The newcomers were unlike anyone he’d seen before, although that wasn’t saying much. He’d only ever met four other people.

They were small, but not as small as Burinold or Tulpa. Lean, like the Primordial, with pointy ears and pale skin. They wore animal hides, and carried the musky odour of unwashed bodies. When they glided through the forest, their legs didn’t move, but leaves and branches rustled and swayed in their wake.

Dougan shifted in his perch as they drew near. His gnarled and lanky form pressed tightly against the ancient trunk, gripping its rough bark with long, curved claws.

Their eyes turned upward, and they came to a halt, peering through the golden leaves. One of them called out in a shrill voice, babbling sounds that weren’t words—or at least none he’d ever heard before. He watched them warily, not knowing what to do. These were strangers. Strangers! He’d never met a stranger before. Where had they come from?

There was only one answer that made any sense: they came from outside. Many times, he’d asked Ondite what lay outside. She always said the same thing: “Nothing is out there, child.” He didn’t believe her, which was why he kept asking.

The squishy who had spoken made a shrugging motion, and the pair continued on their way. He leapt from treetop to treetop, following at a safe distance. Soon, they stopped by a deep pool, lit by the glow of the eternal flame. They stripped off their furs, and waded into the water. He watched, fascinated, as they clung to each other, and began to bounce around rhythmically. They didn’t do it the same way animals did. A curious hunger rose up within him as he watched them. Followed by a familiar creeping malaise.

There was no-one here for him to bounce around with. Ondite was too old—almost as ancient as the flame itself. Tulpa was too small, and too…Tulpa.

Here, he would always be alone. Always missing something.

He needed to get out.

 

Saskia awoke slowly, feeling the press of warm, smooth troll flesh against her back. From the sound of his breathing, she could tell Rover Dog was already awake.

“I just dreamed about you,” she murmured.

Even without looking at him, she could tell he was grinning. “Good kind of dream.”

“No, not one of those dreams,” she said. “It was a vision, I think.” She told him what she’d seen. “Any of that jog your memory?”

It was a long time before he spoke. “Been here before. Not remember when. Not remember…”

“It’s okay,” said Saskia. “Maybe the other eternals can help you remember.”

The eternals, as they called themselves, were individuals of at least four different sapient species who had found their way to the seed of eternity across the ages. Hopefully today she’d be able to find out more about the mysterious, reclusive band of immortals.

But first, it was time she checked in with her vassals. Last time she saw them, they’d still been falling. Now they appeared to have landed…for some definitions of landing.

Ruhildi stood surveying the cracked hull of one of the airship gondolas, and the splintered wreckage on the ground. The trolls and frostlings aboard it had survived the crash, but their vessel had been severely damaged. The other three airships had fared a little better, though none had come out of it unscathed. A bigger problem was that they were scattered across a huge stretch of savannah, in what could very well be hostile territory.

“’Twere all we could do just to land on the same branch,” said Ruhildi. “We didn’t have the luxury to choose our landing sites more precisely.”

“Is that Lumium?” asked Saskia, looking through her vassals’ eyes at the wide, flat, grassy plains, and the distant tree-covered hills.

“Aye, methinks,” said Ruhildi.

“Fantabulous,” breathed Saskia. “I don’t expect the high alvari will be throwing out the welcoming mat for you. Be wary.”

“Aye, we will,” said Ruhildi. “The drackens may yet come for us, too. All we can do is prepare to defend ourselves, and make haste with our repairs.”

“Right,” said Saskia. “It doesn’t look like you’ll be able to get everyone out of there in a hurry, in any case. We’ll be with you soon. But first, I want to see what I can learn from these eternals. Who knows, maybe they can help us find a way to get through Abellion’s barrier.”

With the eternals’ permission, Saskia’s band of thirteen trolls and two elves had set up camp just outside their village. The eternals had offered Rover Dog residence in one of the larger houses. It wasn’t big enough to accommodate this many trolls, so he’d turned down the offer, preferring to stay with everyone else.

“How fare our people?” asked Queen Vask, intercepting them as they emerged from their tent. “Did they survive the fall?”

Saskia nodded. “They’re okay, for now, but…”

“We should go straight to them,” said Vask, after she’d heard Saskia’s account. “Why are we wasting our time here?”

“Our people on Lumium can get by without us for a few days,” said Saskia. I hope. “These eternals could be a treasure trove of information, though. I want to hear what they have to say, first.”

“I don’t like this,” said Vask. “We should not be apart from our people. The drackens could come for them at any moment. They will need us.”

That same fear had been nagging at Saskia, as well. Now that Abellion had revealed his hand, there was little reason to hold back the dragon card. The only reason he might not send all the dragons after them was that it would leave his home turf unguarded. But her people hardly in a position to attack now, were they?

“If the dragons come before they can get their repairs done, they’re dead,” said Saskia bluntly. “You saw what the dragons did to us. Our being there won’t change anything.”

She didn’t mention that the airships wouldn’t be Abellion’s only target. The dragons could just as easily lay waste to Grongarg. The trolls’ only defence would be to shelter underground, where the dragons couldn’t reach them.

When Saskia and Rover Dog returned to the eternals’ village, the troll woman, Ondite, was waiting for them.

“Welcome back, children,” she rumbled.

Thanks to Rover Dog, Saskia’s oracle translator had now heard enough of their language to do its thing, so this time she could participate in the conversation.

“We appreciate you letting us make camp so close to your village,” said Saskia.

“Not inconvenience to us, demon,” said Ondite.

Saskia blinked in surprise. She wasn’t showing her navel-less midriff. “You know what I am?”

“You not first demon I have met,” said Ondite. “Your kind never stay long, but like ephemerals, more will always come.”

“Who was the last demon to come here?”

Ondite tilted her head to the side. “I not remember his name. Nurgo…Murvin…”

“Murgle?” said Saskia.

Ondite nodded. “Yes, that may be it. From his band of followers, Burinold was born.”

“I don’t know much about him, except that he was supposedly created the dwarrows. What was he like?”

“Nettlesome,” said Ondite.

That told her very little. She was about to ask for details when Rover Dog blurted, “Are you my mother?”

Ondrite stood in perfect stillness, staring at him for many long seconds, before she finally answered. “Not blood mother, child. Blood mother ephemeral, not eternal. Her flame extinguished long ago. But I did have hand in your raising.”

“So he was born here—grew up here?” asked Saskia.

Ondite nodded. “Children come to us so rarely. Rarer still do they leave. You were gone so long, Dougan, I thought you forever lost.”

“I not remember,” said Rover Dog. “Help me remember?”

Ondite cast her eyes upward. “Here, beneath eternal flame, you will stop forgetting. In time, regain lost memories.”

“How much time?” asked Saskia.

“To regain all that was lost…” Ondite tapped her forehead. “Span of ages equal to time spent away from eternal flame.”

“So we’re talking centuries—uh, greatspans,” said Saskia.

Ondite nodded.

“I not stay,” said Rover Dog. “Rather be forgetful wanderer than caged with memories.”

Saskia sighed. “Is there any way we could speed up the process to, I don’t know…a few days?”

Ondrite turned her gaze between the two of them. Then she began to laugh; deep, slow belly laughter. “Oh children. You are too precious.”

Saskia frowned at her. “A simple ‘no’ would have sufficed.”

“You shouldn’t laugh at our guests, ancient one,” said the almost-human man, who sat on the roof of a nearby house, chipping away at a wooden figurine. “It’s disrespectful.”

Ondrite sniffed. “Oh twaddle! Now impertinent child calls me disrespectful.”

The man pocketed his carving and shimmied down the wall. “Forgive the ancient one,” he said. “She grows impudent in her old age.”

“Twaddle!” repeated Ondite. “I have always been impudent, young Ithanius.” She sat cross-legged in the grass, closed her eyes, and resumed her impersonation of a statue.

Ithanius motioned for them to follow. “Come. Walk with me for a moment.”

He led them down a cobblestone path at the edge of town.

“Just how old is Ondite?” asked Saskia quietly, once they were out of earshot.

“I don’t know her exact age,” said Ithanius. “She’s the oldest among us, aside from the Primordial.”

“The Primordial?” asked Saskia.

“Xonroth is his name. The Primordial is…” Ithanius gave a little shudder. “…not like the rest of us. He has been asleep a long time.”

“And how old is he?”

“I don’t know that, either. It’s hard to measure time in this place.”

“So are you the youngest, then?”

He nodded.

“Forgive me for asking, but are you a half-alvari, or something? A mix between human and alvari?”

He raised his eyebrows. “I am told my people are the drengari. You have another name for us?”

The moment he spoke the name, Saskia felt a peculiar mix of excitement and melancholy. He was one of the long-lost drengari, the people who had built the original city of Inglomar. His mix of elf and human characteristics lent credence to her theory that the drengari had been proto-elves. Their ancestors may have been human; their descendants, elves and mer. Ithanius might very well be the last of his kind on Arbor Mundi. She didn’t want to be the one to break the news to him.

Actually, come to think of it, Ithanius bore a striking resemblance to the couple Rover Dog had observed in her dream. They too must have been drengari.

“Did I know you?” asked Rover Dog.

“No,” said Ithanius. “They didn’t speak of you, but you must have left before my time.” He lowered his voice. “They don’t like to talk about the world outside.”

As they continued their chat, Saskia couldn’t get over how normal Ithanius seemed. He was hundreds—possibly thousands—of years old, raised by ancient weirdos, and he’d lived in a cave his whole life. Shouldn’t he be…at least a little bit crazy? She half expected him to lead her to his collection of flayed squirrels or something. Maybe that would come later, after she lowered her guard. Maybe he’d flay her.

Okay, now who’s acting crazy? she chastised herself. No-one’s flaying anyone. He’s just a normal well-adjusted homebody multicentenarian.

But as their conversation continued, she was beginning to doubt Ithanius’s true dedication to homebodiness. He was really curious about their adventures out in the wider world. She quickly steered the conversation toward their recent bid to reach the Crown of the World, the barrier that had blocked their approach, and the question of how they might get through said barrier.

“I wish I could help you,” said Ithanius. “I’ve never heard of a dragon, and I know nothing of magic, except what the Primordial—” He swallowed. “Perhaps Burinold or Tulpa will know of these things, but I wouldn’t count on it.”

Burinold the dwarf was, it turned out, a bit behind the times.

“Who is Abellion?” he asked.

Saskia let out a long sigh. “You guys really need to step out of your cave from time to time, and take a look at what’s going on out there. If you don’t, trouble will someday come to you.”

“Unlikely,” said Burinold. “You are the first visitors we’ve had since Ithanius was born. We are hard to reach, and well-hidden.”

“Rover Dog led me here, but I—or any other oracle—could just as easily have found this place by accident.”

Burinold scowled at her, then his forehead creased in puzzlement. “What is an oracle?”

“I rest my case,” said Saskia.

The other person Ithanius had suggested she speak to was Tulpa, the goblin woman she’d encountered yesterday. Goblins—or geblings, as they were called on this world—were a species as old as trolls, although somewhat less successful, if their absence on Ciendil and Grongarg were anything to go by.

“An energy barrier, hmm?” said Tulpa. “Drackens passed through it, say you. Impenetrable, it is not.”

Dogramit, thought Saskia. Why’d my translator have to make her speak like Yoda? She’s a goblin, not a…Yoda.

“That much seems obvious,” said Saskia. “Any idea what it was that let them through? A key, perhaps? Any way we could duplicate it?”

“A key, hmm?” Tulpa swayed her head slowly from side to side. “Know of such things, I do not. Think better, you will, on a full stomach.” The goblin woman reached into a barrel and pulled out a wriggling eel, almost as long as she was tall. She handed it up to Saskia.

“Don’t mind if I do,” said Saskia, taking a bite out of the slimy creature.

 

“How many branches…have world?”

Dougan stumbled over the words. Words didn’t come easily to him at the best of times, and these words were not of the eternal tongue. It had come as a wondrous surprise to him that the newcomers—the ephemerals, Ondite called them—had a language of their own, separate from the one everyone else spoke. By learning their tongue, he could talk to them without worry of the others listening in. They would not approve of the topic of his discussion.

“How many branches does the world have?” said Nuvias, shuffling his words into a more suitable form. “That is a complicated question, for there are branches upon branches, and they come in many sizes. At what point does it cease to be a branch and become…a tall mountain?”

“Oh for the love of…” Dacie sighed. “Do not confuse the boy.”

Dougan found it endlessly amusing that these squishies called him ‘boy,’ their word for a male child. Did they not know he was many greatspans older than they were? It was true he hadn’t yet reached his full height—but he was close. Close enough to qualify as a ‘man,’ by his estimation.

“Twelve,” said Nuvias. “There are twelve main branches—many with their own sizeable sub-branches. Then there is the Crown of the World, which is a mass of hundreds of smaller branches. Combined, they outmass any one of the lower branches many times over.”

“How I get to them?” asked Dougan.

Nuvias raised his eyebrows. “You…cannot. We can travel between them because our magic lets us fly through the air, as birds can. You, who lack the elemental magic, cannot.”

“Birds?” said Dougan.

“Creatures with wings and feathers.”

“Wings? Feathers?”

Dacie sighed again. “Oh you poor… There is so much of this world you do not know.”

“Want see all,” said Dougan. “Could I climb…?”

“Climb to another branch?” Nuvias snorted. “No, my boy. The branches are too far from here. You would fall to your death. If you people even can die…”

Dougan looked at their pitying eyes, and hardened his resolve. He would prove them wrong. He would climb to the distant branches of Arbor Mundi—and beyond, to the skies themselves. The world would be his, and he would let no-one tell him otherwise.

 

Saskia awoke early the next morning, and lay there for a time, watching Rover Dog toss and turn beside her. It was strange that she should relive memories that he himself had forgotten. And now she was more certain than ever—that drengari couple, Nuvias and Dacie, must have been Ithanius’s parents, or close relatives.

After she told him about the second dream, Rover Dog was quiet for a long time. When he finally spoke, his words surprised her.

“Princess vassals get magic without worldseed?” he asked.

She thought about it for a moment, before answering. “Yeah, I think that’s how it works. When someone becomes my vassal, their magic no longer comes from Arbor Mundi, but directly from me. Even if their worldseed is destroyed, as happened to the stoneshapers, their magic still works, so…yeah.”

“If I princess vassal, I get magic of eternal flame—without eternal flame.”

“I suppose you would, yeah. What are you getting at? You already told me you didn’t want to be my vassal. You value your independence too much to bind yourself to me.”

“Vassal magic stronger than normal magic,” said Rover Dog. “Eternal flame restore memories. Maybe vassal restore memories faster.”

She stared at him for a good long moment. “Oh my dog, I think you may be right! So you’ve changed your mind, then? You do want to be my vassal now?”

After a small hesitation, he gave a small nod.

“Fantabulous!” she said. “I don’t think we can do it here, though. Since you don’t have a focus, I’ll need a keystone to help us enter the dreamstate where I can stick my tentacles in—uh, bond with you. But as soon as we get back to Iscaragraithe, it’s definitely worth a try.”

Although she wanted to hurry back to her friends on Lumium, she wasn’t quite ready to give up on these eternals just yet. She still hadn’t met the Primordial, Xonroth. He’d been locked in a deep sleep for a long time, according to Ithanius, but maybe they could wake him up?

“No, child,” said Ondite. “If I awaken Xonroth without cause, he will be…most displeased. You not want to be here when Xonroth displeased.”

“Isn’t our arrival cause enough?” said Saskia. “We’re the first visitors in like…forever.”

Ondite made another slow, rumbling laugh. “Oh child, you know nothing of forever. I will not do as you ask. If I did, Xonroth not help you.”

Sighing, she turned away. Maybe they could sneak into the Primordial’s sleeping chamber and throw a bucket of water on his head or something. But she was pretty sure that wouldn’t end well. Whenever Ithanius spoke of him, he looked petrified. “The Primordial is not like the rest of us,” he’d said.

What a disappointing bunch these eternals were turning out to be. She would’ve thought being immortal—and unlike Rover Dog, retaining their memories—would make them godlike masters of countless disciplines. But in most cases, it just made them lazy and disinterested in the world outside.

Ithanius was one of the few exceptions to this—maybe because of his relative youth. And indeed, he seemed as frustrated as she was with his fellow eternals.

“When you leave, I want to go with you,” Ithanius told her, speaking low, and glancing about nervously, as if expecting to be jumped by an angry goblin at any moment.

She’d been half expecting something like this, truth be told. Still, she tried to act surprised. “Are you sure? Out there, you know you’ll start to forget things, right?” Unless, perhaps, I make you my vassal too, she added silently.

“A small price to pay for being alive,” said Ithanius. “In here, this is not life. This is a pretty cage.”

“Well alright then. I’d be happy to give you a lift out of here. What do the other eternals think of this?”

“I have not told them,” said Ithanius. “They would forbid it.”

Saskia frowned. A cage indeed. “I don’t want to make enemies here. Is there any way you could convince them to let you go peaceably?”

“I doubt it,” he said. “It would be best if we don’t ask for permission…”

That afternoon, Nuille came to her with news that blew apart all of their plans. Nervous tension warred with transcendent joy on the elf woman’s face. Garrain, following at her heels, just looked shell-shocked.

“I’m pregnant,” said Nuille.

Saskia blinked at her, momentarily lost for words. “Uh…oh wow, congratulations! Are you sure? Wait, of course you’re sure. You’re a tender. You’d know these things.” She realised she was babbling and closed her mouth.

“The nestling will be an eternal,” said Nuille. “She won’t be the greenhand we were hoping for, but…”

“Neither will she be a mundane,” said Garrain.

“That’s great news!” said Saskia. But was it, really? What would the other eternals think if not one, but three of their kind slipped from their grasp?

“There is a problem, though,” said Nuille. “As long as the nestling remains inside me, I’d best not try to shapeshift. You can surely imagine what such a transformation might do to a nestling…”

Saskia winced inwardly. Oh yeah, she could imagine, alright. “I see. So you won’t be able to transport us back to Lumium. We’ll have to wait for our friends to pick us up.”

Nuille inclined her head in acknowledgement.

“Don’t worry,” said Saskia. “We’ll figure something out. I’m really happy for you.”

And she really was, despite the inconvenience it caused. The child was important not just to its parents, but to all the elves of Ciendil. There were so few of them left; repopulation would be their driving goal for the next few generations.

On the face of it, the fact that a new eternal should be conceived here, now, for the first time in perhaps a thousand years, seemed like a ludicrous coincidence. But when she thought about it, she realised that maybe it wasn’t.

Eternals themselves, by their own admission, couldn’t reproduce in this place. Yet the numerous spawn Rover Dog had left in his wake were evidence enough that eternals weren’t inherently infertile. Unless he was some sort of freak mutation, there must be something about this specific place that inhibited their fertility.

The same effect clearly didn’t prevent visitors from bearing children. Maybe it took some time for the seed of eternity to make people sterile. Or maybe it only inhibited eternal’s fertility. Whatever the cause, the result was that all eternals ultimately came from ‘ephemerals’ who bore children here, and then either left or died. Eternal children were only rare because visitors were rare.

So not such a big coincidence, after all. It had happened before, and it would happen again.

 

A shrill cry echoed across the village. Dougan tensed, as he did every time he heard it. The…birthing, Dacie called it, had been going on for some time. From the sound of her suffering, it didn’t seem to be going well.

Dacie had been listless ever since Nuvias died, and now it seemed as if she was only clinging to life for the sake of the child. Dougan had been dumbfounded to discover that a person could die. Like the beasts they devoured, they could simply…end.

The cry tapered off, and was replaced by a higher, louder wail; an altogether different sound. A half a hundred heartbeats later, Ondite and Tulpa emerged from the sacred hut with sombre expressions, as the others gathered outside. Ondite held something small and pink in the palm of her hand. It stirred, waggling tiny hands and feet in the air.

Raising the…baby to the frozen flame, Ondite proclaimed, “Behold! Eternal is born!”

“Dacie?” he asked.

Tulpa looked up at him, and slowly shook her head.

“Not be sad for her, child,” said Ondite. “She fulfilled her purpose. In time, you will understand.”

In time. These people had nothing but time. It was they who didn’t understand.

Turning away from the celebrations, Dougan left without a backward glance. Through the tunnel and down the cliffs, into the hollow beyond. He had been climbing his whole life. He could do this.

Dougan peered over the lip of the world, feeling a shiver of anticipation. Below, the long, multicoloured strips of distant branches called out to him invitingly.

As he lowered himself over the edge, a cold wind buffeted him, but his claws held firm against the hard stone. Slowly, hesitantly, Dougan began his descent.

 

This time, Saskia awoke with metaphorical goosebumps on her rock-hard troll-flesh. Not just because her latest dream had showed her the genesis of Rover Dog the explorer, but because Ithanius’s mother had died in childbirth. Did a similar fate await Nuille?

Hopefully not. Nuille was a healer. That had to count for something, right? But would it complicate things if she had her baby away from here? Would the child have memory troubles from the get go?

Worry about that later, Saskia told herself. First, they had to get back to Lumium, then find a way to get past Abellion’s barrier and hundreds of dragons and who-knew-how-many Chosen, then overthrow a god. They could always come back here when it was all over.

Later that morning, she discovered she had another, even more immediate problem to worry about. Her friends on Lumium had had a few minor skirmishes with the local high elves over the past few days, but nothing they couldn’t handle. That was about to change. The frostlings had sighted a large army marching north. There was no mistaking where they were headed.

A day—perhaps two—and the high elves would be upon them. That wasn’t nearly enough time for her friends to complete their repairs and get the frock out of dodge.

“I can’t ask you to take us there,” Saskia told Nuille. “And even if you did, we wouldn’t get there in time. But I need to be there. So I’m going to have to go…the fast way.”

“Is that wise?” said Garrain. “You may be throwing your life away.”

Saskia shook her head. “These aren’t dragons they’re facing. Just alvari—high alvari. We might be able to reason with them. And if not, we can defeat them. It won’t be easy, but my vassals are quite powerful. They’ll be a lot more powerful if I’m with them. So I’m going. This isn’t up for debate.”

Rover Dog grinned at her. “Princess can stomp squishies into dust. Not doubt that.” Then his smile faltered, and his ears drooped. “Wish I could be stomping too.”

“Me too, bud.” She frowned. “Well, maybe not the stomping part—but I wish you could be there. Don’t worry, though. We’ll come back for you as soon as this mess is sorted out. One way or another, it won’t take long.”

Without further ado, she dove into the between. An instant later, she resurfaced in a flurry of shifting flesh before a startled Zarie. She reached for the equipment she’d stored in Iscaragraithe: her gauntlet and axe, Jarnbjorn, and a spare set of duanum armour. Come tomorrow, she may be knee deep in angry elves, but at least she wouldn’t be entering the battle naked.

“Glad you could join us, Sashki,” said Ruhildi. Her friend apparently hadn’t joined her in the between this time, because she still had her clothes on, and they weren’t torn.

“Glad to be here,” said Saskia. “If those elves think we’re just going to roll over for them, they’re in for a rude awakening.”