Leo switched the portal to allow people and passed through. Immediately, the air changed. It was like being in the worst possible day in the Carolinas or Florida, the air was thick, as if he were breathing soup. But it didn’t feel wet like he would expect, and it seemed as if each breath was giving him more energy. Denser atmosphere?
Leo put it aside and turned back. The portal was in the trunk of a small tree had grown on this side. The Ygg’drasil offshoot was growing on top of a brilliantly glowing ball of pink light—it sort of reminded him of the Asti Sun node on the west side of the Blue river back home, but he felt Light, Soul, and another magic from the node—and the power being put out was closer to the Calasti Tree node.
All across the ground around the node were numerous geometric lines, statues, and a plethora of different magical shards imbedded in them—over a hundred. Magical shards were only used to craft artifact level items, and each one cost a thousand gold on Toth. A single shard was around his entire realm’s gross domestic product at this point. Between fifty and a hundred years of his whole realm’s income was represented in the rituals tied to this node. Great magic emanated from the various rituals. Although the waves of power Leo picked up were numerous enough that no concrete sense of the magic came through—it was a lot of them.
Leo began to feel that he might have bitten off more than his realm could chew by opening this particular portal.
His team, including Rezendria Ice Sower, followed. Lily waited until the last one passed through, then gave the slightest of bows to Leo with her hand over her heart—an odd gesture for his lover. She turned and began walking back down Ygg’Drasil.
As she did, Leo reached out and set the portal to allow no one through. He didn’t want to chance gifting these winged elves with the ability to invade his realm. If El was to be believed, they had people over Level Thirty, probably nearly as strong as Chester, and his people weren’t ready for that.
Heck, Leo wasn’t ready for that.
The winged elf stared at them all for a moment, tilting his head to the side. Leo was pretty sure he was trying to figure out how to take a bunch of wingless people out of a stone column with no obvious, easy way to climb. Probably saw their lack of wings as a crippling loss, the same way that the dragons saw Hugh.
“Allow me,” Zun said, drily. Mind magic settled around Leo, and he was presented with an option to resist or accept an effect that he knew came from Zun. Leo assumed she was attempting to raise them from the hole with telekinesis. Thinking about his own powers, Leo resisted. The rest of the group started to rise, and Zun faced her blind eyes at him.
I need to establish in their mind the fact that we’re impressive and not helpless, Leo thought.
As the others rose, Leo focused his magic on the powers he had been granted as a priest of Asnandi, and space twisted. With a woosh of displaced air, Leo was standing on the edge of the stone tower, facing the city for the first time.
He leaned back to dodge a spear blow from one winged elf soldier—dressed in white enameled chair armor with a sunburst over the chest. The soldier let out a startled exclamation, a single word that his ring translated as ‘outside the treatise’ and ‘unexpected’ both—clearly a word that didn’t have an exact parallel in his brain.
Leo was vaguely aware of conversation between El and the others, winged elves hurrying around in robes and gesticulating at each other. But he was focused on the beautiful city around him.
Leo would have put New York against this and given New York the win, pretty easily. But compared to anything he had ever seen on Toth, this city took the cake. It was built on the side of a mountain that went in two directions as far as Leo could see and up further than he could see as well. The city stretched in tiers down over a mile till it reached the edge of an oddly calm ocean or truly massive lake.
The city was built on ground level for the most part, Leo was surprised and pleased to see. Although ‘ground level’ changed every couple hundred feet as the city dropped down the mountainside. But the city of stone, stained glass, and giant trees had a clear second level with thin bridges between numerous buildings, and quite a few localized floors with much higher numbers than two. Numerous buildings appeared old, with a weathered stone look that felt vaguely reminiscent of cathedrals Leo had seen on a trip to Europe. But all of it soared to the heavens, with a clear preference for vertical architecture with landing areas on the sides for the winged elves.
Much of the lower level was vegetation, much of it in glorious bloom, with flowers everywhere. A riot of colors, mostly pinks and whites, but some places with gold. It had the ambiance of a floating city built over a massive park, even though the buildings didn’t float. And the air smelled of fruit and spring, and a fresh breeze blew through the city in a constant stream. Flower petals wafted through the air.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
The city was massive. Leo didn’t know enough about the population density of winged elves to truly do a decent estimate, but their had to be a minimum of half a million people in the city. Half of Leo was filled with wonder at the sight.
But half of him was chilled with fear. I just opened a portal to a city with probably close to fifty people for every one my entire civilization has—with powerful magic and a complex, advanced society. I might be wiping myself out here, or, given how pacificistic they seemed, perhaps just slowly turned into a district of their city with an unusual amount of local color.
I might be better for the people of Ice Pines, but very little of their culture will exist in a couple hundred years. I need to be very careful I don’t disappear, a small ant absorbed by this colossus.
Leo laughed to himself. That was a weird idiom.
“Wow Leo, you take us to all the coolest places,” Hugh said as he floated up over the stone edge and landed next to Leo, slightly shaking the stone tower. “This view is amazing. I hope your mortal hive looks this amazing someday.”
Hugh paused for a moment, the continued, his voice hungry. “By Merdrek’s Teeth, I bet they’ve invented all the best wine.”
“I’m sure the view is amazing,” Zun grumbled.
Neha caught a petal out of the air. “I have no idea what this plant is. I love when you take me to these places, Dad. I just… know… everything about nature on Toth. I can’t wait to discover what is here.”
Andul and Rezendria remained silent, as did Neha’s foxes, but all stared around in wonder as well.
El finished his gesticulations and came over. He watched Leo’s face—probably my eyes—and smiled a smug smile. However, he did also bow, and flourished his hands in a pattern Leo didn’t recognize. “I offer apologies on behalf of my Emperor, Emperor Tang Ri’an, gifted with the name of Ro upon his ascension, and my people, the people of the Empire of the One Land. I hadn’t had the chance to assure them of your goodwill and advanced ethical state.”
“Forgiven,” Leo said. “Honestly, not a big problem.”
“Then I assume you will not be requesting formal redress for his offense against your person, a diplomat from another realm?”
“No… I think we can forgo that,” Leo said, still bemused.
“Excellent,” El said, bowing slightly. The soldier bowed far deeper to Leo, extending his wings out as he did. Leo awkwardly tried to return a bow but slightly widened eyes and a flat handpass from El told Leo that might be a faux paux, so he aborted the motion a tiny bit of the way through.
The group followed El as he led the procession through the city. Multiple groups of the winged elves marched or walked in obvious patterns as they went—the big divide seeming to be between the scholars associated with El and the soldiers with Eng. Andul rode Zun as the two floated down the paths, and Rez and Neha rode Juri and Sumoon each, the giant bush-tails acting as shade for them. Remy walked between the two. Leo and Hugh just walked—Leo because he did everything he could to catch some exercise, and Hugh because who could possibly carry the big galoot? Leo quietly giggled to himself at the thought of the world’s most overworked palanquin bearers, like a bad cartoon with a palanquin that sagged all the way to the ground.
The entire procession moved along the roads, between beautiful trees with pink flowers. They also passed numerous statues of winged elves, most holding scrolls or books in their hands, but a few older ones defeating dragons in combat. They headed upward almost the entire time, away from the curiously calm ocean. Most roads had both a sloped ramp and a stairway along the side for reaching the next city tier, but their team had so many large members they just ended up using the ramps the entire time.
As they continued onward, the buildings around them became larger and more elaborate, the statues more common, and numerous decorated arches started to brace the roads. A couple intersections even had ‘buildings’ covering the entire intersection, with art on the exterior and interior alike.
Eventually, they came face to face with the imperial palace. It was massive, and its architecture, like much of the city, reminded Leo more of a grand cathedral than anything else—however, this one was more like a cathedral larger than any Leo had seen surrounded by four other cathedrals and linked by sky walkways of stone. The interior was a huge, constantly moving waterway except for numerous small islands with beautiful trees.
El motioned to the front gates, guarded by ten winged elven soldiers in intricate garb. “Shall we?”
Leo moved forward. As he did, more and more soldiers joined him. He crossed over a stone walkway that rose from ground level to enter the central cathedral through a huge upper entrance, one surrounded by hundreds of small stained glass windows that seemed to be telling a story of an winged elf rising to power and defeating an absolute ton of dragons. Leo was then led through a succession of rooms that felt more museum—or perhaps the hall from Kung Fu Panda—with numerous treasures all along the walls and on stands, many of which radiated great magic. Each with greater treasures that the last, and each with multiple elves in silk robes and a batch of soldiers both.
Eventually, they came to another huge door on the interior of the cathedral, and guards pushed it open while sounding horns. All of the elves around Leo went to their knees and then touched their foreheads to the ground, and bumped their heads on the ground as they moved forward. Rez also got down and did the same, but the rest of his team simply walked in. Audible gasps came from various attendants or perhaps ministers in ostentatiously colored outfits, the same ones as El wore, between togas and kimonos with multiple layers.
The center had a huge throne with a back that bent outward to make allowance for wings. The throne itself was covered in white fur, and sitting in the center was one of the winged elves in a snow-white pseudo-kimono. At first Leo thought the emperor a girl, due to the fine and delicate features, but after a moment he realized it was a boy—perhaps ten or twelve, Leo thought, although he still didn’t have the best sense of elf children ages even after almost two years around elves.
An elf near them called out, “The Golden Emperor, The Emperor Ro, called Tang Ri’an before his ascension, the true emperor of the One Land, blessed by the winds high and low, shall now hear the petition of the outsiders and shall bless them with his words.”
The emperor is a child?