With a single, subtle raising of her hand, the Lady Kaguya called her retinue to a halt. Instantly, her lady-in-waiting attended her, her eyes slightly diverted and her head slightly bowed as she waited for her lady’s order. When Kaguya gave it, it was nothing more than a barely perceivable, graceful nod, and as the lady-in-waiting passed it on to the others, she did so as nothing more than a gesture toward the trees.

Kaguya and her attendant were riding in the center of their entourage, flanked before and behind by pairs of riders clad head to foot in loose clothes of forest green. At the lady’s signal, two of these women, one from ahead and the other from behind their mistress, slid smoothly and silently from their saddles. Without a word, they moved toward the tree line. A gust of wind sent a twisted wall of falling leaves rushing between the silent warriors and their charge, and instantly they were gone, vanished into the forest.

They would be quick. Kaguya would accept nothing less from her guards, and particularly not now. She was far from an impatient woman, but they had been riding for days, and her curiosity was becoming an unbearable burden to her. These lands, so many leagues from D’shan’s Imperial city, had sat unguarded and unmolested since they were first conferred upon her, a vestige of her clan and ancestral home, a balm to hold close to her heart should she ever need surcease from the bustle and intrigue of her life in the court. In all the time she'd had claim of the land, no reports had ever been made of poachers, of criminals, or of squatters. So why, now, had her son installed a steward to watch them, and a stranger at that?

Lady Kaguya trusted her son, and knew he must have had a reason. But her curiosity demanded to know it. And because her son was travelling, as he often did, he could not answer her question directly. Therefore, she had decided to come and see for herself. As she waited for her attendants to return, Lady Kaguya took in her surroundings. The forest was old, but still vibrant, and the trees had managed to keep themselves spread out enough that they would not choke one another at the roots.

It was spring now, nearly summer, and the leaves were that color of deep green that sang loudly to her Elven blood. As Kaguya closed her eyes and breathed in deeply the scent of her heritage, ears rising with her breath and twitching at the zenith of their rise, she realized that something else was singing, too. The wind, little more than a breeze, really, hummed as it danced through the branches, but just beyond their sound was another, sweeter sound. The Lady Kaguya, even with her sharp and musically inclined ears, found it difficult to place, until a sudden gust of wind elevated the sound like a crescendo.

It was the sound of flutes.

The forest was playing music, soft and low, and perfectly in time to the wind that moved through and around it. The sound of simple, wooden flutes floated just above the breeze, and died down as the wind rested. It was a strange sound, not unpleasant, but merely abnormal. Her ears turned downward in contemplation. She thought perhaps that the instruments – for indeed there must have been several – were played by tentative and inexperienced players, but this seemed inaccurate. At times, the sound was flawless, and long, and at others it flitted and skipped, or died away completely. Whatever it was, though, it was possessed of a unique beauty.

A beauty, nonetheless, out of place.

Lady Kaguya was still trying to find a reason, or even a discernable melody, in the music when her silent attendants returned. As one, they signaled that they had found what they had been sent to find. Wordlessly, Kaguya dismounted and began walking in the direction they had scouted. Her lady-in-waiting walked three steps behind her mistress. One of the two scouts walked three steps behind her, while the other one took up the lead to show Kaguya the way. One of the two remaining guards melted into the forest to watch over them in secret, while the other stayed with the elk. As her attendants did their duty, Kaguya continued to muse on the mystery her son had created here.

As the entourage moved deeper into the forest, the sound of the flutes grew louder, and after only a few minutes’ walk, the Lady Kaguya caught her first sight of their source. In one of the trees they passed, she saw a wooden flute hanging affixed to one of its branches. She stared at the instrument for several long seconds before she realized that the flute had not been tied to the branch. Her eyes widened as her ears rose. It was, in fact, a part of the branch. Kaguya called for her attendants to halt as she studied the strange sight. Somehow, the branch itself had changed its shape into that of a wooden flute.

She discovered more and more of these strange instruments as they continued on. Most of them were made from parts of the thick branches and limbs higher up in the trees, although some were lower, and a few had even been carved directly into – or through – the trunks of trees. All of them played and hummed as the small party continued on, and Kaguya was more intrigued and more baffled with each step. When a gust of wind caught her almost straight on, the sound she heard from a flute they had just passed caused her to freeze, ear pitched forward at the sound. The pitch was just slightly different. Even though they moved silently through the forest, anyone with a good enough ear, and who knew exactly what to listen for, would know they were coming.

Whether or not it was their original intention, the flutes were an alarm system.

Lady Kaguya’s curiosity, which had already firmly established camp in her mind on their ride to these lands, had now dug in completely. Whoever this steward was that her son had placed here was, at the very least, a person of unexpected talents. But that in no way answered the question of who that person was, or why her son had decided to entrust their ancestral lands, which had survived so long without a steward, to them in the first place. Lady Kaguya’s curiosity would be satisfied. She increased their pace.

Soon they came to a small clearing. In the center of that clearing was a small plank house with a single opening in the center of the eastern wall, which was covered by a thick animal hide. Both the house and the hide had been painted with rudimentary paints or dyes in patterns that had never been seen elsewhere in D’shan. However, as fascinating and strange as the plank house was, Lady Kaguya gave it only a passing glance. Her attention was captured almost instantly by the single, massive pole that stood in front of the house.

The pole was as tall as some of the trees, and she assumed that it must have been. Or, looking at the base, perhaps still was, because it seemed rooted to the ground as a tree should be. But carved into this pole were images, some animal and some human, each occupying a section of the pole. At the bottom-most section, there was the image of two children, lying on top of one another, and above them, a woman. Kaguya's ears drooped sadly as she noticed that the hearts of all three were being pierced, downward, by a long spear. She followed the image of the spear upward as it bore through the hearts and heads of every image on the pole until it reached the top, where it was held in both hands by the figure of a man.

Then she saw him. Walking purposefully toward her and her entourage, the man was the mirror image of the figure at the top of the pole. He had long, black hair that hung down across his broad shoulders. His skin was much darker than Kaguya’s own porcelain flesh, but not as dark as her son’s tea-colored skin. He was shirtless and muscular, not particularly tall, but built like a warrior, particularly in the torso and arms. But mostly, it was the expression on his face that caught Kaguya. The outside corners of his eyes drooped, as if set in a permanent look of melancholy. If he had carved the figure on the top of the pole himself, he was a master in self-portraiture.

As he approached, Lady Kaguya’s lady-in-waiting stepped to the side to address him, careful not to stand forward of her mistress. The guard who had led them there laid a single hand – casually, to an outside observer – on the hilt of her sword. The man, to credit his bravery or his foolishness, paid the guard no mind.

“Presenting the Lady Kaguya-hime, Imperial consort, and rightful owner of these lands!”

The man regarded the lady-in-waiting impassively for a moment, and then looked to Lady Kaguya herself. He stared into her eyes for a long moment, and then finally bowed his head deeply to her. “I am honored,” he said, before lifting his head again. “I am Oleetaka. Your son has given me the title of steward of these lands.”

“I am aware of that,” Lady Kaguya said in a honeyed hush. “Although I wonder why.” She paused, but the man said nothing. “I also wonder how it is you know that it was my son, or that I am his mother.”

Oleetaka smiled. It was, somehow, the saddest smile Kaguya had ever seen. “It is your eyes. I have never seen eyes so green, until I met Aamirola. You share them.”

“Aamirola?” Kaguya asked. “My son’s name is Aamir.”

Oleetaka regarded her for a moment. “Of course. ‘Ola’ means ‘majesty.’ Your son told me that he is a prince, and even if he were not, I would honor him.”

For a long moment, nobody spoke. Lady Kaguya kept her eyes on the strange man before her, but cast her attention around the clearing. The pole, the plank house, the flute trees, everything came together for one simple conclusion.

“You are like my son,” she said, with something between certainty and mirth in her voice.

The man’s brow furrowed slightly. “I do not understand.”

“You know of other worlds,” she said. “And you can walk between them.”

“Ah,” Oleetaka said, nodding slightly. “Aamirola tried to explain something like that to me. He would, I’m afraid, know better than I would.”

Lady Kaguya looked the man up and down. “Oleetaka-san, my son has made you warden and steward of lands that belong to me. I trust my son, but I must know about you. Where did you come from? Why are you here? Why did my son give you this position?” She paused, meaningfully. “And what is the meaning of this…gruesome…pole?”

Oleetaka turned and looked at the pole behind him. He hung his head as he answered, but did not turn back toward her. “This totem is my story, Kaguyola. This totem is my sin. This totem is where I come from, why I am here, and why Aamirola took pity upon me. This totem…is my memory.”

Kaguya stared at the man’s back, his slumped shoulders, and his lowered head. Finally, she nodded, then spoke, her voice at once soft and strong. “Tell me.”

I do not yet know much about what Aamirola calls the planes. If the one I was born to has a name, I do not know it. I know only that I was born to the Kotaja tribe, and that we lived in the lowland forest two days’ walk from the ocean. Our lives were simple, and good. We hunted the forest with knife and bow, we used the great cedar trees for our homes, and for our memories. We were hunters, and fishers, and storytellers. And our stories, our memories, were carved into totems that recorded our tales.

My talent for carving was discovered when I was very young. The totem carvers of my people were masters, using stone and metal to shape the wood into our stories. I was, I am, different. I can feel the wood, and I can hear it. I listen to it. I know what it wants, and what it needs, and trees are like the Kotaja. Trees desire, and many desire to tell stories. When I was a child, I carved a small tale into a tree just outside our village, but I did not use metal or stone. I merely did it, and the tree was happy.

When the totem carvers saw what I had done, they brought me to the elders. The elders still remembered tales of others like me, from long before any of them lived. They remembered stories of carvers who carved with magic, not tools, stories of those who could ask a tree to take a shape, and the tree would agree. It is a great honor to receive such a gift, and as I grew, I was taught the ways of the carvers.

They taught me how to carve a story into a tree, and how a story lives. They taught me the sacred symbols, and how to make the prayers to the spirits, and to our ancestors, and to the elements of water and fire, of earth and wind. While they would carve for months with their tools, I could carve a tale with greater beauty in far less time. Eventually, I was recognized as the greatest carver of the Kotaja, and I came to know the great venom of pride.

I took a wife, and she bore me two children, and I was respected and honored within my tribe. My work was prized above that of the other, older carvers, and I was even asked to recreate what they had already made. In time, a conversation, a debate, no, an argument, arose in the tribe. Our memories, some said, live, and are meant to live. And yet, to carve them into a totem must kill the tree that bears the story. I, however, could carve a story into a living tree, and the tree would not die.

Shouldn’t, some argued, all of our totems remain living, so that our memories would never die?

Once this idea was proposed, it spread like fire throughout our people. Many supported the idea, and in my pride, I spoke loudest of all of them. Eventually, it was agreed. However, where our village stood, the trees were too thinned out, too cleared. If we wished to start anew, with living memories and living stories, we would need to leave our village, and move deeper into the forest. The elders tried to dissuade us, but they did not forbid us, and soon it was decided.

We moved into the deep forest, where the trees were thick. We built our new village around those trees, and I helped to shape them to make way for us. I was treated as an important man in the tribe, second only to the elders and the chief, and even their words were not always heeded as mine were. Although I was the best shot in the village with my bow, I was never sent to hunt. I and my family were privileged above all others.

As Oleetaka told his story, he moved toward the totem, and as he spoke of his family, he laid a hand against the carvings of the two small children and the woman near the bottom of the pole. He fought back tears as he spoke of them. Lady Kaguya felt a piercing in her own heart as she looked at the man. Finally, not wishing to upset him, she attempted to steer the story in a slightly different direction.

“I must ask you, Oleetaka-san, about the flutes in the trees. Surely, you must have carved them with your magic.”

The Tale Carver nodded. “Yes. They are very useful. Their music is beautiful, and the trees love to play, but they also alert me to dangers.”

“The changes in pitch,” Kaguya noted.

Oleetaka nodded. “The wind must move differently when it moves around. If you know how the trees wish to play their tunes, then you can hear when they are forced to play them differently.”

“Is that a trick you learned in your tribe’s new village?” Kaguya asked.

Oleetaka froze for a moment, and then slowly nodded. “Many tricks are born out of necessity. And we soon learned that we needed some sort of warning.”

“Why?”

The man looked back at her, and his eyes seemed to droop even further. He seemed about to talk, but then simply didn’t. He turned back to the totem and pressed his forehead against the forehead of the carved woman.

Finally, Lady Kaguya pressed him onward. “Please, Oleetaka-san. I would like to know.”

The Tale Carver glanced her direction, took a deep breath, and nodded.

We lived peacefully in our new village for some time. Our elders warned us, continually, that we should leave and return to our former homes, but we did not listen. Some of us…I…even insulted them, calling them old and foolish. Old they were, but I was the one who was foolish.

One day, some hunters from another tribe arrived in the village. They were angry. They were from the Rocawta tribe, a people of fierce warriors with the hearts of the nomad in them. They never stayed in one place for long, but always returned. Our village, they said, was their home, and that we had stolen it from them. They told us to leave before the whole of their tribe arrived, for if we were still there when they did, they would kill us all.

Once again, the elders advised us to leave. But our chieftain, and many of our people…and I…would not hear of it. The Rocawta had not been there when we found it. They had left no marker, and had not used the land in a very long time. We had grown and prospered there, and our totems with our memories were there on living trees. It would be shameful to leave, some said. Our warriors were fierce, too, and this was our home now. That is what our voices said as they drowned out the wisdom of our elders.

We knew that the Rocawta would attack. They said that they would, and they would not risk the shame of walking away. The position of our village was good, with the river protecting us on the north and a cliff face on the west. Because of this, we suspected that the Rocawta would attempt a surprise attack, taking advantage of darkness to overcome our position. That is when I thought of the flutes in the trees. It would warn us of their attack, and we would be ready.

They did, and we were.

When the Rocawta came for us, we cut them down. Our arrows and our spears left them dying or dead among the trees. I am not proud to say that my own bow claimed at least a dozen of them, but there is far more blood on my hands than that. The Kotaja repelled our enemy handily. There was no direction the Rocawta could come from that would surprise us. In waves they threw themselves at us, and like the beaver’s dam, we beat back those waves until they fled.

I was praised as a hero by my people. I had slain many of the enemy myself, and it was my magic that had allowed us to win so thoroughly. Few of our people had even been injured, and none had been killed. It was a victory, and the tribe laid that victory upon my shoulders as if I had won that battle alone. At the time, my pride blinded me. But soon, very soon, I would learn the true price of my arrogance.

Tears were flowing freely now down Oleetaka’s cheeks. He stopped his story, and instead looked up the length of the totem towering above him. Lady Kaguya followed his gaze and looked over the grisly images he had carved. Several faces, some old and some young, were depicted there in various poses and expressions of agony. Lady Kaguya could only assume that these were the faces of Oleetaka’s tribesman, judging from his comments throughout his story, but she still could not see why.

Again, her eyes fell on the top of the pole, where a figure she assumed had to be Oleetaka himself held a downward-pointing spear through the bodies and the hearts of those lower on the totem. The expression his carving wore was the same pained, heart-broken expression that the man himself seemed to wear. It was not one of anger, hatred, or even pride, as the ghastly image of the totem might suggest. The incongruity made the totem all the more curious to Kaguya, and although she knew the story was painful to him, she was set on hearing the rest of it.

Oleetaka’s hand was resting on the head of one of the two children depicted on the totem. Lady Kaguya nodded.

“You loved them very much,” she said. “Your family.”

Oleetaka nodded weakly, but said nothing.

“I can see that you miss them.”

The Tale Carver drew in a deep breath, and nodded again as he exhaled. “The heart wants most what it had, but lost.”

“How did you lose them, Oleetaka-san?” Lady Kaguya asked. “You had repelled your enemy. What more was there?”

Oleetaka looked over at her, his brown eyes awash with his sorrow. “Much more,” he said simply.

“Please tell me,” she said, “if you can.”

He shook his head. “Silence only means their stories are lost,” he said, more to himself than to her. “And they deserve to have their stories told.”

It was a calm day. I remember thinking how still it was. Looking back now, I know why, and I wish I didn’t. But that day, the village was content. We had repelled the Rocawta, and we had done it so convincingly that they would never be back. The Rocawta were nomads and warriors, and did not make allies easily, and so we did not fear them.

The trouble started at dusk. The earth shook and, from inside our home, I heard a thundering crash. I, and most of my tribesmen, ran outside to see the cliff shaking itself apart. Aamirola tells me that some places call it an “earthquake,” but where I am from, such things had never happened in all of our stories. Great rocks rolled from atop the cliff and crashed down toward us.

That, by itself, would have been terrifying enough, but it was only the very beginning. The rocks crashed down into the river below, and dammed it up. From the lay of the land, I thought the water would have moved to the west, away from the village, but it did not. The water rose up, and began to flood the village. That is when the people began to panic. The elders, the chieftain, and I tried to calm everyone enough to help, and we had some success, but the water itself seemed to resist our attempts to force it back.

I do not know when the fires started. I was fighting with the water. We were trying to dam up the water with stone and with wood when suddenly the screams cut through the stillness of the night. When we looked, we saw our village bathed in flames. There was nothing we could do. If we continued to fight the flood, the fires would destroy our homes. If we used the water to douse the flames, our homes would be lost to flood. There was debate, angry arguments, about what to do, but soon, it would not matter.

My family was still in our home, and so I abandoned the flooding river and the argument of my people and ran to my home. I was nearly there when I stopped dead in my tracks. I suddenly realized that I could not hear the flutes of the trees. I realized that I had not heard them all day. I was even more disturbed when I realized that I had not felt the wind stir once that day, even while fighting the flood. Even as the fires spread, they were not spreading by the wind, but because they seemed to will themselves to spread.

My heart grew cold in that moment. The shaking cliff, the flooding river, the dancing flames, and the still wind, all of them pointed to one thing, one horrifying truth. It was something we had never considered. We had not thought that even the Rocawta would risk that, but there was no other answer. We had left them no choice. I had left them no choice. My magic had taken away their every advantage and we had taken away their home. They could leave, but pride prohibits that. All that was left was to fight, and they had only one last resort for that.

The elements themselves.

The Majesty Spirits.

The Olakuta.

Aamirola tells me that things are not the same everywhere. He tells me that while the elements of fire and water, of earth and wind, exist on nearly every world, the Olakuta, such as my people know them, exist only on mine. I count those other worlds fortunate. The Olakuta are great and terrible, as old as the elements they rule. Our most terrifying stories tell of their power, and warn of their price. The Rocawta must have thought their vengeance was worth that price.

Rajayola, the Earth Majesty, shook the mountain and sent his boulders down upon us. Otola, the Water Majesty, flooded our village and drew us away. Chenola, the Fire Majesty, burned our homes and our people. But the worst of all was Kujola, the Wind Majesty, for Kujola stilled the wind, so that there was no warning. Suddenly, the Rocawta were everywhere, and my people were dying.

We tried to fight. I drew my bow and loosed my arrows, but Kujola was not finished with us. Only then, once the Olakuta had struck and the Rocawta were in our village, only then did Kujola conjure the winds. They rampaged through the village like a raid, stronger than the hurricanes that sometimes batter the coast. Every arrow I loosed was knocked off course. Flames and water were whipped up into my eyes, and I could not see to shoot.

What I could see came soon enough, after the battle was over. It was short, and it was brutal. I was taken, but not killed. They knew of me, and they knew it was my magic that had hurt them first. And so, I was made to watch. I was made to watch as…

Oleetaka stopped, and Lady Kaguya did not ask him to continue. The rest was written on the totem, and she neither needed nor wanted it spoken aloud. She did not know much about those who were like her son, but she could understand why someone able to leave their world would do so after seeing what he had seen.

“It was not your fault, Oleetaka-san. You could not have known.”

The Tale Carver hung his head, then shook it. “With respect, Kaguyola, I cannot be so easily absolved. What I have done was done out of ignorance, true. I did not wish my people or my…” He trailed off. After a moment, he took a deep breath. “I did not wish for them to die. But that does not mean I am guiltless. It was my fault. There is nothing I can do about it now, and,” he laid both of his hands on the totem and looked up at it, “it would dishonor them to forget. They deserve to have their story told, and I deserve the part I have played in it. The part I must continue to play.”

It was a long time before either of them spoke again. The lady's guards stood vigil as the pair sat in silence. Finally, as the sun was just beginning to set, Lady Kaguya addressed Oleetaka.

“I came here to see if the man my son had made steward of our ancestral lands was worthy of such a position. I will take my leave now, content that he is.”

Oleetaka looked over at her, and gave her his sad smile. “I owe a great deal to Aamirola. He found me when I was lost, he helped heal my body, and he brought me here, where I may one day heal my heart. I thank you for him, Kaguyola, and for your kindness.”

“You are a good man, Oleetaka-san.” She looked up at the carving of him at the top of the totem, the figure holding the spear that pierced the hearts of his kin. She shook her head. “You do not deserve the guilt you have taken. Such a spear pierces deeper than any you could wield.”

“Perhaps one day I can agree with you,” he said.

Lady Kaguya smiled. “I hope so. Perhaps my son can help. As you say, he is good with healing, both body and soul. By the way, have you seen Aamir lately? He has not been to the palace in some time.”

“I have been expecting Aamirola’s visit for weeks now. I thought perhaps you would be him when I heard you coming.”

“He said he would be here?”

Oleetaka nodded.

“Interesting,” Lady Kaguya said, looking away slightly. As she thought about her son, she heard the flutes of the trees playing their strange song.

“Are you worried about Aamirola?” Oleetaka asked suddenly.

She looked back at him, and thought. She knew Aamir, and trusted in his ability to stay safe. But, whatever else she was, she was his mother, and whatever else he was, he was her son. Finally, she shook her head. “No. If my son is in trouble, I will hear it on the wind.”

Oleetaka nodded, and smiled his sad smile. “In that case, I will pray that the winds never fall still for you.”

Lady Kaguya looked around at the trees and nodded. “I wish the same to you, Tale Carver. Fare you well.”