Seeking a Quantum Tree: Ancestors of Jaiya, #4

By Mel Dunay

Journey to the country of Jaiya, in a world not quite like ours. Here the humans wield magical powers and fight against an Empire which seeks to enslave them, but they share their world with insect people and trollfolk, and stranger things lurk in the shadows…

Sena is a Jaiyan secret agent, sent to warn a neighboring country about an upcoming attack on them by an insane general. When the invasion happens sooner than she expected, she must work with the handsome Taavid, a wealthy businessman and Jaiyan exile, to help save the other Jaiyans trapped in the occupied zone. But General Drozniya controls the occupied zone, and he is obsessed with the Quantum Tree, a legendary source of mystical power which could destroy the world!

Note: Quantum Tree is meant as a standalone with a "happily ever after" ending. However, the hero in this book is the son of the hero and heroine of Book 3, and he and the heroine are parents of some of the characters in the original Jaiya series. The romance is on the sweet side, but there are some disturbing supernatural events, along with some violence, not very explicit, and some references to the horrors of war, more implied than shown. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mel Dunay
• Release date: Oct 25, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393352365

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

––––––––

It is called a tree because, to the eyes of the Old Ones and the First Parents of the humans, the possibilities it contains appeared to spread and branch quicker than thought, as if a tree could grow a dozen yards tall and wide in the time it takes lightning to flash across the sky, without toppling over, and continue growing at that speed until light and heat and time end together and the Creator makes all things anew. 

But instead of leaves or flowers, fruits or seeds, the endless branches bring forth events that might or might not come to pass, in every parts of the material world. 

The Quantum Tree is both a living place and a living thing; both a living vision of all possibilities and a living calculation of those possibilities. 

From the ancient scripture, The Wounding of the Quantum Tree, verses 11-13.

Sena stopped and stared at the courtyard the Lesser Priest had led her to. At first glance, it looked much like the inner courtyard of any other monastery in Island City, with a rainwater cistern and a small garden of plants who could tolerate the briny air that blew in from the Jaiyan Sea, and a covered corridor open to the garden, that surrounded the courtyard on all four sides.

But the columns that held up the inner walls of the building’s second story, and separated the corridors from the courtyard, were squat and wide, decorated with primitive-looking carvings of humans and Old Ones dancing together, so old and worn down that she could not make out the figures’ faces.

A tall, round cistern dominated the middle of the courtyard, and like many such structures in monasteries all over Jaiya, was decorated with verses from the scriptures.

But these quotes were in the oldest version of Jaiyan writing, the kind with no vowel marks, and on the side facing her, there was a carving of something with massive roots and a giant trunk, and strange, spiky branches, decorated with the ancient glyphs for yes and no.

She had seen the Quantum Tree from the ancient scriptures depicted this way before, but only in shrines and temples. It was said that only one garden in Island City had such an image.

This is the High Priest’s garden, isn’t it? She asked her guide.

The Lesser Priest snorted. Don’t be timid, child. You were asked to come here, and I was asked to bring you here. This is where you are supposed to be.

Sena was not as overawed as he seemed to think her, but she did not disabuse him. She was a lay member of the Order of the Sight-Sisters, who investigated corruption in high places, both religious and political, so she knew better than to be impressed with any display of status. She also knew how to keep her opinions to herself, when needed.

The priest showed her to a bench next to a small brine water pond with sea-fishes in it and a white crust of dried salt lining its rim.

Please wait here, the Lesser Priest told her.

Her guide had scarcely left her before the High Priest himself came in from the opposite side of the courtyard. 

He wore the same saffron robes as every priest from every sect that read the scriptures and worshiped the Creator. But he also wore the white sash of an Island City ascetic and a gold chain around his neck with dozens of fish-shaped pendants, one for each year he had spent with the Island City priesthood. 

Sena started to bow to him, but the High Priest politely stopped her with a touch on her elbow and a quiet Please stand.

He was a relatively young man to hold such a high position; only in his late fifties. He would have been a schoolboy, forty-seven years ago, when Jaiya gained its independence from the Empire, and Sena could imagine what kind of schoolboy he would have been: a shrewd, cagey little fellow who gave nothing away when the teachers questioned him about what he’d been up to. The kind of fellow who rose to high places in whatever line of work he chose.

Sir, she said politely. I am honored to meet you.

Likewise, Sister Sena. He began to pace around the garden, and gestured for her to walk beside him.

Please, sir, I am Miss Sena to my superiors. I am only a lay member of the Sight-Sisters, not sworn to all the vows. I hope to marry, someday, and I am close to the end of my time with the Order, she did not say, because it was none of his business.

As you like, Miss Sena, he said. I am told you would go far in the order if you wanted to become a full member.

Enough of the pleasantries, Sena thought. In my experience, sir, that kind of praise usually comes with a....delicate mission attached.

Granted, just the fact that my order is assigning me to take orders from you hints at such a mission, she thought.

Indeed. War is coming to Avugha, The High Priest said, naming a country that bordered Jaiya, far off in the northwest.

Sena held herself a little straighter as she walked around the garden with him. 

Have you told the secular authorities? She asked.

I have informed the Jaiyan government, The High Priest said. They were not interested in listening. It will be your job to inform the Prince of Avugha.

Sena frowned. Sir, I have worked under diplomatic cover before, but not at that level. Surely this mission needs someone who knows how to deal with politicians.

The politics of the matter are in the hands of our government, and Avugha’s. The Prince is only a figurehead in any case. Avugha is a civilized country with a proper Parliament.

Why are you sending me then? Sena asked, and then remembered to add: With all due respect, sir.

The High Priest chuckled. Ah, how refreshing. It has been so long since anyone has ‘due-respected’ me. I quite miss it. Then he added, seemingly at random: There are those who believe that the Quantum Tree is real, you know. Not just a metaphor for free will and the choices we make.

He spoke more dismissively of the idea than Sena would have. It did not surprise her, because she had heard he was one of those who considered pretty much anything otherworldly in the scriptures to be a metaphor for something or other.

But Sena was an Oldblood; she had abilities that most humans lacked, and the scriptures claimed that such abilities were the result of the Old Ones, the guardian spirits, intermarrying with humans in ancient times.

Sena wasn’t sure if she believed that her powers literally came about in that way, but she kept an open mind, on that and many other topics.

The High Priest looked at her expectantly, as if he had dropped a very obvious hint. Sena wasn’t sure what he was hinting towards, until an old bit of folklore popped into Sena’s head.

They used to say that its location was somewhere on the border between Jaiya and Avugha. She said.

Indeed, the High Priest said dryly. They also used to say that only the kings and princes of Avugha knew how to reach it.

And....that’s why you want the Prince warned? She asked.

The Doomsday Collective is about to invade his country, the High Priest said. Like their predecessors the Kingdom of Doomsday, they talk a good game about wanting to destroy all reality and remake it. A few of their leadership actually believe it.

The insanity of it was enough to take her breath away. But sir, if the Tree is a thing that modern people can actually reach and interact with....

There is no danger of that happening, the High Priest said sharply. However, there are those in the Doomsday Collective who believe it could. They would interrogate the Prince, and threaten his people. I already have people on the ground, positioned to bring humanitarian aid to the people of Avugha. I am ordering you to use any resources necessary to extract the Prince from Avugha, before the Doomsdayers can torture the poor man. You will travel to his country under diplomatic cover, with this letter.

He pulled a folded piece of paper out of his robes and offered it to her. Sena took it and unfolded it.

Requesting all possible assistance be rendered to the bearer... She read aloud. The High Priest had signed it with his official seal.

Sir, your influence is not as great as it used to be, especially with the diplomatic corps, she said.

I know, he said grimly. You will also be given a list of contacts, which may prove more useful. By the way, I know the Sight-Sisters are not in the habit of conducting executions...

We prefer to make public the evidence of corruption we’ve found, and let public opinion and the law take its course, Sena said dryly. We are not the Knife-Sisters.

And even the Knife-Sisters don’t assassinate any random person the High Priest tells them to, she thought. They investigate certain horrible crimes, determine who the perpetrator is, and execute them.

...But if you should find it necessary to defend yourself or the Prince against attacks by the Doomsdayers, their deaths would not be a crime, he said, with the air of someone unveiling a deep spiritual insight.

Pretentious fool, Sena thought. Does he really think I need him to tell me that a killing in self-defense is not the same thing as an assassination in cold blood?

It confirmed her opinion that the High Priest had been more interested in politics than theology on his way to the top.

Presumably sending a Sight-Sister to extract the Crown-Prince of Avugha was something the High Priest had agreed to arrange for some big-shot in the Jaiyan government who happened to be friends with the Crown-Prince.

Do you accept this mission? He asked her.

Well, my superiors did assign me to you, and it is a rescue mission, Sena thought. I just hope whatever favor you promised the Sight-Sisters was a big one. She said: I accept.

––––––––

Sena stormed out of the Jaiyan embassy in Saltport, the capital of Avugha. She hadn’t exactly been expecting a warm welcome from Ambassador Narran, but this was ridiculous. He had confiscated her letter from the High Priest.

We don’t take orders from the Island City priesthood around here, he had said, his round, froglike eyes wide with anger. We represent the Republic of Jaiya.

You don’t have to take orders from them, she had told him. All you have to do is let me do the job in your embassy that I was assigned to, and ignore anything else that I do. That’s in accordance with the treaty between the Republic and the Island City priesthood.

The ambassador sneered. My interpretation of the treaty does not require anything of the kind. He said. And if you have a problem with that, you can take it up with my boss, who happens to be the president of Jaiya and not some senile fisherman turned cleric.

Will you at least take a message to the prince? If his country is in danger, he should know about it.

Something had flickered in the ambassador’s eyes. Thinking back, Sena felt it might have been fear or puzzlement.

I won’t deny the Doomsdayers have been flexing their muscles in the area lately, the ambassador had said. But so has the Empire, and neither of them are ready for a new war with each other, so it all balances out. I don’t know where you people get your information, but you’re going off half-cocked over a small detail and not looking at the big picture. And that’s why I don’t want to have anything to do with people like you, he had added.

Her thoughts had made Sena so angry that she was charging down the street at a fast walk. She only noticed a small, raggedy child at the last moment. She didn’t want to knock him down, and she nearly twisted her ankle trying to dodge around him.

Are you alright? She asked the boy.

He just grinned at her charmingly. I’m well enough, he said. But I’d be doing better with a bit of silver in my pocket.

Sena tossed him a coin. You do know that these things haven’t been made of silver in your lifetime? She asked. Or mine, for that matter.

He picked up the coin and put it in his pocket, with no particular excitement, as if he saw its kind every day.

Mother told me that ever since Father got a real job, I can’t go around asking people for money, so I ask for ‘a bit of silver’ instead. Not ‘money.’ He said with a shrug. At least your money is Jaiyan money, so it’s actually worth something. Not like that Doomsdayer scrip that shows up sometimes.

The boy looked up at her again, as though weighing up what he wanted to say. Something I always wanted to know about Jaiya.... he said.

What would that be? Sena, asked as sweetly as she could manage.

Do you still have bug-people down there? He asked.

They would rather be called gnosha, she said, But yes, we do still have them.

The boy’s eyes grew big and round. Jaiya must be an amazing place, he said. I want to see bugpeople – I mean gnosha –someday.

Sena smiled down at him. I hope you get to see them someday, she said.

She tossed him another coin and went on her way, thinking: There are many amazing sights around Saltport too, if people knew where to look.

Sena looked at the streets around her. It was half an hour until five, and apparently that meant quitting time for most of the diplomatic staff at all the embassies in the area. Cars were driving past, all massive Imperial models that were almost as wide as Saltport’s streets and longer than some of the fishing boats working the river.

She could tell how much the drivers made by what type of car they drove. The women and the younger men all drove models about ten years old, with giant fins that made them look like military rockets, painted in the gaudy pinks and turquoises that had been fashionable back then.

The older, more established men drove newer cars, in bland shades of cream and beige and black: still wide and massive, but with slightly shorter wheelbases and no fins.

The embassy sat on a hill on the western outskirts of town, and the street had an excellent view of the whole city of Saltport, from the ancient fort ruins called the Eagle’s Nest, rising from a rocky mesa on the north side, to the white spires and bulbous green domes of the temples along the Sweetwater River.

Beyond them to the south there rose the gilded roof of the prince’s sprawling white palace, standing by itself in a huge park, startlingly green in this arid country. She could sneak in if she had to, but the prince probably wouldn’t be impressed by a warning from a cat burglar.

Sleek, thoroughly modern apartment buildings, the homes of the rich and powerful, stood all around the royal park. Off to the southeast and beyond the city, she could see the salt factories on the glittering white shores of the Weeping Sea, a giant inland lake so salty that nothing could live in it. It formed the border between Avugha and Jaiya.

Saltport looked so peaceful and prosperous it was hard to believe that the city would soon be under attack. Maybe if I can warn the prince, he can lean on his government and save these people the worst of what is coming, she thought. The High Priest didn’t seem optimistic about that, but it’s worth a try.

Warning the Princes was going to be the hard part, though. Most of the contacts on her list were diplomats from either Jaiya or Avugha, and Ambassador Narran would have warned them against her. She needed to find out about Prince Yanon’s movements and just happen to run into him in the next few days. There was only one person on the list she’d been given who might know...

––––––––

When she found Field-priest Laro of the Island City order, he was dancing his evening prayers in a quiet park behind the local charity hospital. He faced a small shrine at the far end of the park, and Sena remained respectfully behind him.

His feet struck the ground precisely in the same place every time, so that he never left his spot. With his vigorous arm gestures, and his chanted song, he told of the ancient wars between the humans and the Old Ones, and lamented