Beneath the Wings of Kael’Voryn

Beneath the Wings of Kael’Voryn

The rider returned shortly after first light, dropping out of the white sky with one wing low and the other fighting the wind.

Drue was already crossing the upper terrace before the griffon’s claws struck the wooden planks of the landing platform. Dasher followed at his shoulder, head lowered against the sleet, feathers lifting in restless layers along his neck. The returning griffon skidded twice, before claws met wood and halted any forward momentum on the platform, and stopped with its beak close enough to Drue’s face that Drue could tell that it had eaten fish for its last meal.

Alster was standing behind Drue and was frightened. Not by the near miss of the massive griffon. It was because the rider was Sella and he was expecting news.

“You found Virielian Bloomlands ok?” Drue asked.

The rider swung down. Sella was wrapped in so many scarves that only her eyes and the red end of her nose could be seen. Ice had collected in the cords braided through her hair.

“Found it faster than you ever would. I am an expert navigator,” she said. I have two pieces of news and some deliveries. Then she turned to Alster and said, “Found your people too.”

Alster stepped forward. “And Alfer?”

The woman looked at Drue first.

“Tell him whatever you know Sella,” Drue said.

Sella pulled one glove off with her teeth and reached inside her coat. “No one has seen him since he left the western market in Bloomland Beach. I spoke to the store keepers, citizens in the market, the ferry keepers, three innkeepers, nothing.”

For Alster the information did nothing to alleviate his fears or help him find peace.

“And my family? Are they still searching?” Alster asked.

“They said they were doing what they could but there is less and less hope. Now their concerns lie with your safety.”

Alster took in a short involuntary breath as he tried to accept the non-news.

“They sent you this letter and some things in this parcel and I brought you this.” Sella handed Alster the letter, a parchment and then Sella went to her griffon’s carry pouch and retrieved a parcel wrapped in paper and tied with string. He tucked the parcel under his arm but it was soft and smelled of lanolin so he knew it was one of his mothers sweaters she had knitted me and left it in the parcel paper to stay dry. The wind hissed across the terrace. Some landing bells swayed below the platforms and somewhere below that the great wooden vanes of Kael’Voryn groaned as they turned in warning of the increasingly worsening conditions.

Alster looked down at the letter in his hands. His fingers were steady until he folded it and put it in his pocket for when he was alone. The parchment was a rough map marked with six black crosses and one line leading northwest from Bloomland Beach.

“These are the places you checked?”

“And the line is the road he was thought to be taking.”

“Thought?”

“No one watched him leave but also no one saw him on the road back to Amaryn.”

Alster studied the map as if one more mark might appear if he stared hard enough.

Drue glanced towards Kaelen. “You said two pieces of news.”

Sella nodded. “The second one concerns all of you.”

From another pocket, she removed a crumpled notice. Rain had blurred the ink at its edges, but the six sketched faces remained clear enough. Kaelen looked severe. Blena looked murderous. Tajan appeared to have been drawn by someone who had once seen her from the back of a moving wagon. Anderix’s metal eye was so oversized it made him look like a one-eyed dragon.

Alster’s likeness was the best of them but Tajan had ended up distinctly male.

“I do not care for the artist,” Blena said.

Alster looked up from his brother’s map. “I was about to say I found my likeness remarkably handsome.”

“Your ears are twice that size.”

“Then he has captured my modesty.”

Sella tapped the notice. “These are in the Virielian Bloomlands now. Helion too, according to the riders coming north. Fifty gold for information leading to you. One hundred for capture.”

Anderix leaned closer. “Each?”

“Anderix,” Tajan said.

“It is important to understand the scale of the incentive.”

“Six hundred gold,” Sella said. “If someone can deliver all of you alive.”

Blena examined the drawing again. “With this likeness, they may capture six entirely different people.”

“And I am most certainly not going to be captured.” Tajan added.

No one laughed for long.

Kaelen folded the notice. “How widely has it spread?”

“Every rider post between here and Thalorian Tide will have it within days and I suspect they will even include Solaryn Reliquary in case you return there though that will take some getting to. The High Council is paying messengers to carry copies beyond the main roads.” Sella pulled her glove back on. “I came by the high thermals and avoided the western stables. I do not know which riders can still be trusted.”

Drue’s jaw tightened. “You trusted the right ones?”

“I trusted no one with where I was going.” She looked at Alster. “I am sorry. I wish I had brought better news.”

“You brought the truth,” Alster said. “That will have to do.”

Sella bowed once to Drue and led her griffon towards the stable nearest the landing platform that perched off the mountainside. Dasher watched them go, then nudged Drue hard enough to move him half a step.

“I know,” Drue murmured.

Alster refolded the map along the wrong crease.

“I’m leaving for Virielian Bloomlands.”

Kaelen’s eyes lifted to him. “We need to talk first.”

“We may. I will still be leaving afterwards.”

Blena planted her hands on the stone rail. “Alone?”

“I think that would be best, low profile and all.”

“Alone would mean you risk being robbed, captured or eaten.”

“I had hoped for a fourth option.”

“There usually isn’t one.”

Kaelen waited until Alster looked at him. “We need you.”

Alster’s mouth tightened. “So does my brother.”

“We don’t know that he is in danger,” Tajan said carefully.

“No. We know he is missing which is just as bad or worse in my imagination. I can’t go on doing nothing.”

Tajan flinched, and Alster immediately looked away.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “You did not deserve that I don’t mean what we are doing is nothing but this is bigger, to me at least.”

“You are right to be worried but, with all the guardians looking for you, riders too now.......”

“I am a healer. We are calm under pressure and well trained. I will be alright.”

Anderix gestured for the map from Alster’s hand with a flick of his fingers. “If Alfer left by the main eastern road, he could be anywhere between Bloomland Beach and the Amaryn. But if for some reason he did not take that route then even a cursory search may require many weeks.”

“I know.”

“What if we get some gold together and pay for a search? Then you could continue with us.”

“The Heartwell Crystal has many years before it will reach a crisis but my brother may need help now.”

“With what we now understand, that the Heartwell is merely one component within a much larger system, we possess knowledge capable of changing Aethoria. Kefar’s authority may weaken. The warrants against us may become politically inconvenient and therefore be withdrawn. I could return to the Mechanum Ascendancy as the discoverer of this system rather than as a defector. Kaelen could return to the Thalorian Tide without being regarded as a thief.” Anderix paused. “Your continued safety may also depend upon what this company decides to do next.”

“I know, Anderix.”

The Anderix stopped. He thought his argument had been clear and persuasive and it carried him as far as it could, and he appeared briefly offended that the correct facts had failed to solve the problem.

Kaelen stepped closer. “I am not asking you to abandon Alfer.”

“Then what are you asking?”

“For time enough to decide how we do this without losing you too.”

Alster looked down at the six crosses on Sella’s map. “When my I went away to study in Kefar it was difficult for my family. They gave up years of wealth for me to go there. I told myself I was doing something important and their sacrifice was something I might one day repay. I told myself they would be proud of me once I graduated and returned to contribute to the family again.” There wasn’t enough money for Alfer to also go to the academy and my parents pushed him towards commerce. He rubbed his thumb across the western road. “Now all this and my actions have caused them to lose two sons, two incomes.”

No one interrupted him.

“Alfer never once held it against me,” he continued. “He knuckled down. Worked hard and made money in trade. He even settled some of their debts. He wrote to me every seven days so I would not leave my Kefar. If he is hurt somewhere and I continue chasing crystals because the work is important…”

He swallowed.

“I cannot do that twice.”

Blena’s posture softened. “No,” she said. “You cannot.”

Kaelen glanced at her, then back to Alster. “The mission continues.”

“It must.”

“Even without you.”

Alster nodded. “Especially without me. If you stop because I leave, then I have abandoned Alfer and all of Aethoria in one decision. That would be too much.”

The smile he attempted did not sit on his face long.

Kaelen held out his hand. Alster looked at it, then clasped his forearm.

“You find him,” Kaelen said.

“You save the world.”

“We could exchange tasks.”

“No. I have seen your bandaging and you know almost nothing about herbs.”

This time, the laughter lasted a little longer.

The Easy Fifty

By midday, the sleet had thinned into a cold mist that clung to the bridges, ramps and platforms and turned every railing slick beneath the hand.

Kael’Voryn descended around them in terraces cut into the mountain. In wooden structures that cantilever off it and in some places towered high above it. Each level was connected in some way, joined by stairs, hanging walks and narrow lanes pressed between timber houses and stables. Above it all, the Rider Network moved through the cloud. Griffons launched from their platforms, banked between towers and vanished beyond the enormous turning wings that gave the city its name. Alster looked at it all with hood back. “Magnificent city”

The rest of the company kept their hoods raised. They were conspicuous, but by now most knew of the strangers and that they were not enemies of Kael’Voryn. More importantly they were friends of Drue. After almost two months in the City of Wings they had grown comfortable enough to be out together.

Anderix still often removed his augmentation when in the streets and he wrapped his mechanum backpack in cloth, which made it look less like Mechanum engineering and more like he was a poorly concealed scrap collector. Blena did not bother concealing her gait and walked as if every passer-by admired her strength and her gait. Dasher’s presence made Drue instantly recognisable and Kaelen now habitually led them all through the street as if Kael’Voryn was his city.

They were halfway around the brassworkers’ peaks when Tajan said, “I’ve got a shadow that had been in the windows for the last three ramps.”

“I saw the same repeated reflection too. Consistent with someone attempting to keep us in their field of view,” Anderix replied.

“Why didn’t you say something? We could have saved .001 time”

“I was waiting for more data to confirm my suspicions before I report what I observed to ensure accuracy.”

“Whatever, next time make a wild guess about being followed and don’t wait for me to point it out.”

“I was aware before you but a mere .022 time.”

“Will you two stop?” Kaelen interrupted. “Is there someone following us or not?”

Anderix slowed. “That is confirmed by two sources…”

Tajan waited.

“Both equally accurate.”

Her smile arrived slowly. “I shall record the time next time.”

“Do not. Measurement is unnecessary for approximately equal recognition time.”

Kaelen glanced into the reflection of a darkened shop window. A hooded man stopped beside a rack of griffon leather harnesses behind them. He lifted one, pretended to consider it, then set it down without looking at the price.

Kaelen kept walking.

“Drue,” he said quietly. “How many times does a rider inspect the same harness?”

“Depends how badly he rides.”

“Grey hood. Scar through the left eyebrow.”

Blena did turn. “I saw him two streets ago.”

“Oh so everyone saw him and said nothing?”Drue objected.

Blena’s hand disappeared beneath her cloak. “Friend of yours Drue?”

“Friends don’t secretly follow their friends, they usually say hello!”

The lane opened onto a crowded market built along three crossing bridges. Vendors shouted over one another beneath flapping awnings. Steam rose from pots of spiced roots and bowls of boiled Virielian grain. High above, a griffon screamed as it caught an updraft between the city’s turning vanes.

Kaelen led them into the crowd.

“If he follows,” he said, “we take him quietly.”

“There are six of us,” Blena said. “Anything we do will look like a small riot.”

“Then make it a quiet riot. Blena, you take the lead and give us a signal”

They split at the first bridge.

Tajan and Anderix continued towards the cloth stalls. Drue turned down a stairway with Dasher. Alster stopped at an herb seller and began asking a startled merchant whether frostmint was truly frostmint if it had been cultivated below the snow line.

Kaelen and Blena vanished beneath the awnings.

The man in the grey hood reached the crossing and hesitated.

Then he chose Tajan and Anderix.

“Naturally,” Blena muttered from behind a curtain of hanging carpets. “They look the easiest.”

“They are.”

“I know. Let's not tell them about the insult.”

The follower quickened his pace.

Anderix glanced back at precisely the wrong moment. Their eyes met. The man turned and ran.

“Quietly,” Kaelen reminded Blena.

Blena tore through the hanging saddle carpets.

The chase scattered baskets, shoppers and one entire display of polished cooking spoons. The spy vaulted a fruit cart, slid beneath the arm of a porter and sprinted onto a narrow bridge with open air on either side.

Blena was faster, but he knew the city. He caught a hanging rope, swung to a lower stair and landed three levels below.

“Show-off,” she said.

Kaelen pulled a crystal from beneath his cloak. Amber light flared through his fingers. He thought of Alfer.

The stone beneath the runner’s next step rose the width of a thumb.

It was enough.

The man struck the stair, rolled, regained his feet and collided with a wall. Tajan was making her way down and caught up to the scene but tripped on the same raised stone. Anderix picked up Tajan and Blena arrived at full speed and launched onto the fallen shadow’s back before he could get up.

Drue had left Dasher back at the market bridge but he now hovered next to them. He leaned down and peered at the grey hood protruding from beneath Blena’s knee.

“Quiet riot,” Drue observed.

They dragged the man into an abandoned feed room beneath one of the old roost stables. It smelled of old musty straw, dust and whatever griffons left behind when their meal had been interrupted.

Their prisoner sat against the wall with his hands bound. Blood ran from his nose. One eye was swelling, his lip had split, and he sat as if someone in the pile had attempted to remove his left shoulder.

Alster crouched in front of him. “I should examine that.”

The man spat near his boot.

“Or it may heal at an amusing angle.”

Blena closed the door. “Who sent you?”

Silence.

Drue pulled back the man’s hood. “Rider Hadrin Vale.”

Recognition passed between them, and whatever warmth remained in Drue’s face disappeared.

“You know him?” Kaelen asked.

“Third Mountain Sortie. He carries sealed trade dispatches for Kefar.” Drue looked at Hadrin’s riding leathers. “Or used to.”

“I still do,” Hadrin said.

“Then why follow us?”

“Perhaps I enjoy griffon harnesses.”

Blena crouched beside him. “Tell us who you planned to report to.”

Hadrin smiled through the blood on his teeth.

“We need to sound more threatening,” Alster whispered.

“He can hear you,” Tajan whispered back.

“That may itself be threatening.”

Kaelen folded his arms. “We could find out where your family lives.”

Everyone looked at him.

Hadrin’s smile faded.

Kaelen waited.

Blena leaned towards him. “And then what?”

“I hadn’t reached that part.”

“It is not much of a threat if you stop before the threatening bit.”

“I know that now. I was working up to it.”

Tajan cleared her throat. “We could hang him over the edge of the city.”

“By what?” Blena asked.

“His ankles?”

“That could dislocate both knees.” Alster frowned. “Possibly the hips as well.”

“We would use rope.”

“Rope burns.”

Drue stared at the three of them. “Are you trying to frighten him or prepare a medical pamphlet?”

Hadrin’s smile returned.

Anderix stepped forward. “I could remove one of his fingernails.”

The room fell silent.

“Could you?” Tajan asked.

Anderix considered his mechanical tools. “Yes.”

“Would you?” asked Tajan, completely aghast.

He considered that slightly longer. “Not under the present circumstances.”

“Then perhaps don’t announce it.”

“I understood that threats need not describe intended actions.”

“Only when delivered convincingly.”

“I thought my delivery was strong.”

“It was deeply upsetting,” Alster assured him.

Kaelen pulled the others towards the far corner. They formed a tight circle, leaving Hadrin alone against the wall.

“We are not hurting him,” Kaelen said.

“Obviously,” Tajan replied.

“I only suggested the edge,” Blena said. “I never said we should let go.”

“The fingernail procedure would cause limited permanent harm,” Anderix said.

Tajan stared at him.

“I am explaining why it was selected as a threat. I remain opposed to performing it under these circumstances.”

“Good clarification.”

Alster looked back at Hadrin. “He knows we won’t do any of it.”

“Then we ask questions until he makes a mistake,” Kaelen said.

“That could take hours.” Drue’s gaze remained fixed on the rider. “His messenger may already be moving.”

They turned.

Hadrin rested his head against the wall. “Finished deciding which heroes you are?”

Alster crossed the room.

“Why would you choose Kefar over Drue?” he asked. “And us for that matter. We are good people under the service of Kefar?”

Hadrin said, “Good people don’t steal crystals and kidnap foreigners.”

“Fifty gold is not enough to betray your own riders.”

“You are not my riders.”

“Drue was.”

“Drue deserted his post, carried fugitives across three realms and brought Kefar’s enemies into Kael’Voryn.”

“We are trying to keep your world alive.”

“Kefar keeps my world alive.” Hadrin’s voice sharpened. “Kefar coin repairs these roosts. Kefar contracts keep half this city fed through winter. My sister breathes because a Kefar physician brings lung salts every month, and because the Council pays what I cannot.” He looked at Drue. “You call that betrayal. I call it remembering who kept their promises.”

No one answered immediately.

Alster’s anger faltered, but did not disappear. “And if Kefar asks you to condemn six people you know nothing about, people who claim innocence?”

“I know the reward is fifty for information and one hundred for capture.” Hadrin shifted his injured shoulder and winced. “I chose the easy fifty and care not for your claims.”

Drue took one step towards him.

“You chose to sell us out?”

“I chose not to die attempting to arrest you.”

“Very principled.”

Hadrin looked past him to Alster. “You are a healer. Are you going to help me with this shoulder or keep admiring it?”

Perhaps it was the map in his pocket. Perhaps it was the casual mention of rewards. Perhaps it was simply that Hadrin had asked a healer for help while refusing to offer any kindness himself but something in Alster broke. Alfer remained missing. Alster could see nothing but the Guardians in pursuit of them and of his brother. And this poor fool worked for the Guardians of Kefar.

Alster snatched a metal harness fork which was abandoned on the hay and drove it into Hadrin’s upper arm.

Hadrin screamed.

Everyone stared.

The fork remained standing upright.

Alster stared too.

“Blena said “anything” was acceptable,” he said faintly.

“I said anything within reason,” Blena replied.

“That is not at all the same sentence.”

“No.”

Alster dropped to his knees. “I think I struck the bone.”

Hadrin swore at him.

“That confirms sensation below the injury. Good. Do not move.”

“There is a fork in my arm!”

“Yes, I am the person most surprised by that.” Alster reached for it, stopped, then reached again. “No. It may be limiting the bleeding. This room is filthy. That is not criticism of your city. It is a medical observation. Does anyone have clean cloth? Boiled water? Strong spirits?”

Blena handed him a flask of water.

Alster sniffed it. “Is it clean?”

“I had a sip but it was collected by condensers yesterday.”

“Then it should manage a fork.”

“Enough,” Drue said.

His voice was quiet, but Dasher lifted his head outside the door.

Drue seized Hadrin by the front of his leathers and hauled him upright. Alster rose with him, both hands hovering protectively near the fork.

“Do not jolt that.”

Drue opened the door.

Dasher stood in the open doorway and filled it as he entered the stable.

Hadrin’s face changed.

“Drue?” Kaelen said.

“He wanted an easy fifty gold pieces.”

Dasher’s hooked beak clicked once.

“We are going to show him the difficult hundred unless he talks.”

Thy Quest 6: Calculate the Bounty
The warrant offers 50 gold for information or 100 gold for capturing each person. There are six wanted companions. Calculate the total reward for providing information about all six and the total reward for capturing all six alive. How much greater is the capture reward, and how many times as large is it? Show each calculation.