James stalked through the woods as darkness closed around him. The sounds of music and laughter had faded from his senses, replaced now by the uncertain melody of wind-chimes playing in the trees. A cool breeze rattled the leaves around him, cooling the sweat upon his brow.
Coming to a halt between the swaying trees, he looked down at the wooden flask still clasped in his hand.
‘To hell with it!’ he growled, draining the last of the wine before angrily tossing the empty vessel into the trees.
His head spun as he gazed up through branches that seemed to pitch and swirl around him. High above, the ghostly tower of the Clyst rose into the night sky, its many bridges like the spokes of some vast wheel in the sky. A hot and spiteful anger once more rose within his gut and he pushed on into the woods. Lord Balen was right, he thought to himself as he staggered on, he didn’t belong here… he didn’t belong anywhere in this damned world!
As the trees grew dense around him, the first motes of fear began to prickle through the shroud of his fury. At first it was merely an inconvenience, seeking to slow his progress, but soon it had become something much more. Twigs snapped beneath his feet like subtle warnings, sharp branches tugged at his robes as though to hold him back; from out of his drunken daze, he could sense something momentous building in the air.
When the phantom screams returned to his numbed senses, it was like blundering into a trap. Holding his head between his hands, he bent to the ground; waves of pain and suffering that were not his own, washing across his mind like a poisoned tide. Frantically, he cast about to seek its source, but only the playful melody of wind-chimes reached his ears.
Gritting his teeth, he pushed away from the tree and plunged on through the woods. Using his battered senses as a compass, he stalked through the trees, determined at last to seek an explanation for this blight upon the paradise that surrounded him. Never before had he felt the sickness so keenly, nor so intimately. A part of him recoiled from these heightened sensations, fearful of what he might discover at the end of his search, but grimly he forged ahead, spurred on by the anger and resentment that had been his parting gift at the festival.
When at last he staggered out of the dark woods, it was into a wide clearing, illuminated by the eldritch glow of the two full moons. As though in welcome, the screaming lament rose suddenly in pitch, causing him to double over in agony. He expected to find scenes of horror to match the screams he heard inside his head, but when at last he was able to look up, there was nothing but a solitary tree growing from the centre of the clearing. The tree resembled one of the coppiced willows the Gelders used to fashion their blades, but one that had grown to monstrous proportions, its many crooked limbs bent towards the sky like a huge spider sprawled upon its back.
James was about to turn his gaze from its monstrous deformity when another shrill scream shattered into his skull. Bracing his head once more between his hands, he lumbered forward, certain at last that he was close to the one he sought. The clearing had once been paved with concentric rings of granite flagstones, but these had long-since been cast into disarray by its prodigious roots. As his uncertain feet took him across the jutting stones, he stared in growing wonderment at the sprawl of tormented limbs curling up into the sky. In the moonlight, its bark was revealed to be a livid red like the exposed muscle and sinew of a skinned animal. Here and there, strips of bark hung in dry tatters, fluttering pitifully in the breeze like leprous folds of skin.
By the time he had scaled the tumbled stones beneath the creaking tree, an eerie quiet had settled upon the surrounding woods. With nervous, almost timid movements, he crept around its convoluted trunk. However, it didn’t take long to discover that there was no one there.
A growing unease finally cut through his lingering anger as he looked down at the glistening roots plunged into the earth like bloodied fingers. As unsettling and disturbing as it seemed, the source of the pain emerged from the very ground beneath his feet…
James froze.
Something had tapped him on the shoulder.
It felt like a heavy drop of rain, but the sky above was perfectly clear. He touched his shoulder and tentatively brought his hand to his face. In the pale light of the moons, he saw that his fingers were smeared with blood. Slowly, he turned his head to the creaking branches, certain this time he would find the one he was looking for, mutilated and strung up like one of the dead villagers of Venn.
But, the crazy network of branches was completely empty.
Narrowing his eyes, he studied the curious tree more closely. The weather had been fine for days, yet its many branches appeared to glisten as though with newly-fallen rain. It was only as his eyes grew accustomed to the gloom that he saw the many wounds covering its diseased bark; the fissures and cracks weeping sap as red as blood.
It was absurd… it was impossible… but at last he understood. All of the pain, all of the suffering, was coming from the tree itself!
‘It is the Custodian’s Tree, the tree of blood.’
James’ heart lurched as the unfamiliar voice intruded upon the quiet.
‘It was seeded from the First Custodian’s blade, he whom we named Loreth, saviour of the Gelding. The sacred blade that had claimed so many thousands of lives during the Bitter War was finally laid to rest here, seeding the tree that stands before you. It is a red willow, the only tree of its kind in existence.’
The voice was unfamiliar and sounded oddly strained, as though the speaker himself were also in great pain.
‘Who’s there?’ James muttered nervously.
At his bidding, a slender figure emerged from the trees, his movements hampered by a cane. With disbelief, James regarded the man who now faced him from across the clearing, for it was his former guardian, Torrinth.
‘You can speak?’ James said, his voice incredulous despite what he had just been told.
The old warrior did not reply with words, but instead resumed the maddening brevity of their former communication with a curt nod of his head.
‘Why the hell did you do that?’ James shouted angrily.
‘The words spoken to a mute are always those most honestly chosen,’ Torrinth replied, limping nearer. ‘I took my measure of you in my silence, as was Lord Galen’s wish.’
James shook his head. But as aggrieved as he felt by this small treachery, his gaze quickly returned to the tree as though beckoned by its silent demand.
‘And how did I measure up?’ he asked bitterly.
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Ignoring his question, the old man limped to the edge of the flagstone floor before coming to a halt.
‘It would be better for you to get down from there. It is not a place for idle feet,’ Torrinth said, suspiciously eyeing the trees that lined the clearing.
‘It’s dying,’ James replied absently, gazing up at the rotting branches swaying above his head.
‘The tree is almost one thousand turns old,’ Torrinth replied with a shrug. ‘All that lives must eventually die.’
‘You don’t understand,’ James said desperately. ‘It’s suffering.’
‘Lord Balen looks for excuses to end your life,’ Torrinth said, his eyes still trained upon the trees around him, ‘and trespassing upon the Custodian’s Tree will give him reason beyond even the powers of the monk to spare you from.’
‘For looking at a tree?’ James snapped.
‘It is sacred,’ Torrinth replied simply.
With difficulty, James detached his gaze from the tree.
‘Tavin’s dagger,’ he said distractedly, ‘it was you who gave it to me.’
Something akin to amusement creased the wrinkles around the old man’s eyes and slowly he nodded.
‘I had my measure of you after we worked to free the Vennians from their trees. You had gained my respect by then. You had gained my trust.’
James managed a tight smile and slowly shook his head in exasperation. He was about to offer his thanks for the gesture that had saved his life in Venn, when he clasped his ears in sudden pain. The screaming of the tree redoubled inside his head and he lurched backwards, his flailing hand grasping a jutting branch to break his fall. The limb was wet and unpleasantly pliant beneath his fingers, but somehow he managed to hold on. Almost at once, the pain radiating from the tree diminished.
Did I do that? James asked himself, gazing in bewilderment at the slimy branch still clasped between his fingers.
‘Do not touch it!’ Torrinth seethed in alarm. ‘Setting hand upon the Custodian’s Tree is a crime punishable by death!’
Ignoring the old man, James steadied himself before tracing a determined path around the dying tree, his fingers trailing a bloody path across its tortured bark. Soon his hands were slick with red sap, but he was unmindful, his attention focused only upon the pain that with each passing moment fled from the bark beneath his fingers.
The hairs on the nape of his neck stood on end as the eerie silence intensified around him. He glanced to his side and saw Torrinth gingerly crossing the flagstones towards him, his movements strangely slowed as though time itself were impeded by the quiet.
James had just stooped beneath a low hanging branch when he came to an abrupt halt. Before him was a single, slender branch that appeared unaffected by the blight that was slowly rotting the rest of the tree. With a trembling hand, he reached forward and grasped the branch as though it were an extended hand in greeting. Its surface was remarkably smooth, but strangely the contact made him feel uneasy.
Through the twisted network of red branches, he caught sight of the two moons staring down at him like baleful eyes. In the time that had passed since leaving the house with Tavin, those gleaming spheres in the sky had shifted into a new alignment; the bright smudge of green now suspended beneath the other; their shimmering edges close enough to touch. Something about this new shape in the sky filled James with an inexplicable dread that mirrored the unpleasant feeling now tingling through his fingers. A chill wind rattled through the branches, casting pieces of dead bark to the flagstone floor like chunks of bloodied flesh.
Torrinth was nearer now, but his voice conversely distant.
‘We must leave, now!’
The hand still clasped to the slender branch became suddenly numb and instinctively James recoiled, jerking it backwards. But his hand was stuck fast. He thought absently of the cloying sap he had trailed his hand through before and reasoned that it must have become congealed. He braced his foot against the tree and pulled as hard as he could.
A cold fear settled in the pit of his stomach when he realised his misunderstanding. His hand was not merely stuck, it was welded to the branch; the tips of his fingers embedded within its very grain. He turned his terrified eyes upon Torrinth who had gained his side. The old warrior was panting heavily, a sheen of sweat covering his leathered face. His lips were moving through a series of words, but despite his proximity only the faintest of whispers met his ears. Though he could not understand his words, the flickering light in his widening eyes communicated enough. He jerked his eyes back to the branch as a terrible pain blossomed from his fingers. Blue flames flickered from his submerged finger-tips, tracing lines of fire into the network of branches above. The flames spread quickly, hungrily feeding upon the blood-red sap bleeding from its many wounds. It was but a matter of seconds before the entire tree was ablaze.
James screamed, joined in discordant harmony by the screams of the dying tree. The flames that had issued from his own fingers now crept upon his robes setting them alight. His skin blistered and peeled as he savagely tore against his hand, but still it held fast.
Above him, the tree burned like a great pyre, sending blue flames and sparks spiralling into the night sky. The fire roared like thunder, branches snapping and popping within the seething inferno.
James slumped to the ground, struggling to draw air into his burning lungs. He shielded his eyes from the incredible heat and caught a fleeting glimpse of Torrinth hunkering close to the ground, swirls of steam curling from his back.
Another scream was tearing through his vocal chords when the terrible pain was suddenly lifted. Blinking smoke and tears from his eyes, he gasped as the last of the blue flames sputtered and died; the red tree now reduced to a charred skeleton above him. Fearful of the devastation wrought to his own body, he frantically surveyed the charred wreckage of his robes. But as he peeled back their blackened cinders, he discovered the flesh beneath miraculously untouched.
James attempted to stand, but his trembling legs folded, pitching him backwards. There was a rending snap from the tree and then he was sprawling upon the hard stone floor. Sitting up, he saw that the branch was no longer attached to his hand, but lay across his lap like a glistening rod of red glass.
With relief, he looked up to find Torrinth slowly picking himself up from the ground. The old man was in obvious pain, but his sharp eyes were focused only upon the branch, now clasped between James’ hands. An expression of uncertainty crept across his wrinkled face as he staggered forward, his cane forgotten upon the ground.
James’ smile slipped from his face as the old man removed the blunt blade from around his neck. The moonlight glinted upon its dull steel, but despite its blunt edges, it looked like a weapon all the same. In that moment, he realised Torrinth meant to fulfil the death penalty that destroying the sacred tree was likely to engender. Hurriedly raising the severed branch before him like a crude shield, James braced himself for attack.
But the attack never came.
Instead, the old man knelt by his side and reverently took the branch out of his hands. As he had once watched Tavin sculpt a dagger from a branch of willowing, so now he watched the old man work his own blade through the blood-red bark of the Custodian’s Tree. His fingers moved with practiced ease, the blunt blade gracefully sweeping through its substance like a knife through wet clay. Shavings coiled from the branch, sizzling and blackening as they fell, and before his eyes, an object slowly took shape between his slender fingers… the narrow handle, the raised edge of a guard, the elegant sweep of a curving blade…
When Torrinth’s hands came to rest, he regarded the sword he had created as though uncertain how it had come to be there. His eyes were brimming with tears as he lifted his head from his work, his hands raising the fruit of his work as though in offering.
‘Lord Jame…’ his voice croaked, ‘I have your blade.’
James flinched, recoiling from the sword, which even now sizzled and sparked as its red became annealed in black.
‘Torrinth, what have you done? I don’t want it! I don’t want it!’
Tears now rolled freely down the old man’s cheeks, and for the first time James saw the other man smile. It was the knowing smile of a grandfather, tender and sincere, and when he raised the sword once more between his bony fingers, it was hard not to perceive the pride that accompanied the gesture.
James was aware of movement around them, and looked past the hunched shape of Torrinth to where figures were slowly emerging from the woods. The celebrants had no doubt been guided by the light of the blazing tree and as they approached they did so tentatively, fearful of what they might discover at its source. Soon, dozens of people lined the flagstone floor, silently watching them beneath the destroyed tree. Couples held hands as though for comfort, their celebration garlands smouldering in the pale light of the two moons. The dream-like quiet lingered in the air, until it was violently shattered by raised voices and the trampling of feet.
Beyond the ring of on-lookers, a score of warriors rushed from between the trees, their swords flashing in the light of the moons. The voice that rose above their clamour was familiar and filled with a savage rage that shook James to the core.
‘Traitors!’ Lord Balen screamed into the night. ‘Destroy them! Destroy them both!’