It was so menacing that Alder could not help but take a half step behind his wife for protection. He gave off a quick, painful cough as her guards leered at him disapprovingly.
Once long ago he had had a name, but it had been so long it had been lost to history, and even now he himself had trouble remembering it if he did not bend his mind towards it for some time. Now he was known only as the Elder. At the base of his massive trunk, a small shrine and platform existed, placed so that any who wished to commune would be forced to look up at the gnarled old tree, but the Queen ignored it. Tapping her staff, a root grew up under her feet and lifted her aloft, so that she might face the Elder on equal footing.
Alder’s coughing grew worse and he weakened visibly, his hand reaching out for something to steady himself.
“Are you certain you are all right?” Queen Athel asked, glancing down at him from her high perch.
“Quite certain, my Queen,” Alder reassured weakly between coughs. “Just a bit of hayfever.”
Alder took out his handkerchief just in time to catch another volley of painful coughing.
Athel’s brow pinched in worry, but time was against her. “When we return to the palace I want you to see a healer. I am concerned about you.”
Alder bowed formally, trying to play it off, but even from this distance she could see his back trembling with discomfort. “Please do not worry about…”
“Have you come for any other reason rather than to disturb my dreams?” the twisted Nallorn tree grumbled, his bark groaning as he flexed his heavy branches towards her.
The Queen crossed one foot behind the other and gave a polite bow as she introduced herself. It was an extraordinary gesture, especially considering his discourtesy.
“Elder, I have come to you today with many questions.”
The tree gave off a long, wooden creaking sound, which Alder had learned from talking to Deutzia was the way trees moaned.
“The young always have questions,” he flickered.
Queen Forsythia reached into her sleeve and took out a drawing she had made. “We found this symbol beyond the sanctum, directly beneath the throne of the forest. The symbol of a second god in Wysteria, a companion to Milia. Who is he? What happened to him? Why does no one know about him?”
“Is that drawn in children’s chalk?” he shimmered dimly.
“Never mind that. You are the oldest tree in the forest. You must know something about this.”
The Elder stretched lazily, sheets of dust shifting from his branches and raining down on the poor people standing beneath him on the forest floor. The Treesingers grew a roof of vines to shield them from it, but poor Alder had no protection, and had several pounds of the stuff land directly on top of him, triggering a fresh round of coughing.
“Your mother was much more respectful of my privacy,” the elder complained.
“If you will answer my questions, I will leave you in peace for the remainder of my reign. I can give you my word on that.”
The old tree stood there motionless for a moment, as if considering her words.
“I cannot,” he blinked.
Queen Forsythia’s eyebrows lifted up in surprise. “What do you mean? The forest does not keep secrets from its Queen.”
“Until now.”
For a moment she stood there blankly, unsure of how to respond. It was inconceivable.
Taking her staff in her hands, she spoke out clearly in a commanding tone. Her mother’s voice. “As your Queen, I order you to answer my queries.”
The power of her voice shook the land. Every tree for miles trembled at the authority that flowed through it, but the elder remained still. Everywhere birds took flight, moving as one away from the epicenter where she stood.
“I cannot.”
The Queen’s mouth dropped open in surprise. Even the royal guards were visibly shocked by the declaration. “How can a tree defy the Queen of the forest?” one whispered to another.
“Tell me why you cannot answer your Queen!”
“I cannot tell you that, either.”
Setting decorum aside, the Queen grit her teeth and twisted her staff in her hands. “I’m sorry to have to do this to you, but you give me no alternative. If you will not tell me what I need to know, then I will extract the information from you.”
The forest bowed, all the trees in every direction, for hundreds of miles, all bent down towards the Queen. Holding out her staff, she channeled the will of every woman and every tree through her body. The entire song of the forest sang out a single note, a crescendo of a million voices all singing in unison. It emitted from her staff like a torrent of light, slamming into the elder in a hurricane of thought, washing over him and drilling into him.
It was all Alder could do to stay on his feet though it all. The clouds above parted from the force of it, the ground beneath churned from the rhythmic thumping of a million roots. It felt like reality itself might come apart.
Alder fell to the ground and covered his ears, but it did nothing to block out the magical energies swirling and thundering through the woods, blowing away the dust of ‘emu’ilaa with a breathless torrent of power. The scattered material spread out, farther and farther growing more and more faint as it expanded until it disappeared entirely.
As her spell subsided, all was silent. Only the steady, pulsating chuckle of the elder as he stood unmoved where he was rooted.
Slowly the trees of the forest righted themselves again. The Queen stood there on her root perch, breathing heavily, her eyes ablaze as the defiant tree laughed at her.
“How?” she gasped for breath. “How could you resist me? How could you deny the will of the entire realm?”
“Just who do you think taught that trick to your ancestors?” the elder snickered. “You are at least a thousand years too young to force an answer out of me, young one.”
Ashamed and humiliated, Queen Forsythia composed herself as best she could. With a tap of her staff, the root she stood on lowered her down to the forest floor, where her stunned guards stood waiting for her.
“It seems we shall have to solve this mystery another way,” the Queen explained in calm tones.
Alder’s body coughed and convulsed as Athel helped him to his feet. His skin was slick with sweat, his face burning with fever. Realizing she didn’t have a handkerchief, she gathered up the sleeve of her gown and used it to wipe him off.
“Oh, please, not with your silken…”
“Oh, stop it Aldi,” she said, tenderly wiping his face. “You don’t have to pretend you aren’t sick. I can feel it, you know?”
Alder’s eyes trembled a little. “You can? Like, though the trees?”
Athel chuckled. “No, because I am your wife. That is a connection too.”
“Oh.”
Athel forced herself to smile. “Let’s get you home and have the healer take a look at you. There’s nothing more we can do here today, anyway.”
Alder finally relented. His fears of burdening her with even more worry collapsed in on themselves, and he tried to simply deal with the reality that he could no longer avoid becoming more weight put upon her already laden shoulders.
“All right.”
The royal guards gave her space as Athel got up underneath one of Alder’s arms to help him stand. It was a little awkward, given how much taller than him she was, but they made do.
“I do not understand,” Alder coughed as they hobbled towards the royal carriage. “Why would The Elder tell you nothing? He is a Nallorn tree.”
“Actually, he told me many things, although I’m sure that was not his intention.”
“How so?”
“He said ‘I cannot,’ not ‘I will not’ or ‘I do not know.’ That means he knows something but is under direct orders not to disclose it. Someone has forbidden him from telling me what he knows about th
is other god.”
Alder tried to reach up to open the carriage door for her, but she swatted his hand away and opened it for him.
“But, who would have the authority to do that?” he coughed. “Who ranks higher than the Queen?”
Athel reached down and gave him a boost up. “There can only be one. Milia herself.”
Alder froze in place. “But, why would Milia do that?”
Athel shook her head. “I do not know. And with her at the point of death, I cannot ask her, either.”
As soon as Alder was seated, he allowed the full weight of his condition to affect him, and he slumped forward, too tired to even hold his head up straight.
“Oh, Aldi,” she said gently, placing a kiss on his cheek and stroking his cute little brow with her hand. “Why did you try to hide how sick you were?”
He shook his head weakly. “My condition doesn’t matter. All that matters is that I help you.”
Athel felt a little flame of anger rise up inside of her, but instead of acting upon it, she allowed it to dissipate. “It matters to me,” she whispered.
Looking over her shoulder, Queen Forsythia called out one last time to the gnarled old tree in her mother’s voice. “I have one last question for you. Every tree of the forest is a twin, a baby and a seed both born of the same fruit. Yet, a handful of the oldest trees are male. Who was your sibling? Was it a man?”
The elder remained silent as Athel looked on suspiciously.
The royal guard reacted long before the approaching footsteps could be heard. The formed up around the carriage, weapons at the ready.
Captain Tallia came bounding out of the woods, her breathing heavy and staggered. Her eyes told them that the news she brought was bad long before she found the breath to tell them
“We have a problem. A tree has been blighted.”
* * *
Athel could feel the agony of the poor suffering tree long before they arrived. Navy security officers kept back the gathering crowds, much to the chagrin of the Wysterian guards, who insisted they didn’t need the help. Captain Tallia led the Queen and her guards past the temporary barricades that had been grown to hide the trunk of the Jacktree family tree from view, where medicinal Treesingers fought to contain the spread of the blight. The royal guards gasped at what they saw. A dozen rusted metal spikes had been beaten into her trunk. Already the bark around each spike was turning sickly and sloughing off in oozing clumps from whatever magic envenomed the tips. Affixed squarely to each spike was a piece of paper with a hand-drawn symbol.
Instinctively, the Queen reached out to heal Hosta, but Sister Caladium Lotebush bade her to stop.
“We have already tried that, my Queen. It only spreads the sickness.”
It was difficult for Athel to withdraw her hand in the face of so much pain. The poor tree was practically screaming. “Do we know who put these here?”
“That’s the problem,” Captain Tallia reported quietly as to not alarm the other women. “We don’t know.”
“How is that possible? Hosta is the matriarchal tree for the entire Jacktree family. Surely she would have felt something or seen someone.”
Captain Tallia shook her head. “No, nothing. We have already spoken with all of the trees in the area. None of them saw anything. It’s as if the spikes simply appeared during the night.”
The Queen calmly surveyed the wounds. Through the link she could feel the blight slowly spreading towards the heartwood. Already fear and panic were spreading through the city, rumors catapulting off of rumors, growing with each telling. Gripping her staff, the Queen reached out in a hundred directions at once, steadying the hearts of the women nearby, paying particular attention to the grieving Jacktrees. With each tendril she drew the pain and fear into herself, like drawing poison from a wound. It flowed into her, hurting so much that she nearly gasped from pain, and she replaced it with her own resolve. The pain swirled around inside of her, mixing in with her spirit, weighing her down. It felt like broken glass inside of her very soul. She forced her body to show nothing, and stayed on task.
“Can they be removed?”
Caladium exhaled in desperation. “This magic is strange to me. I am not certain that removing the spikes won’t make things worse for her.”
Captain Tallia leaned in closer. “We must banish these filthy foreigners from our lands before they can harm any more trees. They do not respect the forest, nor do they understand it.”
The Queen gave her a sideways glance. “You believe the navy is responsible?”
Captain Tallia’s face pinched. “Well, of course. Why are you always so quick to side with those people?”
It was difficult for Athel to hide how deeply her words had cut her. At times, it felt like she didn’t have a single ally on the island among the women. Where was the confidence they had placed in her when she took the throne? Where was the faith they had displayed when they all decided together as one to take in the navy as allies? It seemed that with each passing day the song of the forest grew ever harder to maintain. She felt soaked with doubt, painted by it until it seeped into the very marrow of her bones and she could no longer tell which of it was hers and which of it belonged to another. In her heart, she began to secretly wonder if she was succumbing to the madness that had taken her sister.
“I am not on their side, Azalea, I am simply following the evidence.”
The Queen reached out towards the nearest piece of paper. “Would the navy have left this message written in our own tongue?”
Captain Tallia opened her mouth to answer, but then closed it again.
Nikki walked up and gave a smart salute. “Queen Forsythia, thank you for allowing us to participate in this investigation. If one of our people harmed this tree, we want to see them brought to justice.”
“Are they to police us in our own lands now?” Captain Tallia scoffed.
Queen Forsythia turned to her. “If the culprit does turn out to be from the navy, then it is essential that this be a joint operation. If Wysterians only were to prosecute navy personnel, it would create a political disaster. Both sides would cry foul. Only by working together to punish those responsible can harmony be maintained.”
“Whose harmony? Theirs or ours?”
The Queen ignored Tallia and motioned for Nikki to continue.
“We are questioning everyone within the perimeter we have established. With your permission, I know a couple of Buleans from the Indominable. They may be able to scry what happened here last night.”
The Queen nodded. “You have it. I thank you for treating this with the seriousness it deserves. It can be difficult at times for outsiders to understand that these trees are as much a part of our families as our own children and parents are.”
Nikki shook her head. “No, I can never understand it.”
Captain Tallia snickered in satisfaction. “I told you so.”
“…but that does not mean I cannot respect it. If these trees are family, then any attack on them is as serious as an attack against a person, and Alliance security will treat it as such.”
The Queen did not turn to look at Captain Tallia. She didn’t have to. Captain Tallia clucked her tongue in defeat, and breathed out a few curses under her breath. What she said through the link was even worse.
Nikki motioned to the notes affixed to the sickly tree, careful not to come too close to them. “It would help our investigation if we knew what that is.”
“That is the symbol of ii’ainta, it means a broken vessel.”
Nikki crinkled her nose. “And what does that mean?”
“It is a warning,” The Queen said coldly.
Nikki’s eyes told her that she understood the seriousness, if not the specifics, and began copying the symbol onto her tablet.
The tall and wiry, Madam Jacktree was allowed to approach, her two eldest daughters f
lanking her on either side. Athel had been in constant communion with them since she had first heard about the damage, and now that they were face-to-face, there really wasn’t much left to say, but the gratitude in their eyes was most appreciated.
“What shall we do then, my Queen?”
Queen Forsythia turned to Captain Tallia. “There is no foreign magic that I know of that can allow someone to pass through our forest unseen and harm our tree sisters. In my heart, I do not believe this was an external attack. In fact, I can think of several instances in the recent past where a similar magic was used by our own.”
Captain Tallia’s eyes went wide. “You don’t mean…?”
The Queen nodded. “The Sotol house was able to move unseen for years, smuggling and selling ruper spice among our people.”
“But they were tried and executed by your mother,” Madam Jacktree insisted. “Their treachery was eliminated, root, stalk, and leaf.”
The Queen’s eyes fell. “Not all of them. You may recall one still lives, and she leads the armies of our enemies against us.”
Nikki’s head came up. “But, who spared her?”
“A fool,” Athel whispered. “A fool who has put us all in danger.”
Nikki furrowed her brow.
“I did,” the Queen clarified. “She was my friend. I did not want her to face judgment. But I was naive. I let my feelings get in the way of my duty, and now I have endangered us all.”
The Queen gathered up her gown and bowed deeply before the ailing tree. The women present were startled by such a gesture.
“I am so sorry, Hosta. This is all my fault.”
With surprising gentleness, the Nallorn tree lowered one of her branches, and rested its tip upon the Queen’s shoulder. “Please, my Queen. Do not bow to me,” she shimmered. “Find those responsible. Prevent this from happening to others. That will be enough for me.”
Queen Forsythia nodded and held out her staff. Captain Tallia rested her remaining hand upon it and their eyes flashed in unison.
Isle of Wysteria: The Monolith Crumbles Page 18
