The Fear You Know

23. Faith Without Works

 Eli reeled back in shock and terror as the massive creature loomed over him. A thousand eyes and a million appendages stretching out in hideous fleshy tangles, towering over him at least thirty feet into the air, blocking out the light of the sun and dwarfing him in its immense shadow.

"Wait! Wait! Relax!" Something grabbed him by the shoulder and stopped him before he could go running in the opposite direction, "it isn't going to hurt you." Eli looked up at Jonah like he was insane, to find Peter in a similar state of shock and horror though he had a hand around both of their upper arms, "Please just calm down!" he insisted, "It can't move."

Indeed, as he paused and looked upon the creature, Eli could see that it was not, in fact, moving. He took a tentative step closer unsure but curious looking down at its roots which were still and unmoving against the black marbled floor. It sat inside a shallow depression of sorts ringed with decorative black tiles which trapped its roots in a rictus of stone. Eli squinted, and on closer examination, he came to the realization that from a foot up the tree and downward, instead of skin, the tree was covered in bark.

Average, regular, boring bark.

He took a step closer, but Jonah tightened his grip, "You won't want to get too close, Twisted can be dangerous to newcomers."

Eli froze but continued to stare at the tree, watching as one of the students approached the base of the trunk, kneeling down with, what to Eli, appeared to be a sampling kit of some sort. Another student was trying to accomplish the same task but higher up. The upper student used a needle and drew blood when it prodded at the Dread. The second student used a scraper to chip the bark from the base of the tree.

Eli stood back in awe, lifting his head to look at the towering branches, upon which he was surprised to find people sat. Someone had even tied a makeshift swing to one of the lower branches and a small, one-legged girl was swinging to and fro, back and forth. Just above her a man was leaning against the trunk reading, and still more sat within the branches talking or reading.

The oozing eye blinked slowly once, and then closed only for another eye to open up on the trunk further up.

No one seemed to notice or care.

Eli took another step back and as he did, he noticed something.

He wouldn't have seen it at any other angle, but as he stepped backwards, the branches of the tree lined up with the circling arches overhead, and the intricate tilework below that so that it appeared as if the tree was encased inside a perfect circle.

Eli felt as if he had been struck by a bolt of lightning, and the world around him spun. Looming before him as an image created by the glow of a backlit dread, he saw the inspiration for the little pendant that hung around Peter's neck.

This was it.

The place the order of Hope had originated. The place with the greatest connection to his father's disappearance.

Head still spinning, Eli glanced towards his companion, who, like Eli, had not failed to notice the looming symbol above them, and now held the tiny silver pendant in the cupped palms of his hands, staring between it and the three with equal measures of fascination and horror.

Jonah smiled, "I see you have met one of our branches." Desmond shot Jonah a scathing look at his horrific pun, but Jonah seemed quite pleased with himself. "Unfortunately for those further out, bringing them knowledge is a little harder , so all we can do is spread the hope that our University provides." He motioned them forward, "Please come this way. But make sure to keep well clear of the tree."

Eli hesitated before following dumbstruck, craning his neck up at the dormant dread with its still branches and roots. Looking at the thing, Eli could only imagine what it looked like when it moved: the great roots churning through soil and puddles of stagnant water as its limbs waved madly, seeing with a thousand eyes and blinking with a thousand eyelids.