When you think of the Demesne, you probably think of a place of beautiful, golden towers wreathed in ivy, and wealth and power beyond measure. I certainly thought of it that way. But what most of us don’t often consider is that as well as serving as the home of the Shadow, the Demesne is mostly just a floating mountain. It’s made of rock and dirt and other stuff mountains are made of, all held together by a network of roots and sheer stubbornness with the towers and luxury and everything else just a sprinkling on the top.

So when Gabby, Max and I drifted ever closer to it, we pretty quickly realized we weren’t going to land on soft, manicured lawns. Instead, we were going to crash into the side of the rocky, inhospitable bit upon which all that luxury had been built…

“Max! Can you stop us?” I asked.

“Huh? Why do yeh want to stop?”

“To change our angle. I want to get to the top.”

Still holding Gabby’s hair as if it were a set of reins, Max looked up. “Nope,” he said.

Given that the aforementioned side of the rocky, inhospitable bit of the Demesne was fast approaching, that wasn’t exactly the answer I was hoping for. But it could’ve been worse. At least we weren’t about to go underneath. That could have ended very badly indeed.

There wasn’t anything for it. We were going to hit.

“Gabby, grab hold of anything you can!” I called. We’d been lucky when we kicked off from the orcs. Even after traveling this far, we were still close enough that we could speak to each other quite clearly.

“Don’t call me that!” she returned.

There was nothing else that needed to be said and not much time in which to say it. The Demesne came closer, closer … and then we collided with a wall of rock and earth. I managed to latch on to a fairly thick root that was growing on the outside of the rock and Gabby seemed to have caught hold of something as well.

Then Gabby uttered a curse. I saw a sliver of light open up between her and the wall. The sliver grew wider and she scrabbled to find something to hold on to, but the only thing that accomplished was to push her further away.

For the first time since I’d met her, she seemed afraid.

“Help.” She said it quietly, as if she didn’t really want to ask.

Stolen story; please report.

I measured the distance between us and knew at once she was too far away. Looking quickly, I spied another root that was closer. Without thinking, I launched myself towards it, caught hold, forced one of my feet under it (hoping as I did that it wouldn’t simply snap), wrapped my tail around it as well and stood up, sideways on the wall. I stretched as much as I could and saw that she was still too far away.

“Max!” I shouted, and for once he responded quickly.

He darted down to her foot, caught it, and flapped his wings in an effort to slow her down and drag her towards me.

It was never going to be enough. Even with Max’s efforts, she was going to pass just out of my reach. There was nothing I could do.

Except that instead of trying to reach Gabby directly, I stretched as much as I could and grabbed hold of Max.

He yelped in surprise.

“Don’t let go!” I gritted. He hadn’t and didn’t, so I pulled both him and Gabby back to the wall.

Gabby clutched the same root I’d found and turned to me. “This doesn’t make up for my crystal ball or anything, but thank you.”

I didn’t know quite how to respond, so I changed the subject. “Can you climb? I don’t think I want to be hanging on to this root when the pixie dust wears off.”

We climbed. It was surprisingly easy to do so. Not only did our weightlessness mean that we weren’t fighting gravity on the way up, but the roots also helped us by conveniently becoming thicker and stronger the higher we went.

Sooner than I would have expected, we reached the grassy edge of the Demesne and clambered over.

Perhaps I should have anticipated it, but the thought never entered my head. Of course the Shadow would have posted guards. Of course they would be orcs, garbed in golden armor and bristling with weapons. And of course there would be one patrolling the Demesne just where we gained the top.

This particular orc was at least as big as any of those that had so recently been after us. He was watching us with a mixture of surprise and curiosity twisting his abnormally brutish face. His reactions, however, were just as swift and potentially painful as those of any of his kind. He aimed a pike with a particularly nasty-looking ax head and spike arrangement at the pointy end our way.

“Who you?” he asked, his voice as deep and gravelly as any orc could hope for. “What you doin’ here?”

“Who, us? We were just looking for the kitchen and lost our way,” I said, trying out my grin once more even though I was still clutching the grass.

It nearly worked. The pike wavered a little and I started to think that maybe we’d get out of this. After all, we didn’t exactly look like advance scouts of an invading aerial army or anything. We probably didn’t even look dangerous. We were, as far as the orc could tell, a mismatched little group comprising one male mostly human, one female part orc, and one pixie who was probably still slightly tipsy. We weren’t even carrying any weapons other than the knife and the crossbow I’d taken from Thork Yurger. And the crossbow had no bolts.

If anything, we probably just looked a little tired.

Unfortunately, the pixie dust hadn’t worn off. There was a reason I’d been hanging on to the grass. We’d started floating again as soon as we’d reached the top. Even though both Gabby and I still held onto handfuls of grass, our legs continued to drift upwards in an awkward way.

It confused the orc even more. “What you doin’?” he asked, then apparently decided he didn’t need an answer. The wavering pike steadied and his expression hardened. “You come with me!” he said.