“Yes,” he acknowledged. He knew the Queen had a purpose of picking this place. She was right. It did lay very close to the citadel, less than a heartbeat of travel for someone in tao form. He started casting about for Wyyr’s nola control thread.
The Queen nodded and acknowledged the nobles who rose and bowed to her, but she did not pause, ignoring the wide eyed stares of the elves she left bowing and curtseying in her wake.
She focused on Daena. “Did I ever tell you what a stunning girl you are?”
Daena looked down at the shiny silk and satin robes which were in no way modest, showing off her long curvy body. Her cheeks colored. “No. Janai has though.”
“Well, you’re a capable girl. Every bit as fit as Bannor to marry one of my daughters. You are a bit young though…”
Daena coughed and sputtered. “Marry!?”
Kalindinai sighed. “You are so easily shocked.”
The elder elf stared at the band containing his tao and frowned.
If he had possessed a face he would have grimaced. Shades of the mother-in-law he remembered.
The Queen pressed through another group of gentry all vying to get her attention and to get answers from her. She pushed by with smiles and waves.
“Let me show you something I learned,” Kalindinai said. She made a gesture, focusing through the shaladen. Sparks scintillated around the device, then spun outward and gathered around Daena. In a moment, a diamond of glowing light appeared on Daena’s forehead. A shimmering mist formed around her limbs and she drifted off the floor.
The girl looked down. “Whoa, Ziedra’s flight magic!”
The Queen repeated the process on herself, and the two of them drifted above Hill Court’s crowds of patrons. A chorus of ooohs and ahhhs filtered through the observers as they drifted higher.
“Matradomma,” Daena said, now seeming to get concerned. “Aren’t we attracting a lot of attention?”
“Yes, we are,” the Queen acknowledged. “It’s very obvious I’m searching for something, and it will spread rapidly—as will where it appears we are heading.” She hovered closer to Daena. “You never know when we might disappear.”
Daena smiled. “Oh, okay. I understand.”
“I knew you would.”
They flew east away from Hill Court out over the trees and foliage threaded through with trails, gardens, and streams. The elder elf ducked down into a thicket after a short distance, slipping into the thickest trees where visibility appeared near non-existent.
“Did you sense anything, Bannor?” the Queen asked.
His first instinct was to shake his head. That made him want to sigh and he couldn’t do that either. “No,” he responded.
“Do you know if we’re even close?”
“Give me a moment.”
He focused through the Queen. Channeling his nola into her and reaching back toward the source of all savant power. After a few more instants he located the root of Wyyr’s nola essence. He spidered along that ephemeral cord, tracing it to its current location.
“Matradomma, turn in a circle until I say stop.”
The Queen did as he asked. Her gaze took in only trees and bushes, but he was going by the feel of his nola.
“Stop,” Bannor instructed. “He’s out of my range, but he’s somewhere in that direction. Not far, just not close enough to pinpoint.”
The Queen patted Daena on the shoulder and the two of them rose out of the tree cover and looked. Where she faced was nowhere near Hill Court. It was north of the city proper, down in the thickest trees in the western valley.
“What’s over there?” Daena wondered.
The Queen stared for a moment. She closed her eyes and rocked her head back. “Of course! The mage’s guild!”
“Huh? I thought he would want someone easy to manipulate.”
“Yes, but to do any significant damage he needs a body conditioned to wielding arcane energy! Disguise yourself and come.”
Daena closed her eyes, brow furrowing. She pressed her hands together and a sheen of liquid seemed to shimmer on the surface of her skin. With a bubbling frothing sound, her size diminished, limbs thinning and shifting in proportion. Her tan skin darkened and became a shiny nut brown. Her bright auburn hair flickered and turned to a shimmering green. The strong lines of Daena’s face became the sharp angles of an elf. She sighed and opened her eyes that were now a glowing umber color.
Bannor recognized her, but not immediately from where.
“Jacullan?” Kalindinai said tilting her head and pressing out her lip. “A very good likeness. You have become very skilled in shape changing.”
Daena grinned. “Thank you, Matradomma,” she said in a high reedy voice.
The Queen tilted back her head, and to Bannor’s perception the world went black as Kalindinai closed her eyes to focus. She raised her staff focusing her mind through it and into her body. Weaves and threads of magic spun through her limbs and an odd tingling sensation went through her body and Bannor could hear her flesh bubbling and changing.
When she opened her eyes again everything looked the same although the hands holding the staff looked smaller and more fragile.
She ran a finger down her cheek and focused on Daena. “So?”
“Very meek, Matradomma,” Daena remarked.
“Then it is a good job,” she responded. “Let us move separately, land a ways from the guild grounds. There is a triangle obelisk in front of the entrance. I will meet you there.”
Daena nodded and shot off over the trees.
Kalindinai moved at a more leisurely pace but stayed high up so as not to be recognized from the ground.
“Would you really let her marry Janai?” he asked.
“You jest,” Kalindinai said with a laugh. “Can you think of the grand children? Of course I would. I’m letting you marry Sarai.”
“What about Elven purity?”
“Purity…” Kalindinai shook her head. “All we are trying to do is protect our heritage, our lifespans and our closeness to nature.” She sighed. “You are Gaea’s direct descendant. You are an aspect of nature and a true immortal. That is not blood that will make us weak.” She looked in the direction where Daena had gone. “That is even more true for Daena. My brother and husband have been concerned about humans weakening the elves. What they have never really entertained is that it is we ourselves who are growing weak because of our closed society. Unfortunately, to even say that out loud is the worst kind of heresy. Some changes the nobles are going to have to accept despite themselves. One half-immortal elf could restore blood a hundred generations degenerated from our Silcanna progenitors. We could have back the arts and abilities long lost to us.” They had flown past the western edge of the valley and Kalindinai began a gradual descent. “So, yes, I would let them marry, especially since I know Janai wants children.”
He had never realized that the Queen harbored such ambitions, and never imagined that he had actually become a part of her plans.
They landed in the trees and Kalindinai picked her way down the slope and into the clearing that was the main courtyard for the mage’s guild. The black stone obelisk that the Queen mentioned sat in the center, surrounded by carefully manicured hedges. Three streams edged in stone and crossed by miniature bridges wound through the clearing making isolated islands where benches and statuary were situated. Colored mage-lights danced in the boughs of the dense forest canopy that created an almost solid dome over the area where little sunlight could enter.
Kalindinai moved across the clearing, boots clacking across the wooden bridges. T
he area seemed strangely bereft of animal and insect sounds. In their place was a muted tinkling like that of tiny wind chimes.
Bannor focused back on his task, reaching out for signs of Wyyr.
“He’s close,” Bannor told her. Through the Queen’s body he sensed the presence of a savant, a strong one. “I can feel him. His aura has changed so he’s probably already got a body.”
As they moved in, they saw Daena, now with green hair and dark skin moving up to join them at the center of the clearing. The other elves, engrossed in their conversations paid no attention to either of them.
The girl nodded and Bannor felt Kalindinai’s threads kink in on themselves and twist in strange sensation that made her skin prickle.
Bannor felt an icy sensation work its way through Kalindinai. The feeling of a powerful savant. It didn’t make sense though. Wyyr didn’t feel that strong before.
Kalindinai swallowed.
The two of them moved forward together. Crossing the bridges with matched strides. Ahead, trees had been shaped into a forbidding thorny wall, studded with glowing gems.
A pair of formidable appearing elves dressed in white stood at an elaborate filigreed mithril gate several paces high. Neither wore armor, but the jeweled tunics, gloves and stylized boots they wore showed as powerful magic in Kalindinai’s vision.
Neither acknowledged Kalindinai, their dark unblinking eyes remained fixed straight ahead, bodies still as death, only the rise and fall of their chests showing they lived.
Daena stepped behind the Queen as she approached the gate. Kalindinai said nothing, she only raised her hand and a groaning sound went through the huge magic valves. With a hum, the metal parted in the middle and left a gap wide enough for them to step in.
The guards did not respond and Kalindinai strode into the opening without hesitation.
Bannor didn’t wait to be asked, he extended his senses, feeling for Wyyr’s nola connection and following it to its origin.
The inner yard was a circular ring of trees that had been shaped to form an elaborate mosaic of boughs and branches overhead. Jeweled paper lanterns hung down into the space casting a rainbow of color on the four huge carved marble cisterns that poured water into channels that zigzagged through the area.
Several elves that Bannor assumed were guild mages stood in small groups through the area. They looked up at their entry but focused their attention elsewhere after only a few heartbeats.
Didn’t the appearance of strangers alarm them?
He would ponder the strangeness at some other time.
Kalindinai headed toward an opening in the trees. “Stay alert, Daena.”
The young ascendant nodded.
They moved into the gap where crisscrossing tree branches formed an arch-roofed corridor. Watching through the Queen’s eyes, Bannor couldn’t understand the sense of power he was picking up. Wyyr wasn’t that strong in the flesh. How could he be that powerful in tao form alone? The only way he could detect that strong might be if he had joined with an immortal shell. If that was true, why was he still here?
Kalindinai peered down every side passage, and eyed every elf they saw. Even though he didn’t have a body, Bannor felt tension in the air. The hesitant way that Daena moved indicated that she felt it too.
“He’s somewhere just ahead,” Bannor advised. “It feels like it can’t be more than a few dozen steps.”
The Queen paused where the passage split. The way on the left formed a pocket with doors on three sides. On the right, the corridor continued for ten paces and ended at a door. The trees seemed to sigh around them, the air guttering and swirling through the branches with a low moaning. Voices chanting in ritual unison echoed from somewhere in the complex. A flurry of bird wings resounded overhead, the noise loud for an instant then fading into silence.
Kalindinai turned to Daena. The young woman in the disguise of an elf poised with narrowed glowing umber eyes, fists clenched and teeth gritted.
The Queen focused on the right. She raised her staff and started down the right-hand path.
The door at the end of the left branch squeaked and opened, and a figure dressed in white entered. She stepped into the passage in eerie silence, hard spike heel boots making no sound as she strode forward. The female was of only average size, but the confidence and authority in her body language made her seem like a giant.
Kalindinai’s attention centered on the female. As she approached, it was obvious she was not an elf. Her figure was too full, and her skin had more of a greenish hue. The lines of her face made her look more like a human from the eastern steps with long upturned eyes and a tiny mouth.
She stopped just beyond where the passage split and brushed back silk-fine hair that looked like strands of liquid shadow. The female blinked, her dark eyes becoming glistening pools the color of blood.
The creature smiled. The power that Bannor had been sensing was here. That was not Wyyr!
Kalindinai took a step back, hands tight on the shaladen.
She started to speak when the door on the right passage burst open and what looked like a young male elf dressed in torn acolyte’s robes came pelting out. He crossed the half the distance to Kalindinai and Daena before he saw them and came sliding to a stop just before the turn in the passage. He gripped the corner, chest heaving, breaths coming in ragged series.
He gazed at them with wide amber eyes, blond hair hanging in strands, fear twisting his features, perspiration running down his angular face. Whatever terror he was feeling seemed to be only increased as he spotted Kalindinai and Daena.
The elf glanced back to the open doorway and then back to them. With a grunt, he launched himself forward and around the branch toward the other corridor.
Already driving toward a full sprint he threw himself backward into a sliding stop, falling down on his haunches as he tried to backpedal away from the female with blood-colored eyes.
He let out a scream and made a clawing gesture. With a roar, the wooden wall next to the female exploded. The storm of wood, sand and stone blasted over the creature, shredding and decimating the wall on the opposite side of the corridor.
Unmoved by the powerful attack the strange female scowled at him, eyes narrowing. She reached up to her cheek and daubed at a trickle of blood that ran down from her temple. Tilting her head, she brought the finger to her lips and sucked the blood from it. She grinned with bloody teeth. Even though he didn’t have a body, Bannor felt a shiver go through him.
Kalindinai and Daena closed the gap behind the elf.
The elf, who had to be Wyyr, glared at them and then back to the new-comer who raised her chin, and peered at him through her lashes.
The girl raised her hands which started glowing.
Wyyr thrust a hand at them, Kalindinai swung her staff, guarding away most of a blast that made the floor erupt beneath them. She and Daena only flinched back for an instant, but in that heartbeat the body of the young elf went limp and the shadowy specter of the evil savant’s tao shot upward out of it.
“No! D—” Kalindinai yelled.
The Queen didn’t even finish her warning before the woman in white leaped and clawed into Wyyr’s racing tao.
Bannor had never heard a tao spirit howl, but Wyyr did as the unknown lady’s glowing hand impaled his essence as though it were something solid. The elder savant writhed and screamed as she pulled him back to the floor with her burning fingers lodged in him as though shoved into the soft rind of a melon.
Wyyr continued to pitch and writhe, wailing and blubbering in
pain. The red-eyed woman watched his contortions with a scowl. She raised her free hand and gestured.
In rasp of magic, and a puff of displaced air, Wyyr’s physical body shimmered into being. Bits and pieces of the Kriar stasis apparatus sparked and flared around the now convulsing body.
Muttering arcane words she slammed Wyyr’s tao down into his body, the way an angry farmer might shove straw into a flawed scarecrow. Wyyr’s back arched, his thin limbs twitching as his mouth opened in a hoarse cry of agony.
She gestured again, surrounding him in a gold sheen of magic. The Ta’Arthak’s movements froze as though he had been turned to stone.
One knee still on the floor, the red-eyed woman locked gazes with Kalindinai. Bannor felt another cold shiver go through him. He felt the Queen swallow a lump. The power of this intruder was enormous. She had reached through the shields surrounding the citadel and the infirmary and plucked out Wyyr’s body with no effort at all. Bannor wasn’t sure if even one of the eternals could do that!
Next to the Queen, Daena was frozen and staring with wide eyes.
Giving Wyyr’s unconscious head an irritated shove, the female rose to her feet. Balanced on spike heels she looked down at Kalindinai. Her gaze then went to Daena. She licked her lips like a hungry wolf pondering a fresh piece of meat. Her gaze came back to the Queen.
Light flickered in the woman’s crimson eyes. “Bane,” she said in an icy tone that echoed with power. She raised a long nailed hand sparking with magic and tilted her head toward them. “Vulcindra Skybane.”
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* * *
Chapter Twenty-Seven
She stepped into the back hall of the
mage’s guild, a place protected by ten
millennia of overlapping wards so strong
that even pantheon lords didn’t bother. This
person, this Vulcindra, walked in like she
owned the kingdom. When confronted by
Wyyr, she took a hit that would have felled
Reality's Plaything 5: The Infinity Annihilator Page 42
