Summer's Cauldron (3 page)

“Maybe this is the wrong tree,” Alex mumbled aloud.

“Back away slowly,” Daphne said, her eyes suddenly wide. Alex had heard that tone in Daphne’s voice before and he didn’t need to question it. He stepped backward cautiously, matching Daphne’s pace, looking around to see what had spooked her.

“What is it?” Alex whispered.

“You’re right,” Daphne said, backing away a little faster, her eyes locked on the tree before them. “That is definitely the wrong tree.”

Alex was about to ask why, when the shaft of sunlight above winked out of existence and the tangled bark of the tree’s trunk began to shift and twist. The impression of a face became clearer and clearer until suddenly two large black eyes snapped open, followed by a gaping massive maw littered with spiked teeth jutting out at irregular angles. The leaves of the tree faded from green to black as Alex gasped and turned to run. Daphne turned with him, but the branches of the tree came alive with motion, reaching out like mangled arms to grasp at them.

Alex and Daphne dove into the dead-dry grass as an enormous gnarled branch swung over their heads. Alex could hear his friends by the raft and across the pond shouting in panic, but the sound was drowned out by the clangorous roar of the tree beast behind them.

The thinner branches were like hands now, clutching at them as they dodged and scrambled to get away. One of the prehensile branches clasped Daphne around the waist and yanked her into the air. Alex had just enough time to see Nina, Rafael, and Ben dashing toward the tree as he ducked a grabbing branch and latched onto Daphne’s leg, pulling with all his strength.

“Hades’ hairballs,” Daphne yelled. “I should have known.”

“Known what?” Alex asked as he felt a branch wrap around his waist and pull him up and away from Daphne.

“What it wants,” Daphne screamed, pulling at the bone-like branches holding her fast.

“What does it want?” Alex shouted, hoping it wasn’t going to be the answer he feared it would be.

“Lunch!” Daphne cried as the branches holding her swung her toward the open and still roaring mouth at the center of the tree trunk.

Alex yelled and twisted to see as he struggled against the branches wrapped around his chest and waist. As the tree’s limber limbs pulled Daphne toward its monstrous maw, three long, straight branches flew through the air, thrown like javelins by Nina, Ben, and Rafael. The three former raft poles plunged into the mouth of the tree monster. The death-black eyes in the tree trunk went wide as the creature roared even louder, its mouth crashing down on the raft poles, snapping them into kindling pieces.

Branches of the tree creature swept out to clear its jaws even as others sought to capture the new comers. Nina was pulling at Alex’s foot as Rafael and Ben wrestled with the branch holding Daphne. A branch slithered out to wrap around Ben’s torso and he turned and shouted a rune word.

“No!” Alex yelled, but it was too late. Orange-white fire leapt out of Ben’s hand and quickly turned to an inky black smoke that billowed back and engulfed him, clinging to his body and clogging his lungs as he coughed and cursed. Magic didn’t work the way it should in the Dead Forest.
Ben’s impulse had been right
, Alex thought as he frantically struggled with the wooden arms holding him tight.
We need fire. But we can’t create enough fire without magic. And the magic won’t work. What we really need is…Wait. Will that work?

“Rafa!” Alex yelled, yanking himself around to see his friend ducking between two swinging branches and skipping outside their reach.

“Tell me you have a genius idea to get us out of this,” Rafael shouted back. The tree creature had cleared its mouth and was now roaring again, preparing to make a meal of its captives.

“Dragon,” Alex yelled at Rafael. “We need a dragon.”

Rafael stopped and stood still as tree branch swung inches from his face. “I should have thought of that,” he said as he pulled his shirt over his head.

The air around Rafael shimmered with a brilliant crimson glow for a moment and when it was gone, a small, but brilliantly blue-scaled dragon flapped its wings in his place. The dragon thrust itself upward into the air and then dove down toward the tree, avoiding the wildly swinging branches with aerial pirouettes. The dragon opened its mouth, belching a jet of azure flame into the mouth of the tree creature. The tree creature unleashed a piercing howl like a million birds trapped in a forest fire. The dragon flapped it wings, gaining altitude again, only to dive toward the branch holding Daphne, blue flame spurting from its mouth to set the tree limb afire.

The tree creature roared louder, its branches going wild with motion even as it released Alex and his companions. They fell to the ground and expertly rolled to their feet. They were members of the Young Sorcerers Guild, after all. They knew how to land from a fall. Rafael, in dragon form, unleashed two more bursts of flame at the tree creature to keep it from grabbing his friends again as they ran for the raft at the edge of the pond. He swooped down and grabbed his clothes from the ground with dragon claws before turning to circle the others as they ran.

Alex looked across the pond to see Victoria and Clark already had the rope attached to the raft in their hands and ready to pull. There was no need to give any orders. This plan was instinctual — get on the raft and get away as fast as possible.

Alex reached the raft first and helped Nina and Ben aboard as Victoria and Clark yanked the flimsy vessel into motion. Daphne jumped the last few feet to land safely beside him. They leaned into the motion of the raft as Clark and Victoria pulled them swiftly to the opposite shore. The raft riders turned in unison to look back at the tree creature they had so narrowly escaped.

The tree was fully on fire now, its leaves crinkling and crackling as the flames leapt over them. The tree creature writhed and wailed, shaking violently from the tops of its flame-ridden branches to its roots. Alex watched those roots wriggle up from the ground as the tree creature lurched forward. The roots of the tree knotted around themselves, forming two thick legs, thrusting the tree creature out of the earth and sending it lumbering toward the pond, its path leading directly toward Alex and his friends on the raft.

“Seriously?” Ben whined. “A tree that can run?”

“That’s not fair,” Nina moaned. “Not fair at all.”

“What kind of tree is that?” Alex said in exasperation as he watched it run toward the pond.

“I think it’s an old Colossus Tree,” Daphne said.

Alex watched as the burning Colossus Tree jumped into the pond. It sank as swiftly, silently, and completely as the rock and the fish they had seen earlier. The only difference was the steam rising from the water as it quenched the flames tormenting the Colossus Tree’s branches.

“Lucky,” Ben said. “That was close.”

“How deep to do you think that pond is?” Alex asked aloud as he looked at the once again stone-still pond. He didn’t have time to ponder the question.

“Look out,” Victoria shouted from behind him. Alex and the others on the raft turned as it slammed into the shoreline, sending them sprawling forward. They all managed to catch themselves without falling into the water and quickly jumped from the raft. Alex looked up to see Rafael struggling into his clothes.

“Thanks, Rafa,” Alex said to his friend as they all walked briskly away from the edge of the pond and back toward the wall of dead trees surrounding the clearing.

“Thanks for the idea,” Rafael said. “I don’t know why I never thought of changing into a dragon before.”

“Yes, that was some very clever thinking,” Victoria said, patting both Alex and Rafael on the backs.

“Well, so much for finding the Rune Tree,” Clark said.

“Now what do we do?” Daphne said. “I suppose we’ll have to find that gorping useless beagle and start all over again.”

“Beowulf was very brave chasing after that Dead Forest-tumbleweed-crab-spider thing that wanted to kill us,” Nina said.

“You know we’re having fun when we can say two deadly creatures have tried to kill us in one afternoon,” Rafael said.

“Maybe we should head back to the Guild House and regroup,” Victoria said. “We could dig up some other ancient book that has a hint about where the Rune Tree might be. Or, maybe I can talk to Daddy and see if there might be a way to create a Rune Tree detector. That’s exactly the sort of thing he’d love to invent.”

“Maybe,” Alex said, looking over his shoulder and frowning. “But before that, I think we should run again.”

“What?” Victoria asked, turning to see what had caught Alex’s attention.

They all turned to look back at the pond and stopped in their tracks. Charred black branches, dripping slimy water, rose up from the pond and moved toward the outer shore. Moment by moment, more of the massive Colossus Tree emerged from the water until it was standing on land, its root-legs propelling it forward with long strides even as it shook the water from its branches. The creature opened its mouth, emitting a deafening roar, sounding like the simultaneous felling of a thousand trees.

“Again!” Ben yelped. “I take back what I said about screaming and running.”

“Mmm, you do the screaming, I’ll do the running,” Clark said, hefting Ben into his arms.

“Ladies,” Victoria said to Nina and Daphne as they ran and she helped them scamper up her hind flanks. Alex and Rafael fell into a run beside her.

“How far do think that thing can chase us?” Victoria asked, glancing behind as the Colossus Tree roared again. “It looks very hungry.”

“And mad,” Daphne added.

“And mean,” Nina said.

“If we’re lucky, it’ll get tired before we reach the forest edge,” Alex said, sprinting to keep pace with Clark and Victoria.

“If we’re lucky, it will follow us home and we can keep it for a pet,” Rafael said.

“I was not thinking that,” Alex said, grinning at Rafael.

“I know you too well to believe that,” Rafael said with a worried glance behind.

They ran and ran for what seemed like forever, but it was not the edge of the forest or the length of the pursuit that finally convinced the Colossus Tree to give up its chase. It was something else large and fierce bursting from behind a stand of dead, dry bushes near Alex and the Guild.

“Gaia’s gallbladder!” Daphne yelled as they all scattered and jumped from the path of the giant spotted beast charging past them, growling and baring its teeth at the Colossus Tree. The Colossus Tree stopped. The creature facing it growled again. The Colossus Tree shook itself, turned, and began a long lumbering walk back toward the dead pond.

“Beowulf!” Nina said, breathless from the run as much as the excitement of the now-massive beagle’s entrance.

“Good boy,” Alex said, walking over to Beowulf, who was no longer a tiny beagle, but a dog the size of a large grizzly bear.

Beowulf trotted back to Alex then stopped, shook himself, first slowly, then faster, and then in a whirl of motion, shrank back to his normal size.

“Impressive,” Ben said. “A shape-changing, giant beagle.”

“I take back every bad thing I said about you, dog,” Daphne said. As if in response to her, Beowulf jumped up and licked her hand.

“How does he do that?” Rafael asked. “I can only turn into things the same size as me.”

“That giant dog is his real size,” Alex said, bending down to scratch Beowulf behind the ears. “He’s small now, but has the mass of that big dog. I doubt even Clark could lift him.”

“Ahh, that’s why he eats so much,” Clark said, stooping to try to lift Beowulf in his arms before grunting and giving up.

“I guess you both have that in common,” Rafael said with a friendly pat on Clark’s arm.

“Mmm, that and nobody can lift us,” Clark said with a chuckle.

“There,” Ben said, pointing. “What’s through those trees?”

“Whatever it is, I hope it can’t run,” Rafael said as they all turned to see where Ben was pointing.

“Looks like a hut,” Alex said, squinting to see through the trees.

“Like a hut something wicked might live in?” Nina asked in weary voice.

“Possibly,” Alex said as he started walking toward the ramshackle structure. “Let’s go check it out.”

“You knew he was going to say that, didn’t you?” Rafael said with a smile to Nina.

“Never gorping learns,” Daphne said with a slight laugh.

“Clever is as clever does,” Victoria said with a wink to Alex.

“Hmm, he’s not the one who pointed it out,” Clark said frowning down at Ben.

“A hut,” Ben said, his voice defensively dropping an octave. “What are the chances a hut can run?”

“Ever heard of Baba Yaga?” Daphne said, and frowned when Ben gave her a quizzical look in response.

“What can go wrong?” Alex said, optimism back in his voice. “We have Beowulf, after all.”

“Wuff,” Beowulf said and trotted off toward the hut.

“You heard him,” Alex said as he set off to follow the beagle. “Wuff.”

Chapter 3: Cauldron Conundrum

In the end, nothing went wrong because there was no one in the hut. It looked deserted or at least very poorly maintained. The only credible sign of habitation was the rusted black cauldron hanging on a tripod of tree branches over the remnants of a fire pit that hadn’t seen a flame in years. The cauldron was about two feet in diameter with a thick iron handle attached to a chain running up to where the three legs of the wooden tripod intersected.

Alex stuck his head through the doorway of the dilapidated hut and waited a moment for his eyes to adjust. The hut was bare, except for a simple wooden stool with three legs and a small wooden bed with a flat board where a mattress should have been. Although there was a thick layer of dust covering everything, there were no spider webs to collect it in the corners of the roof beams, as would normally have been the case. Spider webs required spiders and there were no spiders in the Dead Forest. Or any other kind of insect or living thing. Alex shook his head and turned back to the others outside the hut.

“Disappointing,” Ben said, kicking at a stone. “What a dud.”