Rebirth of the Nephilim-Chapter 617: Quiet Lands

The view from above the mountains north of Thracina was one of the more enchanting sights Jadis could remember seeing, if she discounted the visions of beauty that she had the privilege of waking up to on most days. Nothing could really compare to her lovers, not in her eyes. Or Hope, who shared that spot at the top of her most favorite of all things she had ever seen or would ever see, so far as she was concerned. But when it came to landscapes, the one she was flying over that morning was pretty darn beautiful, she had to admit.

About thirty minutes before, Jadis had departed from Lyssandria’s temple in Thracina, leaving the majority of her lovers behind. The only one who was accompanying her that day was Meli, since it was to her old family grove that they were heading. The possibility of bringing others had been discussed, up to and including transporting everyone on the Leviathan, but the final decision had been to keep the trip short and with as few people as possible. Aside from the fact that there were still quite a lot of things that needed to be done around Thracina in preparation for the coming campaign, Meli had stated emphatically that her family would not be happy to have so many visitors arriving on their metaphorical doorstep. Dryads lived away from the other races for many reasons, not the least of which was for the peace and solitude of a simple life. Bringing the Leviathan to a grove would just cause the Dryads a great deal of disturbance, which was counterproductive to their goal of getting the Dryads to help them with Volto’s blight problems.

So, to avoid as many complications as possible, it was just Jadis and Meli. Not even Alex was with them, since the distance they were flying wasn’t so far that Jadis would need her to refill her magic reserves. She still brought a few potions that Amarantha had kindly provided that would give her a boost to her magic pool if she ended up using more than she thought, but Jadis was certain that she would be fine. She could always use Convergence of the Progenitor to meditate and regain a lot of magic during quiet moments, plus she would get increased magic regeneration whenever Alex used her own version of that skill, thanks to their bond. No, running out of magic wasn’t a concern.

Convincing Meli’s family to listen to their request was the real trouble.

“How much further do you think we need to go?” Jay called out to Meli.

Poking her head out of the blankets she was wrapped in, Meli stuck an arm out and pointed in a direction slightly to the east.

“Follow that river,” the druid shouted. “When it gets to the lake shaped like a hand, turn straight east.”

The blankets, while not strictly necessary, were for Meli’s comfort. While Jadis was fine thanks to the padding under her armor and her ridiculously high Fortitude stat, they were flying thousands of feet in the air at speeds that matched what some planes back on Earth were capable of. Jadis had no real estimate of their speed since she had no true frame of reference, but the wind was strong enough to blow the petals from Meli’s hair without protection, hence the blankets.

Honestly, Jadis would have preferred to fly a little lower and slower, if circumstances were different. They needed the height and the speed to get to their destination quickly and without interference, but her eyes were continually drawn to the gorgeous lands below. Jadis wasn’t sure if her body had some kind of ingrained, instinctual response or something, but she really did feel drawn to the landscape they were flying over.

These were the lands where the ancient Nephilim had once lived, after all.

The mountains that cut between central Volto and the north were old. Technically a part of the same mountain range as the one they had flown over in the Leviathan on the last leg of the journey to Thracina, the mountains in this section of the range had a more ancient feel to them. The low peaks were broken by canyons and crevices that revealed the slate gray stone of their foundations, while trees older than myths spread their deep green leaves to the cloudy sky. Mountain lakes spilled over into white waterfalls that filled more lakes still, which would themselves disappear beneath the earth where it had been fractured long ago. Every now and again, some ancient structure, its stone worn smooth from rain and time, would peek out from beneath the canopy of green, only to be lost among the shadows again a moment later. Mountains fell away to rolling hills, and gnarled forests mixed with windswept meadows. Rushing streams met and became placid rivers, and the ponds and lakes that dotted the landscape reflected the dappled sun on their still surfaces.

“Are there no Voltonian cities or settlements near where your family’s grove is?” Jadis had asked Meli the night before. “You make it sound like it’s nothing but wilderness.”

“There are some,” Meli had told her. “Not many. There are no easy ways over the mountains. The fastest way to reach the rest of Volto for most who live in the Crook is by sea, so that is where the settlements can be found.”

The Crook, or The Crook of Lyssandria’s Arm, was the land in the northern reaches of Volto. The Galica Mountains stretched in a mirror of the coast, bending around to the west at its furthest northern reach in a shape that was reminiscent of an arm being held in a scooped position. Technically, the most northern reaches of the Galica Mountains were a part of the Kingdom of Parusyat, but most of the territory was within Volto’s borders. With the sea to the west and the mountains to the east, the land was both protected and secluded from the rest of the world, with only a single pass between the mountains and the sea to the northwest that allowed for easy land travel.

Jadis knew that she had no actual connection to Asteria. The ancient and long crumbled kingdom of the Nephilim was not a part of her personal history. Yes, she had been reborn a Nephilim on Oros, but she had grown up as a human on Earth. If she was going to feel a connection to some kind of ancestral home, it would probably be to Sweden, where her father’s parents were from. Or maybe New Jersey, since her mother’s family tree was so deeply rooted in America that none would even pretend to have roots in Europe. She had not grown up on stories of Asteria, nor had she ever even heard of the place before a few months ago.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

And yet…

“It’s so beautiful…” Jay whispered as she inadvertently slowed. “So… calm…”

Dropping altitude, Jadis flew low enough that she was able to clearly spot the wildlife that had claimed Asteria for their own. Strange elk with shaggy red fur and curling antlers stalked among the shadows of the forest, while flocks of sheep with gold and silver fleece grazed the quiet fields. Small, furry things that looked like a mix between a racoon and a kangaroo hopped between branches, and wyverns the size of seagulls flapped their blue wings as they swooped low over tranquil waters. A pack of lions that were colored gray with white stripes lounged in a patch of sunlight while a male with a black mane watched over the pride with an air of propriety.

When Jadis’ shadow passing overhead caused a snake as long as a ship to uncoil and slip away into waters of a cold lake, she realized that she had dipped too low to properly gauge which direction she should be going.

“This is called Lake Manus,” Meli stated quietly, her subdued voice easy to hear without the wind rushing past Jay’s ears. “At least, that is the name that has been passed down. It may have been called something else, long ago.”

“If that’s what it’s called now, then that’s what it is,” Jay murmured as she turned to the east. “How far is your grove from here?”

“Not far. Even at a slower speed, it will not take long to fly there. Look for the stone spire at the edge of a crescent lake. The grove is at the base of the spire.”

Lifting a little higher into the air, Jadis found that she could see the spire Meli was referring to, even though it was a good distance away. It looked like a natural stone formation, a tor Jadis thought was the name, that had been worn down to a point over countless years. If they had been walking, it probably would have taken half the day to get to the spire, but flying meant that they were there in minutes.

The tor had ancient trees growing from the cracks and crevices of its weathered exterior, and Jadis could see that at some point, someone had carved steps into the stone that led all the way to the top. The lake at the base of the rock formation arched around it like a crescent moon, and while the forest there was thick, a few old stone structures peeked out from the leaves on the far side of the water. Since Meli had said that the grove was at the base of the tor, Jadis flew past the water, circling the spire to get to the eastern side. As she did so, the Dryad in Jay’s arms let out a startled gasp of alarm.

“What happened to the κήπος…?”

While Jadis didn’t understand the word that Meli had used, she had no trouble at all spotting what was wrong. Beyond the spindly tor, a swath of destruction reached out far into the forest. Acres of trees had been burned black with fire, creating an ugly scar that stretched out to the east like a second shadow of the spire.

No, not fire, Jadis realized. The trees had not been burned. They had been blackened with rot, diseased beyond anything natural. Withered leaves littered the ground, and noxious muck that smelled of blood and death pooled in the low spots. Not even fungus seemed to grow in the wretched, rotten scar of blight, and Jadis could not see any sign of a single living creature, be it bird or beast, going anywhere near the dead land.

“Where’s the grove?” Jay asked, dearly hoping that they had not just arrived to find a grave.

“Down there,” Meli indicated a patch of the forest where the trees grew tall and wide. “Land in that clearing, with the white stone.”

Jadis did as she was told while also keeping her eyes on the lookout for any sign of an enemy. The tip of the rotted land just barely touched the edge of where Jadis assumed Meli’s family grove began, so she did not think that the sacred place had been destroyed. That didn’t mean that the Dryads who were supposed to be protecting the area from harm were still alive, though, nor that whatever had caused the destruction wasn’t still around.

Just as all three sets of Jadis’ metal boots settled onto the grassy mound, a man’s voice called out from the forest around her.

“Ποιος είσαι; Μίλα ήρεμα, αλλιώς η ζωή σου θα χαθεί.”

Jadis could not tell where the voice was coming from, as it seemed to echo from all around her. She couldn’t quite understand what the words meant, either, though her time spent with Meli was starting to rub off on her since she caught one or two words that were familiar. If nothing else, the tone of the man’s voice told her that he wasn’t happy to have visitors and was probably very willing to enforce his desire to be left alone.

“Είμαι εγώ, η Μέλι. Επέστρεψα να μιλήσω με τη γιαγιά.”

Meli’s voice rang out clearly as she slipped from Jay’s arms. Letting the blankets that had wrapped her fall away, the Dryad walked a few paces to the fore of Jay, standing tall in her newly enchanted gear. She did not look to the left nor the right but stared straight ahead into the leafy shadows before them. Jadis saw nothing there, but Meli spoke as though the man who had challenged them stood no more than a few feet in front of her.

“I bring Jadis Ahlstrom with me,” Meli stated in her plane tones. “She is the last of the Nephilim, a mighty warrior, and she is my lover.” Almost as thought it were an afterthought, the druid continued after a second. “She is all three of the figures you see behind me. They are not illusions.”

Before Jadis’ eyes, two figures seemed to melt out of the shadows and leaves that surrounded the small clearing.

The first, and most noticeable, was a massive elk. It looked like the same kind Jadis had seen while flying across the meadows earlier, except that it was twice again as large as the others had been. The rack of antlers on its head came to many sharp points, and when it opened its mouth to let out a puff of steaming air, she saw that its teeth were suspiciously sharp for what should have been an herbivore. While its fur was red like its smaller kin, this elk had swirling patches of blue across its flanks, and Jadis could not tell if the coloration was natural or dyed. There was no sign of a bit or bridle, nor did Jadis expect there to be.

The second figure who came out was a Dryad. Tall and thin, with long limbs that seemed to stretch in the way that his kind moved, the man had long hair fronds from which blue and green leaves grew all the way down to the middle of his back. Two short and thick horns curved out on either side of his head, pointing inwards towards each other. His skin was a dark brown bark, much duskier than Meli was, and there was a roughness to his texture that she did not possess. The Dryad’s face was long and his nose was patrician, and his eyes shone with a familiar, bright orange color.

“Greetings, father,” Meli inclined her head to the man. “I hope you have been well.”

The man’s expression did not change as he blankly stared at his daughter. The silence was filled only by the sway of a few trees in the wind, and the shifting of the great elk’s hooves.

“Greetings, Meli. I am glad to see you are not dead.”

Well. It wasn’t the worst sentiment Jadis could have imagined him saying.