The Ashes of Worlds

“It wasn’t threatening, either, so I hoped you might be intrigued enough to come.”

“Even though I’m one of the few people Basil still trusts, he’s always monitoring me.”

“Well, why don’t you just leave him?” Rlinda set her meaty elbows on the table. “If you’re afraid of a man, he’s not worth staying with.”

“I’m not stayingwith him, but I can’t leave. Not now. It wouldn’t be right.”

“Ah, one of those kinds of relationships.”

Sarein pressed her pale lips together. “It’s not much of a relationship anymore, certainly not a romantic one. I won’t kid you — things are getting very bad, Rlinda. You shouldn’t be here. It’s dangerous. When you and Captain Roberts escaped last time, you threw the whole security net into question.”

“Securitynet?” Rlinda chuckled. “That’s an apt term — it’s so full of holes I can slip in and out anytime I like.”

“Well, I can’t,” Sarein said. “Basil’s cut himself off from so many things, I’m one of his last remaining advisers — for what that’s worth. If I leave. ”

“Hell in a handbasket, I get it.” Then she grew more serious. “Every time I come back to see you, things seem more messed up than they were on the visit before. Are yousure it’s not time for you to leave? I could take you back to Theroc.”

Sarein clutched her iced tea and peered from right to left. Rlinda wondered if she somehow imagined that Chairman Wenceslas had put her up to this as a test of her loyalty. “I. I couldn’t.”

“Really? Aren’t you the Theron ambassador? Doesn’t that mean your home is back there? Since the Hansa has cut off all relations with King Peter and Queen Estarra, what exactly is your role on Earth?”

“I might be one of the only stabilizing influences Basil’s got left.” Sarein’s words tumbled out in a rush, as if she were trying to convince herself. “That’s the most important role I’m able to fill. I can still talk to him. Sometimes.”

“Then talk some sense into him,” Rlinda said in a loud voice. Sarein quickly looked around to see if anyone had overheard.

“That’s why I have to stay,” she insisted. “If there’s a chance I can help change his policies, soften some of his reactions, then I could save a lot of lives.”

Rlinda heaved a sympathetic, put-upon sigh. “All right. If you’re trying to make me feel sorry for you, then I’ll pay for the coffee.” She sniffed. “Still, I have to say, it doesn’t look like you’re making any headway with the Chairman.”

Sarein took a drink of her iced tea, swallowing hard. “Maybe not, but I have to keep trying. I’m not willing to give up yet.”

Rlinda shrugged. “Suit yourself. If you change your mind, and I’m still around, the offer stands. ”

Sarein got up so quickly she jostled the table. Leaving her iced tea unfinished, she fled.

18

Celli

As the continued water bombardment progressively weakened the faeros, the green priests, unified by Celli and Solimar, added a measure of defiance and strength to the trees’ inherent quiet passivity. But the young faeros would not relinquish their hold on the worldtrees. An entire grove, including the fungus-reef tree, blazed hot with their resistance. The snap and crackle of fire and the sizzling sigh of steam filled the normally quiet forest.

While the Admiral directed her operations from inside the landed command shuttle, Celli and Solimar left to be outside among the trees again. They touched the living, embattled forest and threw their energy into the fight.

In her mind, Celli called out to Beneto’s treeship high overhead, but she could hear only her brother’s resonant pain from the fire growing within him.

Green priests shouted and staggered as a living ball of flame launched itself from the crown of a possessed torch tree and rocketed to an old worldtree on the other side of the barricade. The ancient tree shuddered as its upper fronds caught fire.

She and Solimar ran over to the old tree and wrapped their arms around the great trunk, pouring their strength and hope into it via telink. But it wasn’t enough. The elemental fire was about to jump to other weakened trees in the grove. They could sense it.

With tears streaming down their ash-powdered cheeks, they connected with all the nearby verdani at risk. The group of endangered worldtrees knew they had to act before the blaze could leap farther. Their own line of defense.

The threatened trees voluntarily surrendered their hold on the Theron soil where they had been rooted for centuries. Celli and Solimar moaned in dismay as the sacrificial trees leanedtoward the already blazing fires and fell with an immense simultaneous crash to create a firebreak. Geysers of sparks exploded upward, but the faeros could not spread across the charred ground.

It was only a small victory. The green priests refused to let go, continued to shore up the forest’s strength. Celli was trying to reach Beneto again when she saw that the verdani had other allies as well. “Solimar! Look at the clouds.”

Mountainous, unnatural thunderheads began to roll in overhead, faster than any wind could blow, gathering more and more water from the atmosphere. Celli’s green skin prickled with an electrical charge in the air. The fires seemed to shudder, preparing to stand against something far more difficult than another EDF water bombardment.

Blinking her reddened eyes, she scanned the lumpy outer fringe of clouds until she spotted a silvery blue sphere that streaked in low above the blazing trees like a bullet made of water. The verdani sensed that the water elementals had come, and excited cries rippled through the green priests. Celli had seen Jess Tamblyn use wental water to create the treeships in the first place. Now he had come back.

Jess and Cesca’s wental ship flitted back and forth as the rain clouds converged. The dark and roiling masses swelled, loomed larger, and closed in above the concentration of faeros-possessed trees. With a huge thunderclap that resonated across the sky, the clouds burst. Wental water spat down toward the faeros, each raindrop a deadly projectile.

The young faeros clung to their possessed trees and shot flames hopelessly into the air, but thunder boomed in response as the wentals expressed their anger. Anangry sound — from the wentals! Celli laughed with joy to hear it. The clouds gathered over the burning last stand of newborn faeros, and released torrents of rain in an exuberant downpour.

Shaking off any remaining fear, the green priests embraced the tree trunks, adding their strength, urging the verdani to fight back. Celli and Solimar turned their faces to the sky, letting the fresh droplets drench their skin and soothe their burns.