Bridgebreaker (The Echo Worlds Book 2) (8 page)

“Rivenwood?  Shrouded?”  Cendan asked a bit confused by the terms.  The sight before his eyes, however, was one he never would have imagined when he agreed to come here.  Rows of huge trees, different types and species, laid before him.  The air was cool, but pleasant.  A far cry from the oppressive cold and dark of the clearing where they had been questioned by Greengate.  Walking around, sometimes in conversation and sometimes in front of a tree touching it, were the oddest assortment of people.

Wild forms of dress, hair colors, and races; none of them looked alike.  He actually felt out of place in his plain utilitarian shorts and t-shirt.  Those trees struck a chord though.  Something nagged at him in the back of his mind; why did this seem familiar?

“Yes, the Rivenwood.  And Shrouded is the name we give ourselves.  As you can see, there are far more of us than we typically let on.  We all vary in power and ability, but this place is... sacred.”  Heather’s voice took his attention away from what he was seeing.

“I get that.  So Marcus and Jasmine were wrong.  Very wrong.”  Cendan knew that Marcus would lose it if he knew about this place, not that he hadn’t already lost it.

“Yes.  As I said, we call ourselves the Shrouded.  We hide our numbers from you all, and from… others.  Though, after what I’ve seen, I think the Bridgefinders need to be the ones who hide from us.”  Her voice betrayed the slight contempt that accompanied that statement.

The truth was she may be right, Cendan told himself.  Just in his current view, there were ten, fifteen, perhaps twenty people.  If all of them had some ability that was already far more than the Bridgefinders had been at for over a century.

“But you all didn’t have Grellnot hunting you down,” Cendan answered by way of defense.  “Does the Slyph know about you all?  Grellnot?  This can’t stay hidden from them, right?”  His question made Heather shrug in response, though he caught a glimpse of irritation, or perhaps anger, at the question.

“The Slyph knows of us ... somewhat.  But since we aren’t in her face, so to speak, trying to send her minions back, she doesn’t deal with us; not directly.  As for Grellnot, he leaves us alone unless one of us gets in his way.  Or at least that had been the way it had gone until the war on the Echo world broke out.”  Heather beckoned Cendan to follow her as they walked towards the wood in front of them.

As they passed the other people in this place, some nodded to Heather in passing.  They all seemed to totally ignore Cendan for the most part though one man wearing black leather and what looked like tribal tattoos gave him a long hard look.  Unsettled, Cendan kept his eyes on Heather from then on, feeling like one hell of an outsider.

“I guess I don’t understand.  Are you helping the Slyph?  Or fighting against her?” Cendan asked as they walked through the trees.  “I know you all deal with the creatures there.  Though I’m unclear as to the nature of those deals and what you actually get out of it.”

Heather paused and turned towards him.  “Our dealings with the creatures of the Slyph are simply our way of dealing with the Echo World.  We aren’t helping her, regardless of what the propaganda says.  We fight against her in our own way.  We just aren’t nearly as in your face about it as you all are.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?  You didn’t answer the question, you know,” Cendan pushed back.  His response, however, was met with a sigh as Heather turned back away from him.

“Just follow me.  I think he will be able to answer your questions, and more besides.  You have been told a version of the truth, and one that isn’t terribly complete.”

“He?  Who’s he?” Cendan asked.  He knew the whole reason they were here was to meet with the Elders of these people, these Shrouded.  Sal would have loved this, Cendan reckoned.  He hadn’t known Sal all that great when he got killed, but of the others he would have eaten this up.  Jasmine would accept it with some prodding.  Not fully, but she’d accept it after a while.

And Marcus?  He’d deny that it existed, that it was all a trick.  Cendan hoped jasmine was ok.  He still didn’t like that he’d left her there with Marcus.  Marcus and Jasmine had been friends a long time, he knew, but with Marcus’s current mental state, he felt uneasy about it.  Highly uneasy if he thought about it.  There wasn’t much he could do, however; EVA was still muffled in his head, and Marcus had kicked him out.  Who knew if he’d even be able to get back in?

The surrounding trees were larger now, older.  The path they walked on was still clearly marked, but unlike the trees before, these often didn’t have anyone near them.  Cendan noted, however, that while the day was nice, cool, and clear, the air as they walked had a peculiar quality to it that got stronger the deeper into this Rivenwood place they went.  A low hum seemed to fill the air; he could feel it on the back of his neck as-well.  Strange place indeed, he thought to himself.

Heather, however, didn’t seem to notice it or mention it.  Her eyes flicked from time to time to this tree or the next, each time looking down, her face set in a bland mask that seemed somewhat unlike her; at least as far as Cendan knew of her thus far.  Finally, in the distance, a rather massive tree rose up out of the forest.  Grand in scale, it was some variety of evergreen that Cendan wasn’t sure of.  What was interesting was that at some point the tree had been struck by lightning or something of that nature.  Its trunk was partially split halfway up, but it seemed the tree continued to thrive regardless of the damage.

“This
is
the
Rivenwood.  The tree that this place is named after.  It is the first and eldest.”  Heather pointed to the tree.  “Touch the tree, Cendan, and your questions will be answered.”

Cendan paused and looked at her, his eyebrows furrowed then rising fast.

“Touch the tree…  Wait…”  Cendan spun looking at the surrounding trees.  “These trees, all of them… they are like Oakheart!”

Heather said nothing, but lowered her head.  “You won’t be harmed, Cendan.  This isn’t a trap.  Rivenwood can explain better than I can.”

Hesitation filled Cendan.  If each of these trees were a person trapped in a tree, then these people, these ‘Shrouded’, were worse than the Slyph herself.  The horror of being trapped, powerless for years, centuries even, made his stomach turn.

“How can you say that?  All these people trapped forever—”

Heather cut him off with an upraised hand.  “This is not a trap.  Just touch the tree, and Rivenwood will explain.  If you want to leave after that, fine.  But at least listen to us!”

Cendan hesitated.  Heather didn’t seem to be lying.  In fact, her voice betrayed her somewhat shocked thought at the idea that the trees were prisons.  His eyes fell onto the tree in front of him, mentally comparing it to Oakheart.  Both were grand things as far as trees go.  This one was taller whereas Oakheart had been wider.  The bark on this tree, this Rivenwood, was smooth in a few places.  He wondered if that was where people normally touched the tree, communed with it.  Or whatever it is that they call it.

He half began to ask Heather, then stopped himself.  Useless trivia at this point.  He wondered if he should look for the Branches on this choice.  Heather claimed that was magic, however, some sort of future telling magic.  And working magic here and now, well, that might not be the best choice.  This was an either or choice.  He touches the tree and sees what it was Heather wanted him to see.  Or don’t touch, and he wasn’t sure what exactly then.  He’d been shown the inner workings of these people, this group, the Shrouded, whatever they meant by that.

Add to the fact that he had agreed to meet with the ‘Elders’ of her group.  He had expected it to be people, though.  Old wizened crones; wizards in cone hats; flowing robes, and that sort of thing.  Not a forest of trees inhabited by the souls and minds of witches and the like from long ago.  The advantages of the system were obvious.  When someone gets too old, put them in a tree and one is able to learn from them, talk to them.  The knowledge and power gets passed on for all time.

Oakheart had, however, soured him on this.  He’d been tortured by being a tree for all those years, forced to work for the Slyph, and to lend his magic to the creation of horrible monsters and beings.  Add to that the fact that the knowledge that Oakheart had shared via the focus was spotty and broken; was that a function of being a tree or was that a function of what the Slyph had used him for?

Heather’s sigh broke his thoughts.  Her once calm face had taken on more of a cast of impatience as she stood there waiting for him to make his decision.  He didn’t have much choice; he had to touch it if only for his own knowledge.  Lacking any other good choice, however, Cendan reached into his pocket that held his focus, gripping it with that hand.  He reached out, his fingers brushed against the bark, and the world spun away from him leaving him standing in an empty black void.

“Hello Cendan Key.  I am Rivenwood.  First off, before you say anything else, I have to apologize for Heather.  She’s powerful, but impetuous and too enamored of what she can do without always thinking if she should do it.”  The voice that spoke to Cendan was warm, gracious, and reminded Cendan of one of those good Shakespearian actors.  Very proper, friendly though.  It put him at ease almost instantly.

“I can see that.  So you’re Rivenwood?  What was your name before you became a tree?  Did you do this willingly?  I’ve seen this before, and that wasn’t a good thing!”  Cendan wanted to get the big questions over and done with, before trying to figure out what else was going on here.

Sadness came over him like a wave.  The sadness of learning of an old friend’s death; not raw, but one of melancholy.

“Oakheart.  My friend once.  Yes, I know of Oakheart.  And my name before the tree was Rivenwood, actually.  Aethlic Rivenwood.  Willingly?  Of course.  We aren’t like the Slyph here.  I wasn’t forced into this.  I can tell you what you want to know or I can just show you, Cendan.  Here in this place, I can show you anything and everything.  I can fill in all those blank places the Bridgefinders left empty because, honestly, they didn’t know anymore.”

Cendan paused and considered this.  “Why would you do that?  From what I gathered from Heather, the Bridgefinders and you all aren’t exactly on the best terms.  In fact, from their side of things, you are all dangerous fanatics who do horrible things with the creatures of the Slyph, and get power from that.”

A low laugh echoed in his mind with those words before Rivenwood answered.

“Yes, I imagine that they would say that sort of thing.  The truth is far different.  Let me show you from the beginning of it all.  From the moment of the creation of the echoes to the Bridgefinders.  There is much our wayward brethren have lost.  But I will not show you without your approval and acceptance.  I’ll not do what Heather did physically, but in a mental way.”

Cendan started; this tree knew about that?

“Yes, I can read your thoughts, though that machine Oakheart created, that EVA of his, makes it a bit more difficult.  The connection between you, though, it is masked somehow, and that makes it easier than it should be.  As for Heather, she will be punished for her actions.  They were unwarranted and unwanted.  Within the Shrouded those things happen, and the younger members seem to accept it for reasons I don’t understand.  But you being from outside that was a horrible mistake she made.”

Rivenwood’s voice assumed the role of a teacher now.  Cendan could picture this elderly professor type in his mind about to give a lecture of grave importance.

“First, you need to understand Creation, the truth of our world, the Echo worlds, where the Slyph came from, all of it.  I gather the Bridgefinders don’t remember any of this, knowing how rabidly anti-magic they have become over the years.”

“Echo Worlds?  As in plural?  So there is more than a single Echo?”  Cendan jumped at that point.  It had bothered him that no one in the Bridgefinders could answer it.  With all the effort in getting things working, he also hadn’t had time to really research it in the Maker Wing; not that he was going to get a chance to now.

“Yes, Plural.  Let me tell you the story of creation, Cendan Key.  It will explain some things and raise new ones I’m sure.”

There was silence, just silence.  True silence, the kind of silence that almost hurt.  And in this silence, this purity of nothing, a light bloomed.  The silence still reigned, but it was different now.  Instead of an empty silence, it was the silence that comes before something grand, a silence not born of nothing, but one of great anticipation.  And then, a sound.  A sound that would bring any living thing to tears of pure joy if anything living could have heard it.  A single harmonious sound, it lifted, almost caressing the fading silence, a goodbye kiss to what had been, and a joyful retort to the empty of before.  A harmony of making; being; creation itself.

That should have been the end of the silence, the end of the nothing.  But not all things happen as planned, and as the nothing was replaced in one shining true point of time, it became aware.  The power of creation made it even here, and in its creation, it hated the light and it hated the sound.  It hated what had replaced it.  But it was new, and without power, so it fled.  The remnant of what had been.  It fled to the farthest points it could, fleeing the expansion, feeling the making.

The nothing fled and knew itself.  It had no name, no form, and no thought but one; to return to before.  The nothing ran, but always found creation behind it, chasing it.  Regardless of how fast the nothing moved, the something was always right there.  Eventually, the nothing gave it a name; existence.

The nothing ran for millions of years, and then one day, found a hole.  A gap; a break in the creation that had come and displaced it.  It was more nothing, but unlike itself, it was not aware.  It had not been perverted by the act of creation.  The nothing joined with it, and the hole became more, bigger, stronger.  The nothing gave itself a name, knowing that as much as it hated creation, it hated that it knew and thought.  It called itself Valkith.

Millions of years passed, or only a handful of days, we will never truly know.  Dust and gas were created, condensed, and made new things.  Suns, planets, rocks, everything.  And still Valkith sat in his hole of nothing, hating, seething, and hating itself just as much as it hated what had replaced it.  But Valkith was just a mind, a consciousness attached to nothing.  In this darkness and hate, a plan came to it.  A plan to fix this mistake it saw; creation, light, even itself.

Valkith left its hiding place and was horrified, even roused to greater anger by what it found.  Where once there had been the perfect empty void and silence of pure nothing, now there were things everywhere.  Matter, gasses, liquids, and even worse; life had started and come to creation.  Life that had solid form.  Life that bred and continued on.  Valkith was stirred to great anger and set forth its plan to unmake it all.

Creation had been a sound, and the sound had echoes.  Shadows of what was real populated outward, hidden from each other but close enough to touch if given the right power.  Valkith went from world to world, taking tiny bits of itself, fragments of its power and hate, and placing them on these echoes.  On each one, its fraction of its formless mind would be different, but each would be driven by the need and want to conquer and destroy the first note of creation.

When it had succeeded, Valkith would then take that fragment into itself and take back its power.  No fragment would be able to stop the whole, and so Valkith would step-by-step, and part by part, destroy not only the main note of creation, but all the echoes as well, leaving nothing once more.  The perfect empty void.

But Valkith didn’t understand creation, and this was its undoing.  In the act of giving up the parts of himself to make new life, life that had one purpose, he still created.  He made something.  And this making perverted him, changed him.  As he changed, what he created changed too, until the birth of the Spinner.

The Spinner was created by Valkith in some unknown Echo far down the line.  Created to destroy in mind, instead the Spinner chose to protect as best it could.  Lacking the power to destroy its siblings, or its parent, the Spinner chose to bind an Echo to another Echo, or in some cases, to the main note of creation.  The binding would limit the spread of Valkith as each world it bound would only be able to go between it and the world it was connected to.

The Spinner bound us to the Slyph’s World.  This is why, while we know of the other Echoes, and can even see them sometimes, we can’t open Bridges to them, and they can’t come to us.  The Spinner is out there still connecting worlds, limiting the spread of the evil and desire for pure nothing that its parent spreads across creation.

Valkith is still out there as well, somewhere.  Mutated and changed in ways beyond it ever thought, it still hates creation.  What it does now, and where it is, however, is beyond us.

________

Cendan shuddered.  The ‘story’ as Rivenwood had described it had been words in his mind that had overwhelmed him.

“Valkith?  Spinner?  So you’re saying... the Slyph is one of these fractions of something called Valkith?”  Cendan wasn’t sure what to make of that.  To think that the Slyph, for all her power, was just a fraction of something of far greater power was not something he wanted to contemplate.

“Yes.  One that, oddly enough, chose to create herself, she mutated and changed as well.  Grellnot, with its ravenous hunger, is closer to the truth of her birth than she is, even if he is a fraction of a fraction of the true power here.”  Rivenwood paused.  “I want to show you more.  The next will be something visual as well.  This is drawn from memories that were passed down, the split between us; the Shrouded and the Bridgefinders.  You need to understand how and why the split happened, and how and why it’s important to fix.”

Cendan was curious about this; what had happened between these two groups?  On the face of it, having both groups aligned would have been a boon beyond measure in the fight against the Slyph.

“Does this involve you and Oakheart?”  That interaction between the two of them was another thing he needed to know.  At least from this side, once he had a quiet place to work, he was going to search through everything Oakheart had given him on the Key to see if there was any mention of Rivenwood or these Shrouded people.

“No.  This happened many years before either of us was born.  However, the memories of this event have been passed down, just as Oakheart passed his down to you.”  Was that a trace of humor in Rivenwood’s response?

“Does that strike you as amusing, Rivenwood?”  Cendan needed every bit of information he could get, and if Rivenwood found something amusing, he wanted to know why.

“Yes, because the skill to transplant memories and knowledge into a fetish – or as the Bridgefinders call them, a focus – is one that Oakheart got from us.  Though, we will get to that.  First, let me show you the split.”

________

The two groups faced each other, each looking at a leader.  One leader was a man clad in leather and wearing an assortment of tools and equipment on his belt, and in other places.  On the other side, a woman, clad in a simple white robe, barefoot and smiling.

“Bandic, reconsider this course.  We are one, you know this.  The skills and abilities we share are far greater than this silly separation you have started.”  The woman looked at the man with an appraising look, measuring.

“There is nothing else to say, Rin.  There has been nothing left to say for months, even years now.  The old ways are fine, but we need a new path, a new way to move forward.  Our skills combined with craftsmanship, human skill; those will give us an edge over anything that comes for our world.”

Rin sighed, with more than a little frustration.  “Bandic.  We’ve covered this.  Your craftsmanship is fine, and your followers, but we work in the framework that we’ve always had; within the natural world, using the power that lives here on our world.  We have no quarrel with the Slyph directly.  She only seeks to understand us.”

Bandic scowled at the name of the Slyph.  “That creature is no friend of ours.  She has plans and plots within plans and plots.  We should close those Bridges into our world as soon as we find them, send her creatures back, and do no traffic with them.”

Rin shook her head.  “All that would do is antagonize a vastly powerful creature.  We keep her and her minions at a distance.  We all know that some of her creations are less than friendly, and even the ones she made to be more acceptable to us, they have their own challenges, so to speak.”

Bandic spat.  “Elves.”

“Yes the Elves.  But splitting us like this, taking those who would combine craftsmanship and human machinery with the magic of this world and forming a new group...  This is wrong.  We can work something out.”

Bandic sighed and shook his head.

“Rin, we’ve tried this for three years.  Walls go up whenever we try to do something new.  Just because something works, doesn’t mean there isn’t a new way that might be better.”

“And just because it’s new doesn’t mean it is better!”  Rin shot back.  “You want to leave?  Fine, leave.  But this group, all these people, Bandic, you’re splitting us up!”  Rin waved at the crowd behind him.  Nearly a third of the people as they called themselves were joining Bandic on his foolish push.  Creation with magic was a careful and lengthy process.  Materials were shaped for weeks, even months.  Magic was used to help push things along, but to use shortcuts and the manual labor of the common man, was an affront to their very core.

“Rin, they come of their own volition.  I didn’t ask them to join me.  Not a single one.  The world is changing; people are changing.  How we work in the power needs to change along with it.”  Bandic sighed.  “We are not enemies here, Rin.  Consider us cousins, family with a different focus.  But we will not leave this course, Rin.  Not at all, for any reason.”

Rin was silent for a long while, then with a long look at Bandic and his assorted followers, she gave a short nod.

“I will hope beyond hope that one day this does not change; that we do not become enemies.  Trust me when I say this, however; this step will work more change than you could imagine.  I only hope that the end result will be the better for it.”

Bandic nodded, but did not respond as he turned and walked away, his followers coming behind him.

________

Cendan shuddered, feeling cold if that was possible.

“So, Rin and Bandic; that was the start of the Bridgefinders?  Bandic started it?  What did Rin mean by the end result?”

Rivenwood paused, and all Cendan could do was think that he was mulling his answer over.  Talking to a mind living in a tree had its disadvantages; you can’t see a face or read any body language.

“Yes.  Though the names the Shrouded and Bridgefinders hadn’t come yet.  Before the split, they called everyone who could use magic simply ‘the people’. The other names came later.”

“So, the split was because Bandic and his followers wanted to do things in a new way?  Nothing wrong with trying something new, Rivenwood.”  Cendan didn’t feel like Bandic had been in the wrong, really.

“Yes, though there was more to it.  Bandic and his people didn’t trust the Slyph either and favored a much more direct approach to dealing with her.  While Rin and the others favored the soft touch, the same way we deal with her today, Bandic led the way to the direct action of closing the Bridges and banishing creatures.”  The response came back, filling Cendan’s mind.

“Good!  You and Heather have been less than open about how and what you do with the Echo world.”  Cendan felt himself get defensive about the Bridgefinders almost as soon as he said it.  A more analytical part of his mind found this somewhat amusing; he was attached to them, the Bridgefinders, already it appeared.

“We talk to the creations of the Slyph to find out what she’s up to.  We draw magical power through those creatures, power of her world in small amounts, and then in trade give the creatures that came through something in return.  It’s all very equitable, honestly.”  Rivenwood retorted back.

“What do you give them in return?  What could you possibly have that they want?” Cendan asked, his mind instantly going to his Elven problem.  “Money?  Food?  What?”

Rivenwood didn’t answer right away, and all Cendan could see in his mind was of a gathering storm, silence hung thick, and he began to wonder if he should break off contact, when Rivenwood finally answered.

“What they want.  You need to understand, most of the creations that come through outside your machine’s focus are natural ones.  Not created by the Slyph.  The things that come through don’t have an agenda.  Sometimes its food, or material goods.  Sometimes it’s other things.”

“What other things?”  Cendan wasn’t going to let this go.  “Rivenwood, tell me.  You want me to trust you all?  You want me to put what happened last night out of my head?  To work with you all?  Tell me.”

Cendan felt his control slipping a bit.  Teeth gritted, he waited for the response.

“Do we send women to the Elves?  No, not anymore.  Did we in the past?  Yes.  It’s a shameful item from our past.  I am not proud of it, and due to your circumstances, not one I wanted to get into.  We don’t tend to deal with the more aggressive creatures as a whole.  Dwarves, gnomes, elves, treans, sprites; those are the things we deal with.”

“Treans?  Never heard that one.”  Cendan asked, picking up on the new name.

“Intelligent trees.  Not many of them; they weren’t aggressive enough for the Slyph to be of much use.”  Rivenwood responded.  “Are your fears answered?”