Among the three Castellans of La Réunion, the most terrifying in massed battle is without a doubt Corinne Estèbe, the Siren of Le Port, grand-daughter of the old governor of the island from before its evacuation in 1923. A Water Transmuter-Illusionist of terrific talent, she created the Abyssal Tangle, a trap-spell made to confound, drown and crush any monster intruding upon human ground.
Extract from “The Council of la Réunion” by Tanaka Inagi, First Librarian of La Réunion
Damien, Julia, Jean, and Manon were wandering, waiting for the night to fall on the day before the Solstice. They had taken to the habit of congregating after their lessons with their tutors and to have an early lunch since Manon had settled at Julia’s, provided that they would all be home at nightfall. This particular evening, they were not alone on the street as usual. Étienne and most of the members of the Diplomatic Board were waiting, bemusedly looking at them throwing Light Spells at each other and younger children, not yet Awakened and unable to replicate. For them, Damien had crafted a few Orbs out of cork that could absorb the cantrip and capture it, letting it expire naturally. Finally, the ones they’d been waiting for arrived.
“Sheher, Azad of the High Peak, has landed!”
“Barmak, Chieftain of the Crater, has arrived!”
Two cries startled Damien and his friends. They turned just in time to see the two demi-human leaders being welcomed by Étienne, fifty meters away on the harbor’s plaza. The Orc Chieftain Barmak, Damien knew about. He was famous for his sheer size and was indeed well taller than his already enormous escort, three dozen Orcs all over two meters high. He wore only pants and a chest strap holding an ax on his back and a sword at his side. Both weapons seemed ridiculously over-sized, even for him. Sneaking another look, Damien noticed Roland’s signature on both weapons and shook his head, wondering what the old Enchanter had received in exchange for the weapons. Some of the youngest children, who hadn’t all seen Orcs yet, decided to run home at his sight, where they would probably be reassured. Barmak’s joviality was public knowledge, as was his reputation for being the best “uncle” in all the Orc tribe by far.
As for the Harpy named Sheher, he had only heard his father mention her briefly, describing her as an emergent, young spiritual leader among her people. She was smaller than most adult humans, with milk-colored skin and streaks of silver in the otherwise immaculate feathers on her head. The feathering of the rest of her body was punctuated by intermittent blue anomalies. At her side rested an incongruous object. Damien fixed his gaze on it, wondering if he’d been targeted by an illusion. The Demi-Human was carrying a lyre around!
Incredulous, Damien turned to his friends, who were ogling Barmak’s weapons. “There’s no way even he can swing that," Julia whispered, “right?” She asked Jean, who was the most knowledgeable on all matters orcish among them by virtue of his week of living with them under Pyrite’s… Damien hesitated to call it responsibility. Guidance, maybe?
“Well, right now he could use the sword with his two hands if he got angry enough,” Jules responded. “To use the ax, he’d have to begin using his magic to grow a bit. With the escort he’s got here, he can grow himself enough to use both weapons and stride over single-story houses,” Jules deadpanned, “Oh, and he’s immune to most low-tier magical effects too. I heard about him complaining that he was being tickled when he got swarmed over by Fire Ants.”
Damien nodded knowingly. “I heard that he is monstrously strong, but still - ”
“Damien, Julia! Come, there’s someone you should meet!” A call from Damien’s father interrupted him. The two children waved at their comrades and trotted over to the Intendant.
“Here they are. Azad, I’d like to present to you my son Damien and the young Julia d’Ursel. Like you, she’s an Ice-user.” Étienne explained to the winged Demi-Human.
The Harpy nodded. “I salute you, son of Étienne. The Brishna sends her regards. Barmak told her that the Ants are coming back to their natural habitat on the Crater’s slopes. He was quite excited about that... I believe he said it would be useful to feed their chickens?” She informed him, visibly trying to puzzle out why the Orcs would be happy to have the pests back after so long. The Harpy turned to Julia, and a smile graced her face. “I can sense the ancient Bear bonded to you. It is restless, you know? If you show me something worthwhile tomorrow, we may speak about my people’s ways with the Cold later,” she promised. “You and your friends over there may listen to my songs this evening, if you wish,” Sheher said, pointing to Jean and Manon with a talon. “You will not understand, but it may inspire you, children.” The Azad curtly bowed to Étienne and took wing, heading ftrfor the cliffs over the town. Soon, her guards followed her.
“Jean, there you are!” Barmak had finally seen the young man and bellowed his approbation. “Pyrite says hello! She’s making the camp with the other little ones.”
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Jean smiled widely at the great Orc. “Barmak! How're you? Pyrite didn’t throw a tantrum because she wanted to come here, I hope?”
“No problems for me, though the Crater’s been capricious these days,” the Chieftain responded. “Pyrite’s grounded at my camp, Shameek’s orders. Soot almost ate one of his shinies while the old idiot wasn’t looking! I thought he was gonna wake up the Crater, so mad he was!”
Damien shuddered. “It’s been good meeting you, Chieftain. We’ve been invited by the Harpies to listen to their songs. Any idea of how we should prepare?”
Barmak’s eyes fixed themselves on Julia for a moment. “Mmmm,” he grumbled. “Good thing for you. I’d take somethin’ to dry my eyes, though. I swear their new Azad could make stones tear up,” he said, before letting out a guffaw. “Go, you don’ wanna be late! I’ll send Pyrite, it’ll be fun.” He left, chuckling, toward the Orcish camp after saluting Étienne and the board members and playfully scaring away the children with a show of strength. Damien turned his head, hearing a big splash.
“Hmmm, did he just throw one of his men in the sea?” Manon, who’d just joined the group with Jean, asked.
“He’s alright,” Jean replied without looking, rolling his eyes. “He does that all the time, they’re used to it by now”
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After informing Mrs. D’Ursel and Étienne, the four friends left the outskirts of Saint-Denis and went south, soon joined by a mischievous Pyrite, who helped them find the safer path to the cave the Harpies were temporarily occupying. The ordeal took less than ten minutes, the cliffs being relatively close to Saint-Denis and the children being illuminated by Dancing Lights and hurried by their excitement. When they finally entered the cave, a soft song welcomed them.
The cave was cold, compared to the outside heat of an equatorial summer’s evening. Damien and Julia, both reasonably protected from even extreme temperatures by their Affinities, bemusedly observed their friends shivering violently while attempting to enter. Pyrite didn’t even seem to acknowledge the temperature difference, Damien noted.
“You are here,” Sheher said. “Good. We can begin.” She took out her lyre and began singing and playing.
Damien couldn’t understand the lyrics of Sheher, but he could hear their eye-watering beauty and feel the song’s effects. It seemed to negate all the heat of the room. Manon, Jean, and even Pyrite had to retreat to the cave’s mouth.
In reaction to the horrifying chill conjured by Sheher’s song, Polaris manifested itself before an astounded Julia and let out a single, mighty breath. The chill left the air, seeping into the rocks. Water began to condense, and the rocks wept a light rain in a basin at the cavern’s center. It immediately froze into a small pool under Polaris’s head. The Bear Spirit snorted softly and retreated.
Only now could Damien feel the emotions buried in Sheher’s music. He realized they told a story when the puddle of ice became a mirror, showing shades of harpies hunting great beasts, returning only to find their home devastated and their male leader slaughtered
The song then became a furious aria, the forms in the ice taking the shape of the culprit, a great, four-hoofed horned beast running in the sky, hurt in the struggle, pursued over desert and sea. Finally, it saw the glow of the snow it knew so well gleaming in the ocean, and crashed into a mountain, melding its being with the frozen Peak. The Huntresses, hot on its tail, tried and tried to pry it out and punish it before it could recover from the hunt, wielding and exhausting all the fury of a dozen dozen hurricanes against it.
Damien looked and listened on as the Harpies failed. The beast, sealed in the mountain, would not come out. It melded itself in the glacier more and more, struggling to become one with it. And so the Harpies guarded the Peak against all, be they Man or Orc, and struck against any that would disturb the delicate balance. As the years passed, the great Huntresses died of old age, until but one remained. And now, they could only just keep it prisoner, ensuring it would pay for the murder of their kin by staying in the Peak forevermore…
When the music finally stopped, the humans in the cave were all sobbing with varying levels of discretion. To shake them out of the sadness imbued in her song, Sheher put down her lyre and stabbed the icy puddle with her talons, crushing it and feeding a chunk of ice to Polaris, who snorted again and ended its manifestation.
Shivering violently now that the Spirit wasn’t protecting them anymore from the frigid magic left over from the magical song, Manon and Jules left hurriedly, fearful of frostbite, barely thanking the Azad for the experience.
“Please, forgive my friends,” Julia asked of the Harpy. “They do not have our resistance to the chill your song emits.”
Sheher accepted her apologies with a nod, motioning her to approach. She slipped something that Damien couldn’t quite see in her hand, then bid them both a good night and muttered her own apologies for failing to foresee the effects her song would have on humans not attuned to Fire or Ice. Harpies, as beings adapted to flying at high altitudes, were mostly immune to it, she explained. Her tribe was especially used to the cold, since they had lived in glacial mountains since times immemorial.
On their way back under the setting sun, the children met one more person. The stranger, for none of them had ever seen her, was dressed in a white entanglement of clothes that Damien and Julia, consummate historians, recognized as an article of ancient clothing called the peplos, that was popular among greek women during the 5th century before Magi Jesus.
Warily, they stopped a few dozen meters away from the stranger. She turned, and they instantly knew her identity. Her burning eyes marked her as the Molten Oread Sinoe, the most prominent Spirit of the island, and the Familiar of the old Colonel Raynaud. Her appearance was close to that of a native greek woman, although her eyes, which appeared to be twin orbs of lava, made it impossible for her to truly pass for a human.
“Children,” she called out. Her voice was uncomfortably deep, even if she was clearly in a mellow mood, far divorced from her appearance and hinting at her colossal powers. “My Master and the First Lieutenant wish to see Manon. Can you inform your parents, Julia?”
Damien and Jean took a step forward to protest, and Polaris’s voice grunted a challenge, but Manon nodded and grabbed the Lava Nymph’s flowing sleeve before they could intervene. She laughed.
“How nice you all are! So protective of your friends! Don’t worry, they just need to ask her a few questions. She’ll be back home before midnight, I promise! I look forward to your performance tomorrow, young ones!” Then, Spirit and Wood Mage disappeared in a flash of silver.
“That was a Lesser Teleportation,” Jean informed them, awe-struck.