"Green fire?" Engelmann said.
"Yes, master Arborist," the rider said. "They set much of the battlements ablaze and the people ... the people of Piney Creek … I have never seen so many frightened people in all my days."
"What about the defenses? Tell me quick, now, son, what does Captain Armas plan to do?" Engelmann asked.
"That is just it, master Arborist. He ordered me to ride hard all the way back to the Citadel and deliver this message to the Priest King himself." He spoke hastily as he held up the soiled piece of parchment with the sigil of the captain of the guard sealed into the black wax.
Engelmann thought about it for a moment, wondering to himself just how Jhames would receive the news. He could not bring himself to muster much expectation for a wise and effective response to this aggression.
"Have they attacked yet?" the Arborist asked him. "Have they fired an arrow, or have siege engines been deployed? Have they tried to scale the walls?"
"No ... no, sir. Other than the burning bodies of the woodcutters, there has not been a shot fired, nor a parley offered," he replied.
"But, green fire? Green fire …" the Arborist muttered, staring at the young man with such intensity that it seemed as if he stared right through him and focused on something in the dimness behind him.
"Yes," the rider finally said, after turning nervously to see what it was that the Arborist could possibly be staring at. "I do think that whatever rumors and tales we have heard from the northern forests, they only tell half the story of what truly is coming for us." The admission spilled from his lips like a pent up flood. "The monsters in the darkness are surely greater even than we fear."
Engelmann assessed the young man once more, seeing the certainty of the end in his eyes. The old Arborist looked back towards the failing tree, there atop the holy mount with its singular branch still remaining, still illuminating the world with the same amber flame that had burned unceasingly for the entirety of his existence. As he watched the subtle dance of the lone flame, he could feel something from deep inside of his wispy frame give way, like a fatal crack upon winter's first ice. The very same power that ran through the rooted veins of the hallowed tree had always echoed its strength within each of the Arborists, and yet in that moment, Engelmann felt something that he had never felt in all of his days. Release. And then he knew, without hesitation, that the end was indeed upon them all.
"Go, son. Go and deliver your message of this green fire, and do it quickly," Engelmann said with tears in his eyes. "Tell them what you have seen, what you have witnessed. Show them your certainty, my boy. Speak the truth with the earnestness that you have shown here. The floodgates that have restrained the wrath of our enemy are about to burst upon all of Haven, and I fear that you are quite right … the waters are even now rising swifter and more dangerously than any have yet to imagine."
The rider saluted the old Arborist and then turned to run towards the annex entrance. He had only gone a few paces when he stopped and turned to ask one last question. "If it is true, and war is about to break upon us all, do we even stand a chance? I have never seen magic like that before; the fire consumed the courage and will of brave men, seasoned guardsmen. It was as if its very flames were somehow fueled by our waning resolve."
"Well then, we must pray that the heart of Haven is not as easily consumed as its guardsmen if we hope to endure the crashing tides of war," Engelmann told him.
The young rider nodded his head, but the look on his face made it plain that he held no such hope for the heart of Haven. He turned back to carry out his duty and deliver the message from his captain.
"Son," Engelmann called him again.
The rider stopped and looked back.
"Haven is not merely these walls, nor that sigil on your breast. It's not even that ... that dying tree there atop Mount Aureole," Engelmann said as he wiped a deep-blue teardrop from his leaf-green eyes. "This whole damned city of ours could be razed to the ground, and yet the spirit of Haven would not be wholly quelled."
"Then why defend it, Arborist?" the rider asked. "Why fight and bleed and die?"
"We are Haven, my boy. And the very essence of what our city of light was born to be is ingrained in our nature. If we find the courage, we will do what we were always meant to do," Engelmann said as his bark-covered lip curled into a knowing smile. "We will shine, defiantly and proudly—or perhaps in the end only relentlessly and imperceptibly—but nevertheless, we will shine."
The rider looked to his soiled boots and took a deep, steadying breath before nodding his understanding. "That is what we will defend then … the chance to challenge the darkness."
Engelmann watched the guardsman disappear into the large, iron doors of the Chancellor's annex. He steeled himself with a deep breath, knowing now just what it was that he would indeed have to do.
Chapter Eleven
THE OLD ARBORIST PURPOSEFULLY WOUND his way through the intricate roadways of the Capital. With great haste he moved past the libraries and residences, each step taking him higher and higher up the Capital mount, past bronzed statues and ornate fountains until he reached the great garden of the burning tree at the very end of the road.
"Did you feel it too?" Engelmann called to the lone figure standing there, staring fixated on the last branch of the sacred tree. "Did you feel that-"
"Tremor in the roots of my soul?" Elmer said before his elder brother could finish his words.
"Yes," Engelmann confirmed quietly.
"I felt it, Engelmann. I felt it in such a way as one would feel hot soup in one's belly, radiating its savory warmth ... only, this feeling ... this kind of feeling was in reverse." Elmer tried to explain. "Something just … let go, I think. Something has gone cold."
"Yes .... yes, that is about the best way I could have tried to explain it," Engelmann said reassuringly to the young, green Arborist. A calming grin parted his mossy, bearded lips, appearing in contrast to the gravity of the moment. "Like the opposite of soup."
"Do you know what it means?" Elmer asked.
"I think it means that the end is near. That the power and the light of the great tree is leaving Aiénor, and perhaps, with it, our connection to its mysterious strength."
"What will become of us, of our kind? What good is an Arborist without a tree to tend to?" Elmer said, shaking his leafy-haired head.
Engelmann sat down on a rock there in the garden and drew out his slender, green pipe from within the folds of his ancient robe. He flicked his fingers and lit the bowl, drawing the fragrant smoke in deep and exhaling his worried burley breath.
"Engelmann?" Elmer prodded, unsure just how deep in thought his elder brother was. "What does it mean for us? What place in this world will we have when our life's work has passed into the shadows of night?"
"Ah!" Engelmann exclaimed. "There it is, my dear brother."
"There what is?" Elmer asked, clearly missing the meaning of this revelatory outburst.
"The real question," Engelmann replied. "For what was, or rather, what really is our life's work? Huh? This great burning tree existed long before our kind was brought to the bright shores of Aiénor, and if truth be told, it has always lived and thrived without the help of our kind."
"What are you saying, brother?" Elmer scoffed, slightly offended at the implication being tossed about here in this so holy of places.
"I am saying precisely what you fear I am saying," Engelmann blurted out amidst a plume of sweet-smelling smoke. "Tell me, have you ever cared for the amber flames, or stoked the silver fire? Have you, or I, or any of our brothers for that matter, by any magic we might possess or by any authority we hold, have we changed or altered the course of power that flows through these sacred roots? Huh?"
Engelmann starred at his young brother, pipe in mouth and mossy eyebrows raised in playful expectation for whatever answer was to be given.
"Well," Elmer said tentatively as he stole a glance back over his shoulder to the lone, burning branch, "well, no, I sup
pose not."
"And have any of us, by prayers or practice, rite or ritual ... have we ever for one moment succeeded in altering the course of this great tree's failure?" Engelmann pressed on.
Elmer's eyes had taken on a pleading quality to the look of them, as if he were asking Engelmann to stop taking his heart to the eventual conclusion that he already knew it would find. It was clear that he both feared this line of thought and knew that truth lived somewhere amidst the world-crushing words. "No," he answered gravely.
"Ha! Precisely!" Engelmann agreed, standing from his seat upon the rock. "This great tree has truly never been subject to the plotting of old, green-haired fools, nor to the worries of flint-wielding Priests! So then, tell me, brother, what have we really been charged with caring for?"
Elmer stood there humbly in the great garden of the burning tree, dumbfounded at the irreverent possibilities that Engelmann's questions gave birth to in his mind.
"The prophecy has always told us that this illuminated gift would not last forever, that the tree would indeed one day fail by the very hand of the One who gave it to Aiénor to begin with," Engelmann kindly told his younger brother. "Our role was never to prolong its failing, nor to sway the intention of the THREE who is SEVEN. No. Our task has always been to point the hearts of man towards the Maker of light. To inspire them to seek His light from a source that does not fail, rather than just to live in the mortal influence of His burning branches."
Elmer peered at Engelmann, shocked at this revelation from his elder brother. "You are saying there is no purpose to our service to the tree, then? Is that what you are saying? And why are you just now deciding to let me in on this … this … notion? There has not been one moment in all these years that I have not believed my duty was to the tree!"
"Calm your leafy beard, Elmer. We all have believed that at one time, I think. But time has a way of shifting our self-perceptions, does it not? Perhaps it is a paradox of sorts that we find ourselves in—our assignment started out so clear, and yet now it seems that maybe we were destined to fail all along. Or … perhaps our great intentions and our established authority were always meant for an assignment that we can only now truly understand in the passing of the former."
Elmer's eyes fell towards the manicured carpet of lush, green grasses, for the weight of realization weighed heavy there in the amber-colored air.
"So you see, Elmer, our power and magic will now have a greater purpose and a more costly urgency than our kind has ever known before," Engelmann continued. "For we will plant the seedlings of hope in the soil of the hearts of these frightened people, or at least we will try. And we will tend to the saplings of their fragile, green faith as they endure these dark and deadly times."
"I feel ... I feel so foolish, Engelmann," Elmer said, his face wrinkled in a disappointed scowl.
"Well, we are all a little foolish, brother, so pay you no mind to those accusations." He chuckled as the fog that clung so stubbornly to the mind of his friend began to lift from his solemn mood. "What will be more foolish in the end, huh? For an Arborist to believe his task was merely to tend to the tree, and then to discover it was something else entirely? Or for a whole world of men to abandon hope that a new light will ever come, simply because they have already learned to make their homes amongst the darkness?"
Elmer's eyes locked with Engelmann's, and a calm sense of acceptance overtook his young face. "You are right. It was the new light that has been promised all along. We cannot let them forget that."
"And that is precisely why we must remind them while the light still holds some attraction to them, brother."
"How much longer do you feel it will last?" Elmer asked him.
"Not much, my friend, not much longer at all," the elder brother said in a sad, singsong sort of lilt. The two Arborists stood there in the quiet of the moment, heavy with the tension of all the possibilities, hoping for courage enough to sway their own hearts—let alone all of Haven's—towards the foretold hope.
"What do you suggest we do first?" Elmer asked him.
Engelmann thought about it for a moment as the smoke from his pipe accentuated his scheming thoughts. Finally, a wry smile broke out across his leathery face. "While there is still light enough to leverage our office, I say we find a way to get arrested."
"Arrested?" Elmer replied, flabbergasted at the notion. "What good is it going to do for Haven if all those who point to the coming dawn find ourselves locked behind irons and hidden deep within a prison hold?"
"A siege is already set against our city. When the light of our great tree finally fails us— as you and I both know that it will here very soon—I do not trust our defenses, however brave our guardsmen are, nor do I have any confidence in the wisdom or strategy of that damned fool of a Priest King."
"I still do not understand, brother," Elmer said, earnestly doing his best to make sense of it all. "What good will be done there in the prison holds?"
"Our greatest strength will come from man's ability to hope ... or at least that is what I have been told." Engelmann's eyes glazed over, as if he were reliving the vision of storm and words all over again. "And perhaps my final audience for this message waits for me there behind those stone walls on the other side of the river Abonris. Besides, Michael is in there and I ... well, I will not leave him to despair alone."
Elmer's eyes lit up with understanding as he nodded his green-bearded head in agreement. "What would you have me do, brother? Would you have me arrested with you?"
Engelmann thought on it for the briefest of moments. "Perhaps not—I have another assignment for you. But first, come with me. I have something I must show you."
The two Arborists entered through the iron gate of the mother willow, descending the winding stairs with great haste. They both knew that time was all the more now of the essence, and squandering it was not a luxury either of them wished to indulge.
Engelmann spoke hurriedly over his shoulder as he led his younger brother past the line of wooden busts, in between the rows of book-laden shelves, and through the spindled root columns. "If all else fails, and my inklings are indeed right, when the city falls … you must find a way out. You must gather what remnant remains and find a way out of the city."
"What? Where would we go? There is nothing beyond the city but darkness!" Elmer argued.
"The darkness is coming here. But darkness can be overcome. It is the foul corruption of darkness, the un-light of our enemy that we must flee from," Engelmann continued, undeterred by Elmer's reasonings.
"But what if the gates are shut? What if the evil that assails us is already upon us?" Elmer asked worriedly.
"Then you must bring them here," Engelmann replied.
"Here? Here, into the great hall? Our home?" Elmer could not begin to fathom a public contamination of these hallowed chambers. "But this place is sacred!"
"It may very well be the sacredness of this great hall of ours that will provide an escape after all other paths have been closed," Engelmann said as he stopped and stood before a large portion of the jagged, granite wall.
"I am not quite sure what it is that you mean by those words," Elmer replied, a bit exasperated and slightly out of breath from trying to keep up with his excited elder brother. "Why have you brought me here, to the depths of our hall? More riddles? Our time is short, Engelmann."
Engelmann ceased his stride and turned to face the younger Arborist. "Then let me be clear. While there is still strength in these rooted columns, we may yet call upon it. If the time is right, if we deem the sacrifice worthy … we might ask the THREE who is SEVEN to make a way through this holy mountain, and trust that He will hear the intention of our words for the sake of His remnant." Engelmann spoke with a fervent intensity as he held tightly to the robed shoulders of his friend.
Elmer looked past the mossy-bearded old Arborist and locked his gaze upon the enormous, glowing roots of the burning tree. "Why? Why would He do that for us, and yet not answer the prayers of the Priest Ki
ng, or the Chancellor, or the whole maddened, desperate city of ours? Why would He desecrate this ancient and hallowed hall if I ask Him to, but not bring about His light for them?"
"We can hope, my friend," Engelmann said with a softer smile, "that He is in fact answering both kinds of prayers, only not in the way that any of us would have suspected. But we can be sure that the remnant must survive, that it will endure. We can be sure, because we have been told." Engelmann leaned closely to Elmer, a passionate fervor sparking in his eyes. "You must ask Him for this desecration, my younger brother. For it is your duty ... and it may be that by this sacrilegious act, He will honor the heart of the sacrifice."
Elmer thought about it for a moment. The gravity of this notion, that the God of Aiénor would indeed heed his words, was a bit undoing to the young Arborist.
"But which way should we go? I mean, if I actually manage to bring the remnant here, and if I should know how to ask Him, and if He should indeed grant me my request, how then will I know where it would lead us? I mean, where would I take them?" Elmer's words spilled from his green-bearded mouth in rapid succession, his fledgling heart tripping over his tongue.
"North," Engelmann said without hesitation. He strode deliberately to the granite rock and placed but a single finger against the wall. Then, he closed his eyes and breathed deeply, whispering a silent prayer. Elmer watched with rapt attention while the mystical words formed their soundless shapes upon the lips of his elder brother. As the Arborist pressed his long, bark-covered finger to the rock, it began to glow underneath his touch. His hand moved slowly along the rock, leaving a trail of light as a large arrow was revealed, or rather was drawn, onto the hallowed, black mountainside. "You will take them north ... here ... if the THREE who is SEVEN wills it." Engelmann spoke with words ancient and deep in timbre, words that were not meant to be questioned or clarified.
The Ravenous Siege (Epic of Haven Trilogy Book 2) Page 10