“So how are we going to climb this thing?” Alfonse demanded for the umpteenth time. They were sitting in a circle and picking at some goop. Every so often they paused in mid-bite, craned their necks, and studied the oak. It didn’t seem like a tree as much as a pillar holding the sky in place.
“The question is ‘who?’ not ‘how?’” Todrus mused. “I, for one, am a terrible climber. There’s no way I can scale a tree like that.”
“I’m scared of heights,” Gibiwink whined, a statement the Pangettis and the Stranger repeated.
Lewis had been flipping through his manual all the while. Now he spoke. “My dad’s the one in danger. I’ll climb that tree.”
Ashamed, the others stopped eating. Explaining how they hadn’t meant to stick him with this job, they suggested they should flip a coin or something. But Lewis had decided. He himself would go.
“But how?” Alfonse asked. “The trunk is huge, the bark is smooth, and you can’t even see where the branches begin.”
“This is a long shot,” Lewis admitted, “but there’s an entry in the manual for metallization. It lets you coat any surface with a layer of steel.”
“How’s that going to help?”
“I’ll mix the brew and you’ll see what I’m thinking.” Lewis took three vials from his belt and combined their contents on a wide, flat stone. Then he retreated several feet as the rock changed colour.
“It smells like something burning,” Alfonse commented.
“No wonder,” Adelaide said, examining the mixture. “The stone’s been changed to liquid metal.”
She was right. Before them was a pool of grey that a breeze was rippling slightly. Lewis drew near it. His feet were bare.
“What are you doing?” the Stranger asked as Lewis stooped and spread his fingers wide. “And why did you remove your shoes and socks?”
“Lewis!” the others warned … to no avail. He dipped his fingers in the pool as far as the first joints. Grimacing as his fingertips turned to metal, he then stuck his toes into the mixture, as well.
“Have you gone crazy?” Adelaide fumed as Lewis flexed his fingers and toes to prevent the joints from hardening. A moment later he tapped them against a stone. Just as he had hoped, the tips were hard and razor-sharp.
Lewis leaped at the tree and struck it with his “claws.” They sank into the bark and let him cling to its surface. His belt, however, got in the way. Jumping to the ground, he unfastened its straps — being careful not to slash himself — and handed it over to Todrus for safekeeping. It pained him to leave his supply belt behind, but the climb would be more manageable without it. Unencumbered, he “jumped” the tree a second time.
“That’s clever,” Todrus said as Lewis clung to the bark. “But do you think you can make it to the top and back?”
“And your Heliform patch is gone,” Alfonse warned. “If you fall —”
“I have no choice,” Lewis said, extracting his toes to dig them in higher, then doing the same with both his hands. He would be okay as long as his strength held out … and he stopped himself from looking down.
“Be careful!” the group advised as Lewis set off in earnest.
It was a lot like swimming. Left foot, right hand, right foot, left hand, over and over — there was nothing to it. And his progress was impressive. Within minutes he climbed more than fifty yards. At that rate he would reach the top in no time at all.
Left foot, right hand, right foot, left hand.
After two hundred yards, he crossed into the mist. It was nothing like the Pother — he could see his fingers still — but it stopped him from hearing his friends’ shouts below. With luck he would stumble on a branch soon enough.
Left foot, right hand, right foot, left hand.
He was panting like an engine, and sweat was stinging his eyes. As much as he wanted to wipe his face, he couldn’t risk taking a hand off the bark. His joints were sore and his muscles burned. When would those low branches appear?
Left foot, right hand, right foot, left hand.
How high had he climbed? How much higher could he go before his strength petered out — three hundred yards, if even that? And was that enough to get him to the branches, assuming there were branches? And if he did reach the branches, how much farther was the top? And would he find the weed as Alfonse had predicted?
That was odd. His left grip was unsteady and his pinky was sore.
Left foot, right hand, right foot, left hand.
The pain was getting worse. Ignoring the risk, he paused and peered at his hand. His blood ran cold. The coating on his pinky had failed! He had known the brew wouldn’t last forever but had thought it would be good for several hours at least. This was bad. This was very bad.
He climbed more frantically. Left foot, right hand, right foot, left hand, left foot, right hand, right foot, left hand.
Ow! His left index finger was bare, his right pinky, too, and various toes were starting to go. His hold was growing more and more precarious.
Left foot, right hand, right foot, left hand, left foot, right foot, right hand.
No! A mere two fingers on his right hand were metallic. The bark of the tree, obscured by the mist, smiled at him mockingly, as if it liked the idea of him falling to earth in payment for the wounds his metal claws were inflicting.
Left foot, right hand, right foot, left hand.
Most of his fingers and toes were useless. His muscles were shaking and his strength was almost gone. If only his Heliform patch were intact!
Left foot, right hand, right foot, left hand.
What remained? His right thumb, left index finger, and maybe three toes. In another thirty seconds, if not sooner, he would plunge through the air with nothing to catch him. He pictured his father, weak and frozen over. Once Lewis crashed to earth, his companions would leave — probably to meet up with some horrible end — and Grumpel would starve his father to death. So it had all been in vain. The quest was a failure.
Left foot, right hand, right foot, left hand, left foot, right hand.
Lewis’s grip was weakening. Numbly, he wondered what death was like. According to Alfonse, it wasn’t that painful. How had his friend described it — that he had felt far away. Lewis had asked his mother about death, years before, when he was four or five. She had said it was a mystery but that the best parts of people lingered on because nature would never let love go to waste. In a matter of seconds he would find out for himself.
Left foot, right hand, right foot, left hand, left foot, right hand.
Ow! What the heck?
He had struck his head.
“What’s going on?” he cried, only to realize he had reached the first branch. He had been focusing so hard on his dwindling strength that he hadn’t noticed he had been approaching his goal!
Supporting himself with his left hand and foot, he groped with his free hand to grab the branch. When he released the trunk, he dangled by one hand, then twisted sharply, kicked his legs, and seized the branch with his other hand, too. Pulling with the last of his strength, he almost shouted with relief when the branch was firmly beneath him.
He gasped for breath, then glanced below. A gossamer mist blocked his view of the soil, but he knew the drop was serious. He sighed. With his fingers back to normal and his belt on the ground, how was he going to climb back down?
Lewis continued his ascent. Mercifully, this part of the quest was easy. The branches grew so densely together that they formed something like a long flight of stairs. At the same time, among the oversize leaves, he thought he spied the occasional movement — it was so unnaturally quick he couldn’t be sure. There was also a sticky goo everywhere — odourless and hard to rub from his skin. Above him, too, on the tree’s far side, he was sure he could hear a high-pitched squeaking, though it might have been a trick of the wind. Not that it mattered. The weed was all that counted.
He climbed and climbed, whistling to himself, wondering how he would return to the soil. If he threw the weed down, assuming he found it, his friends would realize he was stuck in the boughs and maybe launch a rescue attempt. He also thought about his recent dream, the one in which guards had emerged from a pool. The dream seemed to be communicating something, but what?
There it was again, a high-pitched squeaking — eek, eek, eek. Who else was in the tree with him? And that goo was everywhere and sticking to his feet.
Without warning he gained the top. One moment he was scrabbling from one branch to its neighbour; the next a network of branches parted, the mist thinned dramatically, and … his head was in the clouds!
How high was he? A mile perhaps, give or take a hundred yards. It was a good thing the mist blocked his view of the region. The sight of all that scarred and battered land would have weighed his spirits down even more. It was terrible how much misery men like Grumpel created!
A flash of yellow caught his eye. On his right there was a frail plant with a stark green base and bright yellow tips. The third ingredient! There it was! Scarcely able to believe this sight, Lewis plucked the plant and tucked it away as if it were the choicest of jewels.
“Now all I have to do,” he said to himself, “is find a way to conquer gravity.”
His elation quickly faded. How would he return? And even if he accomplished this trick, they had to find those twin crests, locate the lock, pick it open, and —
There it was again, that high-pitched sound, only louder this time and much more desperate. The noise told Lewis it was time to go. Ducking back into the leaves, he began his descent as quietly as possible, in case he wasn’t alone.
“Eek, eek, eek!” The squeaking was off to his right.
“Keep going,” he told himself, gathering speed. Unlike his upward climb, when the leaves parted freely, the tree now seemed to block his progress.
Over to his left had something moved? There had been a streak of brown against the leaves and something big and hairy. “You’re imagining things!” he scolded himself.
“Eek, eek, eek!” The shrill sound persisted — it contained a note of panic, as if someone or something were pleading for help.
“I have problems of my own!” Lewis muttered, only to hesitate when the noise rang out again. It projected such sadness that he couldn’t ignore it. With a heavy sigh he veered to his right. As he did, a flash of brown intruded and he passed yet another puddle of goo.
“All right! I’m coming!” he yelled, even as he wondered if this sound were a ploy and that some creature was luring him into a trap. Debating whether the risk was worth taking, he spied the squeaking party ahead, a few yards past a thin screen of leaves.
On an outer branch a shape hung in a net. Its struggles were causing the net to tighten, and as the knots drew closer, the trapped creature grew more desperate, thrashing about with whatever strength it still had. Curious, Lewis inched forward.
There. He could see it. He was faced with … a bat! Like every other beast in that region, it was larger than normal and roughly his size. Its back was furry and matted with oil, and its wings, while folded, were detectable still — they looked like giant sheets of leather. Catching wind of his presence, the bat met his eye.
Lewis almost laughed. The face was like a giant mouse’s — friendly, frightened, and non-aggressive. Its eyes reflected intelligence, too. In fact, the creature’s expression seemed almost human. Lewis crouched beside the bat and addressed it softly, even though he knew they couldn’t understand each other. The bat, in turn, nuzzled his hand.
“What have we here?” Lewis asked, giving the net a quick going-over. Its strands were made from the goo he had spotted earlier and had been fitted to the branch to form a snare. What nut would have climbed so high to lay such a trap?
“It doesn’t matter,” Lewis said, assessing the strands. “Our main goal is to set you free. It’s a good thing I’m handy with knots, because this trap is ingenious. Incidentally, my name is Lewis.”
“Eek,” the bat answered more calmly.
“The central knot is here,” Lewis said, pointing at a tangle above the bat. “And it’ll loosen once I’ve slackened these six outer ones.” He set to work on the knots, humming to himself as the bat watched him closely. “That’s five of them. There’s just one more and the main one will slip.”
“Eek,” the bat commented, studying Lewis’s fingers.
“I’m telling you,” he repeated, handling knot number six, “whoever set this trap is a master, though I wonder —”
“Eeeek!” the bat screeched, staring past Lewis’s shoulder. The hairs on his neck stood up. He glanced around slowly and almost dropped off the branch.
He should have known. A web, not a net, entangled the bat. And its creator was poised a few feet away, at the start of the branch where it joined with the trunk.
Normally, Lewis was fond of spiders. When he caught one in his room, he always carried it outside. They were no bigger than an inch, however, unlike the monster confronting him now. Its abdomen and thorax were two feet across, while each leg was more than a yard in length. Its body was a light, poisonous brown, with hundreds of bristling hairs on its surface, like a porcupine’s quills, only deadlier-looking. A pair of fangs pointed straight at Lewis — they were oozing venom. Worse by far were the spider’s eyes: there were eight of them of varying sizes. Black and intelligent, they twitched simultaneously as they studied him.
“Easy there,” Lewis croaked, snaking his hand around a nearby twig — it was dry and stout and would break off easily. The bat was nibbling at the sixth and final knot.
Even as Lewis traded stares with the spider, there was a rush of motion and a crowd of babies joined their mother. They were a tenth her size, but their fangs meant business. Their eyes, too, jiggled like crazy as they sized up their victims for a taste of meat.
Lewis snapped the twig off with one twist of his hands. “Stay back!” he warned, twirling his weapon.
For a moment the babies seemed to obey, but then two leaped forward, front legs raised. The bat, meanwhile, kept chewing the knot.
Lewis stamped his foot. “I said keep back!”
The mother flinched and drew her legs together, but the babies out in front kept edging toward him.
Lashing out, Lewis kicked the first off the tree — it was like striking a loose collection of rags. Then he knocked the other with his club and crushed its thorax. “We’re in a jam!” he told the bat as the spiders began hissing. Lewis glanced at the bat and determined that it was halfway through the knot. He wanted to tell it to chew more quickly, but a movement signalled they were under attack.
A dozen babies were rushing him at once. Half were on a high branch and closing in from above, while the others were moving in from below. The mother, for her part, was sidling toward him, all eight eyes focused on his club.
Pff, pff, pff. He knocked three off the tree, two others were crushed, and a sixth was impaled. As it writhed on his staff, the mother lunged forward. Pff, pff, it lost two eyes. One leg missed him by a matter of inches.
“Hurry!” Lewis screamed. “I can’t hold them off much longer!”
There was another rush and another. One spider reached his knee before he struck it with his fist, and twice he was bitten, but his outfit held firm. The bat, too, was almost overwhelmed. Five spiders tried to swarm it, but Lewis beat them back.
He was tiring. The climb, and now this battle, had him just about beat. His arms were heavy and his chest heaved. The spiders sensed it. They were massing together, above and below, and the mother was sidling in for the kill.
“This is it!” Lewis gasped.
One landed on his head and scratched his scalp with its bristles. He lurched and tossed it into space, only to feel his club slip away.
It was the mother. With a hiss she threw his club behind her and eyed him tauntingly as he raised his fists. A moment later she pressed against him, together with her babies, who were advancing in a swarm. Two legs thrust him against the bat, her six eyes fixed him with a hungry stare, and her fangs reached for his jugular. Four babies were on his shoulders and three were on his knees. There was a smell of something rotting — the stink of death perhaps. He closed his eyes and waited for the fangs to strike.
“Eek!” he dimly heard from behind. There was a whirl of black and the babies went flying. The mother, too, was pitched into the air. “Eek!” the bat repeated, now free of the web.
Lewis glanced around. The mother spider was hanging by a thread and climbing furiously toward the branch. Her babies, too, still had plenty of fight. Calmly, the bat arranged Lewis on its shoulders.
The mother had returned and was steaming toward them. The bat squeaked again — it sounded like a laugh — and leaped into the encompassing mist. The pair dropped like a stone for a second until the bat spread its wings and braked their descent. Fast as a bullet, it circled the tree — the spider and her babies were watching in fury — then down it swooped to the soil with breathtaking ease.
Although Lewis was reeling from his exchange with the spiders, he knew he had won himself a friend for life.