Sleep. As a kid, Alaya had loathed sleep. With such a short amount of life behind her, why would she ever want to miss anything awesome that might happen? Now though, sleep was a blessed release from the ineffable number, from endless stress, and from the pain of her past. Except for the nightmares and the first few bits of cyberware she had installed cured those. Now though, she was aware she was asleep which made the problems of reality invade one of her final safe spaces.

“One dose of dreamlessness please?” Her voice echoed through the air, dispelling a grey fog curling around her. Mouldering bits of wood and thin pools of tepid water resembled the last true home Alaya could remember. But the colors were wrong. That old decaying ocean from her home had been grey, with motes of sparkling whites and blues. Very little had been green, except perhaps for the occasional bit of chartreuse will-o-wisp floating in the air.

“That sounds lovely.” Alaya jumped from the dry spot where she stood into the curdled green water. Bits of stringy plant-stuff fell on her as she pushed through a mass of stringy white fluff she’d never seen before. “Moss and spider web”

“Really?” The words captured Alaya’s attention. “This stuff is moss?” she held up a clump of dried, matted material which had clung to her… robes? All sense of fear had departed from her and Alaya couldn’t say why. Nor could she access her assistants, co-processors, or cyberware.

“It is called tree moss.” It looked to Alaya more like hydroponic plant medium than anything she’d ever seen called moss.

“Where’s the spider from the web?” Of course Alaya had seen spiders before, in various data entries or on Net films. But in real life? Never. Apparently Halocon, one of the artificial moons of Saturn, had a whole farm of spiders producing silk. The material was absurdly expensive, a fact Alaya knew because she’d stolen a shipment of the cloth once.

“Check your shoulder.”

At no point did the voice identify itself, at least not yet. But Alaya had forgotten that concern too. Turning her head eagerly, she found the spider clinging to her drab robes. The cloth it stood on reminded Alaya of packing canvas or material used for making cheap bags. It was shiny black and larger than she’d expected. Two little arms rose up as she stared at it and it waved them at her. “Cute!” She reached out to touch it, but then someone reached her first.

A gnarled, wrinkled old hand with fingers like fine control armatures, grabbed her wrist. “You have no fear, do you?”

“Pff.” Alaya found herself strangely unable to hold in her dismissiveness. “I am afraid of lots of things.”

“That’s good.” The old woman, with stringy white hair and gaps in her mouth waggled her wild bushy eyebrows at Alaya. “You’re curious but not entirely stupid.” She released Alaya’s wrist and took a step back from her, hiking up her own white robe as she did. As with her normal world, the woman’s clothing set her clearly apart from Alaya. Her robes were fine spun and bleached perfectly white. A single cord painted gold wrapped around her waist and from it a small silver curved blade Alaya had never seen before hung from the cord. “It is called a sickle.”

“Can you read my thoughts?” Again, Alaya should have been panicked about that. But it was just a fact, like there was no air in the void, radiation was lethal in sufficient dose, and this woman wouldn’t hurt Alaya. Hard to be believe, but clearly true?

“Indeed.” The woman clicked her tongue at Alaya and the spider jumped off of her shoulder and skated across the water toward the woman. “This place can very much harm you, but I will not.”

“This place? Where are we?”

The woman swept her hand out in an arc and the fog retreated before her gesture. “Once this place was called the Summerlands.” Massive trees, bigger than anything Alaya could have imagined or seen in a Net broadcast, rose out of the lakes on open canopys formed form stilt-like roots. Their trunks reached up higher than the Mousehome from nose to tail. “That is called a Mangrove tree.”

“You’re answering even the questions I don’t ask?”

“Your modern AI does the same thing, does it not?” The woman bowed and pointed to herself. “Consider me an analogous figure. I can read your thoughts and guide you through the dangers of the Summerlands.”

“It’s dangerous here?”

“Oh, it’s always been dangerous here.” The woman’s eyes glowed with a green inner light as she answered. “The real danger to you, the immanent danger lies in the real world. There is no avoiding your fate. Except to say that you should not despair. Not only do the gods look out for you, but you have two worldly patrons… invested in your survival.”

“What are you talking about?” The green light from the woman’s eyes grew brighter and brighter. “I will greet you again during the long sleep and your time of mastery. The Verse takes her price, and though I will not apologize for Her, I can sympathize.” The old woman stood erect and her white robes faded as the body beneath glowed.

Green light all around now, Alaya’s vision blurred until all she could see were the outlines of countless scars. Some decorative, others surgical, and far more the result of violence, all were the product of pain and all fulfilled a deeper purpose. What, Alaya could not quite say, but she suspected she would find out.

This time when she snapped awake, she didn’t run into anyone’s head. But like last time, Alaya had an absolute conviction she was awake. It was hard to put her finger on, hard to define precisely, but she was pretty sure she would always know when she dreamt from now on.

All of her cybernetics responded and Alaya let out a calming breath. The old woman’s words were already fading and none of her systems had properly recorded them. She quickly noted what she could remember and laid back down on her mattress. “Maybe nice, comfortable mattresses were not a good idea.”

Hand against her forehead, Alaya had the intense urge to stay in bed and pretend she’d never woken up in the first place. Without being able to say why she knew it exactly, Alaya knew she’d be kicked back into consciousness if she tried it.

“Fine then I’ll get up.” Dressed and made up faster than most mornings, Alaya activated her self-cleaning routines rather than enjoy a shower or anything more decadent.

From the records onboard, their ship was within a few hours of reaching the Root and turning in their haul. There were lots of notes on the file for Alaya and each one came down harder and harder on her optimistic mood. By the end, the old woman’s words had Alaya’s throat tight and her head ringing with doubt.

Isham, Evan, Kirk, and Gaz had all expressed doubts about this, with Isham and Gaz’s being the strongest. Everything they said lined up too, checked from the sensor reports to the conclusions the two offered. Either the Root clergy were going to double-cross them or the root clergy were under assault somehow. What the former entailed was obvious, but the latter was rather broad. From some kind of bloodless internal squabble to an actual hot conflict raging among the branches of the Root, Alaya had no clue and neither did her crew. One of the main reasons they hadn’t turned and just left was because the odds favored a conflict. Other, perfectly excellent reasons remained. Chief among them was that an internal squabbles always produced spillover effects which could look like bad faith.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Alaya dropped into slow time to review the information her crew had supplied. She tended to give Gaz’s opinion more credit than she might have given someone else. But Gaz had stopped short of recommending retreat. Isham too. And at the other side of this mission’s successful completion: Kowal.

It was a simple calculus for Alaya. If the Root priests attacked them, Alaya wasn’t too worried about overcoming them. If the rogues were any indication, the priests would be pushovers. The real question was how that would affect her ability to find Kowal. The Root priests had better come through on their end if they wanted to keep themselves safe from her.

“Hey Gaz.” All of her crew stood on the conn in the projected space available to view the field of engagement.

No one acted surprised to see her up and about. Gaz must had told them. “Hey Alaya. We’re an hour from docking.” Her finger pointed toward the large mass of vegetation where they were aimed.

“Hey ‘Laya!” Kirk-Vora waved to her, bending her knees and bouncing as if it were the happiest moment of her life.

Very dramatic, Kirk. “Heya Kirk.”

“You’re feeling okay?” This was Evan, arching an eyebrow at her from the back of the group, he stood in the shadow of a large passing cargo ship which had cleared its route with both the Root and the Mousehome.

“Never better.” She’d said the words flippantly, but it was true. Aside from a little lingering guilt over the way the Rogue station had gone and a certain unease from the old woman’s prediction in her dream, Alaya felt terrific.

“Good.”

Isham lurked in the back silently. His objections about walking back into the station were worded a good deal stronger than Gaz. He couldn’t dispute the probabilities, but he contended their potential payout and loss would not have been worth it anyway. Considering the strength of those objections, Alaya appreciated the fact he didn’t voice them in the moment.

“Alright people. Let’s get this done and get our little debt to the Root clerics settled. I’ve read the reports and I’m not…” She squared her shoulders. “I’m not ignoring the facts. This could be a setup and we should be ready for it. Isham and Kirk are staying with the ship no matter what. Gaz and Evan are sticking with me along with Kirk-McRory and Kirk-Vora. Got it?” No one complained or asked questions. “Good, let’s talk contingencies…”

More than anything else, Alaya wanted Gaz safe and the others as safe as they could be. Isham and Kirk would be the best off aboard the Mousehome. They had weapons access and Alaya very much doubted the local Cluster guidelines would apply to shooting their way out of another ship or station. Evan was with Gaz because the two of them were close to indestructible together.

And this time they were loaded for ship-to-ship combat. Wherever possible, Alaya had everyone setup and activate their most powerful weapons. The Root people might have some strange anti-killing beliefs, but that didn’t mean Alaya would go easy on them.

The Mousehome danced among the roots of the living station. Just like a real mouse bounding over and between tall grasses, Alaya’s ship dodged portions of the station until she came to land on a wooden platform. Like last time, the trees and branches swallowed them up right before they disembarked.

Lodrun met them at the bottom of the ramp, alone. Optical sensors scanned the area for anything suspicious, but the priest was alone. “I trust you found the seed?”

“We have it in our cargo hold.”

His face, placid until then, bloomed into a cheek-splitting grin. “That is fantastic news. May I see it?”

“Sure, but I want to make sure our understanding is clear.” Alaya had expected Lodrun to take her elsewhere and have some second group retrieve the seed. But he wanted to see it now. “You’re going to arrange it so we know when Kowal is leaving, before he actually leaves?”

“I will tell you the precise time of his departure right now if you would prefer.” Lodrun’s smile remained wide. “Provided you allow me to inspect the seed.”

“Done. Open the hatch guys.” It was colloquialism her father had preferred. The ramp from their cargo area opened and the suspensor-protected seed slid down the ramp under careful controls.

Lodrun’s eyes widened in joy, almost tearing up, as he laid eyes on it. “You really stole it for us. Wonderful!” He stepped closer to the seed and the ramp-conveyor and the nano-swarms Alaya released into the station on instinct began to drop off of her comms. Optics reported disturbances in the wooden floor.

“Is something wrong, Lodrun?”

He turned back to her. “Nothing at all. Just let me check the seed.”

“I’ve got real bad vibes, team.” Evan spoke over comms. It would have irritated Alaya coming from anyone else. It still irritated her a little bit because the source of his concern — magic — was something she hardly understood.

“Run a hard scan with ship sensors. Don’t pull any punches.” Alaya reported back to the ship while Lodrun continued his path toward the seed. He spread his arms out and lifted his chin.

“I didn’t think I would ever see one…” his voice was blissful, joyous, “and you brought it to me. To us.”

Alaya shook her head, sniffing as something caught her. It was far more subtle than the mind-games the Rogues had played with her. She had a feeling her automated protections would have kicked in if they’d tried it a second time. This was simply a paralysis effect. One moment Alaya’s body performed the slow, random moments to mimic nature, the next she couldn’t even speak over comms.

Lodrun placed a hand gently on the surface of the seed and sighed as he closed his eyes. “Huh.” He turned back to Alaya. “What did you do?” It wasn’t an angry question, more curious and still filled with joy. “I suppose it doesn’t matter. Kill them all except for the leader. Do it now.”

McRory twitched and Kirk’s voice buzzed over comms “…ot me!” and then was silent.

Evan and Gaz broke into motion, Evan hurling a spell like the one he’d used to cure Alaya of her ensorcellment aboard the Root clergy outpost. Unlike that time though, a field of wood rose up between Alaya and Evan and blocked the spell. When it dropped again, Alaya’s optics showed Evan pierced through by dozens and dozens of sharp vines, bleeding from every wound.

They’d lain into Gaz the same way, but the wood struggled to actually hurt her.

Massive cords of vines and branches roared by Lodrun, shaking his robes with the speed and sheer volume of plant matter. They engulfed the seed and then roared up the loading ramp into the ship’’s interior. Weapons fire broke out from the hangar along with shouting. Bits of vine shot out of the hull of the Mousehome while the weapon’s fire died down. Her ship sank into the wooden floor, plants and other matter bursting out from the interior.

The last thing Alaya saw before the mass of plant life swallowed her was Gaz. A large branch the size of a loader arm rose up and crushed Gaz against the wooden planks. It came up with bits of sparking and burning nano machinery clinging to the wooden surface. As if to be sure, it smacked down over and over. Alaya tried to scream, would have loved to. But the magic holding her in place was firm.

Then nothing.

“As I was saying,” the old woman stood in the exact same spot of the swamp she’d stood in when Alaya had been asleep. But this time, Alaya was’t asleep. “The Verse requires pain.”

She screamed, she’d had been unable to scream before. Her lungs took in the heftiest breath they could manage. And she let her fury and agony out in a single breath. “Gaz!” Her eyes and nose ran as she fell into the fetid waters of the swamp. Her throat burned and her jaw ached by the time she stopped screaming. It was lack of effort, but her body — whatever counted as her body in the state she was in — could not scream any longer.

I’m not dreaming. Systems blinked red across the board. She’d lost connection to everything but the core components of her cyberbrain: her cranium, much of her spine and a few nascent sensory connections. The sensors were gone. Have I gone mad?

“We’ve already been over this. You are in the Summerlands. You are not insane.” At once the flush of calm covered her again. With the snap of her fingers, the woman literally snapped at Alaya, all of her emotional wracking vanished. “You’re not gonna be useful like that.”

“I’m not asleep?” Her voice was hoarse and sandpaper-dry.

“At least you’re not senseless anymore.” The old woman snorted. “I told you just a moment ago, you’re in the Summerlands.”

“But was dreaming, was’t I? How am I here, what happened to the others, to Gaz, and… oh Gaz.”

“We know what we knew and what you know.” The woman tiled her her head and winced. “Maybe a tiny bit of the future too, I suppose. But we don’t know what happened to your friend. I’m sorry to say it, but until you’re right with the Verse, she’s gonna keep takin’ pain from you.”

“She can’t do worse.” Through the magic driving away Alaya’s dense of despair, she could still feel that vague sense of abandonment. “I’ve lost everyone. All of them.”

“Have you now?” The old woman’s tone was dismissive, but Alaya couldn’t even bring up anger over it. “Get up and get ready. We’ve only got a certain amount of time to prepare you. Fortunately for you, you’ve got those little doodads jammed in your skull. We can do more with a few months than my order accomplished in twenty years.”

“What are you talking about?”

The old woman spread her arms wide and the world around them dissolved, melting into the ground. “You’re going to learn magic. Or die trying.”