Брендон Сандерсон - Sixth of the Dusk

There. He found a small book in the man’s pocket. Dusk raised it, then backed away. Vathi peered over his shoulder. Homeislers stood so close to each other. Did she need to stand right by his elbow?

He checked the first pages, finding a list of dates. Yes, judging by the last date written down, this man was only a few days dead. The pages after that detailed the locations of Sky’s safecamps, along with explanations of the traps guarding each one. The last page contained the farewell.

I am First of the Sky, taken by Patji at last. I have a brother on Suluko. Care for them, rival.

Few words. Few words were good. Dusk carried a book like this himself, and he had said even less on his last page.

“He wants you to care for his family?” Vathi asked.

“Don’t be stupid,” Dusk said, tucking the book away. “His birds.”

“That’s sweet,” Vathi said. “I had always heard that trappers were incredibly territorial.”

“We are,” he said, noting how she said it. Again, her tone made it seem as if she considered trappers to be like animals. “But our birds might die without care—they are accustomed to humans. Better to give them to a rival than to let them die.”

“Even if that rival is the one who killed you?” Vathi asked. “The traps you set, the ways you try to interfere with one another…”

“It is our way.”

“That is an awful excuse,” she said, looking up at the tree.

She was right.

The tree was massive, with drooping fronds. At the end of each one was a large closed blossom, as long as two hands put together. “You don’t seem worried,” she noted, “though the plant seems to have killed that man.”

“These are only dangerous when they bloom.”

“Spores?” she asked.

“No.” He picked up the fallen machete, but left the rest of Sky’s things alone. Let Patji claim him. Father did so like to murder his children. Dusk continued onward, leading Vathi, ignoring his corpse draped across a log.

“Dusk?” Vathi asked, raising the lantern and hurrying to him. “If not spores, then how does the tree kill?”

“So many questions.”

“My life is about questions,” she replied. “And about answers. If my people are going to work on this island…”

He hacked at some plants with the machete.

“It is going to happen,” she said, more softly. “I’m sorry, Dusk. You can’t stop the world from changing. Perhaps my expedition will be defeated, but others will come.”

“Because of the Ones Above,” he snapped.

“They may spur it,” Vathi said. “Truly, when we finally convince them we are developed enough to be traded with, we will sail the stars as they do. But change will happen even without them. The world is progressing. One man cannot slow it, no matter how determined he is.”

He stopped in the path.

You cannot stop the tides from changing, Dusk. No matter how determined you are. His mother’s words. Some of the last he remembered from her.

Dusk continued on his way. Vathi followed. He would need her, though a treacherous piece of him whispered that she would be easy to end. With her would go her questions, and more importantly her answers. The ones he suspected she was very close to discovering.

You cannot change it…

He could not. He hated that it was so. He wanted so badly to protect this island, as his kind had done for centuries. He worked this jungle, he loved its birds, was fond of its scents and sounds—despite all else. How he wished he could prove to Patji that he and the others were worthy of these shores.

Perhaps. Perhaps then…

Bah. Well, killing this woman would not provide any real protection for the island. Besides, had he sunk so low that he would murder a helpless scribe in cold blood? He would not even do that to another trapper, unless they approached his camp and did not retreat.

“The blossoms can think,” he found himself saying as he turned them away from a mound that showed the tuskrun pack had been rooting here. “The Fingers of Patji. The trees themselves are not dangerous, even when blooming—but they attract predators, imitating the thoughts of a wounded animal that is full of pain and worry.”

Vathi gasped. “A plant ,” she said, “that broadcasts a mental signature? Are you certain?”

“Yes.”

“I need one of those blossoms.” The light shook as she turned to go back.

Dusk spun and caught her by the arm. “We must keep moving.”

“But—”

“You will have another chance.” He took a deep breath. “Your people will soon infest this island like maggots on carrion. You will see other trees. Tonight, we must go . Dawn approaches.”

He let go of her and turned back to his work. He had judged her wise, for a homeisler. Perhaps she would listen.

She did. She followed behind.

Patji’s Fingers. First of the Sky, the dead trapper, should not have died in that place. Truly, the trees were not that dangerous. They lived by opening many blossoms and attracting predators to come feast. The predators would then fight one another, and the tree would feed off the corpses. Sky must have stumbled across a tree as it was beginning to flower, and got caught in what came.

His Aviar had not been enough to shield so many open blossoms. Who would have expected a death like that? After years on the island, surviving much more terrible dangers, to be caught by those simple flowers. It almost seemed a mockery, on Patji’s part, of the poor man.

Dusk and Vathi’s path continued, and soon grew steeper. They’d need to go uphill for a while before crossing to the downward slope that would lead to the other side of the island. Their trail, fortunately, would avoid Patji’s main peak—the point of the wedge that jutted up the easternmost side of the island. His camp had been near the south, and Vathi’s would be to the northeast, letting them skirt around the base of the wedge before arriving on the other beach.

They fell into a rhythm, and she was quiet for a time. Eventually, atop a particularly steep incline, he nodded for a break and squatted down to drink from his canteen. On Patji one did not simply sit, without care, upon a stump or log to rest.

Consumed by worry, and not a little frustration, he didn’t notice what Vathi was doing until it was too late. She’d found something tucked into a branch—a long colorful feather. A mating plume.

Dusk leaped to his feet.

Vathi reached up toward the lower branches of the tree.

A set of spikes on ropes dropped from a nearby tree as Vathi pulled the branch. They swung down as Dusk reached her, one arm thrown in the way. A spike hit, the long, thin nail ripping into his skin and jutting out the other side, bloodied, and stopping a hair from Vathi’s cheek.

She screamed.

Many predators on Patji were hard of hearing, but still that wasn’t wise. Dusk didn’t care. He yanked the spike from his skin, unconcerned with the bleeding for now, and checked the other spikes on the drop-rope trap.

No poison. Blessedly, they had not been poisoned.

“Your arm!” Vathi said.

He grunted. It didn’t hurt. Yet. She began fishing in her pack for a bandage, and he accepted her ministrations without complaint or groan, even as the pain came upon him.

“I’m so sorry!” Vathi sputtered. “I found a mating plume! That meant an Aviar nest, so I thought to look in the tree. Have we stumbled across another trapper’s safecamp?”

She was babbling out words as she worked. Seemed appropriate. When he grew nervous, he grew even more quiet. She would do the opposite.

She was good with a bandage, again surprising him. The wound had not hit any major arteries. He would be fine, though using his left hand would not be easy. This would be an annoyance. When she was done, looking sheepish and guilty, he reached down and picked up the mating plume she had dropped.