Inda let go and released me when I was a few metres distant so I took the last few steps before I reverently placed my hand on the mighty trunk and closed my eyes experiencing one of the most profoundly peaceful experiences of my life. The tree seemed to welcome me and made me aware that someone was beside me so the hand that rested gently on my shoulder was not a shock. I opened my eyes and pulled myself together and turned to face a beautiful woman. She had dark brown skin, silver hair and red eyes.
She smiled a bit sadly. “Hello, Tia.” Her voice was gentle and reassuring.
“Hello, Nudi.”
“Hold my hand and we will enter my home.”
I took her hand and we walked into her tree. Inside was a wooden corridor. I was guided to a room with a wooden table and chairs. As I sat in the chair I felt it shift underneath me. It felt a bit strange but when it had finished I was much more comfortable.
“Before we start I should mention that when anyone communes with a tree all that they know is available to me, so you don't need to explain why you are here or the situation on Earth. I will answer your most important question. Can I help you restore Earth? Honestly, I don't know. To even talk about it with you means giving you Dryad secrets that put me and this world at risk.”
“I can promise to keep your secrets,” I offered.
She laughed. “It is not that simple. I wish it were. You will understand in a minute.” Her face went quite serious but still held a hint of a smile. “I wasn't sure what I should do. Fate gave me a strong nudge, so I have decided to try and help. What happened to your world is not that unusual. Once humans know, the rest is predictable. The fruit of a celestial tree brings evolution and power to those who consume it. Men and women become Gods and Goddesses and demand worship and then they get bored and start playing games. The result is inevitably war and destruction. The only way for a celestial tree to be safe is to be hidden so no one knows what it can do or where it is.
“You can probably guess by now that you need a celestial tree to draw life energy and without one the world slowly dies. A world can have multiple celestial trees. The oldest is called the world tree but really since they all can provide travel to other worlds they are all world trees. All such trees have dryads or are dryads depending on how you look at it. To survive and keep the world alive we tend to adopt one of two strategies. Either stick to one hidden place or try and have as many as possible. The difficulty with having multiple locations is our nature is more likely to be found out and then the search begins. Also, we don't reproduce very often. This is where fate had decided to play a role.”
Nudi leaned forward peering into my eyes as if searching my soul. “The heart of my tree produces a seed maybe once every three to four thousand years. A week after I heard of your plight I knew that my seed was going to be ready soon. Once it is ready it has to be implanted before it dies. If I wanted it to gestate I would implant it within myself and have a daughter about eight months later. You plant the placenta which will contain the tree seed.
“The only way I can see you bringing a celestial tree to Earth is if you have my daughter, like a surrogate mother, only I am not sure if you will survive the experience. In fact, I am pretty sure that any child of mine will require celestial energy to grow and thrive. If you eat celestial fruit you might survive, but it will change you. How much you will need to eat, how much it will change you and whether you will survive are all unknowns. Just to make life interesting, my seed has arrived and will need to be implanted within the next few hours or you may have to wait another three to four thousand years.”
I took a deep breath. “Wow. No pressure eh?”
“We are talking about my daughter, so this is no small decision on my part. But I felt your soul and judge you to be good. The timing seemed too predestined for me to ignore fate's hands.”
“Do you know what sort of changes could happen?” I asked her.
“Not really. I can't recall an Elf ever eating a celestial fruit. Sometimes there is knowledge, sometimes magical gifts with the ability to directly channel life energy. How that is expressed might depend on the personality involved. I know that some elevated humans on different worlds were able to channel some life energy into different objects, giving them magical properties. I will say this though. I can't believe that the Universe would set up these circumstances and then destroy the only means of saving a world.” Nudi shrugged her shoulders to emphasise her lack of knowledge.
I didn't like the rush. I felt the pressure and hated the fact that Vee wasn't here to help me, not that there was a choice really. Thinking about it, this was our only chance of saving Earth, so I had to do it. I wasn't sure if this would only affect my body here on Lagbit's World, but I remember being told that what happens to me here effects the me on Earth so I had to try. Whatever consequences there were I would have to deal with them.
“OK. Let's do it.”
Chapter 25
Nudi led me to the heart of her tree. As we approached it there was an increasing sense of pressure, almost like we were fighting against a current. So I felt a sense of relief when I realised we had arrived like reaching the top of the mountain, there was no further struggle ahead of me. It had also distracted me from what was coming next.
I was quivering with anxiety as I followed Nudi's instructions. First I had to take off my clothes, then she reverently stroked the heart and pulled out a seed no bigger than a fingernail. She passed it to me to insert, like a tampax. Now I felt embarrassed as well as nervous. Then she led me to a nearby small room that had a wooden platform, like a bed without a mattress that had a large red fruit sitting in the middle of it. The fruit was larger than an apple, almost pineapple sized, but very apple like in appearance.
I can't really describe how it tasted, but the texture was like a soft pear. After the first bit of juice passed my lips I had what I can only describe as a foodgasm. Not physically, but mentally. I must have devoured it in seconds almost waking up from a trance to find my face covered in juice and nothing of the fruit left. I then lay on the hard platform. Similar to the chair, the surface shivered beneath me and contoured itself into a much more comfortable shape.
I started to feel drowsy. It reminded me of Christmas dinners where you eat far too much and just when it is time to clear up, this wave of tiredness rolls over you. Usually, I was at a friend's house, so I had to fight through this feeling, yawning repeatedly. Today I just relaxed into it and allowed it to pull me into sleep, hoping I would wake up with everything better.
I started dreaming while knowing I was dreaming and wondering if it was a dream at all. My body was getting hotter and hotter, going from pleasant to uncomfortable to quite painful. As the pain increased I started to worry that I wasn't going to survive this adventure. Thoughts of Vee hardened my will to survive. I started reaching out looking for a solution. I felt the presence of an enormous entity that was holding me divided and also playing with time in some incomprehensible way. I stretched my mental arms towards the other me, knowing that I couldn't do this alone. The pain was getting unbearable and I couldn't quite touch my other self. I then had the thought that if the other me was still me, I could reach out from there was well. That was enough to connect to myself and pull myself together. Immediately, the pain halved and having survived the much higher heat, that level was manageable. The heat carried on rising, but now I knew I would beat this, I would endure. It reached a peak and then slowly retreated until it got to the pleasant heat range and then stayed there.
As I became accustomed and less distracted by the heat, I became aware of the tree I was lying in and other trees around me, stretching off into the distance. I felt I could connect with any tree, anywhere. I felt for the tree where I had been forced to leave Vee behind and could feel a group of people there but somehow knew, Vee was not one of them.
My eyes snapped open finding myself still in Nudi's celestial tree. I sat up quickly and turned to Nudi who was waiting patiently in the doorway.
> “I must go,” I told her.
She smiled at me. “I give you permission to enter my tree. When you need more fruit, return and ask me to give it to you. There are snakes that guard the fruit and you have to know how to deal with them. Look after her for me. I have always wanted to have a daughter, but have been too scared to take the previous seeds since I don't have a safe place for her to plant.”
“She will have at least three mothers. Myself, Vee and you. She will be surrounded by love.” I got up and gave her a hug.
I knew how to travel to the tree where I had left Vee as if I had always had the knowledge, it just had been hidden from me. I stepped through the celestial tree straight to the oak tree where my guard was waiting and out to greet them.
My guards had set up a camp with two guards flanking the tree waiting for me to return.
“Princess!” the guard on the left exclaimed when I stepped through.
All eyes turned to me. I looked at Eve. “Where is Vee?”
“She just vanished. She was with us one minute and then gone the next. Melissa was looking at her when it happened, so I know no one took her,” Eve replied.
I knew deep down that she was OK, but I didn't know where she was. If she had vanished I needed to know what had happened to Mia and Wendy.
“I am going to travel through the tree to the palace, do you wish to come with me?” I asked Eve.
“Pack up!” Eve shouted to the others. “I would love to come with you, but I don't think your familiar can take anyone other than you. I would prefer us all to go together, so do you mind not going by tree? And would you like to borrow some clothes?”
For some reason, my nudity didn't bother me in the least, but I thought it prudent to cover myself. I quickly put on their offerings and then needed to explain myself. “You are right, my familiar can only take me, but it is not my familiar that will be taking us. I now have that ability and I can take you all with me. Hurry up, we need to go.” I knew she was unlikely to believe me, but at the same time, since I wasn't in immediate danger, I had the authority to make the decision.
Once everything was gathered together, we joined hands and I confidently travelled to the tree that was near our Taigoa practice pulling along all my guards who arrived with looks of wonder on their faces. I then left them there and hurried into the palace to find out what had happened to Mia and Wendy.
I found Yani, my maid in my room. She explained what she knew while Felicia went to tell everyone that I had returned. Wendy had managed to copy herself with Myra and Mia's help and then later one version of Wendy and Mia vanished. They were in the company of Myra and the other Wendy, who decided against changing her name.
Yani helped me to get a quick wash and dressed in more formal attire. She fussed over me and told me that she loved my new hair. I didn't know what she was talking about until I looked in the mirror. My hair had turned silver.
Felicia returned and led me to Myra, Wendy, Mary and Kayla. They settled me down with a calming tea and small talk before Mary decided that I was ready to answer some questions.
“I am guessing that you know or can guess what has happened. Are you ready to tell us?” Mary asked me.
“Yes, but we need to make very sure that what I say does not go beyond this table,” I replied, bearing in mind what Nudi had told me. “The consequences of a leak of information here could result in a similar situation to Earth, the loss of the world tree and eventual planetary catastrophe.”
“Can you make sure that we can't be overheard?” Myra asked me.
I requested a couple of jugs of water and then Dani created a dome of thin ice that was white so no one could read lips and outside that Inda created a multiple layer air shield to prevent any sound escaping. I knew Dani could just use the water in the air, but why make her life difficult.
“On the security side I have a sad tale to tell,” Mary said. “Thank you for helping to bring the spy in, I fear what our future would have looked like if you hadn't. For the last fifty years, the Empire has been capturing lone elves, torturing them to open their minds and using spells to make human spies look and seem identical with all of their knowledge. Originally, it was an exercise in gaining intelligence, but since it was so successful, the Empire has started increasing its efforts with the aim of conquering us. Without knowing it we have been at war for years. Geri is in the process of producing a spell that will highlight all humans, after which we will purge the rot from our city. We will be recalling all elves from Empire lands, telling them to group up and never travel alone.”
“Does that mean we will be attacking the Empire?” I asked.
“No. There is no real point. Unless we intend to occupy and permanently conquer them, it is easier to wait them out. They have short lives and will soon forget any wrongs they have done, putting us firmly as the aggressors. We will withdraw from their lands and defend our borders. It is sad for the lives lost, I have no intention of increasing that number. Humans are greedy, not inherently evil. Now, it is your turn. What has happened?”
I explained about the celestial tree and the special fruit that it creates and what likely happened on Earth long ago. Information that needed to be kept secret to prevent the same occurring here. I then told them of the opportunity that had arisen and the choice I had to make.
“So are you pregnant? I can see you have silver hair, were there any other changes?” Mum asked, reaching forward to put her hand on my belly.
I moved to give her access. “Yes, I am,” I replied letting her do her priestess examination. “As for changes, I have bonded with all trees, so I can travel through any tree to any other tree and bring anyone else with me. I think I can also travel through any wood actually. Wood from a tree takes a long time before all the life energy it contains is released.”
“So why do you think Vee, Mia and Wendy disappeared?” Mum asked me.
“I think Lagbit was holding me in two places at the same time and in order to survive, I needed to pull myself into one whole person. I suspect my body on Earth has disappeared, which cut the connection between the worlds and withdrew anyone who was connected through me.”
“How are you going to get back?” Mary queried.
“I don't know,” I responded sadly, then added a more hopeful, “yet.”
Chapter 26
There was a pause while my worry and a possible consequence of being cut off from Earth traversed my Elven family. Mum, who had her hand still on my belly, moved so that she could hug me properly. I tried to stay strong, but the thought of being without Vee was terrifying. After being encased in mum's love I couldn't hold back any longer and started crying into her shoulder.
Other hands and touches soon joined as Mary and Kayla included their care and love. Wendy hugged Myra, probably not feeling comfortable enough to be included. We stayed that way until I was able to pull myself together. My eyes were sore and I was still worried, but I also felt better.
“I presume you don't know how to get to Earth, but do you know someone who you could ask?” Kayla asked me.
I took a deep breath. “Nudi mentioned that celestial trees are called world trees because you can travel between them to different worlds. That won't work for Earth though, as they don't have a world tree yet. She might know more though. She didn't say it directly but to have the knowledge she has, she must have spoken to different dryads on different worlds.”
“Then I suggest you go and speak to her,” Mary concluded.
“I will,” I said decisively, standing up. “If I am not back soon, it will be good news. I think Lagbit was helping us by playing with time between the different worlds and that might have stopped now, so I'm not sure when I will be back. If I can get back to Earth I can definitely get back here.”
“Are you taking your guards with you?” Mum asked.
“I could, but then they might end up stranded and I'm pretty sure Nudi would be upset if I did. She is very worried about her safety if her location is revealed in any
way. I am carrying her daughter though, so hopefully, we can build up some trust.”
Everyone gave me a heartfelt hug. I asked my familiars to remove our security protections and then hurried to the apple tree in the courtyard and travelled to Nudi and her celestial tree. I didn't think it would be polite to stay within her tree so I shifted to just outside it. Nudi knew I was there. I felt almost like I was rubbing shoulders with her as I travelled through.
“I wasn't expecting you to be back so soon,” she remarked, presenting the weird picture of a beautiful head poked out of a huge tree. A hand emerged and gestured me in. “Come in.”
She took me back to the room with the table and two chairs. “You don't need another fruit do you?” she asked with a frown.
“No, nothing like that. I think Lagbit was holding my body in two places, both here and on Earth and when I consumed the fruit, I needed to bring both bodies together in order to survive. I, err..., don't know how to get back to Earth.”
“That does sound like a problem, but I think there will be a way. Fate presented us with an opportunity and I don't think it would align so many stars just to leave you stuck unable to complete your quest.”
“You mentioned that celestial trees are world trees and enable travel between different worlds,” I said, hoping to prompt an answer.
“Yes. Like calls to like. Normally if you are sufficiently in tune with nature you can use this principle to travel between trees, but usually, the tree needs to be the same species. Since the first celestial tree has no other celestial trees on that planet, they can often tune in to other celestial trees on other planets. But I couldn't travel like you can from a celestial tree to an oak or another different tree. When a species is similar enough there does not seem to be a problem, but when it diverges enough to be different most of us can't seem to tune in. I do speak to other celestial tree dyrads and sometimes even visit them on their worlds and they tell me stories. They have talked about an apple tree dryad that was so powerful she could travel to any other apple tree regardless of the type. Eating celestial fruit can change you, give you power. I would guess that the more power you have the less similar the trees need to be for you to connect to them. If you can't connect to a tree on Earth yet, you may be able to after eating more fruit, but I would suggest you wait at least a week or until some sign that you are depleted.
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