29

Back in Starloft, everyone felt it at once when Valerian disappeared and then… a short time later… a heavy, dark pall seemed to lift like dank fog. The crowded elven stronghold grew silent and still momentarily, as each of them halted; breath pent, waiting.

On the listing platform where his mansion had stood, Lerendar set down his woman and child. He stood up, looking around. Beatriz got to her feet beside him, still dusty and coughing but alive, thanks to his now-vanished brother.

The others, his heart-friends, stood here and there around the small family; far enough for privacy, near enough to act, should they be needed. Ava, too, hovered close by (too deeply smitten to turn away from his lordship, willing to love what he loved, because of it).

Holding their little girl, Bea said,

"He's in trouble, Ren. Something bad's happened." Her face, abraded and grimy, was turned up to his. Her dark eyes were fierce. "We have to find him and help."

We? Lerendar started to shake his head, no; rejecting any idea of bringing his family along into certain danger. Only, Beatriz wasn't having any such nonsense. Placing a bloodied hand on his arm, she said,

"First, whatever happens, we're safer with you. Second, my mom was an apothecary. An herb-woman. I know what I'm doing, and not just with scent, Renny. Third, once Fee heals up and wakes, she's gonna go crazy. She won't want to sit around waiting for Val. Not when he needs her help. She's not pregnant anymore, Ren! She can shift into vapor! How do you plan to lock up an angry air-sprite?!"

…Which was too much logic for a worried heart and sore head. Lerendar sighed, looking down at the gravelly, mage-lit surface.

"Were you always this forceful?" he wondered, a little pathetically.

Bea smiled up at him.

"Yes, Milord. Way deep inside, where it didn't first show. But Valerian needs you, and you need us. That's how it is."

The girl-child, Zara, had been clamoring and reaching out to be held by her father. Then Pretty and Mirielle darted over, having escaped from whatever safety Val had devised for them. They were Zara's playmates, and all at once, the girl wanted nothing but freedom.

"Papa, no. I'm too big for cuddles, anymore! Put me down! It's club stuff! It's a secret! You can't hear!"

He kissed her dirty forehead, then obeyed, setting his blue-eyed young daughter onto the platform. She raced off to meet the young goblin and half-elf, chattering secret phrases and waving her hands in "magical" signs.

Looking around, Lerendar met Elmaris's gaze. The rogue nodded, requiring no further signal. Just casually (tossing and catching a golden coin) slouched over to stand near those wildly excited young girls.

Meanwhile, Lerendar gently smoothed Bea's dark, curly hair.

"I'll talk to Granddad," he told her. "But don't start packing, yet. Can't promise a thing, till I know how the wind lies."

The noisy work of rescue and repair had resumed all around them. It was the noble folks' business to deal with curses, warfare and sendings. The peasantry's job, to pick up the pieces, afterward.

Lerendar left them to it, threading a path between healers and work crews. His grandfather, High Lord Galadin, had levitated to survey the entire stronghold; searching as far as his vision and magical senses would reach. Just himself now, for Firelord no longer possessed him. Galadin dropped to the damaged platform a few moments later, looking grim and alert (and about as approachable as ever).

Lord Tarandahl was resplendent in shining armor, his deep-red cloak streaming behind him as he settled back onto that cracked marble surface. White-haired and tall, the Silmerana signaled his grandson forward.

"Speak," he commanded. "And be swift. The darkness has lifted, but it may not have gone very far, nor forever."

Lerendar bowed.

"Yes, My Lord. Quickly, then… Valerian is gone…"

"Along with his plaything and the wandering beggar," grunted Lord Tarandahl, sourly. (News to Lerendar, who hadn't been paying attention.) "You propose seeking your brother, I take it?"

Lerendar inclined his head.

"Yes, if My Lord so permits," he said, adding, "I will be careful, going in company and searching for word of his whereabouts. I will take no unnecessary risks, My Lord."

"No, I expect not. Having females and children along tends to limit foolish adventure."

Nothing in Lerendar's mind was hidden from Galadin… except that which his mother had locked deep away, under threat. The high lord went on, musing,

"With Meliara gone, you are second heir to Ilirian. I am reluctant to allow this excursion, but…" he made a face, as the sword at his back brightened and hummed. "...it seems that Valerian has some mighty task to perform, for which a low-born druid and ranger may prove inadequate. It would be wise to send reinforcements. I trust that you will represent your family and realm in a manner befitting their future Warden."

Lerendar bowed, again.

"Yes, My Lord," he responded, receiving Galadin's heavy hand on his head by way of permission and blessing. Skipper bounded up, then, tongue lolling, having found and unearthed many victims. Galadin stooped to welcome the dog, who adored him.

"Also…" began the silver-haired elf, lingering over a difficult issue. "If you happen to encounter Meliara…"

"Drag her back?" suggested Lerendar, straightening up once more.

Galadin snorted rudely.

"No. Much as you have done, your aunt has attached herself to a mortal. That is her choice. I would…I would just know that he is worthy of my daughter. That she is happy and safe… and knows that she may return, once he has passed from her ken."

For, like all humans, like Bea, this paladin fellow was doomed to an early death and an after-life that the elves knew not. It was a request, and maybe a warning.

Lerendar's eyes strayed to Bea, standing a few yards away, still watching him. To small Zara, who'd been hopping around in a widdershins circle, hands linked with Miri and Pretty One. Then Galadin spoke.

"Only once, have I been in love," admitted his grandfather, softly. "Realized too late, and ended the matter too soon, for reasons of state. That was my choice, Lad. I cannot make yours, or Meliara's."

Lerendar was still considering that, when Prince Andorin took hold of a ley line and ported over to join them, coming to stand beside the blond elf-lord.

"Your Highness," said Galadin, inclining his head. "I deeply regret the disturbance which has marred your embassy to my realm."

The sea-elf wasn't upset. Bowed back slightly, saying,

"It is no great matter, Milord, provided that all here are safe. Until the short days of winter have passed, Chaos still threatens us all. To the point, though, Milord… I would ask your leave to accompany your grandson… my friend… on this mission to locate his brother." There would be time enough later to speak of broken engagements, and this was a way out for everyone. (Temporarily, at least.) Said Galadin,

"You have my leave, Highness. All of Ilirian lies open before you, Prince of the Deeps. How you two have come to be friends, I know not, but I sense the bond and its power. Lerendar could have no better companion."

"Fate weaves her web, Milord," replied Andorin. "Threads from one tapestry oft find their way to the next, still having some sense of the past."

Galadin's mouth twitched at one corner. Not quite a smile, but its very close cousin.

"Fate," he said, "is a quixotic whore. I've no love at all for the cross-grained old slattern… and now I suppose that I'll have to soothe her outraged feelings with an entire herd of burnt cattle."

Then, turning to Lerendar,

"Go. Make whatever preparations you require. Leave without notice, saying nothing at all of your route or destination. Not even to me."

Because something was able to listen and, hearing, make plans for another attack.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

South and away in Milardin, Neira led Val and the rest through a tangled scribble of smuggler's tunnels. Hissing words of safe passage, she guided them through treasure caves stuffed with spices and gold. Past the fabled Shadow-Tavern they went, hearing grim music and getting hard looks from those at the door.

Down and westward the party travelled, coming at last to a hidden chamber under the giant water stairs. It was a roughly chiseled pirate's hole. A good place to hide, as they worked out what to do next. Their destination lay just a few hundred yards away. Getting there would take some work, but it guaranteed safety, as the flooded part of the stairs were considered sea-elf territory, out of Arvendahl's reach.

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Neira was no longer carrying Filimar, who'd been handed around like a feed sack, and was currently draped over the dark-elf's left shoulder. Signing for quiet, Neira whispered,

"Be ready! There are guards at the base of the stairway, down where it plunges into the ocean. We'll be in for a fight, unless distraction or magic befools them."

They could hear Milardin's alarm bells, sounding louder than ever, along with the heavy tread of soldiers patrolling outside. There in the dusty, cramped darkness, Valerian readied his spells, aiming to fuddle and trap, rather than kill. Whatever impulse led Alandriel's lord to hunt him had to spring from confusion or mistaken identity, he thought... And killing Arvendahl's men would only worsen the problem.

Crowded against the far wall, Gildyr pulled a few seeds from his bag; briar and thorn, oak and ash. He was as set as the lithe young tabaxi, who'd recovered her things from the prison guardhouse, and now had a few nasty tricks to unleash.

Cinda was her own sort of ready. Dangerous, as always, hovering nearest to Val. The drow made no evident preparations at all. Still with them, simply because there was no place else he could go. As for the mortal wizard…

That rumpled, dark-haired young man had been staring hard at Valerian. Now, scratching his stubbly jaw, he said,

"I'm… not really dreaming, am I?" (Overly loudly for Neira, who shoved him.) "I'm back in that frickin' alternate plane again."

Val smiled. Those touched by the gods were sacred, of course; their ravings a source of true prophecy… but he liked his comrades sane, and this wizard… this Murchison… was somehow a cherished old friend.

"You are awake," he assured the grumpy mortal. "And a most welcome sight."

Even if his presence was somehow linked to Kaazin, the murderous, slave-driving drow.

Valerian would have asked questions, but then Neira turned away from the trapdoor, her expression tense and expectant. The passage of footfalls had slowed to a patter, outside, like the last few kernels of popping, spiced grain.

"Now," she hissed, shoving opaline hair away from her face. "I will conceal the hatch, and then we'll climb up and make for the waterline, a few at a time, features and weapons well hidden."

Neira and Gildyr first, disguised as a pair of loving young tieflings. Next, the tabaxi and mortal, under the guise of strolling players; she with a shimmering tambourine, he with… whatever he had in the way of performance skills. Val would come next with the ranger, their features dulled and their clothing darkened; looking like servants on leave from some noble house. Last of all, Kaazin, supporting Filimar as though he was helping a drunken friend. Disguising the surly drow was hardest of all, for his personal aura was strong and unsettling; a puddle of toxic shade that the pirate's magic strove to conceal.

"Just… be quick," advised Neira, tweaking the charm that covered his pallid skin and red eyes. "Keep moving and don't, for the love of Dear Father, look anyone straight in the face."

Kaazin shrugged, adjusting his grip on the slumped young lordling beside him.

"I am a Drozt. A walker-in-darkness, in a place where just being drow is a crime. I have no choice but caution, ever. Save your advice for those who require it, Sea-witch."

The stony, chiseled-out hole where they stood was a cramped little nook dug into the marble stairway by pirates and smugglers. There was no space to draw weapons, and no time at all to waste, doing so. Neira contented herself with a very foul gesture, then opened the hatch above them and magicked a short set of stairs.

Slipping an arm around Gildyr's waist, she turned to glare at the watching others.

"I'm running a monstrous risk, using this safe-hole, for you lot. Don't make me regret it! Follow in pairs, slowly and carefully. We'll meet below, at the Coral Landing."

Then she and the druid were out through the veiling darkness, using magic to blend right in with the folk on the stairway. Nibbling Gildyr's earlobe and murmuring love names, Neira drew the uneasy wood-elf further down-ramp, toward harbor, ocean and safety.

So far, so good, as a pair of love-struck tieflings "hooking their horns" was a common sight. Of no interest at all to Milardin's alert and suspicious guards.

A few heartbeats later, the tabaxi and mortal wizard followed them out. By this time, the shadows were falling and torches were just being lit. Salme (for that was her name) drew out a tambourine and began to play, dancing as naturally as a wind-sprite. She'd been disguised as a lovely human lass, her fur concealed and her long, fluffy tail wrapped around her left leg. Murchison backed her performance by clapping in time to the silvery chimes. Wasn't much of a dancer, himself. Just shuffled his feet, shrugged his shoulders and bobbed his head like a rooster. Got a few coins tossed his way… mostly from pity.

Val and Cinda waited their turn, unconsciously reaching to grasp and hold hands.

"Just like always," he whispered.

"It'll be fun, or we'll die," finished the ranger, giving his hand a brief squeeze.

When the sound of shrill bells and applause faded away, it was their time. Cinda kissed his cheek.

"For luck," she muttered, looking away.

The ranger would have preceded him, but Val wouldn't let her. He wasn't a child. Didn't need to be shielded or watched. Climbed up and out into torchlight and mage glow, seeing Lord Arvendahl's frosty, magical image everywhere; seeming to watch and to comment just as… somewhere, somewhen else… Lord Orrin had done.

Looking around, he saw giant stairs and a person-sized ramp, all transformed by the magic of night to polished translucence. The entire thing glowed like firelit crystal, except where Neira's concealment spell hid that wide open hatch. There, the stair's clarity faded, looking like milky quartz. The difference increased as the last dregs of sunlight drained from the sky. In the middle distance, tough to miss, a flaming tornado writhed and spun like a nobleman's pyre, adding its own seething glare. Of His Lordship's cruel "orchard", nothing remained but drifting bright ash.

Valerian refocused. Cursed under his breath. A passing patrol had noticed the blurred escape hatch. Now they were turning that way to investigate. Looping his arm through Cinda's, he made himself seem relaxed and casual. Just someone's chief steward, out for a night on the town with a willing chambermaid. Forcing a smile, he started down-ramp as though nothing was wrong and he wasn't a hunted fugitive.

Then,

"You, there!" somebody shouted behind them. Not to Valerian and Cinda. To Kaazin, just now stepping forth from that bruise on the stairway, with Filimar propped like a doll at his side. "Halt!"

With heartbeats to make a decision, Val thrust Cinda into the crowd, placing a spell of befuddlement over her. Nobody, glimpsing the ranger, would be able to tell who she was, or recall that they'd seen her. For himself, hand at the hilt of his sword, the disguised elf-lord turned back, threading his way through massed people, making for Kaazin and Filimar.

The plan came to him all at once, (foolish, as his best notions so often were) but all that he had. Recycling back for casting and manna, Valerian altered his likeness. Became the spirit and image of High Lord Arvendahl; raven-black hair, gem-blue eyes, ornate golden armor, and all.

"Enough!" he snapped in a ringing voice, as the crowd and constables scattered like ants. "Stand away. I shall deal with this pair, myself."

He could mime chilly, and he could mock arrogance. As for that aura of power… Sure. For just about five hasty breaths. It was enough, though. All of those terrified citizens abased themselves or took flight at the sight of their liege lord. Stuck in place by their duty, the guards bowed so low that they beat themselves bloody on stone.

"Come forth, fellow," Val commanded the drow, still aping Arvendahl's voice. But, in hand-sign, he gestured: 'Ready-run-soon.'

Just his bad luck that the actual high lord awoke, detected the fraud and chose that moment to port himself onto the stairway.

"Very flattering," sneered Arvendahl, of Valerian's disguise. Then, to the open-mouthed soldiers and guards, "Kill whoever resists. The Tarandahl, I want alive."

Val kept up his costume, hoping that disguise and fear of their lord would slow the guards' actions. Misty-stepped higher up the grand stairway, drawing attention away from the drow and rubbery, half-awake Filimar.

In moments, he was beset, fighting with sword in one hand, long knife and spells in the other. They were trying to capture. He was trying to wound.

Spying motion at the corner of his eye, Val levitated away from the sudden, hissing swirl of a weighted net. Next misty-stepped past a thundering rush of thugs. Gildyr came back from the water's edge, then, shouting aloud. At the druid's call, thorns burst out of the ground near the staircase, making a wildfire's spitting, crackling roar. Fast-growing shoots twined their way over railing and steps, wrapping themselves tight to the constables' legs.

A screeching gold monkey poked eyes with its stiff little fingers. Lightning fast, it leapt from one cursing guard to the next as Salme spun like a whirlwind and kicked the half-blinded victims unconscious. The rest of those charging thugs were jerked up into the air, flipped upside down and then shaken violently, their flailing bodies bound by the mortal wizard to a doll he held in his hands.

Moving through shadow, Cinda spun mist; her magic obscuring ranged shots with coils of dense, white fog. A few yards away, Val kept on fighting; heart pounding, breath coming fast as he wove a curtain of glittering steel. Didn't kill. Slapped heads with the flat of his blade. Fired concussive blasts through the dagger, twisting away from attack, and constantly moving. But there were so many guards and soldiers; a city's worth, to the party's mere eight... and no one could fight forever.

Taking a chance, the drow lifted Filimar into the air by the throat, holding a knife to the half-conscious lordling's belly, just where the tunic pulled out of his belt.

"Drop your weapons, or I gut this day-walking trash like a banquet-slave," he snarled. Filimar struggled feebly, but he was too sick from the blow to his head… from too little air… to fight back.

The guards and Lord Arvendahl hesitated. Clearly, if that evil shadow had crept into Milardin's ruler, she hadn't sunk very deep. Not yet.

Valerian stripped manna from a city ley line, then ported across to reach Filimar, not altogether sure that the drow didn't mean what he'd said. Just missed being hit by the high lord's petrification spell, because he'd moved to defend, not tried to escape. Arvendahl just didn't get that.

"Go away," grunted Kaazin, backing slowly down-ramp. "I will delay them as long as I can. This soft, useless puppy should escape their judgment, being my hostage."

Choking briars and rustling vines had grown into a high, thorny wall, weaving Milardin's ivy and flowers into a towering barrier. The hissing sea pulled away from the harbor and stairs, threatening a dangerous tidal wave. (In seeming, at least, and all Neira's doing.)

Screaming citizens scrambled as high up the stairs as they could to climb. Not Val and not Kaazin, who ran, slid and ported down-ramp, dragging Filimar. Arrows shrilled past them, one cutting Valerian's shoulder, another one piercing Kaazin's black cloak. The ground shook and lurched, causing a mighty fissure to yawn like a canyon under the stairs. Lord Arvendahl was an earth-mover, and very much willing to kill.

He'd levitated, rising high as a star over that crystalline stairway and still-growing wall of sharp spines. Val stopped running. Panting slightly, he called up a fleeting spell, then sent himself into those surging briars. A sort of golem-self formed, towering into the air; shaped now like an elf-lord, now like a griffin. With one swipe of its spiked, massive hand, it swatted Arvendahl out of the sky. Batted him all the way back to the city's great shrine, where he struck with a ground-shaking CRACK, releasing a vortex of manna.

As a griffin of briar, ivy and flowers, Valerian seized His Lordship's limp form, flying as high in the air as borrowed magic and haste would allow. The wind shrieked through his basketwork body as Val spiraled higher into the night. Dropped Lord Arvendahl onto a frosty step, with only the stars and cold, thinning air as witness. Trying to maintain a hover, forcing words from a construct of splintering wood, he rasped,

"Whatever you think… didn't do it from spite, Milord… no choice… saved all those I could."

Whether or not the battered ruler heard him, whether His Lordship would even care, Val had no way to tell. No chance to add anything else, either, for the golem beast fell apart in midair, shredded by distance and cold. Valerian's consciousness shot back to his own body, which was slung atop Filimar's, over the drow's heaving shoulder.

Ever contrary, Val flipped loose like a landed fish, hitting the polished ramp just over the spuming waterline. Managed to roll himself into the surf, just as a spear plunged down in thundering noise, sudden hot pain and bright, bursting red.