The Lightless Tree

by J. A. Comley

  Was it becoming Mukori's assassin that had turned him this way? Or perhaps the cause is the pain I saw in his eyes.

  “No. Mukori did not find me anywhere. I found him. I hunted him.” His voice was little more than a whisper, but hard with pent up emotion. He stared straight ahead, yet Valana was certain that he was not seeing the land before him.

  She waited, knowing that he would say more if he wished and, if he did not, then it was not her place to chase the ghosts of his past.

  Okano looked at her once, a swift, penetrating look, before staring ahead again. “I will say this only once, in appreciation of our past. Afterwards, neither you nor I will ever speak of it again.”

  Valana felt her body tense, an automatic response to the tension in his voice.

  Okano took in a deep breath, like a man unsure if there would ever be another. “The Hitori had had to flee our lands when Elder Mountain erupted, but even so, I made a good life for myself as Protector of the Hitori. Like you, I led my tribe’s other Protectors, trained the warriors, and went out with the hunting parties when food was scarce.” He mashed his lips together for a brief moment. “I was out with a hunting party when Mukori's agents came to our newest village on the borders between the Champion's fields and the Jensolir's tribal lands. They wanted to speak to the Chief, to gather information to take before the Conclave, to spread Mukori's message of unity and order. They wanted the Chief to keep records of their people and resources.” He glanced sideways at her and she nodded to indicate a similar occurrence in her own village.

  It had been nearly sixty years ago, and she hadn't connected the two until now. The people that came to her village had never mentioned Mukori's name, asking only for this small assistance and begging the chief to be patient and forgiving with transgressions from other tribes. The folder from her Chief that Mukori now carried must have been the response to his agents’ requests. She swept the area with her eyes and ears, then focused back on Okano as he continued.

  “I didn't meet any of the group that came to us, but when I returned, the effects of his message were everywhere. Everyone was debating it, whether such a thing were even possible or if the man who led the group were merely mad. Some were thinking of going to join him, others thought them mad for it.” His fists tightened and all the muscles along his arms and neck stood out. “But some, some had twisted his words. They were elite warriors, Lesser Nightstalkers of the Hitori with popular standing among our people. When they said that it was the Hitori who should unite the world, rather than some upstart from Hipotarali, many listened. When it became clear that they meant to achieve their goal by conquering the other tribes and killing all those who would not listen, I was pleased at the doubt in many faces.” He shook his head, his voice harsh. “My wife begged me to go to my uncle, the Chief, and warn him, but I didn't listen to her, thinking it would blow over, thinking that without their supporters, they'd settle down again.” He paused a moment and Valana was sure he was mentally calling himself every foul name he knew. She resisted the urge to take his hand. Married? He was married. While she had taken a string of lovers after they parted ways, he had found someone to love deeply enough to spend the rest of his life with.

  “However, I was wrong. It soon became clear that not enough had turned from them and so I went to my uncle, hoping to persuade him to make them heel, fearing that if he sided with them, I would be ordered to fight, or suffer becoming an Outcast.” His eyes grew more distant and Valana felt sure that if she looked into their silver depths long enough, she too would be able to see the ghosts he now saw. “When I entered his home, he was dead. The leader of the rebel group was sitting in the Chief's chair, wiping blood from his blade. I would have killed him right then, but they had known I was coming and when I heard my wife cry out—”

  Valana let her eyes sweep the dark land, letting him have a moment to compose himself. A new raw wound began to tear along her heart for her friend. She had learned long ago that you could never unlove someone. His wounds hurt her because no matter how long they had been apart, she cared about him, just as he had for her in the ruin of her village.

  “They hadn't hurt her badly yet, and they gave me a choice. I could fight them and win, but my wife would die and our unborn child with her, or my wife and I could be branded Outcasts for the crime of killing my Chief, and we would be allowed to leave, in disgrace, but alive.” He raised his hand then and tugged loose the top ties of his shirt, baring his right breast. A brand of the Hitori feathered crest crossed through with a line marred the smooth alabaster surface of his skin. He covered the Outcast brand again and hung his head in shame. “I broke my vow as a Protector that day. So many lives might have been spared if I hadn't been so selfish.” He shook his head, and Valana had to take several deep breaths before she could say the words that would soothe his shame.

  “It isn't your fault, Okano. I never married, but if the choice had been my blood-sister and her children, I would have done the same as you.”

  Okano gave a single, grateful nod, raised his head and continued, his voice growing bleaker with every word. “After they branded us, I took my wife and we fled. There weren't many places we could go. Elder Mountain was unstable. No tribes would harbour Outcasts. So we went to the one place on Aurelia where I was sure we could find shelter, food, and be left in peace. Wailing Shadow.”

  Valana drew in a sharp breath. Wailing Shadow, what the other planets called the Shadow Mountains, was a range of jagged black peaks forming the border between the Hitori and Cyrali lands. It earned its name from the ever-present winds that tore over its dark heights and rushed down the sides. Its deep crevices and wide ravines were indeed abundant in food, water, and caves, but it was also home to the lorathyr, wraith-like feline predators of whom little was known except their ferocity and invulnerability to weapons or magic. Only an exhausted lorathyr could be harmed.

  “For seven years we built a life for ourselves. My daughter, Tarari, was born healthy and strong. She loved the glowing fungi and the strange red-leaved bush that tickled like chimes if you sang to it. She had the sweetest voice. Inherited from her mother, my Elitala.”

  Valana couldn't move. She was trapped in the memory, trapped in the glittering tears that were making silent tracks down his face.

  “We encountered the lorathyr from time to time, but they never attacked. Once, when my wife was in labour with our son, they brought us food as if they knew somehow that I had not left to find any, too fearful to leave my wife so vulnerable and unwilling to send my young daughter out alone.” He sank to his knees and shook his head, his eyes half mad. “One day, we were foraging along one of the perennial streams. Kutor, my son, was just learning to walk. They came as they always did, silent as a breath of wind. We watched them cross the river, curious as to why they had come. In seven years, the lorathyr had given us no reason to fear them, and so we did not. I wasn't even armed. I had been playing with Tarari. They took Elitala first, a quick kill, in and out before I had even realised that we were in danger. I remember racing to scoop up my sword, even if it would be useless, and spinning to face them, only to see them leaving, to see that I was now alone in the world. To this day, I cannot tell you why they attacked or why they left only me alive.”

  Valana slid down next to him and held him tight, just as he had with her at the Ever-Spring.

  After an eternity of loss and pain, he rose out of her arms and turned his back on her, muscles jerking as he tried to calm himself. Staying where she was, Valana began to sing the song of farewell, closing her eyes. It was the Kazori version, she did not know the Hitori's, but she wanted to send her farewell to Okano's family, wherever they were on the winds today. She also bade farewell to the Okano she had known. He was gone, just as surely as his family.

  When she opened her eyes, Okano was leaning against the raised chunk of earth again, his eyes haunted, but dry.

  “Thank you,” he murmured as she rose and came to stand beside him again. “I had forgotten
that you could sing so well.”

  They stood in silence for a moment listening to the soft rustling and scraping of creatures, all too far to be any danger to their sleeping charges.

  Then Okano took a deep breath, steeling himself to finish his tale. “I don't know how long I waited for death, or how many times I considered running myself through with my own sword. Eventually, only one thought remained clear in my mind. Revenge. The men who had taken over my tribe, who had expelled us into the jaws of the lorathyr, took many days to die. But it didn't help the pain. I didn't feel anything. No relief. I still felt empty. Then I thought I realised what it was. It was the fear that the words that had driven them to kill their own Chief might drive others to do the same. I felt I had to stop it at the root. That the man who had sent those agents to the Hitori, the one whose message had started all of it, that he was to blame, he was the one that needed to die. It was his fault that I had lost everything. So the hunt began again. I tracked a new group of messengers and extracted from them the whereabouts of their master, whom they named as Lord Mukori.” Okano snorted at the memory, then hung his head for his shameful actions. “He was staying at a way-house when I found him. I knew he was alone. He was going to pay for turning the thoughts of my tribe to treason and blood. He was going to pay for the lives of my family. Mukori was going to die.”

  “Yet he lives,” Valana said after the silence stretched for a long moment, with Okano staring at their sleeping leader. “What stopped you?”

  “Several things, I think.” Okano glanced back at her and uttered one short, humourless laugh. “When I entered his room, he rose, greeted me by name, and gave me his condolences for my loss. He looked me in the eyes and nodded knowingly. Next he spread his empty hands and told me that if it was only revenge I sought, then there he was, but if I really wanted to change the world, to truly stop the chaos from spreading, then I could join him instead. I had raised my sword expecting him to beg or try to flee, but he just stood there, waiting for my blade to fall. It was what I saw in his eyes that truly changed my mind, that pulled me out of the anger and despair I was drowning in. They had held no fear of death or pain. But more importantly, they had held no hate. There I was about to take his life, and his eyes held no anger towards me. It was like he already knew that I wouldn't do it. I have been at his side ever since.”

  Valana nodded with him. She had seen that steady calm in Mukori's eyes, too. He never doubted.

  “I may have spared his life that night, but he saved mine. He gave me a purpose again. He gave me a path to follow that I know would make my Elitala proud.”

  Valana smiled as Okano lightly touched a group of beads in his hair. A large silver one and two smaller ones. One made out of the grey wood of the tarari tree and the other of a small white stone she guessed was kutor.

  She gave his hand a gentle squeeze and rose, feeling a new bond form between them. Something less intimate, maybe, but stronger than the one they had shared before. The sun had passed its apex and Valana stretched, loosening her tense muscles.

  They both looked up as a flash of lightning illuminated the dark horizon to the south. A boom of thunder echoed over them a moment later.

  “A storm?” Valana's disbelief turned her statement to a question. Rain storms were a rarity on Aurelia. Here in the Great Expanse, a storm was more likely to be comprised of sand, not water. During the cooler months, harsh storms could sweep over the lands; however these always came in over the Wailing Shadow in the north. She turned to Okano as more lightning flashed.

  He wasn't looking south. His eyes were closed and his ears twitched in short movements, zeroing in on tiny sounds.

  Valana tried to pick out what had him so transfixed. There was a flurry of scurrying feet and earth being tunnelled in haste. All the hunting creatures of the dark were now racing underground. Her eyes snapped up to horizon and the flashing sky.

  “Cargons,” Okano said, voicing the conclusion she had come to, herself.

  She turned wide eyes on him. There were few ways to hide from a single cargon, let alone an entire group. Their eyes could penetrate several feet through solid rock and ground. While a pure-blood Nightstalker may be able to dodge their lightning attacks if carefully anticipated, there was no hope for any of their companions.

  “Don't just stand there!” Okano said, raising his voice above the next rumble of thunder.

  He was already beside the cart, where no one slept any longer. Instead, they were all huddling close together on the ground a fair distance from the cart and tethered elpion. Okano pushed the cart further away and grabbed a roll of black cloth from it then raced back to their companions.

  Rushing to the group, Valana followed his pointing finger and took a position opposite him.

  “Face me.”

  It took all her self control to turn her back on the electric death racing towards them, but it was Okano asking, and she trusted him.

  As soon as she turned, he launched one end of the cloth towards her, unfurling it over the tense huddle. It flared out over the group as if it were alive and was eager to cover them. She hissed as she caught the liquid-smooth cloth.

  “A Darkness Mantle? How does he even have one of these?”

  From under the mantle, she heard Mukori chuckle. Darkness Mantles could only be made with Demilain magic, the cloth woven from the energies of a dying star. Whomever the Mantle cloaked could not be seen by others unless they, too, were cloaked.

  Okano spared no time to answer her, racing around the edges of the Mantle and pegging it down.

  “What about us?” Valana asked as he finished sealing the others into safety. Even the third eye of a cargon, which could see through several feet of solid ground, could not see through a Mantle. Were it not for the pegs, breathing and racing hearts, Valana herself would have been hard pressed to locate their group, despite having only just covered them. Yet they were not safe. The lightning strikes would still pierce the cloth.

  “Us?” Okano asked, an impish grin flashing across his face as he unslung his bow. “We get to dance.”

  Valana stared after him as he raced a safe distance from the group and nocked an arrow. The cargons would all converge on him, the only visible prey, keeping Mukori and the others safe.

  “Are you insane?” she asked, catching up. “There must be at least twenty cargons making that storm.”

  His grin was still in place, reminding her forcefully of the carefree young man he had been at Moon Lake, the one she had thought lost to the shadows of his past.

  He spared her a glance, looking her up and down. “If the great Valana, pure-blood Nightstalker, Protector of the Kazori, and Champion of Moon Lake, is afraid, then she is welcome to crawl under the Mantle with the others.”

  Valana snarled at him, baring her sharp teeth. He laughed once then looked back at the sky, raising his bow once more. She watched his eyes begin to glow faintly and all emotion drain away and swore loudly. Another chuckle reached her ears, emanating from under the shroud, and she bared her teeth at Mukori, knowing full well that he could see her even if she could not see him. He must really have been straining his ears to have heard their words from so far away.

  Shaking her head and fighting a grin of her own, she readied her bow and reached for the place in her mind where her Nightstalker abilities began. She stepped into them and felt the sheer power of her undiluted lineage course stronger through her body. Before the feeling could drive her over the edge, she slipped into the Void, the stability of the Killing Calm. Here, her powers could burn bright without consuming her.

  The smell of singed fur and burnt flesh reached them first. Cargons were solitary creatures and did not normally stay together longer than it took to mate. They were far too territorial to form packs, but the loss of their habitat to the fires and ash of the Elder Mountain had forced them together. Now, when one went hunting, the others followed, hoping to get any pickings for themselves as resources dwindled ever further.

  Even as t
hey watched the approaching storm, two cargons went down, blown from the sky by their rivals, sienna fur charred and smoking, the red spikes along their backs cracked and broken.

  Lightning surged across the sky in a huge arc as the lead cargon spotted the prey awaiting their arrival and flapped its wide, red, leather wings harder. In the void of the Killing Calm, Valana smiled. Everything seemed to be moving slower, like the world had chosen to pace itself solely on the steady beating of her heart.

  Another bolt shattered the air and bent towards her as if attracted by the same beating. Her blood sang with the magic that drove the bolt towards her, not that she needed the extra warning. She launched herself aside, her hair standing on end as the bolt missed, shattering the ground, then spun around and loosed an arrow that pierced cleanly through her attacker’s third eye with a dull thud that was lost in the deafening roar of thunder.

  Okano had moved with her, his own body twisting gracefully away from the danger, his arrow finding its mark with similar skill.

  And so the dance continued. Lightning crashed to the ground, obliterating the dry soil and sending chunks of rock flying. The thunder and the aftershock of rushing air hit with a raging force. Cargons hissed and growled, their wings beating a steady rhythm as they hovered above the dancers, launching bolts of burning death with their overly long tails, which slashed through the air like whips. But the Nightstalkers did not falter.

  They swivelled and dove, ever graceful, matching each other’s moves and taking down the threat. Valana felt her muscles tense and release as she launched herself into the sky, eliminating a cargon that had descended too low in its eagerness to claim Okano.