Lord of Entertainment

Chapter 524: Meeting the Great Mother

(3rd Person POV)

Five days out from the home world, the ship came down among the mountains of Pandora. Before the doors so much as cracked, Arthur laid a spell over everyone aboard, a ward against the world's pure mana, so that none of them would breathe it in and sicken on it.

Then the ramp lowered, and the cast, the crew, and the reporters walked down it with disbelief plain on every face. Whatever doubts they had carried up from the world below, there was no room left for them now. This was another world entirely.

Even George, setting foot here for the first time, could not take it in.

"I had some notion in my head of what Pandora might look like," he said, turning slowly on the spot. "But — damn. This whole damned world is something else."

A dragon slid across the sky above them.

"I-is that a dragon?" a reporter stammered.

"No way—"

Ryan, the film's lead, caught what the others had missed. "The dragons here look different from ours."

Firfel nodded. "They do. This world is a marvel. Every creature in it is strange, and beautiful all the same — the people who live here most of all, with their blue skin."

Vivienne, Sylwen, and Apollonia crowded close, thrilled to finally stand in the world Firfel had only ever told them stories about.

"Everyone — stay close together," Arthur said. "There's no telling what you might run into out here. We'll reach the natives of this land before long."

They agreed, and set off across the slope one careful step at a time.

Before long a cluster of blue-skinned figures came into view, and the newcomers stopped short at the sheer height of them.

"Firfel?"

Firfel had already spotted Eyana Sylari — and at her side, her father, the chief of the band. Chief Tsu'laran.

Firfel broke into a run and threw her arms around her. "Eyana Sylari!"

Eyana caught her and held on. "I missed you so much!"

The cast and crew stared up at the towering blue people, half-afraid and mostly curious. Their own world held dwarves and elves, orcs, demons and humans all together; a tall humanoid folk was not, in the end, so strange a thing to them.

"Astonishing," George breathed. "Just how tall are they? And quick with it, by the look of them."

Ryan took it all in with a harder swallow. "S-so — I'll be playing one of them? Later?"

Arthur caught the words. "Yes. We'll use a technique to have you move as one of the tall blue folk."

Ryan's throat bobbed. He had never once doubted Arthur's methods, and he knew well enough that some technique would be waiting in reserve for exactly this.

"You look frightened," Arthur said. "Can't manage it?"

Ryan's eyes firmed. "N-no, sir. I'll do it."

"Good."

Just then Chief Tsu'laran came forward. "Arthur. So it is you." His gaze moved over the others. "Are these your people? And you their chief?"

Arthur let the misunderstanding stand. "Something like that, you could say."

Tsu'laran inclined his head. "The Great Mother accepts them, because they come with you." A furrow crossed his brow. "And she is far more willing about this film of yours than I ever expected her to be. Is it because of how you've changed, in the time you were away?"

Arthur kept his smile to himself. 'She senses how much power I've gained since I first set foot here — the same as she did in that other timeline, when I came back.' He knew the shape of what was coming, and the Great Mother ran true to it.

"Chief Tsu'laran," Arthur said, "I leave my people in your hands. See them settled, and let them make ready for their stay. There's someone I need to see first."

Tsu'laran nodded. "Understood. I'll have them settled, and — what?" His calm broke all at once. "You mean to go and see whom?"

But before the chief could press him on it, Arthur was already gone.

Far beneath the world, past the deep of the caves, in the hollow at its very core, the Great Mother made her home.

She had the shape of a dragon, old past reckoning — kin to the dragons that rode Pandora's skies, but vastly greater than any of them, and far more intricate a thing, her eyes deep and heavy with knowing. The colors that moved across her told of a mastery over every element there was: water and fire, air and earth, and more besides. And that was the least of it. She was sunk into the roots of the world itself, threaded through all of it. She was its source. The hand that gave the whole of it life.

Arthur appeared before her and bowed his head. "Great Mother. I offer you my respect."

Her eyes drew open, and their weight settled on him. "Child. Why have you come to me here? I can feel the strange power pouring off you. I have no doubt that, should you wish it, you could bind me into a contract and make this world your own."

Arthur only smiled. He could, of course. The Great Mother before him was weaker than the Origin of the world he had already conquered.

"I hold you in respect, Great Mother — all the more for what you did when I first came here weak. You never once raised a hand against me. I haven't forgotten it." His voice stayed even. "I'm not here to slight you, or to take your world. I've come only to ask your full cooperation in the making of my film. Give me that, and we'll build a true friendship between us — and whenever trouble comes to your world, I'll be the one to answer it."

The Great Mother regarded him with those ancient eyes. She understood that refusal was not among her choices. "If that is all you want of me, then you have my cooperation, whole and complete."

"You have my gratitude." He raised a hand. "I'll place the plan within your mind, if you'll permit me."

"Very well."

Arthur set the knowledge into her, and as it poured through her thoughts the Great Mother saw the whole blueprint of the film laid out before her. The story impressed her. It also puzzled her.

"Why go to such lengths for this?" she asked. "You are already a Deity of great power. What need have you to conjure these small things that mortals find diverting?"

Arthur smiled. "Because I am the Lord of Entertainment. I have my duties to keep."

"I see. Your Authority — it is Entertainment itself?"

"That's right. And the film I'll make here, in your world, is the beginning of a franchise — the thing that will win me the full devotion not only of the two worlds already in my hands, but of the thousands still to come."

"Thousands," she said. "You truly reckon on thousands of worlds?"

Arthur only smiled again. He would defeat Solarus; of that there was no question. And once he had, he would descend upon all the thousands of worlds the god left behind him.