It had been a long time since they had seen the Light Above and Venn realised they did not miss it. There was a harshness to the light of Crua that was absent in the forest, here the light was gentle, diffused by the canopy of the cloudtrees and the mists that gathered below them. You could look up and the light did not burn your eyes, it bathed them. The trees, when you really looked, had their own illumination, a soft glow. Everything here had a light and the more Venn worked through the exercises set for them by the Lens of the Trion, the more they saw it.
Sometimes it was obvious, the fungi that grew everywhere: in the newly established farms, on trees and houses, nearly all of it either glowed or could be crushed to release juices that did, the same ones that were used to paint the armour of the Rai. The Forestals did not paint their cloaks, or the little armour most of them wore beneath. They were like the creatures of the forest, they did not want to be seen. The Rai were more like the poisonous creatures that glowed brightly, warning others that they were dangerous.
Venn breathed in, letting their consciousness meld with the cowl, move from them into the air. Imagining each outward breath created a cloud, and every breath after increased that cloud. Venn recognised the feeling, similar to the way Cahan had taught them to see the world around them. The Lens had stopped Venn using his method, they did not allow them to touch the floor with their hands, saying it was a crutch and that they should be able to sense life without seeking it physically. Brione had softly and seriously told them that Venn’s power was “in your mind, not in your body”. Insisted that they must use their mind to reach out. This was the first discipline, because a Lens needed speed and a mind was faster than a body could ever be.
So Venn used their mind.
It was hard, at first. Twice they fell asleep during the days of their learning, only to be woken by one of the Lens. Venn expected punishment but none came, no physical punishment. If it was Brione they would be understanding. They would say it was hard at first, gently encourage. If it was some of the others, Sendir for instance, there would be disapproval, not voiced, but plain beneath the stripes of their make-up. “Do better,” they would say. Oddly, it was the ones that did not like them that made them try harder. Venn wanted to prove them wrong.
So after a fourday Venn rarely fell asleep, they put everything into their mental focus; and in the last eightday, a breakthrough. They could do this, could find themselves outside their body. The great weaving of life was what the Lens called it. They seemed puzzled when Venn called it Ranya’s web. They presumed Venn spoke of the same thing they did, but Venn was not so sure. The Lens understood all life was linked, they understood a corruption grew in the web of life, but they did not seem to know of the delicate web that touched upon all things. They did not see it the same way as Venn. They talked of roots and trees, of larger things where Venn saw delicacy.
They understood much but not everything.
Venn felt for life. Reaching for the people of Woodhome first, they were bright and easy to find. Moving between the similar-but-different life of rootlings and garaur. The gasmaw farm next, like a beacon, the light of the maws very different in feel and warmth, colder, bluer. Then other creatures of the forest, a million tiny lights and all these had one thing in common, they were self-contained, not part of the great cycle of the forest, not yet. Their light would not be released until they died and were given to the forest floor.
Though Venn was not sure about that, not sure the way the Lens were. Venn had briefly touched what lived within Cahan, knew it as somehow connected to death, as something that should not be, and yet death was natural. What was in Cahan was not. It was more like a sickness. The Lens knew of the corruption of death, how their tree had lost a branch to it, but they thought that was all it was. A strange fungus and if they were careful, and only raised the right mushrooms, then it would not come to them again.
Venn did not believe that.
They took a deep breath.
They were part of the Lens, they must not be distracted. Brione had told them that to be distracted in the moment of passing power to the focus was to be death, not only to themselves but to all in the chain. To be trion was to be the conduit, this was how they said the world was made to work, this was the true way.
Venn reached out again, past life which was easy and fleeting, trying to reach beyond into what was constant. But the life of the forest was too much, blinding, it shocked Venn from their calm state and they lost the connection. They bunched their hands in frustration. Let go of it. Breathe. Brione’s voice in their mind. This happened to them all. It just happened to Venn more than the others, but they would learn to overcome it.
Breathing.
Sinking.
The shock of brightness filling their mind.
Let it. It will pass.
The trick was to expand your mind past all the life. There was an intensity in this that was lacking in the way Cahan had shown them. A completeness that both felt right and scared Venn. Once you were in the beyond it was hard to look away.
But they would. Gradually, the brightness of life died away and a glow was left behind. The constant background of Crua, a great, huge, living thing, not many organisms but one. The plants, from the smallest lichen to the great cloudtrees, were a system and it was all linked by Ranya’s web, delicate lines of fungus that touched upon everything; no more than a flicker in the edges of their mind. When you saw all of it Venn could understand why the Lens did not see Ranya’s web – the power of Crua was immense, it made the web invisible, and if they ever saw the web then it was easy for them to imagine it as an after effect of the mind.
The cloudtree behind them vibrated with power, and Venn looked at it with a clarity they had been lacking before. The tree was a model of the way the Forestals worked. The tiny leaves gathered energy from above, not the Light Above, something beyond even that and Venn did not even begin to understand it. The leaves passed power to the twigs and where twig met branch it was focused into more power, then where small branches met larger branches focused again until it was passed to the trunk and from there it ran down to the roots of the great tree and deep, deep into Crua. The amount of energy was breathtaking; Venn knew why those who touched it must be denied the power afterwards, if you could harness the cloudtree’s power you could lay waste to the entire world. Just to skim the energy of a cloudtree the way Cahan had with the trees of Woodedge would take huge amounts of control, one step and it would incinerate you, leave you nothing but ash on the air, or suck you dry and pull your own bright spark into the flow. Not from malice, or even to defend itself.
It was simply the way it was.
Its nature.
Again, that strange feeling that the power was going somewhere, or meant to go somewhere. For just a moment, the most fleeting touch, Venn felt another power to the north, huge and terrible but unfocused and incomplete. It frightened them in a way nothing else had done so far, and at the same time there was a familiarity that they could not place. Not straight away. They worried it was what had touched Cahan, but if so that power was insurmountable, a fight already lost.
Venn felt themselves shivering.
“You feel it?” They opened their eyes. Brione was looking at them. “The tree?” Brione added. Venn nodded.
“It leaves me feeling very small,” said Venn. “But I understand the role of the Lens now. The people are the leaves, we are the meeting of the branches and we pass the power to the trunk. It is the way of things.” Brione smiled at them and Venn stood, knees and ankles aching from many hours sat cross-legged.
“You have learned in an eightday what it takes most of us many years to see.” Venn did not know what to say to that. Brione put a hand on Venn’s shoulder. “The place of a trion is between, neither one nor the other. We do not become male or female, we do not take one side or another.” Venn wondered why Brione was telling them what they already knew. “But remember, that is an ideal, there are disagreements and jealousies even among us.” She looked around, breathed in the evening air. “Sendir was the strongest of us before you came.”
“You are saying they may try to hurt me?” Venn hated that, they had thought this a safe place.
“No, they will not. But it may take them time to adjust, they have pride. You travelled with Cahan, the forester who herded crownheads?” Venn nodded. “Then you must have heard the herders saying ‘the new garaur gets the most nips’?” Venn had not, but they nodded nonetheless. Brione smiled.
“What is to the north, Brione?” said Venn, they did not want to talk of jealousy or being nipped. The Forestal’s body became still, like a tree when the circle winds let up. Like a raniri in the moment before it bolted.
“It is unwise to look too far north, Venn,” they said softly.
“Have I offended you?” Brione shook their head and delicate porcelain rings in their ears chimed.
“Not at all. But in the far north is where the Boughry hold court, it is best not to attract their attention. I believe you have already lost a friend to the Woodhewn Nobles?” Venn had no answer to that, it was true and to think of Udinny still hurt. “Now come, if luck has been with them your friends will be returning soon.”
“And they may need healing.”
“Yes,” said Brione but there was no commitment to the words. “Night will close soon, I think you are ready for the last truth.”
“The last?” Brione laughed, a sound with the same chime as their earrings.
“Well, there are many truths, the last we would have you understand if you are to stay with us.” Venn nodded and followed Brione to one of the lifts. Standing in the woven cage while it descended, seemingly through nothing as the cover of night fell. Venn felt like they could be lost in the sky, the myriad lights of the flying creatures existing in a way Venn could never understand. Though they did not miss the Light Above, Venn realised they missed seeing the Cowl Star, the comfort of the single light in the night sky, the final destination of those who found favour with the gods.
Vertigo. The world spinning. A revelation.
It wasn’t true.
Couldn’t be true.
They had seen the truth of Crua. It was a closed system, all energy feeding back on itself. Power coming from without but none ever leaving.
“There is no Star Path,” said Venn softly. Saying it was like a stab in their heart. No Star Path meant Udinny was gone for ever. Their mother gone as well, no chance of a reconciliation Venn had never realised they wanted. If all was passed back into Crua, then how could anyone ever walk the Star Path? Venn’s hand tightened on the cage of the lift. They had the strangest feeling, that this was something they had always known, like a memory. Yet they had not.
“Ah,” said Brione. “Not in the way most understand it, no. That can be a hard thing for an outsider to swallow. And it is not a thing we share.”
“You lie to people?”
“The outsiders who have come, we let them have their hope and do not steal it from them.”
“But it is—”
“Do you feel good for realising death is for ever?” Words sharp as a fire-hardened spear. Venn shook their head.
Partly because they understood what Brione was saying, but also because a part of them felt that Brione was wrong, though they could not explain why. “Then do not throw the seeds of others’ sadness into the wind, Venn.” They continued the journey down in silence.
On the forest floor Brione led Venn away from Woodhome. They walked for a long time, both aware of the forest and its creatures around them. Shyun and rootlings accompanied them as if an honour guard, gasmaws, floated above and littercrawlers dug through the leaf mulch. Far away Venn felt the presence of a skinfetch, that was a place Venn would avoid, and the brittle existence of swarden somewhere to the east. Orit everywhere.
Venn knew the rest of the Lens of the Trion waited before they saw them, grouped in a rough circle around two small trees. Nervous, their body full of unwanted energy, feeling like a corn doll whose limbs had gone soft they approached. Walking became difficult and then Venn was surrounded by the Lens, standing in the centre of a circle. The trion were all beautifully decorated with leaves, and jewellery of expensive wood and ceramics.
“This will be hard, Venn,” said Brione softly, “do not speak or interrupt, only think on the lesson.” Brione put a blindfold around their head. The light of the forest creatures vanished. Venn took a deep breath. “Step forward, Trion. And stand between the two trees.” Venn did. They felt the world, it pulsed with life that was glorious and real and true.
“Venn,” all of them speaking as one. It was confusing, as if they were inside the sound. Venn felt like they may fall over, unbalanced, they had no sense of place, everything became blocked off beyond the circle of trion. “Tell us of the tree to your right.” A moment when Venn felt for it. Found it. “Describe it and how it lives in harmony.”
“It is strong,” Venn said. “Bracket fungus grows on it, and the fungus takes from the tree but it passes back to the tree also. One supports the other.”
“Now, tell of the tree to the left.” A moment, a shift of their attention. It felt like they stood on the outer surface of a spinning ball.
“It is sick, dying.”
“Why?”
Venn reached further, exploring the plant the way they would a body.
“The fungus,” they said. “It has a parasite, another plant drawing off what it needs to live. So the fungus takes more from the tree than it passes back.”
“And if nothing is done?”
“The tree, the fungus and the parasite will all die.”
“How do we save it?”
“Remove the parasite,” said Venn. It was obvious, they felt no doubt. One of the trion approached. The blindfold was removed and Venn found themself looking into the face of Brione. The light of the night forest distorting her features
“The Rai are the parasite, Venn,” they said. “They feed off the people, weaken them and the true ways are dying. Like that tree, if they are allowed to continue we all die.” They said these words solemnly, serious, intoning them as if they were practised.
Behind Brione, Sendir stepped forward.
“For years we have known this, and among all of the Rai the ones they make into Cowl-Rai are the worst of them. All the Rai’s power flows to them, they are the hammer used to beat down the people of Crua.”
Brione stepped forward.
“We have always lacked the strength to do anything about this,” they said. “But you, Venn, you have the strength. And the Rai are weaker than they have ever been. War is their sickness, and they have weakened not only Crua but themselves with it.”
Sendir took over again.
“The Cowl-Rai of the south is dead, has been for many years. The Cowl-Rai of the north is a pretender, getting by on illusion and artifice. The Lord of Murder is weakened by a sickness in the land.” Venn blinked, how could this be? How could no one know? “Only one remains now, and if that one is allowed to ascend the Rai will gain strength once more.”
“You mean Cahan,” said Venn.
“Yes,” said Sendir.
“I will not kill,” said Venn.
“We do not ask that,” said the old trion. “But if our world is to live, you must take his power from him the way we would pluck the parasites from this tree to save it.”
Venn wanted to argue, to tell them they were wrong about Cahan Du-Nahere, but Brione had said not to answer now, only to think of what was said. It was true also, that Venn could not deny they had felt the darkness in their friend. Witnessed how unwilling he was to let go of it.
Could they be right?
What if they were right?