Empyrion II: The Siege of Dome by Stephen Lawhead Read Free Book Online

and creepers. Around the massive smooth columns of the supporting trees, braided pathways wound and converged and split, only to join and rejoin again.
    The light filtering down from the leaf ceiling was bronze-green and soft, melting into the humid, water-drenched air. Vaporous wisps snaked along the forest byways, curling upward like tendrils of a growing plant to evaporate on unseen currents. And everywhere beneath the forest roof there was the rich, heady smell of damp, fecund soil and vegetation run riot—odors as palpable as the chitterings, clicks, and chirrups of the host of insects hidden in the foliage.
    Higher in the leaf canopy, the shrill, chattering calls of birds and jarring whoops of mammalian tree dwellers—along with all sorts of murmurings, cooings, blarings, gruntings, yawpings, toatings, and gugglings—let Crocker know that the forest brimmed with unseen life, even as the heavy air reverberated with its raucous music.
    The Blue Forest was a world unto itself, and Crocker felt secure here. As he walked further into its majestic fastness, the oppression of the open spaces fell away. He took the thick closeness of the forest and wrapped it around himself like a robe. He would be safe here among the creatures of the forest; he would become like them, and like them he would survive.
    He struck along a path wide enough for the robot to follow and began moving deeper into the interior, the last glimpses of blue sky and green hills disappearing as the forest closed behind him. He walked along silently, moving with caution and stealth, adapting himself to the ways of the forest.
    Like an animal, Crocker wandered the soft pathways, pausing now and again to sift the air for scent and sound of water. It had been exhausting work burrowing through the brushline to the forest, and he was thirsty. Eventually he came to a place where a small brook lapped around the gigantic roots of one of the forest pillars. He knelt down, cupped his hands, and drank.
    The water was warm and had a distinctly earthy taste. He sipped and swallowed and spat the rest out. To get clean water he'd have to find a deeper source. Without thinking about it he moved off along the little brook, following it as it made its way over and around the roots of the giant trees and through stands of rushes with large lacy fan-shaped leaves. The brook took him deeper into the forest, deeper into the living green solitude.
    At one point he pushed through a bristle-bladed hedge and found himself in a walled clearing. He looked up and saw the walls of the hedge rising above him for many meters. The clearing was carpeted with thick, bluish moss made up of tiny coiled filaments like wire springs. The sunlight striking through a thin place in the leaf canopy fell to the forest floor like heavy gold. In the center of the clearing lay a pool of deep blue-black water, filled from a spring which welled up from the center of the pool, splashing and sending ripples to the pool's outer rim.
    The forest's discordant music, muted by the hedge walls, sounded far away. In the clearing, only the gentle plipping of the spring as it ruffled the water could be heard. Crocker stared at the water for a long moment and then began mechanically stripping off his clothes.
    He lowered himself into the pool, feeling its chill refresh and revive him. He sank down into the ooze of the cool mud bottom and let the water close over his head, then kicked off and swam the length of the pool underwater, coming up for air when his head touched the far bank. It felt good to swim, to feel tight muscles relax as the knots loosened.
    After a few minutes of swimming, Crocker felt wholly restored. He climbed out on the spongy bank and lay down in a patch of sunlight to dry off. The sun filtering down from the upper boughs warmed his skin, and he closed his eyes and went to sleep, his mind blank, unthinking, undreaming. He was part of the forest now—as much as any of her natural creatures. And, in