The Tree

by Na'amen Gobert Tilahun

  The Holder Mayer was at its front, petting the closest leg, running his hand up and down the sparse, thick white hairs.

  “What the hell?” Erik stopped moving, as did everyone else.

  The small Angelic in front of them stomped, looked back expectantly and stomped his foot again when they still did not move.

  “I don’t know if you can understand me, but no way are any of us getting any closer to that thing,” Erik said, leaning down to look at the Angelic’s face, though there were no eyes he could discern.

  The Angelic peered at Erik for a moment and then hurried off toward Mayer. Seconds later the Holder was walking toward them.

  “Is there a problem?” He asked in his oddly accented English.

  “Yes. We’ve seen those things in action. We want to go no closer.”

  Mayer looked back in puzzlement. “The crikes are our main mode of transportation. They are not beasts of war.”

  “Whatever you use them for, they are capable of violence. We’ve seen it,” Elana spoke up.

  Mayer snorted. “Of course they are capable of violence. Aren’t we all? If a crike is so terrifying to you, I cannot imagine what the darkness will be.”

  Erik cocked his head at the man. He was smarter than Erik had first assumed, because it was the kind of challenge that Erik would not let lay there. In fact, Erik could not ignore it. He was aware how dangerous their situation was. They had no escape and no allies, and for the hundredth time he wondered if coming had been a mistake. The Angelics respected strength; they could not afford to look weak.

  Erik stepped forward and followed Mayer back to the crike, climbing up its leg hair like Mayer did. Though he could sense the dissatisfaction and anger behind him, none said anything as they followed his example.

  The ride was swift and uncomfortably tense, but it was forgotten when they came into view of the darkness. This was no small fountain of darkness spreading its evil through a shopping mall block. This was a towering spire of darkness; nothing but a devouring hunger given form and power. It reared into the sky, its tendrils snatching at flying figures so far above them that Erik could not see many details.

  “Holy shit.”

  Erik couldn’t figure out how many of them said it at once.

  TAE

  The world was ablaze with information. Everywhere Tae looked, secrets fairly twisted themselves in knots trying to get his attention. Of course, just because they wanted to expose themselves didn’t mean he understood them. Some appeared as mathematical equations he had no ability to solve; some in languages he didn’t even recognize, and some played out like memories from which he only got the faintest impressions. The things he did understand were magnificent.

  Nothing very strong came off the darkness though, as if it devoured even its own secrets. If he strained, he could pick up something like cold indifference. Tae got the feeling that it did not do this out because it had to. It had other options but just liked this one; hunger and casual cruelty in equal measures, and Tae was terrified.

  He turned back to the others in the carapace of their unholy transportation. There was an aura of still blue around Erik’s head as he looked up at the huge manifestation. Slowly the blue began to move and then was shot through with flashes of yellow as Erik snapped out of the shock that had held him.

  “We need to find its anchor to this world and sever it. Daya.” She looked over at him. “Power up and get in there. Elana, cover her and see how far you guys can go without being noticed. Tassi and Elliot, you are on distraction. Stay fast and free. Tag out if you get tired.”

  Daya nodded and her power flared to life but unlike on earth her skin did not get gray and rough but black, smooth, and 1 uminous. Her features were striking and clear. She looked down at herself for a moment before Elana floated over, embracing her from behind and disappearing both from view. Tassi took off her shoes and stepped over the edge of the crike and into the open air. The wind burst into existence, lifting her high into the sky. Elliot stepped over the edge and climbed down the leg.

  “Tae, I need you to come with me and look for any weak spots on the creature. Yonas, you’ll come with us and see if being a daughter of death is any good when it comes to this thing. Matthias, you’re watching our backs,” Erik finished.

  They all nodded and climbed out of the crike. Those they had ridden with said nothing and Tae knew they had no intention of fighting. The Holders, their apprentices, and the few Antes were here to observe only.

  Once on the ground Tae did a quick scan of the parts of the darkness emerging from the crumbling building. Tae could see nothing of value and followed Erik as he ran into the building next to the pink, living monstrosity that was being eaten. The building they entered was of the same material, and as they hurried inside they found the stairs were oddly hollow white lengths that Tae’s sight told him were bone. After two flights Tae was breathing harder. After five they were all panting, and then sudden relief came from behind him. Tae was still tired but he also felt like he could run forever; his limbs loose and ready. He barely touched the stairs as he sped up them. He could see the forest-green energy playing over his body. He identified it as Matthias sharing his ancestor’s blessings. Tae could not have been more grateful as they reached the final landing and burst out onto the roof.

  “Now is the moment of truth, I guess,” he heard Erik mutter.

  Tae started scanning the building and the darkness, but he was still getting nothing. His eyes burned as he concentrated harder, and noticed a flash of color and power in the corner of his gaze that he could not ignore. He looked over and saw Erik burning as if he were on fire. His face was remote and too perfect. His features did not change but grew sharper and more pointed as if another face were pushing out from behind his.

  Erik’s power flared around him and Tae could swear the sky itself began to pulse in time with the bright red flush that suffused his skin. Erik grunted in pain and Tae saw him grasp at his head for a moment, before running for the edge of the roof. Matthias gasped and then let his own power flare to life. For a moment Tae could have sworn the other man had horns, and was dressed in a loose toga with the blood of his latest kill still staining his skin. He reached into his ever-present cargo pants, pulling out two small sticks that expanded into long silver fighting batons. Matthias chased Erik, with Yonas following up in the rear, looking like nothing but a skull surrounded by purple darkness in a vaguely human shape.

  Tae watched them launch themselves into the sky. For a second they floated on air and then they fell, landing in perfect time on the adjacent, crumbling roof. Tae could hear the sound of their landing from where he was.

  He glanced overhead, where Tassi was flying around, avoiding the tentacles that reached for her, and batting others away with powerful winds that came to her aid. Elliot was on the ground, using his power to hide those still running from the building at random intervals, confusing the pseudo-pods’ grasping, hungry mouths that sought them. Tae easily saw through Elliot’s power, his eyes watering constantly now.

  The limbs reaching for Tassi jerked and whirled in the air madly.

  Tae searched and saw Yonas’s skull wildly biting chunks from the darkness at the place they had broken through the roof. Erik was ripping into the darkness with his bare hands while Matthias whirled to and fro, keeping the smaller limbs that bent toward them occupied.

  Why did everything seem easier than it had in the mall? They were faster, stronger, and more coordinated here; more in touch with their power. But if they were more dangerous, then the same could be said of the darkness. Tae still gleaned nothing from it with his sight. He should be calling out attack places and tips but there was nothing to provide, no weaknesses to be pointed out.

  A whole tentacle was ripped off, pulled apart by empty air. Tae concentrated and saw Daya and Elana. Daya was tearing into the tentacles as her girlfriend clung to her back and made them invisible and intangible to the searching tentacles. Still, it was only a minor inconven
ience to the darkness, as a new appendage sprouted almost immediately, this one with heavy spikes that lined it root-to-tip.

  Just as Erik was about to be skewered by the new appendage, Daniel flew out of nowhere and the tentacle went for him instead, ripping through him. Daniel reformed quickly but in that moment of dissolution, and with his powers jacked up to eleven, Tae saw something—a hint of what Daniel really was.

  “What are you doing here?” Erik’s voice asked so loudly Tae had no problem hearing.

  Whatever Daniel’s answer, if he did have an answer, it did not carry over to Tae. Daniel continued to flit this way and that, joining Matthias in keeping the smaller limbs busy, while Erik and Yonas attacked the bases of the larger limbs. Tae watched, seeing Erik and Yonas gouging chunks out of the darkness, but his main concentration was on Daniel.

  When another of the limbs of the darkness swept through Daniel, Tae was ready and he saw it—the moment of hesitation before Daniel’s body broke apart. Tae’s power broke through and he saw a part of what Daniel was hiding.

  He must have made some sort of sound because Daniel looked at him and Tae saw it in Daniel’s face. He somehow knew that Tae had figured part of it out.

  “Tae!”

  Erik’s scream was the only warning he had. He saw the look of absolute horror on his friend’s face. Erik’s eyes were entirely swallowed by red. Tae turned and saw a piece of darkness that had snuck behind them and started devouring the building he was standing on. There was nowhere for him to go as the piercing darkness sent a sharp limb right toward his heart. He was to die with the same wound as Daniel. This was the ghost’s revenge. The roof collapsed under him and he saw nothing more.

  ELANA

  Elana heard Erik’s cry of despair, but did not see what caused it. She and Daya were currently moving deeper into the building, hopefully closer to whatever was keeping the darkness anchored here. Elana had learned that not only was she able to shield the senses, as she and her brother had always been able to do, but her intangibility was transferable here as well.

  Somewhat.

  She clung to Daya’s back and did her best to forget any separation between them. When she merged with Elliot they were one being, as were their powers. This was more difficult. They could push through matter but it was thick, like pushing through molasses, rather than the way Elana floated cleanly through walls.

  Elana let Daya carry her piggyback. Daya used her arms and legs of rock to navigate through a world turned to pudding. They moved in silence, Elana concentrating on keeping her powers working through both of them and Daya focused on moving through the floors of the building.

  Every once in awhile they would find a safe, protected area and Elana would leave Daya hidden there while she scouted ahead. Elana always came back to find Daya fighting off tendrils of darkness that had found her in the meantime.

  This way they moved deeper and deeper into the building, where the walls were no longer pink, but a sickly brown with veins of black pulsing through them. Elana simply led them toward areas where the darkness was more dense, and more deeply rooted, hoping that it would take them to whatever this manifestation’s anchor was, this thing’s version of the tree at the mall.

  Soon everything they passed was completely subsumed by the darkness. There was nothing but never-ending blackness so uniform they could barely discern distances. Daya moved forward slowly through the wall in front of them. When they emerged from the other side they were confronted by more of the same: endless darkness, except for the small bodies crumpled on the ground.

  They had seen no other signs of death on their trek through the building. Those who were caught or left behind had been devoured completely. These children, and they were children, too small to even be teenagers, were the first bodies they saw. Daya tensed under her arms and Elana realized her girlfriend had deduced the truth as well.

  It was rooted in the children.

  They moved closer and saw the way the darkness was sprouting from the mouths of the three children, their bodies contorted so that together they formed a triangle, their limbs twisted to form lines and circles within the triangle.

  “What do we do?” Daya asked, frozen where she stood.

  Elana let go of Daya, slowly pulling her hands free and waiting beside her to see if any attack would come. She counted to twenty and then fifty and then one hundred and still no attack came. Elana took a step away from Daya, and then another one and another one, until she stood over the children.

  They were breathing. Their small chests rising and falling. Elana felt as if her heart were in her throat because she knew what they had to do. She knew what they had had to do with the tree.

  She turned back to Daya and could see by the way Daya had closed her eyes, by the tremble in her bow lips, that her girlfriend already knew the answer. Daya said nothing, though, and Elana knew this was on her. As strong as Daya was, she would need someone else to suggest this, someone else to voice the horrible thing that she would have to do. That way Daya could shove some of the guilt onto Elana. She took this burden for the woman she loved. Gladly.

  “They have to die,” Elana whispered, but it was a shout in the silence around them.

  “What! No!” Daya shouted, but it was too slow, too stiff, rehearsed.

  “It is the only way!” If she could cry, Elana had no doubt she would be doing so now. She acted in this play for Daya, but the emotions were still too real. “I would, but you are stronger. You can make it quick. Painless. Give them the peace they have been robbed of.”

  She offered the last as a balm on Daya’s spirit.

  Daya said nothing but took a step forward and there was a moan from behind Elana. Daya froze in place, her mouth dropping open. Elana turned, already scared of what she would find.

  The three children’s mouths had opened wider around the darkness that spewed from their orifices; another shudder and moan, and their mouths opened wider yet.

  Why do you come here?

  The voice came from all three mouths; heads twisted at unnatural angles, faces pointed unseeing at the ceiling. All the more disturbing because none of the heads turned to look at them. A chorus of innocent voices forced to speak for the thing that used them as if they were nothing.

  “We come to st—”

  Daya waved her hand, silencing Elana for a moment. Daya stepped in front of her and faced the triangle of bodies.

  “We come to ask you to stop your actions. To come to an accord, an end to hostilities.”

  Hostilities? We know of no hostilities. We know of hunger.

  “What did you eat before you came here?” Daya questioned.

  We ate what we wanted, as we always have.

  “There are other living things here. People who have to—”

  And do you not devour other living beings to satisfy your hunger?

  “That is different,” Daya explained.

  How?

  Elana held her breath as she watched Daya try to negotiate with the horrifying darkness.

  “We do not harm other sentient beings.”

  There are those who argue that the animals you eat are living, feeling, loving beings. What does your assumption of sentience have to do with anything? Even leaving that aside, did the beings of this place not steal those of your plane?

  The silence was long and Elana felt the same shock and terror that was coming off of Daya. The darkness was too knowledgeable, too well-versed.

  Did you think us stupid? We are older than both this world and yours. Even leaving that aside, we devour all that exists within a being—their body, their knowledge, their soul. They no longer exist outside of us.

  Daya at last spoke again, her voice strong. “No matter the mistakes that some of us make, there are always those of us who try to do right.”

  Do not mistake us. We do not judge you for devouring others to satisfy your hunger. We understand each other.

  “You will leave this place and ours alone or we will destroy you.” Day
a stated coldly.

  Eerie laughter exploded from the children’s mouths. What should be cackles turned to giggles and made it sound all the creepier.

  This is ours. All of it. We shall devour what we want and none shall stop us.

  Daya’s black stone face shifted into a look of determination and she crossed the final distance between herself and the children. Elana turned away, unable to look, but she heard the three cracks, one after the other. She looked nowhere but at the ground until she felt her girlfriend’s hand in her own. She turned and embraced Daya, arms wrapped around her neck while Daya’s stone arms wrapped around her waist.

  The building exploded around them.

  Elana clung to her girlfriend desperately, wrapped them in her power as they were blown through the air. She felt debris moving through their bodies. Elana opened her eyes and they were crashing toward the ground, straight for one of several piles of rubble that now littered the street. She could most likely phase them through it, but one slip of concentration, one small distraction, might mean Daya’s death as she materialized with something in her body. Elana did not want to risk it.

  She held tighter to Daya and pulled with all her might. It was not a smooth flight at all but as they skidded to a halt they managed to avoid all of the larger, more dangerous shards of what had been the building. She looked down at Daya and their gazes met. All was right for a moment.

  Elana heard a scream and looked up in time to see Tassi catch both Erik and Matthias as their limp bodies hurtled toward the ground. Yonas, the one who had been screaming, seemed to take control of herself, and the speed of her descent slowed and she landed lightly on feet that looked more skeleton than flesh.

  They all arrived on the ground and as they waited for Erik and Matthias to stir they watched what was left of the two buildings slowly sink in on themselves. At least there was no hint of the darkness.