Quillblade (19 page)

Lenis heard soft laughter. YES. THAT IS WHAT THEY CALL US NOW.

‘I thought you were all Demons!'

THERE IS NOT MUCH TIME, LENIS CLEMENS. THIS GATEWAY CANNOT STAY OPEN FOR LONG. THE MASTER OF THIS TEMPLE WILL SOON RETURN.

‘The master of the temple?'

‘Lenis!'

Lenis ignored his crewmates and concentrated on the Totem's voice.

THIS TEMPLE BELONGS TO THE JINN CALLED NETI, THE FATHER OF THE SLAIN, WHO HAS FALLEN TO THE WASTELAND TAINT. HE IS NOW IN THE THRALL OF THE DEMON KING.

Lenis was barely aware that he was clutching Aeris to him. ‘What can you tell me about the Demon King?'

THERE ISN'T TIME. I JUST WANTED TO MEET YOU, AND TO GIVE YOU WHAT HELP I CAN.

‘Please! What about Missy? And the World Tree!'

YOU MUST SAVE APSILLA'S DAUGHTER ...

The voice faded and the blue light dimmed and then went out. Shin grabbed Lenis's shoulder. ‘What is it, Lenis?'

‘I ... I don't know!' Lenis was suddenly aware he was sitting in a cold puddle of water surrounded by a group of soggy Bestia. ‘I think one of the Totem just spoke to me. He called himself Silili.' Lenis looked at the others. ‘He said this temple belonged to a Jinn called Neti, and that Neti is now a Demon working for the Demon King.'

No one said anything for a moment, and then Yami came to help Lenis to his feet. ‘This Neti is most probably the Demon Lenis sensed in the Wastelands. If he used to be a Jinn, he will most likely be a Demon Lord like Shamutar. We have the Bestia. We should leave. Now.'

Shin bent down to grab Lenis's other arm. ‘Did the Totem tell you anything else?'

Lenis felt tears of frustration come to his eyes and shook his head. He winced, bracing himself for the pain, but none came. He felt fine. He waved off the others and took a step. Nothing. He looked more closely at his Bestia. They, too, seemed unharmed.

... and to give you what help I can ...

Had Silili healed them all?

‘Thank you,' Lenis whispered.

‘Master Clemens?'

Lenis unwrapped the bandages from his hands. The skin was sound. There was no sign of any burns. ‘I'm fine, Captain. I think the water must have healed me.' He reached up and pulled off the covering on his cheek. He braced himself and rubbed at his skin. It was smooth. There wasn't even any scarring.

The captain watched Lenis closely. ‘Indeed?' He bent down to take a sip from the shallow well. He pulled a water flask out of his robe, emptied its contents on the ground and filled it from the well. ‘We should bring some back for Master Long to examine.'

Lenis took one of the captain's torches, and they made their way back to the stairs. The Bestia followed demurely. Lenis felt better than he had in weeks. He looked at Yami. Now that his body was free of pain, his mind returned to his sister. ‘You said there were people who worshipped the World Tree?'

Yami nodded. ‘Though I do not know how to find them. As I said, they are not a religion, but they must have some way of identifying one another. A symbol, perhaps?'

Lenis squared his shoulders and pulled up his scarf. ‘Well, just because we don't know where to start looking for them doesn't mean we
can't
look for them. We've got the Bestia, so we can go on to Ost now. Maybe there are some of these World Tree philosophers there.'

The captain placed a hand on his shoulder. ‘Asheim, the capital of Ost, is a large city. Many different people gather there.'

Lenis nodded as the others pulled up their scarves, and then he led the way up the stairs. His strength as well as his health had returned. He manoeuvred his way through the debris of Neti's temple, stopping only to examine the World Tree diagram again. He did his best to memorise the different runes carved into it but knew he probably wouldn't be able to reconstruct the intricate design later.

It felt good to have the Bestia near him again, better, in fact, than he remembered. Even stepping out into the green-tinged air beyond the temple's entrance didn't seem as daunting as it had on their way into the Wastelands.

They set off to the south and it wasn't long before Lenis felt the presence of the stalking Demon Lord. As before it stayed a constant distance away, but Lenis was even more wary of it now that he knew it was probably Neti, the former Jinn. If he was anything like Shamutar, he could probably summon lesser Demons to serve him. There was also the chance that the Demon King would be nearby, controlling him.

The journey into the Wastelands had taken them hours, but the return trip took less than one and Lenis wondered to what extent his pain had played tricks with his mind – or, worse still, if he had led the others in circles through the mist-shrouded Wastelands.

Once they left the blanket of miasma and the lurking Neti behind them, they walked for another half an hour to be sure they were well clear of the acrid air before they set up a makeshift camp. The ground was soaked and large puddles had formed in places, evidence of the downpour that must have occurred during their time in the Wastelands. As the others worked, Lenis tried to coax some fresh water into his Bestia, but they seemed more interested in playing than drinking. He wondered what had caused them to seek out Neti's temple in the first place. Had they somehow instinctively known to go to there? Did Silili call out to them?

As Lenis picked up Atrum, he noticed the Bestia had managed to get a leather cord twined about his neck. Under Atrum's chin, attached to the cord, was a small leather pouch. Lenis carefully pulled it from around the Bestia's neck,
wondering where Atrum had found it. It looked old, and the leather was stiff and cracked around the seams. Lenis worried at the knotted cord that bound the pouch and eventually resorted to getting Yami to cut it open for him. He upended it into his palm and four pieces of wood tumbled out, each twice as wide as his thumb and almost as long. They were surprisingly light and roughly tubular in shape, with jagged ends and flat sides with runes scorched into them.

Lenis showed them to the others. ‘Atrum found these in Neti's temple. What do you think they say?'

Yami picked one up. ‘Perhaps you should ask Lord Tenjin.'

‘What do you think they are?'

Yami handed the piece back to him. ‘Playing tokens of some kind?'

They all returned to their work. Lenis put the rune pieces back in their pouch and slipped them into his pocket.

He glanced towards the north and saw a dark blotch on the edge of the Wastelands, shaped like an old, stooped man with a tall walking stick. Even from this distance he could feel that it was the Demon that had been following them. Neti. Lenis called out and pointed, but as the others turned to look the Demon Lord vanished. Lenis could no longer feel his presence.

‘Is everything all right, Lenis?' Yami asked him.

‘I saw Neti, but he's gone now.'

The captain stared for a long time at the tree line. ‘We should keep a lookout in case he returns. I will take first watch. The rest of you should rest.'

Once the camp was ready Lenis settled gratefully into his blankets on an almost dry patch of ground. The captain sat nearby, his eyes locked on the Wastelands' edge. Lenis drew the Bestia close about him and fell asleep.

Missy watched Lenis enter the temple. Behind her she felt the tether Lord Raikô had tied around her spirit-self trailing back towards the south. She wanted nothing more than to make her presence known to her brother, but she could not break free of Raikô's hold. If she had had her physical body she would have screamed and tried to tear herself free of his grip, but in her current state there was nothing she could do. Raikô's power showed no signs of weakening, even though his mind was almost gone.

She kept her hidden vigil for hours, ignoring Raikô's insistent tugging on the tether. She didn't relax until Lenis emerged from the temple with the Bestia in tow. She trailed along behind them, willing her brother to notice her.

He didn't.

The group had left the Wastelands and were setting up their camp when Missy reluctantly decided to return to Raikô's temple, all the way back across the seas. As she turned to go she noticed a bent old man supporting himself with the aid of a long walking stick. He was standing on the edges of
the wood, his face lined and kindly beneath his bushy brows. Missy wondered what the old man was doing all the way out here, and then he raised his head and looked directly at Missy's incorporeal form with a single red eye. She instinctively reached out to him and recognised the unmistakable feel of its power. It rivalled Raikô's, and like the Thunder Bird this one was riddled with the Wasteland sickness, but unlike Raikô there was nothing left to fight it off. This was a fullfledged Demon Lord. Hollow. This was what Raikô would become. No wonder he was scared.

Missy knew that she had to get away from the Thunder Bird before the transformation was complete. If there was a cure for his sickness, she was never going to find it, not like this. Every moment she wasted searching or tagging along after her brother the disease took a little bit more of the Totem she was bound to. She had to find a way to escape, whatever it took, and she had to do it soon.

The Demon suddenly laughed and Missy recoiled. There was something
wrong
about the laugh, not because it was strange or evil, but because it sounded so
normal,
almost human, and it wasn't coming from the Demon. It was coming from something
inside
it.

‘So close.' The Demon's lips didn't move. The voice came from whatever was hiding in its empty shell. ‘Poor Misericordia. If only your brother knew how close you are.' Whatever it was, Totem or Jinn or some entity even more powerful than either, it began to laugh again, and the laughter terrified
Missy to the very core of her soul. She fled, and when she felt an answering panic from Lord Raikô, she allowed him to wrench her back to him and away from the laughing creature in the Demon suit. The one that knew her name.

After Namei released him from a rough and awkward embrace and ran off below decks, Lenis sank down onto the stairs leading up to the bridge. The walk back across the sodden plains had been an ordeal, despite his newfound energy. Although his wounds were healed and his mind clear, his body was still exhausted from everything he'd put it through over the past couple of weeks. Spending most of a day wandering around the Wastelands followed by a night sleeping on the cold ground hadn't helped either. What he really needed was a few days in his bunk.

The others were all pleased to see them return safely, and even the stoic Arthur smiled, though he followed this up by asking Lenis how soon they would be able to launch the
Hiryû.
The captain reassured him they would be in the air once Lenis and the Bestia had had a chance to rest. Hiroshi seemed to take this as a cue and promised to force
nourishing victuals on Lenis until he had regained his strength. Yami gave Lenis a look over the cook's shoulder and actually winked. Lenis had to suppress a smile.

At last Lenis was able to return to his bunk, his stomach full and the Bestia resting fitfully in their hutch. The doctor had examined the Bestia and told Lenis they would be fine. He seemed far more interested in the sample of well water the captain had brought back for him. Long Liu gave Lenis a draught of a sweet-tasting tonic that had dulled the lingering aches in his body and quietened his mind, and then the doctor had disappeared into his cabin.

Despite his drug-induced sense of peace, Lenis's dreams were harrowing. He was running through endless Wastelands towards an enormous tree on the horizon, being chased by a shrivelled old Demon. This time the knots and furrows of the tree's bark formed themselves into tantalisingly obscure runes, but no matter how fast or how far Lenis ran, the Demon was always right on his heels, and the tree was always too far away to reach.

The feeling of frustration stayed with him after he woke. He lay in his bunk for a long time, debating whether or not to ask the doctor for another dose of tonic. He decided against it. Lenis hadn't spent more than half his life as a Bestia Keeper without learning the dangers of drug misuse.

His burns were gone. The only pain he felt was from sore muscles, but that was the result of pushing a still-healing
body too hard and could be managed. His nervy energy was a different problem.

Lenis bit back a useless cry, fearful of waking the Bestia, and threw off his blankets. He struggled into his trousers, ignoring the cramping in his muscles. He started pacing the confines of the engine room to stretch them out only to be further frustrated every couple of steps by the machinery that housed the heart of the
Hiryû.
The metal of the engines had cooled from being dormant so long. Lenis wasn't used to his room being so cold.

The words of the mad Tien Tese doctor, the few coherent ones that Lenis could remember, taunted him.
You are full of questions, Lenis Clemens. That is a good thing. You must go and speak to the World Tree. There you will get answers.

Lenis brought his hand down hard on the unyielding engine block, jarring his arm.

‘Damn it to the Wastelands!' He shook his now-tingling limb and rounded on his Bestia. ‘How can I speak to something if I don't even know where or what it is?'

Aeris looked up at him blearily and Lenis could feel waves of sympathy spreading out towards him. He turned away from her compassion and returned to his bunk, staring down at his rumpled blankets.

She doesn't exist. Or she does, but she is everywhere and everyone and everything, which is the same as not existing at all, as being nothing ... Do you understand?

Yami had spoken those words to him after they had returned from their foray into the Wastelands outside of Gesshoku. Lenis had told the swordsman what Long Liu had said about the World Tree, and Yami had vowed to do whatever he could to help Lenis recover his sister's soul. His idea of bartering with a Lilim had proven fruitless. Bakeneko had neither the power nor the inclination to stand against the corrupted Totem that had taken Missy's soul.

That only left the World Tree, which was no hope at all.

Lenis sat down on his bunk. ‘If she exists she is everything and so she is nothing.' He pulled his robes around his shoulders. ‘She is everywhere and nowhere.'

‘Sounds like a riddle.'

Lenis started at the sound of Namei's voice. ‘What does?'

Namei stood in the doorway, leaning against the frame with her arms crossed over her chest. One hand played with the end of her scarf. ‘What you just said. If she exists she is everything and so she is nothing. She is everywhere and nowhere. It sounds like a riddle.'

‘I suppose it does.'

‘So?'

‘So, what?'

‘What is it then? What's the answer?'

‘I don't know.' Lenis rested his chin in his hand. ‘It doesn't make any sense. How can something be everything and nothing? Everywhere and nowhere? It's impossible.'

‘Not something.' Namei came and sat next to him. ‘Someone. You said it was a “she”.'

‘Well, it's not really a
she.
It's an
it,
I guess. A tree.'

‘A tree?'

‘The World Tree. I need to know where it ... what is it?'

Namei grabbed one of his hands in both of hers. ‘That's what we're talking about, the World Tree?'

Lenis stared back. ‘You know about the World Tree?'

‘The World Tree is the mother of all things. We were all born from the buds that sprouted on her branches. Her roots reach deep into the earth and connect every living thing. She resides in the heart of our greatest hopes, and gives birth to our deepest fears.'

Namei was holding his hand too tight, but he didn't pull it away. He said, ‘That's what Yami told me.'

‘Yami?'

‘The doctor said the only way I could save Missy was to ask the World Tree. I asked Yami what it meant.'

Namei rolled her eyes. ‘Why didn't you ask
me?
'

‘I didn't know you knew about it!'

‘Didn't your Puritan parents teach you anything?' Namei turned red and let go of his hand. Then she pushed up her left sleeve, revealing the tattoo Lenis had noticed earlier. ‘See? This symbol comprises three words:
eternity, connection
and
mother.
Those who follow the World Tree philosophy use it to identify one another. My mother gave me this tattoo. She used to teach people about their philosophy.'

‘I thought she was a warrior!'

‘She was.'

Perhaps Lenis wouldn't have to search the entire world to find someone who could tell him about the World Tree after all! ‘Well, what about it?'

‘One day when I was still very small,' Namei began, ‘I brought home a sapling and planted it in the garden. I told my mother it was the World Tree, our own private World Tree.' Her eyes were unfocused, as though she was no longer seeing what was inside the engine room. ‘My mother tore it from the ground and made me burn it to ashes. “You must understand,” she told me, “the World Tree is nothing because she is everything.” When I cried she told me not to weep because the ashes of my tree were as much a part of the World Tree as the sapling had been, as I was. She was trying to teach me a lesson. I was too young to understand it back then.'

Lenis groaned and slumped in his bunk. ‘I think I'm too young to understand it now.'

‘The followers of the World Tree believe everything is connected. Like the Totem. People call them by different names, but they're really worshipping the same beings.'

‘Like Apsilla and Seisui?'

‘Right. The World Tree represents their connection to one another, and so she is everywhere, but she is, herself, a non-entity. She doesn't exist except as a symbol of that interconnectedness, so she isn't really anywhere.'

‘She's nowhere.'

Namei nodded and stood, then started to walk out of the room. At the door she stopped and said over her shoulder, ‘She is in everything and so she is nothing. She is everywhere, and so she is nowhere.'

Lenis threw an arm up to cover his eyes. ‘Nowhere in particular.' As he followed the dancing of the false lights behind his eyelids he repeated, ‘Nowhere in particular.' He lowered his arm. ‘If she's nowhere in particular
and
everywhere, then I don't have to find her ...' He looked over at Aeris and found her still watching him. ‘She's
here.
'