Trent Jamieson - Death most definite

"But here's the thing. I am uncertain. I've got no bloody idea what the fuck it is I'm doing here. Or even how to start getting Lissa back."

"You need a guide. Call me Virgil."

"You worked for Dante, I suppose."

"Ha. Maybe we should get a coffee first." The cherub says, and I don't argue. "The name's Wal."

"I thought your name was Virgil," I say.

"Don't get cute on me, buddy."

"What kind of name is Wal?"

"Better than Stevie wouldn't you say?"

We reach the cafe and I sit in pretty much the same seat that I sat in not so long ago when I was rendezvousing with Morrigan in the living version of this place. A lot's happened since then. The creaking of the tree dominates, louder than I have ever heard it. It's calling me, I realize. This is truly what it must feel like to be dead. There's a mesmeric quality to the sound and it generates a hunger in my chest.

I've pomped all my adult life, but I've never felt this before. This is what I'm going to have to fight against, if I ever want Lissa back.

I run through the coffee choices.

"Sweet Jesus. All I want is coffee. What the hell is a flat white?" Wal peers at the crow growing out of the barista's neck. "What do you recommend?"

The crow cocks its head.

"Just get him something easy," I say.

The barista sniffs. "You saying we're not up to the task? Saying we can't make good coffee?"

"No, I-"

"We'll make you good coffee," the crow says. "You'll like it. Now what do you want?"

"Long black, no milk."

"Ah, typical," the barista sneers. "Fucking tourist."

The tree creaks like it's ready to tumble. Should it fall, the whole weight of it would surely break the thin shell of the earth and drive the city into that chill abyss beneath. I realize I've heard that creaking ever since I sliced open my arteries with the craft knife. It's a background noise that has lifted startlingly in volume, shocking me when I least expect it.

I sip my coffee out of a paper cup. It's cold and tastes burnt and a little ashy, but no matter, I'm still getting over the fact that my money is good here.

I look at my change. The money is subtly, slyly different. The plastic of the notes is a bleached white. The faces printed on it are the same, but the flesh hangs loose, the eye sockets are empty, and the expressions contained within change every time I glance at them. They shift from mute terror to mad laughter in an eye blink. Except for the coins and the five-dollar note-there the Queen's face is serene and motionless. She's still alive, I guess.

The cherub grins at that. "I can't believe that after a century of federation, you're not a bloody republic yet."

Wal grips a chai latte in its wings, taking loud sips every few minutes that disquietingly warms my left biceps. I don't understand why my coffee is so cold.

I'm not terribly comfortable with the whole thing, but he seems to be enjoying his latte. "Haven't had a cup like that since, well, I can't remember. I do remember old Vic was still queen, and it wasn't as milky."

"Nor was it chai, I'd wager. Which hardly makes it coffee."

Wal grunts. "Maybe we need to keep going."

"How familiar are you with the Underworld?"

"I've been here a few times, day trips mostly. Been a long time between visits. So you're a Pomp. It explains a lot. The Underworld's different for you guys. It doesn't like you lot messing around. It gets you out of the way as quickly as possible. You can't change the order of things around here, mate. Your girlfriend will be up in the tree, and if she's been fighting her death like you say, then it may be faster for her."

"What'll be faster?"

"Assimilation. The tree's going to want to absorb her."

I'm looking at him, not comprehending at all.

"By your blank look, it seems to me that you are a pretty typical Pomp." I'm immediately defensive. But Wal doesn't allow me time to respond. "I don't know how you've lasted so long. What do you think a tree does?"

I shrug. "Grow."

"Nah. Well, yes, but how does it grow? It absorbs stuff, and it leaches stuff, too. This tree's just a wooden sieve. It separates the soul, and puts it where it belongs.

"It's the memory of the world, and a reflection, distorted of course, by the memory of it, because memory distorts everything. And it's the resorption of all that psychic energy, all those souls. The tree does that. Without this place, you'd have souls running amok everywhere, and Stirrers. Shit, there'd be so much confusion they could just walk in and take everything. Which is, from what I've heard, exactly what's been going on."

"So Lissa's being absorbed?"

Wal grimaces, his eyes lifting toward me. "Slow on the bloody uptake, aren't you? Yes and, like I said, it's going to be quick. As far as the tree is concerned, Lissa's been dead too long already."

And then I notice the armed Stirrers walking through the crowd in the lower section of the lookout. Stirrers here? How brazen.

I have to get going before they spot me. I know they can't sense me because I'm holding Mr. D's key, but they'll find me soon enough if I stick around here. They approach the barista. Great. He points vaguely in my direction, with an arm and a wing, and the Stirrers head my way.

I move as quickly as I can, hopefully without drawing attention to myself, to the base of the tree trunk. Once there, I can see stairs carved into the wood. The stairs stop at each branch after winding a lazy, but steep, circle around the tree. I start taking the stairs three at a time. It's a long way to the first branch, and even longer to the top.

"Slow and steady, eh," Wal says. "You'll wear yourself out at this rate."

"I don't have time," I gasp at him.

By the third circuit I'm hunched over, my hands gripping the rough bark of the One Tree, and I'm throwing up my coffee.

"You right?" Wal peers up at me.

"Fine, just some bad coffee."

"Just try not to get any of it on me."

Several times I pass dead folk heading where I'm heading, though none of them seem in any hurry. They look at me disinterestedly. There are a few I recognize, like John from the Wesley morgue, who nods at me. The sight of him disturbs me. But we don't talk, there's no time for that. All of us are too focused on our respective destinations. And I'm too out of breath.

There is only one person who passes me.

Mr. D comes silently from behind. He doesn't look at me as he goes, his shoulders hunched, his face set. The RM just walks higher and higher into the tree, and though he hardly seems to be walking at all, he's soon out of sight.

So he's finally gone. I'm seriously without allies.

"There's a place for all the Deaths-for the whole Orcus-high, right at the top of the tree. It's called the Negotiation," Wal says.

"What's up there?"

"Something you don't need to consider right now. One thing at a time."

And that one thing for me is these steps, one after another, over and over. It could be worse. I could be carrying a rock above my head.

As I climb, Hell unfolds beneath me, attended all the while by the creaking branches of the tree and the cold fingers of wind blown in from the sea. It's a beautiful sight, awe-inspiring in its vastness, the colors muted but varied. It's city, forest and sea. It's a sky streaked with blood-orange clouds. It's every sunset I've ever seen, every first glimmering star. I'm determined not to get used to it.

This place is death to me. Beautiful or not, that's all this kingdom is about.

I reach the first branch, and know at once that it's not the right one. It's a sensation buried in the meat of me, a certainty that is almost comforting, because it suggests that I might know where I'm going.

A little further up there is the scent of familiar souls, of family-cinnamon, pepper, wood smoke, a faint hint of aftershave and lavender. Maybe it'll be the next branch, or the one after that.