Riordan dashed across the intervening space without a second thought, kneeling down when he reached Daniel’s side. Here at the base of the tree, he could feel a gentle warmth radiating from its trunk, mixed with a relieving chill from the soft breeze. The light and shadow that made up the trunk showed the impression of bark in its ever-shifting patterns. Red and green shadows fell across Riordan and Daniel from the gemstone leaves.
To Riordan’s immense relief, Daniel appeared to be breathing. He reached out a careful hand to lay on the young man’s shoulder, grateful when he actually was able to do so. The ghost’s body was still inhumanly cold, but it was tangible here and Daniel reacted to the touch, fidgeting in his sleep even though he didn’t wake.
Riordan was fine with that. Daniel needed to recover and this place seemed far less harmful than its flipside. He hoped that being here like this was what the ghost needed. It wasn’t like he had any better ideas. Or any choice in the matter either.
He flopped down on the shadow grass and looked up at the twinkling lights. This space had a peace that could lull him into an uncaring serenity. It would be easy to let that fill him and convince him that there was no rush or concern beyond the slow passing of the seasons. It spoke of sunshine, soothing rain, and sinking his roots deep into rich earth.
That was why Riordan could resist it so easily. The very idea of laying down roots, in any capacity, terrified him rather than soothed him. His habits drove him to never stop moving, to never let anyone close, to never let his past catch up with him. The idea that he’d be compromising that soon for the greater good left Riordan cold inside.
Still, he looked at Daniel’s face, lined with fatigue but peaceful in sleep. He couldn’t say it wasn’t worth it or that he wouldn’t do it. Some things were worth pushing through the terror.
Since Riordan was here again, something that wasn’t guaranteed, he should take the opportunity to explore and experiment, though he decided to leave Daniel out of anything he tried. The last thing he wanted was to drag Daniel back to the terror swamp side.
The first thing he tried was to simply walk away from the tree. At first it was fine, the grass giving way to the smoother nothingness ground and the faerie lights thinning out. Then his arm began to feel like it was burning everywhere the rope knotted around it touched him. The sensation got worse with every step he took until he was surprised that his flesh didn’t actually combust. By that point, he was in a featureless black void, though the tree and its light was still clear behind him.
Stubbornness made Riordan want to push onward despite the pain radiating out through his whole body, threatening to consume him. He couldn’t afford to risk real damage to his soul for an experiment though. He turned back towards the tree. Its glow drew him in and he thought about walking back.
Just like that, Riordan stood near the base of his tree, feet sunk into the soft black grass. The pain from his bonds was gone, though the echo of it still ran through him in tremors. He was reminded of what Daniel said about moving as a ghost, how it could mimic physical movement but what really mattered was intention and connection. The same way Daniel seemed connected to Riordan out there in the physical world, Riordan seemed to be connected to the tree here.
He wondered if it was because he was hung from it and bound to it. If so, how did that interact with the two different versions of the tree? This tree of light and shadow and the slow march of the natural world versus the tree drenched in death and hung with power.
As he thought about the death tree, the dream world flipped. The grass under his feet dissolved into the inky swamp that hungrily clawed at him. The branches of light and gemstone leaves gave way to bare branches of caked-on rot and dripping decay. Riordan dodged a stinking droplet that tried to fall right onto him. The heart of the tree, red and green and white like the most bizarre Christmas decoration, pulsed steadily inside the trunk, glowing through the streams of cloying black.
Around him, the victims of the killing tree suffered.
There had to be dozens of them. He hadn’t let himself think about what that would mean, but the sheer amount of ghosts here stank of power and rot. A murderer was horrible. A serial killer was terrifying. The sheer scope of murder here, each person lured or grabbed and brought to die a wasteful death, just so someone could harvest their deaths and their very ghosts for power… It staggered the imagination. What kind of corruption of self would be needed to justify something like that?
Riordan had seen death in combat, even been part of an attempted massacre. That kind of violent death with emotions high and both sides struggling to live changed a person, but it didn’t cause the same kind of stain that repeated premeditated murder did. To render someone helpless and kill them slowly, especially for nothing more than the killer’s own gain, was to utterly reduce them to something less than a person. He couldn’t imagine it and he took comfort in that because that was a barrier that had saved his soul before.
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He pushed past his revulsion to try and really look at the victims. They still did not react to his presence, nor to each other. The ones closer to the tree were tightly wrapped in multiple ropes, obscuring details and drawing them down to sit or lay in the ever-present muck. Their injuries from their death bled sluggishly, just as Daniel’s had in this place. Worse, their bodies were losing definition, becoming foggy and indistinct, as if they were being drained of everything that made them who they were.
They looked so done.
How must it have felt to be going about their lives, only to be attacked and killed? Maybe they didn’t remember the moment of their death, unconscious and drugged like Daniel. Maybe they had been awake for it, struggling even as they were killed. Then they woke up here with no explanation. Just like the tree of light radiated lethargic peace, this place had an aura, but it was one of hopelessness and fear. Those emotions would have pressed on them while they struggled to find a way out. Only, there wasn’t one and more and more ropes would have bound them whenever they lost focus, making each attempt even harder. And all the time, they would have been doing it alone.
It was no wonder that so many of them had given up. In fact, the ones who were still moving or whispering to themselves impressed Riordan all the more. Time moved oddly here, but even if it paralleled reality, the newest of them would still have been here for days of this torture, if not longer. And they hadn’t completely given up yet.
Riordan moved away from the tree. It was time to see if he could reach any of these other ghosts. He still wasn’t sure what had happened to move Daniel to the heart of the tree, but given Riordan seemed to have the ability to move between those spaces, he was probably the catalyst. He wasn’t sure if it was really a feature unique to him, either by virtue of being a magic user or by being alive, but he was the only one who’d stumbled on the trick so far.
He was tempted to start with the most faded ghosts, since they were clearly in desperate need of solace, but he decided he’d probably have better luck with a ghost who was still fighting and aware. It would reduce the chance of a ghost being able to sense him but ignoring him. His rope was loose this time, still bound tightly about his wrist but dragging through the muck as if to encourage him to reach down for it or to try pulling it taut. Riordan ignored it, wading further out stolidly.
On the outer edge of the gathering of ghosts, Riordan had several options for test subjects. The most active were a huge bear of a man dressed somewhat like a lumberjack, a pot-bellied old guy with a handlebar mustache, and a thin twitchy younger man who looked ready to run or fight anything. All three were in grayscale and vaguely translucent. They only had two or three ropes on them and even those hadn’t made much headway yet.
Studying their behavior closer, Riordan decided to try for the lumberjack. Of the three, he was the one giving himself a whispered pep talk as he tried different ways to remove a rope tied onto him at mid-thigh. Riordan couldn’t make out words, even right next to him, but he got some of the tone of his words and there was something about the lines on the man’s face that spoke to humor and kindness, more smiles than frowns even if he wasn’t smiling currently.
Riordan wasn’t sure how to approach this. Daniel had become aware of Riordan while he had been distracted trying to get free, throwing defiance everywhere. There wasn’t anything specific he had done then, but as he was coming to realize, this place responded to will and intention, within limits. Riordan thought about being able to interact with this man, about drawing him into the level that Riordan was existing at, about manifesting the man into a more actualized version of himself.
And just like that, the whispers clarified up into a sarcastic self-deprecating rant as the lumberjack tugged and twisted at the rope’s knot.
“Someone has to step up, you say. Get involved, you say,” the man muttered, “It’s the right thing to do. Your momma didn’t raise no fool. Well, guess what, I feel rather foolish now, don’t I.”
Riordan couldn’t help himself. “Talking to yourself will do that, I hear.”
The man’s head whipped up and he stared straight at Riordan, clearly able to see him. Riordan was a big man, a couple inches over six feet with broad shoulders that tapered to muscular hips and thighs. The ghost made him feel delicate, being a couple inches taller yet and broad all the way down in that combination of fat and muscle that showed a body built via labor rather than at a gym. Yet Riordan didn’t feel threatened because the laugh lines around the man’s mouth and eyes were even clearer now, even through his big bushy beard.
The man proved him right after a moment by saying, “Well, it wasn’t like you were being any good company, what with being not here before, and I had to eat my imaginary friend for survival three days ago. You know how it is.”
Riordan laughed loudly, the noise pushing back at the miasmatic glowing fog. “I do, though I promise that I’ll put up a fight if you try to eat me too.”
The man snorted and straightened to his full height, releasing his hold on the rope and offering a hand to Riordan. “You look like you’d be stringy and tough anyway. Duane Cook. You are?”
Riordan took the proffered hand. Like with Daniel, Duane’s body temperature was inhumanly cold, but his grip was firm without being a show of strength and his gaze met Riordan’s without fear. Sticky black blood soaked into wrappings around his wrists that looked like they had once been part of Duane’s outer flannel shirt.
“Riordan Kincaid,” Riordan introduced himself in return.
With a raised eyebrow, Duane cast his gaze up and down Riordan’s body in an obvious assessment. “No offense,” the man stated, “but you don’t look like a Riordan.”
“Why, because I’m too middle-eastern to have an Irish name?” Riordan challenged with a raised brow of his own, still clasping Duane’s hand.
“No, because it means ‘little poet king’ and you don’t look particularly little or poetic,” Duane replied, finally ending the handshake and stepping back a bit. He seemed pleased with Riordan’s response, not backing down an inch without turning it into a fight.
“I could totally be poetic as shit if I wanted to,” Riordan shot back, grinning despite himself, “You are taking this surprisingly well.”
“After gods know how long in this hell, I don’t see the point of panicking. Especially since anything that breaks up the monotony is welcome and company even more so,” Duane took another look at Riordan, eyes widening and focusing on Riordan’s arms. “How the hell did you get your wounds to stop bleeding? I’ve tried everything I could think of.”
Riordan winced and looked awkward. “I survived, which is a bit of a cheat in this case.”