Chapter 33: Answers

Miko:

“He has been gone too long, Nomen. What if he got lost?”

“Lost? He spent months looking at this tree. Do you think him incapable of doing so again?” He placed a gentle hand on my shoulder before taking a seat next to me on a large piece of root. The tree was not as tall as it once was, and while the roots were not hills like they once were, they still formed large mounds. The previous Leviathan Tree had slowly withered to ash while we slept, and in its place, a newly formed tree bloomed in an infant state. It was a fifth of the size and still unfathomably large at that.

Maleki had been away for all of yesterday’s daylight and through the night as well. I had hoped to see him striding back through the treeline this morning, but my hopes had been too high. “Where could he even have gone?” I said aloud with a sigh.

Nomen looked over to Ananke as she strode over to join us. Her appearance still befuddled me. She looked my age, a little more so now that I had grown a little, yet she was thousands of years old.

Her voice was soft but elegant like Nomen’s as she took a spot next to him; her light brown dress blew gently with the breeze. “He never got to see The Garden as you did, Miko. Give him time. There is still much beauty for even you to observe.”

Nomen spoke after her, “The short time I used to spend in this place was always like a dream, but I was always able to appreciate its beauty. Though it represented something stolen from me, I also disdained it. It was an odd paradigm that I endured, that I suffered until you came along, that is.”

“You said time flows differently here, right? Does that mean Ananke has lived longer than you?” I asked them both.

“Yes.” She replied firmly. “Although I have hibernated frequently in my time here, which helped speed the passage of time. The tree always did have some mercy for me, but I grew restless and dreary all the same.”

“Why do the moons and suns move correctly here, then?”

Nomen was quick to answer. “There is a dilation here that allows only time to move more slowly. The ocean gets deeper the further in you go, and the same applies here.”

“I still don’t quite understand. Wouldn’t the light that travels here from the sun and moons be affected by the slowing of time so that they would move more slowly on their axis?”

“The light travels more slowly, but it takes longer to reach us. Think of it like The Garden is further away from the sun than the rest of the planet. If a star fizzles out of existence, it will take the full distance of light travelling for us to perceive it. Majik also imposes itself on this process, further blurring our understanding of how things work.”

What he said made a little more sense, but it was still a foreign concept to my primitive mind. Majik had indeed blurred the lines of understanding. In fact, despite its prevalence in this world, I knew very little of majik, for I had none of my own. Until now, that is. The tree had changed me. I had only hoped to heal my brother’s injuries, but it seems like other things were healed as well. I would be lying if I said I didn’t expect this to some extent since the primordials were born with majik, but this still felt improbable. I looked down at my wrists, where two thin black lines had formed around both wrists. The same that I saw in our parents and grandparents as kids, and the same I saw on Kallen. I had majik. With this, perhaps I can somehow figure out a way to equalize my curse. The powers haven’t manifested themselves yet despite Nomen’s assistance. There was still an air of uncertainty about what majik would be available to me. Perhaps Nomen and Ananke would reveal more if I asked the right question.

“You were both born with majik, right?”

They nodded in synchronization as Ananke spoke. “Yes, we were born with our abilities, but they weren’t given to us from the tree. That is certain; the tree never parts from its power without a trade.”

“How then do I have majik?”

Ananke spoke with precision. “We aren’t sure what you did, Miko. It has never been done before, so there is no knowledge of what happened, nor of what comes next. I spent thousands of years with the tree, and even then, I hardly understood its intentions.”

What I had done was necessary to save my brother. I don’t regret my decision one bit. Planting those seeds changed something, though. Something significant.

Before I could delve into that thought any further, Maleki appeared at the crest of a hill where the trees were most dense. He stood taller than before. The time he slept had changed his body further. He was fourteen now, with light brown hair that fell closer to his shoulders. In the short time he spent out of the tree, something altered in him that was naked to a normal eye, but I could sense it from here. Nomen was right to hold me back; I guess we both underestimate each other in our own ways. He solves problems effectively in his own way, but differently than I do, sometimes finding reason in that is difficult; it’s hard to remove myself and become impartial. Where I follow the logical path, Maleki follows the emotional one. His heart guides the way, and my brain charts my own.

Maleki walked over to us, inspecting the tree and its roots more closely before speaking aloud, “So I brought you to a majikal garden, essentially the origin place of our species, and you managed to kill the oldest thing on this planet?”

“I, uh…Well, it’s not exactly-“ I stuttered.

Maleki looked at Nomen with a tilt of his head, keeping his eyes at the same level.

Nomen conceded from the stare. “While quite crude, that is a fair summary of the events.”

My brother brought his palm to his temple while sighing. “Sounds about right.” Then he loaded his arm backward and punched me in the shoulder.

“Ow!” I jolted back at him. “What the hell was that for?”

“Oh, I can think of a few things.” He rushed at me, tossing me over his back, my stomach over his neck, and my hands and legs bound by his arms.

“Hey! Let me go, you monster!”

He bellowed loudly. “What’ll you kill next if I let you go? Monster!”

“That’s not fair!” I laughed. “It’s a little more complicated than that. Kind’ve…”

He walked down the root toward the ground, and I caught Nomen and Ananke following behind us in my peripheral vision. “You know I can walk around, right?” I demanded through gritted teeth.

“I know. Just figured it would annoy you if I did this, so here I am.”

“Ugh!” I groaned. “I should’ve left you half-dead.”

“Too late, little bro.” Those words sounded intentional, a brief recalling of yesterday, further proof that he had adjusted from his time in the tree. “I’m back and ready to annoy you for the rest of our lives.” He bore a pestering smile.

“Let me carry my not-so-little brother for a moment. I’ve earned this after such a long time away.” He didn’t say that one with a laugh and lost the smile, revealing a crack in that strong, armoured look he tried to wield.

He set me down in a clearing of luscious green grass that was filled with patches of clover. I didn’t try to fight him back as revenge; though unnecessary, it felt familiar for him to carry me. This was a reminder that my brother was back; I didn’t have the strength to fight that reminder after all the time we spent apart.

After setting me down, Maleki turned to Nomen and Ananke, inspecting them as he did the tree.

Before he could speak, Ananke stepped forward, presenting her hand as a greeting. “My name is Ananke, I am Khronos’ wife.”

I raised my hand to cover the front of my mouth, loudly whispering in an accusatory tone, “Yeah, and they’re brother and sister!”

Ananke grabbed me by the throat and shook me energetically, “I told you it wasn’t as simple as that, you little brat!”

“Still…weird…” I said through choked breaths as I was shaken to and fro.

“Can you not antagonize people for once?” My brother pleaded.

Ananke made a face at me by squinting her eyes, which I mirrored back while saying, “Weirdos!” through gritted teeth. Maleki should be proud of me, though; my first instinct was to stick my tongue out at her.

“Despite Miko’s lack of directness, there is something different about you two, right? I sensed something was off with you during our journey, but I couldn’t tell if it was because I had only ever met a few people before you or if there was an oddity. Everything was always convenient for you. What are you really?”

Nomen sighed, “I was never dishonest with you, Maleki. You just knew what you needed to. Although the choices were ours to make, Ananke and I have spent most of our lives living menially due to the choices our younger siblings made. Our service to the tree preserved their lives. We were unable to act against the great Leviathan, Arbor Majikae.”

“Ananke was bound, but you weren’t.” I interrupted without my words carrying any hostility.

“Was I not?” Nomen said as his eyes embraced Ananke. “We are divine beings, made for each other. The time you spent away from your brother. That pain you felt without him, not knowing the state of his being. I have experienced it thousands of times. Though you are right, I was not as desperate as you were. Maybe once I was, but those were darker times for us, and other wars clouded my ambitions. At the end of the day, I knew if I served this place, I would get to see her. Even if only for a little, it made the wait worth all the while.”

“So, you’re immortal then. Like the gods from the stories?” Maleki said.

“That depends on your definition. We are not exempt from death, but neither do we decay. Such as you do not in this place.”

“Miko, you don’t seem surprised about all this, so I assume you know this already.”

“Yeah, twice, I got a whole spiel about their origins and some stuff their family broke. Which I then decided I was going to break further, and then old Nomen over here revealed that’s not even his name and that he and his family are some ‘primordial’ beings, and some of them have been cursed till the end of time, blah blah blah. Doesn’t really matter anymore because I actually did break it all, but I also kind of fixed it, depending on how you look at it.”

My lungs bounced air out of my mouth in a few big heaps as I got all the words out.

Maleki watched me with dead eyes that fixed on me like thorns. “Are you done?”

“I mean, that’s the gist of it.”

“Did you think spouting off all that was gonna stop me from asking more questions?”

“I was really hoping that if I said all that, I wouldn’t have to hear the spiel for a third time.”

Nomen laughed, which even seemed to catch Maleki off guard. “I’ll tell you the story later; we do need to discuss the latter part of what Miko said, but yes, my name is Khronos. Of all the journeys I made here, yours was the closest I came to breaking my pact with the tree. You truly impressed me, Maleki, not just in your physical strength, but also in your determination. I did not think either of you had it in you to do what you did, but you both proved me wrong, and for that, I am glad to have been proven so horribly wrong.”

Maleki and Nomen gripped each other’s forearms as if they were meeting one another for the first time. Maleki looked around before returning to Nomen. “So, Khronos, does anyone want to tell me why I have these black lines around my wrists? What else did my brother break?”

“I fixed us, Maleki.” I corrected in a condescending tone with my head raised high in a mocking fashion. “Plus a little more! You should be grateful.”