.
I watched the ‘toys’ advance, and noted, “Those are… a very interesting design. How did you come up with it?”
Talene glanced at me with an odd glint in her eyes, then shrugged. “They just look cool that way, don’t they?”
Manlon stated, “She originally designed them much larger, but it was completely impractical. And putting the puppeteer inside, like she wanted to do, defeats the whole purpose of training to be a puppeteer. It was pointless, so I made her scale them down.”
She was totally trying to build a gundam, right?
The girl looked a little disgruntled about it as he spoke, but she shrugged. “It would have been cooler that way, but I’m still happy with them like this.”
The envelopment was quickly completed. Trapped between the defenders and an unknown force, the attackers ended their offensive spells and switched all their efforts to shields. On some signal I didn’t see, the defenders also ceased firing. The infiltration unit had long since fled the palace behind us, so the sky fell silent except for the last echoes reverberating from the mountainsides.
“Hold your positions,” Talene said into the mirror. I could hear her words this time, with the clamor of battle gone mute.
Oberon had not followed when Lâsin pulled back to help defend his forces during the onslaught. The clan lord glowered at the Fairy King as the undeclared ceasefire took hold.
Mother had told me that Fairies tended to obey rules or break them according to what benefited themselves the most. They didn’t have mortal principles. But they also didn’t have small brains. I had no doubt that the Clan of the Old Grove had planned a simple raid, expecting to stalemate the valley defense while their infiltrators stormed the palace to liberate their Lady, then escape at high speed, back to their faraway stronghold. And probably expected his offense to be forgotten about or treated as water under the bridge after a short period of hostility.
It was ample evidence that Faerie was a ‘kingdom’ only in the sense of the ancient Irish and Scot kingdoms… more as a formality and a means to adjudicate matters when necessary, while normally the clans warred between themselves and acting as if each were an independent state.
“I’ll admit your victory,” Lâsin growled with an angry scowl. “Will you allow my people to retreat in peace, or will you make us fight our way out?”
“I prefer the third option, My Lord,” Oberon answered. “I shall allow you to stand while we reason how you shall repair this situation.”
With narrowing eyes, Lâsin warned, “Do not mistake my defensive posture as a sign of surrender. I have simply halted the attack in order to limit casualties.”
“I am offering you a chance to end this ridiculous spiral, you old fool!” Oberon barked. After returning Lâsin’s glower for a few seconds, he continued in a calmer tone. “First, your granddaughter assaulted my family member and made false accusations against her, then your wife compounded it with a further assault, as well as disobedience to the crown, in the person of my crown prince. And she did this on my own royal sword grounds! Now, as their lord and their patriarch, you have laid an act of rebellion atop the pile they have already mounded up. Do not mistake my forbearance now as a sign of your security. I have simply chosen to grant you the opportunity to correct the errors of your clan.”
“These claimed errors of yours are fiction, O King,” the clan lord sneered. “You’ll not get me to recognize them. A monster went wild and my ally in Parna bade my granddaughter to exterminate it. When has it ever been wrong to subjugate monsters?”
“It has been so, ever since kingdoms such as Relador and the very Orestania that is suzerain of your Lord Parna recognized the existence of civilized monsters and granted them protection under the law! The lawless customs of your backwater wilderness hold no meaning on this continent, old fool.”
“Civilized monsters! Lord Parna has given clear description what sort of civilized behavior your pet monster displayed! Such a menace deserves only extermination!”
Silence followed that declaration, and it lasted for several long seconds. From the distance where I stood on Manlon’s boat, I couldn’t see well enough to be certain, but I thought he might be shaking with fury.
“Lord Lâsin,” Oberon grated, his voice dropped in pitch to a freezing cold basso, “Only your clan has the right to dismiss you, but do not forget I still have one sure means to remove you as a clan chieftain. If you do not hold temper your tone, I swear I will finish the job I left half-done when I left you half-dead all those centuries ago.”
Lâsin tipped his head and grew a smirk. I thought he was about to dare the King to do it, but instead he asked, “King, is the word of your precious monster so infallible that you cannot recognize reality? The authorities in Orestania have made a demand to surrender her for her crimes. My ally Parna commands the very ministry that enforces the law of that land, and he has attested the deeds she committed.”
The tension now felt ready to shatter. I could feel the heat of Oberon’s fury, and I could see on Lâsin’s face his certainty that he was in the right. And after all, in his eyes, it was my word against his ally’s and his wife’s.
In that taut air, I heard a quiet, deep chuckle. It took me a moment to realize it was coming from Oberon.
“So that is your claim to justice,” he stated, with cold humorless laughter hinting in his words. “Those are your grounds for launching this attack. All you have are the claims of a greedy mortal.”
“The House of Parna has been my clan’s ally for three of their generations! Seven of my descendants have served as knights for Dukes of Parna! Do not belittle the honor of my ally!”
“Fine,” Oberon declared. “I gave you the opportunity to de-escalate the situation so we could do this in private, but instead you’ve forced me to bring it out and display it for all these daughters of yours to see. Princess Tenre!”
As my aunt and her knight escort advanced, he called over his shoulder. “Little Tiana, why don’t you come up here as well. Do keep one of those clever shields of yours deployed, just in case.”
Surprised to have heard my name suddenly, it took me a moment to figure out he meant Durandal’s defensive spells. I stepped on the gunwale of Manlon’s boat as I rose into the sky. Once I felt I was clear of the boat’s fish-fin ‘oars’, I stated, “[Fortress].”
Durandal formed the [Fortress of Gaia] around me as I floated into position to Oberon’s right. Tenre had already moved up to stand at his left. Thanks to my wings, I had to stay farther away. I just can’t manage to float without gently flapping them. It’s like treading water for me. Even Mother and my aunt move their butterfly wings a little to maintain their position. I don’t know how Serera manages to keep her wings perfectly still without sinking.
We weren’t exactly nose to nose with the clan lord. He was at least ten paces from us, and I think it was a few more. But I swear I could feel the disgust in his eyes as I hung there facing him.
“Is this your frightful, ravenous monster, My Lord?” Oberon asked. “This well-behaved child whose achievements have put fairy knights centuries older than herself to shame? The King of Orestania has accoladed her as a royal knight, in a kingdom with particularly high standards for knights, at an age when most fairies have nothing more difficult than sex and games on their mind.”
Thanks to my experience over the last few days, I wanted to retort, isn’t that a fairy at any age?
But I kept my mouth shut. Lâsin had shifted his attention back to the King, and I didn’t want it back.
“What a fool does as he fails in his duties as a king is no evidence of her excellence,” the clan lord replied.
Fury overwhelmed me and Durandal had already whipped out of his sheath before I knew what I was doing. But an invisible hand clamped over my wrist before I could point it and call for [Holy Smite]. From where he stood, Oberon was stretching out his hand toward me with his fingers curled around an invisible wrist, while an imitation of that hand, crafted from Earth mana, was wrapped around mine.
“(Mother),” he said in that ancient tongue, “(Withhold your wrath.)”
My arm was trembling with fury, but I nodded and relaxed. But, when he released my wrist, I kept my sword out.
Tenre was looking across at me with a slight frown. I remembered that she had been born in that ancient land of Ilim Below, in that mysterious time that was even before the legendary age. She may have understood her father’s words.
“Little Tiana has killed a dragon and nearly killed your wife, O Lord of the Old Grove,” Oberon cautioned him. “Only an old fool such as you would speak ill of such a knight’s king to her face.”
Lâsin’s only reply was a snort. A mighty fairy brawler had no fear of a mere child half his weight.
The Fairy King continued. “What failures can you cite of the Ostish king? Do your complaints come from Parna, who plots rebellion against him?”
“My ally plots no rebellion! What evidence do you have of rebellion, other than the unreliable tale told by a fugitive monster?”
“Hmph,” Oberon replied. “Dodging the question, I see. But you ask a very well-timed question, My Lord. Little Tenre…”
“Yes, Esteemed Father,” she replied, and held up a crystal sphere. Light mana surged, and a scene displayed at a location above our heads, a 3D image of a soldier marching a bedraggled young woman at spearpoint up to a portly lord. Her black hair and her dress were soaked and plastered to her body, and her hands were manacled behind her back.
Many onlookers were in view, as well as an ugly prison carriage.
“Hold it there for a moment,” Oberon told his daughter, and the image froze.
He told Lâsin, “This arrived earlier today. One of my concubines recorded this memory stone last week. She gave it to the Ostish king, as she is his subject, but when I learned of its existence, I requested a copy. Let us listen together, My Lord.”
