He sat atop the craggy peak, feeling the cool, crisp air whistle across his bark. Below stretched a wide expanse of sunlit trees and snow-dappled hills and gentle rivers wending their way lazily through lush green valleys. Garrain knew every tree, every branch, every leaf, and all the innumerable things that scurried or slithered or fluttered among them.
“Grarara!” said his nestling, Chielle, gazing up at his moss-covered face.
“Isn’t it quite?” said Garrain solemnly. “Grarara indeed.”
“I think she means ‘glorious,’” tweeted the swiftwing perched in his upper branches. It had taken Nuille years to master the art of speaking in this form, and others besides. It wasn’t quite her voice, but the words were clear.
“Indubitably not,” he said. “She means ‘grarara.’”
“Dubidubi!” said Chielle.
It wasn’t long before the little one grew fidgety. Garrain rose and stretched his creaky branches, yawning dramatically. Chielle giggled, then let out a chirrup of excitement as he broke into a run, planting his roots deep into the cracks of the rocky slope with each step. Nuille took to the air, fluttering just above his crown. Chielle’s drackenic wings also fluttered, but she wasn’t ready to take flight just yet. For now, those wings were purely decorative.
Garrain’s swift strides carried them back down into the sprawling settlement of Wengarlen—one of several places they called home these days. No longer a circle, Wengarlen bore little resemblance to the town he’d grown up in. Traditional housetrees stood alongside stone spires and log cabins and hillside burrows. Almost as many dwarrows roamed the garden paths as did forest alvari. Smaller communities of mer and high alvari and trows had also arisen in their midst, as their disparate peoples congregated to bring the next generation of greenhands into the world.
Similar intermingling had occurred across Ciendil; on the slopes of Fellspur, within the floating walls of the Pillar of Strife, and on the ash-covered plains of Hraith. Forest alvari and dwarrows had likewise settled in Grongarg, Lumium, and within the Hall of Eternity, where they enthusiastically set about the task of creating new wielders of distant magics.
The formation of the Triarchy, as the newly-established confederation of branches had become known, had led to situations he wouldn’t have dreamed of in his younger spans. One such situation was rushing to meet them right now.
“Elders, look at this!” shouted Meveki the fledgling dwarrow, her voice filled with unrestrained glee.
Garrain sighed inwardly. It would be many spans before Nuille’s hair silvered and his leaves yellowed, and yet their students insisted upon calling them elders. The true elders of Wengarlen were long dead, and there had been no-one else to take up the mantle, so it had fallen on them.
Meveki held out her hand, closed her eyes, and breathed deep. For a long moment, nothing happened. She opened her eyes, huffed in frustration, then closed them and tried again. This time, a cloud of tiny lights danced at her fingertips.
“Very good, Meveki!” said Nuille.
It was indeed impressive that one so young, who had not yet bound her magic to a focus, could summon a swarm of fire gnats. Meveki was not the first of the new greenhands to cross this threshold, but she was the youngest. Her future would be bright indeed.
Garrain’s younger self would have laughed at the suggestion that there would one day be dwarrow and trow and mer greenhands living together with alvari in Wengarlen. But his younger self had been a cretin.
There were—and would always be—those who fought against the unification; those who sought a return to the endless wars of the past. Threats lingered outside the Triarchy, seeking every opportunity to weaken it. But for now, at least, they enjoyed a level of peace and prosperity not known since the Age of Legends.
Meveki was not the only student to intercept them on the way home, even though this was supposed to be a day of relaxation. When they finally reached their garden, Garrain let his roots sink into the ground, drawing strength from the soil. Settling on the ground beside him, Nuille reverted to her alvesse form. With a heavy sigh, she rested her back against his trunk, and gathered a squirming Chielle into her arms.
“I’m almost looking forward to our return to the Hall of Eternity,” she said. “At least there, we might catch some sleep.”
“I wouldn’t count on that,” said Garrain. “Ithanius is almost as demanding as our students. And he’ll make us read his latest chronicles.”
In the span and a half since Chielle hatched, they had been dividing their time equally between Wengarlen and the Hall of Eternity. Rover Dog and Ithanius had assured them that this would be enough exposure to the seed of eternity to stave off any potential long-term memory loss Chielle might otherwise experience. The irony was not lost on Garrain that after all their efforts to get away from the Hall of Eternity, he and Nuille were spending half of their time there.
Ithanius, who had likewise wanted nothing more than to escape his ‘cage,’ had quickly put his wandering days behind him, and once again taken up residence beneath the frozen flame. There, he had begun a new endeavour: a recounting of the history of Arbor Mundi.
Bothersome though Ithanius was at times, he would be there to look after Chielle and the other new eternals long after their parents were dust. And he had been there to help them deal with their nestling’s unexpectedly slow growth—and other…peculiarities.
The sound of a horn rang out across the town, pulling him out of his reverie. A rumbling roar answered from the sky.
“Draaar!” said Chielle.
“Yes, it is indeed a draaar,” said Garrain.
Nuille rolled her eyes, an Earth expression that had become common among the alvari in recent years. “Let’s see how much of our garden survives their arrival this time.”
The dracken, Linitheleske, toppled an azurinth tree and trampled a section of their soursuckle hedge as she came in for a hard landing. Rover Dog, Queen Aele and their troupe of trowlings leapt down to meet them.
“How’s Queen Vask?” asked Nuille.
“Pregnant,” said Rover Dog. “Irritable. Hard to be around.”
Queen Aele raked her claws down his arm. “You try carrying twins in your belly and see how you feel about it.”
Nuille looked intently at Rover Dog. “You know, I might be able to give you a taste of what it feels like…”
A nervous expression crossed Rover Dog’s face. “Not necessary. I have vivid imagination.”
“Vask wanted to come, but…you know how it is,” said Aele.
“Oh I quite understand,” said Nuille. “Please pass on our best wishes.”
In the years following the War of the Gods, Rover Dog the eternal explorer had travelled the length and breadth of Arbor Mundi, sometimes alone, and sometimes in the company of others. He had professed on more than one occasion that his memories of ages past were beginning to fade, but the prospect did not seem to bother him overmuch. His visits to Grongarg and the trow colonies on other branches always elicited an enthusiastic reception from the local she-trows, and a surge of pregnancies usually followed in his wake.
For their part, Queen Vask and Queen Aele had been popping out trowlings at a prodigious rate, and no-one needed to guess who the father was. Some of those trowlings had made the journey to Ciendil with their parents. Garrain watched a pair of lanky males wrestling beneath the broken branches of the azurinth tree, and wondered how much of their garden he’d have to regrow tomorrow.
Next to arrive were their friends from New Inglomar—Myrna, Thorric and his retinue of frostlings. New Inglomar had seen a decline in recent years as more of its residents moved to the surface or returned to the Underneath. Still, it remained the third largest settlement on Ciendil, after Wengarlen and Torpend.
If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
“I’m getting too old for this,” muttered Myrna as she sagged into a hanging chair, and gently booted aside a frostling who tried to climb up her leg.
“That’s what you say every time, mam,” said Thorric.
“’Cause it’s true every time, you wee scamp,” said Myrna.
“Wee?” objected Thorric. “I’m taller than you!”
“You’ll always be wee to me,” said Myrna.
Garrain eyed the family of frostlings gathering around his roots. “Go on, then,” he said.
Chittering, they scuttled up his trunk and into his branches, before settling in the tuft of leaves atop his head. Despite the name, these frostlings belonged to the new generation who lacked the ice magic of their forebears. Their new queen had set down roots beneath the seed of storms, so some people had taken to calling them stormlings, while others had adopted Saskia’s name for them: adorribles. Garrain was not one of those people.
On a whim, he grew to ten times his original height, offering his furry passengers an unobstructed view across northern Laskwood. An airship had landed in the southern airfield. That must be Dallim.
“I will never get used to that,” muttered Aele, glancing up at Garrain.
“Squishy is not so squishy now,” said Rover Dog.
“Stop showing off and get down here, ardonis,” called out Nuille a short while later. “Our Fellspurian friend is here.”
Garrain shrank back down to his usual size, and strode to greet Dallim.
“Elder Garrain,” said the oracle, inclining his head in greeting. “It gladdens me to be seeing you in person. I have been watching your tutelage of the young greenhands with great interest.”
“They’re progressing nicely,” said Garrain. “I look forward to the time when the first among them take up their foci and come into their full power.”
“That day will be arriving sooner than you be thinking,” said Dallim.
Garrain eyed the oracle speculatively. Were his words prediction or prophecy? It was always hard to tell with Dallim.
No longer a fledgling, Dallim had taken up the mantle of head oracle, leading Fellspur into a new age of openness and innovation. His visions of Earth had vanished with Saskia, but he remembered everything he had witnessed. The technological and cultural changes he and the other oracles wrought had already changed the world, and they were just getting started.
Last to arrive for their little reunion were Zarie and Kveld, who rode a storm dracken from their home atop the Pillar of Strife.
“We are late, yes?” said Zarie, as she floated down from the dracken’s back. Kveld stepped off behind her, landing with a thud on the soft, leafy ground.
“Not really,” said Nuille. “We have not yet eaten.”
The companions made their way to the dining pavilion, where the best cooks in Wengarlen had been tirelessly preparing their meal. They ate and drank and laughed and regaled long into the night. Garrain took more than his fill, though he drew most of his nourishment from the sun and the earth these days, and wine didn’t affect him in the slightest. It was a grand occasion, and he’d never known a finer group of friends. Not for the first time, he silently gave thanks to Saskia for bringing them together.
Waking early the next morning, they all clambered up onto the drackens’ backs. Zarie groaned and clutched her head as they rose into the air, and flew north. “Can you not fly more quietly?” she complained to her dracken.
This was the third time most of them had gone on this pilgrimage. It was a tradition that Garrain expected to continue until the last of them passed into their respective afterworlds. For the likes of Rover Dog, that could be a very long time indeed.
They flew to the base of the arlium structure that had formed atop the Elcianor rift. Rows of voluminous arlium visages gazed down at them. Some of those faces were their own. Some belonged to those they had lost. Some, they didn’t recognise. Saskia had been an artist back on Earth, and it showed. The proportions were accurate, the details exquisitely lifelike.
“This was her gift to us,” said Garrain. “It’s more than we deserved. From the moment of her arrival, Saskia was met with nothing but fear and hostility. She replied with kindness and compassion. Ultimately she delivered us from a demise of our own making. Saskia, wherever you may be, know that you have our eternal gratitude.”
His words had very nearly become a prayer. Perhaps in the greatspans to come, they would become one. If ever a demon deserved to be called a god, it was Saskia. But for now, the amber throne sat empty. Many who had survived the War of the Gods would rather it stayed that way.
This was a moment of serenity—of appreciation for all that they had. Nuille leaned against him on one side; Chielle on the other. He drew his branches around them both. They stood in silence for some time, until Chielle grew impatient and summoned a swarm of fire gnats.
All eyes turned to the nestling.
Her wings fluttered in the breeze, and she blinked at the sudden attention. “Urp,” she said. Her expression was all wide-eyed innocence, but this was somewhat spoiled by her hasty and entirely unsuccessful attempt to conceal the dancing lights behind her back.
“Did she just…?” said Kveld.
“Chielle, now what did we say about using magic in front of other people?” murmured Nuille through strained lips.
“Urp,” said Chielle.
“I do be thinking the jig is up,” said Dallim.
“Indeed it is,” said Garrain. “I suppose it was only a matter of time until someone found out—besides our oracle friend here. I hope you’ll keep this to yourselves. Our nestling already gets enough attention because of her appearance and delayed growth.”
Garrain grimaced as he remembered the stares Chielle endured whenever people thought her parents weren’t looking. The teasing from other nestlings who accosted her on the garden paths—poking her scaly flesh with sticks. How tempted he had been to send a swarm of agony beetles their way. Chielle was neither dracken nor alvesse, but something in-between. The other nestlings called her Skarakh, after the reptilians from Thrikaxis who menaced the Triarchy to this day. She didn’t look much like a skarakh, but nestlings would be nestlings.
“Let’s save this discussion for when we get back to Wengarlen,” said Nuille.
“Quite right,” said Garrain.
The air was positively buzzing with tension as they flew home—and not just because of Zarie and the storm drackens and frostlings. They wanted answers, and rightly so.
It was dark by the time they came in to land by their housetree, so they ushered Chielle and the trowlings to their sleepsacks, and settled in for a conversation that Garrain and Nuille had been putting off for years.
“Chielle is greenhand as well as eternal, yes?” said Zarie.
“That…and more,” said Garrain. “It seems her predecessor, the Primordial, altered her in more ways than we thought possible. As far as we’ve been able to determine, she now wields the power of every worldseed, as he did.”
“Not the seed of stone, I presume,” said Kveld.
Garrain frowned at him. Kveld had lost his magic once again after Saskia departed, because the seed of stone was no more.
“No, not as far as we can determine,” said Garrain.
“What about the seed of strength?” asked Aele.
“We believe…yes,” said Garrain. “Now I know what you’re thinking. She must also have suffered the less desirable effects of that particular worldseed? She’ll grow up to be as simple as the trow lifters?”
“The thought did cross my mind,” said Aele.
“She has been slow to develop—mentally as well as physically,” said Nuille. “But Ithanius assures us this is normal for an eternal. Her mind is growing slowly, but it is growing. She’s not simple.”
“Xonroth also wielded the magic of every worldseed, and he was sound of mind,” said Garrain.
“That is debatable,” said Rover Dog. “But Primordial was not as stupid as lifter.”
“That’s what I meant.” Garrain sighed. “So now you know. Why Xonroth did this to her, and how, your guess is as good as mine. All we can do is nurture her as best we can, and shelter her from the world’s ills until she’s ready to face them on her own. It is all any parent can do. I hope you will lend your support if we ask it of you.”
“Of course we will,” said Myrna, to a murmur of agreement from the others. “Chielle is such a sweet child. We would never let harm befall her.”
Garrain felt a surge of relief and affection for these people. Though they may be separated for years or spans at a time, he knew they would be there when he needed them.
The sound of a horn rang out across the stillness of the night. It was followed by two short, sharp blasts.
“That signifies danger to the heart of Wengarlen,” said Garrain. “The seed of life is in peril. I must see to this.”
“We will go with you,” said Zarie, already rising to her feet. The others rose with her.
As one, they dashed along the paths toward the sacred pools beneath the pulsing heart of Wengarlen. It was there that they found him, surrounded on all sides by anxious guards with bowstrings pulled taut.
A man stood at the centre of the pools, his hands held aloft. He was unarmed and unclad, save for a strip of metal on the back of his neck, and down his spine. The man was neither alvar, nor mer, nor dwarrow, nor trow. He was human.
The man turned, and as he turned, his hands twitched. Blades of metal extruded from his flesh, drawing shouts of warning from the guards. In moments, the blades had encased his entire body. Across his eyes hung a smooth, polished visor, from which shone a complex pattern of light and colour.
“Ah,” he said, speaking the forest tongue with a peculiar accent. “You’re the ones I wanted to meet. Do not be alarmed. My name is Ivan. I’m here on behalf of our mutual friends.”