by Mark Hockley
THE BLACK TREE
An intense fury unlike anything Jack had ever experienced before engulfed him, and in that instant he feared nothing and no-one.
The foul creature threw itself upon him, its deadly nails tearing at his chest. But Jack was ready for it and turning his body suddenly, he smashed his shoulder hard into the monster's head and neck, knocking it backward and swivelling quickly around, he kicked out at its flaccid underbelly, the solid contact invoking a screech of agony.
With savage joy, Jack grinned. "How do you like it!" he screamed above the writhing figure, kicking at it again, but this time the thing anticipated his blow and squirmed away.
"Little boy plays rough," it hissed, eyeing him darkly from the floor.
"That's right," Jack sneered, "so why don't you come and get some more!" His whole body shook, not with fear but with anger and bitterness.
It came at him again, faster than he had expected, catching his shoulder with its long nails and gashing him quite badly. Distantly it seemed he could feel the warm, clinging flow of his blood ebbing out against his shirt and his mind began to spin backward, pictures of Tom and the great times they had shared together flashing through his head. All gone now he told himself, an unwanted coldness creeping into his heart.
Moving with a frantic speed, amazing both himself and the thing, Jack feinted to his opponents left and then kicked out with ferocious strength, hitting the creature on its right side, ribs buckling beneath the force of his boot. An appalling howl erupted from the thing's mouth, its long black tongue dancing wildly in and out of its mouth as it struggled for breath. But Jack didn't care, he just went on kicking.
It scurried away from him, a last futile effort to save itself, but Jack rushed at it, bringing his boot down hard on the demon's throat. With a horrible gurgling sound, it began to convulse at his feet, clutching at the boy's leg. Jack shook it off and clapped his hands, laughing wildly. "See, you're not such a big monster. You're not so tough." Tears were welling up in his eyes, tears he could not hold back and he sobbed aloud as he watched the thing shudder and roll over onto its side. "You shouldn't have hurt Tom," Jack said softly. His fury had abruptly deserted him.
The creature's murky eyes rolled in their sockets to find him. "Why…why did you do this?" it pleaded in a forlorn whisper.
"I…," Jack said through his tears. "I couldn't help it."
"But I don't want to die," it murmured, eyelids flickering shut before opening slowly again.
Jack got down onto his knees, grief and despair overcoming him suddenly and timidly he placed a hand on its misshapen arm. "You didn’t give me any choice."
But the creature lay silent and still.
Murderer.
He slowly withdrew, clenching his hands into fists until his fingers hurt. He felt utterly empty inside, an awful weariness falling upon him.
An eye for an eye won't bring them back, said a voice from within.
"Forgive me," he begged in the callous silence, "please forgive me."
But it was too late. The deed was done and he was all alone.
You might just as well kill yourself too, a grim voice advised him from, it seemed, within his very soul.
"What's the point in going on?" wept Jack, his grief more than he could bear.
But no answer came. Even the inner voice had abandoned him.
"I might just as well be dead," he decided with finality and he stopped crying, wiping his smeared cheeks with both hands. His tears were ended, and so too was his life he realised. Looking over at the generator, Jack knew what he had to do. Words like vengeance and justice rushed through his broken mind, crushing any last fragment of reason he had and with bleak resolve he went to the machine.
No more tears he instructed his heart. Tears were for children and he did not feel like a child anymore. His childhood was over, a fading memory of something long ago.
A few clouds were the only intruders in the dazzling blue sky, transient ships carried on the wind, their sails billowing.
Tom had somehow managed to escape from the house, discovering beyond an extended garden of flowers a small gateway in the outer wall that was thankfully unlocked, leading him out into the freedom of the surrounding meadows and woodland. He ran on toward a copse of dense trees, anxious to find cover and once beneath them, he slowed a little, his mind in turmoil.
What about Jack? And Mo?
He came to a breathless halt beside the thick trunk of an old tree and rested against it. They let me escape. The more he thought about it the more certain he became. He had been allowed to run from the house. But why?
There's no hunt without a chase.
He faltered, unsure of what to do. Jack could be dead, a callous voice whispered in his head but he refused to listen, striking the bark with the palm of his hand.
In some heavy undergrowth just to his left a sound disturbed him and he crouched down, eyeing the vegetation warily. "Is someone there?" he spoke quietly, afraid that an enemy might have found him already. His words met with silence. "I know someone's there," he said in a louder voice, peering into the leaves and branches.
A small chuckle from bushes to his right made him spin quickly around, but whatever was watching him was well hidden and he saw nothing.
"Stop playing games," Tom said angrily.
"Who are you, foolish boy?" a deep voice abruptly boomed out from somewhere behind him and Tom almost fell over trying to turn around, but all he saw was more foliage.
"Why don't you show yourself?" he demanded, although he was very afraid now. There was the sound of gentle laughter and Tom wondered if this was some cruel, taunting part of the hunt.
"What might be your name, boy?" enquired the voice, somewhere to his left.
"My name's Tom, but I'm sure you already know that," he countered, turning in a slow circle, trying to pin-point where the voice was coming from.
"Ah," was the only comment, a murmur of breath among the leaves.
"Who are you?" Tom asked, not really expecting an answer, but after a short pause the disembodied voice spoke again.
"I am called Elrin Jinn and you’ll be needing my help very soon."
Tom didn't know how to proceed. Surely this was just another deception. "Why should I trust you?"
"If I were you, master, I would trust no-one," came the quick response, "but it may go some way toward reassuring you if I say that we have a mutual friend. One who goes by the name of Mo."
Hearing the badger's name, Tom so much wanted to believe that he had found an ally out here in the middle of nowhere, but he wasn't stupid or gullible and he knew full well that any one of the Wolf's minions could have knowledge of Mo, at least enough to make a pretence of friendship. "Why don't you come out into the open?" he said, watching the undergrowth carefully and even before he finished speaking, the leaves of a small bush in front of him began to rustle and as Tom looked on with widening eyes, an extraordinary thing happened.
A man appeared. And yet this was no ordinary man.
No bigger than Tom's hand, he wore tightly fitting garments all coloured emerald green, his eyes a vivid blue, sharp with intelligence and cunning. The tiny figure bowed cordially and Tom merely stared down dumbly at him, shaking his head.
"The redcoats are coming," the little man announced, his manner relaxed and in the distance, Tom heard the ominous clamour of baying hounds, coming closer with every second. "Shall we go?" Elrin Jinn queried and Tom hesitated, the sight of the man throwing him further off balance. "Do you want to die?" Jinn barked at him, but still Tom did not move.
"Can you help me?" Tom managed, wanting to believe that he could.
"Follow me."
Tom gave a feeble smile. "I'd lose you before we had even gone ten feet."
The man chuckled, clearly amused. "Perhaps I can remedy that."
Glancing once to his left and then to his right, the diminutive figure began to shake, at first as if he were merely cold and trembling for warmth, but then mo
re violently, almost as if he were having a seizure of some kind. Tom looked on, utterly speechless. He had seen a great many bizarre things since finding himself in this world, but this was by far the strangest. Right there before his eyes the little man had started to grow, slowly to begin with but then with increasing speed as his entire form changed. The process became a blur, his body growing larger and larger, rising up above Tom until the boy had to tilt his neck backward to see the man's face and within a matter of seconds, a figure of well above six feet stood before him.
Elrin Jinn loomed over Tom and held out his hand with a flourish, demanding attention. "Do you think you'll be able to see me now?" he queried with a wry smile and the boy just nodded by way of reply, unable to say anything. "Let us move on then," prompted the man, "for the hunters are abroad and they are wanting your blood."
Beneath a great sycamore tree, a woman dressed all in white, her long dark hair brushed by a light wind, stood waiting. Memories, distant, played through her mind, times that had been, times that would come. The woman laughed, the sound musical yet strident, her eyes cold.
The clamour of many people approached her place of refuge, excitement and impatience in their voices as they came across the greensward and massing around her, a silence fell among them as they waited expectantly for the woman to speak.
"Come one, come all," she welcomed them, "the chase is on and the prey is quick."
A murmur went through the gathering, every face turned toward her. All were dressed in
red tunics, some leading horses, while others held large hounds on a short leash, the powerful dogs pulling hard to be set free, eager to sniff out their quarry. At the head of the group, the tall guardian of the doors whom Tom had encountered watched the woman intently, his gleaming white teeth forming an exultant smile.
"Ready yourselves," she instructed them, pointing across the fields, "and make it a fine hunt."
The crowd roared their approval and raising his hand aloft, the tall man paused, looking to the woman, awaiting her sign.
She smiled, a salacious longing in her eyes that appeared obscene on such a beautiful face and the man brought his hand down abruptly setting the hounds loose, their muscular legs pushing violently into the earth as they bounded away into the fields.
The woman eyed the man with a strange mixture of tenderness and contempt. “Go, Jagaren, join them.“
With astonishing grace and speed the tall man made off after them, his long limbs carrying him over the uneven terrain as if he were gliding, and as swift as the dogs were he was soon beside them, running with the pack.
When he was gone, the others mounted their horses and looked to the woman, savage anticipation contorting their features. She did not keep them waiting for long, the slightest nod of her head sending them on their way, the horses crashing off along a muddy track, on toward the forest beyond, their hoofs thundering, a horn blown to herald their coming.
The woman in white stood alone, the sounds of the hunters dying quickly and all was as it
had been, tranquil, her white robe appearing to gleam as if she were a living torch, a sentinel beneath the tree.
Jack sat slumped against a wall. He was finished with remorse. There was nothing left inside him, not now that Tom and Mo were dead. He had tried to understand his feelings, but an awful, black shadow seemed to move through him, impalpable and yet malignant.
Maybe the creature had lied he had considered, while he still clung on to hope, trying to find a way to believe that it might be so. But the thing had intended to kill him and why would it have lied to him when it thought he was about to die? He remembered with alarming clarity the moment when the door had shut on Tom, trapping his friend within. What had been in there waiting for him? Jack didn't want to think about it anymore.
So it was, that in his grief and anger, he had done the terrible thing that was about to destroy the house and all of the evil that dwelt within it. Close by, the generator had begun to throb with power, now building upon itself, rising and multiplying and Jack knew what soon must happen. Even though he had no knowledge of such machines, it had not taken a genius to read the word DANGER written on a small meter that showed numerals that ascended higher and higher until they reached a zone marked in red. It had also not been too difficult to turn every dial he could find to its maximum point causing the needle to begin to move slowly but steadily up toward that red area. Jack welcomed the coming destruction, longing for an end to what he had come to believe was a pitiful existence.
"I hope the whole damned house goes up," he said sourly and of course, he knew that he would be the first to die. He found that he really didn't care about anything now. He didn't even care about the other people in the house. They deserve to die.
"They deserve to die!" he screamed aloud, his voice echoing futilely from the grey brick walls. "They're all murderers…just like me."
Beside him the generator had begun to gently shake, a humming sound growing persistently louder. Jack grinned, his face a mask of weary disgust. "I'm going out with a bang," he mumbled and he began to laugh quietly, fresh tears forming in his eyes. Electricity seemed to be running through his body. He could feel it in the air, crackling, throbbing toward the brink of annihilation.
But what about the girl? his brain suddenly demanded of him, a pocket of reason amid his utter despair.
"What girl?" he asked himself, disoriented, rubbing at his temples with a trembling hand.
Lisa.
Jack opened his mouth silently in dismay as he remembered that Lisa was somewhere inside the house. He had forgotten all about her. "She's one of them!" he shouted at the top of his voice.
But she saved Tom.
He glanced at the machine and saw that the tiny needle of death had touched the red and was continuing to rise. "It's too late," he whispered, looking around blindly. "Too late."
Glancing distractedly at the creature he had killed, he studied its broken, lifeless carcass. I'll be joining you soon, he thought and covered his face with his hands, not able to bear looking at the corpse any longer.
"I'm going to be a mass murderer now," he told himself calmly, although he grimaced as he spoke. The innocent and the guilty. "There's nothing I can do," he called out, guilt and despair piercing his heart.
The door to the room crashed open and a figure beckoned urgently to him. "Quickly," said a man's voice, "now whilst there is still time!"
And Jack went, willingly, crawling away from the machine that was about to rip itself apart, his blurry eyes trying to see who was leading him away from death, but all he saw was the glint of a silver sword hung at the man's side. He felt numb, the fact that he may yet still live hardly registering. He was just so utterly relieved to have someone else take control, his mind completely exhausted, that he would have done anything, gone anywhere that he was told to. "We have to save the girl," he muttered, "we have to save Lisa."
But the man did not reply, only moving on swiftly through the corridors of a house that was soon to be no more.
Passed down through countless years there was an old parable, said to be true. Few had understood it.
There was an ancient tree that had been severely burnt in a mysterious fire, tales of fireballs sent from the heavens that moved as if controlled by some unseen hand, uttered in frightened voices when wine had loosened usually silent tongues. And because of superstition and curiosity, people came to look upon the charred tree, some travelling great distances. But there were others who came for another purpose, intent on felling what most local people had branded as an unholy abomination, now black in spirit as well as hue.
The first who had tried, a simple farmer wanting nothing more than to clear the ugly thing from the land, had been afflicted by a paralysis the instant he had swung his axe and though he had recovered once away from the tree, the story had spread swiftly and soon others came, an unspoken challenge having been set.
The legend of the Black Tree, for so it was named, grew quickl
y, as one after another, each who attempted to cut it down were smitten as if by some invisible guardian. But not all suffered the same fate however. Some were struck blind, whilst others were driven instantly insane. In one unfortunate case, a young adventurer, on a wager from wild and reckless companions, fell into a deep unconsciousness as he stood before the tree and to those who cared for him thereafter, his sleep appeared to be plagued by the darkest of nightmares. He never woke, living the remainder of his life as a prisoner of those terrible dreams.
In time, the tree became a forbidden, accursed place, no-one willing to venture near, until on one particularly bitter winter's eve, a warrior came upon a shepherd boy who tended his flock. "Do you not fear for your animals?" the stranger had asked of the shepherd, gesturing toward the sheep as they strayed close to the scorched remains of the tree.
The boy had smiled, stroking a lamb who grazed nearby. "No, sir. They intend no harm."
The warrior nodded and smiled but said no more, instead going to stand amongst the blackened, exposed roots. As the shepherd looked on, the man knelt upon ash and cinder and bowed his head, speaking in low tones that the boy struggled to hear.
"Forgive them," murmured the warrior, completing what the young shepherd took to be a prayer and drawing nearer, he could not help himself but ask the question playing upon his mind aloud. "Who are you praying for?"
The stranger turned and there were tears in his eyes. "For all those who have suffered here. But now that is over." As he spoke a miraculous thing began to occur. Before them, the Black Tree, branches brittle, its dead trunk scarred, began to change, bark stirring, texture and colour appearing to slowly alter. The transformation was incredibly rapid, life blooming within the charred wood in seconds and when it was done, the shepherd saw that the tree had been made whole again, healthy, renewed, its lithe branches seeming to caress the night. "How can this be?" he had asked, awed by this wonder.
The warrior spoke without taking his eyes from the resurrected tree, its vitality almost tangible. "The power of forgiveness is far, far greater than the power of destruction, and only through redemption can that which is ruined be restored."
Now in the present, in the time of the Beast, Tom ran breathlessly through the undergrowth, the lesson of the Black Tree as yet unknown to him. As he followed Elrin Jinn, weaving through trees, hurdling rocks, he wondered once more whether he would ever find his way home again, his fears and doubts growing with every moment spent in this foreign landscape. Somewhere deep inside he still clung onto childhood, desperate to retain the innocent security it bestowed and yet within him, there was a new understanding that he had lost at least a part of his old self. There was no-one he could rely upon to look after him now. He had to stand alone or fail.
Pain began to tear at his side and as they splashed through a small stream, he managed to gasp, "when can we rest?"
But Elrin Jinn seemed to merely take this as a sign to step up his pace, calling over his shoulder harshly, "feeble boys will be meat for the hounds. Stop if you want to die, but if not, run on, for the redcoats are not far behind."
Tom's pulse beat at a ferocious rate and he was sure that his lungs were on fire, but he also knew that he had no choice but to keep going, to keep chasing the strange man even as the hunt chased him. Somewhere in the forest, closer than he would have believed possible, he could hear the growling and barking of many dogs, and they sounded very
much to him as if they were drawing nearer with every beat of his raging heart.
The hounds surged forward, frenzied in pursuit of their prey. At their head, Jagaren ran with graceful ease, the knowledge that they had the scent now spurring him on, while further behind, the hunters came upon their foaming horses, hoofs crashing, necks straining, whips licking at the animal's flanks. It was a good chase, for death ran with them.
Jagaren smiled as he darted through a shadowed grove, ducking his head beneath low hanging branches. I come for you, young one. Soon you will be mine.
He increased his speed and before too long even the powerful legs of the dogs could not match his pace. On he came, like some dark storm and there was no place to hide from him, nowhere to escape his deadly purpose.
A hunter born, dedicated to one pursuit and that alone. Stalk and kill.
