Count Estar informed me I would be marrying an Elf Maiden by the name of Aylana Aerathrel and he wasn’t joking. The wedding was that night and two days later, I was here, on this stupid boat with a quest to help Lord Aerathrel nurture his land, so that he might be able to grow crops from dead soil.
I looked away from my wife, she was not a bad person, but I married a robot without emotions. She never smiled, never laughed, never yelled, she was soft spoken and easy on the eyes, but she was just...empty. It was like trying to talk to a brick wall, a pretty brick wall, but the conversations were always one sided. Had it not been for her saying “I do.” I would have thought she was mute.
I was a slave all over again, only this time I was not made to clean shit pots or cook dinner. But I did handle it as I made compost from all the crap I could find.
A month had passed so slowly I wanted to scream in frustration, I was no closer to finding even a square inch of live soil than I had been the moment I was dragged off the ship. I turned instead to trying to make it, but even as I watched the pile of compost steam in the early morning sunlight, I knew I was just treading water. Something was off in this land, for there were trees taller than skyscrapers in which the Elves lived in, molded their cities from. There were plants, bushes, grasses and assorted variety of different vegetation that needed live soil. But the soil was dead? What the fuck! How could stuff grow from dead soil?
My only solace came after the evening family meal, and it was something I had hated in highschool. Studying. I read everything on engineering, many times, and my robot wife was only a few feet away on a divan, staring vacantly up at the stars. “You do not have to wait for me, love, you may go to bed without me.” It was the same every night, like she needed my permission to go to sleep. And like every night we had been married, she rose, and half walked, half slugged her way to bed without word or emotion.
I had to give it to her though, she was one hard working robot. From dawn till dusk she trained with her bow. I had even watched her a few times and was impressed that someone could move like she did, spin, jump, turn, kick, and yet, still hit the bullseye every time. It was an interesting range in which she practiced, like one of those 3D ranges all the archery buffs were always going on about back home. She was a target killing badass and I had felt a fierce pride when I had watched her. I had even given her a standing ovation once, but she just merely looked at me like she always did. Expressionless.
The next day, I was shirtless in the sandy soil next to the compost pile, singing Simple Man, hoping I would feel something around me. When I heard footsteps and strained my neck to see who was coming. “Hey Brandon, what’s up little man?”
Brandon was a slave, a Deerkin boy who looked about ten years old. With skin the color of tanned leather, his brown fur was dotted with white spots. With a cute but mischievous face, he had taken one look at me and had somehow become my personal assistant and messenger. His telegraphing, leaf shaped ears honed in on me and his boyish face split into a wide grin. “Lord, I was sent to find you.”
“Oh yeah? How long did it take you this time?” I teased him, he was so fun to tease. He took everything so seriously and at first, I thought he was just another robot. Then the boy warmed up to me. Nudged his head against my side and smiled at me. It was his doe eyes, they were just so big and deep brown, it was hard not to like the kid.
“Not more than a finger, Lord.” He was also the fastest thing I had ever seen on two legs, and I had half a mind to see if he was faster than a horse. In ALOW, a finger was a way of telling time. About an hour, and he was able to run from Lord Aerathrel’s house, down the steps around the base of the tree. And find me in under an hour, the kid was a Ferrari.
“Well you found me, and good job, you’re getting good.”
He pinched his black nose with his long fingers. “It's the smell, you kind of smell like that.”
I sat up and took hold of my shirt that was acting as my pillow, “what can I do for you, my tasty little Deerkin.” His ears flattened and he looked ready to bolt. “Just messing with you. I would never eat you, unless…” I tapped my finger to my chin. “Naw, I never would.”
It took him a long time to calm down, “the seeds you sent for are here.”
I cocked an eyebrow at him, “did you bring them with you?” He looked back over his shoulder and I laughed. “Go get them, it should only be a small bag.” In a blink of an eye he was gone. “Damn he’s fast.” I laid back down and started singing again, it was relaxing and my mind seemed to know what song I was in the mood for, and as my internal playlist started In the End, I could feel emotion start to well up from deep inside me. There was no rhyme or reason for it, but as the words started coming out of my mouth, I just lost all control as the emotion flooded me.
Hot tears forced themselves from my eyes, and my chest sobbed and shook as I sang. My hands gripped at the soil for comfort, but there was none, emotions that had been suppressed for so long came bubbling up with a pressure I had never felt before. All the fear I had felt from the trial when I was still a teenager, the depression and loneliness from the Army, the sadness from my family abandoning me. It all came out and then some, my throat was harsh as the suppressed feelings forced their way out of me. I was scared, frightened, and as it all came rushing upward, I felt myself drop.
Those complex emotions spiraled around me, like an inverted tornado, so strong I didn’t even try to fight them back. I was like a newborn against a strong man, there was no chance of wrangling them back. Restraining them was not what I needed, they sought release, sought to be freed from a life time of imprisonment. They wanted to see the light of day from the black place I kept them, and as more came upward in a torrent of raging vertigo, I was shoved downward from the pressure, and when I came to their end, I fell. I waited to hit rock bottom, but there was no bottom in the blackness, no air, no walls, I couldn’t even scream.
My brain was in overload, and like a person who jumped from a high cliff, it did the only thing it knew, shutdown to help preserve itself.
I didn’t so much awake, I was not in my body. So, it did not register on my accounting of how many times I had passed out or had been knocked unconscious.
The room was massive, an open three-story monstrosity with two balconies. I could see the stairs to my right that lead up to the upper reaches, and there was no wall to my left, and a thick forest of trees waved in a warm wind. No ceiling covered my head, save for a billion twinkling stars. I was seated upon a sparkling throne of darkstone, I could see chips and flakes of gems reflect the light of the single moon. Which was much too close to the world for my liking.
“Greetings, old soul.” The voice reverberated throughout the room. My head swiveled around for the owner, but whoever it was, did not make themselves known. “Try as you might, you will never know my actualization, for to look upon me, would spell your doom so absolute, your existence would crumble to mere dust.”
“That doesn’t sound fun.” My sarcasm seemed to echo off the walls of the building.
“It would not be, and I have need of you.” It was as if the voice was everywhere and nowhere at the same time.
“Where am I?”
“An interesting notion, would your primal brain be able to comprehend the truth if I were to say it?” There was a pause, “you are within the very inners of your soul. Everything that you are, everyone you have been, every taste, smell, touch, texture, no matter how sweet or horrible, is known to you here. For this is your Soul Council Chamber. As I stated before, you are an old soul, on the very precipice of what you would call retirement.”
“Huh?”
“Upon your world, there is a term, reincarnation, while you might think you know the real meaning behind the word, let me tell you. You do not. A soul is given only ten chances to obtain life, whether bacteria, or deity, all life is given at random on different planes of existence. You old soul, have just released nine life times of experience, good, bad,
indifferent. Memories of joy, sorrow, struggle, and your soul now only remembers the darkness of your current life.”
“Uh huh...how exactly did I do that?”
“You opened yourself to another plane, in your minds torment, you sought out release from pain, you wished to no longer feel. Your wish was granted.”
“No, I fucking didn’t, I might have been frustrated sure, lonely yeah, but I was not in pain.” I countered the voice.
“The pain in which I speak is not physical, it cannot be felt by nerves of the body, nor could a brain justify such a thing. You old soul, have not had a happy existence, not once in all your lives. I released your gates in a hope that you might find a light from within this darkness you have placed yourself in. For I, as the caretaker, could not in good conscious allow you to wither for eternity.”
If I could have swallowed, I would have. “Wither?”
“Yes, old soul, wither. You would have screamed, thrashed, sought a release from the Chamber with all your might. You would have festered, rotted, and the universe has more than its fair share of demons and devils already.”
I really didn’t like this topic, and I was relieved when I said. “You have my thanks.”
“Do not thank me yet, old soul. For you now have a daunting decision of such magnitude, should you choose poorly once again, then my help will be for naught.”
“What decision?”
“I have a need, as do you, and my need is with your soul. My task is a simple one, one that requires merely to visit the tomb, and release the soul from within an Urn.”
“Why does this sound like I am not going to like what I release?”
“Its release is paramount to me. The soul within bears a fate in which I have released you from. A soul very dear to me, for it is my mate. As the Cosmo as my witness, no evil, benevolence nor act will come from my mate. It is time for it to be released, so that it may take its place by my side, where it was stolen from.” The voice then went on to spin a tale of how the soul was summoned away, trapped and tortured for power, then forgotten in a hell so bad, I vibrated from the descriptive words. “Take this task, and I will grant you my blessing. Succeed, and I will grant you a miracle.”
“Ah what and what? If you know me as well as you sound, you know I am not good at subtle hints.”
“A fair assumption, one that may need more explaining. Upon the world you currently tread, you are but a blind, legless chicken, squawking and rolling around without purpose. You travel from land to land without hope, without cause, for you are but a meal for a greater predator. With my blessing, not only will your blindness be lifted, but you will see that the world in which you tread is just as real as the one you come from.”
“HUH?”
“You will gain power, is that subtle enough for you?”
“Why would I want power? Not really what I had in mind.”
“Because, old soul, as a greater power, you will be able to break the bonds which hold you down. You will be able to free yourself from the enslavement of Saeya.”
“Saeya, you mean the goddess?” It choose not to answer my question. “Why would I want to be free of her and how am I her slave?”
“Our time grows short, Saeya draws near to return you back to your body. Know old soul, she will not grant you the power in which I can. Deities of Noriessa limit the growth of their champions, so they do not grow greater than themselves. Take my task, and you will be able to become the strongest of all on Noriessa, given you find the proper Brides of War and win the conflict to come.”
“You are not making any sense.”
“Look stupid, Earth goddess bad, me good. Me makes you strong, live a long time. Find happiness, no hell for you.”
“Alright I get it,” my voice not overly happy how he was treating me. “What is this about Brides of War?”
“That, old soul, you will have to find out for yourself. Look to your wife, see her for what she really is, and she is no robot. Upon her left ear, lies a stud, remove it and you will find the real elf underneath.”
“Okay, so this task, I find this urn and then what? Smash it, bring it back, what?”
“Within your lands is a tomb, within the tomb an urn of blue crystal, removed the lid, lay within the casket and place it upon your chest. Only then will I perform the miracle, and remove your soul from your Earth plane and bring it here.”
“What the fuck? Why would I want that?”
“Because it is your truest desire to disappear from the face of the planet. What is it that Earth has that Noriessa doesn’t? Think this over quickly, for you have but a moment.”
I thought of my family, and John was within the game, I thought of the Major, who had lost touch with me. What really did await me on Earth, a lifetime of struggling to make ends meet? To work my ass off for a fancy car, a big house, who would I share it with? It’s not that I doubted I would find someone, but my track record was poor at best. The voice was right, here I was someone, I was married and had just learned to key to help my wife. A thousand thoughts ran through my mind and besides air conditioning and few other conveniences, Earth really wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.
“I’ll do it.”
“Receive my blessing and know, within the spark of passion before the burst of love, lies the power in which you seek. Tell not sweet lies or honeyed propaganda, see the female before you, listen to her soul and feel if she is right. You will know of what I speak in time.”
“Dude, seriously? I suck at riddles.” But before I could say the words, I was grabbed, yanked upward so hard and fast, I saw the stars that were the ceiling of the chamber far below me.
“You will learn your place, Jaeger Persik, or I will remove the gift I have bestowed upon you.” Her voice was like the sound of a volcano eruption. Terrible, aggressive, deadly. “Stop waiting for me to show you the path to what you seek, and look with your own eyes at the problem around you. I cannot give you the answers to the questions of the world. You must work for them, earn them, listen to my earth. If you hear nothing, drown out the world around you and listen harder.” I was forced upward, like I had been thrown. “Praise me as much as you will, but I will not pull you from the pit again. Fall once more, and I will leave you there. The fates will have to live without my champion.”
Chapter Thirteen
We stood at the edge of the pier, waiting patiently for my cargo to be unloaded from the Elven Galleon. Seagulls cried on the midafternoon breeze, the smell of salt had coated my nostrils and my own hope was that the vegetables had not spoiled during the sea voyage from Harwick.
As we waited, my mind turned back to the last week since I had that weird ass dream. Though I had a mild sunburn, I had never felt better. I had chalked the whole thing up to being over emotional, suppressing so many feelings from so many years, that they all just came out of me. Not that I was ashamed or anything, sometimes we just needed a good cry to clear our heads.
Not to mention, the dream had been so vivid that I still remembered the conversation with the voice. I had even checked Aylana’s left ear, and found nothing there. The whole thing seemed silly, craziness created from an overwhelmed brain. Despite the clearing of the fog in my brain, and my change in thinking. I strove to never again fall into such a “woe is me” state of mind, not even after this past week of failures.
I heard the crunching from Brandon’s loud chewing and smiled fondly at the boy. For it had been him who had alerted me to yet another unforeseen problem that resided within the community of Elves. The slave boy had been chewing on acorns he had stolen from the Mystics Sacred Oak and I had asked, “how is it you have so much energy to run as fast as you do?”
His reply was between the mashing of his oversized teeth. “I don’t eat that slop they serve us. You know most of its rotten.” We returned later and he had been correct, though the vegetables the Elves ate were not rotten, they were of the poorest quality. Upon speaking with the cook, she reaffirm
ed that was all she had to work with and did her best. She might have thought I was complaining about her craft, but nothing could have been further from the truth. What she created from such substandard ingredients was a miracle all in itself.
Next, I turned to Lord Aerathrel, and I was shocked to find the lord was rather approachable when I had honest questions. Answering as best he could, I discovered despite the beautiful tree city and the expensive looking garments, he was flat broke. He confided in me, “my hopes were that you would be able to fix the problem with the soil before the growing season was over. Alas, it appears as it will not happen this cycle.”
I had written Bretta and Hana as soon as I could, a cry for help the likes I had never made before. My partners didn’t leave me in the lurch, for three days later I was standing on this dock, praying that all the leftover produce from the last harvest had not been wasted. As the dockhand pried open the first crate for inspection, I looked in with a sigh when I saw everything appeared full and appetizing. Pulling an apple out, I tossed it to Brandon, “here, chew on that and tell me what you think?”
“An apple, REALLY, you’re not teasing me right now?”
“Go for it little man.” I forced a smile on my face, for a kid never to have eaten an apple, was just wrong. If a young boy could have an orgasm, I think he did, for the pure joy of the juicy fruit made him vibrate with happiness. “Good?”
“Vetter van hood. Its Helishous.”
My smile was genuine. “Thanks for the assistance,” I inclined my head to the dockhand. “Honors to your House for you hard work. Please load them all on the wagon.”
“Lord, there is not a way to stow twenty crates upon one wagon.” The dockhand chided me.
“Twenty? Wow I guess they pulled out all the stops. Well, how many can we put on a wagon?” Three trips from the docks to the elevators later, I was standing next to the Lord’s cook. “What do you think, better than your what your used to working with?” Her eyes were the size of plates.
Noble Farmer Page 16
