Shadow Tree (8 page)

Chapter 11: The Pen's Reach

Resuza sat crossed-legged in the middle of an underground ice cave. The cave was spacious and comfortable – just the way that Resuza wanted it – because she herself had carved it by using the Foreseeing Pen. On the floor of the cave were blankets, several half-frozen flasks of cider, a few knives with handles made of bone, and a large pile of biscuits. Resuza had stolen all of these things from a locked storage room within the slave quarters. By using the Pen, she had succeeded in burrowing into this storage room, getting what she needed, and then getting out – sealing the tunnel behind her, with the Pen, by forcing the walls of the tunnel to cave inward. Every night, for the past week or so, she had been using the Pen to lay the groundwork for their escape. The cave was her storage depot, where she was compiling all of the supplies that she and Hill would need to escape.

There were two tunnels leading into Resuza's storage depot. One tunnel led directly back to the slave quarters, which was only several hundred meters away. The other tunnel went off in a southerly direction and continued for a very long way – perhaps as much as three miles – though it was impossible to tell. The prospect of building a tunnel that stretched for such a great distance would normally be inconceivable – especially for one person – but the Pen had made it possible. Once she had mastered it, Resuza simply flicked it on and walked forward very slowly and the Pen did the rest.

Resuza stood up and headed down the tunnel that went south, the one that would lead them to their escape. As she walked, the prospect of her escape seemed more and more real, and with this came another realization: she was officially giving up on finding her sister. Most likely, Naomi was dead – Resuza had come to accept this likelihood – but there was a small chance that she was alive, tucked away in some remote corner of Dargora. If this was the case, then this meant that Resuza was abandoning her sister – yet again. Resuza had abandoned Naomi for the first time when Dragoonya horsemen raided their village in the Urals. Resuza had begged her sister to run, but Naomi wouldn't budge, and so Resuza eventually fled without her. Afterwards, Resuza had vowed to herself that she would never rest or give up until she found her sister; and yet here she was, several years later, doing exactly that – giving up, running for it, trying to save her own skin – once again. The thought made Resuza feel disgusted with herself, but what choice did she have? If she stayed in Dargora much longer she would, in all likelihood, end up dead, and her bones would be yet more building blocks for the towers of the city.

No
, thought Resuza.
No way
.

She walked for a long time, perhaps thirty minutes or so, until she reached the end of the tunnel. It wasn't really the end. It was just the spot where she had stopped drilling the previous evening. Once here, Resuza took out the Pen and opened it up so that she could see into its barrel. She then took an ice chip from the floor of the tunnel, loaded it into the Pen, aimed it at the wall in front of her, and clicked the emerald. A spray of water and powdery snow soaked her face. She squinted and pressed forward, continuing like this for two hours or so until she broke through and found herself staring
into a gaping chasm. She peered into the darkness and saw that she was looking at a vast canyon made of ice. The bottom was hundreds of meters below. It made her nauseous just to look down into it.
Perhaps she could find a way to tunnel around this canyon – that was her only option
. But she would need to get her bearings, which meant getting up to the surface.

Resuza pointed the Pen to her right and began drilling a new tunnel that made its way, at a gradual angle, all the way to the surface. She drilled for twenty minutes until finally she broke through and saw the world above. The mere sight of it filled her with joy. The sky was cloudy and, hanging in a gap in the clouds, was the moon – shimmering in all its brightness. She scrambled up to the surface and quickly surveyed her surroundings. There was a large rock nearby, shaped like a giant egg, and she climbed up to the top of it so that she could have a better perspective.

What Resuza saw dashed all of her hopes. The canyon was not only deep and wide, but incredibly long. It stretched in either direction for as far as the eye could see, and it appeared to serve as a moat that protected Dargora. And beyond the canyon there was nothing but endless fields of snow. There was no way out and, more devastatingly, there was nowhere to go.

Chapter 12: A Vision of the Future

Alfonso and Marta scrambled down the rocky slope, heading east, toward the tall stone tower in the distance. They moved slowly at first because Alfonso kept tripping. “You're not used to your body,” Marta told him. “It takes a while.”

“Then why aren't you falling on your face like me?” he asked her.

“Because I know what I'm doing,” she told him with a smile. “Just watch me. You won't believe how much you can learn from a nine-year-old girl.”

Alfonso smiled. “Fair enough.”

They walked for many hours – through the afternoon, through dusk, and into the evening. The night sky was clear, perfectly cloudless, but in the distance a storm was approaching. Brilliant flashes of lightning crackled across the sky and illuminated the landscape like flickering stadium lights. The tower was close now. It stood on the other side of a huge sprawling meadow, speckled with boulders, poplar trees, and tall, patches, of beige crinkly grass. In the moments when the sky lit up, Alfonso could see that it wasn't really a tower, but an obelisk – a massive stone pillar with a pyramid-like top. He recalled learning about obelisks in his world history class. The ancient Egyptians built them. In fact, on his brief trip to Alexandria, he recalled seeing one at the edge of the city. It was tall and thin, like a stone needle, and covered with hieroglyphs. This obelisk was bigger, much bigger. They were still half a mile away and yet it towered over them. It was very wide around the base – perhaps thirty feet by thirty feet – and as tall as a big city skyscraper.

“I was here with my dad,” said Alfonso. “I'm certain of it now.”

“Huh?”

“In my dream,” said Alfonso. “I was at this obelisk with my dad.”

“Oh,” said Marta. “That's nice. Did the two of you have a good time? Was it a picnic?”

“I don't remember,” said Alfonso. Then he laughed.

“What's so funny?”

“I was just thinking,” said Alfonso. “If my dad saw me now – you know, with a beard and all – he'd freak out. ”

“You could shave the beard,” said Marta.

“I don't know how to shave,” admitted Alfonso. “I think I'll just morph back to being a teenager when the time comes.”

Marta set down her pack and climbed up onto a nearby boulder. “I want to rest for a while,” she said.

“What about the storm?” asked Alfonso.

“It's still far away,” she said. “You can barely hear the thunder. Besides, before I head back to Jasber, I want to have a look at something.” Marta crossed her legs, stared off into the distance, and sat perfectly still.

“What are you doing?” asked Alfonso.

“My job,” said Marta.

“Your job?” asked Alfonso. “What's your job?”

“I'm a seer.”

“I thought you were going to quit,” said Alfonso teasingly.

“Please shut up,” snapped Marta. “Go walk around and try to act your age – you're supposed to be a grown man for goodness sake.”

Alfonso sighed, shrugged his shoulders, and wandered off into the tall grass. As he walked, he mulled over his situation. He had a strong sense that this
was where he was supposed to be, at this obelisk, but he couldn't say why. In his dream, he and his father had been here together – at the very top of the obelisk – on a balcony, or a ledge, or something like that. He remembered the view: the
rolling foothills and the snowcapped peaks in the distance. There was a woman there on the balcony too, a beautiful woman with a scar across her face, but the other details were hazy. It was a fragment of a dream.
Why couldn't he recall more of it?
He remembered the other dream from his coma with startling clarity – the one in which he and Resuza were in the woods in Minnesota, running from the oncoming tide of scurrying animals. All the details were still crisp: the trees shaking, the branches cracking, and the ground shifting. He thought back to the forest and recalled seeing the strange hexagonal hole in the ground.

Suddenly he knew where he'd seen something like this before: Paris.

The hole in the forest looked exactly like the one he had seen with Sophie, the wanderer, beneath the streets of Paris. These were “root holes” created by the deadly tentacles of the Shadow Tree.
Had it already been planted? Was it possible?
Alfonso recalled what his father had said in the dream: “I should have known – it was all written out so clearly.”
What was his dad talking about?
Of course, maybe this was just a bunch of nonsense from a dream that meant nothing. This was the most likely explanation. But it was all so vivid – almost like it really happened.

More than anything else, he remembered Resuza's words before he woke up:
“You'll need me, before it's all over. And Bilblox as well.”

And then came those last, hurried words:
“But most of all, you'll need-”

Alfonso felt like screaming. Who did he need? His father? There was no way to find out. Even if he found Resuza, she wouldn't be able to complete this sentence that occurred in
his
dream. He feared the worst. Perhaps he would need someone like Kiril or Nartam. This made no sense, but in the vacuum of his thoughts, Alfonso was without any guide.

Quite suddenly, Alfonso snapped to attention. Something was moving in the grass. There was a brilliant flash of lightning and, seconds later, an explosive clap of thunder. A gust of cool air rustled the grass. The storm was nearing. There was more movement in
the grass. All around him, he could sense bodies – human, animals, impossible to say – closing in on him. Whatever had been following them for the past few days was finally here – and in full force. There was another flash of lightning and, ever so briefly, Alfonso saw the faces of almost a dozen children. They were dressed in rags, their faces were filthy, but their eyes appeared strangely alert. They were moving towards him slowly, but steadily. One thought leapt into Alfonso's mind: Marta. He spun and around and dashed back through the tall grass. He ran for ten minutes or so – Alfonso hadn't realized just how far he'd wandered while lost in thought – but eventually he came upon the rock where Marta was sitting.

“I just saw something pretty spooky,” said Alfonso, panting for breath.

“So did I,” replied Marta.

“Then you saw them too?” asked Alfonso. “The kids in the grass?”

“No,” said Marta, “I had a vision of the future – you know, like the ones I used to have while sitting in my chair on Monastery Isle.”

“What'd you see?”

“This field,” said Marta. “A bunch of years from now.”

“And?” asked Alfonso. “What else?”

“No,” said Marta. “I'm not telling you – at least, not right now.”

“What?” said Alfonso angrily. “You've got to be kidding. When will you tell me? Aren't you heading back to Jasber?”

“No,” said Marta, “I've changed my mind about that. I'm coming with you.”

“Coming with me?” asked Alfonso. “Fine, but we have to go – now!”

Alfonso and Marta ran toward the tower as quickly as they could, charging through the tall grass and leaping over rocks as they went. They had almost made it to the base of the tower when they realized that they were surrounded. It was a classic hunting scenario. One group of hunters chased its prey, driving them forward, and another group of hunters stayed up ahead – waiting patiently for the prey to arrive. Alfonso and Marta could both see that, around the base of the tower, there were two dozen or so figures crouching in the grass. It was very difficult to discern how big they were or how old, but they were clearly lying in wait.

“Who are they?” asked Alfonso in whisper.

“I'm not sure,” said Marta. “But the monks warned me about them. They told me that the slave traders got so many of the adults around here that packs of kids now roamed the hills like wolves.”

“You've got to be kidding,” whispered Alfonso.

“How old do you think they are?” asked Marta. “I mean the ones you saw?”

“They were little,” whispered Alfonso. “They couldn't have been much older than six or seven years old.”

“Okay,” said Marta. “You know what we've got to do right? It's our only chance.”

Alfonso nodded.

“Can you do it?” asked Marta.

“I think so,” said Alfonso.

“Okay,” she said, “Let's do it – and remember to breathe.”

Chapter 13: The Library

Many hours later, Leif stirred and began to wake up. For several minutes, he lay motionless on the dusty ground, trying to determine – without moving – whether he was badly hurt. He felt as if he were waking from the deepest sleep of his life. At some point, he began moving his fingers and then, at last, he opened his eyes. He remembered very well what had happened – the opening in the root of the tree, and then the long fall, so he was mildly surprised to see his arm intact and unbroken. He had a painful cut across his entire back, and while his shirt was soaked with blood, the wound seemed to be superficial and he was no longer bleeding.

So far, so good.

He stood up and looked around. He was in a long room with no sharp angles or corners. The walls, which were carved out of a finely-polished wood, flowed like a wave. A thick layer of dust lay over everything, and the room felt still in the same way that some caves do, as if no one had passed through here for centuries. Eventually, Leif found the rungs of a ladder inset into the wall. He looked up and became confused. Far above him – perhaps 200 feet or so –
he saw, for the first time, a small patch of light. The light was so meager that it illuminated very little. Leif had no idea what this was, but he was intrigued.

He began climbing. It was steady work, climbing one step at a time, checking each rung first with his hand to confirm that it was steady. Leif assumed that no one had used this ladder in ages and, the higher he climbed, the more nervous he became. After ten minutes of climbing, he reached a wooden trapdoor with his fingertips. The trapdoor was made with several slats of wood, but there were spaces in between these slats, and through these slats light was pouring through. This was the source of light that he had seen from far below.

Leif pushed up on the trapdoor with gentle and then steady pressure. It creaked loudly, but was unlocked. Dust coated his head and shoulders. He emerged into a circular room lined with bookcases. A movable ladder rotated around the room on an iron rail. Leif looked up and stared in astonishment. The room's ceiling was several hundred feet overhead – so far above him that he could only barely make it out. Leif tried to grasp where he was. There was only one explanation. Initially, he had fallen into a hole in the ground and now he had climbed up into the trunk of a giant tree – the tree itself was hollowed out and its inner walls were lined with thousands of books.

As the book-lined walls continued upward, they were joined by what appeared to be light-filled tunnels. These tunnels concentrated light and formed them into rays. Upon closer inspection, Leif realized that the tunnels were actually hollowed-out branches that were channeling light into the main trunk of the tree via an elaborate system of small windows and mirrors. Looking upward, Leif could make out many rays of light crisscrossing the room.

There were several dozen books scattered across the floor. Some of the books were torn in half along the binding. There were also footprints in the thick dust that covered the floor. Someone had been here recently. This must have been the boy.
He was here, looking for something, but what?

Uncertain of what else to do, Leif began climbing the moveable ladder, because there appeared nowhere to go but up. As he climbed, he read the binding of the books on the shelves: Bektair Aagar, Bo'orchu Cagar, Jamukha Gbosh, Chila'un Obzok... Each book appeared to bear a person's name. The lower bookcases were filled with identical handwritten books of varying thickness. Leif examined a few. Each book corresponded with the life of a person, although it was presented in a dreary manner. For example, on the spine of one book was written,
Jugal Patel.
Page after page was taken up intricate logical progressions and what-ifs. Each what-if, was proceeded by a complex notation of symbols and numbers, which Leif could not decipher.

(
‰⅛
†) If J.P. turns left down Folken Lane, he will meet a friend who will introduce him to the proprietor of a small coin shop, thus leading to J.P.'s career as a dealer of antique coins.

Immediately below that came another progression:

(‡⅝
) If J.P. turns right down Folken Lane, he will proceed to buy a loaf of bread that shall turn out to be exceedingly hard, causing J.P. to be in bad humour for several hours afterwards.

Leif paged through several more of these books before continuing his climb. They all detailed intricate cause and effect relationships, and each book focused on just one person. At first it was all very exciting – this idea of seeing someone's life unfold on the printed page – but it soon grew tiresome. Leif hoped for something more exciting. He stopped when he reached a section with names beginning with the letter “B.” He stepped off the main ladder and tiptoed along a narrow ledge. He passed
Bidderbold
, then
Bijorge
, and then found himself at
Bilba, Sven
. The name after that was
Bimox, Jon
. But in between these two books was an empty space. It appeared as if once, perhaps not long ago, a book sat here.

“Bilblox's book,” whispered Leif to himself. The longshoreman's full name was “Paks Bilblox” and this is where his book ought to be.
Could it be? But where'd it go? Did the boy take it?
Impossible to know. Leif stood on the ladder for a long time, lost in thought, until finally he remembered that he had business to take care of and, reluctantly, he resumed climbing upward.

Leif continued his ascent until he came upon an opening that led into a cozy nook. The nook, as far as Leif could tell, was situated inside a large knot in the tree which had been hollowed out and turned into a small office of sorts. The room contained a desk, a fireplace, and a few bookshelves. The fireplace was lit with a strange, green flickering fire which created no smoke. There were no burning logs, briquettes, gas tubes, or anything at all that appeared to be fueling the fire. Above the desk hung a picture with a sturdy frame made of thick tree limbs. The frame was old and worn and, along one edge, it had two deep claw marks. The canvas itself was blank. “Huh?” said Leif to himself. “What kind of artwork...?”

Leif walked over to the desk and took the picture down from the wall. As soon as he did, a parcel wrapped in thick brown parchment fell out. Apparently, someone had hidden it there, tucking it away behind the back of the picture frame. Leif presumed that this was the thing that he was meant to burn. He studied the parcel closely. It felt light and brittle in his hands. The parchment was yellow and ancient looking. It appeared as if the whole thing might disintegrate into dust at any moment. Leif walked over to the strange green fire that was crackling in the fireplace. It was scorching hot. Leif took the package and held it over the flames. As he did this, he recalled Imad's warning:
Take what you find and burn it there. Don't open it or... or God help us all
.

Suddenly, Leif had a very strong hunch about what the package contained.

“I don't believe it,” said Leif aloud. “He leads me right to it and then tells me not to look inside.” Before he could second-guess himself, Leif ripped off the parchment covering the parcel. Inside was an old, leather-bound book and, on the front cover, in thick block letters were two words: ALFONSO PERPLEXON.

“Ah, give me a break!” said Leif angrily. “What am I supposed to do with this?” He sighed heavily. He started to open the book, then slammed it shut. “No I can't,” he said. “I'll regret it, I know I will.” Instead, he held the book up to the fire, allowing a green flame to blacken its cover. The pages started to turn a golden brown, the way slices of white bread do in a toaster. Then, suddenly, Leif pulled the book back into his arms and fanned out the embers that had started to form on its pages. His mind was racing with thoughts.
What if the book contained some vital information about where Alfonso was? What if his son was in danger? Perhaps the book could help Leif find his son – perhaps even rescue him? Could he really walk away from such information? But what about Imad's warning?
Imad knew what the book said. Presumably, Imad had written these books himself. Given that, wasn't it foolhardy to ignore Imad's advice – his warning?

Desperately, Leif yanked open the front cover of the book. The title page had the following inscription.

The Life & Times of
Alfonso H. Perplexon
A Concise Listing of Prophecies, Scenarios, & Unusual Permutations

Like the other books in the library, the ensuing pages contained row after row of neatly written “what if” scenarios. The beginning was filled with scenarios Alfonso had already encountered.

(
⅛) If A.P. refuses to go to school on 7th of April, he will fall asleep at lunchtime and sleep-walk to school.