27.3 Corrosive Presence

General Summary

Day 424

I emerge in the waking world to find Jerun standing and staring at me. I rummage through my pack and toss him a letter bird as I explain that I need to leave for a few days and that he must stay put and keep Wayin company. He protests but I very firmly tell him that he simply won't be able to keep up at the pace I need to travel. His ability to travel four days' journey in two days won't be enough. I need to cover that distance in less than 24 hours.   He persuades me to wait ten minutes while he prepares an herbal mix that will help me go even faster, giving me the time to offer at least a little bit more explanation, which he takes in stride.   The tremors don't seem like they'll threaten the grotto, the forest, or the grove. They're related to something more elvish and Osyr than fae, from what I can see. I tell him about the Ingans and why I think it's something Kaide and I will have to deal with even if it won't threaten anyone here. Hue, apparently, flew East to investigate the tremor tonight. I assume she's heading to the dragon riders' village and I wonder if she'll have any more information when she returns. Hopefully between us we'll have something more to go on.   After he promises to keep Wayin company and not follow me, I plant a gentle his on his forehead and take flight, feeling my wings vibrating faster than usual due to the herbs he gave me. I speed through the sky, slipping beneath clouds and into patches of shadow as Kaide reaches through me and directs my magic to speed the wind along with us. Together we steal life from various small creatures as we go, using Kaide's purely consumptive blood magic devour their energy much faster than I ever have.   By the time the sun is setting we are about an hour away from our destination and I can feel the storm gathering around us. Midair I find Lyssa waiting and we fly the rest of the way together. The sky is ours, though I wish it was under more peaceful circumstances that we were flying.   Kaide guards us as we collapse together and try to recover what energy we can for the evening's events. When she wakes us I hastily bond us together and stand to give us a musical prelude to battle.   Before I finish, the ground begins to shake and a circle appears on the dusty surface, made of completely unrecognizable runes to me. The structure itself is familiar - extremely powerful protection magic and I can just start to recognize the space and dimensional magic contained in the latest letter from Magdalena.   From the circle emerges a swirling ball of white flame encircling six figures: Two enormous tusked Collective members with their large drooping ears and powerful staves, two shorter Collective with sharpened horns up their snouts wielding heavy metal weapons, and an Ingan...six-legged and doglike. But the Ingan is collared and leashed to the last figure, someone I've never seen and do not recognize.   He (?) is green-skinned and quite short with finlike ears, gills, and long green hair. He's smartly dressed in a tailcoat trimmed with lace and a slender sword. When he speaks his voice is soft and elegant and he is using quite an antiquated form of elvish.  

This adjudicator is surprised. A Hand on this side? The trolls would be disappointed if they knew you'd managed to cross our Barrier.

  It's such a gentle, matter-of-fact observation and I let my face settle into its neutral diplomatic mask. He introduces himself as Zeesoo and accepts my introduction as Shae'deneir'lanael, fifth Hand of the Empress. The things he says are just shy of meaningless and yet so laden with implication that I take my time hearing and responding.   "Breaking the rules with a Hand and a remnant soul on this side" "Yet you carry the blood of the fae" "Troubling...troubling" "Your presence is corrosive - the Barrier weakens simply by your presence" "Our contract is not yet complete" "You possess credentials unrelated to your status as a Hand. The Fae of Day and Night were not originals signatories"   It is clear by now that this will not be a fight - he and I both know that it would not be appropriate for people like us to meet in battle. Instead he conjures an elegant table with two chairs and dismisses the Collective and the Ingan ("wretches" he calls them) to wait a ways away. Lyssa and Kaide may be keeping an eye on them or flanking me...all of my attention is focused on this strange green adjudicator.   Graciously he gives me some context to introduce our conversation.  

It was the Treeborn who engaged our services to erect the Barrier as the salvation for the last of their children. Your presence feels strained - you are not Treeborn and yet you are. You are not fae yet you are. You are not elf yet you are.   You are bound as a Hand and yet you possess the bloodline of the signators. So I am left as a quandary as to your standing. It is troublesome. If your presence was not corrosive I would leave you.   Your Treeborn bloodline takes precedence over whatever oaths you have sworn to remnant souls. Remnants that have always been. We contracted for a Barrier, not for removal. Her presence (Kaide), we can tolerate.   So how am I to address the quandary? Our agreement stands 5000 years. It’s been less than half that. Our Barrier cannot be destroyed so easily. Your presence alone, should you do nothing, will destroy it in a millennia. This is our quandary and why I have sought you out. Cross the mountains; return home within a century. Reasonable? Fair-minded?

  From this I am to gather that some of Magdalena's siblings contracted some outsiders to enforce whatever division of warring parties needed to find their distance. Who exactly Zeesoo is and what he represents is not something that feels relevant yet - I'm sure it will be the subject of a long series of letters or a heated conversation with Magdalena.    He suggests that I simply return home within a century, for my presence here for a millennia would be enough to dissolve the Barrier. This is an easy thing to agree to in order to progress the conversation. I am not interested in staying here for a millennia and would be quite happy returning home within a century. What's more, I can always return or send others to enact my will. The structures I leave behind will be an extension of my presence.   What concerns me far more is the idea of signators and that someone may be so upset over Kaide's presence. He nods at this and simply says that this is not his department - he is "obligated" to inform the concerned parties that she is here. I understand this. It's such a bureaucratic thing to do - no point in arguing this issue.   The destruction of my home at the hands of the Collective, too, is not his department. I take note of this as something to deal with later.   To Zeesoo I pose a question: Surely there are terms of renegotiation in this contract? I am something that did not exist when this deal was struck. I'm interested in reshaping it in a way that would not have been possible so long ago.  

There’s room for renegotiation. There are terms of restitution. It requires at least five parties to the agreement to commit that matters are resolved with satisfaction. As I imagine, there are still sufficient Treeborn alive. But the trolls - those can be somewhat stubborn. The ones that you seek are the Eldest, or the three Great Trunks. Those or any of the signatory Treeborn.   The terms….you’re Day and Night. How are you Day and Night? Do you have another Grove? In less than 2000 years someone is trying to fulfill the agreement?   Restore 10 lost groves Extinguish the eternal flames Bring 5 signatures to witness Then we will dispel the Barrier.

  It's all I can do not to let out a bitter laugh as he outlines again the steps that have been on my ever-growing to-do list for nearly a year. Ten groves? Surely Seasonal groves would do but I'd strongly prefer a larger variety and I hope Dreamfall and the Celestial Grove count.   Instead I smile. Of course I'm here to fulfill the agreement. What else could I possibly be here for?  

This is why the wind whispers your name. This remnant…I will report her existence. But exterminating her is not my department. If this is your mission and why you are so corrosive…why your fate bends so then I, too, would like release from administering this. This place, with its thin magic, waste of potential, is tiresome.   You may, in need, call me. Tell me when you’re nearing completion. This adjudicator is happy to track down signators and provide some service.

  He offers me a small purple gem and smiles back. As a gesture to me, he offers to simply kill his Collective slaves but I wave it off. It wouldn't mean anything to me. Someone offering to shoo an ant off of my desk is hardly a tempting offer. He smiles wider. "Magnanimous" he notes   And then he gathers up his slaves and another tremor takes them deep into a fissure and away from us, leaving us alone. In the tense silence afterwards Kaide murmurs that Magdalena has told her about such adjudicators before and how their magic is sort of like our blood magic, but it binds souls. There's something deep and rich about it.   Lyssa was indeed observing the Collective and she notes that they felt empty and hollow. There was none of the unified strength that we've come to expect from them - they were like marionettes.   Exhausted though we may be, there is still more to do. At least within the mountain we will be safer to rest and prepare for the next task: Finding that blasted crown. As Kaide examines the doors and restores them to their proud strength I laugh that we now have three wars to concern ourselves with. Our fight with the Collective won't be finished until I've unravelled the War of Fire, which can't happen until I've understood more of the Pruning and what happened to the fae.   At least Lyssa and Kaide agree that we can work up to the Pruning. Anything earlier will have to be Magdalena's problem - perhaps Kaide and I can help if she asks nicely.