Page 87 of Elvenbred

She felt a vastness enfold her, lifting her and drawing her up, as though emerging from a pool of dark water and into a sky full of shimmering colors. In the distance she saw a swirling ball of light, bright as a star and scintillating in a hundred shades of orange and yellow. The sea below had vanished and the sky extended in all directions. She tried to orient herself, but she could perceive no horizon. She looked about her, in every direction, she saw more of the starlike things, some larger, others smaller, all glowing in colors and radiances unique to themselves. Oranges and reds dominated, but she saw blues, and greens, and purples in a hundred hues.

Details began to emerge, and some of the starlike things seemed damaged, or dimmer, their brightness and colors muted. A couple in the further distance guttered like failing candles. She tried to understand what she saw … what she had been called to witness.

One of the stars grew in her sight, this one a pale yellow streaked with patterns of orange and red that flowed across its surface like wings. It grew stronger as she watched, the colors flaring and more intense. It seemed to rotate then, and she saw five vast craters along its surface, giant pits that reached deep into its center. Each of the craters swarmed with tiny, inky blots that she understood (without knowing how) were parasites, black nits that stole and swallowed the shimmering lights and color. Nearly half the sphere had been consumed, and she watched with growing disgust as they swarmed and tore at the essence of the star.

Five. Black. Craters. Five bronze rods!

Rock? Is that what they’re doing to you? The rods might be out, but the nits still swarmed, and she recalled the lessons and the elves’ talk. Ambient magic. Ambient … magic. Ambient magic, my ass! You’re thieves! You’re stealing Rock’s very life force!

She drifted closer to Rock, suddenly aware of her own presence, her own meaning here. She felt an unaccustomed anxiety. Am I like them? Am I one of them?

She opened her senses to try and see herself as she saw the beings around her. Would she be a blot of dark, a parasite like the elves here in this place? She traced a thinner thread, and was able to cast her sight so that could view herself. To her infinite relief, she saw a tiny, tiny glow … infinitesimally small compared to the vast beings around her, but still … a glow. Not a darkness. Not a parasite. Not like them. Not like the elves here.

She felt a sense of satisfaction around her, in the way a small child might feel a parent’s pleasure over a simple drawing. Then, images in her mind, placed there, not summoned by her choice … visions of her and her slaves. Flickers, memories of her tormenting the slaves, using them as she pleased as if they were inanimate objects, separating them, setting some to die and some to live. It had been right and proper at the time … but here, and now, seeing herself treating them thusly left her feeling ashamed. She understood now that she had been as much of a parasite in her world as the elves of Evelon were here, in this world. She had “fed” off the labor and well-being of people who had literally done nothing to harm her, neglected and abused them, just as the elven lords here were feeding off these others … others that the elven lords called “Predators,” when in fact the only predators in this scenario were the elven lords themselves. The last image … a simple doorway, lit on one side, and dark on the other, that slowly faded. She understood. I can choose. I can still choose!

Another tide washed over her, another sense of approval, but also of chiding.

I have much to atone for.

Acknowledgement.

She thought about the elven lords, and those they enslaved. How did all this happen?

An image swept over her, of two kinds of creatures, living in symbiosis and balance, then one kind growing greedy, taking more than was freely given. Not only from the creatures that produced the “ambient magic” but from the world itself. In the name of ever-increasing growth and “prosperity,” at least for the “taking” half of this equation, the elves of Home-world, of Evelon, had stripped every resource they could get their hands on, including imprisoning and torturing the great beings that produced for them the very power to do so.

She understood now that the “suns” were creatures like Rock, like the ones she had seen on her first day on this world, when they attacked the wall. The ones that the lords of this world called “Predators.” Those creatures were also natives, and this was also their Home-world. It could have been shared. They could have lived in harmony. But the elves chose differently.

Two vast beings moved from the further distance, moving towards her and Rock … though that name now appeared hopelessly inadequate. Smaller balls of light and blobs swirled the larger creatures. She saw as one of the largest extruded a tendril, much as Rock had when it touched her, and touched Rock. Waves of light and color pulsed along the tendril, visibly strengthening Rock.

She felt the silvery thread tugging at her, pulling her away, and back towards herself. She really did not want to go. Here lived light and joy, and she felt warmed by the presence of these creatures. Must I go? May I not stay?

A sea of amusement washed over her. A complicated tangle of feeling and images that amounted to You are always here. And always there. And what is wrong with your world? Live and love in the place you were born and bred to be.

But—she wanted to protest.

Your world is not good. Make it better. In doing so, you will learn to make the passage to Here.

She felt herself pass back into the sea, and the darkness. The last distance proved the hardest, and it felt much as though trying to press against a sheet of cloth stretched across a door. As she pushed and strained, she felt the cloth mold to her skin, become her skin, until she felt herself return to her body.

Her head ached from the impact against the cage bars and she felt sharp pains in her back and throat. Head injury? Was that what that was?

“We’re all illusions,” she heard herself say. The voice was hers, though the words she said were from another, the last touch of the star that was Rock in that Otherspace. “We are all illusions. Presentations of there that intrude into here. The part of us that you see here is the barest bit of what we all are.”

Triana tried to catch her breath. The mage-lights went out at that moment, all at once.

20

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The World Gate whirred and flashed behind him, illuminating the cave in brief, bright pulses. Haldeen shone the mage-light down the ramp, lighting the way for the Probe. It turned its head to look at him, a development he found deeply, deeply unsettling. It wasn’t supposed to show any real sign of awareness, and the control rod implanted along its spine should have enforced that direction. Yet, its dead eyes regarded him.

“Follow me,” he said to it, “and don’t drop it.”

He spoke brusquely, trying to hide his unease.

He walked down the ramp, shining the mage-light ahead of him to ensure he didn’t trip. It carried the Machina’s copper shot furnace in both arms, a weight that should have required three adult males to lift and carry. The Probe still had its uses, even if its behavior had begun to worry him. Haldeen stepped around a pile of metal shards and scrap, shining the light for the Probe, so that it didn’t stumble and damage the precious shot furnace.

“If this works,” he said to it, “I’ll be able to melt a hole in these rocks large enough for you to pass through, and then you’ll be back in business.” He gestured to the front face of the cave, where the roof had been brought down. He thought for a moment. Triana’s interrogator … what was her name … had documented that the cave mouth had collapsed in the fight that trapped her there, before the Probe found her. Supposedly she had been fighting—well, probably fleeing—one of the Machina that somehow had a little magic left to it. It seemed unlikely that she had been fighting anything; the transcripts made it quite clear that she had never gotten her hands dirty with actual combat of any kind before she landed in his custody. He gestured irritably at the Probe. “This way. Follow me.”