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.