Chapter Twenty: An Unexpected Reunion

On the morning of the equinox, my adoptive fae brother, Gaelin, had told me of three men from earth who'd washed ashore in Hibernal. At first, they'd been unable to speak Faeric but, within a day, they had lost their ability to speak in their original tongues and acquired perfect fluency in our language. It appeared that these men had washed ashore in Hibernal on accident, but that didn't mean they wouldn't have insight into how they'd wound up here, so I requested an audience with them. And there are perks to being a royal princess - three stranded sailors from Earth would be very foolish to refuse my request.

I wondered what it meant. Three waterlogged castaways who'd barely survived weren't a threat, but if somebody was sailing entire destroyers and their full complement of crew into Alfheim, that presented serious trouble. While the fae mastery of magic conveyed many advantages, there were only twenty-something thousand fae and less than a tenth of us practiced enough magic for it to be of any use in a military engagement. Against an army of twenty… fifty… a hundred thousand men, with their rifles, trucks, tanks, planes, and cannons? If would be like the Red Indians going against the U.S. Cavalry - for every Little Bighorn, there would be ten Wounded Knees. Fortunately, they hadn't even been able to cow Wyrmsreach, let alone the fae realms. Not yet.

While I was at it, I scoured Surburrus's library for every mention of the Outer Realms. There wasn't a whole lot to go by beyond the recounting of a handful of people who'd returned from the continent's interior with enough sanity intact to relate their tales. And among those tales was this tidbit, courtesy of a particularly determined sauryx mercenary who'd escaped the place forty years ago:

The interior of the place is searing desert and muggy jungle. Since we sauryx are a jungle people, my group stuck to the eastern fork past the mountains, where the jungle is dense and teeming with life. We thought we'd be safe there, but there is no safety in the Outer Realms. There are strange creatures there - venomous monkeys, snakes that change their colors, and glowing things that lure travelers out to their doom at night. On our eleventh day in the wilderness, we found a series of ruins enveloped by the jungle and decided to scour them for riches and artifacts, recovering several pieces of value. And, as we passed the ruins, we came to a small village - the first sign of civilization we'd seen since our arrival at Port Forsaken. We did not approach, as we'd all heard tales of the savage, feral people sometimes encountered in the continent's interior. But these didn't appear to be a wild people - they barely appeared to be alive at all.

All of them were fae, and so they might have been there for a thousand years. They were emaciated, even by fae standards, with gaunt faces and skin pocked with open wounds. They shuffled, as if under a narcotic trance, going about hunting, gathering, and village maintenance like slaves in a thrall. And, when one ventured near our hiding spot, I got a good look at him: strange rust-colored growths grew like mushrooms around and inside his mouth and nose, and his eyes were blank and cloudy. When the man returned from his trip into the jungle, his basket filled with plants and fruits, he stopped and stared in our direction, the growths around his nose wavering like whiskers or antennae. Without warning, he sprinted toward us, his gait lumbering and uneven. He dove at Hyxcha, my second, and blew red dust on him, and an instant later, we had the man gutted, and we fled that place as the several dozen other villagers streamed out from their hovels and pursued us in the same soundless, lumbering gait. If those fae had thought to fly, they could have easily had us surrounded. But they were mindless, empty things.

We lost them without much difficulty and camped in a mostly inaccessible cave. By the next morning, Hyxcha was delirious and feverish, and by midday, he lapsed into a fever sleep from which he would not awaken. Growths appeared around his mouth and nostrils - rust red, just like the savage's. We rested there throughout the day, and that night, as I sat guard, I heard Hyxcha stir. I was overjoyed at first, but soon saw that he stared at me with those same empty eyes, the growths around his nostrils and mouth trembling. As he turned toward sleeping Coelyth, no doubt to infect her with the same accursed illness, I stabbed him in the kidney and tossed him from the cave. The whole time, he did not make a sound.

I awoke the others and we decided to make for the coast immediately. As we fled out into the moonlight, the savages streamed to our location, drawn by some signal from the dead Hyxcha, may his scales rest easy. And, as we fled, we found ourselves going in directions we could not ascertain, found ourselves separated, until only Coelyth and I remained together. We found our way to a river and thought to trace our way to the coast, and on our second day of fighting off blood-sucking creatures and ravenous fish the size of my leg, we spotted a boat upon the river - a modern boat - and we called out for help and wept for joy. The people on the boat were strangely-clad humans, and they called back in a language I did not recognize. As they approached, they grew agitated and frightened, and one of them pointed an alchemical wand at us, releasing its energy with a crack like lightning. We escaped through the jungle, and I did not realize that Coelyth had been struck by the thing until she cried out. I tried to save her, but the sound and the blood attracted all manner of murderous beasts - insects, snakes, and venomous monkeys - and I was forced to flee as she was devoured alive, may her scales rest easy. I am not proud of it. I should have died with her, should have defended her to my last breath, but at least I can now recount our tale of misfortune.

Let this be a warning to those who would venture into the Outer Realms: if madness does not overtake you, then death surely will.

The poor explorer and his companion had, evidently, made their way nearly to safety when they'd encountered some sort of riverboat of humans from Earth. The humans had initially thought to help the poor sauryx explorers but had been frightened by their monstrous appearance. And, really, who can blame them? Such folk don't exist on earth, and these explorers may well have encountered other frightening things on that same river. In their fear, they'd shot the woman sauryx and, in doing so, had given us a clue about their origins: folks from Earth had been accidentally traveling into the Outer Realms for at least a few decades. Folks from Earth coming to the fae realms was a lot more recent than that, but maybe the boundary between our worlds was continuing to weaken.

"Your enemies can only pray to find you engaged in such a book," Master Dhyr said.

I yelped - I hadn't heard them at all. Of course, Dhyr could be however silent they wanted to be and however stealthy. "Is it noon already?" I asked.

"It is. Meliswe and the others await in the courtyard."

Those 'others' were the ten women I'd selected for a training program using my discretionary funds. It was a program intended to streamline women into the queen's guard (and mine) because I thought it would be beneficial to have escorts and protectors who could disguise themselves as genteel ladies of the fae. Plus, soldiery was one of the last professions in fae that women just didn't do. Back on Earth, I'd always accepted that some things were women's jobs and some jobs were for men. Pretty much everybody thought that. But in Alfheim, or at least in the fae realms, pretty much anybody could do anything if they were decent at it. There weren't many lady smiths or gentleman clothiers, but there was no stigma against it. People still got a little strange at the idea of women fighting, but some women had the chops for it and it was a hell of a lot safer than farming. At least during peacetime.

These were women I'd selected from a hundred volunteers - women who were strong or fast or both and who had at least some fighting experience, though for most of the hundred volunteers, that experience had come from a penchant for brawling or a criminal past, and most of these Meliswe and I weeded out. There were huntresses, an explorer, and a diplomatic envoy among the remaining ten, one fae and three who could pass for fae (a plus for some tasks), and a taurin woman as tall as Captain Vittoro. They had experience, but it was still pretty rough - with the skills that Meliswe and I had picked up from Dhyr, we were able to wipe the courtyard with any of them, even though most of the women were larger than us. They were rough, but they would learn - and once they were good enough to practice with the men, we'd incorporate them into my guard or Alathea's - though we still might keep up their lessons with Dhyr.

"It takes months to be decent, years to be good, and decades to be a master," Master Dhyr told us. "And, by the time you are a grand-master, you are too old to be decent anymore."

"Fae don't age as mortals do," Meliswe said.

"And there has never been a fae grand-master," Dhyr stated. "Need I say more?"

Of course, Meliswe wasn't a true fae. She was seven-eighths fae, which guaranteed a very long lifespan, but not indefinite like mine. When I was a human and my wife was a human, it was a given that we'd age together, grow old together, and probably be buried not too long apart. But with Meliswe and me, I wondered whether I'd still be young in five or six centuries while my lover slowly withered into an old woman. To find out, I supposed we'd have to make it that long… which was why we were learning how to defend ourselves. Lost in my reverie, Dhyr thumped me with a practice stick and planted me on my princess derriere.

"You think too much, princess - you must learn to react. The flow of combat is a thing to be embraced, not cogitated upon. Practice the low-form-upon-grass ten times, and your mind will be clear. Go!"

I practiced the form ten times - a slow form involving a practice stick, lots of crouching, and a few somersaults. I imagined myself in the dry grasses of an African savannah, the warm wind in my hair, and I forgot about Earth, the Outer Realms, or the nuances of fae politics for a while. It took close to an hour to complete ten repetitions, but when I finished, sweaty and near exhaustion, the others had already left. Only Dhyr remained, sitting cross-legged upon the warm clay tiles and luxuriating in the sunlight. Seeing I was finished, they uncurled and paced over to me.

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"You accept instruction and do not balk at reproach, which is good," they said. Dhyr reached into their bag and handed me something - an ornate leather scabbard embossed in Oncaran script with the jeweled pommel of the sword that Myrwaeli had given me. "Some day, you will be the leader of these women, and you will have to learn to separate your mind from action when it is needed and not only when Master Dhyr tells you to. This is the difference between proficiency and fluency, you see - you do not think upon each step as you stride stately in your palace, you simply do. When it is time for thinking, I promise your thoughts will still be there."

"Thank you, Master Dhyr."

+++++

The men from Earth arrived five days later. They arrived with a letter of introduction signed by Gaelin himself:

Princess Laeanna,

These are the three men who arrived upon our shores six weeks past. My men have gotten to know them and tell me they are decent men and true. Vaybar and Myir served together aboard a ship while Bouid is a shopkeeper who has prepared us foreign delicacies to much acclaim. They have my leave to stay in Vernal or to return to Hibernal, whichever suits your needs. I hope they will be of assistance to your studies of the Anglish tongue.

Your Brother,

Gaelin,

Prince of the Hibernal Court

"Your guests from Hibernal have arrived, my lady," Dill told me, and it took a minute to register who she meant. I was expecting folks from Earth who just happened to be coming by way of Hibernal. While Dill was familiar with my background as an Earthling, to her, Hibernal was about as distant a realm as Earth, and Vernal was pretty strange, too. She was far from her home in the little village of Blue Fern.

"Have Lieutenant Ro give them a tour and bring them to the solarium in fifteen minutes."

I'm not sure why, but I felt a need to look nice for them. I rationalized that I would be the first (and likely only) representative of Vernal that they saw and I wanted to make a good impression. I changed into a nicer gown, touched up my cosmetics (I was very proud about having learned to apply them myself), and adorned myself in little touches of plants and flowers - a woodsong bracelet and a flowery circlet upon my head - which I'd decided I preferred over gaudy, ostentatious jewels. I arrived in the palace solarium seventeen minutes after I gave Dill her marching orders - enough to make my guests wait, but not enough to make them wait for long. This was, Alathea had explained to me, how you impressed upon people that you were important but also respectful – a wait of no fewer than four but no more than ten minutes.

I'm not sure what I expected, really - sailors in their naval uniforms with their flat-topped hats and snappy jackets, maybe. But they didn't look like that at all - they looked like any of the human men of Alfheim, a bit paler than the average Vernal man and a bit darker than most from Hibernal. Somebody had given them regular clothes of the lower gentry - a silken jacket over a light shirt and matching breeches. There were two men, well-attired - one blond and one dark-haired - sitting at the little settee.

"Where's the third?" I asked Lieutenant Ro.

The faun chewed at his beard. "Along shortly, my princess. There was an… incident… in the hallway. Lady Morwen's servant rounded a corner without looking and spilled some sort of foul berry extract all over his clothes. I've got Sergeant Allithi seeing to a new outfit."

"That's fine. I'll speak with these two in the meanwhile."

I turned to see that the men had been staring at me goggle-eyed the whole time. Hibernal didn't have a princess, so I suppose I was the first that they'd ever seen. In a large room like the solarium, it was expected that commoners would stand and bow to royalty when the royal approached and not necessarily when they entered the room. I approached the central chair slowly, giving the two a chance to react, and when they kept their eyes glued to me and their rears glued to the settee, I shrugged and took my seat. I wasn't going to insist on decorum, though I would insist that they do more than stare at me.

"I hope your journey was pleasant?" I said. And, after another awkward moment: "I was led to believe that you could speak faeric?"

"We do! I mean… we can!" the blond one said eventually. "You're the Princess Laeanna?"

"They said you killed a beast-man warlord with your bare hands," the other added.

"I used a chain to strangle him and finished the job with his own sword," I said. "I didn't bring you here to boast about my own travails, though. Hmm… I'm being a bad hostess. Would either of you like tea?"

"Have you got coffee?" the dark-haired one said. The blond man looked at him like he was mad - one did not treat a princess like a common waitress.

I tapped my finger against my lip. "There is no coffee in the fae realms. Not that I've ever heard of. But I know of the beverage - and if you impress me, I will underwrite the first-ever coffee house in Vernal. Who better to run it than two Deutschlanders?"

The blond man gasped. "You know of Deutschland?"

A maid bustled in with our tea. I blew on my cup and sipped. "I know of many things, Mister Weber." I was almost certainly the first person in Alfheim who'd pronounced his name correctly. "I want to hear how you found yourselves castaways in Hibernal. Please be thorough."

Over the next few minutes, they told me. Between the two of them, I got a pretty clear picture of what had happened, even if it wasn't as helpful as I might have liked.

Albrecht Weber and Otto Meyer had been seamen aboard SMS Creusa, a light cruiser in the Imperial German Navy. Albrecht had worked on ships his whole life - mostly fishing boats as a boy and mercantile ships up to when war broke out. Otto was his longtime friend, not as much of a seaman but an ace with machines, so he was promoted to 'Seaman 2nd Class' to work as the ship's de facto mechanic. The two men didn't know much about their ship's mission - mostly, SMS Creusa was a little ship in big flotillas, working with larger ships to provide blockade support. But she was also one of the fastest ships in the fleet and had been called to intercept a British merchant ship escaping out of Rotterdam. Why this ship was important, they couldn't say - only that the Allied powers must have taken somebody or something of interest when they swept through Belgium and recaptured it.

"The Brits were all over the Channel and the bulk of our fleet had retreated into the North Sea near Denmark. Anything larger or slower than us would have got captured - and I expect that we'd have been captured too," Weber said.

"But you didn't get captured - you got sunk," I said. "So what happened?"

Their orders must have been to capture their target or sink it if that wasn't possible, because Creusa opened fire on the ship when it became obvious that they weren't going to capture her before they were within firing range of the English blockade. Only, none of the guns would fire right, as if they'd all been sabotaged. They'd fire, but couldn't rotate on their bearings - they'd all seized up. So Otto got called up to see what was wrong with the guns - and he couldn't find anything. Meanwhile, the British ship returned fire. She was an anti-submarine 'Q-boat', not as heavily-armed as Creusa, but armed enough to blow her out of the water if she couldn't get her guns to aim. The Q-boat came around and hit Creusa twice without doing much damage.

"On the second hit, I saw something spark in the gun's bearings," Meyer said. "Something blue and electrical, almost alive. After what I've seen here in your lands, I think it was magical."

"Something magical prevented you from firing on the British ship?"

"For a time…"

When Otto touched the strange energy, he felt it jolt him, as if by electricity, and then the cannon lurched to life. The oberleutnant ordered the gun to take aim and fire, and it did, striking the British ship right in the middle of its deck. Something flashed on the Q-boat brilliant and blue, brighter than the sun, and a sudden explosion rocked Creusa, sending Otto and Albrecht hurtling through the air. In an instant, the calm October ocean became a winter storm and the two men found themselves swimming for their lives with wreckage all about them and rocky cliffs nearby threatening to smash them to a pulp. They found their way to a cliffside alcove for a time, but the storm raged on and, when the tide rose higher, waves crashed into the alcove and washed them and their scrap of a lifeboat back out to sea. They'd just about given up hope when the storm eased off and Prince Gaelin's rescue ship spotted them, bringing the pair of them to the safety of land.

"It sounds like you were transported to Alfheim when your ship struck the British vessel. Have you got any idea why?"

Weber shared a glance with Meyer. "The American might be able to tell you," he said. "He's been hesitant to divulge much - maybe he thinks this is some sort of ruse."

"It's not," I said. "Thank you for telling me your story."

"You believe us, then," Meyer said - he sounded relieved. "I… if you don't mind my asking, miss… how do you know of Deutschland?"

"That's complicated, but the short answer is: magic." I stood. The two men remained seated, staring at me. "I don't give a hoot about propriety, gentlemen, but many people here do… so, for the record, a princess is addressed as 'princess', 'lady', or 'your majesty', when she enters your presence you bow, and when she stands, you stand, too. I understand that you may not have much experience with nobility where you come from, but you are in a different land, and you must follow our customs. Do I make myself clear?"

Both men scrambled to their feet and bowed dramatically. Otto Meyer blushed and Albrecht Weber blanched - an interesting duo who reminded me of Ben Boyd and myself from when we were in the infantry.

"We meant no disrespect, my lady," Weber said. "We're simple men - I know how to stand at attention and salute an officer, but never have I met royalty. And none of the nobles I've seen from afar is one tenth what you are, princess."

"My legs and hands aren't sure what to do," Meyer added. "Princess."

"Thank you, seamen. You will be my guests in the palace tonight, and perhaps we'll talk about our coffee house idea tomorrow. My guards will show you to your quarters."

"Thank you, princess," both men said.

I sat to finish my tea when Lieutenant Ro cleared his throat. The other Earth man, the Englishman… American, I suppose, was cleaned up and ready to see me. I'd forgotten about him entirely and, if he had as little information as the German sailors, it was frankly a waste of my time. I sighed and waved him in. The man ambled in, offered an appropriately respectful bow, and glanced up to take a gander at the fae princess of renowned beauty. If he was rendered mute by my appearance, I was twice as shocked by his. This was no sailor and not just any American.

"Ben?"