In another time that already seemed impossibly distant, James had been dragged through the House of Galendar for his first meeting with Lord Galen. Now, flanked by warriors in white, he was being dragged through the innumerable corridors of the Citadel to meet his brother. That other time, his fear had been for the unknown. But now he knew precisely the danger he faced; Lord Galen had at last abandoned him to his brother’s will; a will that he knew was hell-bent upon his destruction.

The walls that slowly slid past his eyes were free of the elaborate designs that had decorated Galen’s house; their bare utility spoke of a place forged only for war. But when at last the meandering corridor came to an end, James was unprepared for what lay beyond. Emerging from the gloom, they stepped out onto a wide platform suspended within the great tree canopy of the wall itself. And there, filling the swaying boughs above the Citadel walls was a tree-borne city.

The buildings were those now familiar to him, Gelder constructions of every shape and size, fused to the prodigious branches like so many barnacles clinging to rock. Here and there, glorious hanging gardens protruded from confluences of interlocking boughs, trailing emerald-green fronds like the draped curtains of weeping willows. But, by far the most decorative additions to the city were its citizens, who gathered upon balconies and railed courtyards to quietly observe their passage. Their garments were simple and discrete, but the colours they displayed were many, mirroring the shades and hues of the trees and gardens that surrounded them.

The city was vast, and after a convoluted journey along pathways of wood and leaf, they eventually mounted a huge branch which swept towards the interior beyond the wall. The various homes and buildings that had littered the heights of the canopy gave way to a pair of conical guard towers, which rose from either side of the path like ornately-carved totem poles. Between the towers, a wide archway framed for the first time a glimpse of the interior realm.

There was movement within the shadows of the short tunnel, and then six armed men were standing across their path, their hands tight upon poles tipped with slender wooden blades. James tensed as they neared them, but at some unspoken signal, the guards silently stepped aside, their expressionless eyes following their passage through the arch. Beyond a short tunnel, the last curtains of leaves parted before them, and then they were upon a vast bridge, soaring out across the immense interior.

After the austere environs of his cell, James imagined that the land encircled by its walls would be similarly bleak; perhaps consumed by training grounds and billets, the milling ranks of white-clad warriors. But instead, he beheld a vista that could only be described as paradise. For as far as the eye could see, the kingdom contained within its vast walls was composed of gardens, orchards and gleaming pools. Here and there, scatterings of houses formed tiny villages, crisscrossed by dirt roads that meandered through wooded valleys. If indeed this was a place forged for war, it was a forging yet to be fully committed.

His senses were so overwrought by what he saw, that he didn’t at first notice the impossible structure that dominated its centre.

Stretching up into the clouds was a glistening tower of white. Squinting against the reflected light of the sun, James thought he saw the tattered remains of a flag fluttering lazily from its lofty summit. Compared to the already prodigious height of the Citadel walls, the column of white towered above its canopy like a skyscraper. The first thought that flamed into his mind was that it was the very same tower from which he had been summoned. But again, his embattled perceptions had been misled, for this was a tower not of stone but of wood; the trunk of an impossible tree.

Drawing nearer, he realised that the tree formed the hub to which all other sections of the Citadel wall was joined. The only branches it possessed were those given over to serve as bridges; colossal arches of white that stretched across the great interior like the spokes of a gigantic wheel. To left and right, lines of citizens passed along its many bridges to disappear inside the tower like colourful ants entering an obscure colony.

Eventually, they too were carried to the tower’s face where a dark cleft gaped from its pristine surface. Without pause, the guards bore him through and they were promptly swallowed into the depths of the tree itself. The narrow fissure they followed was claustrophobic and heavy with the scent of sap, but it wasn’t long before they emerged once more into a vast chamber hollowed from the tree’s interior.

The guards halted upon the threshold and James wearily passed his eyes around the edge of the chamber where numerous other openings disgorged a steady stream of people. The atmosphere within the great space was charged, the gathering crowd expectant and strangely apprehensive.

At an unseen signal, the warriors resumed their ingress into the chamber, bearing James along a path that descended into the bottom of the bowl-shaped hall. Tiers of wooden benches, like the raised rings of the tree’s earlier growth, slowly filled with spectators who turned and pointed as they passed. Soon a babble of muttered conversation accompanied their passage, rising in volume until the air rang with its nervous energy.

In the bottom of the chamber, the floor rose to form a raised mound upon which a circular table sat. Shafts of sunlight, from channels carved into the high ceiling illuminated the table like baleful spotlights, where a dozen or so white-robed figures sat in quiet conversation. The air above the table seemed to vibrate with power, as though the potent aroma of tree sap were a living force filling the centre of the great chamber with its restless energy.

The guards finally drew to a halt where a shallow flight of stairs ascended the mound. Without warning, they released their grip dropping James to the ground like a discarded sack.

‘Prisoner,’ the warrior beside him said, his emotionless eyes staring past him to the raised platform above, ‘you will proceed to the Clyst alone.’

James looked up in confusion, his aching legs barely able to support his weight.

‘I… I can’t,’ he croaked.

‘You will find the strength or you will be sentenced without trial,’ the warrior replied flatly.

The murmur of conversation in the hall quietened as James got unsteadily to his feet. With hands still bound painfully together, he lowered them to cover his modesty and took his first tentative steps forward. The staircase was steep and as he laboured up, a black haze began to creep in from the corners of his vision. His legs were weak and trembling, his breathing ragged. It was only a short climb, but when at last he pitched through the narrow opening into the space surrounded by the table, his vision had reduced to a narrow point at the end of a long, dark tunnel. Exhausted, he fell to his knees.

As though his fall to the ground had communicated some obscure form of profanity, a hushed silence fell upon the assembled host. The curious silence stretched out and at last James felt compelled to drag his head up from where it had been bowed.

The island of space bounded by the table seemed to focus his plight, and for the first time he met the eyes of those white-clad figures seated around him. The men and women regarded him with a mixture of fear, pity and open hostility. Even here, naked, bound and helpless, James marvelled that there could still be those that would fear him.

It was only then that he saw the man sitting at the head of the table. Bewildered, he met the eyes of the man he already knew. Lord Galen stared back at him without blinking, his body as rigid and unyielding as the white wooden staff clasped so tightly at his side. With a movement as effortless as breathing, the tall man rose from his seat.

‘Barbarian, forthwith you are to be sentenced by the Lords of the Citadel. The men and women gathered before you represent the ten bedrock towers of the great wall, and it is with them that your fate now resides.

‘You will answer their questions, and then you will be told of the crimes set against you.’

Galen’s voice was measured and calm, like the time they had first met, but his eyes burned with a hatred that marked his face like a blight.

‘At the last, if you possess such words, you may attempt your defence.’

‘Wh… where’s Lord Balen?’ James said, his voice an insignificant whisper in the vastness of the wooden cavern.

The tall man whirled around, the pretence of his former calm crumbling at the audacity of his question.

‘You will not speak until spoken to! Is that understood?’ he bellowed. ‘Further deception from you will not be tolerated! You know as plainly as do us all that my brother has fallen with the rest of his household.

‘I am Lord Balen, Custodian and keeper of the Clyst, and I will see to it that you pay dearly for the transgressions you have committed against our people!’

As the great crowd of spectators murmured their agreement, realisation descended upon James like the cold water so recently used to wake him from his slumber. The indomitable figure who now towered above him was not Lord Galen, but his twin brother. The likeness was complete, yet some essential difference marked the other man’s aura like an invisible taint. Like Galen, his brother exuded hidden depths of power, like a vast store of rock and ice silently braced before an avalanche. But whilst Galen had worn his misgivings and uncertainties in plain sight, his brother displayed nothing but open hostility. Whatever fears or concerns drove Balen’s actions they were buried beneath an unshakable confidence in his own convictions.

The Lords proceeded to stand in turn, each of them asking questions that James had answered or been unable to answer countless times before.

When James spoke, the assembled crowd registered their shock that he knew their language. When he told of his flight into their land, or the dream of his summoning, they murmured with unrest. The fear of the crowd was palpable in the great chamber, and with each mumbled answer he gave, James felt himself being dragged deeper and deeper into the guilt the questions implied. News had likely spread of the attack of the demon and the slaying of his companions beyond the city walls. And now, the assembled host looked upon the sole survivor of the attack; a man who had fallen from the sky in a ball of flame. They saw not the man of flesh and bone, abject and defeated before them, but a monster capable of any atrocity.

At long last, Lord Balen finally halted the questioning. He seemed unconcerned with the answers James had given, as though it had all been a performance merely intended to deepen and secure his guilt.

Facing him from where he stood, the tall lord spoke, directing his words with the full force of his disdain.

‘Barbarian, you are hereby accused of the following crimes:

‘The unwarranted entry into the lands of the Gelding;

‘The practicing of profane arts;

‘Complicity in the destruction of Galendar and the systematic slaughter of the fringe villages;

‘The summoning of a demon and the defilement of the sacred wood…’

Balen paused, measuring out the import of his words like nails bludgeoned into the lid of a coffin.

‘What words do you have by way of defence?’

Floundering, James helplessly looked between the stern faces turned towards him.

‘Please, somebody help me!’ he gasped. ‘I’m lost here. I’m lost and there’s nothing I can do to escape this madness!’

‘The prisoner denies nothing!’ Balen seethed, sweeping his hand in a violent gesture that made his robes billow theatrically about him.

Some of the Lords openly registered their agreement, as others turned to one another with what might have been doubt or fear etched upon their faces. But beyond the table, the chamber rang with upraised voices; the atmosphere of the assembled host had shifted from one of fear and uncertainty to one of unified anger.

With a grim smile of triumph, Lord Balen motioned for quiet as the noise within the chamber subsided into an uneasy silence. When Balen’s words returned, they echoed the animosity of the crowd filling the ranks of the chamber.

‘You have no defence for there is none to give. You are guilty by your very presence within our land, and it is here, within the sanctity of the Clyst that the fate of your contemptible life shall be decided.’

Turning to the other Lords, Balen shouted into the tensed air, ‘Arise, Citadel Lords!’

As one, the assembled Lords stood. In the utter silence of the chamber, the sound of their sudden movement echoed into the space like the beating wings of vultures. With his hand like steel upon his staff, Lord Balen’s voice cut through the silence.

‘Cast your judgement!’

A flurry of movement unfolded from around the table as the Lords swung their staffs through the air. James cowered to the floor, raising his bound hands above his head to ward the blows raining down upon him. But as the dull retorts diminished in his ears, he opened his eyes to find seven of the staffs now lying across the tabletop, their ends pointing towards him like accusing fingers.

Three of the Lords had kept their staffs planted firmly upon the ground, but it was obvious now that the majority had determined his fate.

Lord Balen seized his own staff and brought it down upon the table with a crack that reverberated around the chamber. Its accusing length added to the seven others, punctuating the finality of their judgement.

‘The Clyst has spoken! Justice be done!’ Balen intoned, as the assembled host repeated the refrain.

‘In obeyance of Gelder martial law, the prisoner will henceforth be taken to a place of execution, and there removed of his life by the decapitation of his head.’

Lord Balen regarded James thoughtfully, the last shreds of his former rue extinguished by the favourable outcome of the sentencing.

‘In death, may you be pardoned for the evil you have committed against our people.’

James’ eyes widened in terror as he jerked his head between the three Lords who had abstained from passing judgement. In his panic he couldn’t speak but his anguished eyes beseeched them nonetheless. Two of the three avoided his gaze, unsettled by his distress, but the third slowly shook her head, a silent refusal of the judgement that had been passed.

The same two guards that had led him into the chamber now slowly mounted the stairs behind him. They were about to place their hands upon his shoulders, when a loud voice was raised from a distant corner of the chamber. There was the sound of running footsteps and then a ripple of conversation broke through the massed ranks surrounding the Clyst.

‘Silence!’ Balen commanded, repeatedly striking the floor with the rod of white wood. ‘What is the meaning of this disturbance?’

The chamber quietened and from where his head bowed to the floor, James heard a female voice rise out of the gathering quiet.

‘How could you do this?’

James’ body became rigid. He recognised the woman’s voice but it was a voice that he thought he would never hear again.

With the little strength that remained in the muscles of his aching neck, he turned slowly around. A woman wearing the dark green of Galendar ascended the Clyst and knelt beside him. Her scarred face was incredulous and angry, but for once it was disdain that was not directed at him.

‘You sought to deceive me, uncle!’ Leander shouted. ‘Jame is here before you now because my father wished it to be so!’

James shook his head in bewilderment. It felt as though the last fragile grasp he had upon this reality was slowly tearing itself apart. Leander shouldn’t be kneeling here beside him! He had watched the beast break her body upon the fallen trees, had seen her armour cracked asunder. She was dead! She had to be dead!

The chamber rang with upraised voices, instantly silenced by Balen’s staff once more striking the ground beneath him.

Another female voice intruded upon the quiet, and turning, James recognised the muscular young woman who had so recently released him from his cell.

‘Father, I am sorry. My cousin could not be dissuaded.’

Lord Balen sighed and waved a weary hand before dropping back into his seat in frustration. Leander scowled at the man that was her uncle before drawing a slender dagger from her belt. At the sight of the weapon James flinched, but despite the young woman’s grimace of frustration, she managed a tight smile before motioning to his bound wrists. Still unable to believe what was happening, he obediently raised his trembling hands as Leander deftly sliced through the thick cord; the blood surging back into his swollen hands like fire trickling down his veins.

As the assembled host murmured its confusion, Leander waved to another figure standing behind her and a bundle of green material was promptly passed forward. He recognised the garment at once, the travel robes he had worn through the many days of their pursuit through the forest. The garment had since been washed and as she helped his clumsy arms into its voluminous sleeves, its familiar weight settled across his shoulders like an old friend.

At last, he took Leander’s hand and together they stood to face Lord Balen and the assembled lords.

‘You forget yourself, child,’ Lord Balen finally said through gritted teeth. ‘When you passed within the bounds of our kingdom your father’s position on this matter was rendered obsolete.’

‘If the memory of my father means anything to you at all, you will grant him his final wish!’

‘Sentimentality has no place in times of war!’ Balen shouted, slapping his hand upon the wooden table. ‘You have seen what this man is capable of and yet you seek to spare his life?’

‘This man saved my life!’ Leander retorted.

‘Have you already forgotten the downfall of your own house?’ Lord Balen shouted. ‘The demon summoned less than a league from these very walls? Do you think these mere coincidences? With my own eyes did I see the beast attempt to aid his escape and with my own ears did I hear it commune with the man whence it lay dying.’

‘Jame did not summon the beast. He foretold of its arrival and gave us warning!’ Leander shouted. ‘They pursue him because they fear him, not because he is any part of them!’

James stared at the young woman in disbelief, incredulous that she could offer such an impassioned defence. This couldn’t be the same woman who had so often reprimanded him for his stupidity, the same woman who had so often intimated that he was to blame for all the ills that had befallen them.

Turning back to face Lord Balen, James saw a grim smile form beneath his narrowed eyes.

‘If, as you say, the man is as pitiful and harmless as he appears, what better agent of ill to send amongst the people of the Gelding than one who engenders such pity? Might he not have saved your life with his profane magic merely to gain your trust? Balen sat bolt upright, punctuating his next words with a pointing finger. ‘There is more to this man than the skin and bone set before us!’

‘Granted, we do not have all of the answers,’ Leander replied scornfully. ‘But until we have exhausted all possibilities, we cannot condemn an innocent man to death!’

At that moment, the middle-aged woman who had abstained from casting her vote moments before suddenly spoke up.

‘Then, what would you have us do, Daughter of Galen?’

Balen sighed, clasping his staff as though to crush it between his rigid fingers.

‘Spare him,’ Leander replied without hesitation. ‘Allow the man to return to his own kind.’

‘Impossible!’ Balen spat. ‘The barbarian has walked Derridin’s Wood. He has set foot within the walls of the Citadel! He will never be permitted to leave the Gelding alive.’

‘Then grant my father’s last wish. Allow Jame to seek audience with the monk,’ Leander retorted. ‘It suffers you nothing to delay his execution another day. You have held him captive for half a span or more and still the walls of the Citadel remain standing!’

‘So be it!’ Balen roared, swinging his fist at the table in frustration. ‘The barbarian may have his audience with the old man, for all the good it will do him!’

The furious lord now faced Leander squarely, the rod of wood trembling in his clenched fist.

‘If the Kloven intercedes on his behalf, the man may live. But, should he prove unsuccessful, then the proclamation of the Clyst will be enacted to its fullest extent! War is upon us, we must show our enemies as much mercy as we have been granted these past ten turns!’

Angrily turning her back on her furious uncle, Leander strode from the Clyst, pulling James along with her. Excited conversation erupted from the crowd as they descended the flight of shallow steps, the anger and resentment that had seethed within the air but moments before, now dissolving into confusion. People rose from their seats to watch them pass, but not one them dared come any closer.

As James weaved an uncertain path along the rows of seats, the darkness lingering at the edges of his vision began to creep forward. The noise and clamour of the chamber jarred violently within his head, the ground pitching wildly beneath him. Strong hands caught him before he fell, but the darkness obscuring his vision was now complete. The noise of the crowd faded into the distance, but Lord Balen’s voice reached him, bludgeoning its way into what remained of his conscious mind:

‘Understand, barbarian, that the chance I give you is scant indeed. For, I doubt my brother will have mentioned that the man who now holds your life in his hands is one that has become utterly and irrecoverably mad!’