Seven Trees of Stone

by Leo Hunt

“How?”

  “I don’t have time to explain! Just go!”

  “Oh, fantastic.”

  “You are undone!” Berkley screams. “Finally you are undone! Submit! You swore by the power of eight you would submit to my acolyte’s blade.”

  “I did and shall,” Margaux says.

  Berkley claps me on the back, drawing me close to him. “A great prize, my son! A great prize. I knew my faith in you was not misplaced! I have an eye, you know. It is a gift — I was born with it. I see potential, the oak within the acorn. And I have seen it in you since the day you sat across that desk from me.”

  “I hope to surpass your faith in me,” I say, gazing into his flaming eyes with what I hope appears to be admiration, trying to hold every bit of his attention, hoping Elza is escaping as we speak.

  “You shall, you shall. Quickly now. Plunge your sword into the heart of our foe. Destroy this wretched thing. Do what should’ve been done long ago.”

  I turn and walk across the clearing. Margaux is silent, and she steps aside as I move toward her. The Tree makes no attempt to stop me. It comes closer with every step, a tangled mess of icy branches and veins of light. I see a multitude of colors swirling beneath the surface of the ice, like the rainbow sheen you see in an oil slick. The snow on the ground merges with the base of the trunk. The coldness here is overwhelming, cold so deep and hungry, I wonder how the blade of my sword can keep alight.

  I stand before the Barrenwhite Tree. Light ripples and flows around me. In the depths of the Tree’s frozen trunk, I think I can see a figure, a dim distorted shape. There’s someone frozen inside the Tree, upside down, with their arms outstretched and pointed toward the ground. I can’t make out anything more about the figure, whether they’re old or young, male or female, or something else entirely. I think this must be the being that speaks through Margaux, trapped inside the tree of ice. Berkley called it an exile.

  I rest the tip of the black sword against the ice, and a tiny fragment melts off with a hiss of steam. If I strike hard enough, the ice will shatter, this tree trunk will break open, and I can destroy the power contained within the Tree. It promised to submit to the blow. I can kill it if I want to. Destroy an elder spirit from the Beginning.

  But if I do that, my apprenticeship with Berkley begins for real. I’ll never escape him. I’ll become something like him, monstrous, undying, devouring the souls of other beings to grow larger and stronger. I’ll become the worst version of myself.

  Dad said I should show his master mercy. Admittedly, he hasn’t been the greatest help to me in life, but maybe he was right about this.

  I place my left hand against the trunk of the Barrenwhite Tree, my four-fingered palm covering the spot where the figure’s head seems to be. I know I need to speak to the spirit inside the Tree, but I don’t know how that’s going to happen. If I speak out loud, Berkley will hear me. So instead I focus my mind on the shape inside the trunk, sending my willpower through my hand and into the ice, hoping this gets its attention.

  End this, pawn. Do what is already done. Or do you wish to torment me?

  The voice insinuates itself into my mind. It’s like I’m remembering someone speaking to me, but without them having spoken out loud. This voice could almost be my own thoughts.

  I keep my hand resting on the Tree’s frozen trunk.

  What if I spare you? I think, hoping it hears me the same way I hear it.

  Your master has instructed you otherwise.

  He isn’t my master yet. I’ve sworn nothing to him.

  I promised to submit to the blow. I swore by the power of eight.

  You did. But I never promised to deliver it.

  Very well. Spare me and I am in your debt. What can I give you?

  If I spare you, then I want you to let Dunbarrow go. Everyone. All the people. Put the town back how it was before you took it under your control, and make it so they don’t remember a thing.

  The Speaker of Secrets will destroy you regardless, pawn. For betraying him, he will raze your homeland to the ground. All will be lost.

  No. I’m going to destroy him.

  And how do you intend to do that?

  With your help. Give me your strength. You leave this place, return it to Liveside. In return I let you live, and Berkley is destroyed instead.

  You cannot overcome him here. Even if I lend you my power.

  How do I do it?

  We eldest of spirits cannot be killed, not in the way you understand. But he might be unmade.

  How?

  There is only one place it can be achieved: within the boundless forge of our creation. The depths of the Shrouded Lake.

  Great. That’s a long way away, right? How do I get from here to there? I’m going to be pretty short on time. I can hardly run all the way there and jump in with Berkley chasing me.

  Listen: in the Beginning there was born a jealous spirit who seized the secrets of the sleepers and made them his own. He transcribed the language of the stars so that even mortals could understand it and use that power, which should be the right of the first spirits alone. He did this not for charity but for might, so that he would be exalted and worshipped as those sleepers once were. And indeed he rose far above his station and became mighty —

  We don’t have time for this! Any moment he’ll realize something’s not right. Tell me what to do!

  What I am trying to tell you, boy, is this: The Shrouded Lake is bound in green leather within your breast pocket.

  The Book of Eight?

  Yes. It is fitting the Speaker be undone by his own creation. Release the Lake. Face him within its infinite depths. Unmake him.

  I’m about to ask how I’m supposed to release the Shrouded Lake from the Book of Eight, when I remember something the Oracle told me. She said the Book is a knot that can be undone, in the way Alexander did. She really was talking about a sword after all.

  “My son! Why do you hesitate? Strike our enemy down!” Berkley yells at me.

  We have to do this now, I think to the spirit within the Tree. Quickly. Swear to me you’ll release Dunbarrow. Send it back to Liveside. Swear by something unbreakable, or I’ll destroy you.

  I swear by the power of eight itself, I will release the town of Dunbarrow and all the thralls I have claimed from your home. I will return them to their rightful place, without knowledge of my actions. I swear this by the Styx, great River of Oaths.

  I swear by the Styx to spare you and let you return to your place in Deadside. Now give me your strength.

  It is done.

  Coldness runs up my hand from the icy trunk of the Tree, coldness like the deepest reaches of the sea. My head feels like it might burst. My sword flares beyond crimson to white, pure white like the heart of a star, so bright I have to shield my eyes. Frost and pale fire play over the sword in unison, patterns forming and devouring one another as fast as my eyes can track, neither force quite having the upper hand.

  I turn away from the Barrenwhite Tree to face Mr. Berkley. The Devil. The Speaker of Secrets.

  “What is the meaning of this?” he asks me, still smiling.

  I take another step toward him, frozen fire flickering along the edge of my blade.

  “I defy you,” I say. My voice is surprisingly steady.

  “Luke, my son, please. This is entirely the wrong time for —”

  “I’m not your son. You’re not my father. You’ll never teach me anything. I want nothing to do with you. You thought I would really call you Father? You thought I would follow you?”

  “I saw great things in your future,” he says sharply, adjusting his cuffs. “I think that if you would only follow my instructions and destroy our common enemy, there might yet be greatness ahead of you. I am still willing to forgive this lapse.”

  “You told my dad to take my brother out of Mum before he was even born. You taught him to do that. You thought I’d forget about that?”

  “Luke, your father came to me with a problem, and I gave him a po
ssible solution, one of many. He chose to act upon my advice. Just as you chose to —”

  “Shut it. I don’t care. You’re a monster. I want you out of my life. Leave now, or I’ll destroy you.”

  Berkley laughs thunderously.

  “Did that Tree put these ideas into your head? You will destroy me? The Speaker of Secrets? Please, my boy, do not be a fool. This is madness. I am eternal. I was made in the Beginning, born when the One divided and became many. You might as well declare war upon the darkness between the stars.

  “Destroy the Tree, Luke,” he snaps. There’s no smile anymore. “You are a fool. Destroy the Barrenwhite Tree now, and I might allow the witch girl to survive to mourn you.”

  I take the Book of Eight from my breast pocket, weigh it in my left hand. I turn it over, looking at the embossed golden star, the silver clasps, the pale-green leather.

  “This is your weapon? That store of secrets? My boy, I created that artifact. I am its author. You seek to use my own revelations against me? What do you imagine you would find within those pages that would let you withstand my anger?”

  I try to steady my nerves. What if this doesn’t work? What if the Oracle was wrong, the Tree lying to me? Why should I trust them?

  “Or is it that you think this is the first time a great spirit has tried to destroy me? You think the meager power that withered Tree has lent you gives you a fighting chance?”

  He still sounds carefree and jovial, but I can tell he’s preparing to attack. It will come any moment now.

  There’s no choice. I have to go through with my plan. I don’t have anything else left.

  “If you made the Book,” I say, “then you know what it really is. Where it could lead us.”

  Mr. Berkley doesn’t say another word. He explodes, the shape of the smiling man erupting into an avalanche of shadow. The gray suit, white hair, tanned handsome face; all are gone. In their place is a ravenous storm of darkness that sweeps across the clearing toward me.

  “Now, boy!” I hear Margaux cry. “Now!”

  I toss the Book of Eight into the air, like I’m serving for tennis.

  The nightmare cloud that was Berkley is almost upon me. I see a thousand terrible faces in the blackness, a million mouths yawning wide to devour me.

  Either this works, or a moment from now there won’t be a me at all.

  The Book is at the top of its arc, clasps gleaming in the light.

  I swing the black sword, fire and ice at war inside the blade.

  The Speaker of Secrets closes around me like a fist.

  My sword slices through the Book of Eight, cutting it in half.

  Without a sound, the world vanishes.

  I’m falling through a void, stars spinning around me, molten white points of light against velvet blackness. This must be the depths of the Shrouded Lake, the endless expanse of sky that lies beneath the mist. Infinite space, infinite time. There’s no up or down, no way to say I’m even falling at all. The stars write and rewrite stories, they form into sigils and signs that I can almost understand but never quite hold in my mind before they become another shape.

  Something is cutting through the blackness, a billowing torrent of firelight and shadow. A voice like a thunderclap.

  “YOU DARE? YOU DARE PROFANE THIS PLACE?”

  I still have the sword, the power of the Barrenwhite Tree burning white-cold along the blade’s edge. I hold it with both hands and try to face the thing that Mr. Berkley became — his true shape. It’s easier said than done, as I spin wildly in the void, with no gravity to pull me, no air or water to push against. He’s bearing down on me like a tidal wave, black against black, obscuring the stars with his formless body.

  Willpower. Will and wisdom. That’s how I move. I force myself not to panic, to will myself to steady. The world stops spinning so fast. I’m holding myself still in this void. I’m still here. I can fight him. This is what I planned for.

  “I WILL DEVOUR YOU, PIECE BY PIECE, LUKE. I WILL UNMAKE YOU SO COMPLETELY, NONE WILL REMEMBER YOUR EXISTENCE.”

  A mouth of dazzling flame, coming at me like a shark through a vast black ocean. I steady the sword.

  “YOU THINK TO DEFEAT ME? I WHO TRANSCRIBED THE SPEECH OF THE STARS INTO PROFANED TONGUES? I WHO HELPED BREAK THE WORLDS IN TWO? I WHO SIRED DEMONS IN AN UNENDING STREAM? I WHO LAID THE FOUNDATIONS OF URUK AND DIS?”

  “I don’t even know what any of that means!” I scream.

  “YOU ARE NOTHING,” the voice replies, and the thing is upon me. As Berkley envelops me, I plunge the sword, blazing white with power, deep into its dark body. The being screams with rage, and the blade glows brighter still, so bright I can’t look directly at it. We’re spinning off into the depths of the Lake, traveling faster than I thought possible. The stars around us are streaks of light. Berkley sends tendrils of flame and shadow burrowing into my spirit flesh, but the cold power the Barrenwhite Tree placed inside me resists his heat. I have time. Not much, but a little. In these depths, I can unmake him.

  Berkley changes in an instant, becoming a white serpent with eight heads, each head crowned with eight golden horns, their faces the cruel withered faces of ancient kings. His white body is wrapped around me, his thick tail coiled around my legs and torso. My sword is still lodged deep within him, white fire leaking from the wound. The eight royal faces scream with rage and bite deep into my hands, my neck, my legs, gouging chunks from my spirit with golden fangs. I keep my grip on the hilt of the sword. Stars whirl past. I punch one of the heads in the face with my free fist, the four-fingered left hand. It roars in fury.

  “You’re afraid of me,” I shout, “aren’t you?”

  “I FEAR NONE LIVING!” the white snake screams.

  “You didn’t expect this! Did you?”

  “I AM ALL-SEEING! ALL-KNOWING! ETERNAL!”

  “You’re a shadow! You’re just a shadow on the wall!” I yell at the serpent. The blade of my sword is still burning in the monster’s chest, streams of smoke flowing behind us as we fall. Another head lunges at me, and I grab hold of the face and squeeze, trying to rip it from the neck completely. The searing gold fangs of six other heads are still buried in my body.

  As I tear at one of his heads, Berkley starts to change again, his spirit flesh shifting like liquid, becoming a lion with crimson fur and a mane of peacock feathers. His eyes are bowls of fire, his teeth are silver blades, but my sword is still buried deep into his body. The lion roars and tears at me with its fangs and claws, but I don’t let go, don’t let the fire-cold sword shift from its position in his heart.

  He can’t destroy me. The power the Tree lent me is too great. If it weren’t for that, he’d already have swallowed me whole, like I was a raindrop falling into the ocean.

  My sword blazes brighter still, as bright as the stars that hurtle past us. The flame-colored lion bellows with pain and lashes at me with the barbed tail of a scorpion, but I don’t let go, even though the fiery venom flows through my body like cursed blood. I ignore the pain, focus on my sword, keeping the blade steady. His claws tear ribbons from my back; he plunges his silver fangs into my shoulder, but he can’t consume me and the pain doesn’t matter. I won’t let go of him. We’re falling faster and faster, the Shrouded Lake’s depths expanding around us, a vastness beyond vastness.

  Berkley changes again, becoming a huge black goat with a fleshless white head, human hands gripping my throat, a tongue coated in barbs that lashes at my face as he roars, but I won’t let go. He can’t destroy me, so long as I don’t let go.

  We’re falling toward one of the stars, I see, as we twist in space; a beacon in the blackness, smaller now than a mote of dust but growing fast.

  Berkley becomes a woman made from molten glass, who hugs me close and whose skin burns worse than anything I’ve ever known, but my sword is still stuck into her heart, and I don’t let go of the hilt.

  “I WOULD HAVE RAISED YOU HIGHER THAN MY OWN CHILDREN!” the thing bellows through a white-hot throat. “YOU
WOULD HAVE BEEN WORSHIPPED!”

  “When did I ask for that? Do you think that’s what I wanted?”

  “YOU WOULD THROW IT AWAY FOR WHAT? A SHARP-NOSED SCHOOLGIRL? THAT CREDULOUS WRECK WHO BIRTHED YOU? WHAT DID YOU THINK THEY COULD GIVE YOU THAT I CAN’T?”

  “They love me!”

  He changes into something like a jellyfish — a nightmare net of stingers and tendrils and eyeless faces — that glistens in the light of the sword and bores a thousand holes in my skin, injecting venom into every tiny cut, and it hurts worse than ever, but my sword still burns inside him and I don’t let go.

  “I LOVED YOU!” the writhing monster screams. “YOU WERE TO BE MY MASTERPIECE!”

  “You were wrong,” I say.

  “UNHAND ME! I WILL DESTROY YOU!”

  Berkley changes faster and faster, becoming a proud knight in golden armor who stabs me with his own cruel swords, and then an ancient blind monk who bites into my neck with hollow teeth, and on into stranger shapes still, a bird made of blue fire that cries out the most beautiful notes I’ve ever heard, so beautiful that it almost seems wrong to hurt it, but I keep my sword stuck into the bird regardless, and Berkley becomes a white tiger with the round face of a newborn child, wailing so loudly, I feel like my head will split apart, but I hold him all the tighter, and the sword is eating straight through him, his spirit flesh burning away like mist when the sun rises, and I know that he’s truly afraid.

  He flickers and shifts, unable to settle on a form, merging into different shapes like tides breaking across a beach, becoming spider and wolf and human all at once, impossible bodies that I can barely hold in my mind before they’re gone. Now Berkley is a child made from smoke, now he’s a howling dog without skin, and now an ox with the wings of a dove. He becomes me, my eyes pools of dark oil, and just as soon, he’s a monstrous squid, crimson tentacles scrabbling at the hilt of my sword, trying to pull it out of his body. I don’t let go.

  The star fills the world now, a searing wall of white light. We’re plummeting toward it. I see surges of pale fire erupting from the star’s surface, white splatters of paint against a black canvas.