The Fatal Tree

by Stephen R. Lawhead

  Gianni turned his eyes to Kit and said, “It is to be expected. Some dimensions will remain more stable than others. Some are farther away from the event horizon, so to speak. Like an onion—” At the puzzled looks, he explained, “When an onion begins to spoil, the rot affects some layers more than others, no?”

  “But it spreads through all the layers eventually,” said Cass, finishing the thought. “The onion deteriorates completely in the end.”

  “Just so,” said Gianni.

  “How soon?” said Kit.

  The priest shook his head. “Predictions are imprecise—perhaps meaningless.”

  “How soon?” Kit asked again.

  “A few weeks. Maybe more. Maybe less.”

  “Then it’s worse than we thought,” concluded Wilhelmina gloomily.

  “You were able to get back to the yew tree,” said Gianni after a moment. “What did you learn?”

  “Nothing, really—at least, nothing we didn’t already know,” Kit replied. “The tree is dangerous and unpredictable. It channels a vast amount of energy . . .” He paused and choked back a surge of grief and regret before continuing. “Which Dr. Young found out, to his cost.”

  At Gianni’s questioning glance, Wilhelmina said, “Dr. Young was killed when he came in contact with the tree.” She indicated her bandaged arm. “I was standing next to him at the time.”

  “Ah, mio cara, I am so sorry,” said Gianni softly and made the sign of the cross with his thumb and forefinger. He was silent for a moment and then said, “May God have mercy on his soul.”

  Silence settled over the group, so thick they could hear the hissing of the candles burning in their holders in the centre of the table. Kit glanced at the grim faces around the table; illumined in the candlelight, they seemed to float disembodied above the board. He saw hopelessness writ large on every face, and Tess’ fighting words came back to him.

  In the last moments, just before the Zetetics fled Damascus, the canny old lady had sent them off with a rallying cry, a last call to arms. He could still see her birdlike form as she stood framed in the doorway of the courtyard. Her voice had quavered slightly, but her words were strong. “For this purpose we were formed, and to this place our steps have been directed. This is the battle to which we have been called, and we must trust in Him who has led us here to lead us on.”

  In the quiet of the empty room, Kit heard the echo of that challenge and said, “We all knew this was coming. You remember what Tess said—it is why we’re here.” He looked around the table. “So what are we going to do about it?”

  “If we could only find a way to get around the tree,” said Cass. “Or use it somehow.”

  “Then we could get back to the Spirit Well,” said Wilhelmina. She looked around the table at the others. “But what would we do once we got there?”

  “I don’t know, but we have to find a way to get there first,” Kit pointed out. “Which we obviously cannot do as long as that blasted tree stands there blocking the way.”

  “What about cutting it down?” Cass suggested. “Or blowing it up somehow? That would get rid of it.”

  “Perhaps,” granted Gianni thoughtfully, “but at the risk of making matters worse. Unless we knew precisely the results of such an action, I would advise using such a violent solution only as a last resort.”

  “Well, then what about going back to a time before the Fatal Tree was there?” wondered Cass.

  “Don’t you think I’ve thought of that?” Kit said. “If I knew how to do that, we wouldn’t be having this discussion.”

  “Stay focused,” Mina said. “What about trying to find another way to get to the Spirit Well? I mean, we know that ley lines often branch out to more than one destination. Maybe there’s another way to get there.”

  “A way no one else has ever discovered?” said Kit. “Unlikely.”

  “But not impossible,” said Cass.

  “No,” allowed Kit. “Not impossible—but if another ley line existed, I don’t know how we’d find it in the time we have left.”

  “We could if we had Shadow Lamps,” said Mina.

  “Which we don’t,” said Kit.

  “No, we don’t,” agreed Mina. “But I know a man who does.”

  All three looked to Kit to gauge his reaction. “Oh no,” he growled, instantly angry. “We are not getting Burleigh involved. He has no part in this whatsoever. If I had my way, he’d still be in prison. Better still, it would be him in that tomb in Egypt, not Cosimo.”

  In the silence that followed this outburst, a voice spoke from the doorway at the back of the room.

  “I do not blame you for feeling the way you do—”

  “Burleigh!” shouted Kit. He jumped to his feet so fast it sent his chair crashing to the floor behind him. “Get out of here! Or so help me—”

  “I can only express my deepest regret. The sins of the past will haunt me the rest of my life.” He moved close to the table, stepping into the circle of light, his expression solemn and contrite. “I have wronged you and many others. I beg for a chance to atone.”

  “Liar!” shouted Kit, darting around the table. “Get the hell out!”

  Gianni reached out a hand and grabbed Kit’s arm as he passed. “Peace. We will hear him out.” Kit, bristling with rage, shook off his hand. To Burleigh the priest said, “Please, we are listening. Speak.”

  “I know nothing of the catastrophe you are discussing,” he began. “But I—”

  “How long have you been spying on us?” demanded Kit. To the others he demanded, “Why are we listening to him?”

  “Because,” replied Burleigh simply, “I can help.”

  “My name is not Archelaeus Burleigh. Needless to say, I am not an earl, nor in any other way ennobled. I was born Archie Burley—that’s B-u-r-l-e-y—in the slums of London’s East End to an unwed mother. My father was a wealthy man in the north of England, but he refused to acknowledge me or marry my mother. She died destitute.” He fell silent at the memory of his stark, joyless beginnings.

  Against Kit’s strident protests, the earl had been granted a chair at the candlelit table, and now all except Kit were listening intently to the man they knew as Burleigh talk about his life and the devious paths he had taken to reach this place and time. Kit stared swords and daggers at his enemy sitting across from him.

  “Was your father a lord?” asked Wilhelmina after a moment.

  Burleigh shook his head. “No. Maybe. I remember nothing of him. Granville Gower, the Earl of Sutherland, was my benefactor, and I was his protégé, his ward. I took his title when he died. It was through Lord Gower that I learned the trade that brought me into contact with Charles Flinders-Petrie—though by that time, I was already deeply engrossed in the study and application of ley travel.”

  “Excuse me,” interrupted Gianni. “We know nothing of Arthur’s relations. Am I to assume that Charles was Arthur’s son?”

  “Grandson,” corrected Burleigh. “Arthur had one son, a boy called Benedict. I never met him, but Benedict begat Charles. Whether Charles had any offspring, I never learned.”

  “Speaking of Charles,” said Cass. Kit gave her a glare; he disliked her even talking to the man he considered a monster. Cass ignored the look. “Was it Charles who told you about the Skin Map?”

  “Not in so many words,” Burleigh replied with a rueful smile. “But I can be very persuasive when I choose to be, and Charles, as a young man, was very easily persuaded.”

  “Manipulated, you mean,” corrected Mina.

  “Manipulated . . . extorted . . . blackmailed . . . To my shame, the list goes on,” Burleigh conceded, lifting a guilty hand. “In any event, once I got wind of the map, I moved heaven and earth to find it. I have spent several lifetimes chasing it in one way or another—first through study, and then through adventuring.” He raised his eyes to Mina. “Have you seen it?”

  “Only a part of it,” replied Wilhelmina. For all his demonstration of honest and heartfelt repentance, she was st
ill more than wary of trusting the man completely. There was that about his lean and haunted aspect that did not suggest honesty.

  “What about you?” asked Gianni. “Have you ever seen the map?”

  “Only once,” Burleigh sighed. “On the beast, so to speak. The Man Who Is Map—I met him.”

  “You met Arthur Flinders-Petrie?” said Wilhelmina. “In Egypt?”

  “In China.” Burleigh nodded to himself as he recalled that fateful meeting. “When the day finally came to leave the books and take to the road, I was an exceedingly wealthy man. I obtained and outfitted a ship and hired a crew for the expedition. I had spent years tracking down my quarry—mostly through clues his grandson Charles had inadvertently supplied.

  “Combining ley travel with traditional methods, I was—at great expense and difficulty—finally able to catch up with Arthur in Macau. That is where he got all his tattoos—did you know? In any event, it was my plan to invite the great adventurer to join me in a partnership—a glorious enterprise with the aim of furthering our explorations. I thought that if we became partners, then I would eventually learn all his secrets.” Burleigh spread his hands. “But that was not to be. Arthur was jealous of his confidences and took against me right from the beginning. Very likely I was not subtle enough. Desire made me impetuous and impatient. It was ever my undoing. When I saw there would be no persuading him, I decided to take the map by force.”

  “Cut it off him, you mean!” muttered Kit, through clenched teeth.

  Burleigh merely lifted his shoulders. “Shocking, I know. In truth, I was not above such heavy-handed tactics. In any event, I knew I might never get another chance. At the time, it seemed much the simplest solution.”

  “But you did not succeed,” surmised Gianni.

  “Oh, I did try, but the attempt failed and Arthur escaped with his much-decorated skin intact.” He gave a rueful smile. “The irony is that the map was cut off him in the end, but by then I had lost all track of him—or it. I never saw him again.”

  Wilhelmina weighed what he was saying and decided that his story possessed the ring of truth. “Still, you never stopped trying to find the map,” she said.

  “Having come so close only drove me to greater boldness, greater impudence, and, in the end, greater lawlessness. To say I redoubled my efforts is to spin it too finely. Getting my hands on that map became my great obsession, driving me to commit ever more reprehensible acts.

  “I burned with the need to own that scrap of parchment, and the flames took everything.” Burleigh gazed across the table to Kit. “Again, I can but express my sincerest regret and own the fault that caused me to behave as I did—toward you, and Cosimo, Sir Henry, and everyone else I have ever met.”

  Burleigh’s frank admission was met with silence. Finally Gianni spoke up. “You offered to help us. Can you tell us what you have in mind?”

  “Indeed,” replied the earl. “I believe I overheard your mention of something called a Shadow Lamp—curious name.” He looked to Wilhelmina. “Would this be the same instrument I call a ley locator?”

  “I assume so,” Mina confessed. “I convinced Gustavus to make copies of yours.”

  “How very enterprising of you,” Burleigh said. “I knew you to be a worthy adversary.”

  “A dubious distinction at best,” remarked Mina.

  “What led you to the rare earth substance that powers the device?” asked Cass.

  “Rare earth?” questioned Burleigh, arching his thick black eyebrows. “Why, there is nothing rare about it at all. The material is what I call activated earth, and it is merely common garden-variety soil that has been transmuted by exposure to the considerable energy of a ley portal over time and then refined by the alchemists into a more potent form.”

  “A portal like Black Mixen Tump?” suggested Wilhelmina.

  “Black Mixen is one such portal, yes,” affirmed Burleigh. “But there are any number of others—such as Sant’antimo in Italy, Silbury Hill in Wiltshire, Montículo del Diablo in Spain.”

  “Sedona in Arizona,” volunteered Cass, earning her another sour look from Kit. “There they call them vortexes.”

  “There is one near the Abbey at Montserrat,” added Gianni.

  “And,” concluded Burleigh, “I know of at least one currently underwater off the coast of the island of Bermuda in the Sargasso Sea. As I say, there are many others—”

  “Fascinating,” grumbled Kit. “But all this talk is getting us nowhere.”

  Wilhelmina gave him a disapproving frown, and Cass nudged him with an elbow.

  “What?” demanded Kit. Then, in frustration, he flung out a hand at Burleigh. “He said he could help us! Well, I’m still waiting to hear anything remotely helpful. Look, people, the clock is ticking down. We can’t waste time with all this . . . this blather. Yet here we are waffling on like a meeting of the Women’s Institute and we’ve got all the time in the world.”

  Wilhelmina’s frown deepened and turned icy. “Are you quite finished?”

  Kit crossed his arms over his chest and jerked his chin down. “For now. I may have more to say later.”

  She turned back to Burleigh, who simply gazed impassively at Kit, his face blank. “Sorry for my hotheaded friend here.”

  “Do not apologise for me!” snarled Kit. “Do not apol—”

  “Please,” Burleigh interrupted. “Mr. Livingstone is right to feel the way he does. I am the one who should be sorry—and I assure you I am most deeply sorry. And it is true that there are weighty matters before us. Confession may be good for the soul, but it is getting us no closer to a solution to the problem.” He placed his hands on the table in a gesture of capitulation. “I am your servant.”

  “Any help you can give us would be appreciated. You have no idea of the magnitude of the problem we are facing.”

  “Don’t tell him anything,” said Kit. “He offered help. Let’s see it.”

  “Very well. You say you need ley locators. I can get them,” said Burleigh, adopting a businesslike tone. “I may be persona non grata at court, but as we know, Bazalgette has few scruples. With a little greasing of the wheels I can get you your Shadow Lamps—as many as you need. However,” he continued, “I am thinking there is more at stake here than merely finding the Skin Map, is there not?”

  “You really don’t know what we’re up against?” asked Cass. “You didn’t hear that part?”

  Burleigh gave a slight shake of his head. “If I am to be of better service to your enterprise, I suggest you tell me everything.”

  “Don’t do it,” said Kit. “I mean it. We need Shadow Lamps, and he’s offered to get them for us. Let that be the end of it, I say.”

  “Shut up, Kit,” said Mina. “Will you just give it a rest?” She turned to Burleigh and said, “We can discuss the details later, but for now suffice to say that the threat we face is the complete and utter destruction of the universe and everyone and everything in it. Forever.”

  Burleigh’s face registered neither alarm nor amazement, but merely modest interest. He glanced at Gianni, who confirmed Mina’s assertion. “It is true. The End of Everything is the problem we are attempting to solve.”

  “In that case,” suggested Burleigh, “you are going to need a bigger Shadow Lamp.”

  PART FIVE

  Bright Empires

  CHAPTER 28

  In Which Our Questors Debate the Efficacy of Conversion

  I’m being unreasonable?” Kit shouted. He could hear himself getting shrill but did not know how to stop it. “This . . . this psychopath comes over all smooth and contrite. He’s ever so sorry, now he’s seen the light and he’s on the side of the angels—and that’s supposed to make everything all right?”

  “Nobody is saying any such thing,” Wilhelmina countered. She cradled her injured arm with the other and eased the sling’s weight on her neck.

  “The man is a cold-blooded killer. He has killed at least once and he will kill again. If I had my way, he would be stood up b
efore a firing squad. In fact, that’s actually a very good—”

  “Keep your voice down,” snapped Wilhelmina. “Others are trying to sleep.”

  “Sleep! How any one of us can even stomach being under the same roof with that murderer is beyond me. Do you really think he’d hesitate to slaughter us all in our beds if it suited him?”

  Wilhelmina shook her head wearily. Her arm hurt, and the non-stop cavalcade of events of this day had pushed her past exhaustion. They were standing in the half-darkened kitchen. It was late, and everyone else had gone to bed. Over Kit’s loud protests, they had agreed in principle to accept Burleigh’s help. Wilhelmina had stayed behind to see if she could help assuage Kit’s anger and frustration, but they had been having this argument so long it was beginning to repeat itself.

  “Well, go ahead. You all cosy up to him if you want to, but keep him out of my way.” Kit kicked the chair he had been sitting in. “Bloody hell, Mina. Have you lost your mind?”

  “I’m not saying you have to like it,” she said, trying a different tack. “But Burleigh has something we desperately need, and like it or not, he has agreed to help us get it. In case you haven’t noticed, there is a bit more at stake here than your grievances.”

  “My grievances?” Kit stared at her and then threw his hands in the air. “Boy, that’s rich. I’m supposed to just forgive and forget, is that it?”

  “It would be a start.”

  “It’s crap.”

  “Look,” said Mina, softening her tone, “I’m not thrilled with the idea of partnering with Burleigh any more than you are.” Kit opened his mouth to protest, but she cut him off. “Despite what you may think, I’m not joining his fan club. Burleigh is a low-down snake and worse. We all know that. And he may one day be called to answer for his crimes. I hope he is. Honestly.”

  She fixed Kit with a stern, uncompromising stare before continuing. “But none of that is going to happen if the world ends tomorrow—is it? You can cling to your abused sense of justice if you want to, and insist on the rightness of your cause—and, yes, you are in the right as we all know and you never tire of telling us—but do you really want to be the one who ruins what may be our only chance of figuring out how to save the universe?” She stared at him defiantly. “Do you want to be that guy?”