The White Tree

by Edward W. Robertson

  "Get teaching," Dante said once he'd let him in.

  "Oh, so it turns out you've still got things to learn?" Nak said, and in the mental coldness that hadn't quite left him Dante could tell Nak's jest wasn't meant to run him down, but came from a sense of admiration the monk could never voice in plain words.

  "I finished the Cycle," he said.

  "And?"

  "It felt like I'd been lifted to the moon," Dante said. He frowned. That wasn't right—it was incomplete, at least. "It felt like a foundation. Now it's time to quarry more blocks and keep building my tower."

  "Ah," Nak breathed. "You felt the touch of Arawn."

  "Perhaps," Dante said, not because he thought it might be true, but because he found he didn't care how Nak wanted to classify it. Nak scratched his bald pate and led Dante to the reading room. A spread of sparsely-worded primers lay in the soft winter sunlight on the desk. Dante picked one up, felt the last of his clear-eyed coldness seep away. "These look like they're made for children."

  "And unfortunately you know less than a child," Nak said, "but they're as simple as we have."

  Nak stepped him through the Narashtovik alphabet, which was nearly identical to Mallish but lacking three letters, and the subtleties of its pronunciation, which unlike the Mallish stew was regular and orderly as the board of a game of cotters, and which Nak claimed was close enough to Gaskan to sound like no more than a regional accent. He made Dante write it out five times, then speak each letter five more. He drilled Dante on the verb conjugations of Narashtovik and its relation to modern Gaskan. He showed him the structure of its grammar in simple sentences, taught him a handful of words, the precise laws of how a verb cycled through the tenses of the present, the past, the future, the subjunctive. He bade Dante write out a dozen verbs through each of their forms and left on some monkish errand. Busywork, Dante thought, and far too much to take in at once. That Nak wanted him to learn through rote memorization struck him as an insult. He did it anyway, writing out Nak's precise little tables. Nak returned and nodded at his work, correcting his past pluralizations, then went over it all again before leaving the boy with pages of hand-prepared vocabulary to study through the evening. The next day he had Dante write out maddeningly simple sentences about cats chasing balls and boys throwing sticks. The next day was the same, but working in the other tenses, repeating and repeating until Nak was satisfied what he'd taught had stuck.

  "When are we going to read something real?" Dante asked as Nak prepared to leave him once again.

  "Once we've laid a few blocks on your foundation."

  Dante rolled his eyes and turned back to his lists of words.

  "Learning much?" Blays asked him when he came back to their cell for the night.

  "Conjugates," Dante said, staring at the shadows on the ceiling.

  "How do you say to murder'?"

  "Natus," Dante said. He lifted his head, stared at Blays. "We knew this wouldn't work overnight. They have to learn to trust me before I'll be able to get close."

  Blays shook his head at the cold night and silent yard past the cell's small window.

  "There's a world outside this keep."

  "Give it time," Dante said. "I haven't forgotten why we're here. You just keep your eyes open while we wait for something to happen."

  Their wait didn't last long. Nak bent over Dante's latest lesson, following his sentences with the sharp tip of his pen, striking out words and muttering corrections, when the door banged open and slammed against the wall, shuddering to a stop.

  "Knuckles possess a great facility for knocking," Nak said. He looked up and his teeth clacked shut. "Uh, my lord."

  "The boy," Larrimore said, beckoning with a single flick of his finger. Three guards crowded in behind him.

  "I have a name," Dante said.

  "That will only be an issue if we decide you're worthy of a tombstone." Samarand's Hand nodded to the guards. They grabbed Dante by the elbows and dragged him toward the door. The bluster he'd come at them with back at the cathedral and ever since crumpled into nothing. He could only gape at Nak, plead dumbly for help from the middle-aged monk.

  Nak tapped his fingers together. "May I ask—"

  "Their Cycle is a fake," Larrimore said, running his tongue along his teeth.

  "Ah," Nak said. "Upsetting."

  Larrimore ignored him, turning on his heel. The guards hauled Dante out the door and out the chapel. He struggled to keep his feet, toes scraping the stone yard. Blays shouted from behind them. Dante winked at him and tried not to throw up.

  "I have legs," he said, boots scuffing through the dirt.

  "For now," Larrimore said.

  "I don't know what this is about." He wriggled his shoulders, twisting his body to find a way to meet Larrimore's eyes. "Do you hear me?"

  Larrimore looked down on him, face impassive, then reached out and flicked Dante's nose hard enough to make his eyes water. They carried him up the steps and inside the keep, through its airy entrance and down a hall adorned by tapestries of Arawn and his deeds, by gray-bearded men hoisting pennants and flags over their foes. The guards slowed enough to let him catch his feet as they reached a stairwell that descended to a cool, well-lit subfloor. Larrimore took out a heavy iron key and opened the second door they reached. Dante was yanked through the doorway and heaved into a heap on the plain stone floor. Other than a single lantern by the door the room was empty, chilly, hard rock with dust on every surface.

  The armsmen moved to either side of the door. Larrimore shut it and folded his arms behind his back, regarding Dante for a long minute. Dante tucked his feet beneath him and clasped his hands in his lap. Without changing his expression, Larrimore lashed out and booted him in the ribs.

  "Cut that pious crap. There's no priests here."

  Dante had fallen to his palms, gasping for breath, rage flashing through his skull. Pain rattled up his nerves, but he let his body hurt, knowing it wouldn't kill him.

  "Tell me why I'm here," he said.

  Larrimore snorted. "Don't play games. You gave us a copy."

  "I gave you the same book I took from the temple."

  Larrimore stepped forward and slapped him so the ends of his nails bit into Dante's cheek.

  "Tell me where the real one is. Now."

  Dante made his face twist with anger. It wasn't hard. "How do you know it's a fake?"

  The man just laughed. Dante's heart shuddered. How did they know he'd given them the copy he'd found in one of the temples in Narashtovik? Had they found the real one? Had they dug it up from where he'd buried it in the yard of the house next to the one he and Blays had lived in just inside the city's first wall? But they couldn't have: otherwise they'd be busy killing him, not questioning him. He stayed silent.

  "There are no identical copies," Larrimore said. "You idiot. Like we wouldn't look past the pretty white tree on the cover. Your attempt at deception is outrageous in its stupidity. As if we have no records. No way to check." He blinked, tightened his jaw. "You gave us a copy. An old one, but a copy nonetheless."

  "It's the same one I found. Maybe you've been chasing the wrong one this whole time."

  "Where is it?"

  Dante rolled his eyes. "If you're so sure I've got it, why don't you just conjure it out of my pocket? Or sniff it out like you did all across Mallon?"

  "Because we can't," Larrimore snapped, jerking his head back and forth with each syllable. "We're not hounds and it's not a fox. It can be lost as simply as anything else. Including lives."

  "Then how do you know you weren't chasing a fake? "

  Larrimore lashed out with his boot, aiming for Dante's side. The boy shifted at the last instant and it struck him in the hip. He sprawled out on the stone. The nether throbbed at the edges of his vision. He panted, glaring up at the other man.

  "Answer me!"

  Larrimore bared his teeth. He pressed his fist against his brow and shook his head.

  "We followed you by the blood you left at the te
mple," he said, leaning forward as if preparing to kick Dante again. "We know the book there was the real one. Ergo, you had it."

  "But it's fakes you plant in the temples!" Dante pushed himself back to his knees and glared up at the man. "That's right. I'm versed in your bizarre little scheme. How you leave out copies where people can find them, then if they survive your attacks you scoop them up and induct them into your order. If they break instead, you toss them away like toy soldiers. And I'm supposed to believe I somehow got my hands on the one true Cycle."

  Larrimore had drawn up short during Dante's speech. His eyes were slits, his voice as low as the floor.

  "How do you know all that?"

  "You look at me and you see some boy. I've traveled a thousand miles. I've killed a dozen of your men. I've taught myself to work the nether." For a moment he forgot his bluster, was taken instead by a curiosity he'd had since Cally'd told him how they used the book. "Why do you leave it out like that? Why do you recruit people that way? Why so complicated?"

  "Because it works," Larrimore said. He stood in place a moment, face frozen as he stared at Dante. "Men like you are as rare as a monk that isn't fat. Do you know how few people can work the nether? We need as many as we can find. Their strength's the only thing keeping us from being crushed." He continued to stare, like he'd forgotten this was an interrogation. "You're a strange one."

  "I just want to learn."

  "You still can. Just tell me where it is."

  "I don't know," Dante said, though he knew the man wasn't lying, that they would still take him back if only he told them where to find the book.

  "Enough. More than enough." Larrimore crouched down in front of Dante, eyes bright and hard. Again Dante had the sense he could become this man. Cunning as the animal mind of a drunk, open-eyed enough to seize the unexpected and turn it to his advantage before it could be turned against him, with a will so swift and sharp he could trust his quickest instincts to lead him where he wanted. That was the difference between them, Dante thought. Dante knew what he wanted, had the same ability to adapt rather than be caught flat-footed by the false assumption of a rigid mentality. But he didn't know how to act—or didn't trust his impulses to make his desires fact. The burn in Larrimore's eyes told him the man hadn't yet made up his mind to kill him, that there was a way to convince him he didn't have the book and still be kept as a student of the order. Yet Dante's only plan since he'd found the extra copy of the Cycle in the garbage of one of their old temples after Samarand's sermon was one of scorn and contempt, a whirlwind of arrogance meant to keep them so far back on their heels they wouldn't have the wits to question anything he said. It had worked till now, till they looked closely at the prize he'd tossed at their feet. And now he was snared.

  Bluster and violence were all he knew. He didn't know how to convince Larrimore of a lie. They had him. This was their castle. Their city. Their army of men guarding its gates, their troop of priests hoarding its lore. If he'd been something more, he could have talked his way out. Instead he had no more than his one simple lie:

  "I don't know where it is."

  "The boring part, then," Larrimore said, almost sadly. "Torture. I think we'll start with Blays."

  "He's got nothing to do with this!"

  "Of course he doesn't."

  "Then why him? Why not me?"

  "Because he'll get to you better than if we put you in the boots."

  "Don't," Dante said. He knew Blays would die before he gave up their secrets. He was stupid that way. "You're a reasonable man. Why don't you just believe me?"

  "Because you're lying," Larrimore sighed. He got up, knees popping, and nodded at the guards. One opened the door.

  "Wait," Dante said. He swallowed back his nausea. "What about the prophecy?"

  Larrimore paused at the door, face unreadable. "Which prophecy might that be?"

  "The one from the Cycle."

  "It's a big book," Larrimore said, dropping his hand from the door frame.

  "The south shall bear the child of flame," Dante intoned, quoting the passage he'd found in the last pages of that final third, the close of which he'd read every night since, "with bleeding hands and bleeding blade; in Millstar's skies he'll write his name and brother's treason be unmade."

  "Rubbish. Just like all poetry."

  "I came from the south."

  "Everyone's from the south," Larrimore said. "There's nothing north of here but piles of rock and farmers too stupid to know you can't squeeze wheat from stone."

  Dante held up his hands, showed the scars of all the times he'd cut his hands to feed the nether's hungry mouths.

  "And these?"

  "Every priest of worth has those. Or on the backs of his hands, or on his forearm—or his forehead, if he's given to theatrics."

  Dante folded his hands in his lap. Other than attacking the man and his guards outright, it had been his last play. He might be able to kill them. He might even be able to get to Blays before the rest of the Citadel knew what was happening. He wouldn't be able to get them out, though, and would never be able to kill her. It would all be for failure. Tears stung his eyes and he closed them. He couldn't give up the book, either; he didn't know why, just that it was too important, could tip the balance so far that even Samarand's death wouldn't be enough to cease their aggression. He would do nothing, then. He wouldn't break. The least he could do was keep his silence until they stole his very voice.

  "Stonewalling," he heard Larrimore mutter. "Delusions of destiny don't impress me. Your only coin's the book. If Blays doesn't give it up, we'll be back for you soon enough."

  Dante snapped open his eyes and fixed them on Larrimore. "If I'm so unimportant, why are you doing everything you can not to hurt me?"

  "You're overlooking the possibility that's a measure of my own stupidity rather than a measure of your own worth." Larrimore smiled, then remembered himself. "Wait here," he joked. He gestured to the guards and they stepped outside.

  "What will Samarand do when she finds you've murdered the keystone of her desire?" Dante shouted after them. He heard them speak in Gaskan to each other, then the door clunked shut. A lock snapped into place and the hallway went silent.

  Dante stood, wincing at his rib and hip, brushed dust from his trousers. Other than himself, the dust, and the lantern flickering by the door, the room was completely empty. At least it was clean. He felt calm, somehow, as if his few minutes with Larrimore had spent all his available emotion. Feeling stupid, he tried the door and was almost glad that it didn't budge. He had nothing in his pockets but some of Nak's papers and his torchstone. He sat back down in the middle of the room. Had anyone ever learned to teleport themselves? What was the point of all he'd learned if he couldn't use it to escape a simple dungeon?

  He could probably blast down the door, he thought. Murder the guards Larrimore would have posted outside. Still, anything drastic depended on being certain they were going to kill him or Blays or both, and he had the odd conviction that wasn't the case. He'd planted the seed of doubt with Larrimore, thrown him with that crazy scripture of prophecy, if only by a little. Larrimore didn't strike him as the kind of man who put too much stock in anything—likely why Samarand had taken him as her captain—but he was the captain, and if he was off consulting with anyone it would be with her. As the holiest of their order, perhaps she would put a little more weight in the possibility of Dante's importance.

  He'd wait and see, then. Doing anything rash would ruin both their chance to assassinate Samarand and his ability to learn the nether through the structured instruction of this place rather than through whatever fragments he could scrape together on his own. They'd decide either to kill him or use him. He wouldn't act until he knew which.

  Time went by. Without a window on the sky he had no way to tell how much. He conjugated irregular verbs for a while. He killed some time holding his breath for as long as he could, then waited for his gasps to subside and tried it again. He made a methodic sweep of the ro
om, poking every stone up to the eight-foot ceiling, tapping his toe against every block in the floor. None were false or loose. He hadn't expected they would be, but he liked to think someone who'd shared this room before him had made an effort to escape rather than let himself rot, clapped up and forgotten.

  It wasn't until he could no longer forestall urinating that he grew angry. There were no buckets, no holes in the floor. They hadn't exactly forgotten about him in a few hours, either. It was deliberate. They wanted to reduce him to an animal. Degrade his pride. He did his business in a corner and laid down on the other side of the room, breathing through his mouth. After a while he even slept.

  Dante woke to pitch darkness. He jerked upright, flinching as if he expected to bang his head. The lantern had gone out. He groped for the near wall, leaning forward until his fingers brushed stone. He let himself wake up for a minute. Torchstone in his pocket. He cocked his head, listened for the scrabbles of rats or anything else lurking in the blindness. There was no need for light, the room was practically a complete seal. Darkness couldn't hurt him. For a while longer he sat there, listening to himself breathe. Maybe it was a good thing he was still locked up. Maybe that meant they had lots of things to talk about.

  His stomach gurgled. He had no way to know how long he'd slept, but from his stomach, insistent but not yet pained, he guessed it had been some twelve hours since he'd eaten lunch shortly before they'd dragged him here. He sucked on his fingers, straining his eyes against the inky darkness. He stilled his mind. A coldness like exposing wet skin to a breeze crept over his hands. He thought on the nature of the shadowsphere, the all but solid substance of its delumination, a deeper blackness even than that of this room. He bent his mind to define the sphere by what it wasn't. By its un-ducklike properties. He laughed through his nose, and as his breath touched his palm he could see the creases of his skin, white and illusory as a flash of pain. It winked out at his surprise and he cast back out for its feeling, gathering it in like rope onto a pier. First a spot: and then he saw his hand, his wrist, it expanded over his arm, the dust on his knees and the smooth stone floor. He stood slowly, willing the light to grow. His line of sight bubbled outward until all the room was lit in ghostly white. It had been so simple. What else could he do if he took the time to think about it?