by P. G. Thomas
“How do we do that?” asked Lauren.
“Earth Mother,” Tranquil sighed, “You did so much last time. As I watched your manifestation from the sword, you amazed me in the actions you took. Your compassion, caring, understanding, and even to this day, your presence ripples through these lands. When the Earth Guard commanded Mother, I saw an image of Alron and the garden of suffering. Do that which you do, Earth Mother, be all of that, nothing less.”
Even though Lauren saw Tranquil speak the words, the voice she heard was that of Panry. “It’s not enough. Tell me what I need to do.”
“We are absent from that knowledge,” began Tranquil, “or any other information that can help you.”
“The last time you helped us. I remember your words the final day of the battle. You told me to destroy the Blood Bond.”
“When once again we have knowledge that will help, we will provide it,” Tranquil said. “For now, the best I can do is this.”
With the setting abruptly changing, they no longer sat in a semi-circle, but now stood in front of a large tree, whose base measured more than a hundred feet wide. Its powerful roots corrupting the soil, being ten feet tall above the ground, before they began their long journey to the depths, bringing forth the required nourishment. Tranquil stood in front of the large tree, looking like an ant against the massive backdrop of weathered bark and exaggerated roots. She picked up a large branch forty feet long, being over ten inches thick, which was twisted, covered with large bulbous burls on it, and the bark was old, thick, with deep ruts in it.
“Since Mothers magic is still present, command it you can.” Holding the branch level to the ground, extending her hands, she slowly began to bring them together, and in doing so, it started to shrink, in both length and diameter. When done, her hands were side by side, and the branch now measured the same height as Lauren, but it was only inches in diameter. She floated over to Lauren, handing her the gnarled staff, and the weight of it almost pulled her over. Tranquil floated away, turned, “Be cautious, Earth Mother, as your last staff drank from the lands, replenishing itself. This one does not, and while its magic may be without limits, the same is not true of the contents. If you deplete it, brittle and dry it will become, breaking easily.”
With both hands, Lauren held the deceptively heavy staff level with the ground, “What type of wood is it? What will it do?”
“Your last staff, trees of three it was crafted from. Sage Wood was Mother’s knowledge, Core Wood her power, and Iron Wood her strength. This one has no name since it is as old as Mother is. I guess if it was to be named, then—”
Fury suddenly appeared, “It is wood, having Mother’s magic, and beyond that, it has no name.”
Fury, let me tell her she holds Mother in her hands, of the great power.
Why have you done this? She needs no crutch. When she reaches out, the magic will answer her. Her confidence you only had to reinforce.
I did. With a staff in her hands, I have bestowed confidence to all.
Tranquil, there were lesser gifts you could have provided her.
You would want me to give her a lesser gift. Mother is in peril, and you speak of lesser gifts! A simple dressing will not save Mother, and as such, I will provide the greatest help that I can so they can save all.
I never thought you would be so foolish, and you were right to say that you are but a child. If in anger she should strike out, unleashing all the power she now holds, the devastation could be great. Before with the Core Wood, Mother was watching, being able to counter any travesties she may have brought forth. With Mother silent, and us trapped here, she could collapse the central spine with the staff she now holds. If in anger, she wished to wash the lands clean of an evil she found, she could empty the oceans, and cleanse the lands of all life. Warn her to be cautious since you have just made her a god, one absent of knowledge. If another Earth Mother should grasp that staff, the power in it could kill them. WARN HER!
Fury, I am not a child, and we will discuss this later in great detail!
Tranquil turned back to Lauren, “I guess if it were to be named, then it would be called Old Wood. Mother was able to place her gifts where she needed them, but here in the First Forest, this is the only tree that has magic. Mother was able to design her gifts to meet a specific purpose, but this wood is natural, lacking her intentions. As its power can be erratic, you will need to exercise caution since you may release more than you wish. Also, let no other Earth Mother touch it, as they are accustomed to Mother’s current gifts. Should they grasp this old magic, it could cause them great suffering.”
Are you happy?
Tranquil, all heard your words ‘without limits,’ so the seed you may have already planted.
It is done brother, and nothing can undo it.
If it does not end well?
Then it just ends.
“How do I help heal Mother with plants and insects?”
“You did it before, Earth Mother. You fought an army with insects, blocking another with trees.”
“Those were armies, and there’s no invasion this time, so how can I heal Mother with sticks and stones?”
“I am sure that the Earth Mother that now tends the flock in Alron asked a similar question, but Mother never provided her with inspiration, you did.” Tranquil smiled, “In you, we place our faith.”
Fury turned to the Granite Guardians, “My brave warriors, even though worthy of this meeting you are, this day you shall not remember. The Bond of Protection that Ironhouse placed on you is strong. If we only brought Earth Mother here and not you, we would cause it to break, and to Ironhouse in shame you would return. Or worse yet, wander the lands like cut beards blowing in the wind, absent of a place to rest, and this we would never do. While the others here are not from these lands, we did make an exception for the heirs to the Beast Throne, as their legacy is of both worlds. I could command you not to talk about this meeting, and honor it I know you would, but we will not ask you to silently guard our presence, so that burden I will remove.” The six Granite Guardians all nodded.
Chapter 18
“What just happened?” asked Lauren.
“We just returned from Alron, Earth Mother,” Mirtza replied, “Where did you get that staff? You weren’t holding it when we stepped into the portal. Eric, what happened to the scabbard?”
Lauren was shaking her head, trying to eliminate the confusion, “Will somebody explain…something—anything?”
“Gayne,” John called out, “can we use your classroom for a few minutes?”
After he had nodded, John walked Sam and Hope to the front room, asking them to wait there. Then he led the rest into the room across the hall, and as two of the Granite Guardians took up positions outside the door, the others headed outside to form a perimeter around the house.
John turned to the group, “Other than we just met two gods, I’ve no idea what happened.”
“What did they mean,” Lauren started, “when they called Gingaar the Essence Pure? What’s this Beast Throne? Is Zack the Master of Feathers and Furs? Sam and Hope are the heirs? They know of my daughters,” then she felt Ryan squeeze her hand. “They know our daughters are here? How do we heal Mother?” Abruptly Lauren paused, waiting for her answers.
John threw up his hands, “What about the trollmares, the dwarves, the yellow root. Let’s not forget about what’s happening in Alron, to Mother, or that somebody from the Bright Coast is hiring assassins to kill Earth Mothers, and just for the record, there are a thousand other questions that I can’t even recall right now.”
Lauren’s eyes flared opened, looking like a volcano ready to explode.
“Calm down,” Ryan pleaded, “John is right, as there are too many questions right now. We need time to figure this out.”
“Can I just say something?”
Everybody turned to Steve, “While I don’t know everything you all did the last time when you were here, you seemed to have made quite an impression on everyb
ody. Somehow, you managed to determine what the issues were, prioritized them, and then took action. Questions about the Essence Pure or Beast Throne aren’t relevant to the current problem. I think or hope. The focus has to be on helping to heal this Mother character, so she can help find your daughters. That’s priority number one. Second, somebody most likely on the Bright Coast has gone to a considerable amount of effort to cause pain in Alron, which is a great distance from here, but between here and there, it sounds like chaos rules the lands. It’s what I said back at that bar, indirect actions to overthrow a government, so we need to focus, avoiding getting side-tracked by less relevant issues.”
“Well, then where do we focus?” asked Lauren.
“Healing Mother,” Steve replied, “but beyond that, Whisky Tango Foxtrot.”
“WTF?” asked Logan.
“Yeah,” Steve replied.
Logan shook his head, “No, what does alcohol and dancing have to do with healing Mother?”
“Nothing, Whisky Tango Foxtrot is military radio-talk that means WTF. It’s the first letter that has the meaning, and the rest are in case enemies are listening, or if there’s a bad connection. Therefore, Charlie Foxtrot or CF is just another way to describe this mess, which means a Custer Fluck.
“What the heck is a fluck?”
“Just trying to be polite, Kid, move the ‘L’ from the second word to the first.”
“Oh, then what’s a cluster?”
“Enough,” began Ryan. “What do you mean?”
“This entire place is the biggest Charlie Foxtrot I’ve ever seen. Burning trees attacking the ugliest flying creatures I’ve ever seen, spiders the size of small cars, traveling through these portals of yours. Plus, let’s not forget the attacks by creatures that make my nightmares look like freaking nursery rhymes, dwarves riding wolves, the Kid here turning a man into Bob the blob—I don’t even remember the rest. Then your friend Zack, shape-shifting in front of me? That one fried all of my remaining logic, but my most recent favorite, seeing freaking gods appear. However, those images in comparison to what I’m going to see, and I’ll probably look back at them and laugh, because I just saw a freaking god give Lauren a staff. By the way, even though it might not be my place, I think she was lying. Then another god, he does something to the world’s biggest knife, and while I can’t imagine what that was, I’m sure when I see it, that it’ll shock me even more.” Eric smiled as Steve continued his rant. “There’s no way I’m going to say I understand everything that’s happening in this whacked out world. I’ve no idea on how you all made sense of it last time, yet somehow you managed to do—whatever it was that you that you did.”
“Sons of bitches,” Logan gave his head a shake, “First Tranquil, now him. Lauren, what do you do to these people you meet?”
“Bastard.”
Logan raised his forearms, “That’s right, I’m back,” and small flames wicked from his fingertips. “So, you without a name, your story, does it have a point?”
“I have a name. I just don’t have a title like you.”
“I know, I just wanted to hear you say it.”
Steve shook his head. “Bastard,” but Logan just smiled. “Forget all this amazingly disturbing crap, and if Gayne has enough wine in his cellar, I might be able to drink until I do, but take it all off the table. Mother is a controlling influence here, like the head of a government, and someone has worked very hard to diminish her—”
“Diminish?” asked Logan.
“Reduce, lessen, weaken, shrink, or fade. Ever heard of a thesaurus?”
Logan raised his hand with his middle finger extended, a flame burning at the end of it, “Yeah, it’s a freaking dinosaur.”
“I’ll explain it to him later,” advised Ryan.
“SHUT UP!” Lauren turned to Steve, “Since you said we need to focus, let’s start with you!”
“The government of Mother, lacking a better term, has been overthrown. Which in turn has decreased, similar to diminish,” Again Logan extended a burning middle finger. Steve smiled, “Somebody took out the supporting elements beneath her, the Earth Mothers you talked about. Whoever it was, they carried out a systematic frontal assault across the terrain, sorry Logan, I meant to say lands. That caused the population to be displaced, I mean to flee, which in turn adds to the confusion.” Logan was now holding both burning middle fingers extended as Steve continued, “However, there are two types of anarchy: unplanned and planned. In some of the first wars, the intent was never to kill opposing soldiers, only to wound them, because they used more resources and added to the chaos.”
“To what end?” asked John.
“I don’t know,” replied Steve.
“Those three words were not spoken by me.”
Lauren raised her head, “Okay, he who is gifted with more knowledge than John Ironhouse, what do we do?”
“You never gave me a chance.”
“We have three primary countermeasures to expand on,” explained Steve. “While the first is Mother, it has two parts: her forests and followers. Even though I don’t understand how this relationship works, we need to figure it out. The second is the connection between this place you call Darkpaye, the Bright Coast, and Alron. The last, these trollmare things that chased the people from the—nude lands? That are attacking Alron. To me, this feels like a textbook example of overthrowing a government.”
Ryan nodded, “Then what do we do first?”
“I don’t know about you, Raisin Tarts,” Steve stood, headed for the door, “but I need a drink. Those spiders are still giving me the willies.”
“It’s Raw Farts—no, it’s Raging Hard, I mean Rage Heart.” By that time, Steve had left the room, and Ryan was scanning the four who were trying to hold in their laughter, but not hard enough as far as he was concerned.
Walking out of the classroom, John saw Gayne looking at the Granite Guardians and blood wolves. “Is there a problem?”
“Are they trained?”
“The wolves?” John asked, being unsure of Gayne’s concern.
“Yes!”
“I think so, as they seem to know what the Guardians are thinking, even anticipating their next moves.”
Gayne was tapping his foot.
“Oh, you mean house trained?”
“Supreme Ruler of Magic, should I find one…deposit on my beautiful rugs, we will remove the ‘Un’ from your first title because I will call you the Chosen; he who I have chosen to pick up the dog deposits. Do I make myself clear?”
“I’ll have Lauren talk to them since I don’t think they’ll listen to me.”
“Thank you,” Gayne replied, “What were you discussing?”
John shrugged his shoulders, “Things,” and then he walked over to Sam and Hope. “Do either of you two have any questions about what happened?”
“What happened?” asked Sam.
John held back his surprise, “The trip here?”
Hope had an odd expression on her face, “Something happened?”
Maybe Tranquil or Fury suppressed their memories, like with the Granite Guardians, “I’m sorry, I meant to say, what happens next?”
“No,” Sam replied, “we figured we would wait until Aunt Lauren or Uncle Ryan told us how we could help.”
Seeing Steve coming up from the basement, John recognized a bottle of honey wine, “We’ll talk later.”
Hope leaned towards her brother, “I want to know what this Beast Throne is.”
Sam whispered back, “We do like we said. First, we find the missing children, and then we can ask. You know what Dad is like when he gets distracted.”
“They called Dad the Master of Feathers and Furs. Called us rabbits to the throne, whatever that means.”
“You really need to pay attention to Mom when she is homeschooling us. An heir, sounding like air, means inheritance, not rabbits.”
“Well, Dad does like rabbits!”
“I’m just glad he likes you more,” Sam shook his head, “Rabb
its to the throne, seriously.”
“Well, he does like them! What was I supposed to think?”
*******
John sat down on the wet patio chair, grabbed the bottle of honey wine, and popped the cork, “You really think they’re all connected?”
“Just like you, your brother Eric, your brother Zack, and all of your short brothers back at Ironing house.”
“It’s Ironhouse!”
“Sorry, the Kid is rubbing off on me. That’s what I meant to say. Back when I could read the transcripts of the chatter, it was never linear. Somehow, the intelligent analysts were able to connect the dots. If we placed you three side by side with one of the dwarves, asking the average person to identify the common thread, they would shrug their shoulders. Those boys, sitting in the dark back rooms with the thick glasses, would be able to find the Ironhouse thread that would connect you all. We just have to do the same thing here, without computers, secret intelligence, wiretaps, metadata, or grabbing phone communications from the air. Shouldn’t be a problem, should it?”
“First thing tomorrow morning, I’ll install a state-of-the-art communications network, build a super computer to listen to all of the conversations, and write the program to connect the metadata.” Then John poured himself a drink.
Steve filled a glass with spiced cider, “Anywhere else, I would know you were joking. Here, I have to ask because—damn, those spiders were ugly, and that burning freaking tree and gods. You’re joking, right?”
“Remember how I told you this world would screw with your head?”
Lauren walked out to the patio, “So, where do we start?”
“If I’m right, ten sailed from here to that south port town,” began Steve, “so there should be records somewhere down at the docks, but if they hired a dark runner—”
“A what?” asked Lauren.
“Somebody to dodge countermeasures, using stealth to avoid radars, travelling more dangerous routes, and not to keep records. If they did that, it could be harder, but if you offer enough incentive, they usually sing faster than bureaucrats crapping out red tape, so we try to follow the money.”
