Read Online Return by Peter S. Beagle; Maurizio Manzieri - Free Book Online
Authors: Peter S. Beagle; Maurizio Manzieri
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ears and hurt my mind as well, though I know there’s no explaining that. Beside me, Brother Laska muttered, “There, there, do you see what they do? Do you see them now?”
“I hear them,” I said, “but I see nothing. I need to get closer.”
“He calls to it. Calls the Tree.” Brother Laska’s voice was flat and low. I crawled forward, using my elbows and my feet to push the rest of me along, until I got a good look at the scene taking place a mere hundred feet or so ahead—and at the Tree. It stood alone in a clearing: not as tall as I had vaguely imagined it, but seeming as massive as a cathedral, its many broad, low branches decked prominently with long, wicked black thorns. Its bark and leaves were of the same deep, deep red; but its roots, bulking up out of the ground like a countryman’s great swollen knuckles, were as black as those thorns, and looked somehow as dangerous. A group of monks—no more than eight or ten—stood in a ring around the Tree, but the only one speaking now—still chanting, rather—was Master Caldrea. He stood a little way back from the others, beside a small fire whose flames made his face seem constantly to leap out of the darkness and then recede, like the retreat of a wave.
Brother Laska nodded jerkily, like a puppet, pointing ahead. “The branches. See the branches!”
You have seen how, in the spring, caterpillars will eat their way through thousands of leaves, until one morning there is no caterpillar—only a chrysalis or a cocoon dangling from a twig, a flower stalk, a wall? So it was with that strange and terrible tree: I counted nine such chrysalides—all an unpleasant greenish-yellow, all man-sized, each suspended from a black thorn, and each beginning to ripple and shudder as I stared, as something inside each one fought to break free. Their struggles grew more intense as Master Caldrea’s chanting heightened and rose in pitch. One chrysalis was just starting to split at the top.
Beside me, Brother Laska moaned, “Master Krelim…I was small, I followed him everywhere.” I remembered once hearing that Brother Laska had been brought to that place as an infant, though I never learned any more detail than that. His voice was like a hot, wet wind in my ear. “I followed him—I was there when he found the Tree. He knew magic, old magic from old times, he knew how to wake deep, old, angry things. He sang, he woke up the Tree, he said to it, we have enemies, we need protection, you must create defenders for us. So the Tree makes the Hunters—it bears them like fruit, do you understand? Apples…plums…pomegranates…Hunters, so. Do you understand?”
I nodded, unable to take my eyes from that one chrysalis, opening so slowly. Beside me, Brother Laska mumbled, “Nine for you, what an honor! Nine Hunters called for only one man.”
“Eight,” I said. The chrysalis had cracked almost halfway down the side. I saw a hand emerge, and then a face, still shadowed by the branch just above it. I fitted an arrow to my bow, whispered what I do at such times, and fired. The shaft sank to the feathers just below the opening, and a body tumbled through, splitting the chrysalis the rest of the way. The Hunter fell directly at Master Caldrea’s feet, dead before he was born, and the singing stopped.
I had three more arrows in the air as the monks turned and saw me and Brother Laska—who promptly ducked down into a hollow. They uttered a massed cry of rage and sorrow and started to rush toward us, but Master Caldrea shouted. “ No! Back , and leave him to me!”
He whirled to face the Tree, chanted several phrases that would have broken my throat to repeat. Every one of the remaining chrysalides cracked wide open at once. Five Hunters leaped to the ground, all landing as lightly as cats, but three remained within their fleshy wombs, already dead or dying, pierced through by my arrows. One of the Hunters, apparently the destined partner of the first I had killed, bent
“I hear them,” I said, “but I see nothing. I need to get closer.”
“He calls to it. Calls the Tree.” Brother Laska’s voice was flat and low. I crawled forward, using my elbows and my feet to push the rest of me along, until I got a good look at the scene taking place a mere hundred feet or so ahead—and at the Tree. It stood alone in a clearing: not as tall as I had vaguely imagined it, but seeming as massive as a cathedral, its many broad, low branches decked prominently with long, wicked black thorns. Its bark and leaves were of the same deep, deep red; but its roots, bulking up out of the ground like a countryman’s great swollen knuckles, were as black as those thorns, and looked somehow as dangerous. A group of monks—no more than eight or ten—stood in a ring around the Tree, but the only one speaking now—still chanting, rather—was Master Caldrea. He stood a little way back from the others, beside a small fire whose flames made his face seem constantly to leap out of the darkness and then recede, like the retreat of a wave.
Brother Laska nodded jerkily, like a puppet, pointing ahead. “The branches. See the branches!”
You have seen how, in the spring, caterpillars will eat their way through thousands of leaves, until one morning there is no caterpillar—only a chrysalis or a cocoon dangling from a twig, a flower stalk, a wall? So it was with that strange and terrible tree: I counted nine such chrysalides—all an unpleasant greenish-yellow, all man-sized, each suspended from a black thorn, and each beginning to ripple and shudder as I stared, as something inside each one fought to break free. Their struggles grew more intense as Master Caldrea’s chanting heightened and rose in pitch. One chrysalis was just starting to split at the top.
Beside me, Brother Laska moaned, “Master Krelim…I was small, I followed him everywhere.” I remembered once hearing that Brother Laska had been brought to that place as an infant, though I never learned any more detail than that. His voice was like a hot, wet wind in my ear. “I followed him—I was there when he found the Tree. He knew magic, old magic from old times, he knew how to wake deep, old, angry things. He sang, he woke up the Tree, he said to it, we have enemies, we need protection, you must create defenders for us. So the Tree makes the Hunters—it bears them like fruit, do you understand? Apples…plums…pomegranates…Hunters, so. Do you understand?”
I nodded, unable to take my eyes from that one chrysalis, opening so slowly. Beside me, Brother Laska mumbled, “Nine for you, what an honor! Nine Hunters called for only one man.”
“Eight,” I said. The chrysalis had cracked almost halfway down the side. I saw a hand emerge, and then a face, still shadowed by the branch just above it. I fitted an arrow to my bow, whispered what I do at such times, and fired. The shaft sank to the feathers just below the opening, and a body tumbled through, splitting the chrysalis the rest of the way. The Hunter fell directly at Master Caldrea’s feet, dead before he was born, and the singing stopped.
I had three more arrows in the air as the monks turned and saw me and Brother Laska—who promptly ducked down into a hollow. They uttered a massed cry of rage and sorrow and started to rush toward us, but Master Caldrea shouted. “ No! Back , and leave him to me!”
He whirled to face the Tree, chanted several phrases that would have broken my throat to repeat. Every one of the remaining chrysalides cracked wide open at once. Five Hunters leaped to the ground, all landing as lightly as cats, but three remained within their fleshy wombs, already dead or dying, pierced through by my arrows. One of the Hunters, apparently the destined partner of the first I had killed, bent
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