The Fatal Tree (29 page)

T
he telling of any story must, inevitably, come to an end – although the story itself goes on.This tale is no different.

However, readers, for one reason or another, will have formed attachments to various characters and will no doubt have questions regarding those characters. The impulse to know What Happened Next can be very strong – an itch that, unless scratched, can become an affliction. After all, if the characters have lived within the pages of the book, then those lives continue and our involvement may seem arbitrarily, almost cruelly, cut off when the pages run out.

Whilst I cannot prolong this particular story, I am nevertheless in a position to relate a few details of which I am aware, and which might be of interest to the reader:

The Zetetics continue to operate, primarily out of Damascus, where in happier times it was this author’s privilege to walk down The Street Called Straight – following in the footsteps of one who heard the audible voice of God – and to visit the faithful few who keep the archives of the Society. Should you or anyone else care to call in at 22 Hanania Street, you will find a welcome in a place where travellers may meet and discuss adventures, or browse the rare volumes in the genizah, or ruminate about the grounds of reality and our place in the universe. The quest now is for understanding, and most of all for wisdom. Through oppression, conflict, wars and the atrocities of war, still the Zetetic Society stands firm – owing in large part, no doubt, to the formidable and unshakeable Mrs. Peelstick, who seems never to age, and to her colleague and ally, Brendan Hanno, whose steady hand on the tiller steers the society through the roughest waters. Of course, endless cups of strong mint tea continue to be served to all and sundry who find, however unexpectedly, that they have landed on the step outside that shiny black-lacquered door.

You will recall that the Burley Men – Tav, Con, Dex, and Mal
– were exiled for their crimes and forbidden to return to Prague; and, after Burleigh’s conversion, they could expect no further employment there in any case. Happily, the long, dreary weeks spent in the Rathaus gaol and Engelbert’s kindly ministrations were not lost on any of them, and although the gang broke up, each was not only chastened by his imprisonment but was inspired by Etzel’s generosity, compassion, and gentle, forgiving spirit. You may not believe it if I tell you that Marcus Taverner became a devout follower of Luther and eventually a pastor in a Nonconformist church in a remote corner of the Duchy of Pomerania in what is now northeastern Germany. Malcolm Dawes settled down in the cosy Pinzgau Valley in Austria where, after a stint as a labouring farmhand, he was able to obtain a little land on the shady side of the valley and thus became a farmer himself – not a very good farmer, it must be said, but he managed to eke out an honest living by distilling the local
Vogelbeeren
into the regionally famous medicinal schnapps – and, with the help of the strict Austrian social mores and a robust farmwife to guide him, his criminal past slowly receded into distant memory. Dexter Parrot and Connie Wilkes became itinerant tinkers travelling the villages of Bavaria; owing to their expertise with knives and simple tools, they went on to build a modest trade as blacksmiths in Rosenheim. Of course, we know by now that there is no such thing as coincidence, but it is interesting to note that their little forge was only a stone’s throw from the Stiffelbeam Bakery owned by Engelbert’s family, where they became regular customers, often receiving news of their former benefactor in Prague.

Douglas Flinders-Petrie’s end has been narrated in full within these pages. But no one knows what became of Snipe, that feral youth whose misfortune it was to be taken under the wing of the last and least of the Flinders-Petrie line. Douglas only used the boy, imparting to him no useful skills nor any worthwhile education during the time that they travelled the cosmos together. It is presumed – and evidence would seem to support the conclusion – that poor Snipe became one of those bandit outcasts who roamed the wild Italian hill country, living off the land and robbing travellers passing through the lonelier stretches of the countryside. These bandits, or
briganti
, much feared throughout history, are celebrated in folklore and song in cultures the world over. Thus, Snipe may well have gained a smattering of status as a cultural curiosity.

Gianni spent the next few years contemplating what actually happened at the Spirit Well when the questors plunged through the Bone House portal. His experience of that deeply mysterious event led him to research the role of conscious intention in a multiverse environment, for which he devised experiments to test the effect of human free will on natural phenomena – a hot topic in quantum physics circles. He later persuaded Tony Clarke to work with him on what became known as Coincidence Theory – which states, to put it in layman’s terms, that there is no such thing.

As theorists, the two garnered many supporters in addition to the usual detractors; the former were by far the more numerous, however, and Gianni, as befitting the last in a long line of scientistpriests, was eventually awarded the Nobel Prize for physics, which he shared with his long-time colleague and collaborator J. Anthony Clarke III. The two friends made memorable speeches that were glowingly reported in all the major news media. Unfortunately, about six months after receiving the prize, Gianni disappeared, and his whereabouts remain a mystery to be solved: whatever became of Gianni Becarria? All was not lost, however, for his research was taken up by a brilliant scientist in São Paulo by the name of João Cristo, who rose to sudden prominence from nowhere and whose intuitive understanding of Becarria’s foundational work led him to further discoveries that sparked research into space-time shifts, possibility and probability theory, and the development of models for alternate and converging realities.

Speaking of time and space, neither allows us to relate what happened to so many others who came into contact with the individuals whose stories have been recounted in this series. No doubt some were extinguished in one reality only to survive in another; although that is speculation, and even Gianni’s paradigmshifting work does not fully account for this – at least, so far.

All that remains to be said is that as this manuscript was in revision, a major financial group broke ground for its international headquarters in the City of London on the site of an old guesthouse. As required by law, archaeologists were brought in to identify and recover any items of importance before permanent foundations were laid. The archaeologists did their survey and cleared the site for construction, but missed one interesting and noteworthy piece: a silver spoon with a large teardrop-shaped bowl and a figure of the apostle Peter. This item was discovered by a construction worker, who slipped it into his pocket just moments before eight metric tons of concrete were poured into a trench. When the popular television program
Antiques Roadshow
came to south London a few months ago, that construction worker decided to see if his find had any value. He stood for hours in a slow-moving queue at Dulwich College before receiving the good news that the spoon dated from the mid-1660s and was typically carried by the professional classes when dining in one of the many chophouses and dinner clubs that were popping up in the city at the time. Deemed “unique of its kind” and “of considerable interest to collectors and museum curators,” it was given a provisional value of £13,000–£17,500, and thus became one of those
Roadshow
items that, as the saying goes, “came in a bus, but went home in a taxi.” The lucky workman put the artefact up for auction at Sotheby’s in London and donated the greater share of the proceeds to the Coram Trust, a charitable body providing a range of support services for orphaned and abandoned children. Burleigh, that inveterate trader in collectible artefacts, would no doubt have approved.

Stephen R. Lawhead

Oxford, 2014