Excerpt from Alexan’s Fourth Journal, Tour of the Singing Plains.

The first time I saw it, I couldn’t believe my eyes.

The way Sirens teach their children to fly looks terrible at first glance. To be tossed from a tower or cliff with little ceremony and nowhere to land but the hard ground still seems terrifying. But the children are not without support. Their parents spin gusts of air to help lift their children to the sky and cushion any unfortunate impacts.

I look forward to trying out the bodykites they lend to visitors, although I have this sneaking suspicion I’ll be at the mercy of their whims if I decide to wear it. I’m still not going to pass up the chance to fly, even if it is another who is doing the work for me.

???

[I have to speak with you.]

“What? Who?”

[Every time, you grow to be friends with them so quickly, and so many times it has ended with you holding them in your arms with tears in your eyes.]

“What? What are you talking about?!”

[You have every reason to be afraid. It is not the sealing of the barrier that kills them. So many ceremonies performed with every precaution, so many chosen raised with every care. And yet they always died.]

“... What do you know?! Who are you!”

[You should know. And you should know the cost, do you dare listen? Do you dare not?]

Unnamed Talkarn

He didn’t really have much to wear for the ceremony. Nothing new had been provided. He had about the nicest trousers, shirt, and jerkin he owned thanks to the last visit from Ouran and Easil. And there was the shoulder pauldron made with a flat spot and rail for Easil to hold when on the move. Then there was the wrist wrap that he’d kept his wands in, although now it only held his hollow wood wand.

Tal finished his breakfast, made sure he was about as tidy as he could be, and waited. Then waited some more. The logical side of his mind told him it wasn’t that long a wait. The emotional side — the one that knew what was coming — was in agony.

Tal jumped when the door to his room opened. Two horns sharpened to blade-points led the way, letting Tal recognize Seft before he saw any other part of the warden.

“You are ready,” Seft stated, rather than asked.

“Yes, I am.”

The warden gave him a long, lingering look. Tal felt himself start to itch, and he fought the urge to fidget. Finally, the warden stepped back. “Let’s go, then.”

Picking up the candle from the sconce as he left the room, Tal halted for a fraction of a second when he realized that there was a second warden waiting that he didn’t recognize. The sword at his waist was much like the one that Seft wore and Ouran had used, his armour identical to Seft’s. He was a younger guard with short, blunted horns and a majority of white hair — hair with more shadow seeping from his horns than Tal might have expected for an Erlkin of his age. The younger warden’s face was tightly controlled with sharp features.

The hesitation lasted only a moment. Tal took up position between the two wardens and the three of them began walking.

Tal soon found himself walking in lockstep with the younger warden, his feet hitting the wood in time with the guard’s hooves.

The sound had just started to lull Tal into distraction when something whispered: “Walk as you are. Don’t react to my words, and don’t reply.”

His confusion was instant, but Tal complied. The voice had transmitted itself directly to Tal’s ear, just like when Easil sent his voice.

After a long pause, the voice spoke again. “You have the bravery and foolishness of youth, young Talkarn.”

That almost made Tal trip. There was a hitch in his step, but he managed to hold it together beyond that. He also recognized the voice.

“Your adopted father is competent enough in wind whispering for common purposes. Your assumption that you wouldn’t be heard was reasonable enough. The greater foolishness was in the letters — did you truly believe they would not be checked?”

Tal felt himself breaking into a sweat as he listened. The acts of reading and writing alone had so consumed him that he hadn’t realized that it would be spied on. With a grimace on his face, Tal started cursing himself. It should have been obvious!

While Tal continued to sweat, the tunnel came to an end. He could see the tower in the distance. More than a few windows of the village houses flashed with white Erlkin peeking at this new chosen making for the tower.

“I have marched many chosen to their deaths, young Tal. And Meyla has held more than her fair share in her shaking hands.”

Tal stared at the tower like his life depended on it, waiting for the proverbial branch under his feet to fall.

“I spoke with Meyla last night, and together we spoke with a third. You know it well.”

That made Tal trip on a root that wasn’t there.

“Careful,” the other warden snapped, voice tinged with annoyance.

Tal glanced at the younger Erlkin. “Sorry, wasn’t watching my step.”

That earned him a grunt. He resumed walking, careful to keep himself even with the wardens. A glance at Seft gave away nothing of what he was saying.

“Nolsa had her suspicions, Meyla her grief — and I? I had my duty. But while duty never ends, it needs to serve a purpose. This world within the barrier is a world in the palm of Darisen’s hand. He talks as if you may survive, confident in his control over the situation, happily manipulating you into cooperation. But there is no reason to keep you alive, as he says. The monsters don’t threaten him, and a chosen with time to think is a problem. Someone like you might ruin his perfect, little world.”

Chills started running down Tal’s spine as he realized what the warden was saying.

“If you enter that tower now, you will die.”

Tal dared a reply — not whispering, but breathing as Easil had taught him.

“Then what do I do?”

“When we get to the bridge, break left. Leap off into the air and you shall be guided to the pool below.”

That seemed like an invitation to take his own life rather than give Darisen the chance to take it himself. There were lots of houses and farming plots on the bottom level to break up the water — not to mention a falling body. Worse still, they were coming up to the bridge now, having already cleared the last ring of houses. Tal didn’t have much time to deliberate.

Tal took a deep breath as they arrived at the bridge. “So be it. Say when.”

Seft gave not a single indication, not a twitch nor brush of aether.

“Go.”

Tal lunged left, pushing the young warden out of his way and leaping into the air.

Regret slammed downwards while his gut lifted upwards, the two meeting in the middle. A horizontal shaft of wood skimmed by and the bottom of the underglade rose up faster than Tal could think.

A gust of wind wrapped around him and pulled Tal aside, shifting him to a larger pool in the small network of waters that supplied the farms.

He hit the water hard, feet first. The drop sent him as deep as the water went, alighting for a moment on the wooden floor of the pool. Tal pushed off with all his strength, clawing to get back to the surface. He broke the surface, thrashing and gasping for air. He didn’t know how to swim!

Before panic could truly set in, a great mass of water wrapped itself around Tal, dragging him to the closest plot. He fetched up against a wall of twisted wood and reached onto the dry platform for leverage. Tal got his hand into a shallow root and pulled, only to feel a pair of hands dragging up upwards.

“Come on!” a familiar woman’s voice strained. “You’re too heavy for me!”

Tal grunted, only for that grunt to turn into a shout as he dragged himself out of the pool, water streaming from his form. He looked up to see Nolsa, her face creased with concern.

Easil pulled himself up over Nolsa’s shoulder. “You’re safe, good, we gotta get out of here.”

“To where?” Tal gasped, still sucking air.

“We go to the drain,” Nolsa told him, pointing in the direction of the water’s flow. Tal looked; he had seen where there water flowed in passing. He hadn’t expected he’d be making a break for it.

Easil jumped to Tal’s shoulder, taking firm hold of the pauldron rail. “Let’s go!”

Tal helped Nolsa to her feet as she nabbed a wand from the ground. Glancing at it, he recognized it as a water-channeling wand similar to that of his last lesson with her.

As soon as she was up, they took off. Tal’s feet thumped as he ran, Nolsa’s shifting into a loping run more suited to her build.

“Capture the chosen!” Elder Darsen’s voice boomed out. “He has been corrupted by the Rot!”

So the Grand Elder was now aware of Tal’s escape. Tal hoped Seft would be okay.

More than a few Erlkin heads popped out from their respective homes and gardens, but the three fugitives weren’t slowing down to see if anyone followed.

“Tal!” Easil called out. “We’re not going in the upper drain!” Tal’s adopted father hung on for all he was worth as he shouted. “We have to go underwater to the lower drain!”

Tal nodded as he ran, the drain quickly approaching. The walkway along which they ran ended to the left of the upcoming drain. Nolsa’s hooves sounded on the wood, behind and slightly to Tal’s left.

“You first!” Nolsa gasped out, wand still in hand.

Tal nodded again. She’d pulled him to the walkway, would she be pushing them along here too? Tal grabbed Nolsa’s wrist as he jumped into the water, endeavoring not to think about what he was doing before he hesitated. She yelped as he pulled her along.

Tal hit the water hard, but was surprised to discover his head surrounded by a bubble of air.

“The air won’t last long,” Easil’s voice warbled in Tal’s ear. Tal flailed about, causing Easil to shout: “Calm down!”

Nolsa used Tal’s hold on her to pull herself close to him. Before he could wonder what she was doing, he felt the water around them move, pulling him down to a dark gap in the bottom of the globe. He wrapped his arms tight around Nolsa and held her close, her body warm against him in the cold water.

Tal couldn’t see in the darkness of the water-filled tunnel, opting instead to shut his eyes and just hold on. There was a jarring impact that forced out the breath Tal had been holding. He sucked in the air around his head with surprise and felt the bubble shrink past his hair.

The great clumsy hand around them continued to drag them along through the water, or perhaps the current was just that fast now that they were in the passage. Tal didn’t know, he could only hold on.

Suddenly, he was weightless and falling through empty space.

His head cleared the water and Tal shouted in surprise and fear. Still he was blind, the darkness absolute. Easil shouting next to his ear provided a small point of reassurance, and Nolsa was still in his arms.

Then — impact. Having twisted in the air, Tal landed on his back and hit the water hard. He might have flailed but for that hand of water lifting them up again… before it disappeared.

“Relax!” Easil shouted as Tal started to panic. “Lean back! Just float!” Enhanced by Easil’s magic, the sheer volume of it left a ringing in Tal’s ears and shocked him into an awareness of his thrashing.

He was gasping for air, and so was Nolsa. The air smelled musty and still, like a place unused..

After several long moments, the water pushed at them gently. Tal could only assume Nolsa was pushing them along again. Their harsh breathing was the only sound in the darkness, all three of them drawing long breaths after the submersion.

Tal’s foot hit something solid. “I feel ground at my feet.” His voice was still harsh from the experience in the water tunnel.

Nolsa didn’t say anything, but he felt them spin slowly around until his side bumped against whatever his foot had hit. Tal reached out and grabbed at the roots, pulling Nolsa around and allowing her to climb. With him pushing her along, she was quickly out of the water. Tal fumbled around as he climbed the unsteady bank in search of something solid under his feet. Easil grunted a few times as Tal bounced around looking for something to stand on.

Finding his footing, Tal placed a hand over the wrist wrap, carefully channeling aether through the wand to build a small spell of seeing. It took him longer than what was normal, though even under ideal circumstances it still wasn’t the quickest process by any means. As invisible branches of power slowly surrounded his eyes, the world around them came into sight.

They’d landed in a cavern of roots that extended widely, but had a low roof that would require Tal and Nolsa to hunch over. The ground was nothing but a tangle of wood and greenery broken up by pillars of roots submerged into pools of a liquid that was too thick-looking to be water. It was hard for Tal to get the finer details, since the magical sight only allowed him to see the world in tones of greys, but he was still happy to be able to see anything.

They hadn’t quite caught their breath when Easil hissed, “We can’t afford to stay still. We have to get further away.”

He wanted to snap back, but Nolsa didn’t give him the chance. As soon as Easil spoke, she started moving, pulling gently on Tal’s hand.

Tal’s mind was in turmoil. Seft had mentioned Nolsa, but never would he have ever expected his teacher to come to his rescue like this. He didn’t know what to say, what to ask, or even where to start.

“Why?” was all he could manage, the word surprising him as it left his lips.

Nolsa glanced at him for a moment. Her hair was a mess and he could see a cut on her cheek that was seeping grey blood. “By the time it was presented to me,” she began, pausing to take a rough breath as they walked, “I was already too old for a grand journey.” She stopped once more to breathe, crouching as they passed under a low bundle of roots. “You’ll have to allow me this one small adventure.”

Tal didn’t know what to say at first, his stomach clenching at the thought of her getting hurt — of what it would be like without her. Easil had acted as Tal’s adopted father for all his life, but Nolsa had been like his mother, teaching him and looking after him with warm affection. Although recently, other confusing thoughts had crept in at every conceivable corner.

“Thank you,” Tal said, grateful from the bottom of his heart. He hadn’t realized how much his short stay in the Heart had smothered him.

“There was no way we wouldn’t come,” Easil replied from his shoulder.

Nolsa looked back with a warm smile that made Tal’s heart jump. “I am grateful we were in time.”

“Where are we going?” Tal asked.

“This tree is the greatest of the Hollow Homes, there is no shortage of places to hide,” Nolsa replied. “So we use that, we will hide for now and return when you are ready.”

“When will that be?”

“You’ll know better than us,” Nolsa began, “but we won’t be able to hide forever. Every Erlkin born thus far has Darisen’s ‘blessing.’ Anywhere we go, we will be found in time — although you can extend that time if you abandon me...”

“Which I’m not doing,” Tal stated with confidence. They walked in silence for several moments before he spoke again. “So it won’t be long.”

“No, it won’t be,” Nolsa replied. “Not long at all.”

End Chapter.