The Shattered Sylph

by L. J. McDonald

  He didn’t know how many other battlers had figured out the same thing—and he didn’t exactly care. Still, his one concern was that if even one of them gave the secret away, they would all have their orders tightened. It wouldn’t do at all to have someone see him, so he rose up into the darkness, careful to present both the ground and sky with only his dark mantle. The great island citadel floated overhead, blocking out the stars in the same way it did the sun, and he flew through the shadow it cast, passing other sylphs on errands of their own. A few acknowledged him, shimmering, but none tried to stop him or speak. None were allowed. He could feel their misery, though. Even if he could have, he wouldn’t have wanted to talk to them. He couldn’t do anything to help.

  After seventy years, he was used to not speaking. The sign language he’d learned was usually enough, but now he wished he could talk—or that Seven-oh-three could use the signs and tell him how he’d made Lizzy his master. Or who had done it for him. The humans here made masters out of the people they turned into feeders, after crippling them so they couldn’t give a single order, but none of the feeders who served battlers were female. Nobody would tie a girl to one of them. That was law. So how had Seven-oh-three done it? And where had that queen pattern come from? They’d all lost such bonds when they crossed the gate, and Tooie couldn’t imagine any queen crossing over herself.

  He’d studied Seven-oh-three closely, trying to puzzle it out, had analyzed the other battler’s patterns until he knew them as well as his own—and the one in Lizzy. He couldn’t figure out how it was formed, which was driving him mad. If only he could make Seven-oh-three understand, force him to show how he’d done it, then Tooie could make Eapha his master. He couldn’t talk to Seven-oh-three, though. Orders forbade it, and his natural loathing…Anytime two battlers came together, their natural hatred for each other got in the way. He flew across the city, angry with Seven-oh-three and angry with himself for his own limitations. There was so much he wanted and so little he could have. Such was the life of all battlers. At least he had love, he told himself. But it wasn’t enough. He was so hungry, it could never be enough.

  Descending through the night, he hovered at the edge of the city, just shy of the tumbling wall that marked the start of the desert. Farther out, lit by small fires and wandering through the darkness, he could see the energy patterns of the usual camp of the vagrants, as clear to him as if they walked in daylight. He couldn’t go to them, but he didn’t intend to. There were flowers growing along the wall and out in the sand, flowers Eapha loved. He got them for her whenever he could, and though she had to be careful with them, destroying them before anyone could see, collecting the blooms was always worth her looks of joy.

  Tooie found three growing out of the wall. He plucked them with a tendril and carefully brought them back within his mantle, where he carried his breechcloth, but he wanted to give her a better bouquet. Thus he stretched out with his senses, scanning the life on the sand. He found scorpions and snakes, most sleeping. A lizard, also asleep. Children, women, men…

  He sensed a flower almost at the edge of the camp and stretched out the tendril again, reaching for it. He couldn’t leave the city, but he wasn’t going to. He was just reaching out with the tiniest part of himself, and not even changing shape to do so, since that was forbidden. Reaching the flower, he wrapped the tendril around it, pulling it out of the sand and back. There, he broke the root off the stem and flower, which he added to the others.

  Another would do it, he decided, and looked again, reaching out with his senses. There wasn’t much. He’d plucked the area pretty clean already, and the children of the vagrant camps liked to pick the flowers themselves. They might have missed one, though, and he flooded his awareness over the camp itself.

  That was when he felt him. Tooie started, thinking for a crazed moment that Seven-oh-three was in that camp, then that Lizzy was. But neither of those things made any sense. He focused his battler instincts closer, and only then did he feel the pattern clearly: a man, the same as he’d felt inside Seven-oh-three. The bond was stronger than the one to Lizzy and barely weaker than the bond to the queen. Certainly it was stronger than any of the feeder patterns inside Tooie. Tooie had never felt such a thing, and he suddenly wondered if this was the man who had bonded Seven-oh-three to Lizzy. If so, could the stranger do the same for him and Eapha?

  Tooie quickly stretched out, reaching across the sand he wasn’t allowed to cross for that pattern, lashing blindly through the darkness in attack.

  Leon sat and sipped the cofi he’d bought, lost in thought. Across from him sat Zalia’s father Xehm, mouth curved in an expression of bliss. Leon suspected it had been a very long time since Xehm had tasted cofi, or even the food he’d bought.

  It wasn’t much that he’d purchased. Leon had only the gems and coins Solie had given him, saved because they’d been hidden in his boots when he was taken. The guards had shortly expected to be peeling his clothes off his corpse, so they hadn’t searched him. He had to hoard as many of them as he could to buy passage home, and yet he couldn’t leave these people like this. Even with so many of them working, they were close to starvation. He didn’t like the idea of leaving them in penury, but he had to be a realist. There wasn’t much he could do. He had to focus on his own problems and hope that he found a solution.

  To be fair, he thought he had, and thanks to Xehm’s people he had more information on this empire than he would ever have uncovered on his own, including the fact that Ril spent most of every day in a place where he could be reached! Going to the arena had been a risk, but it had been a risk he’d had to take—both to see Ril for himself and to determine the battler’s condition. He knew his sylph had been compromised. It was just a question of how badly.

  Now Leon thought he knew the solution to his problems, but if he was wrong, he was dead. That was why Xehm and the others scouted the city, making the maps Leon needed on paper he’d bought, and watching the arena, learning the necessary schedules. It was for this that he’d bought them their food and cofi, though he suspected it wasn’t necessary. They were good people, and they too had lost family to the slavers, feeder pens, and harems. They were desperate, though, and he wished he could do more.

  “Good?” he asked Xehm.

  “Oh, yes,” the man breathed. “I haven’t had cofi in twenty years.” He inhaled deeply of the smell from the cup. “So good!”

  Leon chuckled. The others who had stayed up swapping stories with him grinned.

  Including Zalia, most of the women were asleep. They had to rise early. In this country, they were the most likely to be employed, serving as domestics and waitstaff. Most of the labors men normally did were performed by sylphs. There was some male employment, but only short-term and usually brutal. Xehm worked in the fall, butchering animals for market—that was one job elemental sylphs didn’t do, though apparently there were some battlers who would—but it was Zalia who supported the family. Her mother was long since taken for the harem and her little sister dead of sickness. All of the people here had similar stories.

  Leon shivered in the cold night air that Xehm didn’t seem to notice. “All of you will stay away from the arena tomorrow?” he asked. If he was wrong in this, he didn’t want any of them hurt.

  The man’s features danced in the flickering firelight as he stared enraptured into his tin cup. He nodded. “Yes, sir,” he said. “The doors you need will be unlocked, though.” Thanks to Zalia and a few of the other women and men.

  “Thank you. Just be sure no one goes there.”

  “No, sir. We’ll stay home.” Xehm grinned toothlessly. “You can see us later.”

  Leon returned the smile, though he might not be back. Not if everything went according to plan. Of course, his plan included Ril visiting in dreams for orders. Leon had been waiting for that for days, and it hadn’t happened. Now that Ril had seen him, he had high hopes that the sylph would come tonight. But Leon couldn’t wait much longer; soon he would be forced to tak
e a more direct approach. He’d already proven he could direct Ril in the arena, so he would risk going back there and telling him what to do, but…Ril wouldn’t be happy about it.

  “No one should bother you,” Leon said to Xehm. “I can’t swear to it, but there’s no reason for them to suspect—”

  A narrow black tendril swished almost silently through the sand. Pausing for a moment, it bulged and lengthened, became even thinner as it moved forward and up behind the rock Leon sat on to wrap around his leg. The thing tightened, squeezing hard, and pulled. Leon howled as he was yanked off his seat, nearly landing on his face in the fire, and dragged feetfirst into the darkness. Behind him, Xehm leaped to his feet, yelling in terror, and the other men rose as well, shrieking. More screams erupted from the hovels.

  Leon clutched at sand that tore his clothes and skin as he was reeled in like a fish on a line. He bounced high over a ridge, gasping, and nearly lost his breath as he slammed down again and slewed through the sand, pulled inexorably toward a lightning-laced cloud hovering just over the city wall. It was glaring at him with red eyes and huge teeth.

  “Goddammit!” Leon swore, somehow managing to draw the dagger he’d bought when he got the paper. Sitting up and feeling his pants tearing away beneath him, he slashed at the black rope around his leg. The thing fell away, and he skidded to a stop.

  The battler bellowed in pain. Scrambling to his feet, Leon started to run.

  A half dozen tendrils came this time, wrapping around his arms, legs, waist, and neck, and Leon saw Xehm’s terrified face from the edge of the camp for only a moment before he was yanked off his feet and slammed onto his back. The horrible pull started again, dragging him even faster than before, and he had a frantic moment to imagine himself brained by the stone wall before he was lifted bodily into the air.

  The ground simply dropped away. The battler was rising, Leon realized, flying who knew how high and taking him along. Leon saw a flash of the underside of the floating island of the emperor, and then the battler wrapped around him completely, bringing him inside his mantle. Warm and dark, it was just solid enough to keep Leon from falling.

  Leon had ridden this way inside Ril previously, before Ril lost the ability to take the form. Though he’d seen no reason to tell his battler at the time, he had been able to tell from those trips how vulnerable it made battle sylphs to their passengers. He’d lost his dagger, but Leon now drew his sword, fully intending to drive it up and through the front portion of the battler’s body, where the creature maintained its consciousness. He wasn’t sure if he’d be able to kill the thing that way, just as he wasn’t sure if he’d be killed himself when the battler vanished from around him, but the longer he waited, the higher they’d rise.

  It was the smell that stopped him. Of all things, he could smell flowers inside the battler, and he reached down, feeling across the floor until he felt the stems and soft petals. Immediately the battler shifted, pulling them gently away as if afraid of having them damaged.

  Leon put the hilt of his sword on his shoulder, its long point aimed at the battler’s brain stem, if it had such a thing. “You’re not kidnapping me, are you?” he asked.

  There was no answer, but he could feel the creature’s hesitation.

  Leon pressed his free palm against the side of the mantle that enclosed him. “Press here once for yes, twice for no.”

  The battler pressed twice against his hand.

  “No. No, you’re not kidnapping me, or no, you are kidnapping me?”

  Almost, Leon heard the battler sigh.

  This was getting nowhere. Leon lowered his sword. “Are you kidnapping me?”

  Two presses.

  “Are you turning me in?”

  Two presses.

  What could a battle sylph want with him, if he wasn’t turning him in? “Are you a friend of Ril?” he asked.

  There was a pause, followed by two slow presses. A sort of no?

  “Are you Lizzy’s friend?” he asked dubiously.

  One vehement press.

  Leon’s eyes widened, his sword forgotten. “Is she okay? Did she send you looking for me?”

  One press, followed after a moment by two.

  Leon forced himself to calm down. Whatever this battler’s reasoning, he wasn’t free to speak about it, or free to speak at all. This was not going to be easy. “Please put me down,” he requested.

  The battler soared lower, shifting. Leon felt his legs drop out from under him and managed to land mostly upright on a stretch of road near the edge of the city, though away from where he had been. He couldn’t see the campfires of the exiles at all. A flower fluttered down to the ground beside him, and he bent to get it. Straightening, he held it out to the battler. “Here.”

  A tendril looped down around the flower and pulled it back up inside the cloud.

  Standing on the road, his body aching from where the sand had burned him, Leon eyed the battler. It was nearly the size of a small house, the shining red eyes staring back. Its mouth was closed, but he could see the lightning nonetheless. That sparking light moved quickly, a sign he’d learned to recognize as distress.

  “You’re not allowed to talk, are you?” Leon asked.

  The cloud backed off a bit, extruding two tendrils as thick as arms. Quickly, he made a series of gestures.

  “Whoa!” Leon said. “I don’t understand.” Was that some sort of sign language? If it was, he had no time to learn. “You’re trying to speak to me, aren’t you?”

  The battler stretched out a tendril and tapped him against the collarbone hard enough to push him back a step.

  Yes? Good. “Is this a sylph language?” Leon asked.

  Two taps. Leon suspected he would be bruised in the morning.

  “Does Lizzy understand this language?”

  Two slow taps. Not really.

  Leon eyed the creature, his thoughts already whirling. “If Lizzy doesn’t, is there someone who does? Someone who could tell Lizzy what you’re saying?”

  One very vehement tap. Leon winced and rubbed his shoulder, rotating his arm. “Try not to kill me, please.” He looked around. “Follow me.”

  The battler trailing him like a sort of giant, demonic puppy, Leon walked along the inside of the city wall back toward the camp. It took nearly twenty minutes. He was lucky the battler hadn’t headed straight across the city, he supposed—they could move terribly fast when they wanted, and he would likely have crossed the entire city. Any of a hundred battlers who were looking for him could have spotted him then. Leon suspected the battler had grabbed him on impulse, and it had been simply looking for somewhere quiet to talk. He just didn’t know about what.

  He returned to the camp, which was still in turmoil, stepping over Meridal’s broken wall. “I’ll be right back,” he promised the battler, and headed across the sand, hoping the creature wouldn’t become impatient. He was getting too old to be hauled bodily wherever the thing wanted.

  As he trudged into the circle of firelight, Xehm’s eyes widened in amazement and Zalia ran up with a shout. “You’re alive!”

  “Yes.” Leon lifted his hands, tried to think of an explanation that wouldn’t take an hour, and finally let them drop. “Give me a couple of minutes, okay? I have to do something.” He went to his pack and dug out a sheet of the paper he’d purchased for making maps, along with a stick of charcoal. Taking both, he headed back toward the wall. Xehm and a few of the other men followed, but at the sight of the battle sylph retreated in panic. Leon really hoped they wouldn’t shun him when he returned.

  The battler watched as Leon climbed the wall and sat down, putting the paper in his lap. “Move closer, will you?” he asked. When the creature did, the lightning glow was just enough for Leon to see the letter he wrote to his daughter, being sure to ask precisely what this battler wanted. He didn’t tell her his plans, or sign the note, but she would know his handwriting.

  Once he was done, he wrapped the parchment around the charcoal. “Take this to Lizzy,�
� he told the battler. “She’ll write whatever it is you want to ask me on the back. Return that to me. I’ll be here tomorrow night. Understood?”

  The battler nearly punched him over the wall in answer. Excitedly taking the paper, the thing flew off.

  Leon sat up, definitely convinced he was bruised as well as abraded and full of sand. But Lizzy would be able to send him the creature’s question. She’d be able to answer other things as well, things he still needed to know.

  Ril would have to wait another day for his rescue, it seemed. Hopefully it wouldn’t be one day too many. Leon sighed, stood stiffly, and made his way back to camp.

  Tooie raced back to the harem, ablaze with hope. He hadn’t been able to talk to the man—it had been a moment of madness to think they might communicate meaningfully—but the stranger had determined a way for them to do just that. Now he had to get Eapha to explain enough for Lizzy to write down his question. She never understood when he tried to explain, but maybe this man would. Maybe he was smart enough to interpret whatever was written. Tooie hoped so.

  He reached the sylph building and flowed down the vent, careful even now not to set off the bells. The feeder pens came first, there being no choice if he was going to fulfil his orders, but he barely sipped from the sleeping men before returning to the harem. He hovered there at the lip of the pipe, waiting, and it was an agonizing amount of time before the last woman tottered to bed out of an alcove and the handler who’d been watching her went away. Then Tooie flowed down to his destination.

  Four-seventeen lifted his head at Tooie’s arrival in the alcove, and he growled, waking Lizzy, but Tooie ignored the other sylph’s angry hissing. Shifting to humanoid form, he made his delivery to the girl, gesturing awkwardly for her to read the letter while holding Eapha’s bouquet in his other hand. Four-seventeen gawked at both items, stunned. Paper wasn’t something ever seen in the harems, not when most of the women couldn’t even read or write. Plus, it could be used to write out plans for escape, but this letter was just asking about Lizzy’s bond to Ril. There was nothing in it to trigger any order to prevent the women from trying to leave, or so Tooie believed, trying not to think about it too much. Four-seventeen looked dubious, but Tooie ignored him. He didn’t like Four-seventeen on principle, but the other battler wasn’t stupid. Once he knew what was happening, he’d be just as willing to help, if only to make the same sort of link to Kiala.