Of Magic in Man

A Peculiar Court

Valemdar's court was not what Ruddy expected. Then again, none of this was. How his mind managed to dream up a world of such vivid detail, he didn't know, yet he was determined to find a way back to wakefulness.

The first things to strike his eyes were entirely believable. Take an average tree and supersize it like it smashed fast food daily for a few hundred years-easy enough to imagine. The tops of the towering oak, ash, maple and beech trees seemed to disappear into the waning light of the dark blue sky and the roots of some could have fit a whole elephant comfortably. 

The sky itself reminded Ruddy of out-backing in Wyoming. Miles from any settlements or light pollution, the horizon there was dark blue and the night sky was filled with billions of twinkling stars. So it was here, in the depths of his imagination.

What he found harder to imagine were the buildings. Most of all because they weren't, in fact, built. He could spy with his little eye neither nails nor fittings, neither adhesive nor fasteners of any kind. The structures seemed to have been woven like cloth from the very trees themselves. Tunnels of bark and xylem stretched between the trees like magical pathways.

Strange yet beautiful denizens peered curiously at him from the doorways of hollows woven in roots and spiral platforms meandered playfully around the trunks of the trees revealing yet more hollows from which curious faces peaked. 

Ruddy decided they looked like pointy-eared humans, but Fable told him these were the high elves, the eladrin, and so they would be. They were tall and fair and looked enough like elves Ruddy had seen in the movies to pass for Scandinavians.

All around him voices seemed to sing as one source of eloquent yet strange sound. It felt rather than told of the harmony these creatures fostered with their surroundings. It soothed Ruddy's burning anxiety and threatened a sense of overwhelming peace and comfort.

As the light faded, bioluminescent plants glowed stronger, illuminating Ruddy's path in a pale symphony of red, gold, and blue light. Ruddy and Fable the talking the horse made their way along these paths in silence to an enormous hollow. The top of the thing stood, by Ruddy's reckoning, at least forty feet high. It clearly led somewhere, and he desperately told his brain to cut it out with the proportions before it got overclocked and overheated.

There they were in the center of the expansive core of the ancient forest, standing before the greatest tree of them all. Ruddy imagined it could only be the fabled Yggdrasil. The base was larger than Ruddy could even see in either direction, despite the glowing plants lining its base, and looking up, he could not make out its lowest branches...perhaps when daylight came. Ruddy doubted it.

"Now remember," the silence was broken by Fable's voice, "When you meet the king you are to bow. It is custom. And once you have bowed, you will say 'Greetings harmonious king of the forest. I am Ruddy. I am grateful for your hospitality.' Got it?"

Ruddy thought the voice sounded kind of dorky, but he couldn't hate that. He was a dork too...in a manner of speaking, "Yes, nice horse, I understand. Be polite to the powerful king."

"Do you remember the other things I told you to do and say?"

"Yes, yes. Let's go."

After bowing low to the king, a snicker swept the court. Apparently the beautiful denizens of the forest thought he looked funny. Perhaps he'd bowed too low or not low enough. Frankly, Ruddy didn't care. He'd made them up. They could suck his dick.

He regarded the king with a disinterested look on his face. His mind though, was fascinated by the figment before him. Valemdar was sitting, yet it was obvious he was quite tall. Ruddy was expecting his derision for royalty to spill over into his dream realm by manifesting the king as quite a porker, yet the person before him was quite skinny. Long, straight red hair cascaded down an angular face set with bright green eyes. His robes were yellow silk and upon his head a silver band set with runes and floral patterns. The presence of the band pulled the hair down slightly over his scalp giving it a rounded appearance. Ruddy decided he looked like a pencil.