Chapter 34
If I thought I‘d been fussed over and cosseted before, couldn‘t even take a step backwards without falling over a guardsman or soldier. Big scary dudes that would make a Boston Bruin look twice. My private life was measured in stolen moments where I hid from prying eyes in the bathroom, closets and offices behind closed doors with a bodyguard outside it and only after they checked the room first. I was only left alone with the captain, Murphy or Zip in attendance and she carried with her a set of her own personnel. King‘s niece and all that.
I had asked about the dead servant and told that he‘d been sent by an outside hiring agency used by the Palace before to supply supplemental staff and had never been a problem. No one seemed to know who‘d engaged the Evenmon or how he got through a closed Gate. His companion had been interrogated and didn‘t know anything; had been a loyal staff member in the palace for years. Celene had a whole race of beings that did nothing but service their employers, they came from a plane called Cinis. All of them looked like a cross between the Geico motorcycle man and a gnome.
I pulled the dead man‘s string and was shocked to see its end dangle from my grip in one short strand with no way to read it forward or back. That had never happened before; I had never found a string I could not follow or find. I let it go and slid it out of sight as if it had never been, leaving a strange oiliness on my hands that prompted me to wipe them on my pants leg. I was suddenly glad I had not tasted the line in my mouth.
"Lord Jadewyn?" Selwyn, Zip‘s cousin and guard laid his gauntlet hand on my shoulder.
"Are you with us?" He looked worried.
"Yeah," I nodded. "I was trying to read the dead-Stellath‘s cord."
"Oh." His face was a range of emotions, puzzlement, awe, envy. "What is it like?"
"Not so great. Imagine knowing how you were born and how you‘ll die and everything in between. Now, add a billion more to it, all clamoring to be picked up and read."
"Is it true that you can find anything that is lost?"
"Yeah. Why? Di you lose something?" I closed my eyes and sat down on the desk of whoever is office this was. Military maps covered every inch of the walls and portraits of men and horses. Another wall of what looked like mules but with fangs and split hooves. His or her chair was comfortable, too.
"A favorite ring given to me by my father before he died," he offered and I asked him to describe it. I looked. Came back to the present. Knew he hadn‘t told me it was more than a ring, it was the seal of his house and he could not claim kingship without it.
"There‘s a tree on your property, tall with red leaves and three forks in the trunk. It sits alone in a meadow under Thorn Hill. At its base it a rock wall. Two steps from the wall near the left root is a den…some kind of weaseling thing. Inside its lair is your ring. Along with a few other things it stole. Shiny, sparkly things. Be careful, there are snakes inside, too."
"A tisslewith. They love to collect things that glitter. Thank you, My Lord. It has been missing for many years." He watched me curiously, as he waved his hand in the air. "How do you feel? You spent more time with the Druz than any of our men and you came back whole and sane."
"Relatively sane. Not so your men?"
He shuddered. "Broken in mind and body. The Druz do not treat prisoners well. The Druz rarely take prisoners, many of us left our heads on their pikes. The doctor said you had been beaten and bones broken and he‘d not seen a body so damaged and still functioning. You are of Celene bloodlines, is it the Seillach that protected you from certain destruction and insanity?"
"Got me. Sometimes, I feel like I‘ve died a hundred deaths, Selwyn," I said wearily. "I‘ve lost my mother and father twice, my world, friends, hopes, dreams and realizations. My dad tried to give me a normal childhood and even that was taken away from me. What was yours like?"
"I am one of seven; four of us went into the military and serve the King. Two have made the Heart Forces. Both are dead now. They fought the Druz at Galwyn Pass and perished most honorably."
"Which kid were you?" He looked puzzled and I explained. "Oldest? Youngest? Middle kid?"
"Kid? We call the young of goats‘ kid, " he laughed. "I am the second to the oldest. The elder is Lord now, Lord of Peleyn Mountain, a duchy not far from Fangmoor. We are actually cousins of sorts but then, most of the higher ranked officers in the Forces are of the landed nobles and are related. I have three sisters, two are wedded and with children . The other you know."
"Zip? Zip is your sister?" I was nervous, wondering if he knew I‘d….
He grinned at me. "Don‘t worry, Jade. My sister is no shrinking flower and can well defend her own virtue without my help. She was doing fine on Pengarm in the slave caves before we found her."
"How did she wind up a captive?"
"Curiosity. She ventured too close to a Druz encampment and was cornered, taken and brought to their base as slave labor. They did not know who she is or that she was female or she would have wound up in Coelanth‘s harem. Raping Celene women is one of his great passions in life although he prefers young boys."
My stomach dropped in horror. I wondered what had been done to me while unconscious.
He took pity on me. "If he had taken you, Jadewyn, you would be dead. Druz…members are large and barbed, it would have torn your insides when it ejaculated Bes ides, Dr. Chryon checked you for internal injuries and found none of that sort. No, they merely drained you of blood and beat you."
"They said my blood tasted good," I shivered.
"It is imbued with the power of the Tree and the Seillach Pangorum. It would be like the finest wine, the most exquisite food, powerful drug, an irresistible perfume to the Druz. Then, your blood is power, a conduit to the Tree and would allow a Druz Warrior Priest to approach, touch and control the Tree. The next best thing to controlling you and the Coin."
I opened my hand and stared at the coin. It pulsed with a faint greenish gold beat. "What is this thing?"
"Some say the heart of the Tree. Some say, the eyes of the Deity that created us. I think it is a seed. The seed of the Tree, containing all its knowledge, power and memories."
"The Tree has memories," I said slowly, remembering my won communion with it. I looked off in the distance, seeing not the walls of the office by the Great Tree in the lobby of a Boston high rise. "Selwyn, is the Tree on earth plane or all planes? Can I access it only there or anywhere?"
"It is said that it exists nowhere and everywhere. If you touch it on one plane, you touched a permanent nodule where a portion of it spilled over. Its power is available to you anywhere, any plane."
"The Priests guard it on my plane, I mean Earth."
"Then it must be there always."
"I need to touch it," I murmured and resolved to find a way to return to question it.