Title: The Oak Queen (2/6)
Author: klmeri
Fandom: Star Trek TOS
Characters: Kirk, Spock, McCoy
Summary: Sequel to The Desert Children; Kirk, Spock, and McCoy reunite, but they soon learn an otherworld, while easy to enter, is impossible to leave – particularly when it is conspiring to keep one of them forever.
Parts: Foreword | Where a Tale Begins | A Quest for Three | A Quest for Two | A Quest for One | At the Heart’s End

Where a Tale Begins

Every tale comes from a strange place. Leonard has decided his entire reality is a tale, both unusual in its origins and oddly fascinating when recounted. He met Gram who was possibly a beast beneath her skin but saved his life, only to abandon him later on. He discovered spellbound tree children, and he traded with a troll that recognized a man’s dreams by scent. He fell half in-love with a bird-woman who sang more sweetly than heaven itself and looked like fire; and an enchantment almost drowned him in a river as deep and black as midnight.

Yet the tale of his life continues to grow stranger.

Unfortunately Leonard has no time to share his musings or his misgivings. Sir Rowan spares no concern for them. Instead he whistles, an irritating habit that prevails whether Leonard is silent or shouting. With the forest shades at their back and a gloomy trail of ghostlight to follow, nothing perturbs the Guide, not even the occasional echoing bark of laughter from an unseen fox.

Leonard tries to interrupt Rowan’s jaunty tune but his companion only increases volume like a bird lauding the arrival of morning. As a slow morning-riser, there’s nothing Leonard hates worse. “Don’t you know another song?” he grumbles to the swishing cloak in front of him, which changes from one iridescent color to the next as it sways.

“I have no new songs, Doctor,” Rowan says cheerfully. “Only the oldest in the world.”

“And I don’t suppose I could persuade you to stop?”

“Are you so frequently ill-tempered?”

“Only when I’m lost in the woods with an off-key cuckoo!”

Apparently this comeback is quite hilarious. Leonard, hearing the sudden crack of twigs underfoot nearby, snaps nervously at Rowan to be quiet.

The man in the top hat ceases laughing and adjusts the angle of his spectacles with an impish grin. “Doctor, Doctor, do not be so wary. ‘Tis only the wind.”

Leonard shoots him a bland look. “Last time you said it was a squirrel.”

“Ah. Then let us say it is a squirrel, for consistency’s sake.”

“It’s not a squirrel, is it?”

“No.” Sir Rowan’s amusement dims somewhat as he looks into the crowd of trees. “I think, perhaps, you would prefer to be ignorant of what lives in this forest, Doctor. I would,” he adds calmly.

Leonard resolves then and there not to ask about the squirrel-that-isn’t. His Guide is right: he would prefer ignorance, if only to save himself from nightmares. “Can we get out of here?” The question is plaintive, close to a plea.

Rowan turns away with a slight nod. “The path’s end is just ahead.”

Having no choice but to believe him, Leonard sighs and motions for Sir Rowan to keep walking. When the whistling starts up again, he grits his teeth and endures it.

Jim turns his boot upside down and watches water and riverweeds pour out of it. “That was… not fun,” he mutters.

His First Officer’s silence is a cold rebuff. Jim can’t blame him. Spock didn’t enjoy reeling him out of the river in the least—especially considering Jim had not listened to Spock’s sage advice to leave it alone in the first place.

But that odd light had appeared, and then an ethereal river woman had risen from the surface like the mythical Venus, calling him to her…

Jim slaps his boot against his wet pants leg for good measure before stuffing his foot back into it. He shrugs off his embarrassment like an unwanted blanket and fixes Gram with a hard stare. “You said there was a bridge. Where is it?”

She’s laughing at him, he can tell, though her face reveals little of her mirth.

“The bridge is ready now.”

So, he had to nearly drown and get eaten by water harpy before the bridge could appear? Jim is close to snapping out how illogical that is, but he glances at Spock and wisely says nothing.

Gram, taking for granted they will follow where she leads, moves away from the river’s edge and onto a well-trodden dirt path.

“Jim,” Spock says.

He looks in the direction of Spock’s gaze and sees it—the distant outline of a stone bridge. One end of it set against the bank is faintly visible; its opposite end is not, nor is the other side of the river. Where it takes them, he thinks, is probably more dependent on where they want to go rather than where physics dictates they should be. It makes perfect sense then that he thinks only of McCoy from the moment they step onto the bridge until the moment it deposits them in a far stranger land than the desert they had left behind.

“Doctor McCoy is here?” He seeks reassurance as he observes green, mountainous hills and waves of forest.

“We must be quick” is Gram’s off-hand answer. “His journey is near its end.”

Clueless as to the direction of his Chief Medical Officer, Jim is at a loss to determine the shortest route by himself. He punches down frustration for the umpteenth time. This guide of theirs has promised to take them to Bones but it goes against Jim’s natural instinct to allow someone else the lead in the search of his officer. What if she breaks her promise and leaves Spock and him stranded in this no-man’s land? They don’t have bearings on where they are, let alone a clear understanding of it.

It should never be said that Jim Kirk is opposed to exploring. Why else would he crave to be in space? Spock’s feelings reflect his own, Kirk knows, albeit with a distinction for and a love of the science of exploration. What they can learn, the discoveries they can make, the new paths they can forge through the stars for others to follow someday—all of it is the reward for the risks of being an explorer and in particular a leader of explorers. So Jim cannot claim to be frightened of this strange otherworld because the adventurer in him is shouting with joy.

Yet dire circumstances can cloud even the purest happiness.

That cannot matter, Jim realizes. Gram may walk away in the next moment but he and Spock will continue on. Starfleet trains its officers to adapt when necessary, so they will do exactly as they must. These natural worries crowding together in the back of his mind might have substance to them but they cannot stand against his conviction for duty—whether that duty is to the adventurer singing in his heart or to the friend he is determined to find.

Still, though Jim isn’t afraid, he also isn’t a fool. He smiles faintly at the small woman focused on his reactions. “We’re at your mercy, Gram,” he tells her.

“You are.” Then Gram, visage grim, considers the unspoken invitation—and caution—presented by this new realm. “All paths spiral to the world’s heart,” she says. “All paths are dangerous. But there is one which is more dangerous than most.”

Jim finishes that train of thought for her. “And the most dangerous path is the fastest way to McCoy.”

It’s a decision they must make.

Because he has not come alone and his mission is of a personal nature, Jim looks to the Vulcan standing beside him. “My choice need not be yours, Spock.”

Spock asks Gram, “You indicated it is urgent we reach Doctor McCoy soon. Why?”

The answer is reluctant when it comes, like a truth that has serious repercussions once revealed: “He goes to the Queen.”

“What happens then?” Jim gently presses for more information.

He is shocked by the sorrow in Gram’s dark eyes. She says, “What happened to me.”

Much to Leonard’s surprise, Sir Rowan does not lead him from the labyrinth of trees, only deeper into it. The firebird’s forest changes with a single step across some elusive boundary, from a moonless night to a relentlessly sunny day. Thin saplings and old pines give way to mammoth-sized trees, like redwoods, spiraling high out of sight and strung with garlands of captive starlight. Mingling branches create pathways bridged with vines. Occasionally faces peer out of shadowed hutches made from bark and woven leaves.

“It’s a city,” Leonard says wonderingly.

Fondness and a hint of something sadder but fleeting touch the corners of Rowan’s mouth. “Yes. Only the grandiose and atypical will do. No fishing villages or shepherd huts for our kind.”

Leonard frowns, not understanding who that barb is meant for, if anyone at all. Then he considers why they are here. “I’m not climbing one of those,” he says peremptorily, turning to meet an argument head-on.

Rowan looks more amused. “Doctor, we are not apes. We have stairs.”

Leonard draws a breath, looses it wearily. Of course. Stairs.

And they are many, breaking free from the ground like roots at the base of a tree whose girth is so wide Leonard could not encompass it with his arms if he tried. The stairs wind steeply upward like a natural extension of the tree trunk. Leonard cannot fathom how they were constructed.

When Rowan and Leonard approach the stairs, a pair of men makes a silent appearance, armed only with a sense of purpose. Leonard examines the plain but elegant cut of their clothes and knows these men are, like Rowan, not ordinary.

“Guards?” he murmurs.

“Sentinels.” To the sentinels, Rowan says humbly, “We wish to enter the city.”

One of them asks in a soft tenor, “What is your purpose?”

Sir Rowan bows at the waist and introduces himself. “I am the Guide of this mortal. It is with the Queen that our purpose lies.”

The sentinels step aside but Leonard lingers a moment to look them over, equally perturbed and fascinated by their mixture of child-like and exotic features. They have slightly too-large eyes, high cheekbones and pale, almost translucent skin. They could not be called delicate but rather sinewy, like tall willows that are too supple and too strong to break in harsh winds. One sentinel has long, sun-colored hair tucked behind ears which end in delicate points. The other man of onyx hair has rounded ears like Leonard’s yet that is the only feature which makes the sentinel seem different. Certainly their imposing silence does not invite Leonard to ask why.

With dismay, McCoy becomes acutely aware of how bedraggled and grubby he must seem in comparison. He self-consciously rubs one thumb over the ring on his smallest finger. It is the only thing of value he carries but surely its small gem is worth nothing to them. He is worth nothing—that much Leonard can read in the disinterested set of their faces.

Rowan catches his attention and motions for Leonard to follow him. They embark on the staircase, which is a narrow passageway always lit by a soft glow just beyond sight. Leonard’s legs should hurt from the lengthy climb but he feels no discomfort. At some point in time he realizes, though he and Rowan are ascending the same set of stairs, they are no longer circling the same tree.

The stairs abruptly stop at a platform. Leonard steels himself to look down from its edge and inhales deeply at the distance to the ground. “How can you live up here and not be afraid of falling?”

“One becomes accustomed. Also,” Rowan spares a somewhat sharp glance at McCoy, “we are known to some as the Children of the Wood. The trees welcome us; they would not betray our steps.”

“What about mine?” he mutters.

Rowan gives no indication of hearing him. But minutes later, as they cross of a bridge swaying with a gentle wind and begin to climb another set of curving stairs, Leonard’s Guide says, “The trees dare not risk your life, Doctor. They may welcome us, but that is not to say it is a welcome without fear.”

“When you can go no farther,” Gram had said to Jim and Spock once she led them to the foot of a mountain which had seemingly appeared from nowhere, “you must jump.”

Jump? Jim thinks sourly, wincing as rock slices into the pads of his fingers. He feels for the next foothold and drags himself upward another six inches. We’re on a mountain and she wants us to jump off?

Above him a shelf juts invitingly from the mountain-side. If he can reach it, he can rest. He only need haul his tired body these last five feet and—

The sweat on his unprotected hands causes his grip to slip, and for one agonizing second, Jim teeters and believes he is going to fall. In the next second he flattens himself against the cliff face and stills, though his heart dances wildly in his chest. Wind ruffles his hair mischievously while he pants in short, fitful breaths. A bead of sweat traces the curve of his jaw and drips off his chin, then plunges into the darkness of a bottomless crevice far below.

Spock, a few feet down, has gone rigid as well. Jim is tempted to peek down but he knows he will only see the dirt-dusted crown of Spock’s head. Jim imagines his appearance fares no better.

He shouts against the wind instead, “I’m fine! Just resting a moment.”

Spock could so easily call him on the lie, but the Vulcan only shouts back, “The ledge would be more suitable to enjoy a respite, Captain.”

He dares not laugh, lest it dislodge him and send him to his death. Spock, of course, might try to catch him on the way down and that would likely mean they’d both die. Jim exhales slowly and turns his head to look upward, scraping his cheek as he does so, to judge the handholds within reach. Resolutely, he reaches for the closest one.

There’s no point in quitting now. They can’t stay stuck on this rock-face forever. They have to reach the top of the mountain—and then, according to Gram, jump. If she’s still at the bottom of the mountain observing their progress, undoubtedly she will not miss that part.

Jim cannot recall, as he finally makes it to the ledge and then leans over its edge to grimly wait for Spock, why in the world he thought she was worth trusting.

“If I never climb another mountain, I will die happy.”

Spock simply looks at his Captain. It had been part of his failure of foresight not to bring a jet-pack. When Jim does climb another mountain—and somehow Spock anticipates this event as inevitable—he can simply offer the man the easiest route to the top. Which Jim will refuse, of course, given his peculiar nature.

Surprised by that train of thought, Spock turns his mind to their current situation. The ledge, according to Jim, had been simply that: a ledge. But when Spock had gripped its edge and hauled himself onto it, he had seen that they had reached the mountain’s peak. He observed as much but Jim had looked at him strangely. Once Jim had turned around and saw what he said was the truth, Kirk had been unable to speak, so surprised was he. Spock does not doubt Jim had crawled onto a ledge. Spock also does not doubt they are now at the pinnacle of their destination.

Logic, Spock has determined, has little bearing in this world. At times he has floundered to understand how certain events could occur, until he figured out the only coping mechanism for the gaps his mind could not fill with scientific explanation would be to attempt no explanation at all.

Beside him, Jim stands up and brushes the dirt from his pants. “Should we go see what’s so important about the top of this mountain, Mr. Spock?”

A rhetorical question. Humans are fond of them. Spock inclines his head rather than answering.

Oddly, Jim’s communicator hisses to life. They pause to inspect it, because both of their communicators had malfunctioned and stopped working the moment the sun set into twilight over the desert, but the communicator makes no other sound. Jim replaces it on his belt with care.

The shallow crater ahead of them is enshrouded by mist. They circle the lip of the crater while Spock uses his tricorder to scan the toxicity of the air and soil; but as has happened so often since the journey began, the readings are too scattered to draw a conclusion. Spock resorts to examining the earth by smell, but he detects no sulfurous odor. Jim, who is more accepting that they are in no danger from their environment, points out a route which would be safe to descend and is already skidding down it by the time Spock has delineated the probable pitfalls. He follows, his boots causing pebbled rock to dislodge and shower the crater floor. The pebbles are white, Spock notes upon inspection, perhaps calcified.

“Spock!”

He drops a perfectly round pebble to the ground and strides to Kirk’s side. “Captain?”

Jim is staring through the mist. “I thought I saw—but I couldn’t have.”

Spock absorbs the disbelief in his companion’s face before turning to look himself. What he sees, though it is only a glimpse, surprises him as well. “Fascinating.”

“It’s a tree,” Kirk says with incredulity.

As they walk toward it, the mist parts and falls away, settling over the crater floor and, Spock would almost suppose if it weren’t too illogical, turning into tiny, glistening white stones.

Jim and Spock are almost within reach of the tree’s long leafless branches when Spock’s communicator turns on. A voice, distorted by the crackle of static, snaps over the line, “Hey you, stay away from my tree!”

Spock pulls it from his belt and looks at it for a long moment. Jim joins him in looking. Then they consider the tree.

To test his hypothesis, Spock takes two steps forward.

“I said stop!” shrieks the communicator.

Spock raises an eyebrow but silently leaves the next course of action to his captain. Jim approaches a low-hanging branch. When he puts a hand against the tree’s trunk, it shudders, dropping flakes of old bark. Mist rises up from the crater floor, an ominous billow of white. Spock says quickly to the area at large, for those who need to hear the words, “We mean you no harm.” The mist subsides.

Jim waits a moment. In the silence he begins, “I am Captain Kirk of the starship—”

“Yeah, yeah, I don’t care who ye be, Captain Dirk. Just keep your Greenman away from my tree!” This time the voice filters through Jim’s communicator.

“Captain Kirk. And that man is my First Officer, Mr. Spock.”

“He looks like a Greenman to me. He’s not welcome. Scat!”

“Says who?” Jim challenges mildly.

“Me!”

Spock believes he understands what Jim is doing. He voices the supposition, “If we cannot speak to you in person, we cannot assume you exist.”

High up in the tree, a limb twitches and a grumble rattles down through the branches. Over Spock’s communicator, the voice is saying, “Greenman thinks he knows something—fools, thieves—fine!“

A small shadow suddenly hops down to the lowest branch. It bares its pointed teeth at them, coalescing into a squat, gnarled-looking creature. “I am Keeper of the Tree,” the creature says into a communicator in his hand.

Jim and Spock’s communicators resound clearly with the words.

Spock doesn’t need to see Jim’s face to comprehend his shock. “How—Where did you get that?” Kirk demands from one breath to the next.

The creature (could it be considered a man? it is a biped and somewhat humanoid, Spock wonders) snaps the communicator’s lid shut with a growl. “It’s mine!”

Jim narrows his eyes. “That device is Starfleet-issued property. Who would give you…?”

“Doctor McCoy,” Spock surmises.

The creature chortles. “Dinner, you mean.” He chortles again, an unnerving sound. “It was a fair trade.”

Spock asks, “Do you know the location of Doctor McCoy?”

It eyes him distrustfully from where it is hunkered on the branch and answers instead to Jim, “Why would I know that?” Then, more sharply, “What do you want with my tree?”

“We need to reach McCoy. We chose this path.” He does not mention Gram specifically, which is a tactic of caution Spock approves of.

The creature is silent for some seconds, as if it is hearing words Jim did not say. “The Tree cannot help you.”

“What about you?” Kirk asks.

“I am part of the Tree.” The creature goes to the trunk and scales it with clawed hands. “I want nothing from you, and if you were wise, you would ask nothing of me.”

“Did McCoy pass through here? When?” Jim wants to know.

“Here, here?” It stops climbing toward a new perch in order to grumble. “Bah! Of course not! Why should he come to the top of the world? We were in the borderlands then—but I’ll say no more! What business is that of Captain Kurt and his Greenman? Be gone!” Then a shadow swallows the creature and they can see it no more.

Jim tries calling the Keeper back but to no avail. He folds his arms before turning to Spock. “Suggestions, Spock?”

“Can we go no farther?” He means the question to be musing but Jim’s face turns grim.

“‘Jump,’ she said,” he repeats softly. The Captain slowly spins in a circle, surveying the crater. It is empty except for the large tree. He frowns. “We’re not jumping off the mountain.”

“That would seem illogical,” Spock agrees.

Then Jim’s gaze makes its way back to the tree, standing alone and deeply rooted in the mountain. “But I can—” Rather than finishing that statement, Kirk does the unexpected. He leaps upward, planting one boot against the tree trunk for leverage and lifts himself into the tree. The tree doesn’t merely shudder this time but quakes, its branches snapping back and forth wildly. The Keeper’s voice screeches through Spock’s communicator, “What is this? What are you fools doing?!”

“Spock!” Jim wraps an arm around the trunk as the tree tries to shake him off. The mist thickens to a roiling smoke; it flings stones at them with temper.

Jim shouts, “Jump!”

Since Spock has decided not to rationalize where rationality doesn’t seem comparable, he jumps. His communicator is screaming, “No! No! No! Get away!”

The moment Spock takes a hold of the lowest branch, some kind of energy, like lightning, runs down the tree; its bark splits open in several places. One of the bigger boughs gives a great crack and thunder rumbles through the crater when it drops. Smaller branches bend or snap when the smoke whips past them as fierce as a hurricane wind. Spock hooks his legs around his branch so he is less likely to be swept away.

The tree quiets quite suddenly. The energy captured at its core dissipates into a handful of white stars. Beyond the tree is nothing, a darkness. They could be suspended somewhere beyond time, or nowhere at all. Spock does not know, nor can guess, until a light begins to blossom like young leaves at the tips of every branch. Then he sees that the Tree has transported them to a new place.

“Jim?” he calls, recalling that he is not alone.

The Captain’s voice comes to him from above, not quite steady. “Spock? I’m okay. Are you—?”

“Affirmative.” He releases his grip on the tree and drops the short distance to the ground. Jim untangles his body from the tree and carefully descends as well.

“That was—I don’t have a word for that, Spock. Where are we?”

“It would seem we are no longer on the mountain, Captain.” Indeed, they are on the outskirts of a forest. The tree has already set its roots into the earth; it gives the appearance of having always been there. Maybe it has.

He almost tenses at the snarling from above their heads. The creature, looking wind-blown and very unhappy, crawls out onto a tree limb to fuss at them. “You, you, you! How dare you both! No fare was paid!”

“That was well done,” a familiar voice interrupts. Gram appears at the edge of the forest and beckons them to her. “Come.”

If at all possible, the creature seems more incensed. “Witch! You foul witch, you’ve broken the rules!”

“The Tree has no rules to break,” Gram replies. “You have always been bound by your own greed, little troll.”

“Fool that you are, I would not accept all a Court’s riches to be you!” the troll counters, his lip curling in a snarl. His warning to Jim and Spock is: “If you follow this Guide, she will lead you straight into the mouth of a beast.”

“She has promised to take us to Doctor McCoy,” Spock says, interested in its reaction.

Its laughter is unkind. “Who says the two are not the same thing?” The troll-creature scuttles away, clonking its prized communicator against bark as it goes, and the great tree pulses with light once more. Then the Tree and its Keeper are gone.

Rowan steps aside to let Leonard pass into the entrance to a canopied hall, dappled within by sunlight and shadow. But voices rising from the forest floor disturb the tranquil atmosphere and cause Leonard to turn back. They are not high so up he cannot see the commotion. Three figures are surrounded by sentinels. Captured? Leonard wonders.

A face, thin and familiar, turns upward and pinpoints him with relative ease. Leonard opens his mouth in surprise to utter a name (Gram? how can she be here? where has she been?) when it is the tall uniformed figure beside her who lifts his face also to peruse the city of trees that rivets Leonard’s attention. For an instant, he thinks he is hallucinating. He must be because it’s impossible for—

“Spock?“

Leonard starts forward but a hand catches his arm, holding him fast. Rowan ignores McCoy’s whip of a command to let him go.

“Doctor, you must follow me to the path’s end. I am your Guide.” Sunlight glints off Rowan’s spectacles, shading the expression in his eyes.

A sly fox had asked Leonard once: …is he guiding you to his purpose or yours?

Leonard removes Rowan’s hand from his arm with sudden force. “My friend is here. I want to see him.”

“You must not,” his Guide insists.

The doubt and lethargy which had burdened Leonard since the firebird’s song no longer seems to be trouble him. He remembers what he shouldn’t have forgotten. “Thank you for taking me this far, Sir Rowan,” he says graciously. “I think I can find my own way home now.”

There is nothing to be done about Rowan’s paled countenance. Leonard cannot take back his words. Leaning out over the vine bridge, which pulls taut under his weight, Leonard cups hands around his mouth and shouts, “Spock! Up here!”

The third figure starts, looks up. It’s Jim.

“Jim!” Leonard cries with relief.

Though the others are far away, standing at the foot of city, Leonard sees Jim shape his name. Leonard shivers at the echo; at the same time a muscle in his leg throbs.

Jim says something to Gram and gestures sharply, pointing to McCoy, who must be little more than a madly waving specter of a human in a background of leafy twigs. Spock listens intently to Jim for a moment.

If they cannot come up, he will climb down, Leonard thinks. He turns around to ask Rowan to show him a set of stairs that leads directly to the ground rather than in a complex maze but Rowan is gone. The inquisitive faces who have been watching rheir progress through the city are gone too. Even the playful breeze has vanished.

Leonard is alone.

He starts back the way he came until he reaches the end of a platform. But there are no stairs, only a dizzying drop to the ground. “What the…” That can’t be right. He remembers the stairs from only moments ago.

An autumn-red leaf delicately brushes against his arm as it comes to rest upon the platform. He bends down to pick it up without knowing why, only to realize as he straightens up that his shadow has doubled.

And it moves of its own accord.

Leonard twists around and is greeted by a lone sentinel. “The Queen requests your presence,” McCoy is told.

He shakes his head. “I need to get down there.” He points off the side of the platform. “My friends—”

“The intruders will also stand before the Queen.”

That sounds ominous, Leonard thinks. “Then I’ll wait for them right here.”

The sentinel does not disagree. He merely places a hand on Leonard’s shoulder, and the world pinwheels in a fast circle of color before disappearing altogether. There is no time for Leonard to cry out.

“I don’t see Bones. Where did he go?” Jim asks, straining his eyes in vain to search one of the bridges connecting the towering trees. “Spock?”

“Negative, Captain. I can no longer locate him.”

Jim rounds on one of the tall guards. “Bring my officer, or take us to him.”

They don’t seem to be listening. He debates on issuing a more physical demand. They may be tall but they are not built as he is. He may be stronger.

Gram says softly, warningly, “Do not, Captain. They will lead us to where we must be.”

“How do you know they won’t simply throw us out of the forest?”

Gram answers by saying to one of the guards, “We wish to enter the city.”

“You are not welcome here.”

“I am welcome nowhere,” she agrees without heat, “but I am both guide and guardian. The ceremony begins. It is my right to attend, and I have brought guests. Do you deny us entrance, Sentinel?”

A shadow crosses his face. “I cannot.”

Her expression bears no triumph, only a gravity her companions have yet to fully understand. The men move away, and Gram walks to a giant tree. Its roots unfurl into a staircase that disappears around the curve of the tree.

“Do not look back,” she tells Jim and Spock. “Do not look down. Speak to no one but McCoy until the question is asked. Otherwise your chance is lost.”

Jim wants to know, “What question?”

“The only question you can answer” comes her vague reply. She steps onto the stairs then, and Jim follows her, Spock after him. They are careful to seek for no more explanations. Eyes fixed ahead, they ascend into the city as voiceless spirits walking a path of the shunned or dead. He can feel it now, a teasing red alert at the back of his neck, that they must not err. Gram is right: this is their only chance to save Bones.

When McCoy comes to, he feels fuzzy and detached, as though he has spent many years separate from his physical self. His feet are planted inside a narrow hall. His temples hurt, and his body is stiff. Gradually he becomes aware that one pants leg is slightly damp. A slow, clumsy inspection (why are his hands so badly coordinated?) reveals sluggish bleeding from his old thigh wound. An injury. How had he forgotten that?

“Doctor McCoy!”

His name. Someone is saying his name, maybe has been saying his name for a long while. Some of Leonard’s bewilderment recedes. He glances over his shoulder to find Jim Kirk staring at him near the entrance to the hall, exasperated and clearly worried. He looks like he wants to shake Leonard (or hug him) yet restrains his movement. Or something else restrains him from approaching.

“Bones,” Jim asks, gentling his voice, “are you all right?”

What a loaded question, Jim. He croaks, “Y-Yeah.” Then, almost absently, “…Spock, why’re you frowning like that?”

Apparently it is above a Vulcan’s dignity to argue “I do not frown.” Sadly, Leonard wishes Spock would, if only so he could be comforted by the rebuttal and be assured he isn’t hallucinating after all. To Gram he says nothing because he has no idea what he wants to say to her.

The two sentinels standing guard over Jim, Spock, and Gram break the reunion—and the hall’s eerie quietness—by thumping their oaken staffs against the floor. They repeat the action twice more.

A warning or a trumpet’s call—Leonard doesn’t know what it is meant to be but he understands its purpose. There is a new presence in the hall. Here, a voice whispers in his mind. Look here.

It is in front of him but he doesn’t want to look. He feels afraid to look yet despite his fear cannot resist. She wants him to acknowledge her.

A hauntingly lovely woman of indeterminate age sits upon a throne of twisted roots, her hands lax against its curved, earth-dark wood and her expression unchanging. She is a Queen to all; she needs no other name to wield her power. The two sentinels come forward to kneel before her in reverence before blending back into one dark, obscure mass along the hall.

She is waiting for Leonard to approach her. He goes without meaning to, drawn by the tether of a silent command. There is no other sound to disguise the echo of his footsteps across the roughly hewn floor of a tree’s inner belly. Vaguely he is aware that Jim, Spock, and Gram follow. Gram does not seem bound by the force that binds Jim and Spock, but she comes no closer to the throne than where Leonard stands.

Crowned with oak leaves and roses, the Queen gracefully bends her slender neck as she considers the odd pairing they present. Under her stare, Leonard envisions himself clinging to rock, a moon shadow ready to be flung to the earth by an impervious watchtower. He can almost feel the press of cold stone against his face and wind tugging at his hair. Telling him to let go, to fall.

At a surreptitious brush of Gram’s fingertips against his palm, Leonard starts and the dream dispels. His vision shifts then, cutting through the deceptive light around the Queen, and his lips part in surprise. The roses in her crown are black, not a lush red; the leaves brittle and withered. Her hair is a silvery veil of cobwebs, and her eyes are storm-gray.

She is still beautiful but also terrifying.

Whatever he might have said about his vision becomes lost when the Queen speaks. Her voice imitates an icicle, dripping words like cold water. “Tithe-payer, welcome to my Court.”

Leonard can never forget his manners, which were instilled in him at a young age. His nod is perfunctory but respectful. Finding his voice is more of a struggle. “Ma’am, I am Leonard McCoy.”

He does not need to see her ‘Court’ to know others are present. The hall does not seem to adhere to its outer dimensions, giving the impression of tired galleries full of movement. Moments ago, Leonard had thought he had seen a figure dressed in attire similar to Rowan’s but the glimpse was like a barely visible reflection in a dark glass. He had stopped himself from calling out, somehow knowing that Rowan won’t—or cannot—acknowledge him now.

The sudden hush of the hall becomes fingers walking the length of McCoy’s spine.

The Queen asks, “Have you come of your free will?”

What reason is there to lie? No one had forced him to follow Gram, then Rowan, though at times he had felt he hadn’t a choice in the matter. “Yes.”

“Do you accept the full price of the tithe?” The words are smooth and sepulchral, born of a tradition which has outlived stars. He senses her words spinning a web about him, but he is helpless to stop it. She, the spider at the heart of that nebulous netting, is waiting patiently for him to be caught and cocooned.

Leonard tries to put distance between them but he suddenly finds his body is physically incapable of the slightest of movements. “What tithe?” he chokes, but the knowledge is there: the colonists giving him to the desert—to Them. Her.

No one heeds the question.

Who pays the tithe if I do not? the doctor asks himself. A memory haunts him, birch trees with youthful eyes.

Why does yes seem like the only answer to give? But it is. He whispers it. The web still ensnares it.

The Queen is silent, gathering power. There comes a final question, one he could not have anticipated: “Is there one who can claim you?”

Leonard is silenced by an invisible hand. This question is not meant for him. The spider doubles her web’s strands, weightless but effectively binding. He still has a chance to escape them, Leonard knows, but he cannot speak.

The voice of a friend rings clearly through the hall, Jim in Leonard’s defense. “I claim Leonard McCoy.” Spock lends strength to the pronouncement with “We claim Leonard McCoy.”

The spider, the Queen, stops her weaving. Leonard stumbles free, almost crumpling at the sudden freedom but catches himself with a hand on Gram’s shoulder. She does not refuse him help.

“I can…” Dare he ask? Dare he believe it? “I can go home?”

“No.” The denial is razor-sharp, a blade cutting through flesh to bone. The Queen binds them all in a grander web than one meant for a single man. “No, a claim must be proven. He—” She lifts a thin, delicate hand and points at Kirk. “—must pass a test of blood and bone.” Now she points to Spock. “This one must earn the firebird’s magic and you, tithe-payer,” Leonard straightens and turns to face her again, unwilling to appear weak, “will show us where your true heart lies.”

“Accepted,” Jim says without batting an eye.

Leonard and Spock stare at him. Leonard opens and closes his mouth. “Jim…”

“I had to climb a mountain to get here,” Jim says. “There’s no point in turning back now.”

“Oh god,” Leonard says succintly.

Gram smiles at him, the first broad smile he has ever seen on her face. Her teeth are definitely pointed. He doesn’t know if she is wishing them good luck or is just overly pleased about something. He decides not to ask.

Spock folds his hands behind his back and cuts into Leonard’s jumbled thoughts. “Doctor McCoy, when I agreed to support your request, I did not anticipate your involvement in such an unusual predicament.”

His shoulders slouch out of pure, rebellious habit. “You pointy—never mind. If you’re implyin’ this is my fault, I’m going to kick you.”

“Bones, I think he means to say he’s sorry.”

“Then for God’s sake, he should just say the two words I’m sorry!“

Spock argues coolly, “That is one word and a conjunction.”

Leonard rocks back on his heels. “Did you climb a mountain too?” he asks the Vulcan.

“Affirmative.”

“Well by God it’s a miracle you didn’t fall off of it!”

And suddenly Leonard feels immensely better. The Queen, however, has no more tolerance for mortal bantering. She sends her sentinels to kick Jim, Spock, and McCoy out of the hall. Gram offers advice to them as they are herded away.

After navigating a bridge, Leonard asks, “Did she say what I think she said?”

Jim examines the end of a platform with a grim eye. “Yes.”

“But what does that mean, ‘jump’?”

Jim rubs at the back of his neck. “It means we won’t be lucky enough to find stairs, Bones. So we jump.”

“What!” Leonard squeaks, but sadly he has no time to protest further.

Jim jumps off the platform like it isn’t the craziest thing to do in the world and Spock (“let go, you green-blooded bastard!” McCoy yells) follows shortly thereafter, taking Leonard with him.

They nimbly land on the ground and, glancing back, discover the forest city is not even a vague speck on the horizon. A beach dune looms over them. Leonard stares down at the sand covering his boots.

“Fascinating,” Spock says.

For once Leonard has no urge to disagree.

A Quest for Three

Related Posts:

• The Oak Queen (6/6) – from June 29, 2012
• The Oak Queen (5/6) – from June 19, 2012
• The Oak Queen (4/6) – from June 17, 2012
• The Oak Queen (3/6) – from June 13, 2012
• The Oak Queen (1/6) – from May 29, 2012

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