Authors and their Characters:
Mura: Peino Starhand, Jeneyeru Nightwise, Ruili Windwolf, Thimble, Haug Handslayer, plus minor characters and world-building
Maurepas: Jean Lafitte III, Beau Bergeron, Tayliana Winddancer, plus minor characters and La Danse Calinda
Bazalonia: Ionas Farseer, Y’lanna Sparti
Avayu: Lotye O’Tulvar
Storm and warfare raged on Mt. Isolla, but the day passed mildly over Thimble’s small boat once Y’lanna Sparti was back on it and Beau Bergeron was not.
Thimble had to admit a certain disappointment at losing the despicable assassin so quickly, before they could begin to play properly, but if the fool couldn’t even manage to keep a boat under his feet, perhaps the faerie had over-estimated the eorman. All for the best, then, for a bother missed is no bother at all. Thimble turned his thoughts to his mission.
The two remaining Calinda-men, having accepted that their boss’s disappearance over the side had left them with nothing to do, had spent the rest of the voyage doing just that — nothing, aside from ogling Y’lanna. Their boating party relaxed into a sense of near-recreation as the river carried them effortlessly and the sun lowered into dusk. Thimble watched the men watching Y’lanna dry herself from her fall into the river. Pleased, he felt a song rising within him again.
“I’ll tell my ma when I go home
The boys won’t leave the girls alone
They pull my hair, they steal my comb
But that’s alright till I come home,” he warbled.
“She is handsome, she is pretty
She is the belle of the Golden City
She is a-courting one, two, three
Please won’t you tell me who is she?”
The men’s ears turned red, and Thimble laughed. “Aye, ‘tis a fine, rare night a-brewing, is it not, lads. How soft the air, and what larks and treasures a man might find in his way, eh?”
Larks and treasures indeed. Men such as these thought of little else, and on that Thimble was counting. Let dreams of pleasure and gain calm their tattered nerves.
Dusk had turned to twilight when they reached the bridge at the high road to Teur. Without question, the Calinda-men set about tying up the boat as Thimble bade them.
“Pull it up the bank, you laggards,” he scolded them, “or it’ll be hung up on that piling.”
While the men hauled the boat up over the mud, Thimble turned to Y’lanna and pulled a small leaf of a certain plant from his waistcoat pocket. “Pardon me, milady, if you please,” he said, and he touched the leaf to Y’lanna’s head, saying a single word in Atul. “Naiko.”
With the barest sigh of displaced air, the voluptuous, purple alien vanished, leaving a tiny, gray mouse in her place, amongst the grass. Giggling, Thimble put away the leaf.
“Oy, where’d the purple lass go?” said one of the Calinda-men, looking up and about.
“Who?” said Thimble, and before the they could respond, he thought another word, ‘avr’, and turned into a speckled owl with the same round, glaring eyes as the man he’d been a fraction of a second before.
Thimble-owl hopped onto Y’lanna-mouse and, grasping her in his talons, spread his great wings and flapped away into the forest. He was fairly certain the men would be standing there and blinking there for a few minutes before the next ‘oy’ came out of their mouths. By that time, they would be utterly irrelevant.
Technically, the spell he’d cast was dangerous, even questionable, but it one that came naturally to the fae of Aeldreth. Other folk might burn a lot of aura to transform both themselves and another, but shapeshifting was second — no, first nature to his kind. A thought and a word were all he needed to alter the energies that defined the forms of things. Thus, with little more than the imagining of it, lady became mouse and man became owl, and off they went. There was no vulgar bending of bones or crushing down of mass. Some wizards might do such things, but that was not shapeshifting. With this magic, the change was at the level of fundamental concept. Was woman, is mouse. Was man, is owl.
Few in the magical world of Aeldreth truly understood magic, because few ever stopped to think about it. Magic was simply the natural condition, but the fact was that physical manifestation was inherently unstable here. The force called “aura” kept everything in a more or less fluid state, which made it easy change the flow, as it were, if one knew how. For some, this came as an inherent talent while others had to learn it with varying degrees of success. But easy or difficult, it was not bizarre to the natives of this reality. Thimble’s trick would be no more amazing to the dimwitted air-pirates than it was to Thimble himself, though they would certainly curse him for being quicker than them off the mark. But for foreigners like Lady Y’lanna or, as Thimble was sure, Beau Bergeron and Captain Lafitte — well, who knew how things were wherever they came from. For all Thimble knew, all worlds might be the same.
Howsoever be it, what mattered in the end was that, for a faerie like him, shapeshifting was as easy as sitting in a chair.
The transformed faerie owl beat a swift and wild route through the forest, covering the distance in a fraction of the walking time. The light had not yet gone completely by the time he swooped into the town of Teur, over the market square and high lane, right to the very gate of the garrison base. There, with another thought, the owl poofed into the valet of the Lord Magus of the Grand Navigators. A wave of the leaf, and Y’lanna-mouse stood up as Y’lanna-woman again, with nary a button out of place.
The guard at the gate raised an eyebrow and looked them up and down.
“My good man,” said Thimble, bowing briskly, “We come from His Serene Highness, Peino of Ereon, Prince of the Sovereign Duchy of the Grand Navigators, under marque of the High King of Lyrion, to speak with your commander with utmost urgency. Conduct us, if you please.”
The guard looked them up and down some more, and then pulled a cord hanging down the wall beside him. A bell rang within.
“If you are as you say,” said the guard, “you’re expected.”
Indeed, they were expected. Apparently, the High Court in Sesus had psychegraphed the situation upon their departure days ago. The commander of the Garrison of the North had a platoon ready to mobilize. As soon as King Iviar’s letter of marque had assured him that Thimble and Y’lanna were indeed the agents of the Prince of the Navigators, he ordered his forces into action.
Thimble outlined the brothers’ plan and pointed out on the commander’s map who was where and what forces were in play as far as he knew.
“We shall leave before midnight,” the commander said, and left Thimble and Y’lanna to their own devices until then.
For his part, Thimble sat himself down on a barrel on the parade ground where the platoon was mustering, and lit his pipe.
“Aye, it is a fine, rare night, after all,” he said. “I hope, milady, you don’t mind the liberty I took, but under the circumstances, I thought you’d rather be carried by me than by your two would-be suitors.” Laughing again, he settled down to hum a tune along with the hustle and bustle of the soldiers.
They were a fine company in their shimmering uniforms of the Army of the Water Realm, their weapons all aglow with spells, and their thousand-league boots and impenetrable cloaks. Fast and stealthy would clearly be the watch-word of this night.
An armorer stopped by with a hand-cart. “Captain’s compliments, and I’m to offer you your fit of boots and cloaks for the journey, if you’re coming along.”
“Of course we are, you insulting dolt,” Thimble snapped in the perfunctory manner of one expected to respond a certain way. “Do you think I’m not eager to rush to my master’s side just because I’ve stopped for a pipe? Come, let me see what you’ve got.”
He looked to Y’lanna. He liked this strange lady, yes, but after all, who and what was she? She’d fought well and managed her many adventures nicely enough so far, but was that a matter of her character or just an accident of being carried along by a swift river of events? Now they’d had some time to think about what they were going to do. It was one thing to fight in self-defense as she had up to now. Would she be prepared to take up arms and go to war? It was time to find out.
“Come, milady,” he said, “suit up if you will march with us. You’ll like these boots. They’ll carry you a mile in a step and a thousand leagues before you know it. Of course, we’re not going that far, so try not to get ahead of me, or yourself for that matter.”
Beyond his natural sea-elf talents with the wind and the waves, Ionas never had any real experience or aptitude in magic. His life had been devoted to much more mundane and dull areas. The dull and repetitive competition between rival shipyards, the tedious social events, the boring life contained within the walls of the Ymuin estate.
However, now he found himself right in the middle of The Magi’s Stronghold on Mt. Isolla. That’s what he loved about La Danse Calinda. It was strange, it was unlike anything else and he’d never had the exact same scenarios repeated. He continually encountered new experiences, new threats, new wonders and despite the dangers he thoroughly enjoyed it. At least when he was in the thick of it like he was now.
Honestly, he couldn’t believe it. He was here, standing right beside Lord Peino Starhand inside the Mt. Isolla Stronghold of the Guild of Magi. This was it. This was his chance to show everyone, especially Starhand, what he had and what he could contribute. He would not be someone who just sat and waited passively. He’d act decisively and create his own way in life.
“Let me go first,” Ionas suggested to Peino, “My eyesight is sharp, sharper than anyone else I’ve ever met. Let me go first and I’ll be able to see danger before it sees us. I am not called Farseer for nothing.”
He’d do whatever Peino would instruct, but first he also had to wonder. “Potion Laboratory…” Ionas muttered. “Do you think this Master Bloodlance would be trying to create potions based off the Blood Arcana? Perhaps transforming the drinker into one of these monstrosities to improve their fighting capability?”
Even if the Potion Laboratory was not currently occupied then surely there was something in there that could help, and it would be all the better if they could even the magical odds.
Iraem Raveneye Etonaris, Seventh Level Master of the Guild of Wizards and Magi and Tenth Level Advanced Master of the Thousand Forests School of Divinatory Arts, scratched at the root of the antler above his left brow. The itch was like to drive him mad, and if he could have wrenched the prongs from his head and flung them out the tower window, he would have done so for a moment’s peace from the relentless torment.
But even if such would be a pointless gesture with this storm pounding the roof over his head and swaying the floor beneath his feet.
It was hard enough to maintain the spiritual serenity required to suppress the influence of the Daemon Arcana without all this uproar. No stillness was ever still enough that he did not feel their promises nibbling at his brain and their wiles crawling over his skin. Worms on the outside and rats within, forever hungry. With these distractions, it was almost more than he could bear.
The cards on the table trembled within the crystalline ward. He’d built their prison strong to control the aura resonance between the Arcana and the other thing kept secure in this room. That thing squirmed like a maggot of chaos within its own crystal sphere, suspended in a multi-layered column of aura barriers. Here in the highest chamber of the tallest tower of the Cloister of Truth – the Guild’s complex of research laboratories – rested the strangest of all strange powers in Aeldreth.
And here Raveneye of the black visions, who should properly be called Demonseer — who might yet be called Doomseer if he could not make his colleagues listen to him — sat as well. He had brought the foul mother together with her evil children, but he would not let them embrace. It was through their yearning that he sought their secrets.
He held his palm out towards the cards.
“Tva Baro agou Ako Toaeut.”*
He watched the slips of paper flutter and cascade over each other, into another level of one of the standard patterns. The ward strained against the pressure of the demons struggling to emerge. The measuring devices arranged around the table spun on their dials as images danced across the seer’s eyes. He took up pen to record the results and then cast the spell again with a slight variation.
The breakthrough was nearly within his grasp. Each turn of the cards hinted at the structure of the spell that infused the images with spirit. At any moment, he would see it clearly, and when he had that secret, the power would be his. Just one more move, one more game, and the pieces would all fall into place —
A series of blasts rocked the tower. Ink spilled across Raveneye’s papers. One of his instruments slipped off its base.
Raveneye threw down his pen and scratched at both antlers with a furious scream. He threw open one of the surrounding windows.
“Curse you, be silent!” he shouted into the storm. “I’m trying to think!”
Naturally, the storm did not obey, and as he peered into the clouds, he realized it never would, even if he were a weather magus. He saw the illusion of ships descending from the storm clouds, and he also saw the reality of the situation among them.
“Nightwise.” He slammed the window shut again as alarm bells began to ring. “You rot-spotted witch. So, you want them back, do you?” His gaze fell on the cards. He clenched his fists as the worms wriggled and the rats gnawed. “Never!”
— — —
In the main courtyard, Annig Bloodlance Lamila, First Level Master of the Guild of Wizards and Magi and Eight Level Advanced Master of the Noble Path School of Divine Transmogrification crushed a red-shirted man’s rib cage between his hands.
“Who are they?” shouted the smuggler Tagurs against the wind and rain.
“What does it matter?” replied Bloodlance. He dropped the body into the mud.
Tagurs’ mountain-bandit fighters – now mostly Bloodlance’s fighters out of a mixture of fear and ambition – were engaged with a surprisingly aggressive force near the main gate. The invaders had set fire to the gate and were now running like rats into the castle complex, attacking all before them.
“Of course it matters,” said Tagurs. “They’re not the army, so who did we anger in Sesus then? Lyr’s blood, I told you not to be so high-handed. This is your doing. We had a good trade going, but you couldn’t be content as a thief. You had to play the revolutionary.”
Bloodlance turned on Tagurs, and the smaller man shrank from the imposing dark elf with the flowing gray hair and the black and red cloak of a Master of Bone and Blood. “Have a care, Eorman,” Bloodlance snarled. “I need you no more than I need that gate or any stone of this place. If you want to keep your blood inside you, then spill theirs out — and stay away from me.”
He strode away across the yard. He already knew who was leading this assault. Raveneye had seen them coming – the sons of House Ereon, the so-called heroes. Bah! Wild elves. Filth washed up from the sea, barely civilized enough for piracy. What threat could such low-lifes pose to the one who controlled the stronghold of Isolla?
Calling for fighters to follow him, he made his way to the Cloister of Truth. It was time for Raveneye to stop playing about and let their greatest weapon be put to proper use.
Beau Bergeron wasn’t usually one to let aches and pains take him down. His life was aches and pains, forged in the fires of the Assassins Guild, the swamps surrounding New Orleans being his training ground. The pain of a thousand scrapes, bruises, and broken bones had made him a formidable weapon, but this pain was different. The abilities of the people in this land had perplexed him since his strange arrival, and the scrapes he’d endured in the scuffle with the Brownies, though seemingly inconsequential at the time, itched and burned something fierce. If I never see those infernal things again it’ll be too soon, he thought.
The clearing had given way to more woods and it was with sweet relief that Beau eventually began to see the dust kicked up by an army of fellow thieves and assassins that would be the allies summoned by the Princes. Fortunately they were a motley lot of various species, and none of them were clean or none the worse for wear. Dirty and punctured, Beau Bergeron would be able to blend in with ease. Beau smirked, it was faint but he could feel the echo of the cards, The Blood Arcana, his ticket home. In all his time in this world he had seen many different kinds of magic, but none with the reality bending powers of the Cards he’d witnessed thus far. If anything had the chance to get him back home, he figured, it had to be them, the way they called to him meant it had to be it! At least, that’s what Beau figured as he bobbed and weaved his way through the crowd of miscreants gathering to raid Mt. Isolla.
Beau had long grown accustomed to navigating a crowd with none being the wiser and it wasn’t long before Beau was at the front of the vanguard of bandits lead by Haug Handslayer. Their rank smell doing nothing to hinder the massive breath he pulled in mock celebration. Though Beau Bergeron was desperate to leave, in a sense he was already at home among the bandit horde. A snake in a den of thieves.
Defensive salvos from the towers began raggedly. Along with Jeneyeru’s fleet of shadows, the lowering storm turned day into night. The clouds lit up and the rain glowed with the light of the magical bursts, scattered widely at first in the panic of so many enemy vessels. However, as La Danse Calinda closed in, she was soon rocked by wide-area spell blasts. Someone was beginning to coordinate things down there.
The first two landing parties dropped in turn at Lafitte’s orders as the airship circled the castle complex. The Ereonis brothers watched as the Calinda’s first team of swordsmen landed on the main gate and immediately engaged the enemy, and the next team made up mostly of sappers landed on a large section of roof where they split and ran for the doors into the building to plant their destructive devices. The brothers, all commanders in their own rights, smiled at the smooth, disciplined action.
“Right then,” said Peino, “our turn.”
The Calinda passed over the back courtyard on her final descent. Lafitte, with his usual encouraging bravado, was the first over the rail, followed swiftly by Jeneyeru and the six fighters selected by Peino in the Calinda’s distinctive, flowing, red shirts, shouting their enthusiasm. Ruili, Lotye O’Tulvar and Ionas Farseer went next, and Peino brought up the rear after making sure no one was shooting at them.
They let themselves fall fast and disengaged the ropes equally fast as the ship passed overhead. A few of them got dragged but only a little. All in all a perfect landing.
They were in the kitchen yard, up to their ankles in mud churned to liquid by the storm. Bedraggled chickens fluttered in a panic in one corner, and in another, the rain exposed the mottled backs of pigs in a pen. Yellowish light shone from small windows. A flash of lightning revealed a wooden gate in the castle wall, barred with a heavy beam.
With a wave of his arm, Peino gathered the group’s attention. He slapped two Calinda-men on the shoulder.
“You and you, unlock that gate for our allies and return. The rest–” He pointed left and right to the covered walkway surrounding the yard, indicating they should fan out on either side of a closed door, behind which warm light glowed. As the group spread, he patted Lotye O’Tulvar on the shoulder. He had noticed her whipping up her courage with cheers alongside Lafitte’s fighters and could see on her face even in the gloom the wide-eyed tension of a new, young deckhand seeing battle for the first time. Yet she had not hesitated to jump with the others.
Jeneyeru had noticed as well, and he took her arm and positioned her behind him as they approached the door from two sides. Simple examination proved it was closed but not locked. On a count of three nods, Ruili yanked it open and the team rushed in, led by Peino who shouted:
“Halt and stand where you are!”
They found themselves confronted by the stunned stares of cooks and sculleries. They had entered the kitchen, a long room lined with fires and ovens, with two rows of oaken tables down the center. Meats, fowls and baskets of produce and provisions hung from the ceiling, along with racks of pots, pans, hooks, ladles, knives and so forth. A haze of smoke filled the upper atmosphere of the room, but it was far weaker than the kitchen of such a large school should have been. No delicious aromas warmed the invaders. Most of the hearths were cold, the staff present were barely enough to run a moderate tavern, and they all appeared pale and shaken as they retreated up against the walls before the incoming warriors. The dull thuds of fighting could be heard through the thick stone walls.
Jeneyeru stepped forward in his black garb, the long coat flowing about him. He raised the Staff of Ghosts.
“Yield,” he said, “and you will not be harmed.”
“M-Master…Nightwise?” a voice stammered after a moment. An elderly Gnomish man cautiously emerged from among the others. He wore the apron and clogs of a cook, the spoon of his office tucked into his belt. He squinted up at the Selkie, twice as tall as he.
“It is you, is it not? Oh, I thought my heart would stop and that I was seeing things, but it is you and your illustrious brothers besides. Do you remember me, milord? I am Brend Boyra. I was Spice Master in your first year of Potions and Brews. Oh, thank the gods, we are saved!”
Jeneyeru smiled at the old man, politely avoiding saying whether he remembered him or not. In this instance, it was enough to be remembered.
“What has happened here, Master Brend?” he said. “Why are there so few of you?”
“Treachery, Master Nightwise,” said the old Gnome. “It was Master Bloodlance who turned on us. I don’t know how it came about, but they say those accursed cards corrupted him from his path. He stole them and used them to bring down the Council. I-I don’t know much more than that.” The old man seemed to sag suddenly from his initial excitement. His hands shaking, another cook helped him to a chair. “I only know that I’ve seen such terrible things as may never permit me another night’s peaceful sleep.” The room shook with a huge impact. “Oh! What was that?”
Jeneyeru knelt on one knee and placed a calming hand on the Spice Master’s shoulder. “It is the sound of help having arrived at last. What has become of the Masters, the students and staff?”
“I am not certain. They were imprisoned in the dungeons, but what has become of them since, I know not. We have not been cooking enough to feed all of them, that I know. They took away even the regular kitchen staff. These people are villagers lured up the mountain on a pretext of work, but they have been held prisoner here ever since. I myself was ordered to mind them, under threat of my own students and assistants being murdered if I did not comply, as well as these poor folk.” Brend Boyra shook his head, on the verge of tears. “Ah, they wish to eat, so they must have cooks. I suppose they thought an old Spice Master would be little threat to them, and they were right. How the weight of all these lives on my shoulders bears down upon me.”
“If your duty is to vouchsafe these lives, you may still fulfill it,” said Peino. “The outer gate across the yard is open. Leave now, all of you, as silently as you can while the traitors are occupied with fighting. If you happen to meet a force of bandits on the way, direct them to this gate.”
“Go swiftly,” said Jeneyeru.
The workers needed no further urging.
“Beware, noble lords,” Brend Boyra said. “Master Bloodlance has set traps throughout the castle, and filled it with bandits and ruffians in his service. May Scatha and Myrrdin bless your powers and Great Macha grant you victory.”
Then he took the arm of a young cook and hurried out as fast as his bent legs allowed. Ruili locked the kitchen door after them.
“Who is this Bloodlance?” asked Peino.
“Annig Bloodlance Lamila of the House of Lam. I don’t know him personally, though I have read several of his monographs,” said Jeneyeru. “He rose to the rank of Guild Master only a few years ago. A dark elf out of Belenosia, I believe. He is a Master of Blood and Bone, a great surgeon by all accounts, a teacher in the School of Healing.”
“Blood Master, eh?” said Ruili. “No wonder he went for the Blood Arcana.”
Jeneyeru had become grim. “I don’t like going up against one such as he. Blood and bone work is powerful and dangerous magic. For such a one to forsake the ethics of his art…” The wizard sighed heavily.
“Blood and bone work” referred to that specialty of healing magic that manipulated living bodies through blood or bone. Applied in accordance with the teachings of Dian Cecht, the god of medicine, healing, and the natural sciences, it could purify infections, set broken bones, correct deformities, and heal all manner of degenerative conditions. Used unethically, it could inflict unimaginable pain and commit unspeakable atrocities. Of all the magic arts, it was arguably the most tightly controlled by law, regulated beyond even the reach of the Guild itself.
“There’s nothing for it now, I’m afraid,” Jeneyeru said. “We must be aggressive in defending ourselves, that’s all. Now, gather round and pay close heed.” He pointed towards tall double doors on the other end of the kitchen. “Yonder lies the dining hall and beyond that, one of the main corridors to the rest of the castle. From this point, maps will not serve us, as the arrangement of the School of Magic is subject to frequent alterations. Follow the directory signs you will find throughout the buildings, as they are enchanted to be continuously up to date, regardless of how chaotic the experiments of the teachers and students may be.
“Remember your teams. Captain Lafitte, you are with me, as is my brother Ruili. Mistress Lotye, Mr. Farseer, you are with my brother Peino. You gentlemen in red, three of you with each group, if you please. Lotye, your ring, please.”
Jeneyeru touched the two Eye of the Dreamer rings to each other and murmured a short spell. The cat’s-eye topaz gems shimmered and blinked. He gave one of the rings back to Lotye.
“To see what the other team is doing, lay your hand over the ring and speak the words ‘Merr. kerr.’* Then look at the gem. To signal the other team that you need help, say ‘Merr. kre.’* and tap the gem. It will cause a light to flash from the other ring. Now, let us go.”
Together, the group hurried quietly through the long dining hall. They cautiously peeked out into the corridor that extended left and right and found it empty from one corner turn to another.
“Fair winds, brothers and friends,” said Peino.
“And following seas,” Jeneyeru and Ruili answered together.
The teams split up, one left and one right. Elsewhere in the castle complex, Lafitte’s diversionary parties were carrying out mischief devised by Larman Ogges. The long hallway echoed with violent shouts and the stomping boots of fighters running to and fro.
The Ereonis brothers and their companions had a short list of objectives to accomplish under the cover of this chaos. In whatever order they may occur, they were to: (1) Find and release the Masters, students and staff of the Guild who were being held captive. (2) Locate and secure the Guild’s dragon summoning device. (3) Find and, if possible, secure the remaining Daemon Arcana cards. And (4) capture Annig Bloodlance.
The curving corridor led them out of sight of each other. At the far end of each wing, each team saw an ornate door closed before them. They each ran towards the doors. Each one bore a directory sign.
The door Peino’s team reached was labeled “To: Potions Laboratories, Library and points beyond to the Great Hall.”
The door Jeneyeru’s team reached was labeled “To: Staff Offices and Student Quarters.”
*Jeneyeru is giving Lotye the abbreviated versions of the spells in Atultaec, which is standard procedure, as the language is too powerful to be spoken outside of spellcasting. As one with a little training in Atultaec (abbr. Atul), Lotye will know that “Merr. Kerr” = “Merrur kerrur,” and “Merr. kre.” = “Merrur krema.”
The Grand Navigators 