The Fatal Tree (24 page)

“So what’s the plan?” asked Cass as they hurried to the church. “Where are we going?”

“There’s really only one place to go,” Kit told her.

“The Fatal Tree,” concluded Cass. “What makes you think it will be any different this time?”

“This time we have new Shadow Lamps and know how to use them.”

“We’ve only got three lamps,” Cass pointed out. “Maybe we should wait for Gustavus to finish making the rest.”

Kit was already shaking his head. “Wait,” he said, “and watch everything get weird around us and eventually collapse. Besides, the way things are changing here, there’s no guarantee Gus is working on getting us more lamps, or even if he’s still here.”

“But only three of us will have lamps,” Cass pointed out again.

“Then three will have to be enough.”

After a hurried consultation in the cathedral porch, the questors left the city and made their way to the River Ley. They arrived at the beech grove in plenty of time and settled in the sun-dappled shade at the foot of the path to eat and rest and wait for the ley to become active. They spent the afternoon brainstorming various options for dealing with the Fatal Tree. During a lull in the conversation, Burleigh, who had said little since leaving the city, spoke up.“I think you should tell me what is going on,” he said.

“You know what’s going on,” Kit replied. “We told you – the universe is imploding and we’re trying to find a way to keep it from destroying itself and everything in it.”

“You have told me some, perhaps, but there is much you are holding back,” the earl said. “I think it is time you told me
all
your secrets.”

“There
is
no secret,” Wilhelmina insisted. “Honestly. What Kit said – that is the truth.”

“I don’t believe you.” Burleigh’s voice took on a tone of menace.

“Maybe because you’ve spent your whole life in deceit and betrayal, you can’t recognise the truth when you hear it,” Kit snarled.

Burleigh’s brow darkened and lowered dangerously. Gianni was quick to intervene. “We are keeping no secrets. I will tell you anything you wish to know.” Kit appeared about to protest, but Gianni cut him off. “My friend,” intoned the priest softly, “he has a right to ask. His fate is bound to ours, and ours to his – like it or not. No?” To Burleigh, he said, “Please, what would you like to know?”

“We can start with whatever it is you call the Fatal Tree. I have heard you mention it several times. Tell me about that.”

Gianni explained with admirable brevity about the yew tree and how it guarded a portal unlike any they had ever encountered. Wilhelmina picked up the account, saying, “The tree has become embedded in, or entangled with, the portal.”

“It’s channelling such enormous power that any physical contact is dangerous in the extreme,” added Cass. “Even the slightest touch can kill.”

“A very dear friend touched a branch and died instantly,” Mina said. As if to prove the truth of her assertion, she indicated her arm in the sling. “That’s how I was injured.”

Burleigh absorbed this thoughtfully, then said, “And this portal with the tree is the one you hope to manipulate?” Cass and Mina nodded; Kit remained unresponsive. “Why?” asked Burleigh. “What is so important about that portal in particular?”

Gianni answered, “It is our belief that this portal leads to the Spirit Well – the place Arthur Flinders-Petrie discovered and held as a jealously guarded secret for the rest of his life.”

“The Spirit Well,” mused Burleigh, then shook his head. “The name means nothing to me.”

“Arthur apparently believed that he had discovered the legendary Well of Souls,” offered Mina. “We think he may have considered it a sort of fountain of immortality – something like that.”

“Ah…” Burleigh’s sigh of resignation and relief spoke volumes. “It is no less than I suspected.” His eyes flicked back to Wilhelmina. “How did you acquire this information?”

It was Kit who answered. “I saw him there,” he said. “I saw Arthur Flinders-Petrie at the Spirit Well, and I saw what he did.”

“You met him? You met Arthur?”

“No,” Kit replied. “I didn’t say that. He didn’t see me, but I saw him and I saw what he did.”

“And am I right in thinking that what he did that day,” began Burleigh, piecing the story together, “has something to do with the impending cataclysm – this so-called End of Everything?” He glanced around the group in the fading afternoon light. “I see that I am correct in my assumptions. So tell me – what did Arthur do?”

After a moment’s hesitation, Kit replied, “I saw him bring a dead woman back to life.”

“The Well of Souls,” mused Burleigh. “I see it now. That was his great secret. It all makes sense to me now.”

“You knew about this?”

“I have long suspected…” Burleigh shook his head. “But no. Suspicions only, that is all.”

“Do you know who the woman was?” asked Cass.

“I believe the woman was Xian-Li, Arthur’s wife. She was the daughter of Wu Chen Hu, the artist who made the tattoos for Arthur. And no – before you ask – I did not kill her. Indeed, I know nothing of how she died, but I long since guessed that she must have at least suffered some trauma that Arthur had redressed somehow. Although, in a way, I was the one who made their union possible.”

“How so?” wondered Mina.

“I told you that I tried to take the map by force,” Burleigh explained, “but that Arthur escaped. It was Xian-Li who came to his aid that day.”

“This is your fault,” grumbled Kit. “Why am I not surprised?” Disregarding Wilhelmina’s warning glance, he continued, “If you had not attacked Arthur that day, they would never have met, and having never met, they would never have married, and Arthur would never have had cause to save her.” Kit’s hand described a series of loops as if to indicate the continuing roll of events springing from that one act.

“And you feel this makes him responsible?” asked Gianni. “The chain of causation is long indeed – who can say what might or might not have happened if one thing or another had been slightly different?”

“You are kind to try to defend me,” acknowledged Burleigh. “But he is right. I am responsible for bringing them together. Whatever flowed from that meeting is to my account too – at least in part. I own the fault and I will do my best to put it right. Whatever it takes, even to the giving of my life, I will do it.”

“A bit late for that,” growled Kit, and earned himself a smack on the arm.

“The Zetetics have a saying,” said Gianni, breaking in. “There is no such thing as coincidence. Your actions that day may have set in motion a train of events that put Arthur on the path to destroy all creation. Yet here you are, putting in our hands the means to save it.”

“That’s why we’re here,” said Cass. She raised her Shadow Lamp and showed the others that the little green lights were glowing. She rose and brushed off the leaf mould from her trousers. “Well? Let’s go see if we can, you know, save the universe.”

E
verybody okay?” Kit dashed water from his eyes and glanced around for the others. Cass was on all fours in the middle of the narrow cliffside path, and Mina lay sprawled on the ground beside her, moaning gently. Gianni and Burleigh knelt together a few paces behind.The leap had been rough and the attending storm fiercer than any they had experienced so far, with biting wind and lashing rain. The travellers were shaken and soggy, but at least all were present.

“Oh-h-h, man,” said Cass. “I hope I never – ”

Before she could finish the thought, she cupped a hand to her mouth and promptly threw up. That set off a chain reaction. Wilhelmina and Kit vomited in turn, and Burleigh, grim faced, succumbed to a bout of dry heaves. Only Gianni evaded the worst symptoms of ley sickness, but he looked none too spry. Wet hair plastered to his head, his skin paled to a wan pastiness, he looked like a shipwreck victim washed up onshore. “I do think that was the worst crossing yet,” he observed, dabbing his face with a soggy handkerchief.

“They are getting tougher,” agreed Kit, wiping his mouth on a damp sleeve. He moved to Wilhelmina’s side and helped her to her feet. “How’s the arm?”

“I’ll live,” she said, her eyes dull with pain.

“We can rest a minute if you want,” Kit told her. “It’s a bit of a trek from here to the tree, you know.”

Mina pushed wet hair away from her face. “Let’s just get on with it.”

“Are you sure?” said Cass, fanning the fabric of her clingy wet shirt.

Mina swayed slightly, steadied herself, and uncorking a small bottle of reddish-brown liquid, took a tiny sip, grimacing at the bitter taste of the laudanum. She jammed the cork back in and stuffed the bottle into her pocket, then gave a curt nod. “Ready.”

“Right,” said Kit. “Let’s get cracking.”

The climb up the canyon trail to the rim of the gorge was made more arduous and slightly harrowing by the fact that the trail had deteriorated since their last visit. The surface was badly eroded, and in places the edge had sheared off close to the cliff face, forcing the travellers to hug the wall. Once they reached the top, Kit paused to allow everyone to catch their breath while he repeated his warning about keeping an eye out for carnivorous predators that roamed the prairies and forests.

They set off across the plain, but aside from a herd of graceful gazelle-like creatures that bounded away through the long grass and a flock of startled partridges, they saw no other animals. The walk in the fresh air and warm sunshine restored them, and they reached the edge of the wood in better spirits than when they had begun. After another short break, a stint of stealthy hiking brought them to the wall of saplings surrounding the Fatal Tree.

“Here we are,” Kit said. He turned to the others as they gathered around behind him. “Remember to keep your hands down at your side and do
not
touch the tree – even the smallest part. It’s lethal.”

“As if
that
needed saying,” muttered Cass.

“I mean it,” insisted Kit. “We don’t want a repeat of last time.” He looked to Burleigh. “You are here to advise us, nothing more. Got that? I don’t want you interfering in any way.”

“I am yours to command,” replied Burleigh graciously.

“Okay, then. Everybody ready?” Kit looked into the eyes of each of the others in turn and, satisfied that all were in agreement, said, “Let’s do this.” He turned and forced his way through the close-grown ring saplings that formed a shielding wall and stepped into the presence of the mighty yew.

The quiet within the circle was almost deafening; the air was dead. The questors gazed up at the heavy green boughs towering above them, dwarfing them, and felt a cold dread spreading up through the ground into their bones and blood. A few paces away on the edge of the perimeter lay the grave mound of Thomas Young – undisturbed, still fresh as the moment they left it.

Gianni saw the grave, went to it, and stood for a moment; then, folding his hands, he bowed his head and offered a prayer in Latin: “
Domine Iesu, dimitte nobis debita nostra, salva nos ab igne inferiori, perduc in caelum omnes animas, praesertim eas, quae misericordiae tuae maxime indigent
.”

The others stood in reverent silence, listening to the cadence, if not understanding the words. He ended, saying, “
In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen
.”

Kit added his own “Amen,” and then, forcing himself back to the task at hand, turned to Burleigh. “What do we need to know about manipulating portals? Tell us what to do – keeping in mind that our Shadow Lamps burned out the last time we tried to use them in this place.”

Burleigh gazed up into the top branches of the giant tree, lowered his eyes, and said, “This is unlike any portal I have seen. I cannot say what will happen, but I can tell you what has worked in other places.”

“Weasel words noted,” said Kit. “Get on with it.”

“Of course,” replied Burleigh evenly. He took a few paces farther along the clear zone, examining the girth of the tree, and then turned and came back, saying, “I think the first thing to attempt is aligning the locators. No doubt the devices burned out last time because you lacked fundamental symmetry.”

“Ah, yes,” said Gianni. “How do we align the devices?”

“With a portal,” began Burleigh, “since there is no straight path as in a linear ley, we must position ourselves equidistant around the perimeter. In view of your past experience, I would suggest screening the devices with your bodies until you are ready.”

“Fine,” said Kit. “Just tell us where to stand.”

They watched as Burleigh paced off the circumference, then marked positions on the perimeter for each holder of a lamp. Kit, Cass, and Mina each moved to a designated spot. “Okay, now what?” Mina asked when they had taken their positions, forming an equilateral triangle around the base of the enormous tree, each in full sight of the others.

“As with the ley line,” replied Burleigh, raising his voice to be heard in the stultifying atmosphere of the clearing, “you will attempt to harmonise your thoughts by visualising the intended destination. Once your minds are properly entrained, we will discover what opportunities for manipulation exist.”

“Okay, you heard him,” called Kit. “Ready? On the count of three, we take out our lamps.” He counted off and brought his out of his pocket. The little turquoise lights were ablaze, and the pewter shell grew instantly warm in his palm. He braced himself for the quick sputter of flame and the stench of scorched metal. When it did not happen, Kit called out, “Okay, it seems to be working. I’ll count to three, and we concentrate our thoughts on the Spirit Well.”

Again, he gave the count and, holding the lamp on his palm, turned his thoughts to the Spirit Well, filling his mind with the image of that strange pool of golden liquid light. When, after a minute or two, nothing had happened, he halted the experiment. “Take a break!” he called. “But don’t move, we’ll go again in a second.”

They did try again – two more times, with the same result; aside from a few bursts and sputters of sparky light, very little seemed to be happening. During the fourth attempt, however, the feeble flicking light not only took hold, it strengthened and grew, filling the clearing with a bloom of radiance.

“That’s it!” Kit called. “Keep – ” A flash of brilliance to his right drew his attention. Glancing away from the tree, he saw Burleigh standing a few paces away with a Shadow Lamp in his hand. “Burleigh!” he shouted. “What are you doing?”

“I thought you could use a little extra muscle,” he replied.

“Where did you get that lamp?”

“Oh, it was safely tucked away.” The device was similar to the old lamps, but slightly larger, and from what Kit could see, it had an additional row of light-emitting windows, and three knobs or dials on the top. “A more advanced model than the shabby imitations you concocted,” Burleigh told him. “Do you like it?”

“You used us!” exclaimed Kit, anger searing through him.

“Well, you did not genuinely expect I would miss my chance to see the Spirit Well, did you? After all I’ve been through?” A wicked grin spread across Burleigh’s face. “Are you
really
that naïve?”

“Traitor! I knew it! We were fools to trust you.”

Burleigh gazed back mildly. “Do as I say, and we will all get where we want to go.” Turning his attention back to the Fatal Tree, he raised his ley lamp and touched one of the dials. Lines of bright turquoise light streamed from the holes around the rim of the device like a fan of laser beams.

“Kit?” called Mina. “What’s going on?”

“Burleigh’s got a Shadow Lamp. He’s been holding out on us.”

“Quiet! All of you!” shouted Burleigh. “This is the most delicate phase of the operation. Total attention is required.” He touched another of the dials on his Shadow Lamp and a bolt of living light arced from the device, linking it with the other three around the tree, joining each to the other. “Concentrate!”

Kit felt the Shadow Lamp vibrate in his hand and heard a faint hum – low pitched and muted – as if seeping up through the earth. The hum grew louder, gaining both pitch and resonance, picking up additional notes, wringing odd harmonics from the air. The hair on his arms and scalp pricked up on end. The keening sound combined with the crackle of static electricity, climbing into the upper registers, morphing into the howl of an untuned radio.

“Almost there,” shouted Burleigh, trying to make himself heard above the wild shriek. “Any moment… hold steady…”

The lamp in Kit’s hand grew warmer still – not uncomfortable yet, but getting close. The vibration increased, and he could detect a metallic whiff in the air.

The light bloom expanded to encase the entire tree in an envelope of radiance. Each limb and branch took on a lustrous, ethereal quality – as if dipped in glow-in-the-dark shellac – and the green, needlelike leaves became tiny luminous spikes, bristling with energy. The ever-rising pitch of the radio squeal finally passed beyond the range of human ears, trailing off into a shrill whine that faded into silence – an attenuation accompanied by a parallel increase in the brightness of the radiance enveloping the tree. Suddenly there was a flash; Kit threw his hand over his eyes and looked away.

“Behold!” cried Burleigh. “The portal is open!”

Kit opened his eyes and saw that the great yew tree had been replaced by a towering pillar of brilliant blue pulsating light – so bright that it was like looking into the flame of a welding torch. The column spun slowly around an invisible axis, giving off glints and shimmers as motes of light like fireflies streamed outward into the atmosphere.

Startled by the change, Kit almost dropped his lamp; and when he looked again, he saw that the Fatal Tree was, in fact, still there, but it seemed to be composed entirely of a sort of transparent plasma that hummed and pulsed with the pure blue radiance of unbounded energy. Tiny filaments streamed from the branches of the translucent tree – telluric energy leaking into the air – forming networks of living light. His skin tingled all over. The firefly sparks formed and leaked from the ends of his hair and the tips of his fingers and ears.

He felt at once buoyant and heavier than concrete, as if he were being stretched between two opposing forces… and yet he felt neither pain nor discomfort. Instead, the world around him faded, growing paler and thinner. Around the base of the yew tree the ground was bleached white as snow; Kit could see both Cass and Wilhelmina at their stations, eyes wide, their lamps extended like flashlights, beams streaming with turquoise sunrays from the tiny holes in their lamps. The image wavered and danced; it was like looking through hand-blown milk glass as it slowly revolved.

“
Formidabile!
” Gianni breathed, his face bathed in the unearthly glow.

“Kit! Gianni!” called Cass. “Are you seeing this?”

“We are!” Kit answered, but his reply was swallowed in the roar that accompanied the flare of energy that blinded him – a flash so bright it shone through his eyelids with a pure white light. His Shadow Lamp fizzed and sparked and grew too hot to hold. He dropped it, and in the same instant a shock wave slammed through him, knocking him off his feet and onto his back.

Oddly, there was no heat – just the sound, light, and pressure wave… and the feathery touch of snow on his skin and eyelashes. Kit rolled onto his side and looked up to see, not the Fatal Tree, but the Bone House.

In place of the encircling hedge of beech saplings stood a wall of slender pines, their boughs bending beneath a heavy layer of snow and, in the centre, that curious construction made up of the most fantastical assortment of skeletal fragments: pelvises, spines, leg bones, vertebrae, femurs, ribs, and more. The bones of a score of different creatures, including the enormous curving tusks of a mammoth, the heavy horned skull of a rhinoceros, and the splayed palmate antlers of a giant elk – all of them long extinct.

Head throbbing, ears buzzing, aching in every limb and joint, Kit pushed himself up on his hands and knees and looked across the clearing. Cass and Mina, their faces distorted, were shouting at him. Kit could see their mouths moving, but their voices reached him as incoherent babble, like voices heard underwater, drowned by the deep-rooted hum and thrum of the energy pulse that had blasted them into another dimension – or maybe it had peeled away a layer or two to reveal the one beneath.

He shouted for the others, his voice sounding muted and distant. “Stay put, everybody. I’ll come to you.” He staggered up onto his feet and started around the Bone House. Gianni lay on his back a few feet away. Kit shuffled over to him. Covered in snow, he appeared stunned, almost comically so, as one of the lenses of his glasses was cracked in a starburst pattern. Other than that, the priest seemed to be uninjured. Kit helped him to his feet, and the two moved to where Wilhelmina and Cass were now standing, brushing snow from one another. Two Shadow Lamps lay in the snow nearby; one was scorched and discoloured by heat and smoke, but the other appeared undamaged, though it glowed and hummed with aberrant vigour.

“Everybody okay?” asked Kit, his voice loud so he could hear himself above the buzz in his ears.