Shadows on the Stars (41 page)

“What the trolls’ teeth is that?” She pointed to a huge cloud in the distance, shaped like a mass of rolling hills. Rising off its misty slopes were thousands of hazy pinnacles, sharply pointed at the top. More like pillars of light than anything solid, they covered the cloud completely.

“The great Forest Afloat,” answered Nuic, an unusual tone of admiration in his voice. “It’s full of eonia-lalo trees, whose bark is almost invisible, even when you’re standing among them. The whole forest moves freely around the realm. So it’s impossible to guess, on any given day, just where it will appear next.”

“Just like me,” chuckled Seth, who had stepped to Elli’s side. “Jesters are always on the move, you know—often to escape our adoring crowds, especially the ones wielding axes and knives. I come and go just like the clouds.”

“More like the plague,” grumbled Nuic.

Seth’s grin broadened, and he slapped his side. Bells up and down the arms of his jerkin jingled playfully. His thoughts, however, were anything but playful, for he had definitely made up his mind that killing this annoying little sprite would be part of his pleasure. He’d do it first, too, so the girl could watch. The only question was whether he should stab Nuic with the hidden blade, bludgeon him to death with the cane—or simply throw the little beast over the edge.

Throw him over
, Seth decided.
The shrieks will be lovely. And of course
, he thought smugly,
there is another question
—
when to do it.

His flinty gray eyes narrowed.
I grow weary of this charade. And eager to possess my crystals! Besides, this setting is quite perfect. So dramatic, so remote. I shall do it soon. Very soon.

“Look there!” cried Elli, pointing to a group of nine or ten thin, vaporous forms, nearly transparent, that were sailing across the sky. Moving rapidly, they were carried by some peculiar wind of their own, which didn’t seem to touch any of the larger clouds nearby. “They look more like a flock of birds than a bunch of clouds, don’t they?”

“Hmmmpff. That’s because they
are
more like a flock of birds, you fool. Those are sylphs—flying off to the Harplands, by the looks of it.”

Elli watched the vaporous forms, hardly more substantial than the air itself. After a moment, she reached up and touched a tiny foot of the maryth on her shoulder. “Did you say Harplands?”

“That’s right. Listen.”

To the sound of your breathing
, said the jester to himself.
While it lasts
—
which won’t be long, my sweet.

Elli, meanwhile, was listening to the airy sounds of Y Swylarna. Beyond the steady swish of distant winds, she thought she could hear a deeper, whooshing sound—perhaps the Air Falls that Nuic had mentioned. But hard as she tried, she couldn’t hear anything that sounded at all like harps.

“Sorry, Nuic. Maybe your Harplands are just too far away.”

The sprite’s color turned an impatient orange. “Or maybe humans’ ears are made of wood, just like their brains. Perhaps if we walk up to a higher point on this cloud ridge, you can hear better. And see better, too—so I can point out our route.”

Good idea
, thought Seth, bobbing his head.
The higher you are, the farther you’ll fall.

Elli, with Nuic on her shoulder, stepped off the cloudcake platform and started to walk up the long, gradual rise—although walking didn’t really describe it.
Bouncing
suited it better, for with every step, her body sank deeper and rose higher than she’d ever experienced before. Each stride was almost as much vertical as horizontal. Elli felt as if she were stepping over an enormous, immensely soft pillow. But this misty pillow made every step easier, since the cloud kept springing back firmly underfoot.

Once Elli became used to the new, bouncy rhythm of her gait, she quite liked the feeling. After a glance back at the jester, she concluded that he, too, was enjoying their pillow-walk, even though his face seemed more a mask of his emotions than a true expression of them. No doubt, she guessed, that was the way with all jesters: They were always performing.

As they climbed the long, gradual slope, Elli scanned some more of the surrounding airscape. Vapors, tinted light green or lavender, twisted and curled everywhere, wrapping themselves around denser clouds like radiant ribbons—or around each other, like transparent snakes. In the gaps between clouds, brilliant pools of sky opened, impossibly blue. Like melted sapphires shot through with light, the pools glittered invitingly.

All the while, as she took springy steps higher, gentle breezes tickled her chin and tousled her hair. So light was the wind, she almost wished that she could leap up and float along with it, borne through the ocean of air.

Then, to her left, she saw something surprising: an entire cloud dotted with thousands of tiny blue points. Like a celestial field of blueberries, the cloud sparkled with this misty crop. Elli licked her lips, remembering the feast of berries they’d eaten just after landing in Waterroot. Did fruits grow in this realm, as well?

She was just about to ask Nuic, when overhead she heard a swelling cacophony. Birds! Hundreds and hundreds of birds, several flocks combined, flew out of a cloud. There were black cormorants, cranes with long necks, pointy-beaked sandpipers, hawks, jays, terns, kitiwakes with silver wings, and even a few pure white owls. Squawking and piping, hooting and whistling, the birds’ noisy chatter drowned out every other sound, even the rush of faraway winds.

Only after they had flown a good distance, disappearing into a dark bank of clouds, did their calls finally fade away. Elli shook her head and commented, “Loudest birds I ever heard.”

Nuic tugged on one of her curls and declared, “Then you’ve never been to the Isles of Birds, many leagues east of here. Where that group is heading, I’ll wager. Why, there are so many birds nesting there, all year round, that the noise is almost deafening.”

“So there must be thousands.”

“Try millions, Elliryanna! So many birds that when all of them rise into the sky, they block out the light and it seems like nighttime until they land again.”

As Elli tried to imagine such a sight, Nuic suddenly pointed to a steep rise ahead, lifting like a summit at the northernmost edge of the cloud. “There,” he declared. “That spot will do. From the top, we can see how far we have to go.”

And how far you have to fall,
thought the man striding behind them, a jesterly grin on his face.

With quick, bouncy steps, they mounted the rise. At the top, a wide vista opened to the north. There were scores of thin, intertwining clouds that had woven themselves into a great tapestry of mist; a range of massive clouds, even taller than the high peaks of Olanabram; dozens of luminous rainbows, all rising side by side; and on the horizon, a stormy maelstrom that crackled constantly with lightning. But what captured Elli’s attention more than any of these sights was a misty valley in the distance where tall, graceful spirals of vapor twirled and spun in an airy, ongoing dance.

“The Dancing Grounds of the Mist Maidens,” said Nuic, following her gaze. “Among the strangest sights—and strangest creatures—of this realm. Just imagine what it would be like if you—”

“Wait,” Elli said, cutting him off. “I think I can hear the harps!”

She closed her eyes, listening not just with her ears but with all of herself, opening every pore of her skin to the world of sound. She heard the beating of her heart, the breathing of her lungs, and the swish and whistle of distant winds. But now, beyond all that, she also heard something else—a tender, lilting music that seemed the perfect accompaniment to the Mist Maidens’ dance.

Harps. They sang with long, sweeping notes that held the lightness of air and the sweetness of starlight, rippling with overtones. The music of the harps’ strings swelled louder, receded, then lifted anew and hung there, warbling, before finally fading away—only to rise again.

Elli opened her eyes again, though the vaporous creatures’ spiraling dance now seemed only possible because of the harps’ music. “It’s like . . . well, like the air
itself
is singing.”

“It is,” replied Nuic, sitting close to her ear. “Those are aeolian harps, you see. Scores and scores of them, resting on the slopes of those mountainous clouds over there. The sylphs themselves crafted them, and tuned them over several centuries. For strings they used only the finest strands of vaporthread, stretched between clouds so tightly that even the slightest brush of wind will vibrate them. And so it does, making the finest music—outside of museos, of course—anywhere in the Seven Realms.”

She sighed, remembering the lilting harp music that her father had played for her so often, years ago. And the harp that he had given her before he died—which Tamwyn had accidentally crushed on the first day they’d met. Yet even without the instrument, she could still hear its music, still feel its enchantment.

Nuic gently tapped her cheek. “And mind you, all this music is more than just entertaining. It’s also useful. People around here predict changes in the weather based on what they hear in the Harplands. Not too accurately, mind you, but at least it’s better than an ogre’s bunion.”

Elli listened for another moment, then said, “It’s more than just sound, isn’t it? It’s also feeling. Layers and layers of feeling.”

Nuic paused, himself listening, before he spoke again. “Some sylphs who have studied the harps say those strings respond to more than just wind. They can also pick up the emotions of people nearby—anger, love, fear, and the like. Hmmmpff, I don’t believe it myself, but they claim it’s possible to sense, sometimes, changes in the overall balance of things. Approaching danger, for example.”

Even as he spoke, the music swelled the slightest bit louder.

Elli gasped. She took a big step backward on the cloudy knoll, startling Nuic so much that he nearly fell off her shoulder. Seth, meanwhile, remained still, watching calmly.

“There,” Elli shouted, pointing at an enormous, dark shape that was rising on the horizon. “Look there!”

The huge shape lifted higher, poking through the surrounding clouds. A head! It turned toward them, even as it opened powerful jaws with hundreds of gleaming teeth. The jewels in its gargantuan crown flashed, yet not so brightly as its wrathful green eyes. Two ears straightened, dangling gigantic earrings of pearls and kelp.

“Hargol!” she cried. “He’s here.”

“Hold on, Elliryanna,” declared Nuic. “Do you think a water dragon, who can swim but not fly, could get very far in Airroot?”

“Then . . .” she said, staring at the gigantic head. “What is it?”

“The Veils of Illusion,” he replied coolly. “Clouds with a disturbing magic of their own. They can take the form of whatever fears may be riding the wind.”

Elli shook her head, scattering some wisps of mist that had settled on her curls. “Let’s avoid that place, shall we?”

“That we can do,” declared the sprite. “But to follow your plan—going to that portal in upper Airroot, and then on to Shadowroot for the corrupted crystal—we’ll have to pass through some
other
dangerous places. Very dangerous.”

Seth, who was standing right behind them, smirked wickedly.

In the distance, the music from the Harplands grew suddenly louder. And also slightly discordant, as if some of the vaporthread strings had suddenly broken.

Slowly, Seth straightened his hunched shoulders. His little bells sounded, even as the distant harps jangled out of harmony. “As for myself,” he declared, “I rather prefer
this
dangerous place.”

Struck by his newly malevolent tone, Elli spun around to face him. “What do you mean?”

“This.” The jester clicked the hidden button on his cane. Instantly, a gleaming dagger blade extended from its tip. Quicker than Elli’s eyes could follow, he swung up the cane so that the blade’s tip aimed straight at her chest.

Instinctively, she took a hasty step backward. And she might have taken another, if she hadn’t found herself standing on the very edge of the cloud—with a sheer drop into bottomless vapors right behind her.

Nuic, whose skin color had shifted to a mix of crimson and black, grumbled, “Trouble, like clouds, comes in many forms.”

“Couldn’t have said it better myself,” clucked their assailant. He jabbed the blade toward her chest again. “You see, I’ll be taking those little trinkets of yours—both of them.”

“Not unless you kill us first,” spat Elli, her hands curling into fists.

His sallow face grinned crookedly. “If you insist, my little gumdrop.” His dagger blade pricked the amulet around her neck, pulling apart the leaves so that he could see the luminous crystal beneath them. “Oh yes indeed, how very nice.”

Elli shook her head, heedless of the blade. The crystal flashed brilliantly, shooting out rays of white, green, and blue light. Very slowly, he lowered the blade, dragging it down her robe until it rested just above her heart. He held that position, clearly enjoying the feeling of being in complete control.

“You see,” he said with a smirk, “my real name isn’t Seth. No, no. My
real
name is Deth. Deth Macoll.”

“How appropriate,” grumbled Nuic. “But it doesn’t suit you as well as some other names. Fraud, Coward, and Madman, for instance.”

Deth Macoll’s face reddened. “Is that so, you little loudmouth?” In a flash, he raised the blade to point right between Nuic’s purple eyes. “So glad you reminded me that I’d like to kill you first. Now, any more insults before you get skewered?”

“The best insults are true,” shot back the sprite. “You
are
a fraud. As well as a coward! I’ll wager you’re just scared to death of Kulwych. You would never have dared to take us to his hiding place, anyway. Why, you probably don’t even know where it really

The assassin’s face turned nearly as crimson as Nuic, while the wind harps swelled to a dissonant chorus. Shaking with rage, he snarled, “You think so? Well, he’s somewhere even deeper than a dark elf s grave.” He raised an eyebrow. “But if you think I’m going to tell you any more than that, you’re wrong.”

“Hmmmpff. So you
don’t
know.”