35
The trip aboard Majesty took only five days. The airship might have just ported across, but Prince Nalderick preferred to save manna (and to reschedule his game against the vile Raptors). Also, that delay gave him more time to see Lady Sheraza; supervising her meals and deck-access, while trying all that he knew to be charming. Failed at it, mostly, being accustomed to constant flattery and willing acceptance from whomever he fancied. But Sheraza seemed completely uninterested. She was a definite challenge. A beautiful mountain to scale, cold and remote.
As for Genevera, his vexing young sister had to remain on Alandriel’s northern border with her new husband (the musical sea-elf). At least until after the emperor’s ride, when Vernax the Golden was hatched, and His Majesty could do more than guard a huge egg. Godly gifts often came with a slap, and Vernax was one of those… But Ildarion needed his mount, and the people wanted their show.
That left Prince-Ascendant Korvin in charge of the realm, and Father wasn’t much given to kindness or mercy. He headed the justiciars, in fact; running a network of spies, assassins and privateers that kept the empire safe. At a definite price.
Nalderick needed more time, to think and make plans with Lady Solara and Captain Prentiss (both very loyal… he hoped). It hadn’t worked out that way, though. A few minor engagements occurred, and that helped to slow their trip. But sky-vines dropping down to hoist aerriors off the deck…. A pack of savage wild imps… then a floating cannonball boulder… hadn’t teeth enough to take on an imperial dreadnought.
The fights were too short, especially with Solara and the two hostage/ guests aboard. Valerian and Filimar… their baby griffin and big, snowy owl… were accomplished fighters. Sky-vines were magically knotted, burned up or clipped. Imps were banished to the plane of fire. That thundering boulder was crushed by cannon-shot, mage hands and that idiot Filimar, who leapt across and struck at its gemmed weak spot with a blow of his sword. ‘Could have drawn things out a bit longer,’ thought the prince, not very grateful at all.
Next a paladin showed up on deck, first querying Captain Prentiss then porting straight over from the Constellate’s Needle. Or, not just a paladin, but the honored Grand Master himself, Darron Light Seeker.
A drow, (and as much reformed as that fallen breed ever got) the Grand Master sought information. This took place after that huge, floating boulder, which had managed to crack a few starboard-side timbers before being powdered to malice and sand.
“A weapon of fated power has appeared,” said the Grand Master to Nalderick, after arriving on deck. “Three of my junior paladins have dropped from sight at the very same time. This cannot be a coincidence.”
Grand Master Darron was tall for a drow, with shining grey skin and serious, deep-red eyes. He was simply dressed in the lightest of armor but shimmered with power and holy authority. Nalderick inclined his head.
“There are no weapons of fated power aboard the Majesty, Grand Master. I and my mage would know it at once… but you are free to search, if you’d like.”
It was late afternoon, and Majesty had heeled over while a crew of artificers patched up its damaged side. The deck slanted alarmingly, and a strong north wind hissed through the rigging. Sounded a bit like a banshee.
“You mistake me, Your Highness,” said Grand Master Darron, bowing a little. “I seek information. Witnesses who may have news of the missing paladins. Scrying has pointed to Majesty, and three of its passengers.”
Well, he couldn’t mean Sheraza, although any excuse to see her was valued and not to be wasted. His two potential new players, on the other hand…
“You might be thinking of Lords Valerian and Filimar, Grand Master. They are a pair of northerners due to serve in the emperor’s honor guard. If you would care to join me in the captain’s office, I’ll have them summoned… um… along with another possible witness, the Lady Sheraza.”
Grand Master Darron cocked a pale eyebrow, seeming to sense how far the truth was stretched on that last point. If so, he just nodded.
A quarter candle-mark later, all were met in the captain’s luxurious office, at Majesty’s stern. Here, there were tall windows and sumptuous furnishings, while magic kept them from feeling the airship’s deep slant.
Everyone sat at the chart table, facing each other across ornate carved wood and sorcerous maps. The two northerners looked interested, but not very concerned. Tall fellows, both of them; one blond, the other dark-haired and very blue-eyed… Like Sheraza, whose beautiful face was devoid of expression. The slightest of magical bonds constrained her, while nothing at all held the two young lords. (Not even good sense, for Valerian’s owl was back on his shoulder, peering alertly around.)
Lady Solara and Captain Prentiss were present, as well, along with Grand Master Darron. It was he who led the investigation, saying,
“Your Highnesses, lord and ladies… I am here to ask questions regarding three missing Constellate paladins.”
Wait… highnesses? Over the usual noise of creaking wood, firm steps overhead, and the idling engines, Darron continued.
“They are young, just halfway through their first service tour. Sister Constant is their leader, a mortal female with dark skin, hair and eyes. She would be guiding a very large mountain orc and another young mortal, Brothers Humble and Arnulf. You couldn’t miss Humble… much like me, he stands out… but Arnulf is fairly ordinary: brown hair, brown eyes, fair skin. Typical mortal warrior, with the sheen of a changeling about him. Have you any word of them?”
All three potential witnesses reacted, Valerian most strongly.
“Yes, Sir,” he said, rising slightly to bow. “I, erm… do, actually.”
“You may call me ‘Grand Master’ or simply ‘Darron’, Princeling,” said the drow, smiling patiently.
Princeling. Well, of course everyone knew that the One-not-named had lived long enough to father a child. That said child had turned up in Oberyn’s temple surrounded by flowers and clutching a royal signet ring in her tiny hand. That the child had been raised in the temple, then thrust into marriage with a likely young lord as soon as decently possible. That the lord in question had then been sent north to hack out a realm (and hopefully never come back). Hadn’t worked out as planned. Instead, now there was Ilirian, newest of all the Elven-holds. There were children and grandchildren, all of them tainted by exile blood… but it wasn’t safe or polite to mention that.
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Valerian plunged onward.
“Right,” he said. “The paladins you speak of came to Starloft two years ago. They stayed in the village to preach, heal and help with the labor, Grand Master, but… erm… my aunt Meliara met Arnulf… Villem, that is… fell in love and ran off with him.”
The Grand Master frowned slightly.
“A paladin is not supposed to disturb the society in which he or she works,” he said. “Was the lady in question wedded, at the time? Do we owe bride price?”
Valerian shook his head, looking like he’d rather be anywhere else, and causing that owl to nip his right ear.
“Ow! No, she wasn’t. Or, not quite. Aunt Melly was betrothed to a sea-elf prince named Zaresh. Nothing signed, Grand Master. Just an understanding of sorts… which she dropped flat for Villem.”
Filimar cut in next, saying,
“They turned up in Milardin after that, Grand Master, stirring the rabble and interfering with, um…” His blue eyes shifted guiltily over to look at Sheraza.
“They called into question my uncle’s governance of the realm and the city,” she said in a quiet monotone voice, adding, “Perhaps justly.”
Nalderick smiled at her, forgetting politics, treaties, bloodlines and pretty much everything else.
“Right, so…” Valerian took back over, spoiling Nalderick’s mood. “I ended up in Milardin after Filimar found me.”
“He was in Burrough, of all the benighted places. An absolute hole,” broke in Filimar, shaking his head. “Consorting with mortals.”
“Not actually consorting, as such,” protested Valerian. “That is, Rainey proposed marriage, but I am already wed. I have a wife and a baby.” He looked depressed for a moment, glancing north through the window. Then he turned to look back at the Grand Master, saying,
“In Milardin I ran athwart of Lord Arvendahl, who sought to kill me. Having fled underwater with Filimar and several others, I encountered the paladins once again. They were tied up and weighted to drown, and Sister Constant’s throat had been slashed.”
Darron’s eyebrows lifted.
“Indeed. By whom?”
“By my uncle, Falcoridan Arvendahl ob Kenderick,” murmured Sheraza, in a sleep-walker’s drone. “He does not suffer disagreement or rebellion. Did not, rather, for now he is trapped. Neither dead nor alive. His head is a trophy of war, the unicorn has fled, and our realm is given to strangers.”
Nalderick poured wine into a conjured gold chalice, then wafted it across the table to Lady Sheraza. After a moment’s blank stare, she seized and drained the gold cup, mumbling, “I thank you, Prince.”
Which made everything else, all of it, worthwhile. Nalderick was in a very good mood when the next hazard struck. He stood smiling and stretching on deck when a vortex seized Majesty, opening up in the sky like a fanged and bottomless throat.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Needing to hurry, Miche set out to explore. His map had been updated to show him the city, with labels pointing out sites of interest, stores, a vast park and the shrine. It should have been simple to reach his goal, set things right and then leave. But, as luck would have it, there was an obstacle. Gottshan was inhabited, a fact Miche discovered when he came under bowshot and spear cast. Had to duck into a corridor and double back through a maintenance shaft to escape his attackers, then spent some time lurking and finding things out. Turned out that two tribes of fierce former passengers… or maybe invaders… had claimed opposite sides of the city’s once elegant park.
Worse, they’d descended to absolute barbarism, engaging in constant murderous raids. Both parties wanted the big, sunny park floor, where food could be grown and where enemies had little cover. There was a strip of no-man’s land between their territories, and it was there, bang in the heart of a hedge-maze, that he was supposed to find the next shrine. (And shaking the map didn’t help.)
He’d been shot at with arrows and spears, cursed aloud in the city’s horribly altered language. The shafts weren’t wood, but some sort of earth-blood descendent (“Plastic,” supplied Erron). Poorly fletched, tipped in shards of glass or snipped metal, they’d rattled like hail on his shield spell, while the spears most often fell short or burned up, set alight by his magic.
Right. So… Blazing plastic smelled very bad as it shriveled and writhed, causing alarms to sound, and great, screeching fans to start up. Now, Miche crouched on a metal catwalk, close to one of those great metal fans, watching the parkland below. Gimballed scaffolding extended past his position, reaching up to the city’s transparent sphere.
Up here he could see the entire park spread out before him, with two warring settlements clinging to opposite walls. There were pleasant, paved walks… with skulls on posts at the intersections. Reflecting ponds… choked with weeds and dead animals. Gardens torn up for cropland, fenced in crossed bones and staked corpses.
In the midst of all this, was a beautiful hedge maze; maintained by scurrying robot gardeners. Intended for entertainment, the maze had three folly-style buildings, obvious “traps” and a roving mechanical monster. It also held Gottshan’s shrine. This one was shaped like a polished steel egg. It hovered some ten feet over the ground at the maze’s dead center, reached by a spiraling stairway.
“I think I’m going to have to drop down there and hope they’ve got some kind of law against shooting at flying strangers,” he said to Nameless, over a loud, clattering fan. His vantage point was noisy, true, but its artificial wind blew away most of the arrows launched from the platform above. A few rained down to clatter on vibrating metal. Some gleamed with poison and spells, making the elf feel as welcome and wanted as ever. On the bright side he’d healed. That was something.
He’d just about made up his mind to swoop down when a commotion took place at Northend. A group of five people… just kids… were pushed at the border by their shouting fellow North-enders. They were carrying gifts, their arms full of stuffed dolls, fruit and flowers, and they edged slowly forward, approaching the maze and its shrine. Also approaching the massed and waiting South-enders.
There was no way at all that those shivering kids were going to reach the shrine, much less get in. No way that the shouting enemy wouldn’t just quill them with poisoned arrows and spears as they ran for the maze. Only an elf could enter the shrine system, and he was the only one left.
“How long have they been trying this?” Miche wondered aloud, as the jeering South-enders shook their long spears and bellowed threats at those children. There were two boys and three girls, huddled together like terrified sheep, looking backward at safety and home.
Ping, clatter, snik went a dozen more arrows, striking the catwalk around him. Nothing and no one there mattered to Miche. Deserved whatever they got, the whole wretched lot of them… but he couldn’t let this go on.
He launched himself off of the metal platform and into the fan’s roaring wind. Warped its air-blast as he descended, causing that rust-flecked gale to blow him across the park and into the path of those kids. He dropped to the ground, glowing just like a furious elf-lord who’d had all he could take of this place. Landing between the five victims and the maze entrance, Miche shook his head. Didn’t speak. Didn’t sign. Just thrust them away with an airwall.
Northend and Southend fell equally silent as the very last Old One in all this dark world sealed up their shrine with a wall of unbreachable wind. He might’ve said something to the gaping children, but what? Where else could they go, that was any better than here? Amur? Exarod? The crater? All of it stank to the unheeding gods.
He shook his head once again, saying only,
“I’m sorry.”
Next, as the young ones laid down their gifts and backed away, Miche burnt up the offered toys, fruit and flowers with a crackling firebolt. An arrow hissed past his head to lodge with a thunk in one wall of the hedge maze. Figured. You couldn’t do anything good in this place, without getting stabbed in return.
The kids sidled off and then ran, rushing back to the arms of those who’d sent them to die. As for Miche, he levitated up and over that intricate hedge-maze, right to the shrine at its center. Made no use of the spiraling stairs. Just set himself down at the shrine’s glowing portal, took a deep breath and plunged in.