Altogether, we spent five days in Nagaan. It was not nearly enough rest after almost a month in the mountains. Despite daily baths, it felt like it took the whole of that time to wash all the ground-in dirt off our bodies. We had to burn much of what we’d worn, and replace it with whatever overpriced ready-made clothing we could find because we could not risk the attention of dressing in fashions so alien and whose origins we could not readily explain. Derrek and I managed to find elven robes in our signature colors – him blue and bronze, me leafy green – almost as soft as the sao`ashan silk, that came down past our knees. Elana and Rennin, meanwhile, gratefully donned Vencari tunics in last winter’s style: calf-length, but generously cut for mobility, and belted tightly for a flattering waist; him in white-embroidered black, her in black-and-gold detailed white. The oversized and exotic Blade of Xadaer drew stares wherever we went, but as unwelcome as that attention was, it was more annoying than risky: adventurers were less common now than a decade ago, but humans travelling outside the Compact and in mixed company could hardly be anything else, could they?
While we searched desperately for new clothes, and in quiet afternoons after, we kept our ears open for dwarven language and merchant’s rumors of Vencar. The news, unfortunately, was as old as the fashions: spring was when goods and gossip mostly ran southward. Vencari and Georgi traders mostly came this far north in the high summer and winter, when the great river was at its ebb. This winter’s gossip spoke of tensions between Georg and Vencar following a border raid last spring. There were also rumors of tensions on the border between Vencar and Naal, training exercises that looked suspiciously like preparations for war. Traders spoke of an imperial court currying desperately for the emperor’s favor, of courtiers making wild accusations of sedition against their peers in hopes of proving their own loyalty. There was no word, at least not explicit, of the prince’s rebellion. Elana pressed Derrek to use his crystal ball and attempt to contact Urassarrain or one of her wizards. He tried, but in the morning he reported only that the Usurper had been waiting for him, and he could not see past that screaming face.
We spent our evenings in our hotel room, planning the next stages of our journey. Our options were, essentially, to continue on foot or to take the river. The arguments for and against each were abundant. And they all left me with two problems.
“If we pass through the city of Tanirinaal,” I told my companions, “I have a moral obligation to stop at the court and tell the Queen of our experiences in the Holy Empire. I may not be able to leave in a timely fashion after making that report, and it is … likely we will all be detained to tell our stories to the Queen and her Council.”
I was torn. Admitting that, and letting Elana decide that we should avoid the City, was arguably a betrayal of my Queen. But I also had an obligation to this prince, and I had every intention of coming back to report all that I had seen and done in the Lightning Plains once Elana’s throne had been secured or lost.
Then came the second consideration.
“Almost any overland path,” I told them, “and most of all if we take the river, we will pass within hours of my family home. I have not heard from them in eighteen months, nor they from me in over a year. I … I want desperately to see my mothers, and to know if my sister has wed yet, and if my father still lives, and to let them know that I am well.”
Rennin looked like he was going to refuse me outright, but Elana took his hand and he swallowed whatever he was going to say.
“I cannot promise that we will stay long,” she said. “But if we cannot even stop to reassure your family that you live, then my throne was never within my reach.”
Within the hour we had settled not just on hiring a boat, but on purchasing one if we could. We would ride the current south, stopping at my family home and possibly my tower, depending on how quickly the currents moved us, and beach ourselves on the Wolfwood side of the river and – if we could do so without provoking the Children of Enhyl – cross the Vencari border between the two northern fort-cities.
Buying a boat proved both more and less difficult than we had feared. The docks at the bottom of the city were easy to find. By now we had all absorbed a tourist’s grasp of the dwarven language, and most of the traders here spoke at least that much of the human and elven tongues. Enough merchants came and went by boat, it seemed, that there were always a handful looking to sell and upgrade or retire, and the season was still early enough that they had not all been picked over. The real challenge proved to be that none of us had any idea what a boat might cost, or brought so much money with us on a quest that had never meant to visit real civilization. We were left with the choice of trying to hawk the jewelry and silks we had been gifted by the archons of the Lightning Plains, or of deploying the letters of credit left to me by my dead master, which had not left my wizard’s chest since I had left my tower. We settled on the latter: it was simpler in both the short and the long term. If we won, Elana and her court would reimburse me; if we lost, I would likely have little use for Vencari currency, even if I lived.
Throughout the process, it was difficult for me to contain my excitement. Derrek had some sense of it, I think; I believe that Elana and Rennin mistook it for nerves. If my sister Llaariiah or any of my mothers had been there, they would have teased me relentlessly. I had loved riding boats ever since I was a child, since the first time my family and I had flagged down a passing barge to cross the Venn to visit Neriishai in `Aasmiir. I had wanted a real boat of my own almost since I first lashed deadfall into a raft to visit my family, that first summer of my apprenticeship.
The boat we ultimately purchased – a single-masted vessel named the Blue Light – was almost too large for our purposes. Elana and Rennin had both been raised in Vencar City, with frequent trips onto the Great Crystal Lake, but they had been children [JG1] and not permitted to aid in the operation of any but the smallest vessels. This one had a cabin and a cargo hold, and oars to aid with both sailing and steering, and was probably meant to have a crew of six. It was everything I had ever dreamed of and more, and if we had been going upriver we would not have made it.
Our first day on the river was as short as it was terrifying. Setting sail late in the afternoon, when we had relatively few other ships to contend with on the waters, we were able to maneuver out of the docks and into the current. Rennin and Derrek manned the oars, Elana held the tiller, and I stood ready with my wizard’s claw, ready to push us telekinetically clear of any obstacles we could not maneuver around by more mundane means. We dropped anchor as soon as the sun began to set. The cabin was a tight fit for the four of us, but after our month in the mountains, to say nothing of the previous year, we were more than used to it.
The second day was better. We weighed anchor a little after dawn and rowed our way to the swiftest current at the center of the river. There, we took turns at the tiller and standing ready at the oars in case we needed to maneuver. We did not have the river entirely to ourselves, and those boats faster than we were largely content to go around us, but we had to leave the swift current if we wanted to rest or eat, and our nerves gave out well before the light.
The third day was better still. We mastered the art of staying out of the fastest lane of river travel, and of pacing our breaks so that we did not have to drop anchor near the shore. That afternoon we passed the docks of Addaaranth, the port-city that served Tanirinaal in the centuries since the river had drifted eastward. If we had arrived any later in the day, we might have simply swung to the far side of the river and dropped anchor, but, as it happened, it was still early enough that traffic was too thick for that to seem safe.
Elana worked the tiller, again, and Derrek and Rennin were on the oars. I stood at the helm, calling greeting and warning to ships as we passed. There were some close calls – including one in which I had to use magic to avoid collision – but the other ships and their crews were all more experienced than we were, and there was little real danger. A few cursed us, despite my shouted apologies, but most were in good spirits. And, to my delight and relief, they were almost all elves.
“Your first voyage?” they would call, usually laughing.
“Is it that obvious?” I would rejoin with an exaggerated gesture of hopelessness. It was good to speak my mother tongue again.
“Will you be docking tonight?” One asked as we drifted together for longer than usual. She was short and squat and strong, and looked me up and down with a flattering degree of appraisal.
“Not tonight, I’m afraid,” I said. “We aim further south.”
“Not too far south, I hope,” she called back. “My cousin just got back from human lands. There’s more trouble stirring in Vencar. Some say it’s the making of another war! It’s got the Georgi all jumpy and rude.”
“Thanks for the warning, friend!”
Once we’d passed the city, I relayed that warning to Elana.
“Thank you,” she said. “I heard.”
She used it so rarely that I had more than half forgotten that Elana spoke my language.
On the fourth day, we crossed into the shadow of the Holy Mount Kashrin, where my people had first made our home after the exodus from the Lighting Plains. The forest god Senvarus and his many children had sheltered us on the slopes, while the rrotran dug into the heart of the mountain. The slopes and the heights were forbidden to us, now. We spoke of it rarely, if ever, with outsiders, but it was not the unleashing of the Withering Plague that saw us driven from the sacred mountain, nor was it the coming of the Prophet of Es, nor even the coming of the ogre hordes; it was our abandonment of the djuunan to the ogres that earned Senvarus’ disdain. Now, only a few elves lived, as my family did, in the forests and foothills at in the shadow of the holy mountain.
On the fifth day we came to my mothers’ hunting range. I had always come from the south, before, so I almost missed it, but when we moored on the eastern bank that afternoon we had only gone a little bit too far.
Spring was in full bloom, by now. The trees were thick with bright green foliage. Flowers and ferns unfurled in the underbrush. The forest was a riot of birdcalls and bugsong. Soon, I found myself leading my companions up the path I had last walked just over two years ago, following the death of my master. My heart swelled with joy and grief, hope and memory, and by the time we came to my family’s home-tree, tears were already streaming down my face.
It was late in the day when we arrived, and the family glade was shadowed in the false dusk of the forest. The intertwined oaks that made up the living body of the home-tree seemed both smaller and larger than I remembered, and stood like a shadowy monolith in the center of the clearing. Rope-bridges reached out from its trunk to the three – now four! – outbuildings of our compound, creating the impression of a giant spider’s lair. The ladder to the main entrance had been pulled up onto its balcony and there was no sign of my sister or mothers outside, but the smell of roasting venison filled the air.
“If you will wait here,” I said, wiping my face dry. “I will go up and see if they are prepared for company.”
Elana nodded.
“Of course,” she said.
The last time I had clambered up the side of this tree, I had regretted the strength and dexterity I had lost in my old master’s company. I was still less graceful than I might have liked, but I had regained most of my strength.
When I reached the balcony, I could hear quiet singing coming from within. I smiled. It sounded like all my mothers were home, and in good spirits.
“Hail and well met!” I called into the hollow of the tree, and the singing cut out abruptly.
“Khanaarre?” Khiilitir’s voice came from the interior. “Is that you?”
The aching homesickness that had prompted me to request this detour had not prepared me for the emotional impact of being here.
“Yes,” I said. Tears filled my eyes again, and I was barely able to croak the affirmative past my lips. “I’m here. I’ve brought company.”
I climbed through one of the three great windows into the summer room even as my parents came up the stairs from the rooms below. The tears that had started as I had crossed into our clearing came again, full force, as they wrapped me in an enormous five-way hug. I choked up, unable to speak, as they told me with whispered words and strong embrace how much they love me. Eventually they let me go, and my father handed me a handkerchief with which to wipe my eyes.
“You said you brought company?” he said.
“Yes,” I half-laughed, half-cried. “The Vencari prince I’ve been serving. And her consort. And a wizard. It’s … quite a tale.”
They all laughed.
“Well throw down the ladder, then,” said Khiilitir. “Volalli, you stay here to greet everyone. Nallaro, will you bring some sitting cushions up from the bottom? I’ll throw more steaks on the grill and Maosee will bring up tea in a minute.”
They had all been married for almost a hundred years, but the house had come from Khiilitir’s family, so she still took precedence when it came to matters of hospitality. My father smiled, and seated himself in a corner by the stairs. Maosee and Nallaro each gave me another bear hug before following Khiilitir back down into the lower rooms. I climbed halfway back out of the window and pushed the ladder down to my companions on the ground.
Rennin came up first, giving the room a quick but not cursory threat assessment before deliberately unbuckling his sword belt and leaning the Blade of Xadaer against the wall where I gestured for him to leave it and his backpack. The prince came up next, leaving her pack and weapons beside Rennin’s. Derrek came up last, bowing when he entered, and depositing his pack in the same corner. By this time, Nallaro had reappeared with enough cushions for everyone. I helped her arrange them so that everyone could sit comfortably, and made informal introductions while we waited for my other mothers to come up with tea and then dinner: a wide pile of cushions for me and my family to share, three more in a semi-circle for our companions, and a low table in between for us to eat from. The evening breeze was cool, and we had to drape my father in blankets, but as the room filled, it quickly warmed.
“This is my father, Volalli. His family is from Ygrantal, in the west of the country.” I told them, speaking the language of the Compact for Rennin’s benefit. “This is my mother, Nallaro. Her family is from `Aasmiir, across the river and day and a half walk to the north.”
“I have been through `Aasmiir,” said Derrek. “It is a lovely city.”
“This is my mother Maosee,” I said, when she appeared with tea. She had always been the tallest of us, broad and strong. I was surprised to realize that she towered over Derrek Rowan, as well. “She is from a woodland family, like the one she married into. She is the best hunter of us all.”
“Thank you, dear,” she said, also in the human tongue, settling herself between me and my father.
Finally, Khiilitir called up for help serving dinner. Maosee and Nallaro both answered. Soon, all three returned with heaping plates of venison steaks, a pile of roasted tubers, an assortment of winter-dry fruits, and a massive decanter of wine.
“And this,” I said at last, “is my birth mother, Khiilitir, from whose family comes this sorceress-sung home-tree.”
That she was my birth mother would be implicit to other elves from a dozen subtle signs, to say nothing of our remarkably clear physical similarities, and rarely if ever spoken. But I knew that a Vencari audience considered such information of utmost consequence, but lacked the context to guess.
Derrek and Elana bowed, Rennin mimicking them a moment too slow.
“Thank you all for inviting us into your homes,” said Derrek in clear, if oddly accented elven. It was not, I was amused to note, the oddness of the diplomat’s tongues spell, but of long disuse.
“These,” I told my parents, switching to our native tongue, “are the Queen-Heiress Elana of House Traiana and her consort armsman Rennin of House Ösh and the legendary wizard Derrek of House Rowan. We have spent the whole of the last year on the quest that I wrote you about, and have just returned to the known world from the north.”
My companions bowed again, and my parents bowed back.
“I am surprised not to see my sister,” I said, before they could begin asking question. “Is she off hunting?”
“No,” said Nallaro, beaming with pride and joy. “Maosee just brought back this deer, as you can see. Llaariiah has left for `Aasmiir, just a week ago, to meet with the matchmaker.”
“Oh,” I said, more surprised than I ought to be, both happy and a little jealous. “Thank the gods.”
My mothers laughed, as did Elana, while Derrek supplied Rennin with a quiet and quick translation, supplementing the diplomat’s tongues spell with what he considered to be relevant context.
Elana told the bulk of our own tale over dinner, permitting Derrek to give a succinct, unflattering, summary of his own role in the Usurpation, and of his proclamation that only the Blade of Xadaer could pierce the Usurper’s magical protections. Maosee was stunned and delighted to hear that we had travelled among and with the Children of Enhyl, and spoken to their prophet. She begged us to tell her more until, Derrek, laughingly, promised to spend tomorrow telling her everything he knew.
By that point, we had to stop to clear away the remains of dinner, and refill the decanter of wine. While my mothers dealt with the dishes, I hung the heavy leather curtains over the windows to keep out the insects that would be drawn to our lights, and to keep in the heat of our bodies – more for my father’s sake than for the rest of us.
We resumed the tale with our arrival at the Eastern Veil, and my parents all oohed and aahhed appropriately. They gasped with horror and awe at our tale of overcoming its draconic guardian, and received our tale of crossing the Veil with stunned silence. As wonderous as it had been to see and do, crossing the Holy Lands and retrieving the Blade of Xadaer made for quick telling, as did our decision to turn north. At that point, though, Elana turned the tale over to me.
“We went north,” I said, “following the tales of the Dragon Bard Dano`ar. I … feared what we might find there. The Bard said he had found the Lightning Plains, and crossed them to return to the world by way of the Great Ice Wall. We followed in his footsteps, and found what I feared but which he did not speak of.”
We had not been bound by magic. The only thing keeping me from saying it out loud was fear. Khiilitir said it for me.
“The sao`ashan.”
Her voice was soaked in horror and fear.
“Yes,” I said. “They were there, with their cyclops and earth-giants and strange magics. We lived in their empire for months, and, with a handful of small and one notable exceptions, they treated us with shockingly generous hospitality. I want to tell you all that I saw, there, and to share what I learned with all our people, and I am not magically bound against it, as we feared we might be, but … I am still grappling with the experiences of it.”
A long moment of silence drew out. Everyone waited on me patiently.
“At last, we descended the Great Ice Wall, and emerged into the world north and west of the headwaters of the River Venn. We crossed through ogre territories almost without incident, and have come back to Tanirinaal by way of Nagaan.” I paused and laughed. “We bought a boat and came down the river.”
This last declaration restored the mood that was lost when I mentioned the sao`ashan. My father laughed first and everyone laughed with him.
“You always did love that absurd and terrifying raft,” said Maosee. “I should have known you’d get a real boat one day.”
“Raft?” Elana asked.
“Oh, yes,” said Khiilitir before I could. “Her old wizard master’s tower is on the other side of the Venn. Whenever she wanted to visit us, and then when it was time to go back, she’d haul it upstream and paddle across the current. One year it took her a whole week too far south.”
Everyone laughed, even me. That had not been my greatest moment. It was, however, what inspired me to perfect my use of magical force to direct and redirect physical ones, which I had used both against the dragon and in navigating the Blue Light out of Nagaan.
“A wondrous quest,” my father said, his voice full of pride and awe. My mothers chorused agreement, filling me with the warmth of accomplishment. I smiled, just wine-drunk enough not to see what was coming. His next words made my blood run cold. “More than a year, yes, but far less than seven. Are you a full-fledged wizard, now?”
If I had seen it coming, I could have lied deftly. If I had been sober, I could have deflected, twisted the truth. Anything but make the stricken face I know that I made.
“Khanaarre?” Elana’s voice was sharp with shock. Her next words were laden with outrage, betrayal. “Are you a journeyman?”
I couldn’t push an answer past my lips. That silence was answer enough. My parents fell silent, as well, perhaps afraid of the further harm their next words might do.
“Derrek Rowan,” she hissed. “Did you know this? Is that why you pressed her so hard when you first joined our company?”
Derrek Rowan met my eyes and sipped his wine. Then he turned to Elana.
“I did press her when I first joined your company,” he said. “Because I am an asshole, and because I wanted to assess her skills and knowledge, and her potential as a threat to me.”
I blinked at that. So did Elana.
“If Khanaarre thought herself a journeyman when she joined your party,” Derrek went on, “it is because her master did her an injustice and failed to recognize her mastery properly before he died. Even if she was a journeyman then, you recognized her mastery when you took her in, and your wizards recognized her mastery when they did not decry her. Even if those were not sufficient, she proved her mastery when she faced down a dragon. She proved her mastery when she helped me breach the Eastern Veil with barely a day to recover from fighting a dragon. She proved her mastery when she picked the lock to the Tomb of Xadaer.”
He paused to take another sip of wine. I was grateful. I could feel my face flushed red and my ears flapping uncontrollably. Elana looked as flabbergasted as I felt, except possibly as angry as she was stunned. Rennin looked confused and nervous. I wondered, between his classical education and the diplomat’s tongues spell, how much of the conversation – still in elven, somehow – he was following.
“She proved her mastery, again, when she traded her knowledge of puzzle boxes for my knowledge Arcmedian divination, secrets that the Obsidian Cabal have carefully kept from the Order of the Black Mask for centuries,” he continued when Elana said nothing. “And she proved her mastery still again when she stood up to the Prince of the White Steppes and refused to be bound by gaes against speaking of her experiences in the Holy Empire.”
Still Elana said nothing. I thought she might be in shock.
“Wizards do not generally discuss our ranks and orders with outsiders,” Derrek told her, his voice hardening. “But you are surprised that a wizard acted like one? I promise you that the loyal wizards of your court are keeping far more dangerous and malicious secrets.”
He took another sip of wine and smiled savagely.
“If the Order of the Black Mask has failed to recognize Khanaarre formally,” he finished, “it is only because she is the sole member of that order in your court. If they fail to recognize her when given the chance, I am confident that the Obsidian Cabal will be delighted to correct that error. And if the Cabal refuses her as a petty vengeance against me for joining your quest, then I will personally found a new order that I may rectify that injustice.”
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