by Elon Vidal
Athos didn’t look surprised to see them. “How much did you hear?”
“That Heroki was here to invite Luna to stay with her.” Ella cast a sideways look at the mining princess.
“Not a chance…” Luna whispered, brushing aside the tears from her cheeks, her chin jutting out.
“Also, that she wants the Eye.” Ella patted her shoulder bag.
“Indeed. That was about it. She wasn’t here very long. Surprising, actually…” Athos rubbed his paws together, then smoothed his ears out between them. “Surprising that she would confront me so openly after QT was just here. She had no way of knowing, of course, that we know she sent QT here, as the Eye provided that information to us. But, he must have told her that Luna was here. Do you have something she is looking for, Luna?”
“I might,” Luna said.
Ella thought of the tablet that Luna had said held all the codes to her father’s complexes. That would probably be worth hunting her down for. Was that what Luna meant?
Before she could ask, Nerka interrupted them all. “I know one of the guards.”
“One of the Sintila Guards?” Athos sounded surprised.
“Yeah. I competed in the Arena games with him. He is the one that sprinted away after talking to Heroki. His name is Vaspei. He’s…” Nerka’s brow furrowed, trying to make sense of competing information. She snapped her staff back into its small size and tucked it in at her waist. “He’s a friend. I thought I could trust him. Last I knew he was taking an instructor position near Phinterra. I would never have guessed he would work for Sintila…”
Juro scratched his head and shrugged, though the tensing of his muscles betrayed the anger underneath. “Sintila pays well. If he competed in the Games, he probably has some skills they are seeking. If he is able to guard someone as high up as Heroki, he must either know someone or have made a distinct impression very quickly.”
“Well… he is very good. He almost beat me in the Games. I just… philosophically I wouldn’t have thought he would work for the organization.”
Athos sounded thoughtful as he said, “Maybe Heroki has a point and there are ways we are all impacted by them that we don’t even realize.”
The others reflected on his words as Ella dug around in her shoulder bag. The Eye was buried at the bottom. The orange sunstone glittered as she brought it out.
“Would you consider it as a trade?” Nerka asked.
Ella sighed. “No… I don’t think we can. That’s one of the directives for us, isn’t it? To keep things Heroki Sintila wants out of her grasp? Make sure she doesn’t get the Space or Attraction Crystals… Eventually go to the Balite Mines to see if there’s another one there… And if she wants this, then we need to make sure she doesn’t get it. Besides,” Ella looked at her reflection in the prismatic panes. “I am pretty sure that choice isn’t entirely up to me. We are a team. Something as big as that should be voted on.”
The others all nodded, no one expressing disagreement to the fact that they shouldn’t give up the Eye. Ella brushed her fingers down the silver crown. What in the world would Heroki want it for? What kind of tech would she be able to manufacture with an Eye that could see through another’s vision across distances? Could she replicate it? Make her soldiers more powerful?
She tucked the Eye back into the bag. “Let’s go see the Maven. We need to know what they have found out about how to cleanse Underworlder magic. That’s the only way we are getting QT back, because I doubt Heroki even meant trading for him.” And if she did mean to trade for QT, did that mean she found a way to get the Crystal out of the Wielders?
The thought flooded Ella with dread… If that were possible, against the will of the Wielders themselves, then what use would QT be to Heroki at all? Why would she even keep him around?
Ella stood up and nodded toward Nerka to create the portal to the Equatorial Forest, the urgency nearly making her blind. They had to get QT back. She needed her best friend.
Before Sintila did something to him that couldn’t be reversed.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN – THIRSTY FOREST
Cherra Larisse looked gaunt and tired. Ella’s concern for QT in an Underworlder dimension that was at the moment out of her reach suddenly paled in comparison to the change that had come over her father since she had seen him just a few days before.
“Have you been sleeping? Eating?” Ella looked up, slightly accusatory, at Per-Ah, the tall ruler of the Maven. Per-Ah was slender, muscular, and pale. His ruby eyes could flame up in anger or protection.
The Maven were the biped that all other creatures had feared for centuries, but Ella and Nerka had recently learned that their tradition of being at odds with the Hegrites of the Northern Hemisphere and the Egrites of the Southern had more to do with the former and latter than with the Maven. They were generous warriors who just wanted to protect the banyan trees that bore the soul of Methula in their Durgic spirit core.
The Maven moved in nomadic packs through the Equatorial Forest while staying close to the center to protect the banyans. They had also been charged with protecting the Space Crystal, but when Nerka was revealed proper Wielder, they had let her take it with great reverence.
Per-Ah grabbed Ella into a bear hug, then released her with a sheepish grin. Even Per-Ah and the other Maven looked spent and thin. Ella’s concern mounted. “Your father, he does not sleep or eat. He is like the banyans. The Crystals rattle their thirst.”
The Crystals rattle their thirst… Ella’s brow furrowed and she looked at her team to see if they could make sense of Per-Ah’s words. It was then that she noticed the same gaunt, haggard look in the trees behind Per-Ah and Cherra.
The banyans had a lovely, large canopy that flowed out with long tendrils winding down to the soft undergrowth, sweeping gentle brushes at the earthen floor. But, now, it seemed stilted. Disjointed.
Thirsty…
The banyans seemed desiccated, as if they weren’t getting the nutrients they needed. The greenish blue of their vines was tinged with a sickly yellow. Even the matted ferns at their base seemed weepy and forlorn.
The other Maven watched the team gather under the great banyans. Luna and Juro murmured about the size and brilliance, but Ella and Nerka knew better, having seen the great trees just weeks before: something was going on here.
It had taken a bit of coaxing to make sure Luna and Juro weren’t also too on edge around the dreaded Maven, but the hospitality with which they were taken in right away—being the friends of Nerka the Shadow and Ella, the daughter of Cherra Larisse—was enough to convince them.
“So, why are you here, my dear?” Cherra asked.
“We need to get to the Underworlder realm to rescue QT.” Ella tore her thoughts away from how disquieting it was to see the change in the vegetation. “He has been possessed by their magic and I need to know how to cleanse him once we get him back. I was hoping that you or the Maven had made some headway in knowing how to heal the seriport herd.”
Cherra and Per-Ah exchanged a glance.
“The banyan tree was helping… But, now it seems to do the opposite.” Cherra rolled his shoulders and rubbed his forehead. “So, no, we don’t know how to help with this problem. Something changed recently. The banyan’s properties are… Shifting. I’m not sure—”
“Cherra! Cherra!” A large Maven came bustling from a hut, her colorful dress flirting with her knees through the tall grasses. “We need of you. Please!”
Cherra offered Ella a sad smile and then he squeezed her shoulder before walking away. Ella watched him go, dissatisfied and worried about her dad, even though she should have known better by now than to question his work methods. She was sure there were many times when he had been so lost in his work that he had forgotten to eat. Certainly, since losing Cleo, he had gotten so over-absorbed in trying to find her that he was lost to Ella for weeks at a time.
Per-Ah’s heavy hand squeezed her shoulder next as he led her toward a trail that wound into the forest.
&
nbsp; “Come. You can ask questions of heart of forest.”
Ella smiled at him. “I thought I was already asking you questions.”
Per-Ah guffawed. “I am fist of forest. Heart of forest is always great banyan.”
It still amazed Ella that she was walking beside the leader of the clan she had thought she would always fear. So much had changed in so swift a time. And now, walking along the dimly lit path, bioluminescent flowers peeking out their petals to the night air, flurries of pollen glowing on the breeze, Ella felt comfort being here.
The forest looked dry. Something was sucking at it or… shifting its attention from its nutrients. The unease was hard to ignore.
If Per-Ah was leading her to one of the giant banyans, then that meant she could make a Durgic connection not just to it, but also to her mother. Her heart skipped at the happy thought. That was not what she had expected to happen when she sought out the Maven, but if it could answer questions, she would try it. It was disappointing that they didn’t have an answer right away to how to cleanse QT. So, she would need to understand what else might.
Per-Ah lifted a curtain of vines for Ella so she could slip through. A giant banyan rested within the grove of wildflowers. A soft blue glow shone from its root system and up through spindly curves and curls along its bark. Still, it was muffled, less brilliant than she had seen it shine before. And the tree was stretching strangely. It all just felt… off.
Per-Ah jerked his head toward the tree, then stopped her with his hand out. “The moons no give light. They shelter it. Crystals no give light. They direct it. Suns give light. They no control it. You understand?”
Ella memorized his words for better analysis later, but still nodded. “There’s a balance, right? The way they work together?”
Per-Ah nodded, pleased. “They all work together to create harmony. No harmony, always thirst.”
With a movement swifter than his great body should have been able to swing, Per-Ah settled to the ground under the banyan canopy. He patted the earth beside him. He began to sway with the rhythm of the branches of the banyan, but the motion was stilted, less fluid than Ella remembered from when she had witnessed it before. Still, she wiggled back into the cushion of the undergrowth and closed her eyes, feeling out with her Durgic connection, seeking to exist outside herself.
The tendrils of the banyan tree looped over her head and draped down her cheeks, brushing against her skin. It was calming, soothing. A slight vibration rippled through each tender touch. She breathed in and out, letting the well-rehearsed meditation methods Athos used take over. Finding her balance, letting herself accept the moment, feeling it wash over her…
Soon, the banyan tendrils that caressed her skin were not just the ones in the Equatorial Forest, but also the ones in the banyan dimension where her mother was trapped.
Ella opened her eyes. She was no longer beside Per-Ah, but Cleo Larisse was seated in front of her, legs crossed, palms open on her knees, a gentle smile on her lips.
“Hello, Ella…” Her mother’s voice existed as more than a sound. It was a rippling wave on the air before her, disturbing the cool blue-hued air with tiny fluctuations that sent trembles through Ella’s body.
“Hello, mom…” It wasn’t as good as being held in her mother’s arms, but being in her presence brought peace, too. Ella wanted to reach out to touch her, to see if she could feel her, but at the same time was too afraid that the moment would evaporate if she tried.
The curving lines of the banyan dimension which had seemed so seamless every time that Ella had visited it before seemed fractured and bent. There was something off here, too. That sense of unease that Ella was starting to recognize pressed against her chest. The same one she had felt when near QT in Athos’s training room.
Her mom’s flaxen hair floated around her face, not unlike Teffa’s mane, suspended by some unknown breeze. Friction sizzled in the air and Ella realized her hair was standing on end, too. Even the fine grasses cushioning her where she sat and the draping of banyan limbs seemed electrified. Everything was stiff and stark, as if the plants were grasping for any type of satiation. Not unlike the vegetation in the Equatorial Forest.
Just at the edge of her vision, Ella noticed a green residue haloing some of the blue.
Her heart froze and the peacefulness that had settled in her mind just by being in the presence of her mom receded. She focused in on the Underworlder residue leaking out of the banyan vines and the footprints crushed into the grasses.
“What is happening here? Are you not alone?”
“I was never alone, Ella. I always knew you’d find me.” Her mother’s voice cracked on the last sentence and the lull of the peaceful blue shimmered out of focus for a moment, glinting green.
The Underworlders who my dad has said are to blame for my mother being stranded in this realm are back… What do they want with her? How can I get her? How can I free her?
Intense pressure swelled in Ella’s chest and she tried to push it aside, tried to stay present with Cleo, but she was chasing too many risks, what-ifs, and potential solutions in her mind.
What Per-Ah had said about the connection between the Crystals “rattling the thirst of the plants” was starting to make sense. There was something off about the symmetry. The banyan trees were reaching, pulling at the ground and the nutrients, but they were fleeing away from the heart of the trees, chased away by the presence of the green ooze.
Symmetry…
The word stood out in Ella’s mind as she watched her mother draw circles and triangles with one finger into her palm. She had a quiet sense of purpose. Over and over, as if she were making a map for Ella to follow.
Athos said that Chaos disrupts symmetry. And now the Underworlders have Chaos.
No… Ella grabbed for a hold on the grasses to steady herself. The blades broke beneath her grip, crumbling to ash instead of folding like the lush vegetation they should have been.
It was QT. His Crystal was interrupting the heart of the planet and not just the banyans at the heart of Methula. Somehow, the Underworlders were using his Crystal to even impact the realm that held her mother imprisoned.
“Is it dying?” Ella whispered. Her mother looked up from her patient finger painting, almost as if she had forgotten Ella was still there.
“Not if Time can contain it.” Cleo smiled and then closed her eyes. The silent dismissal broke Ella’s heart; her mom was getting more and more lost to this place every time she saw her.
I have to free her… I have to get her back.
But, first, QT… or else his Chaos might destroy this realm before I can get to her.
“I’ll see you soon, mom…” Ella took one last look at Cleo as she swayed in the blue and green-stained dimension. She took a deep breath and willed herself to open her eyes back in the Equatorial Forest.
Per-Ah was kneeling beside her. “Your mother is there?”
“Yes, it looks like the plants there are dying, too. Like the Crystals are rattling their thirst, as you said.”
Per-Ah helped Ella to her feet, towering over her, his ruby eyes kind but a challenge written in their depths. “What you do now?”
Ella sighed and shifted around her shoulder bag, feeling the weight of the Eye and how she was still struggling to use it. It signified all she had to do to save her friend from harming her planet. “I guess I find a way to give the planet something to drink.”
The comment at least made the great Maven leader smile as he led Ella back to her team. They all showed similar restlessness to be on their way when she explained that there were signs of Underworlder ooze in Cleo’s trapped banyan dimension. Whatever that meant, it couldn’t be good.
Ella took a deep breath and told them that she suspected it was the Chaos Crystal causing the disruptions. Nerka and Juro looked especially grim. That is understandable… Manipulation of that magnitude is unthinkable… And, yet, Heroki is doing it…
They said their good-byes to the Maven before Nerka
drew up the next portal to return to Athos and give their brief report. While they hadn’t gotten any good information about how to cleanse QT, Ella did have some other details to report. They would only be there a moment before hiking down into the depths of the temple near the Scorpene Guards where they would be able to beckon a conference with the great Entity Saion.
Hopefully he would be amiable to Ella’s request and not feeling too ornery. She had angered him more than once with her flippancy and now the sense of urgency made her feel a little less tolerant for the immortal’s games.
Still, she was pretty good at games and if he wanted to play, she at least was starting to know what was at stake: QT was either not in control of his Crystal or he was not in control of his mind.
Either thought made it worth it to jump through Saion’s riddles.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN - RIDDLES
Saion’s chambers were lit only with orange torchlight. Ella could feel the vastness of the space even though light didn’t reach all the corners. High stone pillars rose up around the room with carvings of ancient rulers and religious leaders etched into their sides. The Entity hung in the air before them, a wisp of corporeal form without legs, just a torso, arms, and a head. Was it laziness that he was appearing so incomplete or a sign that he was tired? Spent? Was there any chance that what was hurting the Equatorial Forest, the Maven, and the banyans was hurting the great omnipotent being, too?
Ella scooted forward toward Saion, only a couple steps away, until his eerily frosted face turned toward her.
“Thank you for meeting with us, Saion. I guess, first I should ask you, can you open us a portal to the Underworlder realm?” It seemed like if she didn’t ask, she wouldn’t know for sure and she might skip over a valuable step.
