Summer's Cauldron Read online

  “Mmmm, are you sure that’s a raft?” Clark said, walking toward the assemblage of logs and branches.

  “Whatever it is, I’m not setting foot on it,” Victoria said, her hooves dancing anxiously. “I’d only end up swimming.”

  “I don’t think you’d want to swim in this pond,” Rafael said as he cast a stone into it. There was no ripple along the surface of the water. The stone simply disappeared without a sign or sound.

  They all stared at the pond in silence for a moment. Alex peered into the murky black water. There was a film of something slick and oil-like along the surface of the pond, but he could not tell what it was and had no inclination to touch it and find out.

  Something moved in the shadowy depths of the water. Something white and swift. Then it was near the surface, near enough to almost see, but not quite. Alex leaned a little farther over the edge of the pond. What was that thing? It reminded him of something. Was it a fish? The surface of the water erupted as a slimy white creature with fins and a gaping mouth of razor-sharp teeth burst from the pond and launched itself at Alex’s head.

  But, Alex’s head was not where the dead fish had thought it would be. Alex’s head was several feet away from where it had been a moment before. The hungry dead fish fell back to the water and disappeared, again without a ripple or a noise. Alex blinked and realized he could feel a hand holding the back of his shirt. He turned to see that Victoria had pulled him back to safety at the last second. Again.

  “For such a clever boy, you don’t seem to learn very fast,” Victoria said with a smile.

  “I may make a lot of mistakes,” Alex said with a grin, “but I never make the same mistake twice.” Rafael coughed. “Well, not three times, anyway. Thanks. Again.”

  “You’re welcome,” Victoria said. “Again.”

  “Right,” Alex said, turning to the others and trying to let his grin widen into something that would seem like confidence rather than insanity, “nobody fall in the pond.”

  “I never would have thought of that on my own,” Rafael said, rolling his eyes.

  “Here’s the plan,” Alex said, ignoring Rafael’s jibe. “First we need to find some long branches to use as poles for the raft. Then we’ll take the rope from Clark’s backpack and tie it to the raft. Victoria and Clark will stay here. That way if something goes wrong, they can pull the raft back. Fast.”

  “Finally, you’re beginning to plan for things going wrong,” Rafael said.

  “I always plan for things going wrong,” Alex said, “only it’s never the things I plan for that go wrong.”

  “Reassuring as always,” Rafael said.

  “That’s the easy part of the plan,” Alex said. “The hard part will be figuring out how to get the Rune Tree to give us the rune we need to finally defeat the Shadow Wraith.”

  “Something about that tree doesn’t feel right,” Daphne said, staring across the strange pond.

  “How so?” Alex asked. As a half-human and half-dryad wood nymph, Daphne could commune with trees in ways ordinary mages never could.

  “It’s too quiet,” Daphne said. “Normally, I feel something from a tree. Get some impression of it.”

  “Maybe it’s been surrounded by all these dead trees too long, and forgotten how to talk,” Nina suggested.

  “No,” Daphne said. “I feel something alive, but it doesn’t feel like a tree should.”

  “We’ll be extra careful then,” Alex said.

  “Yes, that always helps,” Rafael said. “Nothing ever goes wrong when we’re extra careful.”

  “You can stay here with Victoria and Clark if you want,” Alex said to Rafael with a taunting tone.

  “What, and miss all the screaming?” Rafael said. “Don’t be silly. The screaming is almost as much fun as the running.”

  “Both,” Ben said with nervous laugh. “It’s best when there’s screaming and running.”

  “Were all of you dropped on your heads as babies?” Nina asked.

  “Let’s get moving,” Alex said, ignoring the others. “We don’t want to get caught the Dead Forest after dark.”

  That thought sufficiently motivated them all, and within several minutes, they had scavenged five long and relatively straight branches that looked as if they would remain whole long enough to use as raft poles. Clark rummaged through the oversized backpack of supplies he carried and produced a long length of rope that he tied to the edge of the raft. Shortly after that, Alex, Nina, Ben, Daphne, and Rafael clambered unsteadily onto the raft, holding their poles, as much to steady themselves as to steer the craft.

  “Good luck,” Victoria said with a small wave as Alex used his pole to push the raft away from the shore.

  “Thanks,” Alex said, waving back at Victoria. It was an odd moment to think about it, but he wished he had kissed her before starting across the pond toward the Rune Tree. It had been nearly two months since that first kiss on the day they had saved the town from the Shadow Wraith, but somehow there had never been a second.

  It was not that Alex didn’t want to kiss Victoria. He thought about it all the time. But most of the time they were with the rest of the Guild and it didn’t seem right to kiss her in front of everyone else. Again. And every time he did manage to arrange for them to be alone, he could never quite figure out if she wanted him to kiss her or not. Sometimes the look on her face seemed to say she wanted to be kissed, but then she would start talking about something, rambling in that wonderfully endearing way she had, and he couldn’t figure out how to kiss her when she was talking. If she was talking, she probably didn’t want to be kissed. Right?

  So they flirted, or at least they did what Alex hoped was flirting, and they spent most of their time together, although usually surrounded by the rest of the Guild, and Alex tried not to think about the centaur boyfriend she was supposed to have had back in England. She never mentioned him. Was it because she had broken up with him? Or was she still writing him and that was the reason she didn’t want to kiss Alex again? He had tried to bring the subject of the boy centaur up several times, but Victoria always turned the conversation elsewhere. What did that mean? Was she interested in Alex or not? Maybe he should ask her. No. That seemed too easy. It couldn’t be the right thing to do if it was that easy.

  The raft shuddered and Alex lurched forward, catching himself from falling into the dead pond with the poll. He turned to see that they had arrived at the small island. He had daydreamed about Victoria the whole way.

  “Glad you could join us,” Daphne said, smacking Alex in the back of the head. Alex flinched and frowned.

  “Yes, whatever could you have been thinking about?” Rafael said, sarcasm disguised as innocence dripping from his voice.

  “Tree,” Ben said stepping from the raft to the dry grass of the island. “Think about the tree.”

  “I was,” Alex said, covering his embarrassment by jumping from the raft.

  “So what’s the plan, Stan?” Nina said, smiling up at him in a way that let him know she knew exactly what he had been thinking about.

  “Simple,” Alex said, setting the pole down on the raft. “Daphne and I will approach the tree and see if we can talk to it. Or something. And you three will stay here as backup in case that doesn’t work so well.”

  Surprisingly, no one said anything. Alex couldn’t decide if that was a good omen or a bad one. He turned and started walking the twenty yards to the Rune Tree, Daphne falling in at his side. The shaft of sunlight breaking through the clouds touched only the leaves of the tree, giving them a vibrant green hue completely incongruous with the rest of the island and the forest.

  “Feel anything yet?” Alex asked in a half-whisper.

  “Something,” Daphne said, squinting at the tree. “It feels like it wants something.”

  “What could a Rune Tree want?” Alex asked.

  “I don’t know,” Daphne said, staring up at the massive tree and brushing a strand of long, black hair from her face. “Normally trees want simple th
ings like sunlight and water. This tree seems hungry for something else.”

  “Let’s hope we can figure out what it wants and how to get it to give us the rune we need,” Alex said.

  “Assuming it even knows the rune,” Daphne said.

  “The Rune Tree is supposed to know all runes,” Alex said. “That’s why they call it the Rune Tree.”

  They reached the tree and walked across the edge of its shadow and into its shade. Now that he was closer, Alex could see the tree did not look as healthy as it did from a distance. The bark of the trunk was warped and twisted into shapes that did not resemble runes at all. They almost resembled a face. All of the stories Alex and the Guild had managed of track down spoke of the bark and leaves of the Rune Tree as imprinted with runes. It was said each leaf of the Rune Tree held a different rune. All the runes of the world. If a leaf and its rune were to fall, that rune would cease to function for magic for all time. But, as Alex stared up at the leaves above his head, he saw that, while they were mottled with reddish-brown textures on the undersides, they did not seem to be marked with runes of any kind.

  “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 d
idn’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.