Among the Horta there was once a king named Ur-Bara. Long he ruled and with cunning, and the strength of his people reached from the Coast of Storm to the Desert of Memmon. Deep his people delved, and raised pinnacles of stone in great cluster to make a garden-citadel in that rocky land, and they called it Bara-Azar. Cunning was their stonecraft in fortification, and the making of war-engines, that they held back even the Fire Orc for a time. But Bara-Azar was not loved for weaponry and craft of war, but rather for its sculpture-fields and the learning of the wise.

After a time even the stones grow old, and Ur-Bara grew aged beyond the reckoning of his people. Yet as his life declined, so too did his desire for it increase, and he turned his mind from contemplation of unending wars to the secrets of life unending. In deep halls he chanted the long lists of ancestral spirits in a voice of stone, and from cold towers studied the movements of cold stars. With the desperate artifice of waning years he snared Kraken from the coast, and distilled their bodies in cavern laboratories where no light came. But although the Kraken may heal from terrible wounds, their vegetative strength is but a bud and shadow of that forest wild whom they worship out of fearful dreams. And the Adversary, who walked in Bara-Azar, knew this, and he whispered to the king.

"Snare Acanthus, Lord of Wilds, and take from him a single cutting. So his strength will save your people, and you will live a life eternal."

Underneath the garden-citadel Ur-Bara ordered many laborers to gnaw a pit, delved from hardest stone and lined with adamant. Sculptors whose life-labor had peopled the sculpture-fields with living form now toiled to construct an army of guardian figures, each in the stern likeness of ancient lords of the line of Bara. Mighty was the labor of this undertaking, and the work of warfare was neglected, and much of the empire fell in ruin. Yet the garden-citadel remained, and in a year and a day that living tomb was completed, and inscribed with the molten blood of the hundred children of Ur-Bara were all the warding sigils of a thousand years of learning.

Then Ur-Bara sent armies into the forests, to war upon the greater plantings and bring fire and axe wantonly into the wild. Acanthus fell upon them there, serpentine with rage, and in his hand was a scourge of bramble. The armies fled to the garden citadel with the God of Thorn raging in pursuit, and sought refuge in the great cavern Ur-Bara had prepared, for he told them it would keep Acanthus out. But Ur-Bara did not seal the gates of that strong place until the living god had entered, and as the gates of adamant and steel-bound thunder closed, the final crevasses of that prison were sealed with the molten blood of Ur-Bara's soldiers.

For a year and a day the garden-citadel rumbled with the rage of Acanthus, entrapped beneath in a fastness deeper and stronger than any ever fashioned. Many of the delicate spires of Bara-Azar were shattered and lay unrepaired, and many elegant marble forms from the sculpture-fields were cast down and broken. But this storm beneath abated, and eager with long delay Ur-Bara crept by secret ways to the living tomb of the Lord of Thorn.

By cunning design and crystal Ur-Bara peered into the cave, and although no sun came into that abyss the sigils of golden blood sheened with a sickly light, as starlight to a jaundiced eye. Within Acanthus stood rooted as a stone pillar from floor to roof, lowering with venomous spines but still and silent. And with a daring driven by the desperation of years uncounted, Ur-Bara entered the prison and collected from the floor a single leaf shed in the clash of immortal branch on adamant. But Acanthus remained impassive, and no skilled and ancient sculptor could carve from unliving stone a statue more silent.

It was as a statue that the slave-bird Nissa first saw Acanthus, carved from night-marble, and with a sickly sheen on every thorn and thin leaf. She had been a slave since an ancient conquest brought her to Bara-Azar, and the Horta had shod her wings with iron, but her crest was bright with many colors, and her eye was keen. No like form could she find in the statue-fields, although they had fallen into ruin and disuse. Few eyes marked the passing of a single slave-bird, turned as they were from sculpture-fields toward the mighty magics wrung from that single leaf of imprisoned Acanthus. Promise of unending life and new strength in war ensnared the whole attention of the citizens, and all throughout the garden-citadel she wandered, though her wings were shod.

Long the silent form of bough and sheen obsidian troubled the dreams of Nissa, and long she wandered in a waking slumber. At last she came by secret ways to the deep unguarded prison beneath Bara-Azar, and looked into the scrying crystal. Within He stood, still as a carven pillar, deeper darkness in that dark pit, and the sight of him smote her with a sudden wakefulness. And she wept at this imprisonment, for she honored the gods.

"Greetings Nissa, Stegal-daughter," said the Lord of Thorn in a voice like the rattle of dry boughs in winter. "What brings you deep beneath a doomed city, and your pinions shod in lead and iron?"

Nissa shrank from the scrying crystal, but saw that the dark and distant form did not move, and presently she spoke. "A shapeless dream brought me here, lord. And for my wings, I am a slave to the Citizens above, and flight to me is forbidden."

Acanthus hissed, a sound of birch and windstorm, but Nissa thought it to be a chuckle. "A simple answer and good, but know that there are no shapeless dreams. Many have been my dreams, in this pit of contemplation, ever in unfamiliar shape but never shapeless. But come, do you bring jests, to mock a fellow slave?"

"No, my lord, but I come at your bidding. I wish only to serve the gods, and so to honor my family and my people."

"Out of piety? Go forth, then, and bring to this place food, jewels and such items of luxury as your own piety finds fit for worship and sacrifice to the gods." And Acanthus fell silent.

Trembling in quill and crest Nissa fled that prison, up winding tunnels and many smooth flights of stairs. Many days had passed beyond her reckoning in that undercity, and the Horta citizens paid her no heed. With strife and press they struggled toward the high pinnacle of Ur-Bara, where at last the secrets of that single leaf had been distilled into a potent magic to bestow life undying and eternal to any mortal who tasted of it. But potent as that leaf-grown magic was, it could affect but hundreds, where thousands clamored. Quarrels broke out, and corpses marked their passing in that throng.

>From the dead Nissa took jewels, wrought of mountain gold and filaments of sapphire, or diamond statuary sculpted by diamond-handed Horta artisans. And from their deserted houses she gathered finery, tabards of spun stone and amethyst, silks, and feast-foods left untouched at hastily abandoned tables. These many things she brought down into the fearful prison, and set them before the scrying crystal, and she waited.

Acanthus spoke in a voice like the creaking of mighty oaks in windstorm. "I desire no such sacrifices. Cast them aside."

Nissa did so, and again Acanthus spoke. "Servile are the ways of mortals, piety with servant's wages. Mortals pray to fill their bellies, or to gather shining jewelry, but the food rots on the table, and tarnish is worth more than gold. Cast them aside."

"My lord, I sought only to do your bidding...."

"Cast them aside. If you would display your piety, and do honor to your family and your people, then go into the citadel above this very spot. Find a garden there, and tend it until it becomes beautiful. Did not Serapis, Hope of Mortals, say 'A tended garden is a feast forever?' Go then, to your feast." And Acanthus fell silent.

"I should leave you to rot," thought Nissa slave-bird, but fear mastered her speech, and she went forth, up the winding tunnel and the smooth stair. She knew that he deemed no sacrifice of item base or precious to be valuable, but perhaps in pious toil she could bring honor to her family and her people.

Many days had passed beyond her reckoning when she emerged from those secret paths, and the city was nigh deserted. The banner of Ur-Bara was away at war with small army of undying soldiers, and in distant lands their foes broke before them. But in the garden-citadel few of the living remained.

Nissa found the tiny garden, fenced about with shattered pinnacles of rock. Only a single gate she found, through the hollowed bole of one such living spire, and it opened inside on a small plot. Whether by some virtue of the protected soil, or by the blessing of climbing tendrils from the imprisoned god below, the garden blazed with life. Flowering amethyst and lupine leapt up from the stones, and hawthorn and eglantine grappled in white and purple with the encroaching cliffs. Roses peered from behind a phalanx of thorns, and their opening buds became butterflies of many hues and flitted on the wind. But all about too were choking tendrils, writhing vines and bramble, and vermin both clean and venomous.

While Ur-Bara warred in the east, Nissa slave-bird set to tend this tiny garden. With great resolve she mastered the bracken, and drove the vermin out. Bramble too and deadwood she removed, though it in clutching retribution plucked many of her feathers. All throughout her long task she prayed to god and ancestor, and for her far-off family. And while the garden growth nearly undid her daily labors, after a year and a day she had the garden tended. Wild it was, yet orderly, and vibrant with growth. Thus she finished her long prayer, and returned again to the deep prison beneath Bara-Azar.

"Are you come again so soon? Why do you not follow your dead lord to foolish war?" spoke Acanthus, as one roused from sleep.

"Ur-Bara was a just king, and his passion was to save his people. Foolish he was in that pursuit, but his heart was once good."

"Even so," replied Acanthus with a rustling yawn. "Many there are on earth and in Heaven who fall into folly in pursuit of some worthy goal. But why do you come to this place, where Luminos cannot see and even the voice of Miranda is silent?"

"Behold, my lord, the tended garden, enriched with effort and long prayer!" And Nissa showed him the garden in the scrying crystal.

"Cast it aside."

"My lord, it is a living jewel! Did not you, and the Hope of Mortals before you, say that a tended garden is a feast forever?"

"It may be. A tended garden is a feast forever, but the servant may not eat there. Do the oxen own the farmland? Are they pious for the yoke-weight? A man may garden for another, but he will not be blessed with wisdom. Cast it aside."

"That miserable son of a twisted beetroot," thought Nissa slave-bird, but she only stood silent, and all her quills bristled. Then Acanthus spoke again.

"Perhaps you still may honor your family and yourself. I have known the yoke, and would not wish it on another for their unending toil, even in my name. Long have mortals prayed for wisdom, and in meditation sought the hidden. Perhaps you may show your piety, and find ought in ascetic meditation."

Nissa turned and climbed the winding tunnel in such haste as to lose two crest-feathers, and in the dark she muttered. But at the foot of the smooth stair she halted, and heard at last the words of Acanthus. She knew that he deemed no earthly deed to be valuable, however worthy the task or pious the laborer. But perhaps in long contemplation she could yet bring honor to her family and her people.

At the base of that smooth stair she sat in stillness for a year and a day, and in her mind heard many voices, and saw the many half-shaped dreams of that deep place. Beautiful things she saw and proud, and distant holy places. Ever the words of prayer came to her unbidden, but to her own flesh she paid no heed. And filled with the whispered wisdom of that hidden prison, she returned to the scrying crystal.

"Cast it aside," came the quiet voice from within. And Nissa nodded, and set back up the winding passage and the smooth stair with a serenity of purpose. For she knew that he deemed no mortal meditation, however attuned to holy harmonies, to be valuable, coming bidden as they did from master other than herself.

Many days had passed beyond her reckoning when she emerged from those secret paths. She cast off the lead and iron from her wings and leapt into a spiraling ascent. With her shrewd eye she saw the whole of Bara-Azar at once, while the rays of the setting sun illuminated the pale spires of that ancient citadel with a last ruddy light. In his hall of stone Ur-Bara and his hundred soldiers feasted cheerlessly, but in all the other parts of that vast city no living thing stirred. The Fire Orc assailed the steep city gate with rams of wood and iron, but the city gates, forged from wind and the bones of the earth, and fastened by the cunning sorcery of Ur-Bara, yielded not, though they were undefended. Ever and again the great boom of the battering rams tolled across the city like a great bell, and the echoes leaped among the stones and shivered the sculptures in their long-neglected fields.

With kestrel grace and swiftness Nissa bird-slave flew to the unguarded gate, and opened the clasp which held it with adamant fastness. At once the Fire Orc passed howling into the city with fire and talon, and sought out all those living hidden there, and they cast down the temple-spires, and hewed the statues in the sculpture-fields. But to Nissa they gave no heed, though she flew openly above the citadel and watched its final hours. As the living maelstrom passed through Bara-Azar, Ur-Bara and his hundred did not stir from their feasting. No flame or talon could harm them, and when the last rays of dying sun left the pinnacles she heard the thin song of their evening prayers.

And when all the mortal Horta were slain, the Fire Orc broke at last the sigils of binding, wound with the strength of eon learning into the fortress soul of Bara-Azar. Nissa saw with keen eye the trembling of the garden-citadel, the shrieking flight of the Fire Orc from their pillage, and at once the stirring movement in the hall of stone where Ur-Bara kept his undying feast. Sculpture-field and garden were swallowed by an opening crevasse, and from his long imprisonment Acanthus arose into the citadel. Gray as ash were his withered leaves, but in his hand was a scourge of thorns, and his eyes were like embers.

The hundred undying fled from the hall of Stone, and she saw Acanthus overtake each in turn, but he could not slay them. So each he ground with force of root and main into a powder, and scattered that form as living dust into the night. At last he came to the hall of Ur-Bara, and neither molten fire nor blast of sorcery turned him, though all the stones about were shattered and Nissa nearly swept from the air by the tumult of his defense. And Acanthus seized him, but could not slay him.

"You have sought by trick to bind me, at the Adversary's bidding. Now your city lies in ruin; such things come of tainted wisdom. Now at last I come to freedom, but I will not show you mercy."

Then Ur-Bara wept. And Acanthus raised four trees at the corners of the garden-citadel, and bound undying Ur-Bara with cords of bramble, and fixed each limb to a tree. A forest he raised within those bounds, and he spoke to bound Ur-Bara in a hiss.

"You sought a lifetime everlasting; now I use that life to bind you. Ever creeping is the forest, and its four trees will wander outward. As they stretch across the wasteland, so shall they stretch your living body; as forest opens from the center, so shall your screams fill in the trees again."

And in latter days the forest did creep outward from Bara-Azar, the rack of Ur-Bara. Tall trees were there and windswept, and the creaking of their tall trunks was the creaking of the joints of that undying mortal king.

Acanthus turned, and paused at a strange sound. Nissa slave-bird wept in that ruin, not with the tears of a righteous man driven to murder by some desperate circumstance, but with the tears of one who weeps for a hated foe as one beloved and but newly lost. Acanthus faced her, and the embers of his eyes went dark.

"Cast it aside."

Then the Lord of Thorn took Nissa slave-bird in his tendrils, and they traveled on long and wilderland paths. And from those hidden ways they saw the moon newly kindled with a wan and unconsuming fire, and the Song of Four sung for the last time at the funeral of Fury, and the Songs of Nine and Ten sung for the last time at the mourning of Luminos and Kudzu. At last they passed the gate of living mercury, and entered into Heaven. So Nissa, Stegal-daughter and slave no longer, came to dwell in contemplation among the gardens of Heaven, and made there birds for the delight of passing gods. But her weeping voice remained in the forest-ruin of Bara-Azar, and when the mistral blows from the Desert of Memmon the treetops sing with a keening lament.