Chapter 133
Part 19
Eventually Alilia stood and stretched, then surveyed the silently concentrating group. “We all need a
break.” she decided. “I’m inviting you to go flying with me among the great trees of Heartwood, capitol
city of The People of Life and my home for most of my life. It’s a beautiful ce to fly, night or day, and I
miss it. I’d like to stop in at my home there too.”
“Sure, that sounds like fun.” Mark agreed with a grin as he stood and Sent the scroll he was reading
back to his desk in the cottage.
“It sure does!” Val agreed as she flew up a few meters while stretching and pirouetting.
“I think it’s unanimous!” Povon agreed. “Though I think we three dragons had better assume smaller
Simcrums, if we’re going to be chasing elves through a forest without wrecking the ce. I think
about a two meter wingspan… There.”
“All right, we’re ready.” Kragorram stated as he and Karz did the same.
“Then follow me!” Aliliaughed, and Translocated.
PART 20
They appeared around her a momentter, over a hundred meters in the air. Mid-afternoon sunlight
dappled the leaves of the great trees all around them.
“Ah, home.” Alilia grinned as she slowly spun in the air and surveyed the busy city around her. “It’s hard
to believe I was here less than two weeks ago in real time.”
Elves and a few from other races, mostly humans, strolled or ran along the many narrow paths and
broad thoroughfares that were suspended from the trees all around them, and almost as many flew
among the many birds. The homes and businesses in the trees all around them bustled with activity. As
always, the incredibly vibrant life-force of the world’s lushest forest seemed almost palpable in the air.
“I feel that, a bit.” Val smiled. “The feeling that this is home, that is.”
“Of course you do, my sweet!” Aliliaughed as she flew over and gave her daughter a spinning hug.
“It’s in our blood!”
“Hmm. It’s funny I didn’t really feel that in The Nine Valleys when we went there to charge up.” Six
“I never spent much time in Las Valley, and even less a kilometer above it.” Talia thoughtfully stated
as they all took in the sights around them. “And it was night, which makes things seem different. I’m
sure when we visit First Valley you’ll get the same feeling. Though I think it more likely that the emotion
is induced in you through us. It may be inherently psionic, or just transferred by normal empathy from
parent to child, but I doubt it’s carried in the blood.”
“I definitely got that feeling in The Lair in Serminak.” Karz noted.
“And all three of you should get it if we ever go to Shinosa Valley, where I grew up.” Mark told his
children with a smile. “Though of course I’m sure it’s pretty different now from when Ist saw it.”
There was a pause, then Alilia said; “Well, we’re halfway between Sweettower, Mark and Talia’s ce
here, and my ce. You can just see Sweettower from here, that big maple over there, though it’s a lot
easier to spot from higher up. My ce is in that big walnut tree over there.
“Where would you like to go first?”
“Show us the sights!” Markughed. “You can be our tour guide! I’ve only been here once before, and
we only had time to see what we could see from Sweettower. One thing I would like to see is our new
hospital.”
“All right.” Alilia grinned as she released her daughter and tied her hair back with a ck ribbon she’d
Summoned. “I suggest some very deep, very soft Shielding, in case we collide with anything. There are
Content (C) N?v/elDra/ma.Org.
a lot of birds, branches, and other flyers in the air here, so it’s best to be safe. And besides, we’ll take
some time to appreciate the sights when we get to them, but between attractions I intend to have some
sport! Do try to keep up!”
And with that, she was off like a bolt fired from a marksman’s crossbow.
The rest chased after her, but there was obviously no catching her unless she let them. Heartwood was
a vast aerial obstacle course, and Alilia knew it all perfectly, as well as being the second-best flyer in
the group after Povon. Though the spaces between the great trees and between branches wererge,
they seemed far smaller at high speeds, and many were congested with flyers. More than once their
deep soft Shields deflected a likely collision.
Of course they’d been recognized almost as soon as they arrived, and soon there was a huge crowd of
elves following them around; keeping a polite distance when they stopped, and usually failing to keep
up when they flew. As elves are wont to do around celebrities, the entire crowd acted as though they
just happened to be going the same way by chance, and made no attempt to speak with them without
invitation.
There were sights aplenty to see. Along with the beauty and majesty of the great trees, Heartwood
featured great works of architecture; beautiful residences, businesses, government facilities, stadiums,
and amphitheatres, all grown from the branches and trunks of the great trees themselves, often
suspended from dozens of great thick vines that were as hard and stiff as the wood of any tree. Wildlife
was profuse throughout the city and on the ground beneath it, where the undergrowth was as extensive
as a normal healthy forest in the humannds.
There was also a mountain near the center of the city. Though most of it was overgrown by the forest,
asionally a jagged sheer face of bare dark-gray stone was visible, and the steams and rivers flowing
down its nks often formed beautiful waterfalls and misty pools as they made their way to its base and
joined the mighty River of Life, which flowed through the city and the nation from west to east.
The final attraction that Alilia showed them was The Heartwood Flight Racing Course.
There was no need for her to describe it; she just slowed to a stop in mid-air as they came to a good
vantage point from which to view it. It was deep twilight in the magic forest, and thebyrinthine course
was easily visible as a semi-transparent glowing blue tube over twenty meters wide. Numerous glowing
orange signs floated in the air around it, naming the course in Elvish. A few dozen elves were visible in
the course from Alilia’s vantage, all racing along it as fast as they could fly.
“Wow! This is great!” Fire enthused as they all stopped around Alilia, read the sign, and surveyed the
track.
“It was obviously modeled on a pan of worms.” Mark chuckled.
“Look there, the track actually spirals around that spruce tree right from the ground to the tip!” Karz
pointed out. “Twenty-eight wraps from bottom to top! Whoever designed this is an insane genius!”
“That’s not the half of it!” Aliliaughed. “It changes every hour, and it’s never the same twice! That way
no one has an advantage from knowing the course. It’s always arranged within the course volume,
which is a rough cylinder about half a kilometer wide from the ground to the top of the tallest tree here,
it’s always exactly five kilometers in length from start to finish along the center of the course, and
there’s always about the same number of turns and twists and bends. And it’s spelled to keep birds,
spectators and insects out of the track.
“The beginning is always in the same ce, on the ground over there at the westpass point of the
course space, but where it finishes is different every time the track changes.
“Shall we?” she finished with a grin.
“Oh we most definitely, absolutely shall!” Six enthused, and then the rest were chasing him around the
course volume to the starting point.
Povon insisted on paying the small fee for each of them, iming that it was her right as the wealthiest
among them. They were each registered by the course officials and given a small round red stone on a
string, which they were instructed to wear on their persons, and to not move its location on their bodies
during a race. It allowed the officials to constantly track the exact location and speed of every flyer, and
to register exactly every racer’s psed time from start to finish. That information was also used by
officials who supplied publicmentary during important races.