The Sylph Hunter

by L. J. McDonald

  Fareeda liked the music. Even if Airi hadn’t told him, still dancing over his head, Devon could see the woman’s distant gaze start to focus, her head bobbing in achingly slow counterpoint to his rhythm. He tried to gauge that, to judge what she liked, and found himself playing a slow, soft waltz. She closed her eyes at that and smiled.

  He finished the song. He was tired and needed some sleep and food before the men invariably started coming to him for advice and orders, but he felt his music was really making a connection with the old woman and he liked to see her happy. It looked as though it had been a very long time since she was. He changed to another waltz, one his father first tried to teach him on the fiddle and he’d adapted for the flute. Sitting up, Fareeda swayed to the music, humming so softly that he couldn’t hear it.

  Someone else could. “She’s singing,” a voice breathed.

  Devon looked over his shoulder and the playing faltered in fear as he saw the battler had returned, looking no different than when he left, except now an expression of wonder was on his face. One hand pressed to his belly, he ignored Devon’s fear as he waved with the other hand for him to continue. “Keep playing. Please.”

  Devon swallowed and did so, fighting to keep the music as even and clear as it had been. He squeaked a few times, but Fareeda didn’t seem to mind, still swaying and humming as she smiled up at the battler. His own answering smile was beatific as he dropped to his knees with what Devon could almost have thought was a wince and started to sing himself, softly in time to the music.

  Come to bed, beloved one,

  It’s time to rest, for day is done.

  Night lifts up her weary head

  And calls for all to come to bed.

  Fareeda smiled at him, her wrinkled, spotted old hand reaching toward his. To Devon’s amazement, she sang the next lines of the song, her words more mouthed than spoken, but there.

  No, it’s barely dark, it’s time to play,

  Gone is the blinding light of day.

  While dark is when the world’s alive.

  A time for ecstasy to thrive.

  The battler’s eyes were huge, his hand trembling as he touched the old woman’s. Battle sylphs loved, Devon reminded himself. For all their faults and dangers, they loved, and he grieved for Zalia, who he hoped couldn’t love one back.

  The battler sang again, his words choked and nearly as inaudible as hers. No one but Devon and Airi even realized what was happening, her length pressed against his back again.

  It’s dark, my head is growing thick,

  I must sleep or else be sick.

  I crave your warmth right by my side.

  Head on breast and hand on thigh.

  Fareeda sighed, lifting the battler’s hand to press against her cheek, and finished the song.

  When put like that, I can’t say no.

  To bed with you for now I’ll go,

  And when at last you are asleep,

  I’ll be there still. The night can keep.

  Turning, she hesitated, her eyes glazing over, but not as badly as before. The music had woken something in her that had been asleep a very long time. Still, she turned and shuffled farther back into the alcove, apparently intending to follow the words of the song in deed as well. The battle sylph shot Devon a glance so filled with gratitude that it made him nervous, and followed after her, closing the curtain behind them.

  Devon let the flute drop into his lap.

  What just happened? Airi asked.

  “I think we made a friend,” Devon said, and resisted the urge to throw up as a result of it.

  Zalia wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do now. She wanted to get off this floating island and back to Devon, but there was no one she was sure she could ask to take her to the surface and, she had to admit, she was afraid to leave the safety of the palace. She did see a battler in the hall outside the room she was in and considered asking him to carry her, but he was with Kiala, and the last thing she wanted to do was face that woman again.

  Zalia had no idea if anything she’d said to the queen made any difference. She’d just been too angry to keep her mouth shut. Now she felt she couldn’t leave, that she had a responsibility to help the queen. Devon had hoped at most that she’d be able to return to the hive and talk to the women there, not that she would be brought right to the queen herself. Regardless, Zalia had no real idea what she could actually do. It was Devon who was the ambassador, and even he doubted his ability to do what he’d been sent for. Zalia had no reservations that he could do it, but she was hardly in a position to share her opinion with him just now.

  She was also afraid of what One-Eleven was doing and flinched every time she heard an explosion outside. He was after Devon, she was sure of it, or at least after what he thought was his competition. He might not know it was Devon she cared about, or where the man was if he did. The very last thing Zalia wanted to do was risk leading the battle sylph to her lover.

  It was almost strange; after having been a virgin just a short time ago, she’d had sex now with two different men, but only considered one of them her lover. She’d always have a connection to One-Eleven, she supposed, given how he’d been her first and how, if nothing else, he’d opened her up to the idea of actually being intimate and how the world would hardly end as a result of it. What would Ilaja think of her now? she wondered. Likely, Ilaja wasn’t thinking of her at all. She was probably in the hive, perhaps with a battle sylph deciding that she would make the perfect master. Zalia wasn’t quite sure if she wished Ilaja luck with that or not. Certainly the opinion toward women and a woman’s virtue was going to change in Meridal. Granted, with all of the other changes going on right now, it was possible that no one would even notice. She sighed. Given how there were likely not going to be any men in the city at all if Eapha didn’t stop waffling, no one would care. She just hoped that Devon really was safe in the feeder pens the way he thought.

  She wished she was with him.

  It was night out, the sun having vanished with its usual speed and the temperature already dropping. Shivering, Zalia went over to the wide windows that had been left open after One-Eleven dived through them. Outside, the city was eerily dark, the ground and buildings below her shadowed and the sky filled with more stars than she had ever seen before. Zalia looked at them for a moment, but she was restless and the night was only growing colder. Quietly, she closed the windows and latched them, thinking that if One-Eleven wanted to get back in, he’d have to find another way.

  She didn’t notice threads as fine as human hairs wavering below the edge of the window, tentacles, thicker across than she was, climbing slowly up behind them.

  What was she supposed to do now? Sleep here? Find a place to bathe? Her stomach rumbled, but she had no food to eat. She’d just been left here and she wasn’t even sure if she could leave the room.

  As if they’d known what she was feeling—and of course they probably had—a knock came at the door. Zalia gaped at it for a moment, thinking that it was One-Eleven, but she already knew he wasn’t the sort to knock. “Who is it?” she asked.

  “Tooie,” came the answer. “The queen’s battler.”

  Oh. Suddenly nervous, she went to open the door. The battle sylph she’d seen standing behind the queen while she was yelling at her—the one who’d seemed to support what she’d been saying—smiled at her. He was just as stomach-tighteningly beautiful as One-Eleven, but he didn’t look at her with desire. His smile was kind, his eyes reassuring.

  “The queen would like to see you.”

  Zalia gaped at her. “Me? I didn’t think—”

  “That she’d want anything to do with you after your last conversation?” His smile broadened. “You didn’t say anything to her that she didn’t want to hear.”

  “She wanted me yelling at her?”

  Tooie shook his head. “Not really. But she
did need someone to tell her what she’d been feeling herself was right.”

  Zalia was surprised by that. “But…if she wanted to hear it, why wasn’t she doing anything?” Realizing that the battler was probably disposed to be on his queen’s side, she flushed.

  Tooie’s smile didn’t change. “It’s been hard for her, when you consider the opinions of her friends. You should know, being queen makes her empathic. She could feel their scorn and ridicule.”

  Thinking of Kiala, Zalia flushed. That woman was hard to deal with. It must have been even harder for someone who could feel whatever she did. Tooie grinned, reading her emotions, and turned sideways, gesturing for her to precede him out the door.

  Zalia went nervously, not sure what her reception would be like. It was different than before though. This time, the queen was sitting at a battered harvest table in one corner of the kitchens, one obviously meant for the palace’s onetime servants to use, and there was no sign of the women who’d been lounging around her before. Sylphs worked in the kitchen, most of them looking like girls made of mist or earth, water or fire as they cleaned and started the preparations for the next day. Eapha was sitting alone, nibbling from a tray of cheeses, bread, fruit, and smoked fish. Suddenly, Zalia was famished.

  The queen looked up at her, so achingly beautiful herself it was no wonder she was taken for the harems. “You’re hungry,” she said. “Have some.”

  “Oh, no,” Zalia stammered, suddenly shy around her. “I couldn’t.”

  The queen gave her a slightly exasperated look. “I can feel how hungry you are. Just have some, there’s more than enough to share.”

  Zalia sank into a chair across from her while Tooie went to sit by his lover. She took some of the bread. It tasted wonderful.

  “You really can feel what I do?”

  Eapha nodded. She looked tired. “It’s something about being queen. If sylphs are around, I can feel anyone’s emotions, the same way they do. I just don’t understand them as well.”

  And obviously she couldn’t feel what was happening on the ground below either, or Zalia couldn’t imagine Eapha ever having allowed what happened. Still, she looked at her resentfully and saw the woman flinch. Tooie frowned.

  “Why did you want to see me?”

  The queen studied her for a moment, her mouth moving slowly around a bite of cheese before she swallowed it. “I’m not sure,” she admitted. “I guess I just wanted to talk to you without everyone around. You’ve put me in quite a spot.”

  “That’s not my fault,” Zalia blurted.

  “It’s not my fault either,” Eapha reminded her. “I haven’t had control of any of this. I just fell into it.”

  As a slave and concubine, she certainly hadn’t had any control. At least it hadn’t been Zalia who’d been given the queenhood. Zalia didn’t want to feel sympathetic toward Eapha though, even as she found herself liking the woman, now that she wasn’t lounging around with her friends waiting for the world to take care of itself. Zalia could see the intelligence in her eyes now, and with it, the fear. Given the attitudes of her erstwhile friends, suddenly Zalia could understand why she herself was sitting here.

  “When I was brought here,” Zalia said slowly, “Devon was getting all of the men into the feeder pens. We’re pretty sure they’ll be safe there, providing the food holds out.”

  Eapha’s eyes lit up at that. “Really?” She turned to Tooie, looking up at him. “How much food do we have?”

  “Not enough for that many people, not with the crops destroyed by the storm.”

  Eapha looked at him with despair. Zalia felt much the same way. Devon hadn’t given up though, frightened though he was. Eapha looked over the table, with its trays of food that was more than she could eat by herself, and suddenly reached across it, grabbing up a strip of smoked fish.

  “There’s fish in the sea to eat, isn’t there?” she demanded.

  “Yes,” Tooie said slowly, “but the Hunter could eat any fishermen sent out. They might not make it back.”

  Eapha looked at him. “So send water sylphs. If they’re underwater they should be safe from it, shouldn’t they? They can drive the fish back here for battlers to catch.”

  “But to get them there…”

  “Dig a tunnel,” Eapha told him, her eyes bright with inspiration. “We have hundreds of earth sylphs with nothing to do. Dig a tunnel to the feeder pens as well. We’ll live underground until that thing starves.”

  Tooie’s eyes gleamed, staring at his queen with his body stiff with pride and barely contained motion. He never would have thought of that, Zalia thought. She wouldn’t have either, would she? How could she? Only one woman could order all of the sylphs to action after all. Now all of the sylphs in the room stared at her, taut with excitement. Eapha seemed to draw strength from it, straightening in her chair with a flush on her face.

  “That’s actually brilliant.”

  Both of them turned toward the doorway. Kiala stood there dressed in a sleeping gown, her long hair braided down her back. She had a frown on her face, a line between her brows, as she regarded them both. Zalia tensed, but the other woman only seemed interested in getting a snack. She came over and gathered some of the cheeses and breads, not speaking as she studied her friend and shook her head. Eapha just watched her, tense and uncertain. “I didn’t think you were that smart, Eapha,” Kiala sniffed at last and left, taking her plate of cheese with her.

  Both women watched her go, as did Tooie, his eyebrows raised. “Jealous woman,” he said at last.

  Zalia sagged, glad to have avoided another fight. Beside her, Eapha sagged as well, obviously thinking the same thing.

  Eapha dragged her hand through her hair. “In the morning,” she decided. “Tell everyone we’ll start in the morning.” She looked at the tray of food and sighed. “In the morning,” she said again and helped herself to a piece of marbled cheese, indicating that Zalia do so as well. Zalia did so, gratefully, and they sat in silence while the battle sylph watched, all of them thinking about the day ahead.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Word spread, news traveling about the conversation between the two women and what was decided as a result.

  Even though she wasn’t part of the hive, Airi heard what was going to happen from Shasha and spun excitedly in place. Half seen through a gap in his curtain, the battle sylph didn’t move due to his pain, other than to look out at them, but the rest of the sylphs rose up in excitement. Loyal to their masters or not, none of them had wanted to leave the hive and all the safety and comfort it brought.

  Devon was asleep, curled up in his alcove, even as Gel was asleep in his own. Airi met Shasha’s eyes, which gleamed in the light of the few fire sylphs, and both of them went to relay the news. Airi didn’t know what Shasha was going to say to her damaged master, but she knew what she would say to hers.

  Devon, she called, blowing her gentle winds on him to ruffle his hair. He mumbled and pulled his thin blanket up higher over himself. It was still a bit cool underground, even with all the human bodies sleeping in the former harem. Devon, wake up. I have the best news.

  Devon started awake, his eyes heavy with exhaustion. It had been a long time since he’d had any really proper sleep, Airi thought guiltily, but he needed to know this. “Is Zalia back?” he slurred.

  No. It’s almost as good as that. The queen has spoken. The hive is to dig a tunnel to us. We’ll all be reunited.

  Devon took a moment to absorb that and sat up slowly, studying her. “Are you serious?”

  Yes. Shasha says the head battler told them all. She even has a way for us to collect food without being exposed to the Hunter. We’ll be safe from it.

  Devon gaped at her. “When did this happen?” He hadn’t formed a good opinion of the queen, Airi remembered, and she felt his disbelief. Uncertain, she sent a query to Shasha, who relayed it to her sisters in
the hive and brought back an amused answer a few minutes later.

  Zalia convinced her, she said, surprised herself.

  “Zalia?”

  Airi ruffled his hair straight up and giggled, amazed at the story. Apparently, she yelled at her. The queen listened.

  Devon slumped back on his elbows, gaping at her with his mouth open. “She…” He threw back his head and laughed. “I guess I really didn’t need to come at all, did I?”

  He was laughing, but Airi felt what was running through his heart. You had to come, she said slowly, wanting him to feel better about himself. Zalia would never have been taken to the queen if not for you.

  “She would have been taken,” Devon said bitterly. “That battler’s wanted her since before we met.”

  Yes, but without you, she wouldn’t have known what to say. She plucked at his shirt with her wind until he looked at her. And most of these men would have died on the surface when the Hunter attacked the square in front of the hive.

  Devon thought about it and exhaled loudly. “I guess so. Still, it doesn’t feel like I did anything. Hiding in the ground isn’t very glamorous. Better than dying though.”

  Airi giggled. Devon had never seen himself as a hero. Despite his successes, he’d always felt he accomplished far less than he did. Why are you supposed to do it yourself? We’ve always been a team, haven’t we? She flicked his nose and he jerked his head up, but he was smiling.

  “I guess we better start thinking about what to do next,” he said. “We have food here, but it still needs to be rationed, and we have a lot of people who have reason to be angry with the battlers. I doubt the battle sylphs are so keen on the queen’s change of heart either.” He shuddered at the reminder of battle sylphs, as did Airi. She extended her awareness toward the battler in the next alcove, but despite the excitement, he was asleep. He’d been hurt badly when he left. She didn’t know precisely why and didn’t want to. He’d been benign to them and he’d be able to go back to the hive and get healed once the tunnel connecting them opened up. She could hear Shasha discussing the logistics of it. A day it would take them, if all of the earth sylphs worked together. They sounded eager. Then Devon yawned and she turned her full attention back to him.