No Fyrij.
Of course, no Fyrij.
He wasn’t with Dough or the pirates, he wasn’t with the Light-blessed or Laken, he wasn’t cuddled up with a snoring Qira or with Katta, he wasn’t sticking his nose into the subdued, melancholy conversation between Mera and Tally and the two Darkness acolytes.
Vantra returned to the small group at the fountain, despondent and annoyed. Kenosera winced with sympathy and shrugged, while Yut-ta looked around without getting up. It did not matter; no little fluffball fluttered in sight.
She should have looked for him once she realized she had no idea where he was, rather than wait until it was far too late to track him down. Had a shiny thing captured her little darling’s attention, and he snagged it to hide in the Loose Ducky?
“Do you think he flew to the concert?”
She stared at Kenosera, feeling grumpy. Would a cacophonous mello-noise concert distract a song-oriented avian? “We need to go check.”
“I’d ask how much trouble a little caroling can get into, but I already know,” Jare said, sympathetic, but he made no move to rise. Neither did anyone else. Sagging, she turned and floated down a path to the nearest exit. She wanted to rest at the fountain and absorb mist, not hunt down Fyrij. Why did he refuse to stay put?
Running steps, and Kenosera caught her, Yut-ta a stride behind.
“You don’t have to come,” she reminded them, far more cranky than she meant.
“No, but I want to hear mello-noise. I don’t know what it is, and I’m curious.” Kenosera held out his hand; she triggered Physical Touch, and he slipped his palm into hers before slowing and falling into step with her. Tingles raced up her arm, and she tried to shove her bad mood away to enjoy the delight.
“I’ve heard it; Xafane likes Talin electric music,” Yut-ta said. “You wouldn’t think it because he’s an ancient sprite, but he says he prefers it to the traditional and folky songs popular during his lifetime.” He clacked his beak, his eyes glinting with humor. “Ever seen a priestly sprite banging to a song over 150 bpm?”
Vantra immediately imagined his robe whirling around him as his long hair flew in a swirl and softly laughed. “Xafane and Lokjac make a good pairing, don’t they?”
“They’re odd in their own ways,” he agreed. “It makes life interesting.”
The garden exit led into a foyer, and dozens of pirates congregated there, laughing together and waiting for something. Janny and Llel stood to the side chatting with a few others, and Vantra tugged on Kenosera’s hand before veering in that direction.
“You haven’t seen Fyrij, have you?” she asked, hoping that her little one noticed the crew leaving and flew to investigate.
The group shook their heads. “Lost ‘m, have you?” Janny asked. She jerked her thumb at the door. “We’re headed for the concert. If he’s out and about, I’m betting that’s where he went.”
“Music sucks him in,” Kenosera agreed.
“He’s too curious by far,” Janny said. “But if we show up, he’ll join us.” She grinned and swept her arms wide. “We’re hard to miss.” Everyone laughed, and Vantra reluctantly smiled. Their enthusiasm was difficult to dismiss, but worry pummeled her. Something was wrong, and the antsiness that accompanied her certainty refused to disappear.
After a non-obvious cue, the rambunctious lot filed out, following a lamp-lit, scuffed-stone path to a larger dirt road that led to a distant glow topping the temple’s rustling trees. Vague crowd noise filtered to them, along with the deep, steady beat of drums. Vantra could feel the rhythm with every strike, and her essence shivered in time to it.
Their group took the rear, and Vantra fell back further, Kenosera keeping her step. He wiped his brow with the back of his hand and sighed; she glanced at him, concerned, and he shrugged as he scrubbed the glistening sheen of sweat on his pants.
“It doesn’t cool off here at night,” he said. “Just like in Greenglimmer. In the desert, it gets cold, and I think I prefer that to the constant sweating.”
As a ghost, she often ignored temperatures because they did not bother her. Extremes penetrated her essence, but she could work through the discomfort. She had far more concern with winds and rains than the heat or chill they brought with them. “When we reach the Sunderlands, you’ll probably wish you were back here in the heat.”
He chuckled. “True, but that’s OK. It’s the experiences I’m after, even if I’m complaining. The world is so much broader than the Snake’s Den, and I want to see it, feel it, smell it, taste it. I want to hear other cultures’ music and listen to their stories. My grandmother thought my curiosity was a terrible thing and told my father to keep books from me. I snuck them anyway, and once I reached Merdia, I didn’t have to hide my reading. You may not think it, but Dough’s exceedingly well read, and will prop other readers up with loaned books.”
“I can see it,” Vantra said, thinking of his sweetie Kjethelwyn. Dough, reading to impress the astute elfine, would not shock her.
“Heh. When I was younger, I wondered why they taught us reading if books were so terrible, but it’s a dor-carous thing, being literate. It’s another way to separate us from the ruled masses, because in general, anyone below leadership and merchant classes doesn’t know how, and that’s doubly true for the wanderers. There’s no need; oral traditions get passed down, like where the oases are, and telling myths around a fire brings the community together in a shared experience a book can’t accomplish.
“Dor-carous aren’t as interested in community or broadening their outlook as holding onto political power. My grandparents, my father, they focused on influence, since that brought more wealth, more standing. I never wanted that, no matter how hard they tried to shove it into my heart. At night, before drifting off, I often wondered why I never caved to their demands. Even when I appeared obedient, I did something in secret to prove to myself their words held no sway over my thoughts.”
Vantra squeezed his fingers. “I think stubbornness and curiosity are just part of existing.” He half-smiled at that. “Everyone has that curiosity; some let it go because it’s expedient. Some clutch it like it’s the last gulp of water.” She glanced at the receding backs of the pirates and Yut-ta, and decided catching them was not as important as a chat with Kenosera. “I’ve become more curious as a Finder. I wanted to see the Evenacht, meet its peoples, do something good for ghosts. My mother laid the path, I just didn’t walk it until I got here. I was too afraid to stray much at the Sun Spiral.”
“Considering what the priests did to you, that caution was warranted.”
He sounded over-dry, but guilt crossed his face as she shuddered. He slipped his arm across her back and hugged her tight. She slid her arm around his waist, and while the tingle his presence brought did not quite cover her despondency, it came close.
“BWAAAAAAAAAAAAPH.”
Vantra perked up. That was Fyrij.
“Vantra?” Kenosera asked, pausing, his hand tightening on her shoulder as he frowned to their right. “Was that—”
The unadulterated, birdy shriek that followed sent him to his knees, clutching his ears. Good thing she did not have physical parts to harm; the jiggling of her essence was bad enough, but she could work through that. Tucking her energy tight to her core, she tore through the bushes, the thorns digging into her and tearing off small bits of her form.
“You mangy shit!”
She broke into a circular fountain area, grey paving stones circling a marble statue of a arched fish squirting water into the pool. White benches sat at regular intervals for those who wished to rest in the cool air wafting from the surface. A still figure draped over the edge of one broken in half, shards scattered in all directions. Next to them, lying on the ground, was the caroling, encased in an ugly, yellow-green shield.
Fyrij!
Incandescent rage burst from her. Heat and golden light obliterated her senses. With a jerky swipe, a man snagged her bundle of song, turned, and ran between two columns opposite her, other wisps of color following him.
“LET HIM GO!” She rocketed after them, bright light illuminating her way. The wisps bled into view; ghosts in Finder-green robes. They looked back and screamed before increasing speed.
She would not lose them.
They tore through a colonnade; random others leapt out of the way, a blur of motion and sound she ignored, her focus solely on the kidnappers. The Finders scattered as she reached their heels, revealing her target far ahead and pulling away, Fyrij still in his hands. She shot after him; he triggered Physical Touch before jumping behind a waterfall cascading over an outcropping between two gleaming white pillars spelled for light. The interruption sent shimmering splashes onto the surrounding stepping stones crossing the pool.
She plowed through without bothering to switch, her Sun shields blazing. The light reflected off the cascade and illuminated a tunnel with tapestries. Flames flickered at the end, blurs of shadows whisking back and forth behind them. A spell splatted against her protections, and the dark mass caught fire, burning into ash as she passed the torches on either side of the small cave’s entry. They extinguished, blown out by her speed; the glare from her became the only illumination.
The man raced into a tapestry-lined corridor dripping with the gunk—the same gunk that had filled the water earlier that day. It splashed on his shielding, spluttered as if striking something hot, and hissed and spitted, bits flying off like grease.
A trap.
“CLEAR RAYS!” she screamed. Beams tore into the rock, searing everything with the corrupted touch to ash. Her target shrieked in terror as inky shadows formed behind him, picked him up, hauled him on.
She lurched to a stop as unseen stickiness coated her shields. She pushed forward, as slowly as someone traveling through the thickest swamp mud; she no longer saw the man, his accomplices or Fyrij, just a green tinge to the air.
“That was easy.” A woman wearing Finder green, with a broad smile and glinting eyes, floated through the stuff.
“Retravigance!” The self-satisfaction ended with a mouthful of Sun; the woman screamed and screamed and screamed. Vantra curled her fingers into claws, lit them, and slashed through the disintegrating viscous spell. The corrupted Touch latched onto and ripped chunks of her shielding away as she forced her essence on, and she slapped layers beneath to keep her protection whole.
She shot out the tunnel and into a dark space. Shoving her hand out, she triggered fire and it raged high from her palm; the barest hint of glowing green prints dislodged the wind-blown debris and disappeared before reaching the thick-trunked, rustling trees and the waist-high ferns below. Had he triggered Ether Touch and gone in the same direction as his running feet?
“What are you doing?”
The faint, peeved shout rang through the darkness, and she raced through the trunks to reach whoever called. Two grumbling beings picked themselves up from the ground, glaring uphill at the fern-lined dirt trail lit by ground-hugging, glowing baubles with a sheen of clamshell in the glass. Faint wisps of green outlined footprints and hung on the wooden beams sunk into the soil.
They screamed as they saw her; she ignored them and whisked the way they had faced—there! The man had faded to near nothing, but he still held the ugly, shimmering shield, no help in sight.
Fyrij slid around inside. Dammit!
She threw a flaming ball at the path in front of him; it exploded, sending burning wood and dirt flying. Flashes of Greenglimmer, the flames, the trees—she yanked the fire back, and it sizzled into nothing; the man leapt the hole and continued fleeing.
She focused on Fyrij, increasing speed, closer, closer—
He threw the caroling into the off-trail trees, and she followed the sphere. Fyrij!
The shield jerked, disappeared. She flipped, spun, searching, caught a glint in the tree shadows jetting away from the trail. Someone else had nabbed him. Heat roared past her back as she shot towards the brightness, but she did not have time to face the new threat. The glint stopped, and she broke the tree line; the cloaked figure who held Fyrij slid down a domed shield. The shimmery magic ran along the edge of an embankment that curved around multiple buildings with curved roofs, cheery yellow lights lining lanes and illuminating front doors.
They floated upright, their essence continuing to shudder from the unexpected impact, and whirled with a gasp as she reached them. They jerked away as she snatched at the arm holding Fyrij, raised their hand, and clasped their fingers together, their nails lengthening to form a pointed weapon. Holding him out, they stuck the tip against the sphere.
“I’ll kill him!”
Everything disappeared in flames.
She triggered Physical touch and caught him as he fell through the burning shield, hugging him close. She shuffled back, away from his shrieking kidnapper, expanding her defenses so no one could near them.
“Fyrij!”
The Darkness and Light shields protecting him flickered.
“Fyrij!”
His eyes remained closed, his tongue lolled to the side, as if he faked his death. He had a habit of playing that for all it was worth when he got in trouble snitching things, but . . . he wasn’t faking.
“Fyrij,” she whispered, bringing his face closer. Did he still breathe? She couldn’t tell.
Sharp motion to her left, shouting, but it all dwindled as she cradled the little avian in her palms.
“Fyrij,” she whispered. Tears peppered his fur, and she touched the tip of her nose to his. Wet coated it. She rubbed the tip on the back of her hand; red smeared across her knuckles. “Fyrij!”
Larger hands cupped hers. She stared, numb, as Zibwa focused on the caroling, a small, calm smile tugging at the edges of his mouth. He stood within her shielding, no care for the swirl of Sun raging around them.
“It seems our wayward Fyrij got into a bit of trouble, eh? He has a cut across his forehead, which must have happened before the Light and Darkness shields rose. Would you mind, if I carried him back to the temple? Weather has a healing room, and I can make him comfy until he wakes.”
She nodded, unable to stop the tears. He gently drew Fyrij from her palms, clasped him to his chest, then touched her shoulder. “Vantra, he’ll be fine. I promise he’ll be singing to you come the morn. Do you know what happened?”
“Ghosts attacked him. They wore Finder cloaks. They must have been knights.”
“Hmm. Interesting. Drop your shields. Help’s arrived.”
Blinking more tears down her cheeks, she drew the swirling Sun back into her—it seared her wisps, as the potency refusing to dwindle. Her core flared, and she fought to contain the growing heat and flame. Calm surrounded her again, and everything faded into a magic-induced coolness. Guilt mixed with shame, and she struggled to find the words to apologize to Zibwa. The syimlin should not have to interfere because she lacked control, and she looked up, snuffling, her sight blurring.
Burnt earth. No ferns, no bushes, no trees. No trees? Oh no. Oh—
“You saved Fyrij from the enemy,” Zibwa reminded her, his heavy calmness drowning her panic. “He survived because of you.” He ran a finger across the furry forehead, then down the breast, leaving a coating of new-bud green behind. “I’ll see what he knows about his attackers when he fully wakes.” He winked at her. “As I said, he’ll be fine. There isn’t much to heal, except, maybe, his confidence.” He disappeared in a dusting of blue.
A heady gust picked up the ash and flung it everywhere, and with a reluctant wince, she dropped her shields. Someone hissed with menacing hate behind her; she looked over her shoulder at Jare and Mica. The former had a half-burnt elfine’s collar in his hands, and he did not look at all concerned about the injury while the captive wailed in agony.
“Damn wind,” Jare grumbled, shielding his eyes with his arm.
Mica nudged him before whisking to her and holding out his hand. She hesitated before taking it, and he drew her into a tight, comforting hug. As her head rested on his shoulder, she had a better view of the blackened path she had carved, and dug her fingers into him; how much damage had she caused?
“Did I—”
“Your magic, as far as we can tell, had a nasty interaction with another spell,” Mica said. “There’s some sticky residue that wasn’t burnt, and it has a funny sensation to it.”
Interaction? “There was something in the tunnel and it stuck to me.”
“We’ll have to study your entire trail, because I think it sloughed off on the foliage, and who knows what damage that might cause.” Mica pulled away and rubbed his forehead, looking down the blackened stretch. “This looks like a trap, but something went wrong on their side.” He eyed her. “How are you feeling? Drained? Fine?”
“Vantra!”
She jerked up at Kenosera’s shout. Jare yanked the captive up and flew with him across the destroyed foliage, and Mica followed with her, slower to accommodate her wobbliness.
The nomad stood in the center of the trail, huffing, leaning over his knees. Jare wrapped Light chains around the ghost and released him. Pulled down by the weight, the elfine sank to the ground, moaning and struggling. His essence flickered, but the attempt to trigger Ether Touch failed.
“Mica, Vantra, go with Kenosera. They found something strange. I’ll wait for Weather’s priests.”
Vantra whimpered. “I burned their forest.” They were going to hate her.
“An enemy kidnapped Fyrij. They’re lucky you didn’t blow them immediately into the Void for the insult.”
“I would have,” Mica muttered.
“Vantra has more control than you.”
She much doubted that. Guilt resurfaced, supported by fear and concern for Fyrij, and disgust at her inability to manipulate her mediocre magic battered her. Other emotions clashed with those four, and because she could not dig through the volume, they faded into a mire of emptiness. She numbly followed Kenosera to the top of the hill, staring at his back, the only thing that seemed real.
A viewing platform circled by a metal fence granted an unobstructed view of the temple below and the ocean beyond. Erected in the center was a tall, segmented black metal device flashing with a multitude of lights. It had small screens with numbers changing every second, scrolling lists, and buttons and flip switches. A larger screen had a blinking cursor and nothing else; she did not see a keyboard or input gadget near it.
Narrow segments between the ones with screens rotated, some clicking to a stop before reversing direction, some speeding up and slowing down with a gusty whir. The top had three spinning at different speeds, hooks jutting out and curled up, each emitting a blue beam that connected at the point of a tall spike. A flaring ball crackled atop the tip, and a ray ran from that to a spot in the ocean far beyond. It jiggled about and faded from view when the wind gusts increased in strength, returning to prominence as soon as they died to a soft whisper.
Greyshen stood two steps from it, his clothing dancing merrily around him as one hand stroked his beard and the other hovered over a number-centric screen illuminated by a floating sphere. A pile of random stuff sat near the Shade, along with a worn, open backpack that sagged with pathetic spinelessness. Yut-ta, Janny and Llel held similar lights, whisking them back and forth as they searched the platform and the cliff edge, looking for anything else.
No actual spirits, though.
Guilt clawed its way through her numbness. “You’re missing the concert,” she said.
Janny huffed, her laughter far too bright. “You think we’d miss this excitement?” she asked. “Llel and I were born for this!” She whipped her hand back and forth as if she held her cutlass. “No ghost can face me and remain unscathed.”
Llel shoved her fist into the air in agreement. “Don’t look sad,” she said. “We’re ghosts. Plenty of time to see another mello-noise group.”
Kenosera and Yut-ta weren’t. Neither of them appeared upset at the missed opportunity, though.
“What is that?” Mica asked, cocking his head as he squinted at the thing.
“Not sure.” Greyshen shuffled to another spot. “I’ve seen things in the Evenacht I would never have thought possible. I’ve seen things I never would have come up with even if I existed a million years.” He motioned to the device. “I’ve not seen something like this, even among the newer Talin tech brought over by engineers who visited the interstellar ships. The metal reminds me of the kind Badeçasyons use for their flying vessels, but I’m unaware of them creating a machine like this with it. They don’t have enough raw material for anything but flight.” He tapped at, but did not touch, a screen. “I don’t recognize the language or understand what’s being monitored.” He jerked his thumb at the pack. “There’s a book in the same language in there, but the ghosts who activated this spoke Reckoning. Janny says they ran when she and Llel showed up, so they definitely weren’t supposed to be doing whatever they were doing. Whether they are actual Finders or simply used their uniform to excuse their presence up here, we don’t know.”
“Got something,” Llel called.
They hustled over to a smooth rock jutting out from the cliff. Llel brushed several severed fern leaves from atop a keyboard with a screen in the center of the keys. The screen scrolled, halted, the cursor flashing; the beam from above moved to another spot, and the scrolling continued.
“Is that directing the beam, or just recording results?” Mica asked, bending over the screen.
“I’m unsure, and I don’t see a convenient switch to turn it all off.” Greyshen sighed. “I’m reluctant to meddle much; a lot of magic swirls within, and accidentally setting off a reaction so close to the temple isn’t wise.”
“Lorgan’s a language expert,” Vantra reminded them.
“We left him studying the sticky spell in the tunnel,” Mica said. “Not only is it as warped as anything we saw in Greenglimmer, it’s in one of Weather’s priestly alcoves. How they got past the waterfall and planted it is beyond me.”
“I got past the waterfall,” Vantra said. It had not been difficult.
Mica opened his mouth, shut it, glanced at Greyshen, then slipped an arm around her shoulders. “There’s a reason for that,” he told her, hugging tight. Did she look like she needed comfort? “Your Sun is powerful, and you can do things normal ghosts can’t—in this case, obliterating the defense and alarm spells. That was good for us, because we could follow your trail unhindered.” He pulled away and paused, then nodded. “Katta’s sending Lorgan up. We’ll see what he has to say.”
