The Keystaff Chronicles Chapter 7

Chapter 7

The sight of Luthien with his sword drawn was enough to shake the black-clad mage from Azarielle’s enchantment. He pointed a finger at the knight and a torrent of strange words escaped his lips. The air in front of him rippled ominously as a wave of heat swept through the room.

Azarielle extended her fingers and spoke the words of a counterattack, but even before she could fully unleash her arcane power, Breaker was already upon the Rising Sun mage in a whirlwind of flashing silver. The enemy mage backpedaled desperately to avoid the slayer’s attack, but even then, he continued to chant. A crackling, wildly-spinning fireball materialized at the tip of his outstretched finger and hurtled towards the gray elf., who promptly dropped flat onto the ground like a lizard.

There was a loud crackling explosion, followed by Azarielle’s wry voice saying, “Nice reflexes, Breaker. Glad you thought of us.”

Breaker’s lips turned up in a feral smile as he launched himself back up and at the enemy mage. Their assailant had already begun to chant the words of a second attack, but this time, the deadly elven slayer was faster. He thrust his arcane breaker forward, aiming for the mage’s throat.

“Look out!”

The shouted warning and his own sense screaming at him to escape made him leap aside just as the ground beneath him blew apart in a shower of splinters. Another black-clad mage had appeared at the end of hallway and was running towards them, arcs of lightning pulsing between his fingers like bluish veins. He spoke a single word and held out his hand. The lightning that danced upon the tips of his fingers leaped out like a ravenous beast.

Luthien took that moment to charge out of the room. Instead of trying to get out of the way of the lightning, the young knight raised his sword over his head and brought it down as if he were striking an enemy. The lightning arc split in two, striking the doorframe and a wall in some distance, splintering the wood and filling the hallway with smoke.

By this time, the commotion was enough to disturb the other guests. And, the sight of a sword waving man and the black-clad mages were not so common a sight at the strictly control city that it would not cause any panic. The guests on the floor either bolted their doors shut or stampeded down the staircase, shrieking at the top of their lungs.

Azarielle gave the shocked Ofeera a look, “So much for not attracting attention. Ah well, might as well join in the fun.”

With that, the young woman made a smacking motion with her hand towards the first intruder and spoke a single a word of command. There was no flash of lightning or shimmering lights. Nonetheless, the rival mage’s head jerked to the side as if he had been struck by an invisible hand and fell to the floor with a startled yelp, whereupon he was beset on all sides with invisible fists that endeavored to pummel him into unconsciousness. Azarielle stood over him waving her arms about as if she was conducting a band, humming a little tune and smiling her usual wicked smile.

Meanwhile, Luthien had squared off against the second mage. The dark-clad mage had surrounded himself with a shield of crackling lightning, but undeterred, the young knight rained strike upon strike against it. Luthien’s sword glowed with a soft gold light, and each time it struck the shield, veins of blue-white lightning would crawl up the edge of the blade only to be absorbed by the gold light.

Slowly but surely, the lightning shield began to crumble under his relentless assault. Blue white lightning arcs fizzled away with each blow until with one last over-handed chop, Luthien’s blade tore through the shield with a loud crackle. Then, not giving the mage another chance to wield his Arcane power, the young knight simply struck the back of the enemy’s neck with the pommel of his sword. The hapless mage sank to the ground, quite unconscious, and without uttering a single groan.

“Luthien, look out!” Ofeera’s panicked voice called out.

Luthien looked up just in time to see a swirling mass of sickly green yellow goop sailing towards him. But just before the mass reached him, a shimmering, golden wall of light rose from the ground to shield him. The green yellow goop struck the wall with a loud hiss, filling the air with a horrendous stench.

“Ofeera, Luthien, if one of you would be so kind to cleanse the air. This is a rather nasty poison, and it’s going to make this place quite uninhabitable if one of you doesn’t do something.”

Nodding her head in acknowledgement, Ofeera closed her eyes and began to pray. And as she did so, shimmering golden sparks rained down upon the group in a shower of lights, dispersing the noxious yellow-green light.
“Everybody, I would like to introduce you to Bi Xiang, one of the captains of Prince Yue’s guards and an altogether nasty fellow. Hey Bi, shouldn’t you have died of internal poisoning by now?” Azarielle quipped as she abandoned the mage she had been battling (now a foaming, unconscious mass at her feet) and walked up to where Luthien was standing.

The third mage removed his hat a veil, revealing ghastly pale skin stretched too-tight over a gaunt, almost skeletal face with sunken-in brown eyes. Smiling a sardonic smile, his thin lips stretching across his lips like a cut, the mage bowed to Azarielle.

“How can I depart this world when my honored Lady Ree still walks amongst the living?” he spoke in heavily-accented, but fluent Achiandian, his voice hoarse and wheezy as if his throat was constricted.

“Ever so popular, huh, Azarielle?” Luthien remarked drily.

“I wasn’t the one charging at a perfectly nicely bedazzled mage,” she replied, giving him a disapproving look. “Anyhow, what are you doing in Peaceful Sea? Assuming Prince Ming hasn’t succumbed to assassination or divine smiting, he’s probably still the Prince Governor or Eternal Joy. And unless a healer has altered his brain drastically, he and Prince Yue are probably still not the best of friends. So, why don’t you just turn around and go back home to Long Peace?”

“His Highness has commanded that we send you on your way to a happier place.”

Azarielle gestured at the two prone bodies on the ground, “Four to one odds, Bi Xiang.”

“I have been curious as to what advancements my lady has made in her pursuit of the Arcane Arts.”

“Where are Lucien and the elf, Theredoniel?” Luthien demanded, tiring of the two mages’ banter.

“Bi Xiang is a poison user and extremely cruel. He’s not beyond poisoning this entire inn just to get to us, and Breaker, he’s going to melt your blades before they can reach him, so don’t try to surprise attack him. We need to get out of here, so we don’t end up with a building full of dead people.”

Luthien stiffened slightly at that, his shoulders tensing.

“What is that information to a man who will soon be dead?” Bi Xiang held out his gaunt, bone-thin hands. Green yellow smoke rose ominously from the tips of his long nails.

“When I clap my hands, head for the window and jump.”

“Well, it was horribly unpleasant talking to you again Bi. Let’s not do it again. Oh… and please tell Prince Yue…” Azarielle didn’t bother finishing her sentence. Instead, she clapped her hands.

A blinding white light flashed. Averting her own eyes, the young woman grabbed the startled knight by the hand and bolted through the door. Breaker, having scooped Ofeera off her feet, was quicker on the uptake. The elf tore through the rice paper glued to the windows, and amidst startled gasps and shrieks, landed smoothly on the ground two floors below.

“Are you alright, Lady Ofeera?” the gray elf asked the rather shaken looking Ofeera in his arms.

“I…um…”

“I would be honored to carry you if your legs are not up to the task, my lady,” Breaker smiled slightly when he noted that Ofeera was still clinging to him tightly.

Realizing what she was doing, the young healer blushed and scrambled to get out of Breaker’s embrace, smoothing out her dress and feeling quite embarrassed. She gasped when Luthien, and then Azarielle landed next to her. The young mage opened her mouth and shouted something at the staring crowd in Hanyue, and whatever it was she said sent the crowd streaming away in a flurry of stomping feet and fearful shrieks.

“I think we should join them,” Azarielle remarked as she dove headlong into the crowd.

“What did you say to them?” Ofeera asked.

The young mage randomly pulled a black cape off another fellow stampeding pedestrian’s back and wrapped it around her grenadine dress, “I said that Prince Yue’s army was attacking. We’ll let Prince Ming’s guards deal with Bi Xiang.”

* * * * *

Night found the four companions huddled inside a small finish boat that Azarielle had purchased from an old fisherman and his wife for a pouch of coins. Breaker had also ‘acquired’ some clothing for them in their rather haphazard escape from the inn, and the four were now disguised as an old fisherman couple with their son and daughter in law. To complete their disguise, Ofeera was even tending to a pot of rather foul-smelling fish soup on the dock, fanning the flames with an old, decrepit looking fan.

“I don’t think this is…edible,” the young healer coughed as a particularly dose of fishy scent invaded her nostrils.

“We can put in some marjoram,” Azarielle suggested. “Marjoram makes the world go around. And if that doesn’t work, we’ll drown it with spices.”
Ofeera gave her friend a pained look, “Azarielle, you are not honestly thinking that we are eating this are you?”

“Why not? We are a poor fishing family – we can’t be picky with what we eat now, can we, daughter-in-law?”

“Do you intend for us to stay hidden in this boat the entire time?” Breaker interrupted their conversation and glanced at Azarielle.

“Well, I thought we might try and go out with the other boats – see if we can get any fish and sell it at the market in the morning,” the mage responded with a cheerful smile. This prompted Breaker to turn his attention to knight and pose the question again.

“We need to look for that mage, Bi Xiang,” Luthien stumbled over the unfamiliar pronunciation of the word.

Azarielle shook her head, “With any luck, Prince Ming’s men will have him captured. It’s tiring to hide all of our Signatures from him. We really, really should leave him alone.”

Luthien glanced at the mage, “You are frightened of him.”

“Quite,” Azarielle admitted cheerily. “Believe it or not, he was once considered a handsome man. But then, there was this teeny tiny misunderstanding between him and I that might have led to him looking like a walking corpse. He’s been a mite miffed about it since.”

“You did that to him?” Luthien’s eyebrows rose in shock.

“Now, now, father. You know you have to mind your blood pressure,” the mage responded. When all she got for her trouble was a dark scowl, the young mage let out a sigh, “Oh alright, if you must know, it all started with the Luminous Consort, Prince Yue’s mistress, ordered him to punish me for disrespect. Being a sadistic maniac, Bi Xiang was all too happy to oblige. He tried to poison me by injecting the poison straight into an artery. I, of course, being a sane person, didn’t just sit around and let him do it. To make a long story short, all the poison he tried to put in me ended up in him, and he turned into a walking, talking skeleton. The end.”

Luthien rubbed his forehead and his hand came away smeared with the powders and paints that Breaker had applied on him to give him the semblance of the old man, “Luminous Consort? That is the title of one of the emperor’s Four Consorts right? You said she was Prince Yue’s lover?”

The young mage rolled her eyes, “Yes. They have one of those icky relationships.”

“And what is your relationship with Prince Yue?”
“Oh, that would be best described as a cat and dog relationship,” the young woman replied.”

Luthien was about to retort but Ofeera gently interjected, “Azarielle, we’ve known each other for several years, and I’ve never pushed you to share your secrets. But these aren’t ordinary times.”

The healer went to sit beside her friend, laying a hand on the mage’s shoulder, “It will not change anything between us.”

Azarielle was unusually silent and still. Her eyes looked into the distance without blinking, and not a single muscle moved in her ordinarily restless body. She knew that in all fairness, she needed to share this information with her companions. For the time being, her enemies were their enemies, and vice versa. And yet, to speaking those words would mean dredging up memories she had tried so hard to bury.

“My birth name was Ree Yonanne. Ree is Hanyue for “sun” and “Yoanne”, my family name means “eternal safety’. When I was six years old, it was determined that I had the Arcane Gift, and I was summoned to the Imperial Palace. When I was twelve, I became the handmaiden, well, really, the apprentice to the dowager empress.”

“The dowager empress’ favorite grandson was Prince Yue, son of Radiant Consort and favored by the emperor. Because he wields immense Arcane power he has been touted as a possible candidate for the next emperor. I know what you are going to say Luthien – Prince Richu is the Crown Prince. But in Rising Sun, the position crown prince is just a title. Richu will be the next emperor if and only if he stays alive and retains the emperor’s favor long enough to inherit.”

“Anyhow, the dowager empress became aware that her favorite grandson had developed a rather unhealthy relationship with one of his own father’s wives – the Luminous Consort, who is the Emperor’s favorite wife. Fearing that heads would roll, specifically that Yue’s head would roll, the old lady hatched a plan to distract him. She decided to get him a wife of his own.”

Azarielle gave her companions a serene smile and patted her hair, “And her candidate was me.”

“You really are the First Lady of Long Peace?” Luthien found himself strangely troubled by this revelation. His stomach knotted uncomfortably, and despite his best efforts to sound curious, his own voice sounded distressed to his own ears. That he would be concerned about Azarielle’s martial status quite infuriated him, and he found himself scowling darkly at the young mage. He reasoned that his concern stemmed from not trusting the young mage – that he was worried she might still be working for the enemy.

The mage gave him an unimpressed look, “Didn’t I already say that I am not? And before you ask, no, I was never the First Lady of Long Peace. Anyhow, the dowager empress picked me, and not just for my awe-inspiring beauty.” She batted her eyelashes at her companions, eliciting a giggle from Ofeera, a blank stare from Breaker and an even darker scowl from Luthien. The young mage sighed dramatically at this lack of reaction but continued.

“Power calls to power. I was chosen because the dowager empress considered my Arcane Gift complementary to Prince Yue’s. She believed that if I became his wife, he would no longer be drawn to the Luminous Consort. She was wrong.”

“A few days before the wedding was supposed to take place, I walked in on them while they were being intimate with each other. Now, a good wife of the Rising Sun Empire puts her husband’s happiness above her own, and such err…pre-marital indiscretions on his part aren’t something that a future wife should even blink at. Unfortunately, they weren’t just being intimate with each other. They were also working twisted Art involving the flesh.”

Azarielle’s tone was still airy, but the expression in her eyes had changed. Those golden orbs that so often danced with light-hearted mirth gleamed with the sharpness and coldness of a knife’s edge, “The Luminous Consort’s power breathed debauchery and vileness. As she moved above him, a shadowy form as black as the Abyssal Plane itself engulfed her and threatened to swallow him as well. That power... it was an abomination.”

She fell silent then, and her gaze grew distant. None of her three companions spoke at all, knowing that she had been carried away by the tide of memory. Ofeera and Luthien both offered silent prayers to Abihayil; for they knew that what she described was the presence of an Abyssal One.

“Later, I would learn that the Luminous Consort is a servant of the Abyssal One, Luxuria. But at that moment, I simply wanted to protect Prince Yue. So, I attacked her.”

“They had been so distracted with each other that neither of them had sensed my presence. But even then, I only managed to wound her face. Prince Yue prevented her from killing me, saying that the dowager empress would definitely demand an answer as to why her handmaiden was dead. So, the Luminous Consort bade him to punish me for injuring her.”

“And that’s when Bi Xiang tried to poison me and got turned into his current zombierific self,” Azarielle’s expression had returned to that of its usual cheerfulness. “Shortly thereafter, I made myself scarce. The end! Oh, actually there is one last bit to this story. I may have rendered one of Prince Yue’s captains somewhat err… paralyzed and turned the other one into a vegetable. Not literally, of course – that type of polymorph is considered murder, I think. I fried his brain a little and he might not be capable of any profound discourses anymore. In fact, he might just be able to drool, a bit. The end! Oh, and I may have also killed his favorite dragon, but that’s only ‘cause the thing tried to blast away an entire village.”
Ofeera stared at her friend in shock, “You slew a dragon?”

“By yourself?” Breaker asked, a note of challenge in his voice

“Yes and yes,” Azarielle regarded nervously. “Ofeera I know you are fond of the nice ones, but that one, I assure you, was not nice. In fact, it almost turned me into dragon excrement, a most undignified way to return to Abihayil! Oh, and…!”

Luthin rubbed his temple and all but groaned, “You disabled two captains of an imperial prince’s personal guard and slew his dragon, a creature that is sacred to the Dark Empire. And there is more?!”

“Oh, no, no,” Azarielle pointed at the bubbling fish soup pot that had been neglected. “I was just going to say that the soup boiled over.”

* * * * *

After supping on the fish stew, and drowning out the less than palatable flavor with spices as Azarielle had suggested, the four companions went to sleep in the fishing boat, sharing rather tight quarters. Luthien and Breaker lay on either end of the boat while Azarielle and Ofeera slept next to each other inside the only ‘room’ aboard the small vessel.

Exhausted, the young healer was soon asleep, her breathing soft and even. But this night, Azarielle found herself unable to slip into a slumber. Instead, she lay awake and listened to gentle lapping of the waves against the side of the boat, trying to synchronize her own breathing with soothing rhythm of the water. Her body temperature was unnaturally high as result of the overheated power coursing through her veins. The only thing that kept her lying still instead of picking a fight with one of her male companions and unleashing random blasts of destructive Art was a lifetime of training.

She had shared her story with them truthfully, but she had left out certain details that even now pained her to think of. And when she told Luthien that was she was afraid of Bi Xiang, she hadn’t elaborated the fact that she wasn’t afraid of Bi Xiang himself, but what the confrontation would entail.

Bi Xiang was an enemy from the past, a servant of Prince Yue in name but a follower of the Luminous Consort in truth. Battling him with a peaceful state of mind was something she didn’t think she could do, for when she looked upon him, she saw that despicable shadowy form that she associated the Luminous Consort with. And hatred, malicious, malevolent hatred, was what she felt towards the emperor’s favorite wife. The darkly destructive nature of her own power that all too easily rose up to swallow her reason would be unleashed, and tasting so much power, she knew that her own fallible self would be tempted towards darkness.

And so, she prayed to Abhayil that he be with her if she was forced to battle Bi Xiang; that his light would continue to shine when darkness threatens to engulf her soul. After what felt like an eternity, she was finally lulled to the sleep by the swaying of the boat.

* * * * *

The garden was almost exactly as she remembered; a sea of fiery colored blossoms whose glorious colors were dimmed now by the enfolding darkness of night. The almost intoxicatingly sweet scent of flowers still perfumed the air, riding upon a silken breeze that acted as the conductor to the great, nocturnal concert. Rustling leaves and singing crickets provided the beat to which night-flying birds sang melodious lullabies.

But the beauty of her surroundings, and even her own bewilderment of not being on the fishing boat, served only as momentary distractions. Almost immediately, her attention was drawn to where he sat at a stone table, throwing back cups of liquor as if he was drinking water.

His hair had tumbled free from its princely trappings and now cascaded down his back like a serpentine black river. He wore only a white robe, disheveled and parted at the front to reveal a smooth expanse of muscular chest, no doubt as a result of earlier amorous activities. It seemed as though he was not in the most pleasant mood. His eyes were heavy-lidded and his expression akin to a distant horizon that threatened to break into a squall.

And his power, that dark, velvety seduction, seemed to writhe and coil around him like tendrils of mist. When she had first known him, Yue’s power had been heat and passion, desire and longing. Now, there was an undeniable taint of death and darkness, the mark of a servant of the Abyssal Ones, polluting his power. He had succumbed further to their call it would seem, and seeing this, she let out a soft sigh.

He looked up then, his eyes staring straight at her, and shot straight to his feet.

Azarielle’s heart hammered loudly in the young mage’s chest and the rush of blood through her veins roared loudly in her ears. How had it come to this? How had she suddenly ended up here in his manor?

But to her shock, Yue said nothing. Instead, he looked to either side of her, his brows drawing together. Then, after a few moments, he sat back down and picked up his cup again.

“It’s because he can’t see you my dear. You are not actually physically in this lovely garden, although I must say, you do have a rather remarkable sense of self because for a first timer, you are holding your own image together quite marvelously!”

The voice spoke right into her ear, causing the young mage to leap away like a skittish deer. Standing right next to the spot where she had been was a red-headed young...man. Or at least, she thought it was a man. The chest was flat, but his face, well, for a man’s face, it was definitely effeminate.

“I am most certainly a man! I’ll have you know that in my day, I was considered quite handsome” the red-headed pressed his fingertips to his heart, glaring at her indignantly. “You young mages nowadays have no respect for your elders…”

He could hear her thoughts!

“Why of course I can! Thoughts are words when you dream walk, didn’t that youngster Azariel teach you anything?” he shook his head in disapproval. Then glancing at her suspiciously, he added, “You do know what dream walking is, don’t you?”

Azarielle did indeed know what dream walking was. It was a particularly advanced Art technique wherein the dream walker sends his/her consciousness into distant lands when their own body is in a resting state. This was certainly not part of her repertoire of tricks; in fact, Azariel had never even taught her this particular Art. And how did this stranger know that Azariel was her teacher?

“I’ve known Azariel for a very long time,” the stranger’s voice took on a nostalgic note. “He was such a cute child the first time I saw him… so sweet and respectful. And to think he’d turn out as prickly as Elucielle.”

“Elucielle Gwenevar?” Azarielle stared at the redhead with narrowed eyes. “She lived one thousand two hundred years ago. Who are you?”

Before the stranger could answer, Prince Yue was on his feet again, “Ree?”

Azarielle’s body shook as if a jolt of lightning passed through her at the sound of Yue’s voice. She dropped into a defensive crouch again as she faced the prince, her eyes narrowed and lips drawn together in a tight line.

“My, my… this little fledgling dark servant is quite sensitive to you, I dare say. Well, we can’t have him interrupting us now, can we?” The red head languidly, like a panther that had been contentedly basking in the sun and was now ready to take to the jungle. Then, he was suddenly standing next to the imperial prince – just there as if he had always been there. He rested slender fingers on Yue’s forehead, exposing long, obsidian nails, and said, “Go to sleep little boy. There’s nothing to see here.”

Yue, amongst the foremost of the Rising Sun princes in terms of martial prowess, did not even seem to acknowledge the redhead’s presence. His eyes blinked twice, thrice, slowly, and then he was slumped over on his table and breathing rhythmically as a man in deep slumber.

“You are a flesh corruptor,” Azarielle remarked, her eyes never leaving those obsidian nails.
The redhead turned around and grinned, his face a vision of sunny disposition and youthful innocence, “That I was indeed. I had a rather terrible youth - wars, plagues, famines, I started them all. You were asking me who I was, right? I’ve had so many names – given to me by friends and enemies alike. Elucielle called me Red, and I suppose that’s as good a name as any, Azarielle, human heir of the great House Gwenevar.”

“That’s not your real name,” Azarielle replied, her tone flippant. “It’s rude not to formally introduce yourself, elder.”

The redhead looked at her, and for the first time since their unexpected meeting, Azarielle looked the redhead in the eyes. His eye color was different, one green eye, and one metallic silver eye. He held her gaze, and those odd eyes sucked her in. She saw wars between armies that flew banners from eons long past; she saw twisting crystal spires reaching for the heavens, and white marble castles that shone like the Abihayil’s City; then, as she watched, those same crystal spires shattered, and those same white castles crumble into ruin; she saw babies grow into adulthood, age, wither and die; she saw the rise and fall of civilizations she had only read about in storybooks.

Almost as unexpected as they started, the images abruptly stopped, leaving the young mage unbalanced and unsteady as if she had just been in a tug-of-war with someone, and her competitor had released the rope without warning. What she had seen was not an illusion, but his memory, of this, she was sure.

“Alright, I will call you Red,” the young mage agreed, trying not to sound as shaky as she felt.

Red nodded his head sagely, throwing back his hair and revealing rounded human ears, “There’s a good child.”

“As much as I enjoy getting a nice little history lesson crammed into my head, I am more curious as to how I got here and why are you here.”

“You are here because you dream walked yourself here,” Red had moved again, another one of those instance location transfers that Azarielle found so jarring to keep track of. “You were thinking about this fledgling servant, and so, here you are. As for why I am here… well, I am doing my good deed of the day, and that is to make sure you, dear child, don’t get gobbled up by dream eaters.”

Their surroundings began to spiral. The sky, the earth, the flowers, and even Prince Yue stretched outwards as if reality itself was being pulled on either end and then mashed together in a blur of dizzying, swirling colors. But even as Azarielle braced herself against this vertigo, the colors and the shapes sorted themselves out again, just in a different arrangement than what they had been before.

She and the mysterious Red were now standing in a large, circular room with a vaulted ceiling made of either glass or a glass-like material that gave them a view of a starry night sky. The wall of the room itself was made of something white with faintly sparkling specks of crystal, which, when she laid her hand against felt hard and cool to the touch.

“Can you feel the wall?” Red asked.

Azarielle nodded, and the youthful-appearing stranger smiled, “Oh good, your awareness, your consciousness is unusually strong. Not many dream walkers can do more than see and hear on their first foray out into the world.”

The young mage did not respond. Instead, she walked to large, floor to ceiling doors on all sides of the room and looked out, trying to discern where she was. She was somewhere up high, in a tower, it would seem, because all around here were smaller buildings made of the same material. Beyond the buildings, she saw trees, tall and ancient, and standing on guard like faithful sentinels.

She looked a little further, past the rows of tall trees and saw…

“So, a leisurely stroll through the Forsaken Lands,” the young mage said, wryly, though she felt her heart pounding in shock and horror at what her eyes beheld. “Does age warp your idea of what ‘pleasant’ means?”

Red, who was suddenly beside her again, smiled, a sad, wistful expression that made him appear older, “Is this the first time you’ve looked upon the wonders of great Aztur?”

Beyond the living trees that looked so much like soldiers to Azarielle were rows after rows of dead trees, their bare boughs reaching towards the sky like tortured skeletal hands rising from the grave. And grave was an apt description of what was out there. In some areas, the dead trees had fallen away, leaving patches of cracked, barren ground that looked like scars or boils from where they stood.

Here and there, she saw the empty, skewed frames of buildings that reminded her of screaming faces with empty, black eye sockets. Since the legendary forests of Aztur were dead, neither plant life nor animal life had returned to reclaim the land that the first high elf nation had built their wondrous crystal, stone and wood towers upon.

“Elucielle would weep if she had lived to see her beloved homeland reduced to this,” Red murmured softly. “Or rather, she’d go on a rampage polymorph all those responsible into rats have feed them to her cats. Anyhow, there is something you need to see before I send you back home.”

The view in front of them changed, or rather, they were suddenly standing in front of another window, and Red was pointing out to two towers in the distance, “The one to your left is called Shiftingstar Spire. The one to your right is called Fallingstar Spire. They were built after Elucielle’s time so you will not find it in her book. These two spires, along with the one we are in now, form a perfect triangle. If the young rogues that took her staff successfully obtain the scroll, they will go there. And now, you had better head home. I do think your assistance will be required.”

Azarielle opened her mouth to ask more question, but suddenly, everything around her started to shake and tremble, as if they had been suddenly struck with an earthquake. The white walls, the dead trees, and Red blurred together and became… Luthien’s scowling face.

“Get up!” the young knight hissed at her.

“Ah!” Azarielle let out a startled shriek as she beheld the snarling visage before her. “Luthien, you can’t wake people up like this. Your face making that odd expression is going to give me a heart attack!

Before Luthien could retort and start another one of their arguments, which would surely end with Azarielle insulting the young knight in some long convoluted way, and Luthien’s face flushing scarlet, Breaker interrupted them.

“There are soldiers coming our way. They are searching each and every fishing vessel, and there is at least one mage in that group.”

“The mage will surely be able to detect our Arcane Gifts. Is there anything you can do about that? If not, we must make a hasty retreat.”

Azarielle, who was still feeling a little groggy and disoriented from her odd dreams, blinked at Luthien and Breaker in turn, smiling at both with a nicely vacant smile that told them she had either not paid attention or had not understood what was said to her. Luthien contemplated shaking her back into reality; Breaker actually acted that out.

“Mage, wake up,” the elf hissed, grabbing her shoulders and giving it a squeeze.

“Ow..ow!” Azarielle pulled away. “And the award for ungallant behavior goes to Breaker! I heard you the first time. A lady needs time to wake from her beauty rest, don’t you know that? And yes, I can mask our powers.”

Luthien nodded in satisfaction and turned to Ofeera, “My lady, have we got any of that soup left? If so, let us leave it out where the soldiers can see.”

Ofeera, who had been busily stowing their belongings in a secret compartment where the fishermen had apparently hid some of their more illegal catches, nodded and went to do just that. Breaker touched up everyone’s disguises, while Azarielle traced runes on the floorboards.

Luthien carefully setup everyone’s bedding so resemble two bedspreads and then turned to both Ofeera and Azarielle apologetically, “We will have to lie as couples until this passes. I am sorry.”

The young healer flushed scarlet at that, but nodded her head in understanding and acquiescence. When she climbed into her bedspread, Breaker gave her a sly smile that showed his perfectly straight teeth. That made her blush harder and her heart pound loudly in her years. She was very much aware of his warm body when he climbed in next to her, and found herself stiffening nervously.

But despite his teasing smile, the gray elf was the perfect gentleman, taking care that no part of himself touched Ofeera. Still, then young woman could not help but be aware of his unique body scent that reminded her of fresh aspen and warm earth. And, she could feel his every breath as if she was the one drawing them.

On the other hand, when Luthien and Azarielle climbed into their bedroll together, it was the young knight who felt strangely nervous. He was thankful that the young mage wore plentiful layers of clothing so as to completely conceal her curves. Breaker’s masterful skill at disguise had also taken away the exotic appeal of her face.

And he supposed that it could be considered a blessing that Azarielle, unlike Ofeera, seemed entirely unaffected at the prospect of sharing a bed with him. In fact, the young mage was entirely distracted with whatever Art she now worked on the boat, her lips moving soundlessly even as she pulled the blankets up around her.

When he realized that he was rather frustrated at her lack of reaction, Luthien grew even more frustrated with himself for being frustrated in the first case. Determined not to be bothered by Azarielle, he was about to turn his back towards her when the tips of her fingers brushed against the back of his hand.

He drew back his hand as if he had been scalded, for her finger tips were unnaturally hot. Turning towards her, he opened his mouth to inquire if she was feeling alright. The words died on his lips.

A thunderstorm raged in her golden eyes. Arcs of bright, glowing yellow streaked across the dark ember of her irises like lightning splitting the sky with blinding silver-blue forks. Staring into those eyes, he suddenly found himself standing at the precipice of a fiery maelstrom. Tongues of bright red flames curled hungrily upwards from the raging infernal, reaching for him hungrily. A hundred thousand voices shrieked at him, a terrible, cacophonic sound as if the singers of a large choir all decided to sing a different song at the very top of their lungs.

And then, Azarielle blinked. Her eyes went back to their normal amber color, and the vision or the illusion was gone. He opened his mouth to ask what it was he had beheld, but once again he was interrupted. There was the sound of loud footfalls followed by a bang as the door to their room was kicked open.

The Keystaff Chronicles Chapter 6

Chapter 6

The Garden of Whispering Night had been built in honor of the Radiant Consort, who was the mother of their host and also the wife holding the third highest position in the Emperor’s Harem. Awash in the silver light of the white moon the many, many water lilies dotting the pond artfully named the Mirror of the Night Sky, seemed like luminous stars themselves. The air was lightly perfumed by the faint sweetness of these flowers, an echo of the sweetness he tasted on his tongue.

Theredoniel carefully set down the jade cup with which he had been served the lily tea, a light dessert after their sumptuous and extravagant sixteen-course dinner. Though the food was carefully prepared and beautifully presented, it tasted like ash in the young elf’s mouth. He had eaten just enough so as not to insult Yue, the Prince of Valor, and their host for the past few days.

“Is it to your liking, Lord Theredoniel?” the prince asked in fluent, flawless high elven.

“Yes, thank you. This was all very good,” Theredoniel gave the only acceptable response as he shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

This human prince made him his skin crawl. Despite his impeccable grooming and coldly elegant features, Prince Yue reeked of debauchery and wantonness. Theredoniel was certain that this prince’s power lay in the twisted workings of the flesh, as Lucien’s did, though unlike Lucien’s, Yue’s power was of a much more carnal nature. And yet, even as his power exuded burning lust, the young human’s eyes were utterly cold. They were amber-colored, as Azarielle’s eyes were, but whereas his dear friend’s eyes danced with life, Yue’s eyes were as frozen suns.

And, he was worried about Eowyna. Prince Yue had been adamant in not permitting her from joining dinner, on grounds of impropriety by the standards of the Dark Empire. But Theredoniel knew that their host had insisted for another reason – because he knew that Eowyna was not yet… well.

“You are far to generous, Prince Yue,” Lucien exclaimed, “And allow me to compliment on your choice of dessert teas. It is excellent.”

“It is good that you are pleased, Favored One Lucien,” Prince Yue replied. “I have been told that the people of Achianda Empire drink but a very few teas, a pity.”

Lucien sighed, “We are a very rigid lot with our food, and with almost every other aspect of our life, really. My brother considers duck to be exotic fare. Oh, and I do truly appreciate your sending men to find my brother and his companions. I do worry he will be quite…well… lost in your land. And do extend my thanks to the lovely the Luminous Consort.”

“Her Imperial Highness is pleased to have assisted you,” Yue replied, putting slight emphasis on the title, which made Lucien smile.

“My apologies, good prince, I meant no disrespect of your... Imperial father’s honored wife,” Lucien replied sweetly.
His emphasis on the words ‘father’s wife’ was not lost on either their host or Theredoniel. Although the Luminous Consort was confined within the sheltering walls of the palace as all wives and concubines of the Emperor were, an image of her had appeared beside Prince Yue to greet them when they first came to call on him. Her beauty was stupefying to behold, and it was indeed not difficult to see that Prince Yue harbored a licentious, and rather un-stepson like love for her.

“It is late and I shall not keep you here any longer,” Prince Yue said coolly, choosing not to rise to the bait.

“Thank you for the grand dinner,” Lucien waved his hand airily over the table, “Prince Yue. But… ah, I do have one other question.”

The prince tilted his head to the side, indicating that Lucien should continue.

“My brother has, in his company, a most interesting mage. She hailed from your Empire.”

“Occasionally, traitors do arise in our ranks, although a woman is rare,” Prince Lucien replied coolly, “Her father and her husband should have done better in restraining her – for woman she is regardless of the Gift. If you would provide a description of her, I can have someone look into it.”

Lucien rose to his feet and spoke a word of power. The air around him shimmered slightly before coalescing into the form of a petite woman. Theredoniel felt his heart sink to where his feet were when he recognized the image of Azarielle.

“She is a noble, or of noble descent as you can see from the eyes…Lucien’s voice trailed off. “I take it you know who she is.”

Prince Yue’s expressionless face had gone livid as he stared at Azarielle’s image, and then a single word, a name, slipped from his mouth that held such a tangle of emotions that Theredoniel did not know what to make of it.

“Ree.”

Lucien cocked his head to the side and arched one his wintry brows in question, “Ree? That is her name?”

Yue’s face became guarded and mask-like again, “Thank you for bring this to my attention, Favored One Lucien. She has committed high treason against the Empire, and I shall be dealing with her personally.”

“Is that so?” Lucien’s eyelids drooped, hiding his sapphire eyes behind a silvery curtain of long lashes. “I do find her most intriguing. Perhaps I will have other opportunities to speak with her.”
“She is not your concern, Lucien Delynd,” Yue drew out each word as if he were drawing out sharp daggers from their sheaths. He rose from his seat in a whisper of silk and brocade, and tilted his head slightly so that he was looking Lucien in the eye. Bathed in the ghostly moonlight, he was a creature formed of darkness and moonbeams. His hair, which spilled down his shoulders and back from a topknot, was every bit as black as a raven’s feathers, contrasting starkly against the pale, almost translucent skin as fine as the purest white jade.

The power emanating from him was altogether different from his cool demeanor though. It was a hot and heady thing, spilling out of him in a rush and crashing over his two guests in a scalding wave. Theredoniel leaped to his feet, his mouth forming the words of an offensive as he prepared himself to face this formidable foe.

However, before he could fully give voice to his attack, Lucien laid a cool hand on his shoulder, “My dear Theredoniel, you will have a battalion of soldiers breathing down our necks if you attacked our host.”

“Favored One Yue, please. You are making this lovely garden quite inhospitable,” Lucien said aloud, waving a hand airily. “I was merely curious – if you are so concerned with the mage, then I’ll leave her be.”

Prince Yue gave Lucien one last cold stare, “It is good that we understand one another, Favored One Lucien. It will be three more days before the Fog parts enough for the air ship to take you into the Forsaken Lands and Everstar Spire. In the meantime, you will remain as my honored guests. If you wish to explore the city, I will send along a servant to guide you. It is late and I will not keep you from your rest.”

Theredoniel and Lucien found themselves thus dismissed, and were led away by blue guarded servants holding red lanterns. Along the way, Lucien engaged him in a discussion about gardens, comparing and contrasting the relatively natural gardens favored by elves as opposed to the famously manmade gardens of the Empire of the Rising Sun.

The young elf responded half-heartedly because his stomach was knotted with unease at the knowledge that Azarielle had been sent to pursue him. It was not so great a shock, really, given their close friendship and her power. He had expected it – but even so, the prospect of an impending battle with the young woman was not one that he relished. Perhaps she would understand. Perhaps she would even give him aide. After all, she was close with Eowyna too, and surely, she would wish for her friend to be well again. But, if was adamant in trying to stop him, then he would fight. And when a tiny voice screamed at him that Eowyna would weep to see them fight, he ignored it.

“And now, dear Theredoniel, I must ask what your relationship is with the young mage pursuing us.”

Lucien’s voice snaked into his mind and him from the dark thoughts. He looked up at the renegade prince and found that Lucian was still chatting amicably away about whether it was advisable to create manmade ponds in the garden.

“Do try to act normal, or well, I suppose normal for you is brooding. We wouldn’t want our guides to report anything amiss to our host now, would we, hmm? So, tell me about this Ree person.”

“I don’t know who Ree is,” Theredoniel replied guardedly.

“Oh, so you know her by another name? Now, Chosen One Theredoniel, you will share this information with me, won’t you?”

The subtle emphasis that Lucian placed on his new title, the chosen one of Acedia, made him wince. He heard the subtle threat in those velvety words breathed into his mind, and knew that if Lucian was displeased with what he was saying, the capricious renegade prince would withhold his aide when Eowyna’s condition started to worsen. His wife remained whole so long as Lucian tended to her everyday, but should he choose to be lax in his treatment for even a single moment… the rotting plague would reclaim her flesh.

“The name I know her by is Azarielle. She is one of my uncles’ apprentices.”

“You didn’t say which uncle, Theredoniel,” Lucian admonished. “But I suppose you needn’t have. Azarielle is the feminine form for Azariel. My, my, the apprentice of the great Archmage Azariel Gwenevar, and one to whom he has given his name! A namesake is the designated heir, over blood relations in the law of your land, isn’t it Theredoniel? I imagine your family was quite livid that the greatest amongst them has named a human his heir. How delicious!”

Guilt coiled around Theredoniel’s heart like an insidious serpent and squeezed until the young elf felt that he might not be able to breathe. He knew all too clearly that this revelation had turned Azarielle into a target that every servant of the Abyssal Ones would seek out, either in hopes that she would convert to their cause or to crush her altogether. Regardless of how powerful the young woman might be, she would be in danger!

“Tell me, how powerful is Azarielle? She is quite apt at penetrating illusions that much I do know.”

“I don’t know,” Theredoniel answered truthfully. “I’ve never had the occasion to see her power.”

“Oh?”

“Azarielle only ever visited me as a friend, so she had no occasion to demonstrate her power,” Theredoniel replied, feeling a certain satisfaction that at least on this small matter, he would not betray Azarielle further. “And you have obviously encountered her already, so you know that she gives off so little power that she does not even seem a mage.”

“Here we are,” Lucien exclaimed as they arrived outside of Theredoniel’s guest house and waved dismissively at the guards. “I’ll be speaking a little longer with my friend, so do as you will.” He spoke hanyu quite fluently,

One of the men holding the lanterns bowed to Lucien “Honored sir, we shall await your leisure right here.”

Lucien rolled his eyes at Theredoniel, “Quite annoyingly persistent, aren’t they?”

Having no desire to exchange meaningless banter with Lucien, Theredoniel stepped into the rooms he had been assigned. Prince Yue had provided him and Eowyna with a lavishly decorated suite. The outer room was furnished with the most intricately crafted furniture the young elf lord had ever seen. The table and chair legs were made to resemble cherry blossom trees in full bloom, with the artist-carpenter taking great pains to detail each individual flower. A display case with a peach-shaped frame stood to one side, holding a variety of jade figurines and enamel vases. And hanging against the wall facing the front doors was a huge water painting that depicted eight valiant horses in full gallop.

The two servant women that Prince Yue had provided him with bowed to him silently as he stepped into the room. Though neither spoke the Imperial or High Elven, they had become familiar with Theredoniel’s habits, and one immediately drew back the silk, curtains that separated the outer room from the inner room.

Theredoniel went straight to the bedroom while Lucien spoke to the women in Hanyu and made them giggle. The bedroom was just as luxuriously decorated as the outer room, but seemed more cozy and intimate with the warm wine colored walls. A large, canopy bed hung with red silk drapes sat in the center of the room.

Eowyna sat motionlessly on the edge of the bed with her hands folded neatly on her lap and her green eyes staring blankly into the distance. Her long brown hair cascaded down her back, unbound because Theredoniel did not know how to tame his wife’s unruly hair. The wards he had sat around her had been left untouched, assuring him that none of the servants had gone near her while he was away.

“I’m back, Beloved,” he said to his wife gently as he went to her and laid a hand on her cold, dead cheek. “I am sorry to have left you alone for so long.”

In his mind, he imagined his wife chiding him for not saving her a dessert from his feast and telling him excitedly of a new discovery she had made during the day. She had not spoken since the rotting plague stole her voice, and Theredoniel missed her vivacious laughter.

“And how has your beautiful mistress fared this day?” Lucien asked as he came into the room. “Hmm, it seems you’ve held yourself together admirably. The weather here must agree with you, or perhaps it is our gracious host’s residual power?”

Theredoniel felt a twinge of revulsion when Lucien held his hand over Eowyna’s face. Even though he knew what the pale-haired human was doing kept his wife together, the feel of Lucien’s power still made him recoil. Whenever Lucien worked his Art, Theredoniel felt as if something cold and slimy was oozing over him – and that distasteful power was now crawling into Eowyna.

But it had to be done.

Theredoniel averted his gaze and looked out the window and let Lucien fill his beloved with the dark power that would keep her at his side.

* * * * *

Yue swept through the Garden of Rose Delight unannounced. The garden housed the private suites of his concubines, and as they caught sight of him passing through, they hurried out of their rooms to greet him like a swarm of butterflies. But Yue had not come to seek out a bed partner, and so, he pulled away from their clinging arms and continued down the path.

At the far end of the garden were a smaller, enclosed garden and the House of Red Sun much larger than all the rest. The two guards standing on either end of the door barely registered his presence before he passed through the closed and locked doors as if he were a creature as immaterial as air.

Alone in this garden, Yue took a deep breath and let it out in a long sigh. This small garden blazed forth with all manner of bold-colored flowers - roses, azaleas, amaranths, gladiolus and carnations. A gardener came by every day to tend to the flowers, though only he visited the garden.

Taking a moment to enjoy the quiet garden, Yue pushed open the doors that led into the house and stepped inside. He spoke a single word of power and the entire was lit as bright as day. Aside from his own sleeping quarters, these were the most luxuriously decorated rooms in his manor, and fittingly so, because they were meant to be the rooms his wife’s personal suites.

His lonely footfalls seemed to echo as he walked through room after room until he reached the bedchamber. The room was awash in red and gold, like a bride dressed in her finest on her wedding night. In fact, this room should have been a bridal room. Five years ago, on a bright, clear night, she was to have dressed in the red gown hanging in the wardrobe and waited for him in this room.

But Ree had left; she had stolen away under the cover of darkness without even a goodbye.

Yue could still remember walking into the room and finding all of the female servants lying unconscious on the ground. The red gown had been haphazardly cast onto the wedding bed, and the jewelry, all the gold and precious stones, were scattered about as if in her haste, she had stripped them off and flung them every which way.

Her father had been furious. He remembered that his would-be father-in-law kneeling before him and swearing that he would present his disgraceful daughter to him for punishment, even unto death. But he hadn’t wanted her to dead; he wasn’t even interested in any sort of punishment. All he had wanted was for her to return.

He had sent his finest soldiers in pursuit of her but she eluded them. They had returned to him injured and stripped of their power. Knowing that would not cause such grievous wounds to another unless something drastic had happened, he hand ripped from their minds the knowledge that they had acted on the command of the Luminous Consort to kill her.

And so, she had vanished from his life without him whether she was still alive.

Until now, “Lan.”

The space just to the left of him seemed to twist in on itself, and a figure emerged kneeling before him, “Your Highness.”

“Follow the ones that went to seek out the knight of Elad and find Lady Ree. I do not care what becomes of her companions but bring her back to me alive and in one piece.”

“It will be done as you commanded.”

Yue waited until the figure faded back into the darkness, “Hong.”

“What is your command, Your Highness?” a woman’s voice asked softly from behind him.

“Keep watch over the foreign prince and the elf lord until they board the air ship. Do not let them hear anything regarding Lady Ree. I do not want the pale-haired one anywhere near the lady, do you understand?”

“Yes my prince.”

“Are you happy that she has returned?” Yue asked quietly.

“This servant is glad that the lady is unharmed. But she fears what Her Imperial Highness, the Luminous Consort, will do if she knew of this too.”
Yue turned to look at the young woman kneeling behind him. She too was wrapped in black like an ominous crow, and with the cowl of her cape pulled low over her face and her head bowed, it was almost impossible to see her expression.

“Your time in service to Lady Ree has made your tongue sharp,” he remarked coolly. “And while I am fond of that trait in her, I do not find it desirable in you.”

“This worthless servant is deserving of a thousand deaths, Your Highness,” Hong answered, prostrating herself in front of the dark haired prince, laying her forehead against the ground

Yue regarded her a moment, “When the lady took her leave, why did you not accompany her?”

“Your Highness, as unworthy as this servant is, she still understands that she owes her life to Your Highness! You are this servant’s master now and always.”

Prince Yue did not respond. Instead, he walked over to a portrait that hung on the far side of the room. In it was a young woman clothed in red and white and demurely admiring a blossoming peach tree – an artists’ rendition of Ree. His grandmother, the Dowager Empress of Peace and Longevity, had presented it to him when she announced that she had found a wife for him from amongst her own handmaidens. He had been neither overjoyed nor disappointed when he had first seen the portrait, but even now, he remembered quite vividly his first meeting with Ree in person. The bold, sharp-witted young woman was quite unlike how she had been portrayed, and her declaration that the artist probably doodled whatever came to mind still rang clearly in his ears even now.

“Go and do as I bid, Hong,” he commanded, still looking at the painting, “When your brother returns, he will do so with Lady Ree in his company.”

* * * * *

Luthien pushed his way through the crowd, his steps brisk with barely leashed frustration as he made his way back towards the inn where the others awaited him. An entire day wasted – and no explanations to offer his companions other than “the Fog”. He had thought that once they reached Long Peace, hiring a zeppelin and taking it to Everstar Spire would not be difficult as long as he was willing to pay an exorbitant price. But from sunup until sundown, he had been unable to convince a single zeppelin captain to take them on, and always, always, they told him that it was because of “the Fog”.

As if such a cryptic phrase alone would be enough!

“You seem to have adjusted very quickly,” Azarielle commented as she kept pace with him, gliding effortlessly at his side. “With all these people around, I thought you might have felt overwhelmed. But the way you sort of just shove them out of the way – well, you are just like one of the locals.”
Luthien glowered at her but decided not speak. She had come along on the preface that she was familiar with the city and its people. But he rather believed that she had come so she could ogle food and wares along the way with no intentions of actually being she helpful. To be fair, she had led him to all of the right places. But, when zeppelin captains started talking about this infernal Fog, Azarielle, instead of haggling with them in their strange singsong language, had simply nodded her head and wandered off. In fact after the third time the subject of the Fog came up, she had actually suggested that they return to the inn, and when he objected, she had the gall to sit down and order a midday snack!

“Has it occurred to you that if we can’t travel before the Fog passes, then the servant and Theredoniel wouldn’t be able to travel through it either?”

Azarielle’s voice echoed softly in his mind, startling him from his unfriendly thoughts about her. He turned around and glared death at her, not at all enjoying her rude interruptions into his mind. Surely mages had some etiquette that they were supposed to follow regarding these telepathic communications.

Apparently unfazed by his obvious displeasure, the young mage continued, “I was hoping to explain this once we get back to the inn, but if you are going to be in a tiff, I suppose I will have to tell you about this first. Ofeera, bless her worry-wart soul, kept telling me to try and keep you in a good mood. She must be worried about your high blood pressure, because you always have your brows knit like an old man. Do you have high blood pressure?”

Luthien had a sudden, violent, and unbecomingly pleasant image of himself throttling the young mage, and was only able to keep his hands to himself after a silent, but desperate prayer to Abihayil for patience.

“Well, I supposed if you wanted to keep your physical ailments to yourself, you are entitled to it. But Patron Haeroldan always tells us that when Abihayil acts within our hearts, the first thing he does is open our eyes to our own ailments, for only in that way will our hearts become softened. I imagine it’s the same with actual physical calamities; healers can help you if you don’t admit that you have…”

“I do not have a physical ailment! Now will you just tell me about the F…” Luthien suddenly found his jaws freezing into place.

“The Fog does not make its way into polite conversation on a regular basis here, so do try to contain yourself.” Azarielle paused at a small stall that was selling some unidentifiable dried plants, and examined them. “Anyhow, let me tell you a bit about the Fog. What is now known as the Forsaken Lands span over all or part of four nations – all of Aztur, the first of the great high elf nations, all of Ordaerion, the Peaceful Land, parts of the Rising Sun Empire and parts of Tyrendaal, the Great North. During the Mage Wars, mages from all four nations either battled against or for the Abyssal Ones. Amongst the ones that gave themselves over the Abyssal Ones was the high elf Doriel Kethevar, the Blight of Pestilence. I am sure you were a good little Knight of Elad, so you probably all about him – seeing as how he is incredibly evil and probably not dead – well, actually, I am not sure how his state of aliveness should be categorized. We’ll just call him a fiend.”

Luthien stopped abruptly and stared at Azarielle in shock. He did indeed know of Doriel Kethevar, the wretched elven mage that brought great Aztur to ruin. But he had always been taught that at the end of the Mage Wars, Doriel had been justly defeated at the hands of his brother, the heroic paladin, Cedriel Kethevar. The Blight of Pestilence should have been destroyed!

Azarielle regarded the knight who was a good head or so taller than most of the people walking about. Luthien was standing in the middle of the road like a stubborn rock that refused to yield to the tide. His mind was a jumble of emotions and images, of shock and outrage interspersed with images of a graying man in a severe overcoat speaking vehemently with a book in hand. What she had just told him was not recorded history; in fact, it was Azariel’s conjectures based on what he knew of Doriel and Cedriel.

Perhaps she had not delivered the information in the most palatable way? As the knight continued to stare at her and continued to not budge, she wondered if she should translate what the people forced to squeeze past him were saying to him. Maybe he would feel more motivated to move if he knew that he was being called an “oversized oaf”.

“This is all speculation of course – but if you think about it, it makes sense,” she sent the thoughts into his mind as she took him by the arm and dragged him out of the way. “Doriel was the youngest of Archamge Elucielle Gwenevar’s apprentices and reputedly as powerful as she was. Although it’s not inconceivable that Paladin Cedriel won their duel, the fact remains that nobody actually witnessed their battle or its true outcome. The supposition that Doriel is dead comes from the fact that he didn’t make another appearance in the Mage Wars after Cedriel went to confront him. It’s not as if anybody has tried that hard to look for him or his body in the Forsaken Lands.”

The high elves found Doriel so loathsome that his very name had been stricken from House Kethevar’s records. In fact, they referred to him only as the Blight of Pestilence. If Azarielle’s teacher ever dared to voice his speculation that Doriel was still alive, he would be branded a heretic by the Ruling Council of Azturoth, of that Luthien felt certain. And yet, he found himself wryly entertained by the thought that it was actually quite conceivable that Azarielle’s teacher would be just the sort to say something like this, and most definitely in the same blasé manner in which Azarielle talked.

“I think he’s told quite a good number of Ruling Council members that they were ‘a lot of stuffy, unimaginative buffoons and altogether a waste of space and air’. As far as I know, he has not been declared a heretic yet.” Azarielle paused for a moment. “Oh, I was supposed to tell you what the Fog was. Tsk, tsk Luthien, you sidetracked me. Anyhow, the Fog was what Doriel used to create his masterpiece, otherwise known as the bleeding rot plague. It looks innocent enough, like s normal fog, but carries the stench of rotting flesh. And it still drifts through parts of Aztur every couple of years. At least five years ago, the Fog still had the potency to infect anybody suicidal enough to walk into it, or unfortunate enough to be thrown in it, with that horrible, horrible plague – if the Rising Sun Empire has done anymore human experiments recently and found out that the Fog has finally become harmless, I’ve not heard of it. You do know about the bleeding rot plague right? It makes the rotting plague look like a cold.”

Luthien stiffened at the mention of the dreaded plague. Faearth had never known so terrible an afflction as the bleeding rot plague. Countless lives had been lost to this insidious illness that rotted away the body and made blood gush out from its victims’ every orifice. Death came as a relief to only those who entrusted their souls to Abihayil. The faithless continued on ‘living’, if it could be called that, their souls trapped in dead and rotting bodies, cursed to wander the Forsaken Lands as mindless, flesh-eating ghouls.

“And that is why no zeppelin captains will risk a trip into Aztur right now. But as they kept telling you, the Fog will pass in three days, and then maybe you will find someone idiotic enough to venture as far into the Forsaken Lands as Everstar Spire and take us in there with him.” Azarielle finished cheerfully. Out loud she added, “So I think we should just have a little rest and relaxation, enjoy the excellent food, and otherwise stay out of sight, hmm?”

Luthien did not like that idea one bit. But even the young knight had to admit that given what he knew about the plague, it seemed quite improbable anyone would be willing to risk this trip no matter of how much gold he offered. He could only pray that what delayed him and his companions would also delay their enemies.

* * * * *

The smell of the incense was a thick, almost tangible, musky sweetness that made her head spin and made her body feel airy and weightless. Despite drinking an entire teapot of what the innkeeper and assured her was a light and relaxing tea, and getting the leaves caught inside her mouth almost every single gulp - a decidedly not so relaxing experience, praying to Abihayil, and reading, or at least trying to read, a book, Ofeera found herself feeling quite agitated. Luthien and Azarielle had been gone for a good part of the day, leaving her and Breaker to their own devices.

Having sensed her restlessness, Breaker had done his best to keep her distracted. He’d asked her to tell him more about Abihayil and had, in turn, regaled her with stories of his travels. The gray elf was resting now, preparing for his self-assigned task of being the night watch. He sat with his back against the wall, keeping both the windows and the door in his line of sight. Though his eyes were closed and his body motionless, the young healer wondered if he was actually asleep. He had really long eyelashes, she noted. Azarielle would be envious of them if she weren’t so wary of their owner.

The thought of her friend made the young healer let out a sigh as she wandered over to the window and peeked out through the small slit that she had been permitted her to keep open. Ever since they had set foot in Peaceful Sea, Azarielle had been unusually…prudent, not a word she would normally used to describe her friend. The young mage had convinced them all to veil their faces and instead of urging everyone to explore as she would have under any other scenario, Azarielle had actually asked her and Breaker to stay inside the inn.

But her friend’s uncharacteristic caution was not what truly agitated her now. No, what she found so unsettling was the knowledge that Lucien was out there somewhere in this vast sea of people. She would see him again, and see him again soon, in a foreign land, amongst strangers, and an ocean away from all that was dear and familiar to her.

And when they did meet, they would meet as enemies.

Luthien would be the first to attack, though Ofeera did not know whether the young knight could actually strike the killing blow against his own twin. Breaker would though – the deadly slayer had made it very clear from the start that he fully intended to take Lucien’s life. And Azarielle would too. The young mage was fiercely protective of her friends, and Ofeera knew that Azarielle would not deal kindly with anyone who tried to lead Theredoniel astray. As for herself, what would she do? Could she lift her hand against the man she loved? And if that man tried to hurt her friends, her sister and her brother-in-law, what then?

Ofeera sank to her knees in front of the windows and bowed her head in prayer, “Blessed Abihayil, I cannot do this. I cannot! Please, please soften Lucien’s heart and lead his back into the fold, oh great father! Please. I do not want to see my precious people come to blows with one another, and you would not want this either, right father? Lucien followed you once. You could simply soften his heart again and turn him to your, great father! In the name of the Uncrowned King, I do so pray to you.”

She might have gone on with her prayers were not for the fact that Luthien and Azarielle chose that moment to return. Luthien was clearly frustrated. He strode briskly into the room with agitation and displeasure crackling almost tangibly around him and headed straight for the end table where the now-empty teapot now sat.

“I drank all the tea,” Ofeera apologized guiltily. “I am sorry.”

Luthien’s eyebrows furrowed in annoyance as he took of his hat and laid it down on the table, but he replied, “You have nothing to apologize for my lady.”

“Don’t worry Ofeera,” Azarielle chirped brightly. “Luthien is just frustrated because we won’t be able to go to Everstar Spire for three days because of the Fog of Horrible Disfigurement and Death. On the bright side, for the rest of us anyhow, we can relax.”

“Fog of… I beg your pardon?” Ofeera stared at Azarielle in confusion.

“Oh, the fog that Doriel Kethevar used to spread the bleeding rot plague,” Azarielle waved her hand vaguely.

“The Blight of Pestilence,” Breaker spoke the words as if they left an unpleasant aftertaste on his tongue. “Another shinning example of your order, mage.”

Azarielle smiled pleasantly, “And an exemplary member of your race, Sir Slayer. You should be glad that nobody has formed an elf-slaying brotherhood yet.”

“Azarielle!” Ofeera stared at her friend, horrified.

“There is no love lost between the gray elves and the high elves,” Breaker replied coldly.

“Well, you all have pointy ears as far as I can tell,” Azarielle replied, “Now, Sir Slayer, let’s talk about inductive reasoning for a moment – your brotherhood holds to the belief that because some mages have done deplorable deeds than all mages must do deplorable deeds. Using this same generalization, we can then say – because some gray elves lead disreputable lives then all gray elves must lead disreputable…”

The young mage did not have a chance to finish. Breaker, with his two-ringed eyes blazing fiercely, was upon her in a flash, his arcane breakers glinting cold silver as they dove for her throat. The young mage hopped aside, bracing herself for the bite of those sharp blades for she knew she hadn’t moved quickly enough to completely dodge the blow. At the same time, she flicked her wrist to release the daggers hidden in the wrist sheathes that lay below the voluminous folds of her sleeves.

But, fortunately for her, the ever-worrying Luthien had had his hand on the pommel of his sword the moment Azarielle pointed out that Doriel was an elf. Fearing that the conversation would take a turn for the worse, the knight had drawn his sword and thrown himself in front of the mage the moment he saw Breaker’s eyes narrow. And, he had lifted his sword up to fend off the gray elf’s lightning quick strike just in time.

The clear ring of metal on metal resounded through the room, shattering the last of Luthien’s patience, “What are you doing?! We haven’t even caught up with him and now we are fighting one another? Are the two of you completely daft?!”

Luthien’s voice shook with barely leashed outrage as he glared at the slayer and the mage in turn, “Breaker, you have chosen to join with us, so you shall not raise a hand against one of your own companions! And Azarielle, can you not keep nonsense from spewing out of your mouth for even one day?!”

“I was just trying to point out the inherent flaw in his inductive reasoning,” Azarielle explained. Then with a prod from Ofeera, she added, “I guess I could have used a less inflammatory example. My apologies, Breaker.”

She spoke her last sentence in Quegmierian, the language of the gray elves. There were enough similarities between Quegmierian and High Elven that most high elves could glean a general understanding of most conversations. But the high elves considered this language derived from their native tongue to be crude in construction and disharmonious in sound, so few of them bothered to learn all of its intricacies.

Fewer still were the humans who could speak it, and Azarielle’s pronunciation had been quite good. Despite himself, Breaker was impressed.

“You can understand the language of the shadows, mage?”

“My teacher’s guard wouldn’t speak to me in anything” the young woman replied. “So I learned.”

Breaker sheathed his weapons, “The knight speaks truth. I have joined with you on this quest, and until we see it to its end, I’ll not raise my weapons against you again, mage. You have my apologies as well.”

Although he did not understand the words spoken, Luthien guessed that at least for now, a truce had been reached. He let out a breath that he hadn’t realized he was holding and returned his sword to its scabbard. If he had been even a moment slower, Breaker would have drawn blood, and a mage-slayer battle would have broken out in their room! The thought bothered him enough that he gave the capricious elven slayer and the carefree mage each another glare.

The elf, at least, had enough decency to nod his head at the knight in acknowledgement and apology. The mage probably didn’t even see his disapproving look because she had already wandered over to the window.

“What should we do in the mean time?” Ofeera asked, looking at Luthien.

The young knight noticed that she was twisting her hands nervously in her lap. He was certain that Breaker lashing out at Azarielle had unsettled her, but he knew that she was even more troubled about Lucien. Had it been a good idea to let her join them on this quest?

“My lady…” he began.

“Alright everyone, time to pack it up and make a hasty retreat!” Azarielle interrupted him, “I just spotted some very nasty characters coming in, and they are probably coming for us.”

“What?” Luthien blinked at Azarielle, surprised by her sudden outburst.

“We need to scram, run away, make ourselves scarce, be otherwise unavailable for capture,” Azarielle looked at the knight as she thought he was a little bit slow on the uptake. “You know, because being detained by the guards of an imperial prince is not a good thing.”

“Several mages have just come in,” Breaker added as he held out his daggers for his companions to see. “My blades are reacting to their presence.”

The breakers hummed like a nest of bees – an ominous sound in light of the grim expression on the elven slayer’s face.

“Yes, three mages to be exact,” the young mage replied as she picked up Luthien’s hat and tossed it at him. “At least of one them, in the words of my esteemed master ‘isn’t a total waste of air and space’, and unfortunately, he’s a thoroughly unpleasant fellow.”

“You recognize them,” Luthien was finally able to make sense of the mage’s spontaneous and rather disjointed yammering. “How do you know that we are who they seek?”

Azarielle gave Luthien a most unappreciative stare before turning to Breaker and saying, “Sir Slayer, will you please do us all a favor and go have a look see at what that unpleasant bunch is up to while I give our fearless leader a summary of what is happening?”

Breaker gave one quick nod of his head and slipped out of the room. Satisfied, Azarielle turned her attention back to Luthien, “Sir Knight, I will make this as quick and concise as I am able, so I hope I don’t lose you along the way.”

Luthien found the idea of Azarielle being quick, concise and still be understandable to any reasonable person, indeed, the very act of being understandable itself, quite inconceivable. But, sensing her urgency, he wisely kept his comments to himself so that she doesn’t waste more precious time arguing with him.

“Point one: those warrior mages are the private guards of Prince Yue, the Prince Governor of Long Peace. Point two: Prince Yue does not like me. Point three: He also does not get along with his brother, Prince Ming, the Prince Governor of the Eternal Joy, the province state that Peaceful Sea is part of, and therefore, it’s not a good idea for his to send his guards here for not reason. Conclusion: He’s here to get us because the servant that stole the staff told him we are here. Understood?’

Luthien understood, but that didn’t mean he didn’t have any questions. Azarielle was at least acquainted with Prince Yue well enough (which equated with angering him) that he would send guards into a rival prince’s territory to seek her out. And he wanted to know how. Being a woman, she would not have come into his presence unless she was herself a princess (impossible!), a servant (also impossible, given her rather rude behavior), a wife, or a concubine.

Being a powerful prince, Yue would only take a wife if she had status, power or both. The young mage was of noble birth, though he did not know whether she was high nobility or not. Power, she did have. But, Prince Yue did not have a wife; had never had a wife as far as intelligence reports could be trusted.

As for being a concubine – the higher ranking ones were also selected for power in order to produce powerful offspring, and status for desirable political association, but most were chosen for beauty. Luthien looked at Azarielle. Was she beautiful enough to be a concubine for an imperial prince? The young knight was surprised by his own answer – yes.

Azarielle did not have Ofeera’s portrait-perfect beauty, but her features were exotic and striking in their own way. Her large, almond shaped eyes that had an almost elven slant were alluring, seductive even. That frustrating mouth was full and bow shaped, and would look very kissable if she were spewing so much nonsense every moment of the day. And then, there was her coloring – night black hair against porcelain white skin and eyes the color of honey. Yes, she was beautiful – and in full Rising Sun noblewoman regalia, she would be stunning.

“Are you astonished by my matchless beauty, do you not understand anything I’ve just said, or is there something on my face?” the young mage asked frowning at him. “Because, Sir Knight, you are doing a very good impersonation of a statue.”

Luthien decided that a temporary lapse in judgment and sanity must have led him to the wrong conclusion, “And how do you know Prince Yue?”

Before Azarielle could answer, Breaker returned. The elven slayer slipped through the room as silent as a shadow and said, “I do not understand the exchange they had with the innkeeper. They showed him some sort of crest and they are now searching through the rooms.”

“Shall we try to leave?” Ofeera looked around at the room and timidly suggested. “Maybe we could… jump out of the windows?”

“Unfortunately, we’d cause enough commotion that they’ll be out on the streets after us in a matter of minutes,” Azarielle shook her head. “I’ll try to turn them away with an illusion and make our retreat right after that?”

“No. We will stay and confront them,” Luthien’s eyes were determined. “If they have come searching for us, then they have been notified of our coming by the servant. We will not wait for Everstar Spire and stop him right now!”

“If you decide on that course of action, Luthien, I will be forced to clobber you over the head. Somehow, the idea of wreaking havoc in the middle of Peaceful Sea, which is enemy territory, by fighting the personal guards of one of the most powerful imperial princes of Rising Sun seems a tad… well, words like insane, ridiculous, stupid, and plain bad, bad, bad comes to mind.”

The young knight paid the mage no heed. He turned to the elven slayer and said, “Is there anyway you can prevent the mages from working their Art without killing…”

Every muscle in his body suddenly locked together as if a giant’s had had wrapped around him and was squeezing. His mouth froze in mid speech, cutting of the rest of the sentence he was saying. Like an unbalanced statue, he found himself crashing to the floor.

Azarielle! The accursed mage had worked her Art against him!

“I hate reminding people of this, but I am a battle mage. This means I specialize in clobbering people and things.” Azarielle remarked. “So I when I threaten you with a clobbering, you should take heed.”

“Azarielle, what are you doing? Let him free!” Ofeera rushed over to where the knight was.

But the young mage put herself between the healer and the knight and said, “We cannot afford to battle these mages, Ofeera. If it was the servant and Theredoniel who alerted Prince Yue of our presence, then they are likely guests in his manor in the City of Red Dawn, which is many days travel from here. We will not make it before they leave of Everstar Spire. And if we battle these mages here, we will have Prince Ming’s troops after us as well. Peaceful Sea might be a port city, but it is nothing like Westshore. No sane zeppelin captain will take us if there is an imperial warrant for our arrest.”

“You will distract the mages with an illusion?” Breaker asked. For once, the elven slayer was in agreement with Azarielle. He knew that confrontation here and now was not to their advantage.

“I am going to try,” Azarielle replied. “I will be able to confuse them long enough for us to get away. These mages are also on enemy territory and they will not be able to search for us openly.”

Without another word, the young mage found herself a seat and closed her eyes. Despite her outward calm, she had been beyond rattled when she spotted Yue’s guards walking into the inn. Both the Luminous Consort and Yue served Abyssal Ones, so it was not a surprise that the servant who stole the Staff of Everstar had gone to him. And yet, she had hoped beyond reason and logic that such an encounter would not happen!

Azarielle took a deep breath, trying to force her jumbled mind into some semblance of peace. The power that been bestowed upon her was one that all too readily teetered towards darkness and destruction – and Azariel had long ago cautioned her to leash her own emotions lest she too give herself over to the Abyssal Ones. And with her mind in turmoil, she could sense a rumbling deep inside the core of her being, like a storm looming over the horizon of an uneasy sea.

What she intended to do require focus and discipline, especially since she intended to remain unnoticed. And so, the young woman began to pray.

Ofeera sat by her friend uneasily. For just a brief moment, she had felt Azarielle’s power. And what a great and terrifying power her friend had been gifted with! It was a fiercely burning thing as hot and volatile as the heart of a star. And for a single blink of the eye, that power had enveloped her in blinding light and a million voices crying out in pain or in song, she did not know.

It had been her first true glimpse at the power Abihayil had presented Azarielle with, and she found herself trembling at the experience. To think that such a great gift, such a fearsome power had been inside her carefree, overly forthright friend! And to think that Azarielle too was troubled, as much or perhaps even more than she was!

Breaker had gone to stand by the door, his weapons drawn in case Azarielle was not able to dissuade their unwanted guests. The lovely young healer had gone to sit by the mage, and she was now looking at him with worried eyes. He could offer her no comfort except giving the barest nod of his head and preparing himself for battle.

When the inevitable knock came, his muscles tensed and he prepared himself for battle.

“Coming,” the mage said as she rose from her seat. Her eyes remained closed as she walked towards the door with sure footing, as if something else guided her steps. The long grenadine dress swished gracefully behind her, making it seem as if she was floating.

Azarielle laid her hand on the door and paused for a just a moment. Breaker saw her best rise and fall as she took a deep breath.

Then, she opened the door.

The man who stood on the other side was dressed in nondescript gray robes and had on a straw hat with black veil covering his face. Breaker could just make out his features – a flat face and cold, hard brown eyes – that twisted into shocked recognition when he saw Azarielle.

He opened his mouth, “Lady R…”

But Azarielle did not let him finish. She opened her eyes and looked straight at him. And though Breaker was not possessed of the Gift, he felt a hot wind buffet his body. His daggers, the arcane breakers that the mage so despised, had practically come alive in his hands so agitated they were in the presence of such great and hostile power.

“You do not see us. You see a merchant and his three wives. He is arguing with his two older wives because they are accusing him of giving his youngest wife the best gift,” she told him, her voice soft but commanding.
“I do not see you,” he repeated, his eyes wide and unseeing now, “I see a merchant and his three wives. They are bickering over the gift has brought the younger wife.”

“How does Yue know we are here?”

“A foreigner with hair like the snow and eyes like the sky came with an elf with yellow hair and green eyes. He spoke of a knight who looked like him and traveled in the company of a mage and a healer,” the mage’s face twisted behind his veil, as if he was struggling against the thrall of Azarielle’s power.

She lifted a hand and laid it against the other mage’s forehead. The veiled mage’s face went slack again, like a doll’s. “And what did he ask Prince Yue to assist him with?”

“His Highness ordered as to kill all three on sight.”

“You will go to the next room and you will remember only the merchant and the three wives,” Azarielle’s voice was like a cold finger tracing a line down the spine. Breaker found that somewhere along the line, he had taken a step back from her. Her golden eyes were swirling amber storms, and he knew that if he looked at them for long, he would be enthralled by her power as well.

“I will go to the room and remember only the merchant and the three wives.”

* * * * *

Luthien struggled against the bonds that held him. He could hear the words being spoken and see all that was happening. But he could neither speak nor move! Azarielle, and the knight added a few un-chivalrous adjectives after Azarielle, had not entirely ‘clobbered’ him into unconsciousness as she so succinctly threatened to do.

And that was her mistake.

After the immediate rage of being treated in such a undignified way had sent the blood rushing into his head, or he supposed, away from his head subsided enough that for him to think again, he had ceased his useless physical struggles and turned to his own gift. What separated a paladin from a knight was the paladin’s own Arcane Gift. Though he had not received the same training she had, Luthien was not a stranger to battling mages. And so, he turned his focus inward and prayed.

Under any other circumstance, Azarielle might have noticed what he was doing and stopped him. But since she was otherwise occupied, Abihayil’s healing strength flowed through him in a warm rush. Muscle by muscle, he was released from Azarielle’s attack, and he stayed as still as he was able until he could move every part of his body again.

And then, he sprang up off the ground and charged.

* * * *

“You will not leave!” an outraged voice roared, shattering Azarielle’s hold on the mage.

Luthien stood, with his sword drawn, breathing as heavily as an enraged bull. The Rising Sun mage blinked in confusion and stared at the four very un-merchant like people in the room, trying to figure out what had just happened.

Azarielle rolled her eyes.

The Keystaff Chronicles Chapter 5

Chapter 5

In the end, Luthien and Ofeera were persuaded to let the gray elf join them on their quest. (Azarielle’s continued suggestions that the dangerous elf be rendered unconscious was largely ignored by her companions and seemed to only amuse the slayer.) He gave his name as Breaker, and as a sign of goodwill, he permitted the knight to keep his weapons. As a sign of faith on his part, Luthien chased Azarielle out of the room before she could truss Breaker up with an arcane net.

The rest of the night was blessedly uneventful in its passing, though for Luthien, it was a restless one. The knight could not fall asleep, and his mind raced faster than the most fleet-footed of horses. Lucien’s thoughts flitted from one subject to another, from the garish Silver Hawk and its disreputable crew to his brother. One moment, his ruminations led him to think that the air ship would plummet from the sky and send them all to their watery graves; the next, he worried that as they rested this night, his brother was getting further and further ahead.

He tried to distract his mind from such thoughts by turning his attentions to his new room mate. Breaker had “bedded down” in the far corner of the room by sitting with his back against the wall. Luthien could just make out the barest outline of the elf’s slim figure in the darkness, a shadowy form that held so still it seemed to meld into the surrounding blackness. Breaker made no sound at all; in fact Luthien could not even hear breathing from the elf’s side of the room. Though he had not immediately recognized that Breaker belonged to the secretive Brotherhood of the Red Hand, he did know its members by reputation. They were amongst the deadliest of Faearth’s assassins, and their skills were such that many considered them to be death incarnates. And despite his show of faith, Luthien was wary of the elf. To himself and to Abihayil, the young prince could admit that a part of him had wanted Azarielle to work her arcane skills to bind their dangerous new companion.

And then, he turned his thoughts to the young mage again. She was probably the most infuriating person he had ever encountered. Words seemed to pass through her lips without being processed in her mind first. And yet, she was skilled in the Art, there was no denying that, but even more importantly, she seemed unusually experienced in combat. Her mind was certainly sharp, but the practiced precision in which she handled Breaker, that almost disconcerting calmness as she faced a slayer who moved with the swiftness of wind and flowed with the grace of water…! By her own admission, she had fought slayers before. Luthien now wondered how many times she had fought them. And the fact that she was still alive was in itself a testament of her skill and Abihayil’s blessings!

Ree Yonanne – Breaker had called her – the First Lady of the State of Long Peace. ‘First Lady’ was the title given to the highest ranking wife of a prince of the Dark Empire, and Luthien knew that that Yue, the Prince Governor of Long Peace and one of the most powerful princes of the Dark Empire, did no have a wife by that title. In fact, intelligence reports sent to his father spoke of a month-long war that Prince Yue had fought for that very reason. One of the Dark Empire’s vassal kingdoms had offered a princess to Yue to be his First Lady. Instead of granting her that honored title, Yue had made her one of his lesser concubines, an act that the vassal kingdom had taken as the vilest of insults.

Was the gray elf been mistaken or had Azarielle been another one of such noble ladies jilted by Prince Yue? With her thoughtless words and her easy-going manner, Azarielle certainly did not have the gentle, reserved nature that the women of the Dark Empire strived for. And if the thorn crown pendant she wore around her neck was indicative of her faith, than she was a follower of the Uncrowned King, a belief no espoused in that heathen empire. She did hail from the Dark Empire though, her coloring left no room for question in that area, and her amber eyes did speak of noble blood. Luthien wondered if she would answer him honestly if he asked.

More likely then not, she would smile at her infuriatingly cheerful smile at him and inquire in the most grating way possible if he had perhaps consumed bad food.

“Do not let troubled thoughts cloud your mind, knight, or is it that you feel troubled by my presence?” Breaker’s voice, though quiet, cut through the silence of the room. “Rest while you can, for you will need your energy.”

Luthien grunted noncommittally in response. Although he knew that the elf spoke truly, he also knew that he would not be able to find respite that knight. And yet, even as he resigned himself to a sleepless night, his eyes clouds and he was finally granted a much needed respite from his own thoughts.

* * * * *

Azarielle perched atop the roof of the inn, her knees bent and her arms wrapped around her knees. In the room below, Ofeera slept. The healer had been so troubled that she had stayed awake tossing and turning. So that her friend might finally get some much needed rest, Azarielle spoke a few words and put her the healer in an Art-induced slumber. And then, the young mage had opened the windows and pulled herself onto the roof so that she might enjoy the salty sea breeze and clear her own mind.

It had been a long time since anyone had called her by the name that her father had given her. An insignificant eighth daughter born to a third wife who no longer had her husband’s favor, her fate was to become a wife of a minor noble. Her status at husband’s home would have been determined by the number of sons she bore him.
But then, on her sixth birthday, the Imperial Testers had come to her home. Her father, a minor baron who served as a clerk in the Ministry of Culture, had hoped that her brothers would have a greater affinity for the Arcane Arts than he did and attain a higher rank than he had. Instead, they proclaimed that she, Ree Yonanne, the virtually valueless eighth daughter, was the one who had an unusually great affinity for the Art, so great in fact, that despite being a girl, she would be brought to the capital and trained in the Arts by the finest masters.

When she was twelve, she started in her service as a handmaiden and guard for the Dowager Empress of Fortune and Longevity. The grandmotherly dowager empress who was herself an incredibly powerful mage had taken an immediate liking to the young girl and took it upon herself to instruct her further in the Arcane Arts. And then, when she turned fourteen, the Dowager Empress decided that she would make a fine wife for one of her sons and gave her High Decree that she was to be betrothed to her eleventh grandson.

Things went from quite pleasant to horrendously disastrous in the course of a year, what with the rather unfortunate and very much illicit liaisons between the Luminous Consort and her future husband, the acid-breathing black dragon, and the whole thing about her being hunted as a renegade. But the one joyous thing to come out of this disastrous turn of events was that she escaped the Dark Empire and was found by Abihayil. Now only if she didn’t have to go back to Rising Sun!

With a long sigh, Azarielle offered a long rambling prayer to Abihayil, beseeching the Eternal Father that he might change his mind and not send her into the place she most dreaded.

* * * * *

The next morning, Luthien roused his companions at the break of dawn. They ate a quick meal of warm milk and freshly baked bread with Ofeera pecking at her food and Azarielle happily devouring everything in sight. When the four companions left for the dock, the sun was a crimson half disc floating in the ocean, and the eastern horizon was like a bold canvas splashed with red, gold, pink and lavender.

Silver Hawk and her crew awaited them when they arrived. Even with the soft, rosy colors of dawn, the air ship looked to Luthien like a hideous misbegotten construct that was never meant to exist. The ship captain, who welcomed him with a hearty clap on the back and a great, wide grin that showed tobacco stained teeth, introduced himself and his crew to the rest of the young knight’s companions. Then, he and Luthien haggled over prices about the addition of a fourth traveler.

As the two discussed fares, Azarielle examined the runes inscribed into the side of the ship. Despite the overly extravagant, almost comical loops and curves that marked each rune, Azarielle could tell that the ship and been imbued with impressive Arcane power. The Arcane shield surrounding the ship would allow it to withstand considerable damage.
“Who did you say did the runes on your ship?” she asked.

“The finest mage in all of Westhore!” the captain boasted, repeating the same line he had given Luthien the night before.

“Lovely,” the young mage replied as she wandered back to where Ofeera and Breaker were waiting, “I wonder if he also does those paintings that are in such wild demand right now, you know, those squiggly doodles that look like children drew them, but are worth a king’s ransom?”

“Finest mage, I tell ye; ye won’t find better!” the sea captain exclaimed, “But if ya want, I can be getting you some paintings, and for a pretty lass like yeself, I’ll give a good price.”

“Oh, I don’t really understand that kind of thing,” the young mage waved her hand dismissively. “It would be wasted on me. But I have a question, good captain, is there supposed to be a cannonball hole at the front of the ship?”

The ship’s captain’s eyes widened and he put a weathered, almost leathery hand to his chest, “Ye wound me, lass! This grand lady might be old, but she soars like a hawk! A little pinprick won’t be slowing her down!”

“Since you are here talking to us and not, you know, splattered somewhere in the ocean, I’ll take your word for it,” the mage replied. “By the way, unless you are completely and utterly anatomically unique, your heart is on your left-side, not the right. It’s more dramatic when you get it right.”

Before Azarielle could say anything else randomly insulting that might cost them their passage, Ofeera quickly added, “We are very grateful for you to be making room for us on your ship, Captain Petabee.”

“Would you still be very grateful if you knew that a mage from Rising Sun did these runes?” Azarielle sent this thought straight into the minds of her companions, making both Luthien and Breaker start.

“Will the ship fly?” Though Ofeera could not send her thoughts into another’s mind, she knew that her friend would be able to read the thoughts that she formed carefully in her mind.

“Oh, it will,” Azarielle responded. “In fact, I’d say that the mage who inscribed these runes could probably serve in the house of a noble. That means it would take three knights of Elad to, how is it you guys put it, ‘strike him or her down with righteous fury’? I do like that phrase though. Abihayil willing, I might even get to use it. Oh, and when I say three knights, I mean three useful knights. The fellows who run around waving their swords and screaming ‘evil be gone’ from two dozen feet away don’t count. ”

Luthien did his best to ignore the inane and horrendously loud thoughts bombarding his mind and finished his negotiation with the air shift captain. It was a show really, his haggling with this man. He simply did not want to appear too desperate on the off chance that Captain Petabee’s curiosity overcame his greed and the man started asking questions. But the captain took his payment quite cheerfully and, thankfully, without asking a single question. In fact, he didn’t even cast a second look at the gray elf, who was dressed in nondescript tans and browns with the cowl of a hooded cloak pulled low over his place. Thought relieved that they would set sail without any further delays, the young knight wondered what sort of business this captain ran that he had no concern for the passengers that boarded his ship.

Having finally arrived at an agreement with the captain, the knight came to join his companions. Turning to Azarielle, he said quietly, “It is not so unusual for the Dark Empire’s mages to seek work in Westshore.”

Azarielle shrugged, “It’s also not unusual for sea and air ship captains to transport persons of interest to the Dark Empire’s authorities to keep on their good side.”

“And you would know this because?” Luthien regarded the young mage intently.

“Purple Bamboo’s brother acted as a liaison between said authorities and the captains,” the young mage replied matter-of-factly.

“And who is Purple Bamboo?” Luthien felt exasperation building inside him, a feeling he was beginning to associate with the mage in general.

“She’s the maid of a former teacher,” the mage replied, and then pointed at the ship. “Shall we board the swiftly flying Silver Hawk with the cannonball hole in the front and sail into the sapphire horizon in search of adventure and excitement?”

* * * * *

The four companions boarded the Silver Hawk and were led a room with two sets of rickety bunk beds, a single night stand with a wrought iron lantern holding a half melted candle, and no windows. Meals, they were told, would be served three times a day in the mass hall, and they could either eat with the crew or return to their room. So long as they did not get in the way of the crew, they were welcomed on board the deck.

Azarielle placed a protective shield around all of the packs except for Breaker’s, because the gray elf was quite adamant about not letting his things be contaminated by a mage’s vile Art. He said so in as much words. When Azarielle did nothing but smile pleasantly at him, Ofeera asked the gray elf to accompany her on board because she was very much aware that when her mage friend smiled with that kind of bland congeniality, she was actually imagining all sorts of uncongenial things to do to whomever it was that had offended her.

The lovely healer drew much unwanted attention from the ship’s crew when she stepped out onto the deck. She tried her best to ignore the leers she drew and found a spot next to the railing of the ship. In the very least, at least this crew did not have any ridiculously notions about letting a woman board an air ship.

The ship’s crew was making final preparations, rushing about pulling various ropes, raising the sails, with the captain bellowing orders from the helm of the ship that made about as much sense to her as one of Azarielle’s incantations. And though she could see the men running about in all directions doing various tasks like worker ants swarming out of a hill, and hear them shout, curse, and slap their bare feet against the deck, she felt strangely peaceful.

Behind her, stretching into infinity was the Tranquilean Ocean. Although she had never flown such far distances as they were about to, Azarielle had described to her experience crossing this vastest of all oceans. The mage had said that when the skies were clear and the waves were calm, it felt like the world was nothing but blue, sapphire skies melting into cerulean seas. With the sun finally taken to the sky, the eastern horizon was veiled in shimmering gold of the morning’s glory, and thought she found it hard to look in that direction for long, Ofeera found herself lulled into a sense of peace. The ocean seemed endless, and this ship with its lively crew was but a single note in the rhythmic song of the waters.

“I appreciate you accompanying me up here,” Ofeera said quietly to the gray elf as he came up to stand beside her.

“It is an honor, lady healer,” he replied, his voice as melodious as Theredoniel’s, though his inflection of the words did not have her high elf brother-in-law’s lilting tones.

“Please, just Ofeera. I was pleasantly surprised that you were willing to accompany me,” the healer tried to choose her words carefully. “I did not think… because you are not fond of arcane users.”

The gray elf’s dual colored eyes twinkled with amusement, “I have always respected the healers who wield their powers for the good of others. Mages are different. Their powers come from the darkness and they bring nothing but death. Their ‘power’ created the accursed Forsaken Lands.”

“All power comes from Abihayil, the Eternal Father, so the power, in itself is not evil. It is the people who decide whether to abuse their power,” Azarielle came up behind them, “Arcane power created the Forsaken Lands, but it was the servants of the Abyssal Ones who started the war.”

“One million people died in that war, mage,” the gray elf’s words were cold.

“And tens of millions of people have died since in wars not of a mage’s making,” Azarielle replied. “I do not excuse our actions or involvement during the Plague War, but war comes about because of arrogance and greed. Arcane power is merely an instrument to carry out man’s ill intentions, much like a sword or a spear.”

“No mortal should have the kind of power that a mage wields,” the gray elf replied. “You are abominations that should have never existed.”

The mage grinned widely at that, “The Brotherhood wants all mages to die. The Knights of Elad thinks Abihayil should just drop a flaming meteor atop the Dark Empire. High elves believe gray elves are nothing more than lowly animals…I am going to get to my point soon, Ofeera, don’t frown at me so or you will have wrinkles. The nomads of the Shift Sands think all city dwellers are abyssal spawns. Truly, if we all got our wish, the world would be a peaceful place. But that’s because everyone would be dead. Now wouldn’t that be boring, Breaker?”

Before the gray elf could reply, the air ship gave a great groan, like an old lady climbing to her feet after sitting down for a long while, and lurched forward. Water parted ways in on either side of the Silver Hawk as the ship sailed slowly away from the dock. The runes inscribed along the sides of the ship came to life, glowing with a soft blue light, and the dingy white sails suddenly filled with the air.

Without warning, the Silver Hawk suddenly hurtled forward with incredible speed, cutting through the water like an arrow flying through the air. And then, the bow of the ship jerked upwards at an angle, and ship took to the air. Like a young bird taking wing for the first time, the ship’s climb into open skies was an unsteady one, quivering and faltering as the wind blasted across the deck.

“Hang on tight, lad and lasses,” Captain Petabee’s roaring voice came over the rushing wind, “The ascent is always a bit unsteady!”

“Only if the ship ascends like this,” Azarielle mumbled as she clung to the railing, her long black hair and bright red coat whipping wildly about her in the wind.

“What?” Ofeera saw her friend’s lips move but was unable to hear a single sound. “What did you say?” The young healer could barely keep her eyes open. The wind and the salt water made tears flow down her cheek as she held on to the railing for dear life, “We should have stayed below!”

“No, that would be even worse. The knight’s probably down there emptying out his breakfast!”

“I can’t hear you!” Ofeera tried to shake a strand of the dark brown hair that fallen into her eyes.

“I’ll tell you later. Just concentrate on not falling overboard. It would be quite unpleasant to fall, because even if you survived the impact, the sharks would get you.”

For what felt like an eternity to the three companions, the ship continued its wobbling climb. When, at last, when their hands were numb from gripping so tightly onto the railing, the Silver Hawk finally straightened itself out. The healer was the first to release her hold on the railing. And then, as if her legs were ice that had melted, she sank to the deck with a long, relieved sigh.

“I hadn’t expected that,” she remarked after a moment.

“Well, that was a rather unpleasant way to wake up,” Azarielle sat down next to her friend. A few strands of her long black hair had escaped from the two gold hair sticks she had used to style her hair. Breaker, who was stretching his fingers, regarded the pins wearily. Despite their ornate appearance, those hair pins were actually thin, sheathed blades that could be thrown or used in close combat. And if this mage was indeed Ree Yoanne as he suspected, then those thin blades were coated with a fast-acting and lethal venom.

As if sensing his stare, the mage turned her honey-gold eyes on him. For just one instant, she regarded him with eyes that held the cold glitter of a well-sharpened dagger, but then, a curtain of blend nonchalance dropped over that piercing expression and she was simply smiling at him rather vacantly.

“I wish your Brotherhood would take us mages off the ‘monster’ list,” she lamented. “I’d really like to learn your balancing techniques. I suppose it must be all that skulking around on rooftops and crawling up and down the walls like a lizard. I wouldn’t actually need to roof-crawl since I am not planning a career change to assassination anytime soon, but it seems like a good trick for looking dignified on an air ship. Hmm, actually, it might be useful to learn how to roof-crawl, just so I can avoid my landlord.”

Although he kept his expression neutral, Breaker felt quite at a loss by the random flow of words from the mage.

“Azarielle, did you not pay your rent?” Ofeera asked, frowning.

“Oh I did,” the mage gave her hair one last pat as she got to her feet, “But he’s been rather upset with me lately. I am not sure if it’s because of the ichor from the giant widow spiders that I accidentally got onto the carpet, or the wall that got turned a little black because I sort of mixed up the ingredients for a potion, or …”

Ofeera rubbed her temples in distress as her friend enumerated her rather creative accidents. While she did believe that Azarielle had compensated the landlord each and every time something happened, having already witnessed one of the young mage’s ‘apologetic explanations’ (where she pointed out various design flaws in the building or bemoaned the poor material used in the construction), she found herself mostly sympathetic towards her friend’s landlord.

“You’ve not told me about the spiders,” the healer said at last, rather weakly.
“Oh well, you know these things happen to me a lot,” Azarielle gave a shrug. “I didn’t want to bore you with the details. Anyhow, I thought you might want to go take a look at Luthien. He was a little green even before I had come on deck. Abihayil willing he’s not making too much of a mess in the room.”

The healer looked at her friend with a look of horrified dismay, “Oh no!”

“Don’t worry, if anything comes out the wrong way, it will be incinerated before it touches the ground,” Azarielle sent the thought into her friend’s mind. “But I forgot about the smell… hmm. Maybe you can you cleanse the air before you walk inside?”

“Incinerated vomit?” Ofeera looked at her friend with an expression on her face that indicated that she wasn’t sure whether she should be horrified or amused. Sometimes, she wondered how her friend’s mind worked that so many strange ideas seemed to march through her thoughts. Shaking her head with a rueful smile, she hurried back down the deck.

That left the mage and the slayer alone on deck. Breaker leaned against the railing and looked off into the distance, seeming to admire the view. A few strands of his jet black hair had escaped the confines of his hood and now fluttered in the air as if they had a life of their own. His face, and his delicately pointed ears, remained hidden. He made no move to acknowledge the young mage, and she decided to respect his obvious desire for silence.

Azarielle wandered down a little further along the railing and looked up at the sails. Awash in the bright morning sunlight, the dingy white sails seemed to glow as if they were golden banners heralding the arrival of a holy army. That image brought a smile to her lips. This gaudily painted air ship, with its riff raff crew and her terribly mismatched band of companions seemed quite the polar opposite of something as hope-inspiring as Abihayil’s victorious army. She was quite certain that they didn’t even share the same goals.

Luthien was pursuing the servant of Abyssal One; a man whom she guessed was related to him. She did not know what kind of reckoning the young knight intended once he caught up with the servant, and from the troubled expression that marred his face whenever the servant came up in conversation, it didn’t seem like he was all that certain of it himself. The gray elf was pursuing the same person with a much clearer goal – if opportunity presented itself, he would slay the servant to avenge his companions. Then, there was Ofeera. Azarielle found her own brows furrowing as she thought of her friend. Ofeera was looking for Eowyna and Theredoniel, but it seemed like she too had a past with the servant. Whatever relationship they might have had, Ofeera at least was still very much in thrall of the man.

As for herself, the task she had been assigned was one of retrieval and capture. The Black Order, which seemed to her heavier than anything else she carried, was the Arcane Council’s decree that if she could not capture Theredoniel alive, she would be have to execute him. And she had no desire to turn the gifts that Abihayil had blessed her with against a man she had come to regard as her own brother.

They might be in pursuit of the same two people, but they were divided in their purpose. Would that unfortunate fact get in their way when they did come upon the servant and Theredoniel?

* * * * *

The days passed quickly for companions, (except for Luthien, who suffered quite terribly from air sickness and spent most of his time curled up into a miserable ball in the belly of the ship, even when Azarielle started referring to him as The Prawn.) blending into one another even as the sky blended into the ocean. Despite her less than impressive appearance, the Silver Hawk proved true to her name, gliding swiftly and, for the most part, smoothly through the endless blue.

The companions fell into something of a routine. Each morning, before the sun rose, Azarielle and Breaker would head up onto the deck. The former would watch the sun rise or meditate while the latter put himself through a series of stretches to keep himself limber. For the most part, the slayer ignored the mage, and she in turn stayed out of his path.

Before breakfast, Azarielle would brew a tea that helped Luthien with his air sickness over mage flames while Ofeera cleaned their shared room. When Breaker returned, he would accompany the healer aboard the deck and she would speak to him of Abihayil and her faith. Azarielle would spend a good part of the day pouring over the Elucielle Gwenevar’s journal and contemplating all the information that she gleaned within. (She determined very quickly that arrogance seemed an inherited trait amongst the mages of House Gwenevar – and that the legendary Elucielle Gwenevar had a fondness for making up unflattering names for anyone worth a mention in her journals.) She would also wander amongst the crew, speaking to the few who seemed friendly.

Nighttime was about the only time, Luthien seemed to feel better. After dinner, he and Azarielle would play chess, with Ofeera, and sometimes even Breaker watching. Other times, the young healer would sing hymns of praise and worship, and her companions would be soothed and lulled by her sweet voice and the beautiful melody.

And so, the days passed.

One morning, while Breaker and Ofeera were taking their usual walk on the ship deck, they noticed that the crew seemed unusually agitated. The sailor atop the crow’s nest was shouting loudly to Captain Petabee about an approaching ship, and several other members of the crew were standing at the bow of the ship, gripping the railing with white-knuckled hands.

Breaker scanned the horizon with his dual-colored eyes narrowed before turning to an anxious Ofeera, “There are three ships coming our way from the northwest, the direction of the Pelican Isles, which is home to pirates.”

Ofeera looked at the direction that Breaker had indicated but found nothing. Nevertheless, having never been in a battle situation, the young healer felt her fingers grow cold with nervousness and quickly murmured a prayer to fortify her courage, “I’ll go fetch Azarielle and Luthien.”

When she pushed open the door of their cabin, Ofeera found the place lit as brightly as day with pale yellow mage globes of all sizes floating about. She tried not to notice the large cob webs dangling in the far corner of a room or the spider that was crawling over a cocoon of some insect it had caught. The light was for reading, and both Luthien and Azarielle seemed engrossed in what they were perusing through.

Luthien was reading over some of Azarielle’s notes, a frown on his face as he struggled with the mage’s writing that she described as free-flowing and everyone else would call illegible. Azarielle herself was looking rather frustrated as she rubbed her temples and scowled down at a heavy journal sitting on her lap. Ofeera knew enough about the high elven languages to know that her friend was probably trying to decipher another book she had pilfered from her teacher.

“Breaker says there are pirates!” The words burst out of her mouth in a rush, without any preface.

Luthien looked up her with concern, and Azarielle looked at her with a dazed expression, “What?”

“Pirates!”

“Oh,” the mage blinked slowly and Ofeera got the distinct impression that Azarielle had not pulled her thoughts from the journal yet. “Oh. Ohhhh! Did we just pass through the Pelican Isles?” The horrified look Ofeera gave her was answer enough.

With her two companions in tow, Ofeera hurried back up to the deck, where the Silver Hawk’s crew was now rushing about in a clear panic. The Silver Hawk had picked up speed. The wind howled through the ship, filling the sails and whipping the two young women’s hair wildly about.

“Three sea troll ships,” Breaker said softly. “And at least one of them is gaining on us.” The gray ring of the elf’s dual-colored eyes seethed with flames that made them glow molten silver.

“I am glad you are excited about it,” Azarielle remarked drily. The elf flashed a wicked grin, but said nothing.

Captain Petabee came towards them with a nervous smile on his face, “We seem to be running into a bit of a problem…”

“A bit as in ship loads of oh-so-hard-to-kill troll pirates?” Azarielle asked.

“Well yes, just three ships mind ye,” the captain continued, ever the wily merchant. “We’ll be needin’ to do a bit o’ maneuvering, but don’t you be worryin’, this grand old lady is as fast as they come!”

“Are your men trained fighters?” Luthien asked.

“The finest in Westshore, I tell ye!” Captain Petabee boasted, puffing up his chest like a rooster might, “But, we might be needin’ just a mite of help, just a mite mind you.”

“We will assist you, Captain,” Luthien replied gravely.

“We can’t really do anything else,” Azarielle added with morbid cheeriness. “If they made troll gift baskets with the crew, what’s left of us will end up being fish bait for the sharks anyhow.”

Ofeera became several shades paler, “Azarielle…”

“Oh, sorry, I hadn’t meant to frighten you. It was just for effect. Don’t worry, we probably wouldn’t survive the splat into the water so your soul would have already ascended into Abihayil’s bosom before those little shark nibbles start.”

“That’s not very comforting either,” the healer said faintly.

“We will be fine,” Luthien glowered at the mage. “You will have our full support, Captain. Do you have a plan of engagement?”

“We do…” the captain’s tone of voice was such that the companions knew immediately that that he did not. “A most excellent plan…”

“Perhaps you will allow us to make some additions to your plan,” Luthien interrupted before Petabee could waste any more precious time with his useless words. “Trolls are difficult to kill. They can grow back almost every part of their body, and the only sure way to slay them is with fire or by beheading. We cannot risk fire if they are too close to us. Also, these ships are likely to carry troll shadow weavers. I do not know the extent of their power, but I know that they attack with illusions and poison.”

“When the first ship reaches us, we need to get rid of the captain and the shadow weavers,” Luthien turned to the slayer. “Breaker, can you get rid of them?”

The gray elf nodded his head in acquiescence. Then knight then turned to Azarielle, “Is there anything you can do to slow the progress of the second and third ship?”

“I have something that might work,” Azarielle responded.

Luthien nodded, “Good. Captain, I will join with you and your men in battling the trolls if the Silver Hawk cannot outrun their ships. Is there any particular part of the ship that we need to defend?”

“Well, the runes…” Captain Petabee. “We need them pretty swirls to fly.”

“Lady Ofeera, we will entrust you to shield the side of the ships.”

Ofeera pinched her bottom lip with her fingers, a gesture of nervousness, “I will do all that the Eternal Father gives me the power to do.”

“Well now, these are fine additions to our exisitin’ plan,” the captain nodded his head in approval, “Now if ye can come with me over there and we can be discussin’ where all the men should be standin’, you know, just in case…”

“Well, the good news is that despite all the ‘inner cleansing’ he’s been doing of late, his head is still functional,” Azarielle remarked.

Ofeera smiled nervously but said nothing in response. Like a serpent constricting its prey, fear coiled tightly inside her chest, squeezing her heart and making it hard to breathe. Her palms, though not sweaty, were cold, as if something inside her was sucking away all the heat.

She had faced death many times before. But those battles had been different; they had been fought in temples and in homes, against illnesses, wounds, and poisons. Sea trolls were breathing, thinking horrors; damned, evil creatures that hovered straddled the realm of the living and the dead, corrupted by the power of the Abyssal Ones. This was a battle in the most physical sense, and the trolls would come at them with steel blades, poisons, and dark Arts. This was Azarielle’s domain, and now, even more than before, she wondered how her mage friend could face nightmarish creature after nightmarish creature and not waver.

The troll ships that were nothing more than ominous specks only a moment ago were now distinct, terrible shapes. Ofeera knew that they would larger and larger until finally, she would gaze upon the terrible, contorted ocher faces with tusks sprouting from their lower lips, and unholy red eyes. And then, they would come, and they would…

“The very first time I encountered a monster, I ran like all seven Abyssal Ones were after me and tripped over an old tree root that was sticking out. That was very nearly the end of me, and I assure you, it would have been a most inglorious end.” Azarielle’s voice interrupted her ruinous thoughts. “That you are still standing here means you are faring thousands of times better than I did. We are here, but more importantly, Abihayil is with you. The prayers of the faithful are more powerful than any Art in the world. So pray, and the Eternal Father’s holy shield will protect the ship, its crew, and all of us.”

The young healer looked up at her friend and managed a slightly less quavering smile, “Thanks, Azarielle.”

Her friend gave her pat on the shoulders, “Now if you will bring up that first shield… I think the cannon balls…”

The first resounding explosions were like thunder rumbling in a distance. Clouds of blue-gray smoke rose ominously into the air, and as the stunned young healer struggled to understand what was happening, Azarielle stretched out both of her arms and spoke the words in the whispery sing-song Arcane language. A fiery sheet of power curved over the bow of the boat just as the first volley of cannonballs struck.

An earth shattering explosion shook the ship as the cannonballs exploded against the mage’s shield, releasing plumes of gray white smoke into the air. Ofeera opened her mouth to scream but if any sound came out, it was drowned out by the thunderous barrage. The air was thick with the smell of gunpowder, and the smoke stung her eyes so badly that tears ran free.

She knew that should do something, but her body quaked as if she were a leaf in the trembling in the storm and would not obey her command. She tried to recall a prayer, a psalm, anything; but the words that she could usually recite backwards had flown from her mind.

The Silver Hawk’s crew was rushing about the deck, arming themselves with swords, and lighting torches. Luthien had said something about fire, about how trolls were afraid of fire. But in her fear-stricken state, Ofeera could barely even make sense of what everyone was doing let alone remember what the knight had said.

“Lady, you must not breathe so quickly.”

A hand reached out, patting her back. Ofeera blinked and looked up, and found herself looking into Breaker’s strangely beautiful dual-colored eyes.

“I…I!” Ofeera gasped, and noticed for the first time that she was hyperventilating. She took one, long ragged breath and clenched her shaking fingers, willing herself to calm down.

“Those creatures will not lay hands on you, Lady,” Breaker told her, his voice soft but earnest. “I give you my word.”

“I…”Ofeera shook her head. “I am sorry…I…”

“There is no shame,” the elf slayer stood beside. “Calm yourself first.”
Luthien watched the scene unfold from his elevated position atop the helm of the ship, his lips tightening into a thin, determined line. Ofeera was frightened, a not unexpected reaction from noble lady who had never stood on a battle field. Azarielle had prevented the Silver Hawk from being hit for now, but he did not know how long the mage could hold up a shield against such ferocious attacks.

“Do you have cannons, Captain Petabee?” he asked.

“Well, yes,” Captain Petabee cleared his throat. “We have one.”

“One,” the young knight resisted a sudden, and very inappropriate urge to throttle the air ship captain. “Then we have to engage them head on. Turn the ship around and fly towards them. Azarielle and Ofeera can’t keep the shields up forever.”

The captain opened his mouth to object, but Luthien gave him such a murderous look that the man thought better of it and directed his first mate, who had been commandeering the ship from the helm, to do as the young knight bid. The Silver Hawk spun a wide, lazy circle in the air and headed towards the troll ships.

“The trolls be laughin’ at us now,” the captain grumbled under his breath. “I’m willin’ to bet my ma’s weddin’ band that this be the first time they’ve got the intended mark comin’ straight for ‘em.”

The first of the troll ships emerged from behind a thick cloud of smoke like a diabolical beast crawling out from the shadowy depths of the Great Deep. But for the red runes glowing angrily along either side of the ship, it was painted entirely black and decorated with what was rumored to be the skulls of air ship captains who had the misfortune of crossing paths with these troll pirates. Crimson sails and a black flag emblazoned with an axe splitting a skull fluttered ominously in the air, trumpeting the arrival of the most feared rogues of the skies.

Troll pirates, twenty strong, and dressed in surprisingly well kept leather armor stood at the bow of the ship, brandishing their weapons and leering at the crew of the Silver Hawk. They howled in their low, guttural language, and one gestured threateningly at a pile of skulls heaped at the stern of the ship.

“Merciful sea lady,” the captain swallowed.

“If you wish to pray, then pray to Abihayil, the only one who has the power to aid us” Luthien said. “Breaker, are you ready?”

The gray elf turned around and gave the knight a feral smile. He reached behind his back, and pulled out a strangely curved blade from behind his cloak. Then, suddenly and without warning, like a taunt bow releasing and arrow, Breaker hurled his weapon at the enemy ship. Luthien saw only a flash of silver, and then nothing. In fact, as far as he or anyone else could determine, nothing happened at all.

After a moment, the elf held out his hand and a three-bladed, over-sized throwing star returned to his waiting hand. The trolls on the pirate ship howled with laughter, a truly horrific sound that reminded the young knight of the cries of hyenas. But if Breaker was perturbed by his apparent failure, the elf gave no indication of it. Instead, he gave his weapon a facetious shake, sending a splatter of thick green liquid onto the deck.

And then, almost inexplicably, one the trolls standing at the bow of the pirate ship fell backwards. Or, more accurately, his torso fell backwards. His head rolled free of his shoulders in gush of sickening green fluid and slipped into the endless sky.

There was a moment of stunned silence, as the trolls stared at their fallen comrade in shock, perhaps unable to comprehend what had befallen him. And then, the most terrible howls of rage erupted from pirate ship. Raising their weapons skywards, the pirate screamed for blood in their coarse, guttural language.

As the pirate ship pulled up to the side of the Silver Hawk, the trolls, who were naturally more agile than humans, leaped the short distance between the two ships. The first troll, a tall, lean creature with greenish skin and long tusks protruding upwards from his lower lip, landed on the Silver Hawk’s deck and charged straight for Azarielle, correctly identifying her as the mage.

But he didn’t take more than two steps before Luthien was upon him. The knight’s holy sword glowed with a soft yellow light in the presence of the damned creature as he swung his blade in a smooth, upward arc, taking the creature by surprise and slicing the head off in one swing.

Breaker also flowed into action, putting his arcane breakers to work on the second and third troll to bard the ship simultaneously. And what the slender elf lacked in strength, he more than made up for with speed, closing the distance between himself and his foes in such a short time that it appeared to the poor creatures as if he had materialized in their midst. The nimble elf dodged a wild swing of the axe and planted one of his weapons into the second troll’s eyes. Then, as the troll flailed threw his head back howling in agnoy, and clutching at his wounded eye, Breaker danced behind him and gave him a push, straight into the outthrust blade of the third troll.

And then, as the two trolls tried to disentangle themselves from one another, the slayer hopped gracefully onto the back of the second troll and with lightning fast strikes that neither of the doomed creatures could follow, severed their heads.

But the deadly elf was not finished. He plucked a sword and a scimitar from his victims’ hands and then leaped the short distance between the two ships. With the added reach of his new weapons, he cut a deadly path for himself across the pirate ship. He gracefully leaped out of the way of flailing weapons, ducking beneath swords and dodging between axes as if his every move had been carefully choreographed.

“And this is why I say that the Brotherhood should be rounded up and shipped off to an island in the middle of nowhere,” Azarielle muttered darkly when she glanced his way. “It’s by Abihayil’s will alone that mages haven’t gone extinct.”

Ofeera did not respond as she watched the gray elf’s beautiful but terrifying dance of death, mesmerized by how impossibly liquid his movements were. It was as if he was a being of water, flowing between the trolls as a river might flow between rocks. Trolls were agile creatures, but Breaker made them seem clumsy.

Somewhere along the way, his hood had fallen back and his black hair sailed behind him like black banner. A dangerous, feral smile curved his mouth as he struck down foe after foe. He wasted no movements; delivering a crippling blow or a killing blow each time his sword of scimitar found a target. And, he moved with purpose, heading towards the starboard of the ship where the shadow weaver hopped from foot to foot, waving a twisted looking black staff decorated with bones.

Inspired by Breaker’s almost wild fearlessness, the Silver Hawks’ crew bolstered each other’s courage with valorous war cries and met the trolls head on. Luthien led the charge, praying for Abihayil’s mercy each time he swung his sword, which now glowed with a soft, yellow light. The young knight did not try to decapitate his foes each time; he did not need to. The purifying power of his prayers took away the damned creatures’ unnatural regenerative abilities, so every wound he inflicted continued to bleed.

The ship’s crew did not fare as well as either one of the companions though. The troll pirates were fierce, vicious fighters, and it did not take long for the Silver Hawk sailors to realize that their assailants would not burn despite what Luthien had told them! The leather armor that the pirates wore seemed entirely resistant to fire, leaving decapitation as the only viable method of killing them.

And though Breaker and Luthien made this task appear simple, the crew soon found themselves overwhelmed. If a sailor delivered anything but a killing blow, especially if he cut of a body part other than the head, he soon found himself in even worse straits. Severed troll hands grabbed at ankles, and severed troll legs tripped feet! Seeing this, Luthien did his best to blast the cursed body parts with his holy power, but the knight often found himself facing off against two or three foes at once.

“Ofeera!” Luthien shouted. “Purify the ship!”

The young healer stared at the knight in stunned incomprehension, her eyes wide as she took in the horrific scene before her. Flashes of silver mingled with splashes of red and green. Everywhere she turned, men were fighting. She heard shouts, curses, screams.

And then, a sailor fell before her, blood gushing from a deep, vertical cut down his back. The sailor, a young man despite his sun and wind weathered face, reached out a trembling hand towards her, his lips moving in a silent plea for her. Standing above him, a bloodied axe in hand, was a troll pirate. He gave her a leering smile before raising his axe and bringing it down upon the sailor. However, before the axe cleaved into the helpless sailor’s back, the troll’s body was suddenly dragged backwards by an invisible hand. The doomed creature had only time to let out a confused yelp before he was thrown from the ship.

“I think you ought to try and heal him before he bleeds to death. I imagine that would be an unpleasant experience for the both of you.” Azarielle gave her stunned friend a quick tap on the back.

“I…oh!” Ofeera stared at the injured sailor in front of her and finally snapped out of her horrified trance. She knelt down next to him and laid her hands over the wound and began to pray. A soft blue light flowed from the healer’s hand and the wound stopped bleeding almost immediately. Then as if time had sped up just for him, the sailor’s flesh started to mend as if invisible hands were stitching the wound back together.

Seeing this, one of the trolls pointed a finger at Ofeera and spoke a single harsh word. Almost immediately, two trolls ran towards the healer, their weapons raised.

Chanting quietly, Azarielle put herself between her friend and the charging trolls. Both creatures lifted their swords and swung at the physically unimposing young woman, thinking to dispatch her with a single strike. But their weapons struck against an invisible wall and bounced back. And before either one had time to react, the mage was upon them. She reached out with her slender hands grabbed each troll by the front his leather armor. Then, quite matter-of-factly, she lifted the shocked creatures off the ground and casually tossed them overboard.

“Azarielle, how?” Ofeera looked up at her friend in shock.

“The Strength of Giants,” the mage replied with a happy smile. “It’s one of my favorite Arcane tricks and works exceedingly well. Now, if you will be so kind as to put up a shield around the both of us, I need to stop those other two pesky ships.”

“Right!” Ofeera climbed to her feet and held out her hands as if she were waiting to receive a benediction. That she might concentrate, the young healer closed her eyes and began to pray. The sight of the wounded man had shaken her from her stupor, and though her hands still shook, her mind was no longer frozen with fear.

Azarielle waited until a gently glowing blue sphere surrounded them. Ofeera’s eyes were closed and the healer’s lips were moving. As long as Ofeera did not lose focus, her holy shell would be able to withstand anything physical that the pirates could throw at them. The shadow weavers were another matter though. She had to trust Breaker to take care of the one on the first ship, but it was her job to prevent the ones from the second and third ship to do anything nasty. The young mage sat down on the deck and crossed her legs. Then, she took a deep breath and closed her eyes.

The screams and shouts of the battle washed over her, along with the stomping of feet against the deck. At first those sounds were a cacophony, a clashing of meaningless noises that roared around her. But, Azarielle began to breathe in and out, in and out – and slowly, very slowly, the shouts and the footfalls fell into a rhythm with her breathing. That rhythmic beating grew stronger and stronger until it drowned out every other noise, pulsing through her entire being and connecting everything to her.

Luthien, Ofeera and the sailors around her pulsed steadily with life while the trolls appeared as hiccups in the otherwise steady flow. If legends were to be believed, then trolls were descended from elf mages who sold themselves to the Abyssal Ones for power. The corrupting influence of the Abyssal Ones blackened their souls and twisted their physical appearances until they became as they were now. And so, to those gifted with Arcane abilities, trolls orcs, ogres and all such monstrous races were erratic anomalies in the flow of life.

Stretching out her senses, the young mage’s power breezed past Breaker in a warm whisper and went further until she reached to two other pirate ships. The second ship did not carry a troll shaman but the third one did, and Azarielle directed her focus on him immediately.

The unsuspecting shaman was in the midst of setting up an insidious attack when Azarielle’s power crashed over him. Though the troll shaman was not weak, the element of surprise often put him at a great disadvantage. He was so focused on the weaving of his own dark Arts that he did not even notice the young mage’s intrusion until her power had enveloped him.

And then, he found himself trapped inside a giant pink bubble. His first reaction was to open his mouth and scream, but found that his mouth was somehow, firmly stuck shut. He tried to move his arms and leg and found that they too were firmly glued together. He was stuck like a bug inside a spider’s web. Panicked, the shaman sent a mental cry of help to the shaman on the first ship, hoping that that the other shaman would come to his rescue. But, to his even greater panic, there was no response from the other shaman.

That was because the shaman aboard the first ship was, at that very moment, battling the elven slayer.

Breaker had gone straight for the starboard of the ship because he knew that troll shamans never fought at the front. And sure enough, he found the wizened creature hopping about and waving his spindly arms around in a wild dance. When the ancient shaman caught glimpse of Breaker’s slim form dashing towards him, he instantly stopped and let loose a guttural string of commands while waving gnarled, skull-topped staff at the slayer.

The nimble elf dropped to the deck and flattened himself against floorboards as a cloud of noxious green gas was spouted from between the skull’s teeth. As he rolled away from the deadly gas, his arcane breakers hummed in their sheath. This was the only warning he received when the floorboards started rattling like bones blowing in the wind. Breaker pushed himself off the ground just as a wooden spike sprouted from the deck of ship. And as fast as he could move, the sharp point of the wooden spike still tore a gash along his thigh.

“We’d be eating your flesh and sucking your bones, elf,” the shaman chortled, as he waved his arms about, causing more spikes to rise out of the ground. “And I’d be wearing your ears around my neck!”

“The captain be taking the knight’s shiny sword, and the boys be drawing lots to see who get them girls. Do you know how long girls be lasting when they spend the night with our boys?”

Instead of answering, Breaker pulled out his oversized throwing star and hurled it towards the shaman. It spun through the air, slicing apart the wooden spikes in its path and headed straight for the shaman. The wrinkled creature raised his staff, and then, speaking a single hissing word, he struck down the throwing star with his staff with a loud, metallic clang.

“Hah, you be dead now...Ayeeeee!”

The troll shaman’s gloating words died on his lips as Breaker suddenly appeared before him. He tried to bring the staff in front of him to block the elf’s attack, but he was far too slow. Breaker’s sword sliced off his hands while the elf’s scimitar sent the troll shaman’s head rolling across the deck in a spray of dark, green blood.

Straightening, the elf turned about to find his next target only to discover that the crew of Silver Hawk, led by Luthien, have not taken the fight to the pirate’s ship. The young knight was battling a troll whose large, pointed ears were covered from lobe to pointy tip with golden hoops and wielding a giant claymore.

This was the pirate captain, and Luthien grimaced as be brought his sword up to block the surprisingly powerful troll’s powerful blows. The powerful strike of steel against steel sent sparks flying, and the young knight found his hands growing numb as he braced himself so as not to be knocked over from the sheer power of the task.

With a grunt, the knight pushed the troll captain’s claymore aside and slammed his foot into the pirate captain’s kneecap. There was a sickening crunch, and the troll let out a truly hideous cry. But Luthien did not have chance to savor this small victory. The pirate captain’s hand shot up with incredible speed and wrapped around the young knight’s throat, lifting roughly off his feet.

Stars splashed across Luthien’s vision, which was quickly starting to go black as he struggled against the incredible power of this vice like grip. He swung his sword and cut a large wound across the troll captain’s chest, but the enraged creature merely let out a grunt and squeezed harder, his red eyes glowing with frenzied bloodlust. Fighting to stay conscious, the young knight extended a shaking hand towards the troll and prayed with the last of his breath.

Bright amber flames blossomed from the deck of the ship and enveloped the troll captain in beautifully shinning, but deadly petals. The damned creature let out a shriek as the strange fire, unlike the ordinary flames from the torches, ate through his leather armor and greedily devoured his flesh. So complete and absolute was the fire’s all consuming power fire that the troll didn’t even leave ashes behind.

But that was not all. The golden flames spread, blowing pass the Silver Hawk’s crew and Breaker like a warm kiss, but leaving them otherwise unscathed. And yet, each time the golden flames encountered a troll, it would turn the poor, doomed creature into brightly crackling pyre.

“Well, well… a true paladin,” Captain Petabee shook his head as he held out a hand to the young knight. “If you had that ability, why didn’t you do it earlier, huh?”

Luthien knelt on the ground, gasping raggedly for breath and unable to take the captain’s proffered hand. He opened his mouth to speak but managed only an indecipherable croak in response to the captain’s question

“Because, as you can see, the flames cost him,” Breaker replied as he strode up to the captain, “Paladins die in battle consumed by this very fire.”

“Well isn’t going to help us much,” the captain huffed. “There are two more ships…”

Captain Petabee’s voice trailed off in a strangled choke as his jaw dropped to his boots. The other two ships were most definitely flying in the other direction. And it was probably a wise decision for them because circling ominously overhead was a very large, very hungry looking blue dragon.

“Dragon!” the captain roared.

“Illusion,” the elf corrected drily as he pointed to the Silver Hawk.

Azarielle was standing at the bow of the ship with an expression rather like a cat’s, one that had supped on a big rat. Captian Petabee glanced from the dragon to the mage and then back to the dragon again, struggling to wrap his mind around the fact that the great, and very realistic looking, monstrosity was merely the mage’s creation. It truly seemed as if a dragon was there in the flesh, with its leathery wings, shiny scales, and even the crackling thunder that arced from the creature’s half-open mouth. Even the air around them smelled of thunder.

“Ya sure it’s an illusion?”

Before Breaker could even answer, Azarielle wiggled her fingers and the dragon trimmed its great wings to dive between the two ships. The ships were too far for the captain to see the trolls’ reactions, but he could still see the ant-like figures of the troll pirates scurrying in the opposite direction of the dragon. He could also see the truly wicked smile now in full bloom across the mage’s face.

“Illusion,” he finally conceded with a shake of his head. “As good as I’ve seem ‘em. Well, it be a good thing we had you along for the ride then. Silver Hawk won against three pirate ships; that be some story worth tellin’.”

“Is it worth the ship and all her crew?”

Luthien had finally gotten back to his feet, though his face was still pale (and, starting to turn a little green now that the adrenalin of battle hand worn off). He gave Petabee a cold stare and reiterated, “Is telling the story worth your ship and all your lives?”

“Wha…”

“The Sea Hawk and her crew will be famous, but that only means more pirates will try to take her. Is such infamy truly worth it, Captain Petabee?”

“Well now…” the captain turned a little gray himself as the implication of Luthien’s words sunk in. He cleared his throat. “Well now… I think I will go see my men. Looks like the healer be takin’ good care of ‘em. I be just going over and sayin’ thanks to the lady.”

Ofeera had just finished mending a sailor’s leg when Captain Petabee came upon her.

“Well ma lady, now that be not that bad right?” he asked her. “Ma men did a good job protectin’ you.”

The young healer flushed in embarrassment and lowered her head, “I am sorry captain; I was not help at all.”

“No need to apologize! That was your first time, and a woman’s always a little nervous her first time, right?” he wiggled his eyebrows at her and winked.

Ofeera looked at him in confusion, “Yes, I suppose?”

“The captain was just comparing the first time in battle with the first time being in bed for a woman,” Azarielle explained airily. “In case you were curious.”

“Azarielle!” Ofeera gasped as a blush bloomed across her cheeks. “Hush, that’s… that’s inappropriate.”

“Is it?” the young mage turned to the air captain, “Captain Petabee, Ofeera says it’s inappropriate.”

“Well now… maybe it was,” the captain replied, drawing back from the mage almost unconsciously.

Azarielle noted his discomfort and smiled. Then, before the air ship captain could respond, she took a step forward and whispered into his ear, “Captain Petabee, you are a smart man. You should know that it would be prove most unfortunate for you should you impeded a servant of the Phoenix Palace. These are… shall we call them…guests of Her Grand Imperial Majesty, and she would be highly displeased if they were stopped by Peaceful Sea’s guards because you wanted a bounty. Do we understand one another?”

The words struck the captain like lightning, and he stared at her with disbelief evident on his face. For the very first time since the four companions boarded his ship, the captain looked at the mage, truly looked at her. He had certainly noticed her before; she was hard to miss. Although she did not have the ballad-inspiring beauty of the golden-haired healer, the mage was undeniably beautiful if one’s tastes ran to the exotic. And, of course, there was her flamboyantly colored wardrobe.

But, he had never noticed her eye color before – those dagger-like golden set his hair on edge – and he didn’t know how had missed them. And he had not paid attention to the deep green jade bangle that she wore on her wrist – which looked as though it was worth a small fortune. But most of all, he had somehow remained completely oblivious to the fact that the arcane feeler ring on his finger had not reacted to her, a mage, at all!

“The dragon of the east shall envelope Faearth,” the young mage tilted her chin slightly to let the sun to reflect off her golden eyes, “And the stars and moons will fall like rain.”

Captain Petabee felt the blood drain from his face. When Azarielle had declared herself as an emissary of the Dowager Empress, he had been skeptical. But this! This was the pass phrase only imperial emissaries knew and would dare to use! He stared at her and willed his lips to move, but they trembled so badly that they would not obey him. The young mage gave him one a cold stare before sweeping past him and heading towards the conquered pirate ship.

“You know, I was thinking, the two of you would do quite well as mercenaries,” she said in way of greeting as she hopped lightly over to the pirate ship. “I could help you come up with a jingle; perhaps something along the lines of ‘Are you troubled by trolls? Not to worry, Breaker and Luthi are here to help. Breaker is a trained slayer from the prestigious Brotherhood of the Red Hand with many, many years of experience, and Luthi is a real live paladin! And, if you act right now, we will even throw in the holy flame for no extra charge. Imagine, witnessing a miracle of Abihayil in your own backyard!’ Something like that?”

Luthien’s mind stumbled over that barrage of words and he tried to make sense of what she had just said. Finally, he simply shook his head, “What did you tell the captain just now?”

“Oh, I told him that I was an emissary from the Dark Empire,” she replied nonchalantly, “Just in case.”

“In case he has a commission from the Empire?” Breaker asked. “And what about you, how would you know what to say to him?”

Azarielle gave him a look, “It is either because I am a general of the Empire’s armies or because Arcane Council has its way of obtaining such information and battle mages are privy to them. One or the other – though the whole being a general thing is so much more glamorous. So, what are we going to do with the air ship?”

Luthien shook his head in exasperation but answered, “Sink it, and then we need to leave before the other pirate ships come back.”

* * * * *

Five days later, the Silver Hawk landed upon the docks of Peaceful City. Gracefully sloping roofs with shiny red tiles peeked out from flowery clouds of pink and white, and the city’s inhabitants flitted about the garden-like ten thousand butterflies. Ofeera was the most eloquent in expressing her admirations for the garden-like city. She leaned against the railing of the ship, her eyes wide with childlike amazement as she took in the sights.

Though Luthien kept silent, he was not unaffected by the loveliness his eyes beheld. The young knight reminded himself that the people of this empire did not worship Abihayil, but the Abyssal Ones, and that many of their customs and practices were quite barbarous. Still, the young knight could not entirely suppress the excitement stirring in the depths of soul. Despite the gravity of his mission, it was the first time he had traveled across the Tranquilean City.

The Silver Hawk’s landing was, thankfully, much more gentle than its takeoff, touching down on the water as lightly as a dragonfly and drifting into dock. Dockhands, men with long black hair held back in topknots, came up to the ship on bare feet and called out to the ship in the unfamiliar, chiming, Hanyu language.

“Well, sirs and gentle lady, this be a memorable trip for ya, I hope, and not all unpleasant,” Captain Petabee came up to them and gave Luthien a hard slap on the back that almost sent the young knight stumbling forward. “You be remembering the Silver Hawk, and maybe we meet again, aye?”

“Thank you for your hospitality, Captain,” Ofeera replied, ever gracious. “We are most grateful.”
“Where’s Azarielle?” Luthien asked, looking around for the mage.

“Over here.”

Luthien and Ofeera turned at the sound of her voice, and stared in surprise at the sight before them. Azarielle had shed her long red overcoat, and was now wearing a flowing, grenadine dress with a long red cape flapping gently behind her. She also wore a high-topped straw hat with a light grenadine veil that gave them only a fuzzy impression of her features.

Captain Petabee did not speak as she strode past him, but both Breaker and Luthien noticed the almost imperceptible bow the captain offered her. The mage, in turn, gave him a small, condescending nod of her head.

“What do you think?” Azarielle lifted up a corner and her veil and grinned at Ofeera. “The first thing we are going to do is get you something like this or you will have all the men quite literally chasing after you.”

“I think you look lovely,” Ofeera lifted a hand to pat her friend’s hat. “And I do like the hat.”

“All wealthy or noble women wear veils if they venture out from the safety of their homes, fathers and husbands,” the young mage rolled her eyes and dropped the veil back into place. “It gets so stuffy sometimes. We may need to get the elf a veil too. Don’t give me that evil stare Breaker; I am not actually going to drop dead just from you staring, and there are manly veils too. Gray elves are reputed to be skilled warriors and here, in the cradle of martial arts, you are going to get challenged by every street performer in the city if you waltz onto the street “incognito”, because I can promise you, your little hood over your face thing isn’t going to work here. Hmm, and maybe one for Luthien too lest someone takes him for a white-haired fiend and call the guards on us.”

The young knight gave a long-suffering sigh and ushered his companions of the ship. As he set foot on the soil of the Dark Empire for the very first time, he offered a prayer to Abihayil for the Eternal Father to watch over them in the strange land. Unbeknownst to him, when Azarielle set foot on the ground of native land, she too prayed. Azarielle prayed that their presence in the city would not be noticed and that they would pass through this place as swiftly as possible.

Little did she know that at that very moment, the personal guards of a dreaded foe was rushing towards Peaceful Sea, having been notified of her arrival.