Heartwood

by Freya Robertson

  Thalassinus shuddered, stumbled and fell to the floor. Dolosus was on him instantly. Thalassinus knocked away his sword and they fought with fists. Dolosus hit him squarely on the jaw, dislodging his helmet, which rolled away down the steps. He grabbed his dagger from his waistband and brought the point up to the warrior’s neck.

  For the first time, he found himself looking into the earthly translation of Thalassinus’s face. He could see elements of himself, and he blanched at the clear similarity between the two of them.

  Thalassinus gasped, more green blood flowing from his side, but he still managed to smile up at Dolosus. “Can you really bring yourself to kill me? Your own father?”

  With the dagger pressed to Thalassinus’s neck, Dolosus looked into his eyes.

  II

  Chonrad stared as the word that had appeared on the wooden tablet slowly disappeared. His heart was pounding. “You are connected to the Arbor?” he repeated, wanting confirmation.

  Yes.

  He could barely believe he was about to say the words, but before he could think better of it, he said: “Are you the Arbor?”

  Yes.

  He sucked his breath in through his teeth. He was actually talking to the holy tree. Fear washed over him. Was the tree angry with him? Did it know how he felt about it? Or had it brought him here?

  “Are you the one who wrote the message on the door?” he whispered. “About me being the key?”

  No, said the Arbor.

  That surprised him. If the message wasn’t from the Arbor, then who had written it?

  “What do I have to do to activate the Node?” he asked.

  Nothing happened. No more words appeared. He racked his brain, trying to think what to ask.

  “Where is the Node?”

  Nothing.

  “What do you want me to do?”

  No reply.

  Frustration built inside him. He was not asking the right Question but could not think how else to phrase it. His brain seemed sluggish, refusing to work properly. And even if it had been, he was no scholar, he thought disconsolately. He was a knight, someone who used his hands, his strength. Not his brain!

  Despondency swept over him. The Arbor was not the one who had written the words on the door. The tree probably did not want him there at all. It needed someone like Nitesco, or any of the Militis – one of its own. He was an intruder. He should not be there.

  And then, suddenly, just as he was about to turn and try and wake Nitesco up again, something appeared on the tablet.

  This time, there were four words, and they were not carved but seemed burned in the wood, written by an unseen hand.

  You are the key.

  He stared, instinctively realising it was not the Arbor talking. “Who is writing this message?”

  One word appeared. Gavius.

  Wonder flooded through him. The spirit of the knight had returned to help him. Gavius was trying to tell him it was indeed he who could help. All he had to do was find the right way to do it.

  He studied the wooden tablet with renewed enthusiasm, trying to think what attributes he had the Arbor needed. He did not have the ability to make things grow like Teague. Teague was the one who could help the most, the one the Arbor needed to regenerate. And yet Gavius had told him he was the key, and that he could help.

  He thought about the tree, and the way it was drooping. Maybe what Teague could do was channel the energy. But as yet, there was no energy for the tree to channel.

  Energy was the key. And yet he could not access the energy until the Node was activated.

  How could he activate the Node? He could not think what he should do. Concentrate, he told himself firmly. The answer lay within this wooden tablet. He had to ask the right Question.

  Then he realised. He thumped his forehead, feeling stupid. So far, the Arbor had only answered a Question that had a yes or no answer.

  Clearing his throat, he said, “Arbor, am I the key?”

  Yes.

  His heart pounded. “Can I help save you?”

  Yes.

  He racked his brains, trying to think about what to ask next. “Do I have everything I need to help you?”

  Yes.

  So it wasn’t as if he had to collect something. Whatever he needed, he had it within him already.

  “What do you need from me?” he whispered, although he knew it wouldn’t answer such a Question. What did the Arbor need?

  Strength and energy. Two things he had a lot of.

  “Do you need my strength?” he asked softly.

  Yes.

  “Do I have to move something?”

  No.

  He frowned. So it wasn’t physical strength. It was strength of the heart.

  And suddenly, he knew what was needed. He was a modest man, unaccustomed to showing off, but still, he knew others saw him as kind and just, compassionate and loyal. But so many others had those qualities, too. Why had the Arbor not called on any of its Militis?

  Then he remembered what Teague had said: the Arbor chose its own followers, and thought of him as one of them. He also remembered what Procella had suggested to Valens: the Militis had done the wrong thing in choosing the knights themselves, that they should have let the Arbor do it.

  Nitesco had made the point very early on that he thought something had been lost over the centuries. Oculus had written the same. Was it possible somehow the Militis had got it wrong? And it was the very fact that he was not a Militis that meant he had a closer connection to the Arbor?

  He forced his brain to think on the problem, aware that with each minute that passed, his companions above ground were dying. Why would he have a closer connection with the Arbor than the Militis, who prayed to it every day, who worshipped it?

  Unless it did not want to be worshipped. The thought came to him suddenly. The tree was the centre of all energy through Anguis, but still, it was also just a tree. Maybe the deification of the Arbor was completely wrong; maybe all along, it should have been treated as just a tree.

  What the Arbor needed was a connection. It no longer felt connected to the land, because it had lost its connection with people. People thought of themselves as something separate from the land and the tree, but they weren’t. In their raising of the tree to a holy emblem, a symbol of Animus’s love, they had separated themselves from it. What they now needed to do was reconnect themselves and the tree to the land.

  Teague was, of course, the one who could do this, and suddenly Chonrad saw what was needed. A sacrifice, someone to give themselves freely to the Arbor.

  He recoiled at the thought. “I cannot help Teague to his death,” he whispered.

  Yes, said the Arbor.

  “Is there no other way?”

  No.

  But he knew the answer already. His mind seemed to be expanding – he seemed to be understanding more and more. He knew what he had to do.

  He stepped forwards and put both hands on the wooden tablet. Immediately, his hands stuck to the wood. They grew warm. Strength and energy. That was what the Arbor needed, that and the connection the Militis did not have have; a connection to the earth.

  He closed his eyes.

  III

  Teague recoiled at the realisation of what the Arbor wanted from him.

  “No,” he said hoarsely. “I cannot. Please, do not make me.”

  “Yes,” the figures whispered. “We need you, Teague. You are the only one who can help.”

  “I do not want to die.” He was near to sobbing. He wanted to move and run away, but his arms were locked around the tree, his cheek pressed to the bark so tightly he could feel it cutting into his flesh.

  “No, no!” laughed the figures. “It is not dying.You will live forever!”

  Teague tried to calm his breathing. Live forever? “What do you mean?”

  He could feel the figures around him, touching him, calming him. “For those of us who carry the secret of the Greening, we are unhappy out in the world. This is where we feel a
t home, Teague. Here. In the arms of the Arbor.”

  Tears flooded his eyes. Their compassion rolled over him in waves. They understood. They knew what it was like to not fit in. To always feel like an outsider. To fear your gift, when you should be embracing it.

  “If I say yes, will you get better?” he asked.

  The figures smiled. One of them reached out and touched his face. “If you join with us, we will be reborn.”

  Where his face pressed into the bark, he felt the skin break. Blood ran down his face and onto the trunk. He gasped as the tree shuddered in his arms.

  “Beata,” he whispered.

  “She will join with you forever,” the figures told him. “Draw her into the Arbor, Teague, and you will never be parted.”

  He sighed. Slowly, he began to send out his senses.

  Warmth flooded into Chonrad’s hands. His eyes were closed. He concentrated on the wood beneath his fingers, imagining it as part of the Arbor. We are one, he thought. Earth and tree, tree and earth. One and the same.

  Suddenly, his fingers sank into the wood. He almost pulled back, alarmed, but he forced himself to stay, in spite of the frantic beating of his heart. His fingers continued to sink, and then the palms of his hands were in, and then he was up to his wrists.

  One and the same. Only he understood. Only he could help the Arbor.

  A rumbling began beneath his feet. He shuddered, tremors running up through his body via his bones. He concentrated on his hands, picturing himself joining with the tree, becoming one with the trunk.

  Beneath his eyelids, the room began to glow with light. He kept his eyes tightly shut, afraid of being blinded as the light continued to grow, becoming so bright it was as if the very sun had fallen to the earth.

  The trembling continued. He felt as if he were shaking with it. Briefly, he thought of Nitesco and wished he had pulled him further from the tablet, but it was too late now. He thought of Procella, and Valens, and Gavius who had shown him the way.

  Suddenly, a burst of light shot through him. Pain, sharp and quick, burned him, firing every nerve ending, every cell and bone. His back arched and his head fell back as he tried to scream, but no sound came out.

  IV

  Teague felt the energy begin to build within the Arbor as soon as he stretched out his senses, like fingers reaching for an object just out of his reach. Something had happened. The fifth Node, he thought somewhere in the deep recesses of his mind. The Node had been opened. The key had been found. The circle of energy was complete.

  He tightened his grip on the trunk instinctively. The furrows in the bark cut into his skin, but he tightened his grip still further.

  Gradually, he joined with the tree. Where his toes touched the base of the trunk, the Arbor reached out, the roots entering his boots, creeping into his flesh. They pushed themselves into his feet, crept up his calves, then his thighs. It was both agony and ecstasy at the same time. They entered his chest cavity, locked around his heart. His face had merged with the trunk, his eyes already part of the wood. As he was absorbed into the tree, he felt his heart pulled towards the Pectoris. It joined with the thousand other hearts that formed it.

  The tree crept into his head, into his brain.

  He screamed, but it just turned into a whisper of leaves.

  V

  Dolosus held the blade of his knife to his father’s neck. He pushed until he felt the flesh resist. He took a deep breath, ready to thrust the blade through.

  Suddenly, however, the ground trembled violently under his feet. Startled, he began to stand and then lost his footing, falling to the floor. Thalassinus laughed and rose, but something caught his attention, and Dolosus turned to follow his gaze as he saw the horrific look on the High Lord’s face.

  He stared, shocked. The Arbor was growing. Roots crawled along the ground towards him, and he scrambled to his feet, backing away. The great split in the trunk was disappearing as the two halves merged back together. He stared at something caught between the parts of the trunk. It was a figure; he could just see long, dark hair disappearing as the wood closed together. Suddenly, he realised who it was: Teague. The Virimage was working his magic.

  His form disappeared into the wood. The tree continued to grow. The trunk lengthened, thickened. Branches hardened and strengthened, gradually lifting so they began to stretch up towards the top of the dome rather than drooping on the floor.

  Dolosus watched the remaining knights back away as the ground trembled again. The water warriors looked as frightened as he felt. Thalassinus was the only one who stood his ground, roaring in rage as the tree arched above him.

  The tree stretched, spread, as if it were taking a gigantic breath, opening its arms to the world. Something was appearing on the branches. He gasped as he realised it was buds.

  The buds unfurled and grew into waving leaves. There were hundreds of them – no, thousands. Still, the tree continued to grow.

  The ground trembled again, violently this time, and suddenly, light seemed to emanate from amongst the roots, so bright he put his hand to his face to protect his eyes.

  He could still see Thalassinus standing under the tree. The High Lord of Darkwater had taken his sword to the Arbor and was hacking at the tree as he howled with rage. The tree groaned and shuddered, and then the earth shook, and beneath Dolosus a wave of energy spread out like a spilt pot of paint. Thalassinus howled. The Darkwater Lords around the Temple shuddered. And then as one they melted back into the water, their screams of frustration becoming the whisper of thousands of leaves.

  The tree continued to grow at a rapid pace. The air was filled with a creaking, groaning noise, the sound of splitting wood and rustling leaves. Dolosus looked down, startled as something moved beneath him, and he saw the roots of the Arbor were extending, widening as a base for the gigantic tree now filling the Temple.

  And still it grew. The branches reached the top of the Temple, the remaining panes of glass shattering as the twigs and leaves pushed through. And then the tree was breaking open the Temple roof, and masonry began to fall around them, and Dolosus scrambled to his feet, joining the mad rush of those knights who were able enough to walk, others helping those who could not.

  They fled through the oak doors and then outside, stopping when they reached the edge of the Quad. It had stopped raining, Dolosus realised, and it was growing lighter: the sun was coming up. He looked back at the Temple, shocked to see it crumbling as if made of parchment. The branches of the Arbor had pushed through the roof, and now the walls were disintegrating too, the roots dislodging the foundations, bit of stone and wood and mortar dropping to the floor as the whole building collapsed.

  And at that moment, the first rays of the rising sun appeared over the horizon. The tree shivered and seemed to grow even faster, its branches now huge and heavy with leaves, arching over the whole Temple site.

  Dolosus turned his face to the sun, not realising how much he had missed its rays. The tree seemed to be doing the same. Gradually, its growth rate slowed, and instead it filled out, its leaves now a canopy of green above his head.

  And then the rumbling began again. Fear grew inside him as the ground trembled. The light brightened around the tree and spread outwards, engulfing anyone who stood in its way. He tried to scramble to his feet, but he wasn’t quick enough; the light was on him, bathing him in its brightness, and he stood still, realising it was too late to run.

  The light spread through him, burned up inside him. The warmth spread, his head hurt, and the stump of his missing arm throbbed. He groaned as pain shot through him, then, just as suddenly, it was gone. The light faded. The world came back into focus.

  All around him, knights were staring in amazement at each other. Dolosus realised all their wounds had been healed. All gashes, scrapes, bumps and bruises had vanished.

  He looked down at himself and gasped. He had two arms, two hands. The Arbor had somehow managed to grow back the missing limb.

  The tree shook gently over hi
s head, the leaves shivering in the early morning breeze.

  EPILOGUE

  Chonrad turned his face up to the sun and welcomed the warmth on his cheeks. The light was bright through his eyelids. He knew he shouldn’t stand there for too long or he would get burned, but even though four months had passed since the Rains, as they had come to be called, he still felt grateful every time the sun came up.

  After a while, he sighed and opened his eyes. He stood atop the Porta, looking down on Heartwood, much as he had that first day before their adventures had begun. Now, as then, Procella stood at his side.

  The Baillium looked very different. The Castellum was gone, that which wasn’t destroyed by the Arbor cleared by the knights who had survived the Last Stand. The Barracks, too, were in the process of being removed. Many of the other buildings that had stood in the Baillium had also fallen, and the rubble from these had also been taken away.

  The only part of Heartwood that still remained was its wall and the Porta. Procella had organised for these to be repaired and strengthened but had acknowledged these were now the only defences to remain at Heartwood, and the Arbor was not to be enclosed again.

  Chonrad looked at the great tree in the centre of the complex. It was truly magnificent, everything he had ever dreamed about as a child. Twenty times bigger than the average oak tree, the Arbor was tall and strong, its greenery thick and lush. He had been amazed when he finally climbed his way out of the Cavum, the just-awakened Nitesco stumbling behind him, emerging into daylight to find the Domus had collapsed.

  The first thing he had done was to find Procella, who had been sitting on the ground some distance from the tree, eyes closed, feeling the sun on her face. When he stood before her, casting a shadow and blocking the sun, she had opened her eyes and looked up at him, and then she had arisen and put her arms around him. There had been no need for words.

  They had stood there, arms around each other, for some time, watching everyone starting to move around, talking to each other, showing their healed wounds, laughing at their triumph over the Darkwater Lords.