I fell. The rope went taut, tearing at my hands, just as I broke through a web of thin branches and struck the surface of a wide limb below the platform. The rough bark bit through the thin fabric of my trousers.
As expected, the guards cut the rope. It fell in loose coils at my feet. I stood, brushed myself off, and held out my hand to summon my harpoon.
Before it could come to me, however, the watchmen took their bows from their backs and in one fluid motion, bent them against the platform to string them. Arrows fell like rain, sending showers of splinters into the air and a flock of small, crimson birds into raucous flight.
I ducked under the platform. The harpoon hit my ruined palm half a heartbeat later, burning like it was fresh from the forge. I clenched my teeth and pressed myself against the trunk of the tree.
Above me, the guards ran in lines, their boots striking the platform in perfect time. More were on their way from other trees and other bridges, spears and bows in their hands. Below me lay the forest floor, so far away that I could not see it, and the network of thousands of branches that lay between me and safety.
I gathered up my rope and my harpoon and slung them over my shoulder. My hands and knees were bleeding, staining my clothes. Bloody fibers clung to my fingers. I dropped to the next branch, sending another spike of pain through my legs, and crept across its base. Another volley of arrows hit the place where I had been standing. They gathered like a patch of long grass, so close together that I could not see where one ended and another began. In my travels, I had not heard of the discipline of the archers of the upper kingdom. It was yet another thing that Kural would have to answer for, if I survived long enough to find him again.
Step by treacherous step, I climbed down the tree. The lights of the city above disappeared into gray-green foliage, and the sounds of the watchmen faded. No one descended from the platform to follow me. Either their mage-king, having proven he had not been assassinated, called them off, or they were taking an easier road down to apprehend me at the base of the tree.
I would concern myself with the latter possibility if and when I survived the descent.
When all I could hear was the sound of the wind moving through the branches, I stopped to wrap my hands in scraps of cloth torn from my shirt. I drove the point of my harpoon into the rough bark at my feet and tied the rope once more to its end. I placed my feet against the trunk of the tree and lowered myself down, hand over bleeding hand, until my arms shook and the pain was a distant memory. Later, when I no longer had to climb, I would feel it. Now, there was only the rope, the tree, and my harpoon returning to my hand.
The darkness below deepened before it resolved into a tangle of roots and the domed shapes of fungi. I leaped from a branch to the broad shelf of a yellow mushroom growing from the trunk, and from there to another branch, gnarled like an arthritic hand. I listened for the pursuit of the guards, but there was only the slow, heavy wind, carrying with it the smell of rotting vegetation.
I still had the Sage’s Mirror tucked into my belt. It was a small thing, not much larger than its illustration in the book I had given Deinaros. The frame had turned sickly green and pitted, and it left flakes of metal on my fraying bandages. The mirror itself was black as polished obsidian, and no matter which way I turned it, I could not catch any light in it—there wasn’t much light to catch, only a short distance from the forest floor and far from the sunlit lower city, but the mirror was as black as the abyss. It did not sing to me as my harpoon did. If there was magic in it, I could not access it.
The mirror was not my concern. I would bring it to Deinaros as he instructed, and he would cast his spells and weave his sorcery. Not for the first time, and not for the last, I wondered if I had been wrong to trust him. I had traveled so far with the book, trying to find someone who was both willing and able to read it. I might have chosen the wrong reader.
I had certainly chosen the wrong guide to take me to the upper kingdom. I dropped to the root-choked ground and walked around the base of the tree, but I saw no sign of Kural or my horse. To my left, where the road out of the trees lay, the lights of torches gathered in a small, indistinct cloud. The people carrying them might have been pilgrims, but I would not stake my life on it. More likely, the guards from the upper kingdom had arrived well ahead of me, having taken the spiraling stair rather than rappelling from branch to branch.
I untied the rope from my harpoon and crouched between the shoulders of two enormous roots. Where was Kural? More importantly, where was Bran? It might have been fitting to leave Kural without the knowledge of what had transpired above, after he had neglected to inform me that he planned for me to slay the mage-king Alaba, but I wouldn’t leave without my horse.
The lights darted between the thick columns of the trees as their bearers fanned out. Some moved in the direction of the seaside city, in a line down the paved road, while others darted over the tangled roots in twos and threes. I held my harpoon and dared not breathe.
Three of the lights neared, close enough that I could see the bright robes of the men who carried them. When they drifted away again, I walked once more around the base of the tree. Kural was gone, and Bran along with him, and everything that was in my saddlebags.
I left the tree I had climbed down and ducked under an overhanging fungal shelf. I was heading for the road, though I dared not step out into the open. If Kural did not believe I was going to return, then he’d take Bran and all my things back to his meeting place in the lower city, where his silent companions tended their strange-smelling cauldron in the dark. What he’d do with a horse, I could not say. I could only guess that he would sell Bran and use the money to hire someone else to climb the trees and enter the mage-king’s vault.
I had walked into his plot, questioning nothing. He had even told me that it would be a boon to his people if the man who held the mirror met his death. I had been a fool.
Did he intend for me to slay the wizened king in the vault with barely a word of warning, or was it his plan to send me above to be killed? His heretic cult might gain some infamy if I had fought with Alaba, but what use was a dead outlander to their mysterious cause?
I ducked under a low-hanging branch and crouched beside a cluster of brilliant orange mushrooms. They grew from a single stalk that split into a hundred or more fronds, each ending with a fleshy bloom as bright as an ember. The grand staircase lay ahead, its lanterns shining steadily. The guards’ torches converged behind me, sweeping the darkness under the tree that held the vault. The moss and soft earth muffled their voices, and they sounded so distant, like the souls of the lost, or like drowning men calling out under the water.
I ducked my head and placed the narrow, flat plain of the road on my right. The guards were not pursuing me—if they wanted to spread out and search the forest, they’d find me before long, but they instead gathered around the tree I had climbed and blocked the grand staircase. They were preventing me from reaching the upper city again.
If I were given the choice, I would never return. I had the Mirror. All I needed was my horse and a ship to take me back to Gallia.
Hours later, as I walked out of the forest between the sunset-bathed columns of the lower city, I understood: I was being allowed to leave. Was I to serve as a warning to Kural, or had I taken the wrong artifact from the vault?
I pushed that thought aside. If anything in that room full of treasure matched the description Deinaros had given me, this was it. With nothing else in which to put my faith, I had to trust the sorcerer.
The stares of the city folk followed me as I crossed the marketplace again. I had twigs in my hair and leaves clinging to my clothing, and I had been bloodied by repeated tumbles through the branches. A sticky substance secreted by the orange mushrooms streaked the outside of my trouser legs. My makeshift bandages hung in tatters from my hands. I had been a shabby wanderer when I had first arrived in Ksadaja and stood in the company of its elegant people, but now I was a creature that had crawled out of the underbrush to frighten small children.
I kept my head down and took up a brisk walk to the tent on the edge of the market, where Kural and his people had met me. Sure enough, when I pushed aside the canvas, Bran stood within, his bridle tied to a metal hook on the frame on the inner door. The ridges in the dust beneath his feet indicated that he had waited there for some time and was anxious to depart. The bags tied to his saddle appeared untouched.
“Kural, son of Irreni,” I called out. “Why are you hiding in the dark? Didn’t you expect me to return from the upper city? I thought you were waiting for me at the base of the tree.”
The wary, dark eyes of his companions turned to me at once, catching the last red glow of the setting sun. Kural emerged from among them, a placating smile on his face. “It is good to see you well, my friend. As you can see, your horse is well cared for.”
Bran snorted and tossed his head.
“Did you know the mage-king would be in the vault?” I asked.
Kural’s smile faltered. “Of course not,” he said. “A king should be on his throne, not skulking in the shadows.”
He paused, his eyes sliding from the blood on my hands to the stains on my clothing. “Is he dead?”
“No. The mage-king Alaba yet lives.” I took the mirror from my pocket and held it aloft. “I’ve found the artifact, and I’ll be taking it and my horse back across the sea. I’ll have no more part in your plotting.”
“Of course,” Kural said with a bow. “I wouldn’t dream of delaying you any further. Go with our prayers and the blessings of the hidden gods.”
As I turned to go, one of the women by the cauldron spoke for the first time in my hearing. “We’ll be here when you return.”
Back to Chapter XLIX: The Treasure-Hall of the Mage-King
Forward to Chapter LI: Friendlier Shores
I’m plugging along on this draft. Thanks for coming on this journey with me.
Space Whales Press 
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