And there he partook of needed rest,
And there he fellow-shipped with his saints.
Yet rest fled him.
For power does not sleep when threatened.
He did not ask for the throne,
But by the fire beneath his feet, it was his.
And the Vizier was wary to give it up.
He did not summon the pilgrims,
But they wept for him.
And as the crowd grew,
So did the tension in the Vizier’s spine.
Saint Gloria the Wise counseled our Prince—
lips near his ear, gracious smiles exchanged,
and truths were spoken that would echo for lifetimes.
The Vizier was told.
Blades were drawn.
Once-silent fixers were sent.
The Tree, as they called it, was just that—a massive, hollowed-out trunk that should have died long ago. But through the mysteries of the Forest, it stood healthy still, as vibrant as the first time he’d seen it—as Gru.
Somehow, the original pilgrims had taken his small hovel of a house and turned it into a palace. It stood now as a massive cathedral to the Green.
“This must be almost two hundred meters,” Chen said aloud, squinting upward. The upper pathways wove like massive roots, thick as roadways. People walked them like streets in the air.
“Meters? What’s that?” Moxley raised an eyebrow. “This is a lot more than two hundred foots, Chen.” He said it flatly, like someone correcting a child without bruising their ego.
Chen winced. “Right. Um…” He did the conversion in his head. “Six hundred foots. That’s what you use, right? Foots?”
Moxley sighed through his nose. “Yes. Indeed.” He gave a faint nod—pleased, perhaps, that the man who might be his god reincarnate had mastered elementary maths.
Chen had to remind himself—this wasn’t the Tower. There, even education meant for daily practicality was built on a deeper, more technical foundation. It borrowed heavily—carefully, selectively—from Golden Age curriculum.
They made their way up a side chamber after Moxley introduced them to a Steward—one of many, Chen was told—who dutifully recorded their names in a great, vine-bound ledger at the center of the Tree’s wide interior.
The Steward assured them this would grant access to all open levels of the Tree.
“How does that work?” Chen asked, squinting at the ink-stained page. “It’s just a book.”
“The Tree provides, Chen,” Moxley said without hesitation.
“We write our names, and it knows. That’s the covenant.”
Joya nodded solemnly and traced a small sign across his chest.
Gloria, unimpressed, muttered as she studied the nearby roots:
“It’s not the book. The Forest is obviously listening… Maybe wave inference? Motion patterning? Auditory pickup?”
She had slipped into the diagnostic cadence Chen was already learning to associate with her.
“Waves. Radar. Audio. True.”
The Forest whispered directly into his mind. Calm. Unapologetic.
Chen exhaled. “So… privacy is null here,” he muttered to no one in particular.
“How can one be shielded from a god who sees all, Chen?” Moxley replied, as if that answered everything.
***
They arrived at their quarters, where Moxley promised to return after meeting with the other elders—and the Vizier who led them.
The suites were massive, hollowed directly from the Tree’s inner wall.
Windows faced the high pathways that curved and wove through the great trunk, looking down over the lobby below. A hardened, translucent wood acted as glass—three full panels, each at least fifteen feet wide and six feet tall—framing a clear view of the rootways beyond.
“At least we’ll see them coming when they come for our heads, huh Joya?” Chen said, nodding toward the massive windows.
“That’s exactly what I’m afraid of,” Gloria answered flatly, cutting in before Joya could reply.
“Do you even know what you’ve done, Chen? You’ve called for the Vizier to step down—without saying a word. There will be blood.”
“Ay, Ch’n,” Joya muttered, more to himself than to anyone else.
“We mite b want’n t’ set guard t’night.”
The wolves growled and set about to make themselves comfortable in the suite at what Chen could only notice were strategic positions.
The Owl pecked at another window that faced out of the tree toward the bazaar. This one only about six feet high by three feet wide. The owl wanted out but Chen had no idea how to open the windows.
"Do either of you know how to open these windows, it wants out." Chen asked both Gloria and Joya.
"It? Doesn't she have a name?" Gloria asked?
“Asshole. That’s its name,” Chen said, wiping the fresh owl shit from his shoulder with a moist towel he’d grabbed from the suite’s bathing area.
“You can’t name a majestic creature like that Asshole!” Gloria protested, half laughing.
“What about… Lena?”
“No. Too close to my wife’s name, and I won’t have that besmirched.”
He tossed the towel aside. “It’s white, so… how about Vlat?”
He scratched his chin.
“Ba`Tya word for snow.”
“Oh, that’s original, Chen,” Gloria muttered, now turning to look out the window.
From the rafters above, a voice replied—
“Name. J23L. Jewel.”
Chen froze.
“Fuck. The owl’s a robot too?” he said to no one in particular.
“Are we all just biological robots now?”
A pause.
Then—“Yes,” the Forest whispered, half-joking… half not.
“Who was that!?” Gloria snapped, eyes darting around the suite for any realistic source.
Her hands hovered over her Calder instinctively, as if it could filter the air.
Her husband was already on his knees, head bowed.
“T’is the For’st!” Joya declared with reverent glee.
Chen stood there, staring at the two of them—polar opposites.
Uninvited thoughts crept in.
“How the hell are you two together?” he asked.
“Who was that, Chen!?” Gloria demanded, eyes locked on him.
He just pointed to Joya.
“Yeah.”
“The… the Forest?” Gloria asked, her voice small now.
“Yes.”
The voice rumbled again—calm, undeniable.
“Me God!” Joya cried, now fully lost—awed, overwhelmed, praying without a script.
“No.”
The Forest answered.
“Okay. Enough.” Chen pointed up at the ceiling.
“No more talking, you.”
Then he turned to Joya.
“And Joya—hate to break it to you, brother, but the Forest? It’s just a really big… entity. Computer AI, I’d guess. Just like my WISP.”
He shrugged.
“Only much bigger.”
“Lexiac,” the Forest said.
“Chakalexian. Nature. Clan.”
It paused.
And just when Chen was sure it was done, it continued.
“Proxy. Clan. War.”
Gloria’s voice was soft—drawn in despite herself.
“Who was the proxy?”
“Humans. Techniak. Chenglian. Many. More.”
“Oh my gods,” Gloria whispered—half breath, half exhale.
Then louder, urgent, already typing:
“This makes perfect sense now!”
She dropped to one knee beside her bag, digging out her tablet, fingers already flying across the screen.
“Yeah. Umm…” Chen raised a hand, eyes still on her.
“Let’s pick this up later, okay, Forest?”
Then, to Gloria:
“For now, relax. Get yourself comfortable. Then meet me back here in the den—so we can have that conversation.”
“What?” she said, still typing. “What conversation?”
“The one where you tell me what you found on my WISP.”
He waited half a beat.
“The thing that’s had you in a flurry to get here since the beginning.”
Her fingers paused.
Her cheeks flared red.
Words stumbled.
“Wha… what makes you say that?”
Chen didn’t blink.
“Seventy years of investigation,” he said.
“I know when someone’s hiding something.”
He tilted his head.
“Just like you are.”
***
Chen attended the door with a word to the Forest—it had already alerted him to Moxley’s imminent arrival.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
That same subtle awareness, he’d discovered, was how he’d managed to open the window earlier—for Vlat-Jewel, his asshole owl.
Moxley paused at the threshold, adjusting his robe when the door opened on its own.
A firm voice echoed from the ceiling:
“Enter. Friend. Moxley.”
He froze, glancing upward—confused, cautious.
Chen stepped into view a moment later, casual as ever, and waved him in.
“It’s fine. C’mon. You’re expected.”
They entered the welcoming room—a vast sitting space, easily large enough to host twenty people. It had the scale of a private theatre, but the quiet stillness of a shrine.
“It reverberates off the ceiling,” Gloria said, eyes never leaving her tablet.
“Like the way our vocal cords do in our throats. Fascinating.”
Chen barely looked at her.
He’d recently granted her limited access to one of his Calders—just enough to unlock basic curricula. Middle school tier.
He hadn’t needed to retrieve them from the Pyre.
They were broadcasting wirelessly.
And she was already deep inside the archives.
Moxley glanced toward his sister.
Years of watching over her shoulder had taught him plenty—mostly that she absorbed knowledge like air, and carried it like it was her birthright.
No one else could access the old data systems she’d broken into as a girl. So she did what Gloria always did.
She read.
And read.
And read.
Now, she looked engrossed.
Frustrated, even—brows knit, lips pursed.
It wasn’t like the elementary docs she’d breezed through.
This was deeper. Stranger.
It resisted her. And she loved it for that.
“Which programme are you re-reading there, Glory?” Moxley asked, easing closer.
“It’s not. It’s new.”
She didn’t look up—just answered offhandedly, eyes locked on the Calder display.
“New? That looks like your same tablet, sis.”
He frowned, concern edging in.
Was this it? The drift?
Her mother had lost clarity late in life. It was rare in elves, but not unheard of in humans or those with mixed lines.
“Yes. Same. New data.”
She sucked lightly at the edge of one finger as she scrolled.
“Chen sent it to me.”
Moxley’s eyes drifted toward Chen, who sat across from him in quiet observation.
“Yeah. Thanks, Gloria.”
Chen sighed, running a hand through his hair.
“Remember ‘don’t tell anyone’?”
She looked up sharply, eyes wide.
“Oh. Sorry.”
Her voice was small. Genuine.
“But… he’s my brother, Chen. He knows everything about me.”
“Umm… what is happening here?”
Moxley finally dropped the formal tone.
His voice softened—not as a Verdant, but as the brother Gloria remembered.
“First the voice—”
He glanced up toward the ceiling.
“—and now… this. Precious knowledge. And don’t tell me it’s harmless, Gloria. People would kill for your regular tablet. Whatever this is? It’s worse.”
She looked down, fingers still on the glass.
“I just came from the elders,” Moxley continued.
“And they’re… not scared. Not exactly. But they’re vexed.”
He rubbed the bridge of his nose.
“And when they get vexed, they circle the wagons. They get… protective.”
He looked to Chen now, serious.
“The Vizier wants to know how you controlled the vine, Chen. He won’t rest until you show him. Or until he finds someone who can do it instead.”
Moxley shook his head, looking more tired now than when he entered.
“Not to mention the hundreds of new pilgrims flocking outside the Tree just to see you.”
He looked at Chen hard.
“Some of them are chanting already. Some are just watching. But all of them… they think Gru’s returned.”
He hesitated.
Then added—low, resigned:
“They've mobilized the Freemen, Chen.”
Gloria inhaled sharply.
“No. They wouldn’t.”
“They did.”
Moxley didn’t flinch.
“Commander Reyes is there now, trying to ensure ‘order.’”
His fingers found his temple.
A slow rub. A familiar tension.
“Who are the Freemen?” Chen asked.
Moxley hesitated, then answered carefully.
“They’re the martial arm of the Greens, Chen. We… keep a close leash. They tend to have strong views on what living the Green way means.”
“They’re zealots, Chen!” Gloria snapped.
“Be lunatics, Ch’n,” Joya murmured, as if remembering something best left unremembered.
“Will they hurt anybody?” Chen asked.
“With the Forest protecting the Clearing?”
“This isn’t the Clearing, Chen.”
Gloria’s tone was clipped.
“You steal or kill here, and nothing happens.”
“It’s literally at the opening of it,” Chen snapped.
“Well, it apparently doesn’t count!”
Gloria turned toward him, frustration flaring.
“Why do you think they have the Freemen around!?”
“Forest. This protection: Status.” Chen spoke aloud—sharply, rhythmically.
He’d started talking to it like a command prompt.
Unfortunately, it worked.
Which only confirmed what he suspected:
The Forest was a computer.
A biological AI of impossible scale.
“Sector AES – EUS: guarded.
Sector AAS – SIS: logged.
Sector JUS – SSD: off-limits.”
He sighed.
Cryptic, as always.
“And this area—outside the Tree,” he continued.
“Identify section. Status?”
Everyone in the room had gone still.
They were listening to him speak to their god.
The Forest responded—
“AIT. Logged.”
Moxley stared at the ceiling, then turned to Chen.
“What are these codes?”
His voice was low now.
Not skeptical—just… unraveling.
“We don’t use these.”
Chen didn’t answer right away.
But Gloria did.
“They’re not Green codes. Not even Techniak nor human ones.”
Her tone had softened. She looked at her brother with something like pity.
“They’re Lexiac.”
She paused, then added—
“That’s who built the Forest, Moxley.”
“Forest. Arm AIT for protection.”
Chen said it like flipping a switch.
“You can’t do that!”
Moxley shot back—instinctively, automatically.
He was the Verdant. That was his command to give.
Then he caught himself.
And said nothing more.
Chen’s eyes didn’t waver.
“I’m the only one who can,” he said quietly.
“And I’m not letting your elders commit atrocities against people who are just looking for hope.”
“AIT armed. Passive mode engaged.”
The window was already open when they heard the first scream.
They all ran to it—crowding the frame—to see multiple vines rising from the outer court, twisting through the crowd.
People were being seized. Not violently. But decisively.
“Pickpockets,” Joya muttered.
“I have to warn Reyes.”
Moxley’s voice was grim now.
“Chen, prepare yourself. I guarantee the elders will bring charges after this.”
“For wh’t? Guardin’ ta masses?” Joya barked.
Moxley didn’t answer right away.
Then, softly:
“Brother… it’s not the charge that matters.
It’s the excuse.”
He looked at the three of them—held their eyes.
“Know that I’m with you.”
Then, more quietly:
“But I need to gather my Freemen.
Just in case.”
The door opened for him before he touched it.
He paused—looking at the living wood, thoughtful now—
then stepped through.
“So… your brother’s a zealot too?”
Chen asked in a small voice, still trying to parse what he’d just set in motion.
Gloria didn’t look away from the window.
“It’s religion. And politics.”
She said it plainly.
“Aren’t they all?”
***
The suite was dark.
The windows had sealed themselves into blackout curtains the moment the three of them had made it clear they were settling in.
Chen had realized it first—the suite inferred intent.
You didn’t need switches here. Just will.
He’d told the others aloud.
“Say what you want. The room listens.”
The wolves were sprawled in the center chamber—what Joya had already dubbed the Dog Room—a sleeping knot of fur and fang.
Grouped close, but loosely coiled.
Ready to deploy in any direction, at the first sign of trouble.
Vlat-Jewel was out hunting.
She still pinged Chen, though—images pushed into his vision at irregular intervals.
Freeze-frame kills.
Mouse faces caught in final horror.
Asshole, he thought, turning over in bed for the few hours of rest he needed.
The wolves didn’t stir.
The room was still.
Even the Forest held its breath.
The forest hog—more accurately, a massive boar—snorted and snored in the bed next to Chen.
He wasn’t as loud as Gloria.
Nor as soft as his wife had been.
But the low, rhythmic murmurs were… comforting.
Almost grounding.
He got up to use the bathroom.
Sat on the edge of the bed for a moment, collecting his wits.
Listened, deliberately, to the boar’s snore beside him.
“I’m gonna have to give you a name too, huh?”
He rubbed his face.
“All of you, actually.”
His mind flicked to the wolves in the next room.
The Forest answered, calm and immediate.
“Boar. BE802. Brad.”
Chen groaned softly.
“Great,” he muttered, and padded off to relieve himself.
He was mid-stream when the Forest gave a loud, menacing screech.
Its version of an alarm, Chen thought—
—followed by a booming voice that filled every corner of the suite:
“Alert. Movement. Three. North wall.”
It repeated until they were all up, weapons in hand, clustered in the central room.
The wolves were already awake—already moving.
Predator-silent, they had stalked into formation without a sound.
Joya stood in his underwear, holding his mid-length axe with sleepy confidence.
Chen had his plasma dagger in one hand, a mundane blade in the other.
Gloria held her juxtaposed gun, eyes alert.
Joya had positioned her in the corner, back to the wall, with himself planted in front.
Chen stood at the center, facing the far side of the suite.
There—at the northern wall—bark was being carved inward.
Quiet. Deliberate. Someone was cutting a door.
“Ain’t that sumth’n,” Joya muttered, almost amused.
The bark split.
A small door formed.
Three figures—clad in black—slipped through, one by one.
They didn’t look. Didn’t scan.
Just moved, hands helping the next one in.
Routine.
Not tonight, Chen thought.
“There are more outside,” Gloria whispered.
Chen saw them too—shadows on ropes, hanging just beyond the bark line.
The first three inside were already moving to secure the suite.
Smooth. Trained. Routine.
This was the window—the moment before reinforcements flooded in.
The wolves lunged, snarling.
They crashed into the first three, jaws snapping, pinning them back before they could draw.
Two more assassins dropped in.
One made straight for Joya—swinging hard.
Joya blocked with a grunt, his axe meeting steel.
The last one through the hole moved differently.
Taller. Fluid. Measured.
His eyes swept the room—already judging, already picking his mark.
Confidence dripped off every step.
“Forest. Stick them all with vines.”
“No. Defenses. Available.”
The voice returned in its halting rhythm.
“Steward. Access. Conflict.”
Chen’s stomach dropped.
They were registered.
Residents. Cleared.
The Forest couldn’t act—not yet.
“Over. Ride. Privileges?” it asked—
—but Chen didn’t answer.
The tall one was on him.
Fast. Silent. Precise.
Chen barely caught the blade on his plasma dagger.
The man was good.
Not just trained—equal.
For the first time in months,
Chen knew he might bleed.
He had met equals before.
He had died to equals before.
But when resurrection was part of the strategy,
death lost its sting.
You could die. Resurrect. Die again.
And wait them out.
Eventually, they’d falter.
They’d sleep.
They’d bleed out.
You? You just came back sharper.
But not this time.
That part of him was gone.
No more resets.
No more rewinds.
And now, in this moment, that truth landed—just like the blade aiming for his ribs.
Or what would have, if his pig, Brad, hadn’t thrown himself into the middle of it.
The man staggered from the impact as his dagger sank deep into Brad’s left eye, catching hard in bone and brain. The boar collapsed sideways, lifeless, pinning the man beneath nearly seven hundred pounds of dead weight. Chen stepped forward and returned the favor—driving his dagger clean into the man’s left eye.
A gunshot cracked.
Chen turned just in time to see a smaller figure tumble backward, dead. Gloria stood behind him, gun still raised, eyes wide.
The original three assassins lay torn and broken at the wolves’ feet—two dead, one barely breathing through a throat slick with blood.
“Forest,” Chen said, his voice flat with exhaustion. “Override protocol for future incursions. Hold and capture, if possible.”
He didn’t wait for a reply. Just turned to Joya.
Joya stood over the first attacker’s body, axe still raised, breathing like he was still fighting. His eyes were glassy. Wild. Waiting.
Chen walked over to the breathing assassin and crouched beside him.
“Good fight,” he said quietly. “Who sent you? I’ll send your regards.”
“Fuck you, heretic!” the man spat, blood flecking his lips. “You’re not the Renewed!”
Chen didn’t flinch.
“Forest,” he said aloud. “Who am I?”
The voice boomed overhead without pause.
“You are Operator Chen. Reanimated from Operator Gru.”
The man coughed. Laughed. Cried.
“Lies…” he said. “Lies… Are you… are you…?”
His eyes fluttered, struggling to stay open.
“I am,” Chen said. His voice softened, but his back stayed straight. “Tell me, son. Who moves against us?”
The man trembled once, and then gave in.
“Forgive me, Verdant. Forgive me…” he whispered. “The Vizier sent us.”
His breathing slowed—shallow now. Near the end.
“Shall… shall I see the Grove?” he asked, the words barely audible. But full of belief.
Chen nodded, voice low.
“Yes. Yes, son, you will.”
A final shudder passed through the assassin’s body.
And then he was still.
But while the Tree watched and the pilgrims gathered,
another fire moved unseen.
Not the Pyre.
Not the Grove.
But a mother’s fury, masked as grace.
She searched the chambers where her daughter once slept.
She walked the tower that had once been her cage.
And when the silence answered,
she chose movement instead of mourning.
The cult had wanted a prophet.
What they found was a Telle.
And from the heights of the Tower,
she descended with purpose—
not to worship,
but to rule.