<u>23</u>


    Miche rose through the soggy air and into the grip of a sluggish wind. Below him, the orc’s scowling face spiraled and shrank with the landscape. But it wasn’t as if there was much to see. Amur was a reeking, lawless shanty-town with open sewers in the middle of each mucky street. Only that glittering shrine portal, hovering over the rooftops and ladders, offered a measure of hope. A chance at escape… If you could reach it. If you could find a way through. Clearly, most of Amur’s profit lay in promising hope to those who clustered and chanted beneath.


    Miche had other concerns, because Nameless had scrambled up through the dripping trees, scattering leaves and strange birds like a noisy storm-wind. The marten broke through the canopy and leapt after Miche. Had the elf been wearing a cloak, his friend would have made it. But there was no cloak present, now, and nothing to sink its hooks into.


    Nameless stretched wildly, uttered a very shrill scream but didn’t fall. Instead, a spell caught the marten and swept it into Miche’s outstretched hands.


    “You’re an idiot,” he admonished the creature, “And you’re far more trouble than you’re worth… but I guess you can stay.”


    Nameless barked three or four times, wrapping itself ‘round his neck like a scarf. Not that he needed the layers. It was every bit as hot, humid and smelly up here as it was down below. Just windier, with a view of ancient roads and a distant river winking though mile after mile of tropical forest.


    Amur infested a hollow in that densely wooded rift valley, stoppered with clouds, hemmed in by trees. Like festering garbage, stuffed into a pit. He crossed the “city” over thousands of bowed, chanting worshippers. Soared past their rickety towers and frail wooden platforms, riding the updrafts and winds to reach that beckoning, silvery door.


    At some point, a believer looked up, cried aloud, and roused the whole mob. The crowd surged out of their mire and filth to howl and scream at him. Some begged, raising their thin, poxy arms and their tear-streaked faces. Some cursed, throwing stones or firing arrows. Others trampled their fellows to race after a drifting warrior-prince.


    Had he been able to fly, he could have just zipped right into the portal, escaping their view and their unwanted worship. Instead, Miche had to hold levitate while controlling the winds (who were disposed to be mischievous, batting him this way and that like a courtball). Luckily, wind-sprites were easily distracted by anything shiny that they could pick up and scatter, and Miche had bits of black-and-gold confetti in one of his magical pockets (for… parties? Games?). Whatever, he pulled out and tossed the stuff, now. Created quite a spectacle (as well as a hot later market in souvenir hero-scraps). Better, all of those bits gave the wind-sprites something to do besides tease him.


    He got to the doorway at last, only a little bit tweaked and hair-pulled, with the crowd looking on; breath pent and hands clasped tight to their chests. They’d fallen silent, even the ones racing up to the top of their highest, flimsiest tower. Overloaded, the fragile thing swayed like a pendulum. Would have crashed down onto the people below, had Miche not muttered another grudging spell. Their tower didn’t collapse. Never would, through all of this dark world’s eternity. It just hung there, perfectly stable, at a very sharp angle, forever.


    Meanwhile, Miche reached the shrine’s whirling gateway. Seen close-to, it was carved all over with sigils and runes that flared to life as he neared. The massed people below made a noise like a sigh and then commenced singing. First one or two voices, then swelling in volume as more and more picked up the tune. A very old and sweet song, it was. One he might have remembered… had he bothered to listen.


    Didn’t, though. Still wanted nothing to do with this awful place and its miserable folk (excepting Marget and Nameless). Ignoring their song, he swept through an oval stone gate that was twice elf-height. In through a soap-bubble screen that seemed to comb through him, removing all traces of Chaos, venom and dirt; that swept away all of Marget’s ink, leaving only luminous ghostly-bright lines forming images over his skin. There was a moment of cold, blank, utter nothing. Then…


    Miche’s boot-soles touched down on the bottom steps of a stone tunnel, in another location entirely. Maybe twelve feet long, the arched passage ended above in bright sunshine, birdsong and swaying, gold-spangled shade.


    His first impulse was to simply rush forward, but the elf took a moment to cleanse and reclothe himself, telling Nameless (sternly),


    “No stinking. Not here.”


    Firelord simply retreated, not wishing contact with another (maybe more powerful) god.


    “Right,” murmured the elf. “Alert for anything. In, out. Best behavior from both of you.”


    Nameless screaked from its perch in the hood of his new scarlet cloak. Firelord punched him in the kidney, a blow that was aimed from within. As much of a promise as he was likely to get from either old friend, he supposed. This was the third shrine, though, and threes were always important. Extra magical.


    Taking a deep breath, the elf started forward, ascending warm, mica-flecked stairs to the mouth of the tunnel. Stepped out into a formal garden. Very wide, smoothly bowl-shaped, with a sparkling miniature sun just above, the garden seemed to exist out of time and place; connected to nothing whatever, except through its tunnel.


    Miche felt himself leaving the physical dark world behind. Saw new trees and strange plants, meandering streams and bright ponds stocked with beautiful gold-and-red fish. Birds and small dragons swooped through the air, which filled his lungs like a tonic; refreshing, reviving.


    And then, the shrine goddess appeared.


    The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.


    He looked, and then looked away, bowing low, clenched fist to brow. She hovered above a gleaming, polished stone altar, wearing wreathing mist, her own drifting dark hair and a gentle smile.


    “Welcome, Traveler,” she said to him. “Much time has passed since the last visitor, but this place of refreshment and rest still exists. Come. Take your ease.”


    Cautiously, the elf started forward along a white flagstone path. There seemed to be nothing wrong, here. Nothing in need of repair. In fact, he felt like a grossly physical hammered thumb in a haven of spirit and light.


    “I thank you, Goddess,” he said in reply, clearing his throat a bit. “I have come to your shrine seeking knowledge. I am here in this world… that world outside, rather… because of something that happened in mine. Before you welcome me, Goddess… my deeds must not have been good ones. I do not remember, except that I tried to make everything right and… I failed. All is dark and corrupt in the world outside of this haven, because of me.”


    Her eyes were wide and beautiful; every color at once and none at all. She… he couldn’t look at her. Not without longing. She said, her voice a freshet of musical notes,


    “Mishe-tah. Miche. Vallarek. Val… I cannot give you what you desire. I am not able. Yet… through the other wish, Little Tree, if you would learn more?”


    He looked up again, meeting that splendidly beautiful gaze. Hearing “Val” had done something to him. Freed something inside.


    “Yes,” he said, nodding. “Whatever you would show me, Goddess.”


    She reached forward with one slim, glowing hand.


    “It is not a pleasant tale, Old One. For its darkness, for breaking protocol, I offer apology. But, dearest heart, you are not to blame. See.”


    She brushed at his forehead with glittering fingertips, and all at once everything changed. He was a mighty elf-lord, in a time of fading manna; when spells began failing and power had to be hoarded. When long-subject races began to rebel, causing slaughter, famine and war.


    His wife… lovely, dark-haired Hana… had been a sorceress of great power. Remained a subtle and gifted tactician, and very much the jewel of his heart. Their children were Ander, Randon and Kara; all of them healthy and beautiful, bringing their parents great joy.


    He lived an entire two-thousand-twenty year life. Loved truly and was deeply loved in return. Was lord of vast estates and captained an airship, the Javelin. But there was darkness mixed in, as well. The mortals had risen. Their leader was War Marshall Thrask, a brutal and pitiless man whose intent was the utter extinction of magical races and all of their works. Especially elves.


    With a lifetime extended by potion, machines and draining his magical captives, this Thrask united the mortals. Promising freedom and peace, he led them to war against those who had reigned for so long.


    It was a bloody and terrible fight. The combined forces of elves, orcs and dwarves fought in great airships; designed and became the first cyborgs. In response, the mortals built huge, armored titans of steel. Bred wildly, as well; able to field a thousand new soldiers for every lone orc, elf or dwarf. Able to bring an awful false life to their dead.


    Ander, his eldest son, was killed in the crash of an airship, early in the war. That was a blow he felt when it happened and could not ever truly forget. Nor was Ander the only one lost. Many more fell in battle, but the fey held their own, because manna was weak, but not gone entirely, and because mechanical forces, wrought by the dwarves, made up the difference in troop strength. More than that, those dwarven engineers constructed a new sort of ship, one that could leave the world entirely, searching out safety and peace among distant stars.


    His wife was involved in that effort, as well, keeping the engineers safe in their mountain stronghold. Their on-leave unions were brief but intense, and Hana quickened again; life sparking from love in the time of darkness and war.


    But their enemy learned of this “space-ship”. Well knowing the Old One’s reliance on living machines, he created a death-code. One that locked up and froze every last one of the elves’ airships, cyborgs and weapons. Doomed those human-piloted titans, as well, leaving the landscape cratered with burning aircraft, dying cyborgs and inescapable giant steel tombs.


    The death-code extinguished the shrines, too, putting an end to the Travelers Rest network. Even worse, the insidious code sparked a total system collapse. From the edges inward, their world began shrinking. Dying.


    Only the space-ship was untouched, for it had not been ether-connected, from fear of discovery. In his last few weeks of life, the elf-lord fought to defend waves of refugees seeking the mountain and ship. He did not board, himself. Stayed to battle that oncoming tide of mortal-husk soldiers. Saw Hana aboard, though, with Randon and Kara, and the still-unborn little one. She’d wanted to stay with him, but…


    “No. I am doomed to this place and this final push. Fate is not mocked or denied, Hana… but you will escape. You’ll be free of this nightmare, and that is enough.”


    Even the delay for last words and a brief, frantic hug was dangerous, for his troops were being destroyed, and there weren’t enough places for all who struggled to board the escape ship. She could not cover his face with kisses enough, reached wildly to hold hands, touch fingers as long as she could, then kept eye-contact, signing and sending: I love you, until the dwarven chief artisan hauled her into the boarding tube and slammed the hatch shut.


    He had not stayed to see the mountain yawn wide and the space-ship launch like a dragon. Instead, he’d gated back to his army. Fought valiantly, bought time, lost… and was captured. Kept alive, of all the fey warriors.


    Was dragged, forced to kneel, before War Marshal Thrask in the highest room of an old shrine tower. The elf had been badly injured, kept by his captors for torment and sport. Better off than Thrask, though, who’d become more of a corpse than a man. The enemy war-leader stared at the very last elf through eyes that glowed with decay and with drained, stolen souls. Like a paper-wrapped skeleton, kept upright by hate, Thrask leered at him, whispering,


    “You did not prevail then, and you won’t succeed now. Your death was most entertaining, and it taught me much, Old One.”


    Thrask signaled his guards, those who had once been men, wrung out to keep their lord partly alive. And then… he was back in the shrine. Just Miche, again; lost and alone, but free. Mourning a wife and family he’d never actually had, a war that had ended eons ago. The shrine had gone flickering-dark, he saw. Its birds, fish, flowers and trees becoming just shiny, wire-form outlines. Beside him, the goddess was now a swirl of sparkling motes, repeatedly flashing the words: System reset.


    <u>That</u>, he could deal with. Hurriedly, Miche yanked the cylindrical talisman out of its magical pocket. The shrine’s altar held three flat, colored buttons he hadn’t noticed before. To their right was a round hole into which one might place a key or… or a memory-drive.


    Thinking of Hana, still feeling her touch and hearing her cry out his name, he bounded across that flickering garden and then up three steps to the altar, slamming the talisman into place. At once, his map adjusted. Updated. The garden reformed. Still lovely, but different. Next the goddess took shape again, smiling.


    “Welcome, Traveler,” she said, this version blue-eyed and golden. “Much time has passed since the last visitor, but this place of refreshment and rest still exists. Come. Take your ease.”


    He started to reach out a hand to her, then let it fall back to his side. Too torn, too filled with anguish to speak. His wife…? Illusion. Their children, the unborn little one…? A dream. A two-thousand-twenty year life, spun in the space between heartbeat and breath. And what she had shown him before breaking down?


    Had it been real?