Dark Tree: A Tale of the Fourth World

Dark Tree:

  A Tale of the Fourth World

  by Brandon M. Lindsay

  Copyright © 2012 Brandon M. Lindsay. All rights reserved.

  Cover design by Brandon M. Lindsay

  https://brandonmlindsay.com

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  Dark Tree

  At Jannic's side, Mirek stiffened, fingers twitching to the hilt of the cutlass at his hip, though there was no one around as far as Jannic could see. Mirek seemed frozen, eyes closed as if testing the air for an errant scent, then turned to look beyond the frosted ramparts at the clear sky over the city.

  Jannic watched this, one eyebrow cocked. Mirek had always been odd, he had, for as long as Jannic had been a brother of the watch, at least. Though he had his moments when he was particularly strange. Jannic wondered with wry amusement if today was going to be one of those days.

  Still, better safe than sorry. "Something the matter, Mir?"

  Mirek was long in answering. "No," he said in an unconvincing voice. "Just... nothing."

  Jannic couldn't help but grin at the back of Mirek's head. "Thought you heard something?"

  Mirek didn't say anything, just kept staring out yonder, his dusty blue skin blending in with the sky, making his hair and uniform appear as if it were floating. Jannic chuckled, soft enough so that maybe Mirek didn't hear, but loud enough so that maybe he did. Part of him wondered, though. Every once in a while Mirek would get these... feelings, he called them. Never did explain what it was he was feeling, though, which didn't do the rest of the watch much good, in Jannic's opinion. But it seemed that sometimes whenever Mirek was overcome by one of his feelings, people died.

  In gruesome, sick ways, too. Usually just a handful, but all of them, always, without any explanation or pattern. As if a few people all went mad at once and butchered whoever came too close. Just thinking about it gave Jannic a shiver.

  Mirek was getting on in years. That's probably all it was. Besides, he always looked like he was having one of his feelings. Jannic chuckled to himself again, a little louder this time, a little more confident, but it sounded phony even to his own ears. And laughing didn't do much to banish his own dark feeling.

  Some of the men in the watch talked, too, saying what if it was Mirek who was causing these murders? After all, he was always having one of his feelings before the murders ever happened. Some have even whispered about getting rid of old Mirek, or setting him up, or just plain hauling him in the next time it happened. No one ever did, though, because Mirek was just too Lady-damn good at his job all other times.

  A healthy case of paranoia was a boon in this line of work.

  Jannic sat on a bench of frozen planks—a bench that technically the guards weren't supposed to have, seeing as it let them be lazy—and leaned back against the stone wall heavily, crossing his arms in a position of extreme relaxation. He shifted his helmet so as to keep the sun from glinting off of the noseguard directly into his eye. It was going to be a hot day, he could tell already. Streamers of mist curled from the ice-tiled roofs throughout the city, as well as off the igloos of the poorer folk outside its walls. No doubt the outlanders in the city would celebrate the ungodly heat by peeling off a few layers or even poking their odd pink and brown faces out from behind their masks of thick fur mufflers and scarves, but Jannic felt himself a good Tokkarintsmen, and the thought of a day warm enough to sublimate ice nearly made him queasy. Or maybe it was that dire elk sausage he ate earlier. He shrugged, settled further into a slouch, and tipped his helmet forward so that it covered his eyes completely.

  Jannic knew it was going to be a long day, and he wanted catch a few winks while he could. Besides, Mirek would wake him if anything interesting happened.

  He was just about to nod off when he felt something burrow into his chest.

  His eyes shot open and he sat up. Panicked, he groped at his chest under his mail shirt but could feel nothing but his own unbroken skin. The feeling of something eating its way into him, like some sort of worm or insect, quickly faded. Jannic sat there, hunched over and panting and terrified, wondering what the Tree had just happened.

  He glanced over at Mirek, who was as tense as a hunting cat, his hand still gripping the hilt of the cutlass at his hip, eyes just as wide as Jannic imagined his own were.

  "Did you see something?"

  Chest heaving, Mirek only blinked, but after a few moments, he shook his head. "No. I saw nothing. Just a nightmare, I reckon." He tried to grin beneath his bushy white beard, but it failed to make Jannic any calmer. "You sure gave me a fright, though."

  Jannic wasn't sure Mirek was telling the truth. In fact, he was sure the old man was lying. Mirek couldn't school his expression to save the world, though Jannic supposed he never had a reason to. No one trusted him no matter what he said or did.

  Perhaps that's all that had Jannic unsettled: Mirek. He was just plain creepy sometimes.

  Jannic leaned back into his slouch, determined he would get some rest. He had to calm his damn fool heart first. His left hand was still under his mail shirt, absently scratching where he had had the strange sensation. Jannic felt his unease melt away under the morning sun, and he eventually began to slip into sleep.

  * * *

  Mirek stared at Jannic, battling the fear that rose up within him. The fear was winning.

  He had seen what had happened. Seen it, yet almost refused to believe it.

  Almost refused, because to ignore it would be to die.

  A spore had found Jannic. Mirek had never before seen it with his own eyes, but he knew what would happen. It was only a matter of time before Jannic changed.

  Mirek had to do something before that happened, or innocent people would start dying. He flicked away his yellow half-cape and slowly, quietly, drew his cutlass so as not to wake Jannic. Mirek had to kill him before it was too late.

  But could he? Jannic was no friend of Mirek's—come to think of it, no one was, though Mirek didn't let that bother him. But Jannic was someone that he knew, a face he had come to recognize and rely upon as part of his daily routine. Could he kill him?

  Mirek raised his sword as he edged closer, then lowered it. He glanced over the frost-covered parapet, to the line of carts, horsemen, and people on foot on the road churned to thick mud and broken plates of ice below, either heading into or out of the city. Perhaps no one would notice if Mirek killed him now, while he slept. What if Jannic cried out? What if someone down below saw the glint of steel reflecting in the morning sun?

  Mirek froze, licking his lips. What was he thinking? This man had done nothing wrong, at least nothing that would warrant his death. Perhaps he wouldn't be like the others Mirek had seen. Perhaps—

  With a strangled cry, Jannic lurched up off of the bench, staggering to a hunch. He held out his clawed fingers, which began to twitch as the muscles within began jerking them into odd positions. Bones snapped, but Jannic's only response was a wet, gurgling pant.

  The man's stringy white hair curtained his face when his head bent at a sharp angle. The blood vessels in Jannic's face had burst, leaving a pattern of red streaks to mar his pale blue skin. Dead eyes stared sightlessly in Mirek's direction.

  Mirek stared back, eyes wide, pulse racing. He couldn't believe what he was seeing. Even though he knew that it had to happen, Mirek wasn't prepared to witness it with his own eyes.

  Jannic surged forward with unnatural speed, cat
ching Mirek off guard. He didn't even have time to raise the tip of his cutlass an inch before Jannic crashed into him, sending them both to the ground in a cacophony of clattering metal.

  Mirek struggled to get out of from under Jannic's weight in a panic, but his arm wouldn't move. He realized he was still gripping his cutlass and let go. Jannic wasn't moving. Mirek could see the tip of his sword over Jannic's shoulder, covered with Jannic's blood.

  Mirek kicked the dead man off of him and scrambled to his feet. He stared down at him. He hadn't wanted to kill him, hadn't even known if he could. But he had killed him nonetheless.

  Motion out of the corner of his eye caught Mirek's attention. Men of the watch were rushing along the battlements, their yellow half-capes fluttering behind them, swords and halberds glinting in the sun. They had heard the commotion. They were coming for him.

  Quickly Mirek unbuckled the cape from his shoulder and shrugged it off. He had to leave, and he didn't want a blaring yellow signal telling his pursuers where he'd gone. He briefly considered abandoning his sword, and then dismissed the idea as foolish. All they'd see was Jannic's dead body, pierced by Mirek's blade, holding no weapons in his hands. They'd see murder, and may not give Mirek any leave to explain—not that they'd believe his explanation anyway. No, he would be a fool to leave his sword behind and himself defenseless. He rolled Jannic over, careful to avoid looking at his face, and pulled the blade free with a wet rasp of steel against bone.

  Bloody sword in hand, feeling ever the idiot, Mirek glanced one way, and then the other. He'd never make it to the steps before the group of watchmen did. He did the only thing he could before they reached him.

  He jumped.

  And crashed onto the steep slope of a roof tiled in sheets of ice. Bits of broken ice began to slide down the roof as he did. He gorge rose as he came to the edge and went over. For a few breathless moments he was falling through the air. A crossbow bolt fired from the battlements—followed by a bevy of cursing—nearly nicked his nose, and then he smashed into planks of wood and baskets and shouting merchants.

  Mirek kicked his way free of the demolished merchant stand, mumbling an apology to the proprietor, and limped away to an alley where he could tear off his watch tunic and wrap himself in the discarded rags of a beggar, which he found in a pile of frosted refuse. The watch—his former comrades—would be looking for a man like him, so he had to look as little like himself as he could.

  * * *

  Hours passed while Mirek huddled in that alley. He didn't stay because of his injuries—they were painful, but not crippling. Nor did he stay because the men of the watch were looking for him. Suridruun was a fair-sized city, and it wasn't difficult to lose yourself in it, which was a problem the watch often had when trying to uproot criminals who have gone to ground. No, Mirek stayed in that alley because to leave it, he would have to face the Tree.

  Battered knees and arms creaking, Mirek finally pushed himself up from the stone wall encrusted with hoarfrost, swallowing the fear swelling within him. The alley stank of death, which was a rare scent for a city in Tokkarint lands, for a freezing death was the odorless embrace of ice and numbness. He didn't bother to investigate the cause of the stink; its mere presence was ill-boding enough to make him simply want to leave, even when he knew what he would have to face if he did. He hesitated at the alley's mouth. That same scent seemed to be wafting down the main thoroughfare. Mirek shook his head; likely just his imagination. He pushed his way into the crowd and froze when he let it come into view.

  A massive bole, as wide as three city blocks, rose up into the sky, translucent like dark, smoky glass, looking like a corrupted and twisted version of the city's gleaming crystal spires over which it towered. Leafy branches as wide as a city street stretched out from the trunk, made from the same ghostly substance, yet stirring in the wind as if made from the stuff of normal trees. The branches of the Dark Tree spread beyond the city's walls in every direction.

  Glints of golden light flicked into existence along its surfaces, as if the unseen glassy texture of its bark caught and reflected the rays from some unearthly light source. It was an impossible sight, Mirek knew, but impossible or not, there it was, as real as the buildings it dwarfed.

  And the people brushing past him, going about their business as he stood in the middle of the street gaping, were completely unaware of it.

  Mirek was fairly certain he was the only person who had ever seen the Dark Tree whenever it arrived in Suridruun. One of the dangers of his occupation as a watchman was dealing with the violently insane, and he had never heard of anyone ranting about a giant tree that suddenly sprang up in the middle of the city. Nor had he heard any mystic grumblings from those inclined to such things, and he had kept an open ear in those quarters, too.

  No, he was certainly the only man in the city who knew the cause of all those deaths. And more to come, he thought bitterly. He shook himself from his stupor and began limping forward, careful not to let his eyes drift upward too often.

  Hopefully, the tree would go away soon. When it had in the past, the madness and the killings stopped. Mirek didn't know how it left or where it went, but it did so the same way it arrived—suddenly, unexpectedly, the only sign of its coming and going a soft chime that Mirek was sure only he heard, a soft chime that signaled both the beginning of his dread and its end. Again, he didn't know why he alone was privy to this signal. All he knew was that once it was heard, the moments passed with agonizing slowness until he heard it again.

  The chime would come soon, he knew, no more than a few days from now at the most. That was the way it had always been; no matter how many years lay between its appearances, those appearances didn't last a long time, as if the Dark Tree's presence there was unstable. It was a small comfort.

  A lot of bodies could pile up in a few days.

  Already Mirek found himself glancing in the faces of those who passed him by, searching for telltales of the panic and hysteria that gripped people during the days when the tree had come before. Nothing yet, and the streets were still crowded. Fear hadn't cleared them yet. Oh, but it will, he thought as he shuffled past market stalls and criers, pulling his rags closer about himself.

  The tree was problem enough, but he had more urgent matters to consider. His brothers of the watch had seen him kill one of their own. They would be searching for him, and fervently. Never in Mirek's life had a man of the watch killed another. Never mind that Jannic had practically thrown himself on Mirek's sword.

  Never mind that one of the spores, glittering like fireflies, had drifted down from the Dark Tree's leaves and into Jannic's chest, infesting him with an insatiable hunger for killing.

  Again Mirek stopped to look up. A few spores now fell from the tree's canopy, nearly hovering in place, so slow was their descent. Some would be carried off and out of the city, as if on errant breezes. Some would fall to the snow-packed, ice-encrusted streets, and then straight through them, as if stone were nothing more than air.

  Some would find people.

  A passerby jostled him, and Mirek started. He was getting odd looks. Muttering to himself incoherently, he pressed on. Better they think him mad than wise just then.

  Perhaps I am mad.

  Shimmering yellow silk flashed through a gap in the crowd ahead.

  Instantly, Mirek's pulse began to race. He fought the instinct to sprint away, and instead veered into a cluster of people. A Wyrric fire eater performed her act, much to the wary delight of the onlookers. Mirek attempted to appear as inconspicuous as a beggar can in such company. No one bothered him, though a few of the onlookers wrinkled their noses and regarded him with severe disdain before pointedly ignoring him. He didn't care, so long as they didn't catch the attention of the passing watchmen in their yellow half-capes.

  Pretending to pay attention to the fire eater's act, Mirek glanced out of the corner of his eye as the three watchmen slowly walked past. They studied each blue-skinned male face intently, ignoring the outlan
ders completely. Apparently they didn't believe he could come up with that elaborate of a disguise; hopefully the one he now wore would suffice.

  Amazingly, it seemed to, as they walked past him without a second look.

  Mirek sighed out deeply through his nostrils before turning to continue on. He couldn't believe that he was now suspected of murder by his own brothers of the watch, though he hadn't done much to dispel whatever suspicions they might have harbored of him. Mirek wished he had made more of an effort to befriend them and wondered why he hadn't bothered. That he was unable to come up with a reason disturbed him. He shook his head and shivered—he couldn't remember the last time he'd actually shivered, especially when the sun was shining—and stared down at frosted paving stones in front of him as he strode forward, lost in thought.

  A fist grabbed Mirek's ragged clothes, yanking his gaze up to a sneering face, eyes as frigid and unforgiving as ice. Breath steamed out between gritted teeth.

  "Hello, Mirek. Or can I call you murderer, now?"

  * * *

  The tip of a thin blade pressed up against Mirek's ribs, releasing a trickle of blood. No one would know what was happening to him. Anyone walking by would think a watchman was merely telling some beggar to move along. They would be as oblivious to the presence of the dagger pricking Mirek's skin, hidden as it was beneath Sorn's yellow half-cape, as they were of the Dark Tree.

  "I saw what you did to Jannic," Sorn said, leaning in. "I knew you were shit from the moment I first saw you." He pressed the blade deeper, urging Mirek up the street. No one seemed to notice anything awry as they began walking with Sorn and his blade now at his back. If anyone caught a glimpse of the bloom of blood staining Mirek's chest, no one mentioned it. People knew better than to interfere with the work of a man of the watch.

  "Keep moving. I know how to keep you from screaming." The tip of the blade prodded Mirek in the back painfully, right at his kidney. He bit back a grimace and did as he was told. Of all the watchmen, he lamented that it was Sorn that had found him. No one hated Mirek as much as Sorn did, and Mirek had made no friends. Mirek had always done well as a watchman, better than Sorn, and with little effort. He guessed that was what had always infuriated Sorn. That someone was better than him, and without even trying.