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Chapter Twelve

Part Nine

“Just try and relax, Drew,” his mother said. “It’ll make it a lot easier for both of us. A cup of tea will help.” She poured tea from a pot into two china cups. “Sarah comes here a lot, so she makes sure that there’s plenty of home comforts.”

Andrew took his cup and added milk and sugar absently, all the while taking in the view from the treehouse’s balcony.

“What exactly are you going to do?” he asked finally. Read the rest of this entry »

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Chapter Twelve

Part Eight

The chamber the council had provided for their deliberations looked newly grown. The branches of the tallest tree in Waldhafen had been elongated and woven into an elegant chamber with room for all the participants, and when she stroked the living leaves that made up the carpeting Valeria could feel the strength of the secrecy wards. Read the rest of this entry »

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Chapter Twelve

Part Seven

“What do you suppose she meant by that?” Sonia asked, staring after Rilletta with a frown.

“Who cares?” Sarah asked.

“Me, obviously,” Sonia said mildly. “I’m curious about her, and what she said was peculiar. I want to know what she meant.”

“She probably meant that resonants could have protected Earth, so the dragons would not have attacked,” Matthias said. “Which makes sense.”

“Possibly,” Sonia stared after Rilletta. “But I don’t think so. There’s something we’re missing.” She shook her head. “But for now there are more pressing matters to consider. I think we should adjourn to the chambers provided for our discussions and double check the wards.”

“Yes, let’s,” Matthias agreed.

“One moment. There’s something I need to do first.” Daniel walked over to where Mela was sitting with her aunt. “Songstress Lorelei, I believe I owe you an apology for spearing you in the shoulder and – um – massacring your family.”

Lorelei looked at him for a long moment then gave a wan smile. “Well, we were trying to kill you at the time, Dark Warrior. I won’t fault you for defending yourself. Thank you for caring for Mela so well. I think you’ve been good for her. She used to be far too meek.” She cocked her head at him and her smile became less strained. “Let’s blame my sister for it. She’s to blame for pretty much everything else.”

“Her, Maran and Huldre,” he agreed. “Especially Huldre, I think.”

“It was certainly his idea to torture me,” she agreed. “But while we’re dealing in apologies…” She turned her attention to Andrew. “I really owe you one, don’t I, Ice Warrior? I shouldn’t have let my sister talk me into that – I knew it was a bad idea.”

Andrew glared at her for a moment and then sighed. “Okay, I’ll accept that apology,” he said grudgingly. “You’ve been through more than enough to make up for it.”

“Thank you.” Lorelei rose to her feet. “May I join you later, my queen? I wish to speak with the River Singer about my son.”

“Yes,” Valeria said. “I would imagine that you do.” She paused and then added softly. “Be careful, Lorelei. Renegades are tricky. Be wary of anything she tells you.”

“I know, my queen,” Lorelei said. “But she’s probably in touch with her master, so she’ll know if he’s okay. I can’t help worrying.”

“After what happened, I’d rather like to know as well,” Valeria said. “The rest of us will be in the council chambers.”

“I’ll come with you, Aunt Lori,” Mela said. When Daniel opened his mouth to protest she shook her head at him. “It’ll be okay. She can’t kidnap me because of the truce and I want to know about Darya.”

He frowned at her then nodded. “I guess they would have tried something by now if they were going to. Just be careful.”

“Andrew and I will join you later as well,” Sonia said. “It’s best if we sort these mental wards out now while I’m thinking about it.”

***

Mela peeked out from behind her aunt when they entered the rooms where Rilletta and her entourage were staying. She knew that they wouldn’t kidnap her but they still made her nervous. Rilletta met them by the door with a warm smile.

“Songstress Lorelei.” Rilletta dropped a respectful curtsey. “I am glad to meet you at last. My husband says Darya has been extremely concerned about you. He’ll be glad to hear that you are recovering.” She leaned around and smiled at Mela. “There’s no need to hide, Melusine. No one here is going to harm you.”

“I see my son has infected you with the habit of using my niece’s adult name,” Lorelei said.

Rilletta chuckled. “And you don’t think she’s shown enough maturity in the past few weeks to be recognised as an adult?”

Mela blinked as her aunt favoured her with a thoughtful glance.

“She has,” Lorelei said finally. “But I’ll need another two adults to back me up on that. But tell me, please. Do you know if Darya is well? The queen said that he was badly hurt during the battle for the Storm Palace.”

“He was,” Rilletta said. “He’s healed well. He’ll be glad to hear that you were concerned about him.” She gestured to the chairs. “Won’t you sit? I’m sure that you have many questions. Most Speakers who find that a relative has changed sides do. I’ll do my best to answer them.”

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Chapter Twelve

Part Six

“I don’t know about this, Dad,” Lydia said. “Drew’s not exactly the most accomplished liar. I’m not sure he could fool someone for the length of time he’d need to. There’s a good chance he’ll blow your cover and get himself killed in the process.”

“I’d have to agree, Matt,” Sonia said. “He’ll give himself away eventually if he tries that. He’s too fundamentally honest not to.” She frowned at her hands. “There are ways around that, of course, but not if he doesn’t trust us.

“Ways around it?” Andrew asked hesitently. “What do you mean?”

“I could make sure that you didn’t realise you were lying when you were with Emms. I’ve already pulled a similar trick for your father, not that he’s not capable of massive dissembling anyway,” Sonia said. “But you’d have to let me in first, and that’s not happening if you don’t trust me not to brainwash you.”

“That’s… eh… you can do that?” His very obvious spike of anxiety made Lydia swallow.

“It’s creepy,” Lydia said. “Bloody useful, but very creepy. But if our parents were going to mess with your head, Drew, I think they’d have done it before now.”

“That’s true, I guess, but…” He wrapped his arms around himself. “I like my mind, I want it to be my own.”

“There is one possibility,” Sonia said gently. “How about I show you my mind first? Then you’ll know what I think and that I won’t do anything more than I say I will.” She held out her hand to him and the screen around her mind dropped. “Come on, it’s not hard, dear.”

“I- um-” He gave a deep sigh. “I suppose that if you’re intending to brainwash me I can’t stop you anyway.” He reached out and took her hand.

Sonia gave a gentle half-smile. “Not really, no. Your screen isn’t good enough. You couldn’t stop Jayden Emms either. He’s quite capable of smashing your screen and very skilled with mind stuff.” She looked somber for a moment. “It’s lucky Daniel’s is better. Now, dear, you just need to reach into my mind with your own.”

“Um? I’ll try…” A scowl crossed Andrew’s face followed by a kind of stunned look. “Oh, mum! No wonder they-” He’d gone pale but then he shook his head and grinned. “Well at least it makes sense now. That’s amazing. Can I get my hands on some of those blocks sometime? It’s a bit much to take in all at once.”

“History blocks?” Sarah asked. “What did you do, Sonia? Give him a potted history?”

“Pretty much, yes. Once you know our history it becomes apparent why Jayden Emms can’t be right. You can get hold of some history blocks can’t you, Sal? I think Lyd and Dan could do with getting access to them as well.”

“Of course I can. Brierthorne has a load.”

“History blocks?” Lydia asked curiously.

“Objects which have been impressed with a psychometric impression of our history,” Sonia said.

“Oh, wow! That’s such a brilliant idea,” Lydia said. “But what made you go so pale, Drew?”

“I – well – I think I understand why there’s so much bad blood between some Speakers and humans now. Even if the really big thing was several thousand years ago now.”

Lydia looked at him and then frowned at her parents. “What happened?”

“It was when the dragons first attacked Earth,” Sonia said softly. “There weren’t enough Astrals to fight them off, so a group of us apparently found a way to summon and bind Speakers to fight for us. It ended badly for everyone. Most Astrals got killed in the reprisals and the dragons turned their attention to this world as more than just a base of operations. Well that’s the short version. There’s more to it than that. If it were the only time anyone had tried anything so stupid it might not have led to so much trouble, but every so often someone tries again. Fortunately none of the other cases have led to a total massacre.”

“Oh,” Lydia said. “Oh dear.”

“It still comes up from time to time,” Matthias added. “Mostly, interestingly enough, from the Lavernes and their fellow hunters around the globe. There’s a strong argument for thinking that it was the resonant hunters at the time who originally stripped us of our best defenses and then tried to plug the gap with Speakers but the blocks from the time are not very clear.”

“Well, you could ask me,” Rilletta said from the doorway. “I was there after all.” She gave a half-smile when they turned to her with shock.  “At least since you aren’t discussing this behind heavy wards and are in a public place I assume it’s not private.”

“Actually it is,” Sarah said in a flat tone.

“Then I apologise and will leave you be, but I’ll tell you this: if they hadn’t driven most of the resonants – if that’s what you want to call them – into exile to avoid being slaughtered there would never have been a dragon attack on Gaia in the first place.”

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Chapter Twelve

Part Five

Andrew didn’t think that anyone had seen him slip out of Waldhafen. He was self-aware enough to realise that stomping out into the forest without even acknowledging his father and with barely a nod to his mother wasn’t really the best way to resolve their family issues, but they’d lied to him and the others repeatedly and he wasn’t sure that the lies were the ones the others thought. He needed to think things through before he challenged them.

“Andrew, what’s wrong?” Kimi had followed him outside.

“My father,” he said. “He always told me that there was a magical conspiracy in charge of Earth that was keeping the majority of people from using their abilities. I believed him but he’s lied about so much… and what Karen said about the stars. I-I’m not used to feeling uncertain about things.”

“Well what she said fits with the old stories—” Kimi broke off as at a sound from a nearby beech tree. Andrew looked up and saw a man with light brown hair staring at them. He was very ordinary looking, except for the fact he was perched on an impossibly thin branch. Andrew’s stomach did an unexpected backflip that screamed ‘enemy’ at him and he hastily reinforced the shield around his mind which Aratts had taught him to make.

“Your sisters can’t be trusted, Andrew Stevens, and you certainly shouldn’t listen to a word Matthias Morgan says. Michael played a dangerous game letting the Morgan’s get their claws into Karen and lost. As for Lydia, she’s too obsessed with magic not being real to see the truth.” He leapt down in front of Andrew and Kimi. “I suppose I’ll have to deal with them eventually, since Mike’s unwilling to. He’s far too much of an idealist.”

“Who are you?” Andrew asked. Well whoever he was, he didn’t know his father was really Matthias Morgan, which was interesting.

“Jayden Emms, I’m a friend of your father and brother. We’re working together to free the world. The people here are going to say bad things about us, but they’re part of the conspiracy against humanity. All of them.”

Andrew managed to keep his expression bland with effort and carefully  thickened his shield a bit more. This was the man who had tortured Daniel! No matter what Andrew thought about his parents right now, torture was beyond the pale. And he was sure that not all the Speakers were bad – or even most of them. “Really?” He tried to sound calm and mostly managed it, but he was sure the man could  hear the way his heart was pounding.

“Yes, really. You’re a clever boy. The only one who ever believed your father. Keep believing in him. If you want to help, come back here tomorrow and we’ll talk some more. Now you should go back before they miss you. If they suspect that you know the truth, they’ll turn your mind inside out and brainwash you into the supporting them.” There was a blast of dust and the man vanished.

“I don’t like him,” Kimi said.

“He’s creepy,” Andrew agreed once he was sure that the guy had really gone. “But he’s right that we should get back inside.”

***

“We don’t know that it’s anything, Dariad,” Matthias was saying when Andrew re-entered the Great Hall. “It’s not that big a leap to realise this is a war council and she hasn’t done anything hostile at all.”

“But it might be,” Dariad said.

“It might,” Matthias agreed. “So send an Imp to Hreid and have him keep a closer eye on her.”

“Andrew?” his mother said softly but her worried tone made everyone turn to look at him. “What’s wrong.”

“I – ah – um…” he trailed off, uncertain what to say. He knew that he had to tell them but he didn’t know how when he still didn’t trust them.

“Just spit it out, kid,” the young man who was chatting amiably to Karen said. Jason he thought quite she’d called him. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“Not a ghost. A monster, possibly,” Andrew blinked at the suddeness with which his stress had quietened and glared Jason suspiciously. “A certain Jayden Emms just accosted me and Kimi.”

“What!” His father strode across the room to him. “Here? What did he say? Did he hurt you?”

“No.” Andrew shook his head. “It didn’t even seem to occur to him that I might not agree with him.” He wasn’t quite sure why but he closed his eyes, loosened his shield enough to let his father in and replayed the entire conversation in his memory.”

“Interesting,” Matthias said. “What the hell is he up to?” He rubbed at the bridge of his nose. “Well at least he doesn’t know who I really am, even though he seems to know more than he should.” He gave Andrew a speculative look. “I know you don’t trust me, Drew, but you could be of great help to me here if you’re willing.”

“You want me to string him along and find out what he’s really up to?” Andrew asked.

His father just nodded.

“Matt! That’s dangerous!” his mother protested.

“We need to find out, Sonia,” his father said.

“He needs stopping, Mum, I could feel it.” It was nice to feel certain about something again. “I don’t know if I can trust you and Dad but I know he needs stopping, so I’ll do it if I can.”

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Chapter Twelve

Part Four

Linnea and Yvo were still looking slightly shell-shocked from their conversation with Valeria the next morning. Linnea was clutching Arava tightly as they waited with the others for Karen to open the gate to Earth.

“A-are you really sure we can trust him?” Yvo asked very quietly as he checked through the pile of their possessions, which Valeria’s guards had managed to find where Maran had dumped them.

Lydia supposed that he was talking about their father. She wanted to say yes, but she wasn’t sure that she could. Not after finding out how long he’d been lying to them – even if it was to protect them.

“I trust him,” Valeria said. “Even if I am going to yell at him loudly when I see him. He should have told me.” Her shoulder’s slumped. “I’ve made a total idiot of myself, because I didn’t know what was really going on.”

“I don’t think he wanted us to know, Val,” Dariad said. “He wanted our reactions to be natural so as not to raise suspicions. He’s only tipped his hand now because his son got hurt.” He looked at Yvo and Linnea. “But yes, I think we can trust him. He can get caught up in his own cleverness sometimes, but he was always okay to me when I was a child.”

“And what they’d done in Elapyron City was appalling,” Linnea said softly. “They deserved what happened to them. The Council wouldn’t be cooperating with him if they thought he was evil. Not as much as they are.”

“You’re right,” he said. “It’s just taking some adjusting to. Though I’m really not sure about them allowing a delegation from a dragon into the town even under a truce.” He shivered slightly.

“In the circumstances I’d have done the same thing,” Dariad said. “If it’s stopping another attack, it’s worth the risk. And we are talking about the River Singer. The old stories are so ambiguous about her I’m actually intrigued to meet her.”

“Dad won’t hurt you,” Karen said confidently. “And he’ll get us to Waldhafen. Whether you can trust him entirely is another matter. The Morgan family motto translates as ‘Whatever is Necessary’. He means well, I’m sure of that.” She studied her feet. “We always mean well. Is everything ready?”

“I think so,” Dariad replied and then looked up at a quiet knock on the door. “Come in!”

Alaryia pushed open the door and smiled at him. “You’re leaving soon, aren’t you? I made a small gift for the little one – though they won’t be much use to her until she’s a bit older.” She held out a cloth wrapped bundle to Yvo, who took and opened it.

“Oh!” he gasped and raised one of two beautifully made daggers. They seemed to be made of carved wood, but having heard how Alaryia had made the sword she’d given to Dariad, Lydia guessed they were made of this Mabain stuff.

“I’m sure someone at Waldhafen can teach her to use them once she’s old enough,” Alaryia said. “And then she’ll be able to defend herself if need be. Hopefully it won’t come up again.”

“I- Thank you.” Yvo seemed stunned by the gift. He wrapped them back up and returned them to his pack.

“You’re welcome,” Alaryia said. She walked over to where Linnea was holding Arava. “Goodbye, little Arava. Be well.”

“Bye, Lala!” Arava said.

Alaryia gave her another warm smile and then turned to Dariad. “I’ll see you when you get back, Your Majesty. I hope your war council goes well.” She was gone before anyone could respond.

“This-” Yvo said. “This is unexpected. We could never have afforded goblin made weapons for Arava and she just gave them to us.”

“She’s like that,” Dariad said, but he was frowning.

“What’s wrong,” Valeria asked.

“You’re right, there’s something about her…” he trailed off thoughtfully. “Sometimes she’s just a little too helpful.”

“Hmmm, yes. But her anger and distress at the state Arava was in was genuine, I’m sure,” Valeria said. “I’m not sure what to make of her.”

Dariad looked like he might reply but Karen interrupted.

“The beacon’s up. I’m opening the gate.”

The next few minutes passed in a rush as they scrambled to get everyone through the gate before Karen had to close it. They emerged into a large, high ceiling room which with cream walls and a red carpeted floor. Lydia looked around.

“No furniture,” she murmered.

“We had to move it out, Lyd. Karen’s placement isn’t perfect yet, you might have ended up falling over it or worse if we hadn’t.” Her father was leaning against one wall smiling at them. “Is that everyone?” he asked as Karen emerged into the room.

“Yeah.” She sank to her knees as the gate snapped shut. “I’m definitely approaching maturity, Everything is wiping me out since yesterday evening. Can this just be over, please?”

“Sounds like it’ll be in the next day or so,” their father said. “Just try not to do anything-” he broke off as Dariad swore. “What’s wrong?”

“That’s what was bothering me! She said that she hoped our war council went well. I never told her that it was war council. How the hell did she know?!”

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Chapter Twelve

Part Three

“My mother did what to Aunt Lori?!” Mela interrupted. She was even paler than usual and her fists were clenched. Daniel put a soothing hand on her shoulder.

“She and Prince Maran tortured her to try and get her to release the throne,” he repeated softly. “She’s going to be okay, though.” Read the rest of this entry »

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Chapter Twelve

Part Two

Dariad had invited Valaria, the Warriors and their heart friends to dine in his personal apartments. His cooks had worn themselves out producing food suitable for humans as well as speakers. The chief cook, an elderly dwarf, had muttered about how he hadn’t cooked for humans since King Indirian’s time and how he wasn’t sure he remembered how. In the end though he had excelled himself. Indeed, from the quality of the food set before the Warriors he suspected they had consulted with the goblins who had similar dietary requirements.
Read the rest of this entry »

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Chapter Twelve

Part One

“Ah, I see you’ve met my daughter!” Lyrrekka smiled warmly when Salia and Karilya wandered into the garden looking for her. “I was about to come and find you. I really hope that you girls get along, because you’ll be sharing classes.” She took them both by the hand and led them through the garden to an exit Salia had not noticed the day before. She frowned — she was sure they’d walked through this part.

“The doors to this part of the wing are hidden,” Lyrekka explained. “There’s some dangerous things kept in here – but you’ll be fine as long as you don’t prod anything without your teacher’s permission.” She laid a hand on the door and it swung open. “Come on then.” Read the rest of this entry »

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Chapter Eleven

Part Twelve

“Your majesty.” The moss woman leapt to her feet and ran over to Valeria as soon as she entered the room. “Arava? Please, is our little Arava alive? King Dariad’s Chatelaine said she was.” Sap-like tears were running down her cheeks. “But that troll, he…” she broke off into heaving sobs. Read the rest of this entry »