The Fae Artifactor

by Honor Raconteur

  To a Fae’s eyes, the darkness posed no problem, and Arandur saw clearly ahead of them. Across the flat, manicured lawn stood the Institute itself, a four-story building made of red sandstone. It sprawled out in every direction, with a very large building peeking out from behind the flat roofline in the back, obviously a warehouse for storage. Arandur supposed that Jumping Clouds was housed in there. But his purpose was retrieving its creator, not the creation, after all. He paid the building no mind for now.

  The fence was made of the same sandstone as the building. It represented no obstacle, as a wave of Aranhil’s hand flattened it to dust, allowing the chellomi across without even breaking stride.

  Perhaps they’d somehow been alerted the Fae were coming, although Arandur didn’t know how. Sevana, perhaps. No matter the reason, the building blazed with light from floor to ceiling, people scurrying about with torches in their hands, shouting at each other. Arandur could not pick out the words and did not try to. He kept his eye on Aranhil—they all did—as their king stopped midway across the yard. Staying astride his chellomi, Aranhil lifted a hand and gestured sharply.

  With a groan of protest, the building rent in twain right down the center.

  If there had been calls of alarm amongst the building’s occupants before, it didn’t compare to now, as they screamed in panic and terror. Some of them were knocked off their feet, forced to catch themselves on the edge of the floor before they fell three stories to the bottom. Others huddled against the walls, peering out frantically to try and divine the source.

  “Tracker,” Aranhil commanded in glacial tones. “Find our daughter.”

  Arandur immediately sprang off his chellomi and loped forward. He made it ten feet before several men in white coats, wands in hand, dared to block his way. His hand automatically rose for the sword strapped to his back, but Arandur didn’t do more than get his hand around the hilt before several of his brothers and sisters called upon the earth to wrap the magicians up in grass and dirt, locking them into above-ground coffins. Not bothered, Arandur continued on his way, searching with every sense for any sign of Sevana.

  Being a Tracker meant more than knowing how to read the prints and impressions of a person’s passing in the earth. Every soul left an afterimage of itself in the world, a sense that the eyes could not see, but that Arandur could detect. It was a combination of magic, senses honed and trained to be sensitive, and an instinctual understanding of what he searched for. Sometimes he didn’t need to strain overmuch to find a trail, as normal eyesight and knowledge of tracking was sufficient.

  This time, he used every ounce of skill, every bit of knowledge he knew of Sevana. Nothing in this area spoke of her presence. Dark brows drawing into a frown, he moved further into the building, hearing the creaks and groans as the frame protested, knowing that it had moments before parts of it would fall through. Some people were hurt, crying for help, others huddled under their personal shields, staring at him with wide eyes white with fear. He ignored all, found a hallway still intact, and stormed several feet inside the formerly pristine white building. Nothing.

  Perplexed and growing worried, Arandur backtracked to the opposite half of the building, moving now at a faster lope, nearly a full out run. People streamed past him in the opposite direction, this lot having gotten past their shock and confusion and now trying to leave for the questionable safety of the outside. He ignored them, pushing past when necessary, eyes darting to take in every ounce of space. Sevana. She’d passed through this part of the hallway at some point, hours ago. Her impression in the air faded steadily, but still strong enough to see.

  Arandur followed it directly to a room, the door of which had been wrenched open, and he stood for a second within the frame, staring at the empty bed inside, the chair knocked over to its side. She’d lain on that bed for a few hours, no more, then something else had taken her. Something with a strong magical signature. Unda? No. Someone who had made recent contact with the Unda. He detected the scent of the sea and his underwater cousins.

  What did that mean? Did the Unda realize what had happened to her? Had they pursued her here somehow, sent someone to rescue her and fetch her to safety again? If so, why not communicate that with Aranhil?

  With an ill feeling clenching up his chest, Arandur backed out of the room, intent on reporting this to his king first before catching onto the trail and following it out. This time he did sprint, making it out of the crumbling building’s edge and onto the grass before slowing again.

  A powerful magician faced Aranhil, a wand clenched in his hand, although he was smart enough to keep it facing down and at his side. The man looked older, perhaps in his fifties, his salt-and-pepper hair standing on end, every fiber of his being screaming of outrage and alarm. As Arandur closed in on his back, the man remained oblivious, arguing heatedly with Aranhil. “—no cause to come and attack us like this! I demand an answer from you, and for you to restore this building to rights!”

  Aranhil caught his eye and motioned with a jerk of the chin to the man. Arandur did not need the hint. Sneaking up, he snapped the wand out of the man’s hand with his right even as his left pulled free a dagger and slid it to the front of the man’s throat. The magician in his grasp froze, a strangled noise of air leaving his throat, breath stuttering in panic.

  Pressed against the man’s back, Arandur leaned his mouth near the man’s ear and asked in a low, guttural tone, “Where is Sellion?”

  “She is not within the building?” Aranhil demanded, and the war party behind him snarled in growing anger. The chellomi were equally vexed, stamping their hooves and tossing their heads with angry snorts.

  “She is not,” Arandur answered, never taking his eyes off the man in his grasp. “She was, as of three hours ago, but no longer. Another man who smells of the sea came to take her. I saw traces of Unda on the man. I can track them, of course, but I want an answer as to why they took her to begin with, and what happened. Answer me, magician. Where is our sister?”

  “W-we,” the magician started on a gasp, then paused to swallow before managing, “we haven’t taken a Fae woman. We wouldn’t dare.”

  “Sellion,” Arandur repeated, a cold suspicion worming through his mind. “You would know her by her human name—Artifactor Sevana Warren.”

  The magician went abruptly still in Arandur’s grasp. “What?”

  “She is our daughter,” Aranhil pressed, urging his chellomi closer, his aura alive with anger like a live bonfire. “Adopted by us because of her kindness, bonded to us further by Fae blood. You will tell me why you took her, why you gave us no notice of your designs upon her, and then you will tell us who took her from this place.”

  Arandur judged the man ready to pass out any second and debated on whether to move the knife closer to the jugular or further away. Sevana would say further away. He wasn’t in the right frame of mind to consider this man’s death a waste, however. In fact, he rather thought of it more like a benefit to the world. “W-we had to take her in. Her magic was flaring wildly out of control, causing magical eddies and malfunctions; it was o-our only recourse, an-and—”

  “She was attempting to find help to stabilize her magic,” Arandur crooned near the man’s ear, his lip curling upwards in a barely contained snarl. He noticed the nervous sweat pouring off the man and ignored it. Arandur did not care if this man were so terrified he were close to wetting himself. He wanted answers. “You did a foolish thing.”

  “You’ll be punished for that shortly,” Aranhil informed the magician. His expression settled into an icy calm, not unlike the sky before a mother storm rolled in. “But answer the other question. Where has she gone?”

  “We don’t know,” the man rasped out. “We were searching the grounds before you came. She was in her room two hours ago, we all know that she was, and then suddenly she wasn’t. We’re not sure how she got out. But she couldn’t have done it under her own power and she took nothing of hers with her. P-please you have to believe me, if we’
d known of her ties to you, we’d never have taken her, we were just trying to contain her magic before she did any further damage and—”

  Arandur grew tired of the man’s pleading and roughly clocked him on the back of the head with the hilt of his dagger. The magician promptly passed out, thudding in an untidy splay of limbs on the grass. Without any concern for him, Arandur stepped aside, avoiding the limp body. “Aranhil. I will follow the trail as I can, but if the Unda are behind her rescue, I fear they took her back to the sea.”

  “If they did so without word to me, I will not be pleased.” Aranhil looked over the ground of the place, anger still roiling about him. “Go and confirm her trail as much as you can. We will teach the ones here what it means to take a daughter of the Fae.”

  “Perhaps remove Sellion’s things first,” Arandur suggested lightly, then gave a quick bow before loping off again. He’d need to pick up the trail quickly and leave the area in the next minute. The war party behind had been denied blood and the return of their sister. They would not take that well.

  Arandur found the trail, followed it out of the building, then whistled for his chellomi. It was as if that whistle was all the signal the war party needed. He barely had his foot in the stirrup when the two halves of the main building crashed into the ground at such velocity that an earthquake couldn’t begin to compete. Someone better have retrieved Sevana’s things.

  There wouldn’t be anything standing before the night was out.

  Sevana had not been truly awake for the past few hours, as the magicians of the research institute had put her under a sedative spell in order to contain her. Not that she could do much without any tools to work with, but their precautions had been wise, as she had been desperate enough to use her explosive magic to melt the door off its hinges and try running for it. Sevana had only felt a brief flash of concern for herself—she didn’t think anyone at the research institute would actually hurt her—but mostly for the city that surrounded them. When her Fae family finally figured out where she was, they would not respond kindly, to say the least.

  So when her ‘rescuers’—she wasn’t sure they actually should be called that—came calling, Sevana’s senses were fuzzy and she had no ability to focus. She smelled the salt and brine of the sea, felt cool skin as they lifted her out of the bed, only vaguely aware of their passage as they left behind white walls for the open darkness of the outside. As much as she struggled to focus, it was beyond her; she could only wait for the spell to fade.

  They reached the shoreline, and after that it was a blur of dark water, movement, and the gentle lights of schools of glow fish whirling around them. Sevana unwittingly slept—she must have—as the next time her eyes opened, the spell had dissipated. Her focus had returned, leaving her in control again of her body.

  Great dark magic, but did she ever hate sedative spells.

  It took a single glance for her to realize where she was. Not that she’d ever been in this particular room before, but it didn’t take a genius to figure it out. The walls were smooth and cold, like the sea, made of a stone not unlike a cave and threaded with calcite, the mineral fluoresce giving off a dim glow of illumination. Sevana lay stretched out on a bed of woven fabric, much like a hammock, with linens no doubt purchased from the shore. Or salvaged from sunken ships. It smelled strongly of the ocean down here, and she could hear through the walls the sounds of others moving about, talking, and the clatter of feet upon sea stone. This absolutely must be one of the guest quarters with the Unda, probably of Living Waters. Sevana estimated she had only been unconscious a few hours, so her captors wouldn’t have had the time to take her to some other clan’s territory. Living Waters was the only possibility.

  And she’d just left them this morning, so why bring her back here?

  If they had somehow discovered her kidnapping, that was all well and fine, but why bring her back into their territory? Waiting on Aran to come fetch her? Sevana really wanted to believe the best of their intentions, but unfortunately, she knew the king and queen of this nation all too well. They were not known for being altruistic.

  Grumbling to herself, she swung her legs over the side of the bed and headed for the door, yanking her shirt back into order as she moved. Aran was absolutely going to have kittens over this. So would Master. She wouldn’t be able to go anywhere for months without someone shadowing her.

  Sevana had a single toe out of her doorway when someone shifted to block her. She looked up into the eyes of Taslim, the guard in charge of the southern border, looking as big and bulky as always. Over his shoulder she caught a glimpse of the outside and realized she really was in one of the guest houses, in the section of the town meant for outlanders, as a large protective canopy that provided air and dry ground surrounded the building. It allowed her to stand toe-to-toe with him on dry ground, as he had shed his half-mermaid form for two legs, likely so he could escort her. “Taslim.”

  “Artifactor,” he greeted her with mock pleasantness. “You are awake. We are glad.”

  “Not for long, you won’t be,” she promised him darkly. His grin widened, showing sharpened canines. The Unda loved people who put up a good fight. “Taslim, I would speak with either Curano or Rane.”

  “Our honored queen awaits you,” he assured her brightly. “Rane has much to discuss with you and only waited for you to awaken. I am to escort you.”

  That mollified her only some. Rane no doubt had an agenda up her sleeve, and Sevana didn’t like not knowing what that was. “Fine. Lead on.”

  Taslim led the way for her along the sea floor. This section of the city butted up against the outside sea wall, looking entirely majestic—every coral reef groomed to within an inch of its life, schools of fish moving about like a living painting. The lighting was warm and somewhat dim here, the deepness of the water keeping natural sunlight out, and the fluorescent minerals in the walls of the rounded buildings offset the gloom. More oval-shaped florescent lights hung here and there to keep the city well lit. It was much like walking through a large, wide cave tunnel with the mixture of dimness and glowing lights, a beautiful if somewhat eerie experience. Sevana truly felt like she’d fallen into a large aquarium, an impression reinforced by the conical shape of the buildings. They spread out around her like a small city, something a bit larger than Milby, perhaps? She had no real sense of size, as she could barely see any real distance because of the twists and turns of the roads blocking her view.

  Sevana saw quite a few of the Unda moving about, most of them choosing their full forms as seals as they moved, others remaining in a half-half state. Hands were easier to use than flippers, after all. She also caught glimpses through open doors of the children she’d brought the day before, already engaging shyly with new parents, their bodies just starting the process of adapting to Unda magic. A few spied her, lighting up and waving. Despite herself, she waved back.

  “We are very happy with our children,” Taslim informed her as they strolled along. “They are shy, but good children. They ask many questions, which relieves us, as there is much for them to learn.”

  Seeing an opportunity to get some information out of him, Sevana pressed, “Is that why I was brought back here? To negotiate more children?”

  “We always welcome children,” Taslim answered frankly, “but that is not why our monarchs had you brought back here. You required aid. I was watching from the shore to make sure that you lifted in the air properly on your device and saw you captured instead. We rescued you and brought you here, as it was the only safe place to retreat to.”

  That all sounded well and good, but she sensed an ulterior motive under the surface. There were only two reasons why people wanted Sevana. They either wanted her to fix something or they needed something built. That didn’t surprise her much, but the timing of it seemed suspicious. Rane and Curano both knew that her magic was out of whack, so why would they ask her to solve a problem for them? There wasn’t much she could do about anything just now. Was she looking a gif
t horse in the mouth? Were they really only here because it was a safe place to go, to protect her until help could arrive?

  Sevana had no time for further questions, as they’d apparently reached the ‘throne room,’ or at least a grand receiving room of some sort. It was a round building like every other building in this city, although larger than the others she’d passed on the street. If such narrow, crooked, switchback pathways between the rocks could be labelled ‘streets.’ There was little in this room aside from benches that curved along the edges, a thick rug on the floor, and a low dais on the far room. Curano, the Unda King, was not present. Rane, however, lounged about the back of a very large sea turtle, sneaking him tidbits from a plate resting on a pedestal nearby. She was in her fully human form, looking only mildly wet for once, her seafoam green dress lying about her in ruffles, dark hair damp and loosely braided to hang over one shoulder. Rane looked up at their entrance with a smile that she no doubt meant to be welcoming. To Sevana, that many pointed teeth in a single mouth looked alarming.

  “Sevana,” she greeted happily. “You rose quickly. Excellent.”

  “Yes, fortunately,” Sevana agreed, coming to a stop just in front of the sea turtle. She knew the bite strength of those creatures and carefully stayed out of range of its mouth. “Rane, what is this about?”

  “We rescued you,” Rane responded with a pout.

  “You rescued me, and I’m grateful, and yet I’m here when you should have contacted Aranhil and arranged for a pickup.” Sevana crossed both arms over her chest and stared the queen down. “And I know you. You don’t do favors for free. So, why am I here?”

  “There is a problem I would have your assistance on,” Rane informed her casually. “I had you retrieved for this purpose.”