by JL Terra
He saw doom approach like a flash of prescience that could only come from Providence.
Daire turned and raced toward Bryn. He didn’t want to be burned. He also wasn’t going to stand there and wait for it. A quick death wasn’t in the cards for him. Instead, it would be a long and painful recovery.
Again.
The roar of flames was like an explosion. Heat pressed against his back, pushing him forward. His entire body shuddered at being faced with this all over again. His mind may have forgotten after so long, but his body remembered the pain. The agony.
He collided with Bryn. They huddled against the wall of the cavern. Flames exploded around them. She hid behind the shelter of his body, her cries drowned out by the roar of the dragon. He could feel the tension in her arms, clutched against his sides.
He dipped his head and felt the flames singe the hair on the back of his neck.
Daire shifted to take the sword from her.
The second the flames receded, he turned. Swiped out with the sword even before he looked. Daire caught its nose and stunned the dragon enough he could run toward it. Next, he swiped left to right. Cut open a line on the creature’s neck. Long, but not deep. He only wanted to distract it with the sting enough for them to get away.
“Run!”
Bryn stood still. Her wide eyes stared up at the dragon, now towering over her. Daire ran to her, but the dragon’s great head swung down. It roared again and flames rushed toward her.
“Go!”
Bryn ran, chased by the flames. He wanted to go after her, but that meant both of them would be pursued. They needed to make two targets, not one.
Daire struck again with his sword. He cut deeper this time into the animal’s shoulder. It reared back. The front legs lifted off the earth, and the head swung at him. It slammed into his body with the force of a semi truck. Daire flew through the air, able only to think enough to keep ahold of his sword. Then he was falling.
Falling.
So far.
All the way.
Down.
Daire hit solid ground so hard it knocked him out for a few seconds. His vision swam, but with the darkness, there was nothing to see. He couldn’t even make out his own hand in front of his face. He rolled over and groaned, then blacked out again. For how long, he didn’t know.
When he was aware enough to stand, he slid the sword back into his jacket collar and stumbled down the tunnel. Hand on the wall. The other out in front so he didn’t walk into anything. Twice he turned corners.
There was hardly any air down here.
No light.
Daire had no idea where he was going. It felt like hours that he walked, praying he would find Bryn. That she was safe. That he wouldn’t have to spend the rest of his immortal life down here.
It was tempting to pray that the Druid would succeed. That he would destroy the tree of life—the All Tree—and end it all. If the whole world was gone, who would still be around to care? But honor prevented him from asking that. It was only a simple end. Little more than a cop out.
Survival might be a whole lot more complicated, but it also kept his conscience from rising against him in conviction.
His steps faltered and Daire’s brain took a few moments to process what he was seeing.
The cavern was huge. Much larger than the one the dragon had been in. Like the inside of a cathedral, bigger than any he’d ever seen. Encased on both sides of the walls, two great trees—one on his left, the other on his right—stretched out of the ground on either side. The two trees reached up to the ceiling where the leaves intertwined with each other.
The whole cavern teemed with life. It smelled like freshly fallen rain. Insects buzzed in the air, thick with humidity. Enough that he could feel the dampness against his skin. Sunlight streamed across the cavern, but he couldn’t tell where it came from.
Great branches hung low from the tree to his left. Heavy with fruit he couldn’t identify. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
The tree to his right was barren of fruit but dotted instead with buds. Flowers. Insects, and small animals. The tree of life.
A moth as big as his hand flew past his face. It lifted to settle on a branch. Unseen birds chirped. The air moved with the grace of a summer breeze. Fresh air.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?”
He spun to the right where the Druid stood watching. His robes hung from slender shoulders and fell to the floor. The same outfit he’d worn all those years ago back in that cabin. The day Daire’s whole life had changed.
He watched the other man take in the scene. The truth was something he’d believed since the day he first heard it. But standing here now, Daire knew for certain—everything he’d heard and read…it was definitely all real. This was no myth. And while he had never doubted, seeing it with his own eyes was nothing short of astounding.
He surveyed the entire room again. His brain still processing what he looked at.
The two trees were part of the cavern itself. Above his head, branches spread across the ceiling and hung down like a multitude of lanterns, leaves so low he could reach up and touch them.
The tree of life, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Despite the fall of man, they were still here. Hidden deep in the ground where humanity would never find them. Their location buried in myth, revealed by riddles wrapped in secrets. He didn’t think Providence had birthed that song, part of Norse mythology. Bryn’s heritage. Rather Daire believed that the location had been handed down by other immortal entities who now controlled the world, governed by the prince of the power of the air.
He had brought the Druid here.
That dark power would want any other outcome to his future than the one written in the scriptures. And so, why not lead a powerful Druid to this place so that he could attempt to destroy life as humankind knew it?
Daire launched toward the Druid, sword first.
He never hit the other man. Instead, he sailed right through the Druid, as though he were nothing but a mirage. Daire stumbled but didn’t go down. The scene changed. Gone was the green. The golden sunlight, the buzzing insects.
Now the tree of the knowledge of good and evil hung with rotten fruit. They littered the floor, half eaten and decaying. The cavern no longer felt like warmth and goodness. The trees seemed to shudder against the atmosphere. The buzz of insects grated against his ears.
Daire stared around in an entirely different kind of wonder as mist curled from the walls and rolled across the floor. It made no sound as it floated through the room, rising as it went. Like an incoming weather system, but this one ebbed and flowed. Undulating with what was contained within each molecule.
Daire’s skin itched in the places that had been cut and sliced the last time he’d faced the mist. He looked around, but couldn’t see the Druid anymore. He drew his sword. Instinct guided his movements into a fighting stance. The mist rose above his head and swirled around him.
The mocking laughter he’d heard last time started out quietly. It grew louder and louder. At the point it filled his senses, a creature stepped from the mist to face him. Snarling teeth. Claws. Gray skin, cracked and peeling.
It lunged at him. Daire swung his sword and hacked off an arm. He swung again. Two more creatures emerged from the mist on either side of him. Daire spun and sliced at every inch of scaly flesh he could find. One swing took a head off. He ducked but got caught in the side of the head by a clawed hand. The slice bled immediately, throwing a screen of red in front of one eye. He could feel the damp down the side of his face.
Still, he fought. Slashed. Spun. Cut. Turned the sword to slam the hilt into a shoulder. An abdomen.
His breath came fast. Daire sank inside himself. To that place he both liked and hated in equal measure. The killing haze was upon him. It didn’t matter what happened now. He would not rest until every living creature in this dark place was no more.
They kept coming.
Daire kept
fighting.
A slash opened on his thigh. Another across his left shoulder. He pushed aside the pain, barely feeling it with the adrenaline coursing through him. The will to kill numbed everything until only the need to destroy remained.
Strength as hot as a blacksmith’s fire raced through him and ignited his limbs. It was in this place that he gave up control of himself and truly let go. Only Providence could finish this. Only He could take the weapon—Daire—and strike the killing blow against such an evil.
And he did.
Daire sank to his knees in an ocean of pieces. Of blood. He coughed long enough to finally pull in a full breath of air, dank though it was. The creatures gave off a scent. Sulfur. Death. Evil.
Daire swiped his sleeve across his face and wiped away the blood, then stood on shaky legs and looked around again to search for the Druid. Wherever the man was, he was surely enacting what he had planned. That couldn’t mean anything good. Especially not if he was determined enough to employ evil to occupy Daire in the meantime. Keep him busy while he did it.
He stepped over the creatures. The mist parted. And then he saw her.
Pinned to the tree like a modern-day crucifixion, her blood running down the trunk.
Amelia.
Chapter 34
Bryn reached up and swatted her cheek, then scratched at the tickle. She waited for the numbness of drugs to dull everything. Waited to open her eyes, back in that hospital.
But it never came.
Her body was a mass of aches and pains she didn’t want to contemplate. Not acknowledging them meant she wouldn’t have to think about how she’d gotten each one. The tickle on her cheek was almost…nice.
A footfall landed right beside her face. She flinched and opened her eyes. Flat on her back in a tunnel, she returned to awareness so fast she sat up gasping.
The distant echo of a tortured scream rang through the dim light.
Children in ragged clothes wandered past, as though she wasn’t even sitting there. Eyes unseeing, they moved by her. A steady pace that swayed the skirts a few of the girls wore. Dirty hair. Dirty faces. Their clothes were a mixture of styles ranging from contemporary to Amish.
Bryn grabbed a hand. The little girl’s skin was clammy and cold. Eyes straight ahead, her legs continued to move as though still walking, seemingly unconcerned that she suddenly wasn’t going anywhere. After a few seconds, Bryn let go and the girl moved on. Like her progress hadn’t just been stalled by the woman on the ground.
Bryn started to get up, winced and sat back down. After she’d mustered enough gumption to fight the pain, she tried again. Standing to her feet, she immediately swayed and touched her hand to the wall.
Not a dream.
A hallucination then.
It certainly felt real. Just like everything that had happened since she left the mental institution, even the crazy stuff. How was she supposed to tell the difference?
Real or not, she was stuck here.
The children still walked around her. Brushed past her. Ignored her. Bryn walked with the flow and tried to count how many there were. It didn’t surprise her that the children were part of her delusion. She’d been looking for them when all this started, so it stood to reason. At least as much reason as a crazy person could have. They played a role now. Her mind must be fixated on the fact she hadn’t found them, because they were here. She might still be able to help them.
That hope was all the dissonant fragments of her mind needed in order to find peace. To see a reason why she’d been brought here.
She needed to finish what she’d started before all this happened.
The tunnels stretched out like a maze. Or maybe more like a warren, since they were underground. She’d had a couple of rabbits as pets when she was a child until Erik got a puppy. Bryn shook her head, dispelling the thoughts.
She walked faster than the children. They all headed in the same direction. She tried talking to some, but it was like they were in a trance. Had the Druid done this? If so, what benefit could they possibly give him? She didn’t know how a bunch of kids fit into the Druid’s plan to destroy the All Tree.
If that part of the delusion was set to happen shortly, then her brain had better figure it out. Otherwise, she would be walking through these tunnels for eternity, searching for Daire. Probably the reason she’d made him up—an immortal man would make a great companion if she was going to be stuck in her head forever. Locked here with someone who couldn’t die. Someone who could fight off every foe she faced. In her mind she had created the ultimate darkness and then brought to life a noble to combat it.
As far as heroes went, Daire was a pretty good one. Even if he wasn’t real. Assuming she could find him. Maybe she never would.
Bryn bent forward to suck in breaths. Her vision blurred as tears filled her eyes. She fought away the despair of being trapped here endlessly with no help and no way out.
A tiny hand touched her shoulder.
Bryn lifted her head.
The little boy’s eyes lit. “Come on.” He turned away before Bryn could even process what had just happened. She followed him around a corner into another tunnel. The walls of this one were laced with branches. Each one was intertwined with another, woven together.
She ran her hand across it and hissed. She touched her pricked finger to her lips and sucked away the drop of blood.
The walls shuddered.
Branches grew across the open space behind her. Bryn turned and ran back toward it, but the wood latticed across the opening too fast. And then she was trapped. The earth moved under her as the whole tunnel shifted. She was standing on the same interwoven foliage as the walls, the ceiling, and the space behind her.
The entire tunnel shifted like a moving sidewalk. Bryn adjusted her stance to keep from falling. The end in front of her was open. She trotted toward it, making no progress forward. The kids had gone that way. None remained here with her.
There was only darkness.
Then the tunnel contracted, and the ceiling sank to barely five feet high. Bryn hunched over, her head and shoulders bowed. She moved faster, trying to get ahead of it.
With a great shift, the tunnel upended. She fell on her behind, ending up sitting where she had previously tried to get out, as though the tunnel itself simply stood up. Righting itself. What had been behind her was now beneath her.
And then it moved. A great step, like a leg—a foot. She held on while it settled, then moved again. Walking.
Bryn tried to grasp something to hold onto.
The…thing…kept walking. She could hear children whimpering but couldn’t see anything. If they were here with her, they’d have fallen down the way she had, right? And yet she was all alone. Trapped in a moving thing made of branches.
The Druid. It had to be. Every other time branches had acted of their own accord, it had been because of him.
Bryn gripped the walls of the foot as best she could and held on as it moved. A lumbering motion, heading…she didn’t know where.
The branches under her hand grew hotter. As though flames licked the other side. Smoke laced the air. Thicker and thicker, until she couldn’t breathe. Bryn coughed. She lifted the collar of her shirt to cover her mouth and nose. Her eyes stung and each breath cut its way down her throat like road rash.
With a cry of pain, she removed her hand from the wall. Blisters covered her palm. Underneath her was growing warm as well but she spread her feet to hip width, the same way she’d done on subway trains. It was the only way to stay upright when there was nothing to hold onto.
A whimper rolled up her throat. Bryn wasn’t going to give in to it. She wasn’t going to allow emotions to control her anymore. They had overtaken her mind and she’d succumbed to the fear. That was why she was here, after all. All of this was about escaping the real world because she couldn’t handle reality. What was the point, if she then needed to escape the delusion? It should be a better place, but the truth is that it had become a nightmare. Wh
ether this life was in her head or not, Bryn couldn’t seem to escape it.
The lumbering stopped. Flames roared.
In the distance, she could hear laughter.
The sound of children screaming.
Branches splintered. Flames spread across everything. Whatever Bryn had been inside broke apart around her. Children fell. Two landed on her, and she shifted to catch the next one. They all screamed as heat rose all around, encompassing them.
Bryn wanted to wake up now more than ever. She wanted to sob, but there was no air. Only smoke. Flames.
Fire.
And then he came. Roaring through the smoke, swinging his sword. Daire’s gaze locked with hers as he slashed at branches and cut down the structure. His eyes were wide, almost frightened. Like he’d seen things he couldn’t fully believe.
He continued hacking away with his sword. The smoke dissipated enough she could see they were in a huge room. A cavern. Two trees, one on either side, stretched up to the ceiling. Dead branches hung down on either side and across the ceiling.
Flames rolled up the tree behind her. The branches stretched up in a familiar shape. A man, made of woven foliage, probably thirty feet tall. The children had been inside, just like her. Some were on the ground, unmoving.
Bryn crawled to the closest one and tried to find a pulse.
“Come on.” Daire grasped her elbow.
He started to lift her up, but she shook her head and said, “What’s going on?”
“We have to get out of the way.” He pulled her up this time.
Bryn winced. She hurt in so many places it was hard to say which was the worst. She locked her knees. “We have to get these children out of here.” She expected a solution. Somewhere in the recesses of her mind, there was a piece that would provide the information she needed.
Daire tugged her out of the way. “What are you talking about?”
“Those children.” She waved toward…nothing. They were gone.
“The mist will be back soon. But first I have to find Amelia. I lost her when that thing you were in showed up to burn everything.” He shook his head, all the while tugging her along.