by Frank Morin
Connor was not in the mood for gracious acceptance so he muttered, “I still don’t appreciate it.”
“You will.”
He glanced around. They were standing on the high mountain plateau that led up to the broken peak of Drumwhindle Pass. Thick snow covered the ground and their trail back south toward Merkland was clearly visible where Ivor had plowed the way. It looked to be about noon, and the sun broke through the heavy cloud cover enough to set the snow sparkling and make Connor wish he had his darkened goggles.
Near the northern edge of the plateau, right on the point where it met the narrow causeway that led across a deep chasm to the pass, a tiny garrison of soldiers was camped. Their heavy winter tents were half buried in snow, although a much larger earthen building rose three or four stories out of the center of camp.
Ivor noted his gaze. “We shouldn’t get any trouble from them. The peace treaty is signed after all, but Rory also gave us some official documents authorizing us to pass into Granadure.”
“Good. Let’s get going.” Connor felt ashamed of his weakness in almost surrendering to Craigroy. Tresta’s words were still ringing in his mind. He wished he could speak with Aifric about his problem, but maybe he could find time to visit old Mhairi. He could not keep going on like this.
First, he had to go check on Verena.
29
One Worthy Servant
After flying beside Queen Dreokt for so long, Shona caught herself relaxing. It began to almost feel natural to hurtle over the wintry landscape in that protective bubble of warm air. She had to wonder if she was just numb from the emotional highs and lows that she’d suffered in recent days, or if she really was adapting to her insane new reality.
Hopefully it was adaptation and not impending emotional breakdown. She doubted the queen would consider her worthy if she couldn’t stay in control.
Queen Dreokt, who had remained silent ever since they departed Tristan’s elfonnel, glanced at Shona and said simply, “No. I would not.”
Shona gulped and clenched her hands to conceal their shaking as a new wave of icy fear filled her. She’d allowed her thoughts to wander far afield in that extended silence.
“Do all young people worry so much and let their thoughts flit about like butterflies?” Queen Dreokt asked, her expression honestly curious. “I barely remember my own youth and my oldest memories are the fuzziest.”
“I like to think I do better than most,” Shona admitted. Lying to the queen was impossible, so trying to assume false modesty would be stupid. No doubt the queen already knew the answer.
“I am not reading you deeply, child. It’s just, young people think so loudly, it’s impossible to shut you out entirely unless I drop my affinity altogether. That is something I rarely do.”
“You keep you affinities active all the time?” Shona dared ask, astounded by the revelation. She’d never imagined tapping granite constantly. She would burn through far too much precious powder for no reason, and she wasn’t sure what such extended exposure would do to her.
Queen Dreokt nodded. “At my threshold, I require very little stone to establish an affinity, and I can maintain that connection without consuming any additional stone.”
“How is that possible?” Shona asked, encouraged by the queen’s answer.
“It is the state I sought from the first day we discovered how to tap the world’s magic through stones. They are but the filters that allow our untuned, weak physiques to make our first clumsy affinities possible. But they are not the source of our power. I’ve tuned myself to both of the lowest frequencies so I almost don’t need the stones any more.”
She spoke softly, looking out over the cold afternoon, her gaze unfocused, as if she was lost in one of those old, fuzzy memories. Shona wanted to ask a thousand questions about how they figured out how to create power stones and affinities, what threshold the queen has ascended through, and what she meant by different frequencies.
She hesitated, hoping the queen would continue her soft monologue, but she fell silent. Shona considered the many questions she might pose, but what if she only got one more? She should ask the most important question she could think of.
So Shona asked, “Might I inquire, Your Majesty, if there is a technique I can employ to facilitate establishing a tertiary affinity?”
Queen Dreokt abruptly laughed, as if Shona had said something particularly funny. She gave Shona a warm smile and said, “Of course there is.”
Before Shona could ask for more details, their cushion of air began descending sharply. Shona clutched at the invisible cushion out of pure reflex, but felt nothing to grab hold of. They were crossing a row of low, craggy hills and she caught sight of a ribbon of deep blue on the eastern horizon. It took a few seconds to realize she was seeing the distant Sea of Olcan.
As soon as she recognized it, she noted a faint smell of salt on the air. They banked around another hill and a long, low valley opened beneath them. A wide, open pit gaped in the ground near the northern end of the valley, close to where they’d crossed the row of hills. It was a large quarry, dug more than seven levels into the rocky ground.
Immense, circular tiers descended in ever-narrowing bands for over two hundred feet into solid rock. The center of the quarry was obscured by an oblong loch of motionless, green waters. A nearby township filling the land to the south.
Shona felt pretty sure they’d crossed into High Lord Pilib’s realm. That was the house the late Padraigin had married into. House Pilib, which was really two high families merged together, was officially responsible for limestone and sandstone. They had several other excellent quarries too, and it looked like the queen was heading toward a slate quarry. That meant they’d traveled to Delabole.
Delabole produced top-rate slate, but was often considered lesser than the power stone quarried by House Berach, which was officially responsible for slate. House Pilib had always resented that slight. Did any of that factor into the queen’s decision to visit there, or did it reflect somehow on Padraigin’s recent death?
Shona had never visited the Delabole quarry, and she worried what they’d find there. The queen had seemed excited about what she’d learned from Tristan’s elfonnel, but Shona had no idea if Harley was a person, another elfonnel, or something entirely different.
Together they touched down on the edge of the highest level of the quarry, on the northeast rim, not far from where a bluff rose steeply above the valley. All the cutters and workers had stopped to stare at their arrival. They wouldn’t recognize their queen, but they’d understand powerful Petralists had arrived.
Queen Dreokt spoke, her voice magnified many times. “Leave this place immediately.”
The cutters scrambled to obey. Linn workers were accustomed to obeying without question, and they’d be motivated not to anger ladies who could fly.
Even as they fled, the queen closed her eyes and raised her left hand, fingers outspread, as if preparing to lift something off the ground. Shona tensed. The queen was definitely planning to summon something again
Shona listened intently, but heard nothing. It might be wise to retreat, but to where? She felt a slight vibration through her boots, and suspected the queen tapping slate.
With the queen distracted again, perhaps she would answer Shona’s last question. She’d seemed amused by it, and Shona desperately wanted to know the answer. Although max-tapping granite was an unrivaled joy, a high lady like herself with only a primary affinity was considered stunted.
Becoming a Solas raised her personal station significantly. Acquiring a tertiary would establish her as an elite Petralist, able to stand tall in any company, even without the benefit of her father’s wealth and station.
So she dared to speak. “Your Majesty, I would love to assist you today. Is there any way you could teach me—”
“Stop your prattling when I’m working,” the queen hissed, and the ground under Shona’s feet buckled.
She squawked with surprise, limbs flailing
, but failed to keep her feet. She fell forward and the ground pushed her farther, tumbling her right over the edge.
Shona tapped granite before slamming into the next narrow step of the quarry and bounced right over. In quick succession she tumbled down all the way to the third-lowest tier with jarring impacts.
Protected by granite, the fall hadn’t hurt, but she still trembled with fear as she rolled back to her feet to look up at the still unmoving queen. Dreokt had made no other move, no other sign of displeasure, but she’d made it clear that Shona had overstepped her place. Would the queen simply obliterate her there in the quarry? Or would she wipe her mind and re-educate her?
She dare not run, dare not speak again out of turn, but was forced to wait in dreadful, expectant silence. Half a minute elapsed, with her heart racing, her muscles quivering with the need to move. She held perfectly still.
Then the queen’s voice boomed across the quarry, imbued with supernatural depth and power, just like when she summoned Tristan. “Harley. Harley, come forth. Arise and resume your position by my side.”
Shona tensed against the expected rise of another monster. Tristan’s raw, elemental power had rattled her. She wanted nothing more than a quiet day or two somewhere far away.
The ground began to shake. Loose stones rattled and dust floated into the air, creating a dark, obscuring cloud. A stronger tremor shook the quarry and must have spread to the town beyond. Screams of fear echoed across the valley, giving voice to Shona’s terror in a way she could not allow herself to.
Then the stone all across the quarry began to crack. Enormous blocks sundered with explosive reports. Cracks spread like the stone had turned to thin ice during a spring thaw. The continuous rolling thunder of the shifting rock echoed back and forth and pounded against Shona’s granite-hardened skin with physical weight that smelled of broken stone.
The waters of the little loch at the bottom of the quarry erupted in a mighty spray of water and stone. Smaller chunks flew hundreds of feet into the air, and a wave of obscuring, muddy mist billowed over Shona as rocks tumbled back to the ground all around her. She shouted with fear, max-tapping granite and crouching in a ball, with her hands over her head.
The sound was deafening, the muddy mist choking, the darkness complete. The solid stone underfoot cracked and shook with brutal impacts of rocks crashing into the ground all around her. Shona screamed in fear and clutched the piece of limestone that she kept on a chain at her throat. It blazed forth with brilliant light that reflected back off the dirty mist, illuminating little and only serving to blind her further. She reduced the brilliance and focused on the little glowing stone as she fearfully waited for the avalanche to subside.
If one of those blocks struck her, would she shatter and die immediately? If she was only badly wounded, would the queen heal her, or leave her to die? She hated feeling helpless, but at the same time, the obscuring darkness and blanket of overwhelming sound insulated her from everyone, everything. It was as if she was alone in the world for a moment.
So she let herself scream out her fear and terror, allowed the tears to flow unchecked and sobs to wrack her frame as she huddled in the darkness, shaken by thunder, perhaps about to die. She gave vent to all the emotions she’d been suppressing, from the agony of Connor’s rejection to the horror of Padraigin’s brutal death, to the constant, exhausting fear that had become her constant companion while attending the queen.
It seemed to take forever for the elements to subside, but Shona didn’t care. She let herself vent all her emotion, and as silence began to finally creep back over the quarry, she drew it into her own heart. She felt empty and calm for the first time since arriving in Donleavy, and she silently thanked the queen for that unexpected boon.
The silence seeming all the heavier after the tumultuous noise. Shona stood, feeling more in control and refreshed than she had in ages. She was covered in mud and flakes of stone. She must look like a piece of living piece of stone herself, rising from the rubble of the quarry to take new life.
Rocks and debris ringed her in unbroken piles nearly ten feet high. Some of the blocks were as big as wagons. How had she survived without getting flattened?
Queen Dreokt must have saved her life. Relief was a strange feeling in the presence of the queen, but Shona embraced it, filled her mind with gratitude in case the queen decided to read her thoughts again.
Reducing her tap rate, she scrambled to the top of the nearest boulder to see what was going on. The queen no longer stood at the lip of the quarry. Shona slowly turned a circle, peering through the still-settling gloom until she spotted her. Queen Dreokt had traveled down to where the loch had erupted. The waters were gone, replaced by smooth, gray stone.
The queen stood there, petting an elfonnel.
Unlike the other earthbound elfonnel Shona had seen, this one looked like a giant bear, complete with shaggy fur and an enormous head, with jaws that looked like they could crush mountains. The monster was crouched in front of the queen, its massive head bowed until she could reach it. Its enormous bulk filled half the quarry, but the queen stroked it calmly, as if she were petting a household cat.
Shona gasped in wonder, despite having witnessed how easily the queen maintained control over Tristan. The queen really was the master of the elements and the monsters who served as living manifestations of their power.
Queen Dreokt’s voice sliced across the silent quarry. She spoke in normal tones, but they reverberated through Shona like an earthquake through the air. “It gladdens my heart to know you still live, my old friend. I need your services again. Awake! Return to mortal form, shake off those elements, and rise again. We have work to do.”
The giant bear’s fur began to rustle, as if an enormous wind was blowing through it. A mini-tornado formed around the monster, sucking dirt and debris off the ground and momentarily obscuring it from view.
Then the wind scattered, whistling away in every direction. In the place of the monster stood a tall, broad-shouldered woman. She was thick of limb, with a strong jaw, and shaggy black hair hanging down to her shoulders that strongly resembled the mane of a bear. She wore a heavy, black leather jacket over a black, silk blouse, and brown, linen trousers instead of a skirt.
The woman threw back her head and howled, a sound far too powerful to have come from human lungs. The sound grew until the entire quarry shook again and little rocks skipped around everywhere. Then the sound disappeared, snuffed out in a single heartbeat, and the woman dropped to one knee, pressing her face to the queen’s hand.
“I’m really back. I live to serve you, my Queen. Thank you for waking me.”
Queen Dreokt placed a hand on the woman’s head in blessing. “Harley, why did you choose the long sleep after I failed to shake off the elements? You could have taken the kingdom.” Her tone was calm, but Shona sensed an unspoken threat. Was the queen pleased or angry that this woman had not become queen?
Harley said simply, “I could have. I considered it, but this nation needs you. I dared hope you would return, and I realized you would need me when you did. The only way to ensure I could again serve you was to risk the long sleep and hope this day came.”
Queen Dreokt pulled Harley to her feet and embraced her. “I am so happy you did.”
“As am I, my liege.”
Shona scrambled out of the pile of debris and dared step to the edge of the level where she stood. Who was that elfonnel woman? She must have also lived through the Tallan wars, had probably slept for the last three centuries like her queen. Did that mean she was just as insane, just as overpowering?
Queen Dreokt pushed Harley back to arm’s length, her tone turning businesslike. “You’ve slept long enough and I face a drought of worthy servants. The price of our last conflict was dear, and I’m afraid we have few resources to work with in rebuilding our empire.”
Harley did not turn in Shona’s direction but said, “There is one who dares eavesdrop on your conversations, my queen. Shall I elimina
te her?”
The ground under Shona’s feet rippled, as if she was standing on a thin crust above a bottomless deep, and she held her breath in new fear. The woman was powerful enough to raise an elfonnel and return. If she decided to kill Shona, there was absolutely nothing Shona could do about it.
The queen shook her head. “She is one of the few who shows potential, with the proper training.”
The stone beneath her feet flowed up and sealed around Shona’s feet. She squawked with surprise before clamping her lips together. Her stone-encased feet dragged her over the edge and down toward the queen. Rubble flowed out of her way as she accelerated toward them.
Neither woman looked surprised by the amazing feat. Most Sentries could slide across earth, but not solid stone. Apparently Harley could manipulate the stone as easily as Queen Dreokt herself. Shona tried to regain her composure by the time she reached them.
The queen spoke again. “Harley, your homecoming party will have to wait. I have a task for you to perform, and this child will act as your guide.”
Harley cast a dismissive glance at Shona. “I hardly need such a guide.”
“The nation has changed and degraded substantially since you last walked these lands. This girl knows the situation, who are allies, and who are expendable.”
Harley did not look pleased but did not argue further. The queen added, “Return to Stornoway. Your old love lurks there in the ruins, making a nuisance of himself as always, no doubt.”
Harley frowned. “The fool still lives?”
“It appears so. I can no longer afford his childish vacillating. Recruit him and secure his oath.”
“He could prove a powerful ally, but ever has he resisted committing.”
“That time is past. Secure my grandson’s oath. I cannot waste the time to attend to him myself, and I have not the patience for his foolish games. I fear I would destroy him without giving him enough time to come to his senses. Perhaps you can do better.”