Sanctum of the World

The next morning, Luke passes two Spring Pixies on his way to the Sanctum gate. He can’t quite make out what they’re discussing, but they seem excited as they zip by, nearly colliding with him. Amethyst is waiting by the portal as he arrives in the realm.

“Are you waiting for me, or for those two Spring Pix that nearly ran into me on the way here?” he teases.

“The Pixies are searching for their Spring Court stewards. I don’t expect them back for some time,” Amethyst replies.

“Stewards?” he raises an eyebrow.

“The Pixies tell me that there are no royals left of the Spring Court. The Vampires consumed their entire royal line. It is most troubling news, and it would explain why your world is so out of balance. We’ll deal with the Courts later. For now, I need Sylphs to assist with what we plan to do,” Amethyst smiles.

Luke shivers at the term ‘consumed.’ “No wonder Mélodie said they were a blight that needed to be removed,” he mutters with a slight frown. “Why do you need more Spring Fae? Aren’t Susan and Penny sufficient for the task?”

“I worry we may drain the Human Druids, I want a backup if they need rest,” Amethyst remarks.

“And Fae are better?” he challenges.

“Master Goodson, while Humans are capable, curious and cunning, you are not naturally magical,” Amethyst returns. “Until we can summon the Elves, I will rely on the Fae to provide the resources I need.”

“You know, I…” he starts.

“You are third generation Human mixed from your Elven ancestry, young Master Goodson. While you are a capable arcanist, you do not wield the powers I require,” Amethyst cuts him off. “None of you here do. We need Gaia’s Firstborn to truly rebuild The Sanctum.”

“Alright, fair enough, you win!” he raises his hands in surrender. They turn and walk to the school. “Where do we begin this morning?” he probes, changing the subject.

“I want to reconnect the back gardens, then we can repair the bridge to the town for you to help rebuild it,” she answers. “Your adepts should wake soon. I’d like them to witness what we’re doing so that they can repeat the process.”

“My adepts are mostly alchemists,” Luke counters. “Only three have any telekinetic abilities.”

“And the other two?” she probes.

“Fabricators. They can create food, water, shape stone and bend wood. I thought their talents in manipulation would come handy,” Luke replies.

“You are ever the capable planner that your Arch Mage has been praising,” Amethyst smiles and Luke raises an eyebrow. “You seem so close, yet so distant. May I pry into why you’ve nearly cut yourself off from the friends who need you?”

Luke frowns and looks down at the expectant Fae. It should be illegal how something that feels so ancient and wise can wield such an innocent-looking face.

Luke answers the question he’s rarely told others. “I’m a year older than Adam, and my father involved me in the Council of Magi of the Sanctum that was,” he explains. “They rounded down the ear tips I was born with so that I could blend in with the Humans on Earth. I didn’t want to leave Sanctum, they made me!” his anger rises at the memory. “When we returned and saw what little remained… I felt like it was my fault for leaving. My family is next to the Arch Mage’s in power. We were the stewards who were supposed to keep the realm safe! I failed my people in letting it be destroyed!”

“So, instead of helping them rebuild, you abandoned your duty as steward in your guilt?” she returns.

“Gods! How you can look so innocent, yet read right through me, is absolutely irritating!” he gasps. “How did you know?” he narrows his eyes, and she returns a knowing smile. “You are too much sometimes!” he grumbles.

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” she chimes.

Luke’s eyes widen. He draws a breath, and then releases it with a chuckle, shaking his head. “This will be an interesting week,” he smiles.

“You’ll be with us all week?” she probes as they reach the school.

“Yes, I’ve taken the week off. My son Clark is old enough to run things until I return,” he smiles.

“Can I inquire what this company of yours does?” she probes as they make their way to the kitchen.

“We make beverages, nothing more,” he returns with a coy smile.

“His company brews magical potions, then dilutes them with vitamin enriched water; passing them off as energy drinks,” Adam remarks as they sit down at the table.

“AdamAid was your creation. I merely market it better than you did,” Luke smirks. “The drinks energize and bolster the body’s metabolism without dangerous chemicals. They’re only mildly addictive, yet have no narcotics, steroids, concentrated caffeine or other harmful toxins that other energy drinks contain. They’re perfectly natural and safe to use,” Luke defends his popular product.

“The non-magical population has not caught on to your ruse?” Amethyst smiles.

“Nope!” Luke grins. “They are none the wiser. The potions are cheaper to produce and more environmentally friendly than anything else on the market; making the products we offer the first choice for most sports teams. As the potions fully metabolize in the body, there is no residue in tests. Their athletes are healthy, energized, awake and able — without destroying their bodies with dangerous drugs.”

“Your magical society affects your world discretely. You slowly influencing humankind without exposing itself?” she probes and they nod. “Such a cunning race indeed,” she smiles.

Amethyst crosses the bridge to the back gardens. She notes how the water flows from the middle of the bridge, flowing down both sides to the front of the property. “Good, the water source is intact.” She turns her focus to the task ahead. The back half of the gardens have been sheared off. It floats ten meters above and away from where they are standing.

“So how do we move this?” Adam probes.

“We give it a little nudge,” Amethyst smiles. The Humans frown and she notes their confusion. “Come now, you must have all passed basic physics if you run a college,” she challenges. She sighs as they don’t seem to catch on. Melody and Elphaba are smirking, and her scolding glance keeps her children from vocalizing their amusement. She clears her throat and explains. “Gravity here in The Sanctum is relative. While the islands have mass and keep you on the ground, the surrounding void has none. When you push something…”

“It stays in motion until it collides with something else or is slowed by one of the energy ribbons which act as traction,” Adam smiles as he finally gets it.

“Correct,” she beams. “I need Adam and Luke to hook the rock. Pull it down and a bit towards you. Not too forcefully or it’ll hit us too hard and bounce off. I’ll try to keep its momentum stable. Ready?” she glances at them and they nod. “Alright, reach out with your minds, like a rope, and latch onto the rock. Then ever so slightly tug it,” she instructs them. Nothing happens at first. The two men frown, take a deep breath, and try again. They reach out, magically focusing more power into the spell. Near invisible tendrils reach out and latch onto the rock. They lean backward, as the translucent ‘ropes’ tighten. They each take a step back and the island shifts. “That’s it, nice and gentle,” she coaches them as they take another step back.

Amethyst was right. Outside of the initial tug, the island is slowly drifting down and closer. The Fae flies up and hops on the upper island to push it down some more as the two land masses collide. They stumble slightly and there’s a strange rumbling groan as the two islands grind together.

“Hold it there,” she commands and is busy fusing the stone before the islands drift more.

While Amethyst works to meld the stone as if it had never shattered, Susan shows Penny how to fix the greenery and stitch the soft ground together. After a few minutes, it looks as if the two pieces were never separated.

“There. One down!” Amethyst beams happily. “Should we work on the greenhouse island next, or the town’s bridge?”

“Amethyst has called for Spring Sylphs, let’s connect the greenhouse first,” Luke offers to Adam.

“Those Sylphs are supposed to be helping you with this,” Amethyst argues.

“The greenhouse is in serious disrepair. In its current state, we only use it for growing alchemy ingredients. If they can help mend the other half so that we can grow food too, then that will help us. I see his point,” Adam agrees with his friend.

Amethyst smirks, “You two think so much alike, I can only imagine the trouble you would get yourselves into when you were younger.”

Adam blinks and Luke chuckles, “Adam’s my conscience. I can get ahead of myself, and he keeps me from going too far.”

“I’m glad to have you both. We need you right now,” Amethyst smiles.

“You do?” Luke blinks, then glances at Adam, who’s nodding. “All right, let’s get moving,” he scratches the back of his neck nervously.

They make their way around to the school on the right side. The stairs down to the greenhouses ends in a Mirror Gate. Past the gate, what used to be the remaining meter of stairs is a broken, floating mess of debris. Pieces of guardrail, chunks of step, rock and a few floating flowers hint the stairway had once been longer. The greenhouse itself is floating several meters away, having drifted slightly. Like many things in Sanctum, it’s floating at a slight tilt, more apparent now that the college has righted itself with the addition of the rear gardens.

“We’ll need to fix this one a little differently,” Amethyst comments after a moment.

“Why can’t we just pull it to the main island, like we did with the other one?” Luke argues.

“The pieces don’t fit together,” Amethyst motions at the broken stairwell. “The last meter lies completely shattered. We’ll need to repair the broken portion.”

“That debris doesn’t look sufficient to repair the gap,” Adam comments, studying the floating pieces.

“No, it doesn’t. I knew you had a keen eye for these things,” Amethyst smiles. “We’ll have to create a new land bridge.”

“How do we do that?” Penny muses as she’s caught up with the group.

“With these Gates, their stonework is sturdy enough for a new bridge,” Amethyst suggests. Luke frowns and shakes his head. “Problems, Master Goodson?”

“The arch at the top of each doorway,” he points to one. “They won’t make a seamless fit — unless you’re planning to overlap them.”

“Mother?” Ciël probes and the Fae nods. “This will be fun!” the girl chimes.

“Wait! You’re not actually considering overlapping the mirror gates, are you?” Adam gasps and she returns a knowing smile. The two Fae push their hands forward and the stone gates creek, then bend toward each other.

“What’s wrong, Adam?” Penny places a hand on his arm.

“She plans to overlap the gates!” Adam’s voice is barely above a whisper. The gates form an archway now, nearly touching.

“I need you to pull the island closer. I can’t be distracted during the meld,” Amethyst commands.

“On it,” Luke nods and Adam gapes at them.

“Do you know the energy feedback that will result from what you’re planning?” he argues.

“Of course, I need to make a new land bridge,” Amethyst dismisses him. “Come, snag the left side before the islands fall out of alignment.” Adam hesitates. “Now Arch Mage, or the islands will drift and it’ll take more energy to push them back into place!”

Adam grumbles something about unstable elemental forces and she’s trying to kill them all, but does as he’s told. What he can read of Amethyst’s aura, she’s easily ten times more powerful than he is, and he hopes she knows what she’s doing. If this fails, the resulting cascade will push the greenhouse chunk further away.

Amethyst instructs them to tug together, “This needs to be perfect.”

Mélodie nods and is acting as a guide while the men have moved further apart. They ‘rope’ opposite corners of the land mass and draw the greenhouse island closer.

From his vantage point, Adam watches as Amethyst aligns the two mirror gates until there is an eye as they overlap one another. She then bends them together to form a nicely rounded arch. Adam worries as the two Fae are hovering over the middle of each gate. As they meld, the two gates flicker for a moment, then ripple. The area where they overlap glows so brightly that the Humans need to shield their eyes.

“Now!” Amethyst commands.

Adam watches as the two Fae bring their hands together as if in prayer. They then push their hands down and spread them out. The effect on the gates is astounding. The unstable energy building up within the gates suddenly pushes down and ripples outward, like dropping a large stone in water. It appears as a stream of energy under the bridge, absorbing the floating debris, which is forcing the energy stream to harden. It’s acting like a magnet, pulling in anything floating nearby until it solidifies into what appears to be cooled magma. The bridge itself now looks to be made of clear quartz in a frame of stone. The middle is still glowing.

“Um, is that stable?” Adam points to the orb.

“That was amazing! Do it again!” Luke exclaims in child-like wonder.

Amethyst offers them a smile. “It is quite stable, My Children,” she chimes as she steps forward and picks up the glowing orb. The bowling ball sized globe of topaz crystal swirls and pulses with energy.

“Um… you left a hole,” Adam points to where the orb had been. There’s an eye of emptiness. “That’s a safety hazard. You can’t leave it empty like that. We should make some sort of handrail. This land bridge isn’t very thick. Will it hold?”

“Safety first,” Luke mouths, mocking Adam.

“Safety first,” Adam comments, leaving Penny to giggle. “This isn’t a laughing matter. The point of rebuilding The Sanctum is to make it safe for everyone, not leave hazards or holes lying around!”

Amethyst hands the orb to Ciël, and draws a gem from her pouch. She drops it and expands her hand as it’s about to fall through. The amethyst stone expands until it fills the eye. “There,” she returns a satisfied smile. She glances at Adam, “The bridge will hold. It spans the length of the greenhouse chunk and we’ll reinforce it when we build the surrounding land. As for making this bridge safer for human use, I’ll leave that to you. We have visitors.”

“Earthen Mother, we found the Sylph you seek,” chimes a Spring Pixie as they fly towards the group.

“There’s a greenhouse that has seen better days,” a song-like voice comments.

Two Spring Sylphs land behind the Pixies. Their wings remind Adam of Birdwing butterflies as they’re green with black centres. The top wings are almost a teardrop shape whereas the bottoms are more rounded. A third lands behind them. His wings resemble a Luna moth.

The older appearing of the three steps forward. “I am Feren, my brother Leaglin, and our cousin Tundo. We are the West Coast Stewards of the Spring Court. You called for us?”

“Just in time, My Children,” Amethyst beams. “Ardamirë, Artamir, take this globe and store it with the sun crystals.”

“Yes, Earthen Mother,” the two Spring Pixies chime. Ciël hands them the globe and they flutter off with it.

“What are your plans for the orb?” Adam probes as he watches the Pixies fly off.

“I’ll explain later. We have other concerns right now,” Amethyst dismisses him.

“So, like your Pixie cousins, Spring Sylphs resemble butterflies,” Luke remarks as their hair, skin colour and even clothing make them appear like over-sized insects.

“We need to blend in with nature so that humanity doesn’t suspect we’re any different,” Tundo replies. “Would you have us walk around looking like you?”

Feren turns and snaps at him, “Tundo, be polite. You know full well that many of us, like myself, carry a Human Veil to blend into populated regions. It’s how the Fern clan survived after the Humans invaded our glade.” He frowns. “Not all of us have the benefit of living in a forested valley the humans have barely seen,” she continues.

“I stand corrected, my apologies, Cousin Feren,” he bows.

“You recruited a racist Sylph to help Humans rebuild our realm? This is off to a fabulous start,” Luke rolls his eyes.

“Don’t you start on me, High Mage!” Feren turns and snaps at Luke. “Tundo’s clan are tree planters. You’ll need his expertise in what you want done.”

“And what do you and your brother do?” Adam asks calmly, his voice doesn’t carry any of Luke’s accusatory tone.

“We Fern specialize in woodland shrubs and undergrowth. The Spring Pix said the Earthen Mother was needing help in mending clumps of ground together to make new grass, moss and shrub-covered regions. We’ve sent word to our mid-west Orolanda cousins to find a Sylph that is more proficient in grasslands, but it might take a few days before they can reach here.”

“Sure, announce to the whole Spring Court what we’re doing. How could that ever go wrong?” Luke grumbles.

“Do you or do you not want our help, Human? We don’t have to be here!” Tundo snaps back.

“Quiet now, Children! Now is not the time to bicker. We have much work ahead of us,” Amethyst’s high-pitch cuts through their arguments.

“Yes, Earthen Mother,” the Sylph all turn and bow to her.

“What will you have us do?” Feren glances up.

“Come, let us see what the greenhouses need first,” Amethyst smiles and flutters across the bridge.