Amdirlain’s PoV - Yúla
With Milui and Camen present, the children continued to resist their curiosity and stayed focused on their chores. While the four of them watched on, the youngest continued the gathering under the oldest children’s supervision. Meanwhile, another group made spears from dried branches. The same resin Amdirlain had used to harden her top was being applied by those making spears to harden their tips.
While they observed the children, Amdirlain enjoyed the breeze across the lake. The water and the surrounding plants evoked memories from numerous lifetimes. Out a hundred metres from shore, a group of villagers was fishing from a raft. Its construction used a double outrigger-type design, with three hollowed-out logs connected by a latticework section across the top. The similarity of the adults' appearance to the children on the shoreline caused Amdirlain a mental twitch, despite the memories of elven lifetimes.
“Your brain is having a hard time thinking of them as children,” Sarah projected. “They’re fairly typical for elves, though some variations of the species have the physical growth and mental maturity go hand in hand.”
“The differences are there, so I’ll let senses other than sight guide me. The reaction proves I’ve still got to integrate my other lives properly.”
Sarah moved over to the group making spears. “Are these for fishing or hunting?”
“Fishing.” The closest child solemnly offered Sarah his recently finished spear to examine. While his bright blue and silver eyes appeared like water shimmering in sunlight, his shoulder-length hair was a dozen shades of deep green.
Sarah examined its sharpened point and nodded approvingly, but didn’t take it from him. “Would you mind if I showed you a slight variation?”
“Does your tribe make them differently?” The child asked.
“Yes. You can call me Sind?.”
“I see you, Sind?. My name is Echadriel,” Echadriel replied. “What do you do differently?”
“I see you, Echadriel.”
Echadriel grinned. “That’s funny. How can you see me when I’m still a child without classes? I don’t know who I’ll be yet.”
“Where we came from, the greeting has a different meaning. It means I recognise you and your existence as an individual, not necessarily someone who has reached adulthood.”
“There are different ways to do things in the world, I guess,” Echadriel allowed. “Just like Amdirlain didn’t just make one type of animal.”
“Exactly. How does one greet a non-adult then in your tribe?”
Sarah had directed the question at Echadriel, but Camen cleared his throat.
“Just by name, as our youth names are temporary,” Camen explained. “A parent picks a name that shows their expectations and hopes for their child. Yet, it is for each child to confirm what is right for themselves upon reaching adulthood. How can you confirm seeing someone who hasn’t yet decided their life course?”
Did I accidentally slip some of my attitude into the starting memories I shared?
“That makes sense,” Sarah allowed, and motioned to the pile of wood scraps and cord near Echadriel. “Might I have some of the longest shards, some cord, and resin components, Echadriel?”
Echadriel gathered up what Sarah requested and handed them over with the spear.
Sarah took eight slivers of wood, notched one side of each into rough hooks. After she applied the liquids that formed the resin, she used a thin cord to bind them around the spear.
Echadriel intently followed every action. “They’re like a maw to grab the fish, but the hooks face outwards?”
“Yeah, to help counter a glancing blow, or if you’ve speared a bigger fish that would otherwise wiggle off the end.”
“How long before I can try it?” Echadriel asked.
“You need to wait until the resin on the hooks has properly hardened.”
He motioned to the bow sitting on the rock beside Amdirlain. “That’s an odd-shaped spear, or is it for checking the ground ahead?”
“It’s called a bow,” Amdirlain explained. “I’ll explain its use another time. They take a long time to master.”
Once the children had finished filling the few baskets they had with them, they wove their way through the plants to the shore.
When they drew close to the shore, Maithor’s gaze landed on Camen’s unscarred shoulder only a moment ahead of Forgam’s indrawn breath.
“What happened to your scars, Uncle?” Forgam patted his right shoulder, as if Camen wouldn’t know what he meant.
The question drew the attention of other children, who echoed the question with their own variations.
“Amdirlain healed them to show me an ability I hope to learn.”
“Could you teach me as well?” Forgam asked eagerly.
He didn’t even ask what it was; he just wanted to learn.
Other children echoed the request, and Amdirlain held up a hand. “I can teach you all the basics to see if you can sense the energy. Whether you’ll practice hard enough to learn is up to you.”
“Then you’d be taking on more than you’d offered?” Camen noted.
Achieving reverie requires a meditative state.
As Sarah snickered in her mind, Amdirlain shrugged. “The basics of sensing Mana are like reverie. The key difference is that instead of reaching out to all your surroundings, you focus on particular elements or concepts around you. It is possible to practice in groups as a guided activity, and then give additional training to those who make a connection.”
Milui patted the ground and pointed at the lake. “I know what elements are, but what are concepts?”
“Life, time, distance, and death are a few,” Amdirlain responded.
Echadriel, leaning on the spear Sarah had altered, waved his free arm. “Why is life a concept? You can see what is alive.”
“If a plant is alive or dead, it’s physically present, but its state is different. Life has many forms, some of which might be unrecognisable to anyone here. A rock you can pick up, whereas life itself comes in many forms.”
“Can you show us how this Mana appears?” Maithor asked.
Amdirlain swivelled to face Camen. “You wanted to learn to heal the rest yourself, but perhaps I can tend a minor scar?”
He stretched out his left arm, and Amdirlain again cast the regeneration Spell targeted at a bite on the back of his hand.
Those who gathered to observe inhaled sharply when the glow appeared from her palm and, when the greenish light faded, they excitedly fired off questions.
For half an hour, Amdirlain answered questions about Mana and then moved on to affinities, before getting the children to settle in a circle.
If I help them gain an Affinity, that won’t make them the best teachers for their students, plus they’ll also expect other things to be simple. With no resources, once I leave, the development of their knowledge will require patient experimentation.
“We’ll start with trying to sense Mana in the Earth. It isn’t useful for healing spells, but it is for defensive and transformation magics.”
When Camen and Milui joined the circle, it raised surprised murmurs, but they didn’t question it. Once everyone was ready, she didn’t touch their minds but verbally walked them through the meditative exercises she’d learned while acquiring Arcane Knowledge. Their experience with reverie helped somewhat, but only a few children turned their focus in the right direction during the first session. Amdirlain didn’t nudge their minds to hasten the process, though she provided some targeted cues to aid their understanding. The others she prompted to focus on their breathing and connecting to the earth, rather than the drifting immersion in their surroundings that the elven reverie used.
At the end, though Forgam had come close to the sturdiness of Earth a few times, Maithor hadn’t managed once.
“Aside from the elements of Air, Earth, Fire, and Water, there are Life and other energies in the surrounding environment. If there is anything in particular that has piqued your interest in the past, please let me know. We can explore exercises that might focus on it or its related energies.”
“Do you mean like watching lightning storms turn the sky white? Or the new lights that appear at night?” Echadriel asked.
“Yes, lightning is one of those energies. Please keep in mind that some may find that gaining any Affinity takes them a considerable amount of time. Yet, once they have it, they can develop a deep understanding of it, so try to be patient.”
“And some people don’t connect to them at all?” asked Forgam.
“That’s correct. Patient practice is crucial, but understanding an Affinity isn’t for everyone, just the same as some people are better at knapping flint or making spears.”
Maithor rolled his eyes at the smug look Forgam gave him as the session wrapped up. “You’ll keep, brother. Are there other affinities out among the homes of the gods, Amdirlain?”
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“It would seem probable.”
“Is there any chance that you can teach us about Life and those other energies?”
“Some I can,” Amdirlain admitted. “Let’s see how you go with Earth first. You don’t hunt rabbits the same way you hunt deer, and each Affinity requires a different mindset to touch and manipulate. Rather than trying to skip a handful of rocks across the water, let’s take them one at a time until we find which ones you can handle. Meditation is essential for handling Mana, so you’re still gaining useful practice. We’ll speak about each Affinity I can teach in due time. My only advice is if you’re interested, practice when you’re not dealing with chores, and if you’ve questions outside the sessions, I’ll do my best to answer them.”
Camen clapped. “Speaking of chores, take the result of your gathering and crafting to your families.”
The children dispersed, carrying different vibes; some talked animatedly, while others wore a contemplative air.
He waited until they were all out of immediate earshot before he spoke up. “I found trying to sense Mana to be an interesting experience. How long will you focus on Earth?”
“A few moons. Lessons might progress faster than I’d hoped, as I’ve heard from two friends who contacted me with a Spell. They’ve been following our trail signs and sound like they’re eight or nine days behind us. When they arrive, they can help with teaching people to sense Mana, and some people find smaller groups helpful.”
“Spells can help you contact someone that far away?”
“Further away than that,” Amdirlain replied.
“You didn’t mention these friends before,” Milui noted. “We rarely see members of other tribes, though we do occasionally cross their trail signs.”
“I wasn’t expecting them to be following me. I’d been in touch with them recently, and they’d not mentioned it,” Amdirlain smiled sheepishly. “It was only when they found our path that they let me know. Will Lanyaro have a fit?”
Milui shrugged. “We’ll see. I’m glad you told me, as I can head off any ill rumours. That said, it’s certainly not the first time others have joined us; around half of our tribe joined us from other tribes. Would you tell me more about these spells that let you talk to others?”
“I can detail what my spells do, yet it’s how they’re applied that’s important.”
“What do you mean?” Milui shifted her weight.
“A Spell to enlarge an object for a short time sounds less than useful.” Amdirlain picked up a tiny pebble and tapped it against a nearby boulder. “How fast could you throw this pebble? What if you enlarged it to the size of this boulder just before it struck?”
“By flattening prey, you’d have a useless kill,” Camen frowned.
“There are some things that need killing that we can’t eat, but we can use their bodies to enrich soil and grow the plants we want to harvest.”
Milui sighed. “As the dreams said, you’ve so much to teach us. How long will you stay?”
“We don’t know yet. I’ve got lots of things to learn about myself, but we’ll stay until those lessons take me elsewhere,” Amdirlain admitted. “However, we’ll teach you how to stabilise your food supply and about magic so you can defend yourself better before we do.”
“Where Amdirlain goes, so do I,” Sarah added.
Camen stood. “Milui, let’s go talk to a few people and ensure Lanyaro doesn’t cause trouble.”
“The way he’s been lately, we should give him and his friends the smallest raft and tell them to pick a river.” Milui rose and brushed away the fallen leaves clinging to her legs.
As they approached the ladder, Sarah set up a field to prevent anyone from overhearing. “Are you planning to turn this into a culture centre?”
“I messed up. I should have created more elves on the planet, and they’re going to need larger cultural groups to ensure genetic diversity.”
“Food, magic, and better tools will enable them to do that, but teaching them enchanting will be painful at present. Do you mind if I increase their technology level?”
“Are you thinking of the Copper or Bronze Age?”
“Copper and bronze are both too delicate to hold enchantments for long, which can frustrate someone trying to learn through experimentation. The best options are iron or materials from magical animals.” Sarah moved to the shore and picked up a handful of dark, sandy soil. “They’re sitting on iron here. Which is good because butchering magical animals solely for enchanting materials would certainly get someone grumpy, and you can re-smelt the object if the crafting or enchanting goes wrong.”
“And smelting iron would get a pass from her as long as the heat or flames don’t endanger the forest.”
“Precisely.” Sarah pinched some sand between her fingers and rubbed them together. “This has a high enough iron content that, once they’ve got the tools, a novice could rough out a knife in a day. There is clay around for setting up a kiln and making moulds. A few fire spells means we won’t have to prep charcoal or use a lot of wood. Once we’ve got enough iron, enchanted objects could replace the spells for smelting.”
Amdirlain contemplated the proposition. “Knowledge of iron handling would get them positioned to move onto magical metals later.”
“I’ll teach Milui while you’re busy with Mana lessons,” Sarah added, and she scrubbed the sand off. “Shall we go find a spot to place a lean-to or something?”
“You don’t want to just nap in a tree fork?” Amdirlain mused.
“That’s it, you’d better fake up a Spell to give us a proper shelter. I prefer to delve into other forks.”
Amdirlain hopped up with a snort and hooked her foot under her bow to launch it into her palm. “So rude!”
Returning to her side, Sarah stole a kiss before they headed for the closest ladder.
“You being in a male form this long feels curiously weird in a good way,” Amdirlain admitted.
“Oh?” Heat sparked in Sarah’s gaze. “Am I getting your maternal instincts going? Are you sure you don’t want more privacy than just some spells?”
“I was just saying.” Amdirlain coughed as Sarah’s fingers brushed along her hip. “Right, one shelter coming right up.”
Sarah’s chuckle tugged at her insides.
Integrating lifetimes has other effects; another common ground between species is the instinct to procreate. I won’t have children here; that would be deceptive to them, and it would cause them culture shock when we leave.
“If we want to blend in, we should find out who makes the huts and what they’d want in trade.” Sarah placed her foot on the lowest rung. “Though Camen said there was a waiting list for them. Do you think Einior is the person to ask?”
“Yep.” Amdirlain climbed the ladder after Sarah, her attention tracking the ley lines and their recent effects on the local environment.
They found a sweat-soaked Einior rigging another platform section near where Torher had first introduced them. Einior’s black hair, once in a ponytail, now flowed in the breeze of the canopy. He’d just finished placing support struts along a wide branch and was in the process of lashing the lower frame of a platform in place.
“I see you, Einior. Can we assist with your work?” Sarah asked.
Einior looked up at them in surprise. “I see you, Sind? and Amdirlain. You don’t have to do that. I’m sure lots of people would love to hear about your travels.”
“Plenty of time to share tales later. We thought we’d stay with the tribe while we’re welcome, and Camen mentioned the need for a few new huts. Since we’re increasing that need, we thought we’d help.”
“Did your tribe use platforms and huts like ours?”
Sarah smiled reassuringly. “No, but we’re both capable of providing help under direction. I know a lot about ropework and knots, though I’d like to see which method you prefer.”
Einior scrubbed sweat from his brow before he nodded. “Let’s see how things go then. It’s been a while since I taught someone inexperienced.”
He walked them through the bindings and watched as they repeated each step a few times, providing a few corrections along the way. Satisfied with their execution, he supervised as they worked, providing tips for joining the frame to the different angled bracing.
Sarah tied off another cord using the knot Einior had shown and moved back along the branch to the completed platform they’d seen him finishing up earlier.
“Does the tribe move often? With all these platforms, it seems like a lot of work, and not easily carried.”
“We use rafts to move the parts along the rivers. While they’re usually slow-moving, going against the flow in some seasons is a lot of work, so we can only move during late summer.” Einior handed over another length of cord. Amdirlain lifted the corner of the woven mat to allow Sarah to secure the frame’s corner to the other platform.
Einior shook his head slowly. “You both learn fast. I’ve taught no one with such sure movements.”
“We’ve survived dangers others haven’t, and that’s left us stronger and surer of ourselves,” Sarah replied. “How many more platforms are ready to be erected?”
“If you want to keep helping, then we’ll need to assemble another frame after we’re done with this one.”
The pair nodded.
The connecting factors that made up their lives had Amdirlain’s thoughts racing behind her composed expression. They continued to work with him throughout the afternoon, and Einior took them through positioning the struts and rigging them in a meshwork of cord.
? ? ? ? ? ?
Nexus’s PoV
The images coming through the conduit from the other realm had cut off, yet there’d been no rush of Far Chaos nor Eldritch charging through the twisted gap. Out beyond the realm’s limits, Nexus occasionally caught a sense of blockage in the conduit with no hint of the cause. Her attention drifted for a time, finding routes through the gravitational eddies of the surrounding black holes.
“Gideon, do you know what is happening out there?”
“Things.”
She pictured gravity shears stripping layers off Gideon’s perfect facets, and counted all the open gates, portals, and rifts between every Plane.
“What sort of things?”
“Precisely where ‘out there’ were you referring to?”
“Gideon! You know exactly what I meant!” Nexus's awareness twisted and changed the physical form she’d projected to guard the entry. Twisting through multiple dimensions, tentacles stretched from her to match the threads of her consciousness stretching out in all directions. “Stop playing games.”
“There is a lot of shifting out there. By the time you finished asking your question, the situation had changed.”
“As Amdirlain would say, are you trolling me right now? I’m worried about the conduit and more Eldritch arriving.”
“The conduit is now sealed to the boundary of the realm.” Heavy smugness permeated their awareness. “Its risk level has lowered.”
“Since when?”
A temporal concept washed through their connection, and Nexus turned her full attention to the forge room. Gideon hovered by Nicholaus’s forge, projecting plans for him and the twins. Within the white Primordial flames, the three of them manipulated the energy Amdirlain had provided by burning corruption within the Abyss. The boys shared their Mother’s Greek looks, bronzed Mediterranean skin tone, dark hair, and eyes. Nicholaus had shifted the energy of their divinity into that of static primordials, equivalent in overall capacity to that of most aspects. Though static in strength, their physical forms were still growing as their mastery of their powers and skills increased. Cluttered shelves holding the Anar and Lóm? souls lined the back wall of the forge, Nexus’s attention brushed a gap where Torm’s Soul had stood last time she’d checked.
“Gideon, how long were you going to leave me out there doing that now pointless over-watch?”
“You’ve taken a liking to that term today. Maybe try extra words, along with a dash of precision.”
Drakon, the eldest of Nicholaus’s twins, turned his head slightly and winked playfully as he pumped the bellows to fan the forge hotter. “Maker closed it up, Nexus. But it’s still possible for an Eldritch to push through the skin of the conduit, as in any other part of the realm. Does it really matter whether you were waiting there or somewhere else?”
“Maker is here? What are they doing?”
“Presently, they’re busy reading through the realm’s past,” Nicholaus rumbled.
A smile brightened Philon’s face, and he stepped towards her, his abilities still manipulating the flames into the conceptual essence for planets. “Would you tell me about the paths to the new worlds that our sister has made?”
With his attention on her, Nexus shed her monstrous form. “You’re changing the subject, and Gideon could easily tell you that themselves.”
“Gideon’s details differ from your perspective,” Philon said, taking her hand. “Please?”
“Charmer,” Nexus grumbled, her gaze dropping to their clasped hands. The newness of restricting herself to flesh still held a curious allure.
He tugged at her hand and stepped towards a doorway that hadn’t previously existed in the previously grey wall of the forge.
“Let’s join M?tēr, and you can tell us both.” His smile was undiminished.
“Ourania likes to hear of her daughter’s creations,” Nexus allowed. She’d have preferred to move him away somewhere quiet for herself, but his smile disarmed her protest.
