The sunrise was somewhere over to me port side when I awoke to the nudging of a now very active vine. ‘Tis a weird thing that they should awaken all of a sudden. Never in me 40 years have I’ve ever seen the vines be’n so active. In truth I’d not seen them move so alertly in me entire time here but now they move as if t'were a natural thing for them; maybe rightly t'were and we just never noticed.

  There is only one thing to explain it of course; Chen — he must be up practicing his new connection to this forest. Been a day since we’ve been in this forsaken jungle and indeed it’s been amazing and a just little frightening to see his going ons.

  The vines would just move in rare cases in the past - so rare it’s been passed as rumor, like when I twas pointing me shooter at him. That would make for a jaunt story at an inn one day, but currently, the extent that the Forest has gone out of its way to help the lad is something else. Gloria says I be a bit jealous, but that’s not the most of it. What bothers me is how far does this connection go. Did he just replace one ill willed master for another?

  Into the Woods

  “So we should be at the Clearing in about a day and a half thanks to that trick you did of having the forest create a pathway to, what I assume, is a direct path to it.” Gloria said to Chen as they were at the small fire in the middle of a small 15’ circular clearing off the path that looked to be man made.

  “I didn’t do any tricks, I just asked the voice, the forest,” raising his hands to indicate his surroundings,” to help us get to the Clearing, and it did.” Chen said in a small voice as if to himself. Chen had accepted that he had a connection to this forest after it tried to block Joya from him but it still bothered him. Why him and not the others? What made him so special as to hear the forest, where Gloria and Joya told him they heard nothing.

  “You’re becoming a regular Greenie Chen. So....” Gloria began, “I’ve been able to dig deeper into the data I got from that thing that was in you.”

  “Kildra” Chen continued for the short blonde.

  “Yea, parasite — Kildra, same difference” Gloria said in a nonchalant way. “Well it seems to have been with you for a lot longer than you thought. Do you remember when it first infected you? My records here says it had another person before you for quite a long time than went into a dormant state for a long time and” she said looking at her data pad.

  “Yes she’s been around for a long time Lassie, get to the point of it” Joya said while he munched on a power bar that he liberated from Chen’s reserves. Joya always seemed to be eating something.

  Gloria gave him a little rebuke of a stare and continued “well, I’m just saying your timelines don’t; oh, oh I see.” She trailed off looking down at her screen in a more intense than usual fashion.

  “What? What is it?” Chen asked.

  “Oh it’s nothing Chen, it’s ok. Forget I even asked” still staring at the screen avoiding eye contact.

  “No, that’s not an adequate answer Gloria, what have you discovered?”

  Gloria lifted her head and stared at Chen for a second than looked at Joya with a weird imploring look, turning her head back toward Chen again.

  “I’m not sure you’ll like what I have to say Chen. You already have a lot to deal with knowing about that wildling family and all. Are you sure you want to know?” she asked him while closing her eyes, wishing he’d just let it go.

  “Tell me.” Chen said with a stern expression and resigned voice.

  Once his permission was granted though, Glorias face lightened up and it seemed like the guilt of the forbidden knowledge melted away.

  “Well, it seems that for your first 30 years or so with that thing, as far as this says” pointing to the data pad in her hands “from when it first raised you, it was possessing your body. It only exited when you went into deep sleep at night than back inside just prior to sunrise. What an odd thing to do. And what made her stop I wonder?”

  Gloria sat there with a slight smile on her face, or maybe it was her quizzical face, Chen couldn’t tell yet. To Gloria though, as far as she was concerned, she was trying to figure out the mystery of the synthetic mind.

  A different emotion was blossoming in the pit of Chen’s stomach. He couldn’t quite figure out which feelings were causing his nausea. There was disgust at the idea that Kildra could do that to him; a bit of the sensation was anger as well, for being used without his permission or knowledge. But he realized what the majority of the stress that he felt came from. A feeling he now felt more in his throat than his stomach; dread.

  He thought to himself ‘Thirty years of Kildra doing gods knows what in my body. Should I expect to recover those memories too? What awful discoveries will I need to witness than?’

  “More. Memories. Gru.” the voice said at that moment. The voice which was that of the Forest itself; a deep bellowing voice in his mind. Before when he didn’t understand what it was, it came as the chimes of multiple instruments. Now it was a solid voice, which was good because the multiple voices had hurt Chen’s head, often leaving him with a headache for long after his ‘conversation’.

  “Great.” Chen said in a not-very-eager tone in reply to both the Forest and to Gloria’s new insights.

  “Umm there’s one more thing Chen.” She said with a bit of consternation on her face. “It seems that this ‘Wisp’, possibly all are working toward a long term strategy. It goes back as far as 70 years ago when they were all summoned to your city. They all agreed to ‘guide the current survivors’ into a new ‘Golden Age’ — seriously why do you guys call it that? It’s the Union Age for the love of the Greens — Whatever; than there is this entry about obtaining ‘a large multi-host configuration’ “ she said reading from the data pad “— multi-host? Weird I thought they could only host one person at a time. I’ll need to look into that. But that explains the raise in Cult of the Wisp activity in these parts. What better way to get volunteers than to be worshipped as gods.”

  “Kildra has nothing to do with the Cult, that’s Divan’s experiment. But any Wisp would want that to increase their processing power.” Chen said in a soft whisper.

  “But that doesn’t tell us why they want to increase their processing power. If they wanted to dominate the human race they would have already. There’s got to be another reason for it.” Gloria replied back, enraptured in the conspiracy of their activity.

  “No. They already have power over life and death in a sense, and can build anything they want. No, there’s only one thing that Kildra would want; to be considered an equal with the creators that her technology is based on — the Ilexia.”

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  “The Forefathers!” Joya entered the conversation with a revering whisper and made a weird crescent shape with his hand over his heart.

  “Hmm, with more processing power I guess they could continue research left undone in the Union Age and maybe even reconnect to the Ilexia” Gloria conceded “I guess there isn’t anything insidious about that, we’ve been trying to get back into their good graces for four millennia as well. Maybe it’s the human’s turn”, her face starting to form a pout as she realized who she was talking to.

  “Except,” Chen said as if not hearing the last sentence, ”that when Wisp process a lot of data, it’s through their host, and that host slows down. If a Wisp overdoes it, it’s painful and can kill the host. If all the Wisp are like Kildra, they wouldn’t stop at a little pain either. Not an issue for a Herald, but I’m not sure how resurrections would be affected by multiple bonds. The world’s a rough place and people will be harmed no matter who does it, so thats actually a minor worry. The most alarming thing though is that the best scientist of the Golden Age”, Chen stressed the name and looked at Gloria with an expectant look, “ thought that the Chakalexy attacked us because of our connection to the Ilexia. So what happens if we reinstate it now?”

  Gloria shook her head as if she had just won an argument. “We barely got away from them the first time. We definitely need to let Moxley know this.” She said to Joya who nodded in agreement.

  “Who’s this Moxley I hear so much about?” Chen asked.

  “Oh he’s a leader of the Greens. We need to let them know what those Wisp and their Whispist are up to.” She said with a force Chen hadn’t really seen before.

  “Whispist? You just made that up didn’t you?” Chen said with a smirk on his face.

  “No, it’s a word... It’s been used.” Gloria said her cheeks turning red in an attempt at absolution. Joya and Chen looked at each other, nodded a bit and both said “made up” and laughed at the joke.

  A Timely Retreat

  Leah Malta Doe was sitting at her writing table in the corner of her sitting room talking to a small woman who had just knocked on the backdoor of their three floor house located in the Outer Tower’s grounds. The woman wore the classic blue clothes of a tower maid.

  Lilo who was there visiting his nieces, as he called them, saw the woman come in and bow before him and get escorted by Leah into her private office. The woman seemed familiar yet he couldn’t figure out from where. Well it was no big deal since she was here obviously about her pay or another chore placement in the tower, whoch Leah coordinated, or something of that sort,”. Lilo went back to playing with the girls and their new glass dolls that they had asked for, which he in turn asked Divan, his Wisp, to make for him.

  Leah was a small woman with fair light skin and a well proportioned body, especially after having two children. Her hazel eyes and deep red lips were accented by her wide cheeks and oval eyes. Her strawberry blonde hair was as usual tied in braids around her head. Besides beautiful, her ingenious business mind would keep her a wealthy person —especially now with news of Chen’s death, that he was there to deliver.

  Lilo had met Chen only 50 years ago, on the first day of his resurrection, and apparently knew him well before that time. He could only believe what was told to him in secret by Chen since he had no memories of his life prior to his Heraldry. Divan, had had Chen teach Lilo in the ways of martial arts to which he took to naturally since he had also been trained before his ascension by Chen, as all Scouts were. As such the two formed a brotherhood which was uncommon for any other Herald.

  When Chen took the unusual step to marry Leah 18 years ago. Lilo was at first against it but changed his mind after meeting the beautiful African girl where he was caught by her charm. She was unlike anyone he had ever met before. He battled fiercely in support of his friend against the public outcry of the Cultist who called it heresy and was never too far away from the family when on leave.

  The Wisp themselves seemed indifferent to the marriage actually. Divan calling it a “human matter left to humans” when Lilo asked him about his feeling about it. Only recently had Divan slightly started to support the Cult of the Wisp in the religions latest messaging of total dedication to the ancient automations.

  Inside the room, Mertid, the maid and a carefully placed Telle spy, was updating Leah on the newest news from the Towers — specifically Chen’s Wisp’s gossip.

  “And you, you are sure of this?” Leah asked without a hint of emotion.

  “Yes ma’am, as sure as fit” said the small woman.

  “Ok, Mertid. Please go to section 1 and let them know a ‘Freckle has commenced’. Have a messenger come to me when they have received these instructions. And Mertid, thank you — you have done well.”

  “Yes ma’am, thank you ma’am!” The 15 year old girl said with a flush of her cheeks. It wasn’t every day that you had such a high person in the Telle give you high praise like that. Little did she know that Leah wasn’t just any high figure in the secret underworld organization, she was its founder and its captain.

  “Leah, if you have a moment, I have news of Chen”, Lilo said as he peaked into the room as Leah who sat at her desk crying. “Are, are you ok? What’s wrong?” He asked as he looked the way the small woman had left the building.

  “Oh nothing, stupid desk! I stubbed my toe on that corner and it really hurt!” Leah recovered as she got up with a small limp. “Yes,” She said brushing the tears from her face “please tell me about my love. Has he made it back from Norte’am yet? When did he say he would be home — after debriefing?”. Her smile was radiantly shining in expectation of seeing her husband walk through the door at any moment.

  “Leah, I’ve...” he pused to give himself a moment, ”I’ve got news about Chen. There’s been an accident.” He said, a frog sticking in his throat as he tried to control his emotions. “Chen has been killed on the mission.”

  “Well that’s fine, just have Kildra resurrect him and let’s be done with this.” she said as she tried to keep the everyday attitude she would usually give to such news.

  The fact was that Mertid had told her everything she had managed to overhear between Divan and Kildra whilst in her room making the beds and dusting the furniture. As such Leah knew what Lilo’s news was already to be, but had to act the part or throw away 15 years of building her spy network, a network even Chen didn’t know about.

  Sure there were illegal activities that went on in the Last City but all those bosses had secrets. Leah had a way of collecting all the secrets and an even more efficient way of keeping those secrets secret. It didn’t take long before she was in a position of power in the underworld.

  “Leah, she can not” his voice broke on saying that, but continued with “she lost his soul when they were attacked. He’s lost to us Leah!”

  “No this can’t be! She can rescan his body right? Where is his body!?” Leah said, letting go and saying what was just coming to her head.

  “His body is in the Cursed Forest in Norte'am; we cannot get to him. It’s been 4 days Leah — the forest must have reclaimed him by now.”

  “How dare you!” She said with such venom that it hurt his heart to see the lady he valued so much spit such words at him.

  “You would give up on my love, your mentor, so easy Lilo! Have you even tried to get him? If we get him she can resurrect him Lilo — you must understand this. We must try!” She yelled at the man.

  “I can’t. We don’t know what did this to them. We could lose another Herald Leah” he said with an imploring tone. “Chen would not stand for that.” He continued with this weak counter argument but heart simply wasn’t in.

  “You act like we don’t have an entire army of Scouts Lilo. I know of hundreds of members who would immediately volunteer to recover his body. I will ask the Lucio for a ship to go with them myself if that thing will not allow you to!” Leah said, meaning every word of it.

  Lilo felt the sting of the words hit but controlled his shame. “Well, there aren’t a 100 Scouts Leah, but you are correct, I will ask the Lucio to allow me to go with a squad of Scouts. We will go to that Bazaar where those “Guardians of the Green” are said to be and see if we can hire them to help us find his body. Actually, I’ll bring two squads.” He said with an energy he rarely ever felt going into a mission. “Yes, that woman is special” he thought to himself as he left the building.

  Leah with tears in her eyes left the room to talk to her two daughters as Mertid returned in through the back door and rushed over to her saying “It is done me lady.”

  “Mertid, would you like to accompany us to Norte’am?” to resurrect my husband Leah thought to herself, when the reality of the situation hit her. How do you force a Wisp to do anything?

  Coming up in Chapter 8:

  If you’re still riding with me, drop a comment, pass the story around, and let me know what’s working. You’re part of this world too. ??