14
Lady Hana of Skyvale was a strong and determined person. After all those long ages, still very much in love with Erron, her life-mate. Deserted on Vernax 3 with a party of non-elves and four other dissidents… with Randon and Kara, her children… Hana had first bent her sorcerous skills to survival. No other choice.
The world never turned. That pitiless sun never moved in the sky, and life was possible only in twilight and gloaming. There, in a hundred-mile strip between howling blackness and blistering light, magic could seize and transform, creating a narrow fey-wild and under-realm. Not a quick or safe process, though.
For a time, there was only conjured food, huddled shelter and bare survival. Constant vigilance, too, for the hell-world’s other inhabitants were always ready to drag off the unwary or luckless. But those left behind fought back and they learned.
Lost track of time, with no day and no seasons, while desperate struggle slowly turned into carving a life and a home for themselves. It was hardest of all for the elves, because no one else trusted them. Not after being marooned here to die, by those they’d believed in and followed.
Hana ignored the hard looks and the whispers as well as she could. Worked alongside the half-elves, the dwarves and the animal folk to help turn their outpost into a safe and livable place. There were manna-flowers to harvest, crops to sow and reavers to hunt, rock-wyrms to block with sigil and spell. Being an elf, she did not need to sleep, and that was fortunate. Dreams came, you see. Awful ones.
As she helped to convert and defend their cavern, Hana also battled to keep their father’s cruel fate from Randon and Kara. Nor was that all. Trying everything that she knew to reach Erron, Hana ventured away from Outpost. She began to explore.
There were caves on Vernax 3; studded with shimmering crystals, bursting with manna… and maybe a long, outside chance. In such natural shrines, a weary enchantress could meditate, search and make plans.
“I think I can do it,” she said to the children, over a supper of mage-loaf and water, in the light of their single globe. The stone alcove was solid and screened with a privacy-web, but they tended to whisper or sign, anyhow.
The young ones looked up from their game of “I wish this was ________!”
“Cloud cream with berries on top,” Randon said, before cocking his head to one side. “Can do what, Mum? Make real food?”
“In that case, I want egg-salad, fresh bread and vegetable soup,” chimed in Kara. “Anything but drek mage-loaf again!”
“Language,” their mother reproved, shaking her head at the hopeful pair. Then, “No. Mage-loaf it is and remains for a while, although…”
Hana sketched a quick sigil, leaving the faintest sparkle of light in that musty, recycled air. Wasted mana she couldn’t afford to spend, giving Randon and Kara the false taste and feel of the food that they craved.
“Elves! Living in luxury while the rest of us shiver and starve!” Brok’s accusation rang in her memory, still. Caught her by the well, had the wolf-man. Caught her and would have attacked, had Varric Gelfrin not interposed himself. No surprise, after all that had happened. The half-elves, the dwarves and the animal folk were suspicious and angry. Convinced that the Skyvales and (two alcoves over) the Gelfrins were hoarding up magic and food. Sighing, Hana shook that concern from her head. Here and now, she had children awaiting an answer.
“I meant to say that, using the crystal cave as a focus, I think I can make a gate. Try to bring your father across to us here… or else go to him, there.”
Both of her children stopped chewing to stare. Randon was as fair and tall as his brother Ander had been. Young for an elf and malnourished but trying to act like a warrior. Near him sat Kara, so much like her father, it hurt.
“You’re leaving us, Mum?” asked Randon, in sign, thought and whisper.
“He’s in trouble, isn’t he?” probed the girl-child, anxiously brushing at Hana’s mind.
“No, not exactly, Randy, and not as bad as all that, Kari-bug,” she assured them.
Hana had done her best to block sendings and dreams, but she hadn’t been able to stop them entirely. On a very deep level, her children knew.
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“I mean to go down to the crystal cave for a bit, summon manna and use it to reach him. See… I have not been completely truthful, my loves. Your father has faced a long and difficult struggle. His forces are scattered. I intend to bring him here, to…” Safety? Not even in lies or in jest could she promise them that. “To us,” Hana finished.
Randon and Kara glanced at each other, then back at their too-thin, dark-haired mother. Barely pregnant and terribly drained, she did not seem up to a fight… But they accepted her plan, even so.
The children gave up the best of their hidden treasures, items they’d stashed in their faerie-pockets before being stranded on Vernax 3. From Randon, Hana got a fine dagger, his name day present of years and worlds ago. From Kara, she received a warm cloak and the last block of kelab (gone crumbly-white at its edges, but still sweet and tasty).
“Be safe,” they said to her, tracing signs of protection and warding. “Bring him back.”
Might have been Hana’s imagination, but stress-growth was making them older, fast. She bit her lip, then embraced them in turn and nodded.
“I will do so,” she promised, adding, “In the meantime, Bit and Bob, stay with the Gelfrins.” Using Erron’s nicknames for the “middle and little” made him seem somehow right there. Hana drew a deep, steadying breath, placing one hand against the tiny spark that still shone at her midsection. She had to do this. Had to succeed, for all of them.
“Stay with the Gelfrins,” Hana repeated. “Varric and Shanni have magic. They will look after you, till I’ve returned with your dad.”
And it had almost seemed possible.
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He no longer thought in quite the same way. Found the emotions of others opaque and unimportant since… Since his forceable change at the light-wall. Not long past, as time was measured, but worlds away in switched mind and cold heart.
Maybe they thought that he needed their help or their comfort. If so, they were dead wrong. Miche dropped out of those ragged and scudding clouds, riding a gusty wind to the airship. They saw him coming, first pointing upward then starting to move. He avoided them. Landed as far away as he could, touching down on the Cloud’s battered stern.
Watched, then erected a magical barrier as Marget, Glass-cat, Nameless and Brass Monkey tried to rush over. Sadly (for them) that lot of dead weights couldn’t reach him. He wouldn’t let them get through, casting a silencing spell to shut their clamor and noise. As for Lord Erron, the memory-ghost was still barred from his thoughts. Not deleted because… Well, he just hadn’t gotten around to it, yet. Might need some guidance, or… something.
“Cloud,” Miche said to that creaking and haunted pirate ship. “I alone command you, and you will do as I say.”
‘Yes, Captain,’ responded the airship, inside of his mind. ‘What are your orders?’
He gestured at those who stood, confused and alarmed, on the other side of his transparent mage wall.
“Imprison them all, deep in the ship, in separate cells. Provide them with water and biscuits, but nothing else and no portholes. At once, Cloud.”
‘Aye, Captain,’ sent ship, turning into the wind. Fanged holes yawned open on deck beneath each of the others. Just like that, Cloud swallowed them up, snapping tight over their heads.
A schematic popped into the former elf’s mind, displaying a colored dot for each prisoner. Red, white, amber and gold, the points of light diverged, each flowing to a different part of the airship. Miche nodded his satisfaction, ordering,
“Make certain that they are entirely isolated at first. Heal the orc of its transformation, while letting it slip that they are being held as bait for my enemy. Let it seem that I will allow him to kill them, as part of my plan.”
(Meant to be private. But if his voice rang through each of those drifting, clenched-fist cells, Miche wasn’t aware of it. Wasn’t allowed to be.)
‘Aye, Captain. And do you not intend to do so?’
He did not have to answer that, or anything else. Owed no explanation at all to Dark Cloud. The former elf shook his head, though, saying,
“No. We will part company, Cloud. You will leave this place with the prisoners. Take them…”
In his mind’s eye, Miche could still see the remains of a once-mighty fortress. Could hear himself saying: “Of this heap of stones, I was lord.”
No… not him. The very last elf, back when such a thing had still existed. Miche gave himself a swift shake, putting unwanted longing back in its box.
“You will alter course, heading due east till you come to the coast. Look for a ruined structure at 82.7 degrees east, 26.1 degrees north. There, you will permit your prisoners to escape their cells, but accept no commands from them, now or ever again.”
(Maybe that was heard, too, in four different prisons: his orders being projected by an interfering old scow with a surfeit of haunts. Again, he didn’t know it.)
‘Yes, Captain. Your orders will be followed,’ sent the pirate ship.
Miche wanted to add: “Keep them safe, Cloud. Keep them from trying to follow or help me.”
But he didn’t. Just slapped the scarred wooden wheel, watching reflected ghosts watch him. He’d be glad to be quit of this wretched dark tub and all of its inmates, thought Miche. They’d certainly have an eternity to get back at him, later, for nobody left the Cloud. He was doomed and he knew it. They all were. Question was, how to spend the life they had left?
“Proceed,” snapped the former elf. Then, with no further word and no parting glance, he shot up and away. Fast as a comet, Miche soared into the night. Refused to watch as the Dark Cloud banked away eastward, silent and quick as an owl’s gliding shadow, lit up by ghost-light and flickering lamps. They were a problem for someone else now, the worthless drek lot of them.
Finished, with his mind cleared of worry for those he’d once loved, Miche turned his face to the west. No map to consult, for that had been burnt from his mind. Used altitude and memory, instead. Not that he had far to go, because the Lone Mountain and Rainbow Bridge were just beyond the horizon. Next to last step in reaching the fiend he intended to kill.