by Jean Johnson
“It has always troubled me, this question of how Fae are made. They claim to be born, and that their families live Elsewhere. I think perhaps this Elsewhere is a land like any other, but found only in the most secret and sacred heart of our world. Ban-taje is not from that place, wherever it is,” Siffu instructed them. “They call him Shae because he is an outsider. So however he became the God of Death, he is not Fae. But they accept him as their equal.”
“Then it is possible these Efrijt could be anima-beings?” another male asked, one of the older ones, but not one of her sons.
“If they are, then it would only be because they are extraordinary enough to be considered a peer of the Fae,” Siffu decided. “Ban-taje is exceptional. We have all seen with our own eyes how he dies and springs back to life. This Anzak does not seem exceptional in any way.”
“He has orange eyes,” Tuki pointed out, trying to be fair.
Siffu rolled her own eyes. “And mine are blue, which only a few of my own bloodline possess. The color of one’s skin and hair and eyes is not proof of anything extraordinary or godlike. I was born with blond hair like a Fae, but clearly am not. You have taupe eyes and blond hair, yet you are clearly not. The Fae . . . simply are beyond all of us. It is only if one of us can become something beyond all the rest of us that we, too, could be considered worthy of being treated as a peer . . . and I suspect it requires being an outworlder. But being an outworlder alone is not enough.
“This Taro Anzak is ranked the lowest of his people, according to Taje Djin-taje-ul. We must see what the rest of his people are like, before we can decide if they are Shae, outworlder.” She paused a moment to let that sink in, then added, “As for whether they are good or evil, we shall watch. Who else has news they wish to share of our gods’activities today?”
“. . . I overheard Toruk consulting with the new Fae warrior-god, Krue-taje,” Talgan offered after raising his hand and being acknowledged. “The new Fae have apparently brought a cart-thing that can be moved by the anima of wind, and were discussing using it to travel to the lands of the Efrijt. Krue was debating with the warchief how many humans to bring along, to act as observers. Toruk wanted to make some of them warriors, in case the humans who follow the Efrijt decide they don’t like the humans who follow the Fae, if the negotiations the Fae wish to have go wrong. I was thinking of volunteering to go.”
“You will need to be careful, my son,” Siffu warned him. “Djin-taje knows you are my son.”
“I have told her what she wishes to hear, that I do not think of her as an anima-being . . . even if she is,” Talgan pointed out. “The Mother God was pleased by my compliance with her expectation.”
“Yes, but you are still my son, and have been known to indulge me,” Siffu said, giving her offspring a wry smile. “If you go, you must take extra care so that these Efrijt do not find out that we worship our Fae. If they are normal beings who are just arrogant and wish to gain an advantage over everyone else, they will use that knowledge as leverage. If some of them are strong enough to be Shae, if not necessarily anima-beings, then they will still think of such a thing as leverage for prying open a passage toward what they want. And if they are evil anima-beings . . . then we must not give them any opening through which they can work any evil animadjic.”
“I am not comfortable calling them ‘gods’ if they are not Fae, and are not nice,” Seda murmured, frowning. “Do we have a word for a powerful being that is evil, Grandmother Siffae? Or at least one that is not good?”
“Let me think a moment,” Siffu murmured, and furrowed her age-wrinkled brow. The sun and wind had weathered it over her seventy years, particularly after coming this far north. She touched two fingers to her brow after a long moment, frowning in remembrance. “The old Southland name for the evil anima-beings who are the enemies of one’s own god . . .
“We called such a being a demon, if I remember correctly. I was still somewhat young when I was stolen away as a war-slave the first time. But I remember them calling the god of the Snow Leopard Tribe—my original tribe—a demon that preyed upon their people and tore them to pieces, as a way of justifying their raid. I do not know if our hunters and warriors harmed theirs first, for I was young and far more interested in learning how to make pottery and baskets, and finding good food to eat, than I ever was in fighting or hunting.
“They certainly called the tribe that raided them ‘sons of demons’ when I was stolen by that group, and hauled over the southern mountains in my second captivity, and the gods are often considered to be our tribal parents, in the Southlands,” she explained. “Certainly it is fitting that the name Djin is the same as Mother in the local tongue, for she is the Mother-of-All, as the leader of the Fae. She is no demon, for she is gentle and kind, and encourages everyone to be gentle and kind as well.”
She started to say more, but a bell rang, interrupting their meeting. The tallow candle burning in a special holder off to one side had burned low enough that the little bit of metal stuck into its side had fallen free, dropping it onto the upside-down bowl that chimed when struck. All of their meetings had to be short; if they met for too long, the Fae might notice, and might chastise all of them yet again for worshipping the Fae. Siffu could not remember the anima-beings of her southlands childhood being so modest, but she had noticed that the most powerful of animadjet often conducted themselves with modesty, and the gods of the southern tribes were nowhere near as powerful as her Fae were, never mind mere anima-wielders.
“We are blessed by our Fae,” she stated simply. “And we shall honor them for it. If any of you thinks you can be of use for this trip to visit the Efrijt, to see if they are simply regular beings, neutral or good anima-beings, or even demons, consider approaching Toruk, or perhaps your chosen Fae. Remember to watch everything and remember it, whether you go or whether you stay, so that all of us can learn more about our gods.”
“Grandmother Siffae . . . should I change my worship from Adan-taje to this new god, Djindji-taje?” Tuki asked. “She might turn out to be a God of Luck, but she certainly seems a God of Mischief.”
Siffu smiled at him. “I think, of all of us, you might find her the easiest to befriend. But be careful. Some people approve of some kinds of mischief, yet disapprove strongly of others. You have made Adan-taje laugh with your playful actions and pert words, but we do not know just yet what makes Djindji-taje laugh.”
“Gods are very difficult beings,” Tuki muttered. Talgan reached over and smacked him lightly on the back of his head. Wincing, the youth rubbed his scalp. “I just meant that they keep their thoughts to themselves, and refuse to be worshipped as is only right and proper for an anima-being of such power! I did not mean it with disrespect.”
“He is right to claim they can be difficult,” Siffu agreed. “I find Taje Djin-taje-ul to be the most difficult of all of them, at times.”
“Then I apologize, Tuki,” her son told the teenager.
“I accept your apology. And I will not put a cicada in your bed,” he added tartly, and flashed an unrepentant grin.
“For your sake, I hope Djindji-taje does like your sense of humor,” Talgan mock-growled. “You need a god who can handle you.”
Tuki stuck out his tongue in reply to that . . . but only after the older male turned his back. Grandmother Siffu turned her face away so that her smile at his rejoinder was not quite so obvious to the others.
***
“And that . . . is that,” Éfan murmured, staring at the blank stone where the Veilway had once stood. “We are alone on this world.”
Ban eyed the spot, invoking first his barely seen brown tattoo, then his mage-sight. No illusion cloaked the spot where it stood, because there was no longer anything to hide. If one looked with mage-sight or a crystal or a bowl of water for scrying, the faint seam where the aperture connecting this world with their homeworld could still be seen, but it could not be opened from this side.
The Fae had learned long ago how to seal such things very thoroughly.
Not for the first time—not even for the ten thousandth time—he wished his magics had been the kind that had an affinity for opening world-spanning gates and dimension-spanning portals like the Veilway. But while some mages from his homeworld had an affinity for healing magics, others did not. Some had an affinity for fire and frost, and others did not. He was one of those who—while quite powerful in his own right, back home—had never been able to master such magics. Not unless it had involved a pre-purposed mirror back home . . . and such magics were rarely identical from universe to universe.
“How long do we have to wait in local days, again?” Adan asked Éfan. All of the Fae, plus Ban, had gathered for this moment.
“Why? Did you forget something on the other side?” Kaife teased his cousin.
Adan gave him a dismissive frown, and turned back to their chief mage.
“Sixty-three and a half days, give or take half a day,” Éfan stated. “We should be out of the autumn season and into the high rains of winter by a little bit, before it’ll be opened again.”
“I still wish they’d given us more of the law library and contract precedence records,” Kefer muttered, arms folded across his chest. “Jinji and I brought all we could, but with the Efrijt, it is never enough.”
“We’ll just have to stall them for two and a half months—two months for the days to wait for the portal to be reopened,” Jinji clarified, “and then half a month more for research time on anything they’ve proposed with a precedent to find to precaution us.”
“They may not want to wait two and a half months,” Ban stated.The others glanced his way, but he kept his gaze on the youngest Fae. “Given how shaken this Anzak looks at the mere mention of your name after just two days of questioning him, the others may want to get the deal on which group controls access to this world signed and sealed before they all get interrogated by you.”
Jinji unfolded her arms, hands going to her hips. She arched an eyebrow, smirking at him with a decidedly saucy look. “Why Ban, are you flattering me?”
He leaned forward and down, since she stood more than a foot shorter than him, arms folded across his own chest. “I have been interrogated by those who are far superior at it, compared to you.” He paused a beat, watching her brow rise at the implied insult. “But they required physical torture to be superior. You are better at it verbally than anyone I have seen in nearly two thousand years.”
“Oh, I think I’m going to faint!” Fali half joked. “An actual compliment. Ban, you have become positively positive, these last few years.”
“Enough teasing him,” Jintaya ordered. “Adan, Zedren, how soon will the sky barge be ready for travel?”
“A full week, Aunt,” Zedren told her. “We’ll have it assembled in just a few more days, but I want at least three days to test it thoroughly, before we commit anyone to it who cannot save themselves somehow. But . . . I am not certain that assembling it and using it on a world you’ve described as primitive in so many ways is wise.”
Jintaya shook her head. “Their mages, their animadjet, have already begun experimenting with levitating and flying objects—and not just the ones around our pantean, but ones in distant lands, who have had no contact with us.”
Ban nodded, confirming. “I have seen it being used by the tribes in the northern jungles. They do it to harvest very tasty fruit from trees too thorny to climb. It is not easy, and they move slowly, but they can do it.”
Adan added his own opinion. “The local animadjet are getting better at conjuring energy from within themselves, but I still would not trust them to levitate themselves in time, should the barge lose power and crash.”
“On the bright side,” Éfan pointed out, “its magics are not anima-based, but sun-based, so there is no way for us to accidentally siphon away its energies. But I, too, would recommend at least a week before we leave. Now that the Veilway is sealed, I can turn my attention to making rings that allow the wearer to float safely to the ground from any distance higher than their own height.”
“Make them bracelets,” Ban suggested instead. “Rings are trickier to fit right, and we may have some last-minute changes on who is going. Bracelets will only need to be made in three or so sizes, and not in seven or eight. I have made similar items in the past, on different worlds. And bracelets can hold more magical reserves than rings, whatever world one visits, so they do not need as much recharging.”
“When you are done using them with the barge, the cliff watchers can wear them when patrolling, looking for intruders,” Parren offered. “Bracelets would fit just about anyone, then.”
“Both good points,” Éfan agreed, dipping his head. “Ban, would you like to assist me in making them?”
Ban nodded. “I will help. I am working on a project for Jintaya, and I would like to consult with you on that, as well.”
“Of course, anytime you wish,” Éfan agreed.
Krue cleared his throat. “I would like to discuss which of the Fae will be visiting the Efrijt enclave. Some of the humans have volunteered, and I would like some of them to go so that the local humans of that place will be more likely to open up to our humans, discussing things they may be reluctant to tell someone as strange to them as a Fae. But we also need to finalize who among ourselves will be going.”
“I am going,” Ban stated. “I can survive anything the Efrijt or their humans may try to do. I doubt the humans will be that treacherous—at least the ones I’ve met—but the Efrijt are not always . . . kind.”
Kefer spoke. “Jintaya, I would like you to stay here. This is the preliminary round of investigations. You should not be involved until the final negotiations, especially if we are going to delay for at least a handful of months, if not several.”
“Well, I do want to size up my counterpart among them,” Jintaya admitted, “but I already figured I would not be involved in the first round or two, and would only be able to view them via scrying. That’s the project Ban is working on,” she added to Éfan, “a way for me to spy from a distance without sucking up all the anima for miles around. He has the book describing how to make the device I would like to use.”
“Then I shall assist him with that,” Éfan promised her, bowing slightly. He looked at the others, then at Kefer. “Do you think I should go?”
“Not on the first round . . . or wait, do you have training in healing magics?” Kefer asked him.
Éfan winced. “A little bit, but Jintaya is our expert.”
“I have that training,” Muan offered. “I’m qualified for midwifery and basic first-response spells for healing emergencies.”
“How are your diagnostic spells?” he asked her. “Do you have the right equipment?”
She wrinkled her nose. “I brought a portable set of crystals, but they’re not the highest quality. I was going to rely on my aunt’s equipment, since I know she’s a better healer than I am.”
“Modest quality will do, if Jintaya does not have better portable ones. Before we leave, go over their use with Jintaya and calibrate them to the local humans,” Kefer directed. “I want evidence garnered from this Red Rock Tribe on what the mercury mining efforts are doing to their health.”
“It’s Red Rocks,” Ban corrected. “They use the plural.”
The law-sayer nodded, accepting the correction, but looked at his fellow newcomers. “I also would like your brother to come along—neither of you are mated, correct?”
Muan and Zedren exchanged a wary look. Her brother spoke. “No, we are not. Why is that important?”
Jinji answered for him. “It’s in case they press the inheritance angle. Efrijt are far pickier about who breeds with whom than Fae are. To us, children are a rare joy that are loved and raised by all, and parentage is simply a matter of knowing your bloodline so you do not inbreed. To them, a child is an asset
, a resource for a particular family and the future of a favored medjant, their business house.”
“Children aren’t that rare on this world,” Rua warned her. “Not when it comes to humans interbreeding with us. I’ve been working on trying to isolate exactly which pheromones these humans exude that increased our fertility fivefold. If it is possible to replicate them, then it would be a boon to fertility back home. But . . . the exact combination eludes me. I suspect it also has to do with the anima the humans themselves generate, something that is unique to this universe.”
“Well, this will be Fae and Efrijt,” Jinji stated. “So the fertility rate is already known, and there are spells that can ensure conception, including ones that would ensure it without copulation if the Efrijt they pick is, well, picky. I would qualify as a possible female candidate,” she added, “But I’m both too young, and as one of the two chief negotiators, I can hardly be considered a neutral enough party. Jintaya is likewise too highly ranked to be considered. Parren and Fali are mated, as is Shava. The Efrijt have strict rules against interfering with mated couples. For the males, Éfan is eligible, but not Krue, Kaife, or Adan. That leaves the two of you and him, since Kefer is a negotiator, like me.”
“You did not mention Rua,” Adan pointed out.
“That’s because she knows I’m pregnant again,” the agriculturalist stated bluntly. “She found out when she came by for a physical just as mine was ending. So I’m hardly going to qualify for birthing any Dai-Efrijt for the next year.”
“Who is the father this time?” Kaife asked her.
A blush stole across her cheeks. “Zitta.”
“—Again?” Fali and Parren both exclaimed.
“Wait . . . Zitta . . .” Shava murmured. “Zitta . . . Isn’t he the leader of the mages?”
“He’s the chief animadj, yes,” Jintaya agreed. “They’ve had five children together. I’m more surprised he could even manage, since seventy is getting quite old for a human male. It’s been a few years since he fathered any child.”
