The Tree of Ecrof

by Kobe Bryant

  “I, along with the other Trainers and students who compete for House Relia, am honored to announce that our captain this year is Julius Renovo.”

  Julius was on his feet before his name was fully out of Athena’s mouth, as if he’d already known what was coming.

  “Please come forward and accept your official sash,” Athena said.

  The Realist kids parted as Julius descended from his place in the stands and approached the dais, where he held out his arm for his House Trainer, who slipped a blue silk sash over his shoulder. When Athena was done, Julius held his arms up over his head in a victory salute and all the Realist kids bellowed in unison, “There’s nothing realer than the real!”

  Julius dropped his arms, but instead of looking at his adoring crew of Realists, his eyes drifted over to the Dreamer camp, where they landed on his sister. Vera was staring back at him, a pleading expression on her face. Pretia watched as disgust filled his eyes, and he shook his head like Vera was nothing to him. Then he returned to the Realists without another glance at the Dreamers or Vera.

  Janos stood once more. “Cleopatra Volis, please stand and tell us who will be captain of the Dreamers.”

  A woman built like a swimmer with a long, glossy cascade of black hair stood. “On behalf of House Somni, I proudly announce Cassandra Bellus as our new captain.”

  Pretia heard a small gasp behind her and turned and saw a tiny girl with rich brown skin darker than Julius’s and Vera’s and a puff of black curls clap her hands to her mouth.

  A few of the older Dreamer boys were staring at her, some with admiration and others with jealousy.

  For a moment, Cassandra didn’t budge.

  “If she doesn’t move, I’m going to take her place,” one of the older boys said.

  “Cassandra,” Cleopatra said, “are you coming down to accept your sash?”

  Then, fleet as a fox, Cassandra dashed down the stadium steps and sprinted to the dais. Janos had to bend in half in order to slip the sash over her shoulder.

  Instead of raising her arms over her head as Julius had done, Cassandra waved at the Dreamers, who responded by chanting, “The world is built on dreams!” Then she dashed back to the stands and took her place.

  Once she was seated, Janos stood for a final time. “For those of you who just arrived, you’ve already had a busy morning. You are exempt from school activities this morning while your House Captains show you around campus. The rest of you will participate in Free Play in the sport of your choice.” The upperclassmen let out a cheer. “Enjoy your last day of freedom,” Janos added. “Tomorrow fall training begins—for all of you.”

  The cheers turned to groans before Janos silenced them with his whistle one more time. Then the entire student body rose at once. The first years huddled around their House Captains while the rest of the students rushed headlong away from the field.

  Cassandra led the recruits out of the stadium through an entrance opposite the tunnel that led to the Decision Woods. Pretia didn’t even bother to stifle a gasp as she got her first glimpse of the Ecrof campus.

  It was incredible—like she was stepping back in time while also being propelled into the future. All around her were the most magnificent buildings constructed in the old-fashioned classical style—towering temples that had been converted into stately modern buildings. Pretia had thought that Castle Airim was huge. But the scale of everything at Ecrof was mind-boggling.

  The former temples rose hundreds of feet into the air with towering columns taller than any Pretia had seen before. They looked as if they had been built by the legendary giants that the stories said lived in Epoca long before man.

  “As I’m sure you’ve heard,” Cassandra said, “the legends say that the original seven buildings on campus were formerly temples to the Gods of Granity and were built by the gods’ own grana. Of course, over time, the school has built many more.”

  “Wow,” Virgil said.

  “Wow,” Adira repeated.

  For a moment everyone fell silent, staring at the temples that surrounded them. It was almost as if they were standing in the presence of the gods, Pretia thought—or what remained of them.

  The minute Pretia got back to Castle Airim, the first thing she would do is find Anara and tell her all about the temples, each and every detail. She’d let her nurse know that she was right—these buildings were certainly built by divine grana, because nothing else could make something so spectacular.

  “Feel free to explore any of the buildings, except for the Trainers Towers and Thinkers Palace. Those are for the teachers and the Realists alone,” Cassandra said. “And if you do wander around campus, be careful. There are ruins all over. So if you go for a run, watch your step, especially if you run far away from the school. The rest of the island is empty and wild.” Cassandra continued leading them to the front of an imposing building with double rows of columns. “This is the main gymnasium,” she said, craning her neck to see the whole building. “Everything here is state-of-the-art. In fact, a lot of the things that we have at Ecrof don’t exist on the mainland.”

  Pretia peered through the double row of columns. Inside she could make out three regulation basketball courts lined up next to each other. All around them were hundreds of monitors and scoreboards ready to reflect and track the students’ training sessions. “This is where indoor fitness and conditioning takes place. And of course basketball practice, but not competition. That happens in the Indoor Arena, one of the only new buildings on campus. It’s behind the gym and is only used for special tournaments, like when other academies visit,” Cassandra continued.

  Pretia could hear the sound of basketballs being dribbled coming from the Main Gym. “Can we take a look inside?” she asked.

  “Of course, but don’t get too excited.”

  “Why not?” Cyril asked.

  “Because,” Cassandra replied, “for your first year at Ecrof, you will only be learning track-and-field disciplines.”

  “What?” The entire group of Dreamer recuits had spoken at once, except for Vera.

  “You didn’t know that?” she said, snickering.

  “Yup,” Cassandra said. “Ecrof tradition. Every student needs to master sports essentials and basic conditioning before moving on to specific disciplines.”

  “But I hate running,” Adira moaned.

  “You’ll learn to love it,” Cassandra said.

  “And I’m going to get so rusty at diving.”

  “That’s what your grana is for,” Cassandra said. “It will keep you sharp at your best skills.”

  At the mention of grana, Pretia felt uneasy. Luckily, Cyril and Adira were too busy launching complaints at Cassandra for anyone to notice her discomfort.

  “Listen.” Cassandra help up a hand. “It’s not that bad. Everyone is annoyed at first but you get over it. And anyway, both the Field Day competitions between the houses are always track-and-field events to make it fair on the younger students.” Then she winked. “In fact, it gives you guys a leg up on us because you guys are actually practicing track while we are busy with other things.”

  “I guess,” Adira grumbled.

  “Field Days are the best days at Ecrof,” Cassandra explained. “There’s nothing better than competing for your house.” She opened the door to the gym. The recruits filed in.

  It was unlike any place Pretia had ever been before. The main floor was dominated by the three basketball courts. Above the courts was a mezzanine with a running track that circled the gym. On a third floor, Pretia could see hundreds of different exercise machines arranged so that anyone using them could look down on the courts below.

  All around were screens that flashed with endless metrics and measurements. Fountains dispensed Spirit Water, and vending machines held Power Snacks.

  “Whoa,” Pretia said. “I mean, wow!”

  “Calm down f
or a second,” Cassandra said. “You all don’t get to use this stuff until next year. So it’s track and field, as well as Introduction to Visualization and Granology.”

  “Gosh,” Adira said. “That sounds . . . dull.”

  Cassandra smiled. “That’s what everyone thinks,” she said. “Luckily, it isn’t. Because this is Ecrof. And,” she added conspiratorially, “you get to use the Infinity Track.”

  “What’s the Infinity Track?” Virgil asked.

  “It’s only the coolest thing at Ecrof,” Vera muttered. “At least that’s what my brother always says.”

  “It is pretty cool,” Cassandra agreed. “It’s a track that’s not like any other track in the world. It moves around campus every day, and no one knows where it will appear. Sometimes it’s on the ground. Sometimes it’s twenty feet up in the air. And the other fun part is, the bleachers float, too. So you need to arrive on time before they lift off.”

  “And sometimes the track hangs over the cliff and if you’re not careful you could fall off,” Vera added. There was a nasty edge in her voice. But Pretia couldn’t blame her. Only a few moments after arriving at Ecrof, which should have been one of the proudest moments in her life, Vera’s entire world had been upended.

  “Fall off!” Virgil gasped.

  Cassandra gave Vera a reproachful look. “It’s true you could fall off,” she said. “But no one ever has. Your grana keeps you from danger.”

  Next Cassandra led the flock of first-year Dreamers out of the gym toward a field even more impressive than the Campos at Castle Airim. “That is the primary sports field.” She pointed to the immense stretch of pristine green grass in the distance. “It’s used for soccer, football, baseball, anything played outdoors. The lines can be transformed overnight to suit whatever games the coaches have planned. But you will usually train at the Panathletic Stadium, which is where you arrived this morning.”

  Cassandra turned away from the field and pointed to three buildings overlooking the campus from a hill. “Those,” Cassandra said, “are the Thinkers Palace and the Trainers Towers, where most of the Trainers live. The Realists have their own pool, which is pretty nice. But I think you all will prefer the Temple of Dreams.”

  “The Trainers Towers look pretty nice,” Virgil said.

  “They are,” Rovi replied.

  Everyone turned and stared.

  “Is that where you lived?” Pretia asked.

  But Rovi just glared at her in response and looked sorry he’d even spoken.

  Now all the kids turned and stared at the building on the hill next to the Thinkers Palace. It wasn’t just a building, it was two—two towering symmetrical temples.

  “Janos lives at the top of the one on the left,” Cassandra explained. “Those are his quarters. No student I know has ever been in them. But they are supposed to be the most lavish in all of Epoca.”

  Then she glanced at Pretia and looked slightly embarrassed.

  “I mean, that’s what I heard,” Cassandra added.

  “I’m sure they are,” Pretia said. She was still staring up at the towers. Was it her imagination, or were her uncle’s rooms blazing with some kind of light that shone brighter than that in any other window? Before she had time to wonder about this, Cassandra led them from the field and passed a long, low building in the shape of a U. “These are the Halls of Process,” Cassandra said.

  “It doesn’t look like a gym,” Adira said. She and Virgil had been glued to Cassandra’s side, hanging on her every word.

  “It’s not,” Cassandra explained. “They’re classrooms for nonphysical disciplines—Visualization, Granology, and History of the Epic Games, which you will take next year or the year after.”

  The Dreamer recruits glanced quickly into the Halls of Process, then stepped away, eager to see the more impressive sights of Ecrof—especially the Temple of Dreams, which would be their home. But when Pretia glanced back over her shoulder for one last look at the classrooms, she saw Rovi standing in the entry to the building.

  “Come on, Rovi,” she called. “Don’t you want to see the Temple of Dreams?”

  But it didn’t look as if he’d heard her. Instead, he seemed fixated on something inside the Halls of Process, something that to him seemed more interesting than where he was going to live.

  “Rovi,” Pretia called again.

  He still didn’t turn around.

  Pretia hesitated for a moment. Then she hurried to catch up with the rest of the recruits. Whatever had captured Rovi’s attention couldn’t hold a candle to the golden Temple of Dreams glittering on the hilltop straight ahead.

  8

  ROVI

  THE DOOR

  Ecrof was better than Rovi remembered. Maybe this was because he was going to be allowed to use all the wonderful equipment, play on the fields, run on the Infinity Track, and sleep in the Temple of Dreams instead of tagging along beside his father, a little kid always in the shadows. Maybe now he’d finally be able to try and climb the impressive Tree of Ecrof as he’d always wanted to as a little boy. He’d raced through the Decision Woods without a hitch, leaping over a set of tree root hurdles, executing a long jump over a giant mud puddle, and skirting a maze of tree stumps with no more thought than it took to evade the guards at the Alexandrine Plaza. As usual, his feet had a mind of their own. In no time he’d been on to the Dreamer bench. Then he was touring the campus he knew so well.

  It wasn’t until Cassandra led the recruits past the Halls of Process that reality sank in. Because the Halls of Process was where Rovi’s father, Pallas, had taught and where he’d had his Visualization Laboratory. The rest of the kids had rushed on to the Temple of Dreams, bored by the classrooms where they would soon be studying. But Rovi had lingered in the doorway. He’d closed his eyes and breathed deeply. Instantly, he was able to summon the camphor, linseed oil, and jasmine scent of his father’s lab. In fact, he could almost hear his father’s voice.

  Rovi stepped into the cool interior of the building. He remembered the precise location of the small door that led to his father’s old lab that was wedged in a narrow space between two classrooms. He tried to summon the image of his father walking down the hall, his arms full of the scientific equipment, mostly his own inventions, that he used to push the art of visualization into a new realm. Rovi could almost see him as he’d been before his final experiment had gone wrong, before they’d been expelled from Cora. He could almost conjure the sight of Pallas Myrios before he’d become addicted to the powerful drug Somnium and spent his final years, drained of all energy and grana, lying on the streets of Phoenis, more ghost than human, raving about dead and dying trees.

  Tears sprang to Rovi’s eyes. For so long, he hadn’t allowed himself to think about the past. But here, at Ecrof, he couldn’t avoid it. What had really happened to his father? What had gone wrong? Why had he been raving about trees in their last days on Ecrof and for years after? Why did he mutter Kill the tree in his Somnium-­poisoned sleep? By the time Rovi was old enough to ask, Pallas was too far gone, too lost in his Somnium madness.

  Suddenly he heard voices outside the Halls of Process. Julius Renovo was approaching, leading his Realist recruits on their own tour of Ecrof. Quickly Rovi wiped away his tears and dashed from the classroom building and toward the Temple of Dreams.

  He was out of breath when he reached the top of the hill where the Dreamers’ golden temple stood overlooking the campus. When he was little, he and his father had lived in the Trainers Towers. The rooms had been luxurious, of course. Everything at Ecrof was. But they hadn’t been designed for play or sport. The Temple of Dreams was a different story.

  The rest of the Dreamer recruits had already spread out across the massive building when Rovi arrived, leaving him to explore on his own. He entered a long marble hall lined with cabinets filled with trophies won by former Ecrof Dreamers—shiny gold, silver, and bronze cups a
nd platters, as well as towering columns topped by a tiny replica of the winning athlete. The names of all Dreamers from Ecrof who had competed in the Epic Games were etched onto one wall with gold letters. Another wall bore a list of all the Dreamer House Captains. And another had a list of all the Dreamers who had been selected for the prestigious Epic Elite Squad at Ecrof and the ever more presitigious Junior Epic Games. Hundreds and hundreds of names of the most successful athletes in the land engraved forever on the Dreamers’ wall. Rovi placed a finger on the most recent one and tried to imagine seeing his own name in the ranks.

  Throughout the hall, there were statues of elite athletes and pictures of teams. There were footballs, soccer balls, and basketballs cast in gold. There were running shoes from long-ago races and jerseys that had been signed and framed. Everywhere Rovi looked he was confronted by Dreamer greatness.

  When he’d passed through the trophy room, he came to a large common room with huge sunken couches piled high with royal-­purple pillows. Four enormous monitors on the walls showed events from past Epic Games. Beyond the common room was a cafeteria that he remembered Cassandra saying was always open and always serving a meal or a hot snack, regardless of whether it was mealtime or the middle of the night. Rovi stood in front of the buffet station, breathing deeply, drinking in the sweet and savory smells flowing from the kitchen. It was hard to believe he wouldn’t have to steal a meal ever again.

  In the basement, he found an entertainment room filled with every sort of game Rovi had imagined playing, from table soccer to distance darts to mini tennis. Downstairs, too, were more vending machines. Rovi approached one and cautiously pressed a button. Down came a Choco Water. He looked around, making sure no one was watching him. Then he slipped his hand into the machine and took the water. He pressed the button again. Another Choco Water descended. He moved to the snack machine—down came Honey Crackers, Lemon Sticks, a Pistachio Brittle. He gathered all the food in his arms and raced up the stairs.