I’ve had frequent practice with the binding of minds thanks to Siodhachan’s hounds, and it’s a quick process now. Not sure how quick the speaking bit will go, but fortunately once the binding’s made a whole lot can be communicated through emotion, imagery, and intent rather than spoken words. Rendering it into mere sentences later is like hitting a dartboard’s outer rings instead of the bullseye, but at least it counts toward some kind of understanding.
<Hello,> I says, <I’m a Druid of Gaia. May I speak to Pachamama?>
The creature slowly looks around at the animals teeming around it on the ankle and foot of the giant goddess. Her mental voice is affable and kind.
<Who said that in my head? Or did I eat some leaves with a trippy fungus on them again?>
<Me. Over here to your left. The big black furry thing. I look like a bear.>
<Wow. You’re different! I haven’t seen anything like you in the jungle before.>
<I’m not from around here. May I speak to Pachamama?>
<You’re bigger than anything. Kinda blowing my mind. You probably spend all day eating stuff. Whoa. Hey, you won’t eat me, will you?>
<No, I won’t. Pachamama, please?>
<Oh, yeah. Who shall I say is speaking?>
<Owen Kennedy, Druid of Gaia.> That’s not something I can really communicate with just images and emotions. It’s a name couched in language, and she has a spot of trouble with it.
<Oaken, Drood of Guy?>
<Owen Kennedy, Druid of Gaia. The last part is the important bit to get right. I am representing Gaia, the whole earth, and her elementals, including Amazon.>
<Whoa. Is this really happening right now? It seems like a funky dream.>
<I promise it’s real. Can you get Pachamama’s attention for me?>
<Oh, yeah. I’ll try, Oaken Druid of Gaia.>
I don’t mind her messing up me name like that. I kind of like it, really. Maybe I can convince the elementals to call me Oaken Druid someday. There has to be some way to get them to change that.
It’s almost a full minute before I get a response, but when I do, fecking hells, it nearly liquefies me brains.
<WHO ARE YOU?> The mental voice would be a pleasant alto if it weren’t like a jackhammer in me skull. I can tell the sloth feels it too, because she closes her eyes, whimpers, and nearly falls off the branches she’s clutching. Poor lass won’t have a good day if that keeps up.
<I’m Owen Kennedy, a Druid of Gaia, sent to you at the request of the Amazon elemental. Thank you for speaking to me, Pachamama. But could ye maybe take that volume down a few notches? That hurt.>
The seething mass of creatures shifts its attention from the city across the river to me—all these eyes, compound and binocular, looking at me. I definitely have Pachamama’s attention. Her answer is modulated to the loudish range of normal when she replies.
<A Druid of Gaia? There was one before who visited my forest from time to time. Human with red hair. You are not he.>
<No, that was me apprentice.>
<What do you want? I am busy.>
<I wanted to talk about why you’re busy. You are a nurturing spirit. What has you so upset?>
<They rained fire down on my forest! Not to clear land to grow food, but to destroy!>
<Do you mean humans? That wasn’t them.>
<There are no volcanoes here. This fire was unnatural, which means humans were responsible. They cannot be allowed to continue.>
<It was a volcano in a sense, but far away from here. On the other side of the world, a fire giant from another plane came to earth and erupted. Fire has rained down all over the planet, not just here. And humans were not responsible.>
<I DON’T CARE,> she booms, and when both me and the sloth wince, she quiets, but the anger in her tone is unmistakable. <Do you not smell the poison in the air with every breath? Are you not aware of the trees they cut down, the animals they drive to extinction?>
<I am aware. But predation is part of nature.>
<This is not predation. It is excess. Gluttony. Exploitation.>
It’s impossible for me to argue with that. Ever since Siodhachan brought me forward in time, me gob has been more than smacked, it’s been practically obliterated by the ruin humans have wrought upon the world. It’s not just coastlines that are going to disappear under the waves with these rising temperatures. Plenty of critters will vanish too, and they already are. Like the great extinctions of earlier epochs—except one, all of them were caused by warming global temperatures like this—the die-offs are going to accelerate and cascade without a massive correction to carbon emissions. If we survive this day of reckoning, we still have many more days ahead to reckon with. I plan to make sure the Druids are ready.
<When me apprentice visited—the red-haired human. Did he help the Amazon in any way? Improve the conditions here?>
<Yes. He was a rare human.>
<He still is! He’s a Druid like me and he is fighting the giant that caused the fire, for your sake and everyone else’s. He nurtures the earth like you. And I am training more Druids right now. One of them was born near here; his name is Ozcar. Another was born at the other end of the Amazon River, and his name is Luiz. And when their training is complete, I am sure one or both of them will wish to return here, to protect the creatures of this forest.>
<The creatures would not need protection if it were not for these humans. Ridding this place of humans will let the balance return.>
<No, it won’t. It would be disaster.>
<How? They are the problem. Remove the problem and balance returns.>
<They have built systems that will inflict ruin on the rivers and forest here without maintenance.> I have no idea if that’s true or not, but it sounds good.
<What systems? What ruin could be greater than what they have already inflicted?>
Ah, bollocks. I’ve gone and bent meself over for one of those Amazon snakes, haven’t I? Siodhachan surpassed me in slinging shite long ago, but it’s not like I never gave him any lessons in the fine art of prevarication. He just had some natural talent to add to me own legendary instruction.
<Their power and sanitation systems will release pollutants into the river.>
<They already do that.>
<But it could be so much worse,> and even I can hear how lame that sounds. So much for me legendary skills.
The problem with this is that I’m arguing with a force of nature. Humans have few redeeming qualities from nature’s point of view. I can’t appeal to Pachamama’s appreciation of art or music or theatre when she’s honestly not a fan of any of that. But perhaps I can appeal to her sense of self.
<I’ve come to ask ye to stop on behalf of the Amazon elemental, which is one of the elementals that supports you. Stop this slaughter and let me and the other Druids protect and improve the land. Stop and return to being the nurturing mother you are.>
The great head with colonies of army ants for eyes turns from me and looks back across the river. Her posture slumps, and she returns her gaze to me and pivots in my direction, placing her hands on her wide hips, everything still a boil of plants and chattering, squawking animals.
<You will protect me? Protect this land?>
<I will. And like I said, I have two apprentices who will most likely spend much of their time in this region when they’re ready.>
<Then help me, Druid. Be faithful to your word. The fire is to the north, burning out the heart of me.>
<Will you stop killing the humans in the city?>
<It is done. I return to myself.> Her massive form contracts briefly and then the birds all leave it in an explosion of feathers. The monkeys climb down the sapling skeleton or leap into the tops of neighboring trees. Insects scurry down the boles or fly away. The sloth I’d bound me mind to slowly crawls off the ankle, rapidly outpaced by all the other animals returning to the forest. As the animals disperse, I can see them more clearly as individuals, and I’m overwhelmed by the variety of them. I see a capybara, an anteater, some giant fecking spiders that look like they could pull out me teeth with their chelicerae, and a procession of mantises intent on finding a quiet spot to mate and then snack on some heads. Looking closer, I realize quite a few of the animals are suddenly in a reproductive mood. I’m standing in the midst of an incipient orgy. Pachamama is reaffirming her commitment to life. A guilty reaction, perhaps, to what she had just done.