Tree Child ran his hand along the old browned rail. He was on the latest ship heading towards Murasaki, so he could congratulate their new Empress, Vereninhosi.
He had seen her last when she had been born. All the kingdoms had rejoiced, she was the only child born by the former Empress, and was the only one the former Empress could have had.
He used to come every year, but his life was busy as only an Immortal's could be. Especially since the Awakening of Tree Singer and Sleeping Bell.
Of course, all the other rulers of the lands would be here, along with their Heirs. He longed to see his brother and sister, and he could feel the pull of their Olemus, their magical essence. The rulers of Chairo, the Lady Tedirs and Lord Jerun, were newly crowned and would also be there, allowing for everyone to congratulate them also.
His heart jumped in joy as the Diamond barrier came at last into sight. The Diamond barrier was one huge sheet of pure diamond, it encircled the whole island of Murasaki, towering nearly five spans in the air, and a total of one span and a half lay underwater. There were two large sections slide back on either side, allowing boats to pass in and out with the Empress's knowledge. Those sections could be moved back into place whenever a tsunami, a large wall of water moving at fantastic speeds, threatened the island.
A smile danced on his lips as the ship soared through the space, the diamond sheet seeming to sparkle in the light. They were stopped for inspection, but were quickly given permission to pass through when they found that he owned the ship. He was the highest honored guest, and no more than a look at his hair or eye color gave him immediate access to anything he wanted. The ship docked and he strode out onto the peer, he waited until his beautiful Freed was around the bend to the exiting port before walking into the main city of Murasaki.
The beautifully built houses were made of materials unknown elsewhere. The buildings were seamless, the entire structure being of one block of construction material. They called the substance Kultainen Puu, or Golden Tree. Most people called it Kultainen for short. Kultainen was harvested from a sponged forest high above the city on the dome of the slightly lopsided Mount Kujihis. The forest itself was unnamed and ancient.
Looking around the Square, he found exactly who he had been looking for, Asazin De Geld Le Aka. She stood slightly off from the center of the square, her violin was tied and on her shoulder, a merry tune floating from it. Her long hair was wrapped into a thick bun before streaming to the ground in three thick braids. She wore a simple, murasakian styled dress, dyed ice blue and covered in honey colored beads. She noticed him immediately and raised an eyebrow, it was unexpected for him to have come.
Thanat and Mag-bell stood to her right, both wearing silver robes decorated with several beads of red black and deep gray. Toph and Soph were dressed in undecorated cranberry brown robes, standing to the left of Asazin. The girls had their hair done in the same style as their mother, while the boys had their hair loose except for a single braid on the left side. Nolan De Vis stood behind Asazin, he wore simple rock climbers suit, a tunic of plain gray over greenish leggings. His hair was done up in the same way as the boys were, loose, with a single braid above the left temple.
He walked over to stand next to them, standing out vibrantly in his deep magenta robe and his thickly curled hair. Thanat and Mag-bell were the ones to welcome him, they hugged him and smiled. A cold chill passed through his head, he knew that they wouldn't be smiling if he had brought Castias along.
"Tree Child! It is good to see you. I understand your journey was comfortable." Mag-bell whispered. He looked well, compared to how he had looked last time they had met. His eyes were shining, unlike before when all life had been drained from them.
"My journey was smooth yes. I look forward to see you later on, but now I have to escort my student to his quarters, you can not trust him with so much as a thread." he grinned. Castias was still waiting on the pier, waiting for his carriage to pick him up. The carriage passed and a small head poked out from the curtain.
Though it had truly been only four years since he was born, the magical properties of Tree Child's world had aged Castias two year in the first month, six years, in mind and body. His white hair was to his mid back, and his black eyes shone like twisted stars. Asazin stared at him and so did Nolan, he had to hurry this or else they might realize that this was their son.
"Pepa! The people are so nice here!" Castias gleefully said, popping out of the carriage and hugging his legs. "The driver says we must hurry to see the queen." he looked at the people around him and hid behind Tree Child's legs. "It would be of importance for my knowledge of who these people are to be widen some, Pepa."
"Child, this is Thanat, Mag-bell, Asazin De Geld Le Aka, Nolan De Geld Le Aka, Toph De Geld Le Aka and Soph De Geld Le Aka. They are friends, introduce yourself." he said, giving the child the sign to not tell them his real name.
"Hello, Sirs, Misses, I am Snow-hare." he turned and ran back into the carriage, leaving Tree Child shaking his head. "Pepa, we must hurry."
"He is not used to people. Forgive him. He has been my pupil since he was born nearly, and has not had very many experiences with the world outside my own." Tree Child said. Castias stood behind him, still a bit afraid of the older folks. Thanat looked at him knowingly, Mag-bell nodded and walked forward. Kneeling he held out his hand to Castias.
"Hello, Snow-hare. As Tree Child said, I am Mag-bell. Come, my family is also going to see the new queen, for she is, you know, the first new one in over three thousand years. We, I am sure, would be honored to have you and your Pepa travel with us there." he said. Mag-bell's voice was soft, a quiet emotion that they had never heard before. Snow-hare, looking as if he didn't know what to do, reached up and took Mag-bell's hand, a smile flickering on his face, which was too solemn for a child.
Asazin smiled and closed her eyes. Of course Mag-bell had been able to charm the child, children loved him. He was an enigma, and children seemed to be urged to find out why. It didn't seem to matter that they were years younger than him, he allowed them to climb all over him. Snow-hare seemed to be just another child.
When she had seen his head poke out of the carriage, she had thought, if only to have her hopes crushed, that her Castias had returned to her. He looked so much like she imagined he would, and the tears that had threatened to spill over had dried when his age became apparent, six, he was two years older than Castias.
Mag-bell chuckled and she opened her eyes, jolted from her thoughts. Snow-hare was running his hand through Mag-bell's silky green hair. He smiled and giggles rolled on his lips, the child looked so happy. Thanat bent and tapped Mag-bell on the shoulder, and helped him up. Snow-hare walked back towards the carriage.
"It would be perfect if you could ride with us, we have enough seats in the carriage, but it seems you are busy." he said, lifting the curtain aside so he could enter. Tree Child simply looked at them before lifting himself into the carriage.
Asazin did not see any reason not to ride and walked in after him, her children, Mag-bell and Nolan following. Snow-hare jumped in after they were all seated and laughed, he seemed confused that he could laugh, but quickly got over it.
*********************
Castias watched the children play as he sat on a bench near the gardens. They would not allow him to join in their games, saying that he did not belong, truly, here. And in its own way, that was true. He did not belong here, he was just a visitor.
Pepa hadn't said exactly who his friends, Asazin and her little group, were. He had the faint sense that he had once known them, even before he knew Pepa. That was impossible, Pepa had saved him when he was a newborn, he could not have known anyone. But maybe... a voice in the back of his head whispered, and he quickly abandoned that train of thought. Pepa was nothing like the visiting children said, he did not still Mage gifted children from their homes. The children of the merchants had always asked if that had happened to him, he would say no.
The Empress, in fact, was really two thousand years old, though she still looked like a teenager and was no more than a child in the eyes of her people. Murasakians, he had learned, were excessively long lived, they lived longer than even the Chairo High Mages. He had thought that impossible, but the empress was living proof.
He felt a tap on his shoulder and looked up to see a royal steward standing above him. The man was slightly middle aged, which, by Murasakian percipiences, was about ten thousand years. He wore his steel gray hair down to his shoulders, apparently discarding the common fashion of very, very long hair. His gray eyes were rimmed by glasses and his pointed ears poked through his hair. His uniform consisted of the royal rose color favored by Murasakian royalty.
"The Empress wishes to see you," the man said, gesturing with his left hand towards the Empress's private rooms, whose windows looked over this section of the garden. "She said it would please her greatly if you would speak with her, if it is convenient to yourself of course."
Castias nodded and stood up. He shooed the man away before continuing his way to the Empress's rooms. He quickly ran his hands through his hair before entering the soft sable rooms of the Empress.
The empress seemed delicate at first glance. She had long hair, which was a black darker than his own obsidian eyes, that framed her very fine, high cheekbones and softly pointed nose. Her eyes, which were almost, it seemed, the size of doe eyes, were reddish yellow and had slitted pupils. Put all that together and and her thin, finely arched eyebrows which were, like most of the others of her country, deep gravel gray, and you had the impression that the girl you saw on the throne was not a girl, but a girl sized doll.
He cleared his throat, she was seemingly in her own thoughts. She jerked her head up and turned those slitted eyes towards him. Her hair floated around her face before settling. She looked him over for a long moment before speaking.
"You are not who you say. Tell me, why do you hide your identity." she said, tilting her head in a way that reminded him of Pepa when he had done something unexpected.
"It is true. I am Castias, the boy who knows the Snows. My Pepa, Tree Child, has told me none should know what my name truly is. He has told me several stories of where I came from. Many make no sense, and all contradict the others. I take this to mean that he does not want others to know of my existence in his," Castias froze, looking for the correct word to finish his answer. "world."
"Tree Child is too old, even by my standards, to have a human child. Especially since he is told in tells as sworn to the Sisters. You might know of this. So, Castias, you say there are stories, and you must know that the stories of Tree Child do not favor him." She said, her eyes focused solely on him, even as a servant draped a robe of tulip blue over her rose pink dress and handed her some ice cold wine with precipitation dripping down the sides.
"I do know of the stories." he answered as they walked into the Empress's secondary audience room, which was the most comfortable of the two. They sat down on similar chairs and he accepted the spiced wine a servant handed him. He took a sip before continuing. "Much say basically the same things. That Pepa takes young children with Mage gifts away from their parents arms and trains them. The only differences are in the context of the how and why he trains them. I do know that in Chairo they say he trains them as, pleasure servants, and that in Shiro he trains them as assassins. The story here, though, is unfamiliar to me."
The Empress thought that tiny piece of puzzlement over, her doll-like face a replica of the statue carved into the marble of the fireplace. She nodded, and her lips moved as if talking to herself before she answered. Servants came at her beckoning to take away the wine they had finished in the silence.
"It, I think, would seem that you wish to know Murasaki's lore about Tree Child. I shall, if it would not be inconvenient, order some more proper tea, perhaps my favorite, Forest Orange Twist, tell you our lore of the Tree's Child." she said, summoning the teapot and brazier only after he nodded his assent. She brewed the tea herself, stirring the leaves into it with care. She spoke not a word as she brewed, silently thinking over what she had to tell him. She poured the cups and handed him several honey cakes before settling back in her seat, taking three honey cakes herself.
"As you know, Murasakians are very longed lived. We hold allies for centuries and speak of peace that is bound to happen thousand of years before the other kingdoms," she began, weaving the story into one that most children learned growing up. "We knew of Tree Child when the Immortals were still roaming the Lands of the Mother. He was an ally throughout many wars, even disgracing his own people when they said that we were abominations.
"The story as is told by the Elders, such details they love, is a confusing one. So I shall speak of the one told to children as they crawl and toddle in the nursery." she said, summoning the early stage of a ManiSight spell, one where the caster could form images into the air using smoke or water.
A pale image appeared. It was of a small room with a cradle laying against the far wall. The room blurred and a infant cry could be heard coming from the cradle. A woman dressed in golden cloth laid a hand over the wriggling bundle in the cradle and the cries quieted.
"The Queen of the Immortals, Furiloket, had had a child. Of all her many children, this one was special, he did not age fast like the others did, and he begun weaving spells as soon as he could sit up independently. His mother showed pride in him, and brought him up the best she could, breaking the tradition set by her mother's throne era of the children going to nurseries. She gave him a room in her own quarters, and shared his happiness with no one." the image changed. The golden clothed woman whispered silently in a sleeping child's ear, tells of hatred for his kind and how they could never see him smile.
"The other children, his elder brothers and sisters, could not bare the fact that he was given his mother's love, even at the age of sixteen thousand years, the age of her eldest child, Princess Hydrued. The children plotted against their youngest brother, setting up assassinations and dealing in black magic. His ten thousandth year was cause for great celebration, he had been crowned Heir and the people loved him." the image skipped over to a small boy holding his circlet high above his head, a smile on the perfect lips.
"His mother had had one child more, Destera, a young boy with no Mage gift, who had befriended his elder brother and had been very persistent at not being turned aside by his brother's enemies, no matter that they were also his siblings. It was on this very special occasion that the Princess Hydrued thought of a cruel joke, a way to break her brother's young spirit. She planned and arranged for Destera to be assassinated, but so that he would die in the Heir's arms.
"The assassination went as planned, Destera was mortally injured halfway through the celebrations. The blame was placed on a common married couple, a extraordinarily good blacksmith and his wife, a silversmith. They allowed the blame to fall on them, and asked for only safety for their children, but Destera told his brother who had really killed him, it had been the assassin Prince, their eldest brother, Genorit." the image in the smoke showed the Mage Prince holding his brother in his arms, and then flickered to a sketch of a man in black assassin's suit.
"The Heir swore into the Realm of the Sisters, and the Sisters themselves created profound changes in him. They gave him the name of Tree Child, and told him that his true name he would forget in time, for he would never die." the image of the Assassin Prince faded and was replaced by the Mage Prince kneeling in front of a statue of the Seven Sisters, heavenly goddesses from whom the Immortals claimed ancestry, with good cause.
"During his time as a Priest of the Sisters, he met many young couples, one of which reminded him of the smith couple who had just wanted their children safe when they had been killed. It turned to be that the man was the smith couple's eldest son, who had, several thousand years later, found his Soul Bond.
"This man and his Bond wanted so much to be together forever, and to keep together after they died, that they asked him of how to ensure that they were reborn, forever.
"This was something the Sisters had told him would come, and he knew what to do. He gave them a spell tune, which has been lost over the long years, and told them this, ' Spill your blood onto a body of a human pair, sing the tune. You will then be granted all the Rebirth Rights that the Sisters have given the humans. You will, forever, be reborn and Soul Bound. But I warn you, they must never find out.' He knew what could happen if they ever found out yet still, he helped those who came to him.
"After the Soul Bound Twins were cursed to be forever reborn as twins, he came here, and sheltered with us for sometime, still taking his Priestly duties. We helped him create his world, and heard of what he did with the Mage gifted children who used their gifts early. Here he blocked their gifts until such a time as was usual for them to mature, but only because we let him access those gifts.
"In short, he helps us, but he was known to steal children who mature early in their gifts from their parents, but only so as to stop them from replaying his life." She said, pausing. By now the tea had been refilled. He nodded and thought, his mind consumed this story, and he knew it was true.
"I thank you. It was, helpful to me to learn this about Pepa." he said. She nodded and poured him some more of the Forest Orange Twist.
"How do you think of the tea Castias, it would seem you enjoy it." she said after a long silence, in which he finished three more cups.
"It is, should I say, like tasting pine bark smoke, with a mix of the aroma of ginger, or perhaps cinnamon. The tang of the orange overlies it all and adds a soft, but uncertain taste of homeliness to it. It fits its name, no doubt, making one think of old forests and brilliant orchards. It would seem, though, you enjoyed it more than me." he said, noting that she had drained thrice the amount of cups he had. A smile flickered over her quiet lips.
"I did not say my name, yet I expect you to say yours. Forgive me."
"Empress, there is nothing for me to forgive." he said, feeling as if something was not going to plan. She interrupted him in the middle of a word.
"Call me by my born name. Call me Vereninhosi." she stood and walked towards him, nearly lifting him out of his chair. "The Lord and Lady of Chairo shall be in my audience hall. Come, all the guests will be gathered there before the Feast."
"Vereninhosi, I do not think it would be best for me to go with you, or proper." he said, looking for the escape route out of the trap he had wandered into.
"You are a honored guest, come, it is simple, stand behind me and follow." she said, turning and walking away, giving him no choice but to follow.