Chapter 43 — The Root Below

The descent was endless. Shards of glass dropped with Yusuf, each of them reflecting shards of his own face—his eyes, his injuries, his chattering teeth. A few reflected his father. A few reflected nothing.

The faceless child had its little hand wrapped around his wrist mid-arm. There was no tension to the grip, but he could not escape. The two of them descended into darkness until the storm of glass blew out.

They hit hard into something nearly not solid. The earth rippled like water but was as unforgiving as rock. Yusuf stumbled, gasping, his eyes locked on the earth underneath them.

It wasn't a cave.

It wasn't even dirt.

It was root.

There were massives, white roots of skyscraper size reaching in every direction, weaving into a gigantic grid. They glowed dimly, and they carried memory, like veins carry blood. And Yusuf, from distance, watched them all combine to something enormous—a trunk bisecting the space, rising out of sight.

The Tree.

No metaphor. No myth. The thing itself.

The Codex burned hot against his chest. Ink leaked through its pages, spiraling upward into the root canopy, as if pulled by something older than both of them.

The child’s voice broke the silence. “This is the marrow of it all. Every world you’ve walked… every memory you’ve touched… they grow from here.”

Yusuf swallowed. His throat was dry. “Then this is where I’ll find him.”

The child tilted its head. "Or lose yourself forever."

They walked. A heaviness to the air—of dust, of heat, but of the tug of unspoken memory. Leaks of echoes from the roots as Yusuf walked: laughter footfalls, cities aflame, words in tongues he was forbidden to speak. Some of the roots glowed, afire with light. Others were black and shriveled, cleft to dust.

Deeper, whispers grew to words.

"Areachivist…" a root sneered. "You cannot hold us."

Another: "Dry up with us…"

And another: "To recall is torment."

Yusuf extended his hand and stroked one of the dark roots. Memories shattered in him—views of humans begging to be forgotten, cradling their wounds, their grief too big to keep inside. He withdrew his hand, gasping.

The faceless child looked at him. "Not every memory wants to be recalled. You should have known."

Yusuf clenched his teeth. "If I leave, what is there? Quiet. And quiet is terrible."

The boy spoke not a word. But Yusuf thought—briefly—that the vacant mask regarded him with a face of commiseration.

They continued until the ground steepened, roots gathering into a twisted staircase that led down into a hollow incision in the side of the Tree.

In its entrance was a form.

Not his father.

Not human.

A Watcher.

But whereas the Assassin—torn, flowing, unstable—was shattered, this one was whole. Standing, draped in threads of ink and light, its face a blank sheen of warm obsidian. It raised a hand as they went by, and the root quivered.

"You step too deeply, Archivist," the Watcher warned. Its voice was not sound but oscillation, thrumming in Yusuf's bone. As if waving to him, it said, "This root is yours."

Yusuf battled the Codex, ink swirling around his arm. "Then take me."

The Watcher nodded its empty head. "So shall it be."

The roots wrapped, holding fast like snakes.

The child spoke by Yusuf's side. "This is not illusion. This is guard."

And the ground shook as the Watcher moved forward.