I shrugged. “Come to think of it, I’m not sure I do either. I think they used to have world fairs when people from all over the world used to gather to see the latest inventions and technologies demonstrated. Back in the industrial era. They still have expos and such, but I don’t think they’re as big a deal as they used to be. St. Louis hosted the World’s Fair here in 1904.”
“So, these fairs. They celebrate the demise of your world?”
I squinted my eyes. “How do you mean?”
“The birth of industry. And pollution.”
I pressed my lips together. “They saw it as a celebration of human progress. They believed that with good science and ingenuity, we could accomplish anything.”
“At the expense of your planet?”
“I don’t think they even thought about the consequences of carbon emissions back then.”
“Humans have always had a predilection for imagining themselves as gods. Caesar and the emperors demanded our people worship them. Not just their gods, but them.”
“From my understanding of history,” I said. “Many of the emperors were delusional. Drunk on their power.”
Layla snorted. “The emperors were never gods. Quite the opposite. They were harbingers of doom and destruction. Millions of lives were lost for the sake of what they called an empire. But history repeats itself. Humanity, drunk on its power, believes that through their inventions and science, they can rule the world like gods. But all the while, they too, destroy the very world over which they claim dominion.”
I nodded. “You’re right, I suppose. I mean, we can’t stop polluting since our economy depends on fossil fuels.”
“Your economy has become for you what the empire was for the Caesars. Sacrifice anyone and anything for the sake of the economy. For the sake of the empire. Even if it means the end of your civilization a generation from now. Punt the problem off to your children. Hope they’re smarter than you and can come up with some way to solve the problem you couldn’t.”
“I suppose you have a point, Layla. But if you think about it, haven’t your people done something similar? I mean, I don’t know much about your history. Only what you’ve told me. But it sounds like your ancestors brought some of the Earth’s magic to a new world, which, frankly, is quite remarkable. But then you’ve wasted most of that magic in an endless war with the giants?”
Layla shook her head. “That’s not the same. You wouldn’t understand.”
I shrugged. “You’re right. I might not understand. But it sounds like your planet is becoming more hostile, less habitable, precisely because you’ve squandered your natural resource, the magic your ancestors brought from Earth. It’s not that different from what humans have done here.”
Layla took a deep breath. “I see your point. But what can we do about that? If we don’t fight the orcs, they’ll kill us all and claim the magic for themselves.”
“So, everything your kingdom has done in the course of these wars has been for the sake of self-defense?”
Layla bit her lip. “Not exactly. I mean, that’s what we tell ourselves to justify it. If we attack them, then the war happens in their lands. Not ours. We keep our people safe.”
I nodded. “The last time there was a sustained war in the United States, it was the Civil War. But did you know that during the Iraq War, our military created massive burn pits where they disposed of waste, chemicals, all kinds of shit?”
“That’s awful,” Layla said. “How could they do that without realizing the consequences?”
I took a deep breath. “It was a war fought in a foreign land. Why not burn our shit? Why not poison their water and their soil. It’s not our land, right? After we leave, after we win the war, it’s their problem. Out of sight, out of mind.”
“And people don’t protest this stuff?” Layla dropped her jaw and widened her eyes.
I scratched my head. “I only know about it because the grandson of one of the members of our church has lung problems, probably caused by the pits.”
“That’s horrific,” Layla said. “That’s why my father says that humans have spoiled the planet and our ancestors should have stayed and fought back.”
“More war. That’s your father’s answer to everything, isn’t it?” I asked, raising my left eyebrow.
“We are short on other options.”
“We live in a world, and I imagine you do too, where people see things in terms of black and white. Good and evil. But the other side never thinks they are the bad guys. Everyone believes they are on the side of good. But the other side, all villains. The church is a lot like that, too. If you don’t worship in exactly the way our denomination prescribes, folks like my former bishop imagine that you’re in league with hell itself.”
“That’s pretty closed-minded,” Layla remarked.
“It is,” I said. “When you always think the other side is pure evil, it’s impossible to talk about your differences, to try to find common ground. I mean, once you’ve decided the people you disagree with are villains, there’s only one option left. To defeat them.”
“If people talked,” Layla said, “they might find they share many of the same values.”
I smiled. “It’s one reason I like football so much. And not just football. Anything we can enjoy together as a people. Sports, movies, concerts, whatever. When you’re at a game, you don’t ask the person sitting next to you about their politics. Your team scores, you slap them five. If you see someone wearing the other team’s colors, if you aren’t a complete asshole, you have fun razzing each other back and forth. It’s all out of a common love for the game.”
“I’ve never thought about it that way.”
I nodded. “I’m not against athletes or musicians using their platform to speak out about political or social issues. That’s their right. But I think when they imagine they have to do that because their job as entertainers is somehow trivial or meaningless, they miss the point. Entertainers, athletes, actors, musicians, whatever, they serve a crucial role in our society. They are the glue that binds us together, that reminds us we’re all more alike than different. Once we lose that, we’re all doomed. We need things that remind us we share a lot in common even with those who see the world a little differently than we do.”
“You’re suggesting that we should talk to the orcs?”
I smiled. “You could start by calling them Earth giants. I mean, you said that’s what they’d like to be called. Then, try to have a conversation.”
Layla grinned. “If they’ll listen. They’re as committed to these battles as my father. We try to have a civil conversation, they’re likely to smash our heads with their battle-axes before we even have a chance to open our mouths.”
“It’s never easy, is it? To be the first to lay down one’s arms. I think it takes more courage to do that than it does to fight. A bold move toward peace, even at great risk, speaks volumes. Nonviolence has always been a more powerful weapon for change than violence. It’s what Jesus meant when he told his disciples to turn the other cheek. It’s what Reverend King preached in the sixties. It’s still the answer today, but few people dare to pursue that path.”
“It’s a shame, Caspar.”
I looked at Layla, and she was shaking her head as she watched the path on the ground in front of us. “What is?”
“That they ran you out of the church. I mean, I don’t know much about your religion, but you seem to understand the message that so many of your kind, and our kind, too, need to hear. I hope losing your job won’t stop you from preaching it.”
“I guess all I can do is the next right thing.”
Layla pressed her lips together. “And that is what, exactly?”
I laughed. “Well, the world in front of me is so thick with fog that I can’t see any further than the next step I’m about to take. I don’t know where I’m going with my life. I don’t know how much of what you say I believe. I’m trying to keep an open mind, don’t get me wrong. But all I know is tha
t there’s a piece of solid ground about twelve inches in front of me. If I take that step, I’ll be on solid ground, so that’s what I need to do. It’s all I can do. I can do the next right thing. If that leads me to preach again, cool. If not, well, I suppose it’s just as likely that this prophecy you speak of might have something to say about that, too.”
Chapter Thirteen
Layla and I sat cross-legged across from each other in a small clearing in the park.
“Speak to the trees,” she said.
I scrunched my brow. “What?”
“The trees are the guardians of the Earth’s magic. If we are going to tap into whatever power you have—the power you inherited from the Blade of Echoes—and use it to connect to wherever B’iff has taken the Blade, we need to work through the trees.”
“All right,” I said. “It’s just, in my experience, trees aren’t the best conversation partners. You’re saying I should just speak to them?”
“Not with words,” Layla said. “Stretch out with your feelings.”
I snorted. “Okay, Obi-Wan Kenobi.”
Layla cocked her head. “Why do I know this name, Obi-Wan?”
I looked at her blankly. “Hello. Star Wars.”
Layla nodded. “That’s right. Sorry, I may know more about human culture than most elves, but I don’t think I ever saw those movies.”
“You are supposed to be here to research human culture, but you never saw Star Wars?”
“Is that the same thing as Star Trek?”
My eyes went wide. I shook my head slowly but deliberately. “No, it is not.”
Layla stared at me and shrugged. “Can we just focus on why we’re here?”
“Sorry. But when you said to stretch out with my feelings, I couldn’t help myself, Princess Leia.”
“It’s Princess Layla.”
“I know.” I grinned widely. She didn’t get the joke, but at least I was entertaining myself. “Here’s the thing. When it comes to feelings, I’m a fairly inept person.”
“How can you be inept concerning feelings? Everyone has feelings.”
I scratched my head. “I just never dealt with feelings well. I used to drink because I didn’t know what to do with them. Now, only about five years sober, I have the emotional maturity of a kindergartner.”
“I doubt that,” Layla said. “Just because you don’t understand your feelings doesn’t mean they aren’t there. Just try not to think. Listen to the breeze flutter through the leaves. Hear the trees and be aware.”
“Okay,” I said, turning my palms up and touching my thumb to my middle finger. “This is the way you meditate, right?”
“I don’t think what you do with your hands matters.”
I turned my palms back over and closed my eyes. “I hear the wind in the leaves. Now what?”
“Just be quiet. Stop talking.”
I sighed. This was pointless. “Hey, Woody! I’m trying to talk to you!”
“The tree’s name isn’t Woody, and it doesn’t talk that way.”
“This isn’t working, Layla. I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“All right, then let’s try to visualize something. Close your eyes and relax again. At first, just focus on your breath. Breathe in…and out…”
I inhaled. I exhaled. My chest rose and fell with each breath.
“Good. Now try to visualize yourself here in the grove. Don’t open your eyes, just use your mind’s eye.”
“All right,” I said. “I see it.”
“Now imagine a circle of light around the perimeter of where we’re sitting. The circle closes in slowly, from the trees until it meets you and covers the ground around you.”
I took another deep breath.
“And now imagine the light coursing up through your body, starting at the ground.”
“It’s lighting up my ass first?”
“Shhh. Just picture it. From there, it moves up your body, illuminating your stomach, your chest, your arms. Eventually consuming all of you.”
I had to bite my tongue. I wanted to crack a joke about whether or not it was a good idea to imagine sunscreen on my body so I didn’t develop an imaginary sunburn. Based on her last shushing, I was reasonably certain I was already trying her patience. I tried to picture it. “I’m all lit up.”
“Now feel the warmth of the light embrace you. It comforts you. It calms your mind. Embrace the warmth.”
I chuckled a little. I figured it was just my mind, some kind of psychosomatic response to this visualization exercise, but I could feel the heat. It was intense but not harsh. Warm, but not too hot.
“Now open your eyes.”
I opened my eyes. I gasped. I wasn’t just imagining it. There was a real light, a golden energy like the magic I’d seen explode out of my eyes in the mirror. Only now it was coursing throughout my body, swirling around me and the trees on the edge of the clearing where we sat. “Layla, what is happening?”
“You’re communing with the trees!”
I laughed as I extended my arms and touched the magic around me. In my denomination, we weren’t even allowed to commune with other Christians who didn’t agree with our dogmas. But now I was communing with trees? Maybe it made me a heretic in the eyes of the bishop, but I didn’t care. I’d never felt so alive. It was like I’d just come up from a lifetime underwater and was taking a breath for the first time.
“This is amazing!” I said, laughing through my words.
“The magic in you should be attuned to the Blade of Echoes. Let the Earth speak to you through the trees. Listen to it speak, feel it. Don’t try to find the Blade. Try to find the magic that courses within it, the old Earthen magic that connects you and the Blade through the planet.”
“I can feel something, but I don’t know how to interpret what I’m sensing. Will it show me where the Blade is on a map?”
Layla shook her head. “It’s not like that, but you should be able to sense a distance, a direction. An orientation. Focus on that and try to hold onto it so we can follow it.”
“Like a compass?” I asked.
“Exactly like a compass. Only it won’t point you north. It will point you to the Blade of Echoes.”
I closed my eyes and took another deep breath. “I think I feel it. But how do I hold onto it?”
“Visualize it again. See the light around you in your mind’s eye. Then release everything else. Clear away all the magic that isn’t connected to you and the Blade.”
I focused as best I could. This wasn’t easy. Thankfully, I’ve always had a pretty active and colorful imagination. I held on to whatever felt the warmest and released the magic that felt cool. All that remained in my mind’s eye was a dot on the south side of the clearing.
“I see it,” I said. “It’s a dim light, but I see the direction.”
“That’s a start. The light will grow brighter as we get closer.”
I opened my eyes. The magic was gone, except one light that I saw on the southern horizon. “Can you see that?” I asked Layla, pointing at the light.
Layla shook her head. “My magic isn’t attuned to the Blade.”
“What is your magic attuned to, then?”
Layla bit her lip. “It wasn’t attuned to anything at first.”
“Wasn’t, as in past tense?”
Layla nodded. “I try to avoid being attuned to anything impermanent. But when I healed you, I became attuned to you.”
“You’re attuned to me?” I asked, raising my eyebrows.
“It doesn’t matter.” Layla turned in the direction where I’d indicated I saw the light and started walking.
I quickly jogged up beside her. “Not a big deal if you are. I mean, you healed me. Not like I know how all this stuff works, but that makes sense. I think. I mean, doesn’t it?”
“I don’t know what it means. Yet.” Layla was looking off to the left. I was jogging alongside her right side. She was in great shape. I wasn’t. I didn’t think I’d be able to keep up this pa
ce for long. But something was bothering her.
“But you suspect something that is bothering you.”
Layla stopped jogging. I was grateful for that. I was already in the beginning stages of a jogger’s cramp. She grabbed my hand. Why did she do that?
“Is everything okay?”
Layla nodded. “When you are attuned to a magical item or whatever, it can be useful. But your magic, it’s not like dialing in the signal to a radio station or something. It’s a connection in the soul.”
“So, you’re saying my soul is bound to the blade that stabbed me, and your soul is bound to me.”
“To you, yes.”
I shrugged. “Okay. So what’s the big deal?”
“Because if your soul is attuned, bound, to something or someone, it means your lives are connected. If B’iff learns you are the chosen one, he might, and I stress might, just lay low and try to avoid you until the next full moon, when he can go back to New Albion.”
“Or?”
“Or he could destroy the Blade, cutting short the prophecy.”
“And if he did that, I’d die?”
“You’d die. And since my soul is now attuned to you…”
“You’d die, too.”
Layla nodded. “We have to play this thing carefully. We have to find the Blade of Echoes and get it from him before he figures out you’re alive without him realizing we’re coming after him. If he figures it out, he could destroy the Blade and kill both of us.”
Chapter Fourteen
“We need to stop by the apartment before we head out. I need to change Agnus’ box and make sure he has enough food and water to last him a while.”
“You aren’t bringing him with you?” Layla asked, looking at me intensely from the passenger seat of my Eclipse.
It’s always a bit awkward when someone is trying to make eye contact with you and have a conversation while driving. I felt torn between looking at her and keeping my eyes on the road, but having dealt with St. Louis drivers, I knew better. “Agnus hates the car. He’s afraid every time we get in here that we’re going to end up at the vet.”
Who Let the Dogma Out (The Elven Prophecy Book 1) Page 8
