trees and shrubs in any way that I desire. But if you seek to know how I do it, that's snooping."

"That's wonderful!" cried Lira, "But if we see something like that and exclaim, 'How did you do that?' without thinking, please don't take it as snooping, just as an exclamation of wonder."

Olu laughed again, "I shall certainly take that into consideration. But come now, I've made up some snacks for your refreshment after your long hike and we can exchange stories. I have a table and chairs behind my home, let's walk around and sit down."

On the table were dishes of fresh fruit and nuts and a number of different kind of cakes that appeared to include fruit and nuts. Mima asked, "It's autumn and the apples and grapes are certainly in season, but not the cherries and strawberries; can you control that too?"

"Yes, I can force fruits and vegetables to produce unseasonably, but it's much harder than making a tree trunk into a house, though you wouldn't think so. The tree just needs the right kinds of pushes in certain directions and the rest happens sort of automatically. But to drastically change the natural rhythms of flowering and fruiting is laborious.

There were also mugs and a large container of cider. Everything was made of wood and from the forks to the table and chairs appeared to be natural growths rather than manufactured.

"These dishes and mugs are beautiful," exclaimed Rose, "do you grow them on trees?"

"Yes, Rose, I do. You know, I'd love to give things like this to my friends, but I'm afraid the wrong people might see them and try to exploit my skills; it happened once and that was once too often. Some day I'll find someone to pass the skills on to so they won't die with me, but not yet."

"We can certainly understand falling into the hands of the wrong people!" said Tarl, "We just got back from being taken by slavers and then rescued."

"Ah, I thought you might be that group of young people; I heard about your adventure from a friend in Garnet Bay. I would most appreciate the real story, things get so distorted going from mouth to mouth. However, I will restrain my curiosity for a time. As host I feel obligated to tell you something about myself before I can expect the courtesy of reciprocation."

All the story of my life, even just the highlights, would be far too much to tell. So I will, at this time just satisfy a little of your curiosity as to how I came to my ability to control the growth of plants and how I came to live here. For I too, like you three, come from a long way off.

I came to this country in a very strange way. I grew up on a farm among many farms and forests. I was never very interested in farming but spent most of my boyhood exploring the forests near my home. Not that I neglected my chores, but all my spare time was in the forests. As a young man I was unlucky in love. The young lady preferred me but my rival was a brutal man and was determined to get rid of me. One day he caught me alone and said he was going to kill me. I fled into the nearby forest, knowing that I could loose him there since I knew all its trails and secret places. But he was hard on my heels and I took a turn into a thicket I had not entered before, thinking I could get through it more easily, being the smaller man.

Well, I did get through it and ran a long way with no sign of pursuit and I never saw him again - nor anyone else I knew, including my love. Wherever I came from, and I've never been able to return or find out where it is, though I've searched mightily, I was suddenly in this land. After I slowed down in my mad dash to get away, I noticed that many of the trees and other plants were quite different that those I knew. And when I found some people they spoke a different language; I had to learn to talk all over again.

I traveled much, as I mentioned, trying to get home again and learned more languages and even some wizardry, but I finally came here to live over the mountains from where I entered this counter, and found a new love. Sadly she has gone on before me and now I live here alone. We had children, of course, and they had children, but I've lived long and long and have lost track of all my descendants. Who knows, one or more of you from Garnet Bay may be one of my many times great grand children.

Aril, Lira and I gave each other sidelong glances and slight nods as he spoke, and when he had finished, Lira said in our own language, "It must have been very hard for you to loose your love and everything else."

Olu sighed, "Yes, it was -- -- what -- -- what did you say?"

Aril replied, again in our own tongue, "After all these years you still remember your old language - your story made it obvious to us that you came from the same country we come from." Then she switched back to the local language so our friends could be in on the conversation. "I hope we won't open old wounds too much, but our story will show you how we knew."

"Don't be concerned, Aril, or Lira, or both, that is long in the past, but now I'm much more eager to hear your story."

I said to our friends, "We are from the same country Olu is from." And I proceeded to give an abbreviated version, leaving out any mention of tree spirits and many other thing, of my part, and then Lira and Aril intertwined their parts until we came to the part about the disappearance of Tinting and the priests.

I continued, "Because of the threat to me posed by the priests, Malcolm decided Lira, Aril and I should come here until Tinting and the priests had been accounted for. Now we come to the point where our stories cross. Malcolm's retreat on our country is connected to his farm in this country by an invisible door Malcolm discovered by chance. He understood what had occurred quickly enough that he didn't loose track of where the door is on either side, while you ran a long way thinking you were pursued and never found it again.

"As long as we were here anyway, Malcolm decided we should look for an island we need to go to somewhere in the middle of a great sea. At home the seas are very far away, but here it's only about sixty miles from Malcolm's farm. We came down here looking for word of this island and ran afoul of slavers. Malcolm and Bret's father, the captain and owner of a ship, and many others rescued us. We think we now know where the island is and need to get there as quickly as we can, but winter's coming on and with it the storms. We're looking for a weather man who can help us avoid the storms and then we'll be on our way."

"I see. Obviously you are being very careful with how much you tell me. That's only right when you know little about me. I might even be willing to come along as your weather man, but there's much more I'd like to know before I decide and I know there's much more about me you'd like to know before you decide if I'm suitable. I think we need to get together with Malcolm and Captain Jar. If you'd so kind as to help me clean up here, I'll just hike back with you -- if that's all right with you, of course.

Read Part Eighteen 

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