Of a dying tree.
Dearest One, dry your eyes,
And look to the Last Tree before you sleep.
(From the Book of Shadow).
Poor Carl: how he had loved the light trees of Pera. But its berry had brought him death.
Three in one year… As Shady looked around at his fellow immortals, he knew it was a thought in the back of all their minds. Fiona was there, of course, weeping copiously. We would call those crocodile tears where we come from, Shady thought, but in Pera the Crocodile would never cry false tears.
Having paid their respects to the Dead One, they had repaired to the House of Remembering, a three-story stone mansion standing a short distance from the cemetery next to a lotus pond. Carvings of lotuses decorated the eaves, and tulips with long, intertwined stems framed the wrought iron doorway.
The meal was served in an expansive dining room on the first floor. Its offerings were the favorite foods of the departed. People brought mementoes and stories to the meal to share in the spirit of ‘the tides of the River, which is a remembering and a letting go,’ as the Book of Shadow encouraged.
Carl had had many friends. The immortals comprised only a small portion of those present. There must be two hundred or more people here, Shady mused. And they had all felt close enough to Carl to attend his funeral and bring something they had cherished – a memory, a toast, a sleet bead, a small carving of a dolphin, with its eyes and fins coated with Moonlightsmear… There were so many of these small things, these every day tokens, that in their cumulative weight had formed a giant of a man. The man who had designed gloves lined with warmlight, and whose home had been a study in the aesthetics of functionality.
Several of the immortals had had the chance to get to know Carl through the blind policeman patrols. They talked about Carl’s tireless philosophy: always seeking improvement in everything. His was an insatiable curiosity leavened with deep affection for his adopted home.
Amid the bittersweet memories of a dear friend, the other two who had also taken this unexpected rest within the past year were not forgotten. It’s on all of our minds, thought Shady.
Shady’s related announcement of Orion’s imminent arrival was greeted mostly with enthusiasm by his fellow immortals. There was a certain amount of skepticism in some quarters, most notably in the form of Fiona. She was the most audible, in any event. A little shrill, Shady thought, unable to completely mask the distaste he felt. Why must she be so voluble? Or at least if she must talk so much, could she keep to the other side of the room, for instance? But Fiona would not be silent on the issue of Orion’s arrival. Even I feel some reservations regarding his presence – unattended as the Rooster put it – Shady admitted, feeling a little guilty. After all, shouldn’t Orion be able to move about freely, unattended or otherwise, as he wished? It did seem unfair, when viewed objectively, to wish to subject a member of their community to less freedom than they enjoyed. It was certainly a most un-LiGa sentiment. Fiona had continued to express herself volubly as to their ‘communal responsibility’ and Orion’s posing a ‘danger to the community’. Which community did she mean? one wondered… If one took a poll in Pera, the majority of its inhabitants would likely be in favor of Orion’s continued presence in their community. People did not hate Orion; they did not even dislike him. Most, in fact, thought he was charming and a valuable asset. And he is, Shady admitted. I understand why he is popular in Pera: they do not see him as a threat. Indeed, he is not; he likes Pera. The immortals – even those who knew Orion well – did not view him with undue concern. Except Fiona, of course. Well, one could not avoid the issue… Fiona did not have the ‘sense.’ And Orion, of course… well, there was no one who came close to Orion in terms of the ‘sense.’ He walked through the world with such ease and confidence. Unencumbered.
I know a little of how he must see the world, thought Shady, who had dedicated a great deal of time to understanding and mastering his, more limited version of the ‘sense.’ But he and Orion were different, Shady knew, and it wasn’t just a matter of degree. I have encumbrances, thought Shady: I hold attachments and grudges, and the emotions of others confuse me at times. But Orion? Never. And he is absolutely and without the shadow of a doubt, the right person to hold the position of LiGa’s Chief of Security, Shady knew. Naturally, Shadow had called Orion…
It was just past 3:30 in the afternoon when Shady took his leave.
“You’re going to Carl’s,” Selcan Tengiz (Imm.) – LiGa Chess – said quietly as they embraced. Pera-born, Selcan was tall and thin, with hooded amber eyes. She had been endowed with a large helping of the sense and was an accomplished mathematician. She was currently the head of the mathematics department at Pera’s University of Light. Her best-known contribution to life in Pera was probably the formal application of incremental gambling to almost all forms of gambling. She had designed the Betsmaster scheme, which was used in many gambling venues, except the dark halls for the obvious reason that it was too difficult to see who was playing.
“Yes,” Shady said. “There are a few things I want to check… the house should be empty now that the police have left.”
“Do go,” Selcan urged him. “See what you can find. If there’s anything I can do to help– you know Carl and I collaborated on some projects,” she added in a low voice.
“I know,” Shady nodded. What’s wrong? He wondered. There had been something in her tone, or perhaps it was an emotion. Shady instantly felt wary.
“It might all have been an accident. The Rooster thinks it might be.”
“Might be,” Selcan said, guarded. Her amber eyes were devoid of expression. “Do you know when Orion will arrive?”
“Not exactly. You know how it is with the ship. All I know is that he is on his way and will arrive as soon as he can, I’m sure.”
Selcan looked away.
“Is there something wrong?” Shady asked, keeping his voice low.
Selcan gave him a quick smile and patted him on the arm. She shook her head. “Let me know when Orion arrives, will you? He promised me a game of sleet.”
“If you want to see him you can tell him yourself,” Shady intoned, giving a wry smile. “We’re talking about Orion here. You can reach him as soon as he crosses the Veil. It would probably be quicker than waiting for me to tell him,” he added.
“You’re right, I’ll try to sense when he enters Pera’s waters.”
“Well, I’d better go. Take care of yourself.”
“You too. I mean it,” she said softly as he walked away.
Wary. Not fearful, exactly. Shady realized for the first time that he was actually looking forward to Orion’s arrival.
* * *
Outside the cemetery, Shady hailed a cart to take him back into the city.
It was a fitting funeral, he thought, as he leaned back in the four-seat passenger-cabin of the cart, gazing idly out of the window. I wonder if Carl ever considered where he would wish to be buried? Shady mused. It was a topic they had never discussed.
After twenty minutes, Shady signaled to the driver to drop him off at the corner of the Avenue of the Oaks, Pera’s main avenue that ran along the banks of the Ortasu, and Tinker’s Road. On either side of the avenue stood lofty oaks that now formed a skeletal canopy above. During spring and summer, they would shade the street almost completely. Shady walked purposefully to his destination: Number 155. The late Carl Volkswahr’s home.
Shady unlocked the door, and for a moment stood in the open doorway surveying the scene before him. The late afternoon sun smiled weakly into the room through the entryway, and gently stuttered through chinks in the shuttered windows. The French doors leading to the patio were closed and boarded. He noted the flecks of dust dancing haphazardly upon the shaft of light from the doorway, and the items of silent furniture reposing stoically under shrouds of white sheets.
He closed the door behind him and walked to the windows. He unfastened the shutters to let in the Sun, but light could not lesse
n the gloom. It was as though the furniture felt abandoned. It is the loneliness of those left behind, Shady thought as he walked through the room, his steps echoing forlornly. Eventually all of these objects, all of Carl’s belongings, would be … transferred. Where? To whom? Probably LiGa, Shady surmised. The LiGa Immortals were not expected to die, and if they did, in the absence of a will, their worldly belongings reverted to their creator, their next of kin: LiGa. Carl probably had not made out a will, Shady thought wryly. Why should he? I have never thought to do so.
LiGa headquarters were palatial. They did not need Carl’s, at times quirky, furniture but Blanca or Diarmid would find a place for it, just as they had with Dragan’s and Philippa’s... Perhaps the house would be left as is, Shady thought hopefully. LiGa could certainly afford to keep it, and it would be put to good use: new immortals were brought here regularly, and needed a temporary place to stay upon arrival.
For now, though, it was still a crime scene. Shady unlatched the French doors and stepped out onto the patio. Yes, the armchair and telescope were still there… They looked to be in the same position. I hope no one touched anything, Shady thought as he walked towards the telescope still positioned towards the hills of Pera.
The light was fading; it would be time for Evening Song soon. Shady carefully looked through the viewfinder of the telescope. I don’t understand, he thought as he found himself gazing at a collection of cypress trees and distant buildings. He scrutinized each centimeter of the available view with care. “Nothing!” He shook his head disconsolately. “What were you looking at, Carl?” Perhaps it was nothing important, after all… but then there had been Fiona’s almost instinctive attempt to disarrange the telescope…
Shady had reviewed the figures on the piece of paper that had been discovered in Carl’s pocket. They were coordinates, all right, but they did not in any way correspond to the place to which the telescope pointed. It had been easy to determine that the coordinates were located in a cluster of islands at the mouth of the Marble Sea: the White Islands. But why? Why were you interested in the White Islands, Carl?
* * *
It was an hour after dawn and upon the Dark Rock on the Island of Birds stood a tall, angular man in a white robe. He stood in absolute stillness, and his unnaturally black almond-shaped eyes, which contained a hint of red in their dark depths, were trained unblinkingly on the empty horizon. Upon the stark rock, a medium Poyraz wind blowing from the northeast tangled his shoulder-length black hair, and beat the folds of thick, pale fabric against his unmoving limbs.
He was Twilight’s Hand for the Island of Birds, and tradition decreed that he must stand thus upon the Dark Rock until Cypress’s death following the Cypress Ritual could be confirmed. The tragedy must be announced so that the tree-planting ceremony could take place. But before the ceremony of the tree, there would be, according to the knowledge revealed in Evening Song, another ceremony. He would be part of that first ceremony too, along with all the other Twilight’s Hands from the White Islands, in the temple below the caves in the sacred part of the island.
Until such time… until the time for the ceremony of the Silent Dark… the special ceremony held only for the death of Cypress, the Land’s doomed daughter, he would stand and watch over the western divide to ensure that no one crossed the boundary from the residential south to the sacred northern half of the island… There was less need to watch the eastern side, for it was rendered naturally inaccessible by the sheer cliffs against which the tiny community nestled.
Twilight’s Hand was constitutionally endowed with enormous reserves of patience, not to mention fourteen years of rigorous training. Twilight’s Hand did not fear the cold. And boredom had no place in his meditative mind.
But Twilight’s Hand could not quell the blistering grip of anxiety he felt … It was the fifth day since the Cypress Ritual. Four nights he had spent upon the rock gazing into a horizon disturbed only by the flight of seabirds and the dying waves of Lodos. For four nights he had stayed silent, not speaking even to the Dark One, leaving his post only once a day: for an hour before dawn.
At the start of Evening Song on the sixth day, the Elder would arrive, whether or not he was bidden by the call of Cypress’s death, to begin the final ceremony. The ceremony …
For my daughter’s death, thought Twilight’s Hand, staring intently at the horizon. Today.
“Dark One,” he called softly to the breeze.
Dark Thing, coming forth…
Have you seen my daughter?
“Dark One, you have seen my daughter.”
I cast her in the waters when I could not see…
It is a great wrong, the greatest wrong, Dark One. I accept this.
“Let my daughter be the River’s guest…”
* * *
Hunter…
Shadow, he acknowledged in the darkness.
When the Sun called to her brother
Hunter,
It was too late…
Or perhaps it was the Dark One who tarried too long,
Who was too late
To right
The mistake.
Hunter:
A mistake not righted
Is destined to be oft repeated…
And this mistake
Should never be repeated,
Hunter.
* * *
“Orion!” Patron called out, lowering the binoculars. She shielded her eyes against the late afternoon sun.
“What’s wrong?”
“There’s a ship that might be following us. I’m not sure. What do you think?”
Orion stood very still for some minutes; he appeared to be gazing at the horizon.
“They are following us…” he said slowly.
“What does that mean?” Patron demanded.
Orion gave a noncommittal wave. “I don’t sense anything more than interest. The Flying Fish is an unusual ship in these waters, as you know, Patron. It is not necessarily suspicious that others might be curious about her.”
“Do you expect someone to be following us?” Bruce asked sharply.
“No one other than you lot, Xavier and Blanca should be aware of this journey,” Patron muttered.
“But that’s not true,” Bruce pointed out. “Shadow knows, and probably others, too, know where we’re going.”
“They are beyond the Veil,” Patron replied. “They – except for Shadow – have no means of communicating with us until we pass the Veil.”
Strange, thought Father Griffith. “Don’t telephones work?” he wondered out loud.
Patron gave him a curious look. “No,” she said quietly. “Nothing wired or wireless, no satellites can operate across the Light Veil.”
“It must be made of pretty strong stuff,” Cat grinned. “What is it? A wall of some sort? Is there a door or something that will let us through? Where will we leave the ship?”
“You will be happy to learn that we will be able to sail right through this wall,” Orion said with a sly half smile. “As for this ship…” he continued meditatively, “Patron, can we slow down? We’re getting close to the Veil. It would be a good idea to let it pass us.”
“How close are we to the Veil?” Father Griffith asked.
“We would be there by noon tomorrow if we sail at this rate,” Patron replied.
“Well, we’re not in a hurry, are we?” Bruce said. “There’s no harm in being cautious.”
Orion flexed his left hand. “No,” he said sharply. “We don’t have the luxury of time. We must get beyond the Veil as soon as possible. We must be there well before Evening Song tomorrow.”
“Why?” Patron demanded.
“It’s a matter of life or death,” he said indistinctly.
“How do you know?” Bruce asked quickly.
“Whose?” Cat wanted to know. “Ours?”
“But how do you know?” Bruce asked again, pedantically.
“Shadow,” Orion said facing him. “Shadow informed me.”
“What did Shadow say?”
“It said, ‘the Sun called to her brother too late’,” Orion replied, addressing mostly Patron. “I believe it was referring to the fact that Twilight was too late to save Cypress. She was already drowned when he arrived. So the best he could do was to turn her into a tree.”
“Anything else?” Patron asked sharply.
“…A mistake not righted
Is destined to be oft repeated…
And this mistake
Should never be repeated,” Orion recited. “I believe Shadow means one of two things: either that the Cypress Ritual is to take place shortly, or that it has and the girl survived – for the moment. It’s winter,” he added by way of explanation. “If the Ritual has already been held... the accompanying feeling I got was of great urgency,” he added, giving Patron a meaningful look.
“The Cypress Ritual? The one in which a child is sacrificed? As in Evening Song?” Father Griffith asked, horrified.
“Just what I’d expect from those awful people,” Cat concluded, shaking her head.
“You haven’t met them,” Father Griffith pointed out.
“So?” she bridled. “I don’t think that has any bearing on the issue!”
“Well, the important thing is to get beyond the Veil as quickly as possible, and luckily when we do so, we will be perfectly placed to effect a rescue if necessary,” Patron declared, explaining that they would enter the Veil right next to the White Islands. “In fact, the smallest of the islands, the Island of Birds, is the first bit – bite would be stretching it – of land,” Patron let out a hollow laugh at her own witticism, “you come to when you cross the Veil. I spent quite a bit of time on that island,” she mused. “I wonder what’s become of the community since our patrols ceased.”
Cat stifled a smile at the thought of the island at a loss without the benefit of pirate patrols.
“Well we must cross the Veil as soon as possible,” Father Griffith declared. “We must save the child!”
“Yes, that’s exactly what I’m planning on doing,” Patron replied.
“So what will we do about this sailboat that might be following us?” Bruce asked, reminding them of the offending object in the middle distance.
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