The Ashes of Worlds

19

Beneto

High above the planet, Beneto’s treeship fought the invasive fire that coursed through his sap — his blood. The arrival of the wentals had unleashed an elemental rainstorm below, energizing the worldforest root network.

Through his own unwanted connection with the living flames, he felt the agony of the young faeros as they were extinguished, one by one. Though he could not snuff out the deadly fire within him, he could impose control over his huge spiny body.He would guide it where he wished; he would control the fight. Beneto felt himself gain the upper hand.

We are coming, Beneto said to Celli through telink.

Trailing smoke and fire, the group of treeships descended through the sky. Trapped within him, the fiery creatures writhed, tried to make him deflect his course, but Beneto had greater strength now. He drove his battleship body into the thick grayish clouds, soaking his massive form. The wental rain ate away at the living fire in his body like acid, and the faeros recoiled. Through telink he heard his fellow verdani pilots cry out as they plunged into the energized clouds.

Beneto’s tree, sizzling with steam, dropped toward persistent faeros concentrations that had not been quenched by the wental downpour. He sent his thrumming voice to the doomed torch trees in the main grove.We can save the trees that surround you. Surrender your grip on the earth.We will take you away so the faeros cannot continue to spread.

The verdani had no individuality as humans did; each separate tree was merely a manifestation of the overall mind, each one connected to the others. Beneto had to excise all faeros-infested trees from the worldforest — including himself and his fellow verdani battleships.

As the rain continued to pour all around, the blazing treeships began their work above the fiery grove. Beneto could hear Celli weeping through the worldforest mind. He tried to reassure her, but there was little he could say.

The clustered battleships grasped the burning trunks with thorny branches, then rose upward until they uprooted the trees. Inside the verdani wood, the newborn faeros thrashed and fought, knowing they could not win, could not escape. Beneto and the other verdani battleships rose far above the worldforest canopy, dragging the sacrificial trees into the rarefied atmosphere, passing once more through the wental-infused thunderheads.

Beneto took the tainted and doomed trees far, far from Theroc.

Originally, after the defeat of the hydrogues, all of the verdani treeships had departed from Theroc in what should have been a majestic seeding journey, never to return. Though Beneto and his comrades had been called back to assist Theroc, they remembered what they had seen along the way — and Beneto knew of a perfect place where he could dispose of these treacherous young faeros.

The burning verdani battleships flew at breakneck speed, as if they could outrun the agony from the elemental flames. They swiftly approached what had once been a binary star system; one of the stars, a blue giant, had exploded in a supernova, leaving behind an ultra-dense remnant.

A black hole.

Its companion star had also swollen, becoming a red giant now. The black hole’s gravity pulled streamers of loose gas from the red giant’s outer layers, siphoning it in an ever-accelerating spiral down to the infinite vanishing point.

Dragging the fiery, uprooted forest through space, they followed the river of hot gases being pulled from the red giant. The syrupy threads of gravity pulled them closer, and soon their grip would be irresistible. The living flames within their treeship bodies became frantic, blazing brighter, struggling to get away. The additional shockwave of pain inside Beneto made Celli cry out, far away on Theroc.

Although his treeship flew in a procession of inferno-infested worldtrees, he remained connected with his little sister. Though the flaming verdani battleships could barely endure their pain, they kept the young faeros leashed within their wooden forms. Ravenous living flames continued to eat away at the branches, and Beneto knew the treeships had to hurry before they succumbed. He could not let the faeros loose now.

Through telink, he saw Celli standing in a scorched meadow surrounded by the wental-drenched worldforest. She blinked once, looking skyward, and when she blinked again, she was with him surrounded by the empty gulf of space. He knew she could feel the searing damage in his heartwood, his bloodsap, his outspread branches. He could not hide it.

Many green priests could not bear to maintain a telink connection, but Celli’s love for her brother gave her the strength to endure the pain. She refused to let go, and even as he raced across the gulf of space, he could feel the hot tears burning down her cheeks, hotter than the faeros fire in his heartwood.

The giant, thorny ships swirled around the black hole’s vortex. He and his companions released the uprooted trees, and one by one, they vanished with silent gasps, telink echoes of both dismay and victory. One at a time, the remaining verdani battleships spiraled in, passed the event horizon, and dropped into the blackness.

As each one disappeared, he knew that Celli could feel a permanent loss. She sucked in great breaths, no longer aware of her surroundings in the meadow. “Beneto. ” Hearing her, he drew strength from her companionship.

Beneto had done what he needed to do. He had dragged the faeros away from Theroc and saved the rest of the trees; he had brought the fiery elementals to a place from which they could not escape to cause further harm. He felt Celli shaking as she lowered herself to the singed ground. His sister would grieve, but she understood what Beneto had accomplished. She loved him, and she was loved. Love and hope had the power to heal. She and Solimar had taught the verdani the truth of that. Beneto was glad.

Celli turned to Solimar, buried her face against his muscular chest, and let the sobs come. She knew it was over.

In the last instant before he passed the point of gravitational no return, Beneto embraced the distant worldforest again with his mind and poured himself into it. His pain dissolved as his worldtree body fell into clean ash that mixed with the cosmic dust and gases. then swirled down forever.

20

Hyrillka Designate Ridek’h

The entire population of Ildira could not hide from the faeros, but they scrambled for whatever protection they could find. Young Ridek’h, the true Designate of Hyrillka, took shelter deep in the old mines along with Prime Designate Daro’h.

Digger kithmen worked to expand the tunnels and create large grottoes in the bowels of the mountain, as well as numerous new escape passages, should they be needed. Watchmen stood at posts outside the cave openings, always alert for faeros fireballs.

Ridek’h preferred to sit under the overhang, staring across the sunlit openness, trying to come up with some solution that he could offer the Prime Designate. On Hyrillka — the planet he supposedly ruled — the great, windy plains had been used for agriculture. He wasn’t meant to live underground in tunnels. No Ildiran was.