by Leo Hunt
“I did,” the owl-masked figure says in a hoarse, croaking voice, distorted by the mask. “I could not — I implore my master. I found there was still a shard of kinship and pity within me. The pain you inflicted upon me has given me ample time to reflect. I was mistaken. It will not happen again. Allow me to redeem myself.”
“You permitted them to escape. You intentionally deceived me. Am I to forget this?”
“Am I not your beloved servant, O Tree? Do I not love and worship you as none other does? I beg of you this last chance. Do not cast me aside so easily, after I have made but one mistake. Allow me to destroy the boy and prove myself to you. Let me shed the last of my humanity.”
There’s a silence. Margaux, the Tree, seems to be caught in thought. Then the owl-masked Apostle falls from where it hangs, the rope that keeps it tethered to the Barrenwhite Tree breaking. The robed body hits the snowy ground with a thud, and then rises to its feet, like a broken puppet. Limbs snap back into place, and the owl-masked Apostle flexes long, clawed fingers.
“You are indeed my beloved servant and sought me out when all others had long abandoned me,” the Barrenwhite Tree says. “Your falsehood was grievous, but the situation may be salvaged still. . . . Very well. I offer this as your one chance to redeem yourself. Kill your son, and you will ever be in my favor. I name you champion, Horatio.”
What?
It’s just a name, surely.
Other people have that name, too.
The second Apostle removes his black owl mask. A shiver of panic runs through me.
It really is him.
It’s Dad.
I’m lying in cold grass, Elza beside me. My mouth throbs and there’s blood on my chin. The sky is a boiling cauldron of light. The bird-people stand over us.
“It is done,” the bird-woman says. “The gate is broken.”
“What do you wish?” the owl-man asks her.
Green light crawls across our bodies. I can’t move.
“We have no more need of them. Body or spirit.”
“As you command,” the owl-man replies.
He reaches down with terrible clawed hands and picks me and Elza up by our necks. Our arms and legs dangle. He’s so strong.
“This one is my kin,” the owl-man says to the bird-woman.
“I know,” she replies. “We did not choose them by chance.”
“Such actions are not for the light of the great ones,” he says. “May I have a moment of privacy?”
“Of course, my Apostle,” the bird-woman replies. “I will allow you a last moment with your son. But his blood must flow. I demand this.”
“I remain your servant,” the owl-man says.
Horatio Manchett steps across the line of blue-green fire and into the ring. Last time I spoke to him, he looked just like he did when he was alive: white suit, purple shirt, hands heavy with rings. Now his shape has begun to change. His long, thinning hair, which was as dark as mine, has bleached snow white. His eyes are ten times larger than any human’s, grotesquely stretching his face, wide and golden orange, with slitted black pupils. The eyes of an owl, I realize. His hands have become monstrous talons, the skin of his palms wattled and pitted, the claws thick and vicious-looking. His mouth has been transformed into a hooked beak, the hard bill pushing through the flesh of his face. He looks deformed, awful, caught between man and beast.
“What happened to you?” I ask.
“Your humanity is the first thing to disappear,” Dad says in that strange hoarse voice, “when you make the promises I have made.”
“Horatio,” Berkley says. “This is a surprise.”
“I wish I could say the same,” Dad replies. He flexes his talons.
“You found a new master, then,” Berkley says. “Why ever did I let you go, Horatio?”
“Because I asked you to,” I say to Berkley. “And I told you I never wanted to see you again,” I say to Dad.
“I didn’t choose this, Luke. Any of it.”
“Your son calls me Father now,” Berkley tells Dad, smiling again. “He has proven himself greater in spirit than you ever did, and I have decided to raise him higher than you could have dreamed.”
I grip the sword. Is this Dad’s fault? After everything I did, after letting him go, did he bring the Barrenwhite Tree to Dunbarrow? Helped it swallow the town where me and Mum live? How could he do that? I wouldn’t even know Mr. Berkley if it wasn’t for him. I should’ve sent him to the darkness and been done with all of this. He’s a monster.
As the anger grows, I see my sword ignite, bloodred flames spitting from the edge of the black blade.
“You know, I find this fitting,” Mr. Berkley says to me, loudly, so Dad can hear. “Fitting that your first act in my service will be to overcome this false father. Ancestor of your discarded flesh. Show no quarter, Luke. This is your new birth.”
“Enter the circle, Speaker’s pawn,” Margaux says in the Tree’s voice. “I tire of talk.”
I’m about to step over the line of green fire, when I remember I haven’t even spoken to Elza. I turn to look at her, standing beside Berkley, as lost and miserable as I’ve ever seen her. Her hood is down, snow settling in her black hair, and she looks at me like I’m a ship vanishing into a storm.
“I’m still me,” I say to her.
“I know,” she says.
“I’m coming back,” I say.
I want to grab hold of her, kiss her, but something in the way she’s looking at me stops me. Does she really believe I’m pretending to work for Berkley?
Am I even pretending now?
I can’t look at her. This will work out. I know it will. I turn away and step over the line of flame, into the circle.
“The circle closes,” the Tree says.
“The circle closes,” Berkley replies.
“Let what may be, be.”
“Let what may be, be,” Berkley says.
The azure-green flames flare higher, a heatless barrier around the arena. Dad’s bare feet crunch in the snow as he moves to my left. The sound from outside seems muffled, far away. I can hear Berkley talking again but can’t make out his speech. The world outside the arena barely exists for me anymore. I can feel strength from Berkley’s sword flowing through me. I feel like I could count the scales on the backs of Dad’s awful hands. I can see the flesh of his face shift as he speaks, his beak moving in a gross, puppet-like motion in time with his words.
“They cannot hear us here,” he says.
“So?” I say, holding the flaming sword out before me in both hands.
“What passes between champions is theirs alone.”
“Why are you doing this?” I ask. “I hate you. Why did you come back?”
Dad swipes at me with one clawed hand, startlingly fast, and I leap back, snow spraying around my legs. I swing with the sword, suddenly feeling panicked, hitting nothing. I’ve only seen people sword fight in the movies. I know you’re meant to hit people with the blade and that’s about it. I’ve got power, mostly borrowed from Berkley, but I don’t know what to do with it.
“I do not wish you harm,” he says.
“Oh yeah?”
“I swear on it. But only one may leave here alive.”
I lunge forward with the flaming blade, bloodred sparks spraying into Dad’s deformed face as the sword passes just in front of him. He doesn’t even flinch.
“I let you go free! I made a deal with Berkley for you! And you run off to this Tree and betray us! You bring it here!”
“I know,” he says. His wide golden eyes don’t convey any emotion, but he sounds sad. “But it is never so simple.”
“I let you go! All I asked was you leave us alone!”
“Attack me again,” he says. “This must look like a true battle.”
Is this a trick? I can’t tell. I thrust forward with the sword, and he bats it aside with one clawed hand. There’s iron force in those arms. The dad I knew was no athlete, could barely run upstairs without getting wi
nded, but we’re not fighting with our muscles, and whatever’s happened to him in Deadside has strengthened him. If he really wanted, I think he could destroy me. I swipe again, not even pretending, really trying to hit him, and he ducks easily under the blade, slicing upward with his claws and scoring a terrible cold slash across my face. I yell out and fall back, clutching at the wound. He stalks toward me.
“I was left alone in the hungry wilds of Deadside,” he says, talking quickly in his raspy, quiet voice. “I was alone. Do you know what Asphodel is like for a newly dead necromancer? Do you know how many enemies I had made? Those who bind the dead are not beloved by the dead themselves, Luke. Many spirits wished to claim they were the one who devoured Horatio Manchett.”
“I don’t care!” I shout, swiping at him with my sword.
“I needed a patron. I needed protection. And in the forgotten reaches of the spirit realms, far beyond the borders of Asphodel or Tartarus, the cold corners of the exiled and lost, I discovered a power I had long heard whispers of: the Barrenwhite Tree. An elder spirit, one that remembers the Beginning —”
I swing at him again. My sword runs with crimson, thirsty for battle, and it feels like the blade that Berkley forged is pulling me forward of its own accord. Dad counters, a flurry of wild swipes that somehow always manage to miss me. He’s so fast, I can barely follow the blows. I stagger backward. He could end this at any time, I’m sure of it.
“I needed strength. I needed a master. I could not survive otherwise.”
“So you did something bad to help yourself. What’s new?”
“I took an oath and became the Tree’s first Apostle in countless ages. I swore to serve and aid it, in return for protection. For a time the situation benefited me. I was safe, with a new master, and I learned much about the two worlds from the stories the Tree told me, truths I had never even suspected in all my research during my time among the living. It told me stories of the Beginning, the great war between the elder spirits, the division of the two worlds. . . . But the Tree came to doubt my loyalty. Many had betrayed it before. It demanded . . . the Barrenwhite Tree demanded to swallow Dunbarrow for its Feast. Nothing and nowhere else would suffice.”
“So you just let it?” I scream. I stab the black sword at his deformed head, not faking the blow at all. He dances aside, dark Apostle’s robe flowing as he moves.
“I begged and pleaded, but the Tree would not be moved. Only Dunbarrow would do. Only the home of my wife and child. To prove my true devotion once and for all.”
“And you went along with it?”
“There was nothing else to do! If I refused to help, I would be destroyed and the Tree would take Dunbarrow regardless! Please!”
“You don’t care about me! You never did! You left me! You killed my brother! You would’ve killed Ash and Ilana! You don’t care about anyone but you!”
The blade slices into his clawed hand, severing a finger. No blood runs from the stump, just a trickle of ashen gray mist.
“I saved you!” he rasps, not seeming to notice the injury. “I saved you and Elza! I took you into the forest after the gate was opened and lied to the Tree, saying that I had killed you both! My hands were reddened only with deer blood. I let you live, hoping you would find a way to escape!”
“You — what?”
As he says this, I remember . . .
The owl-man takes us past the trees of stone, away from the writhing light. He carries me and Elza into the darkness of the woods. When we’re far from the bird-woman, far from her sight, he places us on the ground. The owl-man holds his clawed hands out to the trees and calls. I don’t understand him.
A pair of deer come out of the blackness. They’re not afraid of us. They’re small and brown and tender. The owl-man reaches out and slices their necks. They die without a sound.
“I do this for you,” he says. I don’t understand.
He touches each deer once behind the ear, with his long claws, and the bodies change, becoming a boy with brown hair, a girl with a black storm cloud around her head. Their throats are cut, their eyes blind.
Me and Elza are on our feet.
“Run,” the owl-man tells us.
. . . him cutting our bonds, telling us we could go free. I remember the deer, how they walked up to him and he killed them instead of us. I remember running into darkness without looking back, not knowing who was under the mask or why they saved us, running from the light behind us, and after a time I regained my true self, the Tree’s spell broken, and I found myself alone in the frozen woods with a hot pain in my jaw.
He saved us, me and Elza.
“I will not kill my son!” Dad says. “I will not!”
“You killed my brother,” I say.
“And it was the worst mistake I ever made,” he says. “Were I to attempt pilgrimage along the Styx, I would be given a mountain to pull at the end of my chain.”
I scream and whirl at him with the sword. Red flame scores a crescent in the air.
“You think you can apologize and I’ll forgive you?”
“No,” he says, dancing backward, “no. Never. But I love you.”
“Bullshit!”
Dad leaps at me, bellowing like an animal. His clawed hands rake at my face. I scream and fall to the ground, snow spraying around us. I hear Berkley’s voice roaring something, but it’s muffled and far away. Dad’s right hand clamps over mine, pinning the sword down against the earth. His left hand is clasped around my neck.
“It is the truth,” he says, his golden owl’s eyes unblinking. He’s heavy and cold as stone against me. “Whether you accept it or not. I am your father, and I love you. I always have.”
“You’re a monster! You’re disgusting!”
“I could end this now,” Dad says. I force myself to look right at him, at his glowing orange eyes and his horrible beak. “I could rend your spirit apart with my claws. The Speaker of Secrets itself would be undone, by its own vows. Would the two worlds be better off without that dark being?”
“They would,” I say.
“So much good I could do with one terrible blow,” he says. “But I will not. I will not lose my other son. I have lost too much already.”
“What do you want?” I ask. “What do you want from me?”
“I wanted to explain myself. I thought maybe — no. No matter. The time for forgiveness has passed.” The back of his throat glows with the same golden-orange light as his eyes, I see as he speaks. “Destroy Berkley,” he says to me. “Destroy the Speaker of Secrets. Only then will you be safe.”
“You think I don’t want that?”
“It claims you call it Father now. Do not be fooled. The Speaker will tire of you eventually and leave you behind.”
“He thinks he knows what I want,” I say. “He doesn’t. I’m only doing any of this to save Dunbarrow. To save the people you were willing to let the Tree consume.”
“Show my master mercy and it will be in your debt,” Dad hisses. “Promise me. Show it mercy.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Struggle against me, Luke. This must seem real!”
I try to prize his claws away from my throat. I struggle to raise my flaming sword. There’s just no way — he’s far too strong. I can see Berkley and Margaux and Elza watching, from beyond the green flames, but they seem far away, distorted, like I’m viewing them through molten glass.
“I do not wish to go on,” Dad whispers, face close to mine. “This must be the end. It has all been a mistake. Beginning to end. I wish I had never found that tomb, never set eyes upon the Book of Eight. But it is too late.”
The frozen boughs of the Barrenwhite Tree intersect the sky above us. I watch the cold flecks of light that glitter between the branches, the larger streaks of green and blue that flicker up into the mist.
“Strike now,” he says, releasing my sword hand.
“What?”
“DESTROY ME, LUKE!” Dad roars. “Before I lose my nerve! END THIS!”<
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I feel like my arm moves on its own. The black sword swings in an endless moment, bloodred flames eating into Dad’s wattled neck. His eyes widen. I see the black slits of his pupils contract. He gurgles, white fog leaking from his mouth.
“Good-bye,” I say to my father.
“Good-bye, Luke,” he says, a tiny croak of a voice. “Grow up good.”
Dad’s monstrous body dissolves into gray mist. His weight falls away from me, and for a moment I can’t see anything. I’m buried in a cloud of fog. I get to my feet. The end of Horatio Manchett swirls around me. I raise my sword in victory, and a crimson stream of fire erupts from the blade, washing over me like rain, burning away my father’s remains.
The sound of the outside comes back all at once. Berkley is roaring in triumph. Even Elza seems to be shouting. Mr. Berkley rushes forward and embraces me, picking me up off my feet. His body is as warm as tropical seawater. He almost purrs.
“Spectacular, my boy! Outstanding! A triumph!”
“Thank you,” I say, “Father.”
“Dare I say it looked bleak? Dare I say I doubted you? Especially since you previously showed Horatio such undeserved mercy. I worried that you might spare him the blade.”
“He got what he should have gotten long ago.”
Elza is waiting behind him. I reach out to her, and she grabs my hand.
“Are you all right?” she asks. “Your face —”
“I’m fine,” I say. “I’m OK.”
“I’m sorry,” she says. “Your dad —”
“Don’t worry about that now.”
“What do you think of that, you twisted revenant?” Berkley shouts at the Barrenwhite Tree. “What say you now?”
Margaux the Tree makes no reply.
“Get away from here,” I whisper to Elza while Berkley is distracted. “If he works out what’s going on, he’ll kill you first, and I don’t know if I can stop him.”
“What are you doing?” she hisses.
“I’m going to get rid of him. The Tree, too.”
