Leaf
Chapter Thirteen
Once upon a time, there were three brothers who traveled to the Valley of the Nightwatcher, seeking the Old Magic. The eldest brother asked for great strength in battle, and the Nightwatcher cursed him that he would feel the pain of every harm he caused. The middle brother asked for a keen mind, and the Nightwatcher cursed him with a cold and indifferent heart. What the youngest brother wished for no one ever learned, for the Nightwatcher took his voice.
Lift never heard the ending of that story. It seemed like bedtime stories didn't have endings, just beginnings, and then dreams. But no matter how much she forgot, she remembered this; that the Nightwatcher had the power to change those who came to her. And so Lift had found herself in the greenest forest beneath the tallest mountain, ready to be cursed.
In the valley, trees grew tall without the Highstorm knocking them over, gnarled and mossy, and the forest grew dark even though it was midday. The plants were sluggish as she passed, moving out of the way like a fat old axehound that had just woken up. Wild chickens were perched in the branches of the trees, and they went still to watch her as she passed with their beady, glassy eyes.
Lift walked through the forest, following its ... current. It had a flow like water, pushing and pulling on her as she floated along, guiding her downstream. Some paths opened up and others were closed, and either the forest would spit her out or take her to where she wanted to go.
The sky turned orange through the trees as the sun began to set, but Lift wasn't worried. The air was thick and warm, and compared to the streets of Rall Elorim, the forest floor was soft and welcoming. She was hungry, but she'd been hungry before.
As soon as she sat down to rest, she heard something through the trees. Music. No. Singing.
"Soon,
Down I will go,
Down to the valley below."
It was gentle and slow, like a cloud on a still day. And familiar. Lift stood up, eyes wide. She knew that song. More than that, she knew that voice!
"Soon,
Soon I will see,
What I have made,
Of me."
She started off at a run, going off the path and scrambling over fallen logs in the direction of the singer.
"Soon,
Soon I will sleep,
Soon I will dream,
In the forest so deep."
Lift's foot snagged on a gnarled root and she tripped and fell face first on the rock—fell through the rock, and kept falling until she was back on her feet again. When she stopped ... there was silence. Silence absolute. The forest had been still before, but it had been still in a way that she could hear the wind blow and the plants grow. Before she could hear herself breathing and her heart beating and countless sounds that she never noticed because they were always there. Now the silence seemed to try to suck all the noise from her ears until there was nothing.
She heard nothing and she saw nothing, and that nothing was herself. She saw herself grow old, empty, and cruel. But why shouldn't she be? The world was cruel to her first, and she had to take care of herself when no one else would. When no one else was there.
And no one ever was, not for long, and if she was alone, she was better alone. Stronger. And the Almighty knew she needed all the strength she could get. Life didn't hurt so much these days as long as she didn't put too much of herself into living, and she always got to where she needed to go.
She blended into crowds with a face that no one could remember, and she had a good eye for easy marks. Sometimes she had to run, but when she did she brought nothing with her and left nothing behind.
Then she grew older still, her long black hair fading to grey, and she wasn't as fast as she used to be. Her bones ached with the pain of her years, and her body didn't seem to fit like it used to. She had no friends, no family, and during lonely nights she would stay up late, staring into the fire, thinking about what she could have done differently to not be what she was today.
Lift raised her face to the darkened sky and screamed, waking herself from the vision the forest was showing her, and listened to her scream echo through the silence. When the echo died, there were new sounds, old sounds, sounds of memory and life as though the forest too had woken up.
"What lost child has found her way to me?" It was a whisper like the wind, like leaves brushing against each other, and it came from a shadow. A shadow darker than the darkness around it, that turned green in the light of new stars. The Nightwatcher swam through the air like a skyeel, like a cloud, pulling herself forward with long, thin arms. She wove through the trees, leaving a trail of mist behind her.
Her body was mist, but her face looked as though it were made of glass, delicate but solid. She drew close to her, too close, but Lift couldn't back away after coming all this way to find her. The Nightwatcher's face grew tiny, cold hands that reached out to her. They stroked Lift's face as the spren breathed in her scent.
"You come here full with Intent, burdened by grief. What gift can I grant you, child of loss? What is your desire? A sack of grain that never runs out? The final breath of a forsaken god? The memory of a long dead king in a drop of silver?"
"I-I ... What was that? That ... that vision you showed me. Why'd ya show me something like that?"
"You walk through a garden of eternity, but fret not my child. It is the nature of your kind to rise and fall by will and choice. Now speak your wish."
"I ..." Right, her wish. But how to put it into words? Part of her wished that the Nightwatcher would just know her thoughts and snap two of her thousands and thousands of fingers. "I just wanna be me."
There was a pause.
"You are you. I cannot give you what you already have."
"No, I mean I want to stay me. Forever."
"You wish to die?"
"What? No! Storms, no. See, it's like this. I like who I am right now, but I'm gonna change, but I don't wanna change, I want to stay me, so I came here 'cause all the stories say that you can change people, so you can change me to not change. Okay?"
There was another pause, but this one was ended by a new voice, deep and powerful like the rising of a mountain. "DAUGHTER," the voice said, "THIS ONE IS BEYOND YOUR POWER TO BLESS. I SHALL TREAT WITH HER."
The Nightwatcher drew away, and Lift saw the newcomer. She was a spren in the shape of a woman, tall and broad, and her skin was the color of darkwood bark. The dress she wore was made of grass—no, it was the grass, still rooted to the ground that drew toward her as she passed.
And she was solid. Incredibly solid. With most spren, even spren like the Nightwatcher, you could put your hand through them and feel little more than mist. Lift felt like this new spren could do the same thing to her. And she called the Nightwatcher daughter?
"This is the third one you've taken from me in recent years, Mother," the Nightwatcher said.
"SEEDS MUST BE SOWN BEFORE THE HARVEST. AND THE HARVEST IS COMING."
"But why this one? The others were kings and rulers. Who is this small, lost child that she should matter so?"
The spren woman looked down at her, and to Lift she seemed so much bigger than she was, like seeing a mountain from far off. Everything had a spren, and in that moment Lift knew that she was looking at the spren of Roshar herself.
"SHE," the spren said, "IS AWESOME."
WWW
Lift woke up, her head throbbing in pain. It had been a while since she had thought about her trip to the Nightwatcher's valley, and she was pretty sure her dream was remembering it wrong. She sat up to look around, but her strength gave out halfway up and she collapsed back down on the floor. There was an emptiness in her stomach that seemed to drain the life from her body.
"Ah!" someone said. He was a big guy and his clothes were covered in soot. "Jin, go tell Bakuda."
A boy a bit younger than Lift looked up at him. "What? Me? She'll blow me up!"
"Not if you have good news and you knock first."
"And this is good news?"
"This is good news."
The boy ran off, looking miserable. Lift tried to grab onto the passing names, wondering if they were important. Jin? Bakuda? She thought she might have heard the second one before, but she couldn't remember where.
Storms she was hungry. The void in her stomach seemed to be pulling her ribs into her spine. How long had it been since she had eaten? Lift scanned the walls for Wyndle, but she didn't see him. Just her, the big guy, and a middle aged woman. They both looked like they had stayed up late playing in ashes and were ready to go to bed.
Weird. She kind of assumed she'd wake up either at the loft or in prison. Instead she was ... "Where," she tried to say, but the word came out as a breath. She swallowed and licked her lips and tried again. "Where am I?"
"Hell," the woman said.
The man glared at her. "Really?"
She shrugged. "I mean, she is. She's at the mercy of a deranged maniac who blows people up at random."
"You don't want Bakuda to hear you say that, Chung."
"Oh, right, like she wouldn't take that as a compliment, Jay."
Lift massaged the back of her head, but pulled back as the pain spiked. Her hand came back bloody. "I ain't in prison? Like, one of those weird ones?"
"No," Jay said. "You're in—"
"Hell."
"Chung, please." He shook his head and turned to her. "I imagine you want an explanation, Leaf."
She rubbed her eyes and realized she wasn't wearing her mask anymore. Well, she had never been big on the thing anyway. Also her clothes were charred to a crisp and her hair was a lot shorter. What happened last night?
I kicked fire in the face. Right.
"Naw, just breakfast. Got anything to eat?"
"Anything ... to eat? No, I—"
"'Kay then. Bye." She forced herself to her feet and managed not to fall over, no matter how lightheaded she felt. Good. That would've been super embarrassing. She held out her hand and summoned Wyndle into it, feeling the ... pull as he came rushing from wherever he was and became a shardblade in her hand.
Mistress! You're up! he said in her mind. I was so worried! I was surveying the area waiting for you, and—
That's nice. She swung the Wyndleblade through the wall, cutting a whole through it.
"No, stop!" Jay shouted. "If you leave, she'll kill you!"
Lift rolled her eyes. "How's she gonna kill me if I ain't here?" Omelette. Wanna omelette. Want all the omelettes.
Mistress, you should listen to them.
"With her mind," Chung said. "She can do that!"
She forced her eyes closed and open again. She hadn't woken up all the way, but that sounded important. "Huh?"
"That's why we're here," Jay said. "Bakuda stuck a bomb inside your head while you were unconscious. It doesn't matter what you do or where you are, she just needs to think about you and it goes off. You can't run, you can't hide, you can't even fight. I've been here since Tuesday, and, and God it has been—"
The door opened up, and a woman in a mask walked in. The mask had big round eyes and a tube that went to the nose, making her look like an oversized bug, but Kitaro and Chimgee backed away from her, trying to look small.
"You fill her in?" Her voice was distorted and gravelly.
"A-almost, Ms. Bakuda."
"Just Bakuda. Ms. is nearly as bad as calling me ma'am." She glanced at the hole in the wall and the shardblade in Lift's hand. "Drop it."
Lift let go, and the blade dissipated into mist as Wyndle returned to his vine form that only she could see.
"So you're almost filled in? Maybe a visual aid will speed things up." Jay and Chung inhaled sharply, their eyes wide, but Bakuda laughed. "Man, I love having henchmen. They cower at everything! But enough about that, let's talk about you. Oni Lee said that you screwed up Lung's break out. He kept this gang together, and people are going to question if I have what it takes to take his place."
"Sounds like a headache."
"I've seen worse." Again, the two people behind her flinched, but Bakuda barely seemed to notice. "But if you think that's all it is, then you might be as unambitious as you act. Do you ever read your own PHO articles? Do you know what people say about you? Leaf, a petty criminal that steals food for kicks, a joke villain who's barely a joke and barely a villain. The Undersiders must have been truly desperate to take you in."
Lift shrugged. "We still beat Lung. Twice."
"Yes," she said. "You're stronger than you pretend to be. You've been wasting that kind of power, and I'm down a monster. That stops now, for both of us. From here on out, you do what I say, you fight whom I say, you kill whom I say. If you don't ..."
Jay's head exploded and he fell to the floor. Chung screamed and cowered, too scared to even run, and Lift realized that she was screaming too. She wanted to ... she needed to heal him, right? She needed to at least try. But reattaching a head took nearly everything she had back then, and regrowing one when she was this hungry already ...
Bakuda turned to leave. "Welcome to the ABB."
WWW
Vista was gone before anyone thought to look for her. Maybe it was immature to disappear at a time like this, but she needed some time alone, some time to think.
She didn't even need to change out of her costume. She was already in civilian clothes, PRT merchandise but civilian clothes all the same. All she had to do was pocket her domino mask and she was an ordinary thirteen year old girl out so late it was nearly early.
She hadn't been outside since the bombing started, and Bakuda had done a number on the city. The villain hadn't needed to blow up every building or even one building on every block to make an impression. Even when Vista couldn't see a ruined structure, she could smell the smoke and the sulfur wherever she went.
What am I doing?
She didn't know, but she couldn't go back to her team, not now. What was she supposed to do, go back and pretend that nothing had happened? Dean would see through that in a heartbeat. Maybe they all would. She was ... tarnished. She had killed someone—someone she already owed her life—and nothing she would ever do could make up for that.
I'm fine.
That was what she had texted Carlos after he had called her. It was a lie, but no one said that they were fine when they really were. Her phone buzzed a few times after that, but she'd deal with that when she was ready.
In her mind she pictured finding Leaf's team and letting them know what happened. She owed Leaf that much at least, but she couldn't do it. She had no idea where to find them, and what would happen to her if she did? They'd kill her. She couldn't even say she wouldn't deserve it.
She couldn't go home, she couldn't go to the Undersiders, and that left, where? One of her parents' houses? They were about the last people she wanted to see right now. She didn't have any friends either who she could call on at four in the morning, and that left ... nowhere. So she went nowhere, walking aimlessly down empty streets, letting time pass in a haze.
It might've been minutes or hours before she heard the music. It was sad and sweet, and it sang right through her and ran vibrations down her bones. It would have felt out of place on a normal night in Brockton Bay, but on a night like this after all that had happened? After all she had done? It was so wrong it was somehow right again.
She continued on her wandering way, not wanting to intrude on whatever was going on, but the way the music echoed made it impossible to tell where it was coming from until she found the musician right in front of her.
He was playing on the ruins of a building. Bakuda's bomb had turned the structure to crystal, and the John Wagner Theatre had shattered under its own weight and spilled out into the street. The man sat on the once marble railing, tall and thin with greying hair. Above him, a single working street light shone in a city that was going through a blackout.
"I can never seem to get it right," he said, pulling his instrument from his lips and speaking into the darkness. "Sometimes I wonder if it was ever right to begin with, or if I had dreamt it all up from the start." He took out a small knife and began whittling at his ... at his ...
"Is that a potato?" Vista said out loud, and she regretted it immediately. You meet a stranger playing the most beautiful music you've ever heard, and the first thing you do is criticize his instrument? But still, a potato?
"It was." He blew out a spare shaving from a widening hole. "Then I added a small amount of nothing, and it has become far more."
"No you didn't. You subtracted something." Stop talking, Vista.
"And left it hollow." He held it to his lips and played a trilling melody that left Vista feeling weak. It echoed through the dark streets long after the man pulled it away. "Do you think it remembers when it was something less? Something whole instead of holed? Should it hate me for what I have done to it?"
"Uh ... what?"
He nodded solemnly. "Word for word what the potato said. She had only the barest concept of self, but was content with what she was. Soil, growth, darkness. In a thousand years I would not have been able to make her understand what music was, let alone persuade her to want to become a flute. But here she stands, mutilated by the master musician to the applause of all who listen."
Vista stared at him. He sounded ... not crazy, he was too lucid to be crazy, but definitely disturbed. But why wouldn't he be on a night like this? If he was a master musician sitting just outside a ruined theatre ... had he worked there? Had he lost anyone inside?
"I guess that's perspective for you," she said, if only to keep up with the conversation. "You can make a lot of people happy with a well carved flute, but you can't forget about the empty, um, potatoes you left along the way." That was possibly the most ridiculous sentence she had ever uttered and she was glad there was no one else nearby to hear it, but ... She nodded toward the ruined, crystalized theatre. "Did you lose anyone?"
He cast a backward glance and seemed to notice the theatre for the first time. "Only myself. And I've gotten used to that. Who did you lose?"
"N-no one."
The man smiled as though catching her in a lie, but she wasn't lying. Was she? Leaf had died, but honestly Vista didn't even know her. If it hadn't been Vista's fault, she might have forgotten about the girl already. Then again, knowing that she had killed the person who had saved her life? That hurt. That was something that Vista could never take back, something ... something that she had lost.
But that wasn't something she wanted to talk about, especially not with a stranger. "How long are you planning on staying here?"
He smiled again. "Until I find what I'm looking for."
"What's that?"
"Truth."
Vista looked around. This seemed like an odd place to search for truth, but street musicians weren't known for making sense, street philosophers even less so. "Well, good luck with that. I should start heading ..." She wanted to say "home," but she couldn't go home right now, could she? She couldn't go anywhere. "... Out," she said at last.
"Head out then," he said. "Head in, head up or head down, head near or far. Just be sure not to lose your head. There aren't many people who can put it back on anymore."
Vista froze. He knew! How did he know? Was he a cape, some kind of Thinker? Or was it just some cosmic coincidence, and he was just spouting nonsense with a knowing smile?
"You've stopped," he noted. "Was it something I said? I'd offer a meaningless apology, but it wouldn't do you any good. Instead, I'll offer you a story."
She shook her head warily. "I'm a bit too old for stories."
He laughed, and his tone made it clear that he was laughing at her, not with her. "Stories make us who we are, empty one; they are who we are. And you're not quite old enough to die."
But she was, not that age had anything to do with it. People her age died all the time.
They just didn't usually come back.
She eyed the man once more. Everything he said seemed calculated to irritate her ... but she wasn't in the mood for soothing platitudes. "Alright, Mr. ..."
"Hoid," he said, "is one of the more polite things people call me. Though I'm accustomed to most insults."
"Hoid then. So what's your story?"
WWW
Lift couldn't run. She couldn't hide. She couldn't fight.
Those were the first three lessons of being in the ABB under Bakuda. Moving through the building was okay, but their bombs would go off if they went much further. Small teams sent away on jobs got special privileges, but everyone else had to stay put. Hiding was pointless because every bomb had these tracker thingies that were always talking to Bakuda and telling them where they were. If Bakuda was looking for someone, she just needed to follow their bomb.
And fighting ... fighting was suicide. She could detonate a bomb just by thinking about it, and if someone managed to off her before she had time to even do that, then every bomb would explode.
Can't run. Can't hide. Can't fight.
Always be afraid.
That was rule number four. Someone could do everything Bakuda told them to do and still die just for not being scared enough. Storms, they could die for standing next to someone who wasn't scared enough. Don't try to look tough at Bakuda. If you're afraid, show it. If you're not, fake it.
Those four rules came together to make rule number five: don't fall asleep. It was allowed, but impossible. No matter how hard they tried or how exhausted they were, they would lie down and close their eyes, then they would see someone explode in the back of their minds and wake up screaming, hoping that it was a dream, hoping that it wasn't them or someone they knew. Then they would roll over, try again, and repeat the cycle until they were more tired than when they had started when it was time to get back to work.
And there was always work.
"I've been here since Monday," Ayame said. "Wake up, eat, work four hours, eat, work four hours, eat, work four hours, sleep. But I can't sleep. Can never sleep. I can still feel it, pressed against my veins, throbbing like a heartbeat. Wasn't like this with Lung. Never took so much that we couldn't make it. Never used us up. He'll break out. He'll come back. He'll save us. I've been here since Monday."
If Lift let her, she'd go on repeating herself. "Can you call someone?" She hadn't gotten the hang of cell phones, but they were pretty much like spanreeds only you didn't need to know how to write.
"Can't. Cut off. Phones have been confiscated. Can't get one unless you've ... unless you've proven yourself. Nguyen has. Haven't seen him since. I ... I sort drugs. Work four hours, eat, work four hours, eat, work four hours, sleep. Just ... haven't proven myself. Wasn't like this with Lung. He'll break out. He'll come back. He'll save us."
No, Lift thought. He won't. This was like when she had returned from robbing the country club and found out that half her team had been arrested robbing a bank, only worse. Fighting Lung was like knocking over a building and expecting it not to crush anybody. This was all her fault.
Lift bit into an energy bar. For so long food had been everything to her, her goal, her power, and her joy. It should have meant something even in a place like this—especially in a place like this—to get something to eat. Instead, it tasted like crem and filled her stomach but nothing else. No one knew how much she needed it, so no one had tried to hide the food or keep it from her.
But why would they? This little piece of Damnation she had found herself in, surrounded by the mourning and the mad, was a pit that no amount of food could get her out of. So she did what she always did when she was truly desperate. She listened. People like Ayame, the forgotten, the ignored, needed to talk like they needed to squeeze the pus out of a sore, and they needed to be heard.
WWW
"Long ago and down below once lived the people of the deep. Their home was dark and cold and hard where light itself could never seep. Their merchants traveled up above to bargain with the sun, and carried back in pots of gold to sell it to each one. But the sun, he shone for few back then and these he favored not. He haggled for their blood and lives, lest he abandon them to rot.
"The merchants offered sacrifice to the burning sun above. More the sun demanded life and traded light for love. The deep town shone with blood-bought light and the people could now see the void left by the ones who died to buy the sun's exhaustive fee.
"A blind girl asked, 'Why must they die for this precious light? The light is dark and dark is dark, but we may survive the night.'
"'Be silent, fool,' the others said. 'You know not what you speak. Your vision's blind, your sense's dim, and your reason's thusly weak. Your worthless life we'll spare from you and worthy you will die. We'll take you up to meet the sun, and sell you to the sky.'
"They took her and they carried her up to a mountain top. Upon its peak the sun did set, and there they set up shop. 'What offering is this,' the sun spoke down, 'you bargain me for light? With broken eyes it sees me not, this creature with no sight.'
"'But life she has and blood as well, O brilliant, burning sun. Take her from us and grant us light that our business may be done.'
"'Wait!' she cried. 'What light is this for which my life is sold? I see it not, I hear it not, and know only what I'm told. Teach me what this treasure is that I may finally know. Touch me with your golden light, and I'll feel it before I go.'
"And so the sun reached down to her and took her by the hand. 'So this is the precious light,' she said. 'I finally understand.' Her skin burned red, but her teeth she bared and bit into the sun. The sun, he howled and pulled away and from her he did run. But in her mouth she kept a bit of fire.
"Returning home she shared the light she carried now within. 'We need not die or spill our blood,' she said with blazing grin. 'It sears my tongue and chars my teeth, but to you I give for free the light you offered up my life that those not blind may see.'
"But scowled they did and turned away, the people of the deep. 'What worth is light to us when offered for so cheap? Before twas treasure for which we sold our children to the sun. The price was great but when we saw we remembered every one. Begone from us, oh wretched thief, and with your gift depart. Light is worth the price we pay, and priceless, we choose the dark.'
"Abandoned and forsaken, she left them, a vagabond. She traveled into lands unknown to greet what lay beyond. Soon found she some wiser souls who thanked her for her light, but those wretched fools who cast her out, she left in endless night."
The story ended, and Vista was left with a silence she could feel as much as hear. "Huh," she said, more because she needed to say something than because something needed to be said. "That was ... huh." Again, that silence. "Did it mean anything?"
"That is up to you. A story, like people, means little when hurled into the void. Again like people, it needs people to matter."
"I thought it was one of those, you know, stealing fire from the gods stories. Prometheus and such. But it's not about that, is it? Those people were idiots for throwing her out. Charging less for something doesn't make it worth less."
"The illusion of worth is a powerful thing," he noted. "It's not rare for men to discard the worth and keep the illusion. What worth do you discard?"
"I ... what's that supposed to mean?"
Hoid packed up his potato flute and carving knife and pocketed them both. "Absolutely nothing. I never say anything of sense. You should know that by now." He began to walk away.
"Wait, where are you going?"
"Forward. I trip less that way. And it's early, child. I'll need to wake up soon and stop dreaming. I hope you find what you're looking for."
"Who says I'm looking for anything?"
"It's so much more rewarding than escaping what you're running from," he said, as though he hadn't heard her.
"Who says I'm running from anything?"
He kept on walking.
"Because I'm not," she said, almost to herself. "I'm not."
WWW
A/n Man it's been a while. It's been, what, three, four months since the last update? The good news is that this chapter was originally twice as long before my editor convinced me to cut it in half, so chapter fourteen should show up next week unless it needs serious work. This was my first time writing Hoid, which was fun, and my first time writing a Hoid story, which was not. A character that is witty, eccentric, cunning, and strange? Count me in! A story that, in story, is considered a great work of art and thematically meaningful? Ugh. You can't do that and not come off as pretentious.
But enough about me, let's talk about you. You guys are great! Thank you for all the comments, reviews, and off topic yet highly entertaining discussions. And a huge shoutout to my patrons, Exiled Immortal, Prime 2.0, Sphinxes, Kelsey Bull, Hubris Prime, Apofatix, Janember, Yotam Bonneh, and Svistka! Are you guys paying me money for what I'm already doing for free? Yes, but now I'm doing more of it. And I'd like to thank Exiled Immortal double for editing these chapters, correcting typos, and filling the many, many plot holes that would otherwise be here.