Calls Long Forgotten

This story is a continuation of the Tales of Ezok that began in "The Precipice." And unlike previously, we have reached a point in the narrative where I strongly encourage you to read the previous parts before reading this story. They are arranged here in order:

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Why have you returned to us?

The whitetail stood before the great oak, its trunk thicker than if all the trees surrounding the clearing were uprooted and clumped together. On their first meeting, he had entered the ancient tree’s grove as an adversary, and the threat of all the power its massive roots had absorbed had thrummed through the leaves above his head. Even after deer and tree had achieved understanding, Ezok suspected he would not be welcomed back.

But this time, the mists had not blocked his path. Specters of ones long lost had not crept at the corners of his vision, even if he did catch the occasional scent of heather where there was otherwise no undergrowth.

The great oak seemed to sense the shift in his purpose. He did not enter the grove as a scout now, seeking the scent of the enemy within. He entered as a creature in need.

In need of counsel.

Hundreds, perhaps even a thousand moons had passed since the sapling that had become the leviathan before Ezok first poked from the ground. Part of the great oak’s power stemmed from all the accumulated experience and distilled wisdom that timespan, spanning more generations than even the greatest storyteller of Ezok’s kind could recount, had granted.

“I seek your wisdom,” Ezok replied to its murmured question.

Many times creatures have approached our grove, the leaves whispered from the branches of the great oak and from all the surrounding trees. They ask for many things, but wisdom? This is a first.

“Then they are short sighted.”

How are you so certain we have wisdom to give?

“You have existed all this time. And it is said trees are more tapped into the ways of this world. It comes from your roots and that connection to the earth.” Ezok nodded to the wooden webs that had bubbled to the surface and spread across the open ground surrounding the great oak.

Then he dipped his head to the mound these roots had formed where one of their charges slumbered, dreaming a life better than the one they had known. Enough so that they were willing to surrender this one to the oak.

“And last time we met, you told me their spirits join with yours when the dream ends. Surely that contributes to the pool.”

Yes. Each charge is another lifetime of wisdom, so that we may understand creature and tree. To know this, you show much wisdom yourself, Ezok. So, we ask again, why have you returned to us?

“I…” His voice trailed off. “I don’t know how to confront this enemy.”

Ezok, the one who eradicated the clinging vines when none of his kind had ever even thought to try, now unsure of his path. The tree seemed to relish the contrast. Tell us of this enemy.

So Ezok told of his visions. He spoke of the sun-baked meadow, of everything covered in green. Not a single dry leaf or withered grass stalk to be found. Even the tree trunks now strangled with ivy and moss, as if the slightest hint of brown was an affront to the paradise the so-called Speaker of Life claimed to create. A place where not even a shadow could survive the pervasive light, and any who tried to do anything but marvel at this splendor found their way blocked by blinding sunshine and suffocating heat.

“She said she had driven death from her woods. That death itself was the enemy,” Ezok concluded.

The leaves remained silent, and Ezok appreciated the tree’s circumspection. So many of his own kind would spring to voice their conclusion, as if afraid of silence. But trees did not understand such motions. Sudden leaps, dodging, darting through the undergrowth: these were the flights of the whitetail.

The great oak and its kind had to make do with incremental growth. Theirs was slow, steady, certain progress. None could move from sapling to hulking sentinel in a night—or even a moon’s time. All that patience, and they still might be felled by a forest fire or struck by lightning long before they reached their full potential. Yet, the trees did not balk, did not demand more from this life.

Ezok thought his kind could learn plenty from the sentinels they lived beneath, silent examples of a life spent in gradual pursuit of small goals: a few more rays of sunlight this day, a few more fruit this season, and a grove of offspring in a hundred moons’ time.

That the one before him happened to possess the ability to speak only added to its draw, which the great oak once again demonstrated as it asked, How did this Speaker of Life achieve victory over death?

Ezok had not thought to ask when the light had been attempting to pry open his eyelids and burn away his sight. “I do not know.”

If there is a Speaker of Life, then it seems natural there would be a Speaker of Death.

Ezok nodded.

Yet you did not hear them speak to you.

Ezok nodded again.

She has driven death from the Whispering Woods. The enemy, as she says. And what did you do when you achieved victory over your enemy?

Ezok thought back to that night when he and the mountain goats had pushed the boulders loose, rolling them down into the valley where the enemy hid. Allowing the sunlight to scour away the clinging vines and ensuring no more forest creatures would become the Taken.

The sizzling death cry of his sworn enemy echoed in his mind as he answered, “I killed it.”

And, like our kind, when one dies, another rises to take the place it left behind.

Ezok blinked. “There have been more Speakers of Death.”

And she has continued to drive death away. Or, perhaps…

“…to wield it,” Ezok finished the thought. “The only one in her woods who can, now. She hasn’t defeated death…”

…she has corrupted it.

“But I still do not know how to defeat her.”

It is clear to us. She must go. She must be replaced. She must die. Only then can a new Speaker of Life rise, one that will fulfill their purpose.

Ezok remained silent for a time.

You are not satisfied with this path.

“Must…” After a moment, he finally gave voice to the thought roiling in his gut. “Must death always be the answer?”

You—or your spirit, at least—saw what happens when death is absent. The imbalance. Trees that never shed their leaves. Creatures who breathe, but never eat. Creatures who never flee, but never mate. They persist, but they never live.

Ezok nodded. “I recognize the imbalance. It’s why I’m here.”

But you, the one who destroyed the clinging vines, are not willing to do what is necessary.

“The enemy sought only to take and destroy. This Speaker of Life does not act with such greed. Despite the outcome, I do not sense the same malice in her intentions.” He paused. “She seems to truly believe she is helping her creatures. Protecting them.”

If you see another path, then you must follow what is in your heart, Ezok. We do not hold every answer. We are not the ones who will enter the Whispering Woods.

“And that leads us to the second issue.” Ezok blinked out of instinct at the memory as he spoke, “She has weaponized the sun against any who dare defy her will. Even moving in her Whispering Woods is an affront. If I enter, she will rob me of my sight, suffocate me with air so hot it burns my insides, or otherwise prevent me from ever finding her. And unlike my dreams, I won’t have the luxury of waking up this time.”

As the sun grows larger in the time of the green leaves, this is an even graver threat. The great oak paused. Then why not wait for night when her ally has deserted her?

Ezok shuddered, a rare show of the fear instinct Jessop had done his best to drum out of him long ago. “When I was there, the air was so still. Not even the slightest breeze. I think she has halted the sun. Halted the seasons. The air does not change because day does not turn to night, warmth does not give way to cool. It makes sense: snow and freezing wind tear away the leaves and bring hunger with them. Winter is the ally of death.”

So summer is the ally of life.

Ezok nodded.

To exert her will over the sky, over the seasons… Hers is a profound power.

To hear that from the great oak with its own profound power sent a chill down Ezok’s spine.

“So I walk to a certain end if I enter those woods.”

Perhaps. But perhaps not.

Ezok tilted his head and waited for the great oak to continue.

After several moments of deliberation with nothing but the drone of the cicadas to fill the silence as the dawn shifted to the thick, blanketing heat of midday, the tree spoke again.

What we will show you must only be used within the Whispering Woods. In a place where the natural order is already disturbed.

The tree’s trepidation was clear, and something that could make the great oak hesitate had Ezok’s attention. “You know me as a creature of my word.”

Yes.

“Then you know I will not waver when I promise only to use what you are about to teach me within the Whispering Woods.” Then Ezok paused. “So what is it?”

Over our many seasons in this place, creatures have come to us who possess certain abilities. Certain connections to this world that allow them to influence it. Exert their will over it. There are rituals those who show that attunement used. Most of these calls are long forgotten, but they have survived within us.

It dawned on Ezok. “Power like what the Speaker of Life wields.”

She has command over the day.

Ezok’s breathing quickened at the great oak’s next words.

We will teach you to command the night.