Hichy stifled a cry of terror. Never had he seen living beings so ugly. There were four of them and, while their general proportions were preserved, the two taller ones could well have been adults, and the two smaller perhaps their children. It was difficult to tell whether they were human in nature, or even to distinguish male from female, for they all wore their hair long, down to the middle of their bodies.
Dirty nails jutted several centimetres from their forepaws. Their eyes were not level, and their faces were covered with oozing scabs and grime. As for their clothes, they were made of leaves and moss. Flies swarmed around them, drawn no doubt by the pestilent stench they gave off. Yet for all their unappealing features, they did not seem hostile.
Melio, who was attracted to strong smells and loved sniffing his master's dirty socks, was wagging his tail and looked delighted by the encounter. The little animal was rarely wrong, and that helped reassure the twins, who had been caught mid-conversation.
"I'm Inata," the sister said.
"I'm Hichy," her brother said, copying her and thumping his fist against his chest.
The forest creatures stared at them wide-eyed. It was certainly the first time in their lives they had heard the sound of a human voice. They looked at one another, unsure how to react to such a phenomenon. The twins expected a cry or a grunt, when one of the two smaller ones spoke in a clear voice:
"Mother, what are these strange animals, and why do they speak in such a primitive way?"
"I don't know, my son," replied the adult on the left, "but let's try not to frighten them."
"You understand us?!" Inata exclaimed.
"Why on earth wouldn't we?" the mother asked. "Although your accent is extremely strong, you use a vocabulary that is sometimes incomprehensible, and your appearance is most peculiar, it seems we are of the same species."
"Where do you come from?" the father asked in a grave voice.
"From the centre of the disc," Hichy replied.
"How strange. No one has ever managed to enter it, and we have never seen anyone come out. There are animals among the droppings, yes, but we have never seen a human being. What is it like inside? Who rules that land?"
"It's just a vast forest," the boy replied. "And I have no idea who rules it, because we never met a soul. We entered through a magic portal."
"Come now, my child! Don't be foolish," the woodsman exclaimed. "Magic doesn't exist."
"But—"
Inata stopped her brother from saying more by placing a hand on his arm. Better not to reveal too much too quickly.
"Be that as it may, you are welcome," the woman said. "If you will follow us, we will show you our agglomeration."
"Wow. I never would have imagined there was a town nearby," Inata whispered into her brother's ear as they fell in step behind them.
As they walked, the long-haired children kept casting curious looks at them. They looked them up and down, which was particularly unsettling. Sometimes they exchanged a few words after staring at Hichy and Inata, then burst out laughing. Their feet were bare, but a thick layer of callus had grown underneath, giving them the look of leather soles.
"It's here!" the woman said proudly as they reached a clearing.
"Where?" Hichy asked.
"There, right in front of you!"
"And the town? Where are the houses?"
"What town are you talking about? I've heard of peoples like yours, but I thought it was a myth. This is not a town, but an agglomeration—that is, an intimate association of citizens, a union around a governor that allows us to structure ourselves as a civilised society."
About a hundred individuals were gathered in the clearing, all as filthy and foul-smelling as their hosts. The stench intensified as they approached until it became unbearable. Hichy had a strong urge to pinch his nose, but held back so as not to offend them.
This primitive-looking tribe possessed absolutely nothing. There was not a single object around them—whether iron, bronze, or even carved stone. They had no fire, and their destitution was total. Even prehistoric men, whom the twins had studied in their books, used flint axes and wore jewellery. They carved wood and drew on cave walls.
A crowd of onlookers quickly gathered around them. Inata gagged and had to make a superhuman effort not to vomit. How could bodies give off such a smell? Even goats and pigs were nowhere near it. Some came closer to touch their clothes with dirty fingers and overlong nails. They were howling with laughter, openly mocking them.
"That's enough!" shouted a shrivelled little man.
He was the only one whose hair did not reach his buttocks, for the simple reason that his skull was almost bald, except for a few long white strands at the sides and back.
"How can you behave like this?!" he demanded of the crowd. "You look like savages. Have a little decency and show yourselves worthy of our guests. My name is Charles-Henri de la Verpilliere, and I am the governor of this province," he added, holding out his hand.
The twins shook his bony, wrinkled hand—a gesture they performed for the first time in their lives. Isolated in their clearing with Golock, they had indeed never had the chance to greet other individuals.
"Pleased to meet you. This is my sister Inata, and my name is Hichy. We would have liked to offer you a gift, but as you can see, we don't have much and—"
A howl of horror ran through the assembly, and the mocking faces instantly turned hostile. Fists clenched, threatening. The old man had to step in to keep them from being lynched. At a sign from their governor they fell silent, but the tension was at its peak.
"You own things?!" he asked, horrified.
Never had Hichy felt so helpless, his only possessions strapped to his back. They had left behind their entire inheritance—abandoning their books, their toys, their house, and the animals that had fed them. And yet the few items in his pack already seemed far too many for this strange people. He did not know what to say for fear of inflaming their anger, and he looked at his sister desperately, hoping she would help him.
"Yes," she replied in a steady voice. "So what? Is it forbidden?"
"Among us, yes," the governor explained. "Objects corrupt souls and draw beings away from their Mother Forest."
"And to sleep? You don't have beds?" Hichy asked.
"Why on earth would we need anything to sleep? How does your cat do it when it gets sleepy? It lies on the ground and sleeps, quite simply. Why don't you do the same?"
"I don't know. It isn't comfortable."
"I don't understand that word—comfortable. It refers to a notion foreign to us."
"You never build anything?"
"To build implies working, does it not? Do you truly think it is something one should aspire to?"
"You don't have money?"
"What is that?"
"And to wash? To remove the filth covering you?"
"How dare you insult us like that? What filth?"
Hichy sighed. Communication was perfectly impossible. It was a cult, that was all—followers of the most extreme degrowth.
"Anyway, the great city at the centre—do you know where it is? Which direction should we go?"
"Ten minutes from here. Due north."
"Really?!" Hichy exclaimed. "That's great. It's not far at all."
"I am not speaking of the great city at the centre, young man," the governor said, "but of an Odilphin. It is coming straight for us. You had better hide, but with your smell it will have no trouble finding you. Everyone, take cover!"
In an instant, the small community melted into the forest—some burrowing into the ground like moles, others climbing trees, and others still becoming one with a thick carpet of moss. Their mastery of camouflage was spectacular. They were one with their habitat, living in total symbiosis with it.
"Do we do the same?" Inata asked.
"Meh. I'm not sure we can hide as well as they can," Hichy replied. "Do you even know what an Odilphin is?"
"No, no idea, but it can't be nice."
"Then we run!"
As they bolted, heavy footsteps drew nearer, and the ground began to tremble. A terrible roar made them shiver. If the governor had told the truth, the creature would throw itself at them, delighted to find easy prey incapable of camouflaging properly. Yet the Odilphin's charge stopped before it came into view, and a horrific scream tore through the forest.
"What's happening?"
"I'll jump to see," her brother replied.
He soared above the treetops, far higher than he ever had. His powers seemed doubled. He hung in the air for a long moment and drifted down as gently as a bird's feather. That gave him time to see what was happening—and to grasp the horror of it.
An animal covered in black fur had burst into the clearing where the long-haired community had hidden. Its muscular body was that of a large tiger, except its jaws had been replaced by a long, slimy trunk. Hichy just managed to see the Odilphin plunge that trunk into the earth to suck up one of the unfortunate humans they had just met. Contrary to what their leader had claimed, their putrid stench made it wonderfully easy for their attacker to track them. It was a slaughter.
"So?" Inata asked.
"So we can't leave them like that, even if they stink and they're ugly."