The icy chill was getting to me, so I reached out towards the hollow tree, floated through its shell and absorbed the remnants of its warmth, the flickering aurora somehow providing me a semblance of a meal or a sensation akin to sitting next to a warm fire.

In the next moment, I felt my mind being engulfed in a foreign, alien memory, one that didn't belong to me...

 

---

 

My mother was an Alanian mage named Kopusha Megara Tricameron and I was… her seedling.

She gave me the name Leemy.

She sang to me in the evenings and mornings, imbuing me with tiny bits of her soul and her best memories… my perfect, beautiful, talented, young Agromancer of a mother.

She planted me in a lovely meadow in the forest-park of Borria at the edge of town called Skyisle, hoping that I might someday bloom into a full dryad. I was her graduate project and an assistant for her Agromancy research, a friend and… much, much more.

Kopusha poured her love for the wild, for plants, for sunshine and for the ever-bright future straight into me.

A future that she believed was coming with her entire heart, for the world was changing. For great progress was being made across her nation. The great Alanian Empire had finally managed to strike terror into the hearts of the false gods, had managed to permanently halt the hand of death, had discovered spells that could pull, split and inject the soul into anything.

Acolyte Kopusha of Tricameron had chosen to gift her soul to me.

As I grew and blossomed in my meadow, my mother returned every morning on her sky-glider, giving up bits of herself for me again and again, pouring her dreams and memories of the elegant, white cathedraltown of Tricameron Citadel into my tree body, infusing me with her own life and magic.

One morning she didn’t come. I waited patiently for her, for I was a tree. I knew her, knew that she would not forsake me unless something unexpected had occurred.

She had arrived that evening, splitting from the sky on her glider, spinning out of control.

She had let go of the glider and it detonated with a catastrophic crash, carving apart the meadow. She rolled across the forest floor, her body twisting unnaturally. I wanted to reach out to her, to help heal her… but I knew that aiding her was beyond my skills for I wasn’t born as a dryad yet.

Mom slowly crawled towards me, leaving a trail of blood behind her. I reached out with one of my soft branches and she had taken it into her hand.

“L-leemy…” she choked. “T-the Seditionists have taken Tricamerion. It’s over… it’s all over. They believe that what we are doing, s-splitting our souls and granting intelligence to magical constructs is wrong. They… killed my Academy Instructors, Leemy. Trust no-one. I will surrender the rest of my magic to you… I know that I’m done for… but at least you can go on. Just… be careful… grow old and beautiful for me, p-please. D-do what I can-n… cannot.”

As the blood of my mother poured over my roots, I wept. It was over. My dreams of holding her in my arms, of hugging and singing back to her would never come true. My dreams of working together, healing the world, growing forests across deserts were not to be. All because some mages didn’t understand what we were trying to do. All because…

Kopusha’s life left her eyes. As the last of her mana and soul departed from her, passing into my roots, her body ossified, deflated, emptied out, leaving just a dead shell that held onto my roots with blackened fingernails.

The empty husk began to grow cold. I wept. Would the Seditionists come for me, would they find my mother’s ossified body, scan me for signs of consciousness? I couldn't get away, couldn't hide from them. I was a tree. I haven't learned how to walk yet, so I couldn't dig myself out! I couldn't get away in time!

As I freaked out more and more, the ground started to shake. I turned my eye-stalks towards Tricameron Citadel and saw a brilliant, blinding light piercing right through the forest. The world caught on fire. My mother’s husk turned into ashes. Trees around me ignited.

The forest around me groaned as trees snapped in half, shattered as if they were made from glass. I saw that the entire Citadel burned. Mountains around it burned. Someone had set the entire world on fire. We were betrayed...

I had lasted slightly longer than the rest of the trees, but eventually my mana had run out.

I screamed and thrashed as I died in agony.

 

---

 

I screamed and thrashed, flailing my emerald appendages. The memories of a tree named Leemy, the last moments of her life burned, imprinted themselves into my head, clawing at me from within.

I had regretted everything, for the pain was unbearable.

The pain of being burned alive refused to let go of me, refused to leave my mind.

I flailed, uncertain of how much time was passing.

Pain. Burning. Fire. Death. Cold...

The action of consuming the last memories of the tree was unsatisfactory, terrifying beyond reason, incredibly painful.

I remembered in perfect clarity how Leemy burned.

I remembered how armacus magitek guns shot Kopusha from the sky as she tried to escape the Tricameron Citadel, rapid fire of slicing spells cutting through her flyer and through her body.

The memories of the young Agromancer and her unborn dryad refused to leave my mind, refused to let me think clearly, occupying it permanently like a chunk of burned meat stuck in my metaphorical throat that I could not swallow properly.

In reaching out towards the last magical imprint of the dead tree, I had absorbed it into my own soul.

According to the memories of Tricameron Academia Acolyte Kopusha, this world filled with dead things was called the Astral Ocean. Everything that ever lived and died had sunk into this dreary hell.

This place... was a graveyard of a magitek civilization!

More discordant memories wobbled in my mind refusing to settle down.

The Alanian researchers from the Tricameron Citadel sought to use the Astral to bring back their loved ones who had died. They had succeeded, but this action had split their society in twain between Progressors and Seditionists. Between the people who wanted to become immortal and to bring down the gods once and for all, and those that worshipped the gods and gained power and purpose through the Pacts with their Deities.

I realized that I would find no peace, nor solace, nor happiness in the Astral because I had no way of sifting it properly, no way of knowing who died peacefully here and who had burned to death during the final moment when the world caught fire.

Whatever crumbs of knowledge were buried here would have to stay buried for I doubted that my soul could handle another memory like that without fracturing.

I desperately yearned to fly back towards the warm embrace of the blue thread, away from this world of bones, away from these cursed dead and their awful memories.

These dead were shreds of final memories, imprints of life akin to the human shadows etched in stone left by the atomic bomb detonated in Hiroshima.

I now knew - all of them had carried this pain, this misery, this final moment of being burned alive by a horrific catastrophe that befell them all, the final war that likely ended their civilization, turned them all into shadows and dust.

Slowly, incrementally I decided to study the new memories shoved into my head. Did I even have a head? I wasn't sure.

Thinking rationally was difficult. My mind kept switching between the memories of Kopusha, Leemy and Dr. Kerenski.

It was also very difficult to keep myself from drifting away. There were currents in this... Astral Ocean. I felt like a little dandelion slowly being dragged into its dark depths by unseen something... akin to a magnetic pull.

Feeling irritated at myself and the horrid, cruel, monstrous, treacherous world I rapidly swam/floated into the hollow shell of the dead tree, into the safest looking notch and settled there. It was cold. My threads dimmed. I didn't care. I needed to know more, needed to sort out my fractured mind to understand what was going on.

The memories of Dr. Kerenski could not help me. They were completely alien, useless to this place of death and decay. The dryad was a young soul, she knew nothing about this place. Agromancer Kopusha... she knew about the Astral Ocean from newspaper articles praising the Astral Engines and the Astral Gate. She even took classes... about Animancy. It was essential, core knowledge on how she created herself a dryad bestie.

It was cold and lonely. I focused my mind on the memories of Kopusha.

 

---

 

Rows upon rows of clapping hands. Young faces all around me, smudged ever so slightly.

"Welcome to Animancy, 101, young Novitiates of Tricameron Citadel! I am Academic Chartirion Eyelim Tricameron!" The white-uniformed Academic with the silver Animancer pin on his necktie moved in front of the shimmering board. "Animancy is the study of the human soul, the Soul-Song that ties into it, the manipulation of memories, creation of new life with the power of your soul and the study of the Astral Ocean where all things end up after death. By the end of this trimester, all of you will be able to divide parts of your soul and imbue a creature or an object of your choice with it, granting you a path to immortality!"

Curious eyes burned into the lecturer, including mine. I already knew what I was going to put my soul into. I loved trees, loved nature. I would make myself a dryad friend, a perfect companion that understood me without even needing to speak.

"Here, before you are the three Animancy spell hexagrammatic stanzas that you will eventually learn how to use! Note the beauty of their forms, the curves, the ratios of the tones that make up the entire Song," the lecturer declared and strange three-dimensional glowing structures appeared on the board behind him woven from prismatic light beams.

"The first one - [Tamus-Anima] is a stanza which stills your soul," the lecturer waved a hand at the first structure.

"The second one - [Sectus-Anima] is a stanza with which you will be able to separate a part of your soul," the lecturer waved a hand at the second structure.

"And the last but not least is the third stanza of the Anima manipulation Song - [Conjugo-Anima]. The third stanza binds the severed fragment of your soul to an object of your choosing!" The lecturer declared with a flourish. "Note how beautifully the three stanzas flow into each other, how they..."

 

---

 

I felt cold. Colder. Argh.

The faces of the students slowly lost color. This was a very interesting memory, but useless to me. The Astral. Think Kopusha... err.. Slava think, how do I get out of the Astral Ocean?

 

---

 

"What happens if I die accidentally, professor? Fall down a stairwell for example," One of the students asked. "What should I do when my soul is pulled into the Astral from my broken body?"

"Khrm," the lecturer cleared his throat. "Well, your nearest phylactery, your object which holds a shard of your soul will allow you to be reborn inside of it. Simply cast the [Reditus-Anima] and..."

"Okay, but what if someone breaks my phylactery? Or what if my soul is out of mana to cast the spell? Then what?"

"Then you're out of luck, I suppose... and your best hope is that your friends or family on the other side will pull your soul through the Astral Gate!"

"What if I have no friends or family?" The persistent student insisted. "Is it possible to go through the Astral myself and come out of the Astral Gate into the Citadel?"

"You would have to be an incredibly determined soul to make it out of the Astral alone," the professor shook his head. "The Astral Ocean isn't shaped like our world. Time and space are twisted up in unnatural, often incomprehensible ways. One does not simply swim out of the Astral without aid, my dear."

"Right, and if someone does cast a spell to pull me out? What would it look like from my side? From inside the Astral?" The student asked after a moment of silence.

"Like a thread of colored light," the professor said. "Compared to the deadening chill of the Astral Ocean which sucks out the soul's energy, it would feel warm and welcoming, like a path home. The spell is shaped by someone who knows you, designed to pull you out and to deposit you into a new phylactery."

"What happens if the spell fails to pull the soul from the Astral?" Another student asked.

"In time, the soul becomes part of the Astral, loses all mana, crystalizes into one of the nearest layers of sediment. The more time passes, the harder the soul will be to pull away and the greater the chances are that it will be consumed by a predator phantom," the professors' tone became very dark. "Trust me, you do NOT want to meet with an astral phantom, a predator of the darkest void."

 

---

 

I glanced at the blue thread from my little alcove. Would it take me... home? Was it designed for me?

For Kopusha?

No... that was ridiculous. Kopusha's instructors, friends and family all died when a new sun ignited inside the Citadel. Tricameron was burned to ashes, vaporized by the enemies of the Alanian Empire, betrayed by the Seditionists.

Damn them all! What home would it even lead me to?

I noticed that my threads were dimming further, becoming more silver than green, turning hollow.

As I continued to hide in the hollow tree that was once the body of the dryad I thought about Kopusha. The memories of the young Agromancer seemed to be fractured, missing, incomplete as if she was suffering from a very severe case of Alzheimer's.

I discovered that I couldn't recall her childhood, couldn't bring up the faces of her parents. Perhaps these memories had degraded away over time or most likely they simply didn't get transferred to the dryad because the Agromancer died so suddenly.

Only the last few memories of the Acolyte's life got preserved within the tree and even those were a bit warped, faded and hard to sort through.

It greatly upset the Kopusha part of me to think how long it's been, how long the desiccated remains of her dryad... phylactery sat in the Astral. Has it been a decade? A century? Longer? Did anyone survive? Did any Alanian outposts or any other Citadels remain standing after the fall of Tricameron? Did the colonies on Lunaria or Andross survive?

I thought about other things, trying not to focus on the despair and sadness of the Agromancer girl.

What exactly was the Soul-Song? Kopusha's memories told me that it was a chart of sorts that defined a person's magic. The Soul-Song calculated and defined the inner parameters of a soul of any given individual, listing all of their skills.

Children as young as seven were taught the Song-spell necessary to ignite the soul-spark within them. Also, the very same Song-spell was repeated every sunrise by Tricameron Acolytes to reinforce, stoke the flames within their Soul.

The song was called "The Awakening of our Anima".

I tried to recollect the song, based upon the fragments of Kopusha's life and hummed it softly to myself as I did so.

Like the other Alanian Song-spells it was also a story.

The soft hymn began with a tale of a talented girl named Morningstar, who was born long, long ago at a time when glaciers, stars and the gods of winter had ruled the world. She was not deterred by the apparent great wisdom of the stars and cold of winter and the monsters all around.

Morningstar wanted to be free, so she studied the land, the animals and the sky and after a long and fruitful life she had harnessed a way to fully awaken her Soul-Song. It was too late for her, however, so she taught her daughter the song of Morningstar.

From one generation to another, the song was passed, magnifying into a chorus of the awakened people. The children of Morningstar had built a prosperous nation, an Empire and carved runes into the sky itself to light the way home even in the darkest night.

I sang a tale of an endless myriads of sunrises, of the coming Spring, of rivers being born and coming down from the Glaciers of Skyisle Valley into the Tricameron river delta. I sang of the legacy of Morningstar enshrined into the heavens to drive away the night and awaken my soul.

At first nothing happened, but as I continued to repeat the stanzas, I felt some inexplicable change within me, a connection to something far greater than myself.

A strange message flashed in front of my eyes, the words resonating to me in impossible, ethereal tones emanating from all around and also from within me.

Yes! It worked.

I thought about, attempted to define my soul.