The Tree

  The younger woman with the silver arm. “Holder-Apprentice Razel, also of Hypatia Athenaeum.”

  The younger ruffled man. “And lastly Holder-Apprentice Haydn of Enheduanna Athenaeum.”

  Each bowed their head in turn but none said anything. There had been some mention of the Athenaeums in the Agency’s files. Places of learning and power. The only places the humans—‘dants of this world—could find sanctuary and power of their own. Matthias wondered at them working alongside The Ruling Courts. but one thing he knew crossed all planes of existence: those in power will betray those they are supposed to serve for more power. That was a universal truth.

  Erik stepped forward, his stance now steady and solid. When he spoke his voice was still rougher than its usual tone. “I am Errikos Sabastian Allan, Primo of the Organization of Drum and Fire, Head of the San Francisco Offices for the Agency of Interdimensional Travel and Cooperation. These are my companions:

  “Bloodeds Daya, Elana, Elliot, and Tae. Independent Matthias, and Agents Tassi and Yonas.”

  “And him?” Chayyliel gestured behind them and they turned. Matthias finally got his first glimpse of Daniel and it was not a good one. The boy looked sick but then Matthias waved that thought away; after all he was already dead. However, Elana looked like herself before her death while Daniel seemed frozen at the moment of death and unable to change beyond that. The gasps from his companions let Matthias know that they could all see him. Even Daniel looked confused looking down at his floating body.

  Eventually he settled into crossing his arms over the hole in his chest and staring them all down.

  Erik cleared his throat. “That is my companion, Daniel.”

  Matthias frowned at the term companion but then what was Erik going to call him? There was no official designation for Daniel and none of them had prepared for this eventuality. After an awkward silence the older man, Mayer, stepped forward and spoke.

  “We know you must want to rest after your journey, but the Courts wished to have you for dinner first.”

  “That’s some disturbing phrasing,” Matthias muttered. He knew Erik had heard him from the flash of a smile that had appeared on his face.

  “How is it that we speak the same language?” Erik asked Mayer.

  Mayer looked at Chayyliel first and waited for the Angelic to nod before he answered the question.

  “Our city and yours are linked. Though our city is older than the modern incarnation of yours, there have been older cities there through the turning of the ages. Since we are linked, there is an echo; effects are transferred from one to another. You will find odd coincidences like this. The places where the Hives are located here are most likely where your center of government is located. Things like that.”

  Matthias was surprised to see the other Holder and the two Holder-Apprentices listening as closely to this explanation as the people in his own party were. He would have assumed that they would all know this.

  “Let us all adjourn to the courtyard for dinner. I am sure the other Courts will be anxious to meet our guests.”

  Erik raised an eyebrow but only said, “What about our bags?”

  Chayyliel waved one of its appendages, pincers cutting through the air with an audible sound. Smaller things appeared around their feet. They looked like crosses between crabs and slugs, bulbous bodies covered in chitinous armor with two large appendages up front. Except in this case the appendages ended in very human-looking hands. All of their bags were taken—in Matthias’s case yanked from his hands—and the things sped off.

  Chayyliel turned and began to walk away, the other Angelics falling in behind him. The rest of them followed. Matthias hurried to walk beside Erik. He wanted to ask him what had happened, but not when they were surrounded by so many enemies. The young Holder-Apprentice Haydn came up on their side.

  “We do hope you’ll be able to help us with the darkness.” He said, sidling in between the two of them and placing a hand on Erik’s arm, turning his back to Matthias. Matthias bared his teeth at the man’s back but said nothing.

  He watched Erik shrug off the hand. “We’ll do our best. Where is your Holder?”

  The young man’s face darkened, turning a purple-red, but what was interesting were the erratic patches of skin that stayed pale.

  “How do you know I have one?”

  Erik raised an eyebrow and Matthias took the opportunity to interject himself into the conversation.

  “Because we’re not dumb?”

  The boy turned back to Matthias with an ugly snarl, which Matthias met with a small smile and continued to speak.

  “We were actually listening to the introductions and your titles. We noticed that Riana and Razel matched up—Holder and Apprentice. But neither you nor Mayer seem to have the same.” Matthias kept his voice sweet and curious, and the boy scowled at him for a moment before moving off without another word.

  “We are not to speak of those who are missing.”

  The voice was quiet and too close. Matthias started, having not sensed the younger woman coming up behind them. She was stunning up close, her deep brown skin marked with healed scars. Her silver and red hand was a work of gorgeous intricacy. Her eyes were a brown so dark they were almost black.

  Erik and Matthias shared a look.

  “Why are we not allowed to know?” Erik asked, just as softly.

  “It’s not just to you. We are not to speak of it to anyone. Which reminds me. You are not to speak of your world to any ‘dants but us four.”

  Matthias looked around at the odd black walls in the hallway they were moving down. The surfaces were not smooth but covered in jagged outcroppings. From some angles the outcroppings looked like pieces of bones, with a partial skull here, and the rounded end of a tibia there. The old fairytale of Jack and the Beanstalk came to mind. “I’ll grind your bones to make my bread,” the giant had said, but here it seemed they had ground bones to make a wall. How many people had been used to make this long hallway?

  “None of the humans here know about other worlds, do they?”

  He asked it quietly as he stared at a spot on the wall where the light reflected on an almost whole skull, sheared from the eyes up but mouth open, screaming out. He looked back at Razel.

  “Humans?” Razel asked.

  Matthias glanced toward the front of their group where Elliot and Tae were having a conversation with the Holder Mayer, who kept glancing back at them. No. Not at them. At Erik.

  “Humans are what we call ourselves in our . . . world.” He heard Erik explain but Matthias kept his eyes on Holder Mayer. There was something off about that man.

  The man turned back to Tae, who shot Matthias a look over his shoulder, letting him know that he had noticed Holder Mayer’s oddness.

  He turned back to Razel in time to see her glance at her master, Riana, as she answered.

  “Most of those who live here know nothing of other worlds or other ways to live.”

  Matthias guessed that she herself had not known until recently.

  “They most likely do not want to instigate any kind of panic.” Erik’s voice was neutral as he spoke what they all understood to be a lie.

  Razel frowned at him. “Their city is being devoured and they do not have the freedom to run or any knowledge of how to defend themselves. I would say that the ‘dants are already panicking.”

  Erik inclined his head, acknowledging the point.

  Riana moved through the group toward them and gestured for Razel to join her. Razel inclined her head at them both.

  “Be careful.”

  It was said so softly that he thought he might have imagined the words as she walked away.

  LIL

  Lil woke up in the clearing, still bleeding and in pain. She was unsteady, as she always was in these moments between dream and reality, when she thought her body still whole. The pain and trauma of her new body hit her fresh every time.

  She groaned and lifted her head from the ground, finding Kima and
Uchel talking off to the side and Assan crouched over her.

  “Good you’re awake. Get up,” he grumbled.

  Lil snorted and flapped her hand in his face.

  Assan grabbed her wrist and Lil struck out with her other hand, catching him in the side, causing him to lose his balance and fall into the dirt.

  The sound of his indignant yell drew Kima and Uchel’s attention to them and the two women hurried over. Kima’s tan skin was covered in cuts of varying depths but none of them were bleeding anymore. It probably had a lot to do with the green paste that was smeared all over Uchel’s small and knotted hands.

  “You’re awake. Good.” Kima offered.

  Kima knelt beside her and held her arm out to help Lil to her feet. Lil stood shakily and faced Uchel.

  “Are you hurt?” The older woman asked. Lil gestured to her side.

  “You reopened your wounds?” Uchel interpreted. Lil nodded.

  “Do I need to look at them now?”

  Lil shook her head and endured the concentrated stare of the woman as she did her best to see if Lil was lying. Finally, Uchel nodded and spoke.

  “Okay, then we need to figure out what we can and leave.”

  Lil nodded and turned looked at the tree that now stood in the middle of the clearing. The bark covering it was an abstract mix of dark and light. In small places, where the bark was thin, Lil saw hints of glittering black skin shining through.

  “What was that thing?” Assan asked, looking directly at her.

  Lil rolled her eyes and shrugged her shoulders exaggeratedly. She had never seen or heard of anything like it in all her time in Kandake. She reached for her pocket where her stylus and pad of paper were still secure. Before she could write anything down, though, a voice spoke from behind them.

  “A monster.”

  Lil turned and saw the merchant from earlier, the one who had given her the knot of wood. They still wore their mask and full-body robe and moved across the ground in odd jerky movements. When she saw the symbol on their gloves again it knocked loose the memory she had been reaching for before. It had been worn by some of the refugees from The Out when they’d come to Kandake. She had asked Mayer about it and he had told her a little about the cult of the ‘dant beneath our feet. Most ‘dants did not cling to anything resembling religion. The ‘dant beneath our feet believers were one of the exceptions.

  “An abomination called Maasu,” the merchant continued.

  Assan raised his gun and aimed it at the stranger.

  “Peace. I mean you no harm. In fact, it was I who gave your companion what she needed to defeat this menace,” the merchant explained and kept moving forward.

  Lil wrote:

  How did you know I would need it? Did you know it would attack?

  The stranger read the note and let out a laugh, an odd echoing titter reminding her of the animal noises in the dark forest beyond the clearing.

  “We knew that something would be sent after you and that you would need help. Something to show you some of the power you carry so carelessly.”

  Lil clutched at her pocket that held the root.

  The merchant nodded. “Yes, they are very powerful. Even we do not know all the things they can do.”

  Kima stepped between the merchant and Lil. “Who is we?”

  The masked person tilted their head to the side and studied Kima.

  “You are trying to change this world. A noble pursuit. But it is too late. This world had some potential once. No matter how it began, there was hope once. But that was long ago.”

  Assan had come up on Kima’s side and looked angry. His light brown skin was flushed with red, and his lips were twisted so that his teeth were showing.

  Her pad was already out in her hand and she scribbled quickly and held the paper up. Lil ignored Kima’s arm and moved out from behind them before this could devolve into a fight.

  Why do you care?

  “If any of us are to survive what is coming? You will need to complete what you started in the Ruling Courts. You must discover the truth.”

  Why can’t you do it?

  “We were cursed long ago, child. We were the hope that was killed; shattered, divided, and spread to the wind. We can no longer do what needs to be done. But you can.” There was a soft wistfulness to the voice but it quickly became blank once again.

  “How do we know that this isn’t trap?” Kima asked moving to stand beside Lil.

  “You don’t.” The figure made a gesture that looked like an odd, uneven shrug. “We can only say that we harbor no ill will toward any of you and hope that our actions will prove this.”

  They did give me the wood that stopped the thing. Lil wrote and showed to Kima.

  “And if I wanted to betray you, I would just go to the Ruling Courts and tell them about your little band of revolutionaries,” the merchant said.

  Assan and Kima both stiffened and Lil cursed inside her head. It might have been true, but it wasn’t exactly the most innocent thing to say.

  “I have no interest in either you or anyone in your little movement. I am here to help the Holder do what must be done. And so I have two gifts for her.”

  Lil had turned back to the stranger. They moved closer with an odd jerky glide, as if they barely touched the ground but when they did touch it they stumbled.

  “We cannot restore your tongue. That is gone forever. However, your voice is not gone with it.”

  They reached into their robe and Lil watched the ways in which the robe shifted and moved as they rummaged beneath it. Finally, they pulled out a knot of wood, larger than any that had been on their table. The branches that tangled together were almost as thick as her wrists and large thorns sprouted from from every angle; wicked, curved things whose tips sparkled. The wood itself was pale gray with an underlying shininess.

  “We provide you with this gift.”

  They stepped forward and Lil’s hands automatically rose to catch the tangle of wood as they let go. The thorns pierced her palms deeply. She let out a choked sound and tried to drop it but the thorns were embedded in her hands, the thing writhing in her grip, the branches looping around both of her wrists and latching on. She hissed through her teeth at the pain.

  “What have you done?” She recognized Kima’s voice but did not look up from the wood. She was pushed back and found Uchel in front of her studying the knot of wood attached to her hands. Uchel did not touch it.

  “It will finish in a moment. And I would put away the weapon. It will not harm me but it will insult me and will simply rob you of a valuable resource.”

  The bark of the knot slowly turned from pale gray to a light pink and then a bright red. It was the dark red of old blood when it finally dropped to the ground. No one made a move to touch it. Lil looked down at the wounds it had left behind. She could see inside them as they gaped open, looking drained and sickly white. As she watched, each wound closed, leaving only thin silver lines all over her hands and wrists.

  She looked up to see Kima and Assan pressed against the stranger. Assan’s gun pressed into their belly and Kima held a knife up to the mask. Lil felt a warm lick of comfort in her stomach. They both had stepped in to defend her, even if it was only because she could be of use to them. It helped her feel less alone.

  They both backed away slowly and the merchant followed step by step until he was in front of Lil again and Assan and Kima were on either side of her. Uchel had moved off to the side, watching the merchant warily.

  “And for our second and final gift we grant you information. The Ossuary in the Courts is not the only repository of knowledge in Zebub. There is another, built by the same ones who built that Ossuary: those who survived the purge of the Ruling Courts. The ones who stayed as they were for a while longer.”

  Lil was reaching for her pad when the knot of wood rose from the ground where she had dropped it. She jerked back in surprise but watched it as it floated up. When it reached eye level, the branches began to squirm and slither aro
und each other. They lengthened and stretched in an arc above her head.

  They formed the words she’d been prepared to write down.

  DoYouMeanTheTraitorCourt?

  She stared in wonder at the words floating there. The others watched as she held out her hand toward them and the words untwisted, reaching down to snake across her palm like a pet showing affection.

  The merchant broke the silence. “That is what they are called now, yes, but in the days when Corpiliu was built they were known as The Court of Swift Deliverance. They were honored for many years until their deception was discovered and then they were punished without mercy.”

  WhatWasDoneWithThem? Lil had barely thought the words before the wood snapped back into the air and they formed for every one to see.

  “That is not as important as what they left behind and how it can help you,” the merchant answered.

  HowCanIFindThisPlaceOfKnowledge? Lil could not stop herself from smiling as she looked at the branch. It immediately squirmed and became other words.

  HowAmIDoingThis?

  “There are many secrets that have been lost or deliberately discarded. There are wonders that grow all over Corpiliu that are forgotten by almost all. This land and all that once grew upon it now dies along with that knowledge. The branch you hold belongs to a special tree that links this world with others and serves to link mind and land.”

  Lil did not truly understand all of what was said, but she understood enough.

  The merchant seemed to think their explanation satisfactory and moved on. “To find this place of knowledge you need only ask the allies you trust above all others, the ones who have stood by you and rescued you again and again.”

  WhoIsThat?

  “We have no doubt that you can figure it out, child.” Lil nearly growled in frustration as the branch twisted into another question.

  WillYouAnswerKimasQuestionNow?

  Lil realized that the branch could only write so much, stretch so far, because it unwrapped and reformed to spell out her next question.

  WhoIsWe?

  The mask did not move, of course, and yet Lil could feel the arrogance and quiet amusement that shone from the figure.