Tree Dungeon

by Andrew Karevik

  “Don’t go just yet, damn you!” Turm shouted as his brass beard let out a blast of steam. “You don’t get to abdicate your responsibility just because you were too stupid to realize Izguril’s deception.”

  These words were enough to pull the Mistmother back together. “You accuse me of stupidity?”

  “I accuse us all! Save for that tree and Emerhilk! We made a mess of things, by letting that damnable Prince of Lies manipulate us. If you see fit to go running away, why, I might see fit to tell all my loyal followers about how weak your temples are. And how full of treasure they are.”

  That threat caused the Mistmother to scowl at Turm. “You wouldn’t dare!”

  “Try me, woman!” Turm shouted, thumping his sunlit hammer against his chest.

  I did not know whether to intervene or not. Turm’s taunting may be to my advantage, but then again, it may cause them to simply fight each other and forget all about Izguril. Fortunately, Gannix came to my aid in this case.

  “If you would both be calm,” Gannix said. “We must contend with the fact that, right now, Izguril is distracted. He has committed a great crime against all of us and, as such, it would be in all of our best interests to work against him in this moment.”

  These words seemed to diffuse the tension between the two Greater Gods. The Mistmother spoke again, addressing me directly. “You would seal in Izguril? And what is your price?”

  “I wish to be seen as a friend to all gods,” I said. “That is all. To bring his treachery to light and to capture him so that he cannot harm me is out of my own interest. I have no motives past that.”

  At that moment, I saw Izguril finish up the puzzle. He used a smidgeon of his power to change one of the tiles into the right one, just so that he would have the satisfaction of solving the puzzle. Was it pettiness or pride that drove him to such a silly thing? But time was running out, I needed to break that spell of protection in order to send him to the next trap.

  “Time is of the essence,” I said.

  “Time is of no consequence,” the Mistmother replied, her silver eyes beginning to glow. “I have seen the outcome of this trial. I have seen all that happens and will happen. You rush me for no purpose.”

  I would consider myself to be a wise and patient being, but something about her words frustrated me to no end. I contemplated insulting her for a moment but held my peace. There was no reason to make things worse. Instead, I shifted gears.

  “Turm!” I cried out. “You are on my side, yes?”

  “I’m on whatever side is willing to act immediately and without hesitation!” Turm replied. “There is far too much talking for my tastes.”

  “Then lend me your power, grant me a spell that shatters divine shields of magic,” I said. “Please.”

  Turm grinned and held up his fist. Immediately, I became aware of a godspell within me, well, not exactly within me. It felt as if I had the ability to direct the power, but I had not full control over the spell. Perhaps it was how priests felt when they used their magic. This was just in time, as Izguril was approaching the maze trap.

  I threw the spell at him with all of my might, sending a long, flaming hammer of energy right into Izguril’s back. The godspell of protection shattered to pieces, throwing Izguril onto the ground. The divine energy flashed and dissipated. I could see that the madness magic was beginning to soak into Izguril’s head.

  “Again, with these tricks?” Izguril said as he stood to his feet, unaware of the madness that was coursing into his body. “No, not a trick,” he murmured. “You gained Turm’s assistance? That was to be expected. No matter. My allies will aid me!”

  He stretched out his arms wide and tilted his head up. He began to chant, calling for more power to come to him.

  In the court, I could see his allies quickly become aware of this call for aid. Serelda, the hag of cruelty, was the first to respond. She began to reply to the chant but was silenced by a bolt of lightning from none other than Yither, the trickster god. The lightning crashed into her body, throwing her on the ground.

  “It would behoove us to restrain these traitors,” Yither said, raising his hands. More lightning began to flash through his fingertips. This was quite a rational thing for a trickster to do. Perhaps that was his prank, acting so mindful in a time of crisis, when we all expected him to do the opposite.

  “Aye!” Emerhilk and Turm said, turning their attentions to the traitor gods. Most of them were demihumans, responsible for some lesser, unpopular domain. No doubt they were promised powers and greater domains, should they serve Izguril’s purposes. But, as they stood before two giant beings whose powers eclipsed their own, I could see their loyalties swiftly change.

  “Me thought me was helping Agara!” Thinnigad the Trollgod cried, dropping his club and ambling away from his allies. The rest were all quick to disavow their leader, as their combined power would make them capable of perhaps withstanding a single blow from Turm, but no more.

  Down below, Izguril found himself without the power he was requesting. He could not rebuild his broken protection spell.

  “I may have made a mistake,” he said, glancing upwards. “It would seem you were far more cunning than I realized.”

  “Do you wish to parley?” I asked. There was no reason to put him through more trials if he was willing to simply submit to my control.

  “Not yet,” he said. “I still have tremendous power. You see, in the end, if you’re a liar and an oathbreaker, you know that eventually you’ll run out of allies. The friends who follow you aren’t really your friends, they just want what you promise. You must prepare yourself, Great Tree, for when you stand alone. Just as I have prepared. Now, behold!”

  More power surged through his body as he produced a small sphere in his right hand. This sphere was dark and empty, as if he were holding the nighttime between his fingers.

  “Do you wish to parley?” he asked, raising the sphere. There was great destruction in what he was wielding, that much I knew. “I am willing to bargain for my release. Let me out of this place, so that I may hid from my many enemies and lick my wounds. I shall hold off my revenge until a hundred years have passed. That is fair, yes?”

  “Making a deal with a liar who defies the laws of the gods? You must count me as a fool.”

  Izguril snickered at that. “Oh, I do count you as a fool, but not for bargaining with me.” He staggered a little, his head beginning to reel. The madness spell was starting to have an effect on him; I could see it in his eyes. But the orb in his hand was continuing to grow. Did I have any godspells to counter whatever he was about to throw at me?

  “This mass of darkness,” he continued, “will consume you whole. It will coincidentally pull me in as well and, due to the nature of it, shall rip us both to pieces. The only difference is that I will be able to pull myself together. Although, I will admit, it will take far longer than I’d like. To avoid such a headache, I’d prefer you simply agree to let me free. A death later is better than a death now.”

  At the same time that he was talking, I could watch the rest of the gods in the midst of their discussions. Much to my dismay, they had devolved into arguing about who would assume the dead Agara’s domains. Some Lesser Gods were attempting to make the case as for why they should have their power. The pettiness was astounding. If they got off track, we’d all lose our chance to seal Izguril away for good. I had to remind them of this.

  “Are you all children?” I bellowed, my voice echoing through the hall. Having two conversations at once wasn’t nearly as hard as I once believed, and as I spoke to the gods, I kept Izguril talking. The longer I got him to argue with me, the better chance I had to disrupt this spell he was employing. “We have all witnessed a great disservice and cruelty, a deity who saw himself above all else, including the rule of law. And instead of taking the reasonable course of sealing him away, you jockey for power? It is no surprise that he was able to fool you all for so long.”

&
nbsp; “The Great Tree speaks truth,” Vrniac said. “There will be a time for discussion of Agara’s responsibilities, but that will be for later. What shall be done about Izguril?”

  I could sense the orb growing in strength. Izguril was feeding far too much power into the spell, perhaps on the account of the madness he was suffering. It would be unstable, and if he used it, there was no telling what the damage would be.

  “Seal him away within me,” I demanded. “That is the only feasible solution. It would avoid war. It would strip him of his power. But I cannot hold him for much longer. Whatever your choice is, I tell you to make it now. Seal him or face his wrath.”

  “A vote must be taken,” Vrniac said. “It is the only way for us to decide.”

  My full attention shifted back to Izguril, leaving the gods to take their vote. It was an unfortunate oversight on my part, to realize that they would not be able to act quickly. They followed laws and pacts, agreements to handle their affairs with civility. Even though all knew that the False Agara had committed a great crime, no judgment could be passed without all gods having a say.

  The orb had almost doubled in size and, within it, I could make out small flickers of light dying. But the Liar was weak, staggering about, trying to keep his head straight while violently shaking it, as if something were bothering him.

  “You’ve…poisoned my mind,” Izguril said. “Kept me rambling, ranting.”

  “This much is true,” I replied. “Time may seem inconsequential for a god, but it still passes all the same. Just because you aren’t in a rush doesn’t mean you are safe from the seconds that go by.”

  “You’re killing yourself!” he threatened, holding the spell up high. The vote was still going on, and I had no godspells to wield against him. I only had the design of my dungeon and my wit to save me.

  “By now you must realize that a spell has been stripping away your sanity the moment you came in,” I said.

  “Yes, the scent of Sikayed the Addled is strong,” Izguril said, rubbing his face with his free hand. He was slurring his words, like that of a drunk man. “But I’m still powerful.”

  “Oh, there is no doubt, but that weapon you’ve been creating in your hands? It’s not a spell you know, is it? It’s something you’re making up on the fly, creating out of desperation. How sane were you when you crafted this? You wield enough power to kill a god, no? Who is to say you will not be killed with me?”

  “You’re trying to scare me!” Izguril said. “But I will not be overtaken by fear!” He took a half step back, barely an inch away from the trap that would teleport him to another realm. One that would be able to withstand an annihilation spell of such magnitude.

  “Oh, you may have fooled the rest of them, but I see you for the coward you are!” I yelled as loud as I could. “I know you’re afraid. The cruelty, the bitterness, it all comes from your fear of everyone knowing you for the weakling that you are!”

  “A mortal tree calling a god weak? Hah!” Izguril said, raising the orb up high. It was beginning to spin rapidly. “I guess we’ll find out who the coward is once this is all over, won’t we?”

  The spell was on the cusp of activation and the gods were still in the middle of their damnable vote. I had to think, quickly, before this madman destroyed me for good. I thought of every possible option, reviewing every spell, every power I had at my disposal. But for all of the powers I was afforded thanks to Emerhilk and the decades of magic I had collected, nothing compared to the one single ability I possessed since the day I was born.

  With all of my might, calling upon the power within, I uprooted a part of my body, pulling upwards, breaking free of the ground itself. I tilted my trunk to the right, catching Izguril by utter surprise as he stumbled a few inches, allowing for the pit trap to activate, throwing him into another realm, far, far away from me.

  The pain of pulling half of my body free from the ground was immense, but it was necessary. The magic surging through my roots allowed me to move them at will, but for most of my life I only aimed them down. And with such pain, I would not be pulling myself free from the ground anytime soon.

  I settled back into place, gazing upon the utter chaos inside of my body. The gods had been unaffected by such a move, as the hall I created was part of another realm, but the goblin village sustained severe damage. Many of the traps were now scattered around my floors and the storehouses of the shopkeepers were flung open, but at least I was alive. And, I had bought myself another hour or so before Izguril would return. Hopefully the gods would finish with their vote by then.

  Chapter 41

  Two of the longest hours of my life passed as I waited for Izguril to return. The flash of light indicated his arrival, and he emerged from an ethereal gate, face pale and eyes burning red. He walked with a limp and was hunched over, with long, silver claws jutting from his fingertips.

  “That was…most impressive,” he said, teeth gritted. “Knerl’s Immortal Maze. Designed to trap people just like me in it. How ironic, that the current god of lies has given you the aid you needed.”

  “It is all over, Izguril,” I replied. The vote happening above had finished and the majority were in agreement. The False Agara would be sealed away in my vault until the last memory of his lies faded from the consciousness of mortals. A poetic fate, but given the recording keeping of Agara’s church, this most likely meant forever.

  Once the vote was passed, the Mistmother finally acquiesced into granting a vision of truth to the people, letting them all know that they had been worshipping a liar and an impostor. This broke the hearts of millions, causing them to renounce the False Agara. In doing this, he would lose much of his power.

  “I can sense as much,” Izguril said, retracting the claws into his hands and standing up straight. “When in that maze, I could feel the prayers to me vanishing almost at once. What is to become of me?”

  It was curious to see how composed he suddenly became. He spoke calmly, as if we were old friends. Perhaps he knew that he couldn’t escape his fate with force, opting instead for cunning.

  “You are to be imprisoned here. The gods will take the domains that you have stolen, the powers of healing and mercy, and will grant them to Lesser Gods who will steward over them.”

  “Why here?” Izguril asked, glancing around. “What makes this place so special?”

  “It is a suitable prison,” I replied, not mentioning that my walls would make it hard for any of his allies to break into, at least as long as I had a divine battery powering me. “And I would prefer to keep an eye on you.”

  “I have grieved you greatly,” Izguril said. “But tell me, Great Tree, there must be some way we can mend our differences? Perhaps if I were to give you my rightful domain. You would let me escape, yes?”

  “You would give up godhood just to be free?” I asked.

  “What use is divinity if you’re stuck in a cage the whole time?” Izguril said. “I would give you my power, become a mortal and wander the realm, never to bother you again.”

  “And you would give me the domain of cruelty? To become as merciless and unloving as you? To become mad for power at all costs? I think not.”

  “The offer stands for as long as this prison does,” Izguril muttered. The door to the next room opened as Turm, Emerhilk and Rignus entered.

  “Izguril,” Rignus said, producing a large scroll that emanated with the divine power of all the gods who had voted for the imprisonment. “For your misdeeds and breaking of oaths, the 997th Council has judged and condemned you for the murder of Agara and the crime of impersonation. This punishment shall be met with imprisonment within the World Tree, for as long as the last mortal who remains upon the earth knows of your crimes.”

  “You going to resist?” Turm asked with an air of anticipation, his hand on his hammer.

  “What would be the point?” Izguril asked. “Every moment that passes, I have less and less power.”

  “Then come with
us,” Emerhilk said. “And keep what dignity you have left.”

  “The offer will always stand,” Izguril softly whispered as he followed the two Greater Gods into his new prison chamber. He stepped in the center rune, which activated the Divine Siphon I had built. With the blessing of the remaining four gods, I was able to empower the siphon to drain all of the remaining divine magic of Izguril.

  The magic would reinforce the walls of my prison, as well as the few godspells I had been granted by Vrniac, to ensure the building would be secured from escape attempts. It did not matter if Izguril’s allies were able to somehow garner more power for the fallen god of lies. The stronger he became, the stronger the Divine Siphon would be. It was the perfect prison.

  There was nothing but silence in the Vault of the False, once Turm and Emerhilk were satisfied with Izguril’s imprisonment. He spoke no words to me, but rather contemplated his fate for a great period of time. I did not expect him to be terribly interested in speaking, but I would make sure to listen to anything he had to say. For it might come in useful someday, to have a god in one’s domain, especially with the future that was to come.

  It was unfortunate, but once the gods had finished their vote, they all chose to leave as quickly as possible. Some of the Lesser Gods were unhappy about the distribution of the new domains, and others who were undoubtedly hidden allies of Izguril were eager to begin plans to get revenge on their enemies.

  I had been hoping to speak before them all, to talk about the strange Invasion I had seen, but the Greater Four were quick to leave as well. Such deception, it would seem, left all gods looking at one another with suspicion. Izguril’s betrayal would leave all deities fearful of each other for quite a long time.

  Gannix advised me to not seek out another meeting with the gods. I was fortunate enough to have navigated through such a crisis without being destroyed. One benefit behind the judgment that had been passed on Izguril was that no one may interfere with the prison in any way. And, since I was considered to be the prison, that meant that no god may bring me any harm in the future. I was safe from their influence and their powers, for as long as Izguril was my prisoner. This was to be my reward for having brought such treachery to light.