The Burning Oak Strikes Down Einor and Destroys the Shrine

The Burning Oak Strikes Down Einor and Destroys the Shrine is the climactic reversal in the confrontation between Gerry Fenn and EITHER-NOR: the creature advancing to kill him recoils from a light at the Shrine Oak, and the tree’s destruction ends the terror in the field. The apparent place of the shrine’s power is revealed as rotten within, and its collapse takes the creature and the sanctuary with it.

The Glow and the Reversal

EITHER-NOR is almost upon Gerry Fenn when the creature abruptly stops and turns toward the tree. Its moaning grows louder; its broken hands clench at its breast. Gerry Fenn follows its sightless gaze but sees nothing at first. Then a glow appears at the base of the Shrine Oak, brightening until it resembles a newborn sun. Something stands within its incandescent center, though Gerry Fenn cannot make out what it is.

The voices of two priests urge Gerry Fenn to pray. He closes his eyes and does so. When lightning strikes the tree, EITHER-NOR shuffles backward toward the splintered oak, arms outstretched, screaming and cursing. The reversal is stark: moments earlier the creature had seemed unstoppable, but now it recoils from the tree and the light beside it.

The Oak’s Destruction

The first strike sets the oak’s upper branches alight and tears open its trunk. The revelation inside is not vitality but decay: the tree is rotten and dead within, a nest for maggots, lice, and wood leeches, parasites that feed on dead things. A second sequence of thunder and forked lightning sends blue flashes along the contorted limbs and energy toward the earth. The whole oak bursts into flames with a tearing sound.

As the tree begins to topple, Sue and Ben seize Gerry Fenn by the shoulders and pull him from the platform. The three run from EITHER-NOR and the falling tree, then jump from the shrine into the soft earth. Gerry Fenn looks back to see Alice Pagett beneath the descending fire. She raises her arms as if to ward it off, but the small girl’s form gives way again to the black, hunched creature. Gerry Fenn believes he hears EITHER-NOR cry out as the burning oak crushes and incinerates it.

The Shrine’s Collapse

The platform’s centerpiece collapses, carrying those sprawled across it into the heart of the fire. Flames consume the structure; the earth tremors stop, and the screaming ends. Gerry Fenn draws Sue and Ben close as they huddle together, moving only when the burning platform’s flames come too near. Rain then begins to fall over the field.

The ending joins rescue and destruction without making them equivalent: Sue and Ben get Gerry Fenn clear of the platform, while the shrine itself is lost in the fire. The tree that sheltered parasites and concealed its own death becomes the force that destroys EITHER-NOR and the structure around it. With the tremors and cries gone and rain falling, the scene closes the confrontation through the ruin of the site that had held it.