24
“Had it been real?” he’d asked himself, torn by doubt and the clinging shreds of a borrowed life. Very long, not entirely joyous or noble, and violently… horribly… ended. Worse, with an enemy left that still lived, still remembered, and now maybe knew where he was.
Nameless and Firelord had experienced none of this turmoil but sensed his distress. The marten’s response was a vicious ear-nip that snapped the elf partway out of his spiral. Firelord added a burst of manna, healing the ear and improving his flight skills (never the best).
He felt… unbalanced. Top-heavy. With a grand, epic two-thousand-twenty-year life on the one hand, and five short months on the other. Had to pack it away somehow or go mad. The shrine-goddess, meanwhile, had summoned a splendid meal and soft music. She no longer looked like (his) Hana. Seemed to remember nothing at all beyond welcoming weary travelers and repeating the latest (very old) gossip.
Travelers’ Rest… So, the shrines were a system of waypoints? Places of healing and rest? Fit with what he’d learned from that borrowed existence, along with all that he’d done in his lifetime as Miche-who-used-to-be-Val.
Time did not matter, here. Or… it flowed sideways, somehow, passing tangentially to the outside world. Once all of the shrines were active, again, he could maybe access any place, any when, in their span. Something to think about, anyhow. Question was, how far back did the shrine-system reach? How long ago would it take him?
For something to do besides eat, wonder and listen to ages-old news, he pulled the spring stone out of its pocket and placed it gently onto the altar. Just a small, opaline rock, it sparked a bit on contact with this new healing shrine.
“Her place is not here, Mishe-tah,” said the goddess, rematerializing to look over his right shoulder. “Nor is it nearby… but she is strengthening. All of us are.”
He nodded, fighting the urge to slip an arm ‘round her waist and draw her in for a very deep kiss, as so many times he’d… not done, because he wasn’t that person, and this wasn’t his Hana. A bit more harshly than intended, he snapped,
“Good to know, Goddess. Thank you. By way of useful information, do you know where this ‘Fallen One’ dens?”
She went temporarily blank; lovely face stilling, golden hair ceasing to drift. Then…
“He is north, past the Walking City, beyond the High Station, to Far Keep… but there is much that is not accessible. Sites and nodes that have darkened. I do not know more, Old One.”
And it hurt him to stay in that place. Twisted like knives in his heart, to hear a voice that no longer sparkled with love. The elf got himself under control. Stuffed away useless emotion along with the spring stone. Said,
“Again, good to know. I intend to find and activate the next shrine on the map…” (which now showed the rift as a narrow canyon and featured six urgent travel advisories regarding the city of Amur) “…and, for all you have shown me, my thanks, Goddess.” For all it had cost her, as well.
Taking and pocketing most of that wonderful food, he next made his way up the garden-bowl’s side to its entrance. Funnily enough, never felt himself standing sideways. Just watched his environment curving around, overhead, with that miniature sun always central.
The shrine-goddess followed as far as the mouth of the tunnel. Before he stepped through, she said very softly,
“Once you have finished this quest, when all of the nodes are awakened, again… come back to me, dearest one.”
Got that out, but no more, because the garden collapsed once again; dissolving her shrine back to bright dots and thin, glowing lines, with: System restart in 10… 9… 8… spinning away in the middle. He pivoted, reached, but the portal took hold and ejected him out of her garden, back to a passage of mica-flecked stairs.
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He stood there, numb, for a very long moment; needing to leave, but unable. Then, bowing his head, fist to brow, he replied,
“I will return, once my task is complete and all that is wrong has been healed.”
…And if the way back led through this 'Fallen One', best that shriveled-up corpse-lord look to itself. The elf sketched a sigil onto the tunnel wall that meant ‘home site’ or ‘refuge’. Now, instead of the rock-shelter, this was the place he’d appear, if he had to escape in a hurry. He placed a hand on warm, gritty stone beside those pale lines, then turned to leave. Down the steps, and out through the portal once more.
The elf had no patience at all for the steaming swamp that was Amur. So, he shot up high in the air, past the clouds and out into westering sunshine. It was cooler up there and windier, with no sign of whatever had cast that dragon-like shadow and taken the hopeful Amurites.
Instead, as he burst through swirling white mist, the elf saw a chain of remarkable floating islands. They looked like inverted mountains, with broad and forested tops. Ending below in rough points, their rocky flanks were pocked with great caverns. Dozens of waterfalls cascaded from the nearest isle, creating ribbons of shining gold light that ended in fog. It was an incredible sight, with a rippling ocean of cloud down below and an endless horizon of blue, up above. Enchanted, Firelord left him to rocket around and explore. Probably safe. Hopefully.
The elf would have joined him… only, Marget still waited, below. Despite over two-thousand years of added, false memory, Miche remembered, still. Got himself reoriented with the aid of his map, then half-flew, half-drifted to Amur’s south border. There, he plunged downward again. Left the cool air and sunlight, sinking through dense, swirling mist and back to that reeking, tropical stew.
Marget did not see him coming. She’d edged out to almost the end of their thicket, growling and rolling her shoulders. Would have been terribly visible, had the Amurites been looking anywhere else but the portal and clouds. She sensed the pressure change caused by his drop, though, looking upward in time to help steady Miche (Val)’s landing.
“Hunh,” the orc scoffed. “Your stealth needs work, Old One. You are more fluttering goose than owl.”
He smiled, seeing Marget as a beloved comrade and friend. As sister-in-battle. Touching down, he gave her a forearm-grip handclasp that came from a war-leader, not a hunted, lost exile.
“Enough of this sinkhole, Marget,” he said. “If you trust to the skies again, I’ve something to show you, above.”
The orc’s red eyes narrowed suspiciously. Leaning in, she snuffed at him. Rumbled,
“It is you, and not. What chanced in yon shrine, and why does another look out through your eyes, Vrol?” A very good question, and one he was still working out, but...
Miche levitated enough to look the orc square in her face, then did his best to explain, saying,
“I went into the garden shrine and found it in good repair. I warned the goddess before she welcomed me in, that all of this…” he gestured broadly around at the steaming forest and rank, dirty Amur. “…is maybe my doing, caused by something I did.”
Marget snorted.
“You take too much on yourself, Vrol. My doings are mighty, but they don’t destroy worlds. You are only a male.”
An attitude he’d… encountered before? Miche-not-Val-any-longer nodded.
“Whatever I did, whoever I was has been mostly taken away. The shrine-goddess let me experience some of what happened here. If I seem different, it is because... for two thousand years I was somebody else. His tale ended in war, death and defeat of the elves by this Fallen One. There were some who escaped, though; out to the space between stars.”
She’d been staring at him in that very direct way of hers.
“This other is no spirit or shade,” she growled. Stating, not asking.
“No,” he assured her. “Just somebody else’s past. Lord Erron of Sky-Vale, leader of battles, captain of Javelin…husband and father. Not me… but tough to set aside.”
Marget shook her head, making all of those hundred rough braids fly and causing her armor to rattle.
“Not a good thing to do, to one with little left of their own. You are very young for your breed, Vrol, yes?”
The elf gestured, lifting both arms from his sides and then dropping them.
“I have only months of my own, Marget… in which you’ve been a true bright spot. I’m sorry that I disrupted your mating fight, but I am very glad that we met.”
The orc leaned in to touch her forehead to his, then stepped away. Scooped little Spots up, as the fawn had been butting her legs impatiently.
“I am satisfied, Old One,” she said. “Though you have been someone else, yet it is you. My brother and friend. Come! I tire of cities and heat. Show me this very great sight that you spoke of.”
He smiled, laid a hand on the orc’s corded green arm, then used magic to levitate all of them. They rose smoothly, soon leaving Amur behind. Broke out of the clouds into glory and sunshine and magical islands that spun and floated like thistle-down.
Marget’s jaw dropped.
“Cloud castles,” he told her. “For you.”