I was going to take this full week off, but due to my sick day last Monday, I will just take off Friday. Next chapter is next Monday. It’s also Halloween, which is irrelevant, but still a fact.
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Even with my contemplative powers as a mind expanded to the extent of my spiritual vessel, I couldn’t avoid holding the suspicion that I might be falling into this fairy’s complex snare. Accepting her warning at face value was not possible.
After all, it begged an important question.
“Why would Erebos bother deducing the fate of an unrelated, passing group of mortals and fairies, much less ask his daughter to save them?”
When I put that question to the Lady of the Tower, she simply gawked at me, as if she hadn’t even considered that I might ask that.
“Your Highness, my father is not so uncaring that he would just ignore such a tragedy.”
“He has probably ignored thousands of such tragedies through the millennia, Fairy Áne,” I replied with a shake of my head. “He is disconnected from the world, dedicating himself to suppressing Astaroth and keeping him bound up. Millions have died in the lands surrounding this place since his battle began. Why would he bother seeking out the fate of a group that was more than fifty miles from here, then ask you to detain them?”
Áne’s forehead wrinkled up and she grew restless, looking as if she was being asked an unfair question. But I couldn’t at all see how it could be considered unfair. Her struggle to answer only made it feel more suspicious.
But at that point, Erebos intervened.
Commander, his spiritual voice appeared in my mind, I shall speak separately to you and offer answers to all your questions. Until then, please accept that my daughter speaks the truth. Her actions were at my behest, but I did not tell her my motive.
I frowned and asked into the air, “Erebos, why can you not just tell me here?”
Placing my daughter into the position of possessing knowledge that her contract demands she give to the evil god, when my magic prevents her from doing so, would be a singularly cruel act. I never tell her my motive for anything I have her do.
You can just tell me privately! I shot back, in spiritual voice.
My seal stops her from sending, and shields her from lower-strength transmissions, to prevent the evil one from preying on her mind without my notice. But you yourself are able to send to her, so you know it does not stop all incoming senses.
After considering it for a moment, I realized what he was trying to tell me. A dryad of her great age should have powerful senses, perhaps enough to see his words in my mind as he spoke them to me. Even if he was speaking to me privately, she might be able to listen in.
With Erebos addressing me as a superior, in his role as an Elder legionary toward me as the ‘Last Commander’, a title I now vaguely recall wearing once the other twenty three had perished, it ceased being a question of distrusting Áne’s strange behavior and became instead a matter of trusting my subordinate’s judgment. He believed what he had ordered her to do was necessary, and promised to report his reasons once he felt he could do so securely.
It left me in a difficult position. I had to either reject his request or set aside the natural suspicions held by my various incarnations about Áne’s behavior and back his decision.
In this world where the demon’s side held vast expanses of land and multitudes of enslaved mortals and the Elder’s side consisted of myself, my unborn twins and one convalescent stregione, I couldn’t afford to ignore one of my few allies.
Could I count the many Elder descendants, such as my son’s fairy race and monsters like Elianora and Bruna as being on my side? Except for a few individuals like my son and his wife, most of them had no sense of membership in the race of their ancestors. At best, I could hope to make them allies eventually.
“Very well,” I answered, addressing Áne but knowing Erebos was listening. “I will back your father’s decision and approve your actions, but you must release your captives immediately.”
She resisted for a while, but relented at last after I promised they would only return to Narses, not proceed on to their original destination. But I warned, “When I work out how we are going to complete our mission, you must not interfere again!”
… which brings us to the present, and myself back and leadin’ a gaggle of wobbly, confused folks down the tower hill. The ‘Little Sen’ version o’ the princess was still sort of around, discussin’ various things with Áne’s old man, but she’d shrunk herself just enough to wake me so I could handle bringin’ the captives out, and switched the effigy over to my appearance as well.
It was slow terrain. No fallen stones from the top end of the tower are still visible, since the millennia have long since buried ’em, but the angle of the cut that sliced the tower in two marks this side as where the top end woulda fallen, and even now, the land has more than its share of lumps.
When we first exited, Amanda was still too wobbly to walk on her own– she seemed more deeply affected than the rest– and she had to lean on me. It didn’t take her long to realize it was me, or rather, that I was her sister, and that fact seemed to embarrass her terribly.
I could guess why. I didn’t say anythin’ though.
The princess’s mother had realized that women, bein’ lighter, would make great flyin’ beast riders and recruited many into her military, so, unlike up North where they all tend to be men, half the ‘cavalrymen’ that Áne had bewitched were, in fact, cavalrywomen. They were tough enough, havin’ made it through military trainin’, but they still worried me in this terrain. We were far from the cultivated fields and settled towns of Pendor here, and at the bottom of this hill would begin a thick forest that might be better described as a jungle. The wild lands that they had flown above so easily would not be so easy to walk through.
Not a problem, if their beasts had not already flown back to Narses. And not a problem, if we could have flyin’ beasts come in and pick ’em up. But Erebos had been clear that we couldn’t do that.
The demons and denizens of this foul land have become alert to your people’s presence, and are searching for them even now. It is fortunate they dismissed the flying beasts when they did. If they stayed any longer, they would have become their prey. Your people must leave these mountains on foot, where they can stay hidden, at least until they reach inhabited territory.
The three knights, Sir Balad, Sir Gald and the Pendor house knight Garen, would manage themselves against the ground-dwellin’ threats while hidin’ from whatever flew overhead, but the four male aerial cavalrymen were no foot soldiers, and only somewhat tougher-lookin’ than the females. I won’t lie about this; I was worried about ’em.
So was Little Sen. She was still arguin’ in the back of my mind with Erebos, even as we descended the mountain. She didn’t like the idea one bit, either.
For a moment, I thought a couple o’ those threats were incomin’, but I recognized Serera and Dilorè before I drew my cutlasses. I figured they was comin’ to lay into me for ignorin’ Serera’s warnin’s earlier, but I forgot about the woman who had only been walkin’ on her own for the last hundred steps or so.
Lady Serera landed and instantly wrapped Amana up in her arms, exclaimin’ “Amana! Thank Heaven!”
Princess’s sister– I guess she’s my sister?– couldn’t do anythin’ but awkwardly pat her on the back as she sobbed. Maybe it was ’cause o’ Inda’s death on top of Mother’s death, but it looked like she’d really been worried. Well, I could remember the fairy knight’s desperate calls as she tried to chase after Fan Li, so I guess I already knew that.
Dilorè stood and waited, as did the mortals I was leadin’. She gave me a wry smile.
“You keep switching bodies. Was it you or Fan Li that got them free?”
“Neither. It was the princess. Sort of.”
She frowned. “She’s still back in Narses right?”
“Her main body is takin’ a nap right now, safe in her suite in the castle,” I assured her. “And that pink-haired cutie is lookin’ after her. Um…”
I looked over at Serera, still tightly embracin’ Amana, and tapped her shoulder. “My Lady, seems it’s not a good idea for us to hang out in the open like this. The folks in the tower say that some nasty flyin’ predators have caught yer scent, and they’re on the hunt.”
Serera loosened her grip on Amana while noddin’, then shook her head and tousled the younger fairy’s hair.
“You stupid child, how could you be caught so easily like that?”
As she spoke, she kept her arm around Amana’s shoulder, turnin’ to continue downhill, and the rest of us resumed the journey as well.
Her words had been gentle chidin’, not and, and spoken fondly. This was her deceased friend’s daughter, after all.
Amana’s eyes widened and she hung her head. “I’m sorry, auntie, I don’t remember.”
There’s no such blood relation between the two, but the term didn’t surprise me. In the culture I came from, children addressed their parents’ friends the same way.
“You can’t remember anything, Your Highness?” Dilorè wondered. “Nothing at all?”
“I feel like I’ve been asleep for a really long time,” Amana explained. “How long has it been?”
“It’s afternoon the next day,” Dilorè answered, lookin’ very puzzled. “You were in the tower for almost twenty four hours. Are you actually okay?”
Amana was still pretty addled, I realized. Fairies have an innate sense of time and location. In her normal condition, she would never ask such a question.
I remembered all the trouble the princess had while tryin’ to fly through Relador the first time, and suggested, “Maybe Áne’s magic messed with her sense o’ time ?”
Heavin’ a sigh, the princess’s sister nodded. “I don’t think I’m okay. My mind is still a mess.”
Serera frowned, then decided, “You’re staying with me from now on, Your Highness. You need training.”
“My Lady, my grandmother is my mentor!”
“Lâra will agree,” the fairy knight declared. “After you fell for some dryad’s bewitchment, she’ll be none too happy either. My apprentice didn’t fall for it.”
I wanted to retort a bunch of things. The ancient fairy Áne was hardly just ‘some dryad’, after all. Not only that, but Dilorè is older than Amana, but Diloré’s been through Elder spiritual trainin’ in the care o’ the princess and Kanon. But this wasn’t the time for it. We had bigger issues to deal with.
Of course, Amana wasn’t the only one in bad shape after bein’ asleep for a full turn o’ the clock. The knights and cavalrymen were wobbly too. Once we reunited with the others at the camp, we turned it into a convalescent ward to look after them.
The saddle bags for the beasts had been unloaded before they were set loose, and no mortal expedition heads into the wild without expectin’ they might stay a night or two. You never know what might happen, after all. So they had eight two-person tents, one for every beast.
Naturally, while the patients recovered, the rest of us argued. After all, the first thought anyone would have is, ‘let’s bring replacement beasts in and fly out.’ But we agreed that, regardless of what we settled upon, it wouldn’t happen until the mornin’ at the soonest.
Chiara, naturally, was on my side. With Áne’s bewitchment gone, it became obvious that Chiara’s bond with the princess applied to me, too, probably ’cause my ‘physical’ body was actually created from her blood magic. Serera gave her back her bracelet, but she remained loyal to my side, anyhow. And not quite sure why, but Ryuu Kowa agreed without question as well.
The fairies and Matthias were harder to convince. And I don’t think I woulda succeeded, had a screamin’ howl fit to raise the dead not ripped across the sky in the middle of the argument.
