The pleasant blue sky was hard to pick out between the dense tangle of branches and pink flowers. The Realm of Stone gave Shane the impression of resembling the place from his dreams, except in daylight. His initial assessment was quickly revised as the size of the trees became apparent. Much taller than the Teeth of the Red Dragon, at least one-hundred thousand feet tall, blooming like cherry blossoms in spring.
What flying things live in those trees? Shane wondered.
Shane stood high upon a stone shelf looking out over a landscape of fallen pink flowers that coated the ground like snow. The stone below was black and brown and marbled with veins of some orange gemstone. Scattered across the horizon were more stones, flat and wide, perfect for skipping across water, but wider than cities and thicker than mountains. They were stacked, one upon another, tens of thousands of feet into the sky with immaculate artistry. Shane turned to see another stone behind him and a third above, and in that moment he realized he was standing in the middle of such a stack, somewhere high above the ground.
With a flash of pinkish orange light, the geomancer arrived in the Realm. She began walking away from the escarpment. Shane followed.
"How far is it?" he asked.
She pointed to a long stone staircase weaving up the vertical stone wall just ahead.
"At the top," she replied.
Without saying another word, Shane enveloped them both in storm sorcery and raced up toward the terminus of the stairs.
"I'm afraid," she protested.
"Too bad," Shane said.
When he crested the edge of the stone shelf above, he saw a smaller version of a cherry blossom tree growing on an island in a small pool of water. The Stone Elemental floated at the base of the tree. Shaped like a woman, like the other Elementals, but wearing a pink cloth garment that blended the aspects of a dress, a fancy dress suit, and a bathrobe. Shane had never encountered a culture, in life or in his reading, which was known to wear such clothing.
You come in haste, the Stone Elemental observed. A true master of sorcery. I offer you my power, in exchange for your spiritual energy. Do you accept?
"Yes!" Shane said.
They left the Realm of Stone with equal haste. When the nameless geomancer opened a portal to the Plane of Dreams, Shane felt the flavor, or direction, of that source of magic. With another flash of light he arrived back in the crumbling factory, surrounded by trembling workers. Questing with his spiritual energy in that same direction, he quickly established a connection to the Realm of Stone.
"That was fast," the geomancer said. She offered him a small, heavy sack. Within, Shane found a dozen smooth stones, each laced with parallel bands of golden crystal. "It takes months for apprentices to learn how to manipulate the stones."
The building shook with another blast of draconic sorcery. "We don't have months," Shane said. He held the stones in one hand, and waved his other hand over them, feeling the magic. The stones responded in a small way. He channeled his spiritual energy into a counter response, and then he could suddenly feel the stone. It was exactly like drawing another person into storm sorcery. He lifted the stone off his palm, and then drew the other stones in as well, rotating them around a single point.
"Impossible," the geomancer muttered. "It took me three months."
"It did take me months to learn storm sorcery," Shane admitted. "Vaska designed the magic system in our world. She is an engineer, and she likely taught all of the Elementals to recognize the same engineering conception of velocity, direction, and position. Geomancy works exactly like storm sorcery."
"Who the hell is Vaska?"
"The Consort Eternal!" he cried as he rushed out of the room.
Back outside in the factory quad, the roof was on fire in places, and the far wall was on the verge of collapsing inward. Shane floated up out of the quad once again. He sensed Felix flying far away, somewhere out over the water perhaps. Three more airplanes were racing through the city, far to the east, cutting flaming swaths through the city streets. How long have I been gone? he wondered. A minute or two, perhaps. Maybe more. Either way, the city can still be saved.
Traveling to the Realm of Stone specifically was a gamble, but he needed to trust his instincts, and he needed to do something. Standing on the roof of the factory, he released his storm sorcery. Then he connected to the Realm of Fire, the Realm of Lightning, and the Realm of Wind. Punching the empty night sky, he shot a stream of azure draconic flame upward. Then he carefully released the connection to the Realm of Wind, while retaining the other connections, and then connected to the Realm of Stone, effectively swapping one element for another.
The combination worked. He knew it immediately. Without further thought, he slammed his palms together, and poured all the power he could into this new type of sorcery. Flame and lightning compacted into a single point, crystalizing. Layer by layer, the crystal grew, glowing with a brilliant sea-blue light that seemed to darken even the lights of the city all around. Shane had seen this same effect every time Astrid would summon a new purple crystal spire.
Abruptly the crystal stopped growing and the sorcery cut off. He tried to strike the little blue seed of crystal with more sorcery, but nothing happened. Something was still missing.
A flash of cyan light. His Dream Elemental appeared.
You need to make a Wish, silly!
Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!
Astrid had a High Daughter of the Queen of Dreams. That must have been the source of her unrecognizable magic. This new type of draconic sorcery, using the Realm of Stone, combined with the Wish spell using a Dream Elemental. He needed something to protect the city, something that would cover it from above. He imagined those great cherry blossom trees in the Realm of Stone, and the answer came to him.
"I Wish for a place for flying things!"
The blue crystal seed exploded with blue light and mist. Using storm sorcery, Shane raced over the edge and down into the factory quad once more. He amplified his voice with wind magic: "Abandon the factory! Flee through the front door. Get as far away as you can!"
The whole building began to shake as a pillar of blue crystal grew down toward the ground. At a deliberate pace, without hurry or delay, the pillar began to spread out at the base, growing into roots that penetrated the factory floor, crushing the unfinished airplanes and most of the tooling. The burning wall to the west finally collapsed inward, only to be deflected away by the expanding trunk. Shane levitated through the factory, repeating his warning, and the workers were already clambering to escape.
Through the front door they raced out into the streets. Shane looked up and saw the top of the trunk splitting. Low-hanging branches were expanding out over the tops of buildings on all sides of the tree, while the high branches were splitting recursively. The whole city was bathed in bright blue light.
Shane tried to sense Felix. The other man was no longer flying toward the city.
----------------------------------------
Up at an angle and parallel to the shore, Felix glanced over his shoulder at the madness that was developing far below. The whole city was illuminated by a glowing blue crystal tree, which was slowly but steadily growing from the ruins of the airplane factory.
"Dammit Shane!" he hissed.
Another Quarian pilot was approaching the tree, making a pass to attack the factory. Felix felt his heart sink as a low hanging branch grew down, trapping the poor man. With a nose-dive and a swift kick to the rudder, the man almost dodged the incoming branch, but one wingtip stuck and the wing came off completely. A few swift tumbles through the air and the poor fellow impacted a home, vanishing from sight.
Felix hoped that the other pilots had seen the new danger. He pointed his nose away from the shore, and then down at the red beacons in the water. He blasted the air in front of him with repeated streams of crimson flame, hoping to catch the attention of the other pilots. Thankfully, as he approached the beacons, skimming just over the ocean, he glanced back and saw five pairs of red lights following him.
After crossing the beacons, he pointed his nose vertically and ascended until he could see the shielded lights of the aircraft carrier. As he turned into the base leg of the traffic pattern, he could see the huge blue tree looming over the city. It had grown from the factory all the way out over the five blue spires, almost to the ocean, and out over the jungle hills on the opposite side. Long branches drooped down between the spires, making a death trap for anything trying to fly through the city.
The Captain was flying the airship into the wind, at an angle toward the city, at full power. This allowed Felix to land in a very short distance. The airmen, dressed completely in black clothing, materialized out of the thin fog like phantoms and hurriedly dragged his airplane to the edge of the deck. The first of the five returning pilots was rolling over into the downwind leg of the traffic pattern.
The blue light from the crystal tree was so bright that it illuminated the starboard side of the airship, just enough to see the ladders leading down to the gantries between the airships. Felix found the Captain on the flight deck of the rear airship. A handful of candles on the floor were the only source of light. There was a thud from the deck above as the first aircraft landed.
"Shane is in the city," Felix said. "And apparently, he can create blue crystal trees now."
"So I see," the Captain said.
"The mission has changed. We need to report this development to the Lord Paladin immediately."
"How many of your pilots survived?"
Another thud from the upper deck.
"Five survived, so three more have yet to land."
"Are we in danger?"
"That is possible. Shane can transform into a drake. We should be able to see him against the blue light unless he skims the ocean. I find it unlikely that he will find us."
"I want spotters on every airship watching for enemy fliers," the Captain bellowed. "Engines at full power, full climb. Pull in the wind sails."
"Yes Captain!" the pilot at the helm said. The wind mage repeated the command into the brass communication horns.
A third airplane landed hard, causing the carrier to shake.
"If any of the spotters see a drake leaving the city, we cut the engines and let the wind take us away from the city. Once the last of the airplanes lands, nobody on my ship, not even the helium mage, is permitted to use magic."
----------------------------------------
Shane soared through the night sky. The brilliant blue light of the crystal tree had long since dimmed, and since the blue leaves and branches blocked most of the light of the city, he saw almost nothing in the darkness over the harbor. Wispy fog blocked the light in places, and the clouds far overhead blocked the starlight, but enough of the ocean was visible to reveal the crimson flames of the aircraft exhaust. Even with his enhanced vision, Shane saw nothing.
How do six airplanes simply vanish? he wondered.
There was that strange pair of rafts in the water, burning with dull red light. He flew around those rafts in an upward spiral, higher and higher, his wings empowered by Astrid's blessing.
Did they cut their engines? Are they gliding over the ocean?
He tested this theory by spreading his wings and gliding away from the city. There was a strong, cold tailwind blowing off the desert in the north, and this tailwind caused him to sink very rapidly toward the ocean.
No, the airplanes would have dropped out of the sky like rocks.
"Light Elemental!" he growled. "Do you detect any Shadow Hunters?"
He waited. The Light Elemental did not answer. And why would she? Felix was a retainer of House Anna-Rhea, just like himself. They both swore oaths, and the Light Elemental would not aid in any attempt to kill Felix. The Light Elemental, presumably, could not lie, so her silence was itself a type of information.
"Me must be close," Shane muttered. "Which means that he landed out here somewhere. He landed in the sky."
He turned around and flew into the wind. Drawing in a huge breath, he breathed draconic flame into the wind at an angle. The Light Elemental did not forbid it, which meant that Felix was not in that direction.
I see where you are going with this, the Light Elemental said in his mind. What do you intend to do when you find him? I forbid violence.
"I'm just curious," Shane admitted. "I want to see the contraption that allowed Felix to land his airplane in the sky."
He fluttered around in the sky, blasting draconic breath at nothing in particular, and craning his serpentine neck around as the last of the plume vanished. Finally he saw it. Reflecting the azure light of his flames, about a mile away, Shane saw the abomination. Four airships strung together with steel beams, crowned with a long wooden deck. A few more flashes of light revealed more details. The propellers were not spinning, and the wind sails had been deployed on all four airships. Shane heard only the wind.
"Clever," he said.
He was alone, and if the other pilots decided to take flight, he could still be in danger. There were no Light Elementals to prevent the regular Quarian airmen from killing him. There were still at least five other airplanes besides Felix on that airship. He didn't like the odds, so he turned back toward the city. Beating his leathery wings against the wind, he began to descend.