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It was a World Tree.
Not the entire world of Migurd, but there was a gigantic tree connecting the surface far below us to the entrance to Aescalon. It might as well have been a World Tree, as bent and gnarled as any jeebroak on the windswept Plains of Judgment on Nexus, but still challenging most mountain spires for height. The tree was massive, far bigger than the aperture we’d just transited, even at its crown at least twenty times the height of a man in thickness. It was drenched in mud and soil and pebbles and rocks of all sizes, anywhere there was anything resembling a horizontal surface, and the course of a river ran downwards from here, perhaps all the way to the surface two ithirds beneath us. The riverbed was largely dry at the moment, but I had no doubts that it could become a raging cataract on almost no notice. Everywhere, lesser trees rose from its rough, almost corrugated bark; bushes and lesser plants down to mosses and lichens clung where-ever there might be moisture. Pools formed where the bark and the dirt or mud allowed. Loose rocks and gemstones lay where they had been swept by the latest flood. Birds and small animals went about their business, unperturbed by our passing. The air was alive with the sounds of alpine forest, birdsong, the buzzing of insects, and the occasional chittering of rodents.
As we exited the transition zone and real gravity returned, I re-activated my cart’s anti-gravity. It was returned to normal function, but I took just enough weight off the wheels to minimize the effort I needed to pull the cart. Haraldsson might be oblivious to the fact that my cart was now much easier to pull; but he’d have to take notice if the wheels stopped turning. I wanted to blend in as much as possible for now.
“There are often storms here around Ygg,” he said, playing the role of tour guide “We’ve gotten lucky today. There are usually clouds, and sometimes the wind gets so fierce you have to hang on for your life. Occasionally, even Ygg must break in the face of the storms. Every year, someone gets blown to their deaths when the place they chose breaks off.”
But the storms that tested Ygg, also fed it. Everywhere the vegetation was the verdant green of well-watered plant life, except where riots of colorful flowers in every possible combination obscured that green covering. I wondered that the toxic stew of metals and other elements and the compounds they could form hadn’t poisoned everything from here to the plains far below, but evidently Ygg and its inhabitants had been here for a long time. They had quite likely evolved to incorporate the witches’ brew into their biochemistry, which explained why the animals I saw were completely unconcerned about our presence.
As a purple squirrel-like rodent popped up and chittered at us, its fur tinted by permanganate, Jarl Haraldsson confirmed my hypothesis. “Don’t eat any of the plants or creatures of Ygg. Even if they look edible, they’re poisonous. Nobody knows why. We can share rations with you if you require.” He was solicitous with a purpose – he wanted my knowledge of how to handle the diligar, or as much of it as he could use.
I could have told him why the life here was poisonous, but he wouldn’t have understood. “I accept, and will share in my turn if the journey has not ruined my food,” I told him.
There was a wide road along the great trunk, down the tree by the circuitous route offered by the tree. Now that we’d walked a little way, I’d had a chance to observe that there was a mountain beneath us, the detritus of all that had been swept off Ygg built up on the plain. Periodic glimpses informed me that a town or city covered most of that mountain. I didn’t know if Ygg itself was the first of its kind, or if it had periodically toppled and been replaced. Perhaps as we descended, I’d discover that Ygg was several trees twined together. I was actually getting curious. As noted, this place broke all the rules we thought we knew.
One conclusion that I found strongly supported by evidence: however aged and enormous, Ygg was vibrantly alive, and being nourished by the strange energy that I’d noticed in the waters of Aescalon, which tickled half my operant senses with its seemingly boundless energy. It was therefore plausible that Ygg had been here a long time, possibly even geological time, constantly replenished by the power it was being fed. Ygg may have been ancient, but it was green and growing, verdantly alive and healthy.
As we descended the trunk, our small company periodically encountered other travelers going the opposite direction; mostly merchants or groups of merchants pulling wooden carts the size of mine or smaller, laden with trade goods for elsewhere. A few times obviously wealthy nobles with a few retainers or slaves passed us with larger baggage trains. We overtook a couple parties of slow moving merchants travelling in our same direction, too.
Perhaps ten minutes’ walk down the trunk, as I was wondering how we would traverse an apparently vertical segment, we entered a shaft cut into the bark of the tree. Along the sides of the shaft, the road was cut into a descending spiral. Workmen were doing maintenance as we passed downwards, axes and planes to ensure the road remained flat enough to be passable.
There was a customs or toll station embedded in a crevice in the tunnel. Jarl Edvard paid a small fee in silver for each of his men, while I was asked for a gold coin for myself and my cart. “I’m not familiar with your coinage,” I told the agent, “Please show me an example so I can pay appropriately.” The guard showed me a small coin, slightly larger than my thumbnail, massing a bar or a little more. I looked to Jarl Edvard for confirmation, and he nodded, so I used some of my stored energy to create a small disc of gold via matra and farza, inscribing it in passing with a nondescript portrait on one side and symbols on the reverse. I was careful to make it mass about a quarter more than the ‘official’ coin. When I handed it to him, the agent’s surface thoughts indicated he could feel the extra weight of my coin, and he handed me a brass and iron plaque as a pass that allowed me to continue down the path with the blessing of the authorities.
“You didn’t have that coin in your hand earlier,” Haraldsson accused, “Where did it come from, or are you ready to admit that you’re a wizard?”
“If by ‘wizard’, you mean someone who doesn’t keep his coins in obvious places, I must plead guilty,” I told him, “but it seems more to me like someone who is simply aware that not all of the people a traveler meets on the road are above temptation.”
“That coin you gave the customs agent had no debris on its surface, or around the raised portrait on its face,” Haraldsson replied, “So either it was newly created, or you magically kept it clear from the grime and debris that all coins pick up in circulation.” Military men, especially leaders, make their living by their wits and powers of observation. If I hadn’t already known it before, Jarl Edvard was serving notice that the reputation he claimed was real, and earned. Perhaps my brother Alex could take him apart with equivalent forces, but here, Haraldsson was at or near the top of his profession.
“In my experience, there’s no such thing as magic,” I told him, “There is physics, and inventing weird explanations instead of not realizing that your powers of observation have been distracted is evidence of a lazy mind, and I know that you aren’t lazy, my lord.”
“Now, about the diligar,” I continued, distracting him further, “Their mass and speed is what gives them their power. But this is a two edged sword. It can also be broken or turned against them.”
“I appreciate that you are willing to discuss the diligar, Alexan,” he told me, “But those are simple observational facts that have been remarked upon for years. I’m aware of various approaches to the problem. But you’re trying to distract me from the fact that you appear to be a wizard.”
“Jarl Edvard, whatever you may think, realize that you’ve seen how fast I can move. Such capability is not an insignificant aid to sleight of hand and misdirection.” Absolutely true, even if it wasn’t telling the whole story. But I had to admit Haraldsson was sharp. I could read his thoughts, confuse or bully him mentally via the use of auros, but I wasn’t going to slip by him with verbal misdirection. In his profession, fools, dullards and simpletons would not last long. Some of his men might only think ahead as far as the next tavern or wench, but even they could be counted upon to pay attention and get it right when the swords came out. Jarl Edvard’s advantage over his peers was that his mind was engaged constantly.
Copyright 2018 Dan Melson. All Rights Reserved.
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