.
For our wait for the morning light, I had selected a spot where the farmer had been keeping the rushes and weeds clear so that the grazing animals could access the water without encountering snakes.
My choice had a good reason. I had been coating myself with Water mana for days and I was tired of it. I wanted a bath, but I needed to remain prepared for danger, so I would settle for soaking my feet. It would take hours to get enough mana, but we had hours, since I would not be sleeping. I cast the [Soothe] spell I had learned from Melione on Sidis and had her lie down on my bedroll, then stripped off my boots and thigh socks.
Mystified, she asked, “What are you doing, My Lady?”
“Putting my feet in the water.”
“Why would you do that?”
I considered giving her the long-winded version, explaining how my body needed to soak up water mana regularly, I simply answered, “I’m part water fairy. My grandmother’s a naiad.”
Most mortals are raised to not question the actions of fairies. I needed to learn to rely more on that mortal mystique toward fairies.
It worked. She didn’t say anything further as I slipped down to the water’s edge.
The locals must have excavated a basin when they created the millpond, because the slope was reasonably steep, and there were stones that had been piled to reinforce the bank. I could sit with my shins fully submerged up to my knees while only having to hike my skirt up a little bit to keep the hem out of the water.
I sat listening to the peeping of spring frogs and other nighttime sound effects in silence, eventually hearing the gentle snore of a sleeping mortal join them behind me. It was getting a little chilly, with my legs in the water, so I pulled some Light mana from my core and began circulating it.
With only the stars and a sliver of moonlight to draw on, I couldn’t get a lot of Light, and the night was too cool to draw Fire, but I had plenty of those saved up, as well as Earth and Aether. But I was surrounded with an abundant supply of Wind, Water and Darkness which happened to be the three things I needed to restock at the moment.
I had been drawing on my core for several days for the Water mana I needed to coat my body, and I hadn’t been able to refill the Darkness I had used during the daylight, since I had been putting everything I drew from the night into [Vampire Cloak]. Now, I was uncloaked and up to my knees in water, and I had a gentle breeze. It was the ideal conditions to stock up on all three.
The fairy and vampire senses aren’t active [Detect Presence] spells like mortals must cast. They are innate skills, and for years I had exercised them on a regular basis, trying to stretch my senses a bit farther with every year that passed. I decided to occupy my mind by practicing them.
If I had to say, the Vampire skills are the most perplexing. Vampire Sight is the shortest ranged, and doesn’t give good detail, but works even in absolute pitch black. If there was dim light, Fairy Sight could beat it every time, turning a murky forest into bright daylight. Fairy Sense, the presence detection I relied on most, was 360 degrees and extended outward for thirty paces in detail, and about ninety with less resolution if I concentrate.
Vampire Sense is the one I almost never use, because most of the time Fairy Sense beats it. It works by casting a thin net outward, made of almost imperceptible Dark mana. A well-practiced Fairy Sense works by unknown means, so it isn’t detectable, and under most conditions works faster. But Vampire Sense has a peculiar advantage under a very specific condition. If I stand perfectly still, and work at night when the Dark mana is thick, I can extend it a hundred times beyond what Fairy Sense can do. The range was nine Orestanian miles at last measurement.
I did it now, pushing my perception outward, letting my mind become part of the night covering the world. I etched the area into my mind, creating a map that contained all the local features, as well as the positions of every sentient mind with enough self-awareness to register, which was basically anything with at least the intelligence of a goblin. I imagine some of the most intelligent natural beasts would register, like elephants or bonobos, but of course there were none in the area. Dogs and cats and similar creatures don’t register at the sensitivity I was searching.
A hamlet of six large households and a few smaller dwellings housing individuals or couples stood next to the mill that this pond powered. A sizable but currently slumbering town lay a couple miles to the south, and a scattering of other small hamlets lay all around, including a couple in a small valley on the other side of the mountain ridge to the East that I was facing. Far to the south, where my perception grew less distinct, a surprising amount of activity showed up, groups of people moving in the night, and in some cases magic being cast. It was too far away to get any details.
But what stood out was the area just beyond those people. A dark area probably had some major magic operating on it that obscured my vision. I might have thought it was simply the point where my perception failed, but I could clearly perceive greater distances in other directions. And I could see the river that ran near us disappearing into it.
If this were Orestania, I would have suspected it was the security screens of a military base, but this didn’t have the clear edges of such a thing. It seemed natural.
Concerned that it could still be something purposefully obscured, I decided to stop. The last thing I needed was to set off some kind of alarm while sneaking into somebody else’s territory. I retracted it and relied on my Fairy Sense to watch the immediate vicinity after that, while I practiced summoning the spell shapes for [Soothe] and [Restoration] and the handful of new spells I had learned from Ceria over the last four days.
Once the first hints of morning began showing up over the mountains in the East and I began hearing a local rooster crowing, I pulled my legs out of the water and dried them so I could put my thigh socks back on. It was around then that a small chime sounded nearby. It was almost exactly the sound of a crystal wine glass being lightly struck. It sounded again after a pause of about five seconds.
Puzzled, I looked around for possible sources, and, at the third chime, realized it was coming from below.
I had not removed my sword-belt, as the scabbard lays horizontally across my back when I have it tied for flying, so it had never been in danger of going into the water. Thus, I was still wearing my belt wallet. I was able to see a mana flow occurring within it. I opened the cover flap and identified the source as the talking stone that Sidis had dropped earlier.
Quickly, I moved to her side and woke her.
“Does this sound mean someone is calling you?”
“You had my stone?” she asked with a tone of surprise, once she became reasonably sensible. “I thought I had lost it!”
A bit embarrassed, I explained, “I picked it up when I picked you up. I was going to return it once I got you home.”
In retrospect, I had nothing to be embarrassed about. It made sense to keep it until I got her home, for the same reason it made sense not to heal her wing. Until I got her home, she could still potentially turn on me, out of mistrust.
She held out her hand. “May I have it back, My Lady?”
I gave it to her, and she activated it right away.
“Sidis! Are you alright? You didn’t call!” came a male voice through the tool.
Wow, I thought. It really does sound just like a cellphone conversation.
I continued to listen as I went back to work donning my socks and boots. With my powerful sense of hearing, I could still easily follow both sides of the conversation.
“I’m sorry, Brother. It wasn’t possible to call earlier. It’s alright, now.”
“Did you find shelter in Lisrau?”
“Um… it will take too long to explain, but I should currently be inside our territory.”
“What?” The voice picked up a tone of alarm.
“I believe I’m at one of the mills in the upper valley. I might only be a few miles from North Market Town. I should arrive once it’s bright enough to see.”
“How could you do something so dangerous?! Flying at night…”
She interrupted him. “The stone will fail if you use it much longer, Brother. I will explain everything when I see you.”
She laid the stone in her lap and covered it with her hand, which I guess was the gesture to turn it off.
It immediately chimed again. She frowned down at it, but went ahead and answered.
The same voice yelled, “Don’t hang up! It’s an emergency! Do not come home, do you understand? Find a safe place and hide yourself! Stay away from the Greenwater!”
I immediately thought of those movements in the night and realized they could have been troop movements. And the magics I had detected… could have been combat.
“What? Brother, what’s going on?” Sidis demanded.
“Berado troops are invading! They’ve got us surrounded here!”
“Surrounded?!” she echoed, suddenly panicked.
“Our lines are holding, but it isn’t safe for you to fly, so stay on the ground! Do you understand? Walk, and get somewhere safe and wait for us to reorganize! Or join up with a border unit. Most of our units are still operational, but if you aren’t where they are, it’s too dangerous in the air!”
“Big Brother, I…” she cut off and looked at the talking stone, then frowned and looked at me.
“His stone ran out of mana. He’s not a mage, so he can’t charge it himself.”
I thought for a moment, then decided the last thing I needed to have under these circumstances was a crippled burden. I kneeled down next to her and began checking her condition. After I had convinced myself that Melione’s splint was still in position and the broken wing bone hadn’t shifted out of position, I gathered Healing and told her, “This will be a bit painful, so grit your teeth.”
