Shadow Tree (22 page)

The howling of the wolves was loud now – the beasts were almost upon them.

“Get up!” screamed Leif. “There may still be time to catch Alfonso!”

Marta stood up, for once playing the role of the obedient nine-year-old. She had seen this moment coming and had always been unsure of how she would act. If Alfonso went to Dargora, he would die. But if Leif prevented him from going, the world around her would die. It was an impossible choice. In
the end, she couldn't make up her mind, and so she did nothing – which made her feel wretched.

Leif grabbed her by the hand, holding her as tightly as he could, and yanked her off the steps. Leif and Marta soared downward, hand in hand, like a pair of cliff divers. As the wind rushed through his hair, and roared in his ears, time seemed to slow down for Leif and his mind raced backward in time. He recalled having a similar feeling, of the cold wind blowing in his face, on the day that Alfonso was born. At the time, he was riding his motorcycle to the hospital with Judy, pregnant and very much in labor, riding alongside him in a sidecar. Leif remembered other things about that day as well. He remembered wearing the bright blue scrubs that the hospital staff had given him and he recalled holding a scrawny, kicking Alfonso in his arms. He remembered how small Alfonso's fingers were and how downy soft his hair was. He even recalled the smell of the Lysol that the hospital janitors used to clean the linoleum floors. Then, like that, he was back in the present moment – free falling.

The last image that Leif saw before entering hypnogogia was of his son, almost a quarter mile in the distance, running across the top of the fog. The moon lit up the sky in hues of silvery light. Alfonso was moving so quickly and with such grace. Leif knew that he had to keep his son in sight. Alfonso had the compass – which was leading him directly to the Shadow Tree – and therefore he knew where he was going. Leif did not. Leif did, however, know what his son planned to do. Leif also knew – with every fiber of his being – that no matter the cost, he would stop him.

Chapter 37: A Strange Disappearance

Hill and Bilblox quickly returned to Naomi and Resuza. The girls had hunkered down in a makeshift snow cave and were well camouflaged. Despite knowing the exact location where they parted company, it still took Hill and Bilblox several minutes to come upon them. But even then, they only found them when Naomi let out a cry and abruptly stood up.

As they approached, it became clear that Naomi had been crying. Resuza had as well.

“What happened?” Hill asked.

“Nothing,” Naomi quickly replied. “And that's the problem. Nothing ever happened for years and years and years.”

Hill looked at Resuza. Her face was white and looked cold. She shook her head, warning Hill not to pursue this conversation any further.

“Enough,” Bilblox interjected. “I don't care what's goin' on. We gotta get some shelter. We'll die out here in the next few hours if we don't find some place away from the wind.”

He turned to Naomi. “You know a place nearby, don't you?”

Naomi stared questioningly into Bilbox's eyes, as if she was unclear what he meant.

“Yes,” she finally replied. “I know of a place. It's very protected and we'll be safe there.”

“Do we have to cross the moat?” Hill asked.

Naomi shook her head. “It's on this side. We can't attempt a crossing today. Not enough time.”

“Let's go,” replied Bilblox.

Naomi turned right and began blazing a path that ran parallel to the Petrified Forest and directly into the wind. Bilblox followed immediately behind, as did Resuza. Hill, on the hand, held back at first. Something about this scene felt wrong to him. There were conversations going on that he didn't understand. They were conducted in glances and nods, and he had no idea what was about to happen. All his instincts, however, told him to beware.

And yet, what choice did he have? Bilblox was right – to stay exposed to the weather meant death. Hill made his choice. He pressed a hand against his coat pocket to confirm the Pen was still there, and he ran to catch up to the other three. As he ran, he thought of Bilblox again and wondered what had happened while Bilblox was in Dragoonya captivity. Truth be told, he had the same question about Naomi.

They pressed onward for what seemed like a very long time. The sun wavered just above the polar horizon for a half-hour, and then quickly retreated. Darkness fell upon the arctic and quickly grew deeper. And worst of all, the wind grew in ferocity as Hill, Bilblox, Resuza and Naomi trudged onward. To Resuza, it felt like they had been walking for days. Her body ached from head to toe.
Even her eyelashes felt heavy. Ice, covered each individual strand, but the effort it would take to wipe off the ice seemed too much, and so Resuza kept walking, barely able to see, hoping for relief.

Naomi led the way steadily, as if she knew exactly where she was going. Bilblox and Resuza followed closely behind, while Hill brought up the rear. It was difficult to tell how much time had passed when Naomi stopped at the base of what appeared to be a small cliff. Above them, the exposed rock swirled with snow. Neither Hill, Resuza nor Bilblox could see anything resembling a cave. “What now?” shouted Bilblox. Naomi kept walking towards the cliff face; at the last minute, she turned sideways and then disappeared into the rock. Resuza started after her immediately, realizing that her sister had found a narrow passageway in the cliff. It was so narrow that it was impossible to enter by walking forward. The only way to enter was by turning and walking sideways. Resuza entered the passageway and caught only a glimpse of Naomi about ten feet in front of her.

Just outside, Hill looked at Bilblox.

“It looks like they're going straight into the cliff,” said Hill. “No offense, but you should probably go first. Just in case you can't make it and you need someone to pull you out.”

Bilblox nodded.

“Listen,” said Bilblox, “About the Pen...”

“Not now,” said Hill. “Get inside first.”

Bilblox shrugged, walked over to the opening, turned sideways, sucked in his stomach and pushed his way into the narrow passage. It was a tight fit, but he knew he'd make it as long as it didn't get any narrower. Hill followed Bilblox through the passageway. Hill had always been somewhat claustrophobic – and this was almost unbearable for him. Hill's chest seized up and he tried to stop thinking that about the stone walls pushing against his body from both sides. Sweat appeared on his face and gathered along his scalp. By the time the passageway ended and he stumbled into the large cave, Hill was breathing heavily. He sunk to his knees to gather himself.

Resuza ran to his side. “Are you OK?”

Hill nodded, but it took several minutes before he could say anything. In that time, he sat on the cold stone floor and took in his surroundings. The cave was large and stretched for hundreds of feet in every direction. The ceiling was relatively low compared to the width and length of the cave. It was perhaps thirty feet tall and covered in a sheen of thick ice. The supplies that Bilblox had with him apparently included a number of candles, because the others had already lit half a dozen of them and placed them in a wide circle. The flickering light reflected off the ice-covered ceiling and walls and caused the cave to look brighter than Hill thought possible.

Naomi grinned. “There's no heat, but it will work for the next few hours,” she said. “It's pretty, isn't it?”

Resuza nodded. “You did great,” she said with a smile.

It took several minutes for everyone to settle down on the floor comfortably. Bilblox dug into his bag of supplies and handed out several heavy fur cloaks. They were all exhausted and lay on the floor of the cave in silence. Hill vowed not to fall asleep and as his eyes grew heavy, he told himself he would just rest for a moment; but soon he fell into a heavy sleep. He awoke some time later with a start. He lay in place, listening, before moving or talking. A vague premonition unsettled him and he sat up. The candles still burned, but they were almost out, and the light had retreated to a small circle around their group.

A crack, like someone stepping on thin ice, echoed in the distance. Hill reached into his shirt pocket for his Pen.
It was there
. He lay there motionless for several more minutes, but heard nothing. One by one, the candles began to burn out. Hill sat up.

There was another crack.

Hill took the Pen out of his pocket and unscrewed it. Then, as quickly as he could, he grabbed the last candle, which was still flickering weakly, and placed the upper chamber of the Pen over the candle. A flame leapt from the candle into the barrel of the Pen and, like that, the Pen was lit like a small burner on a gas stove. Hill screwed the Pen back together. It was armed. Hill looked around nervously. Resuza and Naomi were still lying on the ground asleep. Bilblox, however, was sitting up and staring at him with a curious look on his face.

“Hill,” whispered Bilblox.

“Yes?” whispered Hill.

“There is one thing you must always remember about me,” said Bilblox. “I am always loyal to my true friends. Please remember that.” Hill furrowed his eyebrows, in a look of confusion. Then Bilblox whistled – a loud piercing whistle that echoed through the cave. Moments later, Hill heard the sound of several bodies charging through the darkness, rushing toward him.

Betrayal.

Hill didn't hesitate. He whipped out the Pen and pressed the emerald embedded on the top of the device. Hill pressed as hard as he could. There was a loud click. A second later, a raging blast of fire exploded from the tip of the Pen and surged across the cave. Yellow and red flames exploded like fireworks. Hill shielded his eyes and half-expected to be burned to a crisp. Suddenly men were screaming, a putrid burning smell filled the air, and the entire cave was illuminated in a brilliant light. Small fires were burning everywhere. Several men were rolling on the ground, trying to extinguish the flames that covered them. Bilblox, Naomi, and Resuza were on their feet shouting at one another. A large number of Dragoonya soldiers, perhaps fifty in number, surrounded them. Most were armed with crossbows and Cossack cavalry rifles. Hill prepared to use the Pen again, and had almost pressed the button, when he heard a familiar voice call out...”

“Don't!”

Hill looked – it was Kiril. He stepped forward slowly, making no sudden moves.

“I have another two hundred men outside,” said Kiril. “You can't fight your way out of this cave. Please be sensible.”

Hill looked at Bilblox for a quick moment. His face was a mask, but he thought he detected the tint of shame on the longshoreman's face.

“Give me the Pen,” said Kiril calmly.

Hill did nothing.

“We don't have time for games,” said Kiril. “I'll count to three.”

Again Hill looked at Bilblox. He was mouthing something. Hill couldn't quite make out the words. Meanwhile, Kiril had begun his count.

“One,” said Kiril.

Hill looked at Kiril.

“Two,” said Kiril.

Hill looked back at Bilblox and this time he could make out what Bilblox was saying:
Give me the Pen.

“Three,” said Kiril.

Hill spun quickly and tossed the Pen in a high arc towards Bilblox. Several Dragoonya soldiers lunged forward just as the Pen landed in Bilblox's outstretched hand. Bilblox moved his fingers quickly and the Pen began to whirl, spinning and flickering in a mesmerizing dance across his fingertips. Bilblox moved the Pen so quickly through his fingers that it took everyone several seconds to realize the Pen had vanished into thin air.

Chapter 38: The Chase

Alfonso sprinted for hours and hours across the thick, billowy layer of fog that covered the Petrified Forest. He didn't dare look down at his legs, for fear of losing confidence in them. He began to feel short of breath, then nauseous, and finally he lost his concentration and slipped out of hypnogogia for a moment; as he did, he felt himself drop downward, the way an airplane does when it hits a patch of rough air.
Focus!
He had to maintain his focus and stay in hypnogogia. He regained his concentration briefly and then again felt himself slipping. He needed to get down to the ground right away. Cold, damp winds blasted his face. He felt as if he were at the base of a waterfall, struggling to stay afloat as a torrent of icy water beat him down. He was falling now – all he could do was try and check his momentum – as he plummeted downward and ultimately crashed into a bank of snow.

Alfonso clawed his way to the surface, gasping for air, and finally collapsed in a fit of exhaustion. He took a while to catch his breath. Oddly, he felt warm, as if he were lying in front of a roaring fire. It was the realization that he might soon freeze to death that finally spurred him to sit up. He shivered violently and looked around. Although still night, the reflected light of the stars through the fog bank was enough
to make the area visible. It was a moonscape, devoid of anything living. Far off in the distance, behind him, Alfonso could see a shadowy curtain or wall cutting across the horizon. This was almost certainly the Petrified Forest. In front of him, he saw only rolling dunes of snow and outcroppings of bare rock that glittered with ice. He saw nothing resembling even a shack, much less the mythical city of the Dragoonya.

What he did see – the thing that finally motivated him to get moving – was a silhouette in the distance, far off to his right. It was like a shadow moving within a shadow. He would've missed it completely, except for a certain part of his exhausted mind that told him to look carefully at the Forest. That, and the sense that the silhouette was familiar. Perhaps it was the connection that all Great Sleepers felt for each other. Or perhaps it was nothing more complicated than the instinct that allows children to sense when their parents are near. It was his dad – and he wasn't alone. There was a second figure just behind him, darting in and out of view. He wondered if this was Marta, but knew he didn't want to stick around and find out. It was time to leave.

By the time the horizon had begun to lighten, Alfonso had fallen into a walking stupor. The landscape appeared unchanged and Alfonso forced himself to dismiss the possibility that, somehow, he had gone in a circle. Alfonso began to feel a creeping sense of doom. He thought back to the fights he had with his father. Of course it made sense that his dad wanted to stop him, but couldn't he understand that there was more at stake? Why couldn't his father see what would happen if this tree took hold? Obviously this wasn't an easy choice, but the truth of the matter was that this wasn't a choice at all. Alfonso really had no say in the matter. In fact, he felt as if he were being pulled forward by the Shadow Tree, at least this is how he felt at first; but with time, he came to understand that he wasn't being pulled as much as he was being pushed. It was as if an invisible hand was exerting pressure on the small of his back. And he knew deep down it was the Founding Tree of Somnos – the tree he had planted,
his
tree – goading him forward, coaxing him to do the deed, pushing him to his own death.

Part of Alfonso felt bitter. There was no doubt about it. Why him? Why was he forced to shoulder this burden? Hadn't he and his father already given enough? And yet, at the same time, Alfonso knew this was also the voice of the selfish coward who lives deep within each of us. This was the voice that had to be squelched. He forced himself to think of Hill, Lars, and all the other Dormians he had met. They were a part of him, and to ignore the threat of the Shadow Tree was to say that those lives weren't worth saving. There were times when Alfonso hated everything Dormian and, all the while, part of him nurtured a dream that perhaps he'd go back to Somnos and live out his life there, alongside
his
tree, the one that now seemed intent on killing him. No matter how upset he became, he never blamed the Founding Tree, because at long last he had come to understand that he and the tree were one. The tree was not a foreign entity forcing him to do something he didn't want to do; the tree was part of him and it was merely urging him to do what he knew was right. If his Dad did catch up to him, he'd explain all this in a way he wasn't able to before. He would make him see.

The thought that really gave Alfonso pause, however, was Resuza. He had no idea where she was, though he suspected that she was in Dargora, in search of her sister. Of course, part of his motivation to destroy the Shadow Tree, was to help her – to save her – yet even if he succeeded he would never see her again. This thought depressed him. On one of the times that he had used his powers as an ageling, and had morphed from being a teenager to being an adult, he had stumbled across a peculiar memory – a series of images, really, that flickered across his mind like scenes from an old-fashioned picture show. He saw two little children and a woman in her mid-thirties, sitting at the end of a dock, at the edge of a lake in the mountains. The woman was smiling and splashing the children. It took Alfonso a moment to recognize her, but he came to understand that the woman was Resuza, and that the children were
theirs
. He had seen a glimpse of their life together. It existed in the future – or some permutation of the future that might occur if he lived. He had not encountered the memory again. It was lost, like a dog-eared snapshot in a huge bin of photos. The curious thing – the thing that really unnerved him – was that the nearer he drew to Dargora, the faster the memories of his life slipped away. It was becoming harder for him to morph, because the memories were vanishing, like bits of debris spiraling down the drain.

Alfonso took a deep breath and tried to quell the panic he suddenly felt. Dargora. Where was it? He was running out of time. He thought back to his conversations with Resuza about Dargora. Resuza had attempted to find the city, years ago, in the hopes of rescuing her sister. Resuza had recounted meeting a hermit woman who had spoken of a petrified forest and a city of bones that lay within. She had been wrong, of course. Dargora wasn't inside the petrified forest, unless Alfonso had somehow missed it. But perhaps her information wasn't all wrong. She had spoken of a city so well hidden that it was only visible for a brief moment during twilight. And Resuza had confirmed this – she had actually seen Dargora. He remembered her words:
“For a minute or two it flickered into sight—a vast city made of rocks the color of dry, bleached bones.”

Alfonso looked up and noticed that the daylight was already beginning to fade. This far north, the day consisted only of a few hours. In fact, the sun had never appeared behind the thick veil of clouds, but he could tell from the way the clouds glowed near the horizon that the sun was already retreating. Night was coming and he felt weak. His head was throbbing and he felt hot all over. Alfonso suspected that he was running a fever. He was spent. He looked behind him. He couldn't see anything. Maybe he had, at the very least, succeeded in losing his father. He needed rest desperately. He dropped to his knees and collapsed on a bank of snow. He had to close his eyes – just for a moment.

Sleep came swiftly.

He awoke a short while later and was alarmed to see the possessions from his backpack had been taken out and placed neatly in a row in front of him. Had someone been here? Impossible. There were no tracks in the snow. He must have done this in his sleep. There was some extra clothing, a knife, several antique Pens he had kept as souvenirs from Bilblox's airship, an old passport picture of his dad, and the small engraved box he had found in the cavern underneath the Three Sphinxes in Egypt. A sudden charge went through Alfonso as he withdrew the rosewood box. He had forgotten about that – forgotten that there was one door he hadn't entered. His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a voice.

“Alfonso!” called the voice. “Please, for God's sake, if you can hear me, show yourself. Please. I'm begging you.”

Words formed on Alfonso's lips, but he could not utter them. He contemplated standing up, but he was too tired. Instead, he sat cross-legged in the snow, held the rosewood box in his hands and focused as before on the thousands of minute indentations engraved across the box. He slipped into hypnogogia and concentrated. Once again he saw that some of the indentations were octagons and some were nonagons and – when he blocked out the octagons – the nonagons clearly formed a doorway complete with a handle. Seconds later, Alfonso found himself back in the windowless room that was Imad's antechamber. It was the same as he remembered it, down to the cool marble floors and smooth wood-paneled walls. The only difference was that instead of the original three doors, only one door remained. He walked to the door and examined it. It was made of rough wooden planks, like the other two, and it also featured a bronze doorknob engraved with the image of an ocean wave.

Alfonso took a step back and looked around the room. At first glance, it had seemed empty except for the door, but now he realized the same narrow desk was sitting partially hidden in a dark part of the room. He walked over to the desk and as before, a sheet of parchment paper lay on the top.

My dear Alfonso;

You have done well. Enter the last doorway, use its
knowledge, and let us to be rid of this heavy burden forever. I most seriously
asssure you that the Shadow Tree will not stop. It must feed, and like a
malignant cancer it will eventually consume the world. I regret most sorrowfully
the heavy responsibility that is yours.

Your loyal and etrernal servant,

Imad

 

Alfonso walked quickly to the door, took a deep breath and opened it. He faced an absolute darkness but deep within, he could hear a whistling, followed by the sound of water crashing. He stepped into the darkness and fell for what seemed at least a minute. During this time, he became aware of a mix of water, ice and snow droplets surrounding him. Gradually, this mixture began to form into the shape of a wave. It withdrew, formed, and then rushed towards him. At the last instant before hitting him, the multi-form wave abruptly disintegrated, withdrew, and started the process again. This happened over and over until one particular wave actually hit him, at which point Alfonso's entire body snapped straight.

Alfonso became aware of leaving hypnogogia. He opened his eyes and gradually realized he was lying on the ground, face up, staring at the cloud-covered polar night sky. The rosewood box sat in an outstretched hand, and a light snow fell. Alfonso lay there motionless and gazed at the snowflakes landing on his parka. For a moment, he thought he had died. His body felt stiff and brittle and slowly he realized that he had morphed into a very old man, who was perhaps ninety-five or one hundred years old. Alfonso's thoughts were muddled. His breathing was shallow and his heart had momentarily stopped beating. He suddenly understood that his ageling body had taken on the form of a man near death. Just then, Alfonso heard sobbing, and the choked cry of a man. “My child,” sobbed the man. “My only child.” Alfonso knew without looking that the cries were his father's.

“My child... my dear boy...”

He thinks I'm dead,
thought Alfonso.

The wind gusted wickedly, blowing a mound of powdery snow over Alfonso's body. He was soon covered from head to toe, consumed by the snowy landscape that surrounded him.