God’s Tree

By late afternoon, the sky above the mountain had darkened, despite no signs of storm. Clouds spun slowly overhead in unnatural spirals, circling the jagged peaks like birds too afraid to land.

Argolaith led the way now. His stride was steady, his eyes fixed on the craggy slope ahead.

None of them spoke.

They could feel it.

They weren't just nearing the ruins.

They were nearing something that had been waiting.

The mountain's foothills leveled into a flat outcropping of old stone, broken but walkable. Just beyond the edge, buried beneath cracked slabs and crawling vines, rose the shattered archway that had once led into the ruins where Argolaith and Kaelred had first crossed paths.

It hadn't changed much—on the surface.

The same collapsed columns. The same sunken chamber, half-exposed by time.

But something was different.

The stones hummed now.

Malakar knelt beside the entrance, running a skeletal hand over one of the smoother walls. His violet flames flickered brighter. "There are layers of memory here… etched deeper than the stone."

Naruul kept close to Kaelred, his many eyes fixed on the ground. "There is blood in this place. Old blood. Never buried."

Kaelred frowned. "Well, that's reassuring."

Argolaith stepped forward, toward the ruined arch.

And the moment his boot touched the threshold—

The runes lit up.

A gust of wind tore through the ruins.

The moss lifted from the stone. Dust was flung upward into spirals, dancing through the air in unnatural patterns. A glowing circle of ancient script bloomed outward from the point where Argolaith stood.

And then—

A voice.

Not from above.

Not from below.

But from within the stone itself.

"You should not have returned."

Kaelred flinched. "Did… anyone else hear that?"

Thae'Zirak growled low, stepping forward with claws partially extended. "The mountain speaks."

Argolaith didn't move. "I never meant to return. Not like this."

"And yet you are here."

"And the weight of three trees echoes behind your footsteps."

The runes pulsed again, this time forming into shape—a glowing outline of a doorway once buried, now partially revealed.

Malakar's voice was flat. "Something was sealed here. Not with chains. With memory. And your presence is unlocking it."

Argolaith knelt slowly, brushing his hand over a shallow symbol etched into the floor—one he remembered touching years ago, the day he met Kaelred.

It had been dead then.

It pulsed now.

And in his mind, the voice returned:

"You buried what you did not understand."

"Will you face it now?"

As twilight fell, they made camp near the edge of the ruin. Argolaith sat in silence, staring into the fire, a plate of untouched food resting beside him. He could still feel the echo of that voice—woven into the stone, the wind, the very bones of the mountain.

Kaelred sat nearby, arms resting on his knees. "You think it's something you left behind?"

Argolaith didn't answer immediately.

Then, softly: "I think it's something I never saw to begin with."

Malakar looked toward the deeper ruin with unreadable eyes. "Tomorrow, you should descend alone."

Kaelred's eyes narrowed. "You're not serious."

"I am," the lich said. "This place remembers Argolaith. It opened for him. If we all enter, it may not stay open long enough for him to understand why."

Thae'Zirak rumbled. "And if something down there waits to harm him?"

"I'll be fine," Argolaith said.

Kaelred turned to him. "You keep saying that."

Argolaith finally smiled. Faint, but real. "That's because I have to."

That night, long after the others had drifted into rest, Argolaith sat awake, staring at the flickering fire.

The mark on his hand—the one left by the forest—glowed faintly.

And the voice returned once more.

"You carry memory."

"But you have not yet chosen what you are."

Then silence.

But the air never stilled.

Because the mountain remembered.

And tomorrow, it would make him remember too.

Dawn crept over the horizon in thin streaks of gray light, but the mountain gave no welcome.

Its crags remained still.

Its wind whispered no greeting.

The others stirred slowly, each waking with that weight still pressing into their bones—the sense that they were being watched, not with malice, but with judgment.

Argolaith stood already, cloak wrapped tight, sword sheathed, and eyes fixed on the ruin's half-revealed entrance.

Today, he would walk alone.

Kaelred approached, chewing on dried roots. "You sure about this?"

"I have to be," Argolaith said without looking away.

Thae'Zirak's wings unfolded slightly as he crouched by the fire. "If the mountain tests you, it will lie. That is its nature."

Malakar added from the shadows, "It will not attack you with teeth or blades. It will try to convince you that you were born from it."

Argolaith nodded. "Then I'll remind it where I came from."

With that, he turned and stepped beyond the archway, where the rune-carved stones still pulsed softly beneath the moss.

The earth swallowed him whole.

Beyond the entrance lay a staircase.

Ancient. Endless. Descending in spirals of rough-hewn black stone, wrapped in root-veined walls and hanging moss that glowed faintly with residual magic. The air grew colder with each step. Dampness clung to the stone, whispering with the memory of rain that had never fallen here.

Argolaith descended in silence.

One hundred. Two hundred. A thousand steps.

Time blurred.

His muscles ached.

His breath steamed in the air.

Still, he walked.

Down into the heart of a mountain that was not dead—but dreaming.

And finally, after what felt like hours, the staircase ended.

The stairway opened into a vast underground chamber—circular and immense, with ceilings too high to see and walls lined in mirrors of polished obsidian. Each surface shimmered with faint illusions, distorted reflections of Argolaith in dozens of different moments.

In one, he stood over Kaelred's unconscious body.

In another, he walked alone through a battlefield of shattered trees.

In another, he stood among five glowing trees, all blooming with impossible light.

And then—

A voice echoed from all sides.

"You were born here."

Argolaith didn't move.

"The mountain remembers you. You spilled your first blood here. The first magic awakened beneath your feet."

The mirrors began to ripple. One by one, the scenes within them changed—now showing Argolaith as a child, kneeling in a chamber deep below this mountain.

He stared up at a blinding tree of crystal light.

He reached for it.

"You were chosen."

Argolaith narrowed his eyes.

"You're lying."

The voice didn't waver.

"You belong to me."

"No," he said firmly. "My journey didn't start here."

The mirrors cracked—just slightly.

"Do you remember what you left behind?"

"Yes."

He took a step forward. The room trembled.

"My home. My cabin. My silence."

Another step.

"Athos, the town librarian. The one who gave me the ring. The one who raised me."

Another.

"Seminah."

The mirrors shattered all at once—an explosion of glassless sound and swirling light.

And the voice—

Stopped.

The chamber fell dark.

The illusions vanished.

And from the far end of the hall, a narrow doorway appeared, outlined in golden light—faint, barely pulsing, like the heartbeat of something very old that had just failed to possess its host.

Argolaith stepped through it without hesitation.

Inside was a much smaller room. Quiet. Cold.

At its center stood a single pedestal made of tree root and stone, and resting atop it was an empty book.

No title.

No markings.

Just one page, open, ink slowly etching itself across the surface:

"The mountain tried to own him.

But he was never born of stone."

Argolaith stared at it for a long moment.

Then turned and began the long walk back up.

He returned the way he came.

Thousands of steps, but now each one lighter than before.

The mountain didn't speak again.

It had failed to rewrite his story.

Because Argolaith's journey had never belonged to stone and silence.

It had begun at the edge of a forest.

In a quiet town.

In a lonely cabin.

And it was his.