Gertrude didn’t like being an Innkeeper. It was a job that called for long hours, few thanks and dealing with people who were cranky and sore from a long day’s travel. Oh to be sure, there were the good ones now and then. People who would leave generous tips for the service they received, or who were polite and friendly despite the long haul up to the peak where the Sunblossom Inne sat. Those sorts of people were a joy and a blessing. They made the work lighter and more fulfilling and were always a welcome change of pace from the general grumbling rabble that trekked through the mountain pass..

Then there were those on the opposite end of the spectrum. The ones who you knew were bringing trouble with them from the moment they stepped through the door. After decades of running the Sunblossom, Gertrude had developed a fine sense for distinguishing between the ornery guests and the ones who were actually dangerous. For the latter sort, she had a nice spiky mace and a broad shield ready at hand, artifacts of her misspent and foolish youth.

“My apologies Keeper,” a dwarven woman said as she strode through the door, escorting two human girls in with her.

The dwarf looked to be an ok sort but no one who started a conversation by apologizing ever had anything good to follow it up with. Gertrude was tempted to throw them out just for that. It had started to rain though, one of the chill high mountain drizzles that would send travelers hunkering down into the tents rather than risking pressing forward and being caught in a worse downpour. The prospect of few additional customers weighed in the dwarf’s favor as did the fact that travel had been slow with the winter lingering into spring by a few extra weeks. Gertrude wasn’t overly greedy but any business needs funds to stay alive so the prospect of some extra coin swayed Gertrude’s wallet if not her heart.

“What’s wrong,” Gertrude asked, imagining the next words would have something to do with a lack of funds.

“I need to rent six stalls in your stable,” Venita, the dwarven woman, said. “I’ve got four Wind Steeds and a cargo wagon that’s going to take up two berths, and I need them taken care of before this storm lets loose.”

Gertrude blinked. Wind Steeds were not the sort of beasts her stables played host to. Ever. She wasn’t some high mountain noble lady, or a great hub of commerce. Anyone with Wind Steeds at their disposal didn’t need to stop at an inn like hers.

“That’ll take up most of my stable space,” Gertrude said. “There’ll be a fee.”

“Didn’t expect you’d be running a charity up here,” Venita said. “Got any stable hands on duty?”

“How many rooms are you going to take with them?” Gertrude asked. Most travelers had a single mule for hauling their goods. Hauling teams would come through from time to time but even there they didn’t tend to worry about stabling their beasts. Easier to time them by the forest’s edge and set a guard or two over them for the night. It’s what the guards were there for after all and haul team horses were remarkably unconcerned creatures as horses went. Unless a wolf pack was ranging nearby, a good haul team would sit there happily grazing away. Heck even if some wolves were dropping by for a visit there was hardly any trouble. Gallagrin’s small game animals were abundant enough that wolves made for decent neighbors, and didn’t tend to bother humans or horses, both of which were more trouble for a wolf than any rabbit every could be.

“You got a big family room?” Venita asked. “Preferably someplace I can stash these two where they won’t be off killing each other?”

Something about how Venita said that left Gertrude wondering how literal the dwarf was being. The two girls looked peaceful enough, though one of them had a foreign cast to her features that troubled Gertrude. The more she looked at the three of them the more strangeness she saw. The picture of the three of them together just didn’t add up quite right. None of them looked comfortable enough to be family with each other, and three strangers traveling together had to have a story behind it.

A story that Gertrude wanted no part of. She’d ridden away as a girl to find and be a part of grand stories and come back with her (now long dead) husband to found the Sunblossom after she learned how unpleasant being on the wrong side of a story could be.

“How long are you staying?” she asked. Most travelers only stayed for one night, which in Gertrude’s mind was probably going to be one night too many.

“That’s an excellent question,” Venita said. “How about we say a week and we’ll see if takes longer than that.”

Her Inn was going to burn. Right to the ground. Gertrude was certain of this. It wasn’t magic. Magic wasn’t as reliable as the bone deep certainty with which she could sense the trouble that lay ahead of her. If this group of three seemingly harmless people stayed at the Sunblossom for longer than the next five minutes, a calamity was certain to occur.

The words “we’re full up” were struggling to force themselves out of Gertrude’s lips when Venita pronounced the magic counterspell to ward them off.

“We’ll pay the premium rate for your trouble of course.”

Gertrude tried to spit out a rejection of the offer. What good was a premium rate going to be when the Inn was nothing more than a burnt pile of ash?

“Payment’s due up front.” It was her last defense against the doom that had arrived on her doorstep.

“Do you prefer Crown coins or Telli gold pieces?” Venita asked.

Crown coins? The dwarf was offering crown coins for the rooms? Gertrude wasn’t even sure she’d be able to bring herself to spend them, but that was perfectly fine. Maybe she wouldn’t need an Inn after all.

“Let me get your Steeds stabled,” she said. “They going to need any special care?”

“Yeah, but I can manage that. The big babies are get nippy if they don’t get their proper treats,” Venita said.

“Let’s get that done before I show you the room,” Gertrude said.

“So we’re just going to stay here? With her?” one of the human girls, Yuehne, asked.

“It’s a defensible position,” the other, foreign looking one, Iana, said.

“What’s all this about?” Gertrude asked, disliking any conversation the included the term ‘defensible position’. She’d listened to innumerable soldiers telling drunken war stories. None of them had been narratives that were thrilling to be a part of at the time she was sure.

“Just silly girl talk,” Venita said, casting the kind of death glare at the two girls which told Gertrude that whatever the girls were referring to was from silly.

“No, I see what Yuehne’s saying,” Iana said. “She’s right, our host has the right know what we’re making her a part of. My apologies, I’m used to thinking of support staff as being invisible. It didn’t occur to me that they might target you too.”

Not one word of that reassured Gertrude and the last bit raised every red flag she had. In fact, the back corner of her mind seemed to have taken up frantic stitching to make more red flags for the occasion.

“Might what?” she asked.

Venita sighed and deflated a bit.

“There are some people who might be chasing after us,” she said.

“And you brought them here?” Gertrude asked, not hiding even a degree of her anger.

“Yes,” Iana said. “They shouldn’t be directly interested in disturbing you. We’re their primary target, but if they succeed in eliminating us then they may turn on you as well to remove any potential witnesses.”

“What are you talking about?” Gertrude asked, as much to buy time to process the information as because her mind was vigorously denying what her ears had just heard.

“Assassins,” Iana said. “There’s a group of them trying to kill us, and they may not stop there.”

“Who are you people?” Gertrude asked.

“The more you know the more reason they’ll have to kill you,” Venita said.

“I am Iana Raprimdel, and if strife comes to your house, I believe it will seek me before it troubles you.”

“Not hardly it won’t. Get out of here!” Gertrude said.

“That’s not going to be safe either, is it?” Yuenhe asked.

“I said get out of here!” Gertrude yelled. No amount of gold was worth dealing with trained killers.

“Are you sure you want that?” Venita asked.

“Out!” Gertrude yelled.

“That’s fine, we can do that,” Venita said. “I’m just curious though, when the people following us come here and need to figure out where we went, what are you going to tell them?”

“I’m not going to tell them anything!” Gertrude said.

“And how do you think they’re going to like that?” Venita said.

“Don’t care how much they like it, I’ve got no part of any of this!” Gertrude said.

“You won’t be able to convince them of that,” Iana said. “They’re going to believe that you know something valuable. Or that it’s at least worth torturing you to extract everything you know so they can decide for themselves if it’s valuable or not.”

“Then I’ll tell them right where I saw you go. This isn’t my problem.”

“And what do you think it’s going to take to make them believe you’re telling the truth?” Venita asked.

Gertrude staggered backwards.

“I’ll….I’ll…,” she couldn’t find the words to fit her thoughts, largely because her thoughts were flitting in a thousand different directions at once.

“Let us stay,” Iana said. “We’ll protect you.”

“What if you can’t?” Yuehne asked.

“This is a remote Inn,” Iana said. “I’m sure our host isn’t helpless, she must have to deal with dangerous people often enough.”

“Not like the Shadowfolk though,” Yuehne said.

“True, but she’s not unfamiliar with risk,” Iana said.

“Risk sure, but I know a bad risk when I see one,” Gertrude said. “It’s why I’m still around after all these years, and you are a bad risk.”

“We are,” Iana said. “But we’re also the best option you have at the moment.”

“Best option I have is to pretend I never saw you,” Gertrude said.

“They’ll know we were here,” Yuehne said. “We think they can track where I go.”

“And when they get here, and we’re gone, and you say that you never saw us, what they’re going to hear is ‘I will protect their destination with my life’, and then they’ll try to put that claim to the test,” Venita said.

“I’m not running away from my home,” Gertrude said.

“You don’t have to,” Iana said. “If they’re not here in a week, then we’ll need to move on and start hunting them instead.”

“Why can’t you just do that now?” Gertrude asked.

“If I’m going to hunt those out for my blood then there are rituals I must perform,” Iana said. “Things I learned in the Green Council.”

“Can’t you perform them someplace else?” Gertrude asked.

“Not safely,” Iana said.

“Well what about my safety?” Gertrude asked.

“I was speaking of your safety. The preparation rituals will make it much harder for the Shadowfolk to launch their assault here. If I fortify some other area they will turn to your inn as a base of operations.”

“I won’t let them stay here any more than I will you,” Gertrude said.

“They won’t need your authorization to setup a camp if you’re dead,” Iana said.

“This isn’t fair,” Gertrude said.

“I know, it’s wonderful isn’t it?” Venita said.

“Wonderful?” Gertrude asked, her face screwing up into a wrinkled mass of rejection of the idea.

“You’ve got an occasion you can rise to here,” Venita said. “Come on, you can’t really be surprised misfortune showed up at your door can you? Trouble and turmoil is all the Sleeping Gods left us. Instead of moaning on though, you’ve got a chance to do something about it. You’re even getting a chance to prepare for it. Do you know how rare and precious that is?”

Gendaw didn’t believe in complicating things. He was who he was, and the world was what it was. He could no more change that he was one of the Shadowfolk than the Blessed Realms could become bastions of kindness and sunshine and fluffy bunnies for everyone.

It wasn’t like being one of the Shadowfolk was so bad either. His brothers and sisters (all of the Shadowfolk were his siblings) weren’t always easy to get along with, but they shared the same blood as he did and when worse came to worse, they were always there for each other.

Sometimes that was simple; making a space at mealtime for a family member who was down on their luck, or helping a young hunter corner their first kill. Other times it was harder and more painful. Gendaw wasn’t a fan of assassinations but ultimately there were two sorts of people in the world, those you lifted up and those you put down. Being Shadowfolk meant it was easy to identify who belonged in which category.

For as much as he believed in the Shadowfolks’ methods and dogma though, he still had to question the wisdom of pursuing their traditions of vengeance when the world had been ready to forget that they’d ever existed.

“It’s because we will be forgotten that we must pursue our vengeance,” his father had explained. “The world wants to place us in the past. Odd savages. Failures in the divine process. Then nothing more than myths. Lies told by older children to the younger ones.”

“How does vengeance prevent that  from happening?” Gendaw had asked. He’d never been drawn to the scholars’ arts, so he felt out of his depth when the conversation turned to anything philosophical.

“Tragedies live on far past those who suffer them,” his father said, “If we are to be a tragedy, then so long as we not alone in our suffering, we will not be forgotten.”

Gendaw didn’t see how that was a worthwhile end to pursue. Living seemed like a much better idea than being dead, hated and remembered, but he wasn’t a leader and no one was asking for his opinion on the matter.

In theory he should have been able to turn to his mentor to help him navigate the complexities of the Shadowfolk’s operational command structure. That was Wynni’s job – to teach him the ins and outs of fulfilling his chosen role in their society and prevent him from becoming a Wanderer.

In the face of an impending species-wide catastrophe, he suspected she should be making herself more available to him, but when she dove into the shadows, she hadn’t seemed to be of a mind to offer explanations or instructions. She hadn’t seemed to be in any sort of mind at all in fact.

A part of Gendaw was tempted to pursue her. Even if everything else fell apart, Wynni was a survivor. She’d proven that countless times. If there was a safe spot to be found when the sunlight races came looking for them, Gendaw suspected it would lie right behind his mentor.

He didn’t move to chase her though. He wasn’t a brilliant student. He barely paid attention to his instructors on the best days. The one thing he had absorbed though was that you never – not ever – traveled into the Shadow Worlds without observing them first.

The Shadow Worlds were his people’s lands. The gods hadn’t made them with the Shadowfolk in mind, but they hadn’t noticed or objected when the Shadowfolk claimed them either. The problem was that the Shadowfolk weren’t the only ones who traveled the worlds that were sunk in the darkness below the Blessed Realms.

Other creatures moved through the Shadow Worlds. Older creatures. More alien beings. Things that the gods had banished from the realms and things that had never been a part of any of the gods’ creations.

The sunlight races were cruel and terrible. They slaughtered the Shadowfolk for the weakest of reasons, but despite that they were still formed from the same dust as the Gendaw’s people. There were things in the dark worlds that were composed of weaponized malice and things whose very existence was inimical to those born of a world that had ever been touched by sunlight.

Hopping across the Shadows without looking where you were going first had killed more Shadowfolk than all of the purges combined (though the latter did tend to cause Shadowfolk to risk the former).

Gendaw stayed where he was therefor. Poor student or not, he was capable of applying the lessons he’d been taught when the situation obviously warranted caution.

For his caution, he was rewarded.

Wynni returned.

And she was smiling.

In Gendaw’s experience that wasn’t so much a bad sign as confirmation of the apocalypse. Wynni hadn’t been happy when she left. And she’d been right not to be happy. She didn’t smile much under the best of circumstances and their situation was so far from okay that Gendaw could only guess that Wynni had given into the madness that engulfed them and looped around back to ecstatic.

“Gendaw,” she said, her eyes focusing on him from some far off point that they’d been peering into. “We’ve got work to do.”

“Who will we be killing?” he asked. They had to be about to murder a whole lot of people. Nothing else, in Gendaw’s experience, would put such delight into Wynni’s eyes.

“Probably everyone,” Wynni said, her gaze taking on the far distance quality again.

“Oh, but that’s the best part, isn’t it?” she said, clearly not addressing Gendaw anymore. “Win or lose, everyone dies. It’s so terribly beautiful.”

“We have a very different definition of beauty,” Gendaw said, but he might as well have been speaking to the stone columns in the secluded alcove they were in.

Outside of their immediate area, traffic passed in the noble’s air platform. The cargo retrieval area a place that people wanted to be in and out of as fast as possible, especially since any cargo worthy of shipping by sky carriage inevitably came with a time sensitive delivery requirement. That bought Gendaw and Wynni a large degree of anonymity. Even when someone noticed they were there, it was only in the context of making sure Gendaw wasn’t going to haul a crate into the transport lane and obstruct their progress, or worse, ask for their help with something.

Gendaw suspected that disinterest would evaporate the moment the scurrying people started turning into less mobile corpses. Most of the sunlit people around them weren’t trained combatants, but that was what made his people monsters. They would attack whether their targets could fight back or not. It was the part of his chosen role that Gendaw most questioned.

To him, attacking the helpless proved that his people were pathetic and that the gods had been right to cast them out, but if the elders insisted that doing so was how the Shadowfolk had to operate then how could Gendaw say otherwise?

“We’re going to have to start here, but we’ll need to fast,” Wynni said, talking to the gods alone only knew who. “Yes, I am aware it would be easier if we had an army of pixies, but we don’t have one of those now do we?”

“No, we do not,” Gendaw said, a strange urge swirling in his heart.

“How recently have you checked the Tempest Compass for messages from our superiors?” Wynni asked without refocusing her gaze. It took Gendaw a handful of seconds to figure out that she was talking to him again.

“I checked it half an hour ago,” he said. “And we’re not due for another check in for ninety minutes.”

“Good, ninety minutes gives us a great headstart,” Wynni said.

“A great headstart on who?” Gendaw asked.

“Everyone,” Wynni said.

“Would this be the same everyone who’s going to die?” Gendaw asked.

“No, this is everyone everyone,” Wynni said. “We’re going to have everyone out to get us when we do this.”

The urge to speak swirled in Gendaw faster and faster until it the word burst from his lips with a force he couldn’t resist.

“No.”

That single syllable hit Wynni enough force that her gaze snapped back from the distant shore it was looking towards. With a fresh clarity and presence in her eyes, she tilted her head and regarded Gendaw as though he was the one who’d lost the last trace of his sanity.

From where the train of his thoughts was heading, he wasn’t sure she was entirely wrong about that.

“No what?” she asked.

“We’re not going to continue with the plan, pixie army or no,” Gendaw said. “We’ve gone too far already. It stops here.”

Wynni’s expression, which had descended into confused searching brightened into a new smile. Gendaw shivered. He’d seen predators wearing that exact look when they saw their prey make a fatal mistake.

“And you’re going to be the one to stop this? All of it? The work of our whole race?” Wynni asked. “Can you do that? Can you stop any of it? Can you stop me?”

There was no safe answer to her questions, especially not the last one.

“Probably not,” Gendaw said. “Doesn’t mean I’m not going to try though.”

“You’d fight me?” Wynni asked. “Fight me for something that matters?”

Shadowfolk fought fairly often, not as much as dwarves were famed to, and more than elves were rumored to. Those fights weren’t about things that truly mattered though. The only things that truly mattered in Shadowfolk society were things that affected the continued existence of the society as a whole. Any other fight would be settled when one side tapped out or an arbitrary victory condition like ‘First Blood’ was met. Fights over an issue that mattered weren’t settled though, they were ended, as were the lives of any number people who chose the wrong side.

“This matters,” Gendaw said. “These deaths are wrong. I’ll do more than fight you. I’ll protect them.”

Wynni’s smile broadened into something the shaded into beautiful and she laughed.

“Protect them? These are sunlighters. Why in all the dark realms would you protect them?” Wynni asked.

“I don’t know,” Gendaw said. He wasn’t good with words, if he tried to argue with Wynni he’d lose. She’d twist him up in words and he’d stumble over all the ideas that were crowding in his head. Despite that, talking was still his best option. If he tried to cross blades with Wynni, she would gut him from throat to groin. He’d seen her do it and Gendaw had no illusions concerning their relative levels of skill. “We’re not supposed to be monsters.”

“And what are we supposed to be then?” Wynni asked. Gendaw was grateful she hadn’t filleted him yet, but each word he spoke felt like a step close to that ultimate fate.

“People,” he said. “We’re people, like them.”

“But we’re not like them.”

“It doesn’t matter. They’re not like each other either.”

“But the elders say we’re supposed to be monsters? Are they wrong?”

Wynni’s earlier questions were dangerous for how she would react to Gendaw’s answers. Questioning the elders though? That was dangerous on a far broader level. That was the path of the Wanderers, the Shadowfolk who renounced their lineage and left to travel on their own. Few, if any, of those blasphemers survived their wandering for any length of time. They were anathema to everyone, and plenty of the Shadowfolks’ enemies paid no attention to the distinction between those within and those outside of the machinery of the Shadowfolk society. Speaking against the elders meant losing all place in the world, all ties to family and friends, all means of support. It was death, long and excruciating and alone.

“Yes!” Gendaw felt a surge of conviction galvanize his spine with steel he’d never suspect lay within him. He was no hero, he wasn’t going to accomplish anything by taking the stand that he’d chosen, but he had to take it anyways. He couldn’t rush headlong into annihilation along with everyone he’d ever known and loved.

Going along with elders plan of murder and deceit would destroy his world. His strength might not save the world but spending his power to buy even the smallest chance of survival was a much better use for the remainder of his life than anything else he could imagine doing.

“By the Sleeping Gods, how did this idiot figure it out and I needed you to show up?” Wynni asked, again speaking to thin air.

“Yes, thank you, I am aware I am idiot too,” she said.

“Before you kill me, can I ask who you’re talking to?” Gendaw said.

Wynni looked at him, once again confused.

“Kill you? Oh, no, I wasn’t talking about killing you,” she said. “We’re not going to be killing anyone.”

“But you said, everyone’s going to die?” Gendaw asked.

“Yeah, listen, you know how Silian is a myth? Just made up to comfort little kids?” Wynni asked.

“But he’s not, he was real,” Gendaw said.

“Yes, well, it turns out you’re right,” Wynni said. “The jackass is in fact real, and he’s here, and he has a plan that is only terrible beyond words.”

“And that’s a good thing?”

“With complete annihilation as the alternative?” Wynni asked. “Yeah, I’ll take a terrible plan that might actually work instead of that.”

“So are we working against the elders now?” Gendaw asked.

“Strangely no,” Wynni said. “I mean, we’re probably going to overthrow them, and destroy the foundations of our society, but if they didn’t want us to do that then they should have built a better society for us in the first place.”

Wynni wasn’t a good person. She knew that. She accepted it. None of her race were good. That was what everyone said, and it made things so much easier. Her choices were so much clearer when she only had to think about herself.

Once she’d believed that she could be different from the monster that the other races mistook her for. Then she’d seen the kind of cruelty the other races were capable of, and the kind of horrors she was willing to perform in response.

She was as much as person as any human, elf, or dwarf. She was crafted with a mindful nature by the same gods that formed the rest of the inhabitants of Gallagrin. Better crafted in fact, and that was her downfall. They’d made her a monster in the strength they’d given her, and the other Mindful Races had made her a monster in how they’d treated her from the day she was born.

Even before the Divine Nightfall, when the gods passed from the world, the Shadowfolk were a race of forgotten children. Wynni didn’t know what the Shadowfolk had been like then, except that even from the very beginning they’d hidden away in dark corners and the tatters of lost shadows.

There were worlds, half built and tossed aside that lay in the darkness below the Blessed Realms. The gods had no further use for these unfinished worlds, so the Shadowfolk claimed them as their birthright. Each was a dangerous, beautiful puzzle that someone could spend their lifetime chipping away at, which made for a decent description of the Shadowfolk themselves.

“The Arrivals log doesn’t show them checking in any time today,” Gendaw said, stepping from the shadows to stand casually at Wynni’s side. There was nothing about being invisible that prevented speech, but people paid much less attention to a random woman speaking quietly to a random man, than they did to that same woman speaking to empty air and the air answering her back.

Wynni frowned.

“We know the the princess and the assassin fled from the giant’s home. Find out if the wagon they were on had any other destinations, even ones further out,” she said.

“Yes, sister,” Gendaw said and vanished.

Tracking the princess was like following a fish through a blind dark cave. You could make guesses where the streams would take her but nothing was ever certain.

“We should pull out of this,” Wynni said, speaking only to herself.

The entire conspiracy had classic touches of the worst failures of the Shadowfolk’s plans from ages past. Setup the various nobles of Gallagrin to look like they were part of conspiracy again the realm’s newly beloved princess. Use guile and misdirection to stoke mistrust and when the queen was ready to move against her own people, kill the princess and frame the best connected noble family in the realm. Iana’s death would guarantee that the backlash would be immense and unmitigated, which was exactly what was needed to bring down a realm.

As plans went, it was terrible. It relied on predicting Gallagrin’s least predictable queen, and had no contingencies worked out for the sort of things an enraged monarch might be capable of, not to mention how the world’s first Sorceress factored into the mix.

True to form though, Wynni’s comrades had managed to make an even bigger mess of the plan that it could possibly have been on its own.

At no point in their scheming had any of the Shadowfolk leaders authorized direct, personal involvement in the mission. The very last thing that they could afford was for the Gallagrin Queen discover the fact that the Shadowfolk continued to exist after her father’s efforts to annihilate them. That fact had been stressed and stressed and made crystal clear to everyone even remotely related to the mission.

And then Miaza and Shippo had blundered into the Faen’s lair and been discovered by the chief Faen in front of the princess and her guardians.

Shippo was never going to speak again, thanks to the damage the Faen had done to his throat. That was lucky for him because, if he ever mouthed a word of what he’d done in her presence, Wynni was certain she would end the idiot’s life on the spot.

Miaza was no less guilty but since she was still missing in the Deep Shadow Worlds, Wynni felt only the customary concern for her return that was reserved for those who fell so far away from the sunlight.

Thanks to Miaza and Shippo’s failure, Wynni and her squire Gendaw were stuck with tracking the princess. And all of the Shadowfolk were back to fighting the Faen. Because the only thing better than earning the wrath of the most powerful person in the realm was fighting a race of hyper-perceptive, hyper-fast predators who believed in avenging the death of their own by inflicting ten times the casualties on their enemies.

Wynni couldn’t fault the Faen for that philosophy. The Shadowfolk neither forgot nor forgave. Not easily. Not ever. They’d tried, but it never worked out. An enemy of yesterday would be a friend today for just as long as it took you to turn your back. Then there would be no tomorrows for you.

“The shipping manifest from the sky giant’s aerie showed that all the cargo on the wagon was bound for a single destination,” Gendaw said as he returned to Wynni’s side.

Gendaw gripped the copy of the manifest page he’d secured as though it would shield him from the calamity their mission had become.

A year. A whole year of work, and all of it wasted because two idiots had moved in too close to the target.

Gendaw flinched back from the rage that burned in Wynni’s eyes, even though he’d done nothing to deserve her wrath.

“Maybe the wagon crashed between here and there?” Gendaw suggested.

It was possible. Traveling the shadows often allowed a faster transit between two points, but at the cost of missing the details of the spaces inbetween. If the cargo wagon had crashed they would have to search the whole route it flew over to locate the princesses’ remains. Worse, they would need to do so before anyone else, otherwise they’d never be able to tell if the crash site was staged or not.

“They didn’t crash,” Wynni said. “Or if they did, it doesn’t matter.”

“It doesn’t matter if our target is already dead?” Gendaw asked.

“If this mission were still salvageable?” Wynni asked. “Then yes it would matter. But it’s not. Whether the princess has managed to splatter herself across a mountainside isn’t going to make any difference in what happens to us.”

“If we could find the remains though, we could still plant the right evidence couldn’t we? Throw the blame on someone else. Or anyone else?” Gendaw asked.

“No! There is no ‘right evidence’ anymore! They know we’re part of this. They’re going to hunt us no matter what happens! That’s what they do!” Wynni wanted to stab someone. Princesses would work but her fellow Shadowfolk seemed to be more productive targets.

She’d come so close to dying so many times during the Butcher King’s reign. With the civil war, the pressure to annihilate her people had evaporated. Gallagrin’s sunlight dwelling killers had been too focused on slaughtering each other to bother pursuing the vastly diminished Shadowfolk bogeymen that haunted their nights.

In the years of the new queen’s reign Wynni had almost allowed herself to believe that her people had been forgotten. When the Deep Walkers, the leaders of the Shadowfolk, had spoken of enacting their revenge, Wynni had seen the peril right away, but tradition demanded blood for blood and there had been so much blood spilled during the Butcher King’s reign. She couldn’t hear the cries of the ghosts of her people like some other Shadowfolk could but there wasn’t a night that passed in which her dreams weren’t sufficient to shock her awake with horrors dredged from the memories she could never run far enough away from.

“What are we supposed to do then?” Gendaw asked.

“We supposed to complete the mission or die,” Wynni said.

It was Gendaw’s turn to frown.

“This is idiotic,” he said. “We’re not talking about dying bravely. We’re talking about going back to the Great Bleeding.”

Wynni couldn’t deny that. The Great Bleeding was her life. From the day when the Butcher King had began an undeclared war on her people, the shadows had run red, and Wynni’s life had been bathed in horror. It had only been foolish cowardice that allowed her to believe that time had passed.

“We never left it,” she said.

“We haven’t lost a single brother or sister in nine years,” Gendaw said. “Even Miaza and Shippo aren’t dead. If we can’t make this plan work, then we have to stop it!”

“It’s too damn late. They know we weren’t destroyed, even if they can’t work out the details of our scheme, they’ll come for us anyways.”

“They can’t reach us in the Shadow Worlds,” Gendaw said.

“They don’t have to! All they have to do is wait us out.”

“Not if we’re clever,” Gendaw said. “Silian the Silent escaped the God’s Purge by hiding in and out of the Shadow Worlds.”

“Silian’s a myth! He’s a fairy tale made up to comfort little children and make idiot adults feel braver than they should.”

“Then how did we survive the purge? How did we live if even the gods turned against us?” Gendaw was more of a religious faithful than Wynni had ever found herself able to be. She felt disgusted at tearing his illusions apart, but that just piled onto the disgust she felt for her situation, her leaders and herself.

“There was no purge! Think about it! Silian was the only one clever enough to dodge between the Shadow Worlds and the Blessed Realms? Only he was able to escape both the gods’ attention and the Stalkers in the Deep Shadows? Then where do we come from? Did he split in half? If only one of us survived then the rest of us wouldn’t exist!”

Wynni felt like her world was tearing apart. Her words were blasphemy but she far past caring. She saw the astonishment in Gendaw’s eyes turning to pain and for one malicious second she was glad. She was supposed to standfast with her people, but they were the ones who’d led her to her doom. Maybe having their illusions torn away was what they deserved. Or maybe they deserved even worse. What Wynni couldn’t see was why she deserved any of the misery that bracketed her life.

“If I was clever enough to outwit the gods why wouldn’t I be clever enough to outwit extinction too?”

No one could sneak up on the Shadowfolk.

They could feel the vibrations in the shadows.

They could hear the whispers of malice in the calmest of hearts.

Wynni had been taught these things and had lived them.

She knew that no one was perfectly observant. She knew that she had blind spots. She knew that she could be surprised.

But no one could get so close that she felt the breath of their whisper caress her ear.

Her reaction was as instantaneous as it was ineffective.

Without thought, and without hesitation she drew her blade and buried it in the chest of the man standing beside her. Her strike was invisible not because of any shadow manipulation but because no natural eye could follow something that moved that quickly.

Except, her target was anything but natural.

Where his chest should have been there was nothing but air.

“Death is also somewhat overrated,” Silian said, whispering into her other ear.

Gendaw’s expression had shifted from anger and worry to a distinctly pale shade of panic.

“What are you doing?” he asked as he stepped away to be outside the striking range of her blade.

“Shutup. Listen for a heart,” Wynni said. The command was useless for her because the thunder in her chest drowned out all other noises.

“For what it’s worth, you’re not wrong, and that’s a hell of a backswing you’ve got there,” Silian said, his voice never rising above a barely audible whisper.

“Did you hear that?” Wynni willed her heart to still but it refused to beat a single stroke less fiercely.

“Hear what?” Gendaw asked.

“I’m sure he has other gifts,” Silian said. “Don’t judge him too harshly.”

The mild amusement in his voice was beyond infuriating and Wynni dove into the shadows, intent on slicing the smug smile he must be wearing off his face.

“You won’t find me here,” Silian said, again from behind her. Always behind her, no matter how she spun and slashed.

“Who are you? What do you want?” She spat her words out in a growl.

“You know who I am,” Silian said. “And as to what I want? I want you Wynni Trimurgus,” Silian said.

“Why?” Wynni asked, her body rigid with rage.

“Why to save my people of course,” Silian said.

Venita considered strangling the sky giant assigned to inspect her sky carriage. It was true that, as a dwarf, she could barely reach his knees much less mount an assault on his neck, but dwarves were renowned for cutting mountains down to size and as she waited for clearance to leave Taughaum, various scenarios for cutting down the walking mountain in front of her played out in Venita’s mind.

“Well, if it’s not extra weight under your girdle, then you’ve pulled a bum load,” the sky giant flight officer said. “Sixty shells worth of haul weight over the manifest.”

“It’s fine,” Venita said. “Shippers always underbid the packaging. Just clear it and let me make it up on flight time.”

“Sure your steeds can handle it?”

It wasn’t a serious question. If there was a real doubt, neither of them would be talking about it. Venita would refuse the shipment and the officer would refuse a clearance for it until the discrepancy was accounted for.

Instead, in the long tradition of sentients everywhere, the officer was hassling her because it alleviated some of the boredom that came with his job. Venita was used to it, but she had never developed a fondness for banter. If she had her druthers, people would just shut up once in awhile. Maybe long enough to rub two thoughts together. That would be wonderful. Like a slice of heaven.

Rather than answering the officer’s question she settled on glaring at him.

Minutes later she was in the air, clearance papers tucked in her pack and her Wind Steeds easily forging ahead despite the extra sixty shells of weight in the wagon.

“Like the extra weight even matters,” Venita said, griping to the Wind Steeds since no one else was around to hear. “You girls could handle ten times that without breaking a sweat couldn’t you?”

“I’m glad that’s the case,” Iana said, emerging from one of the bags that Venita had assumed contained some of the Deep Mushrooms that the Sky Giants traded in.

Venita had her blade’s point resting against Iana’s sternum before the girl had finished standing up.

“If there’s anyone back there with you, they should stand up slowly or I’ll be forced to end you quickly and then deal with them,” Venita said.

“That’s going to be a problem,” Iana said.

“No, it’s not!” Yuehne said, leaping to her feet.

Venita’s next thought was that the world had suddenly flipped upside down and that someone was choking in a rather painful manner.

Also her blade was missing.

That seemed odd.

And she was sitting on a Wind Steed.

Or laying on one.

Bit by bit, she pieced together what had probably happened.

She had the first girl who popped up dead to rights. Then a second girl popped up. Venita was a practical woman but not a hardened killer, or even a well practiced combatant. She had no qualms about the idea of killing people who tried to hijack her, but actually striking a lethal blow on the spur of a moment was more challenging than she’d imagined it would be.

Also the first girl, Iana, was inhumanly fast. The other girl, Yuehne, the one who was choking and coughing out in the back of the wagon seemed to fall into the category of ‘too slow’ to avoid whatever Iana had done to her as well.

With the world beginning to make sense once again, Venita flipped herself back up to her feet. She’d lost her blade. That was bad. She was off the sky wagon and so only weakly affected by its enchantments. That was worse. And the girl who’d taken control everything was starting to look familiar.

Venita didn’t move in high political circles, but she listened to gossip like every other driver she knew.

The girl who was staring at her was clearly from the Green Council. But she’d spoken in a decent enough version of Gallagrin’s native tongue. More importantly though, her clothes were nice. Much too nice for a sky pirate. For one thing, sky pirates didn’t tend to wear enchanted tunics with the royal seal of Gallagrin sewn into the hem.

“I’m being hijacked by a princess,” Venita said.

“No, I’m not here at all,” Iana said. “Neither of us are.”

“Didn’t think I had that much Giant Brandy?” Venita said. “Though to be fair, those are seriously oversized glasses they pour.”

“Yes, that’s definitely what’s happening here,” Iana said. “One too many drinks and maybe a package fell overboard, say sixty shells worth of package to be precise, and right before you landed.”

“So, since I appear to be talking to myself here, why would a package need to fall off before we land. I’ll need to explain something about how precarious it was,” Venita said.

Iana offered her back her blade and helped Yuehne to her feet.

“You punched me in the throat?” Yuehne said.

“No. I hit you with the sword pommel. Less damage to my hand if I missed,” Iana said.

“Why not the blade?” Yuehne asked.

“Don’t want you dead, but you were in too good a position to throw me off the wagon,” Iana said.

“And I’m not now?” Yuehne said.

“Best case I’d break your leg,” Iana said. “Worst case I’d break your leg and our driver would stab you.”

“For hallucinatory sky pirates, you two are an unusual pair,” Venita said.

“We’re not here to steal your wagon or your cargo,” Iana said. “We’re stowaways, not thieves.”

“Not thieves, but killers?” Venita said. “You move like one, and she’s got a look in her eyes that says she envies you.”

“She wants to kill me,” Iana said. “I’m working on that. Unfortunately there is another group of people who want me dead too, and they’re the type who like to be thorough, which is why no one can know that we traveled with you.”

“Seems to me like the next thing you’re going to ask is that I take you to back to Highcrest where you’ll be safe,” Venita said.

“No, we need to get as far away from Highcrest as we can,” Iana said.

“Now I know I’m hallucinating,” Venita said. “Last I heard, the Queen beat a god. I’m thinking you’re going to be safer with her than you would anywhere else.”

“I’m not running to safety,” Iana said. “I’m hunting the people who are behind a year’s worth of assassination attempts.”

“By giving them easy access to you?” Venita asked.

“Yes,” Iana said. “In very specific circumstances, and on a field of my choosing.”

“Still seems like a great plan for getting yourself killed,” Venita said. “At least they won’t be able to follow you to where we’re going though.”

“I’m reasonably sure they can follow us wherever she is,” Iana said, indicating Yuehne.

“And dropping her off first isn’t an option why exactly?” Venita asked.

Iana looked over at Yuehne directly, locking gazes with the girl.

“They’ll kill her.”

“You don’t know that,” Yuehne said.

“I don’t, but it’s what I would do and so far the people supporting you have behaved pretty close to how I’ve expected them to.”

“Why would they kill me?” Yuehne asked. “I’m not that important.”

“Not that smart, I would believe. ‘Not that important’ though is provably false,” Iana said. “Even if they expected you to fail, they trusted you with a difficult mission.”

“That makes me expendable,” Yuehne said. “If they knew I would fail, then I couldn’t possibly be less important to them.”

“You’re forgetting though, every other assassin they sent has escaped,” Iana said. “They expected to get you back.”

“So I’m a bigger failure than they thought,” Yuehne said.

“Are you?” Iana said. “You made it farther and got closer than any of your predecessors did. Up until you, they didn’t have a clear picture of how well I could defend myself without someone like Commander Jyl or Dae around. They may have known you would fail, and would have even planned for your capture, despite their track record of escapes.”

“How do you plan for your assassin to be captured?” Venita asked.

“You send someone who can manage to perform the mission with the minimal amount of information and you worry constantly about how much they know without being aware that they know it.”

“That is some squirrely level of thinking,” Venita said.

“Squirrely?” Iana asked. “No, only people think like that. Squirrels are refreshingly straightforward.”

“Right, you’re a Council girl,” Venita said.

“She’s wrong though,” Yuehne said. “That isn’t what they did with me. I asked to go. I pleaded.”

Iana looked at her, regarding Yuehne silently for a long moment.

“They were going to send someone close to you instead. An older sister?” Iana asked.

Yuehne stepped backward before she could control her reaction. Her face froze in place but it was too late. Her eyes were already wide open in shock.

“You didn’t know the other assassin’s escaped did you?” Iana asked.

“Yes I did,” Yuehne said, frozen expression thawing into one of defiance.

“But that wasn’t the plan this time?” Iana’s gaze was the regard of a wild cat assessing its prey. Defenses were stripped away, weaknesses analyzed and truth laid bare before the final, merciless strike.

Venita smiled. This wasn’t the sort of day she’d been expecting. It wasn’t the sort of day she ever expected. Some part of her knew that her whole life was going to be upturned by the two wild girls in the wagon with her. She should have been afraid of that. Change was miserable. Her stone solid dwarven bones told her that, as did every personal experience, and all the tales of her ancestors.

The thing was though, Venita didn’t back down from confronting misery. Not when it landed on her plain as day like this.

Her smile was less a pleased expression therefor and more a dare thrown into the face of life in general.

“You want to go another round?” that smile asked, “Let see which of us breaks first then.”

Other races spoke of the “Loom of Fate” when they talked about the invisible forces that shaped their lives. Dwarves didn’t. Dwarves called it the “Anvil of Fate”, and meant, very specifically, the cold iron of their souls that they beat their fates on, forging their lives into the shape of their choosing.

Yuehne had gone silent in response to Iana’s question, but Venita saw that silence was it’s own answer. She felt unexpectedly sorry for the young assassin and equally unexpectedly frightened by Gallagrin’s young Princess.

The Queen was, from all of the reports Venita laid stock in, a frightful presence. The bit about being called “Bloody Handed” wasn’t an insult. It was a warning, even if the Queen tried to downplay the moniker’s significance. In choosing a collection of Princesses and Princes from the Green Council, she’d struck a blow against the the factionalization that had grown up before, during and after the civil war against the Butcher King.

What Venita hadn’t considered was that Queen Alari had selected her heirs because they were as terrifying as she was, in their own somewhat unfathomable manners.

“So, I have one problem with speaking to my hallucinations,” Venita said.

“That your best option is to pitch the both of us off the wagon before we get anywhere close to landing?” Iana asked.

Venita shook her head. The young princess had a vicious mind, but something had tempered her too, giving room between thought and action when the situation warranted it. That was more than Venita could manage most days, and this did not look to be one of Iana’s better, more relaxing days.

“No, no one’s going over the side of the wagon,” she said. “From your display a minute ago, I think we all know who’d be the last one with the Wind Steeds. No, my problem is that, if these assassins are as thorough as you say, then even if I’m hallucinating all of this and I say nothing about it to anyone, I’ll probably be receiving a visit from them. Probably in the dead of night, when they can make sure the ‘dead’ part sticks with a minimum of fuss.”

“How would they…” Yuehne started to asked but Iana cut her off.

“The extra weight. Damn. They’ll know, or at least suspect, which wagon we escaped on by the shipping manifest oversight.”

“That’s not such bad news though,” Venita said. “It just means that like it or not, my two daughters and I are taking a little vacation.”

“Daughters?” Iana asked glancing at Yuehne, a human, herself, also a human, and Venita, a dwarf.

“Adopted,” Venita said. “Didn’t say I wanted to be part of this, wasn’t asked, but don’t got much of a choice, so if we’re going to travel together, I’m at least going to get to boss you around. Isn’t that right girls?”

Her smile was, again, not one of joy and sweetness.

Yuehne wasn’t sleepy in the slightest but she climbed into the giant hostel’s oversized bed and pushed back the mountain of sheets and blankets that lay on it.

It had been hours since most of the people she’d traveled to the giant’s aerie with had departed to investigate a warren in the depths of the earth. The Faenirel wanted to see what sort of death trap the elven leader of the Queen’s Guard was proposing for their new home and somehow the group had garnered enough collective wisdom to determine that bringing the Princess they were trying to protect along wouldn’t be a wise move.

Yuehne didn’t see how leaving Iana with her assassin was a wiser move, until Pelay, the other Queen’s Guard offered to stay behind and ensure that Iana was properly protected. The presence of a full Pact Knight terminated all of the plans that Yuehne could bring to mind. The presence of that particular Pact Knight was even worse though. Even with significantly greater resources at her disposal, Yuehne wasn’t sure there would be any viable options for finishing her mission. Pelay seemed more than half enchanted even when outside her pact armor, and Yuehne wasn’t at all sure where, or if, the Queen’s Guard’s senses ended.

Pelay never even watched Yuehne directly, but every time Yuehne edged towards Iana, Pelay was there, an inch closer, not so much blocking Yuehne from trying anything but taking up the right space to make it clear that any move against the Princess would necessitate going through her Guardian. It was done with the sort of unconscious grace that suggested a form of freakish omniscience.

Or, Yuehne tried to reassure herself, it might have just been her nerves speaking.

She’d tried to kill the Princess. She should have succeeded or died. Or both. Instead she found herself in a weird twilight state where victory hadn’t been achieved and yet neither had she failed. Not yet. Except in not-failing, she’d fallen under the power of her target who was trying to do…something with her?

“Are you sleeping?” Iana asked.

Terror shocked Yuehne’s limbs. She flew to the far side of the bed. Her heart lodged in her throat and she was only spared the need to suppress a scream because she couldn’t make any noise at all.

“I guess not,” Iana said.

The door to Yuehne’s room hadn’t opened. Iana hadn’t entered it. She’d simply appeared, like a vengeful wraith at the side of Yuehne’s bed.

“What are you doing here?” Yuehne asked, fighting to keep her voice calm and even and failing on both counts.

“They’re tracking you aren’t they?” Iana asked. She stood beside the bed, unmoving. Her voice was neither accusatory, nor frightened, nor pleading.

“They who?” Yuehne asked.

“Your backers in the Shadowfolk,” Iana said.

“I’m not working with them,” Yuehne said. “I don’t know where they came from.”

“And you won’t tell me who you are working for,” Iana said. “Great. Then they’re Drone Drivers. Not what I was hoping for, but not so surprising I guess.”

“What are you talking about?” Yuehne asked, irritation flaring as she was left with the feeling that despite there being on two people in the room, she wasn’t part of the conversation that was occurring.

“The Shadowfolk,” Iana said. “They’re supporting the people who gave you the order to kill me.”

“That’s impossible,” Yuehne said.

“Do you think your sponsors would turn away the gift of observation and intel a race who can turn invisible would be able to provide?” Iana asked.

“No,” Yuehne said after a moment’s consideration, “But what do you mean by Drone Drivers?”

“It’s a type of enemy we trained to fight,” Iana said. “There are creatures in the Council’s lands which can plant suggestions in the minds of those they encounter. Usually they rely on a mix of chemicals delivered via powerful pheromones, but whatever the method, their principal tactic is the same; get other creatures to enact their plans for them, so that they’re shielded from discovery and reprisal.”

“That’s not what the Shadowfolk we saw did. The attacked directly and without hesitation,” Yuehne said, more and more convinced that she had fallen into a strange ‘other realm’ where everything was nonsensical.

“We saw them turn invisible and strike slowly enough that Keeper Qui-Kel was able to stop them,” Iana said. “What we didn’t see, but can imply, is that they were there for a reason related to someone in the room. That reason is unlikely to be the Faenirel based on both the ease with which Keeper Qui-kel stopped them and the fact that the Faen were in that location for years.”

“But the Shadowfolk attacked the Faenirel first?” Yuehne said.

“But they attacked the wrong Faenirel,” Iana said. “They chose the two people in the room who were the most obviously experienced and who were bearing weapons. They considered Daloth and Che-chara to be the biggest threats.”

“If they weren’t there for the Faen then why would they attack at all?” Yuehne asked.

“Because Keeper Qui-kel acknowledged their presence,” Iana said. “She wasn’t going to let them leave, so they had to fight.”

“But they teleported away,” Yuehne said.

“Did they?” Iana asked. “I talked with Che-chara about that. In Faen’s battles with the Shadowfolk, she never saw evidence of the Shadowfolk using mass teleportation either for moving troops into battle, or when retreating. So it must be limited, probably greatly so.”

“Fine, but what does this have to do with me?” Yuehne asked.

“The Shadowfolk followed us to that meeting,” Iana said. “Of everyone there, you are the most likely to have been in contact with them. Even if you didn’t know it.”

“The same’s true for you isn’t it?” Yuehne asked. “Who would watch a perfectly normal citizen of the realm when they could watch one of the new princesses?”

“You’re easier to get to than I’ve been,” Iana said.

“I got to you,” Yuehne said.

“You weren’t a threat though were you?” Iana asked.

Yuehne scowled. She hadn’t failed yet. Better that the princess think she was safe though. That opened the path to a lot of possibilities.

“You weren’t a threat, because you weren’t given the right tools to be a threat,” Iana said. “That was necessary though for you to get past the protections that are in place on the royal castle.”

“You keep saying that but I almost had you,” Yuehne said.

“I gave you the chance to attack me,” Iana said. “I let you try again and again. It’s not your fault that you didn’t succeed. From your style, I would guess you’ve had a few rigorous weeks of training. I was being taught how to fight before I could walk, and I’ve been fighting since I could understand language. I was pleased with our skirmishes not because I won, but because I didn’t kill you. I am not a good person, or a safe one.”

“Then maybe you shouldn’t ever be Queen,” Yuehne said. “We’ve had too many bad rulers already.”

“I agree,” Iana said. “As I am now, I should absolutely not be made Queen. I don’t understand your realm, and my training and reflexes are all wrong. I can’t be the ruler that Alari is.”

“Well at least that would be good,” Yuehne said.

“You don’t know the things she’s done, do you?” Iana asked. “You don’t know what this realm would look like without her?”

“I know that without her whole wicked family, there’d be a lot more left of Gallagrin,” Yuehne said. “We lost so many people during her coup that entire towns were obliterated. There are fields that are nothing more than mass graves now. We’re like Authzang, with places where nothing will ever grow again!”

“And so, what, you want someone else to take her throne? Someone you feel is wiser?” Iana asked.

“I didn’t say that,” Yuehne said, inwardly cursing that she’d opened up even that much. The Princess was too perceptive by far, and the Queen and her wife even more so from the horror stories Yuehne had heard.

“Maybe you think a Council would work better?” Iana asked. “I could understand that. It seems bizarre to put all of the power of a realm into one person’s hands, but I’ve seen up close how even with checks and balances, a single bad leader can turn a government of the multitudes astray.”

“Who says we need a queen or a council?” Yuehne asked.

“You’d prefer to live like the beasts of the forest?” Iana asked. “Anarchy for all? I’ve seen that too. It works out well. For the strong. Or for those who will cower properly before the strong. It also well for those who would overthrow anarchy and replace it with the order of their choosing since the weak have been taught to kneel already. Cut the head off the leader and those being led will gladly trade one yoke for another. Until they don’t and there’s more blood to be spilled.”

“Fine,” Yuehne said. “What do you want from me?”

“Very little,” Iana said. “Mostly just that you’ll stay alive.”

“Why? Why do you care? I tried to kill you! Even if you are merciful and forgiving, why would you care if the Shadowfolk killed me?”

“Do I need a special reason?” Iana asked.

“Yes. Yes you do,” Yuehne said. “People aren’t like this. They don’t shelter people who try to hurt them. They’re not kind and willing to listen to people who hate them.”

“Maybe they should be,” Iana said. “Maybe I know that I should be. Maybe this is all an act to convince myself that the things I did are in the past and that I’m a different person now.”

“No. There’s more than that,” Yuehne said. “You say those words, but you don’t look guilty. You don’t sound sorry for whatever happened. You have some other reason, you’re pulling some other trick, and you don’t want me to notice it.”

“That’s probably true too,” Iana said. “I’ve spent the last year learning what it means to rule people rather than command them. Do you know what the difference is?”

“Rulers get to keep their hands clean?” Yuehne said.

“No. Rulers have the dirtiest hands of all,” Iana said. “The difference between commanding and ruling is that Commanders have objectives and issue orders to achieve those objectives and that’s all they need to care about. Rulers on the other had have a broader mandate. They need to issue their edicts with consideration for all of the impacts those edicts will have. A commander is responsible for the success or failure of the mission. A Ruler is responsible for everything that happens as a result of the choices they make.”

“So if I kill someone else, that will be your responsibility?” Yuehne asked.

“Yes, and yours,” Iana said. “In sparing you, I chose to act as the arbiter of your fate. I’m responsible for what I did and anything that I chose not to do. None of that would absolve you of the guilt of choosing to do something like that though.”

“So I’m guilty and you’re guilty and we’re both not worthy of the roles we’re supposed to play,” Yuehne said. “Is that why you’re here?”

“Yes,” Iana said. “How would you like to have a chance to become more worthy?”

“How?” Yuehne asked.

“Run away with me,” Iana said.

“You’re insane.”

“It’s been suggested,” Iana said.

“You’re going to kill me, aren’t you? You just don’t want to do it here.”

“No. Like I said, I need you to live. If I let you die, that will mess up a whole lot of plans, and probably wind up getting me killed too.”

“You think I’m going to protect you?”

“I think you’re going to try to kill me,” Iana said. “I think as long as that’s a possibility, the people backing you are going to be cautious about overextending themselves. If you’re out of the picture though, they’re going to send a much better equipped assassin to deal with me. Probably several much better equipped assassins. If I’m lucky they’d be looking to capture me, but there’s a lot of princesses and princes at court now. One less might fit exactly with the message they want to send.”

“Why run away though?” Yuehne asked.

“Because they’re tracking you,” Iana said.

“But if we run, that means the Shadow folk will find us without the rest of your retinue around to protect us?” Yuehne said.

“Yes,” Iana said, an emotion like glee finally entering her voice. “That’s exactly what I’m counting on.”

Grun loved flying. Landing was a somewhat different story. On a nice field, or on a prepared runway it wasn’t bad at all. As part of a noble’s service, those were the most common places one visited because noble’s pretty much only visited other nobles.

Unless the noble in question was the Queen of Gallagrin.

“I can’t help but notice we seem to be heading towards that mountain,” Keeper Qui-kel said.

The Faenirel leader had been a fine companion for the trip, much more inquisitive than Grun would have guessed from her initial reluctance to board the carriage.

“That’s our destination,” Grun said, nudging the Wind Steed team to slow and gain altitude at the same time. It wasn’t a maneuver which came naturally to them, but Grun had landed the team in stranger spots and they trusted his judgement.

“It seems rather vertical,” Qui-kell said. “Where are we supposed to land.”

“On the mountain,” Grun said. “There’s an entrance that will open for us when we’re a little closer.”

“We are rather close already aren’t we?” Qui-kel asked.

Grun urged the Wind Steeds upwards until the carriage was at a forty five degree angle.

“”We’ll be getting a lot closer in a minute.”

Landing in a sky giant’s aerie was the sort of thing respectable drivers never had to deal with. No noble in their right mind wanted to bother a Sky Giant, must less visit one personally.

Unless the noble in question was the Queen of Gallagrin.

Below them the mountain side blurred into a flashing array of greens from the pine trees and slate gray from the jagged rocks that made up the mountain’s face. Grun gave the team a looser rein, allowing them to pick up a bit of speed. Beside the mountain, the wind played treacherous games and having the momentum to beat it into the shape you needed was worth the risk that a faster approach entailed.

“Why are there no straps to hold onto?” Qui-kel asked.

“Aerial fights require quick reactions, and, apart from those, a sky carriage’s route is supposed to be smooth and trouble free,” Grun said.

“This is smooth and trouble free?” Qui-kel asked, her claws sinking into the finely polished wood of the driver’s bench.

“Mostly,” Grun said, gritting his teeth and playing the reins carefully as an unavoidable squall of turbulence shook the carriage.

By the time they reached the next patch of clear air they’d dropped close enough to the mountain that Grun could see the individual pinecones on the fir trees below them. That was a few hundred feet closer than regulations suggested for an approach, but under the circumstances Grun knew it was best to let the team ride the breeze they were on rather than try to regain altitude. He couldn’t quite see the pattern of the landing flags, but working out where to go on the fly was just part of the fun.

Their landing platform appearred seconds later, the mountain cracking open to reveal a narrow passage into the inner sanctum of the Sky Giants. For safety, official sky carriage regulations suggested reducing speed to a canter and signaling the landing crew of your approach.

Grun urged the team to the fastest gallop they could manage and smiled as the carriage lurched forward. Giants, of any ethnicity, shared a culture where physical prowess and daring were cherished highly. Also, the sky giant aerie had kept its gate’s closed which suggested that there were things flying about which even creatures as powerful as the giants found troublesome to deal with and, from his experience with the beasts of the air, Grun wanted to be tucked away somewhere safe as quickly as possible..

Qui-kel didn’t scream, or even whimper. That was a somewhat promising sign, but a glance over at the Keeper told Grun that he was going to want to find something very important to do the moment they landed. Staying near the Keepers claws being a bad idea if she didn’t have to keep them sunk safely into the bench.

As landing’s went, their arrival at Taughuam, the Giant’s, aerie was close enough to perfect that Grun could used it to teach a class. The team’s hooves touched so lightly on the arrival platform that the carriage rolled to a halt without a single vertical bounce.

“Very nicely done,” boomed a giant’s voice. “But we were pointing you to platform nine, not seven.”

Grun winced.

“Sorry, we were following a clear breeze,” Grun said.

“It’s ok,” Ethgred, the giant responsible for coordinating the landings, said. “We know your folks don’t get much practice with difficult approaches.”

Grun scowled, his professional pride stinging. It was such a nice landing, and both platforms were open, so really what harm was done? He knew better than to voice his complaints though. Landing coordinators had absolute dominion over their platforms and Ethgred would be well within his rights to hold up all the landings until Grun maneuvered to the correct location.

“Eth!” Jyl shouted as she jumped from the carriage’s interior.

“Laughing?” Ethgred said, taking a step back as a delighted smile dawned on his face.

Jyl leaped up and caught the sky giant in a hug around his throat. That her arms couldn’t actually complete the circle was only slightly less silly than the fact that even hanging from his neck, her legs ended before they reached the middle of the sky giant’s belly.

The scene was worthy of a giggle, except when Grun noticed that the Queen’s Guard had made the leap to the giant’s neck without transforming at all.

“Laughing?” Grun asked, looking at Qui-kel who was as perplexed as he was.

After a moment, Jyl swung around to sit on Ethgred’s shoulder and the two of them took stock of the people exiting the first carriage.

“It’s just a nickname,” Jyl said.

“No, it’s a warning,” Ethgred said.

“Of what?” Grun said.

“We used to work with the Lady Lafli, but after a few quests it became apparent that it simply wasn’t fair to unleash her on the things that troubled us without giving the poor beasts some sort of warning. So we renamed her.”

“How is ‘Laughing’ a warning?” Grun asked.

“It’s Laughing Death actually,” Jyl said. “Which is just embarrassing. I wasn’t that good.”

“That good at what?” Qui-kel asked.

“I solved some problems for them,” Jyl said.

“What sort of problems?” Grun asked.

“The sort we feared to fight on our own,” Ethgred said.

“Wait. You tangled with things that sky giants are afraid of?” Grun asked.

“I’m much smarter than that now,” Jyl said. “Now I have underlings to do that sort of thing for me!”

“Uh, thank you?” Pelay said, disembarking from the carriage with care.

The moment she was clear, she began taking in the aerie. Her movements reminded Grun of the Wind Steeds when they found a new cloud formation. Quick little breaths to pull in snatches of air and discern what scents it held.

“We’re clear here,” she said after a moment of study.

“Clear of what?” Ethgred asked.

“Shadowfolk,” Jyl said. “Ran into an indeterminate number of them back in Highcrest.”

“What are Shadowfolk doing in Highcrest? I thought the Butcher King slaughtered them all?” Ethgred asked.

“He missed a few it seems,” Jyl said.

“More than a few,” Qui-kel said. “We had two try to attack us when we caught them.”

“My condolences,” Ethgred said.

“You ran away from two of them? How dangerous are these things?” Grun asked.

“Two of them aren’t a problem,” Jyl said. “Or not an insurmountable problem. The issue is that where you find two of them, there’s usually a few hundred lurking.”

“They’re a very careful race and very committed to mayhem once they’re provoked,” Qui-kel said.

“Who set them off?” Grun asked.

“Me, apparently,” Iana said.

“You’re from the Green Council aren’t you? I didn’t think they had Shadowfolk over there?” Grun asked, noticing Iana’s accident.

“I left the Council lands,” Iana said, a scowl hardening her lips.

“Eth, allow me to introduce Princess Iana,” Jyl said.

“A pleasure Your Highness,” Ethgred said with more deference than Grun had ever heard in a giant’s voice. “So is she who you need to hide here?”

“Not exactly,” Jyl said. “We’ve got a family of Faenirel who need a place to stay while we deal with the Shadowfolk threat.”

“The Aerie is not open to outsiders,” Ethgred said. “Only the cloud market is and there’s not much housing available there..”

“We have no wish to burden your honor,” Keeper Qui-kel said.

“They don’t need to stay in the Aerie, or the cloud market,” Jyl said. “There’s the Spectre’s Web.”

Ethgred threw a disbelieving glance at the small woman on his shoulder.

“You want to send them to the Web?” he asked. “The Web?”

“What is this Spectre’s Web?” Qui-kel asked.

“A nightmare,” Ethgred said.

“A refuge.” Jyl said.

“A refuge for nightmares? How interesting. Tell me more,” Qui-kel said.

“When I was here the last time, one of the places I went was to an old dwarven town that’s located deep underneath the mountain,” Jyl said. “Except it wasn’t a town the dwarvens built for themselves. They made it for a arcane researcher.”

“So it is full of magical traps but no actual spectres?” Qui-kel asked.

“Just the reverse in fact,” Jyl said. “Professor Nilia and her research staff are still there, despite being dead for around five hundred years now. The mystic protections and security measures have faded away though.”

“The ancient dead are not things my people disturb,” Qui-kel said.

“Professor Nilia isn’t your usual sort of spectre,” Jyl said. “She and the other original researchers are bound within the circle of their old lab.”

“We still would not walk halls they have claimed as theirs,” Qui-kel said. “Bindings can fail all too easily.”

“Usually, that’s true, but in this case the bindings failing would be a good thing,” Jyl said. “There’s a team of living researchers who are working with them to make that happen. They’ve been at it for a few years now and had only limited success so far.”

“Why would you want to free the dead?” Qui-kel asked.

“Because they’ve asked us to,” Jyl said. “They’re trapped there, prisoners of their own cleverness. They need our help to move on.”

“But once they’re freed what’s to stop them from slaughtering any living thing they can get their hands on?” Qui-kel.

“They’re not hungry ghosts, just bored ones,” Jyl said.

“That’s not all that’s in the Spectre’s Web though,” Ethgred said. “Tell them about the spiders.”

“Oh, yeah, there are spiders there too,” Jyl said.

“What sort of spider?” Qui-kel asked.

“The kind that grow about twice as big as me and can speak,” Jyl said. “Interestingly though, they’re aquatic. So as long as you don’t need to use their part of the lake, I don’t know if you’ll even run into them.”

“And there’s the Hungry Lights,” Ethdred said.

“Ah, true. Those you will run into,” Jyl said.

“Hungry light?” Qui-kel asked.

“They’re bits of pure magic that are so bound together that they resemble floating, glowing crystals. They’re leftovers from Professor Nilia’s original research.”

“And what do these Hungry Lights do?” Qui-kel asked.

“Eat things,” Jyl said.

“Things like people?” Qui-kel asked.

“Yes, but they’re very easy to avoid,” Jyl said. “They glow, obviously, and they move slowly. They also eat slowly, so if one starts bothering you, you can push it away before it gets in much more than nibble.”

“And when we need to sleep? Will we be posting guards just to take a nap?” Qui-kel asked.

“There are plenty of rooms in the town with doors that close. That’s more than enough to keep the Hungry Lights at bay,” Jyl said.

“So allow me to see if I understand this correctly,” Qui-kel said. “In order to protect us from a humanoid threat whose principal menace is the ability to pass partially unnoticed, your plan is to place us in an ancient, subterranean lair filled with bored ghosts and the researchers who are experimenting on them, spiders that live underwater and probably won’t bother us unless we approach their lake and floating people eaters made out of pure magic which we will need to bar our domiciles against?”

“More or less, yes,” Jyl said.

“And what will we be eating in this lovely town?” Qui-kel asked.

“Mostly fish from the lake I think,” Jyl said.

“Where the spiders live?” Qui-kel said.

“Yes.”

“And what we will do for light to see by?” Qui-kel asked.

“I believe the researchers that are there just shove the Hungry Lights around,” Jyl said.

“The ones that want to eat us?”

“Yes.”

“This sounds lovely,” Qui-kel said. “Let’s go have a look, shall we?”

Qui-kel wasn’t too old. She told herself that with each step she climbed, and with each annoying twinge from her knees. She’d been a holy terror when she was young, and the only thing becoming Keeper had changed was that she had to place more emphasis on the ‘holy’ than on the ‘terror’ part of her natural tendencies.

It was a difficult balance to hold sometimes though and rising into the surface world was definitely one of those occasions.

“Are you okay?” Iana asked.

Qui-kel hadn’t been paying enough attention to notice that the human girl had been walking behind her. Allowing someone, anyone, to sneak up on her was the sort of deadly mistake that Qui-kel was never allowed to make. To her credit though she didn’t take the human girl’s head off her shoulders. It was proof that with age came wisdom, or at least skill at self restraint.

“My people are at war again, and we are fleeing from a very nice home,” Qui-kel said. “Before we can rest comfortably again, there will be blood and death. Theirs and probably some of it ours.”

“Why?” Iana asked. “Why does it have to be a fight to the death with these Shadowfolk?”

“It’s their nature,” Qui-kel said. “They’re remnants. Experiments tossed aside by the gods when they were crafting the Mindful Races.”

“We had creatures like that in the Green Council,” Iana said. “Hateful things that existed only to inflict misery. Or that’s how I was taught to think of them.”

“Then you know the sort of foe we face,” Qui-kel said.

“I don’t think I do,” Iana said. “I slaughtered a lot of monsters in the Lost Glades, but I never once tried to speak with them.”

“You can’t speak with animals,” Qui-kel said. “That’s what sets the Mindful Races apart from the creatures below them.”

“Animals and monsters don’t have language, but they are closer to us that people here seem to think,” Iana said.

“No matter how similar the Shadowfolk are, they can’t help but be killers too,” Qui-kel said. “We tried to reason with them. To bargain and live in peace. They don’t value those things though. They only understand the edge of a claw.”

Iana was going to reply but one of the sky carriage drivers stepped forward before she could.

“We’re ready for you now,” he said, indicating the carriage which the Wind Steeds had pulled up to meet them.

Inside, Jyl, Che-Chara, Daloth and a handful of others were already being seated.

“Looks cozy,” Qui-kel said.

“We have the most comfortable carriages in all of Gallagrin,” the driver said.

“I’ll ride outside.” Qui-kel said. Being exposed to the open sky made her whiskers twitch, but Qui-kel was certain that maintaining her dignity as Keeper was going to be immeasurably harder if people were around to see her struggles with traveling by air.

“It’s much safer in the carriage,” the driver said.

“That’s why I’ll right outside,” Qui-kel said.

The driver looked at Iana, who in turn looked at Jyl, who shrugged in acceptance.

“The packages and gear will be loaded atop the carriages,” the driver said, “But there’s room at the reins if you’d like to sit there?”

“That would be acceptable,” Qui-kel said.

Climbing up onto the driver’s bench of the carriage roused a few complaints from Qui-kel’s tired bones but she shushed them and settled in, making sure she had a good hand hold on the side of the bench in case a gust of wind tried to pitch her off.

Despite the speed of their liftoff though, no gusts troubled her.

“The air feels so still?” she said, glancing over at the driver.

“It’s part of the enchantment on the carriage,” he said. “We fly high enough and fast enough that no one would be able to hang on, or breath, without the carriage being surrounded in a bubble of stable air.”

“And what happens if the bubble pops?” Qui-kel asked.

“There’s a reserve screen that will deploy,” the driver said.

“And if it fails as well?” Qui-kel asked.

“Then we’re probably under attack and it will be up to us to manage accordingly,” the driver said.

“I confess I do not see how one could fight at all without ground beneath their feet and, ideally, walls and a ceiling to limit the avenues of attack.”

“I’m not sure I can see how someone could fight if they were all hemmed in,” the driver said. “In my world, you need room to dodge and places to escape to.”

“Our worlds are similar then. I am Keeper Qui-kel.”

“My name is Grun,” the driver said. “I hear there might be some people following you?”

“Creatures more than people, but I do not believe they can follow us here,” Qui-kell said.

“That’s one of the joys of sky carriages, there’s no limits in the sky,” Grun said.

“And no places,” Qui-kel said. “This isn’t somewhere that we can stay.”

“Not forever,” Grun said. “But you might be surprised how long you can be up here if you try.”

“You enjoy being in the sky?” Qui-kel asked, careful not to look down. The notion of voluntarily traveling through the air when it wasn’t a crisis situation was foreign to her. It was always possible to manage a long fall, but possible was very different from easy or certain.

“I do,” Grun said. “I’ve always felt like the sky is where I was meant to be.”

“But it’s so dangerous up here,” Qui-kel said.

“It’s dangerous everywhere,” Grun said. “Up here though I can see the dangers coming from far away.

“But can’t they see you too?” Qui-kell asked.

“They can, but the intelligent ones at least can also see that I fly for the queen,” Grun said.

“And if that doesn’t stop them from attacking you?” Qui-kel asked.

“Then we’re definitely under attack and it will be up to us to manage accordingly,” Grun said.

“That prospect doesn’t seem to worry you,” Qui-kel said.

“I’d like to say that the only thing that’s ever worried me is whether I’d be able to make it as a flyer,” Grun said. “The truth though is that there’s always a ton of things to worry about. Being up here helps with that. It takes the edge off of the rest of the worries. Makes them seem a little more distant.”

“I find it is sharpening mine,” Qui-kel said.

“That’s because you don’t feel like you’re in control,” Grun said. “Here, take these.”

He handed her the reins to the wind steeds.

“No! What I am supposed to do with these?” Qui-kel said, trying to hand them back.

“Nothing really,” Grun said. “The steeds know to stay on the currents and if things get rough they can find a smooth path for us to follow.”

“Why have reins at all then?” Qui-kel asked.

“To talk to them,” Grun said.

“Talk?” Qui-kel asked.

“The steeds know how to run. They know how to fly. What they don’t know is where we want them to go. That’s what the reins are for,” Grun said.

“To force them to follow the path you wish to travel?” Qui-kel asked.

“You can’t really force a wind steed to do anything,” Grun said. “They’re a lot bigger and more powerful than we are. Or at least than I am. And they don’t like to be forced. A driver that leans on the reins too much will have a bunch of very grumpy Wind Steeds to deal with at the end of the ride, and that is not fun, let me tell you.”

“But aren’t they yours to command?” Qui-kel asked. “I thought they had to be specially bred to bear a sky carriage into the air?”

“The breeding part is right,” Grun said. “Natural born Wind Steeds don’t take to the load of a sky carriage well. It spooks them too much. Our girls up there though, they’re braver than a Pact Knight biting on the edge of a berserker.”

“So it’s not fear of a whip that bends them to your will then, interesting,” Qui-kel said.

“Fear’s a terrible thing to put into a wind steed,” Grun said. “The last thing you want is to pass by a storm cloud and have one of the steeds lead the rest into a panic.”

“If not fear then what technique do you use?” Qui-kel asked. “I don’t see any suitable bribes to compel their behavior with?”

“Bribes only get you so far,” Grun said. “If you make it all about the treats then the canny beasts learn to demand one for every little thing. No, part of training a good steed is building up a rapport with them. They want to run like this, and the carriage isn’t much a burden at all. A good flight lets the steeds get a workout and enjoy the company of their friends, which includes the driver.”

“And they don’t mind the reins forcing them to go where the rider wants?” Qui-kel asked.

“They’re wind steeds, they don’t have anywhere in particular they want to be, except running in the sky,” Grun said.

“Why don’t they just stay up here then?” Qui-kel asked.

“Sometimes they do, the young ones at least,” Grun said. “We don’t use those on passengers carriages.”

“What happens to the drivers who get stuck with a young one like that?” Qui-kel asked.

“They get to enjoy a long ride,” Grun said. “Not much a driver can do if a steed gets it in their head to hie off to the farthest cloud they can see.”

“That sounds inconvenient,” Qui-kel said.

“It can be,” Grun said. “Kind of funny too though. The poor beasts will run until they’re out of magic and then descend to the ground and start looking around for home. Like their stable was loping along after them. That’s when a driver can really make a bond with them though.”

“How so?” Qui-kel asked.

“Well the youngling that races off for adventure inevitably finds itself alone, and hungry, and lost, but there’s still someone they can turn to who can make things right,” Grun said.

“The driver can lead them back,” Qui-kel said, seeing how the scene must usually play out.

“And feed them,” Grun said. “The silly things don’t think about their stomach until it’s empty.”

“It seems like the carriage bred Wind Steed are fortunate creatures,” Qui-kel said.

“They’re not the only ones,” Grun said. “It’s a real privilege for the drivers and trainers too. We learn as much from them as they learn from us.”

“What do simple animals have to teach you?” Qui-kel asked.

“I don’t know that I’ve ever tried to put it into words before,” Grun said. “They look at life differently than we do, and if you’re around them long enough they’ll tell you about it.”

“I don’t think I understand,” Qui-kel said.

“It’s like, for a Wind Steed, the world is more immediate than it is for us,” Grun said. “They’re always right here, in this moment, observing the world as it is. People tend to drift away more than that. We do things like worry about what’s at the end of run instead of watching the winds around us and the land we’re passing over. I’ve missed the most obvious things until one of my steeds pointed it out.”

“How do they communicate with you? They don’t have language do they?” Qui-kel asked.

“They do, just not like us,” Grun said. “What they want to say, they’ll express with their body language, or their whinnies, or by resisting an instruction. The biggest mistake fledgling drivers make is not listening to their steeds when the steeds are unhappy.”

“What happens then?” Qui-kel asked.

“It depends on what the steed’s noticed that the driver hasn’t,” Grun said. “Best case, the whole team will just come to a standstill until the driver fixes whatever’s wrong or gives them another path to follow.”

“And the worst case?” Qui-kel asked.

“Well, it’s not common, but if the driver’s really bad, the team can always roll the carriage over,” Grun said.

“What happens to the driver then?” Qui-kel asked.

“They fall. But like I said, that’s not common. Even the worst drivers know not to push their steeds that far,” Grun said.

“It seems like a self-correcting problem,” Qui-kel said.

“It is to some extent,” Grun said. “Still there’s always a need for good drivers. Too many people out there want to fly and only look at the Wind Steeds as a tool to make that happen.”

“If only they could speak,” Qui-kel said.

“That’d be nice but I think it’s more important for us to learn to listen,” Grun said.

Che-chara was out of her seat before Keeper Qui-kel finished her warning. It wasn’t fast enough to avoid the attack from the Shadowfolk but as usual she didn’t have to.

“And I guess that answers the question of whether they’re still hostile.”

Qui-kel was an elder among the Faenirel. By rights that should have meant that her reflexes were slowing with age. If that was true though, then the reflexes she had when she was younger would have put the gods themselves to shame.

In one paw, she held the wrist of the Shadowfolk who tried to attack Daloth. In the other hand paw, she held the throat of the Shadowfolk who tried to attack Che-chara.

“We should…” the elf woman Jyl started to say.

The Shadowfolk tried to twist out of Qui-kel’s grasp. To resume their attack. They lost blood, and maybe a throat. And then they were gone.

“…not kill them.” Jyl finished with a sigh.

“You can’t talk to them,” Qui-kel said. “And apparently you have to kill them faster that I could.”

“Or keep them in bright light, right?” Jyl said.

“What would that do?” Daloth asked.

“Block their ability to teleport. It only works shadow to shadow,” Jyl said. “Or at least that’s the rumor I heard.”

“Might be true,” Qui-kel said. “Never caught one in a fully lit area though.”

“Can they even go into a place like that?” Pelay asked.

“Maybe not, but that’s what traps are for,” Jyl said. “Something you’d think they’d consider before launching unprovoked attacks.”

Che-chara noticed both Jyl and Pelay were in their armored forms,and both had moved from their seats to flank either side of the girl named Iana. She wasn’t sure when that had happened, which was almost as scary as Qui-kel’s inexplicable reflexes.

“Lots of options for dealing with traps,” Qui-kel said. “Quick as they are, ‘kill the people who set the trap’ is probably a viable option for them most of the time. Which is why we’re leaving.”

“They’ve lost blood,” Daloth said. ”They won’t forgive that easily. We had to kill how many of them the last time before they gave up. And apparently even that wasn’t enough to keep them away forever.”

“We’ll be more convincing this time,” Qui-kel said as she rose from her chair.

“You said ‘all of us’, if you mean to include Pelay, Brenn, Iana and myself in that, we request to impose on your most gracious hospitality, so long as we place no burden on your family’s honor, until this crisis is resolved,” Jyl said.

Che-chara turned to look slowly at the surface dweller. Those were very particular words she’d spoken. Words that only another Faenirel should have known.

The room went eerily quiet for a moment as Keeper Qui-kel regarded the elven woman.

“Who’s cub are you?” she asked, in a low, quiet voice.

“I have no place among the Faen,” Jyl said. “I claim no benefit of family or kin, but I have been received by the Kuindai family of the Fallen Archives.”

“You are a friend of the Lore Keepers?” Qui-kel asked. “Why don’t you claim their friendship? Did you dishonor their hospitality?”

“We parted in joy,” Jyl said. “But I was not with them long enough to to put in a claim of friendship or family.”

“Why did you leave after so little time?” Qui-kel asked.

“I was an Adventurer once,” Jyl said. “I needed an answer from their tomes and they needed a cavern complex cleared of lava beasts.”

“You fought lava beasts? How strong is that armor you wear?” Che-chara asked.

“Oh, I didn’t have a Pact Spirit then,” Jyl said. “That’s what I needed their tomes for.”

Che-chara knew that Adventurers from the surface had the reputation for lacking in basic self-preservation instincts but fighting lava beasts without armor seemed reckless beyond what even a fool like Daloth would attempt.

“With so little contact, I am surprised you learned to request hospitality properly,” Qui-kel said.

“I…extended my stay with the Kuindai,” Jyl said. It wasn’t possible to blush through armor but the elf sounded like she might give it a try.

Qui-kel rolled her eyes and sighed.

“Olo-ven,” she said, as though the name could be assigned the blame for any number of vexing incidents.

“Was a very accommodating host,” Jyl said.

“Yes, she is” Qui-kel said. “I recall. Well, in any case, yes, I invite you and yours to enjoy my family’s hospitality until this crisis is past, or you place a burden on our honor.”

“Yuehne too,” Iana said. “You didn’t mention her but she has to come with us.”

“That will be…” Qui-kel started to say, but Jyl cut her off.

“Wait, before that’s agreed to, she is the assassin who was sent to kill you, isn’t she?” Jyl asked.

Che-chara turned to look at the other human girl. She had been exceptionally quiet through the whole proceeding. At least verbally. Her body language screamed about the whirlwind of thoughts that roared with her, but from her build and the natural readiness in her posture, Che-chara believed the girl could be a trained killer.

“That’s not important,” Iana said.

“We cannot offer hospitality to anyone who intends malice to those already under our hospitality,” Qui-kel said.

“She’s not going to hurt me, or anyone else,” Iana said.

“You can’t actually know that,” Jyl said. “Whatever she’s told you is filtered through the lens of a defeated assassin. She could be willing to say anything to get you to leave another opening for her to strike through.”

“I told her I was going to kill her,” Yuehne said.

“She’s an honest assassin at least,” Brenn, the dwarven woman said.

“It’s not going to be a problem,” Iana said.

Behind Iana, Jyl gave a cringing shrug and a look of understanding passed between her and Keeper Qui-kel. Che-chara was only rarely tasked with looking after the family’s young and she considered it a miracle from the gods that she hadn’t bitten one or more of their heads off. Yet.

“Perhaps the assassin’s target could offer her bond against the assassin’s behavior?” Che-chara suggested. It was a ridiculous idea, but ridiculous seemed to be the order of business for the day.

“Absolutely,” Iana said.

“Absolutely not,” Jyl said. “I will offer a bond for Yuehne’s behavior, since of the two of us, I am the one who knows what that means.”

“Do you?” Qui-kel asked.

“I believe I do,” Jyl said. “With my bond, I pledge that Yuehne will not violate the terms of your hospitality and if she does the dishonor from that breech will not fall on you, but will rest entirely with me.”

“That doesn’t sound that bad,” Iana said.

“The punishment for dishonor of that magnitude that is death,” Jyl said.

“Death is one of the punishments,” Qui-kel said. “The rest are no less severe though.”

“I can’t let you do that for me,” Iana said.

“You can’t do it for yourself,” Jyl said. “If you die, there would be no one to suffer for the dishonor of your being killed.”

“In dying she would take the dishonor with her,” Qui-kel said. “But as she is still a cub, and as you are her guardian, it is more fitting that your bond be given.”

“Thank you Keeper Qui-kel,” Jyl said and bowed without taking her eyes off the Keeper.

Whatever else Ol-ven had shared with the elven woman, she’d been careful to teach her proper manners too. Che-chara purred to herself. The elf was still an outsider and a surface dweller but she had respect for the Faen and that was too rarely found outside of the families.

At Che-chara’s side, Daloth relaxed, perhaps sensing her happiness or perhaps because of the general lessening of animosity in the room.

“So where are we going to go?” Daloth asked.

“The only place we can go,” Qui-kel said. “Into the light.”

Hobgoblins of fear sunk their claws into Che-chara’s arms and legs.

“You don’t mean we’re going to leave the Underlands do you?” she asked.

“We must pass beyond the reach and sight of the Shadowfolk,” Qui-kel said. “The Underlands are many things but free of shadows is not one of them.”

“But to go to the surface?” Che-chara asked.

“We’ll have more resources to help you there,” Pelay said.

“And we can drop Brenn off,” Jyl said. “She was only conscripted into this as an impromptu guide.”

“That’s not strictly accurate,” Brenn said. “First I volunteered and second, Keeper Qui-kel said we’re all leaving and I believe she hass a very particular reason for that.”

“You’ve dealt with the Shadowfolk before?” Qui-kel asked.

“Not personally, but my family passes down stories about them too,” Brenn said. “They fight pretty dirty, and they don’t tend to leave their enemies alive for very long.”

“You haven’t done anything to them though,” Jyl said.

“Two of them saw me with you,” Brenn said. “And, to be honest, my family has stories about them because we’ve never exactly gotten along. There’s probably two or three vendetta’s I should be pursuing against them.”

“Two or three?” Iana asked.

“My family collects vendettas like other people collect paintings or sculpture. It’s hard to keep track of them all,” Brenn said.

“Thanehammer clan?” Jyl asked.

“That’s us,” Brenn said.

“Who are the Thanhammers?” Iana asked.

“They’re one of the larger dwarven clans in Gallagrin,” Jyl said. “People often mistake their customs for the typical nature of dwarves, something which doesn’t please the other clans all that much from what I’ve gathered.”

“Or those of us in the clan who…differ in view from the elders,” Brenn said.

“Then we shall all depart, immediately,” Qui-kel said.

“What if there are other Shadowfolk in your domain?” Brenn asked.

“There aren’t,” Pelay said. “I didn’t know what the odor was until the Shadowfolk appeared, but I know when the two we just saw joined us, and I can’t smell any other traces of them.”

“You can smell them?” Daloth asked.

“Yes, can’t you?” Pelay asked.

“Daloth’s nearly nose-blind,” Che-chara said. “I have no such excuse though.”

“I am not noseblind,” Daloth said. “I just don’t focus on such imprecise information as that.”

“You almost died in the fire pits five times,” Che-chara said. “It’s a miracle you can still smell at all.”

“Send word to the family,” Qui-kel said to Che-chara. “I want an invisible departure. Take nothing that isn’t irreplaceable. Tell our people to pause in mid-meal, or with whatever task they are working on undone. Leave traces that we have moved in every direction and none. I want the Shadowfolk to search this domain from top to bottom. Oh and leave a few surprises for them.”

Looting an abandoned Faenirel stronghold was a perilous prospect for many reasons, not the least of which being that an empty Faenirel home was a warren of automated death which came from every direction.

“If they can follow us from the shadows, how are we going to leave the Shadowfolk behind?” Iana asked.

“We need to find the brightest spaces we can, and when they’re not looking, vanish ourselves into shadows they will never think to check,” Qui-kel said. “Then we can begin crafting the right mechanisms to combat them.”

“Is that how you fought them before?” Brenn asked.

“Yes,” Qui-kel said. “We thought that with the security we designed for this domain that we’d be able to use it as a permanent refuge. Instead it will be the our answer to their first strike in renewing aggressions between the two of us.”

“We’ll make it count Keeper,” Che-chara said.

She took charge of organizing the family from there, spurring them all into the unthinkable yet well-practiced action of abandoning their home and living life on the run again.

No one was happy with the disruption, but enough were familiar with the family’s last war against the Shadowfolk to treat the matter with the urgency it deserved.

A while later, as they rose towards the surface, Che-chara thought to question Jyl on the support they could expect.

“Can the surface dwellers really do anything for us?” she asked.

“We’re limited by a lot of the same things that limit you,” Jyl said. “But we do a few tricks which you lack, and the Shadowfolk may not be expecting those.”

“What surprise could throw them off our path though? They’ve scented our blood, they can follow that anywhere can’t they?” Che-chara asked.

“They can follow us on the ground, but I imagine this will give them some trouble,” Jyl said, helping Che-chara up out of the sewer.

They’d arrived at a wide, open field, but in place of grass there were several slabs of poured concrete. On the smoothly constructed field, a dozen sky carriages of varying size awaited them.

They weren’t going to flee from the Shadowfolk, they were going to fly from them!

Daloth Kinshield believed himself to be the most stalwart of the Faenirel. He’d done more than survive battles in the deepest darks of the Fire Chasms, he’d sought them out time and again. With tooth and claw, he’d beaten back demons of the lost ages that surface dwellers didn’t even have names for. His fur had been singed, scraped and ripped more times that he could count but he’d never flinched from the prospect of another battle.

Of course he’d never run face first into several hundred tons of Earth elemental at close range either.

It was a perfectly natural reaction to hiss in surprise and leap back thirty feet when the wall you were walking past came to life unexpectedly. The trembling in his arms and legs may have lacked the dignity a Faenirel was expected to exhibit, but the elders could bite their tails if they thought they could do any better.

Walls didn’t move, or at least they weren’t supposed to. Not on their own, and if they were moving it was usually a sign that something very bad was in the process of happening. Like an earthquake. Or a cave-in. Or an earthquake that was causing a cave-in.

None of those options involved the wall revealing wide rows of teeth though.

Nor people stepping out of the wall.

In armor.

“Invaders!” Daloth cried. He may have been terrified beyond reason but that didn’t mean he was going to fail in the defense of his home.

“You know I really should have seen this coming,” a short woman in armor said.

Behind her, Daloth saw a dwarven woman bury her face in her palm.

“We’re not invaders!” the other, taller woman in armor said.

“Well, technically, we are,” the shorter woman said. “But we’re probably not hostile.”

She step forward and the armor flowed off of her in a shimmering sparkle of light. From her ears, Daloth saw she was an elf, from the crook of her smile, he saw she was trouble.

“Jyl Lafli, Subcommander of the Queen’s Guard of Gallagrin,” the shorter woman introduced herself. “We’re hoping you can tell us why someone stole one of our princesses.”

Daloth heard the rustle of approaching troops. This close to the family’s home there was no shortage of warriors on duty to respond to a call of invasion. Whether all of the warriors the family possessed would be enough to stop the enormous Earth elemental was something Daloth didn’t want to think about.

“We have no princesses here,” he said. “You are trespassing on our domain. You should leave, immediately.”

“There’s an argument that says you’re the ones trespassing since everything in and under Highcrest belongs to the Queen, but I’m willing to grant your claim’s more valid in practice,” Jyl said.

“Then leave,” Daloth said.

“We need our princess back first,” Jyl said.

“We don’t have any princesses here!” Daloth said, hearing his backup arrive.

“Unfortunately it seems that we do,” Che-chara, his sometimes paramour and sometimes rival said.

Daloth turned to see the seven Faenirel warriors who’d run to support him were escorting a young Faen who was in turn escorting two human girls.

“What, exactly, is going on here?” Daloth asked, fighting the urge to copy the dwarf and bury his face in his hand.

“That’s a great question,” Jyl said. “Here’s a better one, Iana are you ok?”

“How in the Green did you get her before us?” Iana asked.

“They came inside…” Daloth’s words died away. The Earth elemental was gone. No marks on the stone. No rumbling from its departure. It was just gone. Like it never existed.

Reflexively sheathing and unsheathing one’s claws was frowned on in Faenirel society. It was considered a highly aggressive display. In that moment though Daloth didn’t care. He was feeling highly aggressive and if someone presented themselves as needing a good scratch, or better yet and full on eye gouge, he would be more than happy to oblige.

“I’m going to take that as ‘yes, Jyl, giving you a heart attack was wonderful fun, but I’m fine and ready to come home where you can lock me in chains and throw away the key’.”

“Are we allowed to lock up a princess?” Pelay asked.

“We are if we don’t tell Dae or Queen Alari about it,” Jyl said, a flicker of malicious delight dancing in her eyes.

Daloth knew about the Gallagrin Queen. Or he’d heard of her at least. Feeling like he’d stepping the middle of a bizarre family quarrel, he cleared his throat.

“Giri, would you please explain what is going on here?” Daloth asked in as slow and non-homicidal of a voice as he could muster. It was neither that slow nor that lacking in homicidal menace.

“Shadowfolk,” Giri said. “They were being stalked by Shadowfolk.”

“I told you we hadn’t seen the last of them,” Che-chara said.

Daloth sighed and abandoned his resistance against blocking out the world with the palm of his hand.

“Shadowfolk?” Jyl asked.

“Yes, they are people, creatures really, who dwell in the Underlands,” Che-chara said. “Very dangerous.”

“I know what they are, I just didn’t think we had any living anywhere near Highcrest,” Jyl said. “The Butcher King wasn’t especially fond of them.”

“They are exceptionally difficult to eradicate,” Daloth said. “A fact I conceded at the time you may recall.”

He directed the last comment to Che-chara to remind her that he’d been in favor of pursuing the last group of Shadowfold they’d encountered and he’d been overruled for a trivial reason like the potentially mortal wound he’d taken in the battle against them. It hadn’t really been that bad. He’d survive it after all and that had only taken three weeks of bed rest.

“That sounds like all the more reason for us to take our princess and get out of your domain,” Jyl said.

“I can’t do that,” Iana said.

“Of course you can’t,” Jyl moaned.”Because nothing is ever allowed to be simple.”

Despite the fact that elf had broken into his home and lacked all manner of proper decorum, Daloth found himself warming to her. They shared a bond of similar frustration if nothing else.

“Perhaps we can put away our claws and blades and move this somewhere that we can talk about it like civilized Faens?” Che-chara suggested.

“That sounds like an excellent plan,” Daloth said. “And perhaps Giri can go and invite Keeper Qui-kel to join us. I’m sure she’ll want to hear that the Shadowfolk have returned.”

Daloth watched Giri’s ears and tail droop at the suggestion. Interrupting Keeper Qui-kel during meditation hours wasn’t fun when you were bringing the best of news and the return of the Shadowfolk was about as far from the best of news as it was possible to get.

To her credit though, Giri departed without an argument, probably mindful of the scolding she was due for bringing a pair of outsiders into their domain without permission.

Che-chara led the warriors and the intruders down a winding path to a small cavern. That it happened to be the room they used as a jail for rule breaking Faen or captured enemies didn’t seem to be lost on the Queen’s Guards or the dwarf but the adults didn’t offer any protest or hesitate to take their assigned seats.

Daloth felt a stab of misgiving cut through him as he evaluated their calm faces. Dwarves were often calm in his experience, but Elves and Humans tended to object when you locked them up. He glanced at Che-chara and from her nod saw that she’d arrived at the same conclusion he had. They weren’t protesting because they didn’t think the Faen could hold them.

Daloth considered the Earth elemental and wondered if they were necessarily wrong in that belief.

“We should wait for Giri and Keeper Qui-kel before we begin any discussion,” Che-chara said, slipping into the chair to the left of the one the Keeper would sit in.

Daloth took chair to the Keeper’s right, judging himself the equal of anyone who was not a Keeper. It was a rude gesture towards the intruders, and one their leader seemed to understand from how she questioned him with a raised eyebrow. He stared back at her, no humor or mirth brightening his face.

“Agreed,” Jyl said and took the chair farthest from the Keeper’s, gesturing for her two companions to sit beside her in the other seats of low precedence.

The princess and the other girl took their seats beside Pelay, occupying an in-between realm which bordered both the Faenirel and the surface dwellers.

Daloth leaned back in his chair and smiled. From his experience with surface dwellers it would only be a matter of time, minutes at the most, before they would start talking and offer the sort of insult that Che-chara would answer with violence. She was sensible and reserved most of the time, but he’d seen her hair trigger temper slip once too often to mistake her for harmless like so many of their guests had.

To amuse himself he tried to decide who in the intruders party would be the one to provoke Che-chara’s rage, by trying to start a discussion ahead of time.

Not the Subcommander, Jyl. She was reclining in her chair, wearing a smile that matched his own. No blades were drawn but neither of them was under the delusion that the situation was anything other than a battle. If blades were drawn, she would be the first one Daloth would go for. It would be a bloody exchange but the last time a surface dweller’s reflexes exceeded Daloth’s was never, so he was confident he’d at least survive it.

Pelay, the other knight, was holding her tongue as well, and was looking to Jyl so often that Daloth was sure she wouldn’t speak before she was spoken to either.

The dwarven woman could probably be provoked into speaking, but that didn’t strike Daloth as a wise move. Angry dwarves were one of the last thing you want to fight in the underlands. Even if you won one battle, the inevitable war that followed tended to be announced by cave-ins that buried entire families in eternal tombs of stone.

Even the damn children were preternaturally silent. The one called Iana sat at attention, her gaze focused on a point in the middle distance, her thoughts entirely unreadable behind the frowning mask that she called a face.

The other one was similarly silent, though her face betrayed some bone deep terror that Daloth couldn’t begin to guess the cause of.

It was ten minutes before Keeper Qui-kel returned with Giri in tow, by which time Daloth’s smile had soured to a frown and Jyl’s had faded to a mildly amused ripple of her lips.

“Hello intruders,” Qui-kel said. “You brought Shadowfolk to our domain.”

“Hello Keeper,” Jyl said. “You stole our princess.”

“Giri says she came willing,” Qui-kel said.

“And why would she do that?” Jyl asked.

“Because they know about the Shadowfolk,” Iana said. “And while the Shadowfolk are bad at killing me, I wasn’t willing to wager they’d hold back that much when it came to killing Yuehne.”

“So, you figured to going down into the deepest hole you could find, following someone you just met was the wisest course of action available?” Jyl asked.

“I knew you were with us,” Iana said. “And, yes, it was the wisest course of action. When else would I have been able to meet the Faenirel?”

“You see how happy they are to make your acquaintance,” Jyl said.

“What I’m most displeased with is a return of the Shadowfolk and our being involved in it,” Qui-kel said.

“You’ve dealt with them before?” Jyl asked.

“We survived them,” Qui-kel said, an assessment which Daloth felt undervalued his contribution to the battles against them tremendously.

“I only know of them,” Jyl said. “I didn’t think any lived near Highcrest anymore.”

“That’s what we thought too,” Qui-kel said. “Kind of hate that we thought wrong.”

“So, basically, mistakes were made,” Jyl said. “In the interest of not making anymore, and in light of your experience in the matter, what do you want to do next, and how can we help?”

“Why would you help us?” Daloth asked.

“The Queen’s protection extends to everyone in Gallagrin,” Jyl said. “Pelay and I are sworn to her and by extension also sworn to those she protects.”

“We’ve never bent a knee to your queen and we never will,” Qui-kel said.

“No reason that you have to,” Jyl said. “You’ve protected us from the less pleasant things that lurk down here. You’re at the very least neighbors we owe a debt to, and that’s assuming you don’t wish to claim your rights as citizens of the realm.”

“Is she serious?” Qui-kel asked.

“I think so,” Pelay said.

“The new queen does seem to be the sort to say that kind of thing,” Brenn, the dwarven woman, said.

“Well good then, you can help us move,” Qui-kel said.

“What!” Daloth hadn’t imagined the Keeper would take a rumor of Shadowfolk sighting that seriously. Yes, they’d lost over twenty Faen the last time they’d warred with the Shadowfolk but that didn’t mean they would fare so poorly again.

“We’re moving. All of us. Our guests included,” Qui-kel said. “If the Shadowfolk are operating anywhere near here then they have our location discovered and mapped already. We need to get outside their sphere of influence, or, failing that, get setup somewhere that we can catch their initial scouting parties.”

“Are they that bad?” Jyl asked.

“Well, from the smell, I’d say there are two of them in the room with us now and no one’s noticed them yet,” Qui-kel said.

Brenn rubbed her hand along the uneven texture of the stone wall beside her and had to grit her teeth against the urge to fix the one hundred and thirteen things that were wrong with it. The surface was a nightmare of uneven edges and unfinished cuts. Green-grey mold came away from the wall where she touched it. It wasn’t substandard work Brenn saw before her, it was worse than that. They weren’t standing in a created space, one crafted and cut to fit a purpose. The passage around them was a scar of destruction ripped through the rock and stone that stood between one point and the next.

“I’ve never been a part of the Mining Guild but this doesn’t look a dwarf was ever even near this work before,” Jyl said.

“There are more than dwarves in the Mining Guild,” Brenn said. “But you’re right, this isn’t worked stone. It was torn apart.”

“By monsters?” Pelay asked.

“Of one kind or another,” Brenn said. Probably the worst monster of all if Brenn’s guess was right; humans in a hurry.

Brenn, Jyl and Pelay had passed down through maintenance tunnels and closed sewer works, long forgotten overflow cisterns and never used defense posts. They were pursuing a pair of girls who’d been the target of a simple street mugging, and despite over an hour of pursuit were no closer to their goal than when they’d started.

Neither of Jyl nor Pelay had named the missing girls, but Brenn didn’t need to be told that their quarry was one of the foreign princesses the queen had brought back from the war with the Green Council. If a regular girl from Brenn’s neighborhood had been snatched down to the Deep Galleries there would have been an investigation but it wouldn’t have involved two of the Queen’s Guard and it wouldn’t have involved sending people down to retrieve the missing person.

“I found another trail mark,” Pelay said, pointing to a small series of scratches on the wall.

“How is she leaving those?” Brenn asked. The previous one’s they found had been left in concrete or well worn stone surfaces. Easy enough substances to mark if you knew what you were doing. The latest set of marks were carved into Chiselbreak – stone hard enough that you generally used enchanted picks to work it. Whoever had cleared the downward sloping path that they were on had clearly lacked those tools and contented themselves with carving away the weaker vein of rock to make a passageway.

“She’s carrying an enchanted blade,” Jyl said. “Or more importantly, she’s still carrying an enchanted blade.”

“Or whoever took her is,” Brenn said and wanted to bite back the words. Dwarves are dour. Everyone said that. Everyone knew that. Everyone except dwarves themselves.

“I don’t read Council glyphs,” Jyl said. “But that’s what these look like to me.”

“So either Iana’s leaving the marks herself so that we’ll follow her, or whoever snatched her is from the Council and is leading us into a trap,” Pelay said.

Her eyes reminded Brenn of a rabbit. Furtive, forever twitching about looking for sign of danger. There was no arguing with the results though. Pelay had picked up signs of Iana’s passage that even Brenn had missed, and Breen considered herself to have a masterful ability to read stone.

“Anything’s possible,” Jyl said. “I’m putting my money on Iana though. She knows we were watching over her.”

“I think whoever took her wants to get her lost,” Brenn said. “For all the traveling we’ve been doing, we haven’t moved that far from where we started. A lot of the ups and downs we’ve followed them through have been spiraling us around beneath the Silver Spring Shrine.”

“They’re avoiding sanctified ground?” Jyl asked.

“No, we’ve crossed underneath it a few times now,” Brenn said.

“Are the sewers more advanced under the Shrine than elsewhere?” Jyl asked.

“The sewer works we’ve been through? Not so much,” Brenn said. “If anything there’s fewer sewer routes than normal.”

“Why would that be?” Pelay asked.

“The space is in use by something else.” Jyl said as she worked out the possibilities.

“Basements, sub-basements and catacombs most likely,” Brenn said. “Shrines, churches and temples, they all seem to love to build themselves on top warrens of catacombs.”

“Good job security for you though right?” Jyl asked.

“I’m not with the Guild,” Brenn said, and braced herself waiting for the typical onslaught of questions. The idea of a dwarf with extensive stoneworking knowledge who wasn’t part of Gallagrin’s Mining Guild was too much for some people to process. They had to know her justification for being so horribly different from their expectations, no matter how personal the reasons might be.

“Excellent,” Jyl said. “Then I won’t get in trouble for doing this.”

Brenn hadn’t expected that response, and in her experience statements like that were never followed up by any safe or sane courses of action.

Jyl confirmed that guess when she brought a small whistle to her mouth and started playing out a distinctive medley of tweets accompanied by a rhythmic wraps against the stone floor.

“That’s not a rock caller is it?” Brenn asked, pointing at the whistle which had begun to glow in Jyl’s mouth.

Jyl looked studiously away at that, pretending to have no idea what Brenn was referring to. It would have been a good act, except for the rumbling beneath the earth which grew steadily louder as Jyl played.

Brenn knew of the device Jyl was using. She’d never seen one though, primarily because they were outlawed by the Mining Guild and avoided like the plague by every sane person who ever ventured underground. Using a rock caller when one was surrounded by the uncountable tons of earth was roughly the same as summoning a tornado while riding in a sky carriage.

The Earth elemental who burst from the wall at the end of Jyl’s playing filled Brenn with a sense of calm.

It was possible to banish small Earth elementals with the proper materials and rituals. This often resulted in deaths of two or three of the ritual’s casters as even small Earth elementals did not enjoy the process of being expelled from the material realm.

There was no worry of that with the Earth elemental that Jyl summoned though. It was far too large for any simple banishment ritual that Brenn could think of performing against it.

And it formed its body from the Chiselbreak stone of the walls around them. So fighting it with swords or picks was out of question too.

Hence the feeling of calm. Panic was useful to spur a flight or fight response. When you were completely doomed, only calm made any sense.

“Why did you call that?” Pelay asked, backing away from the elemental with a look in her eyes that suggested to Brenn a lack of understanding of how little a few extra feet of distance would help.

“Gnasher here can take us through a few short cuts, help us catch up with Iana and whoever took her,” Jyl said.

And then she started drumming her fingers on the elemental’s head.

And it rumbled.

No, not rumbled. Purred.

It rubbed against Jyl and she switched to tapping a rhythm onto it with both hands. It was like a pair of drum beats and the elemental’s body bounced and weaved in time with the song that Jyl was playing on it.

“What in the crystal caves have you done to that thing?” Brenn asked, mesmerized by the dancing of a creature far too heavy and ungainly to ever be doing such a thing.

“Nothing,” Jyl said. “Gnasher just likes a good beat.”

“How do you know the name of an Earth elemental?” Pelay asked.

“I don’t,” Jyl said. “I picked Gnasher since I can’t speak Earth elemental. I’d need boulders in my throat to make the right sounds from what I’ve read.”

“Where did you read about Earth elementals?” Brenn asked.

“I, uh, probably shouldn’t say. It wasn’t a place that encourages visitors and they might be unhappy to learn I’d snuck a peek at some of the forbidden scrolls.”

Brenn’s mind whirled. How had an elf, of all people, broken into one of the Sacred Vaults? They were guarded by every trap and defense known to dwarvenkind!

“How will Gnasher be able to help us sneak past Iana’s captors?” Pelay asked. “I’m guessing they’d notice a few hundred tons of rock slinking up behind them.”

“Oh we’re not going to slink up anywhere,” Jyl said. “We’re going to beat them to the deepest levels of the catacombs.”

“Why there?” Pelay asked.

“Because when it comes to catacombs, that’s always the place the important people hang out,” Jyl said. “They go down into the depths to get away from the surface folk and they farther they are, the safer they feel.”

Brenn wanted to debate that point, citing the numerous Dwarven cities which didn’t conform to the “deepest is best” philosophy, but when it came to catacombs she was hard pressed to think of any where that wasn’t the case.

“I don’t really want to ask this, but is this shortcut going to leave the walls down here at all stable?” Brenn asked, thinking of the immediate peril of bashing a new path through the underground.

“Perfectly,” Jyl said. “We won’t disturb them a bit.”

“That leaves me so full of questions,” Pelay said.

“Then step aboard and experience the answers for yourself!” Jyl said, and promptly stepped into Gnasher’s open mouth.

In the long list of things Brenn had never expected to find herself faced with, the prospect of willingly leaping into the crushing jaws of a monster the size of a small geographic feature was near the top of the list. With Jyl leading by example though it was strangely easy to follow.

Once Pelay joined them inside the beast’s belly, Gnasher took off.

“It doesn’t feel like we’re hitting anything but we’re definitely moving,” Brenn said.

“Yeah, we’re skimming on the edge of the Solid Space,” Jyl said. “Which you may know better than I do.”

“That’s the mythical parallel universe the gods drew the material of our world from,” Brenn said.

“Not so much mythical as inimical to our sort of life. Elementals love it though,” Jyl said.

“I understand none of this,” Pelay said.

“Picture a dimension of solid earth,” Jyl said. “Now picture the sort of creatures who could live there. That’s Solid Space and Earth elementals.”

“How do you move around in a place of solid earth?” Pelay asked.

“Either you can phase through matter, like Gnasher here, or you sit in one place forever,” Jyl said.

“There are a few other options but phasing is the most preferred,” Brenn said. “How did you ever discover all this though?”

“Before I was a Queen’s Guard, I spent a fair bit of time adventuring on my own. It’s how I found my Pact Spirit,” Jyl said.

“Ah, you’re an Adventurer,” Brenn said. She tried not to make it sound like she was saying “Ah, you’re completely insane” but she wasn’t sure if she succeeded.

Her clan had experience with Adventurers. They sent such foolish souls into the deep, dark places of the Earth to retrieve things that no one in their right mind would risk searching for.

And now she was with one of them.

Venturing into a deep, dark place.

The sense of doomed calm settled on Brenn’s shoulders like a well worn blanket.

“For what it’s worth,” Jyl said. “I obviously survived, and retired, so I’m not one of the ones who would bite off more than they could chew.”

“Biting and chewing are not exactly comforting thoughts at the moment,” Pelay said.

“Just be glad you didn’t grow up listening to ghost stories that ended almost exactly like this,” Brenn said.

“When we get back from this, when not if, you should have some excellent stories to tell at the next moot you attend,” Jyl said.

“That is a very dwarven payment for services rendered,” Brenn said. “If not for the pointy ears, I’d almost think you had some of our blood in you.”

“Elven to the bone, I’m afraid, but you love a few dwarves and it’s funny the sort of things that rub off on you,” Jyl said.

The wistfulness in her voice invited further questions but those were set aside as Gnasher’s mouth opened to reveal they’d arrived at the deepest level of the catacombs, and they were far from alone.