“Yes!” He struggled in my grip. My eyes narrowed. I felt my head rising as Fenris’ fury grew within me, and changed my form, endowing me with the gifts of a Fenrir. The old harpy’s eyes gushed with terror. I caught sight of myself in his amber pupils. My lips reared back in a snarl, fangs gleaming, mouth slobbering, throat reverberating in a trembling growl.
“How about now?!” I roared.
“You… what… are you…”
I only barked, spittle flying in reply.
“Alright! Alright! I’ll take you to it!”
He began flapping his wings in a slow, anemic flight.
“Rothan, they are nearing. I am out of bolts.” One Eye glanced at me. Our pursuers were catching up. Up ahead, the tunnel narrowed once more.
“Come,” once he, Vixerai and the old harpy had entered the narrower portion, my grip squeezed around my ax’s metal haft. “Rrnn!” I grunted as I began hacking away at the tunnel’s low ceiling. Rubble began falling as I buried my arcane ax blade into stone. “Aid me, One Eye!”
His metal eye gleamed as a red shaft of energy pulsed from it. Though it seemed to only have a range of a few feet, it was enough. Together, it only took moments for the tunnel to be all but completely buried in loose stone.
“Come! That will not keep them long.” We hurried down our path. The old harpy flew achingly slow, his back bent so that I thought he might need a cane despite his wings. Tail fathers emerged from his robe, these sagging, old and covered in eyes like Sirucan’s but unlike the females; perhaps it was something only male harpies had. His feather’s eyes however, were not alive like Sirucan’s. He was altogether too damn slow. “Move, I know you can fly faster than that! I saw you flee to your quarters!”
“I am aged, I do not have the strength I once did.”
“Is that right?” I raked at his tail with my clawed gauntlets. Feathers flew from it. He jerked up and went spiraling forward near as fast as any harpy that had been chasing us. “You damn fool!”
We hurried forward and I heard the breaking of stones behind us.
“They’re through!” I ran on with my ax haft bobbing up and down on my shoulder. We turned into another tunnel at a split, and the veins of light along the stone here were thicker and brighter. We came to a sealed tunnel entrance. Thick metal doors with runes carved upon them led the path. They sealed away a wide entrance, near the width of a castle gate.
“You’ll never get through these gates,” the old harpy said, “I helped forge them myself.”
I took it near a wager. “Alright, let’s see how your arcane metal holds up to mine.” I raised my ax over my head.
“Wait!” Vixerai touched my arm. “There is no need to hurt the city any more than we have. They may say what they will, but underneath these horns and demon wings,” her voice broke a little, “I’m still a harpy.” She faced the sealed door. “I believe it will open as the cloud pillar did. Elder Lassador, Elder Ardor, Elder Gessendor, open for one of your descendants.” The doors parted, and they were saved from my ax blade—or so I guessed, for I did not know truly which would have won out.
“Vixerai…” the old harpy wondered, as if recognizing her for the first time, “look what they did to you…you poor thing.”
Vixerai only glanced down and did not answer. I shoved him along.
Finally, we entered a vast chamber with a glowing yellow flower the size of a small house. Glowing roots thick as pine branches spread out from it all along the ground, most burying themselves into the very earth of the island. Vines radiated out from the giant flower, covering near every mosaic stone of the chamber, all around us and even the domed ceiling. It was these that spread out from the gave light to the tunnels in the form of yellow light veins.
“Please, this provides life for the entire city. What will you do to it?” the old harpy asked.
“Nothing that I am not forced to.”
Moments later, I saw winged figures flurry into the chamber. They were the harpies from before, now joined by even more. There were a dozen, a handful more perhaps. I retreated back toward the back of the chamber, toward the yellow light of the Lumina Blossom, taking the aged harpy with me. One Eye and Vixerai were to either side of me, and we all backed up without taking our eyes off the harpies led by Sirucan of the rainbow wings.
“This has gone too far!” Sirucan aimed his spear. “You think you holding Abalo in your grasp will save you from your fate?” By the old harpy’s panicked looking between me and Sirucan I could tell it was he that Sirucan referred to.
“No.” I coiled my arms so that my ax blade was to my side, its haft in my ready grip, ready to bring it smashing into the plant, the very heart of this sky island’s power. “But I wager you’ll think twice about doing something stupid when you know I can crush the heart of your island with one blow.” I summoned my ax’s spectral power as Tiloshar had shown me. The ax blade seemed like a stone with a constant waterfall washing over it as some of Tiloshar’s black lightning remained within it.
“You wouldn’t dare, you foul wingless creature!”
“No?”
His eyes blazed with challenge. “No. You wouldn’t. Because I can also pierce someone’s heart!” Suddenly, he became a green blur, then stood next to Vixerai with his spear’s glowing tip just an inch from her breast.
“You’d kill your own sister?” I said, restraining my rage.
“You’d destroy a whole city?” was his brusk reply.
I looked about and saw some three dozen harpies staring at the stalemate in horror. Some perched on various roots that wrapped themselves among the walls, other hovered in the air, still others stood as humans do. Their skin and wings were all manner of colors, and most were female, as seemed to be the pattern among their kind. One Eye had his eye ready to cast its beam. I looked to Sirucan. “You would be the leader of all these harpies, wouldn’t you?”
“I am their leader! Sirucan of the Rainbow Wings.”
“All of you!” I shouted, getting every harpies’ attention. “We came here peacefully. Without even allowing us to speak, your great leader attacked us. He would have slain his own sister, even as he threatens to now, without even asking why we have come, or how. He would have killed us though at the very least we could be a great source of knowledge to all of you, if we were truly your enemies.” The harpies turned to one another then back to me. “But we are not! We came with no ill intent. I merely look for someone that is known to have dwelled among you, and surely does still. My life and my friends’ lives depend on me finding this person… Now, because of your leader’s choices, your lives depend on it too!”
I cocked my ax, ready to unleash it on the island’s flowery heart, right at its very stem. I saw them rear their wings in frightful anticipation. “Hand over the human who has come among you. It is a woman, a human like me.” Frightful wails began building among the flock of harpies. “Hand her over and I give you my oath that no harm will come to you or your island.”
“You want us to believe that servants of Sombrala will leave us be and not harm us?” Sirucan spat.
“I am no servant of this vampire queen! I have never even lain eyes on her! I am not even of this world. I come from the world of humans, from Hourne.”
Confused murmurs scattered in the chamber.
“You travel with a servant of Sombrala.” His face was a vice of contempt. “With this wretch who betrayed her own people.”
“You know it was not betrayal,” Vixerai spoke, her eyes gleaming with fright, violet light reflecting on them as she stared down at the glowing tip of her brother’s spear. “I gave myself to Sombrala, because she said she would spare the rest of our people if any of our kind did.”
“You went against my command! You believed her!”
“I only did what I thought best. And she did leave us alone… for a time. And that’s what gave our people time to build this hidden city! So it was for something! What I did helped save everyone!” The harpies glanced at one another. “I
have fled from her. She hunts me even as she hunts all of us. Don’t you see? I’m one of you! Set aside your pride for once, Sirucan! Accept that we are Cloud harpies, not Jade, not Velossan but Cloud harpies.”
Sirucan’s resolve seemed shaken. He took a step away from Vixerai. All eyes were on him. “Everything our father built, you took it away. We were supposed to have married, we were supposed to have taken our people to the Emerald Isles. But you….” I was astounded a moment, that he had once wished to marry his own sister, then again, these were not humans. A scowl of hatred possessed his face once more. “You shamed our family beyond redemption! You took everything from us with your useless false compassion!” His arm readied to drive the spear point into her. For a split moment, I did not know whether to smash the island’s heart or to dive for him, though surely I was too far to reach them if I did.
“Sirucan, enough!” A spark of lightning, thin as a thread, sparked against Sirucan’s spearblade, sending it off course enough that his thrust only stabbed through Vixerai’s long hair, rather than through her heart.
It was enough of a distraction to let her slide away from him, her wings tossing her back through the air in dread. Sirucan tracked her as she moved, but in an instant I was rushing between them. He was already thrusting himself toward her, when I brought my ax down over my head in a swinging blow that splintered the ground. He had to dive up to avoid my slicing ax, but I did not let him catch his breath. Even as he flew up away from me, his wings outstretched into half circles around him, I raked at him with my ghost claw. The spectral claws sparked in the air. Though he was lightning fast, he was not expecting my attack and he reeled back with wounds on his chest.
“I said enough!” More lightning came my way. I quickly turned to face its wielder. I put my ax in front of me as a guard, and the lightning swirled around it as if my weapon were a lightning rod. My weapon pulsed as it drank the magical blast. Through the glow of the lighting, I saw its wielder. It was another harpy. She was of beige skin, with long brown hair in thick curls and wings like those of a hill owl: mostly brown, with some white stripes, and black spots. She was very tall and wore a white robe with some gold sculpted adornments at her bustier, hips and elbows. She dissipated the lightning away, and left my ax head steaming from the heat.
She lowered her hand, a few crackles of light still upon it. “I have lowered my weapon.” The harpy’s voice was clear and powerful, though not menacing. “Now, lower yours.”
I glanced at the direction of Sirucan. He was holding his wounds in a grimace of pain. Though I guessed he was still able to fight, for now he seemed to lose some of his eagerness to jump into the fray. Scanning the chamber, I saw that many harpies were armed, but they only held their weapons defensively, watching to see if they would have need of them.
I let my ax head rest on the ground and folded my hands on its pommel. “All this could have been avoided. As I said, all I want is to find the woman I am looking for, and I will leave you be.”
“Why do you search for this woman?”
“I believe her to have stolen something, a gem that is truly priceless, for it contains no powers, it contains a life.”
The harpy nodded her regal face. “Then look no more.” She clasped a ring that was on one of her fingers.
“No, don’t!” Sirucan shouted. I instinctively reached for my ax once again.
“You have found her.” The harpy slipped the ring off. A curtain of sizzling light fell through her, starting with the crown of her head. As it fell, it transformed her body bit by bit. Her locks became less curled, less iridescent and instead became waves of chestnut hair. Her eyes went from opal orange to chocolate brown. Her features softened, she gained two inches of height, and her body became less lanky, more like a human woman’s. Her bosom was full behind her white dress, her curves sharp and long, her skin beige and tinged with rose. It was her, I was certain, for I had glimpsed her when Tiloshar’s projected her fleeting memory into my mind.
“You… you are the one I’m searching for.”
“Yes. I am Charlotte.”
15
“Charlotte. I have traveled to this whole other world to find you.” I slung my ax on my back, and withdrew my Beast so that I was of human face and flesh once more. The harpies seemed startled, but remained silent. “I gave you my word that no harm would come to your people, your adopted people, and I mean to honor it.” I looked all about me, meeting the gaze of most of the harpies in the chamber. “I have been sent by the queen Tiloshar. You stole a gem from her. The gem that contains her memories. You might understand why someone would want this back.”
She held my gaze. “All of you, leave us. Please.” Harpies began fluttering from the chamber one by one.
“I will not leave you with these savages!” Sirucan protested.
“You are injured, Sirucan.” Charlotte’s voice showed genuine concern, even sweetness, a stark contrast to the commanding power her voice held earlier. “You should tend to your wound.”
“This is nothing!”
“I may have enough strength left to heal you, brother.” Vixerai stepped toward him, her arm outstretched harmlessly.
“No! I will take nothing from you!”
“Sirucan, my love, please,” Charlotte said, caressing Sirucan’s face with her palm. I suddenly wondered at how strange this woman’s tale would be that she had taken a harpy lover. Though I quickly realized the irony to my thought. “Be reasonable. Whatever she may have become, she is still your sister.”
Sirucan clenched his teeth. “I would rather die.” He went on sulking. “Abalo, bring me a healing herb.”
The old harpy was one of the last harpies remaining in the chamber. “Yes, Sirucan.” The old graying harpy went flying from the chamber, taking one last frightened, sweating glance at me through his bushy brows.
“Tell me then, Charlotte, why did you take the gem, and more importantly, where is it?” I had already scanned her form, but all I saw was the ring she had slipped off and some simple gold adornments, earrings, a necklace, but no gems other than the one on her ring. “Is that it on your ring?”
“No, it is not. You can see for yourself.” She tossed me the ring. Staring down at it, I saw it was a black pearl of some kind with smoky streaks in it. Mind gems were nothing like this.
I tossed it back to her. “Then, where is it?”
“I don’t know. In all truth, I don’t know anything about it. Who is this person who claims I stole it?”
“A queen. One who has lost all her memories before a certain day, before the day she saw you feeling her and entering a portal to this world.”
“I wish I could speak with this queen, for there is much I would ask her, but I truly don’t know anything about this gem.”
“She is certain it was you who took it. Do you simply lie to me, or do you truly not know anything of Tiloshar or her gem?”
“I don’t know many things. I don't even know who I am.”
“I am not here to play games with you!”
“Nor am I! You demanded to hear me speak, now hear me!”
I sighed in frustration. “Very well. Speak.”
“If I did ever steal a gem from this... Tiloshar, I do not recall. The truth is, I do not recall anything of my life before I stepped through some kind of gate and found myself here on a floating sky island. I had no idea who I was, where I was. It was only by a stubborn clinging to life that I did not throw myself into the red sky in a fit of madness. Sirucan found me. He kept me safe, hidden away from all, even from his own people. In time, he brought me to his tribe. They have hidden me and protected me now for many years.”
“You merely… woke up one day, without knowing how you got here?” Though it was a strange explanation she gave, it involved Tiloshar, mind gems, and the loss of her own memories. Perhaps it was not impossible. After all, Tiloshar only remembered seeing the face of this woman as she plunged into the gate. And then she was there alone in her portal room, without any
idea of all the years that had come before.
“That’s right.” She glanced aside. “Sirucan and my adopted people have told me what they know of the world I came from, Hourne, the world of humans. But they know little of it, and even less of who I am, which is to say nothing.”
“You truly have no memories of anything before you woke up on a sky island?”
“There is one thing. I always thought it was a dream… it was a woman, staring at me with horror. She was pale, unnaturally beautiful, with eyes like rubies and dressed in clothing like that of a queen. Then I was falling, back through a sea of roiling iridescent flames, that did not burn me but that I melted into like dissolving paint. Then I woke on the sky island.”
“That is Tiloshar that you remember. It has to be. You are the earliest thing she remembers, and now you tell me she is your first memory as well.”
“You must tell me who she is! She must hold the secret to who I am! I have always longed to know! I have studied countless magical tomes searching for any answers!”
“She Tiloshar, Sanguinar Queen of Black Tear.”
“A Sanguinar, like Sombrala!” Sirucan forgot his wound for a moment and stepped toward me in anger. “You see, Charlotte! He serves another Sanguinar. They seek to destroy us.”
“I serve her only because I must. And she is not evil; she does not send out mounted warriors to hunt down people, like this Sombrala.” I did not add that while she did not hunt for them, she did accept captives from the Empire. “Don’t you two see? There is only one thread that links all of this together: this other Sanguinar vampire that has conquered much of your world. Sombrala.” Without speaking it, the look on Charlotte’s face said she knew I was right. “Tell me, when did Sombrala appear here in your world? Surely she is not from here.”
“No one knows exactly where she is from…” Sirucan reluctantly answered. “She came to our world, among the same days I found Charlotte.”
“And have there been other Sanguinar vampires in your world?”
Wolf Blade: Chains of the Vampire Page 14
