They couldn’t really be alone out here. There must be something lurking somewhere, waiting, watching.

  The path rose above the water again and then continued to rise, carrying them along a tall ridge five feet above the water. Ten feet. Fifteen.

  It was now that Albert finally discerned a change in the angle of the path. They were moving closer to the temple now, slowly approaching the mountain. At this rate, how long would it take them to climb all the way to the top?

  The ridge widened, flattened. The land around them grew rockier. Huge rocks jutted upward on either side of the path. They had to weave around several massive boulders.

  And there was something else here, too.

  “What’s that?” asked Brandy.

  It stood behind a pair of large rock formations, backlit by a wide, dancing flame rising from a crack in the side of the mountain. Huge, naked branches stretched out over the water and across the path, a tangled spider’s web of light and shadow.

  “Night tree…” sighed Olivia.

  Albert stared up at the tree as he approached it. It was as large as the full-grown oaks on his grandparents’ farm. But it was no oak. Something was wrong about it. It glistened, for one thing. The firelight danced across its surface as if it were covered not in bark, but black, oily flesh. And the branches were strange, too. Some of them were twisted and coiled together, almost as if they were struggling with one another.

  “Those trees from the Wood?” asked Brandy. “Aren’t those dangerous?”

  “Wayne said he was told not to touch the roots when he was inside that tunnel,” Albert recalled.

  “And they get a little touchy-feely when they start to wake up,” Olivia reminded him.

  “That’s weird,” said Andrea.

  It was weird. Albert continued to stare up into it. “How does it stay alive? There’s no light out here.”

  “In the beginning, there was light in the Wood,” Olivia reminded him, remembering Wayne’s story. The old man told him that. He said that it had been a long time ago, longer than any of them could ever imagine, and she had no doubt that this was true. Time itself had no beginning. It never began, and yet always was. And she had a strange idea that this might be one of the first places that ever existed in that maddening eternity. “What do you think this place was like when there was light?”

  “I don’t know,” said Albert. “This is all I’ve seen of it. This and what little I could see from Gilbert House’s second and third floor windows.”

  “It’s a lot of blackness,” she told him. “It’s just these trees and a lot of dirt and rocks. But I wonder if it was ever green.”

  “From what I’ve heard about those trees,” Nicole said, “I can’t imagine it being any better.”

  Olivia nodded. What would those trees have been like under a full sun? Would they have been more creature than plant, like writhing masses of coiling snakes, feeling and grasping and snatching at anything that moved? How could anything exist within a forest full of those things? What were they, exactly? Did they even have leaves? Were they carnivorous? Or were they only interested in light? After all, although it had been a little grabby, the tree she and Wayne climbed to get inside Gilbert House had not exactly tried to eat her. It seemed much more interested in the flashlight glowing in the window. Perhaps the trees followed the sun back then, swaying east in the morning, reaching for the rising sun, and then following it across the sky until it set.

  She liked this image better. A world full of trees that worshiped the sun, gently swaying as they reached endlessly for that burning, life-giving globe in the sky, perhaps cradling nests of birds in their coiling branches, both living and giving life. In that light they were less monsters than sleeping guardians of a world long since dead.

  But somehow, she didn’t think that was ever the case.

  “For that matter,” said Albert as he gazed up into the black sky, “what is it that keeps this world warm? There’s no sun, so how does it keep from freezing over? It should be an icy wasteland. We shouldn’t be capable of even surviving here.”

  “Well it’s not exactly warm out here,” replied Nicole.

  “Yeah. But it’s a cool constant, like in a cave. What do you think? Maybe sixty degrees? Give or take?”

  “Maybe we just can’t see the sun,” Andrea suggested. “Maybe it’s always on the other side of the planet. Or maybe there’s something between it and here, another planet or something, blocking it out.”

  “Maybe,” Albert agreed. “Maybe wherever it is, the sun’s close enough to keep it warm. Or maybe the atmosphere’s thick enough to keep in the heat.” He shook his head. “Or maybe it’s getting its warmth from somewhere else. Maybe another world. Maybe even ours.”

  “Who knows,” said Brandy. “Does it matter?”

  “No,” Albert replied. “It really doesn’t.”

  He stepped beneath the tree’s branches and stopped. It stood there, towering over him, motionless in the still darkness, the firelight still glimmering across its smooth surface. It did not snatch him up and eat him. Maybe it wasn’t hungry.

  More likely, it simply wasn’t awake yet.

  From here, he thought he could see things moving up in the branches. Subtle motion caught his eye. He didn’t think there was anything living in the tree. It seemed to be the branches themselves twitching.

  “Let’s keep going,” urged Brandy.

  “Yes, please,” agreed Olivia. “We don’t know what it can do.”

  Andrea reached out and touched the strange trunk. It was smooth and cool, like flesh. “I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure this one isn’t trying to kill us.”

  “I don’t care!” snapped Olivia. “Just get away from there before you wake it up.”

  “Please!” added Brandy.

  Albert nodded, but he didn’t begin moving. He was studying the tree. There was no earth here. The ground was entirely gray stone, yet it appeared to have burst from that stone as easily as from soft soil, lifting and cracking it. How deep did its roots have to run to find nutrients in this place?

  He wondered if the tree had grown here naturally or if the sentinels had left it here for them to find. Either way, would there be more along the path as they made their way up? And would they become a real danger as they awoke to the glow of all these flames?

  A shrill scream cut through the stillness as Nicole jumped back and swatted at the air in front of her face.

  Everyone else turned to look at her, startled, and discovered a long, snaking branch dangling down where she’d been standing a moment before. It was twisting and coiling lazily, snake-like.

  “Fucking thing touched me,” explained Nicole, embarrassed. She rubbed at her shoulder, where the thing tickled her and gazed warily up, watching for more groping branches.

  “Let’s go,” said Brandy firmly, giving Albert a hard nudge.

  Albert turned and walked away. She was right. They needed to keep moving. If there was another one waiting for them up ahead, it would likely be more awake by the time they reached it. The longer they stood here, the more dangerous it would become. Next time, it might do more than just touch someone. It might snatch them screaming up into its murderous branches.

  He had only gone a few short yards when he glimpsed the web-like shadows of another night tree growing between a pair of rocky hills at the base of the mountain. The path did not go over there, but it was a sure indication that there would be more trees. Possibly many more trees. If they were extremely lucky, they would not be found all the way up the path.

  But Albert didn’t feel all that lucky.

  Chapter 7

  As they slowly circled around the temple, a gap appeared in the surrounding wall, hidden until now by the mountain that stood between them and it. Almost as wide as it was tall, this gap appeared to be a channel allowing water to flow out from the lake.

  It made sense. They’d already seen that water flowed through the temple, probably as life support for the hounds and the Sentinel Queen’s people, as well as the Caggo, those things in the meadow and whatever other horrible creatures lurked unseen in the endless darkness. Therefore, it reasoned that it must flow from the temple. It had to come from somewhere and it had to go somewhere. Without some sort of outlet, this hole would eventually fill with water. A channel like this would prevent the temple from becoming submerged.

  But then where did it empty out? Was there a river over there somewhere that carried the water away? A sea? Or would the water just eventually pour over the edge of the world and into some bottomless oblivion? He found himself remembering those old maps that he’d seen in books, the ones that assumed the world was flat and that the oceans eventually rolled off into hell. Here there be monsters, he thought, and shivered hard enough to send streaks of pain down his broken arm.

  The flaming pillars reaching out of the water like giant candles had been designed in such a way as to illuminate the lake and the wall, but none of those towering stacks cast their light very far into the channel. Albert could only assume that a wide canyon stretched away from the temple there. He couldn’t help but wonder what they might find if they were to sail down those waterways. What secrets must exist in a world like this?

  He reminded himself to be careful what he wished for. The Temple of the Blind was wonder and horror enough for one outing.

  They crossed another island and made their way around a cluster of tall rocks where the ground grew more uneven and the path dipped below the surface, wetting their feet again before rising into a wide, rocky hill.

  Here, the path dispersed across the gentle slope among several fat boulders and Albert had to pause for a moment, uncertain of where he should go. But the flames steered him toward the mountain, past another drowsy night tree and around a small pool of still, dark water where the path narrowed and became more defined again.

  He kept looking up at the towering temple. They’d still barely even begun to ascend toward the summit. At the rate they were going, it would take days to get to the top. And yet, if the path grew too steep, requiring them to actually climb, it might prove impossible for him in his condition.

  And the path was by no means the only thing that concerned him.

  “What was that?” Andrea asked, staring up into the sky.

  Immediately, the other girls turned and followed her gaze, but Albert didn’t need to look. He’d noticed it a while ago and had been watching it in silence, not wanting to alarm them. A shadow was moving through the air up there, circling the brilliant flame at the mountain’s peak. It was difficult to see against the black sky, but it was far too big to be any bird he’d ever seen. And it flew in a strange, sporadic pattern that had none of the grace typical of a bird.

  It seemed to be attracted to the fire, like a giant moth, but each time it approached the flames it twisted away, apparently changing course to avoid the intense heat.

  “What is it?” asked Brandy.

  Albert did not attempt to even speculate. He stared up at the shadow as it glided out over the water and then fluttered back around to circle the flames again, this time at a greater distance. He remembered the hounds, the Caggo, the sinewy thing that shot out of the temple and passed through Wayne’s tragically mortal body. He remembered Wayne’s story about the Wood, about the unearthly living dead and the thing that seemed to somehow be constructed entirely of their shattered carcasses. The throbbing pain in his arm told him he would not have the strength to face another monster. And now the damned things had taken flight.

  “Will it come after us?” Andrea asked.

  “Maybe it’s more interested in the fire,” Albert suggested, though he didn’t think he sounded particularly confident.

  “Maybe,” Nicole agreed. “Those spider-squid things weren’t really dangerous. Just disgusting.”

  “Nasty fucking things…” grumbled Brandy.

  “You’re not going to let that go, are you?” laughed Nicole.

  “Never.”

  They pushed on, but their eyes kept returning to the black sky. Soon, they realized that there were at least two of them up there. Albert thought he could make out three, but it was difficult to tell for sure. They were black things against a black sky, dancing in random circles in the ever-changing light of the flames.

  “Do you think they’re like the hounds?” Brandy asked. “Do they have those scale-things all over them?”

  The idea of a winged hound was terrifying beyond words. All that lethal viciousness entirely confined to those low tunnels was bad enough, but to have it swooping down out of the very sky…

  “I doubt it,” Albert replied. “The hounds weren’t even able to jump. I can’t imagine anything like them being able to fly. I think they’d be too heavy.” He looked up at the mysterious gliding shape, saw it circle too close to the flames and then twist away. It was as much wishful thinking as sound logic. Perhaps these things were much more efficiently evolved, their bodies light and lean and every bit as voracious and deadly as their sturdier-built cousins. More likely, he thought, they were something completely new. Perhaps they were some kind of giant bug. Or maybe something more akin to a pterodactyl. Or maybe even a winged gargoyle. Anything was possible, it seemed. There was simply no way to know what horrors might call a place like the Wood home.

  He’d begun to wonder how many worlds might be connected to the Wood besides their own. Wayne described several creatures that appeared to have once been very different beings, beings that could never have been human. Were those alien races from other worlds?

  The old man Wayne met in that frightful tunnel told him that there were other worlds out there. And both the Sentinel Queen and the Keeper spoke of other worlds from which human beings apparently migrated.

  Whatever lies any of them might have told, the empty sky above was proof enough that they had been telling the truth about the existence of at least one other world.

  Andrea stopped, startled, and looked back the way they came.

  “What?” asked Olivia.

  “You guys didn’t hear that, either?”

  “Hear what?” Albert asked.

  “I swear I heard something walking behind us.”

  “You’re paranoid,” Nicole assured her, though she knew no such thing.

  Andrea didn’t respond. She couldn’t be imagining all this. Could she?

  She wondered if it had something to do with the voice she heard back in the woods by Gilbert House. No one else heard that voice. Maybe this was somehow related.

  Or maybe Nicole was right and she was merely on edge.

  She tried to find something to justify her concern, but all she could see were shadows cast by the flickering flames.

  The others moved on and she followed after them.

  The path began to drift closer to the temple and led them across a wide, rocky shelf that protruded from the base of the mountain. From there, it took them up a steep hill and along a narrow ledge that ran between a steep cliff and a sheer, fifteen-foot drop to the water’s surface.

  Another narrow strip of land jutted outward from the mountain on the other side of this ledge, beyond which the high walls of the mountain met the water. Unable to continue forward, the path turned toward the lake again, leading them away from the temple once more before curving back along another ridge, past several more rock formations, up another steep incline and through a field of massive stones protruding from the ground.

  Eventually, they emerged from the cramped rocks to find themselves facing an opening in a tall cliff face.

  “More tunnels?” groaned Nicole. “I thought we were going to the top, not back inside.”

  But this wasn’t like the other tunnels they’d encountered. It didn’t lead inside. Albert could already see the far end. The entire passage was not as long as a football field. And although it was dark inside, the firelight illuminating both ends was bright enough that he saw no reason to retrieve the flashlights from the backpack.

  Inside this passage, like inside the temple, the floor beneath them was smooth and level. Albert dragged his good hand down the wall. It was also smooth to the touch. Now and then he felt a tight seam between the large stones. He wondered how this place had been constructed. These seams indicated that the place was built from individual stones, but the outside looked like a perfect wonder of nature. If the sentinels had built the temple, they had done a magnificent job recreating a natural mountain…but why? What was the point in making it look like a mountain? Why not a castle or a tower? Why not just make a huge block of stone? Or could it be that the mountain was natural and they had merely carved the interior from the stone inside? If so, why were the interior surfaces comprised of these blocks? Shouldn’t the surfaces all be smooth and utterly featureless?

  He didn’t understand it.

  But then again, perhaps trying to make sense of the actions of an ancient race of faceless beings dedicated to ensuring the conditional survival of the human race was a lost cause from the start.

  All five of them emerged from the tunnel without any surprises. They descended a shallow hill, waded across another low area in the path, and climbed another rising ridge that finally curved back toward the temple.

  A shadow passed over them, low enough to draw their attention, but still too high to be seen with any clarity. There were at least a dozen of them now, all of them circling and fluttering in that curious, jerky motion.

  Each of them gazed up as it swept out over the water, pumping its odd wings, rising high into the sky.

  “I wish I knew what they were,” said Albert.

  “I don’t care what they are,” retorted Brandy. “I just hope they stay the fuck away from us.” Yet her eyes continued to follow the creature as it flew, curious in spite of her trepidation.

  Other creatures swept through the sky. Some circled the inferno atop the mountain. Others fluttered toward the flames and then jerked away. A few seemed to find the smaller flames more appealing and darted from one to another like hummingbirds flitting between blossoms in a flower garden.

 

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