The Place
Ironwood Grove is a deep forest of iron-wood trees, a wood that is less a forest than a wall, and the wall is the grove, and the grove is the sleep. It stretches nine kilometers from the black river to the white hills, and the nine kilometers is a measure you can trust, because the trees do not move, even if the sleep under them does. The trunks are dark and hard as metal, a black-brown that rings when you strike it, and the trunks are the halls, and the halls are the sleep, and the sleep is the day. The roots are thick enough to carry a sleeping giant, roots that run a meter wide and lie two meters under the soft dark, and the roots are the floor, and the floor is the law. The canopy is low and unbroken, a roof of iron-green that does not let the sky through, and the green is the color of the sleep, which is to say it is a color you can feel in the teeth. The sky above, when a gap allows it, is a flat grey, the color of the grove when it is not sleeping, and the grey is the only color the wood does not make. It smells of cold bark and old iron, a smell that is the grove and is also the warning, and the one sound is the ring, a low note in the trunks that is the grove's heartbeat, and the ring is the day, and the day is the sleep. There is no landmark the way a forest has a landmark, but there is one: the First Hall, a hollow trunk in the middle of the grove, the oldest hall and the first sleep, and the hall is the door, and the door is the iron-wood. What makes Ironwood itself is the carry: the roots carry, and the carrying is the sleep, and the sleep is the iron-wood, and the iron-wood does not forgive.
How They Live
The Bear Men keep this place in the carry, building their bear-halls in the hollow trunks, chambers carved deep into the iron-wood, lined with fur and moss, and a hall is cut one trunk at a time, because a trunk is the season and a trunk is the calendar. Their entrances are low and guarded by the root-wall, so the roots are the moat, and the moat is the first defense, and the first defense is the day. Light comes from the fire, small and warm and kept burning through the waking season, because the fire is the grove's heartbeat and a grove without a fire is a grove that is dying, and the orange is the color of the waking. Food is stored in the deep chambers: the berries, the fish, the honey, and the long sleep that keeps the meat honest, and the honest is the meal, and the meal is the kept. Water is drawn from the root-springs, two black threads under the First Hall, which the keepers tend the way you tend a secret, because the springs are the store and the store is the law. Heat comes from the fire, which is to say the fire does everything, and the fire is the reason the grove is dark. The defense is the iron-wood itself: a visitor who breaks the root-wall wakes the grove, and the waking is the alarm, and the alarm is the sentence. The day is measured by the fire, because the fire is the only clock the deep forest has, and the clock does not lie about the season. Every bear that is born must sleep once in the First Hall before the grove will call it one of its own, and the sleeping is the naming, and the naming is the only thing the iron-wood ever gives back.
People
Home of the Bear Men, whose holds are counted by hall. Eleven halls are cut at last count, and the count is kept in the ring, which is to say the count is as fixed as the iron-wood, which is to say it does not lie. The keepers lead, and rank is decided by the waking, because a keeper who can wake a hall the grove has not woken is the keeper the ring trusts. Nothing that cannot carry a secret is welcome, and the secret is not needed, because the grove has a hall, and the hall has a sleep, and the sleep has a ledger. A surface traveler who once stood in the First Hall, the last one to be let in, called it the only forest where the air makes you sleep before you take a breath, which is the truest thing he said and the thing the iron-wood paid the least attention to.
In Stories
The place where the sleep is a promise, and the promise is the grove, and the grove is the iron-wood, and the iron-wood does not forgive. The Forgotten have not been to the grove, but Uaellaen has read the ring once, at a distance, and the ring read him back, and the reading was the first thing he has ever paid for that he could not buy back.