The Rossem Project

The University - Part 6

     In the tropical forests of the south, where most of the world's shae folk lived, there was a certain type of wasp that laid its eggs in the bark of a certain type of tree. As the larvae hatched and burrowed into the tree's wood, they produced a hormone that caused the wood to swell up into a spongy mass that the maggots found easier to digest. The shae folk who lived in these forests had found a way to cultivate these insects and to infect a single tree with thousands of them. After careful nurturing that might last as long as a hundred years, the original smooth and straight tree was transformed into a lumpy, rounded object about the size of a house which, once the interior had been hollowed out and doors and windows cut, was exactly what it was. The tree remained alive, even with a family of shae folk living in it, and would continue to grow, eventually allowing further rooms and storeys to be added.

     The oldest trees could eventually grow to the size of castles and mansions, although this could take several thousand years, and trees this size were very rare. Those there were, hidden deep in the very heartlands of their race, were the subject of special awe and reverence to the nature loving shae folk. The main advantage these living houses had over the ordinary brick, stone and wood houses of the other races, was that any damage they suffered, due to storms, the actions of grazing animals or whatever, would eventually heal over as new wood grew over the wounds. This made them far superior to ordinary houses made from dead materials that would only age and decay as the years passed, but the time needed for them to grow meant that only the long lived shae folk had taken to them in a big way.

     The shaewoods of Lexandria Valley had about twenty such trees, ranging in size from small ones whose hollowed out living areas were about the size of a large garage, to larger ones whose bulbous bases, according to rumour, covered areas the size of a netball pitch and which had two complete rows of windows cut into their bark, with a few more cut into some of their swollen, lower branches to form partial third storeys. The trees did not stand side by side but were separated by more ordinary trees as well as patches of open ground into which the soft, golden rays of the yellow sun slanted down at an angle, illuminating patches of carefully tended grass dotted with blue and yellow flowers.

     Derrin and Lirenna cried out in joy and delight at the beauty of the scene, but Thomas could only stare in awe and wonder, barely able to believe what he was seeing. So this was how the shae folk lived! No wonder they saw humans as grubby troglodytes, barely fit to be called civilised. He remembered the squalor and filth of some of the human cities he'd been to and felt an almost overwhelming sense of shame as he imagined what a shae man, accustomed to living in a beautiful forest like this, would think upon entering one. No wonder members of the fair race were hardly ever found outside their own homelands. And the real wonder was that most humans had no idea what they were missing. They might live their whole lives surrounded by bricks and slate, crushed by the milling crowds of other people and up to their ankles in mud, sewage and rotting fruit and have no idea that beauty such as this existed. It was almost enough to move you to tears!

     It was small by the standards of a human cottage, but apparently about average for a young dwelling tree. They would certainly be cramped and crowded living in such a small thing, much more so than they would have been living in one of the teaching buildings, but Lirenna wasn't concerned with living space. After all, they had the whole outdoors to stretch out in if they began to feel cramped. Shae folk always considered the whole forest to be their home, with the indoors part of it used only for sleeping and sheltering in bad weather. They were outdoor creatures, and both Lirenna and Derrin were more shayen than human in this regard. No, the size of their new home was unimportant. It was its beauty that sold them on it.

     The silvery bark was smooth and flawless, seemingly able to stretch as much as necessary to cover the swollen, porous wood beneath, and fat roots spread out into the thick, loamy soil in all directions. Above, half a dozen major branches supported a lush, green canopy that quivered and trembled with birds and squirrels. Some of the branches drooped low to the ground, giving them a close up view of the serrated, oval leaves and tiny white flowers, and a few ragged clusters of last year's seeds hung here and there, each seed having a pair of butterfly shaped wings that would catch the wind and allow them to be carried miles from the parent tree.