The Other Tree Page 9

  “What’s the price difference?” asked Chris.

  “Very religious,” said Luke.

  “Eighty US dollars per single room,” said Almovar. “A hundred for a double.”

  “Then again, we’re practically married,” said Luke, putting an arm around Chris.

  Almovar smiled, perking up as he handed a hurricane lamp to Chris.

  “Would you like to join me for dinner?” asked Almovar. “I have some lasagna in the oven.”

  “How much?” asked Chris.

  “We’d love to,” said Luke.

  “Complimentary,” said Almovar. “I’d be glad of some company.”

  * * *

  A long wooden table stretched the length of the banquet hall. Coloured banners drooped from bugles hanging on the walls, and suits of armour stood at attention beside the arched doorways. A faux bearskin rug lay before an enormous unlit hearth, while a small gas radiator buzzed enthusiastically nearby.

  Silver candelabra illuminated the end of the table where Almovar sat with Chris and Luke, casting a flattering light over their lasagna.

  “It’s a very impressive castle,” said Chris. “How long have you lived here?”

  “Almost forty years,” said Almovar. “I had this place built, you know.”

  He smiled wryly.

  “A youthful folly, I suppose,” said Almovar. “Medieval castles, trapdoors and turrets, secret passageways, hidden rooms. It all seemed so romantic. I always wanted it to look in disrepair, but I didn’t want it to actually be in disrepair. You always think of plumbing as something that happens to someone else.”

  “It’s still a marvellous castle,” said Chris.

  “You seem to be quite the collector,” said Luke.

  “I used to travel constantly,” said Almovar. “It’s much more convenient these days, but in some ways it seemed easier then. The Arabian caravans, the impossible bustle of Shanghai, the islands of the Adriatic. If you were lucky, you just packed a suitcase and went.”

  “It sounds like an extraordinary life,” said Luke. “The things you’ve seen.”

  Almovar looked down at the scratched surface of the table.

  “You reach a point in your life,” he said wistfully, “when you start to tire a little of seeing things, and being changed, without in turn being able to change and enrich others.”

  Almovar looked steadily at Luke.

  “Don’t underestimate the importance of having people in your life,” said Almovar.

  Something in Luke’s face became subtly mask-like, and the temperature dropped ever so slightly.

  “So,” said Chris. “What kind of things do you collect?”

  “Anything that interests me,” said Almovar. “Renaissance furniture, nomadic carvings, medieval armour and weapons, rare texts, antique timepieces…”

  “What kind of rare texts?” asked Chris casually.

  Almovar’s eyes suddenly fixed on Chris, and something flashed briefly in them, almost like recognition.

  “It’s getting late,” said Almovar. “I have a few things to attend to, and I suggest you retire to your room. It’s inadvisable to wander through the castle at night.”

  Almovar took Chris and Luke’s empty plates as he left the banquet hall. Rain pattered softly against the stained glass windows.

  Chris and Luke followed the stairs to the third floor, the glow from their hurricane lamp casting eerie shadows across the flagstones. The door to their room was marked with a polished silver nameplate, engraved with “The Sapphire Guest Room.”

  The room was small, but comfortably furnished. Bamboo scrolls painted with peacocks and leaping fish adorned the stone walls, and the floor was covered with a thick blue rug. A four-poster bed dominated the room, with powder-blue drapery hanging from the canopy.

  Chris dropped her pack onto the floor and sat on the bed, while Luke wandered over to the stained glass window beside a Victorian dressing table.

  “The castle’s too big to search in one night,” said Chris. “And we can’t afford to stay much longer.”

  “Weddings can be very expensive,” observed Luke, trying to see through the coloured glass.

  “I mean time. SinaCorp is skipping along a stairway of money, and we have less than twelve hours to find the book.”

  “He seemed very unfriendly when you mentioned it.”

  “Secret passages and hidden rooms,” said Chris. “I’ll bet it’s hidden somewhere.”

  “That narrows things down.”

  Chris started to pace the room.

  “If I were a recluse and wanted to hide something in my castle,” she muttered. “I’d probably put it in the conservatory, guarded by aggressive, toxic plants.”

  “You’re not very good at this,” said Luke. “If I were a young recluse, travelling the world, buffeted on the winds of isolationist freedom, I would want a safe place to return to. Private, quiet, concealed. Where I could retreat from the world, inaccessible in my hidden stronghold.”

  Luke traced a fingertip on the window glass.

  “Underground,” he said.

  Where people put things to be forgotten, thought Chris.

  We bury things, sometimes for reasons of sanitation, but sometimes to forget them. Allowing the earth to consume painful reminders—hopes blighted, mistakes made, and loves lost. Sometimes we mark the graves, unwilling to relinquish that final bond. But sometimes we let the wilderness reclaim them, hoping the memories, too, will fade.

  “I didn’t notice any severed heads around,” said Chris.

  “You’re thinking of Vlad the Impaler,” said Luke.

  “No, I mean moose, and tigers, and geese.”

  “Geese?”

  “They can be vicious.”

  She stopped pacing and looked at the hurricane lamp, burning low.

  “I think we’d better conserve that.”

  Chris leaned across and blew out the flame.

  * * *

  The thunderstorm had settled into steady thrumming rain, and the castle slept. Chris lay on the bed, staring up at the shimmering reflection of rain sliding on glass.

  “I’ve never seen you pray,” whispered Chris.

  “I’ve never seen you floss. I assume you do it,” said Luke from the floor, muffled behind a pillow.

  “What do you pray for?”

  “World peace.”

  Chris looked at her watch—the glowing hands showed just past two in the morning.

  “What do you pray for?” asked Luke.

  “I used to pray for selfish things, mostly,” said Chris. “I guess I stopped when I found that nothing happened.”

  “That’s not what prayer is for.”

  “I know; it’s supposed to change you, not the things around you.”

  I think that’s why I stopped, thought Chris.

  Chris swung her feet to the floor and felt for the lamp. She lit the short wick, turning the flame down to a low bud of light. Luke was already on his feet, looping his pack over one shoulder.

  The hallway was pitch black, and the shadows seemed deeper with the lamp turned so low. Chris and Luke trod carefully along the corridor, down the curving stairs, and into the main hall. Shadows spidered across the ceiling, and light glinted from tarnished swords and shields. Chris and Luke crept into the banquet hall, towards the gaping fireplace with its man-high mantelpiece.

  A marker of things buried, or stereotypical kitsch, thought Chris. Here goes.

  Chris stopped in front of the hearth and pulled on a corner of the heavy bearskin rug, peeling it from the stone floor. The rug flipped over, revealing a solid oak trapdoor with a circle of iron looped through the top. The smell of damp synthetic fur rose from the underside of the rug.

  Luke suddenly looked up, his gaze darting around. The shadows. There was something wrong with the shadows.

  Chris pulled on the metal ring.

  “Give me a hand,” she said.

  Luke’s heart pounded.

  “Luke!” Chris whispe
red.

  He joined her in heaving on the trapdoor, which lifted with a low creak. Chris and Luke strained to lift the ring farther, and the door fell open with a soft thud.

  Chris shone her flashlight through the hole in the floor, illuminating a rusty metal ladder extending into the darkness. She passed her flashlight to Luke.

  “Keep it on me,” said Chris as she started climbing down.

  “Chris!” Luke glanced around at the shifting shadows.

  After several moments, he saw her wave from below.

  “Throw it down,” said Chris.

  Luke tossed the flashlight down to her and, with one last look around, descended the ladder. The rungs scraped against his palms, and the rivets creaked as he climbed down. His feet touched the floor after only a few metres, and he turned to see Chris shining her flashlight around the room.

  They stood in a chamber carved from the limestone, the bare stone walls gleaming dully in the torchlight. Horizontal alcoves had been gouged from the rock, and a marble coffin lay in each compartment.

  “Is this what I think it is?” asked Chris, swallowing nervously.

  “A crypt,” said Luke.

  “Oh,” said Chris. “I was thinking vampire’s nest.”

  Luke ran the beam of his flashlight across the words engraved onto each coffin.

  Petric Almovar, 1915-1972

  Maria Almovar, 1918-1974

  Cedric Almovar, 1940-1977

  Hannah Almovar, 1948-1962

  Goric Almovar

  Each coffin was cut from smooth, pale marble, veined in amber and thick with dust. Chris touched the stone lightly, and drew away.

  “I guess it’s here somewhere,” said Chris, turning away.

  Deeper in the chamber, the walls were covered with high bookshelves, spilling with leather-bound books, yellowing manuscripts, and delicate rice-paper booklets with blue fabric covers. Documents spilled from wooden chests onto the floor, merging into pools of shadow. A nautical captain’s desk sat in the middle of the room, neatly laid out with papers and dried-up ink pots. Chris searched the overloaded shelves, while Luke dug carefully through the piles on the floor.

  The chamber brimmed with parchments, grimoires and ribboned scrolls, books bound in soft scarlet leather and iron rings, thick tomes filled with intricate woodcuts and cryptic languages. The hurricane lamp sat on the desk, burning lower as the soft sound of shuffling papers filled the room. Luke sifted through a driftwood chest and paused at an ancient, oversized manuscript, bound in a plain calfskin cover. He leafed gently through the pages, skimming the cramped lines of delicate calligraphy, trying not to linger on the lavishly illuminated tableaus.

  “I think this might be it,” said Luke.

  Chris looked across at Luke.

  “Might?”

  “Well it doesn’t say ‘Apocryphal Book of June,’” said Luke, pulling out his pocket translator. “But I… It’s not in Latin… I think it’s in Hebrew…”

  Luke typed frenetically into the pocket translator, glancing at an illuminated page depicting a fully crowned tree, with a man kneeling before it, surrounded by snakes.

  “Well, what’s Hebrew for Ju— Aargh!”

  Chris broke off, knocking into the desk as a sharp stabbing pain shot through her ankle. The lamp wobbled, and the shadows in the room whirled for a moment before Chris grabbed the lamp, steadying herself.

  “What happened?” Luke rose quickly with the text in his arms.

  “I think something just bit me,” said Chris, leaning against the desk with a pained expression.

  “Like a mosquito?”

  “Maybe a megafauna mosquito.” Chris winced as she pulled up the leg of her jeans. “One you’d have to swat with a frying pan.”

  Chris pulled down her sock, exposing two neat puncture marks just starting to well with blood.

  “Is that a snake bite?” She sounded offended.

  “Maybe a very small vampire?” said Luke. “You wouldn’t believe the kinds of stories I hear from people wanting me to bless holy water for them.”

  Luke crouched to inspect the wound, gently taking Chris’s ankle.

  “We’ve got to get you to a hosp—”

  There was a sudden loud thud.

  It sounded very much like a trapdoor slamming shut. Luke raced to the ladder and clambered up, pushing on the now-closed trapdoor. It didn’t budge. He pulled out his mobile phone. No signal. He took a breath.

  “Hey!” he called.

  “Luke,” said Chris. “I think he knows we’re down here.”

  “We can explain! Chris needs medical attention!”

  “I think he knows that, too,” said Chris, sliding slowly down the desk to sit on the floor.

  Luke thumped on the trapdoor with his fist, suspecting that the muffled thudding would barely make a sound through the thick wood.

  “We need a compression bandage,” said Chris, sweat starting to form on her forehead.

  She fumbled for her pack, pulling out a roll of bandages.

  “It’s going to be okay,” murmured Chris, the world starting to turn interesting shades of purple.

  Luke wordlessly rolled up the leg of Chris’s bootcut jeans as high as it would go and removed her sock. Carefully, he wound the roll of bandage tightly from the puncture down to her foot, and then slowly up her calf and thigh. Chris tried to keep her breathing steady, an odd burning sensation starting to crawl up her leg.

  “The camera,” said Chris.

  “Is this really the time?” said Luke, winding the bandage slowly back down her leg.

  “The book,” Chris urged. “Photograph the book.”

  The lamplight flickered as the flame hovered at the bottom of the oil well.

  “Tell me what it says,” said Chris, eyes closed. “Please.”

  Luke wiped the sweat from his neck and pulled the lamp closer to the open manuscript. He tapped on his pocket translator, his gaze darting back and forth, index finger jumping across the pages.

  “She’s introduced as a prophet…Yuin of Havilah, descended from Isaac…” Luke leafed further. “She talks about returning to Eden, the three trials…”

  “The riddles,” murmured Chris. “What are the riddles…?”

  Luke’s fingers danced across the translator keys, words flashing across the tiny display. The low-light resolution on the device was much weaker than advertised.

  “To find Eden, Man must…know the Lord, in head, heart and spirit. Unto him shall a sign be given to light the way,” said Luke.

  “The first trial shall be to pass the Cherubim, set to guard against the foolish and weak of spirit. Man must show that he has obtained not only the stolen knowledge of Good and Evil, but the courage to wield it wisely.

  “The second trial shall be to pass the flaming sword, which guards against the vain and mighty. Man must show humility before the Lord, to accept his own weakness, and accept the teachings of the Lord.”

  Luke threw another worried glance at Chris.

  “The last…” Chris’s breath caught in her throat.

  “The last gate…” Luke swallowed. “To pass through the final gate into Eden, Man must have the key. The key is—”

  Luke turned the page and was silent, his eyes staring down.

  “Drumroll,” mouthed Chris, her head drooping.

  Luke stared at the jagged edge of parchment.

  Whoever had torn out the page had been in a hurry.

  * * *

  Dark figures darted through the castle corridors, seeming to skitter along the banisters, casting looming shadows across the ceilings.

  Emir leapt lightly down the stairs and into the banquet hall, staying close to the walls. He adjusted his night-vision goggles and saw Docker standing perfectly still, facing the fireplace.

  “Find anything?” asked Docker.

  “Clear,” said Emir. “There’s nothing here.”

  Three more shadows slipped into the room, standing at attention before Docker.

  �
��Clear,” said Roman.

  “Clear,” said Bale.

  “Clear,” said Stace.

  “Move out,” said Docker.

  Roman, Bale and Stace moved silently from the room.

  “I thought I heard something,” said Emir. “Like a thud.”

  “There’s nothing here,” said Docker, walking over the bearskin rug as he left the room.

  With a wary glance around the room, Emir reluctantly followed.

  * * *

  Chris’s eyes were closed, her breathing laboured. Her bones ached unbearably, and she felt as though her leg were being char-grilled.

  “Chris,” Luke shook her gently.

  “Ng ’kay,” Chris croaked weakly.

  She whimpered faintly.

  Luke got to his feet, his mind racing.

  Secret passageways, he thought as he rummaged along the shelves. Hidden rooms and trapdoors.

  Luke shoved the chests and boxes across the floor, scattering papers and banging on the walls. Desperately, he felt around the alcoves, pushing on the walls behind the coffins, heaving on the gargoyles perched beside the ladder. Pulling his fingers through his damp hair, Luke spun around the room, the walls darkening steadily.

  Escape, thought Luke.

  How morbidly symbolic.

  He moved to the coffin marked “Goric Almovar.”

  “I hope he wasn’t named for his grandfather,” muttered Luke, grabbing hold of the stone lid and heaving.

  He fell backwards as the lid slid easily from the stone coffin, slotting out to one side like a pencil box. In the empty coffin, a metal ladder stretched down a stone chute, and a cool breeze wafted up from uncertain depths. Luke rushed back to Chris, now slumped on the floor, her clothes soaked in sweat. He scooped her into his arms and carried her to the open coffin.

  “Not dead yet…” murmured Chris groggily.

  Luke slung Chris over his shoulder and climbed down into the darkness.

  * * *

  At the edge of the woods on the mountain peak, the SinaCorp team hooked their abseil anchors to the top of the cliff, checking clips and harnesses. Docker paused.

  “I left something behind,” he said mildly. “Continue to the rendezvous.”

  “I’ll come with you,” said Emir, starting to follow Docker.

  “Continue to the rendezvous,” said Docker sharply.

  Emir and Docker locked gazes for a moment.