stormquiss-blog

[stormquiss-blog]

Codetta: Skin of Stars

A fierce wind was blowing outside the Creaky Cooper.  Old timers could tell the strength of the wind by the distant rumble of waves striking the piers, and the particular way the decking shuddered beneath their feet.  Tonight, the Creaky Cooper was living up to its name.  With each surge of the waves, the bones of the tavern moaned, and then emitted a rapid ticking as the wave receded.  Whenever the wind gusted, the rafters rattled.  It was the kind of noise that made newcomers to the City of Bridges uneasy.  For the old timers, it was reassuring.  So long as the timbers breathed, the structure would survive the storm.  If it started grumbling, that was the time to finish your last drink and beat a hasty retreat.

The central fire pit was made from stone.  Rumour had it that the entire pit could be dumped into the sea below if the fire got out of control.  At least once a night some drunkard would insist she had found the switch and threaten to use it it, though why anyone would want to be dunked into the cold, churning water only a few tens of feet from the privies, was a mystery that would forever go unsolved.

The door banged open.  Wind and rain bustled in along with the smell of the ocean; salt and rotting kelp.

Drombal had been listening closely to the banter nearby.  Often, he had to intercede to steer the conversation in the right direction.  Tonight, it had found the right starting point without his assistance.

“I kilt a margr once.”

“I wore a margr kilt.”

“That was a goat, ya idjit.”

“Don’t talk about a girl’s mother that way.”

Drombal slammed his empty ale horn down on his table.  “Every one of you would piss in your pants if you saw a margr.”

The group of drinkers at the next table turned to glare at him.  They had the clothing, the coin and the aura of arrogance that accompanied sailors from Draolis.  Drombal had selected the group with great care.  Boisterous, with bulging coin purses and weapons so pretty he was certain they had never been drawn in anger.

He allowed his best scowl to settle over his face.  “I seen a whole horde of them once.  Aye, and fought them.”  He made certain to look each one of the sailors directly in the eyes.  “Lost most of my friends that day.  I was raising a toast to them when you fellas interrupted.”

The largest of the group rose to his feet unsteadily.  “I know ’nuff abaht margrs to know they don’t travel in hordes.”  He shook his head.  “Except for Ellomyr, if you trust the tales.”

Drombal tilted his head and tapped his scar.  “Souvenir,” he grunted and knew he had them from their collective gasp.  If he played them right, he would not only drink but also eat well.  If he played them right, he might even have a warm bed.

Spreading his arms he beckoned for them to join him.  “Come drink with me, friends and I will tell you what it is like to fight not one margr, not two, but an entire horde.”

By mutual agreement, the group ambled over.  More importantly, they brought their jugs and gestured for more.  Once they had shared the necessary amount of social oil, Drombal leaned in, allowing the light of the glowblobe set into the table to fill his face.

“I was just a lad back then, apprentice to a blacksmith.  Ellomyr was just a village, barely a blot on the Beyond…”. Drombal spoke with a low, almost chanting tone, as he set up his tale.  While he had a hundred such tales, carefully honed as he walked the dusty roads, this was him most popular and most practiced.  He always adjusted it to his audience.  That was his particular talent.  He had never been a blacksmith, but he had spoken to many and knew the right details to weave into his tale.

Truth, as a boy, he had vowed to visit every tavern in the Steadfast, and only ever pay for one drink.

“They made terrible music, blowing horns from the skulls of their foes, or banging their drums of human skin.  Barely two dozen defenders stood behind the hastily built barricade.  Many bore the swords I made.”  That last bit always elicited a call for another round.  Drombal knew how to pace himself though.

A laugh drifted to him from a nearby table.  He took another swig of his ale to cover the momentary distraction.  A woman sat alone, cloaked and hooded, but her head was turned toward him, listening intently.  Instead of a glowglobe, her table was lit by a small, glowing statue that appeared as if it had been cobbled together from pebbles.

Drombal turned back to the group.  “Help had come to the village, in the shape of heroes.  I do not count myself among that worthy group, of course but I their deeds that day are burned into my memory.”

“Tell us about boulders,” one of the traders slurred as she gestured for another round.  The other murmured agreement.

This was often where he had to be careful, crafting his tale from fragments they may have heard, giving it just enough veracity to sound like the truth.  “I told you about the Thornridge?  Some say it was a giant creature made of stone that died a thousand years ago, and fell onto the plains.”

The woman snorted and set down her drink, wiping up the spill with her sleeve.

Dromal shifted his chair slightly, so he could keep an eye on her as he continued to speak.  One outspoken sceptic could ruin an entire, carefully planned evening.  “I played there as a child and we used to scare one another with tales of creatures in the ruins.”  He sighed and spread his hands.  “As the margr fell upon the wall, I watched my good friend Abhrim die with a spear through his chest.  Then the ground shoo and I stumbled, barely deflating a second thrust from the spark.  A pall of dust arose as the sound grew, from grumble to roar.”  He paused, looking carefully at each one of them.  “An avalanche was rolling toward us, across the flat plain.  At least twenty great boulders, fragments of the long dead giant, and leading them was a mighty warrior made from stone.  His name was Gilthk, and his troupe of boulders fell on the flank of the margr, crushing them to pulp while the mad minstrel Saxis played his dulcimer on the battlements.”

The woman laughed again, not quite loud enough for his audience to hear.  A separate part of his mind formulated plans for dealing with her, in case she grew more disruptive.  As he described the carnage wrought by Gilthk, the woman drew a pouch from the folds of her robe, and spilled glittering gems on her table, in front of the weird little statue.  She started sorting through them, but it was clear her attention was on Drombal.

That piqued his interest.  She was not his preferred flavour of bedwarmer, but for wealth like that, a man could adjust.

“Tell us about Hiero.”  The merchants were rapt, eyes shining, like children.  Drombal made sure the next round was a pricier wine, wetting his lips before continuing.

“I must be honest,” he smiled at the iron, “not long before the mighty metal warrior appeared, I took a glancing blow from a stone so my memory is a little blurry.”  He stroked the scar.  In truth a particularly handsome and jealous stable boy had given him that one.

The woman was leaning forward, listening intently now.  He suppressed a smile.  If nothing else, stories of Hiero always hooked them.  “He was ten feet tall, a hollow man of shining armour, heartless, but brave and reckless beyond words.  I remember a roar, as the shining metal knight flew across the battlefield on a column of fire, turning friend and foe alike to ash.  I remember a bright flash, as the beam from his eyes cut through the horde.  Then I remember him falling, like a star from the heavens.”  The group had gone silent and Drombal pitched his voice as a whisper.  “Some say he continued to fight onwards, while they pulled him apart piece by piece, his fists thumping his foes even when they were torn from his body.  Some say he fights to this day, in pieces so small you cannot see them.”

The woman roared with laughter, spoiling the moment.

Drombal turned and fixed her with his best, steely glare.  “Keep your last of respect to yourself stranger.  We Sternmen of Ghan like to honour our dead, by telling their deeds.”

She waved his glare away with her hand.  “Oh no.  Please continue.  I have not had such a good in years.”

Drombal coughed and turned away, but setting his chair so he could easily stand, shaping his body to feign outrage.  “Shall I tell you of the Skin of Stars?”

“Yes, yes.”

“Is she really as beautiful as they say?”

“I heard she turned all the margr into sock puppets.”

“I heard she seduced the Queen of Navarene.”

The woman giggled.  It was softer than her laugh, but somehow more cutting.  Drombal pushed back his chair dramatically, stood and turned, setting his hands on his hips he gave her his sternest glare.  “I have had enough of your mockery.”

As one, the merchants stood behind him, hands falling to their knives.

That was a concern.  He made a placatory gesture.    “Friends,” Drombal said, smiling, knowing they would shower him with gifts on the morning.  “This stranger knows nothing of battle.”  He gestured.  “Perhaps if you were willing to buy my friends and I a few ales and a meal, that might go some way to salving the hurt you have caused?”

She held out her hand, palm flat.  It appeared she was wearing a black glove covered in shining motes of metal.  “I could make your porridge,” she said.  The motes rose from her hand, forming a faint ball of light.

Drombal felt a stab of fear.  Numenera wielder.  Perhaps it was time to extricate himself from this conflict.  “Surely a woman of your stature could afford something better than porridge?”

“That is not what I meant.  There are grains of truth in your story, but not enough to make a decent porridge.  Gurner always made good porridge.”

Drombal was intrigued, in spite of himself.  “Oh, and perhaps you have more grains of truth you can share?”

The woman settled back in her chair.  “You have spoken of the heroes of Ellomyr.  There were many.  Your are close to the truth with Hiero, but everyone knows his legend.  But the Hiero I know would not so recklessly harm those under his protection.  The Hiero I know had a heart.  Her name was Ro.”  The woman smiled at an inner vision.  “By the way, was only 6 feet tall.”

She gestured at his group.  “But few know of the unsung heroes, the people who really built the legacy of Ellomyr.”

She breathed deeply.  “Fael was a nano, but his passion was growing crops.  He had the foresight in the moments leading up to the battle to set aside stores of food and water.  Without Fael, the victors would have starved.”  A face formed in the scintillating dust above her hand and then faded.  “Or Osgiroki.  He came to Ellomyr to study the Trilling Shard and taught my sister to be a lightsmith.  Without his aid, Iona may never have been able to send her call for help in time.”  She had a dulcet, seductive voice, and Drombal wondered if perhaps he had not met another tale teller.  Perhaps they should team up? “

“I must not forget Kira, with her endless plans and her tireless organising.  It is a most difficult thing, to wrangle fearful villagers into building defences capable of defeating a horde of margr, capable of turning a small settlement into a town, and then a city.”  She sighed and raised her glass, realising it was empty.  “There were so many whose tales are never told.”

Drombal realised, in his fascination, he had lost some of his authority.  He summoned a mocking laugh and pointed at the small statue.  “I suppose you are going to tell us that tiny thing is Gilthk?”

“Oh no.”  She laughed and rolled a gem toward the statue.  The light flared as it abruptly reached out and picked up the gem.  “This is Glithk, bud of Gilthk.  Take a bow Glithk.”  The tiny drink doffed the lampshade it had been wearing as a hat and executed a slow, graceful bow, the components of its body gaining together.

Drombal felt the merchants crowding close behind him and sweat prickled his skin.  He had only one choice to save himself from a beating or worse.  He drew back a chair and sat down beside her.  “Are you some kind of minstrel, telling tales to win gold from dullards?”

She laughed again, a little sweet, a little sad.  “Severaixs made the greatest sacrifice that day, and now he is mocked for his role.”  A figure formed in her palm, a beautiful woman dancing.

“As for the Skin of Stars.  I was only twelve and was killed almost as soon as the battle started.”  She swept back her hood revealing the night black tendrils on her face, and her eye full of stars.  Her ebon hair rippled of its own accord.

Drombal leaned forward, whispering urgently.  “It appears I have talked myself into a tight spot.  Perhaps you could help me out?”

She sighed as a regular thumping sound rose above the roar of the tavern.  “Unfortunately, that is out of my hands.  You see, those who survived the Battle of Ellomyr will always come to the aid of one another in times of trouble.”  She glanced toward the door.  “I am meeting another dear friend of mine.  I expect he will be here…”

The tavern door exploded into splinters.  

“WHERE IS THE VARLET THAT IMPUGNS MY GOOD NAME!  WHO DARES DIMINISH MY STATURE IN SUCH A KNAVISH MANNER?”

The gaze of the metal knight lanced across the room, settling on Drombal.  He clumped over, patrons throwing themselves from his path.

“I am outraged Misereya.  You know very well I am 6’ 3” tall.”

“In boots,” she laughed.

Hiero ’s booming laugher shook the room.  He turned to surgery the group, eyes narrowing at the sigh of Drombal. “Now,” he growled, “perhaps you can tell me  where which of these scoundrels had dared to slander my good name?”

[stormquiss-blog]

The Will and the Wind

The Will and the Wind - Prologue (IW plus 4936)

There was nothing more amusing, or alarming, than a knife seller in his cups.  Thaemor walked with exaggerated care, as if his ale horn was full of molten gold.  Almost, it seemed he would pass by without noticing Ordovico.  Almost was never enough of course.  The knife seller caught Ordovico’s eye, smiled slightly, then raised his ale horn and in a slurred, over loud voice proclaimed, “the will and the wind.”

There was no avoiding the attention.  Ordovico raised his glass and responded, “the wind and the will.”  Others around the room murmured the same response before the phrase drowned in waves of conversation and laughter.

The Ghanian merchant was examining his chilled wine, wiping condensation away from the face carved in the glass.  “I have heard this toast before.  It is one of those subtle boundaries that mark you as a native of Ellomyr.”  He lifted his glass as if to make the toast then smiled at Ordovico’s apparent discomfort.  “It is frowned upon for outsiders to make this toast. Why is it thus?”

Ordovico lifted the middle finger of his right hand subtly and the man at the next table who had been watching them allowed his knife to slip back into its hidden sheath.

The schoolmaster leaned closer.  There was a knack to this approach that was as innate to Ordovico as breathing.  To an outsider he was a man sharing a jest.  To the merchant, there was an implied threat. “Did you ask me to meet your here to provide a history lesson?”

The Ghanian caught Ordovico’s eye.  “Always the schoolmaster.  Indulge me.”

Ordovico smiled.  How this fool had gathered so much power in the Cartel so swiftly eluded him.  Inviting Ordovico to a meeting at the Crystal Tree Tavern was far from subtle.  Perhaps he was merely sacrificial, a test?

Nevertheless, showing weakness had its uses.  “Very well, but we will need stronger drinks.”

He raised his hand.  A few moments later, the new waitress appeared.  She was small and lithe, with eyes so dark they reflected nothing.  “You folks are half a glass short of a refill.  Can I get you something stronger.  We have Ghanian rum shipped straight from the Isles.”  She had a delightful, Shalamasi lilt to her accent and she used it well.  Ordovico nodded at her suggestion, taking a mental note to keep an eye on the girl. She was more than she seemed.

After their rum was poured, Ordovico held his glass up to the light, contemplating the rich amber liquid.  “Life is not a story.  Life has no neat beginning, middle or end.  Of course we are born, and we die, and we live our lives in between but they consist of a random accumulation of experiences, the new sitting on the old like dry leaves on loam.”

The Ghanian sipped at his rum and nodded in appreciation, at the quality of the wine or Ordovico’s words.  He waved for the schoolmaster to continue.

“We tell stories to make sense of our lives, to wrestle our memories into some dim semblance of structure.  History is an accumulation of those stories.”

“Yes, yes, and the winners tell the tales.”

“Often.  But a true historian contrasts the tales with what can be discerned of the truth.  You can learn much about a people, or a person, from the lies they choose to tell, or the comforts they seek.”

The Ghanian finished his rum with an heroic swig and waved for another.  “I presume this particular lecture will arrive in port at some point.”

Perhaps the Ghanian was oblivious to the layers of meaning in his words?  “You are familiar with the history of Ellomyr?”

The merchant scowled.  “I know enough.”

“Then you know of the iron wind that struck here some eighteen years ago?”

“Well,” the merchant scowled, “I know you are still here.  A near miss, I take it?”

“A direct hit.”  Ordovico smiled at the disbelief on the Ghanian’s face.  “Knowing how we defended against it, what we won and what we lost, can teach you a great deal about present day Ellomyr.”  He leaned closer, lowering his voice to a murmur.  “Lessons any merchant should know, if he wishes to do business here.”

Pleasingly, the merchant flinched, just a little, but just enough.

Ordovico leaned back and spread his hands.  “Shall I tell you the tale?  I promise it will contain an equal measure of truth and lies.”

The schoolmaster did not wait for a response,  This complacent Ghanian needed a lesson and Ordovico was more than comfortable enough to provide it.

“Let us begin with a truth…”

The Will and the Wind - Part One (IW minus 161)

Old Armistice breathed in long, ragged gulps, followed by a coughing exhalation brimming with blood.  The old ravage bear was dying.  One of its tusks had been sliced neatly in half and another had been torn loose, leaving a raw socket.  Nieten knew he was still conscious because he had moved his head and gurgled weakly when she drew near.  Ravage bears had no eyes and were near deaf, but their senses of smell and motion were peerless.

She was astounded he was still alive.  His body was covered in long, deep cuts as if repeatedly slashed by swords, particularly on its forearms and chest.

Sitting back on her haunches Nieten surveyed the scene.  There were no other tracks.  The mortal blows had been made elsewhere and Old Armistice had dragged himself into the forest to die.

Nieten was a long way from Ellomyr, at the edge of her hunting circle, perhaps a week away  along the easiest hunting paths.  This forest, the scent of pine and lichen, the way the leaves dappled the sunlight, the pressure of the leaf litter under her feet, were more familiar to her than the town Ellomyr had become.  The forest felt more like home, now.

Nieten contemplated the dying bear.  Old Armistice had long been a nemesis for her hunting parties, and she had always thought she would be the one to finish him.  She had not done so earlier because he was the dominant male in the area and kept the lesser males under control.  Now something else had killed him, and Nieten felt a tinge of sorrow.  She would have done it cleanly.

Old Armistice struggled to stand, turning his muzzle toward her, then collapsed.  Blood flowed from his mouth, slowed to a trickle, then stopped.

Nieten approached the old bear, removed her glove, and set her palm against his hide.  “You lived well, old friend.”

Could she say the same?  She had fought against the Margr and helped deal with the aftermath.  She had even led an abortive expedition into the Valley of Sins.  Had she not done enough?

She circled the clearing until she found the bloody trail Old Armistice had left behind.  Even the most myopic hunter would have been able to follow it.  She smiled and closed her eyes, recalling the blindfold her grandfather would place over her eyes before setting her to find small treasures he had hidden in the forest.  He hailed from Ghan but had settled in Ellomyr as a young man, often telling people “it was where my boots wore out.”

He had made a home in Ellomyr and he had died in Ellomyr, along with Nieten’s mother and father and brother.  She could still remember the scent of his tobacco, infused with sage, wafting across the fields as she returned from a hunt.

Old Armistice had not gone far before he died.  His trail led back to a shallow cave in a small cliff protected by a copse of willows.  A natural spring bubbled atop the cliff, trickling down the rough stone into a small pool.  It was a perfect lair for a ravage bear.

Half of the trees were smashed and splintered and stained with blood no more than a few hours old.  It was the distant roars, and the crackle of wood, that had drawn her here.  Wary, Nieten entered the copse, listening intently, but all she could hear was the trickle of water and the sorrowful sigh of the wind.

Hefting a fallen branch, she saw that it had been neatly lopped off as if by an axe.  Scanning the copse, she saw others sliced in the same fashion at seemingly random lengths and angles.  The ground was churned and it took a while for Nieten to spot the other tracks.  The attacker was six-legged and big, leaving tracks like deep puncture wounds in the earth.  As she followed the deadly ballet of the battle, it was clear Old Armistice had been outmatched.  His natural instinct to grab and rake had betrayed him, exposing him to his attacker’s razor sharp claws.  Yet he must have known he was going to die.

Nieten turned over another branch.  Beneath it was a ravager bear cub, too young for tusks.  It had died from a single, piercing wound through its back.  Nearby was a curved piece of metal, shaped like a shield, with a translucent fluid that smelled like rotten fish, drying in the sun.

Good.  Dying, Old Armistice had hurt the beast.

A bellow drifted to her from deeper into the forest followed by a metallic sound, like knives being sharpened, and the rumble of falling trees.  The trail where the matron had fled the copse with her cubs, while Old Armistice had held its assailant at bay, was easy to see.  Without hesitation, she dashed into the forest.

She had not gone far when she was confronted by the wreckage of fallen trees and smashed bushes.  Metal flashed on the other side of the barrier, dazzling her.  Slowly, deftly, Nieten clambered up one of the intact trees.

The strange creature was insectile and twice her height, covered in a metal carapace that reflected the brush below and the clouds above.  Its legs were razor sharp and it had a wicked set of mandibles, as long as Nieten’s forearm.  It was sweeping the trees, building a rough barricade, hemming in its prey.

Nieten had heard tales of such creatures, but like many of Gurner’s stories, she had not really believed it.  It was a slicer beetle, a creature that would be dangerous to the best prepared hunting party.  This one was wounded, missing at least three plates from its carapace, and one of its legs hung bent and useless from its torso.  Ichor dripped from a hollow she presumed protected its left eye.  Even wounded, it was still deadly.

The ravager matron was backed up against a large boulder.  Nieten counted five cubs sheltering behind their mama, mewling piteously.  The matron was bleeding from a few shallow cuts and her maw was frothy from fear, but she was braced to defend her children to the death.

Nieten was not conscious that she had made a choice.  Focused on its prey, the slicer beetle had not seen her.  She jumped from one branch to another, swinging down and drawing her sword as she landed.  The translucent steel blade shimmered as she swung at one of the creature’s good legs, slicing clean through.

The slicer beetle whistled and clicked, turning awkwardly on its remaining legs.  Nieten slithered across the mud, keeping its good right eye on the other side of its body.  She held up her arm and fired a force arrow into a gap in its carapace.  Clear ichor burst from the wound and the beetle started flailing.  Nieten was suddenly trapped in a cage of whirling steel.

A breath for timing, another, then she sliced at the one good leg on its left side before sliding  into a hollow between two fallen trees.  The beetle staggered, drunkenly, then collapsed.  Nieten set her blade against the ground shifting it just enough to pierce one of its wounds.

Pain spiked her shoulder as it was dislocated.  Stinking ichor washed over her.  The air filled with a confetti of leaves and bark as the slicer beetle flailed and shuddered.  A whistle and a hiss pierce the air.  Then the slicer beetle lay still.

With her good arm, Nieten recovered her blade from the corpse, then rolled out into the clear air of the forest.  She was trembling and the ache in her arm made her vision bleary.  It took her three attempts to sheathe her weapon and then she had to sit down.

A thump drew her attention back to the forest.  The ravager matron had lowered her head, and was tapping on a log with her tusks.

“You are safe now.  Your children are safe.”

Sniffing the air, the matron turned and led her cubs away, smashing a path through the barricade of fallen trees.

The sun was warm on Nieten’s face.  Water dripped from the few leaves that remained over head.  Bees buzzed nearby.  Even through the smell of ichor and blood, Nieten thought she could smell sage.

Standing, wobbling, she looked after the ravage matron, its cubs ambling in a line behind her.

It was time to go home.

The Will and the Wind - Part Two (IW minus 156)

Meetings had become difficult for her.  Kira was the dominant personality, a ruse that constantly ached, but she was not suited to meetings.  Lamaria or Neeri whispered in the dark reefs of her mind, and it took no small effort of will to keep them in check.  She had been so long as Kira now, that it should have been easier, but each day the mental effort grew more exhausting.

Callistina, was speaking now and Rina longed to listen intently to the mathematical precision of the Wright’s words, to test their shape on her lips, but Kira held her silent.

Tiny specks of light shimmered in Callistina’s eyes and her fingers darted as she swiped the air, accessing the crystal cache affixed to her headband.  “The way I see it we have three choices.  We can leave the orbs where they are and hope they endure long enough to protect the center of town.”

Telen of Othmar rubbed his synth leg as if it could ache or feel pain.  “That would be the do-nothing option.”

Agatei made a placatory gesture.  “There are many valuable things outside the perimeter along with your warehouses.”  The doe-eyed Arkus, with her clumsy manner and clockwork glasses, had become a hero in Ellomyr after deciphering Iona’s techniques for projecting messages through the Trilling Shard.  Somehow, it had elevated her to the voice of moderation on the council.  Kira was content to allow her to be a figurehead.

“If I may?”  The datamotes made it difficult for anyone to look into Callistina’s eyes.  “The second option involves pulling them back to the shelter.  That should guarantee the safety of everyone but it would mean sacrificing everything but the town centre.”

“People come first,” Agatei spoke firmly.  “We must embrace that.  Everything else can be rebuilt.”  She shook her head.  “What is your third option?”

“A moment.”  Callistina pinned a spot of nothing between her thumb and forefinger and clicked them together.  She disconnected the crystal from her headband and set it into another device on the table.  The air was filled with numbers, strange symbols and diagrams that slowly rotated.  “The other option is more aggressive.  We adapt the force orbs and protect everything.  The water refinery, Telen’s warehouses, the fields, the herds even that strange crystal tree.”

Telen leaned forward.  “I favour the aggressive option.  What must be done?”  Whenever Telen spoke, it grated on the Beks personality, who was eager for the simplicity of a fight.  Yet Beks had said her farewells long ago.

“No decision has been agreed,” murmured Agatei.  “But Telen’s question is worth exploring.”

Callistina leaned back, tilting her head for another view of the diagram.  “This tells us how to adapt the orbs so they project flat planes rather than spheres.  In that configuration they will protect a greater area but they will need to be manually tuned.  Then we use them to direct the iron wind away from the town.”

“That simple?”  Telen’s face was beet red.  “First, we must know precisely when the iron wind is coming.  Then we need to know how to predict its behaviour.  Then we must learn how to see it.”  He snorted in disgust.  “Are we even sure this threat is real?”

Kira (no, just she) closed her eyes.  She imagined her skin rippling, eager to change.  Tani could fly.  Tani could flee.  Only Kira’s discipline, a soldier’s discipline, kept her flesh in check.

A voice drifted from the shadows at the back of the meeting room. “I have never known Viel to lie,” said Nieten.  “She almost died to bring us this news.  She is dying as we speak.”

“We can trust the essence of the soothstone’s prediction, if not its precision.”  Callistina was gazing at the projection, lost in its intricacy.  “They provide their answers in mathematics beyond the ability of our minds to comprehend.”

Agatei waved her hand in front of Callistina’s eyes.  “Are there any other options?”

The wright giggled almost girlishly.  “I can do almost anything if you can give me enough power.”

“Kira?”  Agatei gestured at the quiet woman in the corner.    “You had thoughts on that?”

Agatei’s words were a lens, bright and clear, allowing Kira to focus her thoughts.  She shuffled her papers.  “Jird reported a device in the Valley of Sins that might be a generator.  A split sphere with lightning in the gap.  It could supply the necessary power, but the logistics of removing it from the valley are challenging.”

Agatei breathed deeply and rubbed two fingers on her forehead.  “We still have time which means we still have options.”  She stood and surveyed the room, spreading her arms.  “Here is my proposal.”

“Callistina, you may conduct your experiments but take no risks with the orbs.  You must be ready to reassemble them, if needed, no later than a month before the storm is due.”  She turned to the Othmari trader.  “You will supply her with whatever she requires.”

“This will be expensive.”

Callistini held out her hand and a tiny ball of fire hovered over her palm.  “I imagine having your new trading partner turned into a tadpole pond by the iron wind will be more expensive.”

“Courtesy, please.”  The flame was extinguished.  Agatei adjusted the lens on her glasses.  Perhaps they allowed her to see their body heat now, providing additional little clues to their mood.  “Kira, liaise with Jird.  See if it is feasible to recover that generator.  I will warn the diruk.  The least we could do is offer them shelter.  Nieten…”

“I wish to speak.”

It was Nieten who had interrupted.  Half of the personalties churning below the surface of Kira’s mind had respect for the hunter. The other half held her in varying levels of contempt.  Two, at least, grappled with nascent desire.

Agatei tripped over her words.  The taciturn glaive rarely spoke at council meetings.  “…can you…oh…please…we are listening.”

Nieten stood, rubbing the arm she had dislocated on her recent hunt.  “You speak of options.  We have none.  It is more than just the people and the gallens and the crops we must defend.  Since the defeat of the Margr, Ellomyr has grown, but we are more than just wood and synth and steel, and flesh and bone.  We are an idea, built on sacrifice.”  She looked down at her hands, at the calluses and scars.  “We must do whatever is in our power to preserve that idea.”

The room was silent but for the faint hum of a failing glowglobe.  Then Agatei spoke softly.  “I think we all understand what is a stake.”

The others in the room murmured agreement and departed.

Decisions had been made and the Kira personality could focus on turning them into plans.  Thought and action were useful distractions from her internal torment.  She paused in the doorway to the temporary council chambers, watching Agatei scurry after Nieten.

Agatei caught up with Nieten in the street.  The hunter’s eyes were already focused on the horizon.  “You know,” Nieten muttered, “even if we survive this, our hunting grounds will be despoiled.  Who knows that monsters this iron wind will spawn?  If it does not kill everything.”

Agatei touched Nieten’s shoulder, then snapped her hand back as the hunter winced.  “I was hoping you would be willing to speak to Viel again.  Callistina says the more we know of the location the soothstone was found, the more we can refine the prediction.  Here.”  She pressed a tiny green glass globe into her hand.  “Take this to Staven.  We were going to use it to build the regeneration sauna, but I think Viel is more valuable to us now.”

“I hope it is enough,” Nieten whispered, before turning away.

Kira watched them part.  The shadows of Ellomyr crowded in, seductive and alluring.  Hope, Rina thought, is the invisible iotum that might make these plans work.  If only she could find it in herself, they might stand a chance.

In her maelstrom of minds, it would be a difficult pursuit.

The Will and the Wind - Part Three (IW minus 141 - Maybe)

Lost.  Four letters with so many layers of meaning.  Alone.  Two syllables, rich in melancholy and despair.  Lost and alone.       Jun Nir had been stalked by the phrase, grappled with it, and now wore it like a cloak.

Jun limped through the gallery.  Two thigh bones braced his broken leg.  He held another in his hand with a jagged sliver of mirror bound to one end.  It bothered him, just a little, that he could not recall whose bones they were.

The world he had discovered inside the sphere was formed of a hoop roughly four miles wide with an indeterminate circumference.  A glowing blue ball set in a brass lattice bobbed slowly up and down at the centre of the hoop, providing a cycle of day and night.  The hoop twisted back on itself at some point so a traveller would need to walk the circumference twice to reach their starting point.

The gallery was a maze with no roof and the shadows filled it rapidly as the false sun set below the edge.  Jun walked slowly, approaching each painting with exaggerated care.  Here was a demon squatting on a golden column with a skull cupped in one hand.  There was a bald man dressed in blue gazing at a floating white crystal.  As he reached each one he used his improvised weapon to lever it off the wall then flipped it face down with his foot.  Paintings were scattered behind him on the dusty floor, backs gazing blankly at the sky.

There were no stars, but many of the ruins across the hoop were dotted with lights and the sky never truly faded beyond a rich indigo.  Jun had a small glowglobe fixed to a pole on his shoulder but it had dimmed in the months since he had found it and merely added highlights to the shadows.  He was too exhausted, too hungry to fear the dark.

The last picture in the gallery was a nude woman riding a wasp.  There were no other exits.  Jun settled down on the floor, setting his weapon across his knees.  Reaching into his satchel, he drew out leaf wrapped packets of mushroom and lichen, and one precious hunk of grey meat.  His last meal, unless he was victorious.

He had lost count of time since Lether had died in lightning and thunder.  His death was just the first, of course.  One thing was certain.  None of the thigh bones had been Lether’s.  The moment the last of them had crossed the threshold, a force field had slammed across the portal and none of them had been able to work out how to open it.

A faint buzzing sound flitted across the chamber and Jun realized he had been nodding off.  Had he been snoring?  The sun had set and his glowglobe was flickering, its dull red light simulating embers.  Jun had raged for days at finding they were trapped, but he had led his followers onwards, hoping to find another way.

But the world within the sphere was filled with creatures more strange and dangerous than any he had encountered in his long career as a mercenary.  In addition to mundane creatures, such as the tiny, reptilian laak and stray groups of margr, they had also encountered stranger things.  His nano, Ameri, had died early so he no names for some of them.  One had been a snake made from lightning that inhabited their cyphers and made them malfunction.  Another was a star-shaped creature that swooped down from ruined towers and implanted eggs in its prey.

A callerail, a creature resembling a huge gorilla with synth and steel fused to its flesh, had killed half his group, hunting them for days merely for sport.  But worst had been a species related to the culova, abhuman spiders that resembled their worldly kin in all but demeanor.  On the hoop they lead solitary lives and spread their crystal webs across wide swaths of the ruins.  They wore robes that could make them appear humanoid to lure their prey.  Cocooned, a living human could sustain them for weeks.

Jun wondered if Ameri still lived.

Lost.  Alone.  Jun was unsure how long those two words had hung around his neck like millstones.  At some point, perhaps soon after he had lost his last companion, he also lost his tendency to violent outbursts.  Now his anger was a dull ember, an ache he nurtured, along with hunger and thirst.

The buzzing woke him from his doze.  Reflexively, he scuttled back away from the painting.  His makeshift weapon fell to the stone floor with a distinct clatter that made him flinch.  The flickering light of his failing glowglobe revealed a young woman standing in front of the empty painting.  A wasp twice as large as the woman, hovered over her head.  It darted to her left, then her right and back again, held in place by a fine silver chain fixed to her wrist.

His weapon was too close to the creature.  Jun clambered to his feet and pulled the glowglobe from his shoulder.  It felt light and flimsy in his hands.

The woman smiled and turned to look at the wasp, momentarily disappearing from view.  In this aspect, the creature was two-dimensional.  As it turned back, the woman started to bulge and spread, merging with the wasp, like paint smeared by rain.  A hideous, gurgling sound accompanied the change.  In moments, the woman and the wasp were gone, the illusion replaced by the creature that was hunting him as it oozed out of its two-dimensional lair.

Jun knew he should run but his anger burned, spreading warmth through his tired limbs.

As a child, Jun used to make clay monsters at his mother’s feet while she spun pots and bowls.  At the end of the day he would smash them together, to form a nightmare beast of muddled parts.  The pariall was his nightmare given life - a fetid mass of eye stalks oozing blood, flailing tentacles, some ending in mouths, insectile claws and maws full of metal teeth.  It slithered forward and Jun wondered if the last shreds of his sanity were being stripped away, when he heard a woman’s laughter.

Bracing himself, he gripped the glowglobe and prepared to die.

His peripheral visions briefly swarmed with shadows and two humanoid shapes dashed by in a blur.  One materialized in front of the pariall furiously juggling three, flaming batons.  The other appeared behind it and tipped the painting off the wall.

The pariall whistled and moaned then backed into the painting as it fell.  For a moment, it was the woman and her wasp steed again.  Then the painting hit the ground and it was gone, fallen back into its personal flatland.

The two figures turned to face him.  They wore skin-tight black robes that appeared as if they were made from liquid shadow and face masks made from the same substance.  One was obviously male, the other female  On each of their forearms was a bracelet of intricate brasswork.  The woman wore a strange, furry scarf draped over her shoulders.

Jun shuddered, uncertain if he should be relieved, but he was proud that he was able to keep the tremor from his voice.  “That was my dinner you scared off.”

The male plucked his batons from the air and clipped them together to form a single torch.  “I assure you, they taste like the latrine behind the Trilling View on Saturday morning.”

“You would know,’ quipped the woman.

Jun felt a sudden, urgent need to sit down.  He eyed his weapon and the man standing over it.  “Who are you?”

“We are lost,” said the man.

“We are alone,” said the woman.

They removed their face masks.  They were young, perhaps seventeen, and similar enough in feature to be siblings.  Together they said, “we were hoping you could help us found our way out of here.”

A feline face appeared from the scarf.  “Meep”, it said.

It was too much.  It started as a cough, then a gulp, then a gasp, and finally he was laughing so hard he could barely breathe.

The Will and the Wind - Part Four (IW minus 82)

Gilthk pondered non-existence.

The stone shivered beneath his feet, singing a tale of hard granite inflected by veins of synthsteel.  Rockfalls tumbled from the cliffs above, across the trail, and into the valley below, brimming with shale and rhyolite.  Gilthk braced himself and knew that he would soon be one with the stones of the valley.  The concept did not disturb him overmuch.

Funerary rituals varied from one Diruk tribe to another.  Some would consume their non-functioning kin, absorbing their experience, their mood-states and the ash of their furnaces.  Others would leave them as statues, waymarkers, for the tribe to revisit in their long, slow migrations.  Gilthk’s people favored the gifting, where choice parts of the immobile kin were presented to family and friends.  Some humans wore gems and crystals in jewelry, oblivious that they had once been part of a sentient being.

It was unlikely there would be much left of Gilthk to gift, but dust.

A massive, overwhelming crackling sound filled the valley, smashing the wafer thin crystals the Diruk used to sense sound.  It was something of a relief.  Better to contemplate the motion of the ground, to savour its surge and shimmy, unsullied by thin vibrations through a useless gas.

He considered his options once more.  The cliff above was sheer and smooth.  A Diruk could climb any cliff, given time, adjusting its body to cling to the finest cracks, the subtlest slopes.  Yet he had mere moments, rather than years.

If he jumped it was possible he would survive the fall, but it could take decades to rebuild his shattered body, and the iron wind would take his tribe, leaving him alone.

The thought of solitude ached.  He sang the deep, atonal walking song of his tribe, in wavelengths measured in miles, emitted from deep within his furnace.  They would hear and understand.

The humans have failed.  Gilthk has failed.

A gust of wind battered him, then another, followed by a continuous rising torrent.  Up the path, a billowing cloud of dust surged toward him.

He had helped with their blocks and their tackles, their cranes and their force projectors.  He had surveyed the best path out of the valley, identified weaknesses in the rock, directed them to brace it where he could.  Almost, it had worked.  They had been within sight of the rim of the valley, when one of the force disks had failed, placing too much tension on a badly forged chain, which had snapped, allowing the sphere to twist out of its cradle.  Failures, were like avalanches.  A pebble, a rock, a boulder, catastrophe.

Gilthk patted a smooth place on his shoulder.  For the past few years he had been teaching some of the children of Ellomyr the language of the Diruk.  Not their migration song, which was below the range of human hearing, but the mundane daily language of hums and grinding stone, the hiss of furnace and clack of crystals.  He enjoyed the company of human children.  They would never properly speak the tongue of the Diruk but some had made musical instruments that could approximate it.

Thinking of the children, Gilthk had dropped behind the slow, steady ascent of the sphere and started smoothing a spot on his shoulder, ready, one day, to start budding a node.

Lightning flickered in the dust cloud.  The ground heaved beneath his feet, but Gilthk was not shaken.  The sphere appeared out of the dust, bounding downward, still hemmed in by the guide rails they had built, and more than sufficient to crush Gilthk to powder.

He considered death.  It was a human concept, full of so much sorrow, so much fear, wrapped in so much ritual, it was like a hundred million years of sedimentary rock.

Gilthk knew he would miss the children.  He gazed stoically up the path as the sphere bore down on him and, for a moment, understood that other peculiar human concept, regret.

The howling dust washed over him, filling him with the tastes and textures of the valley.  His furnace screamed back. The air filled with ozone and the smell of burning metal.

Then the sphere hit the slightest bump in the path and bounced, sailing just above Gilthk’s head.

An avalanche of rubble washed over him, mingled with the smashed mechanisms that had been used to move the sphere.  A minor inconvenience, Gilthk thought, as the rocks piled up around him.  The rumbling faded.  A few last loose rocks skittered down the cliffs.

Soft, muted colors filled his crystals.  He hummed, telling his tribe across the valley that he had an amusing tale to share.

Jird, scrabbled over the rocks toward him.  Blood from her few cuts and grazes were caked in dust.  “Are you alright?”  Gilthk could not hear Jird’s words but sensed the vibrations traveling from her larynx through the soles of her feet and into the ground.

Gilthk contemplated existence, then laughed, a sound like rocks bounding down the rapids.  “Alright?  Yes.  Glad I am not taller.”

The human smiled then looked past him, down the trail, in time to see the sphere smashing into trees on the valley floor, before finally coming to a halt.  “I am sorry.  We have failed.”  She offered her hand.  "There will be room for your people in the shelter.  They will be safe.”

Gilthk felt a deep rumble in his chest cavity and his furnace burned brighter.  “There is time.  The Diruk will come.  The Diruk will bring this sphere home.”  So many words were a major effort for him, but he felt a brimming sense of satisfaction.

His people would come and they would not fail.

The Will and the Wind - Part Five (IW minus 44)

Miserya twisted the bracelet back and forth on her wrist.  It consisted of two intertwined wooden hoops, one of a rich red jarrah, the other of a pale, fine-grained maple.  Both woods were notoriously difficult to work in their own ways, and Misereya had polished these until they were as smooth as skin and shiny as gemstones.

The other windriders were high above the Trilling Shard, using it as the centre of a drop spiral.  Each of them trailed reflective streamers that created shimmering lines of violet and green, bright enough to leave afterimages.  Misereya watched intently, counting the turns, feeling her stomach lurch and drop.  She had practiced the maneouvre with them, but Acel had gently told her she was not ready for acrobatics.  Not yet.

 Even in the burgeoning dusk she could see Acel leading them.  His dreadlocks were woven with some luminescent substance and in the distance it seemed that he was a creature made from light.

Twisting the bracelet one way, she remembered waiting for the moment he was alone.  Twisting it back, she remembered how his smile quirked around the scar on his lip when he agreed to meet her afterwards.

One of the wrights, Callistina or perhaps Ghela, had changed the settings of the force orbs, creating dazzling, pulsing displays.  Fireworks without thunder.  Miseyea sat on the topmost platform of the crystal tree, one leg dangling over the edge, the other tucked beneath it.  Her new synthetic leg felt exactly like her real leg but it had the appearance of a glass sculpture filled with stars.  From her thigh, the same substance rose in tendrils up her body until it bloomed over the left side of her face.  Her left eye and her hair were made of the same material.

Severaixs had called the substance scintillae.  Callistina had told her it was similar to the stuff that made the Iron Wind.  In any event, her leg and eye were perfectly functional, though her hair seemed to have a mind of its own.

Perfectly functional.  Perfectly ugly.

The branches of the crystal tree absorbed the colours from the burning sky and the pulsing force fields, turning them into roiling streamers and languid orbs of colour that bathed her in light.  Anyone who cared to look up would see her there, sitting alone.  She rubbed the half mask that hid the starskin on her face as if to remind herself it was still in place.

The windriders finished their spiral, reformed, and darted across the fields toward the crystal tree.  Bonfires and glowglobes dotted the plains and people cheered and waved as the windriders swooped overhead.  The impromptu party had begun the moment the Iron Wind was defeated.  That had been yesterday.

Misereya drew her feet close to her chest and covered the bracelet with her hair.  Acel was gesturing at the others, preparing their next manoeuvre, but as they passed by he turned and smiled.

Fire bloomed in her chest and she waved, but he had already turned away.

A gust of wind brought her the smells of smoke, cedar and sandalwood, and the mingled aroma of a hundred cooking fires.  Misereya did not feel hungry.  She felt suddenly queasy, her belly full of moths.  He had agreed to meet her, but he was their captain and perhaps he felt bad about cutting her from the team tonight.  He had agreed to meet her and smiled, but he was always smiling.

The windriders had looped back along the river and had set their streamers aflame.  Their reflections pursued them to the Glittermist falls, until the fires were doused and the fliers disappeared, scattering rainbows.  It was a more dangerous move that it looked. Hitting the mist at that speed could dislodge an unprepared rider.

Miserya stood, scanning for Acel, and her body felt like a soap bubble, floating, ready to burst.

Misereya turned the bracelet and rubbed the hidden catch with the tip of her finger.  The bracelet was a puzzle.  The two halves could be separated and twisted apart forming a matching pair.  Carved into each one was a name, inlaid in silver and gold.  Misereya on the maple, Acel on the jarrah.  Her mother still wore a similar bracelet.  The other half was buried with her father.

Recalling her mother’s suppressed smile, on seeing Misereya’s clumsy first attempt, set the moths in her belly into a frenzy.  She set one foot on her board and pushed it slightly back and forth, setting her balance.  He wasn’t coming.  It was time to go.

“Heya, Misereya.”  

Miserya’s heart leaped into her throat and she almost fell off the platform.  Acel had quietly landed behind her, and she had no idea how long he had been standing there.

“Watcha doing,” he drawled?  He stood on his board, perfectly still, a trick nobody else on the team had mastered.  Oil on ice.

“I…” she stuttered.  “I was watching.”

Acel nodded.  “Did you see us?  That double helix was hair raising.  I mean literally.  I thought my hair had caught on fire.”

Misereya swallowed.  “I saw.  Will you teach me?”

“Sure.  Anything for my Misereya.”  In that moment, Acel’s gaze dropped to her hands, to the bracelet.  Even in the dimness, she could see the blush blooming on his face.  He smiled, but then he smiled at everyone.  He looked down at his board, but then he was always looking at his board.

Every moment he was silent was a perfect moment of misery.  Say something, she thought.  Say anything.

At that moment, the other windriders swooped low overhead, circled the platform shouting and laughing, then darted off toward the Glittermist Falls.

Acel did not look up.  “I promised the others we would meet them at Gurner’s Loop.“ With the slightest flex of his knees, his board drifted toward the edge of the platform.  When he finally looked up, his eyes kept drifting away from her face.  “You should come with us.”

  Shame flooded her and she thought she might throw up those moths.  “Go on.  I have better things to do.”

“Are you sure?”

It was too much.  She pulled off the bracelet and hurled it off the platform.  It tumbled into the darkness, chased by the playful lights of the crystal tree.  Then she kicked her board off the edge and leaped onto it, heedless of the fall.

“Wait.  Misereya.”

She fled into the dusk, dropping low into the shadows, so he could not follow.  She wished the Iron Wind would return, to change her heart to stone, her tears to crystal.  But there was no Iron Wind, just the shadows to chase her, and the memory of Acel’s smile.

The Will and the Wind - Part Six (IW minus 44)

Agatei wandered the town, weary and restless, her mind playing over the events of the past few weeks, like a child biting her nails.

A small group of children ran by playing a new game called Chase the Iron Wind.  It was a modified form of tag meets hide and go seek.  One of the children played the Iron Wind and chased the others as they sought a hidden glowglobe.  Tagged players joined the Iron Wind.  The glowglobe was the “cure” and when it was found the game of tag would be reversed as the children sought to heal one another of the effects of the Iron Wind.

Agatei admired their resilience.  Just days ago they had been cowering in the shelter, uncertain if the combined skills of the wrights and the energy beings would be sufficient to save them.  In mere days the Iron Wind had been demoted to the status of bogeyman

An impromptu outdoor kitchen had accumulated in the town square.  The mingled aromas of roasting meat, vegetable stews, and a hundred exotic spices should have made her hungry.  She managed to smile graciously when people greeted her and offered their praise but her frown always returned.  Her “pondering frown”, Iona had called it.  She courteously accepted drinks then set them down where there was no risk of offence.  Perhaps she was simply overtired?

Or perhaps she was just missing Iona.  While Iona was studious, often self-absorbed, she could drop all her obsessions in a moment for a good party.

Near the Trilling Shard, Callistina and Ghela were toying with the device that controlled the force orbs, bickering in a friendly fashion.  They had crudely wired in one of the crystals provided by the energy beings to defeat the iron wind.  As Agatei approached, Ghela cried out in delight as she swept her fingers across the face of the crystal.  Overhead, a pulse of coruscating light erupted on the surface of the force field, rolling across the sky before shattering like a glass rainbow.  Applause, whistles and drunken shouts of appreciation rippled across the town and out into the fields.

Agatei clapped her hands softly, then beckoned for Callistina.  She led the wright to a quiet doorway.  “I have a question for you.”

“Unless that question involves a mysteriously vanishing case of Telen’s finest wine, and the proper means for disposal of alleged stolen goods, I refuse to answer until you literally let your hair down.”  Callistina reached up and tugged at Agatei’s hairband.

Agatei pulled her head away.  “It is a serious question.  I promise I will relax if you give me a serious answer.”

The force fields billowed with sheets of teal and indigo, the colours reflected on Callistina’s face.  The wright patted the air with her hands.  “We won, Agatei.  I know there are a thousand details you want to pin down and categorise, but you should revel in the moment.  File things tomorrow.”  Callistina recognised the pondering frown and sighed.  “Just one question and then I am back to the wine.”

Now the moment had come, Agatei felt certain she would seem foolish.  She brushed stray locks of hair back from her face and fiddled with her glasses for a moment, before blurting it out.  “The soothstone said six months.  It has only been four and a half.  Was it wrong?”

Callistina seemed to visibly gather her wits, before tilting her head back as her eyes grew unfocussed.  “I told you the soothstone prediction was inaccurate.  My calculations suggested the margin for error was only a few days.  Obviously, I was wrong.”

“I wonder, when you have a spare moment, if you might have a look at those calculations again?”

Callistina opened her mouth to speak, then a scowl spread slowly across her face.  “Sure.  Its not as if I don’t have a billion other things to do.”  She reached up again and Agatei permitted the wright to pull off her headband.  “Now, drink wine with me.”

Agatei accepted a glass of wine and laughed with them as Ghela wove more complex patterns with the force fields.  At an appropriate moment, she slipped away, setting the full glass down in a plant pot.

As she walked to the edge of the old village, Agatei imagined herself a strolling meme, spreading disquiet like a plague.  It was profoundly unfair, she knew, and completely unreasonable. A line of musicians and dancers crossed her path and tried to draw her in, but she quietly demurred.  Once she had passed the gate, restored after the Battle of Ellomyr, the wind tousled her hair and reminded her it had come undone.

Nieten sat with her scouts around a bonfire, passing around a careworn jug from the Trilling View.  Agatei hovered at the edge of the light, hesitating just long enough for Nieten to spot her.  Then she retreated into the darkness, drawing the hunter with her.

Nieten spoke softly from the shadows.   Something is troubling you.”

Agatei nodded and felt suddenly miserable.  “I am exhausted, nothing more.”

It was not like the taciturn hunter to respond quickly.  For a minute or two, they stood together in silence.  Then Nieten touched Agatei’s arm.  “That queasy feeling is your instincts stirring your thoughts.  Listen to them.”

Agatei hated the tremor in her voice.  “We were overdue for easy.  It should feel right that this was easy.  Nobody was hurt.  Nobody had to bleed or die.”

“Tell me what you need me to do.”

Agatei gathered as much of her composure as she could.  “I would like your scouts to head out at first light.  I need to know how the Iron Wind changed the terrain as soon as possible.  You can appropriate Ghela’s flutterbys for communication.”  A breath, and her voice grew firmer.  “If you find nothing, I need you to tell only me.”

Nieten faded into the darkness without another word.

Agatei chose a route back to her home to avoid as many people as possible.  The wind had grown chill and she did not have her jacket or cloak.  Some of Telen’s wine might have helped stave off her shivers but she had given it all away.  Soon enough, she was pushing through her own door and hurrying up the stairs.

Beneath her bed was a box full of Iona’s possessions.  Her clothes had been laundered, darned and folded.  Her books had been arranged neatly and wrapped in cloth.  The largest book was the one Agatei sought.  The leather cover was scuffed and scratched.  A lock of Iona’s hair marked the page she wanted.

The book was the Sacred Chronicle of High Father Calaval.  The page marked the beginning of Chapter IX: Wind of Iron.  Agatei ran her fingers across the words, lips moving like a child learning to read.

What Calaval described was nothing like the Iron Wind they had seen.  The future Amber Pope had not described swirls or flashes of colour in clear air.

Calaval had described a storm.

The Will and the Wind - Part Seven (IW minus 32 more or less)

Jun sat with his back to the low wall that shielded them.  “Ameri called them Zios…ziooms…something.”

Serij sorted through the gems in her hand, selected an amethyst, then lifted up her hair and snapped the gem into the lorespike at the base of her skull.  Symbols flitted across her cornea.

Avion reached out slowly as if to tug on his sister’s hair.  “It takes a few moments for her to absorb the knowledge.  I once drew a third eye on her forehead before she finished.”

“Xiomarche,” Serij said, slapping her brother’s hand away then pointed at the strange building in the distance.  Clusters of five-pointed stars clung to the segments of curved roof, glowing with a soft blue luminescence.  “Death begets life.”

“They came on us while we slept,” Jun muttered.  “They swoop in from above.  You hear a buzz and then they impale you with those wicked claws.”

Aavion grinned.  “Perhaps we should make a couple of umbrellas?”

Jun punched the wall.  “I lost two of my crew to these beasts.  Can that magic gem tell us how to kill them?”

Aavion had not noticed Jun’s flushed face.  “Hit them with a very large hammer?”

Serij punched her brother’s arm.  “There are many ways, but I think evasion is our best tactic.”

Jun grabbed Aavion’s wrist and pulled him close.  “We only have two of these devices.  I will not be left behind.”  Without turning his head, he snapped, “put it down girl.  I know you will not use it.”

“You suspect,” said Serij, but she withdrew her knife.  “You should listen to Aavion.  He always has a plan.”

Fortunately, Jun did not sense the sarcasm.  He released Aavion who held up the device on his wrist.  It was a polished lattice made of a metal like brass with tiny diamond chips at the interstices.  “Do I have a plan?  Dear sister, I have a most excellent and auspicious plan.”

“I told you he has a  plan.”

Aavion settled back on his haunches and peered over the wall.

The Peeled Cathedral, he had named the structure that surrounded the gate.  It was a high, domed building split into six equal segments turned to face outwards.  The gate itself  was within the hexagon formed by the segments.

Between them and the gate was a labyrinth of obsidian walls, polished to a mirror finish.  Pools and channels of stagnant water wove through the maze, choked with weeds.  Mist rose from the water, as the sun rose, making the air humid.

“Have you heard the tale of the seskii, the chicken and the bag of corn?”

Jun scowled.  “Is that another joke?”

Serij held up the device on her forearm.  “These devices allow us to pass through solid objects.”  She pointed at the overshoes of woven metal links.  “These stop us from falling through the ground.”  She pointed at her brother who was smirking.  “I believe what my brother is suggesting is that we go in turns.  Two go, one returns, two go.”

“Foolish,” growled Jun.  Two of us will be unprotected while the other returns.”

“Xiomarches respond to movement.  So long as we do not stir them up, they will not attack.”  Serij started unbuckling her phase bracer.  “Also, you will be out of sight at the gate, no?”

Aavion touched her arm.  “I should be the one to stay.”

“I am half an hour older than you and I have no skill with locks.  You can get started on the gate while Jun brings back your bracer.”  She turned to the glaive.  “Is this acceptable?”

Jun held out his hand.  “Time to bid this place good riddance.”

(Continued below)

Moving out of phase was like skating on oil.  It took effort to get going and then it was almost impossible to stop without falling.  It had happened to Serij a couple of times while they were learning to use the devices.  On one occasion she had passed through the floor of the hoop, leaving only her silver shoes above the ground.  He had teased her for days about that, until she punched him in the nose.

Aavion glanced sideways.  Jun had been like a newborn aneen at first, arms flailing as he clung to his tenuous balance, but he had quickly found a clumsy technique that worked for him.  It involved loping.  Like an ape.

Each time Aavion passed through a solid object was like walking through a wave.  Oddly, different substances elicited different smells. The obsidian walls tasted like soot, the stagnant water like blue cheese.  Working his tongue, Aavion focussed on the path to the Peeled Cathedral, keeping pace with Jun as best he could.

They were beneath the segments of roof now.  The xiomarches clung to the shadows within each curve, pulsing gently, and it amused him to imagine them snoring.  So long as they remained passive he would be happy.  In just a few more minutes they would be at the gate and Jun would return for his sister.

He had passed through two more obsidian walls before he noticed the glaive was not with him.  It was three more before he could stop.  By then he was already in the shadow of the Peeled Cathedral.  He waited but Jun did not appear.  He yelled, knowing it wold translate to nothing more than a breathy whisper.  He skated slowly back through the last wall, glanced left and right, but saw nothing.

Perhaps he had fallen through like Serij?  He scanned again, looking for the silver shoes.

A shadow passed over him followed by another.  Aavion shaded his eyes and saw three, no six, xiomarches, bunch up then detach from the roof.  Each one tumbled and then deployed translucent wings.  At each point of their star-like bodies, was a barbed claw as long as a dagger.  At the centre of their bodies, was a circular red maw surrounded by needle sharp teeth.

They passed over him, rapidly descending, toward a point off to his left.

Why would the fool removed his phase bracer?

Aavion swallowed fear.  If they lost the second bracer it would be almost impossible for he and Serij to make it through the maze.  Slowly, cautiously, he moved forward, aiming for the point where the xiomarches were descending.

Jun was kneeling in a small courtyard where four channels met.  He had set the phase bracer down on the edge of a pool nearby.  Torn tents were scattered on the stone, covered in mould.  Scorched stone marked the remnants of a campfire.  Jun was sorting through what appeared to be a pile of rags full of bones.  It took a moment for Aavion to understand what he was seeing.  It was all that was left of a body that had been a nursery for a xiomarch.

Aavion glanced upwards.  The xiomarches had circled around and were diving to attack.  Aavion deactivated his bracer and screamed.  “Jun.  Get down.”

Calmly, the glaive fixed a black glove covered in metal plates to his hand, stood, braced himself and clenched his fist at the his attackers.

A black nimbus formed around the glove.  The air shimmered and then column of roiling light surged toward the xiomarches.  Half of them crumpled like kites in a strong wind.  Jun ducked as the other three tried to pull up, turned to follow them, then activated the glove again.  Two of the remaining xiomarches curled up and tumbled into the wall.  The last flapped its wing furiously, buzzing close to an astounded Aavion, before climbing out of range.

A loud hum filled the labyrinth.  Aavion looked up and, as far as he could see, all of the xiomarches were stirring from their slumber.

“You have your plan.  I have mine.”  Jun pointed his clenched fist at the xiomarches and grinned broadly, revealing crooked teeth.  “Hit them with a very large hammer.”

He gestured at the phase bracer, before turning his face back to the sky.  “Go fetch your sister.”

As Aavion retrieved the device, he realised it was the first time he had ever seen Jun smile.

(Continued below)

Above their heads, the gate closed like a cat’s pupil, dropping them into darkness.  For a few moments, there was silence.  Then a cricket chirruped and a night bird called.

“This does not look like the Valley of Sins,” muttered Aavion.  He sat on the grass, head between his legs, fighting the nausea that came with the transition from the Outside.  Jun held out his hand and helped Aavion to his feet.

Somehow Serij had recovered quicker than both of them.  “This looks so familiar.  I see stars reflected in a river.  Is that a waterfall I hear?”  She snapped her fingers.  “This is Wistful Bluff.”

As if in response, lights started winking on across the dark landscape.  More lights than Serij had ever seen in her life.  It was Ellomyr, but not Ellomyr.  There was a wall covered in glowing orbs surrounding the town, and buildings had spread across the plains like fungus.  Mineworks dotted the Brackenridge and a series of interconnected pools welled out from the Angry Red River like droplets of liquid mercury, reflecting the lights of a crystal tree.

“What happened here,” Aavion wondered?  “We were only gone a few months.”

A polite cough arose from the darkness.  “You folks seemed to have cut the power with that entrance.”  A young man stood nearby holding a tool bag.  “That is a neat trick.  Perhaps you should go and tell Callistina how you did it.”

“Who,” queried Serij?

“If she lives anywhere near the Trilling View, then she can buy me a pint,” laughed Aavion.

Without a word, Jun started down the path that wound about the hill.  I was lost, he thought.  I was alone, he thought.

Now where the hells am I?

The Will and the Wind - Part Eight (IW minus 27)

Callistina set the crystal on its end and spun it holding it straight with her fingertip.  Sullen beads of reflected firelight spun across the wall and ceiling.

“That did not go well,” said Agatei.  She had settled back into her favourite armchair, the oversized one that made her look like a child, and placed her fingers on her temples.

“Being ejected from the council is not the worst of our problems.”

“I trusted you.”  Agatei bowed her head into her hands, muffling her voice.  “Tell me again.  Convince me again.”

“I have refined the prediction of the soothstone.  In less than four weeks the iron wind will come.”

“Your maths has failed you before,”  Agatei rebuked.

Until that moment, Callistina had not realised how much the Council meant to the diminutive arkus.  Until that moment, Callistina had really not considered how important emotion was to the jigsaw puzzle of human affairs.

Callistina did not enjoy puzzles.  Most often she would see the complete picture long before the pieces were assembled, and on occasion she could see it the moment the pieces were spilled from the box.  After that, putting them together was a chore.  But she knew Agatei enjoyed completing them, setting every last piece into place.  Some of her favourite puzzles were framed on the wall.

Perhaps if she had explained her hypothesis more effectively, assembled every piece of the puzzle in sequence, the Council would not have rejected it.

She drew the crystal into the palm of her hand, then sat upright in her chair and adopted her lecturing voice.  “After the iron wind came, you asked me to review my study of the soothstone.  It is still showing the iron wind as 45 days out, plus or minus 3 days.”

Agatei picked up her glass of port and swirled it but did not drink.  “But we were hit with the iron wind.  Your prediction was wrong.”  She was repeating Telen’s words at the Council meeting.

“Yes.  Nieten’s scouts confirmed there was some morphic rearrangement of the surrounding terrain.  The Summerwait farm was the nearest event location but not the only one.  We were definitely hit.”  Callistina realised that was the moment she had lost them.

“And even if you are right,” Agatei murmured, the crystals will save us again.”

Callistina slammed the crystal down on the table.  It shattered into dust and shards.  “Most of them are burned out.  Ellomyr is too big to defend from the next strike with the few that remain.”  Turning her hand palm up, she started plucking splinters from her flesh.  “Ow!  Perhaps I should have used that demonstration at the meeting?”

“Perhaps you should.”  Agatei leaned forward in her chair.  “So what do we do now?”

“Whatever we can.”  She pondered the world as a puzzle.  “The closer we are to the event, the more accurate the prediction.  I have it nailed down to plus or minus two days, now, and I know the arc horizon.”

“Which means?”

“I just need to deploy a half dozen force orbs at the right time and place to deflect it.”  Callistina accepted the handkerchief Agatei offered and wrapped it around her hands.  “That means I will need to borrow the gambado.”

“Now if only the Council would be prepared to approve such a thing.”

“I did not say we should ask.”

Agatei appeared as if she would choke on her objections.  She took a long drink and looked down at her hands.  “How many people does it take to form a conspiracy?”

“Three,” said Nieten, from the shadows.

Agatei dropped her glass, swore, and bent to mop the spill up with her sleeve.

Callistina was more surprised by Agatei cursing than Nieten’s unexpected appearance.  “How long have you been there?”

“Long enough.”  The hunter settled into a chair, struggling to find comfort in such softness. “You will need scouts.  Given the circumstances they should be wind riders.”

Agatei had recovered from her surprise.  “You believe us?”

“My grandfather used to tell me tales of storms at sea.  He said the fiercest storms begin with a squall.  Waves would wash over the foredeck and lighting would leave an acrid stench in the air.  After a few hours the squall would blow over and a flat calm would turn the sea into a mirror.  Then would come a blood red sunset and the sea would turn an eerie green in colour.  That night a storm like no other would howl out from the darkness and sink any ship foolish enough to challenge it.”

“I believe all we have seen is a squall.  The true storm is yet to come.”

Callistina thought to correct her, but decided against it.  “Do you know two wind riders we can trust?”

Nieten nodded, thoughtfully.  “Thayel’s boy, and Dora’s girl, were both in the Battle of Ellomyr.  They will understand what is at stake.”

Agatei was frowning.  “Callistina, do you have a plan for persuading Unaers to loan you the gambado?”

“No.  I was planning on stealing it.”

Agatei closed her eyes, as if she was standing on the edge of a cliff.  “Um.  I approved the security on the compound.  How are you going to bypass it?”

Callstina smiled, mentally placing the final piece of the puzzle.  “It so happens I recently met a pair of twins who might be able to help with that.”

Agatei settled back in her chair.  The shadows seemed to crowd in, trapping her.  In her comfortable chair, in her cozy study, it did not seem as if she would agree with such a reckless plan.

Finally, Agatei nodded.  “I have never worked out the details of a heist before.  How do we begin?”

The Will and the Wind - Part Nine (IW minus 11)

Nieten sat on her porch watching the sun rise.  Her small pack leaned against her chair.  It was always packed these days.  Leaning back, she closed her eyes, and remembered the smell of her grandfather’s pipe.  As a child, she had always imagined he had been a pirate before coming to Ellomyr.  He had certainly filled her head with tales of the sea.

Tales of storms.

Her home had been empty for many years.  Every time she returned there was more dust, more cobwebs and she never stayed long enough to clean them out.  For a long time it had been on the outskirts of the village, at the point where the lights faded and she could see the stars.  Now she was crowded by a gallen yard on one side, and a warehouse on the other.  At least she could see the lights of the crystal tree, but they were slowly being stifled by the wooden structure being constructed around it.

She sighed, audibly.  “How long are you going to lurk there?”

A shadow moved in her peripheral vision but drew no closer.

“If you are here to kill me, you should have done so when it was still full dark.”  Nieten had not bothered to don her bowglove.  She was not afraid of this shadow.  “I cannot imagine why anyone would want me killed.”  She gestured at the new construction that was slowly blocking her view.  “I was well known in the village.  I am a mystery to the city.”

She stretched our her legs, extended the stretch to her whole body.  “Finish your business, lurker.  I want to be out of the city before the sun is full risen.”

The shadowy figure hesitated, then darted forward and set something down on the edge of the porch.  Nieten did not turn her head, but had the impression the stranger was a child.  Then the figure was gone, capricious as the wind.

Nieten stood and turned back to her house.  She had not bothered to lock it.  There was nothing of value inside to steal.  All of her memories were safely stored inside her head; precious jewels she could take out and polish during the long, lonely days she was hunting.

One step, two steps and she was at the edge of the porch.  Kneeling, she scooped up the object left by the urchin.  It was a small green glass globe filled with an oily liquid that swirled with glittering motes.  The regeneration fluid that Staven had used to save Viel.

She held it between thumb and forefinger, then allowed it to drop into her palm and gently enclosed it in her hand.  Shrugging, she placed it securely in her pack.  They were planning to steal a dozen force orbs and a gambado.  What would one more theft add to the ledger?

Three steps, four steps, and Nieten disappeared into the dawn.

The Will and the Wind - Part Ten (IW zero)

Acel appeared distracted.  He was not quite looking at the oncoming storm.  He was not quite looking back toward the safety of the force wall.  He was definitely not looking at Misereya.

One of his hands was stretched outward, allowing him to make small adjustments to his balance.  The other kept dropping into his satchel.  A gust of wind tousled his hair, and Misereya’s heart ached.  His board shifted under his feet but he held his place with the slightest shift of his muscles.

Misereya tried her best to ignore him.  Dawn had been a few hours ago and the sun had swiftly drowned in vivid pink, orange and then violet clouds.  Like a bad bruise forming, Misereya thought, glancing at Acel, and wondered if a heart could be bruised.

A strong gust of wind forced Misereya to lean into it, tilting her board to stay in place.  It lifted her up a few feet before dropping her back to the top of the bluff.

A distance hiss and sizzle might have been wind borne debris striking the force wall.  Shading her eyes, she looked back at the faint blue shimmer across the far end of the valley.  Callistina had convinced Agatei this was where the iron wind would strike.  The force wall flickered, faded, then grew brighter.  Misereya hoped that meant Callistina was tuning it, making it more efficient.  The gambado had limited power.  If it ran out before the iron wind was diverted, they would die.  With only a few of the defensive crystals at Ellomyr actually operational, thousands of people would die.

Misereya shifted her board and wondered if it was fast enough to outrun the wind.

Lightning flickered followed closely by thunder.  The lightning was blue, but it was also red, green and black.  It spread out like cracks forming on glass.  The wind gusted again, and then rose to a stead gale.  At the edge of her vision, she could see the shadow of the clouds sweeping across the forest, followed closely by veils of rain.

“Misereya.”  Acel’s voice had a peculiar tone, as if his mouth was full of marbles.

“Do not speak to me.”  Misereya held out her hand, palm flat,  her hand full of stars.  Over the past months she had come to accept her strange disability.  She had stopped wearing her hood and no longer wore a stifling robe on hot days.  If there was no chance they would accept her, there was no point in hiding.

Tiny sparks danced in the air above her hand and she willed them into the shape of a shield.  Turning, she held her palm out so the light shield was between them.  She could see his face through them but he was definitely not looking at her.  At his board, his shoes, his hands, anything but her.

“This is important.”

She gestured at the oncoming storm.  Earlier they had seen flocks of birds flying west.  Now she could see animals dashing through the forest.  It would be time to leave soon.  “Nothing is more important than this.”

He swallowed.  “This might be the last time I can tell you…”

“Tell me what?”  She turned on him.  'That I am ugly?  I know that already.  That you cannot bear the sight of me and want me off the team?”  She snapped her fingers together.  The shield of light collapsed into a ball and flew toward him.  He flinched but it sailed by his head.

In the distance, a copse of trees turned into a cluster of flailing blue tendrils.  A hillock became a clump of steel wool, crawling with sparks.

“That is not what I think.”  Acel fumbled in his satchel again but seemed to be struggling to grasp whatever find what he was seeking.  “I have something for you,” he mumbled.

“Keep it,” she snapped and turned away.  A moment later she held up her hand.  “Look.  No, this is not about hideous me.  Look over there.”

She pointed.  Figures were moving in the valley below them.  Humanoid, but they had the heads of goats and no two of them were alike.  At least one had a pair of tentacles wrapped around its arms and another had a barbed, scorpion tale.  Each carried weapons; spear, trident, net or club, and wore trophies from their prey.  Miserya felt suddenly queasy.  Her hair coiled into tight ringlets.  She touched the side of her face, where her skin was full of stars, and her board wobbled as her balance shifted.

The margr had not seen the windriders.  They were not hunting, or moving in stealth, but were instead running as fast as they were able, fleeing the iron wind.

Running up the valley, directly toward the force wall.

Acel touched her gently on the shoulder.  “We have to warn them.”

For a moment she wished she could fall into his arms.  Instead, she recovered her balance and turned her board to the west.  It was time to do their duty.

Thunder growled and chased them up the valley.  Misereya wondered if she would live long enough to find out what Acel had been trying to tell her.

The Will and the Wind - Part Eleven (IW zero)

Callistina lay on her back beneath the gambado her hands deep within an open panel.  “A beast this is, but not one of mine.”  A deep note rolled across the valley, like a drowned bell.  Lights flared in the panel.  Callistina snatched back her hand, and sucked on her fingers.  “We should have stolen Unaers when we took his beast.”

Serij rolled under the gambado.  “A branch hit the force field.  Should that light be blinking like that?  Also, you do not steal people.  You kidnap them.”

“Correction is the lowest form of wit.”  Callistina jabbed at a nodule and the lights grew bright and steady.

“Sarcasm?  I am a huge fan of sarcasm.”  She clenched her fist.  “It is all in the delivery.”  Serij rolled over to look at the force wall.  “Yes.  That looks good.”

Callistina chewed on her lower lip.  If she could persuade Serij to stay she would make an excellent apprentice.  Callistina crawled out from under the gambado, shaded her eyes and looked to the east.

The light had taken on a strange texture.  Lightning popped in the clouds, creating brief, stark shadows.  The force field hissed when debris struck it.  A shallow barricade was slowly building on the far side.

Serij had followed the power cable to the junction box.  Twelve smaller cables ran to each to the twelve force orbs set across the valley.  Alternating blue and green lights pulsed along the cables.  Callistina walked up behind the young woman, and looked over her shoulder at the workbench.

The former barmaid picked up one of the two phase bracers and turned it over in her hands.  “Will the iron wind attack something out of phase?”

“Which moon?”  Callistina chuckled.  “Allow me.  It should be simple enough to tune those things to the same phase as the crystal.”  Callistina lay the phase bracer out on the workench and fitted the myriocular to her head, setting it to act as a microscope.  The switches were so small she needed a needle to manipulate them.  “I thought these were meant for travel to the Outside.”

Serij laughed.  “My quellet learned how to use them.  I still haven’t worked it out.”  She waved at her brother, who was lounging in one of the gambado’s outriggers.   He waved back with his foot.  “Could you wire it into the force field?”

“If I had enough time.”  You know, I think it would be brilliant if you would be my apprentice, Callistina thought, but the words did not seem right.

Nieten, who had been sitting cross-legged on a nearby boulder, rose to her feet and pointed.  “I hope you are ready.  Our scouts are returning.”

Callistina reached for the junction box and ran two fingers down a line of lights.  Two of the force orbs at the centre of the barrier dimmed, allowing the windriders to fly through.  Acel came in low and fast and landed running.  Misereya circled over head, her long hair roiling like ink in water.

The full force of the wind followed them through along with a flurry of leaves and small branches.

“We have a new problem,” Acel was breathless.  “There is a margr warband on the way.  Can you turn up the magic wall?”

“Force field.”  Callistina flicked the sliders to maximum, then drew them slowly back down to their optimum settings.  “Fortunately we have a force field.”

Serij laughed, then faltered, then grew silent.  Beyond the blue tinge of the force wall, one by one, the margr were emerging from the forest.  

*

Misereya grazed the force wall with her board, skipping off its surface like a stone on water.  Ripples of light chased her but they were quickly lost in the waves caused by the margr hammering on the wall below.  She counted twenty margr at the wall now, and more were emerging from the forest every moment.  Four of them had pushed down a tree and were carrying it forward, perhaps to use as a battering ram.

Each strike, with spear, branch or stone, set a dull tone ringing through the air, scraping Misereya’s nerves.  She remembered the terrible clicking and clattering the margr had made when they attacked Ellomyr, but the force field dulled the sound to a faint crackle.

Beyond the margr, through the bands of rain, she could see the valley changing.  A tree exploded into a thousand fragments, whirling around the vanished trunk.  The splinters formed images of buildings, vehicles, and faces long gone.  Nearer, a series of incomplete stone circles erupted from the ground, each forming a dazzling blue sphere of light, before they were promptly disassembled by the next caress of the iron wind.  

The group of margr with the fallen tree had wedged one end beneath a boulder and were rallying others to their cause.  In moments as many as possible had scrambled onto the trunk and were using their weight on the makeshift lever.  It was near one of the orbs assigned to Acel, and Misereya saw him swooping in for a closer look.

She continued her sweep across her assigned section of wall.  The storm was leaking around the edges of the force field, spinning whirlwinds and updrafts, strong enough the rain was turning to snow on the hills.  Drifting parallel to the force wall, she watched a cloud of leaves turn into a flock of green birds with proboscises instead of beaks.

As far as she could see, the valley beyond the force wall had become a surging, churning maelstrom of matter, behind a translucent wave front of sparks and aurorae.

Callistina’s prediction was holding true.  The iron wind was coming straight down the valley and should be contained.  Turning, she gave Callistina a wave but the wright was absorbed in her work.

A flash of dull red light tickled her peripheral vision.  Turning back, in a slow vertical spiral, she saw a segment of the force field flicker again.  It was near the boulder, near Acel.  The margr had levered the boulder out of the ground and it rolled back into the valley, crushing some of them as it passed.  The ground collapsed into the hole it had left behind, undermining the force orb.

The margr screamed, renewing their attacked, waving their spears and trophy sticks.  Acel jumped off his board directly in front of them, grabbed the forced orb and set his feet in the ground on either side.  Misereya could see small trickles of mud and stone falling away on the other side.  She leaned forward and dived toward him.

The entire force field rang like a carillon.  The eerie wave of sparks had arrived, engulfing the margr.  For a moment, Misereya saw them changing, dissolving into masses of metal insects, melting into green puddles that pulsed and shuddered, erupting with spikes of bone or clouds of spores.  For a moment, despite all she had lost to them in the Battle of Ellomyr, Misereya felt a pang of sympathy.

Then the storm hit the force wall like a tsunami, mercifully hiding the margr, and their hideous demise.  The rain turned to crystals, to stone, to clockwork butterflies, but did not breach the wall.

Misereya shivered with relief.  She saw Nieten sprinting toward Acel and quickly looped around to check her own area of the force wall.  All was well.

Turning back, she saw the force wall near Acel flicker again before turning a deep, sullen red.  Then slowly, like a glacier calving, it started to collapse.

*

A segment of the force wall flickered, strobing with black and red bands.  Callistina ran her fingers up and down the sliders, easing power from the other sections, subtly reshaping the field as its centreline shifted.  She switched her myrioculars to telescopic and her vision lurched.  Acel had grappled the shifting force orb and was trying to hold it in place with brute force.

Nieten briefly filled her vision as she sprinted toward the struggling windrider.  Switching her myriocular back to local, Callistina fought down vertigo.  She scanned her settings.  “Serij?”

“Yes?”  Her assistant had carefully lined up her tools next to the junction box and had all three panels propped open.

 Callistina picked up the brass lattice of the phase bracer that lay on the workbench.  “How quickly do you think we could patch this in to the force wall?”

“That depends.  Do you want it to work or just look pretty?”  Serij was grinning, but her face had taken on a deathly pallor, and her lips looked blue, as if she had forgotten to breathe.

Callistina swallowed her own fear and wondered if she looked the same.  She handed the frightened young woman the phase bracer.  “Nothing is finished that never gets started.”

Serij bent over the workbench.  Her hands were shaking as she picked up her needle pliers  “I had both of them here.  Where is the other one?”

Callistina scanned the workbench and the ground.  Then a gulf yawned in her belly.  She switched the myriocular back to telescopic.  Nieten was still running toward the force wall, and Callistina glimpsed a brass lattice fixed to her forearm.

It seemed that Serij had followed her gaze.  “Will it work with only one?”

Callistina watched Nieten, still running, and Misereya diving in from the left.  It seemed like both of them would be too slow.  Great tears appeared in the shimmering surface of the force near Acel, spreading rapidly as the entire section started to collapse.

“Ask Calaval when you see him”, Callistina muttered, and bowed to her work.

*

The force wall was collapsing.  Tendrils of the iron wind leaked through the gaps, bringing with it pollen that had once been rain.  Acel had fallen when the force orb had slipped away, and was scrabbling backwards.  Desperately reaching for his board, he knocked it further from his grasp.

Misereya crouched low on her board tilting it at a dangerous angle to gain more speed.  Her precocious hair was strangely compliant, wrapping around her arms to reduce its drag.  She held one arm outwards, the board wobbling precariously, and summoned the scintillae, shaping it into a shield.  A coruscating aura enfolded her as the shimmering dust emerged, and she bent them it to her will.

Acel screamed.  He rolled away from the force wall, his hair disintegrating into small metallic tufts.  Misereya screamed too, unaware she was doing it, unaware how fast her heart was beating.  She was close to hyperventilating and her vision grew blurry.  Her entire being was focused the rapidly expanding arc of her shield.

Callistina had told her the scintillae was made from the same stuff of the iron wind.  She hoped that meant it could not be changed.

Acel tried to rise to his feet, as finely articulated metal tendrils sprouted from his scalp and neck, and burst through the back of his shirt.  Then he collapsed.

A final lunge.  Misereya hit the ground hard, falling flat on her face, tasting blood. Her board skittered forward, bouncing over Acel, where it turned into a flurry of ladybirds.  Rising to her feet, she pushed her hands forward.

The scintillae flew, expanding rapidly, passing Acel, growing, spreading, roiling.  The iron wind resisted, and her shield, distorted, puckering it in places, but not piercing it.  On the ground around Acel, small green globes rose from the grass, spun, and then collapsed in an arc that moved slowly back toward the line of force orbs.

Misereya felt a deep exhilaration as she shaped the scintillae with her hands, spreading them wider, until the shimmering shield filled the gap where the force orb had failed.

Within the dust and driving rain, a shape was forming behind the force wall.  A single, claw, as large as the gambado, slammed into the energy field.

As her exhilaration turned to a tremor and then a shiver, Misereya fell to one knee.  Already, she could feel the effort draining her, drawing the life from her cells.  Her heart was pounding as she struggled to breathe.

The claw pounded the force wall again.  Acel lay still and Misereya could not tell if he was breathing.  And the iron wind continued to rage.

*

Callistina was playing the force sliders like a musical instrument, attempting to dampen the surges spreading out form the damaged orb.  Serij had borrowed her myriocular and was bent low over the phase bracer.  She had half a dozen needles pinned between her teeth and was manipulating the device with another.

“Are we close,” Callistina shouted?  Serij did not respond.

The makeshift shield created by Misereya was holding.  Callistina wondered if the conflicting prior world dusts were changing one another, or if the scintillae had created a force shield.  It would have been a fascinating study, if Callistina did not have other things on her mind.  Like the fear of imminent death.

Something moved in the effervescent chaos beyond the force wall.  A ripple, tipped with violet, rolled outwards from a point near the windriders.  Then a figure coalesced from the dust and rain.

It was a childish impression of a margr, constantly shifting and changing; claws becoming swords becoming clamps becoming weeds flickering with blue flames.  And it was over forty feet tall.

“How soon,” she muttered, knowing Serij was too focused to respond?  The power indicators were fading too fast, from the additional drain on the remaining orbs.

The margr behemoth howled and turned its attention to the ground below the closest orb.  It tore out bushes of glass fibers and boulders that melted into quicksilver, and started shoveling at marbles that had recently been soil.

As Callistina watched, helpless, another segment of the force wall started to flicker.

*

Nieten pressed her hand against the force wall.  It pushed back gently, indifferent to the violence beyond.  Ripples spread from every impact and, as they struck one another, standing waves spun off scintillating arcs of light.

A tremor set her skin tingling.  Directly in front of her, the margr behemoth raged, melting and reforming from moment to moment.  It struck the ground with an arm transformed into a coppery piston.  Spumes of dirt and smashed stone swirled around it, forming chips of flint that adhered to the creature’s hide.  Bubbles formed and popped on its face, and where each one popped, a remarkably human eyeball emerged and rolled down its chest.

The tremor matured into a shudder.  Nearby, Misereya had fallen to one knee next to Acel, hands pushed forward and fingers curling in response to pressure from the iron wind.  Somehow, she had plugged the gap left by the failed force orb but Nieten could see she was tiring, blinking away sweat.

Misereya’s shield buckled, and the girl screamed as she resisted the pressure of the iron wind.  If another force orb failed, it seemed unlikely that she would be able to cover the gap.

The margr opened its mouth, spewing serpents.  Its piston arm had rusted away, replaced with useless bone, but spines had sprouted from the sides of its head and neck, glowing with blue fire, and it started ramming its head into the dirt.

The force wall in front of Nieten buzzed and pulsed.

Drawing the crystal globe from her pocket, she popped the lid with her thumb and raised it to the margr.  “For Old Armistice,” she said, and drained the bottle of regeneration fluid with a single swig.  Empty, she dropped it, and then reached for the phase bracer on her arm.

“For Ellomyr,” she whispered, before turning the phase bracer on and stepping through the force wall.

*

The moment she deactivated the phase bracer, Nieten felt as if her skin was on fire.  She staggered and fell to her knees.  Holding up her hand, she could see her skin evaporating, revealing the muscle and veins beneath.  Blood coiled in the air, and the iron wind turned it into barbed filaments.  There was almost no smell, as every molecule was captured and changed.  Almost.  The iron wind itself had the finest odour of talc and metal filings.

All of this she contemplated in a haze of the most excruciating agony she had ever experienced.  Even when the regeneration fluid kicked in, restoring her skin, her nerves continued to scream, violated, rubbed roar.  Every cell was being eaten and regrown, faster than she could process.

Through a fractal web the iron wind had painted over her eyes, Nieten saw the margr behemoth close by.  Its form shifted constantly, even as it continued to batter the ground near the force orb.  At present, its lower torso was a writhing mass of worms.  One of its arms was sloughing away like autumn leaves, but the other ended in a flat slab of bone it was using as a shovel.

On one level it was possible to admire the beasts, its singularity of purpose, even as every cell its body was being torn apart and repurposed.  Or perhaps some element of the iron wind had simply hard-wired its last desire; a reflex that suited its purpose.  If it had a purpose.

Nieten could not afford to fail.  By will alone, she forced herself to stand.  By will alone, she picked up a rock that became a toad, that in turn became a globe of spiked glass.  Through will alone, she screamed “en’niet!  Is that all you have?”

Through a fog of her own skin, she hurled her weapon at the margr.  In mid-flight it changed into a seething mass of interlinked chains but it did not slow down.  It struck the margr behemoth on the side of the bubbling mass it was presently using for a face, turning it into bloody foam.

The margr hissed, through a steel proboscis, and turned to face her.

Nieten’s legs wobbled as the iron wind tried to change her bones to jade, but the regeneration fluid resisted, and Nieten forced her legs to move, backing away a step.

The margr hesitated.  It towered above her and its muscles swelled, burst and reformed.  Nieten reach for a stick which immediately coiled around her arm and hissed.  The serpent’s scales turned to jade and started to fall away.  Nieten hurled it at the margr, then took another step backwards.

A mouth formed in the margr’s belly, consisting of four segmented lips each tipped with a barbed claw.  It caught and consumed the dying serpent.

The margr took a step toward Nieten and belched.  Nieten took another coupe of steps, backing away from the wall.  Colours shifted as her eyes were briefly reconstructed.  The world was shattered into a million pieces, then swelled with subtle shades of red, sanguine and glorious.

She almost stumbled on a rock, then bobbed down to scoop it up.  It felt like her hand was melting, until she realised the rock itself was glowing with a sullen light.  Just another exquisite nuance to her agony.  Summoning the last shreds of her will, she tossed the rock at the advancing margr.  Its belly maw opened and swallowed the molten stone.

The margr screamed.  Its proboscis shattered, revealing a mouth full of long, black tongues.  It dropped its head.  Nieten took another step backward.  She could see the creature’s legs were changing again, into a thousand metal needles.  They snapped together, forming a pair of massive, metal legs.  Fiery circles appeared on both sides of its head.

“Niet’en,” she screamed.

The margr snorted and charged.  Nieten turned, and ran deeper into the storm.

*

A single tone, rising and falling in volume, reverberated across the valley.  Callistina moved the sliders constantly, in their finest increments, eking out the remaining power from the gambado.  If the force wall failed now, their escape vehicle would barely be able to move.

Glancing up, she realised she had lost sight of Nieten and the margr.  At least that threat had diminished.    Misereya had held the iron wind at bay for a time, but now sparks were spilling through gaps in her shield, tumbling down like dust.

“Did you say quick, or pretty?”

“Are you done?”  Callistina’s fingers were starting the crack.

“Done or dead,” Serij responded with a tired wink.

Callistina gave a wheezing laugh, took the young woman’s hand, and together they pushed the sliders to their maximum setting.

It began as a growl.  Not so much a sound as a vibration transmitted through the soles of her feet, then into her bones, through her blood to stir the fines hairs on her skin. The growl increased in pitch and the grasses swayed in the breeze it made.  A hollow timbre merged with the sound, as if Callistina was standing in a mile long copper pipe that someone was hitting wiht a hammer.  Then a light flared from each of the remaining force walls, and perhaps it could have been called violet, but it did not seem as if it was a colour truly of this world.  Brighter, dazzling, blinding.

Ripples formed in the force field, rebounded, reinforced, until they grew into a tempest.  At each peak, it seemed, a star sizzled into existence.  A stink of burning synth and melting steel billowed from the junction box.  Serij cried out.

The sound ceased.  There was a perfect moment of tension as the force wall bowed inwards across the entire length of the valley.  Then it rebounded, exploding out away from them, in a wave made visible by the rain.  The junction box jumped, sparking and Serij snatched both their hands away, just in time to avoid being burned.

The wind struck her face but it was ordinary air.  The rain soaked her robe and rolled into her eyes, but it was merely water.  Callistina staggered to her feet and gestured for her myriocular.  Fitting it to her face, she set it to telescopic once more and scanned the valley.

Both Misereya and Acel lay collapsed in the mud.  Some of the force orbs still sputtered with energy, but most of them were dark.  Even veiled by the rain, Callistina could see the valley had been twisted into odd, random pieces of alien architecture, choked by plants that moved against the wind.  Everywhere she looked was so strange and misshapen it felt like her mind was being twisted out of true.  But the valley was no longer changing, except to bow to the wind.

She gestured for Aavion to go and help Misereya and Acel, and then performed one last, long sweep of the valley, her heart pounding.  Sadness filled her, flowed out of her.  She had been a child the last time she had cried, and sobbing, she felt like a child again.

A piece of her puzzle had been lost for all time.  There was no sign of Nieten.

*

Rain fell on Misereya’s face and she shivered violently, then sneezed.  She tried to move but the ground beneath her had turned to mud and her muscles flopped like they were made from eels.  Perhaps they were made from eels.  The iron wind had shown a talent for the perverse.

I am going to drown in rain, she thought.  There was the barest hint of laughter in her breath.

Other than cold, wet and tired, she did not feel strange.  Was the iron wind gone?

She felt a gentle touch on her outstretched hand.  “Heya, Misereya.”

Blinking away the rain, she turned her head and saw Acel kneeling beside her.  He had been kissed by the iron wind.  His hair had turned into a mane of articulated metal tendrils, that glowed in soft colours as they moved.

“Are you alright,” she croaked?  Her chest hurt, as if some giant margr had sat on her.

“Am I alright?”  A halo of deep indigo clung to his new hair.  Sobbing, he drew her up and into his arms, gently rocking her.  Misereya felt her hair coil around him, clinging to him.

For a long time, she absorbed his warmth, and soothed his shivers, and it was enough.

After a time, he pushed her away and Misereya thought the moment was over.  As he recovered his strength he would be Acel again, competitive, skilled, a bit goofy, and aloof.  Was this all the comfort she deserved?

He scrabbled about for his satchel.  Drawing it close, he rummaged through it and she could barely hear him murmur, through the wind and the rain.  “I was shy.  I have never been shy with anyone.  But you had to be different of course.”  He turned to face her, his hands cupped one over the other.  “I was afraid.”  It did not seem possible, after all this, but he was blushing again.

He leaned closer, and she thought he might kiss her then, but it was not quite the perfect moment.    Instead he opened his hands and revealed an object covered in a handkerchief.  He gestured for her to remove the cloth.  When she complied, she saw he was holding the bracelet she had made so many months ago, the one of jarrah and maple.  Somehow it had survived its fall from the crystal tree.  Somehow, he had found it.

Pressing the catch, he separated the two pieces, placing the jarrah one with his name inscribed on her wrist, then placing the maple with her name inscribed on his own.

Misereya brushed rain from her cheeks and reaching out, she gently touched his undulating steel mane.  “You look pretty now, “ she said and then somehow found the energy to laugh.  She gestured vaguely at the ruined force wall, at the twisted valley beyond, and at the dying storm.  “You know you could have made this much more romantic if you had brought a picnic basket.”

He frowned, and motes of teal and umber pulsed though his mane.  Then he leaned in and kissed her.

The Will and the Wind - Epilogue (IW plus 4936)

Laughter swelled at a nearby table and the Ghanian merchant laughed with them.  “How am I to believe this wild tale?  I am no fool.  I have learned a little of your history.”  Leaning closer, the jovial look on his face melted away.  “I believe you are little more than a tired old man telling tales to inflate your importance.”

“Believe it.  Do not believe it.”  Ordovico waved for another round of drinks  “In my experience half understanding something will get you killed.”

“Veiled threats will not assist your cause,” the merchant muttered.

Ordovico chuckled.  “I must be slipping.  I did not intend to veil anything.”  He shook his head slightly.  “As far as the official records go, the iron wind was defeated the the aid of the energy beings. Callistina stole the the gambado and some force orbs to conduct an experiment in the wilderness. That experiment caused some injuries…and a death.“

The merchant focused intently on his drink.  “That is a tale I can believe.”

Sighing, Ordovico leaned back in his chair.  “Behind you, two platforms up is the Skin of Stars, speaking to her former husband, Acel Steelmane.  Ask them about it.  On the far side of the bar is Callistina.  She eats here when she remembers to eat at all.  Ask her.”

“This is nonsense. If, as you say, the truth about the iron wind is a closely guarded secret how is it that so many old timers know that toast?”

“Respect.  A sense of community.  Some secrets are better off guarded by many.  In case the iron wind comes again, of course.”  He leaned closer.  “If I am threatened or in distress, every woman and man of Ellomyr in this room will rise to assist me.���

The Ghanian trader visibly paled and Ordovico knew his old identities would not come back to haunt him.

The merchant wiped his sleeve across his brow and the colour slowly returned to his face.  He contemplated his drink, swigged it abruptly.  “You did not tell me your part in this tale.”

It was Ordovico’s turn to laugh.  “You must pay closer attention to the words of a tired old man.”

The merchant lifted his coin pouch from his belt with exaggerated care and signaled for the waitress.  Standing, he scanned the room, then turned back to Ordovico.  “One other thing I do not understand.  I will pay for your drinks if you explain it to me.”

Ordovico smiled.  “Gracious of you.”

The merchant counted out shins and to his credit, included a generous tip.  Then he held up one shin, a synth scrap etched with waves that was common among sea traders.  “That toast of yours?  ‘The wind and the will.’ It is an eloquent translation of an old Ghanian freebooter phrase.  “En’niet,” is what the storm cries when it challenges you.”

“And how do the sailors respond?”

“With ‘the will and the wind.’” The merchant smiled.  “The old pirate phrase is Niet’en.”

Ordovico raised his glass.  “Now you are halfway to understanding.”

[stormquiss-blog]

Face in the Glass

Face in the Glass - Part One Now

“I guarantee it will scare you out of your…”

“Shoes.  I presume you were going to say shoes.  Recall that I have a knife.”  The new waitress had a lilting, Shalamasi accent.

Briolden, the tavern-keep, grunted and lifted his lantern a little higher.  The new girl was small and lithe and had not looked back at him when she had made her casual threat.  Such a shame.  He knew the uncertain light made the scar on his cheek appear more vivid, more dangerous.  It showed he was not afraid of little knives.

He cleared his throat.  “Just a little further, now.”

They were deep inside the Crystal Tree Tavern, close to the bole of the tree for which it was named.  Peeling paint offered glimpses of the smooth, translucent crystal that formed the bones of the structure.  Barrels of ale and wine lined the walls, filling the air with a miasma of hops and vinegar.  Most of the rooms down here were for storage and rarely travelled.  Smoke stained the walls above fixed lanterns, but Briolden had not bothered to light them.  Shadows scurried around the girl ahead of him, furtive and fearful.

The corridor ended in a door.  Briolden gestured for the girl to open it.  She pulled on the handle hard, expecting resistance, and jumped back startled when it opened easily and without a squeak.  There was a slight tremor in her voice.  Good.

“You come here often?”  She had preempted one of his lines.  Bad.

“We use it to store valuables that belong to our guests.”  He patted the hefty lock as he entered the room, then the pocket where he kept the keys.  Of course, he had unlocked it earlier, but it could be locked again in a moment if needed.

The room was circular and stacked high with boxes, cases, barrels, bolts of cloth and piles of synth.  A shipment from Navarene was nearest the door, neglected by its owner.  Some of the crates had been prised open and Briolden glimpsed mysterious metal objects nestled in straw.  He reminded himself to scold the labourers for their curiosity.

At the centre of the room was the trunk of the crystal tree, almost ten feet in diameter and unblemished by panels or paint.  The girl had drifted close to it, beyond the shifting puddle of light from Briolden’s lantern.  She set one palm on the glassy surface and peered into its depths.

“What should I be seeing?”

Briolden walked slowly forward, heightening the tension.  “Move your hand a little to the left, and down.”

The girl stroked the surface, then cried out, flinching.  A moment later, she set her hands back on the surface.  “It is not smooth.  I feel…”  She turned toward him.  He gave her a simple smile and she returned a complex frown.  “I feel a face.”

Briolden lifted the lantern higher.

Light flowed like liquid into the crystal tree.  From moment to moment, a hint of a silhouette took on colour and texture, blooming into a complex image that was so unexpected it took a twist of will to comprehend.  The waitress gasped.

Within the trunk of the crystal tree, perfectly preserved, was the body of a woman.

“Behold,” said Briolden, brimming with glee.  “Behold, Ellomyr’s oldest unsolved murder.

Face in the Glass - Part Two Then

A squeal cut short, snatched Aurora’s attention from the assortment of tools, synth and oddities sorted neatly on the swatch of leather she had set on the ground.  “I wish you would stop doing that.  We know how it works.”

“That one got almost half way through.”  Blundh, the mercenary she had hired to protect her, shrugged.  “Can you say you know everything about this beast?”

“It is a plant.”  She shook her head, ponytail bobbing, before responding to his question.  “No, I cannot.  But I am working on a solution.”  She gestured at the doll-like figure she had been assembling for the last few hours.  It resembled a metal skeleton with sinews of wire and organs of mismatched gears, no more than a foot tall.

Blundh drew a small knife from his sleeve and spun it vertically between his fingers, before poking at the wooden cage.  The remaining cavot inside squealed.  “You think that gadget will be faster than this animal?”

Aurora sighed and leaned back on her haunches.  They had found the cave described by the Diruk where the great pile of thorn-tangled blocks known as the Brackenridge collapsed into the plains.  Shading her eyes, she could see Ellomyr in a distant, illusory puddle of heat haze.  An expedition to the Valley of Sins had passed them earlier in the day and Aurora had considered joining them.

“Safety in numbers,” she murmured again, but Blundh had insisted their deal meant he got half of everything they found.

She leaned back over her makeshift workspace and started fitting the single eye jewel into the automaton’s head.  “It is not about speed.  It is about fear.  Fear has an odour.  This plant can smell it and reacts.

Blundh grinned.  “Ah, the odour of fear and the odour of love.  I know these well.  I have no fear of this thing.  We should burn it out.”

Aurora had learned to be patient with her protector.  “We need the catalyst from the poison sacs.”

He thumped his chest.  “I am fearless.”  She glanced up and saw that his lips were smiling, but his eyes were not.

“I hired you to be afraid on my behalf, Blundh.  You do not have to boast at me.”

He chuckled.  “Tell me, why do you build these things?”

Aurora set the automaton on its feet and gingerly withdrew her hands.  Gears whirred and clicked.  The doll wobbled, but remained upright, and its single eye started to glow.  “This is a means to an end.”

“But you are a wright, no?”  

“That is my vocation.”  She brushed dust from her pants.  “Are you not curious how these miracles came to be?”

He ran his thumb along the edge of his dagger.  “Smiths make blades, wrights make…things.  It is all the same.  If it will make me rich I do not care what skill or magic made it.”  He returned his dagger to the sheath in his sleeve.  “But you do not answer my question.”  In those moments, when he said something that betrayed unexpected insight, Aurora could see the killer in his eyes, shrewd and contemplative.

She gestured at the doll.  “These are mere tinker toys.  They rarely last.  I want to build something big, something useful, something that will last a thousand years.  I want to be remembered.”

“You have no children.”  It was not a question.

“I have a daughter.  Had.  She was taken from me.”  Aurora fought against the sudden brittleness in her throat.  “Um.  What about you.  Why do you do what you do?”

“What?  Kill and wench?”  He poked the cage again and smiled at the cavot’s squeal.  “I am good enough at the first that I should soon be rich enough to spend the rest of my life enjoying the second.”

Aurora blushed and bent back to her work.  A screw tightened here, a wire crimped, a touch of mineral oil.  “Alright little Mr Fearless.  Show me what you can do.”

*

The cave was tall and narrow, a fissure that extended back into the Brackenridge as far as Aurora could see.  There may have been a hint of light from the far end, but it was diffused by  razor-sharp blue crystals jutting from the ground.

On the roof of the cave was a glistening network of tendrils connected to pulsating sacs.  The air was humid, brimming with the smell of sulphur and decay.

Unbidden, Blundh released the last of their cavots.  It hesitated, turning one way and another, but Blundh hemmed it in with his large hands.  Startled, it bounded into cave.

The tendrils shuddered, squeezing out thick, viscous droplets that fell around the fleeing cavot.  Snick!  Where a crystal was touched by the fluid, it rapidly expanded in size and length.  The cavot squealed and dodged left and right, trails of blood forming where the crystals grazed it.  Snick!  The cavot shuddered, and was still, impaled.

The tendrils above shivered, and slender, root-like filaments unfolded, reaching for the dead flesh.  Many of the other cavots Blundh had released were already partly mummified by the carnivorous plant.

A fine blue crystal dust mingled with tiny bones and scraps of fur covered the cave floor.  Blundh poked the nearest crystal with the tip of his knife.  It collapsed into dust.

“Fascinating,” Aurora murmured.  Is it an intentional symbiosis, or did it adapt?”

Blundh gestured with his knife.  “How are we to get this magical fluid?”

In response, Aurora spoke in a strange language full of trills, clicks and whistles.  The little automaton tilted its head back to gaze up at her and then abruptly marched into the cave.

Aurora held her breath.  As expected, the fearless metal doll drew no interest from the carnivorous plant.  A beam of red light, dull as embers, swept the cave as the doll navigated the thick clusters of crystal.  After a time, it disappeared from view.

Aurora turned away, drawing a couple of breaths free of the thick air of the cave.

Blundh did not seem bothered by the smell.  “Explain, again, why we need this fluid.”

“Well, we could adapt this ecosystem into some form of weapon, I suppose.”  Her eyes grew unfocused and she did not notice the intent look on Blundh’s face.  Then she shook her head, ponytail bobbing.  "If my research is correct we will need it to grow the crystal seed.”

Soon, the embers from the doll’s eyes returned.  Aurora smiled.  “It looks like my little friend has found us a treasure.  You never know how these things are going to adapt when you build them.”  The automaton exited the cave and proffered a small, burnished metal clipper, slightly larger than its existing hand.

“Alright my little friend.  Let us see what you have seen.”  Aurora removed the red jewel and held it up to the sun.  As the light flowed through it, an image was protected on the stone, a recording of its journey.

Blundh peered at the imagery and it seemed he was impressed.  “I see two, no three of those poison sacs.  There does not appear to be an easy way to reach them without getting caught by the crystals.”

“I am certain Mr Fearless can take care of those.”

Blundh held up his hand.  “Wait.  What is that?”

The fissure opened at its far end, onto a vista of blue, wispy clouds above a verdant, shifting forest dotted with ruins.

Aurora had unscrewed one of the automaton’s hands, replacing it with the clipper.  Gears whirred as the doll adjusted it balance.  She glanced up, then wet her lips with a quick flick of her tongue.

“Well, that makes things easier.  It looks like we have found a shortcut to the Valley of Sins.”

Face in the Glass - Part Three Now

The waitress looked back at Briolden, shaking her head.  Her pupils were large, seemingly endless in the light shimmering from the crystal.  “Who is she?”

“Nobody knows.”  Turning away, Briolden set the lantern on a box.  “The tale I hear is the tree appeared one night soon after the Battle of Ellomyr, and she was already trapped inside.”  Turning back, he watched the waitress as she examined the face in the glass, savouring the emotions that rippled across her face.  Fear, revulsion, sorrow.

The woman in the glass was perfectly preserved, down to the slight sunburn on her cheeks and the freckles on her nose.  Strands of auburn hair floated loose from her pony tail, like river weed.  Her forearms were crossed close to her chest, but she held nothing.

The waitress rubbed her own freckles, thoughtfully as she contemplated the image, the fingers of her other hand flowing along the faint tracery of bumps and ridges on the surface of the crystal. “She looks surprised.  A little sad.  Do you think she knew her killer?”

“Truth?  We do not really know it was murder.”  Briolden had drifted back to the door.  He closed it gently, leaned against it.  “If you look closely you can see her tool belt.  I warrant that’s a numenera sticking out.  Perhaps she was a wright and one of her experiments got out of hand?  We will never know.”

The waitress’s eyes glittered.  “Perhaps we will .”  Reaching into her apron, she drew out a hollow tetrahedron made from jade.  Something glinted at the centre, something that made the eyes water, as if the air was twisted out of shape.  She set it on the ground and coruscating light enveloped her in an inverted cone.  Images shimmered in the light.  Briolden’s face, big enough to fill the room, every bristle on his unshaven face as long as his arm.  An image of a metal arm in one of the open boxes.  The waitress’s shoes.  The images spun, and finally settled on the face in the glass.

Briolden crossed his arms to contain the sudden tension.  “I am always curious about the things a girl keeps in her pockets.  What is that?”

The waitress pointed her toe at the device on the floor.  “You know, we get tips in more than just shins don’t you?”

He scowled.  “Half of that is mine, then.”

“I picked it up on my way here.”  She reached into her apron pocket and drew out a small, red jewel.  “The gadget on the floor is a projector.  This…” she held the jewel up to her eye, “…is the real prize.”  She set it carefully on the crystal trunk, fixing it in place with clear fluid from a phial.

To Briolden, it seemed as if she had set the gem over one of the dead woman’s eyes.  “Those things make me nervous.  You never know what they will do.”

“I know what this will do.”  She turned to look at him, tilting her head.  “I cannot imagine you are afraid.  This device will let us look into her eyes and into her memories.  We may even be able to see the last few moments of her life.”  She turned back and Briolden felt his fingers twitch.

“It is wrong to meddle with the dead,” he muttered, but leaned closer, peering at the swirling lights.

The waitress tapped the jewel.

Face in the Glass - Part Four Then

Blundh prowled through the copse avoiding the dreambug snares with eloquent grace.  On reaching each involuntary sleeper, he kneeled down and poured water into their mouths, before quickly checking their gear for valuables.

“I count five villagers, one stranger and three aneen,” he murmured, and a soft cooing rose from the trees above, as the dreambug flock responded.  “Just a quarter of the expedition, but almost all of their food.”

Aurora glanced up from her makeshift workbench.  Mr Fearless scanned the copse with his jewelled eye, aloof to illusion, infusing the shadows with an umber hue.  The dreambugs, their translucent tendrils, and the expedition camp were all clearly visible in Mr Fearless’s projection.  In its absence the copse was empty, inviting.

“All we can do is make them comfortable and tell people in Ellomyr where they are,” Aurora responded.

Blundh snorted but moved onto the next sleeper.

The dreambugs resembled living balloons ranging in size from Blundh’s clenched fist, to one as large as the aneen it clasped.  Aurora had coined the name after seeing the rapidly moving eyes of their prey.  All of the supine forms were dreaming.  Their muscles twitched, and occasionally they moaned or cried out, but no amount of shaking, slapping, or cutting would wake them. “I am almost done, Mr Blundh.  We can move on soon.”

The glove Blundh had provided consisted of fine chain links over leather.  Using some of the synth from her pack, and iotum Mr Fearless had found on their descent, Aurora had added veins connected to tiny sacs of catalyst from the crystal cave.  With a pair of tweezers she set chips of blue crystal into mounts on the knuckles.

Assembling the weapon made her queasy but she was almost done.  Glancing up at the copse, reminded her of the dangers that made her work necessary.  The hide of the dreambugs pulsed in a lazy, rolling kaleidoscope.  They had no need of camouflage.  The Valley of Sins was wreathed in insubstantial ribbons of blue smoke that created  consensual hallucinations for the unwary.  The expedition had set their camp beneath the dreambug flock, oblivious to the danger above.

Mr Fearless could see through them and once seen through, they faded into smoke.

But she could not escape the wind, and its whispers.  Bad daughter.  Bad mother.  Rebellious.  Unseemly.  She shivered, then willed her muscles still.

Gently, she set the last of the crystal shards in place, eyes flicking back and forth as she checked over the makeshift weapon.  She cleared her throat.  “It is done, Mr Blundh.”

“So formal?”  His smile was boyish.  He kneeled beside her, as if preparing to pray.  “How does this work?”

“Give me your hand.”  His skin was warm and rough.  “You must be gentle.  Can you see the catalyst sacs?  They are controlled by crooking your fingers.  They are very sensitive.”

He drew on the glove with elaborate care, flexing his fingers just enough to get a sense for the weapon.  Holding it up to the light, he spread his fingers.  “They are too small.  A weapon is a statement.”

“I assure you, they will be effective.”  She handed him a pouch.  “I gathered these from the cave.  They should last a while.”

Standing, Blundh strolled back to the copse and place his hand against the hide of the largest dreambug.

“No,” Aurora cried, but it was too late.

Blundh crooked his finger, pumping the catalyst onto the crystal.  A shard erupted from his knuckle, forming a razor sharp claw as long again as his hand.  The dreambug squealed as it slowly deflated.  The aneen it was attached to, kicked out, snorted and died.

A susurrus filled the copse as the flock of dreambugs reacted.  Blundh danced away from their snares with childish glee.

“You have a talent for weapons.”  The crystal claw crumbled to dust as he gestured at the trail.  “We have wasted enough time.  The crystal grove is close.”

Aurora rolled up her tools, stood, and then rubbed her hands together.  It was a gesture her mother made when worried.  “What about them?”

“The sooner we find our prize, the sooner we can send rescue.  Agree?”

Reluctantly, she followed him on the trail that led deeper into the valley.

*

Blundh had taken to inhaling the blue vapors as they crossed his path, sampling the hallucinations they provided.  “Fill a bottle with this stuff and you could make a fortune.”

Aurora kept her eyes narrowly focused on the path.  Vertigo clung to her and she could not shake it.  “I suspect you would just be breathing smoke.  There is a deep interaction with the datasphere going on here.  The smoke is just an agent.”

Blundh shrugged then drew his eyes back to the beam of light that Mr Fearless was using to sweep their path.  The little automaton ticked and whirred, occasionally bending down to gather strange objects from the ground.  Aurora felt a strange thrill watching him fix a new set of grappling toes to his feet.  The automaton had learned to mend itself.

The Valley of Sins was a complex ecosystem of deceit and desire.  Many of its creatures had adapted to use the hallucinations delivered by the smoke to their advantage.  Aurora wondered if it was, perhaps, originally intended for entertainment or moral instruction.

Such speculation would get them no closer to their goal.  Fortunately, they had found a strange path that took them above the thick undergrowth.  It was a stone double helix, horizontal to the ground, with independent gravity.  At any moment, if Aurora looked away from the path, she would find herself standing sideways or with the forest high above her head.  The path had the texture and appearance of snake scales in emerald and blue.  Many of these “cobbles” were missing, permitting small weeds and bushes to grow.  An occasional pod-like structure clung to the side, brimming with webs and shadows.

They passed above a glade of mirrors, streams of blood, and trees with human limbs.  The Valley of Sins was strange enough even without the hallucinatory blue smoke.

In the early afternoon they arrived at the crystal tree grove.  The spiral continued onward toward the nearest cliff, but some geological event had caused it to collapse into rubble.  A strange buzzing sound ebbed and flowed, drowning out the accusatory whispers.

Finding the nearest spot where the helix touched the ground, they moved off toward the pearlescent glow of the grove.

The crystal trees rose almost as high as the nearby cliffs.  In structure, they more closely resembled upturned chandeliers.  The bole of each tree rose almost forty feet, before sprouting numerous branches.  Each branch swept upwards to varying heights, before terminating in flat, circular platforms.  Crystal webbing interlaced the branches.  The trees would make perfect architectural frames.

Blundh shaded his eyes.  “I am not sure even your automaton could drag one of these out of here.”

“The seeds, Mr Blundh.  We are looking for the seeds.”

Aurora scanned the trees.  She trilled and chattered at Mr Fearless, who raised his eye to the glittering canopy.  The tree had leaves that turned slowly to watch the sun.  One cluster of leaves beneath the platform on a lower branch appeared more substantial, reflecting the light from Mr Fearless’s eye with brilliant azure.  “There,” Aurora pointed.  “I think those are the closest we will find.”

The wind gusted and the buzzing grew louder before fading.

Blundh swung a climbing hook over the lowest branch , lowered it back down to Aurora and then gestured for her to hang on.  In moments, he had lifted her into the canopy.

When she reached the seed cluster, she paused, eyes closed, marveling at the simplicity of the sun on her face.  Ever since she had heard the tales of the crystal trees, she had imagined this moment and it did not seem quite real.  She wondered if perhaps this was a dream and she had been captured by a dreambug or was a victim of the blue clouds.

Blundh tugged on the rope and waved.  No dream could be so irritating.

Cupped in the cluster of crystal leaves, were two opalescent seeds.  Using a small chisel, she chipped away at the leaves until the seeds feel free.  They were flat ovals, like stream polished pebbles, but the size of her cupped hands.  She placed each one gently in her satchel and checked the straps twice.

Shading her eyes, she scanned the tree.  There were more seeds, but they were beyond her reach.  The crystal was certainly too slippery for Mr Fearless’s mechanical hands but she wondered if she could construct some suckers for him.

Her mind was turning over the design when Blundh tugged on the rope again and shouted.  “Hoy.  Look west.”

The crystal tree dimmed, as a shadow crossed the sun.  The buzzing was suddenly much louder.

A roiling cloud of creatures was descending on the crystal grove in long spirals.  Each was almost two meters long, with black wings and wicked beaks.  Aurora shivered and almost lost her grip.

Tetrahydra’s were dangerous but rarely traveled in groups larger than three or four.  This was a swarm of at least two dozen, and each had a dreambug clinging to its back.

Face in the Glass - Part Five Now

Colours churned on the waitress’s face, resolving and dissolving, like a rainbow stirred with a stick.  She gestured, trying to pluck images from the maelstrom, expanding or discarding them.

Chasing moths, Briolden thought.

Colours swelled into patterns, resolved into glimpses between blinks.  Eyelashes the size of his arm.  Galaxies, then snowflakes, then pollen drifting on the sunset.  The perspective constantly shifted and Briolden felt nausea blooming and swallowed.  He looked away, but shadows in the room pulsed and shifted, restless in response.

Glancing back he saw a blurred face, shifting rapidly in and out of focus.

A sigh, sharply withdrawn as the waitress tried to grasp the image.  It was a newborn, swaddled in purple cloth inlaid with intricate, golden patterns.  Then the image was gone, sucked away by the incessant, demanding scurry of lights.

There was no sound, but the images were so vivid that Briolden found his imagination filling the silence.  The burr of a wasp, the chuckle of a river, the remorseless pounding of a heartbeat, and a faint shiver of metal sliding across metal.  Briolden felt his skin crawl, momentarily convinced the sound had come from within the storage room.  He scanned the uneasy shadows but nothing moved.

The waitress was softly speaking.  “Memory is not linear.  It is not a deck of cards.  Impressions fold through feelings, muddled in moments.  I have never managed to hold a single image for too long, but all we need is a glimpse.”

Keeping an eye on the girl, Briolden reached inside his jacket and flipped efficiently through his keychain.  With exaggerated care, he drew out the appropriate key and slipped it into the lock.

A strange hum rose and faded.  A lid from one of the open boxes fell abruptly to the floor.  Briolden smelled mineral oil and ozone.  He scanned the shadows and a peculiar thrill clenched his throat , until he realised the figure standing against the wall was just a metal mannequin.

Spooked, he reached into the pouch on his waist, quietly unclipping it and drawing out the glove within.  The careworn leather, the chain links and switches, the tiny bulbs and hard nubs, were as familiar and comfortable as the creases in the palm of his hand.

A red, strobing effect scattered bloody droplets across the waitress’s face.  It was the sun rising and setting almost too fast to see, days piling on days, endlessly chasing its tail.  He glimpsed a cave full of blue crystals, sleeping humans in the grip of strange parasites, a spiral path, and crystal trees.

Then, with a lurch the almost made him stagger, a single image resolved on the screen; a face, bald-headed and tattooed, with a scar still fresh and vivid on one cheek.

Briolden reached back and turned the key firmly in the lock.

Snick!

Face in the Glass - Part Six Then

“Down.”

Aurora ducked as another tetrahydra plunged through the trees, its beak clicking and snapping.  Blundh pumped his fist and a crystal shard shot from his glove, missing it head, but impaling the dreambug that rode it.  The tetrahydra crashed to the dirt and started thrashing.  Blundh pinned it with his boot and shot another crystal through its skull.

“Go.”

Aurora ran.  A calm, rational part of her brain marvelled at the glaive’s innovative use of her weapon, even as he turned and fire at a passing shadow.  Mr Fearless clung to her arm, actively shielding her, and she clutched the previous satchel to her chest.  She was conscious the tetrahydra flock was herding them toward the cliffs and despair sucked at her feet, but Blundh kept her moving.

They had been so close.  She had the seeds.  She had the catalyst tucked carefully into her belt pouch.  The cliffs loomed above and she thought, no way out, no way out.

She screamed.  A tetrahydra dropped in front of her, its mouth tentacles flailing.  Blundh pushed her roughly aside and she slammed into a tree   Roaring, the glaive punched his fist into the creature’s beak, pumping out crystals, until its face was covered in bloody froth.  The he stood, and swayed, and grinned.

Aurora rubbed her forehead and her fingers came away covered in blood, but it was nothing compared to the five inch gash on Blundh’s cheek.

“You are hurt,” she murmured.

Blundh laughed.  “Scars are good for a warrior.  Scars tell our tales.”  He scowled suddenly, gesturing at the edge of the tree line, and the looming cliff.  “We must find shelter.  A defensive position.  We stand no chance in the open, and I see no way up those cliffs.”

Aurora clutched the seed satchel to her chest, nodding, nodding.  The abrupt wave of relief she felt dropped her to her knees.  “I can do it.  I can get us out of here.”  She grinned wolfishly, enjoying Blundh’s looked of puzzlement.  “Do you think you can hold them off long enough for us to get to the edge of the cliff.”

Blundh nodded.  “For a minute or two.  What are you planning?”

“Mr Blundh, I believe I have an idea.

She proffered her hand and allowed him to pull her to her feet.

*

More tetrahyrdas had joined the flock than they had killed.  Two of them dived as soon as she and Blundh broke from the trees.  Aurora raised her arm instinctively as one swooped down on her and Mr Fearless raked it with his new, grappling claws.  The creature cried out, in a breathy, mournful rasp, and crashed into nearby boulders.  Blundh shot the other down on its second pass.

On reaching the wall, she drew a seed from her satchel and pulled the waterskin filled with catalyst from her pouch and weighed one in each hand.  She kicked Blundh’s shin to get his attention. “I am not sure how quick this will be.  Quick enough I hope.  If you could make some loops of rope?”

The glaive watched her face, without responding, for long seconds.  Then he fired off a quick volley of shards at the wheeling flock and drew the last of their rope from his back.  “I am ready.”

Kneeling, Aurora set the crystal seed into the earth.  She trilled some instructions at Mr Fearless, then stood back and lifted the shard.  “This should work.”

“You do not sound convinced.”  Blundh grunted.  The tetrahydras had worked out how to land on the sheer cliffs above and were wing walking down toward them.  “Why do you wait?”

She reached out, trembling, and poured the catalyst on the seed.

And laughed against bubbling hysteria as nothing happened.  Blundh swiped at a tetrahydra with the rope, knocking if off the cliff, and nothing happened.  Six of the beasts emerged from the forest, beaks clicking and drooling, and nothing happened.  Aurora felt her consciousness slipping, her vision narrowing, and yet nothing happened.

Then it all seemed to happen in a moment.

Tiny crystal filaments formed on the surface of the seed, hissing as they probed the sunlight and shattered it.  The filaments grew quickly, like questing, curious fingers.  Then the hissing grew to a roar and dirt erupted as the crystal tree rose rapidly from the ground.

Blundh threw a loop of rope over an emerging branch, another around her waist, then gripped her with all his strength.  In moments her feet had left the ground and she felt a heavy sensation in her stomach as they were hurled upwards.  A crackling filled the air, as loud as an avalanche, and the tetrahydra flock wheeled away, scattering.

Aurora was terrified, exhausted, but she took a moment to admire the view unfolding around her.  She could see back the helix path fading into the distance, a glint of the glade of mirrors, and the distant cliff where they had found the secret path.  She struggled to remain conscious.  Shadows crossed her face as the boughs of the crystal tree unfolded, asymmetrically, constrained by the cliff.  She felt Blundh grab her belt and hurl her up onto a platform that was growing rapidly, like a spinning plate.  Then all she could see was the layer of blue clouds that hid the valley from view.

*

The lights of Ellomyr glowed in the distance, like embers floating over water.  Every muscles in Aurora’s body hummed with fatigue, and her skins was a tapestry of cuts and bruises.  Yet she hummed happily, a lullaby she had once sung to her infant daughter, before they had taken her away.  Blundh had remained stolidly silent since they had scrambled over the edge of the cliff.  Perhaps brooding was the way he dealt with pain and the memory of fear?  It did not matter to Aurora.  She dealt with pain and fear by planning, by building, and the seed was all she needed to get started.

Finally, Blundh spoke from the darkness, his voice oddly flat.  “Truth.  Why did the crystal tree not shatter like the shards in the cave?”

“It is made from different stuff, Mr Blundh.  The catalyst is not what makes the blue shards brittle.”

“Ah.  Good.”  His had closed on her upper arm, swinging her around to face him.  “Then we need to talk about my fee.”

Aurora shook her head, puzzled.  “Now?  Surely you want some light, some food, perhaps an ale?“

“Now.”  He gestured at her satchel.  “Half of the treasure is mine.  The last seed is mine.”

Aurora tried to pull away but he was too strong.  “No.  This whole trip was to get the seed.  If you want everything else you can have it.  But I need the seed.”

His eyes were dark.  Blood tricked from his roughly stitched wound.  He nodded and released her suddenly, so that she staggered backwards.

A chill rippled through her skin and she started backing away.  He was speaking softly, turning his gloved hand over to look at this palm.  “Nobody knows that we both emerged from the valley alive.”

Aurora took a breath.  She started clicking and trilling.

He laughed.  “Your little metal doll will not save you.”

“Faori,” she shouted, and Mr Fearless jumped from her shoulder, and scurried into the night.

Blundh fired off a few shards, but it did not sound as if any struck the automaton.

Then he levelled the glove at her face.  “The seed.”

Aurora drew it slowly out of her satchel.  “Here it is.”  She clutched it to her chest and plucked the catalyst from her belt, pressing the waterskin against the seed.  “Come and get it.”

Rage suffused him, and muscles in his jaw twitched.  Aurora watched him struggle to control his anger.  He shuddered, then smiled.  “What is half of clever,” he whispered?

Then he lunged toward her.

Face in the Glass - Part Seven Now

As the lights faded, the waitress spoke in a whisper.  “When did you know?”

Briolden finished pulling the glove tight, careful not to stress the catalyst sacs.  “Does it matter?”  He chuckled. “If it makes you feel any better, I was not certain until just a few minutes ago.”

She swivelled slowly on her heels, turning to face him.  The resemblance was uncanny.  Briolden felt foolish for not noticing earlier.  Not that it mattered.

“My name is Faori Folly.  My mother was Aurora Adherani.”  Faori was trembling, but with rage not fear.  “And the important question for you is, when did I know?”

Briolden leaped toward her, fist clenching to pump the catalyst sacs.  Razor sharp blue crystals erupted from the gloves like claws.

And smashed on the cone of light surrounding Faori, breaking half the bones in his hand.  Briolden rebounded, staggered and crashed back into the crates along the wall.

Faori tapped the air.  “The light is projected on a force field.”  Her gaze flicked passed him.  “Now.”

Strong, mechanical arms closed around Briolden’s torso from behind.  A voice, soft as reeds in a breeze, spoke in his ear.

“I am exerting 3237 newtons of force on your ribs.  Your struggles may add sufficient force for your ribs to crack.  But please, do continue to struggle.”

Briolden ceased struggling.

Faori leaned down and plucked the force projector from the floor.  The lights dissolved.  “Thank you, Mr Fearless.”

“As always, Lady Folly, it is my pleasure so serve.”  She tilted her head, one way and another.  “You may wish to let up a little, Mr Fearless.  I believe he wants to breathe.”

Briolden gasped.  “Is it vengeance you seek?  It is too late to save her.”

“You know, you never did ask me my name.  I suppose the other girls your brought down here mattered much to you either.”  Her voice was suffused with melancholy.  “It’s not as if I truly knew my mother.”  She stepped closer, then sat on the edge of a crate contemplating the man.  “It is not vengeance I seek, Briolden Blundh.  It is justice.”

Briolden spat at her.  A moment later agony lanced through him as his ribs crackled.

Faori’s voice remained even.  “You do not have to answer my questions, of course.

“You have no proof that I killed her.”

“No.”  She waved her hands.  “All of this was a light show to keep you distracted while Mr Fearless reassembled himself.”  She leaned closer and her breath was sour from sorrow.  “The only thing you will see in the eyes of a dead woman is your reflection.”

He grinned.  “Then release me or kill me.  Are you a killer Faori Folly?”

“Have you already forgotten, Mr Blundh?  Mr Fearless records everything he sees.”

“Upon occasion, I simulate circumstances where I forget.  Alas, they are mere thought devices to distract the mind from the crushing mundanity of the world.”

Aurora glanced down at the hands she had clasped together in her lap.  “Still, I am curious about one thing.”

Breathing shallow, to diminish the pain, Briolden spoke softly.  “I will answer your question if you answer one of mine.  How did you track me down?”

She caught his gaze and smiled.  “Certainly you have noticed how big Mr Fearless is now.  It took a long time for him to find me.  He made a few modifications to himself on the way.”

The reeds again.  “I am delighted that you find my present form so pleasing, Lady Folly.”

Briolden chuckled, a ratcheting sound.  “She wanted to build something to last.  A legacy.  And here are the two of you.”

“So it may be.  Now answer me.  Why did you stay?  Why build the tavern?  Was it from guilt or to gloat?”

Briolden found it too painful to shrug.  “A foolish waste of a question.  She has all my treasures.  She was my treasure.  I could not leave her behind.”

Faori stood, stretched.  “Folly is only my family name, Mr Blundh.  Now, Mr Fearless, let me recover your third eye and then we will show the council what it has seen.”

The Face in the Glass - Epilogue Now

Like the crystal tree, the city of Ellomyr had grown organically, along and across the Great Red River, around the Brackenridge and the mysterious, endless Valley of Sins, and down into the mighty gorge where the river vanished far below the ground.  The crystal tree sat among a series of interlinked pools, flowing into each other, occasionally in defiance of gravity.  The pools formed part of Ellomyr’s fresh water filtering system and were filled with fish and lilies.  Weirs and aqueducts spread from the pools out across the city like an aqueous web.

Faori sat on the edge of one of the pools, one knee hooked in her hands.  A pair of labourers had just removed the tavern’s original sign.  The tavern itself was a three-storey cylindrical structure constructed around the bole of the tree.  Numerous outbuildings at various levels were connected by ladders and bridges.  A sky ship was docked to one of the higher branches, catching the light of the setting sun.

Even when he was completely still, Faori could hear the tick of metal as it heated and cooled, the hum of gears, the flow of fluids.  Mr Fearless stood beside her, mechanical hands behind his back.  After reassembling himself from the crates in the storeroom, he had been naked for a while, his mechanical innards exposed.  Now he wore his long black trench coat, a black and white striped scarf, and a bowler hat.  That was proper.

His third eye, the red seeing jewel, glowed richly in response to the light of setting sun.  “It seems that certain legal matters have been resolved to favorably address your impecunious status.  In brief, it would appear  that you are now the proud owner of a tavern.”

Faori had never determined if his elaborate speech patterns were innate to the voice box he had found on his journey, or merely affected.  She tilted her head to look up at him.  “We, Mr Fearless.  In any case, I am not sure that we are cut out to be tavern-keeps.”

“It is certain we would offer substantially less risk to serving staff of the distaff variety than the prior claimant to the title.”

Faori chuckled, but seemed a little sad.  “It turns out that we are rather good at this investigating lark.”

“Indeed.  Though travelling through all the Steadfast and half the Beyond to discover the fate of your mother is not something that, with any level of brevity imaginable, I would merely describe as a ‘lark’.”

Faori pushed herself to her feet.  The labourers were lifting a new sign in place.  She quirked her lips into a grin that Mr Fearless knew meant mischief.  “Perhaps we should stay.  What do you think?  ‘Folly and Fearless, private detectives’?”

Mr Fearless shook his head with great deliberation.  “While I am loathe to perpetuate a jest that assuredly arose parallel with self-awareness itself, nonetheless I do believe that ‘Fearless and Folly’ has greater resonance.”

“It certainly sounds good to me.”  She patted his sleeve.  “I am famished.  Shall we eat?”

They strolled away from the crystal tree, arm in arm.

Behind them, as the sun set, the labourers finished their work, placing the new sign.  The paint was still wet and the letters glittered with metallic motes.

It simply read “Aurora’s Arms.”

[stormquiss-blog]

Dancer in the Dust

Prelude:  The Patchwork Man

On the last day of summer, as the sun melted into the savannah, children gathered at the edge of Ellomyr with paper gliders and reed fans, waiting for the evening wind to spin dust devils off the Brackenridge.  Lightning flickered in the distance and the air was thick with the smell of acacia, elephant grass and loam.

The Patchwork Man stood apart, pale and tall, watching as gliders swooped and fans spun, listening as children shouted with delight or cried out in frustration.  Soon, most of their toys lay crumpled in the dirt, but some soared in the updrafts, rising higher and higher, chasing the fading sun and the very last moment of summer.

Some of the dust devils picked up scintillae, a shimmering, metallic dust that sparkled in every colour imaginable; violet and teal, a deep smouldering umber, and colours only abhumans could name.  The scintillae writhed and curled, now dazzling now dull, and even as the sunlight failed the motes took on an eerie luminescence.

Peering upward, the Patchwork Man saw a solitary glider, still rising, and wished it well.  Then parents called their children into supper and their annual ritual was done.

The Patchwork Man closed his eyes, testing the wind with his long slender fingers.  Ellomyr was full of strangers tonight and he was conscious of their voices, hushed and strident, hoarse and hollow.  Laughter and music crested and receded as the doors to Taleen’s Hostel banged open and shut.  Metal ticked as the beetle-shaped crawler nearby cooled, exuding the smell of oil and ozone.  The whistle of a riverboat drifted across the water and a calliope responded.  All distractions, ignored, discarded, as he listened intently for the strange music of the Trilling Shard.

His breath quickened his eyes opened.  Now.

A ribbon of scintillae coiled in the air shimmering like gems crushed and scattered.  It drifted languorously into the town square even though the wind had failed.  A last ray of sunlight reached out and the Trilling Shard sang.  For a moment so brief there was no name for it, the Patchwork Man caught a glimpse of the Dancer in the Dust.

Then she was gone.  A single tear, a sob swallowed, and the Patchwork Man turned away, trudging back into the savannah, his annual ritual complete.

I. Misereya

Misereya’s kite soared and plunged as she wrestled for control with the wind that blustered across the savannah.  The twine she had painstakingly spun from scraps dug into the flesh of her fingers, and her knee ached where she had outgrown the socket of her makeshift leg.  The dust blowing from the Brackenridge helped her to read the wind and she blew a strand of hair from her eyes as she regained control.

The kite snapped, fluttered and swooped as she tugged on its strings.  The prior-world comb she had found a week ago on the riverbank after the floods hummed and keened, purred and growled.  It was working.  A trail of fine specks was forming behind her kite like a captive rainbow.

Her mother called them scintillae - tiny motes of metal that infused the dust around Ellomyr.  Her father had called them a nuisance.  Even though he had been killed five years ago by the Margr, she still had a clear memory of his voice.

The scintillae worked its way into mechanical parts, like the joints of Misereya’s leg, causing them to wear faster or seize up.  Just a month ago she had accidentally rubbed one into her eye, which had grown swollen and red and teary.  Misereya hated tears.  Yet the scintillae was also coveted by crafters.  Her mother mixed it with wood polish for the furniture she sold when the riverboats visited Ellomyr, as rare as that had become.  

Misereya had even heard that, if added to food, it became whatever spice the eater desired, vanilla or paprika or salubh, though she had never dared try it.  She was teased enough.

While ubiquitous, the scintillae was painstaking to gather in useful quantities.  Tugging on the twine, she turned the kite back on itself in a lazy arc and the wake of scintillae was captured by the paper panels.

Abruptly, the wind dropped as if the savannah had held its breath, and Misereya’s kite plummeted.

Misereya cried out in frustration as the twine went limp in her hand.  Coiling it as fast as she could, she took an awkward step forward, but there was no hope.  The kite struck the ground hard enough to raise dust.

Still reeling in the twine, Misereya hobbled forward.  Her mother kept carving new legs for her as she grew, but the mechanical joints were more difficult to adjust.  She could not run.  The best she could manage was a swift hobble.

As the dust settled, she saw a tall, slender man, standing over her kite.

Long braids of grey hair fell over his shoulders to his waist, bound with scraps of cloth embedded with feathers, chips of mica, and the bones of birds.  His face was covered in uneven bristles and the skin sagged a little, like slowly melting wax.  She could not see his eyes, as he was focussed intently on her fallen kite.  His clothes were a patchwork of furs and cloth scavenged from the town scrap heap.

In hushed voices, his name, the Patchwork Man.  At least that was what the children called him, daring each other to visit his hovel at the edge of the Brackenridge.  Her father had called him a crazy old hermit.  Her mother, with a gentle sadness in her eyes, called him a melancholy old grump and told her to leave him alone.

The Patchwork Man was prodding her kite with his cloth wrapped feet.

“Hoy.  Leave that alone.  That’s mine.”  Misereya tugged on the twine and the kite skittered away from him before catching on a bush.  She hobbled faster.

He held out his hands, palms up, as if to ward her away.  His fingers were long and tapered and exquisitely callused.  “You must be one of Dora’s girls?”  His voice was gravelly, as if he was unused to talking above a mutter.  “This is yours, so?”

She stopped, the kite now between them, and though she kept her eyes on his, she continued coiling the twine.  “So.  I mean yes.  I made it.”

“You did not make that.”  He gestured at the comb suspended on struts in the boxy structure of the kite.  “Where did you find it?”

“My comb?  She shifted her weight to her natural leg.  He was old, but his legs were long.  She was not sure if she would be able to take the kite and run.  “It washed up with a bunch of other junk after the storm.  Why, do you want to trade?”

The Patchwork Man laughed suddenly and his eyes glinted.  “Wait here.  I will come back.”  He turned and walked a few steps, hesitated, then turned back.  “Please wait for me?”  He seemed to take her steady gaze as a promise and shuffled away, before breaking into a slow jog.

Misereya bent down to her kite and recovered the comb.  It was a crescent of smooth coppery metal, as large as her hand, with five small beads on one side that glowed faintly at night.  Fifteen tines were set within the crescent made of a translucent material as strong and flexible as fish bones.  It was the tines that hummed if she breathed on them or if the wind blew through them.

Glancing up, she saw the Patchwork Man disappear into his hovel.  It was built into a crack in the vast tumble of cyclopean stones that made up the Brackenridge.  Tucking the comb into her blouse, she looked back toward Ellomyr and the setting sun, then lowered herself awkwardly to the ground to disassemble her kite.

Dusk was settling gently on the savannah when she heard him huffing and puffing his way toward her.  Misereya stood, brushing dust from her shorts.  The Patchwork Man’s skin was glistening and his clothes were soaked in sweat.  His face was pallid.

“I have…some things…some trinkets…to trade.”  He held his cupped hands to his chest but Misereya could see he was clutching an eclectic collection of objects.  As he stumbled closer, a pearlescent shell fell from his grasp, and emitted a single, hollow word in an unfamiliar tongue.  Some of the objects were oddities, items from the prior-world that her mother called whatknots and her father had called junk.  Like her comb.  Misereya had heard of fortunes made or lost with such things.

The Patchwork Man smiled at her breathless, leaned over to pick up the shell, and fell face first into the dust.

II. Severaixs

Warmth, blood warm, this threshold of sleep, a pool in which he might drown.  Images, feelings, sensation in the membrane that separated him from harsh reality.  A shelf of busts, none of them perfect, smashed and falling.  Goat milk cheese, fresh bread, dark ale and Gurner’s laughter.  A kite, fluttering, falling, trailing a thread of melody, both compelling and elusive.  Her face.  Her face, turning to dust that glittered and spun.

Her face.

He woke, and felt sweat rolling down his neck and a throbbing pain in his left arm and jaw.  He barely had a moment to realise he was in bed, before the small, dark room whirled.  He fell back mere millimetres to his pillow and it felt like he was falling into a chasm.

Her face.  His eyes closed, the world stopped spinning and his lagging memory returned.  The girl, so like his lost Lalitheia, even down to one green and one violet eye.  The girl and her kite.

The girl who was looking at him, right now.

Severaixs opened his eyes again and saw her sitting cross legged beside the bed.  No, not cross legged.  Her artificial leg was propped against a small table.  Smiling, she swung up on her right knee until her face was level with his.

"Are you feeling better?"

"Yes", and closed his eyes to hide the lie.  "I am at your mother's house, I take it?"

She nodded.  "My brother and I brought you here.  We have a wheelbarrow.  Would you like some water?"

Severaixs was suddenly aware of the sandpaper tension in his mouth and throat.  "Please."  He propped himself up, trembling.  Why was he so weak?  "Dora, your mother, would not like seeing me here."

“You have been here all night.”  The girl poured water from a wooden jug into a wooden cup, both lovingly carved and painted, from whole jaravhi seeds.  "Mama is not here now.  There is some big town meeting.  Something about Margr?  They would not tell me.  Mama does not like me to worry.  My name is Misereya by the way."

He sipped slowly, deferring the implied question.  She was watching him intently.  As he set the cup down he met her gaze and smiled.  "Sev.  Call me Sev if you like.  That will do."

"Oh no."  She absently swept up a stray droplet of water with her finger.  "I should call you sir, or elder, or some such."

"Sev is fine."  He reached for the cup and saw his esoteries set neatly on a shelf.  Along with mundane items such as a calyptor horn and a peacock quill, there was the nonsense shell, the sharpening ring, the far eye glass and the sighing stone.  His empty satchel sat neatly folded behind them.

The kite. The scintillae.  Memory flooded back.  "Thank you for picking up my things."

"I am not a thief." She pulled herself up and sat beside the bed.  Gentle pressure on his shoulders leaned him forward so she could plump the pillows.  "You wanted to trade.  I say we trade."

Severaixs took a moment to appraise the room.  Dust floated in a beam of light from the window and he was suddenly conscious of the smell of wood polish, sawdust and mineral oil.  He shook his head.  Lalitheia had loathed those smells.  She preferred lavendar and saluabh and vanilla oil for her hair.  He dipped his fingers in the cup and wiped it across his forehead, trying to keep his voice even, unexcited.  "The thing on the kite.  Your comb.  Do you have it?"

She reached into her smock and drew out the comb, extended her arm, then drew it back as he reached for it.  "This is worth many shins.  When I fix my kite I can collect more shiny dust in an hour than my brother can collect in a week.  The shiny wood polish fetches a better price."

"Scintillae," he murmured.  "May I?"

She frowned, theatrically, then set the comb down in his hand.

It was lighter than he had expected and the metal was warm. Blood warm, and he shook his head to clear the last wisps of his dream.  Gently, he pressed on one of the tines, and felt it vibrate so fast, so subtly, it set his nerves tingling.  The next tine he pressed resonated at a different frequency, accompanied by a barrel audible hum.

The quality of the light in the room shifted as scintillae shimmered in the light that drifted in from the window.  He felt a thrill.  "How much?"

Her eyes flicked to the bedside table.  "All of them."

Severaixs was shaking his head but found it difficult to suppress a grin.  “Show me the two you like the most."

She pursed her lips then reached out and tapped the far eye glass and the sighing stone.

“Then we have a deal?”

"I like these the most, but I still want all six."  Her gaze was steady but she was smiling back.

Severaixs stroked the comb and knew he was beaten.  "Done.  You drive a hard bargain, young lady."  He pushed himself upright, then stopped.  "Ah.  And what do you want to return my clothes?"

She chuckled.  “Nothing.  That is proper courtesy."  She bounced herself to the bottom of the bed and pointed out the neat pile of laundered and deftly darned clothes.  Then she quickly strapped on her leg, stood with a flourish, followed by a wobble and an embarrassed grin.  "I should let you dress."

She swept up her treasures and walked through the curtain pretending to be a door.

Severaixs held up the comb, hummed a few notes, and replicated them on the tines.  A few stray motes of scintillae adhered to his fingers.  Then he set the comb gently in his satchel and donned his clothes.

Even with the homespun laundering, they still smelled a little of old sweat and regret.

Misereya was waiting in the small room beyond the curtain.  A homely kitchen and dining table and a door leading out into the square.  He could hear the murmur of voices, ebbing and flowing outside.  Time to go.

He bowed slightly.  "Thank you, Misereya.  For this."  He gestured at his satchel.  "And this."  He pressed his palm to his heart.

She looked down at her feet.  "You are welcome."  When she glanced up again her eyes seemed a little sad.  "Maybe I can bring you food, some day?  It must be lonely out there at the Brackenridge."

He remembered the way the wind howled and whined, and the way the thorns creaked and crackled.  "It is better, if I am alone."

Bowing his head, he exited through the door.  On the street, he shaded his eyes against the sun, peering toward the crowd gathered at the square, before turning away.

It seemed as if the air was brimming with scintillae and he was certain he could smell lavender, salubh and vanilla oil.

*

Misereya watched the Patchwork Man stride into the glare.  A few minutes later her mama stepped into the kitchen from her workshop.  "You should not bother him, Missy.  There is no need to bother him."

“Because he is a melancholy old grump?”

“Because it does nobody any good to poke a hornet’s nest.”

"No."  She narrowed her eyes.  It was her thinking face.  "No, I mean, why does everyone hate him?"

Dora sighed.  "Long before you were born, he knew your great aunt Lalitheia."  She narrowed her eyes too, then nodded slowly.  "Everyone thinks he killed her."

III. Misereya

When the wind gusted, it sent long, rolling waves through the grasslands, flicked a loose strand of hair into Misereya’s eyes, and brought the heartless, endless sound of Margr war drums into her ear.

Misereya took a direct path across the plain to Sev’s home, the same path she had walked almost daily for the last few weeks, but she faltered when the wind blew, feeling exposed.  Her stump hurt and her metal knee joint clunked and squeaked with each step, but she focused on the stones of the Brackenridge and endured the pain.

The Margr drums, rose and fell with the wind, but with every gust it seemed they were louder, closer.

The elders had tried to stop her from leaving, but in all the chaos of the defensive preparations, she had slipped out.  Parties had been sent to bring in the last, recalcitrant farmers but Misereya knew that nobody would be sent for Sev.

Severaixs the killer.  Misereya had pieced the story together as best she could asking the elders who might have known him.  Gurner had been his friend and his rheumy eyes had glittered at the mention of his name.  A handsome stranger.  A rebellious dancer.  A mysterious disappearance.

A bright flash gave her a fleeting, second shadow.  It was followed by a snap and a bass rumble that shook her enough so that she stumbled and fell to her knees.  They had begun testing the lightning tower.

Misereya stood, wobbled, and hesitated.  The Brackenridge seemed so far away.  She shaded her eyes against the sun and saw a column of smoke rising to the south.  As she watched, another puff rose nearer still.

Narrowing her eyes she pondered the smoke, and the distant tree line.  The Margr were maybe half a day away.  She still had time.

Severaixs’s home appeared as little more than a lean-to set against a deep fissure in the jumble of red stones.  Set beside the flap of cloth buttoned over the entrance, were more than a dozen wooden plates.  Six still had food scraps on them, scattered by small animals or covered in mould.  The half dozen nearest the door had been neatly stacked.

At least he was alive.

Flashboom.  Another test.  They had been filling the moat as she scurried across the causeway.  Someone had told her it would make the lightning more deadly.  Her stomach felt suddenly hollow and she struggled to swallow.  This was real.  The Margr were coming.

She drew back the flap and stepped inside.

The lean-to turned out the be an antechamber lined with buckets, baskets and pots filled with refuse.  Sev’s home extend back into the fissure.  A narrow passage was lit by dim glowbes, of orange, violet and blue.  Faintly, she heard a hissing, ticking sound interspersed with mutters and flurries of music from a stringed instrument.

Setting her hand on the cool red stone, she walked slowly in the dimness.

Soon, the passage grew broader.  Wedges had been pounded into the stone to support haphazard shelving.  Mouldering books slowly compressed into pulp under layers of dust.  A line of perfect jade sphere rocked back and forth so slightly it caused her eyes to tear up watching them.  One set of shelves had collapsed and a pile of clay fragments were scattered on the floor below.  She recognised a the arc of a cheekbone, a sliver of lip, and long shards of hair.  Busts of a woman, and the occasional eye gazed up at her as she hobbled by.

The next room was lit by candles, some tallow, some wax, and their smell was mingled rotten and sweet.  Severaixs sat on a hassock at the middle of the room with a dulcimer crooked in his forearm and a bow held in his hand.  A cloud of scintillae filled the room, and Misereya had the strange sensation she had stepped into a snow globe.  The cloud was thicker in front of Severaixs, swirling and pulsing as he breathed.  She took a step nearer and felt a gentle pressure pushing her away, as if the scintillae formed a membrane of embers.

He glanced at chalk marks on the floor, lifted the dulcimer and played a succession of notes, an alien melody.  The scintillae flowed toward him and shapes coalesced in the cloud.  An arc of cheekbone, a sliver of lip, and long shards of hair.

Her comb had been fashioned to the headstock of the dulcimer, each tine fixed to a key.  Misereya felt her skin tingle, as if lightly touched and she smelled lilac and lavender.  The face grew more distinct. The mouth trembled, then opened and Misereya expected words, but the only sound was the dulcimer, and the tick and hiss of the confined scintillae.

Thunder rumbled, felt as a ripple through her skin.  The image in the scintillae dissolved and Sev cursed.

Misereya sensed her moment.  “Sev.  Sir.  We need to go now.  The Margr are coming.”

He did not seem startled, but turned slowly to face her, shaking his head slightly.  He blinked once, twice, then yawned.  “The young trader.  Misereya.  What do you want?”

“To tell you about the Margr.  They will be here tonight maybe.  You have to come home.”

“Did you not see?”  The words tumbled out.  “I am so close.  She was here.  All along, in the dust.”  His gaze was intense.  “I can bring her back.  I can fix it.”

“Fix what?”  She narrowed her eyes.  “You can…”. Boom.  Dust, ordinary drab dust, fell from the roof.

“When will they stop that racket?”

Misereya set her lips, and took a deep breath.  “You can finish this in Ellomyr.  There are walls and many strangers have come to help.  Please come with me.”

“My notes.”  He gestured at the chalk marks.  Setting down the dulcimer, he rubbed his left arm.  His lips moved, but he did not speak.  “Wait.  What is making that racket?”

“They have lightning stored in a tower like water.  It goes flashboom when they let it out.”

He chuckled and closed his eyes.  “Flashboom.  Descriptive enough, child.”  His eyes flicked open.  “Of course.  How stupid.  A flash then a boom.”

He stood gingerly, joints popping, stooped down to sweep up his dulcimer, and vainly brushed dust from his patchwork clothes.  “The notes you hear from the trilling shard.  I can use them as a catalyst but its too far away.  Sounds is slower than light.  Flashboom, you say.”

Relief set her trembling.  “We must hurry.”

“Of course.  We must not dawdle.”  He looked around his hovel, patted his pockets, shrugged.  “I suppose there is nothing else I need.  Come along, little trader.”

He led her back outside.

Another column of smoke stained the sky and now the drums could be heard without the wind.

IV. Severaixs

The Trilling Shard.  Severaixs wondered who had coined the phrase.  In his youth, there was a cook on one of the caravans with a penchant for naming every small landmark they passed, regardless whether there were names already on the map.  Widow’s Peek, the Snarling Rock, the Trilling Shard.  Perhaps that was how it had been named?  A random traveler, an appropriate name that simply stuck and became so careworn with use that people no longer truly saw the thing behind the words.

Monty.  That was his name.  All of his recipes involved beans.

Severaixs closed his eyes and gripped the dulcimer more tightly.  Chaos, distraction, fear.  Proximity to the Trilling Shard enhanced the music that manipulated the scintillae which responded more precisely, more swiftly to the notes.  It was the human element that was failing.

Focus.  The exquisite tension of the strings on his fingers.  Each note, perfect in his mind, aloof to the dismay of battle.  Sequences of notes, forming phrases, passages, counterpoints; mathematical more than melodic.  Her face, memorised over the brief few months they had been lovers, by sun and candle light.

It had never occurred to him that perhaps he had idealised her over the decades since he had activated, then lost control of the scintillae in her tattoos.

Strangers had constructed platforms around the Trilling Shard, and applied all manner of exotic devices, hoping fathom its purpose.  Hoping to prod it to assist in the defence of Ellomyr he supposed.  He had found a spot out of the way and settled down on the cobbles.  Nobody seemed to notice him.  For his purpose, the Trilling Shard was merely a catalyst, a waypoint for caravans, shade for a seasonal market, founding stone for a small village.  If Ellomyr survived perhaps one day it would be a curiosity, in a forgotten square of a town or even a city.  That did not matter to Severaixs.  It was a catalyst for his music, a tool he could use to save his lost Lalitheia.

Ignoring the throbbing pain in his arm, he focused his effort on a new iteration of the music.

Her face and body formed quickly, the scintillae flowing easily into the shade of the Trilling Shard and details were evoked rapidly in shimmering motes.  She moved now, unbidden by the song, turning her head slightly as she always did when she disagreed, curling her lips in a mischievous smile when she thought of some new folly, narrowing her eyes when she was thinking.  Her lips moved and Severaixs felt or imagined her breath on his face, but could not hear her words.

The scintillae ghost of Lalitheia glanced over his shoulder and dissipated.

“Sev.  Patchwork Man.  Severaixs.”

A sudden rage filled him and he turned, ready to snap at the intruder.

Misereya stood in the light of the square.  The light around her was diffuse with smoke.  She wore a carpenter’s apron with panels of wood crudely fixed to it.  He realised she was gripping his sword cane with knuckles turned white.

He gulped back his anger.  “Please.  I am busy.”

She turned her head slightly away.  “Do you not hear the Margr?  The battle is about to begin.”  She blew a stray strand of hair out of her eyes.  “Is there nothing you can do?”

The anger returned, burning, consuming him.  “Why should I help them?  They did nothing for me?”

“No?  Nieten has kept the wild animals away from your door.  All of us have left food and clothes for you at one time or another.  You exiled yourself.”

In her anger, Severaixs could see the young woman she would become.  Strong and wilful.  If she survived the next few hours.

He looked down at the dulcimer.  “No.  There is nothing I can do.  I am sorry.”

“Are you?”  She shook her head.  “Nobody will let me fight.  I am going to fight anyway.  My brothers and sisters are behind these walls.  I will not live to see a Margr make trophies of them.”  Even now, she hesitated, seeking some response from him but he did not know what to say.

A strange cord wafted over them from the Trilling Shard.  Severaixs turned away.  He wanted to wish her well, but he could not find the words.  Lalitheia was close, and that was all that mattered.

V. Misereya

A large column of dust was rising across the plain between Ellomyr and the Brackenridge hiding the Margr horde.  There was not doubt the abhumans were coming.  Their war chant was growing louder, a living avalanche of screams and howls and drums, and an ululating song that set Misereya’s nerves jangling.  Ahead of the veil of dust, the last of the skirmishers were limping home alone or in pairs and always covered in blood.  The metal-faced man was carrying a woman who had lost an arm and her face was pallid, lifeless.  The dust had effectively grounded the flyers, who had retreated earlier soaring overhead, whooping and laughing.  Misereya envied them and wished she had been old enough to learn to fly.  Flames flickered at the leading edge of the crowd prompting cheers, but soon enough the last of the skirmishers appeared, riding a beast that was half ox and half serpent, covered in metallic scales.  A man running beside the beast, hand extended to catch a lift, fell suddenly with a spear through his chest.

Misereya watched as the last of the skirmishers crossed the temporary causeway across the new, shallow moat.  The gate was closed.  The outer defences had failed.

Fear shrunk her skin, lit her veins afire, and made her want to pee.  She clung to the sword cane she had taken from the Patchwork Man and wondered what it would be like, to lose an arm or feel a spear pierce her body.  Swallowing bile, she forced herself to be still.  Twice, elders had told her to go back to the hostel and hide with the other children.  Twice, she had refused.  If it had been her mother she might not have been able to resist the request, but her mother was busy helping to brace the hastily constructed wall.

Actually, wall was a generous name.  Outside the moat were thickets of spears set into the ground, designed to crowd the Margr together.  Inside the moat was a berm, with a barricade atop it made from hastily chopped tree trunks.  When she had first climbed the platform behind the wall she had found a living leaf on a branch that had not been properly stripped.  She rested her fingers on the leaf, from time to time, felt its smooth texture, felt its stolid indifference to death, and was comforted.

Now the Margr horde was wheeling, emerging from the dust cloud.  They were humanoid creatures, with goat-like heads and thick, stringy beards.  No two Margr looked alike.  Some had extra arms, or serpentine hair, or overlapping chitinous scales.  All of them wore trophies, some still fresh and bleeding, but most were rotted and grey.

At the head of column was a Margr tall enough to look Misereya directly in the eyes if he stood next to the barricade.  This one, their leader, raised a heavy staff made of articulated metal with a hook at one end and a spiked chain trailing from the other.

The Margr fell silent.

Misereya shivered.  After days of ceaseless chanting the silence was terrifying.  A metallic taste filled her mouth and she swallowed bile.  Now she could hear the gentle hum of the lightning tower, the muted chatter of the defenders, the cries of the wounded and the occasional, diffident note from the Trilling Shard.  Even though Severaisx was old, even though he had ignored her when she had taken his sword, she wished he was standing beside her now.

The Margr leader howled and brought down his weapon.  The other Margr screamed and chittered, clashing their spears and thumping their shields, and the sound rolled across the plain and punched Misereya hard in the chest.  She took a step backward and saw others do the same.  The sword cane almost slipped from her sweaty fingers.

Somehow, Nieten’s voice cut through the cacophony.

“Is that it?  Is that all they have?  I have heard worst sounds coming from the privy behind the tavern.”  There were some nervous laughs.  “They have come for our homes.  They have come for our flesh and blood and bone.”  She paused, turning to catch the eyes of those on the barricade.  “If they win all of our stories will be gone forever.  The time Gurner locked himself in that self same privy.  The time that Abindh’s sheep were trapped in the floods and we formed a human chain to save them.  Our tragedies, like the Red River.  Our ghost stories, like the Dancer in the Dust.  Our births, our weddings, our honoured dead.  These Margr would wipe them from memory forever.”  She paused again and turned her gaze to the enemy.  The cries of the Margr were fading to a mutter and a clatter.  Everyone that could see her was looking at Nieten, and for the first time it seemed as if the shy, competent Glaive revelled in their attention.  “If we allow it.  Only we can stop them and stop them we will.  Together.  Behind us are our homes.  Ahead of us, our enemy.  We stand between.  Let us make sure the two never meet.  Let us give Gurner some real stories to tell.  Are you with me?”

The defenders roared, and Misereya raised her sword cane with the others and felt a giddy energy suffuse her.

Then the Margr charged and the smell of rotten flesh rolled ahead of the vanguard in a palpable wave.  Misereya wished her mother was beside her, and wondered if she might be with her father soon, but she stood her ground.

VI. Severaixs

Oblivious.  Is that the word?  Oblivion?  No, they had different meanings.  On one level, Severaixs was conscious of the shouts and cries, the clatter and grate of saws, the resonating impact of hammers.  He could hear the hum of the lightning tower, and felt the hair on his forearms bristle in response.  As the skirmishers returned, he could almost taste their blood.

Yet he set all that aside.  He drew the bow across his makeshift dulcimer and felt the felt the alien notes as pressure of his fingertips.  Whenever the Trilling Shard sang, he felt the strings of his dulcimer respond.  Indifferent, it acted as a catalyst for Misereya’s comb.

In the air ahead of him, Lalitheia’s body was forming from the spinning, shimmering scintillae.  Still as ephemeral as dust on the wind, there were enough details now that he could see the scar on her lip, the birthmark on her thigh.

Her lips were moving but he could not understand what she was saying.

Soon, his mistake would be unmade and Lalitheia would return to him.

Violet light suffused the square, followed almost immediately by a snap of thunder so close, so loud, it set ripples through his body.  For a moment, Lalitheia faded, but he bent to his bow in an effort to restore her.  She was gesturing now, toward the barricade and the battle, her mouth moving again, and perhaps he imagined her voice.

“Go.  Help them.”  She reached out and her slender fingers stroked his cheek, the slightest pressure, then she turned away, shimmering hair covering her face.  “Help her,” he thought she said.

Then a cry pierced the illusion.  Dora’s voice.  “Misereya!”

Severaixs’ heart thudded and fluttered.  Lalitheia smiled, slightly, and started to dissipate.  Severaixs reached out but felt only the tickle of dust on his fingers.  “Misereya,” the cry came again.

Lalitheia was gone.  Severaixs stood, trembling, and almost dropped the dulcimer.  The scintillae were swirling around him now, filling the air with their shimmering iridescence.  At first stumbling, then walking, then running, Severaixs headed for the Barricade.

*

Standing on the parapet, Severaixs tried to comprehend the battle and failed.  It was too chaotic.  There were still living Margr flailing about on stakes and many lay dead in the moat.  The mechanism to collapse the wooden causeway had failed and a large group of invaders were piled up against the gate.  One was tall enough that his metal staff slashed and snapped across the rough parapet.

There was no sign of Misereya.  Some defenders lay dead at the base of the barricade and some lay wounded, untended, on the wall itself.  Fliers, on strange metallic boards, swooped over the battlefield firing bows or dropping rocks but they were lightly armoured and he saw two of them fall.  One was snatched from the air by the Margr leader’s chain, another came too close to the lightning tower when it fired.  Ozone, and decayed flesh, blood and bile and a deep loamy smell from the moat, combined the make him gag.

He saw a leaf fluttering in the breeze, rising, drifting away and wondered where it was going.

The people of Elloymyr had not given up - they were fighting back, along with the strangers who had come to assist.  The metal-faced man ducked the great chain and tried to entangle it with a wooden staff.  Flame erupted from his left, and a woman laughed, as a group of Margr who had been attempting to breach the barricade fell back, blackened and smoking.  Nieten was bloodied, fending off Margr with a pike who were piling up the dead climb the barricade.  A strange, hairy creature dropped barrels of water which instantly froze on contact with flesh.

Where was Misereya?  He hoped she was not laying in the mud but there was no time to find her.  In moments, Ellomyr could fall.

And what could he do?  The scintillae swirled around him and the Trilling Shard sang, a deep, thrumming note that set the strings of his dulcimer vibrating.

He knew.  Lalitheia’s voice echoed in his memory.  “Help them.  Help her.”

Lifting the dulcimer he drew his bow across the strings.

The scintillae pulsed in tune with the alien notes.  He urged them outwards and they billowed over the barricade.  More scintillae rose from the mud, from the wooden stakes and logs, and drifted inwards against the breeze.  They thickened into coils and ribbons and translucent sheets, a living aurora.

Through the gathering scintillae, he saw a group of Margr readying their spears.  Projecting his will through the dulcimer, he thickened and turned the shimmering sheets.  The spears struck the scintillae, and were slowed just enough that they fall short of the wall.

Severaixs felt a moment of exultation.  He may have lived apart from Ellomyr for forty years, but it was still his home.  And Lalitheia’s.  And Misereya’s.

The bow hummed in his hands and he found himself humming back.  Startled, a hunter fell back as a rock narrowly missed her face.  The scintillae cushioned her fall and in moments she had darted back up a ladder bemused but unharmed.

Another group of Margr surged forward, and the scintillae swooped and formed a mirror, briefly dazzling them, long enough for the defenders to rally, and push them back into the moat where the lightning tower finished the job.

Dust devils were forming on the plains, drawing out more scintillae and Severaixs blinked away tears.  For a moment, dancing among them, he though he glimpsed Lalitheia - the Dancer in the Dust.

There was a roar and a shudder ran through the barricade, followed by a crunching, splintering sound as the gate collapsed.  The leader of the Margr was missing an ear, and had been disarmed, but his mighty claws were more than enough to maim and kill.  The defenders fell back to the inner defences and, for a moment, the two groups simply glared at each other.  Then Nieten cried out and the defenders charged.

Severaixs turned his attention to the melee, but the scintillae were learning.  The metal-faced man leaped to strike the leader of the Margr, and the scintillae formed enhanced muscles around his weapon arm.  The nano he had seen on the wall could barely stand.  The scintillae gently lifted her and then focussed her flames so that it would only strike her enemies.

Severaixs was no long playing the dulcimer.  The scintillae was conducting its own defence of the town, enhancing, shielding, but never directly attacking, and in all the confusion Severaixs did not believe that anyone realised it was there, helping.  That she was there, helping.

He fell to his knees, weeping.  I am sorry, so sorry.  He did not see the Margr leader fall, and did not see the defenders surge, or the route of the horde.  He did not hear the ragged cheers, or see the heroes lifted on the shoulders of the villagers.

His awareness returned with a gentle touch on his shoulder.  He looked up and saw Dora.  Tears had drawn tracks through dried blood, all the way down to her neck, and her eyes were red and swollen.

Dora’s voice cracked as she spoke.  “Misereya is asking for you.  We have to hurry.”

VII. Misereya

The room was full of silhouettes, wispy shadows of people she loved.  Her mother, sobbed on Nieten’s shoulder.  Her siblings stood behind her and little Fionnde waved shyly when Misereya tried to smile.  But where was Biris?  Dora had sent for Staven and he had treated her wounds so surely she would be fine?

And where was Sev?

Misereya had only the vaguest memory of the battle.  Clutching her sword, she had faced the Margr horde as they thundered across the plains.  She remembered the dust rolling over the palisade, and the stench.  Then she was on her knees and hot liquid was flowing over here face.  She could no longer see through her left eye.  Oddly, that had not hurt.  Presumably one of the Margr had thrown a stone.  Then the slim, barbed pilum had struck her in the chest.  If the stone have missed her, the spear might have struck her makeshift leg.  A sensation like wax melting filled her lungs followed by and exquisite sensation so far beyond her experience it could not be called pain.

A moment later, conscious had been sucked away like water down a drain.

For a time, she could only remember moments, between blinks of her good eye.

“Misereya!”  Her mama’s voice.

Blink.

Gentle hands lifting her onto a blanket.  Her eyes had filled with blood but someone sopped it up with a rag.

Blink.

In the square, now.  The light was suffused with a violet glow and strange music chased her from the palisade as if it wanted to tell her something important.

Blink.

A loud crackle.  An avalanche?  Was the Brackenride coming to help?  It amused her to think of it as a sleeping giant, annoyed with the noise of battle.  She coughed.

Blink.

Home, and Fionnde running to fetch Staven.

Blink.

Now her mother sobbing after quiet words from Staven.  Misereya felt a moment of deep satisfaction at finishing the memory puzzle.  She tried to move but her muscles only twitched.  A dull ache filled her head and it felt as if a weight was slowly settling on her chest.

“Sev,” she mumbled.  Her mama turned to face her, puzzled.  She gestured, and Nieten led the other children from the room.

Then mama kneeled by the bed and forced a smile  “You need to rest, Missy.  To sleep.”

That smile, a thin veneer over fear and grief.  Not her mama’s best work.  Misereya blinked but her mother still looked strange.  Then she remembered the stone and felt the gentle pressure of a bandage over her left eye.  Had she lost her eye?  Is that why mama had been crying?  Now she would be Misereya One-Eye.  Misereya the pirate.

It hurt when she chuckled.  “Can you fetch Sev?”

“Hush, darling.  You must rest.”  She glanced toward the door.

Misereya struggled to sit but a roar like a waterfall filled her ears and she started to cough.  Mama patted her, and wiped blood from her lips with a handkerchief.

“Is he alright?”

“I saw him on the walls, playing that damned dulcimer.  The Margr may have been too amused to kill him.”

“Fetch him.  I have to talk to him.  Then I promise I will go to sleep.”

Mama turned away, her chest heaving, as if she could not breathe, but her voice was even when she finally spoke.  “I will fetch him.”

Blink.

The weight on her chest had grown heavier.  Why would nobody remove it?

Blink.

In a corner, indistinct, her father waited though she could no longer remember the sound of his voice.

Blink.

“Hello, little trader.”  Severaixs was kneeling by her bedside, his face so pale it might have been spun from moonlight.  “Did you have another deal to make?”

Even through the medicine, she felt a little knot of joy.  “Mama says she saw you on the wall.  Did you bring her back?”

“Yes, of course.”  He closed his eyes to hide the lie.  “In a sense.  I could not save her, but she was there, on the battlefield, guiding the scintillae at the end.”

A deep lassitude was spreading through her body, the aches fading.  “But you know what to do now.  You can try again.”

“So I will.  You will meet her soon.  She would like you a great deal.

Blink, long and languid this time.  When her good eye opened again, she saw Sev leaning close.  He had pulled the comb from his dulcimer and was pressing it into her hands.  It was difficult to be sure, but there was only the faintest flicker in the fifth bead.  The others were dark.  It felt warm, and reassuring in her hands and she was certain the tines vibrated, just a little, as her fingers settled on them.

She was struggling to catch her breath.  “Wha…will you trade for it?”

Sev chuckled, sadly.  “It is a gift.  All heroes receive rewards at the end of a battle.”

She clung to it as the room grew dim, and she smelled lavender and lilac.

VIII. Severaixs

The sun was smeared by smoke when Severaixs stepped out of the Redmire house.   Gurner was waiting.  He gripped Severaixs’s shoulder, nodded then turned and shuffled away without saying a word.

There were scintillae in the air but they flitted randomly, empty of purpose.

Severaixs had never felt more weary.  He looked down at his hands and realised he was still holding the ruined dulcimer.  He tossed it aside, set his shoulders, and walked toward the fallen gate.  People had gathered in small groups, the survivors, brimming with nervous energy, drinking and telling their tales.  A row of blankets marked the bodies of the fallen.  None of it made sense.  Surely if he made his way and home, and slept long and deep, when he woke the tiny village of Ellomyr, would still revile him and Misereya would still be offering ridiculous deals.

Nobody noticed as he walked by and crossed the causeway.  The piles of Margr had been shoved aside so the Kelemish riders could enter.  A small pen had been hastily constructed for their aneen mounts nearby.  The saviours of Ellomyr, he supposed and in many ways he was diffident about the tales they would tell.  His only friend lay dying and his lover was dead.  Decades dead, he knew that now.  If her consciousness still resided in the scintillae that had consumed her, Severaixs no longer had a way of giving it substance.

All this obsession, for nothing.

A pyre had been built for the Margr, some distance from the city.  Villagers and newcomers alike, toiled to pull bodies from the moat, or from snapped and splintered stakes.  It was as if the battle would not be truly over until all trace of the enemy had been removed.

His jaw was aching again and his left arm felt numb, but a sense of peace settled over him.  Perhaps it was not for nothing.  He had burned out the comb, but he had used his only remaining skill to aid in the defence.  He recalled the woman who fell from the wall, her surprise at being unharmed.  Severaixs was unsure how many were alive now because of his virtuoso performance with the scintillae.  

He was certain, nobody was aware of his sacrifice but Misereya.  He was certain Lalitheia approved.

Shadows filled the rills, flowing into the vale and across the savannah.  The red stone of the Brackenridge caught the high sunlight.  Dusk came swiftly, brimming with smoke.

Severaixs coughed.  A heavy weight pressed on his chest, crushing his heart.  He clutched his arm and fell into the dust.

A gentle touch on his shoulder, a whisper in his ear, and the smell of lilac and lavender.  “I forgive you.”

He smiled and the pain was gone.  Something floated high in the fading light.  A leaf or perhaps a kite.

Dancer in the Dust Coda:  The Patchwork Girl

Misereya dashed across the savannah trailing a kite.  Aemark, a shy Kelemish woman, had shown her how to make one in the shape of a queb.  The kite coiled and rippled through the air, tiny bells tinkling as it soared.

Her hair was full of sawdust, but as she ran, it fell behind her, until all she could smell was the lavender blooming after the rain.

Misereya paused by the graves of the fallen.  All who had died in the defence of Ellomyr had been buried in a place of honour on a small hill overlooking the village.  At dawn, the shadow of the Trilling Shard reached out and touched the new graveyard.  Her mother said it was the least the survivors could do for those who had given their lives.  Severaixs would call it foolish while nodding in respect.  Misereya did not linger.  Now the sun was high, and wind was blustering across the plains, lifting her kite ever higher.

It was not long before she reached a solitary grave in the shadow of the Brackenridge.  She paused to reel in and capture her kite, then sat down on the stool she had salvaged from the ruins of Severaixs’s home.  At Gurner’s insistence, Severaixs had been buried close to his home.   At Misereya’s insistence, mama had made a grave marker.

“I have a great deal to tell you, Sev.”  She stretched out her new leg.  It moved just like a real leg, but appeared as if made of glass filled with shimmering, roiling motes.  The same substance flowed up her body in coiling tendrils, covered the left half of her face and infused her hair.  Her left eye was no longer green, but black and filled with stars.  With the tip of a perfectly formed toe, she flicked dry leaves away from the grave.

“I am well, thank you for asking.”  She drew a sandwich from her satchel.  “Some of the Kelemish have decided to stay.  I might have another mother soon if mama gets up the nerve to ask Aemark to stay for dinner.”  She took another bite of her sandwich.  Biris was on kitchen detail until he fully healed.  His scars were ugly, horrifying, and completely impressive.

Leaves skittered by and the Breckenridge creaked.  “Of course.  I had forgotten.”  She reached into her satchel and drew out the comb.  All of the beads were dark now but it was still a pretty thing.  She tied it to the grave marker and leaned back.

The wind gusted again and Misereya looked up, shading her eyes.  Dust devils were flowing across the plains.  “We had another navarac fly out of the Valley of Sins last night.  It flew around the town, squawking, before it flew away.  Gurner says the aurora came down from the sky and confused the poor thing.”  She leaned closer and whispered.  “We know better.”

Soon enough the wind grew chilly,  Misereya pulled a wooden wrap from her satchel and stood, stretching, her new leg fluid in its grace.  “I will be back in a day or so to check on you.”  She tossed her satchel over her shoulder and picked up her kite.  “Oh, before I forget.  Aemark is going to teach me to dance.”

She whirled away, laughing.

Behind her, in the dust, glittering motes formed in a vortex from the grave marker, and a tiny figure flowed in a graceful complex dance, before dissipating into the dust.

[stormquiss-blog]

Moebius Trap

“A jack a glint and a glaive walk into a bar…”

“What bar?”

“Any bar?  Does it matter?”  Aavion was sitting on a tree branch watching his sister watch the trap.  “So…”

“Ouch.”

“Are you alright?”

Serij chuckled.  “I know all of your jokes.  The jack steals an ale, the glint sings for her supper, and the glaive says ‘ouch’.  It is not funny.”

“Gurner laughed.”

“Gurner was drunk and he was being kind.”

With a distinct pop, the quellet they were hunting appeared, darted forward, grabbed the blood orange Serij had set carefully on the ground a few metres from the trap.  Before she could blink, the beast vanished with another pop and an odour like a pine tree struck by lightning.  Despite knowing it would happen, Serij still flinched.  Then she drew another blood orange out of her satchel and placed it nearer to the trap.  “That was closer.”

“Of course.  It is a great plan.  Hey.”

Aavion’s cry drew her attention.  Her twin was hanging upside down with his knees over the branch.

“‘Hey’, as in look at Aavion, he is being an idiot?”

“No, hey it all makes sense this way.”

“What makes sense?”

He gestured.  “All of this.”

They had camped at the edge of the Valley of Sins the previous night, beginning their descent valley floor just after dawn.  The mysterious nano, Diabholi, had shown them the trail, described the landmarks that would lead them to their goal, and then disappeared into the undergrowth without a word.  Serij was still unsure if he had simply abandoned them, or been taken by something unseen.

Pop!  The quellet reappeared.  Its mouth was stained red and its fur was soaked in pulp but it was still sleek and fast.  The quellet was a distant relative of the Queb, although a tenth the size, slightly less poisonous and vastly less terrifying.  It looked like a furry snake with the head of a cat.  Quellets could be kept as pets if the owner was cautious.  They were omnivores, hunting small lizards and mammals, but they would just as easily eat fruit, the juicier the better.  This one was unusual.  Its stinger was missing and its and a broad silver mesh as reflective as mercury was wrapped around its body.

It took the fruit and vanished again.  Serij took another fruit from her satchel.  “This had better work soon.  We are almost out.”  She sighed exasperated and leaned back on her haunches.  “You should be doing this rat catcher.” “When the time is right, tavern wench.”  He was smiling but his face had turned beet red.  “You really should look at this.  Just tilt your head and look a the valley walls.”

Knowing he would not let go of the idea, she tilted her head.

*

They had volunteered to come to the Valley of Sins in the hope of finding numenera to aid in the defence of Ellomyr.  None of the more experienced groups would take them.  What use was a serving girl and the town ratter?”  It did not matter than Serij had read absorbed the lorespike forgotten by a drunken nano, that she had listened intently to all the traveller’s tales, or that a talent with spices had turned into an passion for alchemy.  It did not matter that Aavion was the quietest, quickest killer in the village, if your nemesis was a rat.  The leaders of the scavenging parties had dismissed them one at a time, some laughing, some shaking their heads.

“Jesanthum fodder”, a burly woman had grumbled, folding a second pair of brass arms across her chest.

“What do you know of cyphers?”, a hooded man with clawed hands and leathery skin had enquired.

They had talked about going alone, not really meaning it.  Then Diabholi had stepped from the shadows and said, in a whisper conveyed as a sigh, “it is not what you do not know about Cyphers that kills you.”  He had beckoned them closer, drawing them in.  “It is what you are are absolutely certain is true that will get you killed.  Doubt and inexperience are good for this kind of hunt.”

Serij could not see what Aavion was seeing and wondered if he was mocking her.  The Valley of Sins was surrounded by cliffs formed by enormous blocks of red stone, like those found in the Brackenridge.  The cliffs were pitted with hollows and caves, no doubt worn by the rivulets that tumbled from the plains.  The trickle of water was constant.

Diabholi’s directions had led them to a copse of trees like lily pads, floating on the air fifty metres above.  Lesser trees and bushes hugging the ground below still grew larger than anything closer to home.  The light had an eerie quality, like the light during an eclipse and the air was humid.  Sound travelled too well and the faintest squawk and squeal of an unfamiliar animals was magnified, as if they had perched on your shoulder and were yelling in your ear.  “I am going to eat you now.”  Polite little monsters.

Pop!  The quellet reappeared.  It did not appear sluggish , as if it was taking the oranges away to store them for winter, or to feed something else.  This time, it was less than a metre from the trap.  Just before it vanished she noticed the stinger had been neatly clipped.  She bit on her lower lip to suppress a smile.  “What if this thing is a queb kitten bringing treats for her mother?”

She jumped as Aavion spoke close to her ear.  “Then we resort to plan B.  In any case all we want is that artifact on its back.”  He held his hand out and she gave him the satchel.  Serij shuffled backwards, wiping her hands on her apron.

Aavion settled close to the trap and was perfectly still.  “You will see it soon,” he whispered and winked.

Serij looked around again and wondered where Diabholi had gone.  He had spoken little as they travelled, his voice rarely rising above a murmur.  He was bald headed and all the angles of his face were hollow and covered in silvery tattoos.  While he kept his hands within the long sleeves of his robe, Serij had glimpsed them once.  He had two sets of four opposable fingers on each hand .  His fingernails were like polished onyx.  He also had a taste for blood oranges, but he would crush them and suck the juice through a metal tube.

Pop!  Aavion held up his hand.  The quellet had appeared next to the cage and did not seem discomfited.  Serij had been certain to coat it with sap and dirt.

“I think we have him,” Aavion hissed.

“Almost,” Serij demurred.

Diabholi had told them about the strange quellet and assured them the device that entangled it permitted it to travel, briefly from one world to the next.  There were many worlds, he had explained, stacked together like playing cards.  The utility of such a device for the defence of Ellomyr was obvious.  A fighter could avoid a spear thrust simply by jumping to another card before returning behind her foe.  Diabholi had also supplied the cage, made of an organic material like amber but with a faint violet hue.  When Serij ran her fingers over it she felt finely crafted runes.  Diabholi had assured them it would prevent the quellet from skipping.

Serij’s jaw ached as she realised she was grinding her teeth.  It was possible the quellet had simply become entangled in the artifact and learned to use it fortuitously.  Yet the clipped stinger reassured her.  “Did it occur to you this quellet might live in the other world, and simply be visiting here to hunt?”

Aavion held up his hand, gesturing her to be silent.  Her face grew hot and she rolled her eyes in frustration.  Just like that, this part of the Valley of Sins made sense.  She had heard many tales of cities and of their ruin.  The cliffs were stone buildings on a scale that made her eyes water.  And some tumultuous event, in a history long forgotten, had turned the city upside down.

Pop!

The quellet trilled and coiled inside the cage.  It hissed.  Aavion smiled.  “The trap is set.”

Then the cage started to glow with a strange, violet light.  Aavion stopped smiling.  All the fine hairs on Serij’s body bristled and her stomach felt suddenly hollow, as if she was falling.  The world spun.

*

Pop!

They were laying on a black marble floor laced with fine silver lines that formed intricate pattern of symbols.  Beads of light flowed along the lines and the symbols squirmed and change in their wake.  The sky above was black, but fine silvery wires formed a complex webwork across it.  Lightning flickered in the distance but there was no thunder.

The quellet mewed, then slithered deftly through the bars of the cage and slithered away.  Aavion grasped for it, but he was obviously disoriented.  “This will take some getting used to”, he muttered.

Serij could see his pupils pulsing and wondered if hers were doing the same.  Through bleary eyes, she watched the quellet slither up broad steps to a throne made of the same black marble.  A figure lounged on it and chuckled as he caught Serij’s gaze.  “I was wondering when you would turn up”, said Diabholi.

He was, thought Serij, under dressed for the occasion, wearing nothing but a network of leather straps covered in loops and pouches.  He actually had eight slender limbs, each with four digits, that he must have bound together to appear humanoid.  He watched them with glittering compound eyes.  “Welcome to my home.”

Aavion staggered to his feet and held out his hand for Serij.  Taking it, she stood, still feeling queasy.  Her eyes focussed and now she could see the network of silver stands over head was literally a web.  Mummified corpses were bound into it.  Many were animals, some human, and some abhuman.  With no sense of irony, given the threat to Ellomyr, Serij noticed the goat head of a Margr.

“Why have you brought us here?”  Aavion sounded tipsy.

“Your sister already suspects, I think.”  He held up one of the blood oranges the quellet had brought for him.  “I do love the flavour of these, but I prefer the blood of living things.  Warm and fresh.”

Aavion looked wildly around but there was no apparent means of escape, other than the device on the quellet, and a duplicate wrapped around Diabholi’s forearm.  Diabholi yawned, revealing four rows of needle-like teeth.

“No,” said Aavion.  “I mean, if you wanted to eat us, why not take us in an alley, or while we slept in the tent?”

Diabholi blinked and slurped another blood orange.  “My dear boy.  Someone might question the disappearance of two young humans from their sleepy village.  Nobody would question those same naive little creatures vanishing in the Valley of Sins.”  He yawned again, and shook his head.  “I am kind to my food.  There will be no pain, promise.  You may dream.”

Serij scowled at him but the act was too much.  She started to laugh, then Aavion started to laugh, and then she could barely breathe.  She kept looking up at Diabholi, but the perplexed look on his face, the slowly drooping eyes and continuous yawning made her laugh even harder.  Finally, Aavion grasped her arm.

Diabholi had stood.  He stood twice as tall as the twins, with spurs at his elbows and knees, and claws extending from the palm of each hand.  “I am glad youss amussed,” he slurred, before stumbling.

Aavion gauged the distance to their captor .  “Let me tell you something about sleepy little villages.  Outsiders always assume the villagers are gullible, unsophisticated, perhaps a little naive.  It’s a little condescending, a little insulting, and a little bit dangerous.”

Serij slowly applauded as Diabholi stumbled to his feet, all eight limbs flailing.  “Citrus masks the flavour of quellet poison.  Quellets are immune by the way.”

Aavion drew a knife from his belt and held it up.  “The clipped stinger was the final confirmation of course.  We would have turned tail and run back home if the stinger was intact.”

Diabholi collapsed, claws skittering on the marble.  One compound eye glared up at them.  “How?”

“How did we know?”  Serij smiled.  “As our father used to say ‘if it looks to good to be true, its a trap - make sure you spring it first’.”

Diabholi coughed, grasping at every breath.  “Why?”, he gurgled.

“Oh, I am sure you have figured it out by now”, said Aavion.  “If one of those artifacts could help Ellomyr, then two is even better.”

Diabholi growled deep in his throat, and the sound turned to a long hiss that took a long time to fade.  Black ichor oozed from his body.  He shuddered and died.

Aavion cut the numenera from Diabholi’s arm while Serij coaxed out the quellet with her last orange.  After she had removed the artefact, it settled happily into the folds of her blouse and started to purr.

Aavion was humming.  Serij looked up and saw he was dancing a jig, pausing only to fix the device to his arm.

Then she frowned.

“Aavion.”

“Yes, my darling sister?”

“This great plan of yours?”

“This magnificently successful scheme that will resound through the ages.”

“This plan.”  She finished fixing the identical numenera to her own arm.  “Does it include knowing how to activate these things?”