Snakes & Ladders -32

Chapter 32

*Before…

I ache in a good and bad way as I see him quickly vanish off in the distance and part of me is wondering…just wondering that whole what if thing.
Or just if when it might come to Ryann and Shaya and Myself.
I wrap myself in my cloak against the cool air of the night and head back inside to meet up with the commander and to go with him to speak to The King.
I’ll be heading with Bhlaze back to The Holy City and to Lilac House.

*And Now…

I meet up with Commander Falcon in the halls on the way to my rooms and he’s dressed in dark leathers with this amazing brocade designs in it without looking like it was showy instead it’s a kind of muted elegant look and he has a cloak with him and several…like half a dozen weapons or more.

I look at him. “Trouble?”

“No I actually always dress like this when I travel.”

I look him over and he has two of those swords on his back and daggers on his thighs and a blaster in a shoulder harness like they wear for guns home and two knives in the small of his back and two boot knives and who knows what else in in the various pouches he has.

He’s wearing a falconers glove but one with metal plates and it’s all engraved looking and everything.

The only thing I can do is to raise an eyebrow and to smile a little. “Not like I’m one to talk with all of the things that I am lugging around.”

“Lugging?”

“Uhm…slang from home, it means to carry something around but like not so graceful like.”

“Odd.”

“There’s a lot about me that is odd commander.”

“Indeed but not unwelcomely so.”

I smile as we get to my quarters. “Nice to know.”

I invite him in and I’m getting my things together as he waits and it doesn’t take too long I hope to get it all done. But then again…he’s an elf and they live a long time so it’s not like he’s an impatient kind of person really.

I can see though Lyam’s frustration on not being made king when he had waited that long and had plotted that long to be the king from this civil war that they had before I got here. That’s the one where the current king was named instead of Lyam.

I get it all sorted and take my bags and head to Bhlaze’s sand room and the commander follows me. “I really should see if I can get some books on history here soon so I can get a better feel for things that are going on.”

“The Holy City is the place to find them there are dozens of private libraries and collections but there are also a great many book shops.”

“That would be interesting I’d love to see what passes for reading pleasures here.”

“Reading pleasures?”

“Fiction, Science fiction, Fantasy, Romance stories you do have all of those here?”

“Oh yes I was just wondering what your people would see as those…you said pleasures so I thought of…”

“Commander you have a dirty mind.”

“No I have heard of such things that is all.”

I give him the eyebrow and he looks at me blandly. Okay…he doesn’t know or he just doesn’t take the bait that easily. “So elves have porn…”

“Porn?”

“Pornography.”

He’s looking at me lost like. “Uhm…erotica?”

“Oh…much.”

That raises my eyebrows. “Much?”

“We live a long time; erotic things are just a part of society. It’s practically art in some places as well as there being a lot of exotica stories.”

“Exotica?”

“Interracial, sometimes interspecies stories.”

“Really?”

He nods and he gives me this wicked smile. “Now that you’re here and the fact that humans exist I can guarantee you that there has been something penned or tapped out about you in an exotica sense.”

I blush and cover my face some. “Great that’s all that I need.”

“Actually some of those things are useful as things with a person’s image.”

“Really? I didn’t think that Sylvan’s had media sources.”

“Media?”

“The press.”

“The press? No press ganging people hasn’t happened since the civil war.”

Okay that makes me laugh, he has a very dry sense of humor but I got it.

“No…like com channels to watch broadcast entertainment and papers that tell stories about what is happening in places for the news.”

“We still have some of those things but we got rid of the bulk of them socially before the war.”

“Why?”

“People were wasting time and not doing anything but staring at screens for far too long and it became a tool of too many special interests and it caused a lot of infighting.”

“Huh…maybe humanity could follow suit.”

“Ah it was like us and it was pervasive/”

“Yes and it still is so how does it work here?”

“Magical coms only here on the holy planet by custom but on the moons there is a military channel and a royal channel and then it’s generally the laws that each major city has to have its own private signals.”

“Private signals?”

“If there is a city that wants to have such things then they start a broadcasting guild for it all and we limit the use of those broadcasts to the cities involved.”

“Why limit it?”

“The variety both produces local jobs and it promotes the local cultures as well.”

“What about the internet?”

“Internet?”

“Online…like with computers.”

“Oh…well it’s all the same way but the royal com channel links all things together.”

“Oh that would so not fly at home.”

“Fly?”

Bhlaze huffs at us. ~Well I am ready to do so, I’m sure this is all very fascinating but it’s not getting us to the holy city. ~

~Yes, yes we’re leaving.~

I climb on and so does Commander Falcon and apparently he knows how to do the riding on a dragon saddle and stuff though this is my first time in the front of the saddle instead of behind.

It takes a few minutes to get out the doors and down the hallway to the perch part of the fortress and we lift off by diving off the cliffs and over The Darklands.

And everyone sees us doing so and we catch a few thermals and we soon wing off out of sight and then Bhlaze changes what he’s doing and he rises up more catching updraft after updraft until we are really, really high up…I feel magic kicking in from Shaya.

~Better? ~

~Much, it was getting a little thinner than I’m used to up here. ~

~You’re welcome. ~

I know she’s busy doing things there but I’m still feeling her sort of with Bhlaze and I as we soar and then bank and change directions heading towards The Holy City but a very high altitude.

Commander Falcon seems fine; he’s even just sort of doing the same as me and taking it all in as we’re traveling.

And there’s a lot to take in too… I mean at about two miles up everything opens up beneath us and I’m seeing the sheer scope of the place…of The Holy Planet a planet big enough to be earth a whole mess of times over…livable because of a much lower gravity than a planet of its size should have and stunning in just how much of it is actually so unspoiled compared to home.

Most tech has been banned here or downplayed by customs and stuff so there’s very, very few roads and there’s no air traffic like home, no freeways and endless trucks and cars it’s just this…raw natural beauty.

Soaring that high up I can still see so much because the planet is so vast.

From Rampart and Steadfast there’s hills that lead away from the cliffs and they mellow down to these scrub plains and smaller hills that remind me of the Dakotas in a lot of ways and a hundred or so miles after that it becomes this expanse of grass lands and these are these very slight hilly knolls and but it’s all this varying and vivid shades of green dotted with these tiny lakes and ponds and a few marshes and tiny little roads and leading to villages that come off the one large trade road between there and The Holy City.

And those villages… Bhlaze lets me see through some kind of spell that magnifies what I’m seeing or trying to look at and these are small villages with maybe a hundred buildings at most but these are buildings that are older that America…like maybe even a thousand years old or more and they are polished not weathered with age and are like these delicate but functional little castles and stuff…I mean it’s wood and stone and stuff but they are so built like sculpture that…one house I saw had a garden in the center and some fruit trees but it was made like a four story spiral staircase with one of those lovely turret rooms at the top of it and all these doors for like the out buildings or sheds in the outside of the stairs and off the roofs of the outbuilding parts…the actual other parts of the home.

And the little hamlet of a hillock with the houses made to look like mushrooms and laid out like a faerie ring… or the village with the lake and marsh that had boat shaped homes and docks coming from most of them and windmills instead of sails.

I could spend so much time here just looking and staring and traveling…it’s so rustic and it’s so beautiful but it really pales to what I’m getting to see as the horizon breaks with this green far off mass.

The Great Tree…

Every fantasy tale doesn’t do this sight justice. First this just isn’t just some giant tree it “The” as in very much the “The” meaning Great Tree…it’s more than just that it is a forest of one. I mean even as we get closer and closer the starting green branches are at a height with us.

Nearly two miles up…the start of the branches and the leaves…and it spreads out and out like some cross between an oak and a bonsai with these huge branches that come off at different levels with a small forest of green for each one of them.

The upper most heights have clouds around them…words just cannot express what this is like except the tree is higher than the mountains that are behind it only fifty miles or so away from the tree itself.

It’s…we’re flying in from the west and looking at it from this there is these plains to the south of the tree this is where the mountains start and they go from south to north in a semi-circle or a crescent and on the North side of the great tree and under the bulk of its branch forests is this huge lake but the lake has a wall around it…it’s not a big wall height wise but it’s around the entire thing and there’s fog on the lake too…there was fog last time and no swimmers or fishermen or boats of any kind there….just gates in the wall and beaches and people bathing and praying?

From the north-north-west position all the way south is the city itself…and even it’s…it’s mostly stone actually as far as the eyes can see accented by wood for decoration or utility like doors and the like but the entire city is made of this sort of white grey to light grey to pale blue-grey stone and it’s ancient and carved and polished and…The architecture is It’s like that house I mentioned before with the stairs but add in really almost Roman arches and Spanish style roofs with the carved shingles and times and add it this quiet beauty from up here that just sort of says old south and French Quarter New Orleans…with the lattices as alley and street walls and those big old trees with the moss and ivy everywhere and gardens and flowers that break up the pallet of the city.

And there must be a million people here.

We circle and start getting lower and lower and I’m still looking just taking everything in with this city that is so hauntingly beautiful in makes me heart hurt.

“I was too new here and too sort of in culture shock to see most of this before. It’s amazing.”

Commander Falcon says. “It’s the home of our gods and The Great Tree.”

“So the center of the temples…and The Great Tree.”

“No…” He points at the tree. “The tree is the last remnant of our ancient home world.”

“You’re not from here?”

“No…we come from a realm that was elsewhere so long ago it’s just the story now…and the tree.”

“That long?”

“So far back we don’t have records for it.”

“Wow…okay so it’s the last remnant of your old world that I guess makes it really important.”

“It’s the soul of our people Wren…it’s alive and it’s aware.”

“Aware?”

“Yes…when The C’thull came and conquered our space and out people it was here…her that only place that its power and the technology of its fleets could not break through at.”

“Huh?”

“The Tree shielded the last of the free sylvan people for close to three hundred years at siege…it fed us and it clothed us and it kept us safe.”

“And the baddies didn’t burn it down or any of that stuff?” I’m having visions of Avatar in my head. And I sense Shaya recoil in dislike until she figures out that it’s a drama in my mind.

~I’ll explain it later love.~

~You better.~

She intrigued even if she’s squicked out.

Commander Falcon’s shaking his head. “No…wren I’m not being figurative I’m being literal it created a spell force shield as far out as all the buildings in the city to the mountains.”

“Oh…oh wow…it’s like that sentient?”

“Yes and no…see this was when our gods came to be.”

“Huh?” Oh yes I’m really on the ball.

~You were in a performer’s fair?~

I get this image of the circus from Shaya and me on a big ball.

~No…it’s another figure of speech.~

She mentally snerks in my mind. ~You humans are very strange.~

~You have no idea love.~

~Some, I am your bonded.~

~Not even close babe.~

~You’re still funny Wren.~

~Good, you need that.~

I sort of turn to look at him and he’s pointing at The Tree. “You know how mages and magic spinners and singers and such can channel power from other sources yes?”

“That much I’ve got even though I’m no expert in it but sure.”

“Well those that became our gods were the most powerful we had in what they knew and did while fighting the enemy and as much as we fought we were losing the war and there was only so much the combined powers of the free peoples could do then.”

“Alright…”

“Well those that would come to be our gods gave their lives over to The Great Tree and they melded with it. All of their willpower and their knowledge and their everything merged with it and they had all that power to do with what they willed and it became like a giant power sink…like an amplifier and we held.”

“Oh…wow…and they stayed like that?”

“The only way that the magic could be done was permanently.”

“So they became martyrs?”

“Yes and more.”

“More?”

“They still retained their souls…and they had enough power that they did things for people as they could in spirit forms like astral projections and they became revered for that…talked to and over time prayed to.”

“Okay I get it now…”

Actually it’s kind of staggering really since there are temples and Illisia’s a mage and a cleric so their power is very real and stuff too but still…still they were like real people…real people who gave all for their people and are still sort of doing that but having become kind of more.

As a Christian…I actually believe it…I mean take Jesus…what he did for us…and they sort of did the same thing but because of their race it’s still very real and very tangible history here.

“Falcon?”

“Yes Wren.” Okay…he’s okay with me saying his name like that…good to know.

“Do your people believe in a creator?”

“Like one supreme being?”

“Yes.”

“Those that are faithful do yes, but given all of the races and all of the wonder and all of the things in the universe it’s seen more like a force than an individual.”

“But no grand plan?”

“That depends on the faith, some think so some don’t some think that we’re dreams of the creator.”

“And you?”

“I think so…I think that there is something that was creation…and that like life itself it grew into more and more and more as it expended and aged.”

“But a grand plan?”

“Here yes but I’m a planarist.”

“A what?”

“In this reality we have that creator and it is a benign being but we know that there are creatures that are not from this universe, from this plane that are anathema to everything that is light and that is good in the world…I think that those places, that those universes or planes are because of another creator that became sick and twisted and that sickness tries to spread to others.”

“Oh…where I come from some of us see everything as part of a greater plan that we cannot see for ourselves.”
He looks at me. “That’s where our gods come in more than the creator. Wren?”

“Yes?”

“Do you believe in evil?”

I think for a minute. “Yes, I think that things can be evil.”

“No…I mean real evil, real demons…flesh and blood and brimstone things that wreak, wreck and devastate for no other worldly purpose than to do so…I’ve seen them…I’ve fought then toes to toe in the last war.”

“I…I don’t know…I haven’t but you have and I believe you…” I do…I’ve met Vet’s home and when they tell you things they seen there’s this look. Falcon has that look and more.

“Then think of it like this…the creator, they are the sum of all things for this universe.”

“But we’re taught that the creator created all things.”

“More like is all things…benign like I said…it’s why there are worlds with just life and not sentients…there the creator is just nature…”

“Okay…”

“But if creation gets sick itself in one spot, one universe it becomes twisted and dark or something like that.”

“Okay…”

“So like a disease it spreads once the damage is done and it tries to do the same to others.”

“Okay…”

He takes a breath. “I’m not good at explaining these things but to us, it’s like the creator…they are a benign force, mostly for good things, life, existence, peaceful…when real evil happens it’s not the will of the creator because they wouldn’t wish it on us.”

“But what about good people dying for bad reasons…disease or someone killing some one…we have free will.”

“Disease is biology, a natural event and occurrence usually, but free will…you’ve telepathy wit Bhlaze, with Shaya…well so does evil.”

“What like they touch people and make them?”

“No…not without crossing over and beings like that can only do that when called…otherwise they’re bad spirit like beings…limited by what they can do because the creator resists all of them.”

“But they get through.”

“Yes, like an infection but infections can get better, healed, cast out…that’s why there is real good in the universe.”

“Not good for goods sake.”

“Of course good for goods sake but more than that…good that steps into the darkness, into the firefight, that goes against it’s natural fears of fleeing and steps into the fray.”

“So…what about simple acts of love and kindness?”

“Food for our souls, food for the gods, food for the soul of the creator…for a benign being dealing with sentients…good done just for good, for no reason other than free will and because it’s right…it’s like sunshine to the forest.”

I look at him. “For someone that’s not very good at this you explained that pretty well.”

He smiles and it’s I think one of the first real smiles I think I’ve seen since my arrival dance. “Thank you, a long time ago I was training to be a cleric but I just never got far enough.”

“Oh…why?”

“The war…The Forsaken they obliterated my home city.”

“I’m sorry…”

“Thank you…I…I picked up the blade and followed King Justane to battle against The Forsaken.”

I nod. “And these were the serious baddies.”

“More than…the most powerful mages we had…not all were bad but The Forsaken gave part of themselves over to the dark powers, these other things and instead of a simple rebellion or a civil war it became the attempt by those dark powers to destroy all of Sylvandom and come into this universe.”

“But not the C’Thull.”

“No…The C’thull was horrible, it was horrible beyond words and yet it’s only from this universe too…but it was something deeply in tune, deeply rooted in that darkness from the other side that it was a nightmare.”

“Like those Forsaken but alien.”

“Yes, Alien and old and powerful enough that it considers itself a god.”

“But touching something else.”

“We’re not sure but I’d say yes…but it never stopped The Forsaken from turning to the remnants of it’s empire here for weapons.”

“No I suppose not.”

“The biggest weapon of course being Shai-tan.”

“Really?”

“Yes…we think that it was created by the C’thull as a weapon…there are no three headed dragons…but dragons being dragons…”

~Shai-tan was touched by the Demon realms.~ Bhlaze says it to both of us.

~But no the C’thull?~

~No….His evil was there before the C’Thull…he went to them in service…this is why he is as he is.~

Falcon feels surprised. ~I did not know this.~

~It’s is generally Ryder and dragon business.~

~Does the King know?~ I’m not asking but Falcon is…I have a good guess.

~Of course he does, but we have our own laws and conditions.~

~So what happened?~ I ask.

~There was more than we know on the line, the forces from we think the elder worlds that had fallen by those called The Old Ones pursued us from the ancient home…these have pursued us from world to world to world…Shai-tan made his pact with them.~

~Why would a dragon turn?~

~The same reasons that Sylvan’s did, the same reason whatever the C’thull might have been ages beyond ages ago. No one does not fall Erendae.~

Falcon’s nodding… ~The dark dragons that fought in The Summoning war?~

~Not from here…none of ours, Shai-tan knew how to call them from wherever.~

I swallow… ~So we have even dragons that are coming at us.~

~One thing that we have in our favor from that at least.~

~Oh?~ That’s me.

~Dragon’s cannot be summoned by magic, not without their ryder.~

~So they’re summoning the ryders first?~

~No, from what we’ve sensed fighting them they couldn’t. We of the dragons believe they must forge a link through the summoning circles. And dark dragons are like any other when a link is offered…highly picky even more so with the dark ones.~

~They would want to be the strongest of the pairing.~ Falcon says.

~Yes…we are lucky for dark self interest.~

~So…the recap is that. Lyam’s looking to be king and he’s raising up all the badness from the Forsaken who in turn had dug up stuff from the C’thull and now Lyam has a real live dark dragon that knows all the badness or at least some of the badness that the C’thull had done.~

~Fuck!~ That’s Falcon.

~Yes and this is why Lyam is in The Darklands more than in the shadows of aristocracy.~

~Doesn’t he know that Shai-tan can’t be trusted?~ Falcon again.

I go ahead and say it… ~Unless Lyam is Forsaken himself giving up whatever to the thing that Shai-tan is part of…~

~Double fuck!~ That’s Falcon.

I’m smiling actually. ~Well now we know.~

We come gliding in and yes we’re getting some looks and some stares and once more we’re back here at Lilac House.

I can’t help but be impressed with this place…I mean from what I know it’s the only place like this, that no king has ever done…building this place, this home for his wife who’s from here. A really large rectangular plot of land with a large old wall that matches the stone of the city and these huge trees…willows and they are draped with this bio-luminescent ivy that has tiny little flowers like baby’s breath that shimmer at night and then there’s these giant red maples that match the brownstone of the house/mansion but it has another ivy that looks like climbing red ivy but has flowers like lilacs and in reds and pinks and purples.

Wrought iron and stained glass and wonderous gardens…but then again he’s a green mage…plants and stuff…and oh sigh…this is just, this is one of those huge romantic gestures.

I feel Shaya getting that same girly this is yay feeling about the place and I swear I can feel her doing this biting her lower lip in this happy up to something way that makes her feelings sort of spike.

~Shaya?~

~Nope, you don’t get to know.~

~Know what?~

~Exactly…say hi to daddy.~

~Wha…daddy?…I thought it was Father and King and…~

There’s this sort of swirl in my brain of love-kissing-happy-giggles before she pulls away.

Oh…Ow…she just made me feel ow…but a good ow…

I see The King waiting for me…in plain brown pants and a tunic that’s sort of like a sweatshirt. He looks like Kailynn quite a bit especially downplayed like this…I see Shaya there too…in the dark hair and the posture sort of…too.

I still can’t help but to swallow as I get closer and slide off Bhlaze’s back.

“Easy Wren, I’ve got you…”

I…He’s there and he’s caught me sort of in that my legs went wobbly from too much saddle kind of way.

“Th..Thank you your Highness.”

“Dorian, please…you’re family.”

My mouth goes dry…my heart does this roll over and ….

The way he said it was like he said call me dad.

I haven’t had that in ages…and never like this…never as me…

I should have been cooler but just that…him…and there’s this little sob that comes out.

He hugs me….

(Sniffle!) I wasn’t expecting this!