by Jeff Grubb
One morning the attacks stopped as quickly as they had begun. Seven days later an elf appeared at the doors of the stockade, unarmed and carrying a scroll.
Harbin himself was at that fort and ordered the guards to open the gates and allow him to parley with the elf but to be ready to shut them should it prove a trap.
It was not. The elf extended the scroll, and Harbin took it from her. It was a map to a location a few hundred miles inland. A note attached, in fluid script, stated that if he wished to parley, he should appear at that location at a certain location and time.
Harbin nodded to the messenger. The elf took a step back and turned to go. She hesitated for a moment, and Harbin almost swore she was going to say something herself. But she only shook her head, and walked back to the tree line. The moment she passed beneath the shadows of those trees she was gone.
The time given was not sufficient to relay word back to Penregon, and, after some concerns, Tawnos allowed the young man to go to the meeting but insisted he take a flight of ornithopters with him.
Now the Speaker led Harbin beneath the trees and into the Court of Titania. He had left two men behind to guard the ornithopters and took two with him. But if the queen violated her word of safe passage, it would matter little whether they were together or apart.
They were preceded and followed by pale elven warriors, their faces painted with chalk. The procession was flanked by other races that watched as they marched by. Once Harbin swore he saw a human face among the crowds, but it was gone and he could not pause to find out.
At last they were let into the great cathedral itself, bathed in green light from the leafy canopy overhead. The ground was firm and even (much of the land beneath the trees was boggy and uneven, slowing their work even further). A long processional was cleared, flanked by still more elves and pixies, straining to look at the invaders. Near the front were humans dressed in brown robes and hoods. They looked daggers at Harbin as he passed.
At the end of the processional was a great dais, its steps rising to a white marble platform that ended in a throne as green as the heart of the forest. Seated on the throne was the queen herself.
Her beauty was unearthly. No, Harbin realized; her very being was unearthly. Her face seemed like a jade mask, narrow and pointed at the chin. Her form was lithe and lean and, if she were to stand, she would be taller than Harbin. She was decked in tendrils and vines, the brilliant yellow-green of new shoots, but her eyes were deep, old, and unfathomable.
The Speaker motioned for Harbin to remain at the base of the dais and took a position two steps up and to one side of the queen. Titania’s face tightened as she regarded Harbin, and the man had the feeling she was mentally peeling away his flesh to get a look at the soul beneath. It was not a pleasant sensation.
There was a silence for a moment. Then the queen spoke, and her words were music. Harbin realized her tongue was related to the elven languages he had heard before as chamber music was related to barbarian chants. Her voice transfixed him and held a fire all its own.
The Speaker said in his clipped tones, “I speak for Queen Titania. Titania speaks for the goddess Gaea, most bountiful and all-powerful. Argoth is under the protection of Gaea and home to her children. You are not welcome here, and you should leave.”
For all the soft trills, it was a blunt message. Harbin responded. “I bring the welcome of the combined kingdoms of Argive, Korlis, and Yotia, its king and people. I bring the welcome of the Lord Protector of the Realm, Urza the Master of Artifice. I am Urza’s son, Harbin. Speak to me as you would to him.”
The Speaker relayed the message to Titania, and Harbin wondered why the vine-clad woman smiled for a brief instant. Then she spoke again, and the Speaker translated.
“She knows who you are and what you are,” he said. “She wants to know if you understand what she just said.”
Harbin took a deep breath. “Tell her I have heard her words. But also tell her that our people will not leave this island.”
Again, the words were relayed, and Titania’s response was short, like a dagger thrust.
“Then your people will die here,” said the Speaker. “You have despoiled the land and must be punished. That is Gaea’s Law.”
“If I may,” said Harbin, raising an empty hand. “Titania should know that my people need the lumber on your shores and the minerals beneath your hills. We are at war against a greater, darker power and need every resource we can muster.”
The Speaker did not even wait to translate this, but merely repeated, “She knows who you are and what you are. You are not welcome here, and you must leave.”
Harbin raised his other hand. “My father’s brother threatens all our land with great machines of mass destruction. Without the lumber and ore to protect ourselves, we will be destroyed. With our destruction, Mishra will find your land and destroy it as well.”
The Speaker translated, and Queen Titania remained silent on her throne, her face impassive. Harbin had expected a more immediate reaction.
Then it occurred to him. Queen Titania was not truly present in this great hall. The beautiful creature before him was a mannequin, a puppet operated from afar. It looked truly alive, but it was nothing but vines and wood. Was the unseen Titania considering his words, or was she busy elsewhere, conferring with advisors?
Finally Titania spoke, and the Speaker’s face tightened as he listened. To Harbin he said, “Your enemy has already found our land. He has landed on the western shores with a force as great as your own. Like you, he is already despoiling the land that he touches.”
“It is as I told you,” said Harbin. “He has great and powerful engines of destruction.”
“And how are they different from your engines of destruction, human?” said the Speaker, without relaying the message to his queen.
Harbin fumed for a moment, then said, “Tell your queen that if she will ally with us, we can defend her against Mishra.”
The Speaker paused for a moment, then relayed the message. The response was short and guttural, and Harbin did not really need the translation.
“She says, ‘No thank you,’ ” said the Speaker diplomatically.
Harbin was exasperated. “You don’t understand. Unless you ally with us, unless you allow us to harvest some of your resources, Mishra will sweep across your land. Only as an ally can you hope to surv—”
Harbin was cut off by a long, tremorous outburst from the queen. Her face was filled with anger, and Harbin marveled for a moment at how lifelike the mannequin seemed.
“The dwarves of the Sardian Mountains were your allies,” said the Speaker. “Where are they now?”
Harbin was stunned. “How do you know of the Sardian Dwarves?” he blurted.
“The goddess Gaea knows all. She speaks to Titania,” said the Speaker. “Titania speaks to me. Where are your former allies?”
“I never heard them called allies,” said Harbin, recovering. “They were another race that bordered Argive, in the mountains. We traded with them for metal and then discovered they were trading with Mishra as well.”
“You killed them,” said Titania, in a language clear and understandable to Harbin’s ears. “Your people killed the Sardian Dwarves. Few survive, as slaves or exiles, but their mines have been plundered and their halls are now warrens for goblins. Is this the fate of your allies?”
Even in rage, even speaking his own language, her voice was beautiful. Harbin stammered, and said, “I was only a youth at the time, but—”
“And Yotia?” said Titania. “Your mother is Yotian, human. How has that nation fared as an ally? Is not its northern border a sheet of fused sand and black glass?”
“That is not my father’s fault!” said Harbin hotly. “It was Mishra who did that!”
Titania did not listen. Instead, she tilted her head, as if listening to music that no one else could hear.
Then the queen of the elves stiffened in her chair and screamed.
Harbin took a step
back, along with most of the court. The queen’s face was contorted, and Harbin could see parts of her wooden mask splinter as she screamed. Leaves fell from her vine-covered dress and grassy tendrils spun out of control. She twisted once in her chair and was still.
Harbin was suddenly very much aware of where he was: deep in the heart of unknown territory. Surrounded by beings who had fought his work since its inception. Protected from them only by the word of their monarch, who had just screamed in pain as he yelled at her.
Harbin did not turn around, but he imagined every elf, centaur, and pixie in the forested vault was drawing his weapon.
But as quick as Titania’s attack came on, it passed. The queen stirred and collected herself, and Harbin saw that her green garments were regrowing themselves.
Yet when she looked at him, Harbin saw that her eyes were deep, tired pools, and she suddenly seemed worn and haggard.
“You and the other invaders stink,” she said simply and quietly. “You smell of metal and machine oil. Both sides despoil our land, and both sides will be driven out. Argoth is not yours, Child of the Artificer. It belongs to neither your father nor to his brother. Go now. Tell the other humans this message: Leave now or be driven from our shores.”
Titania lowered her head. The Speaker said, “This audience is over.”
Harbin wanted to press his point, to warn Titania further of the danger of Mishra, but her mannequin was already unraveling, the vines and grasses pulling away from the form, rotting as they separated. Finally all that lay on the throne was a jade mask.
“You will be protected as long as you remain within our lands,” said the Speaker. “Now you must go.”
Harbin and the two other pilots were escorted from the halls, Harbin walking alongside the Speaker. There were so many questions here, so much said and not said. He had failed in that the Argivians needed the wood and ore and he could not get permission. But he knew that permission would never come from this strange queen. What device did she use to animate her puppet? And was she present, even now, watching them?
There was another human face in the crowd, his face grim and angry. Harbin thought of the brown-robed men and asked the Speaker, “There are men here?”
The Speaker nodded but did not lose a stride. “There are. But they are no friends of yours, Artifice Child. They hate artifacts and all devices and fled to our isle to escape them years ago.”
Harbin thought for a moment and said, “That is how you know about Urza and Mishra, then? They are refugees from the mainland.”
The Speaker smiled. “The Druids of Citanul came here centuries ago, Child of the Machine Maker.”
“But you said they hated artifacts.”
“Do you think,” said the Speaker, “that yours is the first empire to rely on the tyranny of the machine? Or the last?” When Harbin did not answer, the Speaker asked, “Why did you bring your flying devices here?”
“The ornithopters?” Harbin said. “It was the quickest way. And it would not harm your precious woods.”
“It was a show of power,” said the Speaker.
Harbin felt embarrassed. The Speaker was correct. But after seeing what the queen could do, he did not feel particularly powerful.
“Yes, it was,” said the Speaker smoothly. “A small show of power. Now allow us a small show of power in response.”
They emerged in the glen where the ornithopters had landed. All five machines were there, as were the two Argivians left behind as guards. There were the elvish warriors and more of the brown-cloaked humans. The Druids of Citanul.
“Observe,” said the Speaker, and signaled the brown-robed humans.
At once the druids began a chant. It was a low chant, almost felt in the bones more than heard through the ears, and it used the language the Speaker had employed when he spoke to Titania. Their voices rose, then fell, then split into separate choruses, weaving and interweaving among themselves.
The pilots reached for their weapons, but Harbin held up a hand to stop them. None of the elves moved.
Then the ornithopters began to move of their own volition. At first Harbin thought it to be a simple breeze that caught the wings, but their wings began to unfurl to their full limits. Beyond those limits. As Harbin watched, the pulleys along the wings ripped from their grommets and the wires snapped, their sharp twangings punctuating the monks’ chants.
One of the pilots shouted and ran for his craft, but it was too late. The ornithopters rose like bucking horses, flapping their dying wings against the ground. For a moment, they looked like wounded, living birds. Then they crumbled in on themselves, their struts and fabric unable to withstand their own sudden animation.
Where the ornithopters had been, there were now five piles of broken wood and hide. Already, the elves and druids were beginning to back away, disappearing into the trees.
“Your show of power. Our show of power,” said the Speaker. “Know that we could have done it once you were in the air, but you are under Titania’s protection until you leave our lands. You have nothing to fear until you reach the lands you have despoiled.”
The Speaker smiled, and it was a mean, self-satisfied smile. “Have a pleasant walk back, human.” And he was gone as well.
* * *
—
Mishra had moved faster than Ashnod had assumed. He was gone by the time she arrived in Zegon, gone with the invasion fleet bent on wresting the new land from Urza. Only through personal favors and equally personal threats did Ashnod gain passage on one of the supply ships following in the wake of the initial attack.
She could see the new land before it appeared on the horizon. It was marked by a thick column of smoke that grew as her ship passed through the storms, a dark beacon calling her forward.
The shore was a blackened wreckage of burned stumps, jutting from the ground like rotted teeth. Already the tree line had been pushed nearly to the horizon, and Mishra’s factories were already assembled and working full tilt to convert those resources that survived into useful weapons.
Ashnod moved among the wreckage and discovered signs that the occupation had not gone unopposed. There was a shattered hulk that had been a dragon engine not far from the docks at which she had landed, and she passed an open grave filled with the bodies of transmogrants and what looked like elves.
She wanted to seek out Mishra first but upon landing thought better of it. Mishra had banished her and might not be overjoyed to see her. Better to check with the hierarchy first.
She went looking for Hajar instead. She found him, two miles up-shore, trying to unmire a war machine that had sunk, axles-deep, in a swamp.
Hajar looked at Ashnod stonily, then nodded. It was a warmer welcome than she had expected. Perhaps the older man was mellowing.
“You are back,” he said shortly.
“New horizons, new opportunities,” she replied. “Any chance of getting to see his nibs?” She laid her backpack on the ground and hefted a heavy box. “I brought presents.”
Hajar said nothing to her but turned the bother of extricating the titanic machine over to an underling. He started walking farther up the shore, and Ashnod followed, carrying both box and backpack. Hajar offered to carry neither, and Ashnod noted there was a slight stoop in the old Fallaji’s shoulders as he moved. The years of watching Mishra’s back were finally telling on the lean-faced bodyguard.
They arrived at last at a blockhouse, a huge fortress of rough-hewn lumber and unmortared stone. It looked as if this had seen some fighting as well, for the outer walls were scorched by flame.
“I take it that there have been problems,” Ashnod said.
Hajar nodded. “The land is occupied and must be taken, inch by inch.”
Ashnod nodded in turn. “Any chance of talking with the original owners?”
“A leader of their people appeared here soon after we arrived,” said Hajar. “A green woman, wrapped in leaves and coiled vines.”
“How did it go?” asked Ashnod, already knowin
g the answer.
Hajar sighed. A small sigh, but a sigh nonetheless. “Mishra ordered the dragon engines to set her on fire. She screamed and went up like kindling. Then the attacks began again.”
“How is he?” she asked as they passed within the heavy gates of the blockhouse. “Mishra, I mean.”
“He is,” said Hajar, then looked at Ashnod. She saw there was a softening in his lean visage. “And he is not. You will understand when you see him again.”
The throne room of the blockhouse was a rough, frontier affair, a rude dais made of slabs of stone with a captain’s chair from one of the ships serving as a throne. It was flanked by two Gixians, one with an artificial arm, the other with a steel plate bolted to his face across the eyes.
Hajar remained by the door, and Ashnod noted the pecking order had changed in her absence.
There was Mishra himself. He was thinner and more muscular than he had been when last she had seen him. What mass he retained was now muscles rippling beneath his robes. His hair and beard seemed darker too. Ashnod assumed that the older man had at last surrendered to vanity and used some Zegoni ointment to hide his age.
But his eyes were as alive as they had ever been, as curious and as seeking. Ashnod had forgotten that look over the years.
He still had the razor-sharp ankh of Sarinth tucked in his belt, even though that land was in full rebellion. Ashnod made a mental note not to mention it, as it might still be a sore point. She set the box down and the pack next to it and prostrated herself before the Artifice Qadir.
“I bring you greetings, O Master of the Desert and now Master of the Sea,” she said, rising without waiting for him to command it.
“I thought I had banished you,” said Mishra grimly. “I said I would have you slain if you were found within my territories again.”
“So you did, Most Sage and Just One,” said Ashnod, hewing to the formal modes of address until she could discern Mishra’s temperament. “And if you truly held this land, I would never choose to risk your wrath by appearing before your court. But it seems there is some doubt about that control at the moment, and I offer my aid to make this land yours.”