3

The sweet, ringing sound of a dulcimer combined with the lure of Andorin’s voice drew everyone back to the Seahorse, willing or not. Lerendar all but sprinted along that oddly twisting and indistinct street, leading someone… a goblin, he thought… by the hand. They made it down to the harbor, to a lofty standing stone carved from white quartz. Glowing sigils crawled on its surface like spiders, revealing his ship along with the figures of Andorin and Elmaris.

The bard and rogue had remained by the water, not wishing to face the Blessed Isles’ test. It was now evening, with the sun’s fading light giving way to the silvery balm of the moon.

Drawn by soft music, kept from losing himself by the amulet that hung at his throat, Lerendar rushed to the standing stone. There, the Isles’ glamor faded completely. His mind cleared, along with his vision. Elmaris the rogue… new lord, former shade… reached out to take hold of his shoulder.

“Did you find what you sought, oh most noble and generous host?” asked the trickster, half smiling.

The golden-haired elf lord considered a moment. Then, squeezing Pretty One’s hand he released her, saying,

“I think so, yes. There was a… task of some sort that I and the girl were meant to complete… something to do with Valerian, who is in Karellon, now.” Or so he vaguely recalled. Elmaris’s narrow fox-face lit up with open relief.

“Your esteemed sibling is wise enough to vacate Milardin…” he began.

“Or else there’s a price on his hide, higher even than yours,” quipped Andorin, his gills partly flared in amusement.

As the bard continued to play, the rest of their party returned in pairs and small groups; first Lady Alfea and Bronn, then Beatriz and Ava, chatting like old and dear friends. The girls… Miri and Zara… came pelting over to flank Katina, who cuddled Val’s baby like Bean was her own darling child. There were tears on the nanny’s face. Almost running, she looked neither right nor left until she at last reached the standing stone and Seahorse. There, in the glow of its magic, the copper-haired beauty turned to look backward, blowing kisses at a pair of shadowy figures that faded off into the mist.

“I’ll be back, my dear loves,” she whispered. “I promise you.”

Nuzzled the top of Bean’s little golden-fluff head before handing the infant to Lady Alfea. The lovely air-sprite seemed wide-eyed and thoughtful. Close to tears, and a bit defiant, while Bronn appeared proud and determined.

Zara dashed up to her father and Pretty One. Hugged Lerendar’s knees but dodged his grasp like an eel. Seized Pretty One’s hand instead, hissing,

“Pretty, come on! It’s important! Secret club stuff about guarding the princess!” Then, in a rush, “Pappa-I-love-you-plus-one-and-forever-mwah-gotta-go-bye!”

And with that, his daughter dragged Pretty One off to join Mirielle, still beside Lady Alfea and Bean. As the girls fell to whispering, Lerendar shook his head. Then he went over to Beatriz. He took her into his arms, a serious look on his face.

“Enough delay!” announced Lerendar, giving the woman he loved a slight shake. “Here we stand at a holy site on the Blessed Isles, in the presence of witnesses, with a royal bard to speak binding charms. Let us be married.”

Beatriz laughed, buried her face in his chest and then lifted her head, pulling free. Her dark eyes shone with haunted sadness and love as she searched his face.

“Renn… Baby… are you sure?” she asked. “I’m a human. Even with magical help, by your standards, I’m not going to live very long and… and I don’t want you to grieve. I saw…”

Whatever she’d seen, she could tell him later.

“I’ve never been more certain of anything in my life, Bea,” he answered. “My heart finds its rest in you. What more could I ask for… except a brother for Scamp?”

Andorin had stopped playing his dulcimer, though its soft, gentle music still wove all around them like wind through a set of glass chimes. Now he cocked an eyebrow, looking a question at Beatriz. The dusky alchemist nodded, then threw herself back into Lerendar’s arms, sobbing,

“Yes!”

She had no family left but Zara, so Elmaris and Ava agreed to stand in for the missing kin. Meanwhile Katina and Alfea emptied their faerie pockets for glamor and finery. Bea protested the beauty routine, saying,

“The first time he saw me was at my family’s shop in the village, when Dex… when my brother got into an argument with him, and I broke a jar of fire-spice over his head to keep him from killing Dex. He couldn’t see for a week and lost half of his hair, and if he could fall in love after that, I don’t need to look like a princess!”

Both busy attendants sighed ‘Aww…!’ But they kept right on smearing, pinning and primping, turning Beatriz into a beautiful, living doll.

On Seahorse, meanwhile, the groom was prepared by Andorin, Bronn and Elmaris. With ribald jokes, bad advice, strong drink and magic, his three best friends helped to calm a tempest of last-moment nerves.

It was a simple wedding onboard the ship, with golden wrist bands provided by Andorin. A typically elvish, typically short service, lit by the moon and a mighty white stone dredged from the seafloor by dragons, back in the time of myth.

Bride and groom held hands and faced each other, vowing all that lay in their hearts. Lerendar started, being of much higher rank.

“Before family, friends and the Center-stone, Beatriz, I offer myself, with my love and protection, now and for all time to come. My heart and my name are yours, if you’ll have them.”

With a tremulous smile, blinking tears that turned everything wavery, Bea said,

“I love you, Renn… love the baby we have and the one that we’re hoping for… and there’s no place I’d rather be than with you.”

Elmaris for the bride and Bronn for the groom handed a wrist band to their charge. Magically just the right size, those golden bands were exchanged. Fastened by him onto her, and by her onto him, they fit onto his left wrist and her right. Glowed once, then closed seamlessly, to last just as long as the two of them cared for each other.

Next, Prince Andorin spoke, saying,

“By the powers of Sea, Earth and Air, by the gods above and here present, the one God they were and will once again be… you are wedded. Partners in love and creation of life. Be blessed and be happy. So may it be.”

“So may it be!” repeated the witnesses. They crowded around to offer congratulations as Lerendar swept his wife into his arms, spun her and kissed her. It was a golden moment, and Zara held off shouting,

“Ewww! Yucky!” until her parents came up for air.

And so it was.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

But in Karellon (more or less meanwhile) Valerian strode along Bogg Street. A strangely deserted and quiet thoroughfare, now, with tarnished confetti pressed into the mud by hundreds of feet; their prints filling slowly with water.

He stayed on the right… south… side of the miraculous river, keeping that clear running stream between himself and the earlier threat. The city map placed “wizard’s row” on Market Lane, just three blocks over. Easily reached, if he hurried.

Odd, though, that there was suddenly no one about, and no sound at all except sighing wind and loose, banging shutters, along with a yowling stray cat. A Tarandahl was never afraid, so Val wasn’t either… a thing he reminded himself like a charm.

Could have sworn that he sensed other people, but they always seemed to be one street over, or somewhere behind him, as if he walked in a bubble of solitude and pale, chilly moonlight. Magic, quite clearly. Centered on him.

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

The young elf rearranged his faerie pockets, placing his sword, dagger and armor foremost, just in case something attacked. In the shadows across the Bogg Street River something moved, seeming to slip from alley to doorway to arch, keeping always a pace behind Val. Not even misty-step shook his pursuer, who was never quite visible; the faintest congealing of darkness. Strange sigils and runes flowed like black water over the faces of buildings and signs, speaking of unending torment.

Valerian hurried his pace. Wizard’s Row was quite near, and surely proof against phantoms… but also away from the river. Well, he’d just have to get there before his pursuer, decided the elf, casting a sudden bright glow. Warm, rose-golden light flared around him, pinning those shadowy sigils.

Working swiftly, he next raised a shield spell, then misty-stepped thirty feet west, heart racing, ready for battle in Oberyn’s name. Started to reach for the sword in its faerie pocket, but collided with somebody else, first. Or nearly so.

There on the silent corner of Bogg Street and Market Lane, Val encountered another male elf. Slim and smiling, rather pale, the fellow was very well-dressed and lightly armed. Had long, light-brown hair and bronze eyes, and a musical voice in which laughter combined with command.

“In a bit of hurry, are we?” chuckled the stranger, putting a hand forth as if to brace up Valerian. “Hunting for last-moment bargains, or after some rare ingredient, perhaps?”

There was a friendly, simple openness about the stranger that urged Val to relax. He didn’t lower his shield spell, though, or reveal what he’d actually come for. Instead, bowing slightly, the younger elf wove a plausible lie.

“Your pardon, Sir. I am quite late to an entertainment at the home of a lady I fancy,” he said airily, adding, “Wanted to fetch a good love-tincture before turning up, as she is sure to be angry… but now I am being followed, perhaps by a robber. I would not place you at risk, good sir.”

“Merlo,” corrected the stranger, returning Val’s bow. “And you are…?”

Not a fool... though Merlo’s charm was great, the warmth of his smile extremely disarming.

“I am called Miche, or Northerner, by those who best know me.” (Van, too, but only by Fee, his beautiful air-sprite wife.)

“Shorty?” laughed Merlo, who actually had to look up. “Surely a childhood pet-name, as mine was ‘Alyst’ (Scamper) …and I’ve no fear at all of footpads or darkness, dear fellow. Two swords being safer than one, do please accept my companionship.”

Sensing trouble, Valerian took a step back, as shadow gathered behind him like sea-fog.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

Very far off in time and place both, an elf and an orc crossed from one floating isle to the next, searching the place at each stop. They’d left Spots behind on the Island of Miniature Deer, not without a few tears from Marget. But,

“This is a place of safety, and Spots is old enough now to be weaned,” grunted the orc, watching her fawn dart and play. “Here there are others of her kind, and here she will grow mighty enough to rule, claiming all of the males.”

Miche nodded, placing a light, bracing hand on her muscular shoulder.

“Spots will be happy and safe here,” he agreed… but it was hard for the orc, even so. They’d left while the young doe was distracted; into the wind, so as not to hear any last, plaintive bleats. He felt Marget’s loss as part of his own, for there was still no sign at all of Firelord, an absence that clawed at his heart. One he couldn’t safely explain or discuss. Search, though… That, he could do.

The floating islands were not bound to one place, though they held their own trailing formation over the ocean of cloud. Some were larger than others, featuring lakes, caverns and forested mountains. A handful turned out to be wobbling boulders with grassy tops and puddles of rainwater cupped in stone hollows. Three of these harbored scattered and picked-over skeletons. Marget snuffed at the last such unfortunate, shaking her head.

“No scent lingers but weather and chalk. How came this one here, do you think?” They’d been wafting from island to island as wind and manna allowed, a journey that so far had taken three days. Miche turned from raising clean fire.

“Marooned, or else murdered elsewhere and gated here,” guessed the elf, whose spell-hand was edged in bright flame.

“Cowards,” spat Marget. “Traitors. The Free Folk would never allow such a thing!”

Maybe not. She was the only orc Miche knew in this place, so he had to accept her word. Nodding, he started to answer. Then the sky opened up to the west and a little above. For an instant, Miche and Marget glimpsed a black airship and part of another, in skies long ago and away. A great shard of metal plunged like a meteor out of that wavering gap. It shrieked past the startled pair to strike the base of the next island over, raising a great cloud of dust and a thundering BOOM. There it stuck fast; red-hot and ringing aloud like the clang of forged iron.

“Uhn?” grunted Marget, too spooked to curse.

Miche recovered first. He burned up those pitiful bones, speaking a charm of release. Nameless leaned partway out of his hood. Had one small paw on his shoulder. The other was lifted up as the marten sniffed wet, sea-scented air. The gap snapped shut in the wake of that hurtling shard, but there’d been a sense of… rightness. Of home and belonging.

But… his home, or Lord Erron’s? Once again, the orc turned to Miche for answers.

“We are attacked?!” she demanded, right hand clenched like a boulder around the haft of her axe.

The elf considered a moment, then shook his head, no. Meanwhile, a thin stream of dark smoke trailed away from burnt bones and dried leather, drifting off to whatever rest the dead one had earned. Avoiding that winding black thread, Miche answered her question.

“There is a way to fight using distortion of space and time. It is costly of manna… requires much preparation… but holes can be seeded into the path of an enemy vessel.” Javelin fought that way, he recalled, through Erron’s memories. “Such a spell can tear the oncoming ship to matchwood, unless it dodges in time.”

Marget glanced around at the suddenly threatening sky, muttering something foul and scornful about every Old One but Miche.

“Have they no thought for where those chunks fall?” she demanded. Miche could only shrug, feeling suddenly bleak.

“It seems not,” he admitted. In the moment, winning the battle was all that mattered. As a massive earth-crawler cares not at all where it places its feet, so the elves hadn’t troubled over the cost of their wars to everyone else. A thing he was suddenly very ashamed of. He kept himself busy, in order to make a diversion.

The next island over proved nearly as large as the first had been. It was honeycombed all the way through, forming a series of hangars and berths. Its surface was covered in weather-worn ruins. From here, the southern edge of the rift was just visible. Looked like a continent pounded by swirling white oceans of mist. Elf and orc explored the large island, which held not even ghosts anymore. Just a faint grid of buildings and streets up above, and hundreds of docking berths, down below. Most of these were abandoned.

Miche led their way through a smoothly-bored passage and into another large cavern. ‘Station 1210’ read the chipped, fading paint on the wall by the entrance. And there still cradled by magic and shielding, rested an oddly familiar black airship.

Cautiously, Marget and Miche drew nearer. The orc stared, then rumbled aloud, growling,

“That thing is sorcerous, still, or it would not be floating, this way.”

True enough, as all the rest were a tangle of rigging, timbers and crumpled tanks at the base of the cavern. Miche frowned, saying,

“When I woke in this place, after I got away from… after escaping... I found a wrecked craft and I entered it.” With hindsight and Erron’s experience, he knew it now for a crashed airship. Not Javelin, which had ground to its final rest on a mountaintop. “In that one, I found a powerful memory drive. I would search this one as well, Meg.”

She turned to stare at him, nostrils flaring, head rearing back in surprise. ‘Meg’ was ‘gem’ or ‘rare gift’ in the language they shared. It was a name for the closest of close; blood-bonded friends who would die for each other, back-to-back until swept away by the war tide. Maybe he knew that, and maybe he didn’t… this slight, fragile brother. This friend.

“Have it your own way,” she snapped. “But if we die here, this day, I will track you down in the hunting grounds and gut you the first three times you’re reborn. Promise, not threat.”

He grinned at her, suddenly. First time he’d ever done that, here.

“Come on,” he said to the orc, jerking his head at the airship. “We’ll find something out or we’ll die, and then you can have a good time hunting me down through eternity.”

“You are a fool, and I am a greater one, Vrol,” grumped Marget, trudging along beside Miche. Across the stone floor to the airship’s hangar bay, then to a waist-high steel pylon, set with switches and levers that still dimly glowed.

“Underpowered,” murmured her brother, thinking through Erron’s experience. “But I believe I can get us aboard. A moment…”

And then the elf set to work.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Elsewhere (and very far other-when), an old-fashioned memory drive was handed off yet again. This time it went from an open transport cart to a bio-synthesis tech drone.

A high-functioning robot programmed with simian engrams, the drone was tasked with keeping the vat liquids primed and readying stock for insertion. This one altered its path just .012%, plausibly investigating the rasping bump and scrape of that transport cart on the loading dock.

There were no passengers and no freight on the cart, and so the robot reported, after receiving a transfer. The drone then selectively purged its own memory files, leaving only the order to resume its rounds, and perform a very important last job.

The bio-synthesis lab was a cavernous warehouse of bubbling vats, but only forty were active. One of these… V47 Pilot, of Gold Flight… was near decantation. The vat had produced a full body this time, rather than simply a core.

As always, the tech drone’s ape mind scanned readouts and brainwaves, adjusted electrolyte balance and circuitry flow. It also darted away from a mindless cleaning-bot, bumping V47’s vat in the process.

Just for a tick, while sudden low oxygen klaxons erupted from Red Flight’s sector, drone and vat were in physical contact. In that loud, confused instant, perhaps a memory drive was slotted into the vat’s receptacle, screened from view by the tech-drone’s polished chrome chassis. A nano-tick stretched like a crawling eternity. Then, on the vat’s uplink screen:

Device detected

Device accessed

Scanning data file

Loading…

Loading…

Loading…

Data accepted

There were no cheers at all, as assets continued their labor, the entertainment division produced yet another realistic diversion, and a recorded, stored person came back to life.

Free of compulsion or servitude.