Chapter 67 Stampede

Kanae threw herself into researching every known about the disappearance of the Royal House of the Dark Elves. Every record, every piece of literature, and ever rumor she wrote down.

“Kanae,” I said, shaking Kanae’s shoulder.

Kanae woke up, lifting her head off her table, ink words tattooed on her face where it fell on paper she’d been recoding yet another tale of the Royal Family before passing out. Again.

“Well that’s a new, bold, glamour look, but I don’t think that will catch on. You fell asleep at your desk again. We have final exams in two hours. That ink you were writing with, isn’t that the magikal counterfeit proof ink Aoi gave us? Also, you’ve got some drool, there, on that paper,” I said.

“Oh, yes it is. I must have picked it up accidentally. What time is it, Deirdre?” Kanae said wiping the drool off the paper she’d been working on last night.

“I told you we have final exams in two hours, so it must be eight in the morning, right? Since finals begin at ten. I doubt we’ll be able to get that magik ink off your face by then.”

“Ink? I don’t have any ink on my face. Why would I have ink on my face?”

“I imagine because the ink on that page wasn’t completely dry when you fell asleep and your face landed on it.”

“What!?” Kanae pulled out a hand mirror from her storage and looked at her face.

“Oh, my Goddess! Shiminuki! Inkukeshi! Glantóir! Kamara! Fuck! Fucking, fuck, fuck! I can’t even hide it?”

“That sound like a lot of screwing for a woman seven and two months pregnant. Not sure if that’s even safe,” Aoi said, walking in.

“I don’t want to hear that from a woman seven and three months pregnant by four different lovers. Now Kindly, give me the remover for this counterfeit-proof ink,” Kanae said.

“Oh, my! You’re not supposed to wear that ink! I don’t have a remover. Why would I have a remover for counterfeit-proof ink? That would defeat the purpose.”

“Well, you need to make one then! There are undoubtedly going to be times when it is needed.”

“I’ll see what I can come up with. It might take me some time.”

And so, Kanae wound up taking her morning final exam with magik ink tattooed writing on one side of her face. Aoi was able to whip up something in the Academy’s Potions lab during lunch, and we met in the study room in the library.

“Alright, now hold still Kanae,” Aoi said.

“Wait that looks like more of that ink! What are you going to do with that?” Kanae said.

“I’m going to paint over the ink, with this magik tracing brush and skin colored ink. It should work just like makeup,” Aoi said, resisting the urge to tease Kanae.

“Oh. Well, ok, go ahead,” Kanae.

“But you have to promise, you’ll stop staying up to all hours, researching about Dark Elves, and let us help you,” Aoi said.

“How did you… Kiera! You’ve been spying on me!” Kanae said turning to Kiera.

“Not spying. Concerned, about your welfare. You’ve been acting very self-destructive ever since you came back from the Elven Continent. You’re searching for the Lost Clan of the Dark Elves. You learned something when you were there. Share it with us, and let us help. We are stronger together. I thought you knew this,” Kiera said.

“You’re right. I’ve been doing it on my own instead of asking you for help. Thank you everyone,” Kanae said.

So, we finished our finals, and the story about Kanae wearing ink on her face came to be known as some sort of prank perpetrated upon some gullible students. There was a huge pub hopping party at the close of the successful first semester of the Flying White Academy. A number of spies had managed to infiltrate the Academy from Rhóxsané and the other nations, and Count Belldonnar. Kiera and her security team removed some of them and monitored others.

With the last month of summer break we helped Kanae research the Lost Clan.

“Kanae, I think I found something interesting. You said the thread showed you something in the west, the far west. I have a mention in the records related to the Queendom of Numeldore, in the Rhonel Empire. It says the Royal House was negotiating for some mineral deposits from the Axios mines. Those mines are close to some Darkling ruins in the far west of the realm. It’s a dangerous region not far from the Last Mountains range, and the plains of despair on the other side. The area is practically empty due to the monster infested Oni Forest.” Darby said.

“That’s worth checking out! We should go investigate!” Kanae said.

“You, and we, aren’t going anywhere more dangerous than the local pub, for another month or until the Yule gifts from Deirdre’s impregnation Party drop. You are so round, you could be rolled all over the City,” Aoi said.

“Am not! I’m just the right roundness!” Kanae said.

They started laughing.

“Alright, you have a point. No way Deirdre would let us go anywhere like this.”

Two weeks later, Aoi came up to Kanae,

“Hey, Kanae. Something’s wrong with the baby. Would you check it for me?” Aoi said.

“Sure thing. Hmm. Your baby is breech. Lay down on the table. Darby! I need your help here.”

“What’s going on? Why is Aoi laying down?” Darby asked.

“Aoi’s baby hasn’t turned. She’s in a breech position. Help me fix it,” Kanae said.

“M-me! Why?” Darby asked, nervously.

“It’s easier and safer with two. Now come on. I’m going to expand the fluid to make more room for turning. I want you to use inner vision to find the cord, and slowly, and gently, turn the baby so she is head down and face towards Aoi’s back without making the cord wrap around the baby. Have you got that?” Kanae said.

“O-ok. Why? Why are we doing this? Should we be messing with her baby like this?”

“Yes, we should definitely be messing with this baby. There is a very high risk of death for Aoi and the baby if she stays in this position. The position we are moving her to is the safest and most comfortable position for birth. It is the most natural and common position before birth. As a healer you should have learned all this. You weren’t paying attention in class were you?”

“It all seemed so personal, and embarrassing. I felt creepy watching and listening to it,” Darby said.

“Boys. And Men,” Aoi said.

“Go back and learn it. You’re a professional now. You’re going to have a lot of pregnant ladies to deal with very shortly. But for now just follow my instructions,” Kanae said.

“Ok. I can do this,” Darby said.

Carefully Kanae expanded Aoi’s sac to ease the necessary turning. Then slowly Darby turned Aoi’s baby girl,

“How’s this? Does this seem right?” Darby asked.

“Wonderful, see? I knew you could do it!” Kanae said slapping Darby on the back.

The weeks passed and Darby and Kanae kept an eye on Aoi’s baby to make sure she didn’t turn back around. Then the births happened, all over the city and Darby had a few patients who needed the same procedure. A week later they had the Harvest Festival.

“Now, I want to check out our clue on the Royal Family before Samhain arrives,” Kanae said.

So Kanae, Darby, and Eoghan put together search, and potentially rescue, party and took an airship with two squads of dragon knights across the wide content to the western reaches of Numeldore, a nation which was a prime supplier of mined metals, ores, and chrystals to the nations.

(Kanae)

We arrived at the last estate city, Delvenmarch, even though the Royal family was last known to have visited Hollowreach and the Axios mine. The family had disappeared more than a hundred and fifty years ago, so there was no point in questioning people. Any records that survived would probably be in Delvenmarch. So we needed to research, first. We might visit Hollowreach and Axios, later.

Delvenmarch was home the Marquise Narcyssa Its golden walls climbed up along the lower reaches of the Axsian Mountains. The city-fortress walls were ingeniously infused with gold dust and mithril that gave the wall the semblance of being built of pure gold. The palace however had real gold foil fused on to the stonework. The city shone like an enormous pile of treasure, and Narcyssa was very meticulous that no part of the city looked less than opulent. We parked the airship on the southern side of the walled city, far enough away from the city walls, to avoid being seen as a threat. We rode a carriage up to the southern gate, and were about to introduce ourselves, when the captain of the guard strode forward and knelt,

“Salutations to Saintess Kanae Dreamweaver Regent of the Dark Elves the Thrice Blessed of the Goddess. Marquise Narcyssa would be greatly honored and humbly invites you to visit her home for refreshment and sleep.”

“Well, I guess we are expected. Please rise Captain. We are delighted to accept the Marquise’s kind and thoughtful invitation,” I said.

We were escorted to the court of Marquise Narcyssa,

“Oh, Frack. I’m going to have to play the part of a Queen Regent. The Marquise is greeting me with her Steward at carriage porch. Oh, her family and staff are going to be inside waiting. I bet she’s going to showcase some potential spouses for Deirdre and me.”

We stopped under the porch, and I was offered a hand down. The Marquise was in a curtsy.

“Please rise, Marquise Narcyssa. Salutations, it is such a pleasure to be here, and what a magnificent estate you have. It is as if the daystar itself has come down from the Heavens to grace us.”

This text was taken from a NovelPhoenix posting without consent; the author's chapter there is where reading supports its creator.

Narcyssa rose from her curtsy, and caught what she was meant to miss. At the word Heavens, my smile tightened for half a heartbeat, bracing for what came next.

It came anyway. Narcyssa had heard the proclamation like everyone else in the realm: Kanae, newly named Saintess of all Eå, the title carried from pulpit to pulpit faster than any of our denial could follow it. A foolish host would have seized on it. Narcyssa let it pass.

“Your Majesty is far too kind,” Narcyssa said. “If any light has come to my house, it is only because Your Majesty carried it through the door. Please, come and let me show you to our Presence Chamber, where you and your party can rest from your long journey.”

She introduced her to her Steward and Chamberlain, and offering her hand escorted us through the Great Hall of her estate, where she had what nobles were in the city could show use courtesy, and then formally received in her Presence Chamber seating me in the position of honor, and she sat to my left after I sat down myself.

The Presence Chamber was lined in gold, as gold as coinage, thoroughly ostentatious. Gilt ran up the pillars and across the tiled ceiling. Veins of gold ran through the white marble tiled floor. Every surface that could catch the many paned window light reflected and threw it out at us on the dais.

Marquise Narcyssa smiled as if the glow being cast upon us had been entirely hers.

“Saintess Queen Regent,” she said, in a voice as warm as honey over a chilled panna cotta. “You honor my poor mountain estate.”

“Please, just Kanae,” I said, shivering internally at the title. Beside me Eoghan shifted in his chair. Tiberion stood to Eoghan’s right with the natural stillness of Elvenkind, failing considerably to not look restless. Darby was standing at the foot of the dais on my right, habitually scanning the chamber for the best exit points.

“Kanae, then,” Narcyssa said slightly uncomfortably. “And you have come to research in my archives, I’m told? To read dusty ledgers, and old records, and histories. The Saintess of all Eå, crossing the continent to read.”

“My newly gained position, as Regent, has prompted me to compose a ballad to honor the Lost Clan,” I said. It wasn’t a lie. It simply wasn’t my true goal. “Numeldore was among the places visited by the royal family in their last journey. I hope to gather all that I can of that journey to make as full an accounting of their last journey. I know I will never catch it all.”

“Then I am delighted to be of use.” The Marquise’s eyes had not stopped working since we arrived. They were calculating and counting things. I had the uncomfortable feeling of being gathered and priced.

She lifted two fingers. A herald stepped out from the pillars. They came in a neat procession. I thought it was rather impressive how little effort had been made to hide it.

“Lord Augerian Mac Valan,” the herald said, "Master Assayer of the March Vaults." He was tall, pale, ink-stained, and he bowed like a man who’d rehearsed it in a mirror. “Lady Isolde Ní Cara, heiress to the Tristan’s Crevice crystal grants.” She had a sharp face and the faintest smile. “Sir Pern Mac Dessina, captain of the Marquise’s Deep Guard.” He was broad as a door and obviously miserable about it.

“My lord Augerian reads the three ancient languages,” Narcyssa whispered. “Lady Isolde has no use for any of them, but she is a marvelous asset at table. Sir Pern has never ending stamina. Consider them all at your convenience.”

She’s offering me consorts, I almost laughed. I already have two husbands, a throne’s worth of regency, and a hungry bond. I have some count less than seven to fill with dark elves! I have no room for more. I could feel Tiberion’s jaw tighten over the bond, and Narcyssa noticed it, and filed that away too.

“You are too generous,” Kanae said. “I’m afraid my hands are full.”

“Hands may be filled and still have room for more.” Narcyssa’s smile did not waver. “And your companion, sir Darby? His dear wife has not accompanied you, I understand. A man should not drink alone.”

The final herald’s call came with the soft rustle of silk and fragrance of gardenias.

“Lady Vespa, daughter of the Most Honorable Marquise Narcyssa.”

She was dark-haired and young, but surely past the normal age of marriage. She crossed straight to Darby and held out a shallow and wide chased-silver two handled cup in both hands.

“It’s the custom here,” Vespa said lightly. “A guest is given the Kuaitch Cup, so that we may know one another. Hold one handle and have a sip, sir, and a word of acceptance of our desire to know each other better.”

Darby glanced at me. Being unfamiliar with the custom, I gave a slight nod of accent. A cup of welcome was a cup of welcome.

Darby drank. Vespa then drank and murmured something under her breath, three syllables in perhaps a local dialect, and took the cup back.

I felt it then. It was the faintest wave of mana spreading out from the cup, a thread resonating where no thread had been. I opened my mouth.

“Saintess, you must be famished from travel and ceremony,” Narcyssa went on. “Let me offer something more pleasant. My estate has some fine chefs. Let us repair meet the realm's finest chefs.”

Dinner was served in a dining hall lit by gold infused crystal sconces. Narcyssa seated me at her right hand, Darby at the foot of the table beside Lady Vespa, and her lineup of suitors where they could be most conveniently seen.

There were nine courses, each more sumptuous than the last: a perfect clear meaty broth, glazed mountain book trout, honeyed parsnips, a roast of some beast I decided not to ask about. The two dragonkin squads ate in shifts at a side table. Eoghan, to cover his growing restlessness, was working his way through the cheese course with quiet concentration. Tiberion kept his hand on mine under the table, and the bond humming warm and slightly impatiently between us.

Lord Augerian spent the fish course explaining assay methods and the soup course apologizing for explaining assay methods. Lady Isolde was wonderful company, as promised, and kept laughing at the right moments. Sir Pern said five words all evening and three of them were “pass the salt.” I maintained my smile throughout, and committed to nothing.

At the foot of the table, Darby was open in a way I hadn’t seen him before. He laughed at something Vespa said. His cheeks were flushed, and he kept reaching for his water as if he was parched. I watched the interplay between them, the faint twang of a cord, and said nothing yet. I have no proof. A guest-cup was a guest-cup.

“You’re quiet, Saintess,” Narcyssa said over the sweet course.

“I’m full, Marquise,” Kanae said. “Your chef should be knighted.”

“I shall tell him. He will be insufferable.” The Marquise’s smile was bright, and her eyes were shuttered windows. “You will sleep well tonight. My guest rooms are warded against the mountain’s noise.”

“And against anything else?” Tiberion asked lightly.

“Only the dull things,” said Narcyssa.

My room was the size expected, with a bed hung in gold-thread curtains. I checked the windows, the door, the walls, and found nothing. Tiberion checked them again. Eoghan placed and took a chaise in front of the door, because he insisted. Two of our knights took the hall.

Across the corridor, Darby’s door closed softly. I listened until I heard the bolt slide, then until I heard nothing. It was fine, but I lay awake a long time with the puzzling threads I was sure I sensed at the edge of my mind.

Morning came with a tray of warm bread and a note from the head archivist: The Archives are at your disposal, Saintess.

The Archives of Numeldore were carved, not built. A hall of living rock ran back from the estate, shelf after shelf cut into the mountain itself, each ledger bound in the dark green leather of the Mining Guild and each logbook in dark blue leather.

The head archivist, a worn man named Carl who had seen one too many winters, delivered us to a long table and left us alone with a look that said he had been instructed to.

Eoghan took the north wall, Tiberion the south. I took the histories, Darby the survey maps, and the knights fanned out to guard the doors. For three hours there was only the sound of paper being handled.

“Here,” Tiberion's voice came low and strange. “Kanae.”

He had a map. It was old, hand-inked on skin, a cross-section of the western range. A glyph sat in one corner, and my breath caught. It was the knotwork of a Dark Elf archducal mark. I had seen that pattern from the Loom, in the very vision that had brought me here.

“The last survey,” Tiberion said. “Dated one hundred and forty-one years ago. It’s signed by a royal agent. A Dark Elf royal agent, here, in the human mining queendom.”

“Why?” Eoghan murmured.

I turned the map. A shaft had been drawn, deep and narrow, running beneath a plain that the map called the Hollow Reach. Beside it, in tiny script: Sealed by order of the Crown. The Quiet Seam. Do not open.

Darby was already flipping through the Marquise’s own ledgers. His fingers froze.

“Pages,” he said. “Someone cut them out. Here, here, and here. All from the same year, all from the Narcyssa line's own books.”

“A clumsy effort to cover up a crime,” I murmured. “Someone wanted us to find this cover up, but not the what of it. Or someone panicked a hundred and forty years ago and never quite covered it all.”

“And the Marquise?” Tiberion asked. “Does she know?”

I thought of that smile of hers, and those eyes. “I don't know. That’s what bothers me. I can't tell whether she’s hiding it, or hoping we’ll dig it up for her. Our answers may be found in Hollowreach. It is time to end this quest. Let’s go.”

Hollowreach sat at the edge of the western mountains like the last tooth in a broken and shattered jaw. The mining city climbed the slope in haphazardly made terraces, each lit by the golden glow of chrystal-lamps, and beyond its outer wall, the world seemed to simply have given up.

The plain was a bleak sickened grey. Not barren, but the used up waste of countless ages. Every ore once buried there, and every chrystal that had ever grown there had been dug out, and the ground was cratered and cracked like old bone shards. Past it, a smudge on the horizon, lay the black line of the great forest, where monsters grew to sizes no sane person wanted measured.

The mine chief who met us at the Axios Mine office was a leathery woman named Tressa. She walked us to the edge of a long, narrow, black pit and pointed across the plain.

“The Quiet Seam's out there,” she said. “Everyone knows the name. Nobody goes near. The crews say the ground sings in the voices of the dead when you walk over it.”

“Sings?” I asked.

“Like a held breath.” Tressa scratched her neck. “Funny thing. The singing’s been getting stronger. Last month it rattled my kettle off the shelf. And the forest beasts, they’ve been restless. Dozens of herds, running the treeline, as if something’s stirring them.”

I closed my eyes and reached for the Threads of the Loom. The ground beneath me answered at once. Far under the plain, behind a door that wasn’t there spun from old Dark Elf magic, something was whispered back. It felt like pressure on a held-shut door.

There.Alive. Someone is alive in there.

I opened my eyes in time to see Tiberion go rigid.

“Kanae,” His voice was quiet. “Look at the forest.”

The black line on the horizon was moving.

The horns started a heartbeat later, brass and ragged, rolling off the walls of Hollowreach. The stampede did not come as a charge. It came as a flood, a grey tide of horn and hide and teeth spilling across the plain. There were tusked manticores the size of huts, spined elder treants, things with too many legs, and above them the screaming dark shapes of wyverns.

"Stampede!" Tressa howled. "To the walls!"

I studied the stampede, doing the arithmetic and the analysis. The beasts were not charging the city. They were fleeing something, running the shortest path through the wall of rock between them and the plain.

“Captains, defend the mine gate. Do not let them reach the lower terraces.”

“Yes, Duchess!” The two squad captains answered together. The dragonkin knights moved with well-honed precision, scale and adamantine glowing in the lamplight, two squads fanning into a crescent across the gate.

“I’ll take the left,” Tiberion said, and the bond reverberated with something that was half flashback, half fierce pleasure. “Kanae, I'll be careful.”

“You’d better be. I’ll have no time to babysit reckless ass antics.”

“Tib, go right!” Eoghan was already moving, sword out, a grim half-smile on his face. Darby ran for the gate with a pair magik crossbows.

The first wave hit like an avalanche. Tiberion met a manticore head-on, light magik slicing the beast's legs out from under it. A dragonkin knight caught the next on her lance and heaved it into the crater. Eoghan danced between two treants, laughing, daring them. I cast Eå’s Shield around the walls, and the beasts hit it and broke like surf on a seawall.

“They're not fighting us,” Darby shouted. “They're running through us!”

“I know!” Kanae pushed her ward wider. “Something darker is driving them behind them!”

The ground trembled. The singing, the one Tressa had mentioned, rose from a tremor to a roar. I felt it through though my feet, through my bones, and with a sudden realization I understood what it was.

The stampede isn’t what’s waking it. It’s us. It’s me.

My Dreamweaver blood. The threads of the Loom. A door sealed against Dark Elf Royal, one that can only be broken by the Shieldmaiden to Dark Elf Crown. The Dreamweaver Clan were the Sword and the Shield to Dark Elven Crown! I am the Key!

"Everyone back!" I screamed. "Get away from the plain!"

Too late. Beneath the plain, in the old cratered ground, a single glyph the size of a courtyard ignited with white-silver fire.

“Kanae!” Tiberion’s hand clamped on her wrist. Eoghan was there too, and Darby, and then the knights, pulled in by the light like iron filings. The Seam Cup’s thread twanged, taut and strange, between Darby and a woman who was not there.

The glyph rose around us like a closing hand.

“It’s a trap,” I said. “It’s a trap, and it was waiting for—”

The world folded.

There was no sound, and then there was every sound at once. The roar of the stampede stretched into a long note, and then the note vanished. The grey plain, the horns, the rock walls of Hollowreach all peeled away like paper.

I stood on a floor that was not a floor. A pale, seamless light came from nowhere and cast no shadows. The air tasted of nothing, not cold, not warm, not dust. Eoghan, Tiberion, Darby, and every one of the knights, breathing hard, blinking at a sky that was not a sky.

“Kanae,” Tiberion said, “Where are we?”

“Nowhere,” she whispered. “We are in a Void of magikal creation. Outside of time. Outside of space.”