The Land of Broken Roads

They didn’t let him get up right away, of course. Home knelt beside him and placed her hand on his chest. Tiny white threads emerged from it and penetrated his skin to examine his body from the inside.

“I promise I’m fine,” said Dirt, but he didn’t complain or resist. They’d win if he tried, not that it bothered him anymore. “I don’t think she meant me any harm.”

“The intent is less concerning than the outcome, friend Dirt,” said Callius with a sly half-smile.

A short wave of raindrops fell, only lasting the space of a single breath. One drop of water landed on his nose, making him blink. It dripped down into the corner of one eye and annoyed him terribly. It wasn’t the last, either. After a few straggling drops, another wave came, filling the area with the rushing sound of rain for only the briefest moment. High above him, wisps of fog threaded through the branches and drifted between the tree trunks. Clouds? In here?

“You are not fine,” said Home, retracting the white threads from Dirt’s chest and back into her hand. “The cold has damaged your skin. The damage is worse on your toes and fingertips.”

“Is that all? Nothing worse?” He held up his hands and looked at them. His fingertips were a little redder than usual and they tingled a little, but they seemed fine.

“It will cause you pain,” said Home. She didn’t seem to know quite which emotion to use and it left her face uncharacteristically blank.

Dirt grinned. He might be freezing cold, but there was something warming in how upset they all were. “I’ve had worse. And if it’s still bothering me in a few days, I’ll have Socks lick me. He probably will anyway, now that I think about it.”

Another raindrop landed in his eye, making him blink and squirm involuntarily. Home hastily withdrew the white threads, and doing it faster filled him with more of the tiny little snags and tugs than normal. He tried not to wince in discomfort.

“Okay, why is it raining?” He said, sitting up and finally wiping his face.

An entire leaf appeared right above him, covering him like the awning of a market stall, except much larger. No fewer than eight dryads took hold of the tips and sides to hold it up.

“It’s not rain,” said Callius. He held out his hand and Dirt’s pants appeared in it. Then in his other hand a shirt appeared, the thicker red one. “It will be cold for a while, and we’re concerned about your ability to regulate your temperature.”

“What is it if it’s not rain?” said Dirt. He took the clothing from Callius, but then he remembered he’d just been laying on the bare soil. His back would be filthy.

“The wind got a little too excited and did a little too much blowing,” said Callius. “It’s the moisture in the air falling out. Do you want the long explanation, or the short one?”

“Let’s start with the short one, and maybe the long one later, if I still want to hear it,” said Dirt. He lowered his arms, letting his clothing dangle. He’d rather be cold than get it filthy on the inside.

“Okay,” said Callius. “The wind blowing so hard up there moved around a bunch of air down here, and some cold air got in and ruined everything. Everything is ruined. I hope you’re happy with yourself.”

“Oh no, not air!” said Dirt dramatically. “What was I thinking?”

“Your punishment is to put those clothes on and warm back up before your body’s functions are disturbed by a lower internal temperature,” said Callius.

“I have a better idea. And it involves hearing the long explanation,” said Dirt.

Home now decided which look she wanted to put on. It was the one a woman in the kitchens had given him when she caught him and Màxim stealing a couple spoonfuls of honey. “Dirt, if you do not get dressed, then we will be forced to dress you for your own good.”

He couldn’t help but grin even as he shivered from the sparse raindrops dripping all the way down his body from his shoulders. “My idea involves getting warm, I promise. Do you think you can seal my old bath so it can hold water? In my villa? I want to bathe before I get dressed.”

“The water will not be warm enough,” said Home.

“I’ll warm it up with magic. At least I’ll try,” said Dirt. He suppressed another shiver. Almost.

“Very well. But if our efforts and yours are not fast enough, I truly will force the clothing onto your body,” said Home.

“I’ll get dressed before you have to, I promise. I don’t want to freeze either. It’s unpleasant. But a hot bath! I haven’t had one of those in thousands of years,” said Dirt. And it was true. They’d heated up water for bathing in the Duke’s palace, but they washed by dipping a rag. Some of the ponds he and Socks had come across had been on the warmer side, but that wasn’t the same.

The dryads gave no warning and Dirt was dumped in the garden of his villa before he realized what was happening. Root travel. How come he never landed on his feet when they did that? Now his front was dirty, too.

Dawn was the first to appear alongside him, with a faint popping sound that Dirt wondered if he imagined. She took his hand and lifted him to his feet.

Her eyes sparkled with excitement as she dragged him into through the main entry and into the atrium. Once there, she stopped near the fountain in the middle and said, “This?”

“No, come on, it’s this way,” he said. Then it was his turn to drag her, not that she resisted. They went down the hall and into the hot bath room. It was one of the larger areas in the house and seemed all the more forlorn as a result. A flat walking area surrounded the bath, which itself was dug into the ground deep enough that only Dirt’s head would be above water when it was filled. Dirt thought he remembered something about pipes and machinery, but it escaped him and he let it go for now. He had other ways to fill it up.

Fortunately, the bath was big enough for Socks to fit in with room to spare, in case the pup ever wanted to. Not deep enough, of course; not even close. But plenty wide.

Two of the decorative pillars had fallen and shattered, which was probably why a good portion of the ceiling had collapsed. Even though the dryads had removed the soil when they’d excavated the house, the bottom of the bath was still full of broken stone and shards of concrete and roof tiles. The decorative arches along the walls and under the intact parts of the ceiling were still there, though, which made him think he should repair the room completely someday. It was a handsome place, not too ornate and not too boring.

Dirt hadn’t taken a close look at the baths before, just a glance as he walked past to remind himself what they were. He’d seen the large cracks from the doorway, but up close, they didn’t look quite so bad. Most were thinner than his finger; not too wide, but long, and they traced up and down the corners and around the edges.

He and Dawn walked down the steps into the basin and started tossing the rocks and things out, clearing the bath’s floor the best they could. Six more dryads came through the entryway and jumped in to help, including the two whose trees were the closest to the villa. That turned out to be exactly the right number to keep from getting in each other’s way and the bath was cleared out with perfect efficiency.

Callius and Home watched from the edge, but said nothing, not even when it was done. Dirt had expected one of them to take charge, but no one did. Instead, Dawn and the other six made their fingers narrower and began sticking them in all the cracks. Dirt stepped over for a closer look and watched them filling the gaps with a thick, sticky, dark-colored substance that had a peculiar odor he couldn’t place.

“This is a temporary solution, dear Dirt, for we are operating with haste,” said Home. “Would you like to dress until the bath is ready?”

“I’m fine,” said Dirt.

“Do not feign sturdiness you do not possess, dear Dirt. I can see the temperature of your skin,” said Home.

He was about to protest when one of the dryads brushed against him and made him shiver, which wasn’t fair. She was as cold as the stones and damp with dew.

“I guess there’s no reason not to do this now,” he said. Dirt snapped his fingers and summoned five little lights, all of which he turned into hot embers. He climbed out of the bath, since he was in the way, and made the embers slowly circle around him while he watched the cracks get filled in.

Once the cracks were stuffed with the dark goo, the dryads came up the steps and stood alongside the bath. They extended their arms and all at once, water poured from their palms, even Callius and Home. Even though they made quite the waterfall, the bath didn’t fill quickly.

Dirt sent his embers down in the water to warm it up, which was harder than he expected. The water put pressure on them and did its best to snuff them out, which made him spend twice as much mana and five times as much concentration keeping them going. And making it worse, their absence made him feel twice as cold and he kept shivering.

When the water was about knee deep, a mist of steam rose from the top and filled the room, mixing with the dew already leaking from the air and making it stuffy. Not much warmer, though. Maybe if the space had been air-tight, but the wall was missing a chunk and part of the ceiling was just a net of vines.

At least the water wasn’t as murky as he expected. All the sand and dirt stayed at the bottom instead of being stirred up too much. And by the time the bath was full, the room was plenty warm and every wall looked soaking wet and had water dripping down it from the dew. Dirt let his embers snuff out, which was a relief because they’d been draining mana as fast as he could inhale it.

He dipped his toe in and the water was too hot. It stung. He grimaced and looked at Home.

“It’s not much warmer than your average internal temperature. It should not cause you any harm,” she said.

Dirt grit his teeth and crept in slowly, hoping he wasn’t about to turn into soup. How did Home know the temperature just from looking, after all? And what was her scale for ‘not much warmer’?

She was right, though. It wasn’t too hot. It stung a little at first, but then the feeling settled into a pleasant heat that soaked in deep. He made his way to a seat along the edge, which he could barely sit on if he lifted his chin out of the water.

“Well? Was it worth all that effort?” asked Callius.

“Absolutely! I’m surprised humans don’t do this everywhere, all the time. Are any of you coming in?”

“Just me,” said Dawn. The other dryads stopped moving and watched as she stepped to the edge of the stairs. She untied the bow at the top of her gray-tan tunic to let it fall from her shoulders and crumple to the ground. She stood motionless and Dirt saw her dryad becoming more and more realistic. And it was more than just putting skin on her whole body, which itself was unusual. It was a hundred tiny little things, like her ears looking less solid and the dew collecting on tiny fibers on her forearms like hair. The muscles above her knees flexed realistically when she took her first step into the water and the smile growing on her face looked like it came from deep inside her, not something she’d practiced.

Once immersed, Dawn waded slowly, just her head poking above the water, eyes full of wonder. She sat next to him and even her breathing was realistic.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

Her eyes darted to meet his and he could watch her thinking by the micro-expressions on her face. Dirt found himself in awe, almost unable to believe this was still a dryad. He’d been impressed when Callius made himself look human from head to toe, but this was something grander.

“You’re focusing everything on your dryad, aren’t you? Can you even talk right now?” he asked.

Dawn regarded him with a quizzical expression. She traced a fingertip along his nose, then pinched some of his hair. After that she stood back up and waded around the bath, not seeming to have any destination in mind.

Callius said, “I am faster, but she is more accurate. Right now, she is mimicking human anatomy almost completely, including the function of nerves. Her whole mind is in there. She is cut off from us for a time.”

Whether they were watching her through their roots or conversing among themselves, he couldn’t tell. But no one moved, indicating the trees were focusing more on their true selves than their little puppets. Dirt got up and followed Dawn around the bath, just to make sure she didn’t bump into anything and hurt herself, if that was possible.

She ignored him, aside from periodic glances. Mostly she waved her arms through the water, or made kicking motions, or turned in circles.

Until she suddenly froze. She lurched upward in the water and lay back, rigid, floating like a log. Most of the detail faded from her dryad, skin losing its lifelike suppleness and becoming more wooden. The dryads around the edge of the bath relaxed and life seeped back into them.

It seemed strange to just leave her floating, so Dirt put his hand on Dawn’s shoulder and pushed her toward the edge, where two girls leaned in and pulled her out. They stood her up and dropped the tunic back on her, even tying the bow.

Dirt rested his arms on the edge of the bath and waited for her to wake back up. “Hey, Callius, Home, everyone, why don’t you all get in, too? You don’t have to do it like Dawn did. Just get in.”

“We can’t get in,” said Callius.

“Why not?”

“Because we are made of wood. We can’t get in,” said Callius. “We’ll float.”

“How did Dawn get in?”

“It’s complicated,” said Callius, “and not worth doing twice.”

After that, Dirt relaxed while Callius did his best to explain all about air. Apparently, some air was heavy and some was light, and some was warm and some was cold, and it all held different amounts of water. Dirt was familiar enough with humidity to get the basic idea, since it was so thick in the forest you could taste it after being away for a while. And he wasn’t surprised to learn that the trees spent a lot of time and effort keeping the forest just how they liked it, balancing the water levels and temperature perfectly. Some of it was done with magic, but not all. Their leaves and bark did a lot of the work.

When it got truly interesting, however, was when Callius explained how rain was made. Dirt had never wondered, to be honest, but he would never have guessed. It turned out that clouds were made of fog just like on the ground, and fog was a bunch of tiny, tiny little drops of water floating in the air. When the fog droplets bumped into each other and clumped up too much, they fell as rain. Sometimes it was because the air had to move up over an obstacle, like a giant forest, and sometimes it was because the wind slowed down, or a dozen other reasons.

As the discussion progressed, Dirt summoned his embers again to reheat the water, since it was getting unpleasantly tepid. That got him thinking how much effort it would take to make it rain with magic, if he ever wanted some. He could make wind with magic, and if he got practice talking with the elementals, they could help.

“Hey, Callius,” interrupted Dirt, halfway through something about pressure zones and elevation. “What’s lightning made of? That’s a part of storms, too. I remember that it’s sparks, but I don’t know what those are either.”

The dryad paused, his happy chatter fading as his lecture was cut short. He went completely inert, in fact, as did several others, including Home. Dirt chuckled softly, wondering what they were talking about. Was it hard to explain, or did they just not want to say? It’s not like he wanted to try and touch any. He just wanted to know what it was.

When Callius started moving again he said, “We will leave the full explanation for another time. The short version is that clouds traveling over the earth can cause a separation of power, and once it becomes too great, it recombines in the form of lightning. That causes it to settle. Another thing I’ll say is that violent storms, with high winds and clouds that tower like mountains, often fill with lightning naturally.”

“Can you ever have lightning without clouds?” he asked.

“No. Do you know what hail is?”

“No.”

Callius resumed the lecture, explaining in great detail what updrafts were and how they were formed. He continued into how weather worked at a larger scale and how one could even predict a storm with enough information. That last bit was particularly useful to the trees, since whenever they saw one coming, they had to divert it or risk having it mess up their air.

And just to make the point, periodically a wave of rain would fall, pattering on the roof except where the vines were, where it mostly fell straight through. The rain was cold enough it stung his face, but Dirt found it pleasant since the rest of him was warm.

By the end of the discussion, Dirt was confident he’d remember most of what he’d been taught. It all fit together once you had the whole picture. Strangely, it seemed like new knowledge to him, not being retold something he’d learned once before. And that made him wonder why Avitus hadn’t known any of this. His people had been able to work all sorts of wonders, erecting grand buildings and sculptures and writing philosophy. So how was it even possible they never figured out how weather worked?

Dirt finally dragged himself from the hot bath and stood on the edge, rubbing his body down with his hands to help dry off. The water steamed right off his skin and he was dry before he knew it, aside from his hair. Or as dry as he was going to get, anyway, in a room so thick with humidity he could cut it with his knife.

He looked back into the water, pleased to see that it hadn’t gotten too dirty from having him in it. The primer had a spell for purifying water, and he resolved to try that later.

After he pulled his shirt over his head, he saw Dawn moving, finally having woken up. “Welcome back,” he said with an amused smile. “How was it?”

Her voice was breathy, as if part of her was still dreaming. “Strange. I hardly remember it. The others have been working with me to process all the information. But I felt… I felt.” She waved her hands through the air like she’d done in the water.

“I know what that’s like. Sometimes I get caught up in your dreams and dream I’m a tree. The only thing I remember afterward is how strange it is,” he said. He’d tied the drawstring on his pants a little too loose, so he redid the knot. He even put his socks and shoes on, promising himself he’d walk on stone as much as possible to keep them from turning black. “Why did you do it?”

“Why should I have a reason?” she replied sweetly. “I did it for its own sake.”

Home handed him a big glob of sap, which he greedily ate, hardly chewing before he swallowed. The heated bath had kept him from noticing, but he found himself famished now. He’d had a busier day than usual so far.

Callius cupped his hands, filled them with clear water, and made Dirt drink a little more than he really wanted, but they insisted he’d done a lot of sweating and needed his fluids.

After that, Home said, “Dear Dirt, I hope you will not mind if we let you read until twilight? We must spend our focus on balancing our environment before it gets much worse. Will you feel neglected if we do not play games?”

Dirt said, “Oh, no, that’s fine. I have a lot of reading I want to do anyway. And I understand. Just don’t forget and leave me in the library overnight.”

“Good,” said Home. She leaned down and kissed him on the forehead. “Do not think our affection diminished for our absence. Tomorrow, you will attempt to speak again to the wind, and we will help.”

“Perfect. I want to try again. She seems… Well, I think I can figure it out.”

“Just try and tell her something else next time, won’t you?” said Callius, slapping Dirt on the back.