Fourth Dream
The kilkinteth’s dream bubbles clung together like bunches of grapes. Somewhere in the center of that tangle waited the queen’s dream.
“I thought you said their dreams would change,” Lan said, pushing his way into the cluster. It would take a greater power than his to rupture the bubbles, but he still moved carefully. As was often the case, his diminutive size allowed him to squeeze between orbs as he had once burrowed into a pile of his sleeping litter mates. They’d been dead for more than a millenia, but he still missed them.
“It’s hardly been a season since they gained any independence,” Gailinn chided. She’d abandoned her human form, flitting around as a wisp and speaking directly into his mind. “Give them time.”
The dreams they passed hardly qualified as such to Lan’s mind. Other races fully entered the realm of dreams during slumber, interacting with it in many of the same ways they would the physical realm. The insectile kilkinteth, however, had only recently gained enough consciousness to dream. For now, their bubbles filled with flashes of color and vague geometric shapes, creating a dazzling but distracting kaleidoscope all around them.
Hundreds of bubbles formed the cluster, but Lan reached the center a few seconds behind Gailinn without too much struggle. A cushion of empty space separated the queen’s dream from those of her subjects, and the bubble glowed with a soft golden light Lan hadn’t seen from any other race.
The reason was obvious as he slipped through the thin membrane. The kilkinteth queen was much larger in her dream--mandibles longer, gossamer wings stronger, and chitinous shell gleaming gold with a brightness to rival the sun. She filled the air with a cacophony of chitters and buzzes while hovering in the air above Core. Other races bowed before her, an unending line of petitioners seeking her counsel.
“Remember to hold yourself outside of the dream’s narrative,” Gailinn said. At some point she’d reverted to her human form, watching the queen’s dream with a bemused smile that seemed on the verge of splitting apart in laughter.
From the pit of his stomach, Lan summoned willpower and pushed back the queen’s radiant glow. For several strides around Gailinn and him, the crowded city streets peeled back, replaced with a quiet autumnal forest.
“Wonderful,” Gailinn said, and he couldn’t stop himself from beaming at the rare nugget of praise. “Remember the illustrations from bandruí Ralvy’s book. Concentrate only on the queen. Imagine her as she should be.”
It wasn’t too difficult. Though Lan had never seen a kilkinteth in person, the queen matched Ralvy’s illustration with only slight exaggerations. She was only slightly larger than himself, the wings half as long. Her voice obviously wouldn’t have carried across all of Core, so he imagined it much softer. Finally, he concentrated on her shell, projecting his will to change it from resplendent gold to a vibrant deep purple. With that final adjustment, the queen became aware of his presence, and he was in control of the dream.
“Now comes the hard part,” Gailinn said, vanishing into the nearest tree. “She may be an insect, but she’s still a queen. Proud. Stubborn. Convince her to change.”
“Hard,” Lan grumbled. “Try impossible.”
Despite his words, the grocklin dropped to all fours and sped toward the queen. He’d never shied away from a challenge and wouldn’t start now.
Chapter 8 -- Stories of the Past
Queen Clintestra of the Horned Cove Hive marched toward Bard flanked by her guards. Older than almost any tree in the Radiance, Bard stood alone at the top of a long flat hill. Legend said no other tree would grow within range of its shadow at dawn. Out of respect. The nearby forest stopped at a line straighter than the spears her guards held at the ready. The trees seemed to crane forward, bent in perpetual bows aimed at Bard.
Truth be told, the queen believed the tale. Her hive collected tales the same way ants gathered morsels of food.
Another story spoke of Slacktooth’s conquest in ages past. After razing two of the seven ancient city-nations, his army had marched across this very plain. Nothing could stand in his way. Until he’d heard Bard’s song. He’d stood beneath her swaying branches for an entire day. When he returned to his camp, he called for a meeting with the generals arrayed against him. Before all those assembled, he’d cast aside his sword, the great Doom’s Breath. The war ended.
The first queen had chosen the Horned Cove for their hive because of its proximity to Bard. To history. Over the decades their hive had flourished like no other. They produced the sweetest nectar in their combs. The strongest warriors defended their lands, and the most melodious voices recounted every tale they had gathered.
A woman stood beside Bard, one hand against the aged bark. Her mouth moved but not in speech. Based on the rhythm of its opening and closing, the shapes it made--long-held o’s--she sang with the tree. Clintestra’s brood hummed and whistled in the forest, inspired like so many by the tree’s music.
“You call yourself Gailinn, brzz,” Clintestra buzzed, head held high. Her guard paused at the great tree’s roots, and she approached alone. “We know your true name, brzz, the one you chose for yourself and have changed more times than we have molted. You whispered in the ears of the generals arrayed against Slacktooth, harrying his forces and creating gaps, leading him to this place. To Bard. You ended the war from the shadows, but we remember, brzz.”
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Gailinn ceased her song but held her hand to the tree’s aged bark for several breaths. When she turned to face the kilkinteth queen, Bard stretched its limbs visibly higher while roots slithered a pace beyond the waiting guards. Clintestra hovered a hop above the ground, gossamer wings a blur until the hill ceased churning and shifting. Her eyes hardened, and her head rose a crack higher, exuding even more royal grace and calm--a lie to hide the surprise and embarrassment within.
“Your majesty.” Gailinn bowed parallel to the ground, cloak open behind her in an approximation of wings. When Clintestra nodded, Gailinn didn’t rise; instead, she folded down to the ground, legs beneath her, butt to heels. Clintestra appreciated the added sign of respect though she still had to look up into the woman’s face. Her guards, the largest of the kilkinteth castes, rose to the average humanoid’s waist.
“Brzz clack clack skree skr skreee.” Clintestra’s mandibles, wings, and rear legs clicked, fluttered, and rubbed in the highest greeting, one offered only from one queen to another.
In response, Gailinn rested her head on hands, fingertips pressing together to form a triangle. The Horned Cove brood hummed their approval from the woods. The honor guard beat spearhaft to carapace. A slight breeze set Bard’s leaves whistling, its corenuts clacking together like a round of applause.
“You sent an interesting emissary,” Clintestra said. “Brzz, was he truly Lan-tenth?”
“Of course,” Gailinn said, turning her face upwards with a smile. She rose to a cross-legged position, facing the queen.
“His will be a wondrous tale to add to our collection,” Clintestra said. “He promised fragments in exchange for this meeting, but I hope to negotiate for much more.”
“Unlikely. Speaking of which, when you tell stories, do you remain impartial?” Gailinn asked. “For example, how do you portray Slacktooth in your tales?”
“I can relate his victories and defeats, his rise to power, brzz, as well as the political and economic landscape before, during, and after his war.”
“Impressive. But what of the man?”
“A webfoot raised in Clarthing, brzz. His family was slain by abyssals, one of the fallen burrower clans who had delved too deep. They took him and the other children as slaves, brzz. Among the males, only he survived. He killed the others in brutal fights orchestrated by his captors. Thus his bloodlust began.”
Clintestra recited the facts in a proud voice with little artifice. The tale had been memorized dutifully, and though Bard whistled and knocked a suitable background melody to aid her telling, Clintestra sounded like a schoolgirl rushing through her homework with no emotional connection to the story she told.
“The night of his final battle, he escaped, cutting through all who stood in his way. No one knows where he ran. Three cycles passed, brzz, then he returned. At the head of an army. Doom’s Breath in hand, he killed the abyssals who had captured him. Thus began his conquest of the land. By all accounts, he was a murderer, aggressor, and brilliant tactician.”
“Yet he thought himself a hero.” Gailinn’s voice filled with the strength of well-forged steel. It cut through the distant drone of the queen’s brood and echoed through Bard’s deep curves and spiraling branches. “As you said, he survived those brutal fights. He was given a choice: to kill or be killed. Not a fair choice by civilized standards but the truest by nature’s.
“Slacktooth fled underground, deeper than the burrowers dared, even those twisted by greed and other dark forces who became the abyssals. He walked beside rivers of liquid flame, cool compared to the anger driving him. Revenge is too simple a word for what he sought. Killing those who had enslaved him wouldn’t bring enough justice. The world needed changing.
“Alone beside a river of fire he stared at his hands. Each callus, every scar was a mark of skill and life clung to at all costs. A deep white scar across his palm, the most recent, glowed in the red-orange light. It had been made by his brother’s sword even as Slacktooth had spilled his blood. With nothing but those warrior’s hands, he forged his path. Fire would cleanse the world like dry grasslands, and something young and strong would grow from the rich ashes.”
The steel in Gailinn’s voice became a mountain of diamond. Unbreakable. Eternal.
“He wandered in the dark of mushroom forests, retrained his senses, and learned to hunt eyeless beasts. New scars charted his progress until he became the apex predator. He learned not to trust what he perceived of his enemies, learned instead to trust his instincts.
“One day he saw the faintest glimmer. Sight returned in a wash of deep blue, and he found a pool of ancient magic, condensed energy from the world’s creation. Few still remain. The magic rippled at his approach, sensing his resolve and need. He shouldn’t have known how to wield it, how to bend it to his will and give it shape, yet he did, and when Slacktooth left the cavern, he carried Doom’s Breath.”
Clintestra trembled with awe. Every atom of her body felt charged with Gailinn’s energy. She would blow apart like a flower in a hurricane. She would launch into the sky, fly higher than she ever thought possible, whirling and diving in a hopeless attempt to dispel that power. The fire of ecstatic joy would feed on her, burning in her chest until she would explode from trying to contain so much light.
Such was the effect of hearing a god’s true voice. No matter that she wore a human form. It was merely an outfit. She had worn many since the first word of the story had been spoken and would wear countless more until the final word.
“As a slave, Slacktooth had cried at night after each of his kinsmen’s deaths. Until the guards beat him.” Gailinn assumed a softer tone, sadness a wet blanket wrapped around each syllable. “From then on he kept the pain inside, and there is one who exploits such pain. He spoke to Slacktooth in his deepest despair, and the webfoot listened. Who else could have led him through fire and dark? How else did he learn the secrets of taming ancient magic?”
Clintestra knew of his names, as varied as those of the woman before her. The imprisoned, deceiver, voice of insanity. “The world ender,” she whispered.
“Prophecy in a name,” Gailinn said. “His battles are reaching a climax, and his great plan for escape has almost been revealed in its entirety.”
“Brzz, so we fight.” Clintestra set her jaw, spreading her wings wide.
“In time.” Any semblance of joy bled from Gailinn’s face at the admission. “For now, we prepare. And live. We live to the fullest.”
“How can we help, Firebringer?”
“You’ve spoken to the wisps,” Gailinn said, an edge to her voice. “You know what they once were?”
“We are, after all, cousins of a sort, brzz. They have long memories.”
“Apparently. Firebringer is nearly the oldest of my names,” Gailinn said, and she seemed to look back across eons. “An apt choice considering what I would ask of you.”