The Rokkaia Chronicles

by Rhys Thomas

  I blinked, found myself toppling over onto the forest floor. Above me, far off in the night sky, an unseen hand guided and shifted the stars in preparation for war.

  “Alaric!” someone shouted.

  “Oh god, Emilia he’s over here,” someone else called out. The sky became blurry and bile rose in my throat, had I been screaming?

  My chest felt incredibly tight as if a heavy weight pressed down upon me. Small spasms racked my body and I couldn’t stop shaking. “Bring me to him. Now!” A different voice demanded of the others.

  “Shre, save my uncle. You know I would if doing so didn’t mean drawing attention,” the same voice who had demanded a moment ago, now spoke with concern.

  “Of course, Annaleigh. You know I would do anything to save my Maker,” a soft almost tinkling voice like that of the rustling of leaves in the wind.

  Then I was too tired to even focus on their words. Distantly I felt Marisa awakening with a cry of alarm, one not directed at me thankfully. Then there was the mocking laughter and the mournful howling wolf left to accompany me to my sleep as I closed my eyes.

  Chapter Sixteen

  It was a strange sensation to be fully awake inside your head as your body slept. I couldn’t see what was happening outside myself, nor could I hear as such. Nope, I was sat cross legged on the floor of my dimensional plane. That I was here now, because I was expecting company.

  The soft tread of movement caught my attention, and I looked up to see a 5ft tall grey wolf walking through the shadowy scape of my dimension.

  “Good evening,” Shade greeted me, as if we were old buddy, meeting on the weekend for a beer.

  “Good evening Shade—I think—hard to tell really.” It was a little disorientating hearing your own voice talking back to you.

  “It is,” the wolf replied coming to sit across from me. “You’ve been out for an hour or so,” the wolf added. I looked at him then, seeing my own eyes reflecting back at me, though they lacked the golden half circles around the pupils that I had.

  “You seem… Smaller?” I half-asked hesitantly. He chuckled dryly, in an attempt to put me at ease I thought. It was strange considering I thought of Shade as someone with a vastly different and far older personality than my own, yet now he was comforting in a way.

  “Yes, I had to shrink down a fair bit to help ease the strain for when we split. It’s all aether anyway, I’ll get it back through you,” Shade replied. “Just be glad it’s not the other form, that prideful fuckers appearance is far harder to manage with how little we are right now.”

  “Okay-?” I said not really sure on the context of what he was saying but deciding to just roll with it. “Will you be able to answer any of my questions?” I asked the wolf hopefully.

  The beast shook his head, grey fur shaking as it did so. “I’m afraid not, which shouldn’t be a problem considering who just showed up. That little scamp has grown rather beautiful in the years since fleeing Astral. She’ll tell you what the Ash one didn’t, for now you should return,” Shade suggested.

  I nodded rubbing the bridge of my nose, “you know. I thought I could be patient and wait for Marisa to tell me, but the more we continue on this journey. I feel that when the times for her to actually explain, she’ll simply change subject or try to throw me a distraction.”

  His canine head nodded, “she has always been a worrier, our mate. Do not mistake her untruths for deception though, everything she does is because she believes it to in your best interest. Go now and get your answers; time is short and thank you for the snack.”

  “Snack?” I replied confused and tilting my head to one side. “I don’t remember bringing any-” I began, but my head swam and so did Shades. I felt my vision spiral around and I grew dizzy. “What’re you doing?” I asked, my speech sounding slurred and drowsy.

  “Don’t fight it Rokki, we’ve things to be about, and places to see,” the wolf replied and just before I fell into the oblivion of sleep. I sure Shade’s body darken and bleed away into the lonely void of my dimensional plane.

  ~*~*~*~

  My eyes cracked open painfully, feeling buggy and owlish. I glanced around at my surroundings to find myself naked under a blanket made of woven leaves and bendable twigs. The mattress I was on; for all intents and purposes was a bed of branches with interlocking leaves and vines. It was comfortable and springy, capable of holding my weight.

  It was almost too familiar to find myself in a strange room, completely naked and unsure how I got there. Stepping out of the bed of leaves I stood and shook myself to clear the haze of sleep, that’s when I noticed the bandage on the end of my right arm.

  Which at a glance seem marginally smaller than my left.

  “What. The fuck?” I asked and poked at the end of my stump. Sure-enough a wave of dizzying sickness almost curled me over to vomit. “No-no-no,” I said in stunned disbelief. Unwrapping the bandage; I found the end of my arm was cut off abruptly and puckered like a wrinkled asshole, just below the wrist.

  “This can’t be happening,” I hissed quietly crouching down beside the bed and staring at my stump of an arm.

  An hour or so later I roused myself from my denial, seeing no point to linger upon it further. My mind had sprung with the loss of my primary hand, how fucking awkward it would be going forward. I ran a hand over my face, scratching at the beard growing there. I looked around and really got a look at the place.

  Everything seemed crafted and woven from flora, the room was onions shaped and the wall’s had rippling lines running along them. Though my hand came away a tad sticky when I touched it. The substance very similar to tree sap though its colour was completely different.

  I scanned about looking for my clothes and noticed a window, more of an open square in the room.

  I could hear distant voices and laughter down below. I leaned out to look but couldn’t see downwards as the exterior wall curve like a ball, away beneath me. I was high up though and from the tall grouping of trees around, I imagine the structure I was in, was that of a 100-ft tall tree house.

  Grimacing, I searched for my clothing and found them. After a ridiculous struggle to tie laces, do up buttons and tighten straps 15-minutes had passed. “That was fucking ridiculous,” I muttered, scowling at my right arm. I saw how the sleeve of my green tunic was torn, jagged and blood stained. Though I could tell by the smell that they had been washed. I didn’t find my armour and didn’t bother looking, I needed answers and hopefully that would be found down below.

  ~*~*~*~

  The trees interior outside of the room was surprisingly spartan, plant life the likes of which I’d never seen decorated the halls and spiralling stair way down.

  I only noticed three floors on the way down, the one which led to my room, another above and the ground floor. Open windows drafted in cool air that immediately churned and channelled the natural heat of the trees interior.

  I stepped outside as soon as I made ground floor and found the ladies, Ilya and Emilia sat around a fire. Two others who I didn’t recognise sat opposite them. Whatever conversation they having stopped when Ilya noticed me and sprang to her feet, “Alaric, you’re awake?” she asked questioningly.

  “Yeah, it seems so,” I replied. “Though I’m having trouble finding my hand. It seems to have gone for a walk,” I added with a dry chuckle.

  No one, but one of the new women laughed at my joke. Emilia grimaced and went back to nursing her drink, Ilya shook her head amused and slightly disgusted. The other woman simply stared at me unblinkingly. Her skin and features drew my noticed and I stared back, her skin was a light shade of green with a light dusting of brown freckles scattered about her body. Her emerald green hair was a wild and thick silky mane dotted with small blooming flowers, it hung down her back and just past her waist.

  Her ears were slightly pointed and like that of a leaf in shape. Thin swirling brownish black patterns ran the length of her body like the grain of a tree. She wore what I could only describe as natures
lingerie. Made from twigs, leaves and vines, they were incredibly flexible and light and hugged her magnificent body. Her pouty lips were a luscious pink and as delicate as a rose petal and her eyebrows were a thin long delicate stem that curled at the end.

  She was slim, with a large bust and a narrow waist that flared out at her hips, she was also rather tall with long shapely legs and bare feet. Her eyes drew me the most, seeming almost too large for her face, her bright green orbs that flared with an inner glow in the light of the fire. I coughed realising I was staring for far too long and I turned my attention to the other woman as I approached the fire.

  She noticed my glance and grinned impishly standing up to twirled and display herself for me. She had an almost childish to her, as if she wanted to make me proud of her. “How’d I look Uncle?” she asked, and I froze as something tried to surface in my mind. She wore a white sundress and flat heel shoes and I immediately knew she wasn’t from Viria. Her clothing reminding me of an 80s housewife.

  “Uncle?” I asked shaking my head as I looked up to her face. Her skin was a dusky tan, her hair as white as Ilya’s and her eyes were completely white except for the pinprick of a black beady pupil at the centre.

  “Ah,” she answered, sounding sad. She stopped twirling and retook her seat, “Maylith hasn’t told you then?” she asked rhetorically.

  “Who?” I cocked an eyebrow, but she ignored me.

  “Shre darling, can I use the pool please?” The woman with white hair asked the one who I was beginning to believe was a dryad or a nymph.

  “Of course, Annaleigh,” Shre replied, her voice melodious yet with a smooth roll to it as she beamed a smile at the other woman.

  I looked to Emilia who was staring intently into the hollow of her cup, “you okay?” I asked the witch.

  She blinked and cast a look up at me and nodded, “yes. Just wondering is all,” she replied.

  “About what?” I said reaching up to scratch my cheek and not feeling a thing. I glanced at the stump and frowned, “fuck sake,” I hissed in annoyance.

  “That was a thane lord that attacked us outside the grove,” Ilya cut in from my right. She gently reached out a pressed down on my arm, I let it fall from view and out of mind.

  “Thane lord, what’s that?” I asked aloud.

  Emilia answered this time, “we don’t really know the origin point of the cursed beings, but the thane’s are an oddity. They share similarities to old lycanthrope species with the shifting and change after infection. But they’re more parasitic in nature, they only want to spread the curse like how an undead only want to infect, not ingest. A thane lord is a thane whose retained a measure of memory prior to infection and is in control of a collective, or hive. The fact that a lord was here worries me,” Emilia finished as a shudder ran through her.

  Ilya nodded, “we shouldn’t stay here long, if there are other thane’s in the area running amuck without a lord present, they’re likely to be insane.”

  “I killed one trying to breached the barrier to my grove a few days ago,” Shre said wedging in to our conversation.

  Then a thought hit me, “are the thane, Shi’en? Or a part of the Shi’en?” I asked doubly to everyone.

  “Yes,” came the simple reply from Annaleigh. “As Ilya said, you haven’t much time at all. Uncle, we must speak now. Shre take the witch and speed through the ceremony, forget the oaky-pokey crap and get straight to the familial part okay?” the woman said to Shre.

  The dryad/nymph flashed me a small smile and then moved over to Emilia, waving at Ilya to join her. “Huh?” I barely had time to ask, when Annaleigh grabbed my arm and pulled me to my feet. She was surprisingly strong and kept her grip on my arm as she pulled me along. “Hey, where are we going?” I asked the woman.

  “The pool,” she replied simply. I cast a glance back to the others and saw Emilia scribbling hurriedly in her journal as Shre crouched beside her talking. I looked to Ilya just as the Mælic Redeye retrieved a vial from a pouch on her belt, the contents red and sloshed around like blood in the vial. She unstopped the vial and brought it to her lips. Had she been injured during the fight?

  But then I was pulled behind a scrub of bushes and along a bending path with trees bending overhead. I looked to the woman Annaleigh, who was firmly and purposefully dragging me around. I wanted to pulled my arm free and stalked away from her, yet at the same time I felt an odd sense of kinship to her. She seemed relieved and pleased with herself, though I wasn’t sure how I knew.

  “So, what do we have to talk about?” I asked as we passed under a wide leaf-like partition and came upon a clearing with a dark water filled basin at its centre like a pool. It was maybe a few inches deep.

  A grazing deer on the other side tilted it’s head at us as we entered. It was completely white all over, with an array of multi-coloured horns at the top its human-like face. It bowed deeply as we entered and then as I blinked in wonderment it vanished.

  I looked to the woman beside me as she gazed down at the black surface of the pool. I noticed mushrooms and decorative flowers rapidly growing to encircled around the pool. It was a damned awesome sight.

  “Damn it auntie, why didn’t you tell him anything?” I heard Annaleigh grouse quietly.

  “Everything alright?” I asked her, she nodded grimly. “The pool is what you’re here for,” she said gesturing at the ominous black bath. “Before that though, it’s time you received some answer’s-” then a voice I recognised cut in sounding distressed. *Alaric do not listen to her-* came Marisa’s distant mental plea. “I’ve cut auntie off, so there will be no distractions. Sorry, but you’ll have to deal with her temper tantrum later.”

  She took a deep breath, composing herself and turned to face me fully. I saw a resolute worry in the crease of her brow, and it all seemed to be aimed at me. “How much about everything do you actually know?” she asked.

  “Not much really,” I said honestly with a shrug.

  “O-okay, alright. If she wasn’t so paranoid, then maybe you would’ve been growing quicker. Right let’s– let’s start at who I am and go from there,” I stood in silence as she began her tale. “My name is Sal’re’al, ‘The Mother.’ Though now I prefer to go by Annaleigh, more interpersonal that way,” she explained with a shrug. “I am the Domain Leader of Sol and Janus and have been recently overseeing the last astral realm Leathanria. I was the first of my sibling’s and oldest, possibly the last amongst the domain leader’s with the knowledge of our creation. I’m also the only one holding back the forces pushing through the cracks in the astral barrier.”

  I held up a hand to stop her, “astral barrier? Wait did you say Sol as in Sol system, as in Earth?” I asked the domain leader.

  Unlike Ra’al, Annaleigh seemed more approachable and nervous as hell, she smiled slightly. “Ah, yes Earth. My fondest experiment,” she said with a victorious smile.

  “Experiment?” I queried. She nodded, her white shoulder length hair spilling over her shoulders.

  “Unlike the other domain Leaders, I give my celestials or ‘gods’ for a better word, free will and realm to rule by. This allows greater activity and diversity amongst those celestial’s I’ve made. Though I do set them a story or task to complete every now and then.”

  “So, you’re like a game-master or something?” I asked with a frown.

  Her smile grew wider and she laughed, “y-yes exactly. Right now, though, Earth is experiencing Ragnarök and the Fae planes are opening upon that world.”

  “Oh-kay,” I said unsure how to exactly process the end of my home world. Better to change the subject I thought. “And this Janus system, what’s happening there?”

  “Okay this’ll bring us into the subject of truth, about you uncle. Janus is were the most recent breach that has formed in the astral barrier. I had to move a world out from Sol wedge that fucker—pardon my language—Into the breach to seal it. Right now, the people of Terra are growing stronger in preparation for the day the Deep-Ones forces probe mo
re fully against your barrier. But it won’t hold,” she explained.

  “Deep one?” I asked the woman, imagining something like Cthulhu in my mind.

  She licked her lips nervously, “really Maylith should’ve explained who and what you are uncle. I’ll give you the short of it so that auntie can explain the rest in more depth later.” She took a deep breath and steeled herself, I raised an eyebrow as she straighten her back and shoulders like she was about to pass judgment. I wanted to comment and about how she looked like she was bursting for a shit when she did that, but something in her gaze gave me pause.

  She seemed worried.

  “Your true-name though it holds no sway over you is Rokkaia,” she said, and I felt a wave of something pass over my mind. “Uncle. You are one of the three Forerunners, the Planar Lords. Alongside Maylith your wife and lover, and the Deep-One your brother. You created thousands of realms and worlds together and teemed them with life, lore and will. The Forerunners true power is that of aether, a force of creation and destruction, and it is the substance of all. After a time of ruling and observing, you made us, the Domain Leaders. Raised us like nieces and nephews, our roles were simple, to monitor the worlds you made and be a focus point to source and cycle your aether through.

  “You and Maylith were betrayed by the Deep-one. I do not know why but it happened. The White, as my siblings are so stupidly fond of referring to as, is where you died after forming an astral seal around what is now the Abyssal Plane. Ananta, a servant of Maylith’s stayed behind to protect the exit.”

  She paused for a breath, “but a breach has formed in the seal and Dyarkum; a primordial creation of the Deep-one is able to come and go through that gap. My idiot brother Ra’al has no knowledge of the other side, as I do, and I imagine Maylith made Ananta reveal hardly anything. And the others of my kin, are too fond of sleeping to care about what is at stake.” She took another breath to gage where I was at, I gave her a nod to continue. Though in all honesty I was feeling strange and itchy all over and I kept wanting to shrug in my clothes.