Tif had never been so wrong in her life: riding in the lift didn’t feel like flying, flying felt like flying.
She whooped for what had to be the dozenth time, her voice hoarse from her constant shouting as she and Udaru plummeted through the sky. The division leader held her around the waist with one of his arms, careful not to touch her skin to scale, and the wind roared against her face, pushing her cheeks back and mouth wide as they dropped from a few hundred feet above the ground to three-quarters of that to half of that to--
And then they were suddenly in a new stretch of sky. At first it had been hard for Tif to judge these ris-powered jumps, what with so much blue air to see and the clouds too far away to use as markers, but she quickly noticed the difference in other things like birds sometimes appearing nearby--often with a squawk of surprise--or the ground always being the furthest away right after the change. Seeing the land from such a distance was still a sight Tif wasn’t used to, spread out before her like a quilt of earth and trees. She had always imagined that the land outside of Lercel would be barren, what with the tribe of Death said to be swarming every inch of it. But in truth there were swathes of deep green forest all around and patches of lighter green where there were hills and other less wooded areas. Tif also managed to spot some fields of wild flowers: yellow early in their trip, and later a wave of bright purple she would love to pick for her ma. What Tif got even more excited for though was when caught sight of snaking brown paths of dirt, thin as string from how high up they were. There weren’t many and those she did see were broken, going a short way before disappearing in the everpresent green only to sometimes continue on again. Tif decided they must be the roads of generations past that used to connect all the tribes before the forces of Death had flooded the lands, making it to where few but knights dared to leave the safety of cities.
“When I’m Archon,” Tif said, the wind buffeting her face ripped the words away, so she didn’t worry about Udaru hearing, though she knew Pep would, “I’ll see them rebuilt. All of them.”
Despite the beauty of the landscape and the hopes it inspired in her for the future, what Tif found most remarkable was what was lacking. She had expected to find countless columns of Death crawling along like ants on the march, and yet she hadn’t seen any troops so far, not a one. Before leaving Lercel, Udaru had said that traveling through the sky was the best way to avoid such encounters, and Tif was starting to think it was because the many treetops provided cover against the swarms of Death who must surely be beneath. However, if the Aspects were as big as Awt had claimed from his trip, Tif should be able to see them from where she hung so high up in the sky, even if they were miles away. The fact that she hadn’t yet left her feeling both relieved and disappointed, and also wondering if this was yet another thing Awt had lied to her about. That thought hurt her more than she expected, leaving a sour bite in her mind, wrapped in worry. After all, if the bulk of Death troops weren’t here, where where they?
Everything shifted again, and Tif saw a glistening green sea in the far distance. That meant they were getting closer to Sah’Sah, the city of Tears. Tif had thought the journey would take a week at least, but traveling as they were it seemed like it would be finished in half of that or maybe even less. As usually happened after a jump, Tif spotted Yuu-Fen and Bes-Ahl appear off to the left, holding Rof in-between them. The knights followed Udaru doggedly but never moved past him, letting the aquaros keep the front position. Tif wondered what it would be like to lead people someday. Probably like convincing strangers to play das but with more words and actions instead of the hope of flat-lined pockets.
When Tif let her gaze drop, she saw that they had fallen further than they usually did before leaping forward. The ground below got closer and closer, individual trees taking shape instead of just clumps, and they still hadn’t changed positions.
“Udaru...?” she asked, her throat not only sore but tightening with fear. “Udar--”
Tif cut off because without warning she found herself standing in a wooded clearing instead of free-falling from the sky. Tif’s stomach flipped as if trying to finish the rest of the drop on its own--an extremely unpleasant sensation--but she managed to keep her feet and not sick up, barely.
“A bit noisy,” Udaru said, releasing the hold on her and moving round in front, “but you take to the sky well.”
Tif swallowed against the bile she felt creeping up her tongue and distracted herself by trying to pick out the swirling pattern of Tears ris on the scales of Udaru’s long snout--his cobalt coloring making the task all but impossible.
“Are all aquaros blue?”
“Many of the males, yes, but there are just as many who are green or a mix of the two.”
Tif burped, intrigued to know he was a boy aquaros--she hadn’t been sure. “What about the females?”
“Ah,” he said, the large frill around his neck fluttering gently. “They are either a beautiful yellow or orange, and sometimes--”
A crunch in the grass announced the arrival of the other two knights, Rof hanging rather limply between them. He looked worse than Tif felt--not that either knight seemed to notice, letting him go free so quickly the keshe boy half stumbled to the side.
“Thought you were going to leave us behind after that last long hop,” Yuu-Fen said to Udaru, his easy smile showing that he didn’t really believe his words.
“I am eager to get home but not that eager,” the aquaros replied.
Tif suppressed another belch. “You don’t consider Lercel your home?
“Your mountain is quite impressive, with many wonders we do not possess, but the Mirrored City will forever be my home.”
Tif had heard Sah’Sah called that before. It was a collection of islands, most of which were said to have cities on them, all exactly the same. She had always thought that sounded far-fetched--how could you duplicate a whole city not just once but half a dozen times? And even if you could, why go through the trouble?
When she asked Udaru if there was really more than one city, his nostrils flared, “There are.” He said the words noticeably louder, and Tif wasn’t sure if he was doing it to try and convince her or because he was proud of his city--it was tough to tell with so little inflection in his strange voice. “And the reflections have been our salvation against Death many times.”
“Really?” Tif said, her curiosity piqued.
“As a place to flee to,” he answered as if it was obvious.
Tif imagined Tears knights moving the whole population like Bes and Yuu carried Rof. “But does running always work?”
“Not always, no. When I was younger than you, only a handful of scutes shed, Death came, but we saw the rough boats they had built and were able to jump two islands away before they ever touched ground. All that was lost was easily rebuilt or replaced. A few years later though...they came upon us in the night, swimming from the shore. Hundreds were murdered in their homes before the alarm was raised, and it would have been even more if our Qichon hadn’t intervened giving the rest of us time to escape. He did not make it out alive, but scores of others did because of his sacrifice.”
Though his voice didn’t change throughout his speech, Udaru’s head dipped as he said the last part, which Tif thought could mean sadness or respect for those who had fallen.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “One of Death’s raids left my closest friend an orphan.”
Udaru’s long snout moved up and then down again, like he was nodding. “Then you know well the pain that Death can inflict. We learned from it, as we all must if we wish to survive, and now there are always swimmer patrols from sundown to sunup. I was part of them for a decade myself, and no such attack has made it to our shores since.”
Ten years. Tif realized that she didn’t have any idea how old the aquaros was, his blocky, smooth scales providing little clue. She knew from experience that some people didn’t like answering that question though, so instead she asked, “Then how did you become a Division Leader of Lercel?”
“That is a story for another time. Now I must patrol this place to ensure that no scouting parties happen upon us. Do not wander far.” His blue coloring lost some of its luster and then he was gone. Even having traveled with him in such a way, Tif still wasn’t used to how abruptly Tears ris let any of these knights go to and fro.
Past where the aquaros had stood, Tif could see that Bes-Ahl and Yuu-Fen were sitting with their backs against each other, legs crossed and hands on their knees in meditation. Much like how striking with Gold ris depleted it, Tif guessed that the same was true each time someone with Tears ris traveled from one place to another. Unlike the aquaros, it was easy to tell that the blue ris that had stood out predominately on Yuu’s face and Bes’s arms were all but gone. What Tif found particularly interesting was that even though the two of them had shared the burden of carrying Rof through the sky, which would presumably take less of their ris each, it was they who needed to recharge while Udaru was off scouting. To have that much more ris than them the aquaros must have his third seal of Tears, which made it all the more curious why he had ended up a knight of Lercel.
“I want to know, too, Pep,” Tif said. “Maybe we can get him to tell it during dinner.”
Scanning the area, she didn’t see anything else of note, just trees a bit thicker and leafier than the ones back home. Rof was sitting as well she saw, not far from where he had landed. He was hunched over the ground, facing away from her, and considering how pale he had looked a few moments ago, she didn’t need more than one guess to know what he was doing.
“I agree,” Tif said to Pep. A warm hand on the back could make that type of sickness more pleasant to bear, and most of her skin felt warmer all the time now what with her Blood ris, so she was the perfect one to help as long as she didn’t touch his skin.
However, when Tif reached him she found that he wasn’t doing what she had thought at all. Instead, he was looking at a scroll he had laid out on the stubby grass, and not just any scroll, but one that pictured stick figures moving through forms. Tif gasped in excitement, falling onto her hands and knees beside it so she could study the images closer.
Rof might have made a grumbling noise, but she barely noticed, trying her hardest to memorize the movements frozen in ink.
“What type of attack is it?” she asked, turning to look at him.
“One you cannot do,” Rof replied tersely.
Tif sat back on her haunches, so as not to block his view of the scroll. He eyed her for a bit, as if waiting for her to leave, and when she didn’t, he returned to staring at the sheet, hard enough to act like she wasn’t there. Gradually, he began working his arms through the motions, many of which she thought matched the pictures. To her that meant he had either practiced this before or was a quick study. Tif itched to try it with him, but judging by how standoffish he was, she thought he might take the scroll and leave if she did, and this way she was at least getting to see it.
She’d give it a go on her own later that night.
He finally did the whole series at regular speed, his arms moving fluidly through the motions, and when his left hand snapped into place she saw the air shimmer and felt a breath of cold on her nose, there and then gone. Rof didn’t look particularly pleased at the attempt though, his eyebrow twitching.
“Problem?” Tif hadn’t asked in an accusatory way but the look he gave her showed that’s how he had taken it.
“No. It’s only halfway finished is all.”
Rof went back to looking at the scroll and moving his arms slowly again while Tif worked on puzzling out what that meant. Half? There was only wood left on the two rollers that the parchment was stretched between, so there was no more of the scroll to see. And if the technique required more than the nine movements pictured why wouldn’t they all be on the same page? There was no writing to give her a clue but there were colors: a border of gold at the top of the parchment and two lines of blue at the bottom, stretching the length of the page. Could it mean--
“A complex technique, that, and easy to get wrong.”
Tif nearly jumped hearing Udaru’s odd voice directly behind her but was proud that she turned calmly instead--doubly so because Rof didn’t manage the same, jerking around in surprise.
The aquaros stood peering down at the scroll, not seeming to notice the effect of his unexpected intrusion at all. “There are troops of Death heading this way, a handful of spidra and more than a dozen humans.” Udaru barely glanced at them as he delivered the bone chilling news and then he vanished again.
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In her periphery, Tif saw that the aquaros had reappeared beside Bes-Ahl and Yuu-Fen, but her primary focus was on Rof. For once the normally sleepy keshe boy seemed wide awake. He picked up the scroll delicately but also quickly, rolling the wooden ends together and then sliding it into the pack on his back.
They walked together the short distance to the knights who were quietly conferring amongst themselves.
Tif remembered well the promise she had made to the three and wanted to prove that she wouldn’t back down. “I can help you fight them.”
It was Bes-Ahl who shook her head, her gauged ears swinging side-to-side. “That many could strip us of ris in moments, and if we’re airborne when that happens, we fall like stones from the sky.”
Tif swallowed, remembering clearly how it had felt to think precisely that was going to happen to her, in this very spot no less.
“How much further can you go?” Udaru asked the knights.
“We didn’t get much time to recharge,” Bes answered.
“Another few miles at least,” Yuu said with his usual grin, but Tif thought it seemed more forced than normal.
“Do what you can but not a scute more,” Udaru said. “We will face them if we must.”
That was the second time the aquaros had used that word, Tif noticed: scute. Was it like a scale? Another thing to ask him, though clearly not now. Udaru kept looking to the right, presumably where he had spotted the oncoming scout party and the more often he did it, the more she felt her body clench.
Tif must have missed any last words of planning the knights made because Udaru’s arm wrapped around her belly, his blocky scales smooth through the shirt she wore, and before Tif could breathe to prepare, she was up in the sky again, weightless for a brief moment and then dropping through the air.
They ended up making three more stops, each shorter than the last, as if the forces of Death were more common the further they got from Lercel, or perhaps the closer they got to Sah’Sah. Tif still didn’t see any troops from the sky though, which made it feel more and more like they were being chased by ghosts--something neither she nor Pep liked in the slightest. Without Udaru scouting, which he did each time, and warning them of impending threats, she wondered how often they would have been forced to fight their way free. By the end of day, with the sun’s light slipping away, Tif wished that she could just to put her eyes and hands on something tangible instead of the dark thoughts that were gradually creeping into her mind, the most frequent by far the imagined sensation of falling, falling, and then slamming into the ground with bone crunching finality.
Their last stop was on outcropping outside a cave mouth, well up the side of a rise. It was much smaller than the mountain Lercel was built on, but the land leading up to it was rocky and incredibly steep on three sides. Tif didn’t think anyone could get up to the lip unless they, too, had ris from Tears, which she supposed was exactly why the group had chosen it. Tif’s guess was confirmed when the knights revealed that there were supplies tucked just inside the cave, which also explained why they were able to embark on the trip carrying so little.
Yuu started the fire and Bes laid out bedrolls while Udaru finally took some time to rest. Tif thought the aquaros might employ a meditation technique unique to his homeland, and he did, but it wasn’t one she could try herself, at least not unaided. He used his thick tail as a third leg to lean back on, arms hanging loose at his sides and his bottom jaw lying on his chest. It actually made him look rather ridiculous, which was a nice reprieve after the seriousness of being harried by unseen Death the last few hours. Also, Tif took the fact that none of the knights were scouting to mean that they were finally safe, to which she shared a smile with Pep.
There was a flowing stream in the back of the cave that Tif walked with Yuu to collect from, the light from the sun giving them just enough to see by, though the sound of its burbling trickle also helped Tif find it. With water and shelter, Tif thought that perhaps some animals might use it as a den, but it ended up being much more shallow than she suspected, and though she spotted some bird droppings, Yuu explained that their frequent visits to the waypoint, as he called it, kept most other animals from settling in.
They used the water not only for refreshment but also to make a light stew of dried herbs and vegetables that grew springy when wet, which Tif couldn’t quite identify. They also had some dried meat that she and Yuu had to chew much longer than the two keshe, or Udaru who ate it in one snap of his foot and half long jaw. All in all, it wasn’t a particularly filling meal, not like Tif had had during the challenges, but it left a pleasant enough taste on her tongue.
“We’ll take you out for a real celebration tomorrow,” Yuu said to Rof as the knight was putting the stew pot back in the mouth cave.
“Tomorrow?” Tif asked.
“In Sah’Sah,” Bes answered from the other side of the crackling fire. “We should be there by dusk.”
Tif couldn’t believe it. She knew they had been traveling fast, flying over the land in leaps and bounds as they were, but to make a week-long trip in just two days? And they hadn’t even left Lercel in the morning!
“The Serpentine has excellent crab,” Yuu continued, dusting his hands off before sitting back down. “And only two doors down they serve a fiendish drink, white as snow and tastes like mint with a kick.” He smiled. “Though it’s usually not until the next day you feel the kick.”
“That will be nice,” Rof said, but his tepid tone was far from convincing.
Tif watched Yuu lose some of his exuberance, his smile becoming more sardonic than jovial. “It usually is, yes.”
There was a lull in conversation after that, but before Tif thought to ask about training, Udaru left in a blink, presumably to scout, and the other two knights took the pointed end of their tabards and flipped it onto a shoulder nearly in unison, revealing that their garment beneath was oddly padded. What’s more, each of those pads turned out to be a compartment holding a small vial of clear liquid.
“Tears,” Tif said to Pep. So this was how the trade got from Lercel to Sah’Sah.
The knights methodically inspected every container to make sure that the glass and wax seal wasn’t broken, a time consuming process considering the number of small bumps on their garments. When the two moved to check each other's backs, Tif had lost count.
“How many are you carrying?”
“Seventy each,” Bes said.
Tif nodded to Pep. That also explained why they were burning ris faster than Udaru--all that glass had to weigh a great deal.
“It’s a small load,” Yuu said, as he plucked flat vials from Bes’s back, flipping them over and running a thumb over the blue wax to check for leaks. “We usually have more when the Captain isn’t coming from recruitment day, and we’ll be able to do more than that once Rof has his ris.”
Attention shifted to the keshe boy, but he was staring at the flickering fire and didn’t notice everyone looking at him for a time.
When he did, all he said was, “Right. Yes,” the words lacking any attempt at enthusiasm.
Tif thought she caught Yuu rolling his eyes.
“So this is mainly what you do?” she asked the knights. Keeping the trade routes alive was important work to be sure, but still...it wasn’t quite what Tif had imagined when fantasizing of joining their ranks.
“And ferry gold back,” Yuu answered, “not that Sah’Sah usually has much of that.” He finished the last of the bunch, dropping the back of Bes’s tabard into place before turning around so the thin keshe could start on him.
“Be glad there’s not more to do,” Bes-Ahl said to Tif, as if sensing her judgement. “It’s a blessing that Death has moved most of their forces away from this route. It won’t last.”
“And it’s a far sight better than transporting goods to Life tribe, I’ll tell you that,” Yuu said with a wink.
Tif’s Pep hand immediately balled into a fist, but she sent calming thoughts down her arm. Yuu was a friendly sort and surely hadn’t thought anything of the comment. However, for all that he surely knew more than her about being a knight, he obviously hadn’t lost anyone to the Life Trade. If he had, there was no way he could mention it, even in passing, with such levity.
A scraping on the rocky ground made Rof the focal point again. He was standing now but didn’t bother to say anything to anyone this time, stalking out of the bubble of firelight, presumably to the far edge of the shelf away from the cave.
“Fun kid,” Yuu said, but Bes didn’t comment.
Udaru returned not long after that, and this time Tif didn’t wait, asking after training nearly the moment he appeared.
“Perhaps on the journey from Tears to Blood,” the aquaros responded. “It is longer. For tonight, sleep. It will be an early day tomorrow.”
Tif deflated but didn’t give up entirely. “What about the story of how you came to Lercel?”
Instead of answering her, Udaru stepped closer to Bes and Yuu on his taloned feet, his voice pitched low for their ears alone. Though Tif was disappointed, he hadn’t said that she couldn’t train herself, so she scooted away from the trio to the edge of the firelight. Her hope was that they would respect her for giving them space, but she was still close enough that if they saw her putting in effort they might offer some advice.
To start, she considered practicing the form from Rof’s scroll. Tif was fairly certain that she could do it from memory, but she was equally certain that the two colors on the scroll meant it was for someone who had both Gold and Tears ris, and she had neither. It also felt a bit silly to practice with her Blood ris considering it would soon be taken from her--potentially very soon with how quickly this group could cover distance. Still though, if they were attacked by Death she wanted to be able to help, so she practiced with her third seal, kneeling down to stick her hands to the rocky shelf they stood on. The fire behind her made her night vision poor, but she didn’t need it to test that her grip was firm; Tif yanked and pulled but her palms didn’t budge, staying firmly attached, skin to stone, as long as she kept pouring heat into the rock. She experimented with different parts of her body: a finger, the back of her hand, even her arm, but they all could stick just fine. The trick was getting the heat part right, but Tif quickly figured out that if she pushed the heat toward whatever she felt herself touching it worked, instead of trying to feel the correct body part and then the thing she wanted to stick to.
In a flash of inspiration, she also tried sticking to herself, and found that she could. First, she locking her hands together in an inseparable bond; next, she did the same with her hand to her wrist, putting an imaginary opponent in a headlock. She had never wrestled much, focusing on punching and kicking properly, but starting to practice was the first step at getting better at anything.
While Tif was happy with this progress, in truth, what she could do felt like a paltry thing compared to what she had seen the knights accomplish today, but perhaps a moment of holding an enemy in place would make all the difference.
When the moon had traveled twice its own length, and Tif’s jaw started to crack from repeated yawns, she knew it was time to turn in. None of the knights had spoken to her, and turning around she saw that both Yuu and Bes were abed, and Udaru stood still as a statue, snout pointed toward the sky. Even Rof had returned at some point to lay on his stretch of fabric, his back to the fire and thus away from everyone. Oddly, he seemed to still be moving his arms, but she wasn’t sure why.
Having spent most of her Blood ris, Tif was feeling the cold air whispering over the rocky lip as well as fatigue. Instead of crawling to her bedroll like she should though, she turned back to the starry night. There was so much that she couldn’t see, the land around her and even most of the sky blanketed in darkness, but the stars above winked softly in and out of existence.
“How can I sleep when Vak-Lav has ma and fa?” she asked Pep. “How can I--” Tif felt a sudden weight beside her and barely had to turn to see that Udaru was crouched only inches away.
“Who are you talking to?” he asked with his usual croak, but not overloud, probably in an effort to avoid waking the others.
Sitting with the just division leader, in a place that felt like nowhere, Tif almost told him about the underground, how they wanted her ris, and their plot to get it back in Sah’Sah. It was on the tip of her tongue, ready to slip off, but the fairy’s threats about her family kept Tif from giving them voice, though she found herself wanting to so very badly.
“Just Pep,” she finally said, lifting her hand for him to see.
The aquaros stared at the marks on her skin for a time--maybe seeing them in the moonlight, maybe not--and then turned one eye on her in that way he had. “Forgive me,” he said. “I’m not familiar with Blood tribe’s customs.” The last of the apology had barely fallen from his open jaw before he vanished, leaving even more abruptly than he had come.
Slightly shaken, Tif turned back to the night, not looking at the stars this time but the darkness below it. The energy that had jolted through her when nearly revealing the truth to Udaru left her feeling even more exhausted now that it was gone. Her eyes drifted open and closed as she continued to stare forward, and she could barely tell the difference. A sound came to her, a fluttering so soft, she thought it was a dream. There were words, too, but said so small they could easily be pebbles falling down the lip edge, or maybe up.
“Stupid…and their stupid…”
Tif saw a smudge in the distance, but it was a smudge that was moving. She blinked her eyes and the object resolved into a small person, less than a foot high, with shimmering wings, and only an arm length away.
“It’s you!” Tif exclaimed in a surprised whisper and then regretted it, worried that Udaru might have heard. She quickly turned around with Pep raised to show him that’s all it was, but the aquaros was gone from the fire, and no one sleeping stirred.
“‘Course it is,” the fairy said. Looking back, Tif realized the fairy was a girl, maybe her age, with short hair and viny green ris crawling up her cheeks to both of her big eyes. “Think Vak-Lav is going to let you run loose after the mess you made of things?”
Despite her sharp words, the fairy sounded tired, which Tif could believe after flying as far as she had.
“Would you like some food?” Tif offered, trying to speak as quietly as possible. She pulled out the stub of dried meat she had pocketed but stopped when she saw the look of disgust on the sprite’s small face.
“Don’t you know Life tribe only eats plants and fruit? There’s no need to be rude.”
“Rude?” Tif said, fighting to keep her voice down and leaning closer to the fairy to hopefully help with that. “You told me that my parents are going to die.”
The fairy shrugged her tiny shoulders, looking not the least bit put out. “That’s just my job. You’re being purposely impolite.”
Tif had no response to that, other than to consider flattening the tiny creature with her other hand, Pep side down.
“Whelp, I’m off to Sah’Sah. Don’t get yourself killed on the way. After all, wouldn’t want you to miss the festivities. It’s going to be a riot.” She gave a little smile and then zipped away, vanishing into the night just as quickly as Udaru did.
Tif didn’t have a clue what to make of that, and even odder, when she went to put the dried meat back she realized it was no longer in her hand.
“What the…”
“You should really sleep.”
This time Tif did jump, her heart feeling like it shot right out of her chest. Udaru stood next to her, and Tif got shakily to her feet.
“Sure okay,” she said, letting the aquaros lead her to the bedroll while her thoughts chased after the fairy, trying to figure out what in the world would be waiting for her by the time she got to the Mirrored City.