Progress

Gavril now, more or less, lived in his lab. And he loved it.

“I should have done this years ago,” he mused to himself. He hadn't been home or slept in his bed in days, staying instead in a cot in the corner of his lab, a coffee pot set up on a gas burner on the counter. Papers everywhere, another blackboard brought in and covered in equations and diagrams. A stack of clothes, both dirty and clean, by the door. A small shower stall in the corner.

And the work. Ah, the work. One lab was no longer sufficient for his work. By orders of the Emperor Himself and with funds directly from the royal coffers Gavril now occupied the largest basement lab in the National Science Center. Such a thing had never been possible before, but now with Imperial permission...

“You cannot do this!” Professor Alton Agorian gasped when Gavril stumped down to the basement lab to claim it. “We have a grant from several different holders. Our work is tied to Operation: Skylight and, and our work on chemicals is critical to-” But he shut up when Gavril waved the Imperial decree under his nose. It was with a smug sense of satisfaction that he watched Professor Agorian and his assistants haul all of their work out of the lab and up three flights of stairs. Bastard. That would show him for kissing up to the Minister of Scientific Progress and leaving Gavril's department, well, slightly underfunded in various regards.

“My thanks to you, Chancellor Pjeter,” Gavril said as he regarded his vast new laboratory. He stood in the middle of the room, hands in his pockets, looking about and feeling a deep satisfaction. Maybe it would be wrong to use the good graces of the Emperor Himself for petty departmental revenge, but really, really, what else was money for? Professor Agorian was just the first on the list, too.

Priorities. Gavril enlisted the help of others in his lab to move his equipment downstairs. He would have helped but his back had been flaring up lately and besides, he had more important matters to attend to, such as ordering everyone about. No one else could do that important task, oh no. None could give orders like Dr. Kazarian could.

Soon enough, the basement lab was set up exactly to the scientist's specifications.

Mordania's national superhero program had diminished as of late. Yes, it had been powerful some thirty, forty years ago when both the expanding Mordanian Empire and the First Union had been competing to create the most powerful armies. Mordania, though, had gotten caught up in its own political quagmire and had crumbled during a bloody coup that had placed House Rorian on the throne. In the madness, the First Union had thrived and the remnants of Mordania had been forced to watch as the Mighty Men became the new world police. Part of it, the doctor was sure, was that the First Union naturally had more mages born within its borders. The Empire might encompass a greater expanse of land and include more diverse countries, but it had fewer mages. Cockamamie nonsense and all that.

To begin, Gavril poured over every scientific publishing he could find on the nature of mages and the origin of their powers. He stayed huddled in a corner of his lab surrounded by stacks of paper, a pencil dangling out of the corner of his mouth as he read, his nose coming closer and closer to the paper the longer he read. Cups of dark coffee sat forgotten on the edge of his desk, growing cold and gritty with neglect. Most of what he read was, of course, crackpot theories. No one had made any progress on this and nothing definitive had been discovered. What did Varaz think would happen, that the brilliant Dr. Kazarian would tap his feet and clap his hands and pull the answer out of thin air? That a bit of hard work was all it would take to produce artificial mages? Oh, it would take more than that. The more he read, the more Gavril became convinced that this was a fool's mission and the Emperor Himself was stupid or worse for considering it possible.

Still, the literature all seemed to point towards the blood as a likely place where powers were held, and so Gavril decided to start there. He called Chancellor Pjeter on the voiceline. “If His Excellency permits it,” Gavril said into the mouthpiece of the device, “I would require the presence of his magical guard at my laboratory as soon as possible.”

“And leave the palace undefended?” The Chancellor's voice sounded muffled as it emitted from the little speaker in Gavril's hand. He pressed it up against his ear, the better to hear. “I do not know if that is possible. Perhaps, sir, it would be better for you to come here, depending on what you require.”

“That I do not yet know. Blood samples, at least. Perhaps more, in time to come.” It would be a nuisance to have to do everything away from the comfort of his nice new lab. Too many variables to consider if he did this elsewhere. Possible contamination. Potential to lose samples or tools. But if the Emperor's safety was to be compromised...“Very well. Have a room set up in the palace for my tests. I want it cleaned floor to ceiling. Allow no one in without my permission.”

They set a date, and once Chancellor Pjeter had organized everything, Gavril made his way to the palace with his equipment. A royal car picked him up, as before. Gavril sat huddled in the backseat, protected by the pale sunlight by the tinted glass windows. A small bar was in the back of the car, complete with frosted bottles of liquor and glasses clinking with ice, but Gavril ignored it. He needed a clear head to run his tests, and besides, he'd been dry for a long time now.

A guard showed Gavril to the promised room while a footman moved all the equipment in. “Leave it at the door,” Gavril snapped to the footman. “I won't have you messing it up.” The room itself was lavish. Hardwood floors and rich rugs, white-painted columns and paintings of various important dead people on the wall. They frowned down at Gavril as he set up his equipment on the long wooden table, their painted expressions unchanging and hard, their whiskers bristling and clothing precise.

In twenty minutes the doctor was ready. Lines of test tubes and syringes covered the table. A soft knock at the door, and Chancellor Pjeter poked his head into the room. “Are you ready, sir?”

“Yes.” Gavril stood, smoothing down the front of his long, white lab coat. He adjusted his spectacles, picked up his clipboard and pencil, the better to look official with, and said, “Send them in.”

One by one the palace mages marched in through the doors. Gavril questioned each of them extensively on the nature of their powers and asked for demonstrations. “When did your powers first emerge?” “How far have you pushed your powers?” “Do you have any children, and if so, are they magical, and is their other parent magical?” “Are any of your ancestors mages, and if so, what powers did they possess?” And so on. In turn the mages would rise into the air, move chairs across the room without touching them, dim the lights in the room or walk up the walls as though it were the floor. Then Gavril took a sample of their blood and deposited it in a carefully labeled vial. This went on for hours until the last of the super guard rolled up his sleeve, buttoned back up his coat, and left the room.

“Is that all?” Chancellor Pjeter asked, and Gavril jumped. He had not seen nor heard the Chancellor come back into the room.

“God and Avatar, don't do that!” yelped the doctor. He took a moment to settle, and then said, “For now, that shall do. I reserve the right to summon up any one of these guards at a moment's notice for further testing, should I need it.”

“Of course,” Chancellor Pjeter said with a deep bow. “Stay in touch.”

His notes and precious blood samples were moved back to the lab at the National Science Center. Now, though, came the hard part: figuring out what the hell to do with it all.

He studied the various blood samples under microscopes and compared them to human samples, spent so long staring at drops of blood between plate glass that his eyes hurt and his fingers were so tense from fine-tuning the knobs that he felt he must throw something to vent his twitchy frustration. No matter how he looked at it, he could see no difference between ordinary human blood and mage blood. The literature confirmed such facts. But there had to be a difference. There had to be, somewhere! There had to be something, something deep in the elementary particles of a being that made them special. Something that gave them their spark. Something that a deathray could parse apart and weaponize.

“Gah.” Gavril slumped back in his seat and took a sip of coffee.

The days turned to weeks. Sunlight and rain became strange things. His frustration mounted. Colleagues passes him in the hall, Dr. Zakarian and Dr. Rinehart and Professor Dorst, and each of them wanted to know how the superhero program was going? Their questions were polite and inquisitive and perfectly natural, but Gavril couldn't help but feel suspicious. They wanted to know. They wanted to take the credit for themselves. They wanted to help, but what help could they offer? They would have to, somehow, be dealt with. All the while, the massive labs on the third floor devoted to Operation: Skylight continued, quietly taunting Gavril. Look, look at me! A project so secretive and important that not even the Emperor's favor could grant him that space.

So Gavril turned inwards until he felt as dark and bitter as the used grounds settling at the bottom of his cups.

When Chancellor Pjeter called, as was his weekly custom, Gavril found himself unsure of what to say. “Progress is good.”

“Excellent,” the Chancellor said. “Have you anything else to report? When, perhaps, do you expect to be able to present before His Excellency, the Board and Science and the military?” All those important people. It made Gavril seize up with anxiety.

“That is impossible to say.” Indeed it was. What did the Chancellor expect, that this sort of thing would happen according to a perfect schedule? Science wasn't always a well-oiled machine that spat out results on a regular basis. Science was messy. The processes were laid out in stone, but everything else was liquid, a torrential rain running over the stone edifice of the scientific method, and nothing was ever certain. “When I've made a breakthrough, you'll be the first to know.”

“Good. Do send me your reports, if you will.”

“You'll find them highly boring.”

“On the contrary. I look forward to them immensely.”

It was clear that Chancellor Pjeter Barrian, despite his collected exterior, was very excited about the project. Probably enjoyed his job as an administrator far too much.

Another fruitless week passed, marked by fresh laundry and guest lectures in the Science Center. The coffee and failures all blurred together into a formless, indistinguishable mass so that Gavril couldn't remember what he'd done the day before, or even hours before. He began to concoct other methods to discover the source of powers, something other than blood analysis. Something in the brain, perhaps, or the sex cells. It could be that mages could not be artificially created, but only bred, in which case a state-wide breeding program would have to be initiated. Well, that could be addressed when the time came. Let the governmental departments deal with that.

Gavril made sure that he was not interrupted during the day. He told everyone in the lab that he should be left completely alone unless in the event of an emergency, and even then he should only be disturbed if it was something truly horrible, like the moon was about to crash into Helmsberg. Notices all over the lab door reinforced his message. His only visitors were the assistants that cared to his needs, clothes and food and the like.

About three weeks – or had it been three and a half? – after his experiment at the palace (Gavril had lost track of the days and was no longer sure what the date was. Time was measured by Chancellor Pjeter's check-ins) someone broke that rule. He heard a knock on the door at the far end of the lab. It made him jump, and the sound echoed throughout the concrete tomb. “Go away!” he shrieked, not looking up from his work. And then, unthinkably, the door creaked open. Did I not lock it? he thought. Evidently not. Gavril swung around in his chair and saw someone – a student – slipping in through the open door.

“Haldo?” the student called. He wore a buttoned white lab coat, and his wavy dark hair was smoothed back from his round face. “Dr. Kazarian?”

“Get out, get out!” Gavril shouted, now out of his chair and stomping flat-footed across the room, around tables and giant racks of narrow test tubes. “I am not to be disturbed! Get out, you brat!”

The student flinched, backing towards the door. “Please, sir, I'm here from Professor Agorian.” There was something odd about his accent, Gavril decided. He sounded like he was from the southern regions of the empire. No, not that. Yorish, perhaps? That didn't make sense.

“Then I'll talk to him myself. Now get out!” Gavril flapped his hands at the student.

“Please. It's important.”

“I've never even seen you around here before. Who are you?” He was feet away from the student now. The boy couldn't have been older than fifteen, small and round. He looked down at the ground as Gavril approached, a folder clutched in his hand. With his other hand he reached up to fiddle with the top button on his lab coat.

“I?” With a quick snapping motion his hand moved inside his coat and pulled out a pistol, dark and gleaming. Gavril inhaled sharply, the breath catching in the back of his throat, as the boy shoved the gun against Gavril's chest. “I am Lord Malice.” Gavril opened his mouth to scream for help, but the words died on his tongue. What would it matter, anyway? No one was to disturbed him. He'd wanted privacy. No one would hear him, and even if they heard the gun, it would be too late. One bullet to the heart, and the boy would have fled. “Smart move. Stay quiet.”

“What do you want?” Gavril finally managed. “Information? Money? I have nothing. Is this sabotage? Who sent you? Unioners?”

“I sent I,” said Lord Malice in his schoolboy's voice. It could have been a grand statement, or else grammatically flawed Mordanian. He gestured with the barrel of his gun to one of the stools around the lab. Wordless, Gavril sat down on the stool and sat facing the boy, hands clasped tightly in his lap. How foolish. This boy holding me at gunpoint, calling himself by the name of larger men. Yet the blackness of the gun barrel held his gaze. Every small twitch of Malice's trigger finger made him flinch. A cold sweat broke out across his forehead and underarms. “No,” snapped Lord Malice. Some of the softness and fear had melted away from his face, and his voice had taken on the quality of the villain lords before him. Was it the boy himself, or was it the weapon in his hand? “You speak Union Standard?” he asked suddenly. “Yorish? Old Yore?”

 “Yes,” Gavril said in Union Standard. “What do you want?”

“You, Dr. Kazarian.”

“Me?”

“You.”

“For what? If you mean to hold me hostage, the Emperor Himself will pay it.”

“I don't need money,” Lord Malice said. Good though his Mordanian had been, Standard was clearly his native tongue. “I need answers.” He flung the folder onto the lab bench with a flick of his wrist. Papers slid across the table. Malice nodded at Gavril, and the scientist took the cue, spreading the papers out and bending over them. “Blueprints,” Malice said. “My father's.”

Gavril did not understand them. They were blueprints, clearly, but that was only part of it. The design seemed only half-developed, the equations sloppy. The rest of the document was pages of notes done in messy handwriting. “You want me to build this.”

“If you can. I'll take instructions and guidance for now. How do I build it?”

“What makes you think-”

The pistol rose again. The hammer clicked. The smell of gun oil. That twitching finger. Hazel eyes narrowed in a theater mask's angered squint. “Don't try and fool me, Dr. Kazarian. You were working on a Mordanian deathray before this.”

“You presume-”

“I presume nothing. I know. You're the best in the Empire, perhaps even the world. If anyone can figure this out, you can.” Lord Malice took a step closer, and jabbed at the papers with his free hand. “This is a deathray. I've figured that much out. But there's more. It's supposed to move, somehow. Be mobile. Fly, for all I know. But I don't know how.”

“I don't know,” Gavril said. He felt safe, somehow. If Malice needed him, he would not shoot. The gun was an intimidation tactic. But it was working. “If I knew, Mordania would have its deathray by now. And likely we'd be trading potshots with the First Union.”

“You've worked on it. You're the best man for the job.”

“Why not go to the men in the Union that built the damn thing? Go to Ray of the Mighty Men.”

Something changed in Malice's expression. Disgust twisted his mouth for a second, and he said, “No. It must be you. The Union would never help me.”

“And you think I will?” A bold move, he realized. Too bold. The pistol moved and the cold ring of metal was pressed against Gavril's chest. His cold sweat redoubled.

“I can always abduct you and force you to work for me. Malice Tower has very nice labs. Not quite this, but they'll do.”

“The Empire won't stand by and let you capture me. Nor will the Mighty Men,” he said in a desperate gambit.

Lord Malice snarled. “Then you'll do the work here.”

“You-”

“Don't think you can't, Dr. Kazarian. I will have my father's dreams realized, and you'll help. There can be no other way.

“So. Will it be an ignoble death, surrounded by your incomplete work, or the eternal gratitude of Lord Malice?”

Clearly, the boy would not be dissuaded. “If you insist.” Anything to get the gun away from him, anything to get the boy out of his lab.

“Good.” The gun was lowered. “Good.” He tapped the papers strewn across the table. “I will leave you with these copies. I have the originals. I expect progress, doctor. I expect the best from you.” Malice walked backwards, gun pointed downwards but still live and ready. “Don't call for help when I leave. Don't tell anyone. I'll know.” Gavril nodded, mouth shut. The boy stopped before the door, tilted his chin up and said, in a breathy stage whisper, “Fear my malice.” Then he was gone, the door shut behind him. Gavril exhaled and collapsed backward onto the lab bench, the center of his chest burning where the pistol had touched him.

Despite Lord Malice's warnings, he told Chancellor Pjeter about the incident. After terse words exchanged on the phone they met in person at the palace. “A boy, really. Threatening me with a gun in my own lab!” A day after the incident it all seemed so absurd. “I don't even know how he made it into the Science Center. Security's not what it used to be.”

“I will, of course, inform the Emperor of this,” Pjeter said, tips of his fingers pressed together. “Do tell me everything that happened.” And he did, and Pjeter informed the Emperor Himself, and the decision was filtered back down to Dr. Gavril Kazarian just hours later. Pjeter swept back into the room and cleared his throat. “The Emperor has decreed that you shall meet Lord Malice's demands.”

Gavril felt the bottom of his stomach drop out. “What?”

Pjeter shrugged. “His word is law and his will is ours.”

“But...but the mage project! How can I work on two such projects at once?”

“The Emperor has furthermore decreed that he shall provide you and Lord Malice with the necessary resources and funds to complete the project.”

“But...”

“And he plans to enter into an alliance with the young Lord Malice.”

“No. Out of the question.” Gavril crossed his arms and glared at Chancellor Pjeter. He had had no reason to trust the advisor, other than his polite nature, but he felt that some trust had been betrayed. “I refuse to work with the boy that threatened me. Besides, neither of us know fully what his plan is! He shows me these damnable blueprints that don't even make sense! And an alliance with a boy? A Malice he may be, but he's green as they come.”

Again, the shrug. “It is not my place to question His Excellency. I suspect, perhaps, that Emperor Varaz has turned his gaze to Yoreland, which the Malices have long occupied. A good place to look for expanding the empire, and a loyal ally all in one stroke.”

“And yet it is I who will bear the burden of keeping the boy happy. I who must produce results for Emperor Varaz and Lord Malice!”

“You shall not want for help.”

Gavril returned to the lab soon thereafter. There would be no use in trying to get the Emperor to change his mind, and Chancellor Pjeter had proven to be of little use, bowing to the Emperor and letting things happen. Alone, Gavril pulled out his old notes on deathrays, swept clear a table, and began anew, ever aware of the specter of Malice's gun drilling into his chest.

The Elven Story of Creation

So it was that in the beginning the Great Ones ruled. Theirs was the realm of the pure, of perfect ideals, and they floated in the void and were the void. Timeless, the Great Ones co-existed in pace until the great war. It is said that each of the Great Ones grew jealous, and each sought to usurp the other until, as one, they rose up in bloody battle. For seconds or for eons they clashed, and their battles spanned across the stars. In the end Rem the Sire perished in an effort to protect his brethren, and thus we call him Rem the Slain. The body of the Slain One became the earth, and so was this place made. His blood became the oceans, his bones the land. And from his body arose his children. From his hands, Bromra; He of beasts and the hunt. From his sex, Lataleh; She of the harvest and life. From his crown, Somrahn; He of the sky and the heavens and all they contained. And from his slowing heart, the nameless and faceless one; it of death, and of the end of all things.

So the Great Ones left alone the earth, for it was the providence of Rem the Slain and his children, the Gods Themselves.

They set out to fill the earth that was their sire's body.

Lataleh kissed the earth and brought from it life. The ground flourished with trees and plant, and to each she gave a name and a purpose. From the clay of the earth, Bromra crafted animals to inhabit the world. Lataleh breathed life into them, and they covered the land. Bromra gave to each a role to fill, a way to thrive, and taught to each what it was to live.

Above them, Somrahn forged the sun, the moon, and the clouds, and these he seeded to grant rain and snow and light upon the earth below. He declared to never interact with his brethren, and he would provide his blessings to those below him.

And the nameless one, he without a face, lurked on the edge of things, and did not participate as the earth was made. When it was done, he said, What is this, that there is no one to appreciate out handiwork? So together the children of the Sire made the Elf, so that they might look in wonder upon all that had been made. Lataleh gave them love and life; Bromra gave them the skill of his hands; Somrahn gave them wisdom and thought. And to them the nameless one gave them death. For, as he said, if they are endless as we are, they shall be as us, and they shall never appreciate the gifts we have given them. So he gave his gifts to all that had been wrought, to elf and animal and plant and stone and sky and thought.

In time the other races came into being. From the moon came the vampire, and they worshiped her above the four who had been born of the Slain One. From the sun came man, and they were the youngest and proudest of the races. They did not acknowledge the old gods, and in time they created their own idols to worship. Though the sun and moon were in the domain of Somrahn, he turned his eye away from them, creations of his that had given rise to alien things. Though the others blamed Somrahn, in the end it was not, really, his fault, and nothing was done as man and vampire spread across the earth. The gods removed themselves; let the creatures war with each other as they may.

So it was.

Now, Lataleh never forgave the nameless one for his impudence and transgressions. The faceless one stole from Lataleh; its gifts a purposeful rebuke to her; blatant theivary. When came the time that Lataleh went beneath the earth to restore life to those that had died, winter came, and so the faceless one reigned. The cycle continued, with each year Lataleh weeping for her children who would die, and then raising them once again as the faceless one unmade her work, year after year.

So it was.

In time Lataleh confronted the faceless one and said to it, Because of you I shall never be happy. Because of you my children live in fear with the knowledge that one day they will die. And the faceless one said, They should not fear the end of things.

Stay out of my realm, Lataleh said, but it could not be so, for the faceless one had brought death to the world.

However, the faceless one felt for his sister, she who had come from the Slain One, and said, I shall grant you one thing, one deathless thing that I shall never visit. I shall never end its life and never bear its soul away to the comfort of its brethren in the time-after-life. It shall be yours to nourish and care for all the days of its life, and the days of its life shall be endless. I warn you though, that even if it should beg for death, I will not grant it that. It shall live outside of my grace and realm, and it will be yours utterly.

To this Lataleh agreed, and so the two gods lay together and conceived a child which Lataleh birthed. Yet from her womb came not anything that looked like elf or god, but a seed. Lataleh took the seed to the most fertile ground she could find and planted it there, and every day she nourished the seed until it sprouted, and year by year it grew taller and stronger until it was a tree, the mightiest tree that Lataleh or indeed the world had ever seen. Its trunk was wide, its branches thick and many, its leaves the green of emeralds, its flowers more beautiful than any other, their perfume wonderful and wild. Even in the depths of winter the tree retained its leaves, but its branches did not break beneath the weight of snow and the leaves stayed green despite the cold. Yet for all this the tree produced no seeds. It would have no offspring. Lataleh mourned this, but true to his word the faceless one did not come near the tree that was its child as he had promised.

So the deathless tree lingered throughout time. Many an elf has sought the tree, for it is said that its flowers scent can make any fall in love, and a taste of its bark will cure any ill, and that a drop of its sap will give eternal youth. Many have looked, and none have found it, for Lataleh hid her deathless child well.

Visitations

Misty and chill the morning dawned. Reia shivered when she woke. Summer was passing, soon to be replaced by the harvest time. If the humans insisted on coming still, well, that would be trouble for them. As the autumn marched into winter and Lataleh, Goddess of Seed, laid to rest the earth would lie cold and bare, and the elven lands would be impossible to enter. Let them try. Winter would claim them and the nameless god would take them into its fold.

 In due time.

Rahnn had already risen, the pallet and furs beside her were already cool. She dressed and left the shelter, stepping into the quiet bustle of the village. Some of the elves uttered greetings to her. Most remained intent on their work. Children ran about, chasing after terrified, whirring birds or play-fighting with sticks. A boy still too young to have horns almost ran straight into Reia. “Careful, Tamar,” she said. Tamar ran off without acknowledging her. Reia snorted.

Old Irah was on cooking duty that morning, so she lined up at the cookfires and took a bowl of grain porridge from him. “You alright this morning, Reia?” he asked. He sat on a stool made of woven branches, his one foot resting on the ground. His right leg ended in a stump above where the knee had been. The remainder of the leg was wrapped in cloth and propped on the stool, next to his cane. It looked ugly, a short little lump of thigh-shaped flesh sticking out of him. Useless. Reia could still remember the explosion of blood as the bullet struck Irah's leg, the way his face went slack as he collapsed to the ground, the ruin of his leg twisted out sideways. The healers thought he'd die, from blood loss or infection or worse. But the nameless god did not see it fit to carry Irah away then. Though wasn't it crueler to let him linger like this?

“Fine,” she said, and thanked him for the porridge. She ate alone, trying not to look over at Irah and his stump. It made her leg ache.

It took her almost an hour to find Rahnn. She finally found him at the village's edge outside a small tent. There were no other shelters and no cleared spaces. Just the trees and brush of the elfland forest. “Rahnn? Rahnn, what are you doing here?”

He indicated the lonely tent. “The prisoner. I've been trying to learn what I can from him. He's been isolated for a week now eating nothing but water and bread. Hasn't heard a single elf or man speak to him. I think he'll be ready to talk now.”

“About what?”

“Mordania. What they have planned. Where they're going. What they're doing here. Anything I can find out.”

“And you think he'll talk. To you.”

“I think he'll talk to anyone at this point.” He moved to pull aside the tent flap and walk in. Reia grabbed his wrist. “Reia...”

“Let me help.”

He looked amused, the edge of his smile making his dark eyes crinkle. “How are you going to help? You don't know enough of the man-tongue.”

“I can rip out his man tongue,” she said. “If he tries anything...”

Rahnn chuckled and kissed her on the forehead. “Alright. Threaten him if you need to. But I don't think you'll have to.” He held the flap open and gestured for her to go in. Reia ducked under the leather flap and entered. It took her but a second to adjust to the dim light inside. The tent was small and smelled like damp earth, unwashed man and waste. Reia wrinkled her nose. The prisoner sat huddled in the back, ankles bound together and tied to the tent poles. Crumbs were scattered around him. He was hunched over himself, hugging himself and rocking back and forth very slightly, muttering to himself now and then in his harsh language. When Rahnn squeezed himself in next to Reia the three of them filled up the tent almost entirely.

Rahnn nodded to Reia, and she prodded the prisoner with the handle of her knife. He jerked his head upwards, staring at Reia with unfocused eyes. His cheeks were covered with a scraggly beard, his hair limp. He muttered something, and Reia thought she heard him say 'elf'.

“Shut up,” she hissed, and bared her knife at him.

Rahnn touched her on the shoulder and bent down to the prisoner's eye level. He spoke softly in the man's own tongue, a short sentence. From what little Reia knew of the Mordanian language he was asking a question. To his questions, the man said, “No.” So Rahnn asked another question, and received another, “No.”

Reia slapped him. “Answer him!” she snarled. It was in elven, but she knew her intentions were clear.

“Reia...”

She seized the man by the collar of his soldier's uniform and held the knife against his throat. “I kill,” she spat, using the few words of man-tongue she knew. “Kill.” The man's eyes fluttered back into his head and his mouth moved around silent words. He made a sound like, “Pleese.”

Rahnn touched Reia on the hand and she pulled her knife back with a jerk, and bared her teeth at the man. He swallowed, the lump in his throat bobbing up then down, and looked at Rahnn. How much easier it must be to trust him, she thought as she settled back on her haunches and Rahnn began to talk. He was a leader. A natural one. When he spoke, elves listened. He could lead a pack into battle or to the hunt. He understood people. He'd be chief one day, she knew, and maybe she'd be at his side as his mate.

More to the point, it was easier to trust someone when they weren't the one holding a knife to your neck.

It looked like the prisoner was cooperating now. He was certainly nodding a lot more. Reia recognized a few words, mostly 'Mordania' and 'men'.

“What's he saying?” Reia whispered close to Rahnn's left ear.

“He was part of a scouting unit,” Rahnn said back in elven. “He says more were coming.”

“He was the last one left of the scouts. The rest of them have no way of knowing what happened.”

“He said, in that case, that the larger units would delay their exploration.”

“You mean invasion.”

“It will be another three days, perhaps, before more arrive.”

Reia stood as best she could in the cramped confines of the tent. “Then why are we sitting around here? We need to set up defenses, send out scouts. We have the advantage over them!”

Rahnn nodded, then said something to the man, and stood to leave.

The man shouted something, and both of them turned to him. He stared at Rahnn with wide, pleading eyes. He made the “Pleese,” sound again, and then something else.

“He wants to see the outside,” Rahnn said. “To see the sun and the village. He wants to see people again.”

“No,” said Reia. “He does not belong near the village. Let him rot here and be grateful for it.”

“He can do no harm,” Rahnn said to her in a quiet voice. “I will keep him bound. Keep your knife to him if you want, but I will not deny him the simple pleasure of the sun.”

Reia looked at him, scrutinizing and wary. I cannot trust the man. But prove me wrong, Rahnn. You always have before. “If he tries anything,” she said, “I will kill him.”

Rahnn nodded. “Very well. It shall not come to that. I will be certain.” He spent a moment exchanging words with the man before untying his ankles from the tent pole and binding his hands in a length of rope. He pulled the man to his feet, forcibly, and pushed him towards the tent flap. “After you,” he said to Reia. She ducked out.

When the prisoner stepped into the sunlight he gasped, blinked, and shielded his eyes with his hands. Rahnn stood behind him, one hand gripping the man's shoulder. Reia kept her hand round her knife handle. Eventually the man pulled his hands away and looked around him. A tear rolled down his unshaven cheek.

Reia felt jumpy, on alert, as if she were hunting in the woods. She held her ears erect, eyes sweeping back and forth but focused on the prisoner as Rahnn guided him forward. She realized she was walking lightly on the tips of her hooves as if to remain silent in the presence of prey. But this man was no prey. He was weak and pathetic, a coward who had given himself up to the enemy and spilled secrets for fear of his life. He was a man. Reia had lost count of how many men had died at her hands. Try as they might they would never take the elflands. They never had. Still, she kept her grip on her knife. “Hurry him along,” she hissed to Rahnn. “I do not like this.”

All the while the man muttered to himself, or to Rahnn, though Rahnn never responded. The prisoner would pause between his inane man-tongue ramblings and then speak again, fast and feverish. “Is he mad?” Reia asked.

“I cannot hear what he's saying,” Rahnn said. “I do not think it matters.”

They reached the village's edge. Some of the elves wandering about stopped what they were doing to get a look at the prisoner. A few of the children came close to him, staring. “Stay back,” Reia said. “Stay away from him.” To the prisoner, she showed her knife and held up one finger. “Tell him he has one minute. Then back to his tent.”

The prisoner looked around him, eyes wide, back and forth, and back and forth. And he spoke, so soft that Reia almost did not hear him. He said one of the words that Reia knew: “Kill.”

The sound of men's guns filled the air, the sharp crack-boom. Screams. Shouts. The stench of burnt gunpowder. Reia grabbed the man by the hair and shoved the tip of her knife under his chin. “What have you done?” she yelled. “Was this you, you fucker?” But he couldn't understand elven, so he only twisted his head away from her.

Mind mage, she realized then. He'd let himself get captured so he could tell the other soldiers how to find the village. He hadn't been mad, but speaking to soldiers over great distances. “Fucker!” The mage glanced at her, head still twisted away, and his eyes met hers. Reia dragged her knife across his throat, savoring the feel of hot blood running down onto her hands. She snarled and pushed his body to the ground. “Get the warriors together!” she shouted to Rahnn. He was already running through the village, shouting for everyone to arm themselves. “Arm for battle!”

Tamar ran towards Reia, shouting to her. “Reia, Reia! What's going to happen?”

She knelt down to his level. “We are going to kill the humans. You are going to help get everyone to safety. The children and elderly, anyone who can't fight off the men.”

“I want to fight!” Tamar puffed out his chest and fixed Reia with a severe expression. On the face of an eleven-year old elf without his horns it looked comical.

“Can you handle a bow?” Reia asked him.

“No, but-”

“Can you use a blade?”

“I did once before, but-”

“Could you kill a man without a second thought?”

“Yes!”

Reia shook her head. “They have guns, and they can kill you as easily as thinking. One day you'll help defend our home from the invaders. But not today. There will be plenty of time later to kill them.” Tamar scowled, but he didn't say anything and his shoulders slumped in a gesture of defeat. “Go.” He ran, thin legs flying over the ground.

The trees outside the village were swarming with men when Reia arrived, bow in hand. She whispered a prayer to the god of the hunt and let an arrow fly. It thrummed as it flew through the air and over the head of her target. Reia swore, then ducked low into the tangle of roots near the ground. Bark and dirt showered over her as a bullet struck the tree behind her. She winced. By a quick count she guessed at thirty men, and those were just the ones she could see from here. There would be more. She could hear them.

Reia scrambled behind the tree as another bullet struck the ground near her. The burnt stench of gunpowder filled her nose, so thick that it drowned out everything else. When this was done, she thought, the village would have to be moved, far away so the men wouldn't find them again, and far away from the metal smell of battle.

Up the tree she climbed, fingers grasping onto branches, hoof points digging into the soft wood. She nestled herself amongst the branches, watching the men below her advance. One arrow, and one man collapsed to the ground, a shaft sticking out of his belly. Before he'd hit the ground she had another arrow pulled back in her bow, her sights on another man. She found her mark just below his throat.

Through the shroud of brown and green in the forest, she saw a flash of orange and smelled something harsh and chemical. She looked to the rear of the advancing men. There she saw one with a long, heavy-looking gun venting steam. And when he held it up, it spat fire. “Kill the fire gun!” Reia screamed, and shot at him. Her arrow was lost in the tangle of low-hanging branches between the two of them. He was too far away, too well-protected. She heard her packmates shouting amongst each other.

Reia climbed back down the tree, slunk to the ground and circled wide around the advancing soldiers. She crouched low, almost flat to the ground; waiting, breathing hard, and when a soldier walked past her, not six feet away, she put an arrow through his leg. He fell screaming to the ground, and she dashed out and slit his throat before anyone noticed. Then she slipped back into the trees and moved on. Another arrow here, then there. Far off she could see others doing the same. They'd take the men from the rear and kill them before they realized what was happening.

And then she'd go back to the village make sure that Rahnn never hear the end of this.

She readied another arrow. She could see the man with the fire gun now, close enough that she could hear the steady hiss of the flames. The forest around him burned. Ferns, moss and leaf became delicate black skeletons and crumbled into nothing. Flames licked against trees, the bark sloughing off and sap bubbling like angry water. The ground under his heavy boots was black, grey, and dead.

“May the faceless one take you to an eternity of torment,” she whispered, and drew her arrow back, fletching to cheek. She straightened her fingers.

The moment the arrow flew from her fingers the soldier turned. For a second Reia saw herself reflected in the fiery lenses of the soldier's goggles. The liquid flames jetting out of his gun trailed behind him as he turned, tracing his movements. The air hung still, warm and heavy. And then everything was washed in white heat, so hot that she couldn't feel anything anymore. There was only the flames. She opened her mouth to scream (to scream, that's what she should do), but there were no sounds, just heat and ash. She couldn't see the soldier, the faceless soldier with his goggles and the red eagle of Mordania on his sleeves. Just the fire...

“Reia?”

She jerked her eyes open. She wasn't aware that they'd been closed. She was on her back, staring up at the starless sky. But where were the trees? Where were the signs of the battle that had just been fought? “Is anyone there?” she called out. “Anyone?”

She heard the whisper-quiet sound of fabric over grass, even though she couldn't feel any grass under her. From the still darkness behind her emerged a tall, slender elf. It was dressed in long grey robes, but its face was devoid of any features. “No.” She crawled backwards away from the god, but her limbs were stone and they wouldn't move. “No!” she yelled. Her heart hammered against her chest, but for how much longer? The god's eyeless face turned to her, but it kept walking, on through the darkened place and on and on until it was part of the black horizon.

“Reia?”

She opened her eyes. She was on the ground in a darkened shelter, a blanket wrapped around her. Smoke-stained timbers over hear head. Not trees and not blackened sky. Elves stood around her, including the village elder. “You are awake,” the elder said. In the half-light Reia could see that he looked drawn and weak.

Reia pushed herself onto her elbows. “What – aaaah.” The rest of her thought ended as pain lanced through her body. She collapsed back onto the pad beneath her.

“Don't move,” Loram the healer said. “You've been burned.”

Reia flung back the blanket, ignoring the protests of the others. What she saw made her hiss in pain, or shock. Her right side, leg and torso both, were wrapped in cloth bandage. Now she could smell it too, the heady stink of poultice, blood and char. The smell of her failure. “What happened?” she asked. “The battle...”

“Two days have passed,” the elder said. “All is at an end.”

She groaned. The memory of the nameless one was fresh in her mind, and she half-expected it to slip into the shelter, bending its tall frame under the entrance and watching everything without comment, waiting and waiting...

“What happened?” she asked again.

It took a moment for the elder to respond. “The warriors could not keep the men from entering our village. In the end we managed to kill them all. We, and one very angry wurm disturbed by the sounds of guns.”

“Casualties?”

“Many.” The elder inclined his head.

“The faceless one lingered here for a long time,” Loram said. “Over forty elves we have lost, and more than just the warriors.”

“The rebuilding will take some time. Crops to be replanted, shelters repaired. Dead to be buried. I fear that we may not be safe here any longer. We may have to move deeper into the forest. Our brethren settlements throughout the land may not be safe either.”

Reia licked her dry lips. “Where is Rahnn?”

A flurry of glances passed amongst the other elves. The elder bent down and touched her hand gently. “Reia. He is not with us any longer. He-”

Reia pulled her hand back from the elder's dry touch. “Don't tell me that he died valiantly. Don't tell me he died. Don't tell me!” Not Rahnn, not Rahnn. Never him. He'd never lost a battle. Mordanian men died before him. He could not have been killed by one of them. He was going to be the chief one day.

The faceless god turned to her and moved on through the darkness. Not my time, but someone else's...

“Get out,” she managed to say. “Get out. All of you.” She told herself that she would not cry, because there was nothing to cry over, because Rahnn wasn't dead. He wasn't he wasn't he wasn't.

The humans would die for this.

She bit her lip and shut her eyes.

The world of MIGHTY

At a glance:

The First Union:
The western continent was once made up of nineteen competing kingdoms.  When the threat of the eastern Mordanian Empire grew too powerful for any one country to oppose, the western kingdoms united into a single power, the First Union.  The capitol of Harrington became Central City, the capitol city of the First Union.  The First Union is a constitutional democracy.  A president is elected every four years, and a governor resides over each of the nineteen kingdoms-become-provinces.  The First Union is famous for its team of mages residing in Central City, the Mighty Men, and the deathray constructed at the end of the Civil War with the southern provinces.
The north of the continent is hilly and temperate, while the south is more pastoral and warmer.  The southern city of Revival is a growing port town.

Mordania:
The eastern continent consists mostly of the Mordanian Empire.  Originally many smaller nations, Mordania subjugated them under the force of its powerful military.  The capitol of Mordania is Helmberg, the seat of the Emperor.  The current ruling house is House Rorian, which only recently came to power.  Succession to the throne is hereditary.

The Elflands:
Protected to the north by rivers and to the south by the Nightfangs, the Elflands are thickly wooded and nearly impossible to navigate.  The forests are fiercely guarded by the elven natives, and though there have been many attempts to conquer and contact the elves, none have succeeded.

Xima:
Also called the Cradle of Night, Xima is home to the vampires.  It was once known as the Glorious Kingdom, where vampire kings ruled the country from their mountain castles.  In recent years Xima has opened its borders to trade, though humans are understandably wary of the Ximians.  Though the vampires generally consume animal blood (cattle and chickens are the most common) and rice, human blood is still a favorite.  What humans once lived in Xima have long ago fled or been hunted to death.
The temple of Sacred Night is the largest of the temples on Xima.  Vampires worship the moon and believe that they are her children.  They fear the sun.

Yoreland:
Considered by many to be quaint or backward, Yoreland is isolated from the rest of the world and largely keeps to itself.  Much of Yoreland is made up of rolling hills and green pastures.  Moors is the only city on a comparable scale to the southern continents.  The Taltale mountains in the south are home to Malice Tower, the seat of House Malice.  The mountain where Malice Tower is built is not considered part of the country.
To the north lie the Shrouded Isles, a set of islands largely uninhabited and covered in perpetual fog.

Inoor:
Inoor is divided into three sections by the massive Mount Masongi; the west, north, and east.  A rich and fertile country, Inoor is nonetheless one of the countries least touched by the technology of the rest of the world.  The northern region is influenced by the First Union, which can be seen in the northerner's style of dress and the more modern city construction.
There is no central Inoori government.  Instead each region sends the wisest and most learned individual to a temple on Mount Masongi to discuss and guide state affairs.  Most cities and villages are self-governed.

The Sea of Snow:
Many small island nations make up the frigid Sea of Snow.  Winter storms plague the seas for most of the year, and permanent ice flows cling to the edge of islands.  The islands are rich in petroleum, metals, and other natural resources.
The islands are currently under Mordanian rule.

The Blasted Land:
A wasteland.  The remains of a former civilization are found here.

Questing for Adventure

“Come on, Quinn!” Neil bounced up and down on the balls of his feet, nerves jittering with excitement. He looked down the slope of the high hill to where Quinn was struggling to climb up. She pulled herself up the slope using protruding branches. Her feet slipped over moss-covered rocks and wet grass, but she finally, finally, made it to where he was, breathing hard through her snub nose and brushing the dirt off the front of her clothes. Her red hair was coming out of its tight braid.

“How much further is it?” she asked.

“I don't know,” Neil told her. “That's why it's an adventure!” He turned and continued walking, this time down the other side of the hill. It was grassy but steep, so Neil had to walk almost sideways to keep himself steady. It was the third hill they'd climbed today. The further they got from Dormer, the fewer people they saw and the more trees they found. Soon there might not be any sign of people at all.. They would really and truly be somewhere magical, then.

“So an adventure is just wandering until we find something?” Quinn asked. He could hear her close behind him, but she'd fall behind him eventually. She always did.

“No, an adventure is exploring. We know what we're looking for. The Nowhere Lands,” they said together. “And when we find them, there's all sorts of adventures we can have there!”

 “But what if the Nowhere Lands are just a story?” Quinn asked, as she always did. “What then?”

“But what if they're not?” Neil said, as he always did. “I don't want to miss out on that if they are. Besides,” he added, skipping down the hill, “where did the stories come from?” Quinn had nothing to say to that.

The landscape rolled on around them, endlessly green and lush. The Taltale mountains loomed behind them, dark and distant, their tops white with snow, their bases covered in trees and fog. Here and there little mushrooms grew, cream or red. Beneath a spreading oak tree Neil found a ring of mushrooms growing in a perfect circle. He pointed it out to Quinn. “A fairy ring,” he said. “A good sign.”

“Fairies almost never leave Nowhere.” Neil knew that despite the doubts she constantly voiced, Quinn knew the stories by heart. They all did. Everyone in Dormer and probably everyone in Yoreland grew up hearing the Nowhere Land stories. Maybe everyone in the world did. Nowhere was where magic came from. “What are they doing out here?”

Neil put his hand into the middle of the ring. It just fit. His palms came away damp, clumps of black soil sticking to his pale skin. “Whenever they leave,” Neil said, “they're on a mission. From the Autumn Elk, usually.”

“Or they just want to cause trouble.”

“But that still means they were here. And that's something.” The two of them moved on. The terrain became even wilder. Trees were taller, branches larger so that the sun was almost blocked out. They walked until they were hungry, and then they ate the apples and scones that they had stuffed in their pockets.

“Maybe we should head back soon,” Quinn said. “I don't want to be lost out here in the dark.”

“We won't be lost.”

“Oh really?” she asked, raising an eyebrow in such a fierce imitation of Neil's Ma that he found himself recoiling from her, but her eyes were sparkling with amusement. “Where are we now?”

Neil opened his mouth to answer before realizing that he wasn't quite sure. “Yoreland,” he said.

Quinn sighed. “So we're already lost.”

“No! We're not!”

“Let's go back. Neil, this is stupid...”

“Just a little further, Quinn, please!” This always happened, with him begging her to go on a little more, and then a little more, and more. “I know we'll find something soon! We already found the fairy ring. And faith is the key to finding Nowhere.”

He could see her considering it, frowning and crossing her arms, fidgeting. He knew she would agree to it, but she had to say it...

And at last she said, “Fine. A little longer.” A little longer brought them to a stream that babbled and glugged its way down the hill. Neil followed close to its winding course with Quinn right behind him. “This has to go somewhere,” Quinn said. “A lake, maybe. Lake Locks, I bet.”

That might be good. There was one story about a powerful mage from the Nowhere that had crossed into Yoreland through a lake. The mage, whose particular powers had let him walk through water without having to breath, had climbed down to the bottom of a lake in Nowhere and emerged in a Yorish lake.

The ground turned down once again. The stream grew thinner until it was just a just a trickle of water running down a stony staircase. Moss grew over the slippery rocks, and the low-hanging trees made a green tunnel. Halfway down the steep slope Neil slipped, the wet rocks flying from under him. He landed hard on his backside, and pain flashed across his back. “Aaargh.”

From further up the hill, Quinn gasped, then called down to him. “Neil, let's go back. We can try again tomorrow.”

He stood up, brushing the dirt and water from his trousers. His backside smarted, and there was a cut on his hand that he hadn't felt. He wiped the cut off, but it just stung more. “Look.” He pointed downhill. “We'll go to that bridge and then we can turn back.” Or he could convince her to go further. There was a tiny part of him that was sure, or mostly sure, perhaps, that any sort of quest for the Nowhere Lands would end in failure. If they were real, and they could be found, why had no one done it before? He'd discussed this with Ma and Pop and Quinn many times before. It took someone pure of heart or powerful in magic to find the Nowhere. Sometimes both. There must have been others before who met those requirements, but maybe, just maybe, he and Quinn were the first who really were the right ones...

The bridge was old, perhaps a hundred years old by Neil's guess. It was made of stone, an arc that ran over the stream. It must have been a cow path in older times. Perhaps it was still used. “Just under there...” His voice echoed under the dark stone bridge. For one moment his world was cool darkness, the echoing sounds of boots splashing through water, and the growing light at the other end. Then he was through, the green-tinted sunlight brushing his face and sounds returned to normal. Quinn came splashing behind him moments later.

“See anything?” she asked.

Neil frowned at the landscape around him. “No,” he admitted, heart sinking. Had he really expected to find anything? How foolish.

A sudden gust of cold wind at his back made Neil shiver. He wrapped his arms around himself as Quinn did the same. “Let's go back,” she said. They turned around to head back under the bridge.

The problem was, that was no longer possible.

The stone arc of the bridge was lined with golden light. A cold wind came whistling through bridge, and instead of seeing the other end of the stream, there was a winter landscape, all snow and bare trees. The cold wind stirred Neil's hair. Snowflakes drifted out, landed and then melted on Neil's skin.

“Oh my gosh,” Quinn whispered.

“This is it.” Neil stepped forward to the bridge. He hesitated for a moment and, ignoring Quinn's gasp, stuck his arm under the bridge and into the winter. His hand and lower arm became cold, but he could still feel the warmth of the late summer day beating down on the rest of him. It was a very strange feeling. “Should we go in?” he asked in an undertone. Before Quinn could answer something shuffled its way through the snow to the bridge. It was a man, or something man-sized, dressed in a long cloak and hood, head bowed against the wind on his side of the bridge. Quinn held onto Neil's shoulder, holding him back. The thing raised its head towards them, and with slow hands lowered its hood. Neil felt himself tense.

It was a man. An ordinary-looking man with long black hair, so dark it seemed to drink the light around him, and a tired but kind expression and golden eyes.

“A mage,” Quinn breathed.

“A fairy king,” said Neil.

“Children,” the man or the mage or the fairy said. He smiled. “How do you fair?”

“Well,” said Neil, speaking for both of them. What should he do? What should they do?

“What are your names?” he asked.

“Neil,” said Neil.

“Quinnalus,” said Quinn. “Who...what are you?”

The man smiled again. “Call me Lorcen.” A fairy name. “What I am is a man on a quest.”

Neil nudged Quinn in the side, as if to say I told you so! What he said was, “What are you looking for?”

Lorcen stepped closer. He kept his hands folded into the wide sleeves of his robes. His hair blew around his face in the icy wind. His black hair and golden eyes made him look majestic. Though his hair covered his ears Neil swore that they had a pointed shape. This has to be someone magical. “Tell me,” he said, “have you heard of the Shrouded Isles?”

“Of course.” The Isles lay just north of Yoreland, but no one and nothing lived there but the hardiest or loneliest of men. Neil felt something tingling in his chest. He knew where this was going.

“What I seek is on the northernmost of the Isles, on the Edge of the World. It is something that I have great need of.”

Behind Neil, Quinn made a little “Oh,” sound.

“On the very end of the island, where nothing lies to the north but sea and ice, there is something that I need. An egg.”

“The Monster of the Islands' egg?” Quinn said, her voice quiet. “But that's just a legend...”

The man spread his hands and smiled at them, his teeth white as the snow behind him. “And you question that after seeing this? It is real, or it must be. Either way, it can be found.”

“Take us into the Nowhere,” Neil said. “Take us in and we'll accept your quest.”

“I cannot,” Lorcen said.

A sudden abandon seized Neil. He pushed Quinn's hand off his shoulder and stepped forward, his strides long. The wind from beneath the bridge howled and beat him back. Lorcen extended his hand, palm outward, and Neil had the impression that he was pressing his hand against a glass wall dividing the wintery Nowhere from the late summer in Yoreland. He reached out, grasping, trying to touch the edge of the divide, to get even one finger into that magical land. He felt his skin tingle, but he could come no closer.

“You cannot come in. It is impossible. Not until you do this thing for me.”

“Why can't you do it?” Quinn asked.

“I cannot leave,” Lorcen said. “I can only make requests of those pure of heart.” He inclined his head in a bow. “Such as you two.”

Neil stood still, heartbeats away from the opening. “Why do you need it?” he asked.

“To save the Nowhere lands. When I hatch what is inside the egg, my lands will be saved.”

The Nowhere Lands in danger...Neil could think of no more noble a quest. “Then we'll do it.”

Lorcen bowed again. “My eternal thanks. When you have it, return it here.” He looked at each of them in turn. “Farewell, and fortune light your way.” The scene began to fade, but Lorcen's golden eyes remained on them as he stepped backwards from the bridge. The golden light lining the bridge's arc shrinking as if some invisible hand were crumpling the winter scene up before their eyes until nothing was left but the empty underside of the bridge. The winds that kissed Neil carried a leaf-scented warmth. For a moment he said nothing, just brushed the droplets of melted snow out of his hair. Then, without turning to Quinn, he said, “So.”

“Are we going to do this?” Quinn asked him.

She'd said 'we'.

He turned to her. “Is that even a question? We can't turn down something like this! When will we ever get a chance like this again?”

“Never,” Quinn admitted. “But we need to get to the Shrouded Isles somehow. And what will our parents think when we tell them?”

That Neil hadn't considered. Clearly, Ma would never let him travel to the Shrouded Isles. She'd never believe that a fairy king from the Nowhere Lands had spoken to him either. She'd call him a liar and give him chores to do and that would be that. “We won't tell them. We'll go. Now.”

“Neil...”

“We won't be gone long! We can write them so they won't get worried. You know it's the only way, Quinn. Please.”

Quinn frowned down at her shoes, scuffing the heel of one with the toe of the other, but somehow she said, after Neil wasn't sure how long, “Alright.” She looked up at him. “I don't think you'd get far without me anyway.”

They walked back under the dark stone arc of the bridge and back up the hill, Neil's heart hammering in his chest, imagination alight with possibilities, as they made their way to adventure.

“How long do you think it'll take us to get to the Isles?” Neil wondered aloud as they crested the top of the hill again. “A day? No, a couple of days.”

“It might be close to a week,” Quinn said. She sat down with a thump and exhaled. “We need to get to the north end of Yoreland and find a ship or mage or something that will give us passage to the Shrouded Isles. And then we have to find the egg...”

“One step at a time. We'll get to the Isles first.”

“Right.”

Neil realized that his feet were sore and his legs felt stretched thin. He and Quinn had been walking for most of the day. He plopped down next to her. More rolling hills and emerald forests rose before them, receding far off into the distance. Somewhere out there were the Shrouded Isles and the egg that they sought.

“You ready for this?” Neil asked his friend.

“Aye. I am.”

It would be a long journey.