by Frank Morin
Connor stopped the hair growth just as it reached Shona’s shoulders. “Feeling better?”
Shona patted her new hair, expression filled with wonder. Tears shone in her big, hazel eyes, and she laughed. Her rich voice seemed to fill the room. She rose and crossed to him.
“Thank you, Connor. This is a marvelous gift, especially when you were still not recovered from your last healing.”
Then she leaned in and kissed his cheek. Not like the seductive attempts she had tried the previous year, but simply a sign of appreciation from a friend. She gave him a dazzling smile, then returned to her seat. He clearly sensed her joy, her desire to shout and twirl and show off her new tresses, but she was a well-trained high lady and she would never show off when they were still celebrating Ilse’s recovery.
Anika and Aifric both joined her and made a point of congratulating her on her new hair. Verena leaned in close and asked softly, “Are you all right?”
He nodded. She said, “I’m glad you didn’t hurt yourself to heal her pride.” He started to smile, but her expression hardened. “But if she ever tries kissing you again, you’re gonna need to regrow her another set of lips.”
Connor started to protest, but Hamish grabbed him by the arm and exclaimed, “If you can heal without touching, can you heal Jean from here?”
“I don’t know the range, but I doubt I could reach all the way to New Schwinkendorf.”
“Even if we get her on a sightstone?” He pressed.
“I can’t extend my senses through a sightstone connection,” Connor told him, then frowned. “At least, I don’t think so.”
“If you could do that, wouldn’t the queen have already tried sabotaging us from Donleavy?” Verena asked.
Hamish didn’t look worried. He gestured toward the door. “Come on! If we hurry, we can get back to Jean by dinnertime.”
62
Something Nutty
Ailsa sat on a comfortable cushion of air next to Queen Dreokt. She had grown probably too comfortable flying with the queen, and she enjoyed the panoramic view of eastern Ravinder from several thousand feet up. Queen Dreokt had remained unusually quiet for most of the trip after picking up Ailsa along the great western trading road earlier that afternoon. She looked tired but extremely pleased with herself.
Queen Dreokt smiled and said, “Of course I am. You would be too if you had such a busy day.”
It did not surprise Ailsa that the queen was reading her thoughts. She’d come to expect it and sometimes it did make communication easier.
“Especially when I’m this tired,” the queen spoke directly into Ailsa’s mind.
Ailsa didn’t want to get too comfortable sharing thoughts with her liege, but couldn’t even allow herself to think about why with the queen already sipping from her mind, so she said aloud, “If you’re exhausted, we could land and procure a carriage or something to give you time to rest.”
She did not sense that the queen was struggling to maintain their comfortable seats in the air, and they were hurtling over the landscape as fast as they had in any of their previous excursions together.
Queen Dreokt made a dismissive gesture. “That would be far more of a bother than just flying. Maintaining such a simple connection with air is not taxing. I could keep us aloft in my sleep.”
Ailsa hoped she didn’t decide to test that theory.
Queen Dreokt laughed with delight. “Oh, Ailsa. It can be so refreshing to travel with one not burdened by the cares of conquest and rule, deeper magic, or the responsibility to maintain the ramverk.”
Another new word. Ailsa’s inner person wanted to howl with the need to ask questions, but she shuttered those deep thoughts. The conversation was far too intimate to risk it. So she inclined her head and said, “Indeed, Your Majesty. I’m a simple sculptress, who only needs to worry about producing my best work and hoping for the ultimate success of our kingdom.”
The queen chuckled and again spoke directly into her mind. “That’s one of the reasons I keep you close, Ailsa. You know your place and you are content with it. But don’t pretend to more humility than you possess. We both know you provide perhaps the most penetrating insights of any of my counselors. Most are so burdened by pride, ambition, and self-doubt that I cannot confide in any of them.”
She smiled at the praise. Her surface self, devoted counselor to the queen, was immensely pleased that the queen appreciated her hard work. “I’m sorry my scouting mission to Maninder proved unfruitful. I feel like I let you down.”
The queen had kept her close in their whirlwind journey around Obrion while she attempted to raise another worthy servant, but had insisted on dealing with Jagdish alone. Soon after entering Ravinder, she’d dropped Ailsa off on the great trading road with orders to investigate reports of a large army massing around Maninder.
That was unusual in the extreme. Usually the queen would have simply destroyed any army that dared oppose her, but she had insisted she could not be distracted by vermin. She had continued north alone, shifting to riding on a great ice throne, carried along by a churning platform of water.
Ailsa had changed mental hats to her persona of Ailsa the revolutionary. She had contacted her network immediately and warned them that the army must disband and flee with all possible speed. That was so much easier than the very risky warning messages she’d managed to send to both Jagdish and Merkland during the trip across Obrion.
Switching back to her persona of Ailsa the sculptress and advisor to the queen, she’d been annoyed to learn about the army’s sudden flight. She had dutifully shared that report with the queen when she returned to pick her up. Queen Dreokt had appeared too tired and distracted to really care.
Now Queen Dreokt said, “I don’t have time to chase down rabble. I’ll send Aonghus or Rosslyn to mop them up after we destroy Merkland.”
Ailsa dared allow her surface thoughts to feel subtly surprised that attacking the remote, isolated outpost of Jagdish could so exhaust her liege. The queen plucked the half-concealed thought instantly.
“Mhortair’s unruly children are an annoyance, not a threat. I could have destroyed them the old-fashioned way, but I told you I needed to not only punish them but also block the misguided child Connor from ascending until I am ready to assist him.”
“Do you mind if I inquire if your elegant plan indeed required the use of the serpentinite sculpture you showed to me earlier?” It was a daring question, and one that could easily trigger the queen’s volatile and unpredictable wrath.
The queen only sighed, a happy smile playing across her lips. “It was a brilliant stroke, Ailsa. It’s been so long since I’ve meddled with the delicate ramverk we established over Obrion. I’m glad I did, because it felt so good, and honestly I feel more alive than perhaps I have in all the time since I awakened from the long sleep.”
“I’m so glad to hear that. I too find great joy and fulfillment by working on the most challenging of projects,” Ailsa said. In her deepest thoughts, she yearned to ask more about that ramverk. Understanding those cryptic terms might help her understand the queen better, might help her discover the weakness she still dared to hope must exist.
“Perhaps you of all my counselors can appreciate my brilliance. Yes, my dear Triath’s sculpture played a critical role.” Her gaze sharpened and she added in a warning tone, “I don’t need any stones to command my affinities, mind you.”
“Of course not,” Ailsa agreed instantly, filling her surface thoughts with absolute confidence in her monarch’s unrivaled powers, tinged with a bit of fear.
That mollified her and Dreokt settle back, looking up into the scattered clouds. Her voice grew soft in a way it often did when she trod old memories. “Even the elements must do my bidding. I buried that sculpted stone soon after arriving on these foreign shores. This land was wild and unruly, populated by belligerent and uneducated barbarians. The magic was completely untamed. No one even seemed to understand that power streamed past, close enough to taste! Our r
amverk was the first grand effort to begin filtering the sylfaen in order to secure our enduring dynasty. We created the filters that produced affinity stones as we had begun doing in our homeland. That began the great journey toward crafting real power.”
Ailsa listened raptly, astonished by the casual revelations. She knew nothing of how the power of affinities were infused within stones. She knew of no records of Petralists prior to the rise of Queen Dreokt and King Triath, so as incredible as it sounded, they might very well have been the first Petralists.
She said, “I had always assumed affinity stones always existed but that we did not know how to access them.”
Queen Dreokt laughed, a delighted sound. “It’s rare that anything catches you by surprise, Ailsa. I love it. No, my dear Triath and I . . .” She trailed off, her expression softening, and Ailsa was startled to see the glint of a tear in her eyes. The queen sighed deeply and said, “Some days his loss is almost more than I can bear.”
Such a display of humanity was rare from her monarch. Ailsa’s surface persona felt moved by the privilege of witnessing it.
Queen Dreokt snapped out of the reverie, her expression hardening. “I had to destroy him because fools overreached their knowledge! I will not allow it to happen again.”
“Of course not,” Ailsa agreed, recoiling deeper into her seat from the abrupt change.
The queen’s emotion flipped again just as fast, and she sighed, her expression turning thoughtful. “As I was saying, with our research team, we created the first filters of sylfaen powers through stones and established the first affinities.”
“I am awed by your achievement, but I do not understand sylfaen,” Ailsa dared say when the queen paused.
“Of course you don’t,” Queen Dreokt snapped, looking annoyed. “No one understands. No one on this backwater continent has access to the deeper learning of my lands.”
“I know nothing of other lands,” Ailsa said, allowing her surface thoughts to hold curiosity about them.
The queen snorted. “Probably for the best. They’re a pack of pompous, self-important know-it-alls who reject true advancement into the mysteries when we dropped it right in their laps.”
“That must have been frustrating,” Ailsa said.
“More than you know. Everyone wanted to access the sylfaen.” She rolled her eyes like a child and added, “Sylfaen is the name of the great powers of magic that encircle our planet. They fuel and support life, but raw sylfaen is beyond human capacity to control. Our people knew about it for centuries, and great men and women had attempted many times to harness it, with few successes and some remarkable failures.”
Ailsa listened, fascinated and eager to learn more. She doubted anyone else on the continent knew the secrets she was learning. Queen Dreokt suddenly wagged a warning finger at Ailsa, her tone turning dangerously quiet. “Don’t you dare explore those failures. The elements weren’t the only consequence of their foolishness.”
“I won’t,” Ailsa promised, wondering what she meant.
But her mood switched again and she leaned back in her invisible chair, gaze growing distant with memories. “We attempted a novel way to filter the sylfaen. My husband discovered how to see vortexes of power that got caught in stones.”
“The first-ever sculptor,” Ailsa breathed, wondering how it had all begun, marveling that he figured out how to magnify and mold those powers. Despite her great skill at sculpting, she was not sure she could ever have developed her abilities without the critical training she received at the Carraig.
“He was a genius among men,” Dreokt said, a wistful smile playing across her face. “He was the one who began concentrating enough power in the stones to prove it might be possible. The sylfaen cannot be managed by humanity, but we worked out how to filter it into lesser bands that could pool in stones. Those stones became fuel cells that we could tap. When we arrived here in Obrion, we moved quickly to bury various sculpted stones at locations where the sylfaen converged.”
“World-level convergence points,” Ailsa breathed, so caught up by the amazing tale that she almost forgot to shield her deeper thoughts. Luckily Queen Dreokt was so distracted by her memories that she didn’t seem to notice.
“Exactly. We called our efforts the ramverk. The sylfaen encircle the world, high above the clouds, like a great, invisible shell around the planet. The energy contained within it is vast, and it plunges down into the planet at convergence points, like streams falling through the holes of a giant colander. Through those points of contact, energy flows into the planet, fueling life. The energy is raw and vast, but disperses through the planet until the basic elements of life can feed from it. That gave us the idea of using filters.”
If what she was saying was true, Queen Dreokt had come from a land of vastly advanced learning. No wonder she considered the rest of them little more than barbarians.
The queen had settled into a trance-like state, similar to other walks through old memories, only deeper than usual. Most of the time Ailsa only gleaned a couple of fragments of those memories before the queen lost her train of thought and returned to the present. Perhaps her exceptional exhaustion helped her see deeper into the past. Ailsa was grateful for it. She couldn’t imagine any other way to learn such fascinating insights into the queen’s past.
Queen Dreokt continued, her voice barely above a whisper. “We discovered that by sending a worthy servant who had established higher affinities into the earth in elfonnel form right at a point of sylfaen convergence, bearing with them one of Triath’s highest-form sculpted stones, their presence helped connect their stone to the flow of sylfaen. That stone facilitated dispersing the sylfaen more aggressively. The lowest frequency of sylfaen power could radiate across the land in a form naturally drawn to power-grade stones, particularly those situated near slumbering elfonnel.”
Ailsa wanted to ask a thousand questions, but did not dare interrupt. The queen’s trance was deep. She looked half asleep. Ailsa was not even sure she was conscious that she’d spoken aloud. Ailsa wished she had known the queen in her younger days before the long sleep had corrupted her. Her tale suggested she and her husband had been truly remarkable people, and they had brought affinity magic to an entire continent. How much good could they have done if things had turned out differently?
The queen’s gaze snapped into focus and she growled, “Of course it’s a tragedy. Poor Triath died too young and my wicked son blinded my precious grandson with foolish words of treason. That war destroyed almost everything we had created, and now he has even cost us serpentinite.”
“What do you mean?” Ailsa asked before she could stop herself.
Queen Dreokt rolled her eyes in annoyance. “I thought you were listening. You’re usually smarter than this, Ailsa. I told you that burying that stone with my servant created the affinity.”
“So by burying that sculpted serpentinite stone with an elfonnel at a convergence of sylfaen, you created the serpentinite affinity that others could then access?”
“Like I said,” the queen said with a curt nod. “My decision to retrieve the serpentinite stone was indeed a master stroke in the short term, but does carry a heavy price. I struck down Jagdish with that stone. It granted me elevated access to serpentinite and I believe a permanent increase in my power, for all of my other affinities feel stronger. Unfortunately, in the process I shattered the filter between the sylfaen and the serpentinite affinity.”
“You broke serpentinite?” Ailsa demanded, aghast. To create affinities in the first place was mind bending enough. To now break those affinities was nothing short of terrifying.
The queen made another dismissive gesture. “Oh, don’t be so melodramatic, Ailsa. It’s broken, yes. Broken for the sorry fools who are stuck in the lower thresholds. Even for me, it’s all but useless. But it’s only a short-term loss. Few Petralists can use serpentinite anyway, and nearly all of them died in the rubble of Jagdish. But as we created the affinity before, we can create it again.”
She gestured at an earthen box that she had carried along since her return from her mission of destruction. “I collected enough samples of serpentinite that at least one should prove a fitting specimen for your next master work. Ailsa, I need you to craft me a superb serpentinite sculpture. After we bring this continent to heel, we’ll return it to my servant again, and the affinity will be restored in a few short years.”
Then her expression shifted to eager happiness, like a small child preparing to attend a Sogail celebration. Her eyes sparkled as she said, “When we return to the palace, I would like roasted duck for dinner. And maybe some banana bread. Something nutty sounds splendid.”
63
Miracles
Jean looked up from production reports of Builder mechanicals at a knock on the door. Her private study was but one of the many rooms of her suite, which she still felt was far too vast for a single person, even the lady governess of the city.
“Come in,” she called and dropped the last report onto her desk. It was a large, wooden expanse, much grander than the simple desk she had used for so long in Lord Eberhard’s manor house in Faulenrost. She loved the new desk, especially the many drawers. They were full of mechanicals, healing supplies, and piles of her notebooks and pencils.
The room was large enough that even with floor-to-ceiling bookcases along most of the walls, there was still room for a fireplace, although she rarely used it. She did use the comfortable chairs and couches that faced it, often holding informal brainstorming meetings. She loved the free flow of information. Sometimes she felt the very walls must be soaking up the dense cloud of fresh ideas. It helped the room smell good.
Gisela entered and made a brief curtsy, a habit that Jean was trying to get her to stop with little success. The people of New Schwinkendorf had celebrated Jean’s appointment as their lady governess with remarkable enthusiasm and they universally insisted on strictly observing all of the social norms. She thought it foolish.