Shadowcroft Academy Year 2 - Chapter Nineteen

The next day Logan and company limped out into the Akros Coliseum. They hadn’t gotten much sleep. There had been more honey-covered fried foods, and Melvin and Inga talked spoons, but they didn’t talk about Melvin’s cookbook. Also, after Treacle made sure Logan was okay, the minotaur left Vralkag, but he hadn’t returned to his room. The minotaur came in hours later, waking Logan up when the big bull man climbed up the ladder up to his room.

That put a pall on an otherwise fun night. Logan had to admit, that while Treacle’s little sphere of striking had helped save his life, it had been Melvin and Steve that had been the real MVPs.

Logan still wasn’t sure of what to make of either of them. Steve was just creepy and weird. As for Melvin, the kitchen ghast was far more powerful than he’d first let on. They probably should’ve figured that out since Melvin basically came and went as he pleased. He sold his pastries, helped in the kitchen, while taking any class he wanted. Bottom line, they’d have to do a little researching into the past of their fedora-wearing friend.

After they got home from Vralkag, Logan and Marko had to physically restrain Inga from storming down to the Codex Athenaeum and ordering Melvin’s cookbook from the inter-library loan department. Inga had spent the summer Shadowcroft’s library, and she knew there wasn’t a copy on Arborea. She was very curious to see if the runes he used in his recipes might be a clue into the dual murders. Despite her suspicious, though, Logan was beginning to think that maybe they’d misjudged Melvin—the guy was awkward, but clearly not all bad.

The sun was just dawning on the field of fresh snow covering the iceblade grass of the practice field. The smell of woodsmoke from the fireplaces filled the air with a festive perfume.

And surprise, surprise, there was the Rector Prime, Yullis Rockheart, wearing a red and green scarf over a twinkling black suit, vest included. A jaunty Forevergreen Festival hat covered his big stone head.

Logan and his friends approached cautiously. Had Rockheart heard about the trouble in Vralkag the night before?

“Hello, Professor Rockheart,” Logan raised a hand. the other gripped his cloak. “We’re surprised to see you here.”

The griffin gargoyle nodded. “I can see that. Don’t worry. I’m not here to drown you in doom hounds. No, I’ve excused all four of you from your classes today. Last year, everyone in the Azure Dragon clan won a trip to the Sacred Hollow. I’ve put it off for you four, to see what you could do without the benefit of such a boon. However, you’ve been stalled for too long, Mr. Murray, and, sooner or later, your lack of progress just might cost you everything. I’ve invested too much in you to see you destroyed.”

“Aw, yeah!” Marko shouted. “No school today. It’s time to P-A-R-T-Y in the Sacred Hollow. Why? Because if it’s sacred, it has to be fun!”

Rockheart sighed. “No. No, it doesn’t.”

“Either way. No school. Hey, Steve, up top!” Marko raised a hand to high-five his minion.

“Let me amend my offer,” Rockheart said flatly. “Not all of you. Your floor boss is not welcome to come.” He tugged at his suit jacket and cocked his head as he evaluated the mannequin. “Frankly, it’s a creepy monstrosity, and I should think the Monks of the Golden Bark would not appreciate its presences.”

Marko let out a grunt. “Oh, man. That means I’ll have to absorb his Apothos and rebuild him when I get back. He might not squeak. I love the squeak.”

Treacle sighed. “I’m fairly certain that the squeaking is giving me an ulcer.”

Rockheart snapped his fingers. “I’m sure your minion has enough Apothos gathered from his many months of life to endure a day without you. Send him back to your room. We should be back long before he degrades too much.”

Logan thought of Professor Arketa’s warning about keeping an eye on floor bosses. However, he wasn’t going to mention it since Rockheart hated disagreement from his students. Even worse would be disagreeing with Rockheart while quoting his girlfriend.

Marko gave Steve a long hug. “You’re the best, dummy.”

Steve creaked in agreement, and then went clacking off through the snow, bound for the dormitory wing.

Marko wiped an eye. “He’s just… so much like me.” He then laughed when Inga and Treacle looked disgusted. “I always wondered what it would be like to be a parent and now I know.”

Rockheart’s lip twitched and his eyes blazed with something stronger than disgust. “And you bested me last year. You. The goat boy.”

“I prefer goat man, professor,” Marko insisted.

Logan figured if they didn’t get out of there, Marko would die. Probably in a violent and painful manner. Logan hooked an arm around his friend. “Come on, Marko. Professor, I’m assuming we’re going to take the BYE portal to the Sacred Hollow.”

The rector prime nodded. “We are indeed.”

Logan was a little astounded that Rockheart was taking a day off with them. The rector prime worked himself harder than even his students, and that was saying something. Logan couldn’t help but feel honored.

The five of them went to the DIE Pavilion first, and then transferred over to the BYE Portal—or the Branches that Yield Everywhere. It was a part of the Tree of Souls, rising up through the ground on a spit of land on the eastern side of the realm.

The five of them appeared on snowy stones surrounding a silver-colored branch as thick as a redwood. Logan shuffled forward and peeked down the crack between the ground and the bark. The silver branch stretched off into infinity.

Castle Shadowcroft stood across the waters of Loch Endless to the west. Clouds drifted over the top parapets, the day gray and cold.

“I trust there will be less shrieking this time, Murray,” Rockheart grumbled.

The last time Logan had used the BYE portal, he’d found himself in a funhouse mirror reality and then at the back entrance of Kyvandry Spencer’s Slaughter Pits. There had been thirty-seconds of uncontrolled screaming. Not his proudest moment.

“Yes, sir,” Logan said. “I now know what to expect this time around.”

“Good. Like before, I’ll guide us all there.” Rockheart stepped forward, touched the branch and was gone, whisked away in an instant.

Inga was next, then Marko, and then Treacle.

Logan clenched his fists. “Okay. No shrieking.” He touched the bark and was immediately sucked down into a swirl of colors and speed, reality twisting around him. He smelled cherry pastries cooking in a hot oven, thanks to Melvin, wherever he was.

Marko’s terrible laughter from the day before echoed through his ears, and Logan tried to look around, but all he saw was a massive cavern, the inner sanctum of some dungeon with a demonic figure sitting on a throne. From the horns, the glare, and the shadowy flame, that was Chadrigoth in the grand hall. Around him stood a million mannequins, Marko’s mannequins. More of the satyr’s laughter filled the air, echoing and reverberating off the cavernous ceiling. Every mannequin moved forward in a squeak of rusty joints. All the dummies were wearing chef’s whites, exactly like Melvin, and they all moved in unison.

Something brushed over Logans’ head, and he threw up his hands. He pulled down a familiar looking fedora, which faded a second later.

Once out of the BYE, Logan stood, looking at his empty hands, three thick fingers and a very fat thumb, all made of yellow mushroom-y flesh.

“The fungi is tripping,” Marko coughed.

Logan looked up, blinking. “Did you guys? Was there? Did you smell Melvin cooking his cherry triangles?”

Rockheart and Logan’s friends all were staring at him like he was crazy.

Logan nodded. “No. Guess not.”

“When you are in the BYE, Murray, you are connected to all possible realities. You shouldn’t think too hard about what you see there—or smell, or hear, or taste for that matter.” Rockheart paused. “On the other hand, the Tree of Souls has a wisdom to it. Regardless, your head is best here, in the moment, in this reality.”

Logan wasn’t sure what that vision meant, but then he glanced around and forgot about it completely. The sheer beauty of this new place took his breath away. Not only was it visually a feast, but the amount of Apothos in the air made his head swim.

Rockheart must’ve seen his wonder. “And in this moment, we are in the Sacred Hollow, nestled away inside the Tree of Souls itself.”

They stood in an emerald green field of soft grasses, green mosses, and flowers in a riot of hues. It was valley inside the hollow of a stupendously enormous tree stump—the horizons of the valley were the patterned wood of the stump itself. The wood rose like ramparts all around them until the edges were lost in a star-filled sky. Not just stars, whole solar systems languidly moved overhead, planets swirling around colorful suns, blooming and dying. The light came from everywhere at once. It played across the petals like moonlight one minute, and warm sunshine the next.

In front of them, the field where they stood melted into the dunes of a desert and in the distance were snow-capped mountains rising up against the tree bark at the edge of the world. Logan spun in a slow circle, mouth agape in wonder. Behind them was a forest, trees of every description, some tangled up in vines, others standing in thick ferns.

Again, Rockheart seemed to guess what Logan was thinking. “Here, in the Sacred Hollow, there is unique flora and fauna that you won’t find anywhere else in the multiverse.”

The griffin gargoyle waved a claw to their right. This time the meadow melted into a jungle of wet plants, where clouds rolled across the top of emerald trees, sprinkling diamond-like rain before vanishing into sweet smelling wisps.

Rising up from the tangle of greenery were the golden walls of a temple, with peaked corners and sloping rooves.

“That is the Wat of the Golden Bark,” Rockheart said. “There, the Sacred Monks tend to the tree. You can go there if you like. Or you can explore the ruins in the Omniscience Forest. You, Mr. Murray, I think will want to walk the muddy paths of the Eternal Swamp. Go where you will, find what you’ll find. But I must warn you, anything you discover here will be potent and possibly life-altering. Sometimes change is welcome and good. And sometimes change destroys forever. May the Tree of Souls guide you all.”

Logan turned and saw that a dirt path cut through the grass and led to a marshy region. Already he could smell the rot and stagnant black water. He breathed in Apothos and the topaz gem in his belly glowed. “We really are inside the Tree of Souls.”

“Yeah, we are,” Marko breathed. For once, the satyr wasn’t joking. He looked as spellbound as the rest of them.

Inga’s wings were out, her antennae lengthened, tears shimmered in her eyes. “This is such a pleasant place. It’s soothing in a way I’ve not felt before. I don’t suppose the monks in the temple use silverware.”

“Chopsticks,” Rockheart said gently. “Simple sticks. We are as far away from Eritrean cutlery as possible.”

“Thank goodness,” Inga breathed. You could almost taste her relief. She unfurled her wings and flew over the jungle, heading for the temple.

Logan could guess what she was thinking—she was going there to look for books. Always books with her.

Without a word, Marko headed off toward the forest, enraptured by whatever he saw and felt.

That left Treacle and Logan with Rockheart. All was quiet, and Logan realized that Treacle wasn’t chewing his cud.

“I suppose I’ll go see about those mountains in the distance,” the minotaur said quietly. “They call to my soul.” He paused and glanced at Logan over one shoulder. “I’ll be okay, Logan. Sometimes a gnome has to chew their candy until it’s gone. That’s a Plimpkinny saying.”

The minotaur clopped off, quickly swallowed by a sea of swaying grass. He’d have to go through the dunes to get to the desert, but Logan didn’t think that would be a problem. Time and space seemed to work differently here.

Logan blinked, Rockheart was gone, and he was walking across a rotten log in the swamp. He turned, and the gargoyle was there in the field, a mile away. Rockheart waved at him. Logan waved back, then continued to tread along the log, arms held out to balance himself.

He realized he’d come without any weapons at all. He didn’t have his shield, or his rings which would summon the silver swords. No armor or protection, other than his own fungal abilities.

He ducked under a tree limb, then swung across a finger of black water using a vine. He had a very Luke Skywalker on Dagobah moment. And yes, he felt something at the heart of the swamp, a piece of darkness. No, that wasn’t right. It was Morta Apothos, the decay that is a part of life. Sometimes change is forever. Logan knew that from losing parents, losing his war buddies, and losing his leg back when he’d been human. But that didn’t mean it was bad. Change was always death, the death of one thing in order to be reborn as another, and the thing tugging him forward felt like rebirth. An ending of something old so that something new could begin.

He tracked through slimy mud and found another fallen log, which crossed another channel. There, on an island full of weeping willows, was a cemetery, complete with headstones—that explained why there was so much Morta Apothos here.

Clouds boiled in the sky and a warm rain drizzled down on him. The tombstones were sprinkled around the island, not in rows, but in a chaotic pattern. Some clustered, others standing alone. The stone was pitted from weather and age, and any writing on them had either vanished or was covered by mold, mildew, or splotches of rust. He breathed deeply. This place was perfect for him.

At the center of the cemetery were three special markers, three long stone blocks, each with chain railings, the links rusted together. Brightly colored red-and-white mushrooms covered the ground around the graves. Names had been etched into the stone markers. Above the names were statues.

From left to right, Logan noted the names.

Anna Puurta. At the top of her stone was the weather-stained remains of a bird with wings outstretched.

Moisha Majaboot. Above that name was a snarling tiger with front paws raised.

Vilhelm Audax. For him, there was a dragon. The wings were apparent, but the head had lost all of its features.

The three stone slabs obviously covered the most important graves in the entire cemetery. And Logan saw how they might correspond to the clans. The Vermillion Phoenix for Anna, The Crystal Tiger for Moisha. The Azure Dragon for good ‘ol Vilhelm. Those three dungeon cores must’ve been famous for them to be buried here, but Logan didn’t recognize the names. But where was the fourth, he wondered ideally? Why no Onyx Tortoise?

Logan’s thoughts were stolen away by cries from the mushrooms clustered around the three graves. They were your classic fairytale toadstools—Logan should know. He had looked like them not too long ago.

Every one of the fungal growths were calling to him, their voices whispering softly on an unfelt breeze. For a second, Logan remembered his vision of Chadrigoth in the cave full of mannequins.

Then he realized all the mushrooms were calling out to him because they wanted to be eaten. Every single of them. Logan wasn’t sure that was a good idea, until he found one, growing off by itself, near the foot of Vilhelm’s grave.

When Logan plucked it out of the ground, the little guy let out a yeep of happiness. This was a terrible idea, yet Logan was sure on a gut level that it was the right thing to do. Before he could overthink things, Logan popped the mushroom into his mouth. He chewed, but he knew he didn’t need to. The mushroom had become pure Morta Apothos and had funneled right into his core.

His knees were suddenly weak his head spinning. Logan plopped down at the foot of Vilhelm Audax’s grave and started cycling the energy filling him like a tsunami. He wasn’t going to mess around with Moonbow Rainsap’s stupid trouser snake technique. No, Logan would use the Boundless Wheel, like he’d done for months on end. Except… There was too much energy. It was like trying to catch a nuclear warhead with a baseball mitt. Logan heard a cracking sound, and he felt like he had the night before when Chadrigoth had ripped his gem from his belly.

That Morta energy dump was seconds away from shattering his gem.

Well, this was the worst field trip ever.