“Such is your prerogative,” she replied, “but that doesn’t make it right.”
“And what’s been done here, be that ‘right’?”
“If it were, I wouldn’t have stopped it.”
He said nothing but his manner made his anger plain.
“I am—” she began, but was rudely cut off by a peremptory wave of the hand.
“Your name is known, and your claim. Whether We acknowledge either remains to be determined.”
“As Your Majesty pleases,” and she bowed her head in affirmation of the King’s rank.
“Death has been brought to this sacred place, and foul desecration attempted. Those scales must be balanced.”
Too late Elora realized that the King wasn’t engaging in a dialogue but was passing sentence. A blast of energy ripped forth from him. She’d been expecting any attack to come from the mass above, yet even as the King struck at her she saw the monstrous creature burst apart into all its component parts, the sky around her suddenly filling with fairies, thick as snowflakes in a blizzard and infinitely more lovely.
She had a heartbeat to realize the purpose of this distraction before the King’s bolts struck both her and the warrior. Coherent thought shattered like breaking glass, all the numberless pieces of her self cast forth on bits of crystal, each to be snatched up by a fairy and hidden away in some secret spot known only to them, nevermore to be found. In this way would the old persona be irreversibly annihilated, leaving the way clear for something new and altogether different to be born.
She would have cried out, but the pain was so blindingly intense that her breath caught in her throat. Her mouth opened wide, the sole means left her to express those feelings of suffering, but then to her horror her jaws separated even wider, as though her flesh had become pliable and elastic. The shape of bones shifted beneath her skin like soft clay, squarish jaw becoming sharply pointed, skull elongating and narrowing to match, eyeteeth stretching into fangs, ears curving up and out to triple their former size, a fan shape ending in sharp points top and bottom. Her vision splintered, reformed, developed multiple facets, as though the lens of her eyes had been replaced by cut diamonds. She felt her shoulders compress, then her hips, accompanied by an elongation of the spine. She registered a dull, distant thump as her belt dropped from a waist grown too thin to support it. Legs came to resemble stilts, uncommonly long and thin as twigs, nothing but bone and whipcord muscle beneath their tautly wrapped envelope of skin. Her arms grew much the same, to end in fingers dominated by wickedly sharp, retractable claws. She didn’t need a look at her toes to know they were the same, accompanied by a spur that extended from her heel to make it easier to grasp hold of a landing perch.
The last was the worst, as flesh and bone and muscle and sinew were reshaped a final time to bring forth her wings.
She found herself wrapped in a cocoon of her own making, pliant wings folded protectively across her body. She unfolded herself gracefully, because there was no other way for one of the fairy folk to move, to find the King standing before her, hand outheld to help her to her feet.
Elora turned her head to the side, and beheld the sorceress, curled up in much the same pose, having undergone an identical transformation. She was larger by far than most of the fairies, though little more than a small child by Daikini standards. She awoke slowly, haltingly, confused at first by the strangeness of all that lay about her, but speedily entranced by the wonder of it all. Every experience was a discovery, and each of those, a delight.
Her wings unfolded with a snap, and the moment they did so her feet left the ground. It took no effort on her part, and there was only the barest of breezes across the crest of the tor. Neither mattered. Her place was the sky, and as she rose a triple column of flashfire creatures spiraled about her until she was as radiant a being as the massive creature that had tried so hard to claim her life.
Elora felt a terrible yearning in her own heart, an itching down the length of her spine as her wings stirred of their own accord.
She closed hands into fists, felt the pressure of blunt fingernails against her palm, held them out for inspection, and realized with that sight that she viewed them through a single smooth lens rather than the prism of a fairy’s eyes.
“Elora Danan,” the King breathed while she tried to master the pain of reversion, and she found herself thankful to be already on her knees as she rebuilt herself from the inside out.
“It is you.”
She was folded totally in on herself, on her knees with her forehead resting on the rough surface of a paving stone. She wanted nothing more than to sleep away the season, if not the year, if not the rest of her life, but instead pressed herself up until her spine was straight and sat on her heels in the Chengwei manner. She and the King were eye to eye. She met his gaze and did not bow.
“I am Tyrrel.” His public name, of course, for the revelation of his True Name would give sorcerers power over him, as would knowledge of his rank to his more temporal foes.
“Majesty,” she replied.
“My spell did not hold.”
“None do, on me.”
“You don’t sound so pleased.”
She flicked her eyes skyward, to where the woman who had once been a Maizani had joined hands with other fairies in a joyous dance of rebirth and welcome.
“It would have been nice to fly just once. What have you done here, Tyrrel?”
“As I said, balancing the scales. A bloodgelt. A life in payment for the slain.”
“Your fairies took their toll of her companions, why spare her?”
“They fought, they were slain in battle. She yielded. That brought her before Our justice. Rampant slaughter is a Daikini trait, Elora Danan.”
“What will become of her?”
“She will serve as Our consort. Her children will take the place of those who were slain defending this most sacred place. And mayhap her power as a sorceress will help defend Us against any others who would do Us harm. On either side of the Veil.”
“She won’t be enough.”
“Shall We then depend on you, Sacred Princess?”
Elora made a wry face and rose to her feet, grimacing at every pop of every joint as they were reminded how to properly work. She felt sore and pummeled, worse than she ever had after a day’s work at Torquil’s forge. She scooped up her belt and pouches as she stood, and cast about for something to wear.
“I was thinking we might help each other. You know of the Sandeni stronghold on the river, to the south and east?”
Tyrrel nodded.
“One way or another, war will come to them before long. Either the Maizan, or Faery. Those Daikini are taking a stand to defend your homes as much as theirs.”
“Tell that to those dispossessed when they clear-cut the forest for their buildings and their farms.”
“Will you argue till we’re all ghosts and these Realms we cherish no more than a memory? I say to you what I did to her, there’s room to share. Or do you choose to be just as deaf? They’re prepared to die, for you as much as for their own. But if you of Lesser Faery join with them, that doesn’t have to be.”
“Fairies,” Tyrrel said slowly, “are but one of the races of the Realm of Lesser Faery, even as Maizan and Sandeni, Angwyn and even Tir Asleen are but nations of the Daikini Realm. They cannot speak for all.”
“I’m not asking them, Majesty. I’m asking you.”
“And who am I?”
“When my adversary, the Deceiver, who wears the shape and seeming of the Maizan Castellan, ensorcelled the monarchs of the Twelve Realms who’d assembled for my Ascension, his goal was to seize dominion over them all. He failed. I escaped. Instead the governance of those Realms has been thrown into disarray. Out of that chaos comes opportunity.”
“Not only for him.”
“You plead my case for me, Tyrrel
. Together we have a better chance than alone. And who knows where such an alliance might lead?”
“You could command Us, Elora Danan. As you could have commanded Us earlier to forbear. Such is your right.”
“I didn’t think you’d listen,” she confessed. “And I haven’t earned that right.”
He nodded.
“You are learning, child. All life grows according to a natural order. A quicker way might be found, that growth could be forced. But should it?”
“Puzzles?” she groaned in dismay. “Why does it always have to be puzzles?”
To her surprise, Tyrrel actually chuckled.
“You want it to be easy?”
“Yes?” she hazarded.
“Then you’d be your own adversary.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
From beneath his cloak, that spread out from him like a fall of forest leaves, Tyrrel drew his staff of office. It stood as tall as Elora herself and was composed of strips of all the woods of the world, wound lengthwise together. She didn’t think much of it, beyond an appreciation of the wood-carver’s craft to combine examples of so many different trees, until a closer look revealed that no piece of the staff had been cut or carved. The staff itself was as much a living thing as any of the trees it symbolized, its component elements blended because it was the natural and proper thing for them to do.
In one hand, he raised it shoulder-high and held it parallel to the ground so that he stood on one side of the altar and Elora on the other. Without urging, trusting yet again to instinct and inspiration, she reached out with both her hands and placed them on either side of his.
“We speak as Prince Regent of the Realm known in the Daikini tongue as Lesser Faery,” Tyrrel said, and with those words came the barest hint of sunrise behind him to the east. “For all who swear Us true allegiance, We pledge to the Sacred Princess Elora Danan Our lives, Our souls, Our most sacred honor. When needed, We shall come. Her battle is Ours. As are her foes.”
“I speak as Elora Danan,” she said in response. “And to you and yours, my lord, I pledge my life, my soul, my most sacred honor. When needed, I shall come. Your battles are mine. As are your foes.”
“So mote it be,” cried the green man, and together they slammed the staff down upon the altar.
Silence. Not so hollow and lifeless as before, just the ordinary quiet of a mountain dawn, highlighted by the ever-so-slight shush of a breeze around the rocks and stones jumbled across the hillside, stirring air in much the same burbling manner as a current might water over a riverbed. The towering plinths were gone, all the sarcen stones, the perimeter blocks. Even the altar was once more a wind-worn lump of obsidian. The last stars of morning blazed defiantly in the heavens, grass tickled the folds that marked the knuckles of her toes, and each slow breath tasted sweet.
She buckled her belt across her hips because she had nowhere else to put it, thankful beyond words to once more have hips, and began to root in a traveling pouch for something to wear.
“To the victor,” Khory noted, joining Elora from where she’d been watching behind one of the middle rank of stones. She held forth some of what the Maizan sorceress had worn.
“I don’t think so.” Elora wrinkled her nose in distaste.
“You’re of a size.”
“I don’t think so,” she repeated, comparing her own image with that of the sorceress.
“Consider the alternative.”
“I’ll find something.”
“That fits?” She didn’t mind Elora’s basilisk glare in the slightest. “Considering the company?”
“Ryn,” Elora cried, “what about Ryn?” She dashed to where the young Wyr lay. “He’s still unconscious—no!” She corrected herself excitedly, “He’s asleep!”
Her smile was a wonder to behold as she lay her hands gently on the young Wyr’s temples. “Khory, the bindings are gone. His soul is his own again.”
“A good night for us all around then. About time.”
“What should we do?”
“Sleep’s the best thing for him now. Rool has some herbs to help in that regard. While he takes his ease we’ll transport him to Thorn. He’s the Magus, mind you, he’ll be able to make sure of the lad’s recovery.” She turned her head downslope in the direction of their companions below. “We’ve certainly horses enough for the journey, between our own and what the Maizan rode. And Bastian can find us a gentle track. Ryn should come through fine.”
“From your mouth to the Almighty’s ear?”
“I know things. He’ll be fine.”
Who knows, Elora thought with an irreverence that made her laugh out loud, maybe we all will.
From horseback as on foot, views are always limited. The horizon is a flat line off in the distance, that distance determined by the height of the vantage point. It can be the mountains that define the shape of the land along the southern frontier of the Republic of Sandeni, or the trees arrayed ahead or on either side. You see what there is to see—until something gets in the way.
Bastian had no such impediment. For the eagle, perspectives were boundless, the nature of the world was laid out before him. That was the practical reason Elora loved looking at it so often through his eyes, to provide herself both a sense of true direction and of progress. She could actually see where she was going, and determine from that sight how long until she got there. It allowed her to view things as a whole, rather than in isolated bits and pieces. There was a context from on high that wasn’t always clear at ground level, in much the same way that the surface of the ocean provides only the most general clues of the shape and texture of what might lie thousands of feet below.
The Stairs to Heaven formed the spine of the continent, as well as its literal, and mythical, summit. They were the highest point on the globe, whose paramount peaks soared to realms where such as Elora could find no air to breathe nor those like Bastian sufficient air to support even their mighty wings. Snow was a constant on those rugged and towering slopes, right through the hottest days of summer. These were young mountains, their silhouettes only lightly touched by wind and weather, with edges so sharp they might have been etched in acid against the cerulean backdrop of the sky.
The range stretched east and west like a belt across the belly of the continent, forming a natural barrier between the upper and lower hemispheres. Because the crown of the chain lay closer to the Chengwei coast than Angwyn’s Sunset Ocean, there was no gradual fall off to the east. The phalanx formed by these peaks charged right to the water’s edge, ending in a line of breathtaking cliffs and the most forbidding coastline ever charted, while out to sea for another two hundred miles was scattered an archipelago of sea mounts, the tops of peaks whose bases stood hundreds of feet if not miles beneath the water’s surface. It was almost as if they were pathfinders for the army that followed, marking the way for the rest to ultimately form some impossible land bridge to the opposing shore.
Thanks to generations of mapmakers, the general shape of the Stairs to Heaven was seen as resembling a vase, fattest like a bulb where the peaks rose highest, slimming and lowering as it stretched westward in a gradual descent to sea level. As it progressed, offshoot secondary chains sprayed to the north and south in a way that was reminiscent of the spray off a fountain or the curve of flowers in that vase, blending ultimately with lesser, independent ranges thrown up along the north–south orientation of the coast.
The most dramatic feature of the continental landmass occurred roughly two thirds of the distance from Angwyn eastward to Chengwei. It was as though countless eons past some titanic force had simply lifted the entire surface of the world to create a plateau of incredible dimensions. Its western boundary was a chain of cliffs for the most part better than a thousand feet high that stretched from a subsidiary branch of the Stairs to Heaven almost all the way to the top of the world, where it merged indistingui
shably with the equally magnificent Ice Land glaciers.
To the Daikini, it was known with simple eloquence as the Wall.
From the earliest chapters of recorded Daikini history, the Wall appeared to be an insurmountable obstacle to travel between east and west. True, there were trails and passes through the southern mountains, but they were traversible only in summer and they passed through so many different domains of the Veil Folk that anything more than the most minimal traffic and trade proved uneconomical. Too many tolls to start with, since each domain had to be negotiated with in turn. It was difficult enough to get the locals to acknowledge any Daikini right to use the land at all, much less arrive at some mutually agreeable formula for compensation. This left almost no hope of laying down the roadwork necessary to sustain regular traffic. Dryads might be persuaded to accept the felling of a stretch of trees in the forest, but would the naiads who resided in the lakes accept the use of their water by stock and travelers? Ultimately for both sides, there was too much grief and aggravation for far too little reward.
This was the classic story of relations between the Great Realms. Everyone had ambitions, but could find neither clue nor desire in regard to achieving a compromise. In a world where no one accepted that they had anything in common with their neighbor, how then to determine a common good?
But where the Veil Folk possessed actual, direct power over the physical world—the ability, through magic or innate talent, to individually manipulate their environment—the Daikini were blessed with a formidable intellectual capacity, married to a gift for engineering even brownies knew to respect. For every problem there was a technological solution. That was the Daikini way. Every obstacle was merely a new challenge to be overcome. If they found a wall they couldn’t go around, they’d find a way to go over it.
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