The Selasi continued up to the pass, keeping the three Wisp Seekers and Jarnvaror under guard. Their guards weren’t an oppressive force. The trio had been given horses to ride while the group moved. But the soldiers had eyes on them constantly. Each had a dedicated soldier, who’s primary way of keeping watch over them was conversation, politely preventing the three from talking to each other. Peter was stuck with the Osei, the elder of the two guards that had ridden out to them, while the younger, Kofi, who Peter had dueled was in conversation with Andrew. Anna had been paired with an old mage named Ashon. He was dressed in robes similar to the queens advisors, though he was older than most of them.
“We’ve thought for a long time that the Wisps might have had some connection to the High Elves,” the old man said. “It sounds as though your research has justified this belief.”
“Do you know how they’re connected?” Anna asked.
Ashon his head. “Oh, no. It’s to dangerous to research them much directly, and most of the histories don’t mention them. It’s been an assumption based on the records we do have. If I had to guess, I’d say they are High Elf constructs that have fallen into disrepair with no one to perform the proper maintenance.”
“Constructs?” Anna asked. “Like enchantments? Those need maintenance?”
“The more complicated or powerful ones do,” the mage said. “The High Elves had long lives, longer even than the Elves of Grealand do today. They were probably made with that in mind. But, after the Catastrophe,” the mage shrugged. “Well, we just don’t have enough information.”
“I understand that feeling,” Anna said, glancing at her bracelet.
“Mind if I join you?”
Anna looked over and saw the Queen riding next to them, smiling. On her other side rode a man in jet black armor, unlike any of the other soldiers. The style looked a little more Grealish, but not quite. It didn’t have a visor the way Grealish helmets would, but it did conceal his face. Rather than a pole arm, a giant, double edged blade nearly as long as he was tall rested against his back. He didn’t face the group, but he was too close not to listen in.
“We do not mind at all, your Excellency,” the mage answered for Anna. Anna nodded as well, and the queen smiled at her.
“Lovely!” the queen said. She turned to Anna, here eyes gleaming. “I was wondering if you’d be able to introduce me to that special Wisp your friend mentioned. The one called Halcyon, yes?”
“Oh… I suppose I could, your excellency, but I haven’t tried to bring him out just to… show him off before. He might be confused.”
The queen grimaced. “Ah, I see. Also, I should mention: that honorific is meant to express fealty here. If I recall, that’s not how the Grealish do things, right?”
“Wait… you mean ‘your excellency?” Anna asked.
The queen nodded. “Right. Unless you’re planning on moving here, you should probably just call me Queen Talitha, like Darius here does.” She gestured at the sable knight.
“He’s not from here?” Anna asked.
“I am not,” echoed a deep voice from inside the helm. “I am from across the seas. My people only just learned of your continent, and we wished to make contact. Much as you, so I hear.”
“And he couldn’t resist tagging along on this expedition to get a look at the Wisps,” Queen Talitha added.
The warrior shrugged his shoulders. “They do not exist across the seas,” he said. His voice trilled with an accent that Anna couldn’t place.
“They don’t?” Anna said. The knight nodded. “That would support their connection to the High Elves wouldn’t it?”
“Oh, yes,” said the old mage. “That was our thought as well when we encountered Darius and his companions.”
“Are your companions here?” Anna asked.
“No,” Darius said. “They remained with other members of the court, discussing arrangements for further communication.” He turned toward Anna. “It would be good for us to begin such talks as well.”
Anna nodded. “Well, we’re trying to enter talks like that with Selasem ourselves. Perhaps your people can join in.”
The knight nodded, then turned back to the road.
“Back to the Wisps,” Queen Talitha began, “If you can’t bring yours out, perhaps you could answer some other questions for me?”
“I can try,” Anna agreed.
The queen smiled. “First off, you’re quite sure your Wisp is thinking on its own, right?”
Anna nodded. “Yes. And so are the others.”
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“Fascinating,” the Queen said. The mage sniffed. “Does that concern you, Ashon?”
“Concern? No,” replied the old mage. “But we’ve always thought of them as sort of machines or magical constructs. If they can think… well, I don’t even know how much that changes about what we know.”
“Or thought we knew,” Queen Talitha agreed.
“Couldn’t they still be creations of the High Elves?” Anna asked.
“If so, then the High Elves were something more than skilled magicians,” Ashon said. “But I don’t know what else they could be. Something natural transformed by them? Another race? It could be anything.”
The queen shrugged. “That goes beyond my abilities. I’m mostly concerned with what that means for using them.”
“Using them?” Anna gasped.
“Of course,” Queen Talitha said. “Isn’t that what you’re doing?”
“No!” Anna replied automatically, with a bit more force than she intended. Both Ashon and Darius glanced at her, and the queen raised her eyebrows. “I mean… I’m trying to help them,” Anna explained. “I’m working with them as best I can. Sometimes, they help me.”
Queen Talitha nodded after a moment. “I see,” she said. “But there are people using them, like tools. We may need to do the same for self-defense, if we can’t convince some of yours to help us.”
Anna didn’t say anything. It hadn’t occurred to her that anyone other than the Wisp Stealers might try to use the Wisps. As she thought about it though, it seemed natural that people would try and copy them, to use the Wisps as a weapon against anyone else who might do the same. She shivered. Is this what Halcyon wanted help preventing? She wondered. She focused on her bracelet, and she could feel just a hint of Halcyon’s influence coming out to calm her.
“I suppose that’s… understandable,” Anna said.
“Would you be able to tell us how to control them, then?” Talitha asked.
Anna shook her head. “No, I can’t. It’s one of the things we’ve been trying to figure out. The Wisp Stealers use a very different method than what I do. They don’t treat them like living creatures. They’re tools for power.”
“But you don’t know how,” said the Queen.
“I can tell you what it looks like from the outside,” Anna said.
“So could we,” the mage said. “They strengthen a mage’s spell casting and a warrior’s body, and they lend each an aura of influence over the field around them, which they seem to be somehow immune from.”
Anna nodded. “Right. But how they actually get to that, I don’t know. How do they weave the magic together? How much can they do at once? Why they’re doing it in the first place? We’ve never learned any of that.”
“That’s irksome,” Queen Talitha muttered.
Anna agreed. “The one thing I think I can tell you, based on how the Wisps I’ve worked with have responded, they don’t like it being under that spell. I don’t think they understand it either. I don’t know if it causes them pain, or if they can’t stand being confined. At the very least, though, it frustrates them.”
Queen Talitha considered that for a moment. “I imagine, then, we’d be choosing between your method and that of the Wisp Stealers.”
“Probably.”
Talitha nodded, and they rode in silence for another minute or so before she continued. “But how would my people be able to use your method?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” Anna said. “I try and work with them. Any time they help me, it feels like a gift, or a favor. They do want something in return, but they seem to at least understand that we can’t communicate very well, so they’re being patient, however badly they want it. But they’ll protect me from the influence of other Wisps. A few times, they’ve helped me use magic. They do it on their own, though.”
“Would you say they are using you, then?” the mage asked.
Anna thought for a moment, thinking back to her first meeting with Sol, when he tested her for control. Anna shook her head. “Not exactly. It’s symbiotic, I think. I feel like I owe Halcyon a debt, and I want to help him.”
“Interesting,” Ashon said.
Another member of the company announced they were getting close to the ruins. Anna wasn’t sure what they meant until, she saw the piles of stone bricks and crumbled walls sticking out of the ground between the trees.
The forest and the old city were one, now. Domes rose out of the ground, visible only as manmade structures where the dirt was thin and Anna saw the tiles underneath. Colapsing walls sprouted out of the ground, surrounding some trees, or just operating between them. Huge trees, wider around than Anna if she stuck out her arms, grew from some. Little bushes and shrubs grew on others.
And every so often, between the trees, high in the air, flashed smokey yellow lights.
“Those are Wisps,” muttered the black clad warrior, head tilting up as they rode under the Wisps.
Unease ran through the company as man after man noticed them. “We’re still far enough away that their influence won’t reach us,” Anna said.
“I didn’t know they would travel that high up,” Queen Talitha said.
“I haven’t seen it before, either,” Anna said, wondering at it.
“Perhaps they are climbing with the trees,” suggested the mage.
“Maybe,” Anna said, though that didn’t sound quite right to her. “They could also be trying to avoid us. The only Wisps I’ve seen around groups this large are those taken by the Wisp Stealers.” Come to think of it, her own hadn’t ever come out in such large groups, either, accept to defend her. “It could also be that the thing drawing them to these ruins are higher up the mountain,” she added.
She could see that much more of some of the old structures were still outside the ground. There was a pattern to it. She could almost make out what the topography of the city would have been based on the remains of the doorframes.
“What exactly draws them to the ruins?” Queen Talitha asked.
“We’ve found a fountain with a tree that matches their glowing in two of the ruins,” Anna explained. “We think that draws them, but we don’t know how or why.”
“Surely that’s been buried after so long,” Ashon said.
“If it wasn’t buried in those other places, than it probably wasn’t here,” Talitha said. “Let’s keep going.”
The path through the ruins wound uphill and between the trees. They moved slow, keeping an eye on the Wisps overhead. Anna’s bracelet began to glow blue, and she could feel Halcyon’s influence beginning to seep out. Queen Talitha watched her, but said nothing. Anna tried to focus on the Wisps themselves.
She noticed they all seemed to be flowing in the same direction, ahead of them and off to the left, uphill. A short cliff, about the size of a two or three story building jutted out of the mountain itself. At the top, Anna could see more Wisps, some of which glowed red. She pointed it out to the others. “I think that’s where the fountain is,” she said.
“It looks big enough for a plaza,” Ashon noted. “And the cliff looks unnatural. Perhapse the roof of the city center was used as a— heavens!” he gasped, almost falling out of the saddle.
As the group watched as the air at the top of the cliff shimmered, going out and then pulling in many of the Wisps nearby.
“That’s not normal, is it?” Queen Talitha asked, looking about as shocked as her advisor.
“No,” Anna said. “The Wisp Stealers are here!”