Chapter Forty-Eight: A Homecoming

I awoke in the early hours to the sound of crying - soft sobbing at one of the boughs not too far off. Dawn was still pale on the horizon and the jungle beyond us was just beginning to awaken with the chirps of birds and the hooting of monkeys. I worked my way out from under Calivar and buzzed my way over to the source of the sound: Ben, looking off into the distance and weeping over what looked to be a little scrap of lace.

As he noticed my approach, Ben wiped his tears away and quickly hid the lace. I put my hand on his arm and tried to coax him to face me, but he refused to do so.

"Ben? What's wrong?"

"I… I went down the steps earlier to look for the Crown of Stars… I found bits and pieces of it, but it's totally busted."

I thought I knew what he was getting at, but thought it would be better for him to say it. "The Elder Tree did a number on the Engine of Change… every damn thing's busted, Ben…"

"I know," he said. "I know that." Finally, he met my gaze and he took the little scrap of lace out. "I've been carrying this ever since I left home - it's a bit of Helen's garter from our honeymoon… I even managed to keep it when I was imprisoned by that bastard king. And I always thought I'd find my way back to Sioux City and give it back to Helen and say to her, 'you'll never guess where I've been!' But if I understand correctly - and I'm pretty sure I do - with the magic storms gone and the Crown busted, there's no way for me to get back home. And… well, I'm sure glad you're happy here, and maybe I will be one day, too. But that day's a long way off."

I pulled him into a hug, and Ben's arms wrapped tight around me and he wept. And he needed a bath… I'm sure I did, too, but he really did. But I just held him and let him cry and whispered 'there, there'… and I wondered. Was that true? Was there no way back to Earth? With a few decades of study, I might figure out how to do it, but that might well take a whole human life to accomplish. But the answer for Ben might be right in front of us. After all, the Elder Tree whose boughs we sat in had been grown on Earth in the fertile plains of France, and they had a magic that was different from but almost as powerful as fae magic. It could do things the fae could not and vice-versa.

"Ben, old buddy. I don't want to get your hopes up, but I think you should just ask the tree. Ask it if it will take you home."

Ben pulled away from me. "Ask… the tree?"

I nodded. "It's a conscious thing, the same as you and me, and it's got deep roots in Earth - literally. People used to think they were gods and pray to them, and sometimes they'd answer. And I figure I've gained a little good reputation with the plants of Earth after, you know, saving the whole planet. So ask it 'pretty please' and it just might oblige."

"Okay… okay, I'll do that," Ben said.

Our conversation had garnered some attention - Lieutenant Dupuis had awoken and padded over to see what was going on, and Gaelin was skulking about nearby thinking he was sneaky. Calivar and Meliswe were, I'm pretty sure, still fast asleep, Meliswe making her adorable little snortlets as she clung to Calivar's side. And they both deserved their sleep, so I wasn't about to waken them.

Ben knelt on the soft moss of the tree bough and lifted his hands, pressing them together in prayer like a choirboy at communion. "Oh great tree… pretty please… might this humble Earth man beseech you for a ticket back to Earth? I promise I'll grow a big shade tree in my back yard in your honor if you do…"

There was a groaning from deep within the tree, the sound of shifting matter and parting wood and, with a blast of air that smelled so strongly of vegetation that it was practically green, an arched passageway opened in the side of the tree. A moment later, the smooth, brown bark around the opening reformed itself into two little scripts - one in Faeric and one in English reading: To Earth.

"I always wondered if they took requests," Gaelin said, too impressed by what he'd seen to pretend at being sneaky. He landed nearby and padded up to us.

"Well… there you have it. A passageway right to Earth… possibly into a war zone, so buyer beware…"

The grounds around me are safe - none may fight or battle 'neath my boughs, else they face the anger of Shuu-Ru-Esh, the Chestnut Elder, Bridge of Earth and Alfheim. Well… I guess that answered that. The voice came as a reverberation not quite within my mind but not quite as a sound, either. Ben's eyes bugged out even more than mine when he heard it - he was less used to the magic of Alfheim.

"Should I go? Now?" Ben asked.

I shrugged. "I figure you've been in Alfheim long enough. I… I guess you can go back and tell everybody what happened to me. Or some version of it, at least."

Ben seemed surprised. "You're not going back?"

I shook my head. "No - being back there was… unpleasant. I died, Ben. I left Earth behind and I belong here now. But… well… you're welcome to visit if Shoe-Rue…"

You can just think my name, the tree said. Faeroids always bungle the sound of rustling leaves and clattering branches.

"Fair enough. If … the tree lets you come back, you'll always be welcome back in… well, I can't promise Autumnal, but I can promise the rest of the fae realms. Bring the family…"

Ben smiled, perhaps for the first time since I'd seen him in the Outer Realms. "Maybe I'll do that. The girls would get a kick out of being in a real fairy kingdom and I could start the first soda fountain in all of Alfheim!"

I smiled and, since he was still kneeling, I kissed his forehead. Then I turned to Lieutenant Dupuis. "You may go back, too, of course," I said. "The Earth men conscripted under Nargillis I'm less kindly disposed to - they may have to offer recompense before I send them to trek through the jungle to find this place. But you're here and have done the fae no wrong."

Dupuis scratched at his stubble. "Maybe I'm being foolish, but I think I'd like to stay. I've hardly got any family back in Toulouse and, ever since I read Jules Verne as a child, I've wondered about exploring strange worlds… and your Alfheim seems strange enough. If you'll have me here, I'd love to stay."

"If it's exploring you'd like, our cartographers have had plenty of work of late," Gaelin observed. "Otherwise… the realms are large and your knowledge of Earth technology, assuming you have some, will be a boon."

Before he could leave, I rushed over to Ben and hugged him one last time. "I hope this isn't goodbye forever."

+++++

Our trek through the jungle back to Aru-Khazi was uneventful enough. No huge beasts and no ghost monkeys - either our group was too small to garner much attention or, I hope, they'd fled. While the trees still felt strange, they lacked the malignant hostility they'd possessed before - perhaps the arrival of the Elder Tree had begun to reform them, or perhaps the awful chaos of the Engine of Change had simply spread that far. We did see a few of the flying snakes high above, swishing among the treetops as if slithering along a pane of glass, but they paid us no mind. And, if they did, I'd have zapped them right out of the sky.

"We'll have to retrieve my spellsword," I said. "It's too valuable an artifact to leave at the bottom of the ocean… and my mother will kill me if I don't get it back."

"Then the queen may have to kill you," Meliswe said. "I vote we head back to the realms first… you can mount a proper search expedition once you've got the whole of Vernal's navy at your beck."

"You vote?" I giggled. "This isn't a democracy."

"You're right, princess, it isn't," she said. "I insist we head back to the realms first."

I leaned in and kissed her cheek. "My lady is as wise as she is beautiful."

"Not quite that wise," Calivar chuckled. And Gaelin just rolled his eyes at the three of us.

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It wasn't entirely clear when we'd quite gotten back to the city, because we passed for a jungle for a ways before we realized there were far more stone monuments encased in the vines and mosses than usual, and that they looked substantially more intact than the ancient ruins. Already, the jungles of the Outer Realms had begun to reclaim the city. The central city was largely untouched, though, and we began to take gunfire the moment we exited the cover of jungle.

After one zap from the heavens that crisped half a dozen men and sent another dozen fleeing with varying degrees of electrical energy, they raised their rifles and announced that they were merely trying to defend themselves against the beast of the jungle that had been praying on them for days. Many of the soldiers from Earth had fled into the temple or else crowded themselves into the jails, since the beast didn't seem to attack them in there for whatever reason.

"What's this beast like?" I asked.

"Fearsome! It's huge, far bigger than a man… we think. It cuts men up… well… it doesn't. I just leaves them dead, or sometimes they just disappear. Mostly, they just disappear. But the men next to them never even hear it coming… they're stolen into the jungle like ghosts, and then the men from fae arrived and things got even worse. We think they're summoning it with magic!"

So, basically, they knew nothing and were getting frightened over something they couldn't quite put their finger on… but whatever it was had killed men… generally without visible injury, and mostly just disappeared people? It sounded like we had an ally already at work within the city, and that was before the remainder of our forces had shown up and holed themselves up within a defensive perimeter inside the palace. I thought I knew what was happening.

"Master Dhyr, will you stop terrorizing these men if they surrender to you?"

"I will, your highness," Dhyr said. They stepped out of the jungle not twenty feet from where we'd been and bowed with a flourish. "I apologize that I didn't arrive in time to prevent your transport off into the jungle… there are, I now realize, two prisons in this blasted city… but I take it you dealt with your foes?"

"We did. I'm afraid you won't be able to confirm it with them, as they're all dead."

"Mercy is not always an option," Dhyr agreed. "Come, princess. I will show you where I've hidden the survivors away and they will tell you how Grand Master Dhyr took the city almost by their lonesome."

"Grand Master?"

Dhyr nodded. "The founder of a school may appoint themself Grand Master… I am Grand Master of the Outer School. We are learning from the jungle - this is not Fang, but the Fang school was growing a bit dusty."

"Very good, Grand Master Dhyr. I'd like to bring as many of these men to safety before the jungle swallows the rest of the city."

Calivar cleared his throat. "Couldn't you… I don't know… ask the jungle to hold off for a bit?"

"I'm not going to press my luck. Dill can ask if she likes."

Dill did ask, and the jungle, surprisingly, complied… for a time. The press of jungle was eager to consume the ancient city, but we were able to stay there for a few days while we rescued Earth soldiers from the jungle and scoured the city for weapons, artifices, and riches to take back with us. We managed to corral something like fifty thousand Earth men into the center of the city… which was a heck of a lot of people, but a few tens of thousands short of what had been there at the peak of Nargillis's buildup. Which mean we'd either lost a few tens of thousands of men or they'd wandered off on their own - neither prospect was good and, frankly, I think the prospect of them out there in Alfheim unsupervised was worse than them simply being lost to the jungle. Fortunately, they had no way to get more gunpowder back from Earth and we had far more guns and assorted other Earth weapons than they did.

"The city's fast running out of food, and when we get back to Garsellast out on the coast, they won't have enough to feed them for more than a day or two," Lieutenant Ro observed. "I understand that you want some sort of punishment for these men, but I don't think starvation is what you had in mind and, when they feel the sharp bite of hunger, they're likely to revolt against whomever is in charge… if that's in Garsellast, they'll overrun the town and we'll have a whole city of angry Earth men to worry about…"

That was a good point. "What do you suggest, then?"

"Your majesty… you have the favor of Gaia. Everybody knows it, so why not make use of it? Make these men swear an oath to you before the goddess, and they will be bound to serve you or suffer the goddess's wrath…"

I hadn't even thought of that - among the fae, oaths are seldom sworn outside of official ceremonies because it is considered crass to assume your favor with Gaia is greater than that of another, especially another fae. And, should Gaia fail to consecrate your oath, it is a deep embarrassment, indicating that you've lost her favor. But these Earth men weren't from Alfheim and hadn't been here long enough to make any spiritual bonds with the place. Gaia would surely favor such an oath, as it would cost her nothing and might even increase her influence on Earth after we sent the men back.

Therefore, we held a lottery to see which men would be permitted to stay in Alfheim and which would go back to Earth. Of the fifty-thousand men, almost ten thousand wished to stay here, but we permitted only two hundred among their number - we narrowed our selection down to the two thousand most fitting to be citizens of the realm and randomly chose one in ten of their number to return to the realms with us. We'd return with multiple ships filled with human soldiers, and any pirates that hadn't been demoralized by the loss of their king would soon be captured or sunk to the bottom of the sea if the so much as sailed in our direction. The remaining men, we had swear an oath under Gaia's grace to serve us - the princes and princess of the fae realms. On Earth, where we planned on returning them one at a time through the aperture in the Elder Tree, that oath might be weak to the point of being unenforceable but, within the fae realms, it would be a powerful obligation even more binding than the oath that lords and military officers personally swear to their king or queen.

Satisfied that we'd minimized the damage that these Earth men could do to the fae realms, we had them march back with half of our escort, back to the Elder Tree, where they could return to Earth and, if all went well, completely forget about the onerous debt they'd just sworn to.

As we marched into Garsellast, past the rice paddies and into that cramped and smelly frontier town, I considered that we would want to establish our own presence here, perhaps even take over the town and nearby islands to establish a fae colony, as it would be strategically advantageous to be in communion with a friendly Elder Tree that could transport people back and forth between Earth and Alfheim, if only a few at a time. And, as we sailed out from Garsellast and toward Fort Starron, I felt a pang of loss, for it felt as if I was definitively turning my back on Earth and everything I'd known in my first twenty-seven years of life. And I knew I had far more than that to live as Laeanna, but I couldn't help but feel that this return voyage was a sort of elegy to Larry Born, the husband, father, farmer, and doughboy.

"You just had a hot bath… what could you possibly be sad about, my love?" Calivar asked.

The last of the islands of the Outer Realms were retreating behind us, gradually disappearing into the haze. We'd commandeered the ships of two captains who'd been loyal to Nargillis, and one of them actually had a few decent amenities on board, though competition to use the tub was fierce. I'd exerted princess authority to be the first to use it (well… along with Meliswe). Poor Calivar was too large to fit in with another person, so he had to watch from nearby as we sloshed and giggled and soaped one another up, the sweat and grime of our journey washing off into the murky, sudsy water. We were probably a bit handsier than strictly necessary, and there may have been a pelagine, a tricky little water elemental, involved at some point. Afterward, I padded onto the ship's main deck in just a robe and stood at the railing, watching as the last of the land receded. Sighing, I let my husband massage my shoulders as the ship's crew tried their best to ignore the beautiful, half-naked princess standing in the middle of things.

"You're going to make somebody have an accident, you know… if we have a man overboard, I'm blaming you," Calivar said.

I kissed his cheek. "I'm allowed to stand on the deck of my ship dressed however I like. If somebody falls over, I'll drag him out myself…"

"Now you're just encouraging them…"

"And, with all that sea water all over me, I may need you to soap me up again…"

Calivar shook his head. "If you occupy the tub any more, we may be dealing with a mutiny. But you're avoiding my question. You're beautiful, freshly-bathed, and heading home with nothing but open ocean before you. Why are you down?"

"You're not? We're… I mean… I came to peace with the fact that I don't belong to Earth any more… that this is who I am now. But that was just in my head and in my heart. But, with each mile away from here, we're farther and farther from the one tiny portal back. That's as real as anything, and now it feels like I've abandoned my family and… well, now that I think about them and about how I'll never see them again, I've realized that the love I had for them was numbed, but it never really went away…"

Calivar pulled me in close and kissed the top of my head. I didn't cry, and neither did he, but there was a sense of shared loss between us. He hadn't had a family back on Earth - not a wife and kids, anyway - but he'd had a life, and his mother had been angling for years to get him a job in the civil service with good pay and benefits, and he had cousins he visited most summers, and friends in the army and at home, whom he'd enjoyed beer and dancing with on the weekends. His mother now thought he'd been killed over the Oise, just as mine probably did. We'd both known this. We'd known it for months now. But now that we'd saved the realms, we both had time to actually grieve what we'd lost and, as much as my heart told me I could never return to Earth, that didn't mean part of it didn't still ache.

"I'm going to find a way to visit, to see that my family's cared for," I said eventually. "If my heart doesn't have enough love in it for two worlds, it'll just have to grow."

"Well that doesn't sound very healthy," he said.

"And you are a cheeky ass!" I said, and I stood on my tiptoes to kiss him.

He beamed back at me, his eyes burnished in the afternoon light. "I am, shamelessly so, and you still love me!"

I found my melancholy quickly fading. I stuck out my tongue. "I do. But I love Meliswe more."

"Sometimes," Calivar said.

"Yes, sometimes," I admitted. The truth is that love isn't like weight or distance - you can't just measure it and say who you love more with any definitiveness. Not when you fully commit with your heart. It's like stating who's the greatest artist between Michelangelo, Rembrandt, and Monet, as if there wasn't room enough within your heart to appreciate them all.

"Good. Now that we've gotten that out of our systems, our wife wants you to go belowdecks and pick out which gown you want to wear when we sail into port and your mother announces that she's having you executed for losing her sword…"

"In that case, I hope it's got lots of red," I said. "Okay, my prince, let's go."