Isle of Wysteria: The Monolith Crumbles (29 page)

When her ivory fingers touched the final sapling, it did not grow, instead, it began to glow dimly.

“Oh, is it time, little one?” Orlaya gushed, lacing her fingers together excitedly.

Threads of gold began rising up the stalk as the young tree trembled.

“It is!” Orlaya said, jumping up and down. “This is my favorite part.”

“Is it time?” Delphinium asked, poking her head around the statue of Milia, her hands braiding her golden hair.

“Yes, come here, sis!” Orlaya bade, waving her hands.

Delphinium ran as fast as she could, nearly stumbling over herself as she tied her hair off so it would be out of the way.

The two priestly sisters held hands, grateful that this joyous occasion had occurred on their watch. The young tree glowed brighter and brighter, until it was as if it were made of light itself. It stretched and stretched, its young stalk popping and crackling, then the light burst like a bubble, and the tree shivered into wakefulness.

“Catalumbrah, young one,” they said reverentially, placing their hands over their hearts.

The young tree looked about, as if confused.

“My name is Orlaya Oleander, and this is my sister Delphinium, but we just call her Delphie.”

“Don’t tell her that,” Delphinium chided, elbowing her in the side.

“Welcome to the forest of Milia,” Orlaya said, rubbing her ribs.

The tree hesitated, then sparkled thankfully.

“We were starting to think you’d never wake up. All the others in your nursery were planted some weeks ago.”

The tree shimmered worriedly.

“Oh no, there is nothing wrong with being a late bloomer,” Orlaya soothed. “My twin Amaryllis took longer than you even.”

“Orlaya is the same way,” Delphinium shared. “She’s late to every shift here at the temple because no one can get her out of bed in the morning.”

“Stop it,” Orlaya said, kicking her sister in the shin.

“Ow, don’t kick me!”

The tree sighed in relief.

“May we ask your name?”

The tree glittered happily.

The two priestesses stared at the tree, blinking.

“I’m sorry, could you repeat that?”

The tree glittered again.

The two sisters stared in disbelief. “Wait…say that one more time.”

The tree glittered intently.

Orlaya and Delphinium looked at each other in shock.

“What did you say?” High Priestess Oleander asked, rising up out of her ivory chair, knocking her scripture binding off her desk.

“It’s a male tree,” Orlaya repeated, bubbling with excitement. “The first one in a millennia. Can you believe it?!”

“Impossible.”

“It’s true,” Delphinium confirmed. “His name is Trillium. We linked with him twice just to make sure.”

The High Priestess placed her creamy wrinkled hand over her mouth and sat back down. “This is most troubling. If this were made known…” She shot a wary eye at her daughters. “Who have you told?”

The priestesses looked at each other worriedly. “No one, mother.”

Oleander looked over at her staff on its rack. “If you linked, then half the forest knows already. How could you be so careless?”

The harshness in her voice caught them off guard. “We…we’re sorry mother, we were only…”

“Our family has sworn an oath to defend the faith. An oath, binding and unbreakable. For generations we have maintained the sacred rites of our Mother Goddess. You know this.”

“Of course we do, mother. We took the same oath.”

“Then you should know what will happen when this is made known. Whose tree is it? Which family?”

The two looked at each other, hesitant to answer. “The Forsythians. The tree is Ma’iltri’ia to the Queen’s…um…child.”

The High Priestess’ hands trembled as she reached down and delicately picked up her scriptures. With infinite gentleness, she gave them a kiss and set them back down on her desk. “You should have come to me privately and immediately; now it is too late to protect them from this.”

Oleander stood up, at war with herself, her eyes flickering about uneasily as her mind tried to come to terms with this new development.

“There are no male trees born to this forest,” she whispered to herself.

“You should come see it. If you speak to him…”

Oleander held up her hand. “Please, do not make this any harder than it already is for me.”

“Harder?”

“I will not speak to it, I do not need to. It is clear the will of Milia has been for only sister trees to be born. It is my duty to ensure that Milia’s will is followed. You two knew this, and yet you foolishly proclaimed this…spawning without consulting me first. Oh, this is going to be a disaster. Are you both senseless?”

Delphinium bit her lip, the scolding cutting her deeply, but Orlaya pushed past it. “There’s more, mother.”

“What more could there be?” The High Priestess said sadly, picking up her letter opener and holding it like a dagger. “The answer is immutable.” For a second she hesitated, the awful realization washing over her. Her eyes wavered, but then her will of hardwood overcame the horror, and she gripped the knife even harder. She gathered up her robes and waddled towards the exit, heading for the nursery.

Delphinium’s eyes went wide with fear, realizing what her mother planned to do. “Mother, no please!”

They both rose to stop her, but the Black Guard at the doorway grabbed them and held them fast. “Don’t do this! Don’t kill him!”

Their mother stopped. Her shoulders drooped, her head hung low. “Do you think I want to do this?” she whispered.

The High Priestess turned around, her eyes moist. “When I put on the cloth, do you think I ever dreamed that it would come to this?”

Her daughters ceased their struggles, and listened.

The High Priestess held up the blade and looked at it in her shaking hand. “I would rather die than hurt a Nallorn tree. Even now, at this very moment, my heart feels like it will break in half. Please, believe me when I say, I desperately don’t want to do this. Roots, trunk and leaves, every part of me abhors the very thought of it.”

“Then don’t do it. Please.”

Oleander opened her lips, her voice quivering. “I have to. I swore an oath to Milia herself, and I must honor it. Milia is goddess here, and her will be done. No matter how unpleasant that path may be. What must be done must be done.”

“It’s a royal tree,” Orlaya blurted out.

The High Priestess’ face took on a ghostly pallor. “Wha…what did you say?”

Orlaya sniffed and nodded. “I confirmed it myself. Trillium isn’t just a male tree, he’s a royal tree.”

Oleander turned around slowly to face the nursery, the anguish on her face turning to disbelief. “Do you know what you are saying, daughter?”

Orlaya looked on her mother with sympathy. “Yes, I do.”

“But…that is impossible…” Oleander whispered. “No tree is born royal. It must be carefully cultivated to become such. That sapling was never consecrated to Milia. Never grafted with her hair. Never anointed by me. Never fed water from the sacred spring. Never infused with the Queen’s blood. Never sanctified by the power of…”

Orlaya shook, but held her ground. “I know. And, I don’t understand it either. But, there can be no doubt, Trillium is a royal tree, and his twin, the Queen’s son, will have the power through him to rule the forest.”

Even the Black Guards were shocked to hear it.

High Priestess Oleander shook her head to clear it, and stepped out into the nursery. “It doesn’t matter.”

Her daughters moved to scream, but their mouths were bound tight by the Black Guards.

As the High Priestess stood over the young tree, knife in hand, it innocently sparkled to greet her, unaware of any danger.

“It doesn’t matter what I want…or what anyone wants…”

Her lip trembling, Oleander gripped the blade with both hands.

“The only thing that matters is Milia’s will…”

* * *

The royal bedchambers of Wysteria were full of people, messengers coming in and out, running scrolls, greeting guests, and tending to dignitaries. People speaking a dozen different dialects, people of every shape and description, all unified for the first time in history by the imagination, determination, and cunning of one single person.

And she was dying.

The Queen herself maintained a surprisingly regal presence, despite her deteriorating condition. Propped up in her bed, she sat as straight as she could, her hazel eyes clouded, but focused. Her auburn hair fading and growing thin. When Alder had brushed it earlier, large clumps had come out, but she pretended not to notice. She had lost a lot of weight. All of the softness she had acquired in the navy was gone, giving a slightly skeletal look about her. It was most noticeable in her cheeks and neck, her normally beautiful high cheekbones now angular and jutting, her eyes sunken.
Alder, who was barely in better shape than she was, gently applied ointment to her cracked and bleeding knuckles as she held her court. Bunni Bubbles sat at the foot of the bed, her little feet kicking happily as she practiced her juggling.

“Now presenting Elisa Hackenvaughn, Master Engineer from Almania,” Dahoon announced, clearly irritated at all of the navy personnel encroaching on his court duties.

The Engineer proudly made the final adjustments on the clockwork gauntlets she wore and plugged them into the copper and brass generator, the mechanisms within whirring to life. As she thrust out her hands, the vacuum tubes that shot out like quills began to glow, and the clockwork mannequin mounted before her thrust out its own arms, parroting her movements.

The Queen’s guard looked away in disgust as the mechanical puppet moved about with an eerie mimicry of a living thing, reproducing precisely every motion and gesture that its creator input. Only Captain Tallia watched intently, a curious look on her face.

Satisfied, Elisa unplugged the device and removed her multi-lensed goggles. “The synthesis with the mages from Saint Seychell was more difficult than we expected, but this prototype is most definitely proof of concept.”

The Queen nodded thankfully, her voice dry and chalky. “How easily can it be mass produced?”

Elisa laughed and pointed her heavy work gloves at her. “Ha! I anticipated you asking me that, and I’m ready for you this time.”

Alder dabbed away a bead of blood forming on the Queen’s cracked lips. “Is that so?” she asked cooly.

“Yes, I purposefully designed this system with as few moving parts as possible, and using only basic low-quality materials you can get anywhere. In fact, with permission from Kaiser Duncan I have already contacted our assembly hedgerows back on Almany, and they are tooling up for full-tilt production.”

Alder stifled a cough and began wrapping the Queen’s trembling hands. “I trust you didn’t use the crystal array,” she asked, her face an icy mask.

“No, personal courier with a magically sealed satchel, my cousin Verner is adjutant to the Kaiser himself.”

“And you trust him?”

Elisa gawked at her for a moment, making things awkward.

The Queen filled the silence. “I’m sorry, that question may have sounded a bit harsh.”

“No, it’s not that, I was just thinking that, quite frankly, I trust him more than I trust you.”

The Queen showed no offense, only nodded politely. “That will do, then. Until the light-carrier system is fully installed, no caution is too great. If the enemy learns of our plans, it will bring the ruin of all.”

Elisa grinned broadly and gave a thumbs up. “You’re in good hands, Queenie. The greatest fabricator guilds of Almany are behind this. We can have fifty units assembled by the end of the…”

“We need six thousand, four hundred, twenty three of these dolls,” Nikki said, scribbling on her slate.

Elisa’s face went pale. She looked around, expecting someone to tell her this was a joke, but no one did.

“Delivered and installed by the end of the month,” Nikki added.

Elisa’s head dropped down in agony. “I haven’t slept in days. I hate you all so much.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Nothing, nothing. I…ah…yeah, I guess I’ll get to it.”

As Elisa gathered up her prototype, the next person in line was brought forward and presented to the queen.

Out in the corridor, Elisa had to fight past a group of Dread Summoners, their spidery legs clinging to the decorative drapes hung along the walls. As she picked up an oily rag and wiped her face with it, Captain Tallia stepped up and whispered to her.

“Excuse me, Ms. Hackenvan.”

“Hackenvaughn,” she corrected, tossing the rag atop the mannequin.

“Whatever, may I have a moment of your time?”

“Yeah, why?”

“I have a personal request, but it may take some time.”

“Pffft, oh yeah, sure. Why not? I mean, it’s not like I’m busy or anything.”

Captain Tallia placed her hand on the diminutive engineer’s shoulder. “Thank you.”

All the humor drained away from Elisa’s face. “That was sarcasm.”

All the Wysterians reacted at once, parting like a flock of birds before the heavy armored footsteps of the Black Guard were heard by the foreigners.

High Priestess Oleander entered the Queen’s chambers in her finest robes, a golden miter atop her head, her daughters flanking her. The Black Guard elicited a mixture of awe and fear from all who saw them. Only the Queen remained dispassionate.

Duke Relivan’s report was cut short as the High Priestess stepped before him.

“Clear the room immediately,” she said, her voice reluctantly powerful. “This is an official inquisition.”

As everyone began pouring out, the Queen motioned for two of her cousins to help Alder to his feet. She reached out and let her hand linger on his for as long as she could before he was helped away.

When it became clear that Nikki intended to stay, The High Priestess gave her a steely glare.

Nikki cleared her throat and straightened her collar. “I am the Queen’s liaison with the Alliance Council…”

“Leave or you will be removed by force,” Oleander rejoined.

Nikki was so surprised she didn’t know what to say.

The Black Guard stepped forward, gripping their staffs tightly.