.
It didn’t take me long to reconstruct what had happened. For over a week, I had been carefully hiding my anxiety under the calm façade of a knight with her emotions under firm control, but I will admit that, having this chance to find Amelia in my hand, I was letting those anxieties control me just a little bit.
The monster called the Lord of Greenwater had offered me a salve for those anxieties, a clue to my foster sister’s whereabouts, in the form of a candy-colored stone. I had seen inscribed Wind magic in it, and assumed I needed to charge it in order to communicate with the spirit inside. Getting no response except a vague stirring, I had tried it again, probably harder. And then, I tried a third time.
My ears were still ringing with the Light spirit’s stinging complaint.
Fairy lady mana hurt!
Yes, I had been getting ‘reactions’ from the stone. I had been feeling the spirit inside quaking in fear from my onslaughts of mana.
The holy sword at my side burst out, Ahahahaha! My Lady, you truly are amazing! You overpowered a Light spirit with mana from a completely different axis!
What he meant was, Light and Wind aren’t in opposition. It’s not like they can’t touch each other, but the best effects against Light are either using Light or Darkness. Wind’s opposition is Earth. Overwhelming a Light spirit with Wind mana was apparently impressive.
Durandal continued chortling for a while. I held my position in a hover as the birdkin began to spiral upward beneath me on an updraft. While I waited, I asked, “Are you done?”
Heheh. Sorry, My Lady.
Birdkin often soar rather than actively fly. It’s how they rest in the air. They do use Wind mana when they are actively flying– nothing the size of even a lightweight human can fly on muscle power alone– but they use their bodies as hard as a long-distance runner. The way they stay in the air for longer periods is just like large birds. They keep their wings locked, held up by lift rather than effort, allowing their muscles to rest as they glide from updraft to updraft.
The fact that they were doing this now meant we were miles away from their base camp. If they only rested until they finished climbing the thermal, and actively flew from there, then it was only a handful of miles. If they started soaring, then I was going to be stuck out here tailing them for a long distance.
“Spirit, I apologize,” I told the stone. “I only wanted to gift you with some Wind mana. It seems I did a poor job. I will try again, more gently.”
The stone didn’t reply. I sighed.
My Lady, if I may suggest, it might help for you to simply coat the stone, the way you coat my blade. Don’t push the mana inward.
I’m more practiced at doing that to a blade, but I closed my hand around the stone and carefully gathered Wind mana around it, manifesting it onto the stone’s surface.
Holding it like that, I opened my hand and asked, “Spirit, is this better?”
The stone remained stubbornly silent, but Durandal said, Just hold it that way, My Lady. The spirit is unharmed.
Thankfully, the birdkin trio broke out of the upward spiral after only a half dozen turns and began actively flying once again. They weren’t getting ready to travel a long distance after all; they had simply been resting from the sprint they had done earlier. They continued southward for another three miles, then turned to the west, into the rising terrain.
The Giant’s Fortress is called a mountain but it isn’t a simple peak. It is an elevated landmass broken into many peaks and valleys along its forty plus mile length. The trio headed into one of these valleys, which turned northward and then suddenly broadened into an immense bowl. Within the bowl sat a field of tents and corrals and runways for flying beasts.
It was a pretty good location. It was just deep enough to hide from the road below, and had a pond in the center, providing an ample supply of water for the riding beasts and flying beasts corralled there.
This might have been the base from which the Berado commanded the local skies, except that the only permanent structures I could see were still under construction. I saw a lot of tents that would be poor shelter in this region’s harsh, snowy winters, so they hadn’t been here long. But it was a significant force, based upon the number of beasts I could see.
In aerial combat terms alone, I saw twenty wyverns, enough for a squad, and I could see at least as many riding mounts. It wasn’t enough for a cavalry company by Orestanian standards, but it couldn’t be considered trivial, either. My best guess was, this was an advance unit tasked with constructing a base for the battalion or company that the Berado planned to station here later.
For a moment, my estimation of the prince’s intelligence network dropped through the floor, thinking he should have known this base was here. Then, I realized that even if he knew, he didn’t have any reason to warn me about it. And the chances were good that he had hoped I would find it for him without endangering his birdkin or mountain goat riding scouts. Sneaky bastard.
I decided that the presence of this base meant that the trio I was tailing here had just stumbled on us while flying a regular perimeter patrol.
My job ended as the trio dropped into the camp and landed. I spent a little time counting wyverns and riding beasts more carefully. I also did a personnel estimate, based upon the number of tents, and circled the valley, looking for any other installations. My sweep turned up an observation post on the ridge between the bowl valley and the broader valley below, capable of observing the road which the column would be passing down.
I decided this was good enough. I began my flight back.
All this time, I had been keeping the stone in my hand, and maintaining the coating of manifested Wind mana.
“Spirit?” I asked. “Is this mana better?”
No response. Again, I sighed.
I do not think the spirit has taken any of the mana, My Lady.
“I was thinking the same,” I agreed. “Spirit, can you not accept my offering in this form?”
The tinny, feminine voice again came from the stone. “Fairy mana hurt.”
Twisting my lip in thought for a bit, I offered, “What if my friend offers the mana to you?”
“Friend?”
I touched Durandal’s pommel. “Old Man, would a spirit be able to sense you?”
Only a very high-level one, the holy sword answered. I doubt this one can. But I may be able to speak with it, as I mentioned before.
I said to the stone, “My friend will try to speak to you. Please accept Wind mana from my friend as a gift from me.”
I dissolved the manifested mana coating the stone. I heard nothing, but after a while, I saw a gentle flow of Wind mana stream from Durandal’s hilt to the spirit stone.
“Why can’t I hear you talking to the stone, Old Man?” I wondered.
Spirits speak with a different voice than living beings, My Lady. It is a mysterious medium that is neither mana nor sound.
With a frown, I noted, “That’s exactly the way I would describe the voice you use to speak to me, though.”
It had been bothering me for some time that I couldn’t sense any mana involved with Durandal’s soundless voice. It resembled the secret voice transmissions that Serera and others had sent me, but it lacked the telltale Wind mana signature I felt with them. Only Grandmother’s soundless communications resembled Durandal’s voice.
While that is true, my voice reaches you through our bond of contract. My voice reaches her through the communion of spirits.
“Her? The spirit stone?”
This child gave no name, but she seems female to me.
I had felt the same way. The spirit’s voice had a distinctively ‘little girl’ quality to it.
“Spirit, was the mana my friend gave you better?”
After a long pause, it grudgingly stated, “Mana good. Thank you.”
I smiled. “Your welcome. I’m sorry for troubling you before. Will you speak with me now?”
Sounding puzzled, the spirit answered, “Speaking now?”
With a chuckle, I nodded, “That’s true.”
After rounding a bend, I could see the Arelian column up ahead. I was still cloaked, and decided to keep it that way for the time being. I wasn’t sure what kind of reaction I would get from them, after the recent overflight by Berado soldiers, if I went visible and flew directly at them.
I asked, “Spirit, do you have a name?”
Again, she sounded puzzled. “Name?”
Spirits recognize each other by other means, My Lady, Durandal advised me.
“How should I call you, so that you know I am speaking to you?”
“Spirit no good?”
After a moment to think, I asked, “Are you saying I should just keep calling you ‘Spirit’?”
“Spirit good.”
I sighed, then said, “It just feels weird to call you ‘Spirit’. How about I call you ‘Lucy’?”
“Lucy?” the spirit echoed.
“It means ‘Light’,” I told her. “Since you’re a Light spirit.”
The spirit mulled over the idea a while, then repeated, “Lucy.”
“So, if I say ‘Lucy’, I’m talking to you,” I explained.
“Lucy good.”
As best as I could tell, that was an agreement. “Alright, Lucy, the Lord of Greenwater lent you to me in order to speak with his Wind spirits. Do you know about this?”
“Lord of Greenwater Master?”
It seemed reasonable, so I answered, “Yes, that’s right.”
“Master give picture, say look woman. Spirits feel, see no more.”
It wasn’t quite Kiki-speak, but somehow I parsed it. “Can you lead me to where they feel her, Lucy?”
“No. Wind spirits show,” Lucy answered.
I frowned, and began dropping down to land at the side of the road ahead of the column.
“Hey, Old Man, can you discuss this with her? See if you can negotiate some kind of plan for them to guide me.”
Certainly, My Lady, the holy sword answered.
I tucked the stone back into my wallet. Because the reaction from the vanguard was unpredictable, I muttered “[Body Fortification]” as I landed, then dismissed my wings before uncloaking.
The lancers riding point immediately lowered their lances. Holding my hands out to my sides to show they were empty, I stepped farther from the road as a swordsman rode toward me, his saber out. He wasn’t charging, but it was unnerving enough for me to put my hand on Durandal’s hilt, prepared to draw. In my view, this was an overreaction to a single woman who wasn’t showing any active threat.
“As you were, Padam!” I heard the prince order, and the swordsman reined back. I let go while giving the man a dark look.
Rufin worked his way out of the column to the side of the road and trotted up to me as the swordsman rejoined the vanguard. As they passed my position, he tipped his head toward me in a slight bow of apology.
“That wasn’t appropriate, My Lady. I’ll have a talk with them.”
“Thank you, Your Highness. Are they planning to treat the locals that way?”
His mouth twisted into a bitter smile. “Hundreds died in the cave-in at the mines, My Lady. When word got out that Beradians were behind it, the citizens became very angry, and that sentiment spread into the garrison. You just witnessed some of that.”
I frowned at that. We hadn’t signed up for a punitive expedition, after all. I hoped we were separated from them before anything unfortunate started.
