The Iron Tree

THE IRON TREE

The iron tree rose defiantly above the fairy ring of blackened stumps
and blasted cinders at the crest of a low hill which was once the
village green. Next to the iron tree stood a boy, around thirteen years
of age with fair hair and a slightly sunburnt face. The boy, whose name
was Abraham, had lived close by for almost as long as he could remember
but he had only recently taken to spending his time in the shadow of
the Tree. This was mostly because his uncle had refused to let him out
alone until he was old enough to carry a knife, but also because, and
he was ashamed to admit it now, when he was younger he was frightened
of the Tree.

The tree itself was about fifteen feet in height, and fashioned very
much like a young oak or apple tree with low boughs spreading upwards
from a knotty trunk and though more slender than a normal tree, it
could quite easily be mistaken for its living cousins during the winter
months. It could easily have frightened a small child, with its rusted
points and twisted sinews, its mutilated state with jagged holes where
branches had been broken or devoured by rust and the eerie way in
which, despite all that man and nature could do, the Tree remained
upright to mock the world around it.

But Abraham was older now, and childish fears had given way to the
adult concerns of survival. He was however fascinated by the intricate
design of the structure, the way in which, though organic in appearance
it was held together by many little bolts and rivets, joins that were
invisible unless you knew exactly where to look and, he now
appreciated, the meticulous balancing of weights and forces that held
the structure proudly in the air. Once he had tried to scratch away at
the grey brown crust with his little blade and his hours of effort were
rewarded by a streak of bare but slightly oily metal, glistening with
bands of rainbow colour.

The boy admired the tree against the sunset as the first breath of
night air whipped around him, made heavy by the barbecues upwind. There
was still a community of sorts gathered around the iron tree mostly
because it stood near to an old stone bridge that was still intact. The
village had no name that anybody could remember and no laws to speak of
and its population would change from month to month as wanderers passed
through in search of work and food or simply land that was not ruined.
Few stayed, but those like Abraham's uncle who had found some crack in
the hard ground where their lives could take root became the permanent
inhabitants of the hamlet.

Abraham's mind was engaged in a question that he had never quite
resolved in his mind. He wondered if the iron tree had roots like other
trees, which spread as deep into the ground as the highest branches
thrust into the air. The trunk was slightly flanged at its base, but no
iron roots emerged from the hardened ground and the boy's painful
digging with his little blade had revealed nothing. He had imagined
that there might be some monstrous iron spike bored deep into the
ground below but decided that some sort of giant anchor holding the
tree fast and steady was more likely. He had several designs in mind
but somehow knew that he would never be able to second-guess the
fiendishly cunning designers that had assembled the sculpture.

It would be dark before long, and the boy's fear of the night and of
his uncle's fearsome temper led him to leave his contemplation for
another day and pick his way through the old tree stumps, past the
burnt out remains of a stone house to the cabin that had been his home
for most of his childhood. The cabin was quite large by the standards
of the village, with two brick walls that once formed part of an older
building, and three big rooms inside. A wooden roof sloped down from
one of the brick walls leaving part of the other wall complete with
most of an old chimney, sticking out above it. His uncle said that he
had built it himself shortly after the War, although it was quite an
impressive construction and he had never seen his uncle doing any
building work or carpentry.

The main and only door into the hut led straight into the largest room,
which contained the chimney. This room contained his uncle's most
important possession, and the source of his livelihood. It was an old
copper still, a wonderful construction of kettles and tubes which,
along with the fermentation apparatus dominated the bare brick wall at
the end of the room. Form and structure had always fascinated the boy
and, before he was old enough to explore the iron tree, the complex
apparatus had been the most interesting object in his world. The still,
however, had lost much of its glamour when Abraham discovered that the
evil smelling liquid that emerged from the machine was in fact its
raison d'?tre and there was no more sublime purpose to it than to
produce something to drink or to barter.

The old still glowered at the boy, reflecting in the red light of
sunset as he stepped gingerly into the hut. Like a spider in a copper
web the blackened boiler crouched in the old fireplace, reminding the
boy of the power it wielded over his and his uncle's life. Most of the
sour potatoes his uncle grew behind the hut and the green bottles
Abraham was sent out to collect went to feed the machine and whenever
he was not growing potatoes or trying to exchange the liquor for food
and old clothes his uncle would normally be in his armchair by the old
still, slowly sipping at a frosted glass with his eyes half closed
looking down on the hard stone floor.

But the old man was not in his armchair today and his great sheepskin
coat was not on its hook on the door. Perhaps he was still out
exchanging his wares or speaking with acquaintances. All the same, his
absence surprised Abraham a little, who was used to his uncle being
home before dark. For a moment he toyed with the idea of returning to
the iron tree or perhaps exploring some other secret place, but then he
thought better of it. After all, his uncle could return at any time and
could well be in an unpleasant mood if he had been drinking.

The spirit was the only thing that brought feeling to his uncle's
tired old face. During the day he was tightly shut up in work and
everyday living, only speaking to Abraham to give him commands or to
grant, or more likely refuse, his requests. Even when he had a special
gift for the boy, like his knife, some paper or a candle for his room
he would hand it over as though paying off a toll or debt, ignoring
gratitude and muttering about how difficult such things were to come
by.

In the evenings, however, he was very different. Abraham remembered
one night a few months earlier when he let some fatty pork catch fire
over the stove. When his uncle saw the ruined meat his red face
crumpled in frustration and the boy knew to expect the worst.
Thankfully, the old man never actually hit him, but his bouts of rage
were terrifying nevertheless. He was far more likely to strike at the
wall or anything else that happened to be nearby. At other times he
would bring his fist down on his thigh so hard sometimes that he would
limp next morning. Having lost his temper, he would order the boy to
his room and then slip into a lonely melancholia until the candle died
away.

On this occasion, his walking cane came crashing down onto the table,
sending a glass bottle down onto the floor. Abraham watched the full
bottle smash into the floor right by the open fire, and as the liquid
spread around his feet and into the flames his uncle's rage turned into
terror. The liquid in the bottle was water, but as they stared at one
another, Abraham too realised that it could have been pure spirit. His
uncle broke Abraham's gaze preferring to inspect the damage he had
caused.

"Go to bed." he said, his voice trembling. "I'll see to this. Go to
bed."

Abraham very nearly left his uncle that night, but knew there was
nowhere else to go. He thought that the kindly Armstrong family who
lived down by the river might let him stay a while, but they were much
too close to his uncle. Beyond the village, itself a dangerous place,
was the strange and fearsome world outside. There were rumours that the
old mines to the north were under the control of bandits who kidnapped
vagrants and enslaved them underground. The countryside was said to be
full of thieves and robbers and there was talk of something called
Small Pox, which was supposed to be far worse than any bandit or
murderer.

Besides, the episodes of wrath were only part of the personality the
old still's power could release from the old man. At other times he
would be talkative and benevolent, recalling pleasant little details
about the magical world that had existed before the terrible events
which had destroyed it so many years ago.

Abraham could remember very little about the time before he became his
uncle's ward. There were the faintest recollections which might have
been memories or dreams; great chambers full of light and air, a forest
covered in snow, and the fragrant scent of beautiful cleanliness. A
thousand other images were added to this core when the spirit loosened
his uncle's tongue. The old man's talk of steam engines, gigantic
cities and awesome cathedrals merged with the boy's own dreams and
memories into a glorious kaleidoscope vision of a realm that was lost
forever.

And then came the descent. Faint memories of a sound like thunder, men
and horses writhing in a frenzy, broken glass and women's tears. He
remembered a long journey in the darkness through a world of steel and
fire and the loss of many precious things. But these were broken
fragments merged with the fears of childhood that made no sense to him
now. He had asked his uncle several times about what had happened
during that terrible time, but had learnt very little. His uncle was
not a 'real' uncle but a dear friend of his parents. They had both been
killed leaving Abraham in his care.

When questioned any further, the old man would either lapse back into
his taciturn daylight personality or, if very drunk might become morose
and then Abraham knew that it was wise to leave the matter. Once he
told him that his father had been a soldier and himself a special
policeman, and that he had escaped from the wicked men that murdered
his parents. Abraham braved a question about his mother, but heard only
a stream of muttered nonsense as the old man slid into another bout of
misery.

Abraham had learnt to stick to safer ground, where his uncle's
memories could be quite fascinating. When he asked about the iron tree
he could see the delight in the old man's eyes as he told all that he
knew. There were many such sculptures around, and many more had been
destroyed. They had been there long before he had been born, and in the
golden time were all beautifully maintained. He said he had not seen
the iron tree itself during these times but had seen similar creations
before the War when most of them were ruined or destroyed.

The iron tree itself would have been a gathering place for on special
occasions like famous birthdays and the anniversaries of great battles
when the children of the village would spread flowers and bright
banners across the gleaming boughs. Abraham imagined what it must have
been like before the other trees burnt down and the iron tree became a
ruin. Perhaps one day the little grove would be restored to its former
state.

This seemed unlikely though as no one in the hamlet took much notice of
it any more. Armstrong used to tell his daughters that witches lived
inside its hollow trunk so they should never go near. Adults tended to
avoid it as well as though the air around it was slightly poisonous.
Older children would sometimes go to throw stones at it, or even try to
break bits off as though resentful of the power it once had to keep
them away. But on the whole it sat abandoned and ignored right in the
centre of the village.

The light outside was fading very quickly and the room had suddenly
become quite dark. There were three candles in the room which his uncle
had recently obtained from the butcher, but they were of poor quality
and filled the air with the smell of rancid meat. Abraham decided to
light just one of them, with a wooden spill from the hot embers in the
stove. The fatty spluttered into life with a tall and dirty flame that
cast a sallow light over the contents of the room.

It was a little too early to go to bed, so Abraham searched around in
the candlelight for one of his many unfinished wood carvings. He had
discovered carving about a year ago when his uncle sent him to the
Armstrong residence to collect some potatoes. Old Armstrong liked to
carve when he was not working in the garden and was good at it as well,
populating his cabin with polished wooden dolls and animals. Abraham
was not particularly good at carving and most of his projects were much
too ambitious. He had wasted days on end trying to carve a little
wooden Iron Tree but always ended up with something like a clenched
fist badly out of shape before giving up out of frustration. He would
succeed one day.

He had just found a figure that was supposed to represent a soldier he
had seen painted on an old biscuit tin when he heard a sharp knock on
the door. Startled, he dropped the little soldier and the knock came
again louder than before. He rushed over to the door.

"Who's there?" he called. The door was quite solid and bolted twice.
Unfortunately there was no grating and there was no telling who was on
the other side. A high pitched voice, quite thin and croaky, like a man
with a sore throat replied.

"Bottles. Bottles for your uncle."

"Can you leave them by the door?" replied Abraham.

"You don't want them stolen."

"No."

Without thinking, Abraham shot back both of the heavy bolts on the
front door. A second later he was struggling in the arms of a huge
hairy man while another man closed the door behind them.

They had taken him by surprise and quickly overpowered him. He could
not see his attacker who now held him from behind with a foul smelling
hand over his mouth. The other man, however, drew closer in the
candlelight and the boy could see his face. It was difficult to tell
the man's age but his face was lean and heavily lined. His hair was
thin and straw-like and he wore a leather miners' tunic of the type
often seen on travellers from the north. He was hardly taller than
Abraham, partly on account of his awkward, unhealthy looking gait and
on his right cheek, knotted with age but still unmistakable was the
brand of a Convict.

Abraham had heard about Convicts before but had never seen one anything
like this close. Convicts were wild men shunned and hated by everyone.
They travelled around alone or in packs getting food any way that they
could, some said even through cannibalism. They were mostly insane and
always dangerous.
Abraham shuddered as the Convict's eyes wandered over his face. The
revolting hand released his chin as the Convict continues to study his
features in silence. The boy tries to avoid the Convict's gaze in
terror of a madman's stare but when their eyes finally met he saw
instead a sorrow so profound that it struck him with a sense of dread
and wonder greater even than his fear. The moment passed and their eyes
fell to the floor.

"He looks like his father" gasped the Convict in his broken voice. The
grip from behind tightened noticeably. "At least he looks like his
father." The Convict raised his eyes again and glanced around the room,
fixing on a rickety old chair in the corner of the room.
"Tie him down."

Instantly, the silent man dragged Abraham towards the chair and as he
did so Abraham could see that he was also a Convict, with thick dark
hair and a wild grey beard which obscured most of his face. The boy
cried out as he bound him tightly to the chair, pulling thin ropes hard
across his chest. In a flash the other man was upon him, smothering him
with a single large hand which forced the boy's head back painfully
against the wall.

"Listen!" he hissed. "You speak when I tell you to. Understand?"

The Convict released his grip as the silent man finished his work.
Abraham let his head fall forwards as the pain subsided. He closed his
eyes and realised that a warm tear was running down his cheek.

"There we are." The Convict's tone had eased a little and when the boy
opened his eyes again, he could see that both men were now seated with
the speaker in his uncle's chair. He noticed that they both carried
knives, not short and blunt like his own, but long, thin blades in
leather sheathes on belts around their waists. They were quite well
dressed by the standards of most of the village; their tunics were in
good repair and beneath them they wore shirts and trousers made to fit
them. Despite their scars these men were not mere vagabonds.

The silent man was looking at the Still and then at his companion, who
was also interested in it and the bottles around the room. They smiled
at one another, but then the talking man moved over to the boy who
trembled with fear as brought the candle over.

"Now. I want you to tell me where we can find the man who owns this
house." The menace of his quiet tone and the stench of the candle
sharpened Abraham's mind as he tried to remember where his uncle had
gone that morning. but his memory deserted him.

"I don't know." he blurted out, half crying, "Who are you?"

"Where?" The sickly tone had vanished as had the sheath of the
Convict's slender blade.

"I don't know....I don't know!"

"Liar!" The Convict brought his vicious blade up closer to the boy's
face.
"He went out....I don't know..."

"More!" The piercing blade was an inch from the boy's left eye.

"I don't know!" he screamed, overcome with horror as the room around
faded into a dark haze. Silence for a moment.

"He's telling the truth." It was the Convict's voice again, but this
time more distant and calmer.

A jarring, numbing blow to the side of the head sent the boy into
oblivion.

Awareness slowly returned. A heavy, sticky sensation at first, then a
dryness in the throat and finally a wave of pain which swept across his
body. He could not breathe through his nose and he could taste the
blood and mucus that had dried around his cracked lips. The rest of him
was racked with cramps and bruises where his bonds cut into him.
Slowly, with great effort, he drew cold air into his lungs and forced
open his eyes.

It was later, much later in the night and the room was bathed in
moonlight. Two dark forms, outlined in silver light were slumped over
the table. The Convicts! His muscles tightened as he saw the knife
gleaming on the table behind it sat two bottles and a glass. Another
glass lay broken on the floor, barely visible by the now extinguished
candle. Perhaps there was a chance if only he could summon up the
strength to loosen the bonds.

He tested their strength, but they held firm and now seemed tighter
than ever. Frustrated, he strained hard against them, but this time the
leg of the chair scraped hard against the floor. To his horror, one of
the Convicts, the man who had threatened him with the knife, began to
stir. The Convict lifted his head and looked sadly up through the
window.

"Awake?" he murmured. He turned to face the prisoner, propping himself
up with his elbow on the table.

"Why are you here? What do you want?" Abraham could not help the
pained questions falling off his tongue.

The Convict looked over the boy with faint amusement. His hand slid
over to the handle of his blade which he lifted in a clumsy attempt to
drive the point into the table. "I want the man who lives here!" The
blade scratched the table as it slipped out of his hand almost as far
as the arm of the silent Convict who did not notice

"My uncle?"

The Convict replied with a snort. "Do you call him that?"

"Yes. Who are you?"

"Did you know that he murdered your mother?"

Silence. The Convict's words, and the grim certainty in his bitter,
broken voice struck the boy like the hammer of an old church bell,
echoing within the sealed caverns of his distant memories. The world of
his childhood, that sacred place before the fall. Would a stranger seek
to rob him of that world with vicious lies or was it the truth that was
vicious?

The Convict was still speaking but in clouded tones an Abraham,
weakened by his pain and fear had slipped below full consciousness. But
this stupor was no black emptiness but was filled with dreams and
memories as well as darker forms built around the fragments of the
Convict's brooding monologue that passed through the wall of
senselessness between them.

He saw a soldier, an officer, a young man freshly blooded in war,
coming home to a great city to revel and delight in the power he had
been given and the capacity for cruelty he had discovered in himself.
It was a revolting image, still more so for being somehow close to him,
inside him like a parasite that dwelt within his mind.

"Your father was a rapist. I knew the girl. She was mine."

But there was more, another creature whose disciplined, professional
acts made the soldier's casual sadism seem like innocence. A
single-minded man in black velvet crouched over a walking cane with
minions like snarling dogs behind him. The son of a clerk who had risen
from a humble distillery inspector to a powerful official. Such
advances had their price, and perhaps he was indebted in some way to a
noble family with a wayward son.

Had his 'uncle' murdered his mother to conceal his father's crime?
There was worse to come.

"Your father wanted the child. You see he had a barren wife. She could
not bear it."

Abraham's mind slipped into a vision of a pauper's bedroom beneath the
weight of that great city, with walls covered in damp and creeping
mould. A young girl very beautiful but heavily laden lies wilting on
the pauper's bed. The Convict stands in the centre of the room, holding
his slender blade, and his hands are covered in blood.

"You wouldn't die, you little bastard!"

The Convict's shriek cut through the boy and left him gasping,
swallowing the blood that trickled down into his mouth as for a moment
he was jerked back into the cabin in the moonlight, before slipping
back into unconsciousness. But this time there was only the stark image
of the Iron Tree. The Iron Tree would not die either, its bastard form
wrought by the men who built the world before the War. They had gone,
but the Tree remained.

The tale wound on. His uncle's minions found the pauper in his room
and dragged him down into the darkness. But the pregnant woman was
carried instead to a place of light and air, a place outside the city.
And there she lay a helpless captive as the soldier's issue swelled
within her bosom and finally emerged into the loving arms of a family
who longed for a child.

But the spent vessel would become a problem for them, a black stain on
their spotless hands that would burn into them unless it could be wiped
away. The uncle would take care of that.

"I found out later, after the Revolution." said the Convict. "We found
one of his men and started on him. Told us everything. They drowned her
in the river like an animal. Killed him with my bare hands after that.
The mob got your father, and a pretty job they made. Stripped him off
and strapped him up onto the Old Black Lady by the station. Proper
lovers' embrace, like. Took him four... "

The Convict's monologue decayed into a meaningless obscenity which
faded from Abraham's consciousness as he dwelt upon the power of the
vengeful hatred that had ruined the great cities and the horrors that
devoured his uncle's mind. For the first time he could see him as the
broken shell of an iron man, serving out his sentence in the ruins of
the world he had created. He fell into a deeper sleep and blackness
overcame him

Once more an interval of undetermined length slid past and the
nightmare forms that passed his mind left nothing in his memory. It was
only very slowly that he became aware that his body, now free from its
bonds was being shaken hard and a familiar voice was calling him. A
sharp poke with a walking cane and his eyes snapped open. There was his
uncle, large and looming, cane in one hand, bottle in the other.

It was still dark in the room, but be could tell at once that something
terrible had happened. The oily smell of spirit was matched by another
odour, a salty butcher's smell. In the half-light of the early dawn
that filtered through the window he could see dark smears on the old
man's coat. Behind him, the Convict's silent companion lay, slumped
over the table. The boy could see that the surface of the table was
coated with a thin layer of blood.

Abraham looked once into his uncle's eyes and, even in the darkness saw
at once that the madman he has seen emerge before on fleeting,
terrifying occasions now held his uncle's mind and body entirely in
thrall. The boy tried to stand, but instead his body collapsed onto the
floor. There was no pain this time but instead a numb sensation as
though his tortured nerves and sinews had deserted him at once. And
above him stood an ogre.

"Come." said the old man, dropping his bottle to the floor. "Come,
boy!"
When he saw that Abraham was too weak to move, he seized him, and with
his tremendous strength half dragged, half carried him to the door of
the old cabin. The boy cried out in fear.

"We must leave here. Now!"

The old man kicked at the door which fell open and the night breeze,
cold and clean, swept into the room, reviving the boy as his uncle
dragged him out into the early dawn. Around them were the dark shapes
of the cabins of the village but Abraham could see lights burning in
the windows around. The village had been aroused by the commotion and
he could see a trail of lanterns moving up past the ruins to the burnt
out copse where the lights were barely visible through the mists that
shrouded the low hill.

And from that hill they heard a cry of horror and dismay followed by a
rising moan which flowed down into the village and seemed to echo from
the hills around. The entire nameless village was united in sorrow and
pity. Abraham felt the old man's icy fingers digging hard into his
shoulder as his uncle tried to pull his gaze away from the horrifying
spectacle.

But the cold breath of dawn had given the boy a final ounce of strength
and when he saw that the congealed blood on his uncle's coat and the
hand that grasped his shoulder, he cried out and fought the old man's
grip. His uncle released him with a howl of despair and fled into the
darkness. Exhausted and in pain once more, the boy collapsed to the
ground and there lay motionless as the village stirred around
him.

They brought the Convict's body down wrapped up in cloth which helped
at least to keep the corpse intact and stemmed the flow of blood from
his mutilated body. The boy lay silent on the muddy ground thinking of
his uncle and the Tree. The villagers ignored the boy and for the first
time since the war acted in unison, gathering firewood to cremate the
victims of the night's violence as the sun rose over their
houses.

When they were done with the bodies, the people hurried back into their
houses. Abraham could see them emerging moments later armed with axes,
knives and iron bars and for a moment, he thought they would begin a
hue and cry for his uncle or whoever else they suspected of the deed.
But their intended victim was not fleeing as a madman into the forest,
nor lying bruised and broken in the mud. Instead it stood defiantly
above the blackened cinders, still bearing traces of torn flesh upon
its rusted limbs. It had survived the War and lived on through the time
of fear that followed, mocking living creatures with the apparent
immortality of its twisted form.

The Iron Tree would not survive the day.