In the Realm of the Midnight Gardener
Chapter 4: Following the Garden Path

The corpses met him after last meal at the outskirts of the town. They led him down the dusty road for a kilometer or so. It was growing dark, with the bloody half ring of dusk just showing on the tops of the forest trees. Domingo followed his guides, keeping them always in front. Most likely, all was fine. Most likely, this was the assignment these two twisted bodies claimed it to be.

Yet a duster could never be too careful. Domingo, as with most successful dusters, had made his share of competitors and enemies over the years.

He wouldn’t have put it past any of those jealous bastards he called enemies to hire these Tindalosi to lead him out away from the town, into the woods, and exact some revenge. He clenched a gumpta fruit in his hand, ready to use it on them if things went sour. Contract or no, these two might be counting on their anonymity to keep them free of justice. Or perhaps they assumed they could murder him and destroy the contract. A fat lot of good it did him if they found it missing. He’d be avenged, but that was cold comfort. It was always possible these two were up to no good, but he was obliged by the contract to follow them, to try and fulfill it to the best of his ability. He had his reputation to think of. Besides, he’d be damned if he’d have a pack of slavering Ghorls hunting him to the ends of creation and back for breaking the contract.

They reached a rutted trail, which turned off the main road, into the forest. He knew the spot even before the Tindalosi turned. He knew the trail, as did everyone who was a visitor to this place. The trail led into the woods, and ultimately to the point where this forest touched a passward to the Garden Path.

Domingo always smiled as the moment of the crossing grew closer. The Garden Path, that organic link between countless forests, jungles, brush and scrub-lands, across an unknown number of continents and worlds, it was ineffability, a whisper of a mystery only just starting to reveal itself to humans.

Poor, sad humanity. How it had spent its superstitious, ignorant childhood as a species in fear of the ancient forests and wild lands of mother Gaia. Strange, terrifying things dwelt in those distant places. Men who wandered too far into their gloomy depths would vanish, never to be seen again. That was the subconscious madness which drove old humanity to hide itself in ever-growing prisons of steel and stone and light, to chase away the demonic wild places that filled their hearts with dread. How awful, how nightmarish had been the imagination of antiquity’s humans, full of terror of the unknown which the natural world inflicted upon them. Wolves and bears, lions and snakes and spiders, awful night things which howled back from the darkness. Devils, demons, spirits and ghosts, they’d plagued humanity, always pouring forth from the darkness of the deepest wild. Humans shunned and avoided the gloomy darkness of the deep woods. It was humans who, in their weakness and terror, had pulled down the forests, paved over the living world, sublimating their own weak fears by the only means they had: they destroyed the wild places of the earth, ruined them with fire and axes, built their towns and cities, paving or consuming or caging everything that lived and could not be subjugated. Had they but known what a boon these forests and jungles would ultimately be to their progeny. Indeed, these organic networks would ultimately be mankind’s saviour from its own folly and hubris.

The Garden Path was close now. Domingo could feel the throbbing of the tree roots under his feet; the hissing shiver of the branches and leaves where the forest of this place touched another across the cosmos. The Tindalosi stopped and looked back.

“Stay close,” they said. “You do not wish to be lost.”

Domingo rolled his eyes. He knew this as well as anyone. Superstitious primitives or no, ancient humanity new full well that men could be lost in the wild places, never to return. He and every traveler knew this to this day. Physical map or mental, every traveler kept to the directions to guide them from each point on the Garden Path. Turn off the Garden Path too soon, and you could be left behind on a world with no way back out. Turn too late, and you might end up in a place you’d not expected, a place often overrun with venom and pain. Turn left or right at the wrong moment, and you’d become another of the lost ones, just another warning tale to children of how unwary fools get their just desserts.

“Good travels, dimwit,” old Juan Polino said with a sardonic wave. “Make sure not to crash any more than usual.”

“Your charms, as always, are the healing balm to my soul,” Domingo quipped.

Then, the three of them stepped forward into the point where the pulsing of the roots was the greatest, sidling by the close-knit tree trunks and intertwined branches. It was a familiar point in the Garden Path, one he’d taken a thousand times before. Yet it never failed to amaze him, the change from one place to the next. It was subtle, that change of foliage, of colour and light as they crossed the boundary from one place to another. If a traveler wasn’t careful, they could miss it. The forests of two places, two worlds, were intertwined. Trees, shrubs, life from each side mingled to the other. To the uninitiated, it would simply seem that you were leaving one part of a forest and entering another. And, Domingo mused with a wry smile, this was technically true. It was simply a matter of distance, of perspective.

They walked through the pulsing of the roots, along the Garden Path, for four, three, two, one more breath, and then it was passed. The dense forest soon thinned, and they emerged into a clearing on the edge of a mountain lake. The skyline was a stark, wintry white-blue, ranged all around by mountain peaks. Dimestra’s Pass, as old Juan Polino always called it, a stretch of woodland and lakes on the Faer world of Dimestra. To the north, he could see the forest city of Ghob-Lian, its six towering city trees rising six hundred meters above the surrounding forest. He and old Juan Polino had spent much time there, conferring with Faer dusters, reading by candlelight at their libraries, wandering the vine bridges, and getting drunk with Gwyllion, Juan Polino’s oldest friend in the world, not mention one hell of a lecher. Young Domingo had spent many a night barely able to keep the old imp’s hands off him. It always made Juan Polino howl.

“Oh he was keen on that sweet little rump of yours!” Juan Polino cackled. “It’s not much to look at these days, I’m afraid.”

“It’s fine,” Domingo commented, with a quick glance back at his backside. The Tinalosi wandered on, and he followed.

Years of traveling this way, of wandering over the wild places across the living worlds, it still exhilarated Domingo, still shivered him with its anxious foreboding. He’d learned lessons along the way, some more painful than others. More than once, old Juan Polino had left him lost in some place he did not know, testing young Domingo’s resolve to untangle himself of a calamity not of his making. The giggling old lunatic had always taken pleasure in making his student cringe and suffer. The worse the suffering or humiliation were, the harder the old man laughed, slapping his thighs and pointing. Yet it was never without a lesson. “Don’t look at the trees, fool, or the light. Don’t bother with the birds or scampering things. They know the Garden Path better than you ever will. The roots, Domingo. Pay attention to the pulsing of the roots. And the hiss of the leaves, even when there is no wind to shiver them. Know these as you know your bones, and you will not be lost for long. If I only teach you one thing, let it be that.”

And Domingo hated the fact that the withered old mummy was right, but right the old man was. The thrumming of the roots, like the vibrations of a musical instrument’s strings, tuned him, never failed to guide him safely. The tendons in his legs and groin vibrated with that life force, were tuned to it. The keenness of his viscera augured the tell-tale hiss of the leaves seconds before the sound had even reached his ears.

The Ixtapodan had a far better word for this experience. Cremzahujya, the mingling of the root and the leaf. It was a simplistic translation, but it captured -- at least partially -- the essence of it, that sense of a being connected to the Garden Path at an essential level. The Ixtapodan, being the most ancient (and arguably most bizarre) of the five species known to be traveling the Garden Path, had developed over millennia a complex phrasal and pictographic symbology for describing every aspect of it. This language and body of knowledge, known collectively as the Jualafh, was pictographic, symbolic, poetic, mythic and at times mathematic. Even the Faer, the next most ancient of the five races, had only begun to understand even a fraction of the Jualafh’s wisdom. In the Jualafh, the Ixtapodan did not describe separate continents and worlds linked together by the Garden Path, but instead of a single living wild land stretching on forever across the cosmos. This wild land is without name, nor can it ever be named. It goes on without end, a living network of every type and variety of life. It is forever reaching out to replace itself on the panoply of living worlds, to reconnect, to re-join itself and to reach out further, further and further. It was life itself.

But enough philosophy. Domingo dragged his attention back to his guides. They were marching across the swampy wetlands of Gr’dosh, a world Domingo had only visited a few times before. The wetlands were not home to any of the five, simply a final destination that marked a turn back point on the celestial map. As best he knew,

Gr’dosh was a dead end; no paths led on to any further point.

Yet here they were, and the Tindalosi turned eastwards, towards the grey, stinking sea in the distance. The binary suns were coming up, weak, half-lifeless things that kept this moon alive, but just barely. It was truly a cold, unwelcoming place, where life clung on in its temeritous way, as lichen, as squat thorny scrubs, biting insects and vicious little things that hissed and scrapped and killed to keep themselves barely alive.

The Tindalosi marched on, getting ever closer to the seashore, and as the day finished and dusk descended, they turned due north into a cluster of mangroves. The temperature and humidity were suddenly unbearable, particularly as they dredged away from the open air off that stinking sea, and into the mangrove swamp. The swamp most likely sat atop volcanics, since the suns certainly wouldn’t provide one tenth of that heat. Domingo felt the sweat running down his face, into his reddened eyes. Fat, lead-coloured amphibians croaked and galumphed through the waters, snatching at flying things and nearby fish. Black-slitted, copper-infused eyes watched from those creatures’ slack-skinned faces, observing the newcomers with remorseless complacency. Domingo lanced one with his knife, and carefully dropped it into one of his salt-lined carrying sacks. Amphibians were a treasure trove of alchemicals, and a duster never passed up an opportunity for a new replace. The Tindalosi stopped to watch him complete this work, most likely enthralled by the killing. Once he had stored the dead thing, they went on, no longer interested. He hastened to catch up.

Then came the thrumming, the hissing, and they stepped through on to open plains covered in dense, red grasses. It was bitter cold with a howling wind to their backs.

The march went on across these red grasses for hours, filling Domingo’s shoes and pants in biting insects and hooking brambles. The wind blasted his exposed skin with icy grit until it was painful to the touch. The red grasses were razor-edged, making countless small, painful cuts wherever his skin was bared. He pulled the collar of his jacket up, tucked his hands into his sleeves, and tied an extra shirt he’d packed across his face, slitting a small enough hole for vision. Even thus protected, he was smarting more often than not when one of those countless red blades found purchase on some briefly exposed skin. To make it even worse, some fast moving creatures lived here, and would, without warning, dart to his side, or more often, directly in front of him, sending him stumbling back. Long, clawed legs, bright white eyes, ochre fur and snarling teeth greeted him as they dashed. They hissed and shrieked, snapping or slashing for an instant at him, then whipping away into the grass. The creatures were more frightened than aggressive, another nuisance for him to endure, another little something to keep his nerves on edge. It kept his mind off his exhaustion, at any rate.

The Tindalosi finally turned southwest, nearly back the way they’d come, and soon the grasses grew so high that they obscured all sight, all direction. Domingo raced to keep pace with his guides. A windless hiss, a shiver and strain in his loins, and they came out into a forest. It was an ancient boreal, with massive, branchless trunks rising up out of sight, their dense, high canopy blocking out all but the faintest illumination. The forest floor was carpeted with shrubs and stunted ferns. The place smelled of dampness, of mildew and rain and mushrooms, fecund life and decay.

Across the forest floor, Domingo spied an enormous beast, all lichen-white fur and red-tinged fangs. It glowered at them from fifty meters, replaceing potential prey appear so suddenly. Domingo didn’t recognize the species, but it was big, very big, nasty-looking and most likely famished. It lowed in curiosity and hunger; its dark eyes burned across the distance between them.

The corpses either didn’t see the beast or didn’t consider it a threat. They continued on their dismal way, oblivious, so it was down to him to stop it. Domingo reached into one of the outer pouches of his satchel, and drew out three gray-brown seeds. He gauged the distance, lifted his arm and hurled them halfway between him and the beast. The seeds, as expected, exploded with loud cracks. The air filled with a white noxious dust expelled from the seeds, spewing in hissing whorls from their cracked nut shells. The beast, startled and not enjoying the smell and white dust at all, lumbered off, moaning and growling in irritation. The corpses went on, and Domingo, followed.

“No need to thank me,” he muttered, but no one was listening.

Hour upon hour they went, never stopping, not even slowing. They wandered and meandered. They’d taken the Garden Path a dozen times or more by now, and Domingo’s head was beginning to swim. It was not uncommon after too many crossings for a traveler to grow woozy, nauseous, lose concentration. It was known as the Bhonj, too many steps on the Garden Path. Years of traveling had left Domingo under the false assumption that he was immune to its deleterious effects. Here was his proof to the contrary. He was nauseous and unsteady as he walked.

The Tindalosi seemed to be crisscrossing, taking him along to places he imagined they’d already been. He couldn’t say rightly; his head swam, he stumbled and had to force himself to keep his eyes from crossing. The changing conditions, from night to day, from blazing summer heat to the dead of winter, the howl of winds to deathly silence, it battered him in eroding increments. Stepping between so many worlds and the gravity changed with each one. He would be too light one moment, then dragged down, tripping over roots and stones the next. His clothes and exposed skin was marked with small cuts and scrapes from branches, thorns and sharp-edged leaves. His eyes burned, his throat and nose were singed and sore from the wind and the dust.

His clothes were caked with a growing mire of grime and mud and dust. And the Tindalosi went on.

He was wearying of the entire trip, that much was certain. Hurrying after those two hooded, egret-legged ghouls was starting to play on his last nerve. He knew a rest was impossible. These things did not require rest, nor food nor water. They did not sleep, nor have any needs which connected them to the needs of their once-human bodies. The bleak science which created them -- allowed their masters to control them -- was all that kept the corpses animate. They didn’t suffer under the same mortal constraints as other species. In its own way, it was enviable.

Besides, Domingo knew a test when he saw one. This wandering through the Garden Path was a test which he was expected to pass. They were looking for weakness; they wanted to see what he could endure. The Tindalosi considered all mortal, organic life as inferior, unnecessary. Beyond the use of other species’ dead as their vessels in the living worlds, or in accomplishing tasks which were beyond their ken, the Tindalosi saw nothing worthwhile in organic life. The fact that they needed him to carry out this mission wouldn’t stop them from harassing him, making this as difficult as possible. Little was known about the Tindalosi, except that cruelty was at the core of their nature. Though they said nothing, barely registered his presence behind them, he was sure they were enjoying his suffering. They sipped at his pain and frustration and exhaustion like a fine wine. He was exhausted and close to dropping, but he’d be damned if he was going to give them the satisfaction of giving up. He trudged on behind them, letting the weariness be an impetus to keep going, if just to irk them.

The impetus seemed to go on forever.

He’d slept on his feet, stumbling and weaving as exhaustion forced his eyes closed, but it was short-lived. He would drift, drowsy and bone-weary, then when it was too much, when his mortal limits were reached, he’d snatch at his pouch containing the Garali, a stimulant refined from a dozen or more plant extracts, and boiled into a caramel coloured, bile-flavoured paste. He’d chew the smallest bit, snap out of his stupour, and huff on. Garali was powerful, and could keep a creature conscious even after a week without sleep, but Domingo had rare need to test the concoction’s limits like this. His brain, while awake, was a queasy, confused mess, a creeping paranoia dabbling at the edge of his sanity. He knew there was nothing for it. He had a job to do, and there was no way he’d have been able to sleep with these two nearby. He’d not have asked them to stop for a rest, no matter what. It must have bothered them to excess that he never asked, that he kept their undead pace. Exhausted as he was, he felt a lingering pride at that. Cold comfort.