For the most part, Packory left Sloat alone upon the shore of the Forbidden Sea. But when at last it was time for the animal council, the frog came to rouse him from his empty vigil. Sloat nodded, and with a last heartsick gaze at the sea, turned and followed his guide. He reminded himself of the Tishaaran saying, “Honor the past, but do not plow it. Tend to the future for only it can bear fruit.” But the cloak of failure and regret could not be cast off so easily. He felt old and defeated; every step required effort and drained him of strength.
They climbed the ridge and walked silently along faint, deeply shaded woodland paths in silence. Abruptly, the ground opened into the mouth of a cave, large enough for a herd of cattle to pass through, guarded haphazardly by a pair of bored and inattentive black bears. Sloat and Packory reached the cave entrance before the guards even noticed them. The sentries stared at Sloat, but made no objection when Packory turned his back on them and led Sloat underground.
Bright eyes materialized on either side of them. As his own eyes grew accustomed to the dim light, Sloat saw that they were descending through a fearsome gauntlet of claws and fangs. There were badgers, foxes, wolverines, and cougars, as wild and dangerous as any beasts who have lost their fear of humans. Sloat looked hard for any wolves; he even harbored some hope that one or all of the surviving expedition members might be on hand. But he saw no friends, and no wolves.
“Extraordinary! A Third Realmer!” echoed whispered voices.
“A Tishaaran, if I am not mistaken.”
Sloat could not begin to guess at which voice belonged to which animal.
“Mageroy sent word you were coming,” came a voice as a large raccoon stepped forward. “We are honored to greet a guest from such a distance. Forgive our brusque manners, but our leaders are in the midst of an urgent meeting. This way, please.”
The trail sloped through moist rock and clay, down into the earth. Roars and grunts echoed and reverberated off the walls. The air hung with the overpowering richness of manure and cloying animal scents.
Eventually, the tunnel blossomed into a cathedral-like cavern filled with a silvery light. Once Sloat’s eyes adjusted, he could scarcely take his eyes off the most spectacular tree he had ever seen. It was massive, towering, ancient, with a gnarled, warty trunk, yet full and thriving. Despite the stillness of the air, the delicate green leaves that smothered its branches leaves rustled like a nesting cloud of butterflies as they showered droplets onto the clear pool of water in which it stood. Each drop ignited a flash of blue light as it broke loose from a leaf or branch, so that the tree resembled a fireworks display whose bursts of brilliance never fades but hangs in the sky, endlessly showering sparks toward the earth. That explained, Sloat noted, how the tree could grow in the absence of sun; it manufactured its own life-giving light. Water from the glowing pool flowed along narrow channels that disappeared into wet limestone walls.
A tight, ragged circle of animals was gathered on the flat, sandy bank off to one side of the majestic tree. Black bears and cougars paced relentlessly to bleed off their pent-up enerby, eyed warily by stately elk and moose, and several species of deer. Sturdy rams with curled horns, fierce razorbacks, and long-maned mustangs massed along the cave walls. Eagles perched sternly on crags near the ceiling. The smaller animals--gray squirrels, raccoons, badgers, foxes, coyotes, and porcupines--huddled in nooks on the cave floor, avoiding the feet of the larger beasts. All seemed to be crying out at once. The din reverberated so that Sloat felt the onset of a headache. Still, he saw no sign of any wolf, and that disturbed him.
Despite the badger’s assurances of safety, Sloat and Packory seated themselves well away from the unruly crowd, particularly the carnivores, near a wall studded with green stalactites. A deer politely placed before Sloat a burlap sack full of dried apples, apricots, a few raisins, and several unscrubbed carrots.
“Welcome, honored guest. I’m sure this falls far short of your regular fare,” said the doe, timidly.
“It looks wonderful, thank you,” replied Sloat, helping himself to a carrot.
If anything, the commotion in the cavern grew worse over time, as did Sloat’s headache. He could make no sense of the chaotic clamor. Far too many voices, far too much reverberation. A weather-beaten old porcupine seemed closest to being in charge. But even though it carried an air of authority on its sparsely-quilled body, not even it could not control the unruly audience for long.
For a time, Sloat strained to hear what was being said, but finally gave up on it, and leaned back against the rock wall and looked at Packory.
“Can you please tell what is going on?” he asked. “So far I have not been able to understand a thing.”
“Bunch of piddly details and petty yammerings that would bore you to compost,” came Packory's voice. “Now you can see why such a council as this is rare. We hate ‘em. When it comes to a council, beasts are painfully democratic. Everyone’s got to have their say. Most of them want to say it first, which means most of them are yakking at the same time. The result is this marvelous display of ineptitude. Takes forever to get anything done.
“Once we actually decide on something, it’s a different story. We delegate the practical decisions to a council of leaders, and BAM, stuff happens.”
Sloat looked at the frog expectantly. “You said the wolves were coming to this. Have you any idea where they are?”
Packory blinked at him. “Now I hear they aren’t coming. Some dust-up between them and the bison. That’s all I know. Wish I could tell you more. It's not like them, wolves in particular, to be bickering when there’s work to be done.
Wolves are normally so danged efficient and organized and systematic they drive the rest of us crazy. No sir, you don’t see wolves acting like this. Their absence has cast a bit of a cloud over this whole council, you know. The wolves and the bison are the two most powerful animal forces in the realm. Whatever we decide won’t have much heft without them.”
“Could their problems be in any way related to the other mysterious happenings in the realms?” suggested Sloat.
“Could be? Could be?” scoffed Packory. “They could have turned into sow bugs, if you want to talk about could be. I don't see where it does any good to speculate about things we have no way of knowing."
Sloat began cataloguing the species of beasts and noted some absences. “Are these all the animals that will be here? There seem to be some others missing besides wolves and bison. For example, I see no bobcats, nor grizzly bears nor members of the weasel family, nor bats.”
“The closest you’ll come to seeing bobcats and weasels and bats here is a pelt stuck to the wall. Along with rats, polar bears, wild dogs, carrion birds, and few kinds of hawks. And snakes. Can’t trust a one of ‘em. You won’t see any grizzlies here, either, but that’s because they don’t trust anyone.”
The pandemonium went on for hours and Sloat actually drifted off to sleep for awhile. When he awoke, incredibly, the noise actually seemed to be growing even louder.
“Anything happen yet?” he yelled to Packory.
“Yeah, believe it or not, it’s actually getting interesting. First, there was a report from a squadron leader of the swifts. They’ve been seeing some very unusual activity up in the west. A massing of some sort. Like the mustering of a huge army. Of course, no one can get close enough to get a good look--not even the swifts. But it at least appears that there are armies from the Western reaches, and mobs of wild animals, and even a few of the Terrible Ones.”
“Terrible Ones?”
“Creatures we beasts don’t claim as kin, from the wildlands way out west. Ugly as sin and not too bright, but not the kind to mess with.”
“That is strange, I have never heard of such . . . beings.”
“You think that’s peculiar, just now, an elk arrived with news that will singe your whiskers. If I’m catching what they’re saying, there’s someone who claims to have been to the Fifth Realm and insists on addressing the council at once. Huh, someone reached the Fifth Realm and lived to tell about it! Hey, maybe that means Roland has some hope.”
Sloat suddenly took an intense interest in the proceedings. “I do not suppose there is any chance he would know something about Roland? How large is the Fifth Realm?”
Packory arched an eyelid to the top of his head. “Like I would know that! Our stories say that in the Fifth Realm everything moves about like possum guts in a whirlpool. So I don’t know that you could find a bison there even if it was sittin’ in front of your nose. But if this guy’s been to the Fifth, I mean really been there, hey, this could get to be an eye-opener. Assuming old Hairrison--that’s the porky in charge--ever actually gets control of the floor so we can move on.”
A wave of howls, growls, and barks arose in something like a chorus.
“There we go,” said Packory. “Hairrison is calling for the elk, and the rest of ‘em are relaying the request.”
A hushed tittering followed, as a large and dignified elk strode to the mound where Hairrison awaited.
Sloat nearly fell over when he saw who walked at the elk’s side.
“Roland!” he gasped.
“Well, I’ll be dipped and fried in butter!” said Packory. “So it is. You know, this council is getting more fascinating by the minute!”
Sloat could not believe his eyes. If Packory had not confirmed his identification, he would have doubted it now. Even from this distance, there was much about the boy that did not seem remotely like Roland. Something wild about him, something unsettling. A gravitas, an air of authority. Almost a glow to him, although that could have been the strange lighting from the great tree. He somehow seemed years older and a lifetime wiser.
As the elk took up his position in the center of the gatheringg, silence fell over the cavern, disturbed only by the showering of the Raintree over the water. Sloat found that, as long as only one animal was speaking at a time, he could clearly understand it.
“Fellow beasts,” said the elk. “Two mornings ago, as I was preparing to answer the summons to the council, I came across this creature near my home to the north. Wet, shivering, starved, and stumbling through the woods. I will say only this because time is of the essence for the lower realms. When I heard what he had to say, I took only enough time to provide for his needs and then bade him climb upon my back. That is one back that has never been ridden by any living creature, yet I willingly offered it to this creature. We have rushed here without delay so that you may listen to what he has to say. Roland, I yield the floor to you.” With that he backed away, leaving Roland standing alone on the mound.
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
Ever since he had set foot in the Fifth Realm, Roland had been having difficulty distinguishing dream from reality. The vision that now sprawled before him--a mammoth cavern filled with thousands of animals whose eyes glowed in the light showering from the Raintree--certainly did not help matters.
Yet he did not find his audience intimidating in the least. Compared to the naked terror he had survived in the Fifth Realm, addressing a large public crowd barely registered on the scale of discomfort, even if that crowd was barely controlled rabble of highly strung beasts. Beyond that, he carried the burden of bearing perhaps the most ominous message ever brought into the lower realms since the forging of the realm bonds. That burden, and the mental scars from the encounter with the spirit world, made him feel old beyond his years and weary. Yet at the same time, they infused him with an unshakable sense of purpose.
“Fellow creatures, I am not going to bother to introduce myself for now, except to say that my name is Roland. Anything else about me would only cause confusion and I don’t want anything to detract from the message I have to bring. Once I have said what I have to say, I will answer any question about myself that you wish. And I will say only what I must about the Fifth Realm; the scars from the land of the undying are still fresh and to revisit it right now, even in memory, will be almost more than I can stand.”
“Can that really be Roland speaking?” Sloat whispered under his breath.The young man sounded so much more . . . authoritative.
“What I can tell you,” said Roland, “what I must tell you, is what I learned from Adonaram, a Seraph of the Fifth Realm. When I spoke with it of the sighting of Cold Flame in the lower realms, the Seraph told me that those flames have only one purpose: travel. Not for travel in the Fifth Realm, for they are not needed there. Only when traveling in the lower realms.”
“But they cannot travel in the lower realms!” came urgent voices. “The Realm bonds prevent it!”
Roland held up his hand. Something of the spirit of Adonaram seemed to be yet coursing in his veins, for he felt a sense of unshakable calm in the midst of the clamor. He sensed that someone, perhaps it was even Adonaram, was talking through him, using him to make the speech. His words did not sound like Roland, not even to himself.
“I brought up that very objection,” he said. “And do you know what Adonaram’s answer was? `The flames cannot be used in the lower realms so long as the realm bonds are in force.’’”
“That’s just what we said!” objected a fox. “They cannot travel in the lower realms. The realm bonds are in force forever! They are permanent, fashioned by the Creator. They are natural law. No one has the power to undo them.”
“I’m not here to argue,” said Roland. “I’m here to tell you what the Seraphim of Fifth Realm know and what they want you to know. You speak of realm laws. If by realm laws you mean something that can never be changed, then there are no realm laws, only realm bonds.”
A hellish chorus of yowls and shrieks erupted.
“No realm laws?”
“Rot!”
“Insanity!”
“Bonds are but another word for laws!”
“The bonds were formed not solely by the Creator, but by an alliance inspired to do the Creator’s will,” said Roland.
“Says who?!” screamed a boar. “Who are you that you claim all knowledge of how the Creator works?”
The intensity of the opposition coming from all corners of the cavern infuriated more than scared Roland. He was not sure what he had expected from this meeting but certainly outright rejection on a wide scale was not it. You idiots! I’m trying to help you! Beads of sweat soaked the hairs on the back of his neck as he struggled to fend off the skepticism.
“Myself, I don’t have any knowledge,” he said in a clear, controlled voice, standing firm against their snarling distrust.
“I’m reporting what the Fifth Realm knows. You want to go to there to check out my sources, or argue with them, be my guest.”
The challenge hung in the air, and as it did it deflated some of the more hostile emotions. Clearly, no one wanted to even consider the suggestion, not even those who doubted the realm’s existence.
“’Suppose we accept what you say,” said an eagle perched high above on a ledge. “Nonetheless, call them what you will, we have established that the bonds are permanent. Since that is so, what’s the difference how they came to be?”
“That’s just the point,” insisted Roland. “We have not established that they are permanent. In fact, the Seraphim are saying exactly the opposite. As with anything made by the skill of those who live in the lands upon earth, the realm bonds can be unmade.”
The cavern exploded again in howls and shrieks of defiance, disapproval and terror. Hairrison, growing angrier by the minute with the unruly behavior, struggled mightily to bring the group back to order. At last, he succeeded. “We will hear him out; then you may judge the value of his words. Not before,” he insisted. “Please, go on.”
“Yes, the bonds are incredibly strong,” continued Roland. “That’s why they have lasted for so many centuries. They are so strong that all the powers of all the spirits in the Fifth Realm and all the magic of all the sorcerers and wizards of the Fourth Realm could not bend them.”
“That’s what we said!” shouted the animals. “They are permanent.”
“If you’d stop interrupting, this would go faster,” Roland said, trying to stare down a couple of the worst offenders. But , of course, he could not really distinguish in this crowd who was communicating what. “Those who forged the realm bonds clung to the hope that one day all creatures would learn to live in peace and in mutual trust; that the world would one day be safe for the spirits of the Fifth Realm to again walk among the lower realms. And so they left open a way to dissolve the bonds, but only under the united alliance of creatures from every realm. Members of the First, Second, Third, Fourth, and Fifth realms must all be engaged in the process. Furthermore, among the Fifth Realmers, both a Seraph and a Nephil must work together in this task. Only when there is cooperation among all the realms, can the bonds be dissolved.
“The world has not changed appreciably in many millennia, however. The world is as it was. The Seraphim still feed on all that is good and the Nephilim on all that is evil and so cooperation between them is inconceivable. Although the Seraphim are themselves in torment over their isolation and would love nothing better for themselves than to see the bonds dissolved, they know the destruction the Nephilim would spawn if that were so, and they entertain no entreaties on the subject.”
Roland felt a collective relief exhaling from the animals at that revelation “See, we keep telling him they are permanent,” grumbled several beasts. “The fool doesn’t seem to know what the word means.”
“This sounds very complex,” said Hairrison. “Yet more comforting than disturbing. It does not seem possible that Seraphim and Nephilim could ever form the alliance necessary to break the realm bonds.”
“You would certainly think that’s the case,” said Roland. “But here’s where it gets interesting. Several years ago, a once-powerful Seraph named Ishyrus left the High Realm, without warning or explanation. That is a very serious and rare matter because once a spirit leaves the Fifth Realm, it gives up its immortality and has no guarantee off ever getting back. Not even the wisest spirit knows when or where the Fifth realm will touch upon the Fourth Realm shore, although they know more than we do about its tendencies.
"Anyway, this Ishyrus vanished into the lower realms and has not been seen since. At least not until I saw it last fall on the very same island where I saw the Cold Flames.”
Rumblings of confusion and discontent rolled across the cavern.
Roland continued, “So there is a maverick Seraph on the loose in the lower realms. We also know that an interrealm confederation has been formed. The Brookings of the Second are in this up to their eyeballs, as well as the Raxxars of the Third. All this is disturbing but certainly not conclusive.”
He took a deep breath. “But here’s the kicker. The Seraph I spoke to insists that under the realm bonds, Cold Flames cannot exist in the lower realms. When I described what I knew of the sightings, Adonaram said that we have not yet seen the flames in their fullness, that it seemed someone was trying to kindle them and was growing ever more successful in that attempt. Adonaram has no doubt that someone is trying to break the bonds and is on the very edge of succeeding.”
Deathly silence hung over the cavern.
Finally, the voice of the fox broke the silence and its words were fill with both terror and anger, “Quite the fanciful tale you weave! But I can see through your web of lies. The Fifth Realm touches our shore so seldom that many of us have never even seen it. And yet you claim that it conveniently picks you up and then, so obligingly, returns you to this realm just a few days after you found your way onto that accursed land. Do you expect us to believe that? Why, you were never there at all!”
Angry roars boomed off the cavern walls as the animals rallied to the comforting and plausible proposition that Roland’s talk was a lie
.
The attack temporarily rattled Roland. Now that he thought about it, that did seem a rather ridiculous bit of coincidental luck. But Hairrison came to his rescue.
“Think a moment, fox,” he said. “How many thousands of miles of our shoreline border the Fifth Sea? Even if we all spread out over the length of it, the Fifth could touch in a thousand places that none of us could see. Think of the Fifth as a boat. If a boat were to land on on our coast, only one animal in a million would see it. Yet anyone on that boat would see the Fourth Realm no matter where it docked.”
“Don’t give me so much credit for cleverness,” added Roland, relieved that Hairrison had cleared up that question. “Do you honestly think I could make up something like this? I don’t even understand half of what I’ve told you.”
Still, most of the animals grumbled and dismissed Roland as a dreamer or a madman, if not an outright liar. “I don’t think you’ve been anywhere near the Fifth Realm,” scoffed a fox.
“Look into his eyes,” said the elk, striding beside Roland atop the mound. “You will see something there that none of you have seen in your lives--a reflection of a light splendid and a darkness so terrifying that it is beyond our experience. That is not a reflection even the greatest wizard of the realm could conjure. Whatever you think of his speech, this creature has been to the Fifth.”
Those closest to Roland studied him carefully and there were loudly whispered reports that they could see what the elk was talking about.
“Well, he’s still a liar!” insisted a large core of animals.
All at once, Roland felt the shadow of a large, menacing beast fall upon him. He jumped back as a cougar walked purposefully up the mound and stood before him. Silence again fell over the cavern, as the big cat began to convey its thoughts.
“If I understand you rightly, this Ishyrus of the Fifth Realm has been in our realm for quite some time. Is that right?”
“Yes,” said Roland, wondering where this was going.
“And in the lower realms it communicate only through dreams and meditation. That sort of thing.”
“Yes, that’s what I’ve been told.”
The cougar turned to the bestial rabble. “Two moon cycles ago, in the caves near the Fifth Sea, I had a dream more curious than any I have ever experienced. In it, a stranger, who looked very much like myself came to me. It descended from the sky, in an aura of majesty and good will. It did not tell me it’s name. But it asked me to join it in a glorious quest for the good of the realms. All it needed, it said, was an army of beasts to join the cause and the new reign of peace and prosperity could begin. It promised great rewards, ecstasy and fulfillment more than the heart could bear, for those who followed it in this mission.
“It spoke persuasively and I was drawn to the promise that it offered. But in the end, I am a wild beast, and nothing courses so strongly in our veins than the craving to be free, and to follow no other being upon the earth, save the Creator. And so I when I awoke, I remembered the dream but thought little of it, and indeed soon put it out of my mind altogether. To be honest, I did not feel it to be of enough consequence to tell anyone about it."
It turned to Roland. “I have listened to this human’s tale, and I wonder now if that was not the Seraph he calls Ishyrus beckoning, seeking recruits to its cause. And I do not have such an inflated opinion of my worth to imagine that I would be the only beast sought out for this purpose. My guess is that if this was indeed a spirit attempting to influence me, it has cast its net far and wide seeking a Fourth Realm being to join its quest of breaking the realm bonds. And as I consider this, it occurs to me that here is a possible proof of the truth of Roland’s claim.”
It turned back now to the animal rabble and walked among them, the muscles in its shoulders rippling as it moved. “Has anyone among you had a similar dream?”
The cave grew utterly still for a few seconds before erupting again in bedlam.
“I have had that very dream!” shouted one animal after another. “Only it was my twin and not a cougar that came to me!”
Although none of the animals wanted to believe what Roland had reported, and many in fact had never believed in the Fifth Realm to begin with, the cougar’s endorsement and the widespread outbreak of similar dreams among had tipped the scales. None could deny that Cold Flames had been sighted in the lower realms, in defiance of realm law. Roland’s was the first explanation that came close to explaining it, and the details of his story were holding up. Virtually every creature in that now cavern now feared that the breaking of the realm bonds was more than a fanciful dream or even just a theoretical possibility. Incredible as it seemed, the realm bonds that had governed their world for centuries had been exposed as cracked, fraying, and ready to snap altogether.
As for Sloat, he was convinced. He had seen Roland in the mode of lying and deception and the Roland he saw before him bore no resemblance to that poor performance.
When the council broke up again into chaotic shouting and arguing, he approached his old travel mate with an ashen face. Indeed, the elation he had felt upon discovering Roland alive was now almost entirely overshadowed by an overwhelming dread of the implications of Roland's report.
The two clasped hands and held their grip as they searched each other’s eyes. Roland, who still was not certain whether he had said those strange words or someone had spoken through him, managed to smile and Sloat tried to match it, but found he could not muster the will.
“Welcome back, Roland,” he said, softly. “It is wonderful to have you back.”
They walked silently together in the soft glow of the cavern to the edge of the shining river. Roland sensed what Sloat was going through. As somber and as grim as he felt, as profoundly unnerving as his experience in the Fifth had been, he knew it was not nearly as disorienting as what Sloat was going through right now.
Sloat had believed the realm bonds to be immutable natural law. Roland’s revelation had been like discovering that the world was really flat after all. Or worse, that the gravity holding us to the earth was a recent, human-made phenomenon that could be switched off under the right conditions, and that someone had his hand on the switch right now. A major premise on which he centered his existence was shaken to the core.
After months of begging to know why he had been the focus of that ruthless search and destroy mission, Roland now understood what he had blundered into on the Rushbrook island.
"Ignorance has it uses," Digtry had so often remarked. For the first time, Roland suspected that had not been a flippant remark but an insightful comment on the human condition. What Roland had learned by blundering into the Fifth Realm made his heart ache for the sweet days of ignorance..
Somehow, the unthinkable alliance had been made. A denizen of the Realm of the Spirits had secretly risen up and gotten loose in the world of mortals. Silently, this apparition had taken up residence, grown its shadow, lengthened its reach, and strengthened its grip, with one purpose in mind: annihilating the ancient laws of nature that had protected the lower realms from the terrors of the immortal.
Terrors which Roland, above all, knew were beyond imagining. Terrors which were gathered on the doorstep of the lower realms.