The Blooms of Shenkuu: Legacies

     But when he got back to his dark office and settled down at last into his too-small hammock strung between a couple of load-bearing posts behind some empty shipping containers and one lone dusty wooden table with papers stacked atop it, a figure moved from behind one of the crates. He started and fell out of the hammock.

     “What in Altador?” He spoke his old tongue out of pure shock. The figure seemed to glow softly in the dark. It was some kind of monster …. a one-eyed … Cyodrake? No no, it was someone dressed as a Cyodrake.

     “Show yourself or I’ll call the guards.” The Eyrie had found his commanding tone again.

     “Wait a moment, and I will.” The figure pulled their hood back and took off the mask.

     Before him was a small woman with long blonde hair below her shoulders. She looked at him with blue eyes the colour of the sky on a clear, cloudless day. As he watched in shock and wonder, she pulled off the cloak and untied some kind of silk belt. Large glittering wings sprouted from her back.

     “By Fyora! You’re an Air Faerie. What are you doing here?” He knew enough to know she had travelled a far distance. Faeries were extremely uncommon in these parts, and not generally well-liked or trusted. And this one spoke Old Altadorian. His native tongue.

     “Hello, Soran, son of Reiza and Harris Florence. May a gentle breeze clear the clouds from your mind’s sky.”

     “But… how do you know my name?” He had taken a new name when he moved to Shenkuu and the Emperor’s service. He didn’t want his new life to be shadowed by his past, or old allegiances.

     “Why, my sister told me of you and what your family did. She was the one that blessed you, you know.”

     “Blessed me? I think you must be mistaken. I mean, I’ve freed a few weak bottled faeries before battles in my day, but I think I would remember a blessing from a full faerie like yourself.”

     “You were only a baby then, and not even born yet.”

     “A baby? What are you talking about? My parents were fairly poor Altadorian merchants, I think I would have heard if they were friends with faeries.”

     “Yes, that’s true, but they saved my sister once. When she was young, she was a foolhardy lightning chaser, you see. One day there was a bad storm, and she left our home in the clouds to try to capture the lightning’s power and was thrown from the sky. An Altadorian woman, your mother, saved her from her injuries, and helped heal her wing so that she could fly home. In return, she blessed the unborn child. That was you.”

     “Me? Blessed? I feel like I would know if I were.”

     “How do you think you are so good at running a shipyard in the sky without being able to control air elementals? Or did you think anyone could do that?”

     “Air … elementals?”

     “Yes. It’s some old magic. Being able to tether raw elementals to objects. It would have been a powerful witch who created the Emperor’s fleet. I’m too young to really know, I only heard rumours about it from some older, more powerful faeries. There seem to be conflicting stories. It was a long time ago, you see.”

     “I … I never knew how it worked. So, there are … beings … elementals … in the ships? Is that why they feel so … alive?”

     “Yes, they are alive, in a way. They’re kind of hard to explain. They’re extremely old, and powerful.”

     “Are they … gods? More powerful than faeries?”

     “No, not gods. There are no gods as far as I know. They are like … Neopia’s forces. Like, what powers the earth, air, wind and fire. They’re more like spirits. In pet terms, they’re more like ghosts, I suppose. It’s really quite difficult to explain. You can feel them, because you were blessed. But faeries … we can hear them. We are almost in partnership with them, we borrow power from them at times, in a way. Anyway, I’ve really said too much. I’m being almost as reckless as my … sister … Oh, Fyora save me! My sister … she’s missing!”

     And with that, the faerie crumpled into a glowing, sobbing pile on Sora’s office floor. He was so flummoxed, he just stood there, mystified with his big beak hanging open.

     Finally, the faerie composed herself enough to get out the rest of her story. “My sister was always foolhardy and reckless. Always getting herself into trouble, you see. A few weeks ago, she decided she wanted to come to Shenkuu for a grand adventure. She had this whole plan to dress as festival-goers and enjoy the festival without anyone knowing that faeries were here at all. But there’s a reason that faeries don’t fly around Shenkuu, and that’s the mists. It’s hard to navigate through the misty mountains, and on our way here, we got separated near some mountain villages. I looked and looked, following the trail of her magic. I followed her to a port on the Eastern edge of Shenkuu. There some fishermen told me a tale of an old warship that used to be docked there in the harbor. It was so old that it wasn’t seaworthy, and they had made it into a kind of wartime memorial. But they said that it had mysteriously disappeared overnight! A young boy told me it was a ghost ship that had flown off into the night, on its last journey to the land beyond the setting sun. But I fear my sister is being kept as some kind of magic slave, and somehow she’s been forced to bind an elemental to that old ship. But faeries aren’t meant to bind power in one place. We are meant to work with the elements, not bend them to our will. I fear for her. I fear her magic will be corrupted. Please help me find her.”

     An icy blast of white fire shot up the Eyrie’s spine. That ship! He knew there had been something off about it. But before he could question the faerie further, something just outside the window crashed. It sounded like a pot plant smashing. He ran outside and around the corner. In the moonlight, he could see the broken pieces of a clay roof tile smashed on the ground. When he reached up onto the low roof, he felt something soft, and clutched at it. When he brought it inside to the candle the faerie had lit, he realized it was a small straw mat just the right size for a small pet to walk on without making a sound. They were being watched. Someone had followed the faerie, and been listening to their whole conversation. Sora felt the feathers on his good wing twitch. The Imperial city really seemed to have ears everywhere.

     *****

     Kimi-not-Kimi had been on their nightly patrol of the city, trying to learn more about their new surroundings. It had taken some getting used to the Vandagyre body and its wings, but she could move easily and quietly, and had even mastered walking on the edges of her clawed wings, so that her talons wouldn’t make a sound. This was especially useful for creeping around the palace at night with the guards on patrol, and the palace gardens filled with festival guests.

     She was moving across the hulls of the skyships, gathering supplies like ropes and small pieces of bent iron to develop a crude arsenal of weapons and grappling hooks when she heard a crash down at the Harbormaster’s quarters. With her keen eyes used to seeing details in the dark, she watched an Ixi dressed in stealthy clothes jump from the Harbormaster’s rooftop and slip off into the night. In pursuit, she slid down the rope from the mast of the ship and rolled across a plank to the harbour gates, shimmying up and over and into the alleyway the Ixi had fled.

     The Ixi must have bound her hooves in cloth, for she made no clatter on the pavement. And still, there was a muted thump farther up the street. She had jumped off something.

     Kimi-not-Kimi saw a dark figure cross the alley and climb a wall. Again, she followed. The Ixi led her, in a winding path, all the way back to the palace. There, she ducked behind some bushes and emerged wearing a performer’s acrobatic jumpsuit, and casually sauntered into the palace, making a comment to the guards and laughing, which led them to smile, just a little. So, she was a guest of the palace. One of the Red Lady’s performers. She leapt up a small tree and onto the roof. The performer’s guest chambers were toward the backside of the ground floor of the palace, near the kitchen. There was a small window overlooking the lotus pond that she could easily eavesdrop through. She made her way carefully to the eave of the rooftop, and hung there, cool as a Korbat.

     The Ixi acrobat slipped into the room where her troupe sisters rested between acts, changing costumes or chatting in hushed voices. They all stopped whispering when the Ixi arrived, and the Red Lady Kyrii beckoned her closer.

     “Did you find the mystery blonde in the Cyodrake costume?”

     “Yes, I followed her, mistress, all the way to the Harbormaster’s hut. It’s as we suspected, she IS the other air faerie, here looking for her sister. And the Harbormaster knows now. She told him everything, about the elementals, the ship, everything.”

     “That is a problem. However, the harbormaster will never tell the Emperor without proof. So I think our mission is safe, for the moment. But we need to keep watch on their movements. Reia, this is very important – were you seen?”

     “No, mistress. At least … I don’t think so.”

     “You don’t think so? You don’t think so! A warrior of the Arrow must shoot straight and true. You must be sure, girl.”

     “I don’t think anyone saw me, Lady Red.”

     “Good. Sheiwa and Meilin, you are my very best assassins. Watch the Eyrie and his new friend. If they seem like they will cause trouble, end them. Drop them off the edge of the Skyport, if you can, but cover your tracks. The rest of you must stay here, entertain the guests, act as if nothing has happened. The Emperor must not know anything is amiss.”

     The Vandagyre had heard all she needed to. She slipped off the roof and into the soft reeds below the window. She began to move quickly and quietly around the pond and back to the front gate. She must warn the —

     Kimi woke from a strange dream and found herself curled up by the lotus pond. She wasn’t too worried about it, she had gotten used to waking up in strange places. She felt as if there was something important she needed to do, but she couldn’t remember what. She always had had a terrible memory. She sighed and wearily walked herself back to her bed. Despite her youth, she felt about a thousand years old. Her face probably looked as wrinkly as the Gnorbu Grandfather. Hopefully, she would stay in bed for the rest of this night, and get some much-needed sleep.

     *****

     Kimi awoke after another one of her night-wanderings with a start to her sister bounding into her bedroom, making loud thuds with her large Cybunny feet. Of course, with her newfound highly sensitive senses, she heard her sister coming from around halfway across the palace. The largeness of her feet was about the only thing that her sister was self-conscious about, so Kimi was about to open her mouth and tease her, but she was cut off by Lunara’s urgent jabbering.

     “Kimi. It’s the egg stone. It’s the stone. Actually I think it’s a moonstone. The moonstone. Where is it?”

     Kimi rubbed her eyes and slowly drew the stone from where it was around her neck. She hadn’t taken it off since she found it, it was so pretty.

     “Have you been wearing it this entire time? I think you should take it off, Kimi. I think it’s dangerous. It might be taking you over somehow.”

     “I don’t understand. What are you talking about?”

     “It’s all the diary pages, Petals. You really ought to start reading, you know. You might learn something,” Lunara couldn’t help herself saying. Even in the middle of a crisis, she still liked playing up her maturity. “Anyway, I’ll read you the important bit. It starts here:

      I fear that what I have written is not enough. As I travel these lands in what are most certainly my last days, the warriors of the Arrow seem to be all around me. I have seen them but not made myself known to them. They believe themselves to be divinely chosen, to have been gifted these powers for some divine purpose. They hold flame in their hands, and are looking for somewhere to hurl it. I had thought the Lords at peace in their keeps, their ambitions reduced to embers. But who better to fan their flames than agents of mischief, those whose arts are only needed in times of war? I believe the warriors of the Arrow of the Sun want to see the lands burn again. The time of the inheritance of the emperor’s seat will be a time of trouble. I must safeguard peace.”

     Kimi just stared at her, pouting. “I don’t see what that has to do with my necklace,” she said.

     Lunara rolled her eyes, turned a few pages, and continued.

     “There are rumours of mystical objects hidden in the mountains, buried deep. Stones with the power to possess souls, or parts of them. I must make one more journey before my time is up, there must be an equal counterpart to keep the fires of the Arrow of the Sun at bay. The ways must be passed on …

     … And well, the journal is incomplete. I can’t find what happens after this entry. But don’t you see? The power is in the stone. Somehow this warrior transferred the powers of the celestial dagger, or some bit of his soul or something, into the stone. I asked Grandfather about the stones. He says that there are certain powerful stones believed to be known as the stones of heaven. One is laps, like my amulet. Another is moonstone. And there might even be more than that. Each one must have some power in it, you get it?”

     Kimi nodded. “I think mine … only works at night. While I’m sleeping.” She looked at her necklace, thinking that of all the rotten luck, she got the necklace that was creepy. Her sister really had all the luck.

     “Yeah. I was thinking about that too. Yours is called a moonstone, so it makes sense that it has something to do with the lunar cycle. But mine I can use when I’m awake, but it took me a while to control it. Maybe you can learn too. But maybe you should take it off until we know more.”

     Kimi nodded again, and began to take the necklace off over her head, when Chi started growling. “What’s the matter Chi? Do you know something?”

     Chi leapt onto Kimi’s lap, and put its horned head against the stone and kind of purred a little. The stone started to glow faintly, and then stopped.

     “It’s hopeless,” Kimi sighed. “He’s just a handsome little fool.”

     “No, I think he’s trying to tell us something, Petals. I’ve got an idea. I think I need to teach you how to meditate.”

     Kimi fell back into her pillows melodramatically. “A princess’s work is never done,” she sighed. “Can we first have some breakfast?”

     *

     It took ages, but Kimi finally started to get the hang of meditation. And finally, on what felt like her bajillionth attempt, the stone started to glow a little.

     “That’s it, Petals, look, it’s glowing, you’re doing it,” Lunara hopped excitedly. “Okay, now do it again.”

     “Shhh Lunara, I’m trying to concentrate.”

     Kimi cleared the sky of her mind, breathing slowly, and reached out to try to touch the stone. A swirl of memories emerged in her mind, like a rush of wind clearing away the mist. The rooftops of Shenkuu, the harborside at night, shimmying a rope, a cloaked figure running up an alleyway, an upside-down window, a glowing faerie, the Red Lady and a one-winged Eyrie all flashed clearly before being once more submerged in fog. When she looked down, the inside of the moonstone shimmering and darkened like clouds moving over the night sky.

     “We have to find a faerie,” she said. “We have to help the one-winged Eyrie find a faerie. And Lady Red is dangerous, somehow. And … I think I’m really good at climbing things.” She smiled smugly after the last sentence.

     “Tell me everything,” Lunara demanded. “There’s a faerie in Shenkuu?”

     “I, um, I think there are two.”

     Kimi explained what she could remember, which were more like impressions than clear memories. Like when you knew something, or thought you knew something, but didn’t know why you thought it, she tried to explain to her sister. She saw an Eyrie, who she recognized as the Harbormaster, and a faerie, and they were looking for someone, another faerie. The Red Lady had something to do with it, but there was some darkness around her. They shouldn’t trust Lady Red, that she was certain of. But Lady Red had been visiting the palace to perform for big events for years, and nothing bad had ever happened before. Kimi was learning that even if you knew someone, you never really knew all of them. Everyone had secrets. Grandfather Gnorbu, Lady Red, the Priestess, and even her own sister had kept important things from her. And now she had her own secret. The world was fast becoming a complicated place.

     “Okay, it’s your turn to meditate,” Kimi said cheekily. “Do you think you can listen for Lady Red’s voice specifically? We need to find out where she’s keeping that air faerie.”

     To be continued…