“Spirea, we don’t have to do this. We can end this war, you and I, right now. Turn off the rubric. Heal the seas. End this.”
Queen Sotol blinked. “You actually think you have a chance of surviving this, don’t you?” She shook her head. “Pathetic that you would be so naïve. You were able to gamble your way to a minor victory against the naval invasion and the Stone Council, but only because they fundamentally misunderstood you. You forget that I know you, Athel. I knew your mother, I knew your instructors. I watched you bully the other children in your classes. I know more of the forest’s secrets than even you know. Have you even checked what lies beneath your own throne?”
Queen Forsythia furrowed her brow.
Queen Sotol grinned smugly. “You can’t win this time.”
She turned her dark gaze to the others. “You have all placed your trust in Athel Forsythia. You are fools for doing so. She is a petulant, spoiled child. A little girl pretending to be queen. An actor playing a role far beyond her abilities. Mark my words. She will lead you all to destruction.”
“And where would you lead us?” King Dolan shot back. “Huh? What offer does the Stone Council present other than death?”
“Oh, Richardi. You will beg for death before the Stone Council is done with you. Right now you fear it, but when we are done with you, death will seem the sweetest gift imaginable.”
King Dolan stepped back. The menace of her presence was overpowering.
Queen Sotol turned her gaze to the others. “All of you, listen well. Your families, your kin. You will watch them all burn before your very eyes. The Stone Council will win in the end. Aetria will be no more. Only those who ally with us will live on to see the world that will rise out of the ashes of this one.”
And just as quickly as it had appeared, the image of Spirea disappeared, leaving everyone to exchange frightened glances.
* * *
Inside the barren throne room of Stretis, Blair could not help but laugh as Queen Sotol finished her transmission. He flicked the black fire away from the crystal array and it fell silent.
“Oh, that was well worth the souls it took to conjure.” Blair brought his hands up and sucked some of the black shakes off of his fingertips. A stray drip hit the marble floor and ate right through it. “The fear in their eyes, the desperation. It was so beautiful. I adore the artistry of this world the Gods made for us.”
“Not all of them were afraid,” Queen Sotol recalled, twirling her silver scepter in her hand. “Did you see the Forsythian? In her heart, that deluded little child still thinks she is going to win.”
Blair looked her over with his needle-like eyes. “Well, she did convince the lion’s share of the Federal navy to defect over to her side. Not to mention she bankrupted the League by raiding the treasury. At the moment, the Wysterian Alliance has a huge advantage over us in both military assets and resources.”
“As if that will save her. The winds of war will shift so quickly it will make her head spin.”
“So, your goal is to bring the rebels back into the League?”
“Of course not. If I make that my objective, it will limit what I can do. It will force me to consider how each move I make will affect each island. I’d have to take care not to hurt them or threaten their interests. No, that is not my goal. My goal is to kill Queen Forsythia. That is the task the Stone Council gave me, is it not?”
“Not an easy task. If my father gave it to me, I’d suspect he was setting me up to fail.”
Queen Sotol flicked the switch on her scepter, extending a hidden blade from within. “No, I’ve already won. Athel has a million things to consider. A fledgling empire to run, allies to appease, a war to fight. All of those considerations narrow her options. By keeping my objective simple, I give myself an unbeatable advantage.”
“So, what are you going to do?”
She ran her thumb along the blade, savoring the sensation of flesh being cut. “Right now she is surrounded by people she can trust. I will strip them away from her. She is protected by a massive fleet of airships. I will take them from her. She is sitting in the middle of a forest stronghold. I will kick her out of it. Broken, defenseless, and alone, I will draw her into a trap, a place and time of my own choosing where my advantage is overwhelming. I will grind her down until she begs me for death, and then I will give it to her.”
Blair placed his hands on his side and laughed deeply. “Oh, I am so pleased my father chose you for this assignment. The way you boldly use the darker colors on the canvas. You do not hesitate to use the paints you are gifted. You, my lady, are a true artist.”
Queen Sotol ignored the compliment and absentmindedly fingered the Beastmaster necklace around her neck. It kind of surprised her to find it there. She had meant to take it off, yet here it was around her neck again. She tried to recall the last time she had removed it, but then her head started hurting, and she had to call for a glass of wine from a terrified man wearing a loincloth who had, not that long ago, been the minister of finance in Stretis.
Deep inside Queen Sotol’s mind, trapped in a small corner, beaten and afraid, was the real Spirea. She looked out upon the world presented to her, a seemingly endless string of horrors and atrocities being committed by her body, yet she was powerless to do anything about it.
Her grandmother was in control of this body now, or at least, the dark thing that had once lived inside her grandmother was now living in her. A dirgina. Spirea realized now that she had never actually known her grandmother. She had been consumed and replaced by this demon long before Spirea had ever been born, and now, it was her turn. The unspeakable Sotol family legacy, hidden from the outside world of light. Yet, something was wrong this time. Somehow the real Spirea continued to exist.
Was it because of that necklace?
The real Spirea curled up as tightly as she could. She felt naked and alone in the dark, yet one thought kept coming back to her. Something she had overhead.
Athel said she didn’t betray me…that she tried to help me…could that be true?
She wanted so hard to believe it, but she was afraid to. Afraid to trust anyone--ever.
No, how could it be true? She stole Alder from me. The one person who ever showed me any kindness, and she claimed for herself. That gluttonous beast. She could have had any man she wanted. She took mine out of spite…at least I think she did. Ahh, it hurts to think. It’s so hard to think…
“What you propose seems difficult,” Blair commented, breaking Queen Sotol out of her stupor. “The Wysterian Alliance is small, but determined. And the Wysterians themselves are unified through their trees. Their loyalty to their Queen is beyond fanatical.”
The Queen chuckled animalistically and tossed a piece of meat over to her enormous fly traps. The hungry plants chewed up the morsel hungrily, venom dripping from their maws. “It only seems that way to an outsider. The Wysterians and their Alliance may try to present themselves as unified, but already within them are the seeds of their own destruction. Already in its very foundations are the cracks and fractures that roots can invade and crumble. All I need to do is throw a little water on those seeds.”
Blair licked his lips. “So, what color will you use first?”
“First, I need access to the smuggling tunnels.”
Blair crossed his arms. “That’s a lot of authority to give to someone outside of the Kabal.”
She twirled the tip of her blade against her fingertip. “Yes, but you are going to give it to me anyway.”
“I am? Why?”
She gave a sinister grin. “Because you are dying to see what I will do with it.”
* * *
Captain Sykes couldn’t remember ever feeling so small. The Nallorn trees around him were so unbelievably massive. Like titans they rose up thousands of feet into the air above them, piercing the very clouds. The Wysterian men working alongside him w
ould occasionally glance at the trees as if they half-expected them to reach out and snatch them up. After having seen with his own eyes how fierce the forest could be, he could hardly blame them.
He never imagined that his life would take the route it had. He had given up a lifetime of military service to the League in order to save his homeland from the acidic seas. Now, while the assault on Boeth was being prepared, he was living on the very island he had been sent by the Stone Council to destroy.
It surprised him how dark the forest floor was. Even now, at midday, no direct light reached the ground. When the occasional ray broke through from above, one of the trees would shift its branches to greedily block it up again. The only real light came from the bonfires that dotted the valley floor.
There, in the dim smoldering light, the men worked. Hacking with crude axes and saws, shoveling and hauling with pitchforks and wheel barrels, they cleared away the snarling underbrush that choked the ground between the massive tree trunks, piling it up and burning it. Twisted and dark plants, clinging to life in the twilight among a knee-deep layer of shed vegetative parts. Bits of dry leaves, bark, and stems in various stages of decomposition, along with apple cores, fruit pits, vegetable shafts, and various bits of garbage discarded from the clean houses far, far above. It gently rained down around them and collected against the trunks like snow-drifts. It surprised Sykes how gnarled and untidy it all was. The air here was stifling, with the rank of decay.
The other thing that surprised him was how swelteringly hot it was. The heat coming off the endless steaming piles of rot all collected together with the heat of the fires like a festering sauna. At the end of the day he would bathe and bathe, but the stench of it all seemed to cling to his very bones. It was a world of compost. This was the part of Wysteria no one spoke of. The part that didn’t appear in the history books. This was the province of men.
The men themselves rarely gave utterance, even when Sykes would ask questions. They’d skulk away, as if they expected some deception. When he greeted them, they would flinch as if anticipating an attack. But they were not entirely silent. When the female overseers moved out of earshot, the men would sing to themselves. It was a low, melancholy sound, a kind of harmonious hum, just above a moan. Never quick, always slow and steady, conserving energy. Their songs echoed off the tall and distant trees, like ghostly whispers on the wind. The cry of a lost race, devoid of hope. Toiling through their bleak and short lives amid dark fumes, awaiting the day when death took them. He hated to admit it, but as sad as their songs sounded, they fit the atmosphere of this place perfectly.
As Sykes finished hacking away a parasitic vine, the men around him stopped singing. You could tell when a woman was approaching long before she got there. It was as if a hushed wind passed over the workers. Heads dropped down, eyes were lowered, lips were silenced.
Only Sykes looked up, and was relieved to see a familiar face. “Ensign Avid,” he called out to the young woman.
She stopped in her tracks and her head snapped around, a smile crossing her lips. “Captain Sykes,” she greeted, running over as best she could past the smoldering piles of burning compost. “I didn’t expect to see you down here.”
“Is that the new Alliance uniform?”
“Yes, you like it?” she said, spinning around. “They’re passing them out as fast as they can make them.”
Captain Ssykes looked down at his own navy uniform. A bald spot in the fabric where the insignias had been torn away. “I know it seems like a huge waste of resources, but I’ll be glad when I can finally rid myself of this thing.”
Avid nodded and lowered her eyes. It was a shame they all felt. All of them who had participated in the first battle of Wysteria. The screams of the dying trees still haunted them.
“Have you seen any of the others?” he asked, stretching his sore back.
Avid threw him a quick military salute, much to the surprise of the men nearby. “Aye, sir. I’ve seen Kathan and Berrimar today, and boson Nacer yesterday. “They’re all well.”
“I’m glad to hear that.” Sykes nodded. “I don’t know what the brass are bickering about, but whatever it is, I hope they knock it off so we can finally go on the offensive and end this pointless war.”
“And then the oceans will be healed, right?” she asked.
Captain Sykes nodded hopefully.
Avid looked around and leaned in close. “They’ve got me working as an overseer,” she whispered. “I don’t understand. You are a captain. Why am I watching over you? It doesn’t seem right.”
Sykes glanced over his shoulder at the men. They tried to pretend like they didn’t notice, but Sykes knew they were listening in on every word they were saying.
“It would seem that being born a woman around here is more important than rank.”
They heard muffled screams and the unmistakable sounds of a scuffle nearby. The men around them redoubled their efforts, working furiously so as not to be implicated in whatever it was. Sykes and Avid were off like a shot, running through the rot towards the source of the noise as best they could.
Rounding a cluster of giant foul mushrooms, they found a trio of Treesingers with a man at their feet. The larger of them had a long leather whip in her hand, striking him over and over again. The man himself made no noise, no movement.
“What is going on here?” Sykes called out.
The Treesingers reached for their staffs, as if they meant to attack him.
“This does not concern you, foreigner,” Iris Bursage said clearly as she returned the whip to her belt. “I am merely doing my job. It is the role of women to civilize men. To teach them self-control. He should thank me for the privilege.”
Sykes looked down at the man on the ground, blood pouring out of the cruel gashes along his tanned skin.
“I see.”
“You call the whip and the lash civility?” Avid protested, but when Iris turned her icy eyes to the young woman, she shrank back, stepping behind Sykes for protection.
“If he would only obey, I would not have to employ these tools,” Iris explained.
“You lie,” a voice whispered.
They all looked down at the bleeding Wysterian man. He looked up at his attacker with unfiltered hate in his eyes.
“You lie,” he repeated. “I can see it in your eyes. You enjoy this.”
“Silence!” Iris spat. With a twist of her staff, roots grew up from the ground and bound his wrists, ankles, and neck.
Avid moved to yell, but Captain Sykes motioned for her to stand down. “May I ask what his crime was?” he asked calmly.
“You may not.”
“Then I will ask anyway.”
Iris snarled, her hand tightening on her staff. “He refuses to help maintain the health of the forest.”
Captain Sykes looked around. “You mean burn the garbage?”
“The undergrowth must be chopped down and cleared. If it is not, the trees will suffer, and wildfires will injure their trunks. The ashes rejuvenate the soil and nourish the roots of the forest. This is a necessary and essential task.”
Captain Sykes held out a calm hand towards her staff. “But, you are leaf-witches. Why have people do it by hand? It doesn’t seem very efficient.”
“Women can only create new life, we cannot end it.” She looked over at the men nearby, to make sure they weren’t listening in. “That is why men are not to be trusted. You men bring only death.”
Avid’s jaw dropped open in offense.
Captain Sykes rested his chin on his knuckles thoughtfully. “Kind of circular reasoning, wouldn’t you say?”
His response surprised her. She looked to her cousins, but they only stared back at her stupidly. “What do you mean?”
“Well,” Captain Sykes said, resting his hands at the small of his back. “These men aren’t here because they want to be. You sent
them down here. You assigned them this task, then use the fact that they are performing it as evidence as to why they deserve to have it assigned to them. The men cut down plants because they deserve to, and they deserve to because they cut down plants. See? Circular logic.”
Iris narrowed her eyes. “It is their traditional role. It is the order of things.”
“Well then, if that is the true reason the men are down here, why not just say so? Blame the tradition, not the men. It’s not their fault that the tradition is thus.”
Iris spun her staff, leaving the tip hovering an inch from his neck. The men nearby flinched in fear. Captain Sykes remained perfectly still.
“I will not stand here and have the ways of Milia mocked,” Iris spat. “This is her will. Remember that you came here as an invader. You killed tens of thousands of our people and our trees. You brought our Goddess to the very brink of death!”
There was a rustle in the woods around them as the trees shifted their weight in response to her emotions. The men nearby dropped their tools and ran.
Iris spun her staff and cracked Sykes across the side of the head, nearly knocking him over. “I lost my elder sister to you. It is only by the Queen’s command that my hand is stayed, or else I would kill you where you stand!”
Avid could only look on in amazement as Captain Sykes straightened himself, blood tricking down his ear and dripping down on his collar. There was not a trace of anger on his face.
“And you say that men have no self-control,” he observed steadily. “How can you teach the men what you have not learned yourself?”
Iris gasped in surprise and took a half step backwards.
Captain Sykes took off his cap and held it over his heart. Honorably, he bowed before the three Treesingers. “I apologize for the role I played in attacking your homeland. I was only following orders, but I realize now that is not enough. I was wrong. I understand now that you must do what is right, even if it is in defiance of your orders…”
Isle of Wysteria: The Monolith Crumbles Page 8