14-41. Rings

“I hate you,” Elijah groaned, looking up at Tura. The old drake just smiled like a doting grandmother as she wiped the cold sweat away from his forehead. It was almost as if she wasn’t the one responsible for poisoning him.

“You need to toughen up,” she said. “A little ethera sickness, and you act like you’re dying.”

Elijah didn’t respond because there wasn’t much to say. Instead, he just closed his eyes and tried to concentrate on anything else but the agony twisting its way through his veins. At first, he’d attempted to isolate the pain and quarantine it in its own cluster of leaves, and by all rights, that should have worked. But ethera sickness didn’t follow the same rules, and the torture had a way of snaking its way out of his clutches and spreading to every leaf in his mind.

He took a deep breath, then steered into the pain. Into the torture burning its way through the channels of his soul. And slowly, it faded into the background. It didn’t go away. He didn’t quarantine it. He simply existed within the agony.

Like that, hours passed.

Through it all, Tura tended to him. Not with healing spells or potions, but like a mother comforting a sick child. She even hummed softly to a tune Elijah had never heard.

It reminded him of his childhood, those few occasions when he’d grown seriously ill. It didn’t happen often, but when it did, his mother was always there for him as only a mother could be.

After the first few hours, the pain began to fade. According to Tura, that was his body acclimating to the potion she’d fed him. He didn’t know what it contained. Nor was he certain how it worked. But by the time his fever broke, he knew that it had done its job.

So did Tura, who tossed him a bar of soap and told him to go outside and clean himself up.

That reminded him of something he’d intended to do on Earth but had forgotten somewhere along the way.

“I miss my soap,” he muttered to himself as he followed her instructions. Making it was an involved process, but it was a task he enjoyed. It had also prepared his body for cultivation, gradually strengthening it so he could endure it more easily.

By the time he’d run out, he’d outgrown the stuff, but that didn’t really matter. He still wished he had more, just because the smell had become comforting.

The back of the hut featured a small patio with an outdoor shower stall, which Elijah used for privacy. He preferred to shower under Blessing of the Grove, though. So, he summoned his localized rainstorm and basked in its rejuvenating properties as he scrubbed himself clean.

The soap had a spicy scent to it that reminded him of cinnamon.

Not really his style, but not unpleasant, either.

Normally, he preferred to sun dry – maybe on a nice, warm rock – but in this case, he pulled a towel from his Arcane Loop and got to work. He’d just pulled on a pair of pants when Birk appeared around the corner.

He was carrying a box, which he shoved into Elijah’s hands. “Wear that,” he said.

Elijah opened it, then said, “Nope. Not going to happen. I have my own clothes.”

“You will wear it,” the hulking drake rumbled.

“Not going to happen,” Elijah repeated. And he meant it. One look at the garments inside that box was more than enough to solidify his resistance to that particular plan. “I’m sure it’s expensive and all that, but I’m definitely not walking around in a bedazzled robe.”

“Bedazzled?” asked Birk, raising one of his brow ridges. An oddly human expression that should’ve never appeared on his lizard-like face.

“Oh, yeah. Sorry. An Earth term. Back in the nineties, there was this toy. A machine, I guess? Anyway, you fed these little plastic gems into it, and it stuck them to clothes. Or really any surface. My sister found one in the attic, and she used it to decorate this really cool denim jacket that –”

“Please stop.”

“What? You had to see this jacket to believe it. She painted it with this awesome picture of Freddie Mercury. You know, when he did that show at Wembley during Live Aid?” Elijah babbled. “Oh. Wait. Right. You have never had the absolute joy of listening to Queen. Because you’re a giant dragon man.”

“Drake.”

“What?”

“I am a drake. Not a dragon. Referring to me as the latter will assuredly create problems,” Birk said. It was the longest statement he’d made so far.

“My point is that it was a cool jacket. Really cool. But cool for someone like her, you know? Not for me. Which is why I can’t wear that outfit,” Elijah pointed out. He took another peek into the box. “Yep. No. Not wearing that. It’d make me feel like I was part of a mariachi band.”

“I don’t know what that is.”

Elijah opened his mouth, intending to explain exactly what a mariachi band was, but he decided not to. The reality was that he was nervous, and when anxiety reared its ugly head, he tended to babble. Usually about nonsense, because he had a lot of that in his head.

“Yeah. Sorry. The point still stands.”

Birk let out a subtle hiss that might’ve been his version of a sigh. “Very well.”

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

With that, he took the box and left Elijah alone, proving once again that the drake was not much of a conversationalist. With a shrug, Elijah pulled on a clean shirt and headed back into the cabin.

When he got there, he was forced to endure a similar conversation with Tura, who insisted that he be presentable for the upcoming banquet. In the end, he compromised by showing her one of the suits Hope had made for him. It wasn’t as high-grade as the bedazzled robe she wanted him to wear, but she begrudgingly admitted that it was good enough.

“Awesome,” Elijah said, having won the argument. “Can I bring my spear?”

“No.”

“No fun at all,” he mumbled, going back outside for a little privacy.

Once outside, he went back to the patio, where he dressed in Hope’s latest creation. The cut of the suit was similar to the first one she’d made for him, though it automatically adjusted to fit him perfectly. The white fabric she’d used wasn’t quite as bright, and it reminded him of the color of his Wild Revenant set.

Maybe that was where she’d gotten the inspiration.

In any case, it featured green embroidery going up the sleeves of the jacket, forming a vine-like pattern that seemed to move in the faint light peeking through the jungle canopy. The shirt was the same emerald green, and it sported smaller, but similar embroidery on the collar. It was the same color as the rest of the shirt, so it just added a little texture.

The same could be said for the design of the jacket. Outside of the embroidered vines, the white fabric had been sewn in such a way as to look almost like scales. A nod to his draconic nature, no doubt.

It reminded Elijah of his second core vision, when he’d taken on the form of a young, white dragon. The white tie was similarly patterned, though with hints of the same green woven throughout. Finishing the look off were a pair of cufflinks resembling tiny, silver trees.

Using a mirror he removed from his Arcane Loop, Elijah arranged his hair and tended to his beard. Not steps he normally took, but Tura and Birk had emphasized the importance of the banquet. And the last thing he wanted to do was to embarrass Kirlissa, especially after she had gone to such trouble for him.

So, he took extra care, even using some pomade to hold everything in place.

Once fully dressed, he took a look at himself in the mirror, adjusted his tie, and said, “I do clean up nice.”

“Debatable, boy,” said Tura. Somehow, he hadn’t even sensed her standing there and watching him. “You should have worn the ceremonial robes.”

“It looked more like a dress,” he argued. “A sparkly one.”

She just shook her head. “Are you ready? We must soon depart, lest we risk tardiness.”

Elijah didn’t miss the shift in her language. Before, she’d sounded like a permissive grandmother, but now, she had adopted a much more formal demeanor. Her attire reflected that, and Elijah didn’t miss that it very much resembled the robes he’d refused. Fewer gemstones, certainly. And the cut was slightly different. But it was similar enough that he could confidently say that they adhered to the same general style.

“Uh…yeah. Sure. I guess I’m good.”

She fixed him with a withering stare, and for a moment, Elijah expected her to roll her eyes at his casual speech. Yet, she refrained, simply bidding him to follow.

He did, and soon enough, he found himself riding one of her clouds.

“These are pretty cool,” Elijah said, kneeling to feel the fluffy substance. Despite looking no more solid than water vapor, it felt like a bundle of cotton balls. “It’s an item, right?”

“Transportation artifact for those of us who cannot fly,” she stated, showing him a ring. It looked like malachite, though dark blue and with what appeared to be swirling clouds of white embedded in the material.

“Neat.”

This time, she did roll her eyes. “Neat, he says,” she mumbled under her breath. It was just loud enough that Elijah heard her over the wind as they rapidly rose through a small gap in the canopy. As they broke through, Elijah took a deep breath, enjoying the cooler air.

It really was sweltering down in the jungle.

The cloud was not a very fast means of transportation, so it took them a few minutes to reach the lower levels of the Reach. Elijah was once again impressed by the crisscrossing bridges, the innovative designs of the buildings, and the way nature had been incorporated into everything.

A few people watched their slow rise, but apparently, clouds weren’t exactly uncommon. Elijah saw a few others using them. After a couple more minutes, they reached one of the air lifts, which sent them back to the Crown, where they proceeded on foot.

As they strode along the bridge, Elijah found himself staring at the sky. Night had fallen during their ascent, and when they’d broken through the clouds, the starry expanse became visible. The patterns were unfamiliar, with many dots of light shining in reds or greens, and the entire sky looked somehow bigger than it did back on Earth.

Or on Gorveth.

Or anywhere else he’d visited.

More disconcerting were the rings. They weren’t visible during the day, but in the darkness of night, they scorched across the sky like circles of golden fire. Elijah didn’t think they were natural.

When he asked about it, Tura explained, “Of course they are not natural. Very little you see on this planet is.”

“What do you mean?”

“It was grown, over millions of years, until it became what you see now,” she answered. Then, she cut her eyes at him, asking, “Did you truly think you were the only one in the entire multi-verse who could terraform a planet?”

Elijah shook his head. “I never really thought about it.”

He’d not really explained Gorveth to her, but he suspected that she’d been briefed by Kirlissa herself.

“It is a long and laborious process, but what makes what you did special is your method. And the fact that you did much of that work as a mere ascendent,” she stated. “Right now, you are a bundle of tightly wound potential. Perhaps more than anyone I have ever seen, and I do not say that lightly. Still, you are no more than a seedling. We wish to help you blossom into something truly unique.”

“So people terraform excised planets all the time?”

“Oh, goodness no. Most who can do that would never bother,” she explained. “Because the only way to get it back is to establish it as an Ancestral World. And that requires quests, dedicated infrastructure, and specialized classes.

“Right now, that world you started to terraform is an inaccessible island in the middle of the abyss. Useless, for the most part,” she went on. Finally, she added, “But I do believe the tree is something we have never seen before.”

“Treebie.”

“I’m sorry?”

“That’s his name. Treebie.”

“You named a tree…Treebie?”

Elijah shrugged. “It seemed to fit.”

Tura just shook her head like a disappointed parent. Elijah ignored it, instead focusing on what she’d explained. He’d never believed that what he’d done on Gorveth was entirely unique. He’d started that project as a mere ascendent. Not quite a mortal, but so far from the top that the distinction was irrelevant. Surely, there were deities or transcendents out there who could do the same thing.

Did that take away from what he’d accomplished? Not really. If anything, it gave him hope that one day, he might be able to bring Gorveth out of the abyss.

Those thoughts accompanied him as they traveled through the Crown, stopping only when they reached one of the towers. It looked much like any of the others, though when they went inside, Elijah was astounded to see that it housed a set of silver rings floating in the center of the entryway.

“Follow,” Tura commanded.

Once inside the rings, Elijah sensed a pulse of ethera. The apparatus began to spin around them, rapidly accelerating until, ten seconds later, Elijah felt the familiar sensation of being teleported. In the blink of an eye, he found himself somewhere else.

Somewhere incredible.

Because when he looked to his left, he saw a massive, ringed planet looming in the distance.

“Are we on a moon?” he asked.

“Indeed, boy,” Tura answered with a grin.

Predictably, Birk just grunted.