by Edun, Terah
With a wry smile, he decided to toss fate to the winds. He scrambled up and limped down the trash-strewn alley toward the shipyard.
Sandrin Portalhouse entrance:
In years past, the Portalhouse had been magnificent; and as Sitara glanced around at the ruins, she sensed the latent magic still throbbing in the broken shards of glass and wood strewn everywhere. She shifted her seagel-coated feet in an effort to push off debris gathered at the door, and thus clear a path. As she stepped forward, she was reminded, unhappily, of what the Portalhouse had once been: a bright symbol of the ingenuity of her people. Literally bright.
Once upon a time, the portalways had glowed with incandescence. It was a beautiful sight, the old people said: visible for miles on a clear night, casting shimmering bands of rainbow light on a sunny day. The Octupani were the only race with skill enough to create the portals, a blend of water alomancy and air travel. Sitara knew that when the negotiations between Octupani and Humans had begun, the Humans would have done anything to possess the portalway technology.
Humanity was the only race in which magic wasn’t latent, but rather taught. Caught short of mages at the time, and fighting two wars in the North, they desperately needed some form of transportation that outpaced dragonflight. Needless to say, the ramifications of instantaneous travel on commerce, communication, and border security hadn’t escaped their notice either.
Musing on this, she glided forward, past the ruined double gates of the foyer and into a dim corridor flanked by portals extending as far back as she could see. She knew that a total of twenty-eight cracked portalways, still glimmering with intermittent sparks, graced the walls. These panels—a rather expensive display of opulence—had been made from famed Severin glass, infused with magic rippling with water and light.
Before the first cracks had appeared, representatives of the Merchant’s Guild of the Seven Cities had zealously guarded each of the portalways. Given the high fees and strict documentation they required, not just anyone could go gallivanting across 1,000 miles in the blink of an eye. They had relished the power they wielded, that was a certainty; and yet now the portalhouse lay in ruins, a testament to the power of fear and retribution.
As Sitara wandered down the main walkway envisioning what had been, her resentment towards her cowardly elders grew. Her eyes closed and frown lines appeared, marring her sun-kissed skin as she pursed her lips. She thought long and hard about what she had come here to do. It was true that the portalhouse was in ruins, but the portalways weren’t closed. They never closed.
The Octupani clans had always had their underwater portalways. But when they had extended the technology to landwalkers, they had seen no reason to share the knowledge of those portalways themselves. After all, how were the Humans and Sahelians ever going to reach them? The pathetic activity Humans called “swimming” only got them a few meters below the ocean’s surface at best, and the dragons detested water—which was why they bathed in steam, air, and sand. The more fools they.
Nodding sharply, she decided to set things into motion.
Chapter 2
The Palace of Sandrin, Sidimo’s Apartment:
Allorna and Sidimo packed quietly. She stood in a corner, shining core-fire into a cabinet and tossing what she thought would work into a knapsack. Light travel clothes with a few coins would be enough for a quick trip outside the city. They weren’t planning to be gone long from the palace; just the night, and back before afternoon exercises.
It would be just enough time to get Maride to the Genur portalway, the only one near the city that wasn’t guarded by the royal gardis as well as by the Merchant’s Guild.
This way they’d only have to handle the merchant guards—formidable in battle, certainly, but willing to take a coin or two for something if the opportunity was right. The royal gardis didn’t share that predilection. Genur was also an outer portalway, one of the many located in the countryside that allowed you to jump long distances and were strategically placed at nexus points between villages.
It was two hours’ ride in fair weather. But first, they had to convince Maride to come with them.
Allorna’s cinnamon skin already signaled that she might be a member of the royal gardis, the elite section of the gardis descended from the royal family and loyal to them alone. As a trainee, though, she didn’t yet wear the badge at her waist to signal a gardis approaching.
As they prepared to slip out of Sidimo’s room and through the dark palace, Allorna shrugged into a long sleeve blue tunic, then donned gloves and a headscarf. This time they left through the front entrance. It was faster to skulk along the palace corridors than to twist through the maze of servant’s passageways.
The Gardis prisons were unique: located at the tops of single towers, bunched together like needles in a pincushion, with pointed tin roofs. The Gardis family was known for its affinity for lightning, and it was rumored that past rulers had taken joy in executing prisoners with lightning strikes to those towers.
As they arrived at the entrance of Maride’s prison tower, Sidimo and Allorna found guards waiting. Crouched to the right of the open doorway, Allorna could see in the flickering torchlight that one guard was seated, the other leaning against a wall with pike in hand. With a quick glance, Sidimo used mindpushes to urge thick tendrils of weariness to cloud the minds of both guards.
It would take time for them to fall asleep, but as long as Allorna and Sidimo stood out of sight, they were safe; the little undetectable spells also deadened the guards’ hearing. It was the safest way to get in and out with no fuss. Meanwhile, Allorna fiercely grabbed onto the memory of the feelings of sincerity emanating from Maride before everything had gone wrong. She trusted her instincts; sometimes they were all you had.
“I honestly believe there’s more to the story of him killing his fiancé,” she whispered to Sidimo. They bantered back and forth for a few minutes while waiting for the dreamless sleep to take effect…until, suddenly, Allorna looked up sharply from their conversation. Her skin tone didn’t allow it to show, but she was flushed with anger.
She could sense anguish coming from above them in the prison tower…anguish and anger.
Enroute to the docks:
Vedaris still remembered the first day he’d stayed at the cloister. Little Ado had been so excited! It was a small, compact, and homely place, with the orphans on one floor and the nuns, all sweethearts, on the floor below. He and Ado, who was four years younger than him, had shared quarters. Ado had been overjoyed that they had gotten to pick out a triple-room just for the two of them. It was so comfy looking, and Ado couldn’t wait to get in there.
Vedaris was not so easily taken in. At that point in his life, he’d been shuttled between neighbors for months, always on a futile quest to reunite with family. He was accepting, but wary.
Ado, who had spent the past two years on the streets, paced around with trembling hands and hopeful glances. Strung out on kaht, the street drug that induced a gentle temporary high, he had yet to hit bottom. Vedaris still hadn’t gotten the full story from him on why he was on the streets. When he asked Ado where his family was, the tousle-headed boy would just hunch his shoulders and frown down at the dust.
It hadn’t mattered to Vedaris. They’d just met a week before. There was a roof over his head that he wasn’t in jeopardy of losing for looking at someone the wrong way, and he had time to make inquiries about his missing sister and absent mother. He had to admit, though, that the first night in a warm bed with an actual pallet and frame had been very welcome after months on his step-aunt’s kitchen floor, and sleeping in the sawdust of his third cousin’s gryffn stable loft. Not least because gryffns really didn’t like him. Well, they didn’t like dragons in general, but they respected those who were stronger than they. Vedaris didn’t fall into that category, and the gryffns clearly knew that.
His third cousin hadn’t. Vedaris was just grateful Mattis had been too self-absorbed to ask why Vedaris never challenged th
e gryffns for dominance.
In truth, the stable lofts had become a refuge later in life. Running from packs of dragon brats straight into the claws of the gryffns had definitely saved his bum a time or two. He had known how to evade the attacks of the three gryffns, but his tormenters did not. What’s more, it was illegal to break the dominant trait of a gryffn without the owner’s permission first. If the brats had taken the fight with the gryffns to the next level or had transformed into their Sahelian shapes, they would have had to face a dominance battle with Mattis, who was no slouch in the ring. Owning three battle gryffns ensured that.
Every day of his life—with his family, on the streets, in the cloister, and now as he prepared to board the ship—presented a separate period of maturity. Now he would have to use all of that knowledge as he made his way in the city of Sandrin.
In the portalhouse:
Sitara’s people had no concept of this thing Humans called cold. In the ocean, it’s possible to experience lots of heat, less heat, or no heat. Depending on the depth of a dive, the no heat might drop so low as to freeze anything on exposure…nonetheless, there was no such thing as cold per se in Octupani language or culture.
Cold was what the Humans use to describe no heat: the absence rather than the opposite of heat. This also characterized clan negotiation tactics, which the Humans described as “cold as hell.”
Soul bondage had been introduced only fifty years ago, as the first payment to the Octupani clans for access to their portalway technology. Theirs had been a dying race then, a fact guarded closely by both the Deathkeepers and the Octupani Council. The Human bonds served as a source of nourishment, in effect giving the Octupani the vitality they needed to continue.
When the first soul bonds had been created, they were initiated between Octupani clan members and Humans of the city of Sandrin, people of every social class: a test run, if you will. But times had changed. The Octupani had found a different source of vitality, no longer requiring the bonds. The breakthrough had come less than a decade after the first soul bonds, and the magical contracts which enforced a soul bond between the bond mates had been broken. Her sister had been one of those bondmates, and her husband had not been kind after the magically forged emotional ties between them had died.
Sitara smiled wryly, without humor. Humans were fickle, selfish, and cynical creatures. But she was quite sure the ruling council gave up the personal freedoms of their fellow citizens with far less reluctance upon hearing the second requirement for the establishment of an Octupani enclave on Human lands.
Sitara stood now in a portion of that enclave, which had been granted extraterritorial status in the midst of the chaotic Human city. At least, Sitara considered it chaotic. Humans were always rushing about with no forethought or leisure. That lack of foresight had put them in the bind they now faced. Not only was war threatening the Human city from the Northwest, but the death of the bonds meant the death of the portalways.
And she wouldn’t have it any other way. Let them suffer.
Chapter 3
Allorna:
There was no time left to wait. They rushed to the stairs; one landing up, a petit portalway glowed, set to travel from the base of the tower to its peak. Even as they rushed up the fifteen steps toward the blue arch that marked the portal, Allorna knew an alarm would be tripped, because the portal had been tuned to recognize only a select few individuals bearing certain markers.
But to get to them, the guards would first have to desert their posts in the outer ring to rush to the stricken tower. They’d probably take their time about it, since the portalway modifications acted as a one-way trip for any individuals aside from the marker-carriers. The guards would have no fear of them coming back down that way, or of Maride escaping through the blue gate. She had brought a gemstone to counteract that modification, but in their haste it might no longer be effective.
Sidimo and Allorna stumbled at a dead run straight from the portal into the tower chamber that was Maride’s cell, Allorna first. She was shocked to see that two men other than Maride were already present. One wore a long kaftan and a priest’s headwrap. The other—dressed in a tight-fitting tunic with bell sleeves, and pants with a sarife knife at his waist—was clearly an assassin.
The priest raised his hand to cast a spell, and Sidimo defended with a basic protection barrier. Maride, his back to the wall, fear pasted on his face, didn’t look like he intended to help either party.
The priest was a good seven inches taller than Allorna’s five-two, but she knew a trick that would still work. She bum-rushed him. Aiming her body for his midsection, she dove for his legs in an effort to bring him down. The distraction was sufficient that all spells were forgotten. As they tumbled to the floor, she bounced up in Maride’s corner. The assassin had yet to move. Whoever he was targeted to kill or protect clearly wasn’t in this room.
With a quick glance at Sidimo to ensure that he was keeping the stationary assassin and ruffled priest in check, Allorna shuffled to the left toward Maride. “What’s going on? Who are these people?” she demanded.
Maride, who had been crouched against the wall with clenched fists and bowed head, flicked his topaz eyes at her. With poison in his voice, he said: “I could ask you the same thing. What are you doing here?”
Allorna flinched, and steel showed in her eyes. “I risked my life and my bond-mate’s for you,” she retorted.
“Let’s not get overdramatic here. You risked two week’s salary and possible censure. After all, you haven’t done anything yet, have you?” He sniffed. “I assume you came up here to do more than talk.”
With a quickness that betrayed her talent, she grabbed him by the scruff of his neck, ready to wring it. Maride’s bravado went out the window when he saw the look on her face. Allorna said in a tightly clenched voice, “Look: I know that something’s not right. There’s more to the story of Damian’s death.”
“Yes, but like I told you before, I don’t know what that ‘more’ might be.” He sighed. “Just move on. Please?”
At that moment, an explosion shook the tower—and they both looked up to find an unconscious priest and a missing assassin.
A grim Sidimo said, “We need to go. Now.”
Allorna looked at Maride. “Can you open a portalway to Genur?” She left unsaid the fact that it would be unstable and they could end up anywhere.
He stared at her like she’d asked him to open a portal to the third moon. “Why would I?”
“It’s the nearest portal unguarded by Royal Armsmen, which would mean that we could bribe…” Allorna began.
“No,” Maride snapped with a weird expression, “Why would I want to create a portal for or with you?”
“You’ll be accused of treason if the guards catch us up here. Do you think you can take 50 lashes?” she retorted.
Maride scowled. “Dreck you! I never asked you to come here.”
The tower shook again. Exasperated, Allorna said, “You think the gardis tribunal will believe that?” At his skeptical look, she added, “Look, if we can get you out of here, we might be able to clear your name.”
“My name? What’s a name without honor?” Maride muttered bitterly.
“Precisely.”
He looked at her. She looked at him. Then he said gruffly, “I can activate the portal…but I need more assurance than that. We could end up anywhere. I want your word as a gardis that you’ll follow through with your promise and help me clear my name.”
“In the name of Asch, Keeper of the Gardis, it is done,” she replied solemnly.
With a grimace, Sidimo growled, “Great. Now, if you two are done, I suggest we concentrate on getting out of here safely. After all this dreck, if I land in a volcano, there had better be an epic reason why.”
Rolling his eyes, Maride faced the north side of the tower with outstretched hands. Streaks of lightning tore from his palms straight to the wall. It began to ripple like a pool of water dis
turbed by a large stone.
He knew that the portal would be unstable. Opened by one trainee augmented by the power of only two more mage youths, how could it be otherwise? Concentrating, he felt for the Genur portalway’s specific signature. As soon as he caught it he latched onto the trace; it felt almost like a living worm, twisting and turning to escape his grasp. A frown creased his face. What is this? he thought. He was certain that, if only for a brief moment, he had felt a second Genur portalway.
But portalway signatures were specific. There shouldn’t be anything else even vaguely similar to Genur; it would be like mixing up chocolate with water toffee. Frowning inwardly as well as outwardly, he mused, The only problem I should be having is with establishing a stable connection….not this.
He focused outward and took a glance at the portalway that was opening. The streaky purpleness of the gate wasn’t the most reassuring sight ever.
As he turned to voice his complaints, the tower began to buckle. His objections died in his throat as he, Allorna, and Sidimo turned and ran through the gate.
Vedaris:
The ship swayed violently on the open ocean, lightning rolling alongside and above the sails amid clouds of dark purple and blue. The bolts sometimes struck frighteningly close to the small vessel. Sailors rushed to and fro in a desperate effort to keep the ship from capsizing in the rough seas. Vedaris did his part by hanging onto the smallest of the three masts for dear life, praying to the dragon gods and staying the dreck out of the way of the crew.
From what he’d heard earlier when he was eavesdropping on the captain and the first mate—not snooping, mind you—they were now rounding the Windswept Isles. The name certainly seemed apt, given that the sea around the archipelago was known (even to a landlubber such as himself) for the horror of its wind funnels, not to mention the furies who sailed the winds, ready to grab frantic sailors off rocking decks.
