Azure

Sparkles incongruously

Over heaped bones scented

Of cloying undeath

Tragedy

NIGHTFALL BROUGHT UNENDING SWARMS of nocturnal hunters out to play. To everyone’s surprise, this included several thousand Fire Raptors, not common to this region. Giants and Fire Raptors were not the best of friends, to put it mildly. However, the Chameleons’ scent protection proved equal to the task and so the group slept peacefully most of the night through, all save a Scintillant Fae who kept waking up expecting to feel the pincers gripping her temples, or a perturbation which should knock her flat, yet it never did.

She rose in the morning feeling like the rough upper side of Yaarah’s tongue.

Her companions woke too, and not in a good way. Everyone stumbled to their feet and started arguing with everyone else. In nonsense words. Allory gaped about her in growing consternation. It was as if she had been transported to a new realm during the night, one where she did not speak a word of the language. Nothing was translatable except by tone. Groggy blather? Gruff garbage? Aggressive allegory?

She had no words either.

Having tried half a dozen times to alert anyone to the fact that they were behaving like idiots, Allory had to dive out of the way of a minor brawl that broke out between the Chameleons. Ready to travel? Or not? Suddenly, she recognised that her companions were behaving just like all the animals they had observed. Rudely awakened. Forced to travel on against their will. Unaware of the fact that they were being manipulated – even if she sensed nothing, they must be.

Being treated as if she were non-existent was another of her fears, among the worst. A blustery wind snapping across the grasses stole her words away as she first tried to struggle through the mass of arguing bodies to get to Yaarah, before she grabbed Harzune’s elbow.

“Harzune, you need to – ouch!”

Bruised lip! He shouted something at Varzune, who tried to rearrange his pupae-brofae’s upper lip in just the same way. As the Scintillant Fae tasted the tang of her own silver blood, the pair of tussling brofae fell into a group of their friends, kicking, punching and even pulling one another’s hair! How old were they?

“Children!”

With a screech as indelicate as it was maladroit, Allory’s temper finally peaked and with it came one of her minor sparkle explosions. Harzune’s heroic hairstyle blew sideways. Yaarah’s fur ruffled up with a violent charge of static electricity. Kerack! A large blue spark blazed from his shoulder to Sabline’s, staggering the larger Dragoness. That knocked Ashueli off the Felidragon’s back. Oh! Had she been applying a touch of royal strangulation to Sabline’s throat?

Everyone gaped at the Scintillant.

She held her ground.

“Sparklesplosion?” Yaarah coughed.

Allory rounded upon him. For an instant she saw herself reflected in his widening eyes. Gleaming silver motes outlined the filigree patterns upon her wings and limbs, her hair stood straight with power and the Pixie-dust butterfly gleamed the colour of Middlesun – in all, she resembled a furious, spitting ball of sunlight.

In a blink, it all smoothed out.

She bowed aerially to disguise her bewilderment, and heard herself say in a small voice, “We will travel on in an orderly fashion this morning, thank you.”

To her even greater mystification, everyone shut their yapping traps and did exactly as she had ordered.

Fizzing sap! Allory wanted to pull her antennae off. She had expected nothing of the sort. Furthermore, as they rumbled along atop another argumasaur, her companions acted as if nothing at all untoward had happened. When she tried to explain to the Golden Annoyance, he promptly turned around and informed her that what she suggested had occurred was impossible. He then proceeded to spend four hours arguing with her that essentially she was the one who was mad and he was quite sane. Stupidly stubborn scholar!

For once, she knew better.

Allory took off in a huff and went to practise finger-sparring with Ashueli’s whirring fingers, alias, swords. Really. Who though sparring with a person’s fingers, any of which were stronger than she would ever be, was not humiliating? According to the Elf’s encouragement, however, it appeared that the Scintillant had begun to ‘groove in’ some of the movements. Getting herself tangled up repeatedly went on the rather less encouraging list, but Ashueli kept breaking the movements down for her until she could reproduce them to the Elf’s exacting standards. Allory had never considered martial arts to be simply a method of waving weapons about in clever patterns, but this technical exposition took it to a new level.

Not a complete runt-disaster? Break out the best nectar!

Well, to be accurate, grassland trail rations – mostly wildflowers – personally delivered by her ever-adoring hero. Pinching her own arm delicately, she reminded herself that a girl should not get used to such treatment. It could not end well.

“Giants incoming! Warning!” called one of the lookouts.

“Everyone keep your heads down, secure the illusions and don’t worry, we’ll be fine,” Harzune snapped.

Right he was. Within a few minutes, a posse of Giants some forty-two individuals strong thundered past, making three times the steady pace of the argumasaurs – Giant sprinting speed, the Princess muttered darkly. The Scintillant observed them not so much from fear but from a desire to understand what remorseless power drove them on. They charged away over the grasslands without deviation or sign of tiredness, ignoring the beasts to every side, every dark eye fixed to the fore and their long hair flowing in the breeze created by their speed.

Extraordinary athletes, Allory found herself thinking. Beautiful, in fact.

“That’s wrong,” the Princess grumbled, jarring this agreeable contemplation right out of somebody’s sparkly alleged brain.

“What’s wrong, your peachiness?” Sabline snickered. “Found a blemish on our nose?”

“Now’s not the time, Sabline,” the Elf returned heatedly. “Look, the yellow neckerchiefs denote Tormuz elders. Not only are they four hundred miles from their usual territory, they’re running with the Armos Giants – those wearing the moss-green leather jerkins.”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

“And?” the Dragoness sniffed.

“Never beneath Middlesun,” the Elf clarified. “Mortal enemies.”

Varzune put in, “We don’t know the Giant tribes very well, but we do know that they never run together. There’s another group of Giants out there – and, is that smoke I see above the next line of hills?”

Due to the illusion, it was difficult to see gestures, but Allory could follow everyone’s eyes as they gazed ahead and a touch sun-spinward. The deep-carved trail curved around what she took for low hills or another ridge, a distinction difficult to make in this largely featureless grassland, she felt. Above those, her eyes lifted to see the soot grey teeth of mountain peaks devoid of snow – an observation briefly confirmed by Yaarah beneath her – as the others discussed what the phenomenon might mean. The Gasheni Road with its Bridge of Dreams was said to run up into those peaks, which bordered the canyonlands.

“Alright, Allory?” the Felidragon purred.

“Uh …”

“You’re shaking like a leaf.”

“I … I’m actually starting to feel quite sick, Yaarah.”

“Not on my fur, please.”

Groan for the joke. Aye, she remembered, but this feeling was different, a kind of mental queasiness coupled with molten anticipation, as if her spirit sensed what was to come and quailed for a heaviness of grief that distorted the very fabric of Spheris itself, as did the vast gravity of Middlesun.

Their herd thundered along unheeding. The wind blustering over the grasses revealed a low draw up ahead between two mounds, that doubtless rolled on into yet more grasslands. The pale blue sky offered neither hint of relief nor sign of impending doom. If she dared to touch the locket, it hung inert, as lifeless as the boneyard within, as dead as her hopes. Allory knew that something lurked out there. Something bad. The sickness came on in waves until she shook with nausea, her skin clammy, an unrelenting buzzing filling her ears.

“This could be the meeting place, right?” Ashueli puzzled.

“You’d know best,” Harzune said.

“It seems too far from the mountains. The trails meet before it, but not for at least three or four leagues yet – Yaarah?”

“Aye, as best I understand the distances,” he agreed.

The Elf pointed again, “More Armos Giants. Lots of them – that could be the entire tribe on the move, did you see?”

“Aye, Princess.”

“Definitely smoke, right?” Varzune asked.

“Indeed.” The Elf’s gaze measured a growing haziness ahead. “I wonder what could be burning – any ideas? It doesn’t smell or look like a grass fire.”

Sabline shifted uneasily, flexing her talons. “My whiskers tingle. I sense battle.”

“Battle?” Yaarah mewled. “Where?”

The illusion flickered. Harzune called on his Chameleons to hold fast.

As usual, the Elf had her hands on her sword grips before anyone else. “Battle? Why the smoke – smoke means … Dragons!” her voice cracked in realisation. “Allory’s intuition was right, the –”

“Unnh!” Allory shuddered as a terrible weight gripped her neck.

“What?” Yaarah yowled, clenching all four paws. It was the only way he could hold on.

Crushed down against his fur, she could only groan wordlessly. Unbearable weight. Redoubling without warning, the sensation hammered her down again. Harder. Despite the Felidragon’s strength, her augmented mass began to drag him off his grip upon the argumasaur’s hide. His ligaments twanged sharply; Sabline braced herself against him as everyone panted and gaped at the tiny Scintillant in shock.

Her hands scrabbled at her neck. “It … it burns …”

The mighty beasts rumbled ahead without slowing in the slightest. They knew nothing.

At least three voices yelled at her, but all Allory knew was that the foreshadowed doom had come. The terrible wrongness dragged upon her with the weight of mountains; her overwhelming existential mass, it must be, dragged Yaarah so powerfully off his footings that one of his right forepaw talons tore right out of its sheath, causing him to voice a scream of pain.

Allory moaned. “I … I’m sorry, but I can’t …”

Nothing changed. It would not stop.

The boneyard swelled with fresh offerings … seven shadows stirred amidst the skeletons, slavering with a hunger both vast and immortal …

No! She fought back with all her miniscule strength, trying to call out, to explain, but Allory could do nothing as the Felidragons tumbled away, somehow landing safely amidst the pounding reptilian feet. Momentary relief from the dragging weight allowed Yaarah to spread his wings and flick his body aside; Sabline struck him hard and they rebounded together off a monstrous, swinging grey knee before crashing down in relative safety beside the dusty trail. The argumasaurs rumbled on as if nothing had happened.

The Sabrefang leaped up to her paws at once, crying, “Allory Fae! Fight it!”

“I … can’t …”

“You can and you will!” she snarled.

When did she become a believer?

How did one fight a mountain? When fear filled the world, where would her help come from?

With ten different pieces of advice ringing in her ears, Allory tried to lift her head out of the grey dust cloud kicked up by the fast-departing reptiles and failed. Her cheek pressed against Yaarah’s shoulder with unremitting force.

The episode came on yet again.

This time, the Golden Purrmaine collapsed beneath the assault but half-rolled to slide her off his back before she crushed him completely. Allory slid onto the flattish upper surface of a boulder. Never could she have imagined such an occasion. Miss Straw Weight mashing a Felidragon to the ground with her enormous bulk and power? Her veins throbbed fiercely in her forehead. Her eyes felt as if they would pop free of their sockets any moment and the uncanny weight of her gossamer wings threatened to crush her spine. Harzune grabbed her leg and tried to raise it, but even his strength was unequal to the task. Ten-tonne Allory would not be budged. No type of glue she knew of could more effectively have cemented her in place.

“Allory? Are you alright?” Yaarah said.

Even the scholar could ask a foolish question upon occasion. How could this be alright?

“Gravitational … anomaly?” she ground out, unable even to unclench her jaw.

He chuckled hoarsely, recognising the reference from one of their earliest conversations. “You’re not dying?”

“Apparently not.”

Just hurting in every bone of her body, but the actual dying did not appear to be an issue just yet. Not even when this phenomenon should have ground her bones into dust, or at least crushed her teeth in her clenched jaw.

Sabline pushed between them. “Do something – use your oversized brain, scholar!”

“Mrrwll!”

She spat something horrible between her outsized fangs.

At once, he gasped, “Middlesun – link!”

Allory wanted to stare at him, but she was busy watching the stone she lay on crack beneath her nose as it pressed relentlessly downward. She liked her nose. It had never pulverised a boulder before. In fact, she found herself grateful not to be able to see anyone’s reaction as the boulder cracked with a sharp report and she slammed down upon a second stone beneath it, creating an imprint of her body.

In solid granite.

Right.

“What was that about Middlesun?” Sabline hissed.

“She says she’s linked – feels a link,” he spluttered. “It must be the true source of her power, mrrr-hrrr! Allory, you can use it!”

For once, someone else made less sense than her. Or was that a staggering insight? Either way, it was useless to her right now unless she could find a way to push through the horror of this entirely new, unwelcome manifestation of her magic.

However, Sabline gave a knowing hiss as she reached out, her paw shadowing a tiny Fae but pausing in shock as the ground beneath her groaned and sank a couple of inches!

Words snarled up in her jaw.

Ashueli yelled, “Do something, Sabline. She’s sinking fast!”

The Dragoness clacked her fangs sharply. “Listen to me, Allory Fae. You are not a well. You were never made to contain this power – or if you were, now’s not the time. You have to become a channel. Let it pass through you to wherever it must be. Silver sap flows through your veins. Make this do the same. Be a … a – why can I never find the words –”

“A conduit!” Yaarah screeched. “Sabline, that’s brilliant, hrrr-prrrt! Let it pass through as if you’re merely a conduit, Allory!”

How? For an endless time, splatted flatter than a bug on that hot rock, Allory struggled with the idea of a mystical connection to Middlesun, of her changing tack from unwittingly hoarding power to channelling it. Her brain felt numb and sluggish. Perhaps the soul locket was indeed akin to a well, storing power uncontainable, yet she could no longer tell if it was this figment of her imagination she wore about her neck or her own person which captured such an inconceivable weight. She sank – slowly, by inches and then suddenly by several feet as her body compacted the solid stone beneath her. She could not so much as wriggle a finger.

Why should this Faerie cling to a burden that was not hers to bear?

Somehow, she had to move aside to let it pass through, just as her friends had advised. Let it do what it needed to do. Simply … surrender.

I give up. This is insane.

With a cataclysmic roar, an earthquake struck the canyonlands!