The Keystaff Chronicles: Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Ofeera let out a terrified and very believable shriek as soldiers clad in mail reminiscent of fish scales filed into room. Breaker wrapped his arms around her, and the young healer gratefully burrowed into his arms, hiding as much of her face as she could.

“What is going on?!” Azarielle demanded in a loud raspy voice. “I say, Father, ask them what they are doing here! The moon is still high in the sky!”

Luthien gave the young mage an unappreciative glare and mumbled something quietly under his breath. From the corner of his eyes, he though he glimpsed her lips quirking upwards ever so slightly. The infuriating woman found this amusing!

None of the soldiers answered, but one of them, the only one wearing a robe instead of mail, walked over to where Breaker and Ofeera sat. He passed his hand over the two friends, and then, apparently not finding what he was looking for, walked over to Luthien and Azarielle and did the same.

“I say! What are you doing young man?!” Azarielle demanded again. The mage was very well aware of the fact that the robed solider, another Rising Sun mage, was searching for Arcane power. They were looking for Bi Xiang and whomever it was that he had come here for.

“Silence, old hag,” the mage gave Azarielle a cold stare. He turned around and walked out through the door, taking the rest of the soldiers with him with a wave of his hand.

Ofeera pulled out of Breaker’s arms, her face growing warm as became aware of her own behavior, “Will they be back?”

“No,” the young mage stretched languidly. “But I think the safest thing for us to do is stay here until the Fog passes. Father and Son can take the boat out early in the morning to try and catch some fish. Then you, my dear Daughter-In-Law and I can try to sell it. It will be fun.”

Luthien scowled at the young mage, “Sit here and waste our time? We need to find Prince Yue’s servant.”

“You know, Sir Knight, I speak out of love for a fellow brother in the faith, but you need to learn some basic people skills,” the young mage shook her head and let out a long-suffering sigh. “Being able to tell when someone is joking is quite vital, I assure you. In fact, I do believe some wise man or other once said that one has not true understanding of a particular culture one learns to recognize a jest. And, I was most certainly jesting. I mean honestly, you didn’t think we’d actually pretend o be fishermen for three days did you? Not only would you and Sir Slayer over there been quite inapt at catching fish, Ofeera and I would certainly stand out. I am certain the other fishermen’s wives would wonder where we’ve come from, and while I am quite skilled at making things up, I am sure my darling Daugher-in-Law would find herself quite at a lost for what to say. Oh, and fishermen’s wives are not ladylike shy, so Ofeera, they would probably think you were deaf and dumb and I would receive many, many condolences for the misfortune of having a disabled Daughter-in-Law.”

Deciding that he could not listen to another one of her rambling speeches, Luthien simply went to the farthest corner of the room and laid himself down. Very determinedly, he shut his eyes and tried to go to sleep. Breaker followed suit, leaning against the wall and closing his eyes to rest..

“Good night, Azarielle,” Ofeera gave her friend a helpless smile as she curled back into the bedroll she had shared with the gray elf.

“Good night, Ofeera,” the young mage replied as she too lay down in her bedroll.

Azarielle did not sleep though. She listened to the sound of her companions’ breaths as they gradually grew louder and deeper. Luthien was the first to fall asleep, with Ofeera following suit quickly. Breaker’s breathing stayed quiet, telling her that the mage slayer remained awake.

Well, she hadn’t counted on him falling asleep anyway. At least she only had to explain herself to Breaker, who, as long as she didn’t get in his way, wasn’t particularly concerned about her. Compared with a facing down Ofeera’s worried face or attempting to explain things to Luthien, whose eyes would certainly glaze over after a few brief sentences, a quick word with the gray elf was definitely the simplest – so long as he didn’t take offense with anything she said and tried to attack her or something equally unfortunate like that. The mage was quite convinced that far too many people were far too sensitive for their own good.

Pushing back her blanket, Azarielle rose to her feet. Breaker, who was indeed awake, watched her get up in one gracefully flowing motion. He had not interrupted her when she told them her story – but the gray elf knew that the mage hadn’t presented the whole truth. Other than almost becoming the First Lady of Long Peace or being the handmaiden of the Dowager Empress, Ree Yonanne had been one of the few women to receive a title in her own right.

When one of the Dark Empire’s princesses was being married off to a vassal king, she had served as part of the Royal Escort. As the princess’s entourage passed through a mountainous area, it was attacked by a band of rogues boasting three hundred in numbers. The princess, daughter of a minor concubine, had been given a hundred attendants, many of whom were not trained in martial arts.

However, despite these unfavorable odds, the rogues were banished and the princess safely delivered to her husband. One amongst the princess’s escorts, a young, female mage, was said to have beaten the leaders of the rogues single-handedly in a battle that blew open a new path in the mountain. That particular tale was a bit exaggerated. One of Breaker’s associates had gone to the site of the battle to assess the danger posed by the mage, and had returned to report reported considerable destruction, though no new paths were blasted through the mountain.

For her heroics, the Emperor presented Ree Yonanne with the title, Lady of Peaceful Preservation and bestowed upon her the second imperial rank. He further gifted her with land under her own name, an incredible honor for a woman and one that was normally reserved for princesses.

It was said that the Lady of Peaceful Preservation was as skilled with a sword as she was with her Arcane Power. So far, he had not seen Azarielle display her martial prowess. In fact, he hadn’t even seen any flashy Arcane workings that she was credited with. She was skilled; there was no doubt in that, but aside from their brief battle with the enemy mage, she had not really displayed the powers of a battle mage.

“Another one of Prince’s Yue’s men has come for me. Since he’s tracking me in particular, I can’t really avoid him.”

Breaker frowned slightly as Azarielle’s words whispered into this mind. He found these mental communications offensive, and yet, at the same time, he understood the necessity of it. Furthermore, he was relatively certain that the she was merely relaying her carefully formed thoughts and barely skimming the surface of his mind. He had had mages try to wrench memories and knowledge from his head before and knew that such things tended to be unpleasant.

He arched his eyebrows and to his unspoken question, she answered, “You would know his as Lan – Blue.”

The name was not familiar to him, but then, there were a total of seven Imperial Princes who had a shot at the throne, and all of them have gathered around them a considerable following of skilled warriors and powerful mages.

He watched as the young woman walked to the back of the boat, not the end tied to the pier, but the end facing the water. She closed her eyes for a few moments to prepare herself for the battle perhaps, and then wordlessly, she leaped into the water. Azarielle didn’t sink as would be expected, instead, she stood on the surface of the water, bobbing gently with the waves and seemed quite at ease at what she was doing.

“Please keep Luthien from charging off somewhere like an idiot. I’ll be back.”

Breaker, who had followed her outside, remarked, “Confident in your abilities?”

Azarielle smiled slightly, “If it was Arcane strength, I’d say we might be evenly matched. He’s definitely better than me with the hand to hand combat stuff.”

“Then you intend to win how?” Breaker arched an eyebrow.
“I haven’t got that part figured out yet. But in a mage battle, it’s all about exploiting opportunities, Sir Mage Slayer. But it is the will of Abyhayil. If he intends for me to win, I will.”

* * * * *

Azarielle glided across the inky waters of the sea, a small glowing puff ball of her own making lighting the way. It was a calm, windless night - a blessing from the Eternal Father, since the waves beneath her feet were gentled. The soft ripples were hardly enough to unbalance her, thought once upon a time, she would have taken only a few steps before losing her concentration and sinking.

It was the Dowager Empress who had taught her how to walk on water. Many an afternoon had been spent with the highest ranking lady in all of Rising Sun sipping tea and supervising Azarielle as the young mage struggled to walk across the glass like surface of the Lake of Gentle Moon.

“Child, yours is an immense but chaotic Gift,” the Dowager Empress had told her. “If you cannot leash your power, you will be consumed by it. Now, focus! Think of your body to be as light as a cloud and walk!”

Azarielle came to a stop when she could no longer see the small boat where her companions where resting. Deciding that she had gone far enough, the young mage murmured a few quiet words and snapped her fingers. Several more puff balls blossomed and into the windborne seeds from a dandelion.

“So, he was worried Bi Xiang wouldn’t get the job done and sent you out as well, huh, Blue Cloud,” Azarielle remarked with a shake of her head. “Wasn’t there a saying somewhere about trusting the man you employ and not employing a man you don’t trust?”

“His Highness was not aware that Your Ladyship was part of the group when Bi Xiang was sent here with the men.” A slender shape pulled free of the enveloping darkness and knelt down before the young mage. “Your servant Blue Cloud greets you, Lady Ree.”

Azarielle regarded the young man before her and sighed quietly. Blue Cloud and his sister Purple Bamboo, or as Prince Yue had called them, Lan and Hong, had once been her guards and friends. On that fateful day when she had decided to leave Rising Sun, the twins who had been tasked to watch over her disobeyed their master for the very first time by allowing her to walk out. So that Prince Yue would not know of this betrayal, they had allowed Azarielle to knock them out along with the rest of the servants.

“Get up, I am not Rising Sun nobility anymore. You’ve gotten taller,” Azarielle remarked. “Does that make you the second shortest member of Prince Yue’s guards now?”

“In fact, I am the fourth shortest,” the young man looked up, a lopsided, slightly devilish grin on his face. “Purple Bamboo is the second shortest.”

“I can’t believe she’s actually taller than someone!”

“Qing laments that fact everyday,” Lan rose to his feet. “It is good to see that you are well, my lady.”

“Is it? Weren’t you sent by Prince Yue to kill me?”

The young man shook his head, “No. His Highness tasked me with bringing Your Ladyship back to his manor. The House of Red Sun, my lady’s residence, has been carefully tended. Neither it, or the title of First Lady have ever been bestowed upon another.” Lan glanced up at Azarielle and shook his head. “But I know that is not my lady’s will. If you will forgive my boldness, why did you come back, Lady Ree? My sister and I wished for your safety and happiness far, far away from here! His Highness… His Highness still keeps company with The Luminous Consort.”

Azarielle said nothing as she held out her hand. One by one, the puff balls drifted over and danced playfully around her fingers. Though it did not surprise her that Prince Yue had maintained his forbidden relationship with the emperor’s favorite, she did felt a twinge of sadness in her heart. If he was as enamored with her now as he had been then, there was no doubt that Yue had also become a servant of the Abyssal Ones. The young mage whispered a quiet prayer to Abihayil to have mercy on her former betrothed’s soul.

“You know I am not going back with you,” she remarked drily as her puff balls hovered around her like oversized fireflies.

“And I don’t have any real desire to force you, Lady Ree.”

“Why don’t you leave? Get off this continent and head over to another kingdom or empire?”

Blue Cloud let out a sad sigh, “You know my sister would never leave His Highness. And I can’t leave her.”

Azarielle shook her head, “Well isn’t that a mess. We’ve got ourselves into quite the stalemate. I do hope you don’t intend to join in the fun though – that could really get messy.”

“I will stand here and watch. I am not sure whether I should wish for my lady to tire out so that I can bring you, unresistingly, back to His Highness or that you will knock us both out and then return to wherever it is you have been living all these years immediately.”

Azarielle thought for a moment, “Neither is very likely, Blue Cloud. Now, please, do get out of my way for a moment.”

The moment Blue Cloud moved out of the Way, the young mage pointed at the darkness and spoke a word of command. Three of the puff balls floating innocuously around her blazed to life. Like shooting stars streaking across the night sky, they shot outwards into the darkness beyond. Two of them struck the waves, exploding quietly and causing the water to shoot upwards like geysers. A muffled scream, followed by a loud splash informed her that the third puff ball had found is intended target.

“I guess it was too much to hope that Prince Ming’s troops have found you and have you locked up in the dungeon with a raving mad lunatic and lots of cockroaches and rats, huh,” Azarielle shook her head.

Bi Xiang alighted atop the surface of the water as lightly as a dragonfly, barely causing a ripple as his feet touched the water. “Have you no pride, Lady Ree? Disguising yourself as a wretched old woman and hiding; you bring shame to your family.”

“Oh well, I am sure they’ve disowned me ages ago,” Azarielle waved a hand nonchalantly. “What happened to the third member of your party? Did you honorably and proudly abandon him when Prince Ming’s troops showed up?”

In response, the enemy mage spoke words that made lightning crackle between his finger tips, and then, with no concern for their location, he hurled his creation at the young mage. Azarielle had sense the power gathering around her rival, and when she saw the blue-white arcs flash, she made her own preparations. One of the puff balls expanded into a sheet of shimmering light that dropped between her and Bi Xiang, absorbing the lightning that struck with the sound of distant thunder, low and rumbling.

“Lightning plus water equals bad,” Azarielle winced at the power of the strike. “Think of all the fish! Think of all the fishermen! If you electrocute all the fish...”

The cloud of green black gas that was not hurtling towards prevented her from finishing her sentence. Knowing that a simple shield was not going to be able to block this insidious attack, Azarielle teleported, steeling herself as the sky and water warped into one dizzying swirl. She emerged only a few feet behind Bi Xiang with a sudden urge to empty her stomach of Ofeera’s fish soup.

Bi Xiang whirled to face her, unleashing another cloud of poisonous gas almost right into her face. Instead of teleporting away, the young woman allowed the waters to swallow her whole, sinking into the cool embrace of the ocean. With a silent prayer to Abihayil that she be spared having to deal with any large underwater predators and another thanks to the Eternal Father that the ocean was so calm, the young woman swam right under where her enemy stood, reached up with both hands to grab his ankles and gave a nice hard tug.

The startled mage let out a yelp that quickly turned into a gurgle as water filled his nose and his mouth. Azarielle’s unexpected attack from beneath the waves caused him to lose his concentration, and that was enough to undo the Arcane working that allowed his to walk on water.

Not letting go of Bi Xiang’s ankles, Azarielle dragged her enemy deeper into the ocean. Since she had gone under the water of her own will, she had had enough time to surround herself with an air bubble that enabled her to breathe. So long as she could breathe and speak, she could continue working her Art, a luxury that her enemy did not have.

Bi Xiang thrashed helplessly in the water; he flailed his arms and kicked his legs as hard as he could. But Azarielle had given herself supernatural strength with her gift, and no matter how he struggled, the Rising Sun mage could not break free of her vice-like hold on his ankles. The infernal female mage intended to drown him!

Azarielle, however, had other ideas. She had no desire to kill him. Instead, the young mage wanted to seal his power and then teleport him to some remote region where he would not be a nuisance to her companions. By the time the seal wore off, they would have arrived at Everstar Spire.

She was about halfway through her incantation when the waters around her began churning wildly. The young mage suddenly found herself being pushed to the surface. And then she was airborne, spat out by the ocean and sailing through the air. She kept herself from belly flopping magnificently, but only barely. Her feet barely found balance upon the waves and she wobbled like a newborn fawn finding its legs for the first time. Her eyes stung from the biting sea salt, and her body felt cold and heavy from the clothes that that weighed her down.

“I thought you were just going to stand there and observe, Blue Cloud.”

Her once-friend smiled sheepishly as he helped the sputtering and coughing Bi Xiang to regain his balance atop the water, “Your ladyship used the element of surprise a little too well against Sir Bi Xiang.”

“And so now, you are going to use the advantage of numbers to try and overwhelm me?” Azarielle rolled her eyes. “Pardon me for not being overly thrilled.” Though she spoke flippantly, the young mage began gathering her power for a full out battle. The now inescapable fact that she would have to do battle with Blue Cloud made anger seethe deep within her heart. Without realizing she was doing, the young woman slowly clenched and unclenched her tense fingers.

The motion was not lost on Lan. Though Azarielle still wore a smile, her former guard recognized the subtle change in her expression and knew that she would fight. He glanced over to Bi Xiang and saw from the gleam that the other mage also noticed this change. If Azarielle was angry, she would make mistakes. He offered a silent prayer to his friend and began speaking the words of attack.

Azarielle felt a rush of cool, familiar power, her only warning that Blue was formally joining the gray before a huge wave suddenly rose up in front of her. She barely had time to summon up a shield to protect before the wall of water came crashing down on top of her. Her shield held, but she felt her arm go numb at this powerful onslaught.

And then, before the first wave receded, another, even bigger wave followed suit. Not wanting to waste her power fighting of another such blow, the young mage teleported again, but this time, it was Bi Xiang who lay in weight for her. She reappeared right in the middle of a cloud of green gas, and sucked in a mouthful of the putrid venom.

A sharp burning pain lanced through her body and she gagged as her throat threatened to close up and strangle her air supply. Unable to maintain her Arcane weaving, she crashed beneath for a second time. Salty black water flooded her mouth and nostrils immediately, making her choke. And yet, the shock of the unexpected cold jolted her into action. She kicked fiercely with her feet and burst out of the water, gasping in a lungful of air.

Through water-blurred vision, she caught a glimpse of movement in front of her eyes and desperately summoned up another shield just as shards of ice rained down upon her. A few pieces pierced through her haphazard shield and struck her, slicing open her arms and her cheek.

Azarielle bit back a yelp of as salt water lapped against her new wounds, but the pain helped cleared away the last vestiges of poison-cloud induced confusion from her mind. She rose out of the water until she was once again standing above the waves. Her own blood flowed down the side of her face, and she wiped it away. It would seem as though she had to change her defensive tactic.

“Alright boys, the gloves are off now,” she said.

Lan felt a sudden wave of searing heat sweep over him and heard a thousand shrieking voices. So sudden and so unexpected was this spike in power that he almost fell beneath the waves. Lady Ree, this was the power of Lady Ree! He turned to Bi Xiang, intending on telling his companion to pool their powers and brace for the assault. But Bi Xiang, blinded by his hatred of the young woman had somehow not sensed that dangerous power, and before he could even open his mouth, the poison user teleported.

There came a faint flicker of light, a deceptively soft and cool blue-white spark that lit up Azarielle’s slender form in the distance. The young mage was no longer standing on water but hovering in midair, her eyes closed and her hands cupping the dangerous light. Bi Xiang materialized right in front of her, his finger pointed at her and venomous words dripping from his mouth.

Azarielle looked at him and smiled. She unleashed her attack.

* * * * *
Breaker stood facing the dark waters. Azarielle had been gone for a good candlestick’s time, and wherever she was, she had gone far enough that not even his elven night vision and keen hearing could detect her. He was debating whether he should wake up his two sleeping companions that they might look for her when his arcane breakers suddenly began humming loudly in their sheaths.

Far in the distance, the western horizon lit up with pale, blue-white light as if there was lightning in the distance. It lasted only a moment, and then all was dark again. Behind him, he heard the rustling of covers as both Ofeera and Luthien started awake. The knight was the first to reach him.

“What was that? And where’s Azarielle?!”

Perhaps it had not been a good idea to let the young mage wander off by herself.