- Chapter 7 -

Previously...

One moment, Raven was fast asleep - the next, she was wide awake, sitting up in her bed, eyes wide and glassy, wings spread and trembling. The dancer had never known such an intense outpouring of emotion...

...and it was made all the more disturbing on account of the unmistakable presence of Strides-Tall's mind in the concentrated burst of raw panic and terror.

Raven kicked off her bed-sheets and ran to the window. Throwing that open, she strode out onto the balcony and stared up into the inky vastness of space. I hear you, she said with her mind. I feel your fear...

There was no reply, telepathic or otherwise.

Ashyra was next to wake, roused by unexpected sounds of movement next door. The girl was accustomed to Raven's nocturnal excursions, accepting them as part of having such an unusual friend, but the black-haired dancer was normally quieter than a mouse, never disturbing anyone else sleeping in their shared town-house. This time was different, however, and unsettlingly so, for Ashyra could clearly hear her friend pacing up and down on the balcony, her high spiked heels tapping on the smooth stone.

***Hey, girl-friend, what's the matter?***, Ashyra enquired telepathically. ***Can't sleep...?***

Suddenly, Ashyra felt a powerful pulse of emotion - raw, uncontained fear and confusion - that flashed across the newly-established psychic link between dancers like lightning arcing to earth. The Shaelin girl squealed in pain and terror, and withdrew immediately, fearful that her inner self would be drowned by those emotions if they should reach every corner of her being.

Moments later, Raven burst in through the window, shattering many of the glazed panels in what was essentially a door to the balcony. "Ashyra???", she exclaimed, afraid that the residual emotions she had leaked had harmed her dearest friend.

The Shaelin dancer could only reply with a whimper. Raven was with her in a single, wing-assisted stride, sitting on the edge of the girl's bed with arms outstretched to embrace her companion, and Ashyra, sobbing, accepted the offer of comforting.

"What...what was that...?", Ashyra said eventually. "I...I was so scared..."

"So was Strides-Tall", said Raven, anxiously. "I think she's in trouble. Serious trouble."

"I didn't think she could get scared", responded the Shaelin. "Running around in tombs and buried cities with nothing on but boots."

"No-one is truly fearless", assured Raven. "Fear is a natural part of being mortal. Fear keeps a person safe from insurmountable danger, and Strides-Tall knows when she needs to be afraid. I have this terrible feeling that she never in all her many years of life expected to be as afraid as this."

Ashyra sat up, mopping the tears from her face with a corner of her satin bed-sheet. "What can we do?", she asked. "Is...is it too late?"

Raven took a deep breath, and opened the flood-gates a fraction, allowing the dammed-up mass of emotion to seep gradually into her mind. "I'm not sure - I don't think so", he said after a minute or so's careful contemplation. "I'm sure I'd know if she was...dead. We have a strong subconscious link, resulting from our shared meditation sessions. That must be how her feelings were able to reach me."

"We have to go help her", said Ashyra, but Raven sensed that the girl's sudden bravery was a paper-thin screen, separating her heart from her fear-stricken mind.

"I will go", Raven corrected. "I possess powers you, and Strides-Tall, do not. You would only be in danger."

Ashyra looked disappointed, but Raven could see beyond that. Subconsciously, the Shaelin girl was glad to have been talked out of such a foolhardy venture...but then there was a flash of inspiration and recollection that took even the winged empath by surprise. "There was a man...", Ashyra murmured absently, as though searching for pieces of memories scattered throughout her mind, like a child looking high and low for missing pieces of a picture-puzzle. "At the harbour, when Strides-Tall's ship left. He sounded as though he'd been left behind - 'Too late...', he said..."

"Open your mind to me", demanded Raven. "Let me see him..."

The Shaelin dancer did as she was told, and passed every memory, every mental image of the strange swordsman to her even stranger friend. Without another word, Raven got up, walked out onto the balcony, and took to the skies, not even stopping to dress.

Raven searched the city with her mind right through until dawn, but found nothing. She was eventually forced to retreat to the town-house as the artificial suns rose, and the unearthly substance of her wings started to feel uncomfortable, once exposed to the light of "day".

"Nothing", Raven sighed irritably, collapsing in a weary heap in a darkened corner, where she sat for some time, fanning herself gently with her wings. "I feel no trace of anyone disappointed or unhappy about not going to Jaglundar's Rock - not one."

"Maybe he took another ship out", suggested Ashyra, but Raven shook her head.

"Strides-Tall told me much about the place she went to - an old Murgand colony, invaded by forces unknown centuries ago. Ships go out of their way to avoid the place, and our mystery warrior doesn't look like the type who could afford to hire his own ship, or convince anyone to take him there."

"He couldn't afford to hire a ship, and neither can we", informed the Shaelin girl. "All our money is tied up in this place."

"How about the Prince of The Sapphire Cluster?", said Raven, a flash of inspiration briefly illuminating her gloomy mood. "When we left him, he seemed most keen to do just about anything to make us happy."

Ashyra perked up noticeably. The girls of The Phantasia had danced for the Prince some months before, and had made an excellent impression, earning them and the club his generous favours. "Yeah, we could try him...but would it be too much to ask? He'd have to send a warship, if whatever Strides-Tall ran into was tough enough to beat all those Murgands and soldiers she told us about.

"Anyway, it would take about ten days to get to us", said the elfin dancer dejectedly. "The next best thing would be Sapphire Cluster Trading Association patrol-ships, and they're really only any good against other ships."

Raven knelt beside Ashyra, and patted the despondent girl on the shoulder. "Look on the bright side - we have alternatives, and we haven't even been to the docks yet", the black-haired dancer told her friend.

"That's not what's really bothering me", the girl replied, frowning in an unintentionally comical fashion. "I just thought - how do we explain this to Drasheel...?"

The more Drasheel, manager of The Phantasia, heard of Raven and Ashyra's story, the more dissatisfied he became. "Now, let me see if I have the facts straight", the tall, slim young man said sternly. "Strides-Tall has been going out stealing for other people..."

"How can you steal from someone who's been dead for a thousand years...?", Ashyra began in the absent elf's defence, but Drasheel shot a stare at her that made her fall silent, and the atmosphere in his office grew even more uncomfortable for the two dancers.

"She has been stealing whilst an employee of this establishment", the half-Shaelin continued, "and that is completely unacceptable. And now, to make the whole mess ever worse, you come to me saying you want to just up and go off in search of the girl, who's probably tangled up in a disaster of her own making?"

"We have to", said Raven plainly. "She's our friend."

"She is just one dancer, and a part-timer at that", snorted Drasheel. "You two are full-time, and you, Raven are fast becoming a major attraction. I don't understand why - people don't like Dyals, and they have wings..."

The club manager noticed he was straying from his point. "My point is this: why should I allow two fine dancers to endanger themselves on the behalf of a girl whose soul is clearly not devoted to her work? After hearing all this, I'll gladly dispense with Strides-Tall's services, but you two are too valuable..."

"I'm not going anywhere...sir", interrupted Ashyra, hastily appending the honorific. "Raven convinced me of that."

Raven was nowhere near as polite. "If you're so eager to dispose of Strides-Tall, you can do without me as well."

"What, are you threatening me?", snapped Drasheel, rising from his luxuriantly padded leather office chair.

Raven answered in striking fashion. The wings sprouted suddenly, and above her own eyes appeared the illusionary image of a second pair of eyes, seemingly made of fire. Ashyra had seen this happen only once before, when Raven's new powers first emerged - and those eyes were a sign of powerful mystical abilities being made ready.

Abilities that had had the most feared pirates in The Realm fleeing in panic...if they could run fast enough to avoid being struck down by Raven's anger.

She hardly needs to think to make the wings appear now, thought Ashyra, backing away. She doesn't get anything like as tired as she used to after using them. That's scary...

"I am threatening to leave this club", Raven said firmly, her voice noticeably deeper and more ominous than usual. "If you take that personally, then on your own head be it."

Drasheel glared back at her, but he quickly sat down, unable to meet Raven's fearsome gaze for long. "If, by this time tomorrow, you can find a ship that will take you to look for your friend, then you can go, with my permission", he said coldly. "If not, you must stay here. If she went with the Reclamationists, as you claim, then they will send a rescue mission to look for their own people, and you will have to wait for their findings."

"Very well", Raven responded, and her wings shrank back under her hair. The illusionary eyes vanished, too, but there was still a trace of scarlet and amber about the dancer's eyes as she left the office to begin her search for a ship eager enough - or foolhardy enough - to take her to Jaglundar's Rock.

"Name?"

"Marishanna of Daliphae."

"Hmmm - never heard of it."

"I'm not from this world..."

"Aaah - a Foundling. That explains it, then. Position, and ship?"

"Captain of the Succubus."

Marishanna had been through the tedious process of logging her ship in at the harbour-master's tower more often than she cared to remember. She had only been in command of a ship for a few weeks, but declaring her ship's presence in harbour was already becoming tiresome in the extreme. It could scarcely get worse - but it often did, to her eternal annoyance.

The harbour-master tapped a sequence of keys on an inclined panel at one end of his desk, and an intricate mechanism of cables, pulleys and rods was set in motion. A few seconds later, a book, one of hundreds shelved on a nearby wall, was delivered by a small wheeled trolley on rails, almost into the harbour-master's hands.

"Succubus...", murmured the blue-robed official, flicking forward, then back, through the hefty, worn-cornered tome. "Succubus...ah, here we are..."

The man looked up, and Marishanna knew what he was going to say. "It says here that Raniv of the Dyals is captain of the Succubus", he said, with a clear hint of accusation in his voice.

Marishanna produced a bundle of papers, wrapped in wax-cloth. "Raniv died in a duel carried out in accordance with Trading Law", she declared, placing the bundle on the desk. "I won command of the ship, and the loyalty of her crew. The claim has been scrutinised by the Trading Council at Han-Huul, as documented herein..."

The harbour-master seemed quite taken by surprise. "Didn't think anyone fought duels these days", he said, taking the bundle and unwrapping it.

The official took his time examining the evidence enclosed, and the conclusions of the Trading Council agents based at Han-Huul. "Why do these things not get passed on at the proper time?", he sighed, halfway through his perusals. "Doesn't anyone appreciate that there is a system?"

"Doesn't anyone appreciate that there are people who deeply resent being asked the same questions time and time again...?", Marishanna added.

"I do", said the harbour-master forlornly. "Every day, it's the same. Just don't blame me - it's not my job to keep the records straight. I just collect the information..."

The diminutive warrior-woman did not want to hear the harbour-master's tales of woe. She would have been content to slip into a trance, and feign an interest in harbour proceedings, but the official was certain to ask questions at inopportune moments, and surely catch her out. This time, she was prepared to brave any reprimand, and let her attention wander, out the tower door and onto the quayside, where a hundred ships and members of a dozen races were loading and offloading all manner of cargo, greeting and bidding farewell to passengers...

One woman, who just happened to wander into Marishanna's field of view at that moment, seemed very much out of place - she was tall, with smooth jet-black hair reaching almost to the ground, but kept clear of the quay's floor-boards by a pair of slender high heels that were just visible below the edge of the white cloak she wore, the hood down. Interesting, thought the little warrior, a woman attracted to her own gender and an unrepentant lover of boots - the higher, the better. Turn round, now, pretty - turn round...

The woman turned, almost as though responding to Marishanna's pleas. She was quite beautiful, with a distinctly exotic air to her - her skin was lightly tanned, her eyes were a deep and alluring blue, and there was a small red tear-drop jewel on her forehead, at the tip of the point her hair-line formed there. As Marishanna had been hoping, the woman wore boots - exquisite, thigh-length boots of brilliant white lacquered leather, or something similar, with flared cuffs and nothing in the way of ornamentation apart from a single golden-tear-drop hanging from the edge of each cuff, at the side.

Sorceress?, wondered Marishanna. No - dancer. Just look at the way she moves...

"Hey, isn't that Raven?", remarked one of the other ship-masters, in the office, like Marishanna, to report his ship's arrival.

"Raven?", queried the mistress of the Succubus. So, she's well-known, is she?

"Yeah, Raven", said the sailor. "Some say she's going to be the next First Dancer at The Phantasia."

The man now had Marishanna's full attention. "The Phantasia?", she enquired intently.

The sailor looked astonished. "You don't know The Phantasia???", he exclaimed.

"Forgive my ignorance", Marishanna snorted, "but I'm not from around these parts."

"Obviously", chuckled the ship-master. "No-one comes to Freeport without visiting The Phantasia at least once..."

Marishanna listened with great interest as her fellow captain described a place that, to her, sounded just like paradise. In an instant, her evening's activities were decided, and they all focussed around The Phantasia.

 This page hosted by - Get your own Free Home Page