Chapter Six
A high domed ceiling. A natural stone dais. A stately fish pond. And a forested garden that circled the entire chamber...
Within, breaths caught in their chests as David, Miss Miller and Earth's Chipmunks saw the interior of the throne room. Its design was a beautiful departure from the more earthly examples they were used to seeing.
Most of the advisors and courtiers within took glanced yet immediate notice when Nira and her charge walked by. Their expressions ranged from the curious to the disdainful at the newcomers' appearances, but their voices died down to murmurs at their approach.
Up ahead, Nira's group could intuitively see the one element that tied the entire chamber together and dominated it at once.
A dark wood and ivy-laced throne sat in the center of the dais, far forward of them and the fish pond, on the other end of the chamber. Its sides were intricately carved with the markings of that world, carefully detailing the long lineage of the one who now sat upon it. Behind it, draped high on the wall the throne rested before, was a large, colorful pendant with EverSpring's symbol, a deep green silhouette of Arbomagnus, embroidered in its center.
Queen Winna was, in spite of her delicate raiment, a classic beauty. Soft, red hair curled and flowed over and around her head and comely face like crimson waves and was crowned with a wreath diadem woven around fat, brilliant gems. Her raiment was silken, translucent and flattered her noticeably toned body well with its shimmering greens, aquamarines and gold.
Nira told them to stay by the crowd and wait. Then she strode purposefully past the court and around the central pond to face the dais. She bowed deeply to the reclining queen above her.
"Arise, trusted Nira," Winna said pleasantly. "Have they come as was told?"
Nira raised her head, returning the smile, and said," They have, My Queen. The Children of The Explorers have returned. The Princebane may have come with the as well."
The queen perked up at the mention of the word, Princebane, and all looks of imperious dignity was replaced with undisguised hope in her eyes.
"Who? Which one is the bane?" she asked in an excited whisper.
The look in Nira's eyes answered the queen before she could."I don't know, Your Majesty," she said in a low voice."But if everything else has happened according to Writ, then he or she will be there with them."
Winna mulled it over for some seconds. Then she rose to address the court directly.
"I wish to speak with the newcomers. Everyone else may go until I have need of you."
The court as one bowed and began emptying the throne room. Nira turned to leave, but Winna spoke."Don't go, Nira. I may need you to help evaluate them."Nira bowed in acceptance.
When the last courtier left the double doors, Winna sat again and motioned the group forward. They walked ahead with tentative steps, conscious of every action and fearing an accidental faux pas.
Although they watched the queen with more of less averted eyes, their main attention was focused on Nira, who was coaching them with her eyes and subtle moves of her hands.
When they reached a few feet from the base of the dais, they all bowed simultaneously.
"Children of destiny. Children of the world of Sanctuary, welcome to EverSpring, your true home,"Winna said to them.
Gradually, they raised their eyes to her. Saw the newborn hope in her face.
"I know this all seems so unfamiliar and sudden for you. I can only apologize, but your return was inevitable and of the direst of reasons,"she said.
The queen's audience's faces grew darker with apprehension. Just what were they in the middle of?
"Our beautiful world is in the grip of a war."
Their hearts descended to their stomachs in record time.
"Most of our history has been a long struggle to hold back extinction itself,"said Winna,"And I'm afraid that our history will end all too soon. The forces of The Splintered One aren't content with sabotage, hit and run attacks and random hunts anymore. Whole villages are now being emptied and our people are dwindling in numbers."She fought to keep the strain from her voice, the demons of doubt from her heart. She forced a congenial smile.
"You see, our forces, while strong, just aren't strong enough to repel the constant attacks. However, a quick thrust into the heart of their power could turn the tide for us, and for that, we need help. Your help."
Every representative of I.T.O. was curiously unperturbed by all of this, which was in strong contrast to the others. Arthur took an obsequious step forward, looking fairly smug.
"Your Majesty, my father, our forces and I will not fail you or our people, now or ever, because, as you well know..."He glanced to the others, Simon and Jeanette particular."It was preordained."
He slid The Archive out from under his arm and presented to her with a deep bow. He was about to walk up to give it to Nira for closer presentation to Queen Winna, when Nira stopped his approach with a raised hand."We have our own, The Courtly Archive, but thank you, Young Arthur."
Arthur's face flashed from self-satisfaction to deep dismay and inner confusion. Surely The Archive was unique, one-of-a-kind, he figured. Not so, apparently. Not here, at any rate. He covered his befuddlement with graciousness in an instant."I'm sorry. Where we come from, this book is a veritable treasure of our history and very unique,"he said.
Nira perked at a thought."Actually, you could be right. That copy would be quite special, considering the fact that the Explorers might have added on to the original text to chronicle what they did while on Sanctuary."
"Sanctuary, ma'am?"
"The name of the world you come from. A long time ago, it was a place that was well named for us."
Winna brightened at that. A moment's curiosity was a welcome change from the current topic of her domain's troubles.
"Oh, yes! You all come from Sanctuary, I almost forgot. And as children of The Explorers of Sanctuary, you must tell us what it's like there. We could read from The Archive you have, but it wouldn't be the same as a real accounting of the world after it was settled. The creatures, the scenery, the world, itself. Please regale us."
Everyone in the group began to realize that Winna was most cordial and as regally gregarious as she could be. What she asked wasn't a command, but a simple question to satisfy a very understandable need. They began to relax inside by degrees and looked at her with pleasant surprise.
Nira turned to the queen, saying,"I was planning to give them a tour of Arbomagnus proper after their audience with you, Your Highness. If it pleases you, could they tell you of their home afterwards? After they have been settled in?"
Winna thought about it for a moment, then said graciously,"I'm sure they've all traveled hard and we must see to their every comfort while they are here and assisting us."She stood and addressed the entire group."Everyone, the halls of Arbomagnus are open to you."Then added with a welcoming smile that couldn't hide the ghost of sadness in it,"Welcome home."
Theodore stepped out of the suite that was loaned to his family, feeling more refreshed and relaxed then he had when he first arrived. The hot shower, the filling repast of vegetable dishes sent to him, and the clean change of clothes may have had something to do with it.
He went across the opulent corridor to The Miller's suite and knocked. He wanted to make sure everyone was present during Nira's tour since he didn't see his brothers or father minutes before.
The door opened and he felt like gelatin. Eleanor stood under the doorway, her blonde hair undone and flowing around her shoulders and back like a shimmering ghost.
"Oh, hi, Theodore. Come in. I'll be ready in a minute," she invited.
Theodore was relieved that she didn't ask him for anything, he couldn't manage anything more coherent than, "Uh, o-okay," as he entered.
He saw her walk to a cheval mirror nearby, then she began to primp and straighten the dress she was given and her hair.
"You look nice," he blurted out. It sounded friendly enough, but couldn't help being forced from a case of nerves.
Eleanor looked at him through the mirror, surprised and with a slight smile. Theodore was becoming an unexpected enigma to her. She was sure, before then, that he was either avoiding her outright or just keeping a clumsy, yet gentlemanly-reasoned distance from what seemed like strong advances from her. Now he began to show a side of himself that, if called rare, would be putting it kindly.
"Thank you," she demurely said, and as she looked down, she could see Theodore's hand hover and then pat at his pocket for a moment. 'What was in there?' she wondered. 'What was he hiding?'
The question was shelved when she remembered that there was no one else in the suite but the two of them. A pleasant anxiety made her change the subject.
"The rest of our families are with Nira, but don't know if I should go out looking like this," she said with a mock-innocent voice while letting flaxen rivers of her hair run through her fingers.
She was flirting, she knew, and the playful teasing of her loosely styled hair had a near hypnotic effect on her target. All the time, she never turned to talk to him while she stood at the mirror. Turning her body from one admiring angle to another, she secretly watched his reflection's reaction to her seemingly innocent display and was pleased with the results. He was fidgeting for certain, but he didn't exactly excuse himself, either.
"Ellie?"
"Yes, Theodore."
"Do you think we'll get out of here?"
The question caught her by surprise. It certainly wasn't the kind of question she might have expected from him at the moment and it took her a few seconds to switch tracks.
"Um, I hope so. I'd like to think so, anyway. Why'd you ask?"
"No reason, I guess," Theodore said. "I just figured that if we didn't get back, worse comes to worst, we might have to start over, here. I'm thinking about striking out as a chef or maybe start my own restaurant or tavern or whatever they have here. The band can't be my whole life."
Eleanor left the mirror and sat on the couch Theodore occupied, a few inches from him. "You're right. It can't be."
Theodore got more comfortable and actually looked at her fully with a curious twinkle. "What do you want to be when you grow up?" he asked with a quirky smile.
A smile that proved infectious as Eleanor turned her head away self-consciously. Another surprise from him, this spontaneity. She couldn't understand why her cheeks warmed, why she felt younger than she was. Was it the question or the questioner?
Theodore leaned over, his face close to hers, interested in seeing the expression she was hiding. Eleanor, not expecting Theodore to be so close to her, was startled by the sound of his breath in her ear and turned to him.
"I..." That was all she had time to say before her lips brushed for the merest of seconds across Theodore's and felt paralyzed.
It wasn't a kiss, as such, but the touch was electric and transfixed them solid. Their stare was locked, eyes to eyes, frozen, anxious and mindless. Except for a single impulse that was their puppeteer and drew their lips closer.
One inch...a quarter inch...a third...their whispered breath mingling hot.
Knock, knock, knock...
The spell that held them flew from them like birds to the sound from the door. Theodore blinked the interrupted away and scooted a few inches away from Eleanor, just as she, likewise, put some distance from him.
"Y-Yes?" she said, trying to compose herself.
Nira's voice floated from the other side of the door. "Young Eleanor, is Theodore in there with you?"
Eleanor hesitated for a second before answered. She saw her indecision and worry of being caught in an indelicate situation mirrored in Theodore, but it would have been bad form to lie to a host, especially if caught in the lie, somehow.
"Uh, yes, ma'am. He came over to lift me up-"
Theodore winced badly.
Eleanor felt like jumping out of a window for that gaff. "Uh, er...I-I mean to pick me up, Miss Nira." She looked apologetically to Theodore as he walked over to the door. He took a calming breath and opened.
"Hello, ma'am."
"Hello, young Theodore. Are you and Eleanor ready for the tour?"
"Yes, ma'am. Sorry we held you up," he said as he stepped out into the corridor and deferentially looked down the hall.
Eleanor followed suit, but just as she crossed the threshold and passed Nira, she caught a look from Nira that was ambivalent, at best. Half disapproving and half admiringly amused.
Eleanor reached Theodore and performed the selfsame, self-conscious stare up ahead. Nira, now every inch the chaperone, arrived behind them and with a cordial voice, gestured forward.
"Shall we?" she offered, then she marched them off with a knowing smirk.
The itinerary weaved Nira and her group through a good number of areas in Arbomagnus, as she promised. Most were public, a few, more private, like Sword Hall, where the domain's armed forces trained under the tintinnabulations of sword strikes and the harsh commands of battle-hardened instructors, and gave their oaths of service.
Or The Chambers of The Measurers, Arbomagnus' answer to a colossal Think Tank, holding the greatest philosophers, scientists, engineers and mathematicians EverSpring ever produced, and displaying their greatest achievements to date.
Or The Gardens of The Wood, a vast, bucolic farm complex, complete with native livestock, that took up eight levels and almost all of the width of Arbomagnus' interior to house, providing food for all of the citizenry of the massive tree.
It wasn't until later that day, that the group returned to the world outside of the Super Tree from a stair cased, well-guarded entrance at root level. The sun sat at an angle in the sky that brightened their area of the clearing under the tree. It also illuminated the hundred or so faces that stood in a crowd, anxious to meet The Children of The Explorers.
A contingent of GuardsMunks that traveled with Nira and her charge during the tour quickly took defensive positions to the sides and ahead of them, acting like a buffer against any overzealous well-wishers. When Theodore and the others were seen, they were hit with applause and adulation that rivaled the most enthusiastic response to any public appearance they may have garnered back home.
Nira looked apologetic to her group. 'So much for a quiet tour,' she thought. "Word must have leaked out about you after we left Her Highness," she explained to them.
"Hey, no sweat. We go through this kind of thing all the time," Brittany dismissed, not bothering to mention the veritable thrill it gave her every time she found herself in such situations.
Eleanor looked at the various faces that looked back at her and the others, incredulously. They were here not for the excitement of being near celebrities or for frivolous entertainment. These were the common folk, the populace and the backbone that supported the lofty that governed them. In their eyes they held no agenda, nothing but the hope they ascribed onto her and the others that the war would end and resign itself to its place in history.
"Is this for us?" Eleanor asked Nira after she caught her breath from the reality of she saw in front of her.
"Yes, Eleanor," Nira said solemnly. "They are why you are here. This is what you are doing and for whom. Not for the queen, not for me, not even for yourselves."
From one side of her, Nira heard Arthur say to his father, low and disdainful, "I don't believe they'd go through all of this. Although we can certainly offer far more for them than The Millers or The Sevilles ever could, prophecy or no prophecy."
"They do this to honor you," Nira explained, wondering why the boy would want to...denigrate...the very people who needed him so. Perhaps he was just tired. "I hope you can see that, young Arthur."
For diplomacy's sake, Arthur didn't tell her what he, and he knew, I.T.O. saw ahead of them. The milling masses were to him both beautiful, logical people whose need to cheer him and his people's might and power was a fundamental right, and, on the other hand, all too trusting, primitive, lacking any true purpose or focus, and essentially naive puppets of a sheltered, ineffectual queen.
He looked back to the audience with an oily, self-satisfied smile. "Forgive me, Mistress Nira. You're quite right. They are honoring us. And when I.T.O. wins this bothersome war for you and your queen, the masses will see my people as the saviors they always set themselves out to be. When they cheer again, it will be most dutifully."
Nira cocked an eyebrow at that, but decided not to say anything further to the boy on the subject.
Jeanette regarded Nira a question. "Princebane, Miss Nira. I'm hearing some of the crowd saying that. Is that what we are?"
"Oh, no, Jeanette. Although The Archive tells of your return and the eventual defeat of The Splintered One, it doesn't make mention of who The Princebane is, other than the fact that it travels with The Children of The Explorers."
"What does this Princebane do, exactly?" Simon asked while giving the occasional wave to the throng.
Nira thought about that for a moment, then answered. "No one truly knows. While everyone will have something to contribute to The Splintered One's destruction, only the actions of The Princebane will ensure total victory."
"Then, I guess we won't know who that is until it's over," Theodore said simply.
"Indeed," Nira agreed.
Eleanor counted herself lucky that no one noticed her slipping away from the group just then. The soft sounds of nature, no matter how alien or familiar, soothed her and worked towards making her forget her pending obligations to this world.
She didn't want to seem ungrateful to Nira for the more than gracious hospitality shown as she sauntered away from them, but she wanted to take in the beauty of the place without a travelogue or her friends and family breathing down her neck in a group.
She casually glanced upward at the faint, distant caws of what had to be the flying fauna of the world. Too far to be discerned by sight, they appeared as black specks drifting in lazy, circular formations in the blue sky.
Eleanor found herself thinking about vacationing again. It was a passing thought, as were the previous times, but she didn't dismiss it out of hand, either. They all needed some downtime. Now, more than ever.
As the distance from the others grew, thoughts began to unhinge themselves from her control and float up to the forefront. Would they ever make it home again? Was this some super-realistic dream that caught her unawares in her dressing room back in Bulgravia due to overwork?
On Earth, the belief in the existence of other worlds was what one had to prove his or her open-mindedness to others, even if no such proof was ever offered.
If the air she was breathing and the ground she was walking upon and, more importantly, if the jarring, open-mouthed shrieks from a group of deep green, fern covered bird-things screaming towards her were real in any way, then those open-minded folk back on Earth just paid an amazing amount of lip service.
In her screams and through the whirlwind flurry of green movement, Eleanor noticed with dread shock that the number of attackers matched the number of flyers she saw moments before. Judging from their size, roughly seven feet in length, they were powerfully built.
She quickly hoped that this attack was due to her wandering into some territory that only the creatures acknowledged or disturbing some earthbound nests. She could simply run back to Nira and the others if that was the case, because if they were birds of prey on a hunt...
On the arrival of the beasts, however, the crowd, as one, scattered to any avenue of safety available in a loud, chaotic panic.
Despite the confusing storm of the mob, unsheathed GuardsMunks, The Millers and The Sevilles rushed to Eleanor with fear-borne speed. Three of the four fern-like birds, called, aptly enough, fern-flyers, by the guards present, left the fourth to Eleanor while they swooped low or landed and snapped fiercely at her defenders.
Eleanor was close enough to hear the GuardsMunks tell the others to go back for safety's sake, but predictably, they began to fan out instead, simultaneously distracting the three flyers and trying to outflank them so as to get a shot at the lone flyer with Eleanor.
Eleanor brought up her arms to try and ward off the leafy growths as they brushed and pressed against her. Every time she tried to sidestep or outrun her antagonist, the fern-flyer would seemingly anticipate the move while jockeying for a position to use its wickedly thorned talons.
Theodore yelled over and over, waving his arms in wide arcs and hoping to frighten away the closest fern-flyer, just as the others did. His mind maddeningly debated between staying and distracting the beasts, and maybe the GuardsMunks getting to the one with Eleanor, and going to her, himself.
A thrown stone that connected to the head of one of the fern-flyers caused that one to turn and join its partners momentarily, clearing the way between Theodore, Eleanor and her attacker. With an adrenaline and fear-fueled jolt and not much else, his mind blanked and he charged.
Eleanor managed to catch a few quick glimpses of Theodore approaching dangerously close and tearing copious handfuls of fern-feathers from the creature's flank and left wing.
'Come on,' Theodore thought desperately. 'I know this hurts you, so turn away from Ellie and attack me! Please!'
The bird-thing did buck under the torturous plucking it received, rewarding Theodore with pained, occasional snaps at him, but it, too, was determined on staying with Eleanor.
"No! Look out, Theodore!" Eleanor warned as the fern-flyer lunged its woody beak out at him again, making Theodore defensively jump back.
Eleanor raised her arm again to ward off another wing buffet when she suddenly felt that arm get gripped in a frighteningly strong hold. In her shock, she looked up to see the fern-flyer now hovering just above her, her arm held securely in one of its powerful talons, the thorns from it, parting the soft fur and breaking the skin slightly.
In pain, she brought her other arm up to try and free herself, but then felt herself jerked upward as the second talon snatched that arm and the fern-flyer began to take off.
With a sharp screech, it rocketed up and Eleanor could hear Theodore's anguished yells grow fainter with each wing beat. The other fern-flyers, hearing the signal from their airborne partner, took off without preamble.
The rest of The Millers and The Sevilles rushed to where Theodore numbly stood, centered around a loose blanket of fern-feathers and speckled with drops of sap-like blood from where he pulled them free.
"Theodore, are you all right?" David blurted out in a breath.
"Yeah," his son said with precious little emotion, still staring out at the swift specks soaring and taking a bearing for the horizon.
Miss Miller turned to one of the GuardsMunks with a face twisted in hysterics. "I want my daughter back! Get her! Get her back! Go get her!" She couldn't say any more after that because she collapsed to the earth, weeping inconsolably.
"We will do everything that's in our power, Mistress Miller," the GuardsMunk said, willing her to believe him. He had seen attacks like this and it was never good nor did it ever end well for the victims. "Please, Mistress, we must return to Arbomagnus. It's safer there and we can prepare a search for you child."
He motioned for two of his company to help her up and escort her back. When he turned back to the direction of Nira and the others, it was in time to see another war in the making.
Both families partially encircled Arthur and Phillip, not particularly concerned that a couple of nearby SecuriMunks forming a personal guard, began maneuvering between father and son, and everyone else.
"You really should think about what you're doing, people," Philip said drolly. "I would truly hate for my guards to come to any misunderstandings about your intentions."
"Stuff it, pal," Alvin shot back. "We needed your help over here. Why didn't you send your bookends to help us out?"
"Because my 'bookends', as you call them, answer to me and protect only me and my son. I would have thought that their absence from your little fracas would have made that apparent, even to you," came the frosty reply.
"You guys stink," Brittany growled, stepping up to Phillip. "That's my sister up there. You say that you're all about Chipmunks, but you're so full of it."
"In case you haven't been paying attention, Miss Miller, this world is in grip of a war and people die in wars. I read that somewhere."
"Our sister's not dead," Jeanette nearly shouted, her features dark.
"Well, if she's got a good head on her shoulders, she might just survive," Phillip said smoothly. "Otherwise, this doesn't concern I.T.O."
Before any of the guards could stop her, Brittany, with a rare speed, hauled off and punched Phillip solidly in his eye.
"I bet you're concerned now, huh?" she yelled defiantly as the SecuriMunks raised weapons.
Arthur tensed for a fight as Jeanette and all The Sevilles, save Theodore, move protectively around Brittany, preparing to rush the guards if they attempted to fire their ThunderGuns.
"Hold, or you will all be arrested!"
They all froze and turned to see Nira, her stately bearing, now seriously imperious and the growing number of GuardsMunks around her were making her threat very real.
"Your presence here is too important to everything here. What you do could change the very course of the war for us, and since any of you could be The Princebane, you will not bring harm to yourselves in any way. Fail to heed this and by The Great Green Father, you will suffer before our world does." She took a breath and released it, softening some, then she regarded The Millers.
"Brittany, Jeanette, I will inform Queen Winna personally of what happened and I will do everything I can to convince her to send a search party for Eleanor within the hour. I want you to be strong in the meantime. Can you?"
The anguish and fear never left the sisters' faces and Nira didn't expect it to, but they nodded with crushed acceptance.
David, sensing it was time to return to Arbomagnus, thought about gathering his sons and dealing with this new wave of troubles hitting his friends and family, when he noticed an absence of one of them.
He found Theodore where he was standing the entire time since the abduction, still watching the cloudless skies of the day, but not noticing that the fistful of fern-feathers his son was gripping was slowly being gripped tighter and tighter still.