The Great Root Crossing

 I visited the Great Root Crossing. Idoltus always led with “Great” on new things. The Great Palace, the Great Capital, the Great Empire. Now it was the Great Root crossing. Give it a few years, a few new projects and it will just be called the Root Crossing, just like the Palace, the Capital, the Empire. But yes, I saw it. It was not done when I visited. It still had a number of years of singing left to turn it into the thing that Idoltus dreamed it to be. The project had burned through a number of singers, but the few that Idoltus hand picked to lead the project still remained. These he believed could see his dream. And a singer that can visualize a dream can bring it to life. 

I saw it, the Crossing and the dream. And that's when I lost faith. Or at least that's when I began to doubt. Idoltus wanted the area around the Root Crossing to be clear cut. He wanted the bridge, and its four pillars, two on either side of the SongRok, to tower over everything around them. He wanted them to be taller and thicker than any tree within view. He had the singers bring saplings from the Bowing trees outside the Palace, which had originally come from the IdolVod where his conquest began. And now they were planted on the edge of the SongRok, taller and thicker than any tree in view save for one. The SiddarVod, the Siddar Spire, SiddarTunng, or the Mountain of the Mantle Wood it was called, still loomed over the SongRok. Save for that one tree, these towered taller than the rest. 

They had slaves doing the clear cutting. It was dangerous work here, the trees being as large as they were. Ferocious work too, as the forest seemed to strike back almost immediately once a tree was felled. On the ElVos side of the Song stone roads and walls had been long laid to help hold the forest back. Even then, new roots and foliage sprang through any gap or weakness in the infrastructure and required daily maintenance. On the ElVos side, Elvik slaves were used for most of the labor. Many came from the SingRokKen, the last of the Kena to fall in the conquest of ElVos. There were generations of ElVik slaves that had worked here by now. Family lineages could be traced back 250 years to the conception of the project. Whole families of root singers, family names Root Singer, or in the proper old word that many of the SingRokKen still used, SilTorVok. After dropping the formal, SilTor, or SilTora is what the slaves here were called. I could look at these slaves and not feel a thing. I saw this side of the river and nothing in my heart stirred. For all the conquest and all the terrible I watched, I enabled, I perpetrated, I felt nothing. When the 13th Ken fell to Idoltus, I felt complete. But when I saw the other side of the river, I broke. I did not cry. I did not recoil in horror even though my mind and body hurt. I stood still for a very long time as I took the sight in. The pillars on the other bank, the Bowing trees, were just as tall as the ones on our side of the bank. Even though they were 100 years younger they had caught up in size. The clear cutting and infrastructure was just as complete. And the roots growing from that bank to this to form the bridge were great, greater than any machination of conquest and empire Idoltus had ever wrought. A million El could cross them a day without a shudder or a strain. Every army in the Elvik Empire could march across them and still the Great Root Crossing was built for more. All the SongRokKen would suffer. The three Voda would bend and break as the IdolVod and the DeiVod had. VereVod would fall. VitcVod would fall. Even the SiddarVod would bend and bow just as the trees at the Great Palace had bowed before them. 

I last crossed the Song when I was 50. Now I have more than 800 years. I did not remember my people save the drinking blades and the little rumors I heard from across the river. I was ElVik. I was part of empire. And I would be responsible for bringing it to my home.

The slaves across the river were different. They were not taken from conquered Kena like those on our shore. They did not have the lineage of the SilTora. The peoples across the river had been reduced to three tribes: the Okavik in the South, the Osovik in the North, and the InnaVik in between. These tribes had only met the soft first touches of empire. Idoltus forbade mobilization across the river. It was only once the Root Crossing was complete that the theatre of it would begin. That had become more important to him as time wore on. He said empire would be built on myth, that force had to be gilded to be loved.

These slaves were taken mostly from the Okavik and a small number from the Innavik. In truth there were a number of tribes that lived in the Voda here, but they fell under these classifications for empire did not have space for such nuance. Even three was more than desirable, but it gave something to aspire against, and Idoltus would leverage any bit of public fervor to build his dream. SiddarVik was the first attempt, but it would never work due to the lineage of Siddarath. So it was three, though for quick talk SiddarVik was used. I chose to traverse the Root Crossing. I only took a small retinue of guard. Even that seemed like too much for my first time returning home after all these years. The land on the other side, the Northern VereVod, looked identical to the clear cut, stone clad road on the opposite bank. My being felt alien in this land. The tears grew closer to my eyes and became harder to hold back. I choked and coughed them down, quietly. 

Here I was back in my home. I remembered how it smelled, how the air tasted. Even in this malformed place along the river, it felt different than ElVos. I left as a young woman and I have come back to it as a conquorer. And if that is true, which it is, then I have come back to rape my own home, to burn it, and kill it, and to turn its skin inside out of itself. And I cannot. 

The slaves here were treated differently. Just as it had been written by empire, this land, SiddarVos, was to be subject to the greatest cruelty the ElVik Empire would ever bring, for SiddarVos held creatures, not El. There it is again, Great. It was a fresh project for Idoltus, and in its first strokes, in its image, it would be the greatest work he ever wrought. That was the goal of his projects, each subsequent one had to captivate him more or it was a waste of an endeavor. In the conquering of ElVos there was no genocide. Killings surely, mass killings too. Disrespect, disloyalty, weakness was always met with severe punishment far more violent than need be, far more than was deserved. In empire there is no such thing as mercy without consequence. Once Idoltus had made an example of the weak and untrustworthy, none dared repeat the mistake.

The SiddarVos would suffer differently. The rhetoric in the palace was different. Idoltus had innovated. The Oratorum had been passing word through ElVos of monsters and creatures across the river. They look like us, but they act like animals. They are both weak and strong, stupid and tactful. They were both the strongest foe with evil in their mouths and the meekest of the deplorables, drooling and dumb. We should kill them as we would clear weeds from a field. It was our duty to turn them from this place. And if we must burn them, butcher them, or throw them into the Song, we will do so. For the land across the Song is promised to us by empire. We must secure the existence of our people and a future for the ElVik children. 

It was not unheard of for the Kena of either side of the Song to be in contact. People made passage either way. It wasn’t an easy crossing of course. The Song was cruel. It was no Sang, but cruel nonetheless. In my youth, before my own crossing, I had not thought of the Song as cruel. I found it life giving. There were many stories of how the Song delivered plenty. Then, to journey down it was to follow it. With the Root Crossing, it seemed we were defying it. It seemed we were fighting it. And again, in empire, we were conquering it. Now I was nearing the end. I had not looked over the side, I had not seen the waters washing underneath. In my thoughts I had not even heard them. My eyes were fixed on the SiddarVoda, squinting against the tears. A single one escaped and rolled down my cheek. It burned as it traveled. It fell from my face onto the Great Root Crossing below. It would dry there. This is when I knew my waters would never again mix with the waters of the Song, with the waters of home. There it was again, Great. 

I had crossed. The faces of the SiddarVika slaves were an old image in my mind. The grey of my people shocked me. It was like river rocks when compared to the white and brown and black of ElVos. I was only just like them. Abnormal to SiddarVosa, normal enough to ElVosa. My eyes caught the face of a young InnaVik with skin grey like charcoal. He was tall and slender, he could not have been older than 50. He reminded me of one I knew in my youth, the one I would have lived out my years with.

I told my guards, “That one, bring him to my quarters this evening. I wish to hear from a native what it’s like here.”

“Over the Crossing, EpCor?”

“I said bring him to my quarters. I didn’t ask how you would do it.”

“My EpCor, it’s just that the Epor would look unfavorably upon bringing one of those onto the Crossing. Especially before its completion.”

“I don’t care if you have to march him up to the Sing and float him down. I want him there this evening, and I want him there unharmed. One more word about it and I’ll see if you can swim across the Song.”

“Yes, EpCor Bestella.”

I spent the remainder of the day walking through the development of the Root Crossing. I spoke with the head singers, the Modator, and the Scion of the GuardSong. I collected a number of messages for Idoltus and the capital, then retired to my royal tent. The Root Crossing infrastructure had barracks, housing for the workers, and shelter for slaves. But there was nothing fit for the EpCor. 

It was late into the evening when the Guards brought the Inna. Two guards entered with him. The guards were damp from the knees down, but the Inna was dry and no dirtier than when I saw him last.

With heads slighted bowed, “As ordered, EpCor.”

“Thank you, you are dismissed for the night.”

“EpCor.” And the guards left my tent.

“There is hot water in the tub. Wash yourself.”

The Inna was quiet, mumbled thank you with his head bowed. Coyishly, he stripped off his clothes with his back to me and eased into the water. I walked over to the tub carrying a stool. The water smelled like temmosprig and bern oil. I touched his shoulder. He was tense. I worked my fingers up to his hair, wetted it, and started massaging in soap. We spent a while like this, quietly washing, unsure and uncomfortable. 

“It has been a long time since I have been back across the river.”

He did not respond. 

“When did they take you?”

“Not so long ago. 10 cycles.”

“How do they treat you?”

“Treat me? They intend to work me to death, like the others.”

“I’m afraid that is their intent… But I don’t want to think of that now. Tell me of the forest here, where are you from?”

“I grew up in the InnaNaucus Valley where the silverstalk grows like the forest. Though, I have not lived there since I was a child. Our tribe moved closer to the bank, to the villages here.”

“I saw it once, in my youth. I am InnaVik as well. Though I grew up far from the valley. The Many Paths led us out of the deep and past the valley. I still remember the smell. It was before the Reaping, when the days were hot and the fields were full.”

“And yet you wear the colors of ElVos, of the Lor across the Song.”

“Of Epor Idoltus, yes. His reign is complete here. My home, though, is across the river.”

“Home? My home is gone. It was wiped away.”

“I do not want to think of such things, just of the past.”

“There is no past for me.”

“No, not anymore. Then let us not try to conjure such things. I have already conjured you, and you remind me of the past well enough. Come with me, into my bed, and we will spend our time together in the now.”

And so we spent the night together. And in the morning the Inna was brought back across the river. I never learned his name. I did not want to. All I thought that night, while wrapped in pleasure, was that the past, the present, and the future now all feel conquered by empire. Idoltus said empire must appear limitless, without being complete it is just another Ken, another border. Empire feels borderless. Empire feels timeless. Empire feels complete.