The Queen's Sceptre
Outside, the forest anguished.
Unable to ignore the shifting atmosphere of his grove any longer, Thren sat up. Beyond the hut, wolves howled. Foxes screamed. Even the nighthawks were restless.
Old, familiar scents became queer and unusual. The Everwild still smelled of rich understory and fresh, dew-touched pines, but the underlying redolence was too sweet, like fruit and flowers now past their prime. For a moment, the elven man sat perfectly still, allowing his sight to adjust to the lack of light offered by the predawn darkness. A bed of embers glowed from within their little earthen fireplace. He poked and stirred at those coals, feeding them little twigs that caught and curled, devoured by the small but voracious flame that sprang to life. Larger sticks full of pine sap snapped and crackled as he fed the awakening fire those, too.
Another siege of emotion struck, nearly doubling him over. The ensuing smell of fear wouldn’t allow Thren to dwell long enough to welcome the rekindled warmth. Pressed into dressing, he laced himself into a pair of soft leather breeches and linen tunic. He didn’t bother with his boots, opting instead to brush aside the heavy leather flap separating him from the angst flooding the world beyond. Sorrow permeated his senses, tasting acrid when he ducked out. The mood spilled between the trees and the spring, drifting across the meadow like a miasma. He paused and inhaled, watching his breath atomize in the air. He took a moment—the turmoil was so dizzying—and centered himself against the onslaught.
Before he set off, though, dozens of timid, little creatures scurried past. Usually the foxes and rabbits, field mice or muskrats ignored the grove-tender, but this morning even the voles tumbling over his feet tried to make eye contact. They gave him anxious, almost pleading looks, before scurrying on. Puzzled, Thren reached for his staff and trailed after the animals. The odor of decay increased with each step, smelling of old, wet leaves and rotting wood—not altogether a wholly offensive scent, but certainly disconcerting. He pulled up short and lifted his chin, feeling his own breath as it caught—arrested in his chest. Wide-eyed, he surveyed the clearing.
It wasn’t just small creatures gathering in the meadow.
What did it mean? He forged a path through the throng of animals, threading between bears and bucks, wolves and panthers, as they parted to make way. For a second time, Thren found himself stopped dead in his own tracks. He let go of his staff, hardly noticing the muted thud it made when it landed in the grass. Again he stared with wide eyes, and wonder, and a growing sense of dread.
The Mother of the Forest—the Ahl’Ma—lay crumpled in the center of the meadow—at the heart of his grove. He reeled, assaulted by the enormity of such an occasion and his flailing equilibrium forced him to thrust a hand against the bole of a tree. After a brief respite, he straightened. Beneath his touch, though, the tree lamented, too; they all did. Silently, he thanked it for its strength and in exchange, offered his own emotional fortitude.
Gathering himself, the elf broke from the treeline and stepped forth, sidling around the monumental body until he found the avatar’s head where it tilted upon the ground. He ducked beneath one of her woody antlers and there, sank to one knee. Respectfully, he bowed his head. He’d never seen her before, but the Everwild spoke of her often. She was as old as time—the last avatar of the Osai—and she’d been around for millions of lives. The Osai—those remnants of primordial consciousness—had crafted her with the trailing vestiges of their collective will.
She embodied the oldest essence of their magic—an essence that dwindled now to whispers easily mistaken for the wind. Thren reached out and set a hand atop one of her branches. Power emanating from her spirit surged through him. It warmed his soul, offering love and hope amid all the forest's despair. For a moment he braced himself and turned to quiet contemplation. The Ahl’Ma acknowledged his presence, accepting their communal silence.
Her condition worsened. Lichens and mosses sloughed from her boughs, thudding into heavy clumps upon the ground. She shed bark in thick, ragged sheets from branches that grew ever brittle. Mushrooms melted from her sides, dripping into puddles of ichor that dammed in the gravel between stalks of grass.
“How can I help?” Thren asked. Always soft-spoken, his tone remained reverent. He did nothing to disguise his concern.
Minutes passed like hours before the venerable creature opened her eyes upon him. He peered into a single eye and nearly collapsed from the compassion it offered him. He didn’t resist the sadness of the forest as it mingled with his own. He sighed and his fingertips stroked the branch he held before he gripped it tighter.
“I’m sorry.” His bottom lip tremored as he whispered.
“You needn’t be,” she responded slowly and with effort. The rumble of her voice surrounded him. She went on. “I... am not the heart of the Everwild. Only its steward.” She lumbered cautiously as she moved, always careful and aware of her surroundings when she straightened her head to regard him. She possessed the face and torso of a woman, but the body of a doe. Her boughs, vines, and the leaves that shaped her were slowly unraveling, exposing her inner root system. That vulnerable rhizome was ashen and desiccated. Thren looked away, longing to cover it up. Had she been able to stand, he imagined she’d be every bit as tall as his redwoods. Perhaps even taller.
Had she crawled her way here to him then? He wondered.
Star moss and Tillandsia thatched between branches and vines that twisted together to form the antlers thrusting up from either side of her head. Thren straightened and stepped back as she moved again. Still careful and slow, this time she stabbed a tall, golden rod into the ground at his feet. It jutted from the soil, rising well above his head. He recognized it immediately. “The Queen’s scepter,” he said, then leaned to one side of it to give her a puzzled look. “I don’t understand.”
At the top of her scepter floated three golden rings. Two of them crisscrossed and the third braced them vertically. Within their midst roiled an intense golden ball of light. Thren noted that it drew energy—spiritual energy—from the surrounding air. Energy which didn’t linger. He watched as pulses of it traveled from the roiling foci, thrumming down the golden shaft, to be absorbed into the earth where the Ahl’Ma had thrust it.
He felt her watching him and pulled his attention from the scepter to meet her gaze. “T’is a terrible task I set before you, young elf,” she said. He found the vibrations of her words soothing as they traveled up through the ground at his feet. He stood still, quiet in his contemplation for several seconds but when the Ahl’Ma’s breathing labored further, he sidestepped around her scepter and set a hand against a lichen-mottled trunk. Behind closed eyes, he asked the forest to assist him in soothing her.
The Everwild replied. As did the Queen’s scepter.
He kept his eyes tightly lidded, a conduit of nature and magic, fueling her with an energy that embraced her in its loving comfort. She breathed a little easier because of it. “What would you have of me, Great Mother?” he whispered when his ritual was complete.
She spoke to him in the Song of the Osai, a language much easier for her to convey to him her needs, her wishes… even apologies.
Burn my body. Here at the heart of your mountain. When the last ember dies, spread my ashes throughout the grove to consecrate its ground. Here, the dead shall find peace. Their souls must always have a way to return—my scepter shall guide them. The Ahl’Ma directed Thren’s attention, lifting her gaze to the tops of the trees. He raised his chin and waited for his eyes to adjust. The morning light had ignited the east. She went on: My dryads will watch over you, should you accept this burden which I lay at your feet.
At first, it was difficult to tell them apart from the regular forest vegetation, especially when they didn’t move. It took time, but at last he began to notice them. Such magnificent creatures they were, standing with their heads bowed in the dawning sunlight. Eventually, he could even pick out their shapes: dragons and moose, kirin and unicorns, bears and fallow deer. Even smaller creatures like foxes, raccoons, and owls. Some were immense in size, and some, not at all. A butterfly with maple leaf wings drifted over to perch on his shoulder. For a while, he just marveled at its simplicity. He was deeply moved and had no reason to doubt the Ahl’Ma’s decision. He didn’t bother to ask her why it was his grove or even him that she chose. He trusted her wisdom.
Once more, he lowered his head, and his eyes shifted to the closest one of hers. “And what of this?” He gestured at the scepter with his right hand. “What do I do with this? Will another come to take your place?”
I bequeath this scepter and all of its terrible power to you, Druid. To this grove. For this, I beg your forgiveness, for it will alter the course of your life, and in no small measure. As its caretaker you will live a thousand lives. Mortal hands cannot bear its burden, but be warned, there are forces that may come to corrupt it.
“I won’t allow that to happen.” His own resolve surprised him.
The Ahl’Ma nodded her head once. She decayed steadily, her leaves drying up and tumbling away with the breeze. The same breeze tousled Thren’s hair and he felt its awareness. Lingering hints of the Osai, come to pay their respects in whatever element would transport them, for they no longer had strength to conduct themselves. One last time, she interrupted his thoughts, saying, If you do not desire this burden, leave the scepter and do not touch it. Another will come. Soon. But… I would have you, Thren of the Everwild. I humbly beg you to accept my quest. I would have you teach others your path and tend to my forest—to all my children—to keep them healthy and protect them from harm. But… if you choose your own path, I would also understand.
Thren turned to the scepter. “Who am I to deny my queen’s last wishes?” he asked. The scepter's shaft pulsed when he grasped it. Once. It was like a heartbeat, but spread in concentric waves across the air like rings over the surface of a pond. He felt its murmur within his heart. Time slowed. So did Thren. Then, the scepter shrank into his grasp, molding itself into a bright golden staff.
He felt the terrible energy she’d mentioned—felt how it coursed through him teeming with memories that shocked Thren as they flooded him. The power stripped away his age, and he fretted, wondering how far it would go before realizing it merely revitalized his body. His trees were changing within that magic, too. He felt their roots strengthen in the soil beneath his feet. They grew taller and wider, and even more resolute.
It didn’t take long to understand why she’d called it a “terrible” power; it was immense. Thren flashed an apprehensive look up at her. For a heartbeat, he was certain she’d chosen her successor poorly.
But, the Ahl’Ma just smiled down at him as she lowered her head to the ground once more. The light within her diminished. Thren bowed his head, keeping vigil until the last quaking leaf twisted free and floated down into the grass. Whispering a prayer for her, he tipped the head of his new staff into her branches and that righteous orb set them afire.
For three days, her body burned. Thren mourned as his meadow burned along with her. The dryads kept the flames contained, protecting the surrounding redwoods, but the column of firelight stood out like a beacon as it burned through each of those nights. As directed, he waited until the last ember died, and then—one bucket at a time—began spreading her ashes throughout his beloved grove.
On the ninth day, a man appeared. Dressed simply, he conducted himself elegantly for an elf, and carried with him a decorative urn. For a while, he and Thren merely stood on the border of the scorched earth and stared awkwardly at one another. Then, in Endish, his native tongue, the stranger murmured a single word: “Myleum.”
Thren stood his ground, almost too protective after such a fateful event, but then the Ahl’Ma’s words came floating back to him as if carried upon the wind: ‘Here, the dead shall find peace.’ And so, somber, he nodded at the other elf and repeated the word back to him.
“Myleum.”
Alone, it meant enduring peace. Once again, he understood that his grove was changed forever.
Thren had no way of knowing how the stranger learned about the grove, but he watched from a distance as the elf picked his way through the trees until he found one that suited his needs. He whispered a prayer before spreading the ashes from his gold and lapis urn. He planted a little wooden marker between two of the tree’s exposed roots. Upon it, the name "Aggraphinia" had been carved. He left Thren without another word, and the druid went back to spreading the Ahl’Ma’s ashes. Instinctively, the druid knew more would come, so he began laying out the rules, working them over in his mind as he scooped powder into the bucket with his bare hands.
To his surprise, a seedling nestled among the soot and ash. Already, a single leaf had unfurled to open wide and reach for the sunlight. Dutifully, the druid cleared away the debris and made a place for that seedling to thrive.
Then bowing his head, solemnly… he cried.
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