Shadow Tree

by Jake Halpern

  “I broke your jaw,” gasped Bilblox incredulously as he rose to his feet. “And now you’re... you’re fine.”

  “Indeed,” said Kiril as he massaged his jaw gently. Even he seemed surprised by his near-instant recovery. “It hurt at the time,” admitted Kiril, “But I feel fit to eat a steak now.”

  “And your tooth...” said Bilblox. “How did you do that?”

  “And to think people pay so much money for dentists,” said Kiril with a dark chuckle.

  Bilblox frowned.

  “Don’t be discouraged,” said Kiril, “You’ll be able to do the same thing -- so long as you keep taking the green ash. You see we are both, in a manner of speaking, invincible. It’s a stalemate. Neither of us can beat the other.”

  “We’ll see about that,” muttered Bilblox.

  “Here is what I propose,” continued Kiril calmly, as if he were offering options on a dinner menu. “You come with me, and I will let you into Dargora – into my house. If you still feel that I am your enemy, then you will have ample opportunities to betray me or even kill me, assuming, of course, that I can be killed. And, on the other hand, if you change your mind about me – or simply want to buy some more time to think things over – then you can stick around and live a while without the nuisance of blindness or excruciating headaches.”

  He smiled at Bilblox, who had cringed noticeably when Kiril had said “Dargora.”

  “Come now, Bilblox. It’s just a city. You probably heard some terrible rumors, of a city built on bones. Like most rumors, this one is largely false, with some truth at the core. I assure you – Dargora is a pleasant city. The views are quite spectacular.”

  Bilblox considered charging Kiril again, but then thought better of it. He had lost the element of surprise. Bilblox also considered simply walking away, back into the forest, but this didn’t seem particularly sensible either. As much as he hated to admit it, Kiril was right. He had come this far; it would be pointless to stop now. But it seemed foolhardy to trust Kiril. Kiril was almost certainly luring Bilblox into a trap of one kind or another and his bait was the green ash. But what was Kiril’s plan? Why was he going to such great lengths to keep Bilblox alive? Maybe he wants me to be his trophy, thought Bilblox. Bilblox could envision the whole scene: Kiril returning home to Dargora as a hero with the Great Sleeper’s best friend in tow – not as a chained prisoner – but as a broken man who had become addicted to the green ash and who was now a convert to the Dragoonya. This would certainly be a feather in Kiril’s cap. Bilblox suspected that there was more to it than this, and that Alfonso figured prominently.

  What Bilblox needed now was a plan of his own. Bilblox knew that he was, in effect, playing a game of chess – and playing against a very skilled opponent. Bilblox had never been a chess player – he much preferred backgammon and any game involving dice – but he knew that the key to winning in chess was always to be thinking several moves ahead.

  Kiril looked at him. “Well, are you going to help me make this canoe or not?” he asked.

  “Yeah, I’m coming,” said Bilblox.

  “Good,” said Kiril, “I always knew you were the sort of fellow who liked a challenge.”

  The two men quickly set to work preparing their canoe. They cut down a large fir tree, stripped off the bark, and then used a dagger to carve a large oval into the tree, marking the area that would have to be dugout. They then used axes and worked furiously to hack away and carve out all the wood then needed to be removed. Then they shaped the bow and stern of the boat into rough wedges so that the boat could cut its way through the water easily. Normally a project like this, requiring this much physical exertion, would take two grown men the better part of a week or even two. Kiril and Bilblox, whose bodies were brimming with vigor due to the power of the ash, finished their canoe in just under six hours. When this was done, they chopped a limb off a tree and used their axes to chisel away roughhewn paddles. By the time they finally stopped working, night had fallen.

  “I think this little boat shall serve us well,” said Kiril as he lay down his axe. He was drenched with sweat and appeared out of breath. “Shall we make camp and commence downstream at dawn?”

  “No need to wait,” replied Bilblox. The longshoreman suddenly appeared to be in much better spirits. “There ought to be a near full moon tonight so I figure we can paddle right through the night. I say we just start now, unless you are too tired to continue.”

  Kiril glowered, but said nothing. “Fine,” said Kiril irritably, still panting for breath, “I’ll help you carry the boat down to the river.”

  “No need,” said Bilblox as he picked up the boat and swung it over his shoulder. The canoe was bulky, and was enormously heavy, but Bilblox maneuvered it with great ease. “You just take the paddles.”

  “The paddles,” muttered Kiril.

  “Yes,” said Bilblox. “You look a bit tuckered out.”

  Kiril glowered at him but said nothing. The two men went downstream, paddling more or less continuously, throughout that night and all of the next day. When they finally stopped to make camp, Bilblox hauled the boat ashore while Kiril built a small fire. They wordlessly shared some food, and then immediately went to sleep. It took Bilblox a while to sleep, despite his exhaustion. His mind whirred with ideas and plans.

  When Bilblox woke, many hours later, he had a pounding headache. It felt as if someone were using a jackhammer on his brain. He struggled to open his eyes, and when he finally did so, the brightness of the snow was excruciatingly painful.

  Somewhere nearby, he heard a man talking to him, but it was impossible to make out any words. The man was talking gently. Bilblox forced himself to focus on the words. Slowly, he began to understand what the man was saying.

  “What you’re feeling is the first stage of withdrawal,” said the man. “The pain comes quickly. It’s not like a migraine headache – it doesn’t build gradually – it ambushes you suddenly.”

  Bilblox knew now that it was Kiril speaking and he lunged blindly at the sound of the man’s voice, but it was no use. The physical exertion of moving only made his headache worse.

  “Give me the ash!” demanded Bilblox.

  “In a little bit,” said Kiril. “But first there is something I must do.” Bilblox heard the sound of footsteps trudging off into the snow, slowly growing fainter and more distant, until the only sound that remained was the deafening void of silence.

  Chapter 11: The Pen’s Reach

  Resuza sat crossed-legged in the middle of an underground ice cave. The cave was spacious and comfortable – just the way that Resuza wanted it – because she herself had carved it by using the Foreseeing Pen. On the floor of the cave were blankets, several half-frozen flasks of cider, a few knives with handles made of bone, and a large pile of biscuits. Resuza had stolen all of these things from a locked storage room within the slave quarters. By using the Pen, she had succeeded in burrowing into this storage room, getting what she needed, and then getting out – sealing the tunnel behind her, with the Pen, by forcing the walls of the tunnel to cave inward. Every night, for the past week or so, she had been using the Pen to lay the groundwork for their escape. The cave was her storage depot, where she was compiling all of the supplies that she and Hill would need to escape.

  There were two tunnels leading into Resuza’s storage depot. One tunnel led directly back to the slave quarters, which was only several hundred meters away. The other tunnel went off in a southerly direction and continued for a very long way – perhaps as much as three miles – though it was impossible to tell. The prospect of building a tunnel that stretched for such a great distance would normally be inconceivable – especially for one person – but the Pen had made it possible. Once she had mastered it, Resuza simply flicked it on and walked forward very slowly and the Pen did the rest.

  Resuza stood up and headed down the tunnel that went south, the one that would lead them to their escape. As she walked, the prospect of her escape seemed more and more real, a
nd with this came another realization: she was officially giving up on finding her sister. Most likely, Naomi was dead – Resuza had come to accept this likelihood – but there was a small chance that she was alive, tucked away in some remote corner of Dargora. If this was the case, then this meant that Resuza was abandoning her sister – yet again. Resuza had abandoned Naomi for the first time when Dragoonya horsemen raided their village in the Urals. Resuza had begged her sister to run, but Naomi wouldn’t budge, and so Resuza eventually fled without her. Afterwards, Resuza had vowed to herself that she would never rest or give up until she found her sister; and yet here she was, several years later, doing exactly that – giving up, running for it, trying to save her own skin – once again. The thought made Resuza feel disgusted with herself, but what choice did she have? If she stayed in Dargora much longer she would, in all likelihood, end up dead, and her bones would be yet more building blocks for the towers of the city.

  No, thought Resuza. No way.

  She walked for a long time, perhaps thirty minutes or so, until she reached the end of the tunnel. It wasn’t really the end. It was just the spot where she had stopped drilling the previous evening. Once here, Resuza took out the Pen and opened it up so that she could see into its barrel. She then took an ice chip from the floor of the tunnel, loaded it into the Pen, aimed it at the wall in front of her, and clicked the emerald. A spray of water and powdery snow soaked her face. She squinted and pressed forward, continuing like this for two hours or so until she broke through and found herself staring into a gaping chasm. She peered into the darkness and saw that she was looking at a vast canyon made of ice. The bottom was hundreds of meters below. It made her nauseous just to look down into it. Perhaps she could find a way to tunnel around this canyon – that was her only option. But she would need to get her bearings, which meant getting up to the surface.

  Resuza pointed the Pen to her right and began drilling a new tunnel that made its way, at a gradual angle, all the way to the surface. She drilled for twenty minutes until finally she broke through and saw the world above. The mere sight of it filled her with joy. The sky was cloudy and, hanging in a gap in the clouds, was the moon – shimmering in all its brightness. She scrambled up to the surface and quickly surveyed her surroundings. There was a large rock nearby, shaped like a giant egg, and she climbed up to the top of it so that she could have a better perspective.

  What Resuza saw dashed all of her hopes. The canyon was not only deep and wide, but incredibly long. It stretched in either direction for as far as the eye could see, and it appeared to serve as a moat that protected Dargora. And beyond the canyon there was nothing but endless fields of snow. There was no way out and, more devastatingly, there was nowhere to go.

  Chapter 12: A Vision of the Future

  Alfonso and Marta scrambled down the rocky slope, heading east, toward the tall stone tower in the distance. They moved slowly at first because Alfonso kept tripping. “You’re not used to your body,” Marta told him. “It takes a while.”

  “Then why aren’t you falling on your face like me?” he asked her.

  “Because I know what I’m doing,” she told him with a smile. “Just watch me. You won’t believe how much you can learn from a nine-year-old girl.”

  Alfonso smiled. “Fair enough.”

  They walked for many hours – through the afternoon, through dusk, and into the evening. The night sky was clear, perfectly cloudless, but in the distance a storm was approaching. Brilliant flashes of lightning crackled across the sky and illuminated the landscape like flickering stadium lights. The tower was close now. It stood on the other side of a huge sprawling meadow, speckled with boulders, poplar trees, and tall, patches, of beige crinkly grass. In the moments when the sky lit up, Alfonso could see that it wasn’t really a tower, but an obelisk – a massive stone pillar with a pyramid-like top. He recalled learning about obelisks in his world history class. The ancient Egyptians built them. In fact, on his brief trip to Alexandria, he recalled seeing one at the edge of the city. It was tall and thin, like a stone needle, and covered with hieroglyphs. This obelisk was bigger, much bigger. They were still half a mile away and yet it towered over them. It was very wide around the base – perhaps thirty feet by thirty feet – and as tall as a big city skyscraper.

  “I was here with my dad,” said Alfonso. “I’m certain of it now.”

  “Huh?”

  “In my dream,” said Alfonso. “I was at this obelisk with my dad.”

  “Oh,” said Marta. “That’s nice. Did the two of you have a good time? Was it a picnic?”

  “I don’t remember,” said Alfonso. Then he laughed.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “I was just thinking,” said Alfonso. “If my dad saw me now – you know, with a beard and all – he’d freak out. ”

  “You could shave the beard,” said Marta.

  “I don’t know how to shave,” admitted Alfonso. “I think I’ll just morph back to being a teenager when the time comes.”

  Marta set down her pack and climbed up onto a nearby boulder. “I want to rest for a while,” she said.

  “What about the storm?” asked Alfonso.

  “It’s still far away,” she said. “You can barely hear the thunder. Besides, before I head back to Jasber, I want to have a look at something.” Marta crossed her legs, stared off into the distance, and sat perfectly still.

  “What are you doing?” asked Alfonso.

  “My job,” said Marta.

  “Your job?” asked Alfonso. “What’s your job?”

  “I’m a seer.”

  “I thought you were going to quit,” said Alfonso teasingly.

  “Please shut up,” snapped Marta. “Go walk around and try to act your age – you’re supposed to be a grown man for goodness sake.”

  Alfonso sighed, shrugged his shoulders, and wandered off into the tall grass. As he walked, he mulled over his situation. He had a strong sense that this was where he was supposed to be, at this obelisk, but he couldn’t say why. In his dream, he and his father had been here together – at the very top of the obelisk – on a balcony, or a ledge, or something like that. He remembered the view: the rolling foothills and the snowcapped peaks in the distance. There was a woman there on the balcony too, a beautiful woman with a scar across her face, but the other details were hazy. It was a fragment of a dream. Why couldn’t he recall more of it? He remembered the other dream from his coma with startling clarity – the one in which he and Resuza were in the woods in Minnesota, running from the oncoming tide of scurrying animals. All the details were still crisp: the trees shaking, the branches cracking, and the ground shifting. He thought back to the forest and recalled seeing the strange hexagonal hole in the ground.

  Suddenly he knew where he’d seen something like this before: Paris.

  The hole in the forest looked exactly like the one he had seen with Sophie, the wanderer, beneath the streets of Paris. These were “root holes” created by the deadly tentacles of the Shadow Tree. Had it already been planted? Was it possible? Alfonso recalled what his father had said in the dream: “I should have known – it was all written out so clearly.” What was his dad talking about? Of course, maybe this was just a bunch of nonsense from a dream that meant nothing. This was the most likely explanation. But it was all so vivid – almost like it really happened.

  More than anything else, he remembered Resuza’s words before he woke up: “You’ll need me, before it’s all over. And Bilblox as well.”

  And then came those last, hurried words: “But most of all, you’ll need-”

  Alfonso felt like screaming. Who did he need? His father? There was no way to find out. Even if he found Resuza, she wouldn’t be able to complete this sentence that occurred in his dream. He feared the worst. Perhaps he would need someone like Kiril or Nartam. This made no sense, but in the vacuum of his thoughts, Alfonso was without any guide.

  Quite suddenly, Alfonso snapped to attention. Something was moving in the gra
ss. There was a brilliant flash of lightning and, seconds later, an explosive clap of thunder. A gust of cool air rustled the grass. The storm was nearing. There was more movement in the grass. All around him, he could sense bodies – human, animals, impossible to say – closing in on him. Whatever had been following them for the past few days was finally here – and in full force. There was another flash of lightning and, ever so briefly, Alfonso saw the faces of almost a dozen children. They were dressed in rags, their faces were filthy, but their eyes appeared strangely alert. They were moving towards him slowly, but steadily. One thought leapt into Alfonso’s mind: Marta. He spun and around and dashed back through the tall grass. He ran for ten minutes or so – Alfonso hadn’t realized just how far he’d wandered while lost in thought – but eventually he came upon the rock where Marta was sitting.

  “I just saw something pretty spooky,” said Alfonso, panting for breath.

  “So did I,” replied Marta.

  “Then you saw them too?” asked Alfonso. “The kids in the grass?”

  “No,” said Marta, “I had a vision of the future – you know, like the ones I used to have while sitting in my chair on Monastery Isle.”

  “What’d you see?”

  “This field,” said Marta. “A bunch of years from now.”

  “And?” asked Alfonso. “What else?”

  “No,” said Marta. “I’m not telling you – at least, not right now.”

  “What?” said Alfonso angrily. “You’ve got to be kidding. When will you tell me? Aren’t you heading back to Jasber?”

  “No,” said Marta, “I’ve changed my mind about that. I’m coming with you.”

  “Coming with me?” asked Alfonso. “Fine, but we have to go – now!”

  Alfonso and Marta ran toward the tower as quickly as they could, charging through the tall grass and leaping over rocks as they went. They had almost made it to the base of the tower when they realized that they were surrounded. It was a classic hunting scenario. One group of hunters chased its prey, driving them forward, and another group of hunters stayed up ahead – waiting patiently for the prey to arrive. Alfonso and Marta could both see that, around the base of the tower, there were two dozen or so figures crouching in the grass. It was very difficult to discern how big they were or how old, but they were clearly lying in wait.