The Imagineer's Bloodline: Ascendant Earth Chronicles – Book 1

by J. J. Lorden

  “Ummm.” Gideon rumbled agreement. “Well, I suppose when you put it like that. I am.”

  Bendik considered Gideon, then his gaze shifted up to the right, then down to the right, then across to the left. From an outside perspective, it appeared as if Bendik was reviewing some large unseen map.

  Finally, his head tilted up left, completing the circuit. After several moments, he nodded his regard down to his desk, where his eyes darted about as if considering a collection of scattered points. With a final nod, he looked back to Gideon. “This isn’t your first life, is it?”

  Gideon had fallen into a considering stare during Bendik’s contemplation, but now his grin returned in earnest. “That is very astutely deduced.”

  His eyes narrowed, and he looked deeply into Bendik’s. “You are persistent, End. But that’s not a conversation I’m willing to have. Not yet. For now, I must insist that we look at your problem and leave off this discussion. Although, down the road a bit, I certainly look forward to telling you my story.”

  Bendik raised a brow. “Well, that seems a bit cloak and dagger to me. However, given the stakes, I suppose it’ll do. Until we reach this amorphous location, down the road, that is.” He smirked, then poked the notes, and shook his head.

  It was quiet for a few heartbeats, then Bendik cocked his head, eyes fixed on Gideon’s cloak. He held out a hand. “May I?”

  “Certainly, although there’s not much you’ll be able to discern without the proper tools.”

  “That’s alright.” Bendik accepted the cloak with a hungry look; it was surprisingly light. He stood up and spun it back to rest around his own shoulders–the fit was a bit large. “This is a useful fashion accessory. We’re well ahead of the leghoppers in the information control department, but still, I can think of several productive uses for selective molecular displacement.” He tipped his chin toward the notes. “Aside from the big one.”

  “Yes, let’s not forget that.” Gideon concurred, then asked, “Who are these leghoppers? Or perhaps that’s just an anachronistic reference?”

  “The second. That’s my summary word for all the short-sighted, untrustworthy, self-serving bastards who are currently running the show.”

  “Huh. Good word, I think I’m going to steal it.”

  “Open license,” said Bendik as he ran his hands over the fabric, ending on the clasp. He pulled the cloak off, held the clasp before his face, and closed his eyes. “You ever watch movies, Doc?”

  Gideon liked this man already. Despite his casual demeanor, it was easy to see his every movement and word was intentional. A quality that was indicative of someone who truly paid attention to everything–he was almost certainly of the bloodline. “I do, although not very many.”

  Bendik lowered the clasp and opened his eyes. “This is tied to your genetic print, I assume?”

  Gideon nodded slowly. “From your perspective, yes. However, from my perspective, it is tied, beyond me.”

  “Really?!” Bendik regarded the smooth cloth with smiling eyes. “Now that is even more interesting.” He chuckled lightly and passed the cloak back.

  “So, movies. I love good movies,” Bendik returned to his point. “There’s this old comedy, far before your time.” Pausing he cleared his throat, then continued. “Spies Like Us is the name. It’s an absolute riot, worth a night of laughs. It’s about these two guys who get set up as decoy spies for a team of real spies. They get air dropped over close to the old Soviet Union as bait to distract the Russians from the actual spies.

  “Hijinks occur, and while they’re trekking through the mountains, one of them gets caught by Russian police who tie him up for interrogation. A KGB agent shows up and asks him, Why are you here? Well, he doesn’t even know, he’s just a decoy who didn’t have a real mission to begin with. His answer, though, is brilliant. He says, ‘Why am I here? Why are you here? Why are any of us here?”

  Bendik stopped talking and met Gideon’s eyes, knowing and intense. “So, Doc. How would you answer that question?”

  A slow smile split Gideon’s beard, revealing big, white teeth. He laughed, loud and deep. “That is perhaps the perfect question. And, I believe I must revise my earlier statement–you, End, are alarmingly perceptive.” Gideon settled back in his chair, interlaced his fingers over his chest, and considered quietly. Bendik waited for his answer.

  Gideon’s posture didn’t shift when he finally spoke again. “Having come as far as your math indicates, I know you’re a man of imagination. You know, in your bones, that hard work and a thorough grasp of that which is already understood can only take us to the edge of what we know we can do. Building anything beyond that edge requires an engineer with your kind of imagination.”

  Gideon leaned forward to lay a large hand atop the papers. “This project could only be birthed in a mind that long ago answered the question, why, for itself. A mind that perceives reality with the depth of Kepler and Faraday, the fanciful ease of Dahl and Disney, and the metaphysical probing of Nietzsche and Heidegger.

  “That is your mind, Mr. Texier, and it is also mine. We perceive the world accurately, find joy in even life’s cracks, envision how to lift others, then get busy building bridges that will. Gideon removed his hand and sat back.

  “We are Imagineers.”

  “Great word,” exclaimed Bendik. “I’m gonna steal that one.”

  “No need.” Gideon shifted slightly. “It’s open license.”

  Bendik lifted an open palm. “Well played.” He looked at the large Colombian man, set his elbows on the desk, and leaned in. “And my question, Mr. Suarez?”

  Having laid his groundwork, Gideon cut straight to it. “I am here because Imagineers are all that stand between humanity and its own destruction. We are the guardians before the void. And we are not alone.

  “Knowing that, End, do you now see who is recruiting who in this meeting.”

  Bendik Texier fell back in his chair and started laughing.

  End of Ascendant Earth Chronicles Book 1

  The Imagineer’s Bloodline.

  Sneak Peak of Ascendant Earth Chronicles Book 2

  Guardian’s Awakening

  Eye of the Yal’irime

  The Commander of the White Wood Champions leapt from Un’tartha ring to Un’tartha ring. Each bound covering huge distances and bypassing scores of smaller trees. Flying would have been slightly faster, but Nero preferred this for the instant of connection between each jump.

  The Featherlight weave modified the Flight weave by tying in strands of essential earth and water. Where Flight completely slipped his body from Kuora’s pull, Featherlight simply made him slick to its attractive force.

  After each jump, he made small, midair changes to those threads, varying his weight to adjust how far he traveled. Seemingly simple, it actually required tremendous expertise.

  Given Featherlight’s utility in scouting and battle, his entire cadre of Champions wielded the weave skillfully, but none were as adept as Nero.

  Every ancient Pado’tan tree spirit in the White Wood grew an Un’tartha perch at their highest point. These provided Champions sentry posts or, as Nero was using them, a treetop highway. The Un’tartha were part of the Di’shan pact.

  Bound together by the Di’shan, Champions entwined their soul essence with the collective energy of the White Wood. The bond granted power and abiding emotional stability, making every one of his cadre’ both a devastating presence in a fight, and an unflappable field general.

  However, with the gift of emotional clarity came a dependency upon the Forest for their sense of purpose. Deterioration in the spirit was slow when a Champion left its boundary–but inevitable.

  The White Wood’s highest protectors rarely spent time outside of its embrace.

  Unlike his corps, Nero’s thousands of years included other lives, and he had other bonds–primal bonds–that could sustain him far longer than most. Given the information he’d just received, Nero had a sharp feeling that those bonds would soo
n be tested.

  He’d been searching for Carson, his newest charge and wayward runaway, when the Wood alerted him to a power surge from the ancient city of his ancestors.

  Qar’Dakar had been silent for thousands of years, sealed against intrusion and decay by his hand, that of the city Laird, and those other of the Dakaril Varden with sufficient skill in rune work.

  Growing up in the streets of Qar’Dakar, chasing ally kits, terrorizing fruit vendors with his friends, and exploring the White Wood, Nero knew it better than anyone.

  Those memories were ancient, but if he tried, Nero could still smell the damp stone of its pre-dawn streets, feel his toes and fingers grip the grey-stone mortar joints of his uncle’s runnelry, and hear the Laird’s booming voice greet the sun with him.

  He had many other memories; predominantly though, the rest were less innocent.

  Qar’Dakar had pushed on for nearly two decades after the Void War, seeking a way to reconnect with Vallabloh Undstengard. The Breal Bloudran dwarves of Vallabloh, being like a second family to many of the Dakaril Elves, had united in the effort.

  Ultimately though, the seat of the Dakaril region became essence starved without its link to Vallabloh’s unbound wellspring. Being in a deprived condition, the city had become vulnerable, and so they’d chosen to leave, hoping one day to return.

  Even then, the majority of Dakaril elves had already dwelt scattered throughout the White Wood in traditional lineel communities.

  With the loss of Qar’Dakar, and the lineels thus made vulnerable, the Laird had pulled them all together, concentrating their considerable power to grow Dakarlineel. It had been their home ever since.

  Although Vallabloh had not fallen, Breal Bloudran had paid a different kind of price, and to this day, Nero did not envy them.

  Now Qar’Dakar was reawakening, and his Gwarn’din was connected to it. Expected though it was for the harbingers’ arrival to trigger such events, Nero had not imagined they would have so little time together before the wheels of prophecy began to turn.

  With the breaking of Qar’Dakar’s warding seal, there could be no doubt. It was a clear sign the inevitable had begun.

  Few still remembered the prophecy, and of those that did, many considered it nothing more than bardic frivolity. A tale told to reminisce on long-dead history. So, few stood ready. That had to change. But first, Nero must see to his Gwarn’din.

  Wind whistling in his ears, Nero closed on a soaring Pado’tan with cool green leaves that dwarfed its surrounding brethren. Its domed shape protruded from the continuous forest ceiling like a bush growing amid a fresh-cut field of wheat.

  All Pado’tan trees, scattered throughout the White Wood, stood as men among boys, but Glanathiel was a giant among men.

  Nero landed in full view of Glanathiel on the next closest Pado’tan. Traveling on the ground, unaided by essential weaves, the distance would be a quarter-hour trek. Via the Un’tartha, it was a single bound further.

  He acknowledged the spirit beneath him, Tinnealle, a gentle feminine being, and received a knowing smile in response. Tinnealle knew well the connection he and Glanathiel shared.

  His soul warmed, a smile creased about his eyes, and Nero cut all but the thinnest strands of water and earth from Featherlight. Kuora’s pull on him slipped away.

  Inertial mass reduced to that of a small rock, Nero launched from Tinnealle toward the towering tree. He hummed with desire to steal a short respite with his oldest companion before chasing down his Gwarn’din.

  Nero swept upward, leaving the comparatively small Tinnealle receding behind, and he boosted himself even higher with an infusion of essential air. His arc crested over Glanathiel. Leveling out, he took in the vibrant foliage gently dancing in his wake.

  Then he was descending. Touching down, he bent and wrapped fingers about the wrist-thick living circlet.

  The supple leather of his boots allowed for a near-perfect connection, but Glanathiel was his Dan’di’shan. Connection with even the soft hide between them was anathema to him.

  In Glanathiel’s presence, Nero felt at home in a way that even walking in the heart of Dakarlineel did not provide. Hello, my friend.

  Ahhhh… Glanathiel’s primal satisfaction rumbled through Nero. Tis’ wonderous to feel your presence once more, Shin’dan.

  And yours, Dan’di’shan. Nero sent. Tension melted away from his eyes, forehead, neck, and shoulders as the weight of concern dissolved. Nero basked in the oneness of Glanathiel’s welcoming embrace. Here he was truly home.

  Some time passed, Nero felt it was only minutes, but he knew from experience that could be wrong. Here time was warped by the severity of his stress or pain. Once, when his soul had darkened near to seeking death, many months had passed outside Glanathiel’s refuge while he’d drifted as if in one continuous day.

  The song of prophecy echoes in the breeze, loosening the very ROCK beneath us all, Glanathiel’s voice rolled. It sings your name Shin’dan.

  Yes, Dan’di’shan. The harbingers have come, and my role has begun. Soon, I must leave and do not know when the path will return me to you. I have come to gain what strength I can, responded Nero, resolute.

  Umm… exhaled Glanathiel’s pensive mind as if the ancient spirit had breath. So it is. Worry not, my companion, for I will not give you to fate’s fickle hands without girding. No. I am Glanathiel. I am deep knowing. What is dearest my soul shall not be sent alone into the unknowable.

  Come. Come Shin’dan, our Kom’gireth has long set empty and our Vir’ime needs tending. Come and take refuge for this sun and one moon. When next the radiance breaks upon me, we shall have created once more that which long sustained the ancient blood in times forgotten.

  With wordless gratitude, Nero accepted Glanathiel’s wisdom. Even his deep connection to purpose was not peerless. If his time outside the Wood stretched long, he knew all too well that even his spirit could be thrown into despair.

  It was not a condition he wished to revisit.

  Weaving density back into Featherlight, he stepped from his perch.

  He dropped from limb to limb, constantly changing his exposure to Kuora’s pull, falling quickly but only touching each branch with the weight of a leaf to redirect his next plunge.

  The fall was effortless, in part for Nero’s skill, but also for his Dan’di’shan’s influence; all tasks were greatly eased so close to his partner.

  Soon Nero alighted on a thick, black-and-tan mottled bough he knew very well. It alone was larger around than any of the Wood’s lesser trees.

  Below it, the girth of Glanathiel’s massive trunk was several times Nero’s height, but here, it bulged to half again as wide. As if an enormous boulder had become lodged inside the enormous Pado’tan, half-swallowed.

  Above the limb, there was an opening a bit wider than Nero’s shoulders at knee height. At arm-length, to the right, hung a tight bunch of ripe, blue fruit, heavy and fat from a slender limb of creamy tan.

  Nero broke the stem, pulled his satchel around, nestled the Linny fruits within, and stepped through the opening into their Kom’gireth.

  Wood grew over the opening behind him as deep green leaves unfurled from a thin vine that ran across the ceiling. The leaves began to luminesce. Nero could see without them, but the light was soothing, and its brilliance reflected the sun’s, allowing him to track time.

  The room was warm, dry, and twice Nero’s height in diameter. On the far side, a sleeping nook was lined with feathery-soft split wood. A single sunken shelf, no deeper than a handspan, yawned in the wood beside the nook.

  In the chamber’s heart, the circles and glyphs of a fourth-tier elemental power focus rose from Glanathiel’s grain, encircling his core. The focus was theirs, a product and symbol of their extraordinary bond.

  Seated there, while holding a coherent and aligned intent between them, he and his Dan’di’shan could raise a small mountain a thousand miles away. It was not a responsibility lightly bestowed, and very few foci of great
er power existed.

  To his left, a low table extended from the wall. As Nero’s gaze lingered on it, lines, forming a square, recessed into its surface, then rolled away like an unweighted scroll, revealing a hidden cavity and bound volume within. Nero grasped and lifted the book, holding it in one palm and resting the other atop its supple cover.

  Our Vir’ime, he sent reverently.

  Indeed Shin’dan. Many are the fresh pages the compulsion has required I add in your absence. The ache grows bothersome–fate pokes at my underside. Glanatheil’s voice in his mind fell silent, as if the Pado’tan pondered something, then returned in its customary rumble. Your actions lay heavy upon the unfolding, Shin’dan. Let us color them now, mayhap we may gain wisdom, and fate may rest its incessant prodding.

  Of course, Dan’di’shan. Much has occurred in little time. Let us attend to it, sent Nero. He paused, then added, I hate to think you might suffer a moment longer than needed.

  Bah! Fate is as a small vine, blindly poking its bits about me. I suffer not. Hmmm… Glanatheil trailed off ominously. Still, the vine unattended will grow as a parasite, undisciplined, uncaring for the life it chokes out.

  Nero’s body tingled. Then we shall be expert in guiding its course. We will form of fate a magnificent trellis covering for the path.

  Perhaps... Glanatheil was less confident. We shall do as we do, Shin’dan. Come, enough words.

  Seating himself in the center of the focus, Nero unslung his bag, placed their Vir’ime in his lap, and allowed it to fall open. The pages settled and displayed a scene from his past.

  The perspective was high behind Nero’s enraged figure as he stood over a thick female form, screaming rage and defiance into a tide of enemies.

  The entire image was done in blue lines shaded in red wherever activated essential energy was being used. Nero’s full power was displayed as he defended her. Trailing from both his hands, thin arcs drawn in dark blue and wreathed in crimson power cut through the sea of void infected.