The Lightless Tree

by J. A. Comley

  Mukori’s gaze had grown intense again and Valana swallowed a sigh.

  She turned her face back towards Karicha. Valana smiled as she realised that Karicha would be the first Nightstalker that she knew of to be trained in the fighting forms of a tribe other than her own. Within Mukori's group, unity and peace already existed and that realisation bolstered her more than anything else she had learned or spoken about with him.

  “Thank you. For coming to find me, for inviting us to join you. Before, Karicha and Durio would have ended up under the Conclave's Protection. I think they will have a better future here.

  Mukori watched her smile then sighed, his eyes full of unspoken words. “Get some rest. Tomorrow the courier comes through and then we are pressing on for home.”

  Valana rose and stretched, feeling his eyes travel over her body. As he stood too, she resisted the urge to do the same. The more time they spent together, the more time she wanted to spend with him. She had watched him handle minor disputes over rations and sleeping spaces, and answer Karicha's never ending cascade of questions. His retari brought an endless stream of bad news, but he never faltered, offering aid where he could and advice where he could not. He was an impressive man, patient, considerate, firm, but she knew herself well enough to know that she needed a warrior, not a pampered Hipotaralian, no matter how attractive his mind or body were.

  ***

  The courier's arrival was very anticlimactic. His eyes had popped when he noticed the two silver-eyed guards of the man asking him for his satchel and had surrendered it at once, begging for mercy.

  Valana glanced over at him where he now walked speaking with Mukori and Bakoro. He kept glancing back at her then to Mukori. She smiled to herself. She had been worried about how Mukori would handle the situation, if he would order her or Okano to use force or threats. But he had done as promised. She had been given all the information his network of Eyes and Ears had collected about the man and had been perfectly polite and calm, no threatening language or gestures. Of course, the mere presence of two pure-blood Nightstalkers was enough encouragement for most.

  Why does he keep looking at me? It can't be what I am or he would be looking at Okano, too.

  Mukori laid a hand on the man's shoulder and the looks stopped. Now he was nodding eagerly and it seemed as if Mukori were to gain yet another member for his organisation.

  We may actually succeed, with him leading us. The mistrust she had felt for him from the moment she had met him was slowly being eroded away, his every word and deed beyond reproach or speculation.

  Her thoughts turned to Hapira, as they often did when she thought of Mukori's overall aims.

  Almost beyond speculation.

  Strangely, the man himself didn't seem to want to talk about the Voice of Peace, changing the subject every time Valana brought it up. Perhaps when they were settled in Hipotarali, she could seek Hapira out herself and get to the bottom of why two such like-minded people weren't working together.

  The Wheel curved off to form the straight spoke that led to the city, and she stepped with it. None turned with her.

  “Why are we not following the new curve of the Wheel?” Valana asked. “Surely a few extra weeks is worth not crossing through the Scar?”

  Even prissy Fazira, Tanoril's sister, who had jumped three feet in the air and refused to climb down from the cart when a harmless elteran beetle was found in her luggage, strolled past her, stepping off the Wheel and into the untamed wilderness beyond.

  “We wouldn't get home as expected, then, would we?” Tanoril said, rolling his eyes at her stupidity. “You and Okano haven't been given extra rations and sleeping times for nothing. It is your job, Nightstalker of no tribe, to be our Protector. You will keep us safe or die trying. There's no room for failure, this time.”

  Valana let him push past her and focused on her breathing. Clearly Tanoril was not as keen as his master to forgive Karicha for wounding him. But his words had struck deep. She felt the power in her blood roil, and her hands itched for her blades.

  No. No more vengeance. The fighting needs to stop. I won't let a foolish man's pride goad me.

  She watched him catch up to Mukori, his whole manner changing from sulky child to awed disciple.

  “Don't worry, not all Hands are as childish as Tanoril,” Okano said, lightly coming up behind her, a hint of some deep emotion colouring his tone. “It gets easier with time,” he added in a softer voice.

  “What do you know of it, son of the Hitori?” Valana spat and instantly regretted her words. Her memory of pulling a Hitori spear from her sister's chest had come unbidden to her mind before being pushed aside by the deep loss she had seen in Okano's eyes when he held her together in the ruins of her village.

  He yanked her to face him, his fingers digging painfully into her shoulders as his eyes bored into hers. Anger, loss, fear, hate, love. Then they shuttered over, the bright silver going dull.

  “We'll be entering the border of the Scar in two days. You and I will not sleep while we travel. We are the only ones who can offer a constant guard. We will flank the group. Eyes and ears sharp.”

  Then he strode away from her to the other side of the group before she could speak.

  “I'm sorry,” she said, a mere whisper in the wind. Cursing herself for her thoughtless words, she moved into position on the other flank. He was not the young man she had known all those years before. Whatever he had been through had changed him as surely as what she had would change her. From the look that had just passed between them, she knew that their early encounters at Moon Lake were not to be repeated, but perhaps, if she could find the right way to apologise, they could still be friends.

  ***

  The first few days, Valana kept her distance, waiting for Okano to show some sign that he was ready to say more than two words to her, but by the fourth day she had had enough. Mukori was busy settling in his new recruit, and Karicha, though insistent that she knew Kazori fighting techniques well enough to impress her potential Mentor, needed as much practice as possible training with Okano or Bakoro to learn their tribes' techniques, too. As a result, Valana had spent four days and nights in brooding silence, with no company but her own, walking through a land that got progressively more devoid of life as they passed the outer ripple of the Scar and drew nearer to the second ripple.

  The moon touched the horizon and they stopped to make camp for the day. The flat cart was strung with jarahi bulbs, their strong scent perfect for keeping away the small subterranean predators like thelori. With the majority of the group’s scent masked, any scavengers or predators would be more likely to follow the untainted scent of the two Nightstalkers.

  As the light of the moon was swallowed by the horizon and the murky twilight of day took over, Valana went to stand beside Okano where he leaned on a huge chunk of earth that had been displaced during the Breaking.

  He kept his eyes sweeping their surroundings but didn't move away. Valana took this as a good sign and drew a breath to speak.

  “My blood-sister died on that battlefield where you found me. I pulled a Hitori spear from her myself. But I am sorry. Very, very sorry. It wasn't your fault, but the wounds are fresh and—” Valana trailed off as he finally looked over and met her eyes. She'd never been very good at apologies, having a tendency to ramble.

  “Apology accepted. Just remember that you are not the only one here with a broken heart. In fact, you are now part of the majority. There is no room here for the old tribal identities or grudges. We need to be as we are trying to make the world... one people.” He held her in his unrelenting gaze until she nodded, then looked back out over the dark land, ears erect and alert for the smallest of sounds.

  Swallowing the humiliation of being made to feel like a thoughtless child, Valana looked to the sleeping forms, all squashed in together on the cart, Okano's words fresh in her mind.

  What had they lost? How many there had scarred hearts and festering wounds in their souls? Had Mukori lost so
mething, too?

  Wanting to regain some sense of a normal relationship between them again, she looked back at Okano.

  “You said you've been following Mukori around for fifty years. Did you help him found the Unseen Hand?”

  Okano glanced at her, one eyebrow quirked. “No. He inherited the foundation for the group from his own parents. He has been doing this all his life. After his father died, he really pushed hard. He was a scholar, you see, at the University in Hipotarali. He had specialised in magical theory, specifically the Demilain and their particular form of magic. They are the only beings of pure magic in Trianon, and they are... were the balance on our worlds.” He turned to face her. “He had travelled to the other planets seeking their knowledge to add to his studies here. Galatia's Grand Library, the sacred carvings in the Temples of the Circle on Cosmaltia. They say that when he came back, he had a fire burning in his soul.”

  Understanding dawned in Valana's eyes as she realised what Okano was saying.

  “He knew? He knew that this, that the Breaking, was coming?”

  Okano chuckled at the incredulous look on her face and she felt a pang of longing for the fun-loving, mischievous young man she had known. Then he sighed heavily and the grim man he was now obliterated the other.

  “Yes, he knew. Or he guessed, at least. He had noticed signs in the land: bad harvests, too much rainfall or too little, winters that killed the plants, lower birth rates, and knew they pointed to an imbalance between the Demilain. He also knew the theory of the disaster that would follow if the Demilain ever split.”

  “Why didn't he try to warn anyone?” she asked in a whisper, glancing over at his sleeping form, sure she had seen his ears twitch towards them. They were facing forward now, his breathing and heart-rate steady.

  Everything she had come to know about Mukori seemed to go against the idea of his doing nothing.

  Okano tilted his head to the side and huffed a laugh. “He did. He tried and tried.” He paused, his ears twitching to the left at the same time as hers.

  A lone elteran beetle clawed its way out of the dry earth and began scuttling up the chunk of earth in short bursts, looking for a meal.

  Valana barely spared it a glance before turning back to Okano, nodding and waiting for more.

  He met her eyes, the corner of his mouth tilting, and then continued. “Mukori went to the Conclave first, tried to get them to permit him to speak. They wouldn't even allow that. Everyday, they sent a servant out to tell him that the Conclave would not hear his words. He wrote them letters, detailing his research and conclusions, offering advice for the future.”

  Valana shook her head. Had the Conclave really just buried their heads in the sand and let Aurelia fall into chaos without even listening?

  “I can’t imagine he just gave up.”

  “No,” Okano said, shifting his position slightly. “He sent messages requesting audiences with their leaders to the other planets. Some replied, but none did anything. Then, eight years after his first warnings, he was proven right.”

  “The Demilain broke the worlds and, let me guess, in all the chaos and panic, no-one remembered the young scholar who had tried to warn them?”

  Okano gave her a wry smile. “They didn't need to remember. He tried again, almost as soon as the initial blast of magic had settled into the slightly less terrifying waves of eruptions, floods and earthquakes. But no-one received him, even then.”

  “Fools.”

  “Yes. Mukori still visits the Conclave every year, even though they don't ever let him in. He also writes to the leaders in the other nations.” Okano shrugged, commending Mukori's tenacity while declaring it useless. “For two hundred years, Mukori has been trying to get people to listen. First his professors at the University, then all of Trianon.”

  “How old is he?” Valana asked, thinking suddenly that he had been researching Demilain and connecting the dots for almost as long as she had been alive.

  “Three hundred and twenty-three, I believe. Still too young to be taken seriously by anyone, unfortunately.”

  “Except us,” Valana said, looking off towards the clump of blankets that was Mukori and his loyal followers.

  “Yes. Except us few. The ones that must try and hold the breaking worlds together until Mukori finally gets them all to see reason, to make them see that only a unified Trianon, with a system-wide leadership, can survive this.”

  They both took a moment to stare up at the magic cloud of newly forming and slowly dying stars that blocked the light from Trianon's sun and shrouded the Demilain's home from view. Ezira, the Creator, had not been seen since her brief appearance in the skies of each people, naming her new creation, the Sacrileons, and promising that they would stop the disasters plaguing each planet. That was a hundred and eighty four years ago, now. Kyron, the Destroyer, seemed to have vanished, some people even claimed he was dead.

  Valana looked down from the empty sky to the sleeping members of the Unseen Hand. No, the Demilain would not help them, but perhaps this ragtag group could. Mukori had already proven, albeit on a small scale, that people of all tribes could put the past two centuries of horror and fear behind them and build new lives in peace and acceptance.

  She longed to give him all her trust but knew that even all she had seen so far was not yet enough.

  “What about Hapira, the Voice of Peace? Why does he not ally with her?”

  “Have you asked him?”

  “Sort of. He always seems to change the subject if I mention her name.”

  Okano sighed. “I thought so.” He gave her a sideways glance and sighed again. “Look, I don't know the whole story. It just doesn't matter. All I know is that even though it seems they should, Mukori and his blood-aunt don't see eye to eye.”

  “His blood-aunt?” Valana said, eyes wide.

  Okano nodded.

  “Like I said, it doesn't matter. If they both keep working for peace, I imagine their paths will converge eventually.”

  He shrugged, turning from her and staring off into the distance, a clear sign that he wasn't going to speculate. Valana tucked the gem away and changed topic.

  “Did he come to your village to find you, too? Or some bloodied field?”

  Several emotions played over Okano's face before he turned to look at her again. His strong jaw tightened and relaxed a few times. Then he took a deep breath and ran a hand through his hair, looking past her shoulder. Valana was seized by the sudden urge to run her own hand through it and see if it was still as silky as she remembered.

  Okano took in the, no doubt foolish, look on her face, then his muscles locked and he sprang at her. The movement was a blur, but as Valana was a Nightstalker like him, she saw every detail, his hand drawing a long dagger and flipping it so that the point faced her, and the concentration that clouded over his eyes.

  Before Valana could make sense of the situation and defend herself, the movement was over and his body was pressed right against hers. Then a thin wail broke the air right beside her shoulder and Okano gave her a mocking smile as he pulled away.

  Valana eyed the thin, scaly creature dangling off Okano's dagger with distaste, trying to still her visceral reaction to the feel of him before it gave her wayward thoughts away.

  That is over. Okano has made no indication that he wants it again. In fact, he seems to have been doing everything he can to push me into Mukori's arms. It has obviously been too long since I took a lover.

  The thelori's multiple rows of needle like, venomous teeth shone dully in the dim light. Hanging from the thin line of dust-coloured flesh on its head was what looked like an elteran beetle. As the creature's brain functions finally ceased, the beetle seemed to dissolve into a formless, fleshy blob. Thelori were excellent at camouflage, able to subtly change the colour of their scales, but it was the ability of the blob to metamorphose that allowed them to attract their prey.

  “I would have thought,” Okano began, chuckling, “that as the great Champion of Moon Lake an
d a rare pure-blood Nightstalker, you would have been more observant. Or at least observant enough to notice a predator about to take a bite out of your arm.”

  Valana tried to scowl at him but ended up shaking her head in shame.

  Okano began a new sentence before shaking his own head and changing the subject. “I will go and dispose of this far away before it attracts any friends.” He met her gaze, looking stern. “Stay alert. Protect Mukori.”

  He was gone as soon as she nodded, a blur of movement none but another Nightstalker would be able to see.

  Valana cursed herself in the silence. She let her anger at herself flow through her, berating herself for getting distracted over a romance that had ended ages ago between two care-free, young Nightstalkers that no longer existed. They had grown up and grown apart. She still hoped they could be friends, but she shoved any other possibilities away. It was merely the draw of something that had been good, untainted by the Breaking and all the loss that followed, and that wasn't worth pursuing. It would never be what it had been, and it would never fill the wounds in her heart.

  The day's light never changed, remaining a dim, murky thing, but the air grew warmer and more stifling. It pressed on Valana, and she turned her face to the east, seeking the relief of the breeze coming from there.

  The scent of spice and leather reached her on the breeze long before she heard his heartbeat. As he blurred back into view, she strained her ears and just managed to make out his footfalls as he slowed then loped with a predator’s easy gait back to her.

  He smiled at her, and she knew her foolish oversight was forgotten. She smiled in return.

  “Will you answer my question, from before the thelori?” she asked, then held back a wince as all traces of humour vanished from his face, making the familiar lines strange, even without the ridiculous beard he had shaved and kept off since she'd opted to hear Mukori out. It made him look harsh and unforgiving. He was a much harder man than the one she had last seen on the new moon night when they had decided to put their tribes before their hearts.