by Frank Morin
The two nodded, and Erich joined the group. His Obrioner was getting better. “Sister fights good. Beat every other battle maiden two times.” Then he grimaced and added, “But many distraction with wedding. Break mind many times.”
Connor wasn’t surprised. Weddings had that effect.
The other windriders settled down behind them, and Tomas and Cameron moved off with Erich to oversee unloading of supplies and distributing mechanicals.
Rory gestured the rest of them toward the palace. “Come. We have much to discuss.”
32
It’s So Hard to Find Good Help
Stay here,” Queen Dreokt ordered.
Ailsa curtsied and said, “Of course, my queen.”
The queen marched away across the rocky ground of the bluff they had just landed on in southeastern Obrion. The early afternoon sun sparkled in the bright blue sky, dotted with wisps of soft clouds.
Ailsa shed her heavy jacket as the queen moved away, the hem of her emerald satin dress almost brushing the rocky ground. It was warm standing there in the sun, far warmer than the high elevations they’d just descended from, even though the queen had adjusted the temperature to keep them from freezing.
This was the fourth summoning, and in her deepest thoughts Ailsa allowed herself to wish it might be as unsuccessful as the others.
In each previous case, in quarries far to the north and west, Queen Dreokt had succeeded in raising ancient slumbering elfonnel, but had not been satisfied with what she found within them. She did not explain, but each time banished the giant elemental monsters back into the ground to return to their slumber.
They had traveled the length of Obrion, flying over the land faster than the Builder flying craft, hunting a worthy servant. Despite the danger of standing within a hundred miles of an awakened elfonnel, Ailsa had found the experiences fascinating. She had studied reports suggesting that power-grade stone was created around slumbering elfonnel. Somehow their power seeped into the land around them and infused the stones.
Perhaps that slow leeching of power contributed to whatever weakness the queen found in each of the other elfonnel. The enormous monsters, made of elements come to life, had submitted like docile pups under Queen Dreokt’s hand, but that hadn’t been enough. After angrily dismissing each of them, Queen Dreokt had swept Ailsa back into the sky to chase the next possible servant.
This one was different. They had not come to a quarry, but flown southeast, down the length of the Macantact river, to the two great twin cities of Freastal and Deifur, at the point where the Saol River, flowing swiftly from the north, joined the Macantact shortly before it emptied into the Sea of Olcan.
Ailsa had never visited that part of the land, and wished for more time to explore. She’d heard Freastal, situated on a bluff just to the north of where the two rivers met, was famous for its art and music. Deifur, on the south side of the Macantact, stretched for miles. It was one of the great trading cities, known as home to the kingdom’s best horses, and the knights to match.
They hadn’t stopped, but turned south, almost all the way to Chostalan, the second largest city in High Lord Pilib’s realm. The lands were wide and open and already lush with spring crops. From the heights, they had spotted the blue expanse of the Sea of Olcan to the east. They had flown over an immense, open pit limestone mine, but Queen Dreokt had not stopped. She continued on several miles before finally landing on the low, rocky bluff, about two miles from a small farming village. Nothing about the location seemed remarkable in any way.
Almost a hundred yards away, Queen Dreokt abruptly stopped walking and raised her hands. From the other summonings, Ailsa understood that the queen was somehow connecting with the slumbering elfonnel and prodding them awake.
High Lord Dougal had been the only other living person Ailsa knew foolish enough to risk raising an elfonnel. He had possessed the ability to seize the mind of an elfonnel through his rare ascension in obsidian. Any other elfonnel might have worked, but he’d accidentally awoken Queen Dreokt instead.
Things hadn’t gone well for Dougal after that.
The ground began to shake, and Ailsa dropped to her knees to keep from getting thrown from her feet. She had a good bruise on her backside from the fall that last elfonnel had given her. Earth began erupting upward like a very contained diorite explosion, about a dozen strides in front of Queen Dreokt. She kept her arms raised, and her expression looked exultant as the elemental creature responded to her call.
Ailsa tried to keep her inner thoughts quiet, allowing her surface thoughts to clamor with nervous confidence in her liege, and curiosity about what monster she would raise this time.
“What monster, indeed? Harley nearly single-handedly stopped the revolution. The fight was so close. Who are you raising to take her place? How will anyone stand against them, and your new armies, and your wrath?”
She dared consider the thought that had plagued her the entire trip, but which she only barely allowed herself to think about while in such close proximity with the queen. “Why do you need another servant at all? You alone could raze Merkland and challenge the might of Kilian, Evander, Connor, and all the Builders together. What is it you fear, and what did you mean with that rant about the elements?”
With a final explosion of earth that sent dirt geysering three hundred feet into the air, the elfonnel arose. It flowed out of the ground in a billowing cloud of silvery mist that momentarily obscured its form. Ailsa leaned forward, curiosity quelling her nervousness. Elfonnel were unbelievably dangerous, but they were also endlessly fascinating.
She longed to study them more closely, but how could one even attempt such a thing? If she could, she would explore the inexplicable mystery of their existence. They were elements come to life, given form and substance by the Petralists who somehow stepped into the elements to open the pathway for them to rise and temporarily consume them.
How did Petralists like Queen Dreokt or Kilian or Evander survive, retain consciousness, and eventually return? She understood the need for their Dawnus opposite elemental power, but still did not understand why that worked, how it worked, or what other truths lay buried under the awesome creatures they called elfonnel.
This one rose out of the mist that melted into its expanding form. It glowed silver-blue with an inner light as its watery limbs formed and lifted its enormous body off the ground. The monster took the form of a great octopus, with eight tentacles thicker around than a horse. For a moment it towered over the queen, then shrank down until it was only the size of a pair of oxen. Two of those limbs reached for Queen Dreokt, flowing with unnatural grace. No doubt those limbs could rip apart a max-tapped Boulder.
Queen Dreokt seized the tips of each tentacle and danced a little jig, as if the monster was a partner at a ball. Her happy laugh drifted across the still air to Ailsa. She looked thrilled, but she had seemed equally ecstatic at the rising of each of the other elfonnel. She was like a child enjoying the return of a beloved toy, even if that toy would not please her for long.
With each of the other elfonnel, Queen Dreokt had plunged a hand into its head. For the octopus, she drove a hand right through one of its giant, softly glowing eyes. The monster did not cringe or react in any way for a long moment.
Then it shivered, little ripples running down its body and along each limb. Its color darkened to midnight blue, and it shrank by perhaps a third. To Ailsa, it seemed the creature was condensing, even though water could not be compressed.
Queen Dreokt removed her arm from the monster’s eye and extracted something long and dark. Had she ripped out its brain, or something? Ailsa frowned, wishing she could see better, that she’d dared approach closer.
With a dismissive gesture, Queen Dreokt sent the monster cascading back into the earth. She strode back to Ailsa, moving with a determined stride, her expression angry. In her hands, she carried the object, bouncing it in her palm like a tiny club. As she neared, Ailsa realized it was a carved rod made of stone.
/> It took her a moment to recognize the wavy lines of blues and greens and browns that seemed to writhe up the stone’s length. Serpentinite. Only recently had she learned of the secret power stone, known to few outside of the Mhortair.
“Does that elfonnel not suit your needs, my queen?” Ailsa asked as Dreokt stomped up to her.
Before answering, the queen sat back, as if settling into a throne. Air swept in around her, forming an invisible seat that caught her weight. More air blew in with a sudden gust that lifted them both into the air. Ailsa had ridden enough with the queen to not panic, although that departure was a bit more extreme than previous ones.
“I don’t have time to trifle with niceties,” Queen Dreokt huffed in response to the thought.
“Of course, Your Majesty,” Ailsa said, her surface thoughts resonating with trust of her liege and disappointment that the queen hadn’t found a worthy servant. Inwardly, she was yearning to ask about that piece of serpentinite.
“Oh, Ailsa, I’ve tried everyone who might have still remained free of the taint, but they’re all gone. I cannot trust any of them.” She sighed grandly. “Harley was the last to withstand them.”
“Surely the revolutionaries are not so strong that your armies cannot defeat them,” Ailsa offered, although she doubted that was what the queen was talking about.
“That rabble of fools is more dangerous to themselves than they could ever be to me,” the queen snapped, picking up the bait. “The risk they pose is an indirect one, a risk of accidental malice beyond their ability to comprehend.”
“Again you reference risks no one understands. If only I could ask what you mean,” Ailsa dared think in her innermost, secret self, while her surface thoughts focused on how the queen was impervious to all harm.
“No, they can’t hurt me,” she said, again responding to Ailsa’s surface thoughts. “They could strip my flesh to the bone, but my connection to the sylfaen offers power they cannot comprehend.”
“Sylfaen?” Ailsa dared ask. “If you’re so confident in your invulnerability, why fear the Builders?”
Instead of answering, the queen extended the serpentinite stone rod. “What do you feel?”
At her first touch, Ailsa gasped. The stone was thrumming with such a concentration of energy, it seemed to seize her mind. Without conscious thought, her sculptor senses plunged into the stone. For a moment, she could only stare in wonder.
Vortexes upon vortexes were packed in so tight, they overlapped, creating greater vortexes unlike anything Ailsa had ever felt, beyond imagining. The stone was an octagonal bar of serpentinite about as long as her forearm and as thick as her clenched fist. Each slender, flat side was carved with exquisite detail.
Flowing script in a language she did not recognize covered two sides, while images of monstrous elfonnel covered others. One entire side was engraved with the ancient symbols of Petralist powers. The subtle design only enhanced the master work’s beauty.
Ailsa sensed the stone could magnify a Petralist’s power a hundredfold, if not more. The higher form of sculpting made her feel inadequate in a way she hadn’t felt since her first year studying at the Carraig.
“This is magnificent,” she breathed.
“My husband’s work,” Queen Dreokt said reverently, taking the stone back and tracing one finger down the ancient script, her expression distant, a tiny smile tugging at her lips. “This is a key to the ramverk we built here upon this continent to harness affinity powers. It’s been infused in a convergence point for centuries.”
More unfamiliar words. Her off-hand revelations were more than Ailsa had hoped for, but the lack of explanations were maddening. Worse, she couldn’t demand answers for the hundred questions clamoring in her mind.
“What was its purpose?” Ailsa asked.
Unfortunately the question snapped the queen out of her reverie. Her eyes narrowed in displeasure and she said, “Secrets that should be kept away from foolish children who know no better than to grasp the elements when they should fear them.”
Ailsa wasn’t sure how to respond, but Queen Dreokt flipped to another topic again. “Did you know I was trapped? Beneath Alasdair I had awakened, but I could not rise, not without losing the last vestiges of who I had been. If I dared rise, I would have opened the pathway for them too.” She shivered with apparent dread. Ailsa shuddered internally at the thought of lying awake and conscious, but trapped under all those tons of stone.
“I was trapped within the elements until Dougal’s servant offered the lifeline I used to climb free and escape them,” the queen added softly.
“I did not know that.”
“Of course you didn’t! No one did. No one understands the danger. That fool Connor has fallen to the stupidity of my deranged son who knows less than a foolish child. Kirstin gleefully stepped into the gateway of destruction, and he wants to follow! He’s leading all those fools to their doom, just as he did my precious Tallan.”
“Should we not educate Kilian with the truth?” Ailsa suggested.
“He won’t listen. He thinks me mad. Ha! Me? I’m the only one who understands the dangers that he seeks with all his intent. No, I won’t allow him to corrupt another.”
She gestured with the serpentinite sculpture, her expression intense, her eyes glowing with inner light. “That boy cannot destroy himself if he cannot ascend. I mean to train him, to cure his insanity, and raise him to greatness, but I need time. Time we do not have because everyone is trying to open the gateway to destruction.”
Ailsa cowered back from the queen’s intensity. She sensed more precious truths in those rantings that she desperately needed to understand, but lacked the ability to process, not with the queen watching her like a starving pedra. Even her inner thoughts might echo just a little too loudly.
Abruptly the queen giggled and her expression turned delighted, her gaze becoming a bit vacant. She stared out over the gently rolling pastureland they were flying over. Their invisible air cushion had lifted them several thousand feet and was accelerating toward the northwest, although Ailsa barely felt the movement. A shield of air blocked the wind, and they sailed through a pocket of absolute calm.
Queen Dreokt leaned closer again, her laughter cutting off abruptly, her expression turning smug. “But I can make time, Ailsa.”
“Really?” Ailsa asked, shocked. She had never heard of such an affinity.
The queen burst into a fit of gleeful laughter. “You are such an innocent sometimes, Ailsa. Of course I can’t alter time. No one can do that. Well, no one whose work is reproducible, except. . . . Never mind.” She pointed a stern finger and warned, “Don’t you dare meddle in that.”
“I won’t,” she said quickly, having no idea what they were talking about, and for once feeling relieved that she didn’t understand.
“Good. My entire life’s work hangs in the balance, as does the fate of this continent. The boy cannot threaten all existence if I prevent his ascension. Then I can take the time to train him properly. After I punish my wicked son, of course.”
“How can you prevent his ascension?” The conversation had taken so many weird turns, Ailsa wasn’t sure what to expect.
Queen Dreokt gestured with the serpentinite sculpture. “The final threshold is with sound, and with this I own sound. Mhortair’s unruly children have plagued the land long enough. They would seek to help that boy usher in our destruction instead of protecting the realm from that bridge. I cannot allow it.”
She settled back in her invisible seat and added in a soft, deadly voice. “I mean to wipe them out.”
As the full, terrible intent of that simple statement settled over Ailsa, the queen flipped again to a pleasant smile. “My dear Ailsa, did you bring any of that delicious tea from yesterday?”
33
Some Problems Only Get Worse with Time
Connor no longer felt intimidated by the great palace of Merkland. He’d spent enough time in some of the grandest palaces of three kingdoms that he felt he
could handle it, but even he had to admit Shona’s home was impressive. She led the way up the wide, gently curving stairs in the gigantic main hall, with its humongous chandelier lording over vaulted space that rose a full three stories.
The hundreds of crystals in the chandelier were kept perpetually lit by a Solas, with subtly shifting soft hues, playing gentle lights across the walls trimmed in gold, silver, and Shona’s house colors of blue and green. The central palace rose a total of five stories, with long wings extending out both sides. The interior was beautiful and spacious. Everywhere Connor looked he spotted carved stone, gilded wood, breathtaking paintings, and sculptures. Even most of the ceilings were covered in frescoes or bright paintings.
They climbed to the third floor and followed a wide corridor back to Rory’s office. It was spacious and decorated far more richly than Rory would have ever chosen. It used to belong to one of High Lord Dougal’s chief advisors, but Rory had added personal touches to make it his. An armor rack was placed near the door, along with a rack of his personal weapons. A large wooden desk stood at their left side, covered with scrolls and parchments, near one of the big windows overlooking a garden on the rear of the palace.
A fire was already burning in the hearth across from the desk. Several comfortable chairs were situated around it, and by the number of papers on the small table next to the central chair, Connor suspected Rory did a lot of work right there near the fire.
As everyone piled into the office, Shona took a deep breath, looking immensely relieved to be home. “The city looks to be in good order, Rory. What items do we need to focus on first?”
Wolfram showed Lady Briet to one of the chairs. Aifric snagged another before they were all taken. Jean, Verena, and Anika moved to stand near the fire, still clustered together, chatting excitedly, but softly. They’d kept up a running conversation about the wedding through the entire trek through the palace. Hamish wandered toward the desk, peering at papers, probably looking for any snacks Rory had left around. Connor followed him, but Ivor stopped near the door beside Kilian.
