The grove

The woods were swarming with the life and merriments of spring. Magpies were hovering in the fresh air, ospreys were hunting down wrens and dragonflies were jetting over the ponds.

Moss covered secular oaks in thick velvety lumps as the dew drops tingled like wind chimes from the weary branches.

A young man was walking about the woods, talking to himself and observing the enthusiasm of life around him. He was enveloped in a green silken cloth, sewn with delicate hands and made of woodland cloth itself. Warm autumn leaves fringed the careful needlework and moss toughened the weak parts as if it were leather. He was a child of the woods, a renegade of the human societies who had chosen to live in harmony with the ancestral spirits of the forest.

A robin soared over the canopies and rushed down the silent glade. He found a comfortable branch and, enthralled by the scene that opened before him, stood by and gazed upon the stranger.

“And you see Aamu, look at the dew drops. They do look like crystal, don’t they?” said the enthusiastic man while he skipped barefoot by the dark alleys of the ancient forest.

A distant voice resounded in the perfumed air.

“Yes, Lahja, legend says they are tears of the Enchantress, crying at the evil gnawing at this mournful world”. The speaker was nowhere to be seen. Yet this did not seem to trouble the young man, who, taken by the conversation and astounded at what he had heard answered with a sad curiosity:

“But she is an Enchantress, Aamu, can’t she heal the world out there?”.

“You do not know what you speak of, Lahja. You’ve never even seen the world beyond the forest.”

Aamu halted and, as if trying to defy the statement of his ubiquitous friend, he skimmed the horizon in search of an end to the jade boughs but open land was nowhere to be seen. Once he had travelled throughout the forest for four days, failing to find the outer boundaries of the trees.

“What is the world like out there, Aamu? Are there any others, like us?”

“You should have learnt something from your tutor, Lahja. What do you do during his wise lessons? He teaches you of what flies, of what breathes, of what grows and of what lies beyond the life we’ve known. What did he tell you?”

“He spoke to me of an everlasting chaos from which one man was to come out as the new leader of the races on Tara.”. He paused and mumbled. “Tara” he thought. “Tara”. “What is Tara, Aamu? That I do not really know”.

Aamu maundered. He was uncertain of what to tell the young man. “You shall learn in time. Tara is more than what you shall ever know. It is a cradle of life, and yet, a kernel of wars and hatred.”

Lahja realized that this was a delicate topic and that, for the time being, this answer had to quench his thirst for knowledge.

They moved on, observing with glee and interest, how the intricate relationship between life and the cycles all creatures go through was being tested by the enthusiasm of the new season.

“Aamu, what do they call Spring in your own language?” said Lahja.

“Well, we have many names for the new season. Yet we only use them in appropriate situations. You see, when the new season brings hope, we call it Blejan. However, when the new season is tied to a belief, a religious endeavour, we call it Nurzhan.”

“Why would you have many names for the same thing? Isn’t one name enough to describe this season?” said Lahja.

“You must understand Lahja, Hialu will have probably told you so before, that there is a constant quest for perfection. We seek to give the appropriate names to every small situation or element. We cannot be content with one single name to describe it all” said Aamu.

What Aamu wished Lahja to understand was that there are many faces to one thing. He wanted to nurture the young man’s mind with a constant reasoning and understanding of the forces that moved around him.

“And what would you call Spring if it were a quest, a starting point for something new to be discovered?” said Lahja.

To that question, Aamu, could not find an answer. Yet he was pleased inside because he realized that Lahja was understanding and giving some value to what he was being taught. However this question was deeper than one could possibly imagine, it revealed Lahja’s intrinsic thoughts.

“So Lahja, what do you think the world out there can offer someone like you?” said Aamu.

“Freedom,” replied Lahja “a great sense of freedom and adventure. I want to move on, Aamu, I want to make some experience in my lifetime. This forest is turning into a prison from which I dare not escape.” Lahja sighed and felt the insidious air around him tickle and chide his spree of enthusiasm. The trees and boulders, the springs and ponds, the squirrels and vultures all gazed upon him with conceit and reprimanding eyes.

“Aamu, the wood spirits are not pleased with me. I can feel it in their looks, I can feel it in the vibrations that echo across the grass, through the corridors of this never-ending forest. Why can I not gaze beyond what was given to me? Why would I have to accept this solitary situation? I want to flee, not because I dislike this place; that never, there is no winter here to bring misery and silence. But because …” Lahja staggered.

Aamu, as if reading Lahja’s thoughts, concluded his friend’s sentence: “but because there is a call.”

Lahja sat down, his hands buried deep in his face; it was his own way of meditating. He felt the chill of the early morning run through his veins and the throbbing of the Earth’s heart rush, by rhythmic cadences, throughout his own limbs.

Aamu’s distant voice resounded: “The Earth and your soul, Lahja, are one. One and all. You can feel every little pain, every little cry and shiver, every little laughter as if it were your own. Have you ever asked yourself what the reason for this was, Lahja? Don’t you find this whole thing peculiar, I’d say? How can you sever this intense bond for the far-flung call of your primeval instinct?”

Aamu paused and the morning breeze came down from the remotest skies to delight the boughs and the denizens of the enchanted forest. It’s salubrious mirth brought a spell of enchantment over the already beautiful scenery.

“The wood spirits know they will lose you Lahja. They can do very little about it. Yet they want to keep you here among them. Your presence assures their safety, for reasons I do not know myself. Can you feel the winds call you, echoing across distant plains and unknown lands to gather here and witness your beauty? The moon itself shall not rise, the stars shall not shine and the wind shall die, if you leave them, Lahja. The burden of your responsibilities is greater than destiny itself but you are not meant to be passive. Sooner or later you shall have to endure a choice, a choice that comes from your heart and not from your mind, remember”.

Lahja was an enthusiastic youth, his young age walked hand in hand with his naivety. He was a creature of the woods, but a denizen and a stranger at the same time. He knew his stay wouldn’t last forever and he often felt as the odd one out. Hialu himself could not reveal the reason for Lahja’s strange relationship with his own homeland.

Aamu spoke out and relieved Lahja of the weight of these recent thoughts: “Come on Lahja, it is almost time for your lesson. We have to catch up with Hialu. By this time he should be meditating on Idah Hill.”

Lahja’s silver hair glistened in the morning sunlight and his fair skin merged with the white barks of the birches. He ran up and down the hillocks and mounds, he dashed across the ponds and streams as if he were a forest fawn.

He came upon the ridges of massive Idah Hill. The jade grass fringed and darkened the outer levels of the isolated height. The blue sky, patched with a few shredded clouds, brightened the dark hill and merged in the breathless landscape. Upon its foremost point stood a circle of tamarisks, wind-beaten and contorted against the endless sky. Within this circle rose a jagged stone twenty feet high. Hialu, for unexplained reasons, named it “The Astral Tower”.

The Astral Tower was a marvellous feat in itself, it did not belong to the hill itself, it was almost as if it had been brought there by the race of giants; an ancient observatory which had been abandoned over time.

Lahja followed a trail that had been conquered after a long struggle with the high grasses. In a cyclical ascension it proceeded to the heights of the ridge and every twenty yards were marked by symbols that Lahja could not decipher. He reached the top and found his tutor there, meditating with his eyes set upon the rising sun.

Hialu was a massive creature. He could have easily been eight feet high, maybe more. He was the last lord of the noble Centaurs, a race that had long passed into oblivion and wildness. He had a broad face with deep dark eyes and his forehead was crowned by a set of golden antlers that gave him that touch of nobility and majesty. He bore many scars and evidence for a long harsh life. Lahja had conjectured once that Hialu could have been 300 years old, but even that approximation didn’t seem to be enough for such an ancient creature.

Hialu rose to the sight of his apprentice and cast his comforting shadow upon Lahja.

“Good morning, noble Master. I hope you will forgive me for being late” said Lahja.

“I cannot chide you for being late, Jurh Lahja. There is much to observe in this world and if we use the time that is given to us, wisely, then you should always take advantage of it”. Hialu smiled with warmth at his young apprentice.

“What shall we talk about today, my master?” asked an enthusiastic Lahja. He was looking at the banks of clouds gathering on the horizon. The sun was running across the skyline, with its streak of arrows and bolts ablaze like a raging comet in summer nights. Hialu had once told him that the Sun was like life itself; an ancient power with its duties and its sacrifices. Every creature was bound by a common fate, that of accepting the setback of mortality and all the responsibilities that came with it.

Only the creature that tried to forsake its code of life left its bones rotting on the sands.

Wisdom gave every soul a law to abide by, yet we all had the choice of whether taking the joys and pains of this code or not.

Hialu took a few moments before answering his disciple’s question. He was looking at the same skyline, as if he could understand what was going on in Lahja’s mind.

“My child, it is that same sun that we talked about once, a long time ago I guess. Nothing has changed, there is no way we can run away from what we have, and sometimes, from what we are.”

Lahja looked back at him in amazement. “Sometimes?” He frowned at the possibility.

“Yes, sometimes. Sometimes. You wish to run away Lahja, gaze upon the open world. I know that. I have read that in your mind, in your movements, in the air itself. All the spirits in these woods are my friends. They have told me about your longing and your questions. They have told me about Aamu.” The centaur appeared to be relaxed; he did not cast a reproachful glance on his pupil.

“What about him, Centaur Lord? He means no harm, he is my only friend” said Lahja, almost nervous at his Master’s statement.

“And I’m glad he is. But you never told me before. What is he to you?” said Hialu, with inquisitive eyes.

“He’s my soul” said Lahja. He shuddered at his own words. He felt as if he didn’t speak the words himself; as if someone else had spoken them.

“I see it already, Lahja. I see it already. Your moment will come, we shall have to separate one day and go our own ways. I will tell you eventually. I will tell you what will happen to you. Yet for now do not fear. The forest is your abode and no one will change that. I am the Lord of the Forest and now one can defy me within its borders. Therefore Lahja I ask you to be patient. I ask you to not end up in some rash endeavour or in the spree of enthusiasm. You cannot leave until your knowledge will be sufficient to face the open world, do you understand?” Hialu looked at him, his eyes deep and searching.

“Yes I do, my master” answered Lahja. But he knew he would break his vow. Instinct told him so and he feared the consequences.

Hialu looked at him a while longer and then proceeded down to the path on the western ridge. He beckoned to his pupil and requested Lahja to follow him deep in the grove of Helmanticus.

Helmanticus was a lord of eld, the founder of the Centaur race. His mother was Rheaphel, the mare of the skies, and his father was Lushnj, lord of the Mountain Giants. Hialu was the last descendant of this ancient line, an ancient glory reduced by the endless power of Time.

The grove of Helmanticus took this name after the Centaur Lord stumbled upon the fumes of the Other world. A deep crack in the earth exhaled pungent smells that were said to bestow the gift of foresight. Yet nothing was granted willingly if there was not setback to it. Helmanticus, in his arrogance, defied the Gods and was stabbed to death by his rival, the future prophet Caroh. Legend had it that every prophet of the grove was to be murdered by his successor until the line would fail.

Yet the line had died out and only two centaurs were left: Hialu, the Lord of the great Forest and his sister, Ge-Hiale mistress of the Silver Lakes. Now Hialu was the only master of the ill-fated grove and no one was going to remove him.

Festoons of ivy hung upon the cherry boughs and rocks from a primeval chute decorated the mossy carpets of the grove. Here and there ancient standing stones bore witnesses of its ancient function in the old days. A mournful grimace made way through the bark of the ancient centaur’s visage as if he was recalling the doom of his lineage. Lahja walked by him, immersed in wonder and astonishment. The grove was the oldest he had seen in the woods. The trees were thick and the branches so gnarled that it looked as if their agony was to last forever. No squirrels rushed up and down the canopies, no insects buzzed in the morning air. All was silent and sacred.

Lahja couldn’t overcome the wave of his own curiosity: “Why have we come here?”

Hialu’s answer was mysterious yet straightforward: “We shall talk of poetry and doom.”