Just Call Me Ruxxxty Bones...Part 2

Kenny was waiting for me just beyond the range of the obelisk. His Spirit was bright and strong, with the vibrancy of youth.

I crashed through the forest to stand in front of him. “Why didn’t you let me help you, Kenny? You didn’t have to die!”

Kenny shook his head. “You are the one in need of help, Father. Such help always comes with a price.”

“Why do you have to pay the price for helping me?”

His eyes bore into me. “Because you are no longer capable of helping yourself.” He turned his back to me. “We will be going to a place you were once quite familiar with. Meet me at Yggsdrasil.”

I hadn’t been back to that place since I had parted ways with Drake and John Red Bear. It was in the forest near that clearing where John had shown me about the obelisks and their strange powers.

“You know how to get there?”

Kenny glanced back at me before shimmering and slipping into the Shadowland. “I do now.”

I had little choice but to summon the Shadow myself and head towards the clearing where I usually found more questions than answers.

I emerged from the Shadow on the edge of the clearing expecting to see the towering mass of Yggsdrasil that dominated the middle of the place ever since I had planted the baton that hade grown into a full blown tree. Instead, I found a place that changed drastically. The once thriving tree that had introduced itself to me as Yggsdrasil was now a withered remnant of its former self.

The once black trunk was now graying in many places. Nearly all of Yggsdrasil’s marvelous black and white leaves lay scattered about the clearing, lazily blowing and rustling in the mild breeze.

I stood there in shock, unwilling to believe that this once massive tree was now a shriveled relic of itself.

Kenny stood near the base of the tree. He had adopted the physical image he had before the battle in Alaska. His face was grim, his eyes sad.

I stumbled towards him, tripping over the tangled mass of dry roots between us. I was still at least eight feet tall, my body now resembled the Demon’s than my own natural form.

“What happened here?”

He looked up into my eyes with his own expressive brown eyes. “This tree reflects the strength and vitality of your Spirit. When you planted this tree, you planted it in strength and defiance.” He looked form me back to the tree. “You see, Father, the Tree is you, you are the Tree.”

“But how can that be? I am stronger than I have eve r been? I almost single-handedly slew and consumed three Banes! I’m finally strong enough to take on the damn An’girasii on their terms!”

He shook is head. “Dad, you can’t beat these creatures by becoming like them. Look inside the memories of those Banes that you destroyed. When you do that, you will find that each of them was once a powerful person who thought that they too could challenge the power of the An’girasii. In the end, each of them fell under the sway of the very powers they thought they could replace.”

“I’m different. I’m stronger. I’ve got the benefit of Drake’s thousands of years hunting the An’girasii and all of John’s teaching.”

“You’ve taken all of that knowledge and experience and have become stronger than any Bane, this is true. But in the process, you’ve also lost what it is to be human. If you can’t find a way to regain what you have lost, you will become more a danger to all you hold dear than any number of Banes. That is why I am here, to help you find your way back to us. If I fail, then I would not have had much a future in any event.

“But know this, Father. I may be your last chance to save yourself, the ORC’s, Alexa, and the future of humanity.”

Looking inward as he spoke, I combed through the roiling images of the memories of the Banes that I had destroyed. Of the three, though, only Arixtocles’ were immediately decipherable. I began sorting through all of the earliest memories that I could looking for what he may once have been. Just as Kenny was finishing, I found a small kernel of memory that had been suppressed for almost as long as Arixtocles had existed. I was not prepared for what I found…