In the Tower of the Witching Tree

by Deck Matthews

  “Influence is it?”

  —Such is the boon.

  Shade considered. It would be a useful trick. No doubt there. Trust was a delicate thing, especially to the games of confidence in which she traded. A fortune was a thing worth having, but one that could be gained on the back of trust and influence. But that was only a part of the appeal. Such influence might have saved her from trouble back home, or from the frost-white scar that marred her upper thigh. Such a boon might have altered the course of her life. Allowed her to talk instead of run. To love instead of mourn.

  The past is spent, she scolded herself. There’s no getting it back.

  She turned to the third globe. When the light faded, a single rose rested on the stone surface. Shade circled the pillar, scrutinizing the flower. Like the bangle and the circlet, it was skillfully crafted, with detail so fine that it would have seemed a real rose had it not been formed from dull, blackened iron. Still, there seemed something else there, a shimmer of colour lurking just beneath the surface. Shade started to reach out.

  —To grasp it is to accept the boon, child.

  Her hand froze. She glanced back toward the tree. “What is it?”

  —A rose of forgotten sorrow. Here lies the chance to undo your greatest regret, to set right a single mistake.

  Shade’s throat seized up in a choking knot of breath that nearly set her to coughing and sputtering sour spittle. An image formed in her mind. A face with a broad jaw and a prominent nose. Dark, accusing eyes echoed the deep questions of her own soul. Why? Why did you leave me behind to die?

  Why indeed?

  She’d dreamed of the chance to go back. To make a different choice. To stay instead of run. Maybe it would have been her death too. She liked to think she’d have faced it bravely, laughing at the coming of the Last Wind. But such were the dreams of a foolish girl and an idle fancy. Shade brushed them away again, just as she always had.

  —The chance is yours, child. You need only reach out and grasp it.

  “There’s no going back.” She growled between clenched teeth. “No changing what was. The past is spent.”

  Isn’t it? Her hand rose. Her palm itched with the need of the rose, to just grasp its blackened iron. No! She shook her head, blinked her eyes and bit down on her lip until the coppery tang of blood kissed her tongue. “You can’t unmake such a choice!” She screamed. Her voice went raw, her throat dry like the sands of distant Dunemoor. “It doesn’t flaming work that way!”

  —But it could, child. This is magic, after all. The magic of the Teirwetch is old and powerful beyond all your dreams and imaginings.

  Once again, the name touched something in Shade’s mind, some truth she couldn’t quite grasp. But she was closer now. She could sense it scratching at the fringes of her thought.

  —I know you, Shaydra Li Runne. Money and influence appeal to you. But this third boon is what you long for. To unmake your mistake. To save Ronnan…

  “No!” Her voice cracked like a whip, flaying at the emptiness of the great room. The few remaining firebugs retreated from her fury. “Don’t you speak that name,” she hissed. “Don’t you dare speak that name.” Her eyes remain fixed on the iron rose. She was shaking now. Her raised hand trembled before her, with longing and rage and cold, stark terror. It inched forward.

  —Yes, child. Take it up. Accept my boon.

  “Something isn’t right.”

  —All is as it should be. It’s but the simplest thing in the world. Just reach out now. On the count of three. One. Two. Three.

  “Four!” Shade howled. “There were four pillars. Four boons! You’ve only shown me three!” She tore her gaze away from the rose, wrenching her to the side with a colossal force of her will. There, on the fourth pillar, rested a simple feather. It was not wrought of gold or silver or iron. It bore no jewels or ornament. It was a plain, downy white, flecked with threads of yellow and orange. The sort of common thing she might find laying on the forest floor. “What is it?” she asked.

  —A mere trinket of little interest. The rose…

  “What is it?” The Teirwetch's branches rustled again. A shadow seemed to fill the room, like a cloud passing over the sun.

  —A trifling charm that allows the bearer to fall from a great height as gently as a feather. It has but a single use and is nothing compared to the chance to unmake your mistake, child. To live the life you dared to dream of.

  Ronnan. Again, his face appeared in her mind, clear and perfectly remembered. It was a plain sort of face. A common face. What would you do? What choice would you make? And all at once, she knew. In that moment, Shaydra Li Runne understood the truth, as plain and simple as his face. As his love. She’d spoken the words herself. Something for nothing is always…

  She knew her choice, though it wrenched her heart to make it. She took a single step toward the iron rose and all its hope and promise. The tree seemed to tremble in the gleeful anticipation of the moment. As Shade reached out, a single thought echoed in her mind, an old rhyme from her childhood.

  Beware false boons wrapped in threes…

  Her hand was a mere inch from the rose when she turned and threw herself to her left. Outstretched fingers closed around the feather, grasping its softness and clutching at it like a lifeline.

  —Nooooo! Foolish child! Ungrateful shrew!

  “Beware the lies of the Witching Tree,” Shade spat, finishing the verse aloud. “For that’s what you are, isn’t it, demon? I stand before the Witching Tree?”

  All at once, the room went dark. The vaulted ceilings collapsed to a normal height. The polished stone floors aged by centuries before Shade's eyes, cracking and growing a thick layer of filth and grime. The firebugs lost their light, becoming black moths that filled the air like a billowing smoke. But it was the tree that changed the most. Its silvery bark shrivelled to a blackened husk. Its blood red leaves wilted to tongues of brownish slime. Branches drooped. Roots shrunk. Something like a face emerged from its trunk, eyes all twisted with hate and anger, weeping with oily sap.

  —I could have given you everything!

  “At what price, demon? My soul, I expect?”

  —We played the game! The price was paid!

  "And I took your bloody boon, just as we agreed. And that's your trick, isn't it? The stories tell how the Witching Tree always offers a choice. Slavery or freedom. But she’s a devious sort of spirit who hides a single truth behind the fine trappings of a threefold lie. Well, piss on you. I’ll have none of it. And you’ll have none of me.”

  —Then you’ll die!

  Once again, the tower shook and trembled. This time, the cracks in the floor widened, snaking beneath her feet. The withered branches of the Witching Tree shot out, rushing toward her like blackened tentacles. Shade had no doubt that their touch would be her death. She turned and fled, dancing left and right, but sprinting ever onward. The walls of the room had vanished. Perhaps they'd never been there at all. Only the single window remained, slightly ajar, just as she'd left it. All an illusion, then. And a damned convincing one. No time to climb down.

  She clutched the feather in her fist. A trifling magic. Blessed Nine, be the one truth in the net of lies.

  Shaydra Li Runne threw herself at the window. Hinges shrieked. One cloudy pane shattered with the impact of her shoulder, spraying shards of glass that bit at her face and neck. The thin tendrils of blackened branches twisted around her. One flicked at her boot, failing in its final effort to grasp at her. For one, brief moment, Shade seemed to hang in the air.

  Then she fell like a stone.

  Oh, hells.

  The ground rushed toward her with unsettling speed. She twisted back toward the tower, looking for any hold to grasp at, but now the building itself was crumbling. Something like black smoke seeped out from the mortar, even as the blocks of stone grew a thick layer of moss and lichen. Somewhere above her, there was the sound of snapping wood and a scream filled with baleful anguish. She clutched harder at the feather. Come
on, you blasted thing!

  And still, Shade fell.

  So much for magic.

  She twisted again, until she was looking upward, watching the top of the tower rush away from her. So much for laughing at the coming of the Last Wind. Might as well be surprised…

  The impact was jarring—and not at all what she expected. It felt like plunging into a pool of deep water. There was a sudden impact followed by a slow, gradual descent. Moments later, her back touched something cool and solid. She grasped at it with one hand and felt earth and leaves and scattered pine needles. Turning her head, she found a single chipmunk standing on its haunches, watching her curiously. She sneered and it scurried away.

  “Blessed Mother,” Shade muttered. She lay there for a moment, breathing deeply. When she opened her eyes again, she knew the world had changed. She glanced around. The tower was nowhere to be seen. The forest was quiet and undisturbed, as though the tower had never been there at all. Shade might have been tempted to think it all a dream, were it not for the feather still clutched in her hand.

  “Bloody magic,” she muttered. “At least I still have the…” Oh, hells. She patted at her vest. The emeralds were gone. “Must’ve come loose during the fall.”

  She was about to set herself to searching when she heard the voices. “What’s that?” A man spoke—hard, gruff and all too familiar. “Thought I heard something. Just over there.”

  “Then have a bloody look! The constable’ll have our balls if we come back without either her or the widow’s emeralds.”

  Guards! Bloody, flaming hells! There was no time to search, not if she wanted to keep the noose from her neck. After surviving an encounter with the fabled Witching Tree, Shaydra Li Runne had no intention of laying her life down to some backwater constable. Not over a tiny pouch with a few emeralds. She was alive, and she knew what Ronnan would say if he were with her. There’s always another day. Another job and another game. She’d be ready to play it.

  But she knew there’d was always another price to pay.

  About the Author

  Deck Matthews is a pseudonym for one particular Matthew Ward, who lives in Ottawa, Canada with his wife, two daughters and one little fluff ball of a dog named Wicket. He is the creator of the Varkas Chronicles. You can follow along with the adventure on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.

  Photography by Hello Lovely Studios