by Erin Hoffman
The strange smell seemed to be coming from a platter of crushed plant material that rested on a steel tray to one side of the bed. The healer, a vastly wrinkled woman with grey hair and nimble fingers, held a linen poultice of the stuff to Ariadel's jaw.
It's cactus, Ariadel thought at him, and she smiled, then immediately winced, from her perch. There was no separation of her thought from his-it was as if he'd thought it himself, only he had no idea what a “cactus” was.
She realized this, too. It's a plant from the plains-desert south of the Windsmouth range, they thought together. By the ruins? (This time it was actually his thought.) Even past the ruins, came the answering thought. Far, far south. That would explain why he'd never seen it before-it must be tremendously rare. The volcanic Windsmouth Mountains were beyond treacherous-some said they had swallowed up entire civilizations. And a series of skeletal reef-islands that confounded even the most learned navigator barred access to the southern continent by sea. Naturally it was the fascination of every dreamer and dusty-nosed archivist north of Cheropolis, and many more to the south.
The healer had rolled up her sleeves-apparently the strange green pulp wasn't the only act in the show tonight.
Vidarian felt an abrupt tightening in his chest, a sensation he had come to recognize as the precursor to someone wielding elemental energies in his immediate vicinity. Strange green lights that his eyes told him he saw but he knew had no real “light” of their own danced out from the healer's fingertips, ribbons of energy that filled the air with a refreshing crispness, almost like the scent of pine needles. The ribbons were joined by bands of blue, red, and gold so quickly that Vidarian was not able to identify any of the matching changes in the air, though he knew they were there, and a strange harmony thundered in his ears.
Then, suddenly, all of the energies were one, and they flickered out of his sight. Vidarian staggered and leaned into the doorjamb-it felt like something was crawling under his skin, swimming just below the reach of his consciousness. A sickening coppery taste filled his mouth.
All at once it was over; the healer was folding her sleeves back down and Ariadel was carefully testing the mobility of her healed jaw.
// Fish go down straight, not sideways, // Thalnarra offered helpfully.
Vidarian felt his eyes bulge further. “What?”
// Nothing. You look like you're having a bit of trouble there. Remember to breathe. //
“Right,” was all he could manage, around concentrating on pulling air into his lungs.
// It gets easier the more you see it. What did you sense? // The gryphoness's piercing red eyes sharpened on him, their pupils pinning and flaring briefly.
“Like something…crawling…” He rubbed compulsively at his forearm.
// So you can feel it. // There was distinct satisfaction in Thalnarra's voice. // Some only experience a ringing in their ears, or a paling of the energy-light. //
“No, I felt it, all right.” Belatedly he remembered his manners and turned to the healer. “Thank you, Mender, for your help.”
The old woman smiled, baring a set of surprisingly white, strong teeth. “It's an honor to make y'r acquaintance, er-sir-”
“Just Vidarian, please, Mender,” Vidarian said quickly. The healer only smiled and bowed out of the room.
You should let them say it, Ariadel chided with Vidarian's mind. They are getting the chance of a lifetime, to meet the Tesseract. The word had rapidly become a trigger for cold chills up Vidarian's spine.
I just don't think any good can come of spreading big titles around….
“No good can come of trying to hide what you are, either,” Ariadel said, testing out the flexibility of her jaw.
// She speaks true, // Thalnarra addressed all of them, then tilted her head to fix Vidarian with a scarlet eye that once more flashed light and dark with her scrutiny.
// How can you do what you must if you are balked by a mere word? //
“And what must I do?” He couldn't quite keep the impatience out of his voice, having lost count of how many times he'd asked the same question.
But this time Thalnarra answered, black pupils flaring to fill her eyes.
// Change the world, of course. //
At midafternoon the following day they made port in Val Harlon to bid farewell to the Stormswift and board a lighter rivergoing craft. Val Harlon was unrivaled in splendor, as always-its white filigreed arches gleamed in the sun, visible far from the shore. Even at this distance it was possible to make out the strange famed sculptures that perched atop the spires-shaped like a human, but completely feathered, and winged like a gryphon. Fishing “farms” spread out in narrow fingers to either side of the channels that led to and from the port, crisscrossed with floating walkways woven from white reed.
The Sunstar, yet another Sher'azar-commissioned vessel, sat alarmingly low in the green water, its black hull set with thick glass in portholes that looked out no more than a handspan above the river's surface. She was sleek and narrow, which meant for smaller sleeping quarters, but to Vidarian the sight of her trim deck and precise three-cornered sails more than made up for the inconvenience. He also didn't spend much time below, in the first place.
The river fascinated. Vidarian had never liked rivers; even on the largest ones, the land crowded in too closely, and the calmer land waters gave berth to indolent but deadly creatures; somehow that combination struck Vidarian as cosmically wrong. Now, though, he sensed how the water changed; he felt it in his veins. Though thinner and tamer, the water here was of a purer source, absent the salt that gave the sea her body and wildness-it was clean and alive. Even the lush greenery that drank the river's essence from the shore pulsed with the presence of water itself, flavoring the very air. Vidarian spent many hours each day simply sitting in the shade of the mainsail, drinking in the new flavors of the elemental energy around him. He would return below only for meals and to sleep.
Though small, the Sunstar boasted more amenities than the Stormswift, being something of a luxury vessel and never intended for the abrasive salten sea. Vidarian grudgingly admitted that a few of her fittings outshone the Quest, and a small handful, such as the clever mirrored light fixtures that spun to distribute tension but never tilted, he memorized for adaptation onto his family's ship. If he could have discerned it, he would eagerly have learned what allowed the Sunstar to boast such elegant interiors while remaining as light and fleet as a sailfish on the water.
Vidarian spent two days perched at the bow of the small river-ship before the smooth separation of the green waters before the knifelike prow began to wane in its wonder. The other occupants of the small vessel had left him to his peace, perhaps wisely recognizing his need for quiet with the magics at war within him, but on their third day on the river, Thalnarra came and sat next to him, her muscles shifting with the gently swaying deck.
“How did she do it?” Vidarian asked, without turning his head to look at the gryphoness. Thalnarra chuckled.
// You refer to the fish incident, // she said, as if that was any explanation, but she continued before he could contradict her. // Healers maintain an internal balance of all four elements, at least insofar as we can tell. To tell you the truth, I don't know if anyone completely understands it. It is an ability that they display from an early age, and it is instinctive. //
“Why did it keelhaul me like that?” Vidarian folded his arms and consciously smoothed the scowl from his expression as he turned to regard Thalnarra, leaning against the carved, upswept “flames” that formed the Sunstar's bow.
// Only because you've never seen it before, while Kindled. Exposure to Healing strikes us all differently. Most air magicians smell it; water magicians hear it; fire magicians see it; earth magicians taste it. //
Vidarian's brow furrowed. “But…I'm almost certain I felt it, crawling around…” He rubbed his hands on his shirtsleeves, trying to shake the memory of the strange sensation from his fingertips. The gryphoness did not answer, t
hough she flicked a momentary scarlet glance at him before returning her focus to the parting river below. Vidarian clenched his teeth. He had come to conclude that not all magicians had such a flare for the dramatic-just the Fire ones. “Who feels it, Thalnarra?”
// We have records of magicians from long ago-centuries upon centuries ago, as far as we can reckon-that could “feel” Healing. // The feathered tip of her tail flicked against her ankles. // They were called PrimeAdepts, and they were masters of all four elements. //
“Am I going to be a…PrimeAdept?” Vidarian swallowed. He was having a hard enough time with two elements in his blood; what would it be like with four?
Thalnarra gave a purring chuckle, the feathers on her throat rippling, that set him at ease. // Not likely. For one thing, all of the PrimeAdepts were gryphons. // She fixed him with a superior stare for a moment, and he met it, though his survival brain clamored against facing down that primal predator regard. Her amusement rippled in his mind, not unkind, and she again turned her head back toward the water. // And for another, // she continued, // we do not think there remains enough magic in the world to support a PrimeAdept. //
“There was more magic, before?” The question was obvious, and somehow Vidarian felt that he knew the answer in his bones, in his blood, but he needed it spoken.
// Oh, yes. There was a time when most creatures had magic…and when humans and gryphons were quite outnumbered by other sentients on this planet. And further back, in the Age of the PrimeAdepts, magic was everywhere. // Thalnarra twitched one tufted ear, her pupils contracting and flaring, her mind somewhen else.
“What happened?”
// Get me that fish, // Thalnarra said abruptly.
“What?” Pulled from his imaginings, Vidarian looked down into the river.
// Get. Me. That fish. // She gestured down into the ship's wake with a talon; a small school of silver fish swam alongside, staying just ahead of the rolling water. Still trying to figure out when he had missed the turn in their conversation, Vidarian reached down to take a fishing pole from the hooks suspended below the rail. // Not that way, // Thalnarra corrected. Even more confused, Vidarian stared at the fish. They were starting to separate from the ship, would disappear in moments.
He almost realized Thalnarra's intent too late. Then, as the last fish started to change its course, he reached out with his senses.
Coolness flooded his mind as he made metaphysical contact with the river. All of the life he had sensed before roared up before him-the reeds as they whisked past on the shore, the slimy moss that covered the stones on the bank, the flat lily pads with their pointed orange blossoms…and the silver fish, each as long as his forearm. He found the nearest fish with his mind and then crept forward into the rushing water just in front of it. Then, not entirely knowing what he was doing, he pulled.
The fish flipped out of the water, or rather, the water flipped upward and took the creature with it. As it sailed high in the air and then began to fall, the still-moving ship coursed to meet it, and Thalnarra caught it neatly in her beak. Two twitches of her throat and it was gone. // Very good, // she said, and Vidarian did not know if she praised him or the fish.
“Don't mention it,” he said anyway. Thalnarra answered his question as if uninterrupted by the snack.
// We do not know for certain what changed, // she said, // whether it was of “our” doing or whether the world simply began to lose its magic. We do believe that some of the continuing loss is population-related. Our populations-and, more specifically, your human populations-continue to rise, but the amount of magical ability doled out to both our species seems to remain the same. Therefore we have fewer magic-workers, and those few we have are not as strong as magicians of old. //
“But I thought the goddesses gave magic.”
Thalnarra nodded. // They do, and at the beginning of the history of the great Temples as we know them today, magicians turned to the elemental goddesses and asked them to renew their magical abilities. To a certain extent, the goddesses answered, and so the priestesshoods were born. Some would say that it is Ele'cherath's will that magic should dwindle, or that we do not act on her will enough and so she slowly withdraws her blessing from us. The fact is no one really knows. //
It was all getting a little too philosophical. “What am I supposed to do?”
The gryphoness tilted her head, eyeing him. // I told you. Change the world. //
“But you didn't say how.”
Thalnarra sighed and returned her gaze to the river. Her pupils started to contract and flare again for several moments before stopping suddenly. // The Tesseract is prophesied to seal the Great Gate, // she said, still not looking at him. // The Gate of the PrimeAdepts. //
“Oh,” he said. “What happens after that?”
// We don't know. //
The following day, the water changed color slightly, growing less green. By midafternoon the watch called out a sighting-Moorport was on the horizon. At this, Ariadel, looking considerably less sun-touched than Vidarian for her time spent below, clattered joyfully up to the top deck. She smiled as she squinted into the sunlight.
“You're in fine feather,” Vidarian said, chuckling at her gaiety.
“Moorport is my favorite stop,” she said, beaming at him despite his gentle jibe. “Come, I'll show you.”
Ariadel's excitement, Vidarian was later forced to admit, was fairly justified. She led him to a stately establishment far enough away from the river to shed its scent but close enough to be within easy walking distance of the port. A sign hung over the door proclaimed it the Inn of the Lustrous Pearl.
Within was a paradise in miniature. Strange plants with leaves and flowers that Vidarian could not name filled a small conservatory just inside the tall front doors, and tiny birds twittered from the trees that arched slender branches over a cobbled path that led to the inn itself.
Either Ariadel had sent word ahead, or the proprietors of the Pearl were ready for custom at any time of the day; neither would have particularly surprised Vidarian. As soon as they stepped inside the warmly lit entryway, a pair of smiling women, strikingly beautiful with dark hair and eyes, took Vidarian in hand and led him down the left corridor-Ariadel accompanied another pair to the right, flashing a wicked smile at his alarmed expression. She wiggled her fingertips at him before disappearing around a corner.
After a couple of right-angle turns, the wood-paneled hallway opened up into a small, comfortable chamber lit with lamps of frosted golden glass, each easily as large as Vidarian's head. Spaced between the lamps, covering every inch of wall space, were beveled wooden racks-and in the racks, row on row of gleaming glass bottles, all identically shaped but no two of the same color. In the center of the room was a padded leather table flanked by a pair of cedar cabinets.
The two women separated, neither having spoken. The first went to peruse the bottles, while the second began removing Vidarian's clothes, after briefly introducing herself as Orchid. He jumped as she tugged gently at his coat, but she only smiled again. “Come now,” she said, and though her voice was low, it was courteously businesslike. “You must remove your clothes for massage.” She glanced over at her partner. “He looks tense.” They shared a grin, and the second girl nodded, moving to another section of racks and selecting a series of bottles.
Vidarian managed to keep some parts of his anatomy from going completely red by the time all of his clothes were off, but it was a struggle. The first attendant wrapped a warm, fluffy towel from one of the cedar cabinets around his waist before guiding him to the table. She made a move as if to help him climb atop it, but he gently slipped away from her grasp and levered himself up on his own.
The leather was cool against his chest, but not uncomfortable. The clink of glass from behind him indicated that the second attendant had made her selections, and shortly Vidarian heard her slippered feet pad across to the table.
“First a lotion,” one of them said-he thought it was Orchid, bu
t wasn't sure. Both of them had exotic accents, something like the intonation of the islanders in the northwest tropics, but not precisely. He puzzled over the lilt and emphasis of their words until a touch of liquid coolness in the center of his back made him tense involuntarily. There was a smile in the attendant's words. “You are with Lady Ariadel. She has asked her usual therapy for you.” A sharp, cool scent filled Vidarian's nostrils as the girl worked the lotion into his back muscles. The vapors were remarkably refreshing, seeming to clear the clutter from his mind.
“What is that?” he asked, impressed.
“The scent is from the oil of crushed laurel-wood and cedar bark. We blend it with a salve made from dustneedle leaves and pods.” Vidarian was racking his memories for anything like what she'd described, and had come up with nothing when a sudden spreading warmth between his shoulder blades blurred any future thoughts traveling through his head. “A warmed almond oil,” Orchid offered, and he could hear the smile in her voice. She added, without being asked, “Sandalwood, lavender, and mayweed.”
Time blurred for a spell as Orchid expertly transitioned from spreading the sweet, heady oil to a deep-tissue massage. Her surprisingly strong fingers found pockets of tension he was fairly sure he'd been carrying around for several years, and the abrupt, heated release was almost painful. Then the gentle orange warmth of the lanterns took hold of Vidarian's senses, briefly becoming his world.
His thoughts drifted, as they were wont to do since the battle with Vanderken, toward his ship and his crew. A pang of longing and guilt echoed in his chest, an itch to be back upon his own deck that no magic, however remarkable, could suppress. There was pride there, a glowing ember of pleasure at how Marielle would now receive her own long-overdue captainship, but he'd sailed for so long that the daily tasks of life at sea sprang upon his unconscious mind-was the sailcloth sound? Had they taken on enough vegetable to keep Ilsut appeased for the crew's health? Little Lifan, when should she be sent to a true windreader for apprenticeship? Like little gnats they surfaced, and one by one he forced himself to let them go, to trust in Marielle and the crew to see themselves safely home. At length, he ran out of worries, and his mind bobbed as on a gentle sea. Almost, he heard a soft voice singing a strange and wordless song.