Ancient Terra excerpt: the Realms explained

 

12^th hour / 36^th minute to 13^th hour

 

LATER, alone with Chitty, who stroked her neck, her hand trembling, Torrullin said, “Your society is changing.”

“By the moment,” she agreed.

“We have learned much since arriving here, and thank our lucky stars we landed up with you and your Circle, but we can no longer wait it out. We cannot stay here, Chitty.”

She did not respond.

“There is much that is deceitful moving through this local ether in the present, and it will get worse unless someone steps into that arena.”

“You intend to do so?” Chitty questioned.

Scratching at his left temple, Torrullin grimaced. “We are not permitted to interfere in another’s society, and yet every part of my being wishes to right the wrongs here. Still, who am I to judge? Perhaps there is much wrong in my society also, and I cannot see it unless an outsider points it out. Will I welcome that? Probably not. Yours won’t appreciate our interference either. It may lead to a civil war, Chitty, and that is ever to be avoided.”

She leaned forward, clasping her hands tightly together. “But, my friend, we are engaged in civil war and have been for generations, and I’m not talking merely male versus female. Every Nascent Season, clans war on each other. Men kill each other with impunity. Have you not wondered why our population is somewhat low?” Straightening, she added, “Someone needs to interfere.”

He sighed then. “I guess the rules are different in Arianne.”

She sniffed. “And there is the prickly subject you keep avoiding. Look around you. We are alone, and if you prefer, we will remain alone while you tell me. Let them have their lunch and then go on with daily tasks. After all, much has gone undone recently, given most of us are spending our days in this dome.”

He smiled, acknowledging that. “It would be better if someone with your wisdom decides how much is proper to reveal to her charges. While it isn’t contentious, the tale of Arianne is a fantastical one, and most will not believe it.” He stared at her. “I will not be called a liar.”

She sighed. “Very well, you and me, and no other will enter while we speak.”

“I need Elianas,” he demurred.

“Why?”

“He needs to agree with any action I put forth.”

“Which action has you concerned?”

“Heading south to stop an army in its tracks,” he growled.

Smiling, she murmured, “I believe Elianas will agree with such action.”

“He will, but it is the how he will temper.”

“Ah, say no more. Shall I send for him?”

“No need; he is on his way.”

“He hears you?”

“He does.”

“Are you lovers as well as rulers?”

Torrullin closed his eyes. “Does it matter?”

“No, not to me, but you are at pains to hide it.”

He reopened his eyes. “Elianas prefers his privacy.”

“That I sensed within the first hour of meeting you, yes, and it is as well that you say nothing. Men on this world will string you up, or try to, given they need to hide their own proclivities. Women, after all, are things and where is the pleasure in that? While I am aware no one will be able to hang you, you need them to hear you.”

His eyes glittered, and then he straightened, moments before the dark-haired man entered, and Chitty understood then how very aware of each other they were.

“Welcome, Elianas,” she smiled. “Torrullin refuses to talk unless you are present.”

“As well,” Elianas murmured, “for the Valla can be impulsive.” He took a seat beside Torrullin and nudged him. “What are we talking about?”

“Leaving the enclave to stop that army, and Arianne.”

“Ah, the big stuff.”

Chitty, wisely, moved them along. “How you deal with an army is not something I can have much say on, but I have a feeling, this odd sensation, each time you mention Arianne. I wish to know. Please.”

Elianas glanced towards the entrance. “Will this remain private?”

Chitty nodded.

“Good. It will sound as if we are spinning a story and if someone calls me a liar, I will call him or her on it.”

Torrullin’s eyes crinkled at their corners. “I said something similar.”

Completely opposite and yet exactly the same, Chitty mused. They knew each other well. “Arianne, I suspect, is the name of this space we swerve through,” she then prompted.

“You are Master of Reaume, Torrullin. You tell it,” Elianas murmured.

“We are Masters of Reaume, Elianas.”

“If you say so.” Elianas did not look at him.

Pressing his lips briefly together, Torrullin rose to pace. “Elianas is right in that this story must begin with Reaume. Imagine, Chitty, a giant bubble.” He drew an imaginary sphere in the air. “And another.” He drew one next to it. “They are separate. They also overlap.” He moved his outstretched hands closer to each other as if herding his imaginary bubbles together. “And they occupy precisely the same space as well.” His hands imitated two spheres becoming one. “These three states are continuous, and all three exist at the same time. They behave differently, and are therefore separate. One can access the one from the other, and that is where they overlap. And yet, one exists because of the other, and vice versa. Therefore, they are one.”

As if pulling the imaginary bubbles apart, Torrullin’s moved his hands in opposite directions. He then pointed at the one on his left. “This is Reaume, a mighty space filled with a multitude of worlds.” He pointed to his right. “This is Arianne, as great a space but not as populated. Both are real because of each other. Avaelyn and Lykandir are part of Arianne. We call this the realm of lonely worlds, for planets are spread far apart and rarely interact with each other. Mostly the isolation is not due to distance, however; it is because the worlds are too different from each other to allow for visitation. Yes, I see the question. Avaelyn is similar to Lykandir, and we move ever closer to each other, which negates what I just said. Avaelyn, however, was not conceived in Arianne; she was born in Reaume, and we, Elianas and I, brought her into Arianne deliberately.”

Chitty could only stare at him.

Chuckling, Torrullin resumed his seat. “While fantastical, I believe you are able to accept everything I said with due thought, suspending what you know about science to rely on the supernatural instead. It means, yes, that Elianas and I have great power, far greater than all your High Mages put together since time began here. We can, for example, remove Avaelyn from the approaching alignment, but that means returning her to Reaume.”

“We are not ready to return to Reaume,” Elianas muttered.

Chitty blinked. “Tell me about Reaume.”

Torrullin relaxed, perhaps realising she was not in a state of disbelief, rather one of astonishment.

“There are isolated worlds in Reaume also, but often that is a factor of either distance or choice. For the most part, worlds, and there are many worlds, interact with each other all the time. Some of that is achieved via magical transport, but most of it is due to space travel, the flying ships we spoke of before, and those vessels travel at speeds one cannot put numbers to. They cross the dark space between galaxies as if it is of no matter, and yet those distances are truly vast. Reaume is busy.”

“We chose isolation from such busyness,” Elianas said.

“Why?” Chitty asked. “I would imagine that living on a world there is much the same as living on a world here. Daily life is daily life … surely?”

“Not all societies are pastoral, but those that are, yes, life there is as life here, perhaps with the odd spaceship overflying added in. The city-worlds, however, are something else. The entire planet is one city, buildings pressing against each other with nary an open space between. Hundreds of billions live on those worlds. To see it even once is enough to know what not to do on one’s homeworld.”

“Hundreds of billions,” Chitty echoed.

“Reaume is home to many, Chitty, and they all wanted something from me and Elianas. We have power, and today someone needs us to reverse an avalanche, tomorrow someone implores us to save them from an evil autocrat, while last month we world hopped chasing marauders, and next week we may be called upon to return a Warlock to the netherworld. It was too much; we had to leave.”

Elianas, head bowed, stared at his hands, and remained silent.

“You were exhausted,” Chitty whispered.

Torrullin nodded. “To the point we became something to fear.”

“Because you started pushing back, hoping they would leave you alone?”

“That was part of it, yes, but one becomes what one chases also. For the sake of our souls, we bowed out.” Torrullin glanced at Elianas’ lowered head. “For the sake of the love I bear Elianas, I needed to find my light again.”

Elianas’ head had jerked up. “You dare?”

“I dare,” Torrullin murmured.

Closing his eyes, Elianas dropped his head, and said, “For the sake of the love I bear you, I will let that pass.”

Chitty murmured, “I think the two of you must have some epic … battles.”

Neither man said a word, but both smiled, one with lowered head, the other directly.

Rubbing her hands together, Chitty stated, “There is something you are not telling me about Reaume and Arianne.”

“The rulers of the realms,” Elianas took over, straightening to look at Chitty, his dark eyes unreadable. “There is no Mother Goddess; she is merely the concept ‘life’ to us. There are no gods, other than those who style themselves such and trade on the feelings of the desperate and needy. There is no Lykan, Chitty, but most need someone greater to look up to, to invoke, to talk to when lonely, for the act of believing in something more inspires people to be more. What happens, in fact, is that we inspire ourselves. The belief fostered is merely the means, and there is nothing wrong with that. If it works, fine.”

Chitty held a hand up. “This is what happened to you in Reaume. You were seen as gods.”

“Something like that,” Elianas nodded.

“Flawed gods,” Torrullin muttered.

“Don’t interrupt.” Elianas sent him a look. “There are beings, however, far beyond godhood that few know of. One needs to be regarded as a god,” and he grunted before going on, “to see these beings. Every world, here, there, inhabited and deserted, has a resident sentience. The world guardian. Few know that and yet, if known, one could say the guardian should be the true god of a world. It, however, would not function if revered, for it is neutral, cares for the very earth, not the souls walking upon that earth.”

She was now sure astonishment would add a thousand wrinkles to her visage, for her face contorted oddly at every new piece of information. “Lykandir has a guardian?”

“Yes,” Torrullin murmured.

“Have you met a world guardian?”

“We have,” Elianas said, and went on. “These guardians are connected in Reaume, as they are connected in Arianne, because of the true rulers of these realms. These are not men or a council of beings sitting in a mighty palace keeping the realms functioning according to their whim. These are beings much like the world guardians, in that their focus is on the great space, every atom of matter and every current of energy within it, and not on the behaviour of the souls daring to claim territory.”

“They do know, though,” Torrullin said.

“In Reaume, yes, but not so much in Arianne. We call the rulers of Reaume the Syllvan, and they are tree-like beings exceptionally wise and strong. Arianne’s are known as the Dryad, vine-like creatures, but they are not as wise.”

“Certainly strong,” Torrullin put in.

“The Dryad are the offspring of the Syllvan, see, and explains how the two realms are indivisible, and Arianne is Dryad training ground until they mature from vine into tree. This is why, we believe, Arianne is the realm of lonely worlds. It curtails them to some extent. Children, after all, like to play pranks.”

Chitty merely gaped, not caring about wrinkles. Then, “Gobsmacked, I am.”

Torrullin rolled his shoulders. “Arianne can thus have contrary rules and modes of behaving, such as green air for a world out there, such as motionless seas here, such as those unmoving waters inexplicably shifting into motion. It isn’t sorcery, or not of the kind we deal in; it is the magical result of a vine perhaps chasing a vine in this region.”

She glared at him. “I can’t tell them that. They will think I am the liar, that I lost my pebbles in the heather somewhere!”

Elianas spluttered into laughter.

Grinning, Torrullin murmured, “Now you understand why we say little.”

“I do. Tell me, both of you, is what you have shared here your belief in a great tale or is it the truth? Be honest, please.”

Torrullin and Elianas looked at each other, and Elianas said, “Isn’t it wonderful to be questioned again? They don’t just accept it as they did in Reaume.”

“Can be tiresome,” Torrullin laughed, and faced Chitty. “We regard the Syllvan as our friends, having dealt with them many times. In fact, to save them at one time, Elianas and I fought Dryad on their behalf, but that’s another story. Chitty, we know with every certainty that this is real.”

Shaking her head, she muttered, “I think I need a drink.”

At the end of the Lore Series, Torrullin Valla and Elianas Danae vanish into the mists with their homeworld Avaelyn, but the story doesn’t end there. What happens to Tristan Skyler Valla, for example, about to embark on a Timekeeper journey with Alusin Algheri? Where is Karydor Danae, the reincarnate father Torrullin has yet to meet?

In EURUE: The Forgotten World, a century later, we find out about Tristan and Alusin’s future as they pit their talents against a man half-dead, half-alive lying in a hidden casket somewhere on Eurue. Gabryl embarks on a campaign to rouse the realms to Eurue’s forgotten status, using the strange spinning orbs known as daetal to further his ambitions.

In FAROCHIN: The Terraformed World, we meet Karydor as he wakes up to memory loss on Farochin ages before Torrullin has ever stepped forward as the power he will become. Karydor and Echayn Valla, his brother-in-law, soon find themselves racing to save Farochin from Felix of the Murs, who seeks to undo the terraform in order to become a god. Karydor seeks to atone before he meets his son.

In LYKANDIR: The Measured World, two kings look up to see a world on approach. King Androdin in the south and King Drakan in the north understand that it will lead to chaos, utter change. As clansmen, watchmakers and wer-men scramble for solutions, the kings find themselves face to face with the men from that world, led by Torrullin Valla and Elianas Danae. It seems Lykandir and Avaelyn seek to occupy the same space in the realm Avaelyn vanished into.

In AVAELYN: The Enshrouded World, the timelines align once more. A thousand years have passed, and Avaelyn returns to her designated place. However, many wish to keep Torrullin and Elianas at bay, and thus is their world wrapped in a shroud that blinds all to their presence. Meanwhile, the children of Reaume suffer to keep it that way, and that is simply unacceptable.

In AVIOR: The Mythical World, the true enemy is revealed, an Ancient Valla who seems hellbent on creating a seat of tyrannical power. To the world Avior, which most regard as a myth, all forces are summoned. The entire Valla family strides into battle, for only the Vallas can stop this Valla. What they discover below the surface is heart-breaking.

From the realms of time to the reality of lost souls, through hope and cruelty, we reconnect with familiar characters, and meet a host of new ones. An old sword with an agenda reappears, while a new talisman is forged from desperation … and so much more. An epic adventure, indeed!

ANCIENT TERRA