19

  Out on the frigid mainland:

  Alfea Drake was an air-sprite messenger, employed by the Greater Court Ball League of Karellon. She was also very confused and utterly lost. Naught but two candle-marks earlier, it had been broad, fairly warm daylight. Alfea had just delivered an order-chit to the uniform shop in Thieves Gate Market, transferring payment from her supervisor’s magically shielded account. Then, with no warning at all, she’d found herself high in the stormy night sky over nothing but turbulent water, battered by shocking-cold wind.

  A low smudge of land was visible many miles to the east, and nothing… not even a spire of rock… was any closer than that. She had to wing it, through freezing weather and streaming clouds. Bad enough, but then a trio of harpies picked up her scent.

  The mad-eyed bird women shrieked and dove at Alfea, trying to force her further out to sea. Dirty claws raked her face and right shoulder. Spittle and excrement spattered, hitting the frantically dodging young air-sprite.

  “Fly, little chickling!” screeched the harpies. “Fly off and hide! Fear adds such succulent tang to fresh meat!”

  Alfea didn’t reply, twisting away from one attack after another, always at the center of a swooping, slashing and whirling circle. Thank all the gods, there were clouds to hide in, and mischievous wind-sprites to pay for their help.

  Alfea would have tossed those small cousins whatever was left in her messenger bag… except that she wasn’t in uniform or sporting her leather-and-canvas satchel. She was wearing a fancy blue dress and… and there was a dog in one of her faerie pockets.

  Another pocket yielded some candy and coins, which the gleeful wind-sprites snatched up. Next, her kin formed a hissing and twisting cyclone, summoning more of their kind to swirl up a powerful storm.

  Two of the harpies were swept away in a cloud of dank feathers and filthy curses. The third huntress banked hard, claws extended. She seized Alfea’s right wing and long hair, head lashing in to bite the messenger’s ear. Hot, reeking breath and sharp pain made Alfea spin wildly aside, spraying blood. The wind-sprites popped out of their harpy-flecked cyclone to watch and applaud, tossing Alfea’s candy back and forth between them. No further help, there.

  She had a weapon, for some of her errands took Alfea to Low Town or The Pearl. But her long knife was not in its usual sheath at her side. Instead, there was only a small, beaded purse on a silvery waist-chain. Elvish high fashion, and utterly worthless now, unless…

  Alfea ripped the bag loose and swung it around, hard, cracking the harpy’s face with enough force to break the creature’s flaring nose. Whack!

  All at once snorting and snuffling blood, the bird-thing lost interest in late night, high-altitude snacks. It wobbled away through the night, gurgling filth from both ends.

  Alfea darted into a cloud bank, but one of her butterfly wings had been badly wrenched by the harpy’s claws. She had to fight to stay in the air rather than spiraling down to the hungry ocean, below. The best she could manage was a fast, controlled glide with spurts of agonized fluttering to pull away from the ice-flecked waves.

  That smudge of land seemed as far off as Someday, but Alfea kept herself moving. Through pain and exhaustion, confusion and fear, aided by wind and (maybe) the gods, she made it at last to a wild and deserted shore. Hit land just past the surf line, weak as a newly-hatched fledgling

  After her first teary thankfulness for ground underfoot, Alfea shivered with cold, hammered by lashing, gale-driven spray. Flying had kept her warm, but now she was forced to huddle against an immense dark cliff, almost too weary to stand.

  Had she stayed there alone, she would surely have died, but somebody fired a magical ‘seek me’ flare. First one, then another, crossing the sky like the Seam itself, flaring a vivid red-gold. These were followed by more, as if others had found themselves yanked away from their lives and dumped on that freezing-cold beach.

  Alfea lurched to her feet and made herself walk. For something to do besides shiver, the air-sprite pulled out that pocketed dog, which turned out to be an adorable, squash-faced, buff-colored fellow who licked Alfea ecstatically.

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  “Pudgy,” she whispered, starting to cry. She knew and loved him somehow… just as… Alfea couldn’t quite grasp it… just as she knew and loved… the person who’d given her this small and wonderful, brave little boy.

  “Pudgy, there are people here, and we’re going to find help and answers,” she promised him, hunching protectively over the grunting and wriggling dog.

  The trek was not easy, for those flares had been fired from much further down shore. Slipping on surf-wetted stones, edging past deep, spuming blow-holes, Alfea crept ever westward. At last, she spotted the welcome red glow of a fire, saw leaping black shadows and an overturned boat. Voices called out an alert. Alfea ought to have worried, but then she scented elves. Their usual lilt was gritty with tension, their natural perfume tainted by stress, but elves.

  “Stay where you are! I am coming to meet you!” said a bit of the wind and shore, invisibly.

  “Y- Yes,” she stuttered, hugging herself and Pudgy, trying to smile. “I swear no harm to this c- camp or its people.”

  Someone seemed to pop out of the night as though ported. A beautiful half-elf holding a sleeping baby.

  ‘Quiet,’ signed the copper-haired beauty. ‘I’ll vanish again if he awakens. Name? Why here?’

  “Alfea,” whispered the shivering air-sprite, bowing. “And I don’t know why I’m here! I don’t know what’s happened, at all!”

  It turned out that the elves had sensed her as soon as Alfea tottered past their wards. They were suspicious, at first, then swift to surround and help her. Not just warmth but food and day-brew were offered, once they determined that she wasn’t an enemy, or responsible for dropping them here. Alfea couldn’t explain her presence, but neither could they, nor the mortals and paladins they’d met on that beach.

  Now, Alfea was stuck at the back of a dismal sea cave, with Pudgy thrust down in his faerie pocket. The cavern was cold and windy, as there were two openings, alternately puffing and drawing like the mouth of a giant’s stone pipe. Battle raged outside. A white dragon had come, forcing the elves to split up, some of them taking the children and mortals to safety, while others attacked the dragon. The sea cave shook with continual blows and magical strikes, showering rocks and sand on Alfea’s head.

  She didn’t like it. It came to the young messenger that she wasn’t the sort to take shelter while others fought to protect her. She wasn’t alone in the cave. Also hiding were Katina (that copper-haired half-elf), her elven nursling, a pair of mortal women with a little boy, and a scrap of a half-elven girl with a big, shaggy dog.

  Alfea didn’t recall all their names, but Katina had met her first and befriended her, offering guest-right and healing. Now, Katie kissed and woke up her nursling, murmuring,

  “I think I can extend Benny’s magic a bit with my own. Never tried such before, but… ah!”

  Katina’s small exhalation marked success, as everyone in the cave changed color to match their background. Alfea glanced down at herself, seeing banded grey pebbles and clumps of dried seaweed instead of folded legs and a filmy blue dress.

  “How…?” she marveled, extending first one arm, then the other, watching them blur and then shift to perfectly mirror their backdrop.

  “Tis wee Benny’s magic,” whispered Katina… or the stretch of cave wall that had been a beautiful half-elf. “He disguises himself and me perfectly, the lamb, and I’ve not dared set him down f’r more than a flicker, since he started t’ manifest. But shh… quiet now, an’ try not t’ move about.”

  The noises outside had grown in nearness and volume. Magical flames, roars, shouts and great THUDS tore the air, as something big struck hard at the face of the cliff.

  “I should be out there,” muttered Alfea, though her twisted wing throbbed painfully, its joint swollen nearly immobile. “I should be helping them fight!”

  Katina shook her head.

  “Their Lordships an’ Ladies are very strong, Alfea,” she argued (quietly). “My sibs n’ step-mum, they are, an’ quite able t’…”

  Once again, the ground and the cave walls shuddered. Cobbles bounced, rattled and slid.

  “I shall live forever!” bellowed the dragon, seemingly right overhead.

  Its tail struck the beach and then dragged. There was a tremendous THUMP as something landed hard, outside the cave. More noises followed, as if the creature was wing-walking over to investigate prey. Something scaly blocked the wind and the sea, momentarily.

  Katina gasped. She went wide-eyed, suddenly, and shot to her feet. With a low, wordless cry, Katina thrust her nursling at one of the mortals, then lunged for the cave mouth. Alfea and the young girl got up, too, as did the older mortal and the shaggy, black-and-white dog.

  “Me, too,” said the older mortal, feeling about in her bag for a weapon.

  She was perfectly visible once again, while the younger mortal and both small children vanished from sight.

  Over the muffled surge and rumble of surf, they heard,

  “Deceivers! You have concealed the true threat to my glorious, unending reign! The would-be slayer is not among you but away in Longshore, plotting destruction!”

  The dragon roared, wild and defiant. Then, with a great, snapping rustle of wings, it launched itself high in the air. Pebbles scattered in every direction, some of them striking Alfea and the other refugees. They leapt aside, just as a monstrously powerful blast of ice-magic raked the beach and ocean outside.

  Cold such as Alfea had never experienced… deep, awful, life-ending winter… froze the ocean. It sealed up their cave and surely slew whoever could not take shelter, outside.

  “No!” screamed Katina, hurling herself at the ice-wall. “No! Melly, hang on! I’m coming!”

  Alfea seized the half-elf and whirled her around to face the cave’s other entrance, in back.

  “This way,” she urged. “Onto the cliff, then down. Hurry, before they are lost!”