"How does Shari know where the human boundary is?"
Gerald laughed. "He does not care about such mundane transient things as human boundaries. Those who live on the periphery of his existence must hack away at his roots on a daily basis to keep Shari from overtaking their homes."
He grinned. "But you know how it is when you prune your plants,"
Mira shook her head.
"When you prune a plant, it grows even more vigorously. In fact..." he waved his hand with a flourish. "If you go above ground into the very forest of Shari, you will see many stone structures that have been overtaken by Shari, their roofs crushed by the weight of the roots and limbs of the Great Oak.
Mira shivered. It sounded seriously invasive to her.
"How are you able to live here then? Does Shari allow you to stay here without...you know...crushing you?"
"It is a symbiotic existence. Shari provides for us and we take care of Shari." He placed a hand over his heart in reverence.
"It is the same for us pantherans and our savanna," Jana said.
"As well for us wargs and our bog." Theo joined in.
"Sadly, we Ashryans are terrible stewards of our land," Erick sighed. "We wreak havoc, both physically and magikally wherever we spread into. We never seem to learn our lessons."
In any case, we are here because we received word that you have picked up on magikal signatures of King Zander of the Northern Realm.
"Yes. It is a very weak signature, but there is no doubt as to its originator. It is definitely King Zander's magik."
"Where is it emanating from?" Mira asked, with her heart in her mouth.
In answer, he spoke a quick Command.
"Mashangjokai"
The chamber's ceiling opened up, revealing the mottled sunlight of a clearing.
"This way," he pointed up and levitated upward into the bright green reaches.
Erick smiled down at Mira. "Shall we?" He picked her up and in a bound, had levitated out of the chamber.
Theo turned to Jana, about to offer the same assistance but Jana was no longer even standing next to him.
Using her powerful hind legs, she had leaped upward into the branches that were extending down from the various branches that grew toward the center of the chamber.
Bounding in quick successions from limb to limb, within seconds Jana had cleared the space.
Theo laughed and levitated himself out to join the rest of the group.
The forest glade above the cavern was partially submerged in shadows. It was no brighter than the cavern below, but the light streaming through the leaves had a different quality.
It was warmer.
For Mira, the colors that emerged from true sunlight held a warmer tone emitting a yellowish glow. It was a softer, more relaxing warm tone.
The light emitted from dolmian spheres were of a much cooler tone---what Mira saw as a blue-ish white that delivered a clear and clean glow but without the warmth that the sun evoked.
Up here, the wind also held a different quality. It was free-reign, flowing through open meadows and spaces between the forested glade. It did not whistle and howl as if it was forced through holes and tunnels underground.
There was also a clean freshness that could only be found within a sun-drenched world.
The oak forest held its own scent, something reminiscent of warm vanilla. The farther they walked, the stronger the vanilla scent grew.
It was a difference that could only be felt if one had spent a certain amount of time underground.
The group followed Gerald Pomfrey through the glade, past a trickling brook, and finally to an area where huge oaks clumped together into an enclave. Within the living oak enclave were structures that had been magically constructed with oakwood.
There were no nails, no seams and no sharp corners. Everything looked as if it had organically grown into the structure that it needed to be.
Gerald Pomfrey turned back to the group.
"Welcome to Celadonia."
The group followed Gerald Pomfrey up a set of ladders and hanging walkways until they reached one of the main trunks high above the ground. He opened the double doors and a brightly lit anterior chamber.
Within the center of the chamber was a large glowing sphere made of a light green crystal. Gerald Pomfrey approached the crystal and reached out with his hands. Where his fingertips touched, the crystal turned dark.
He muttered a Command.
"Rangwuokandao"
Mira's eyes widened. She had been living in Ashrya long enough to know that the command he had just uttered was a scrying command. So this green crystal must be a scrying crystal.
In a matter of seconds, the dark areas grew until the entire crystal was a dark orb. From within the dark orb, Mira could see a tiny light like a firefly twisting and turning, swooping and hovering in the darkness. It was moving through a starry night sky with no indication of where it was located.
The firefly flitted and fluttered about through a darkened desert until it reached the foothills of a craigy hillside. Immediately ahead of the firefly was a large dark castle with a multitude of towers, reaching up into the night sky.
The firefly made a beeline for the tallest tower and slipped in through one of the slits of the tall pointed lancet windows. At first, everything was dark. But then eventually there was enough light to be able to see the form of a man.
He was lying on a bed, unmoving. Mira stared at the form, fascinated. It was too dark for her to make out the identity of the person, but there was no doubt that it was a human. For a moment, she thought the man was dead, but then with deadly accuracy, he threw a tiny arc of blue light at the firefly, effectively killing it.
The orb suddenly brightened. The darkness had cleared up as quickly as it came. The scrying orb was once again a normal glowing green crystal.
With that tiny action of the finger, Mira's eyes gushed with tears. She could recognize his movement, no matter how small. That was Zander.
"This looks as if it's dark where he is," Erick mused, rubbing his chin.
Gerald Pomfrey shook his head. "This is an archived memory of a single magik firefly feeler that found him. Unfortunately for us, Zander---if indeed that is who is lying in that tower---squashed the feeler before it could send us its location."
"Were you at least able to get a generalized location?"
He shook his head. "I sent out literally thousands and thousands of these fireflies. They spread out like a swarm from the top of this oak tree into all the corners of the world."
"So we have no idea where this tower is…" Mira dashed the tears from her eyes.
"What about the time/distance calculation? Would we be able to at least get a general idea of how quickly a firefly could fly and how far it could fly at that speed before it got squashed?"
"Yes. With the few calculations that we were able to throw together, we can tell that it is somewhere in the vicinity between Topaz and Heliotrope."
"That tower though...it's very distinctive…" Mira breathed.
Gerald Pomfrey shook his head. "It is actually a very common structure found throughout the southern lands. In the north, you have many many structures of red tiled roofs with stucco walled buildings scattered across the Northern Realm."
He waved his hand. "Here in the Southern Realm, we have all these tall dark castle towers built from the native dark granite. They stick up like sentinels from the depths of hell."
Ziggy scratched his head. "The Topaz Academy is---"
"Is an anomaly. The person who built that Academy originally came from the Northern Realm and was trying to recreate the structures of his homeland."
"But I could see that it flew through a desert before reaching the craggy hillside where the tall spires of the towers could be seen." Mira pointed out. "Is there any area that has a desert?"
"Yes, Your Majesty." Daran replied. "Immediately outside of Topaz, there is the Topazian Desert."
"Could we assume that perhaps he is somewhere in Topaz?" Mira looked at Gerald Pomfrey with desperate eyes.
"We could, except that is a fairly large desert that touches three major cities as well as a half-dozen smaller villages. Topaz touches its southern border, Heliotrope is to its east, and Amethyst is north of Topaz Desert."
"I just need to get close enough…"
"Are you soul-bonded to King Zander, Your Highness?" Gerald Pomfrey turned to her with a strange glitter in his eyes.
"I'm...not sure…" She pulled down her shirt collar to reveal the choker necklet containing Zander's pendant. "Would this be considered a 'soul-bond' item?"
Gerald gazed at the choker for a moment. "It is not the typical soul-bond wristband but that means nothing to a wizard like King Zander. I'm sure he could probably make anything into a soul bond."
"Soul-bond wristband?"
"Like this," Gerald held up his right hand where a gleaming silver metal band encircled his right wrist. "Tinsel Pomfrey has one just like this, except it's on his left hand."
"We are soul-bonded. I can find him anywhere he roams within the world."
"How are you able to find him?"
"I can feel his presence. I only need to follow that tiny lead and it will take me to him."
Erick caught and held Mira's eyes. "Can you feel Zander's presence?"
Mira paused for a moment.
"Yes."