Play Until Collapsing Dreams (24/80)

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Play Until Collapsing Dreams had an enchanter’s workroom, stocked with arcane picks and awls for carving artifacts to store aether, crystal pods full of filtered aether in different colors and varieties, vises and grips, and an assortment of enchanted tools whose main purpose was to manufacture more enchantments. She also had an impressive collection of small golems, scrying mirrors, and basins, though surprisingly, no crystal balls. Cushions hung suspended in the air, more or less at random, between the tables and shelves of the chamber.    

Play grabbed a couple of the cushions and spun them through the air to her guests, then hoisted herself atop a third and sat cross-legged. “Now, Ardent. What crazy stupid stunt do you want me to help you with?”

“All I sent in my message yesterday was ‘I’m looking for some information’! How do you know it’s crazy or stupid?” Ardent took a seat on the floating cushion, and tugged it until it was high enough that her legs dangled off the edge. She braced her hands against the cushion edge, between her knees, and leaned forward. Miro adjusted his to torso height and leaned against it instead of sitting, listening to the other two.

“Because it’s you. And you’re not Justiciar any more. So what snooping do you want done?”

Ardent rubbed her chin. “Are you – or anyone – still working on the Eternal View project?”

“You’re asking about that? Now? You hated that idea.”

“Yeah, I hated it. The High Court didn’t, though.”

“What was the Eternal View?” Miro asked.

“An enchantment that would record the whereabouts of every fey in the Moon Etherium on a minute-by-minute basis for retroactive analysis,” Ardent said. “Plus every instance of teleporting.”

Miro stared. “You can do that? Why would you want to do that? Let me rephrase that: why would anyone want that done to them?”    

Ardent gestured. “See, he understood right away why this was a terrible idea.”

“Yes yes yes, I’m a horrible monster for even having thought about it.” Play waved one slender dark hand in dismissal. “I might note that I was doing it specifically to make your job easier, you know. Do we have to keep talking about it? Anyway, I abandoned the Eternal View after your last lecture on the subject. Fourteen years ago! Shadow of Fallen Scent made some effort to revive it – after she’d made High Court, of course, and naturally it wouldn’t be tracking High Court. But I’d already destroyed all my notes. And it was a huge project. You’d need a lot of fey all working in concert to execute it. None of the information mages are willing to touch it now. It can’t even get started.”

Ardent nodded. “That’s good to know. So, let’s say that – hypothetically – I want to find out where a particular fey has been for the last several days. There’s no spell or enchantment that will do that for me, correct?”

“Correct.”

“What about those, whatchamacallits, enchanted golems that were going to track a single fey remotely, even if they weren’t carrying a tracker? Did you finish those?”

“Tracers. Yes, those I made. They’ll only tell you where the fey has been since you began tracing them. And if the Queen or the Justiciar – which you aren’t any more, in case you forgot – wants to authorize you to use one, I’ll be happy to provide it.”

“Mmm.” Ardent kicked her legs in the air. “So. How would you feel about providing it if the Queen or the Justiciar didn’t authorize it?”

“Really crappy. Which is why you’re not going to ask me for one just for old time’s sake.” Play scowled, flattening her feline ears back.    

“What if I only wanted one that’d tell me where the target went when they were in public? That’s not an invasion of privacy. Lots of places have golems that I can farspeak to find out who’s there, as it is.”    

Play made a face. She had thin white whiskers standing out from her cheeks, and they crinkled as she thought. “I guess I could do that. Sure. Why not.”

Ardent grinned. “Fantastic. So. Countermeasures. If someone is using a tracer on me, how could I tell?”

“You, personally, could probably use Sun-prince there to overcharge the cast of a standard reveal-spellwork, and that’d show it. The tracer spellwork’s stealthy, though; it won’t show on an ordinary detection pass. I did get some requests for trace-revealer enchantments, so the fey who have those would be able to tell. An information mage with the right sort of scryers would be able to work it out. Free advice: don’t go spying on an information mage. It’s not worth it.”

“Mm-hmm. Would you be willing to tell me who purchased the trace-revealers?”

“Tell you?” Play flattened her whiskers. “No. Absolutely not. My customer ledger is aether-indexed, and kept in the locked top drawer of that cabinet over there. Which is keyed to this charm.” She pulled a chain out of her tunic, with a gold kitten charm hanging from it, and then pulled it off over her head and tapped it. “Which I’m almost always wearing.” She set the chain and charm on the cushion next to her. To Miro’s soulsight, it had a string attached to it, beckoning in invitation to Ardent. “There were two different kinds I sold, one just to detect traces on the user, and one that also detected scrying spells in the vicinity of the user. Anything else you wanted to ask me about, Ardent?”

“No – wait, yes. Do you still make those little snoop golems?”

“I do. They’re much easier to spot than the tracer spells, though. Even a mortal might see them, and they’re magical enough to register to glamour-sight, so a fey could spot them just by looking around. And anyone casting a basic reveal-spellwork would see them.”

“No improvements in the design since I left, then?”

“Eh. They’re smaller and cuter now? That’s about it.”

“What about your scryers? You didn’t start making anything that can scry people in private, right?”

“No, scrying in private’s too hard for an enchantment. The protections of privacy are much stronger against scrying than against simple location, because there’s several different ways aether can discern location, and only two ways to scry. Getting past privacy protections is another thing you could probably bull your way through with prince-boy and an ordinary farsight spell or scrying mirror. It’d still be easy to detect if the target was looking for it. If you were sloppy, it might be obvious even if the target wasn’t looking for it.”

“Good to know. So what’s your stealthiest scrying device, and can I borrow it?”

“It’s my Ocyale mirror, and can you give me a single legitimate use you’d have for it?”

“I want to keep an eye on my new pet, for whenever he wanders off on his own.” Ardent waved a hand in Miro’s general direction.

“He’s Sun Host. He’s doing well if he can spot a glamour in Moon Etherium. You don’t need stealthy to keep watch on him. Also you just told him you’ll be watching.”

“I don’t care about hiding it from him. I want to know how fey treat him when they don’t think I’m watching.”

“Mph.” Play rubbed one feline ear, crumpling it with her fingers. She glanced at Miro. “And how do you feel about being watched, Sun prince?”

Miro concealed his surprise at being consulted. “Grateful that my mistress is taking such interest in my welfare.”

Play narrowed almondine eyes at his answer, but the essence of his words was true; there was no lie to see through. “Fine. You can borrow it,” she told Ardent. “If I need it back, I expect you to return it promptly. In minutes. Not days.”

“Of course. Thanks, Play.” Ardent chewed her lower lip, thinking. “So, let’s say someone good, someone like you, who knew how to breach privacy wards, was using a farsight spell on me. Would I be able to tell that, or would that be sneakier?”

“You could tell. Usual caveats apply – if they’re watching from a distance you’ll be less likely to notice, or if they’re watching a spot in your area and can see you but don’t have the focus on you. You get the idea.”

“Right. Any new ways to block someone’s scrying or tracing that I don’t know about?”

“The tracers are unblockable. Not the one I’m loaning you, of course: it’ll be blocked by any privacy ward. But if you’re worried about being traced by someone, the regular ones can breach any ward I know of. Maybe you and Sun-prince could whip something up, but I doubt it. Scryers…eh. Some of the older variants of privacy wards are easier to breach than the latest and greatest ones, like the kind the Underground uses. Scrying spells and devices still can’t follow you automatically through a teleport. Teleports leave traces of where the subject went, but you pretty much have to be on-site at the time to follow those. So you can always try porting away from the scrying spell. Or getting inside a better privacy ward. But there’s no counterspell you can use to squash a specific scrying spell that you’ve noticed. Or against a tracer.”

Ardent nodded. “Pity. Are you losing the arms race against trespassers, too?”

“Nope, we’re winning that one. Haven’t found a vulnerability in a modern ward in three years.” Play cocked her head. “Are you still using an older ward?”

“Not that old. I was here for a couple of weeks in the winter of 1251, and you made me learn the newest one then. Under the threat that you’d break mine and rob me yourself if I didn’t.”

“Hah, right. I remember. You’re good, then. I don’t think even sun aether would get you physically past a properly-made ward. Mine are overkill, to be honest. Ooh, though if you get a chance and want to try Sun-breaking them, I’d love to see them tested.”

Ardent glanced at Miro. “I’ll keep it in mind, sugar, but I don’t wanna break my sun prince, and I’ve got other plans that come first.”    

The catgirl bobbed her head. “Aren’t there always? So, is that everything?” At Ardent’s nod, Play hopped down from her cushion, leaving her necklace behind. “Wait here, I’ll go find that tracer for you. Be back in five minutes.” She strolled from the room.

Ardent waited a moment, then slid off her floating cushion and walked to Play’s vacated one. She flicked one hand, and a clockface formed of glamour out of the aether. “Keep an eye on the time for me, sugar? Let me know when four minutes are up.” She scooped up the necklace, walked to the cabinet beside the outside wall, and pulled out a ledger book. With Ardent’s acceptance of the offer the kitten charm represented, the soulstring attached to it wove into the existing obligation Ardent had to Play, thickening it. She set the ledger on a clear section of a worktable and pressed the charm against a recess in the cover, then opened it. Aether stirred as she activated its index. It turned a single page. Ardent frowned at the page and pulled a sheet from the aether. She pressed it briefly against the book, and grumbled as it flashed and dissolved in a puff of smoke. “Of course. Paranoid kitty.” Ardent summoned another sheet and a pen, and copied down names. She checked the index again, found a new page, and continued copying.

“Three minutes,” Miro said, splitting his attention between the door and the clock.

“Great, almost done.” Ardent copied two more names and shut the ledger. She returned it to the cabinet, put the necklace back on Play’s vacated cushion, and dismissed the clock. She ambled to Miro’s side. “So. ‘Grateful I’m taking an interest’, huh?”

He smiled, touching the collar around his neck. “Where would I be without you?”

“Safe and sound in Sun Etherium?” she offered.

“Perhaps. For a value of ‘safe and sound’ that involves some safety and very little soundness.”

Ardent raised her eyebrows at that, but Play returned before she could reply. Their host walked over to one of her shelves and took down a small, unanimated golem in the shape of a clay man with the head of a grumpy bloodhound. She fussed with it for a moment, then handed it to Ardent. “This is the tracer. Works just like a regular tracker, except you have to identify your target for it. It needs either name and current appearance, or aether signature. If you use name and current appearance, then once you’ve begun the trace, it’ll continue even if they shift, glamour or trueshift. It’s a lot harder to shake than a golem or a scrying spell.” She selected one of the mirrors from her collection, a round platter, and wrapped it in batting drawn from the aether before giving that to Ardent, too. “And this is the Ocyale mirror. Don’t break it.”

“I’ll take good care of both,” Ardent promised. She slid them into her shoulder bag, which was smaller than either but accommodated both easily. A messenger bird chirped and tried to hop out. Ardent patted it back down and closed the bag. “Thanks again, Play. I’m in your debt.” Miro watched the soulstring from Play’s hand to Ardent’s nape thicken again. The obligation remained untainted.

“You sure are.” Play led them from the workroom. “Have fun. I’ll see you at the party tonight.”

Ardent grimaced. “Ugh. I’d almost forgotten the party.” She sighed. “See you there.”


Don’t want to wait until the next post to read more? Buy The Moon Etherium now! Or check out the author’s other books: A Rational Arrangement and Further Arrangements.

The Dance of Earth and Sky (23/80)

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They appeared on a rolling green hilltop outside of a fairy-tale castle, complete with its own moat and a drawbridge. Spatial distortion enchantments had given a tiny plot the space for a mansion, complete with grounds. It was a round ivory structure with decorative crenellations of coral, and towers topped by pointed roofs at each compass point. A fantasy garden with a maze of thick brambles as its perimeter surrounded the moat. A glamour haze distorted the air; not all of the surrounding land was real, insofar as ‘real’ had any meaning in an Etherium. The appearance of the hilltop and the impression of empty land save for the occasional small castles in the far distance were all illusory.

Ardent strode up to the bramble maze entrance and poked her head inside. After a moment, Ardent drew back, rolled her eyes, and then summoned and dispatched a farspeaker messenger.

“Why did we port to the outside?” Miro asked, looking about curiously.

“Because Play is a paranoid titmouse.” The brambles before them drew apart to reveal a straight, grassy path to the drawbridge, which clanked as it lowered.

“Paranoid? Surely this doesn’t serve a purpose beyond show.”

Ardent took Miro’s hand and strode down the path. “The appearance is mainly for show, but there’re a bunch of enchantments underlying it that are functional. Including a port block. With no exceptions made even by Play’s permission. No way in or out except physically.”

“What is your friend worried about?”

“Everything.”

The golden portcullis cranked up as they crossed the drawbridge. A realistic sea serpent golem leaped from the moat and arched over the drawbridge as they crossed. Miro stopped to watch the creature, struck because she had a soul, just as Sessile did. Ardent paused too as he hung back, rather than dragging him forward by the hand. “Something wrong?”

The sea serpent pivoted around in her moat and rose to return Miro’s regard with bright, intelligent eyes. Her soul was simple, and aether reacted to her as a golem, not a fey: she wasn’t the latter in disguise. “No…no, nothing,” he answered Ardent, and followed her inside.

The courtyard held a garden of bright, improbable flowers, shaped like animals, or tools, or faceted gemstones. Some of the animal-flowers moved under their own power, leashed by their stems to their plots. The plants that had flowers like gardening implements turned this way and that to tend one another. The various scents mingled into a complex musk, sweet and tangy.

A slightly-built fey woman awaited them on a bench in the garden. She had a long feline tail and pointed cat ears, her skin a golden tan that darkened to brown points over her hands and the center of her face. Short dark hair framed her round, open face. She had a pleasant soul of uniform colors, tainted by a few streaks of amorality and indifference, but generally sound. When her guests entered, she bounced to her feet. “There you are!” A gesture, and the portcullis dropped behind them, the drawbridge winching itself up. “And this must be the infamous Sun prince! You finally found someone as careless and reckless as you are, Ardent. Amazing! I’m so sorry,” she added to Miro. “I’m Play Until Collapsing Dreams. Let’s not talk here. You can come up to my workroom. Well, you’ll want to see The Marvel first, but after that.” She crossed the courtyard, her long tail beckoning to them.

Miro blinked after her, and glanced to Ardent. The tall satyress gave a helpless shrug and followed Play, so Miro did the same. Ardent and the catgirl shared the obligations of long friendship between them.

The double doors from the courtyard into the castle swung open silently at Play’s approach. She shouted, “Hey, Storm, guess who it is? Ardent Sojourner! She’s got a friend or a slave or something with her, we have to talk shop, but they need to see The Marvel first.”

“Play, sugar, we don’t…need…” Ardent followed their host inside, and trailed off, staring to the left. Miro glanced in that direction as he entered, about to ask what was the matter. The words died on his lips.    

In a hall almost as large as the Palace of the Moon’s, an intricate sculpture of aether and life rose. It was, at first glance, two fey figures, some forty feet high, dancing. The female fey had a heavy, curvaceous build, and was clad in the world, green forests and golden deserts and blue seas and snow-capped mountains. The male wore robes of the sky: drifting clouds, setting sun, red and purple at the horizon and midnight blue at zenith, dusted by a flock of birds at the hem. They moved with an animated, synchronous grace at odds with their great stature.

But the sculpture was more than that: the sun in the sky finished setting and stars came out on the male’s robe. The world the female wore lived and breathed, seasons changing as they danced. Tiny animals frolicked in its fields. Tsunamis rose and subsided in the folds where ocean met land. Volcanic eruptions spread soot into the man’s sky; rain fell from the sky and brought life to the woman’s deserts. And still they danced on.

The detail in it was astonishing, mesmerizing. Miro drew closer without conscious intent, Ardent at his side. He knelt at the sculpture’s feet, and watched a herd of miniscule horses running from a descending dust storm. The creation did not exactly have a soul, but it had an aura, a spiritual resonance of love, beauty, awe.

“Wow,” Ardent breathed out.

“Tell Storm it’s marvelous.” Play had sat down on the lowest step of the hall’s grand staircase, to admire it with them.

“It’s marvelous,” Miro repeated obediently, and then added, “‘Marvelous’ doesn’t do it justice.”

“It really doesn’t. How long have you been working on this, Storm?” Ardent asked.

Miro managed to tear his eyes away long enough to search the room for the other fey, and found him hovering by the hair of the female figure. The hair was made of ocean waves, curls crested in breaking foam. The fey sculptor was male, with a long-limbed human body, long curly black hair, a thick tail, and tufted feline ears. At Ardent’s question, he drifted down on a current of aether. “What counts as ‘working’?” he asked in return. “I have had them in the planning stages for thirty-five years. But I did not start sculpting them at full size until nine years ago. Since then, they have been my main project.” He looked up at the pair, the expression on his dark brown face wistful. “They are growing closer to completion. Some day.”

Play said, “He thinks they’re not done yet.”

Storm curled back his lip as he landed next to the visitors. “They are not done yet. The timing issue remains unresolved.”

“Timing issue?” Miro asked.

“Yes. The Earth shows events on multiple scales: seasonal, cataclysmic, and glacial. The Sky reflects daily events, and the turning of the stars through the years, although that’s subtle. But the different scales don’t mesh well, and I have not yet found a graceful way to handle the conflict.”

“They look pretty graceful to me, sugar.” Ardent stepped back to gaze up at them.

“That’s what I keep telling him!” Play crowed.

Storm patted the satyress’s arm. “And this is what makes you a great Justiciar and barbarian, Ardent Sojourner. So who is this friend-or-something of yours?”

“Oh, this is Mirohirokon of Sun Host. Miro, the master artist here is Contemplation After the Storm.”

“I am honored to make your acquaintance.” Miro rose to shake the artist’s offered hand, and then asked, unable to resist, “Did you make Sessile?”

“I did,” Storm answered. “Ardent told you?”

“Nope. You’ve got a good eye, spotting that without aether,” Ardent said.

“Your work is amazing,” Miro told the artist. “The life and love you put into them shows. Like that water serpent outside. Extraordinary. Superlatives fail me.”

Storm smiled, self-conscious but pleased. “Thank you. I’m glad you like them.”

“Told you.” Play folded her dark arms together. “He won’t make golems any more, can you believe it?”

“If you want one, Play, I’ll make it. I just don’t want to trade them any more, after what happened with Jewel. How’s Sessile doing?”

“Happy, bubbly, and enthusiastic about her work. Charming,” Miro said, and Storm smiled again.

“You got Jewel back and she’s fine now,” Play said, with the air of a long-rehashed argument. “I think you’re being a little oversensitive about one incident. But fine, keep working on The Marvel, don’t let me stop you. C’mon, Ardent, let’s get out of his hair.”

Miro went with them, walking sideways so he could still watch the aether sculpture in its intertwining, ever-changing dance.


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Ocean Discourse (22/80)

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The next morning, Ardent gave Miro the farspeaker, in the form of a white gold ring. It created a surface at either two gestures, or if he said “farspeak” three times. Mercifully, she didn’t mention his mind-numbingly foolish behavior from the night before. She did insist on verifying that the channeling-caused fever had dissipated (it had).    

After breakfast, they headed for the last cacao orchard. “I should probably get more new outfits for the party,” Ardent grumbled during the hike. “I suppose Court fashion won’t be the same as celebration fashion. Duty, but I wouldn’t put it past them to have made specialized attire depending on the kind of party.”

“That’s the case in Sun Etherium,” Miro allowed. “I admit, for all your friend’s certainty about Moon Court trends, I could not pick out a pattern when we were in the court. Everyone in Moon Etherium looks so wildly different, and to my outsider’s eye, the clothing is no more uniform than your shapes.”

I know, right? I have never been able to figure out how anyone knows. I wouldn’t be surprised if the whole cartload of purported trends was nothing but one long-running prank. All the fashion-conscious folks just keep one another in on the loop to back the others up when they invent some absurd assertion about the current style.”

“How would that be different from how it works when it’s not a prank?” Miro asked.

“…point.”

At the farmhouse, the orchard-keeper was out, but his husband was happy to chat. During the ensuing conversation, their line of inquiry finally bore fruit: he mentioned the orchard had had the first new direct-sale customer in years. “Mostly we sell to the same chocolate-makers year after year, with the occasional cook thrown into the mix. But here recently – five-six days ago, actually – saw a new face. Sea Converses? No, that’s not it.”

“Ocean Discourse?” Ardent offered.

“Yes! That’s her. She a friend of yours?”

“Oh sugar, I’ve been gone so long I don’t know who my friends are any more.” Ardent laughed. “But names don’t change, and I lived here for two centuries. Pretty sure I’ve heard of everybody over the age of thirty. So she’s your new chocolate-maker?”

“You know, I’m not sure? She didn’t buy much, but funny thing was, she wanted whole pods. The cocoa’s in the seeds, you know, and we dry and bag those for all our customers. But Ocean Discourse insisted on fruit straight from the tree, not even opened. I offered to sell her the pulp along with bagged seeds, but no deal. Strange thing, but I don’t mind. Less work for us if she wants to separate and dry the seeds herself, right?”

Ardent agreed, and then let the conversation meander over other topics. Miro itched with impatience to find out more about this Ocean Discourse, but didn’t do anything to distract her.

When they finally took their leave and headed back to the city proper, Miro asked Ardent, “What do you know about Ocean Discourse, then?”

“Mmm. Not much. Usual shape’s human-like and female, with some random flourishes – animal ears, tail, scales, typical sort of thing. When I was here, she was a minor courtier – not High Court, no position, just one of the hangers-on. Wanted to be a big influential artist or something, I think. Not sure what she’s been up to since.” Ardent grinned mischievously. “Think I’ll ask her.”

“You’re not just going to farspeak her and ask what she wanted aethcacao fruit for, are you?”

“Maybe a whisker less direct. I’ll send out a general inquiry to a bunch of the cocoa-seed buyers, on the pretext that I’m thinking of establishing a new orchard and want to know what demand is like. We’ll see what she says.” When they reached the edge of the orchard, Ardent ported them back to her home and composed her messages.    

While Ardent did that, and batted some replies back to her friends, Miro leafed through the copied book by Venodeveve to look for more tidbits on channeling. He rather wished he could farspeak to the Sun Etherium. It would be nice to see a familiar face. But the messages of farspeakers could not travel the scores of aether-empty miles between the Etheriums. I could send a message to my father, though. Not that he could reply. And anything I said to him, he’d have to share with Fallen if she asked. Hmm. Is there any disinformation I’d want him to relay? Before he’d decided on anything, a snort from Ardent at the other end of the table caught his attention. “Anything interesting?”

“Heard back from Ocean. Look at this.” She tossed a yellow messenger bird to him. The conjuration unrolled its message for him: “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I haven’t been to the cacao orchards, or bought any cacao pods. Who told you I had? What would I do with cacao pods? I’m sure I don’t know. Please let me know who’s spreading this bizarre rumor.”

Miro eyed it. “You did prompt the husband with the name. I suppose it’s possible we’ve the wrong subject.”

“True. She’s awfully defensive about where she hasn’t been, though. Let’s see, how can we get Fallen into this conversation? Gazing Into Music used to be one of her confederates. I suppose he probably still is, although it’s been a dozen years since I was current on court politics…”    

Miro cast his mind back to the high court, and the web of strings Fallen had held. In his mind’s eye, he followed the thickest strings, looked for the fey to whom they were connected. “Do you remember that mirrored fey at court? The one with faceted silver skin and wings of disconnected shards of glass?”

“Mmm? Yeah, that’s Memory of Nightfall. Why do you ask?”

“I think they’re connected. Something about the way he and Fallen stood in relation to each other. I’d bet he’s an ally, if not a minion.”    

“Huh. You think so? Well, let’s take a stab in the dark and see if anything bleeds.” She composed a message on the farspeaker, and read it aloud to him before sending. “How’s this? ‘My new pet overheard it from Memory of Nightfall, but you know Sun Host: they’re terrible with proper names. Don’t suppose you know someone else with a name like yours, that it might’ve been?’”

Miro smiled. “By all means, my lady, fault me.”

Ardent dispatched the messenger, and returned to one of her other conversations. Whoever sent will-o-wisps must’ve been a good friend: she got a lot of messages that way.

A minute later, another yellow bird flew down the stairwell. Ardent laughed as she reviewed it, and read aloud, “‘I’m sure I don’t know who you are talking about. Why would Memory of Nightfall be talking about me? Why is your servant spying on us? You should rein him in.’ And she’s got a little glamour of me choking you with the leash. How cute. ‘Before someone else does’.” Ardent scowled. “Yeah, I don’t think so, Ocean.” She crinkled her nose and sent a reply. Which hung in the air instead of leaving. “And Ocean’s rejecting messages from me now. Well, clearly we’ve got a live one here. Let’s see what else we can dig up on her.” She sent another few messages. A few moments later, a new message came. It unfolded before her eyes as a tapestry, then unraveled into threads that dissolved before they touched the ground. Ardent stood. “Hah! Been waiting since yesterday for Play to have some free time. C’mere, sugar. Looks like we’re gonna visit an old friend.”


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All in the Technique (21/80)

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Ardent asked one of the winged lemurs to make a copy of Venodeveve’s work and have it delivered for later reference, then returned Miro and herself to her living room. She set him down beside the pillow nest. “You all right with trying this tonight, sugar, or do you want to wait til morning?” She was already nervous, not sure if she was more afraid that he’d want to wait or that he wouldn’t.

“Now is good.” Miro unfastened his jacket with Sun Host comportment and draped it over a chair. He opened his shirt part way, exposing his throat beneath the metal collar, and an inviting V of warm beige skin.

She took the white gold collar off and set it on the table, then stopped as her eyes met his. They weren’t touching, but she could almost feel the beat of his heart anyway. She yearned to touch him, to feel him under her skin.

“Did you wish to try clothed or nude?”

Her libido roared in answer: Nude! Oh Love, yes, please, let’s snuggle the cute sun lord naked. Yes. This is the best idea. There is no possible flaw in this plan. “Book said light clothing’s not much of a difference,” Ardent managed to say instead. She cupped her hand around the side of his throat, and he tilted up his chin to accommodate her. His pulse under her palm was strong and fast. She wanted to sweep him up with her other arm, crush him to her chest, open that well inside him and feel all the power of the Sun rush into her body. Oh this is such a mistake. I’m not even going to remember how I’m supposed to do this. Maybe if I trueshifted him into something repugnant first I could concentrate. “Right. We should sit down.”

“As you say.” He waited on her, as if this were all ordinary and natural.

Ardent stepped down into the pillow nest, a kind of round sunken couch stuffed with extra pillows. She reclined into it, her goat’s legs out straight on the cushions and her back against the backrest, then held out her arms in invitation.

Miro followed, put a knee down on the cushion beside her, and for the first time looked hesitant. “How do you want me?”

Desperately. “I don’t know. Let’s just try cuddling.” She put an arm around him and pulled him gently to her, mindful not to trap his hair, until he was snuggled against her side with his head pillowed against her bosom.

He shifted. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be forward—” He tried in vain to find a position that was less intimate but still in contact.

“Sugar, it’s fine. I don’t think this is gonna work without a little forwardness. A lot of forwardness. Sorry. Don’t worry about it. You comfy?” She cradled his throat in her hand, and he sighed.

“Very,” Miro murmured, sinking down again to rest his cheek against her breast, one arm over her abdomen, one leg curled over hers.

Ardent snuggled him a little closer with her arm at his back, then closed her eyes. With aether-enhanced senses, she focused her awareness upon him. The sound of his heartbeat; the rise and fall of his chest; the air that filled his chest, laced with aether that would not unite with his body; the warmth of him, more intense where their bodies touched, cooler along his upper side. The tension of his muscles, a war between apprehension and the impulse to relax. Beneath his skin, she could feel the empty aetheric channels, the connecting well that sang to her: open open open.

It was all of a piece, every part interacting with every other part, Venodeveve had written. When the channel opens, if one doesn’t lose oneself in the rush of power, one may see how the victim is affected. The extent of the damage done will become plain by the level of physical alteration. Positive or neutral signs: modest slowing of breath, heartbeat, increased relaxation. Negative signs: change in body temperature, whether hotter or cooler. Sweating. Increased heartbeat or breathing, or dramatic decrease. Ardent wished Venodeveve hadn’t used the word ‘victim’ for the person serving as channel. “Ready, sugar?” Ardent whispered.

He gave a little nod, drew in a deep breath, and relaxed against her. Venodeveve had written that it was best to be relaxed when channeling, and Miro’d read it too.

“I’m gonna stop in…ten heartbeats. If I don’t, tell me to stop. Got it?”

Another nod.

Ardent did not even nudge the well open. She sent the lightest whisper of moon aether across its cover. Sun aether poured through in answer: not a torrent, but a strong, steady current. She could sense the power filtering through the channels of Miro’s body, heard him gasp, and then it flowed into her. The current still felt delightful, and she still craved more, but it was less overwhelming. She retained her hyperawareness of Miro throughout. He relaxed further as his breathing slowed, while his pulse remained steady. He really is very good at this, she marveled. As she counted the ninth heartbeat, she eased the channel closed again without physically releasing him. Softly, she asked, “All good?”

Miro nodded and burrowed closer to her. “More please?”

“All right.” Another whisker-touch of power to call the current again, and it flowed into her, warm, generous, open, malleable. She counted heartbeats, aching to lose herself in the current, to let the pleasure of it sweep her away. Fifteen, sixteen – surely this is too gradual to do any harm. He’ll warn me if there’s a problem – twenty-five, twenty-six – Love but he feels good – thirty-one, thirty two – Ardent pressed her lips against the top of his head, her thumb tracing over his mouth, other hand stroking his back, barely aware of her own actions. Suddenly she realized he was growing warmer, and she’d totally lost count, and also she was an idiot. She shut off the channel. “Miro?”

He made a tiny whimper that tore at her heart, shivered, and pulled himself tighter into her.

“Miro, sugar, talk to me. Mirohirokon.” Ardent struggled to sit upright and tilted his face to hers.

He exhaled, brown eyes half-opened to watch her indolently. “Mmm?” His hand drifted down her side, fingers stroking over the fur of her thigh after he reached the end of her chiton.

“How are you feeling?” she asked, urgently. Venodeveve had some fairly radical treatment ideas for overchanneling issues, none of which had inspired great confidence in her. Miro could still move, though. He almost certainly wasn’t dying.

“Drunk,” he said, and kissed her.

The kiss was so brief she barely had time to be more than surprised by it. Her senses were still attuned to his body: she felt the surge of desire in him, followed by a sudden spike of adrenaline.

Miro jerked backwards and scrambled away until he knelt on the cushion next to her, not touching. “My lady! I apologize – I did not intend – I don’t know why I did that – Ardent – I beg your forgiveness.” He bowed his head, long ears bright red.

His distress was almost comical. Oh, c’mon, sugar, I can’t be that bad a kisser. Gimme another chance! But his chagrin was so sincere she didn’t dare risk teasing him over it. “Sweetie, it’s fine. And would you please stop apologizing for things that aren’t your fault?”

That certainly wasn’t anyone else’s doing,” he muttered.

Ardent was less sure of that. Miro was so obviously appalled at the idea of intimacy with her that it seemed more likely he’d somehow been infected with her lust than that the surge had sprung from his own hormones. “I’m serious here, Miro. I feel like I’m force-feeding you drugs and then making you feel guilty for not being sober. I am not gonna get mad at you for being less than perfectly in control of yourself. Honest. Justice, I don’t expect sober folk who aren’t under ridiculous external pressures to be perfectly in control. This is one of those weird Sun Host expectations, isn’t it?”

“…perhaps.” Miro didn’t lift his head

“Well, you’re in Moon Etherium now. Act a little improper, you’ll fit in better.” In fact, I molested you at least as much, just before I broke the channel. I ought to apologize for that. She didn’t say anything. It’d make an awkward situation even more awkward, and if he hadn’t noticed, she didn’t want to bring his attention to her growing attraction to him. Partly out of embarrassment, but also because she was afraid he’d feel pressured to reciprocate her interest.

“Hah.” But the corners of his mouth did turn up.

Ardent risked patting his hand. “There now, sugar. No harm done.” She climbed out of the sunken couch and offered her hand. “I’ve got plenty of excess aether now to make a farspeaker. Why don’t you go on to bed and get some rest?”

Miro took her hand and rose, swaying on his feet. He bowed over her fingers. “My lady is very kind,” he murmured. “Thank you for your forbearance.”

She snorted. “You all right to put yourself to bed, or do I need to carry you again?”

He colored again, and she regretted teasing him. Poor man. “I believe I can manage. If I realize I’m mistaken, you’ll know by the sound of me falling down the stairs.” He flashed her a smile. Ardent watched as he moved with deliberate dignity to the spiral staircase, and gripped the rail firmly as he made the descent. She had to admire the way he could make jokes at his own expense while at the same time maintaining his Sun Court comportment. There was nothing of a cat’s offended arrogance in him, as if his manners were not a salve for his pride but a kindness to those around him. She’d known too many fey who used formality as a weapon to embarrass those with less polished ways. But Miro made all those courtesies seem actually, well, courteous. He used them to show respect, not to self-aggrandize. She liked that about him.

Face it, you like a lot of things about him, satyr-girl. Too many. Stop obsessing over the guy you’re supposed to be here to help, and get back to helping him. With that admonishment in mind, she set to work on a farspeaker enchantment.


Don’t want to wait until the next post to read more? Buy The Moon Etherium now! Or check out the author’s other books: A Rational Arrangement and Further Arrangements.

The Archive (20/80)

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The Moon Etherium’s archive was a round tower, perhaps sixty feet in diameter, lined by bookshelves and cabinets that stretched out of eyesight far above. It had neither stairs nor ladders, although perches and platforms of varying sizes extended from the walls at regular intervals, forty or so feet apart. Ardent and Miro had arrived at the base, near a set of shelves that held a dozen statues of winged lemurs, each perhaps a foot and a half tall. The floor level had seating, including a cushioned ring wider than a bed that ran most of the wall. The lowest shelves that held books were ten feet above it.

“Hullo, White!” Ardent shouted, to no one visible. She wandered over to the lemur statues. “Huh. The index used to be here. Are you lot the new index?”

One of the lemurs animated, and nodded to her.

“Huh. I’m looking for something on channeling between opposite hosts. Moon Etherium affiliate channeling from Sun Etherium affiliate, or vice versa, I suppose. Where do I go?”

“You don’t,” a voice boomed from above. Miro looked up to see a vast red dragon with a thirty-foot wingspan descending upon them in a tight spiral. The rich aether of the Moon Etherium swirled around the dragon, tendrils pulled in to sustain an otherwise impossibly large shift. White rose tattoos bloomed along red flanks, long thorny stems intertwined down to the tail tip. The dragon was missing the lower half of their left foreleg, as if amputated from just below the knee. The amputation was an unusual affectation; the same shift which gave this individual dragon form could easily have restored a missing limb. They had no visible sex characteristics, but even Miro’s dulled senses could detect the mixture of male and female hormones in their scent. The mix was wholly unlike the genderless scent of a child or neuter shape, and not distinctly male or female. Unimpeded by the absent forefoot, White Rose landed neatly on a perch above the shelves of lemur statues. They craned their long neck down to just above Ardent’s head. “That’s what the golems are for. I’ve had enough of fey idiots tromping through my hoard, re-shelving my books in the wrong place, and making an enormous mess of everything. You want something, the lemurs can get it for you. Stay put.”

Ardent reached up to pat the dragon’s nose. “Hey, great to see you too, White.”

A serpentine tongue flicked out and licked her arm. “And you, Ardent.” Yellow eyes turned to Miro. “And you’re Prince Mirohirokon.” White Rose pronounced his name in proper Sun Etherium style: Mee-roh-hee-roh-cone. The dragon had an interesting soul, a mixture of clear, intense colors and dull patches, with a strong gangrenous tentacle of greed snaking through it, alongside spreading tendrils of arrogance and pride. They and Ardent shared strings upon one another: the bright, healthy connections of long friendship, untainted by unwanted obligation. The dragon had a collection of other strings, but owed few obligations.

Miro bowed. “Mirohirokon is fine. The ‘prince’ is rather out of place, under the circumstances. A pleasure to meet you, noble dragon.” 

White Rose answered with a little snort. Ardent was explaining her request in more detail to the lemurs, several of whom had clustered closer to her to listen. One gave a little squeak and flew up, while the rest still attended. “Do you know Sudesunene?” White asked Miro.

“Yes, she’s the Sun Etherium’s archivist.”

“Is she still? Good. How is her collection?”

“Pitifully small and woefully inadequate to the needs of a modern Etherium, due to the callous disregard of a decadent, indifferent Sun Host for the value of true learning,” Miro answered. “Without Lady Sudesunene, the culture and history of Sun Etherium would have been lost beyond hope of recall centuries ago. Or so she has informed me on many occasions.”

The dragon laughed. “Wonderful!”

“She’s working on a project to have golems translate the written Old World tongue to ours,” Miro added. “It is a source of endless frustration to her. She loves it.”

“Oh?” Draconic fan-ears widened, tilting towards him. Ardent had finished instructing the lemurs and a dozen or so were winging about the tower in search of materials. “Does she have any results yet?”

“Yes. The phrasing is awkward, but reasonably intelligible.”

“How delightful. Perhaps I will write her and see if we cannot arrange an exchange. When you see her again, be sure to tell her of the immense superiority of my hoard.” A negligent wave of their tail toward the stacks that yawned above them. “Through dedication, one may overcome even the indifference and ignorance of the masses.”    

“If I see her again, I shall, noble fey.” Miro bowed. “I am sure she will find it…inspiring.”

“Indeed.” The dragon snorted a puff of aether from their nostrils. The first lemur returned, a book almost as large as it was in its hands. Ardent accepted the volume with polite thanks. “I will leave you to your inquiries. Remember: no flying around my archive. And that includes you, Ardent.” They tapped their chin against the top of her head for emphasis.

Ardent flopped the book open in one hand, and scritched the underside of White Rose’s jaw with the other. “You got it, sugar. Thanks for letting us in.” The dragon chuckled, patted her back with their only forefoot, and then leaped into the air again, flying upwards with lazy wingbeats, on a current of aether.

Another lemur came back, this one with a box of correspondence instead of a book. “Ooooh, doesn’t that look intriguing?” Ardent passed Miro her book and took the box. “Let me know if you find anything insightful, sugar.” She strolled to the couch-ring that girded the wall and flopped on her stomach to leaf through the box’s contents. Miro took one of the chairs and skimmed.

§

Half an hour or so later, they had a score of books, boxes, and even two scroll cases littered around them. Ardent looked up from her current book. “Miro, sugar, you wouldn’t lie to me about enjoying channeling just to make me feel better about doing it to you?”

Miro wrestled unsuccessfully with a smile and looked to her. “No, I would not. I will admit, had it been unpleasant, I would have done my best to conceal that fact from you, because it would in no way change what needed to be done. But I would not invent taking pleasure in it. For one, it would not have occurred to me, and for another, I would not be able to make such a lie convincing. My – what was the phrase? – pretty Sun Host courtesies only extend so far.”

She wrinkled her nose at the pages before her. “It’s just – this guy hated it. A lot. A lot a lot. It’s weird your experience is so different.”    

“What account is that?”

“It’s from, um, the year 630ish? By Red Griffon. He was the only survivor of the Sun Etherium channeling experiments on their Moon Host prisoners, during the war for freedom.”

“If I may make a suggestion, my lady? You’re looking for someone who knows how to channel well. War criminal reprobates from six centuries ago would be the exact opposite,” Miro said, and she laughed. “I suppose you might learn what not to do from them.”

“Fair enough.” Ardent set the book to one side.

There were few first-hand accounts of channeling between fey members of opposite hosts. Channeling within the same host was fairly common. It was an easy way of getting a modest aether boost. Fey used it to infuse aether into a spell faster than one could draw it in from the air, or when one needed to cast more spells in the Broken Lands than one could personally store aether for. Host-to-barbarian channeling was much less common, but still well-documented. But since the Sundering, some four hundred and fifty-odd years ago, it was rare that Sun fey were willing to come to the Moon Etherium, or vice versa, without renouncing their affiliation first. Trust between the Etheriums had never recovered. Such cases as might have happened weren’t documented. The Sundering was the last known time that a member of the High Court of either Etherium had even visited the other Etherium.

Miro did find a detailed account of the channeling practices in use prior to the Sundering, written shortly before that disaster took place and full of unwarranted optimism. “Oh, now, this is counterintuitive.”    

“Mm? Wazzat?”

“So everyone says if you increase bodily contact, you can increase the speed of aether transferance.”

“Yes. ‘Too slow’ is not exactly the problem here.”

“True. But Venodeveve writes that it also increases control. You get a better understanding of the state of your channel, how much you’re drawing, what the impact is, and so forth. You can draw faster, but you can also draw slower. She has a whole set of techniques regarding it.”

“Oh! Lemme see?” She caught the book in a current of aether and floated it to her outstretched hand. Ardent read the section while Miro picked up a new volume. “Huh. Well, that’s not going to make things even more awkward at all.”

Miro gave her a chagrinned smile. “My apologies, my lady.”

She waved it off. “Not your fault.”

They continued to skim for a little while after that, but found nothing else promising. Finally, Ardent closed the last volume and sat up, stretching. “All right, looks like Venodeveve’s method it is. Let’s go home. I don’t want to keep you up all night with this.”


Don’t want to wait until the next post to read more? Buy The Moon Etherium now! Or check out the author’s other books: A Rational Arrangement and Further Arrangements.

A Lack of Information (19/80)

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After they had left the cacao orchard, Ardent teleported them back to her suite and made the gesture to accept messages again. She flopped onto her stomach on a couch and picked through the horde of messengers that swarmed in, looking for the ones she cared about most. She wrinkled her nose as she read the one from her Archivist friend, White Rose. “Hmph. Fallen is not the registered owner of any sky or tower-top properties. Which doesn’t mean she doesn’t own any from a private transaction.” She conjured her farspearker surface. “I’ll ask the Archivist if there’ve been any recent sky or tower transactions from anyone. You got any other angles to pursue, sugar?”

“I don’t know.” Miro walked to the dining table and leafed through his father’s notebook again. “She might have someone babysitting it, and apparently not my father, if today is any example to go by. She has strings on a lot of people, I imagine, but probably not many she’d trust with that secret.”

“I’d make that ‘not anyone’. Does it need a babysitter? She can watch it by scryer, and set farspeaker alerts for it, and port in herself to check on it if anything turned up.”

“True.” Miro took a seat at the table, still reading. “What story are you giving your Archivist to explain your new interest in real estate?”    

“Mm? Oh, them and I go way back. I don’t need to give them reasons – it’s all public records anyway, kinda the point – and I asked them not to tell anyone I was asking. They won’t talk.” Ardent checked through the rest of her messages. One was from the Queen’s adjunct. “Oh, Duty.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Skein is throwing a welcome-home party. Argh,” she said. At Miro’s blank look, she added, “Skein of the Absolute. Queen of the Moon Host.”

“You refer to your Queen by nickname?”

“Don’t you?”

“Ugh. No.” He made a face.

“But she’s your mother.”

“And I’m her eleventh-favorite child. And she’s my second-favorite parent. Or seventh, more accurately; I’d sooner count her other husbands as parents. When is the party?”

“Tomorrow night. And it’s utterly inescapable. I’ll have to go, and I’ll have to bring you, and there will be mobs of people who will all expect me to talk to them. Some of them in private. Persistence,” she cursed again. “I might want to leash you just so well-wishers can’t drag us apart.”

Miro smiled, touching his collar. “At least I can flee here if need be.”

“Yeah.” Ardent glanced to him. I need to make a farspeaker he can use. And for that, I need to channel. Her tongue flicked out, licking her teeth at the thought. She dug her fingers into the couch cushion as she wrestled down a surge of formerly-banked desire. Justice. What is wrong with me? …huh. Maybe I should find out. She dispatched another message to White Rose, then answered some of the myriad messages from friends. When White’s answer came back, she sat up. “I’m gonna go visit White Rose – that’s the Archivist – in person. You wanna come?”

“Certainly. You wish to review the property records yourself?” He rose to join her.

“No, I’m good on White doing that for me. This is kinda tangential research.” She stood and took Miro’s hand. “I thought I knew enough about channeling already, but it’s gotten real clear that no, I don’t. I’ve not one clue what I’m doing. Someone must’ve written about Sun-to-Moon channeling, before the Sundering if nothing else. White’s got the largest archive in the Moon Etherium, so if anyone has documentation on how this works, it’ll be them.”

He gave her another of those irresistible smiles of his. Oh boy do I ever need more information. “An excellent plan, my lady. Lead on.”


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Up at the Farm (18/80)

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For Ardent’s sake, Miro concealed his disappointment at her decision not to channel more aether. He didn’t bother trying to pretend to himself. He couldn’t even convince himself that being stupidly, hopelessly in love with the satyress was a mistake, or making a miserable situation worse. Ardent was the one bright spot, the one thing that gave him hope and confidence in this desperate fool’s gambit. If the price he had to pay for that was unrequited love for her: so be it. He did have to remember not to harass her with his unreciprocated affections, though. Alienating her with unwanted attention would be self-sabotage.

Hence: pretend you are not disappointed. You have no right whatsoever to be disappointed.

Ardent brought them to the base of the northwest slope, but they had to hike up it on foot. The perimeters of the farms were warded against teleporting, because the use of magic around the crops would tamper with their flavor. It was a steep climb along a dirt track, but even without the direct use of aether, Miro did not find it arduous. His body was in peak physical condition – not from any particular use of it, but simply because “peak physical condition” was how he’d designed his homunculus and accordingly what Ardent had restored him to. Ardent was equally at ease; her cloven hooves were as sure as any mountain goat’s as they made the ascent. It struck him, suddenly, that since she had been a barbarian, she must have earned the thick muscles on display in her bare arms, the breadth of her shoulders, the flex of back muscles beneath her chiton, and her certain, effortless stride. She’d made no visible alterations that were more than skin-deep since their arrival, not even under Threnody Katsura’s criticisms. He wondered if Ardent’s ample, inviting breasts had been by her own intent, before she’d left Moon Etherium, or if they’d been shaped by her time in Try Again. There was something mesmerizing about the sway of them as she hiked up the slope. This entire line of thought falls under ‘unwanted attention’, he reminded himself. Even if you’re not saying it out loud. Stop. To distract himself, he asked, “Do they use golems to tend the orchard?”

“Sparingly. There’s a whole science behind measuring and managing the level of aether exposure.” The aethcacao trees grew tall to either side of them, towering over even Ardent. Large green oval leaves on slender branches partly concealed the ripening cacao pods budding along the trunks, big heavy fruits in yellows, oranges, and reds. Upslope, even taller trees cast shade over the whole of the orchard. The air smelled of rich earth but not of cocoa; the small white-and-purple flowers on the trunks had little scent.

Up the slope, a fey voice called out to them. “Ardent Sojourner, by the cycle continuing! Is it really you? What brings you to my farm?” Miro looked up, and then higher, to spot a fey clinging near the top of one tree. The farmer had a lower body like a spider’s, though with only six legs radiating from his cephalothorax. From the front of the cephalothorax rose a man’s torso, with four arms. The whole figure was flamboyantly colored, in deep iridescent blue with red and gold accents, reminiscent of a peacock spider. He had an attractive soul, pink with some corrupt striations from carelessness and indifference, but generally wholesome.

Ardent stopped and squinted at him, perhaps using a spell to identify him by his aether signature, which could not be changed. “Uhhh…Dragon Rampant?!” she said, incredulously.

The spider-centaur chuckled. “The same!” He scuttled limberly down the tree and threaded the orchard to join them. He was shorter than Miro, though more massive, given the extra limbs and counterbalancing abdomen. Presumably Dragon Rampant was trueshifted into his form so that it wouldn’t require active aether. There was a limit on the quantity and type of mass one could add or remove with a trueshift. Shifting could make one as small as a mouse or large as a dragon, but unlike a trueshift it used aether continuously. Ardent’s natural adult shape must have been over six feet, given her substantial trueshift size.

“That is some form!” Ardent craned to one side. “Let me have a look at you,” she said. Dragon Rampant did a neat rotation, all six legs moving to turn him in a circle in place. “How long have you worn it? You’ve got fantastic control!”

“Eight years now, and let’s not talk about how many times I almost gave up on it in the first year. Every now and then I still forget to just walk and try to think about how to do so instead, and this is always, always a mistake. Such a mistake. But I was so sick of always wishing I had more hands to hold tools, or more legs to hang on with, and do you know what?”

“Now you have enough?” Ardent guessed.

“No! I still want more hands.” Dragon Rampant laughed, waving all four in the air. “I’m stopping here for now, though. I’d have to trueshift smaller to get more material for the bones and such, and this is short enough.”

“Heh. Eight years, huh? Have you actually been male for eight whole years or do you still change that?”

“Oh, no, I switch genders half the time that I’m in town. Still don’t understand the appeal of monogender. What’ve you got against males?”

“Nothing! I like males fine. I just don’t particularly want to be one.”    

“But you make such an impressive one.” He gestured with his hands, indicating her height and breadth.

She makes an impressive female, too. Miro bridled at the implied criticism of Ardent, even as he recognized that her friend was teasing and she was unperturbed. “When did you have a male shape?” he asked her, by way of diversion.

“Oh, I don’t know. The occasional come-as-you-aren’t party?”

“‘Come as you aren’t’?” Miro asked.

“Yeah, where you take a very different body from your usual? Don’t they have those in Sun Etherium?”

“We do, but they’re called masquerades.”

“Oh, our masquerades are when everyone shows up as one of their friends and you try to guess who’s really who based on how they act,” Ardent said, and then glanced to Dragon Rampant. “Sorry, where’re my manners? This’s my servant, Mirohirokon of the Sun Host.” The two men exchanged civilities, then Ardent explained the reason for her visit. “So I’ve got a Sun Host channel now and figure I’ll hang around the Etherium for a while, but I’ve gotten to enjoy, y’know, actually doing things and not just ‘let me think about doing a thing but never mind aether will do it for me’. Figured I’d come talk to some of the aether-crop-farmers and see if I’d like doing some of that now and again.”

The cover story was not intended to fool Shadow of Fallen Scent. If Fallen heard about this visit, she was bound to know the reason they were nosing about cacao orchards. At best, Fallen might wonder if Ardent was being manipulated instead of assisting Miro outright. But mostly, the ruse was to distract anyone else who might be paying attention to their movements. If Ardent did not give some excuse for her investigation, rumormongers would invent one. It would complicate matters further if anyone else figured out there was a phoenix rose in the Moon Etherium.

Dragon Rampant was more than happy to talk. He led them up to his house and fed them processed samples of his crop while chatting. One such product was a fermented beverage made from aethcacao pulp. “Though I don’t like grinding or brewing or cooking enough to do a whole lot of it,” he said. “It’s just a hobby. Mostly I sell the raw beans.”

“Is business good? Do folks hike up here to buy or do you deliver?” Ardent asked.

“Duty yes, I make em come to me. It’s enough trouble growing and harvesting. Sometimes I make customers harvest their own. Who wants to work that hard?”

“Hah! You’re lucky you can get customers to come to you.”

“We’re not all fool enough to try the full barbarian life, girl. Semi-barbaric’s bad enough.”

“Seems like that’d make it harder to get new customers.”

“Oh, I’ve got a dozen regulars that’ve bought up my entire crop for years now.”

“Loyalty! All of it?”

“Yup. Last four years I haven’t even produced as much as all of them wanted. They make up the difference from the other farms.”    

Miro sipped at the cacao-pulp wine – it had a dry, fruity flavor that was almost entirely unlike cocoa – and listened as Ardent continued the conversation. She asked about the competition, what other crops were popular, the kind of work involved, potential for employment (“Ardent, if you’re offering to work for me, you’re hired now, let’s get started.” “Heh, thanks, think I’m gonna check my options and consider it a whisker more before I commit.”) and general gossip in the local produce industry. Before they were done, Miro himself was wondering if her interest in the Etherium farms was sincere.

After they left, they hiked to the adjacent orchard and spoke with two of the farmers working it. They also hadn’t had any new customers recently. Miro was impressed by the ease with which Ardent steered the next conversation as well, hitting on her desired answer naturally, without showing any sign that it was her goal. By the time they finished at that orchard, the sun was setting.

“Better wait til tomorrow to check the last farm,” Ardent said, as they made their way down the slope. “Sorry, sugar. Maybe there’ll be some news on the property front.”


Don’t want to wait until the next post to read more? Buy The Moon Etherium now! Or check out the author’s other books: A Rational Arrangement and Further Arrangements.

Rush of Power (17/80)

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Ardent had been back to the Moon Etherium many times since she’d joined the barbarians: trips to visit friends, engage in trade, and store aether to carry back to Try Again. She hadn’t forgotten the pleasure of soaking in the aether, the effortless joy of satisfying every whim with a thought. No drudgery of repetitive tasks, no trudging from place to place on foot, no need to scrape and stretch wisps of aether to make them last and only use it when it was most needed.

But she’d forgotten how much richer the aether felt to affiliates of the Etherium. She’d forgotten the fierce delight of ownership, of warding a place as hers: not just a building she’d made, but a place that could not be trespassed upon.

With so much power already at her command, Ardent thought she shouldn’t feel any need for more. Yes, it was practical to take some measures to protect Mirohirokon, but that was just common sense. There was no reason for it to be accompanied by power lust, by this intense craving, this hyperawareness of him. It felt as if the moon aether inside her could sense his connection to the Sun Etherium, and yearned for the union.

Which could, y’know. Kill him.

He awaited her on the couch, looking at ease, patient, and perfectly trusting that she wasn’t about to channel a lethal tornado of sun aether straight through his all-too-vulnerable corporeal form.

The man was utterly mad.

No fey trusted another fey like this. Her own mother didn’t trust her this much. And Miro didn’t even know her. Crazy.

Ardent sat sideways beside him, one furry leg curled beneath her and the other extended before the couch. She took his hand, swallowed. “I have no idea what this is gonna be like.”

He nodded, met her eyes, and smiled mischievously. “Should be fun.”

She laughed, half-afraid and half-certain that his words were literally true, at least for her. “Yeah. So. I’m gonna start, and then you tell me to stop. About that fast. I don’t want to take any chances. If it’s not enough, and I’m pretty sure it won’t be, we can do it again. Whereas I don’t know how to fix it if I take too much.”

“My lady is very wise,” Miro said. “I am ready when you are.”

Ardent caressed the underside of his wrist. He felt so different from the first time she’d done this, when aether brimmed through him. Now he felt weightless under her touch, empty, but behind that emptiness she could sense a floodgate, balanced and poised, awaiting only a nudge to open it. “All right,” she said, and nudged.

GLORY.

Warmth and light flooded into her, met the Moon Etherium aether inside, and twined through it with the caress of a hundred loving hands. It was—

She stopped, yanking her hands apart, panting from that exertion, from fighting down the yearning to continue. Ardent jammed her fists between the sofa cushions to make sure she didn’t grab him again. Miro had slumped against the backrest, strands of long indigo hair falling over his golden face. His eyes were open, looking at her. She took a deep breath. “You told me to stop.”

“Mm-hmm,” he agreed. “You said I should.”

“Right.” Power hummed through her veins, a sweet siren song, calling for more. “That was smart of me. Good call, me.” She scootched back on the couch, putting some distance between her and temptation. “I hope it isn’t always this overwhelming.”

“It’s a trifle distracting.”

She gave a shaky, nervous laugh at the understatement. “You think? You all right there, sugar?”

“Wonderful. You should do that again. I’m sure that wasn’t enough,” Miro said, straight-faced. He lay limp, completely relaxed against the sofa.

Ardent laughed again. “No, seriously, how are you feeling?”

“Incredible.” He finally shifted to raise his arms over his head, and stretched like a cat, back arched. “As if I’d just received the start of a truly magnificent massage. If channeling for the opposite host is always this good I don’t know why it’s not more popular.”

“I think that the ‘could kill you’ part serves as a significant deterrent for most fey,” Ardent said, dryly. He made a dismissive ‘pfft’ sound and leaned forward, eyes heavy-lidded, smile deeply contented. He did look well, much better than he had after the first time she’d channeled from him. No question, he was crazy, but sure as Love was an Ideal, he made madness look attractive. She reached out to tuck a lock of his hair behind his ear, and he gave her a bewitching sidelong smile. Ardent caressed his cheek, wondered what by all the Ideals she thought she was doing, and retreated again. She cleared her throat. “All right. Let’s see what I can do with this.”

She returned to the table to fetch the collar, and detached the chain from it with a flick of aether before pulling the collar straight. Then she turned it over in her hands, tracing her fingers across it to leave curling paths of aether. She’d never been a skilled enchanter, but over the course of two hundred-odd years of life in the Moon Etherium, she’d learned the essentials and completed a number of different enchantments. Infusing an item with its own supply of aether was the first step.

“You’re going to enchant the collar?” Miro lifted his head to watch her.

“Like you said. You gotta wear it anyway. Might as well make it useful.”

“I like it.” He gave her a slow, sensual smile.

Please stop being sexy at me, sugar. It’s distracting. Ardent didn’t say anything. She was pretty sure he wasn’t doing it on purpose and wasn’t entirely sure he was doing anything at all. It might just be her ancient libido waking up, stretching, and going whoa hi remember me? It’s been too long! It hasn’t been that long, she told herself.

Twelve years.

Yeah, and that’s not that long. In the grand scheme of my life. Go back to sleep, I’m busy. She concentrated on the collar and finished the infusion, nerves still humming with aether. She set the collar down to go over the pattern of a port in her mind. Without engaging one, she remembered each step of how it happened and analyzed the process. Ardent took the collar to the center of the suite, beside the spiral stairs, and traced a pair of runes in glamour in the air: one for herself, one for castle. She curled the collar around the runes and let it hang in the air, tracing the same runes at the compass points of it. “What triggers do you want, sugar? I was thinking a threefold one: either snap your fingers on both hands, or click your heels twice, or say ‘home home home’. Ones that you won’t set off by accident, but also where you’d be able to trigger it if someone was trying to grab you or stop you. Think that’d work?”

“I can remember those. Sounds good.” He was draped languidly over the sofa, turned to watch her.

“All right.” She swirled the teleport pattern over the air around the collar, then used a surge of channeled power to fuse the pattern to the collar and bind it to the suite. Ardent felt the pattern wavering on the collar, and clamped down on it with another surge, shaping a net of aether to secure the two together. Blue light flared in lines across the circle.

As the light faded, the white gold circlet dropped from the air. Ardent caught it. “Blight and aphids!”

Miro straightened. “Did it fail, my lady?”

“No, it worked.” Ardent felt aether whisper inside the metal, the lines of enchantment true and strong. “But I’m tapped out again.”

The Sun lord chuckled. “Oh, no. Whatever shall we do now?” She shot him a glower, and his expression sobered. “I shall have to stay close to you, my lady, as we investigate the farms, and take care not to be separated.” Miro rose to join her, his stride as graceful as ever, if not more so: easy and relaxed, not weary. As he stopped before her, he lifted his chin in silent invitation. “I’ve no one to message but you in any case. The other may wait, if you’d rather.”

Ardent secured the collar around his throat. Her fingers trembled. She didn’t feel in control of herself at all, and almost wished it was harder for him, that he would be less tempting. “I think…yeah, that’d be for the best.” Maybe with a little time I can pull myself together again.

Miro dropped his eyes, like the meek obedient servant he wasn’t. “As my lady wishes.”

The satyress crinkled her nose at him, then floated Jinokimijin’s notebook to her hand before they left. Safe as her Etherium apartment was, she still felt better keeping important things on her. She contemplated the notebook, wondering how much she ought to trust Jinokimijin’s notes. Miro might have faith in his father’s capabilities, but Miro was hardly unbiased.

Ardent had never met Jinokimijin in person before, but the man was infamous, even in the Moon Etherium. His grandfather had supposedly possessed the Gift of soulsight. Soulsight purportedly gave one the ability to judge a fey’s worth by sight alone, to read the history of failings and virtues in one’s soul. Jinokimijin’s father had claimed to have the same Gift. Jinokimijin had never said that he did, but the possibility that his line might carry it had drawn the attention of the Sun Queen. She had married him in the hopes of having a child with the same talent.

Then, a few years after the birth of the child – Mirohirokon, apparently, though Ardent didn’t know if she’d ever heard anyone mention the kid’s name – Jinokimijin’s grandfather was stranded in a mortal realm when the fey shard moved on unexpectedly. Then Jinokimijin’s father was proved to be a fraud, who’d gotten by on cleverness and imitation of the grandfather’s prognostications. Some doubted that even the grandfather had really had the talent he’d claimed. Jinokimijin’s child with the Sun Queen had shown no signs of any particular talent, and their relationship soon soured. Before their child was ten, the Sun Queen had divorced Jinokimijin. He became a laughingstock, desperate to regain his lost standing through a series of vain, self-aggrandizing schemes that only humiliated him further when they failed. Ardent felt sorry for Mirohirokon. Whatever his dad had done, it wasn’t his fault. Maybe Jinokimijin had learned something in the forty-some years since his fall from the High Court. The notes certainly looked thorough and methodical. But that didn’t mean they were.

She shook off the train of thought as she realized Miro was still waiting on her. After putting the book in her bag, she took his hand and teleported the two of them away.


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Are You Mad? (16/80)

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The Moon Queen reaffiliated Ardent with her Etherium personally, and embraced her when the ritual was complete. Miro found that sign of personal affection interesting, especially given the tension between the two fey. Ardent had a string on her queen: thin, but real. Until the queen had offered a slender thread with the reaffiliation, she’d had none on Ardent.

Neither of those compared to the enormous cable Miro had handed Ardent during the court, of course. That was a tangled thing, threaded with contamination from his conflicted motives. Oddly, it looked uglier on her end than it did on his, and was still purer than he’d expected.

Miro felt strangely light, despite the collar on his neck and the new tether on his soul. He didn’t regret that extravagant oath to Ardent: he was confident she would never abuse it. And it had served to convince the entire court of his sincerity. No fey would make such a binding oath in bad faith. Even made in good faith it was all but unimaginable, to place unlimited power in the hands of another. But he’d already placed his life in her hands: what was an oath?

He should’ve been troubled by it: it would be all too easy for that oath to conflict disastrously with his other obligations. In some sense, it probably already did.

After their dismissal from the Moon Court, Ardent ported him to her old home, still intact after all these years.

The main chamber, where they entered, was a round room some hundred yards across, with a domed ceiling. The walls and ceiling looked transparent, providing a lofty view of the chaotic Moon Etherium that sprawled far below their perch in an improbable tower. Miro suspected that only one section of the wall was truly transparent and the rest were glamour. It was unsettling that he couldn’t tell for sure, but the foreign moon aether interfered even with that skill.

“Gimme a minute, sugar.” Ardent put him down and surveyed the room with a sigh. She began walking the perimeter, making gestures of ownership and warding as she went. In one half of the chamber was a network of five empty pools of differing sizes, from eight feet across to eighty. The other half was a living space, with a massive sunken pillow nest at its center, and chairs and sofas of various sizes. To one side of the pillow nest was a library, shelves still full of books, and on the other was a kitchen and dining area. A thick layer of dust coated everything. A spiral staircase came up from the level below the floor and led up to the ceiling and vanished – a strong hint that glamour covered the ceiling.

Miro unfastened his excessively formal jacket, pulling its collar out from under the snug white-gold one Ardent had given him. He placed the jacket across one chair back. Absently fingering the cool metal of the collar, he glanced about the main room. Ardent went through the entire room, then disappeared down the stairs. Miro walked to the wall that he thought was genuinely transparent – it had an oval door leading out to a balcony – and leaned against it, looking out at the strange city, waiting. At length, he heard her hoofsteps even through the plush carpet around them. He turned around to smile at her.

She didn’t smile back. “I’ve reclaimed the quarters and warded them. We should be safe now.” And then: “I release you.”

“What?” But he already knew, before the startled syllable was out: the rope connecting their souls was dissolving.

“From that insane oath you made. Justice!” she swore. “What was that about? Are you mad? Why would you – you don’t even know me! Why would you make a promise like that to anyone, ever?”

Miro watched her soul’s hands, and all the pure strings she held without conscious awareness. Is that why she is owed no warped debts? Does she refuse to retain anything that’s tainted? He closed his eyes. “I needed to convince the court I wasn’t a threat.”

“Well, you did that, at least assuming they’re not scared of crazy fanatics,” she said. He felt her fingers brush his neck, and opened his eyes as she pulled the seamless metal collar apart and removed it. She held the now-open circle in her hands for a moment, then hurled it across the room, sending it skittering over the tiles by the pool. “Those degenerates! Those smug, self-satisfied, degenerate maggots! ARGH!” She punched her fist into the transparent wall, and it trembled under the impact.

Miro tensed, unsure how to respond. “My lady?”

Ardent pivoted to put her back to the wall, then sagged, sliding down until she sat on the floor. “Katsura. She knew, curse her. She knew, and didn’t even tell me.”

“…knew what?”

“They wanted that performance. That whole sick game, just to humiliate you. Not that they care about you, just what you stand for. Sun Host. And I played right into it. Curse them! I should’ve told the whole truth.”

“And had your Queen take the phoenix rose? Do you trust her with it more, now?” Miro crossed the room to where the collar lay.    

Ardent scowled. “No. But I could have told them I was here to intercede on your father’s behalf.”

“With your vast influence over Shadow of Fallen Scent.”

Ardent growled.

Miro bent to pick up the collar. The alloy was almost too soft for jewelry: it bent in his hands. He put it back around his neck and pushed the ends to touch. Without aether, he couldn’t make it seal together the way Ardent had.

When he turned back, Ardent had restored her earlier appearance: a short chiton in place of the elaborate court gown, all the jewelry and dyes gone, her hair a fluffy curly mass held back only by a headband. She’d neglected to change her ears back; they were still fey instead of caprine. “Why are you putting that thing back on?” she asked him.

“Because it will be expected of me while I am here, and I don’t want to forget it.” Miro touched the metal again. “I am sorry to cause you distress, my lady. I’ll take it off.”

Ardent lifted her eyes to his, her look heartbroken. “Oh, sugar. Don’t – don’t apologize to me. None of this is your fault.” She climbed to her hooves.

“I am the proximate cause of your departure from Try Again and your presence here at all,” he pointed out.

“Hah. We could argue that your dad’s the cause of that. And I’m not mad at him, either. Much less you. I’m mad at the Justice-deprived Moon Court. And Fallen, aether desert her. You’re the last person I should be taking it out on.” She crossed the room to him, cupping her hands around his as he held the collar before him. Her hands were still soft: she hadn’t restored their callouses, either. “I’m sorry, Miro. Are you all right? You seem to be taking all this a lot better than I am, and I can’t tell if that’s because you are, or if it’s just your Sun Court manners.”

He laughed, because Sun Court manners did indeed demand equanimity in the face of provocation. Miro tilted his head back to meet her black eyes. “I am fine. I am not humiliated.” He laughed again. “On the contrary, I am vindicated.”

“Vindicated?” She raised full eyebrows at him.

“Indeed! I swore an absurd, overbroad oath to you, confident that you would not take advantage of it. And not only was I right in that, but the first thing you did, once it was safe, was release me from it. You may think me a fool to trust you, but I know: my trust is not misplaced.”

“I don’t think you’re a fool.” She took the collar from his hands, reached with one hand to brush his hair – still longer than he was tall and white-blond – back from his neck. “I think you’re a madman. There’s a difference.”

“I stand corrected.”

Ardent dropped her hand. “Did you want your original form back, or to stay like this?”

“Restored, if you please.” Miro walked back to where he’d left his jacket, and retrieved a homunculus of his original shape from its pocket. He could no longer use it on his own; it was not an enchantment itself, merely a token that stored all the information on what his body should be like. He gave it to Ardent. “Less ostentatious clothing would be appreciated, too.”

She empowered it for him and returned it, giving him back his everyday body. “There’s a spare bedroom downstairs. I reactivated its wardrobe for you, in case you need the fancy suit again. You hungry?” she asked. “I’m gonna make some food. You want aetherfood or real or both?”

“Both, please.” He started down the stairwell.

“Sure. Any preference?”

“I liked the curry and bread you fed me last night,” he called up. The lower floor was divided into a few rooms. He stepped into the one with an open door and a visible bed large enough to sleep a dragon. Its wardrobe had a mirror similar to Threnody Katsura’s, albeit with far fewer options. He stored his current outfit inside, then flipped through the mirror until he found an outfit with a long jacket, trousers, and simple shoes. The jacket was different from Sun Etherium’s – it sealed up the front with a seam, and had narrow sleeves – but it was close enough to look comfortable to his eyes. He opened the wardrobe’s mirrored door, and the outfit waited inside.

When Miro returned to the living space, Ardent had swept all the signs of disuse from it: the pools were filled with water, and the thick dust was gone. Sessile was half-curled in the massive sunken pillow nest, with her mouth open. Aether-carried bags of food floated out of her to stock the kitchen. A curry simmered on the stove. Platters of hors d’oeuvres were on the dining table. “Help yourself.” Ardent was by the stove, gesturing vaguely to the table. A handful of messengers hovered about her, and she had an aetheric surface open to one side. “That’s all aetherfood. Lemme know if you want anything different, sugar.”

He sat and popped one of the nearest confections into his mouth. It proved to be a puff of pastry wrapped around spiced meat. It crunched delicately between his teeth, and melted on his tongue with the characteristic smoothness of aetherfood. “Thank you! It’s delicious. Might I see my father’s notebook?”

Ardent tugged on a current of aether, and her bag floated out of the golem too. It set itself on the table, opened, and the notebook rose from within. “I think that’s everything from you that’s mine, Sessile,” she told the earth serpent golem.

“All right!” The golem brought her great jaws together again. “Do you want me to deliver the rest for you, or are you coming along?”

“I think I’ll let you deliver it.” Ardent took the scrying crystal from Sessile’s nose. “I’ll give you a list of prices to go with your destinations. If anyone doesn’t want to pay that price, don’t make the delivery and tell them I’ll come negotiate with them later. You got all that?”

Sessile nodded, squirming in the pillow nest as Ardent finished setting destinations and socketed the scrying ball back in place. “Uh huh. You can count on me!” She teleported out of the room.

While they spoke, Miro ate another pastry, and leafed through the notebook. Ardent had added some highlights and notes of her own in the margins. He laughed aloud as he read over one of them.

“What?” the satyress asked as she fetched the pot of curry from the stove and brought it to the table.

“Your outrage at the delicacy of the creature.”

“Well, it is absurd. All right, so they can only hatch under natural conditions at least fifty miles from an Etherium, and only in the fey world while it’s overlapped with our original mortal one. They need natural air, natural sunlight, and natural water. With you so far. But then they have to bathe in aether-created rain showers? They need to be fed on an aether-natural hybrid of the plant that hatched them? How does this thing ever survive in the wild?”

“It doesn’t,” Miro said.

“But your dad says it can’t be cultivated?”

“He was unsuccessful in cultivating it, yes. But the phoenix rose stage of the creature’s life cycle is naturally brief. They hatch, they ascend, they fruit, scatter seeds, all in one day. The seeds almost all blossom into firebuds, which will never be a phoenix rose. All these finicky requirements are how you entrap it at the phoenix rose stage, because that’s when they have all the interesting magical-aetheric properties.”

“Huh. So if you stop doing all this now it’ll – what – fruit and seed?”

“No, not after it’s been cultured for several days, not if Fallen is doing it properly. Right now, it would probably just die if it couldn’t get what it needs to remain a phoenix rose. In a week or two it’ll move out of needing most of the specifics.”

“Mm-hmm. So we’d better find it fast.” Ardent dished up curry for both of them, and offered a basket of flatbread. “Didn’t have the patience to bake real bread, I’m afraid, but the aether version’s still good.” The curry was chicken-and-tomato based this time, and the bread garlic and rosemary and fine-grained, but no less delectable. Miro ate with a will, while Ardent turned the notebook about to glance over it as she ate. “So it’d have to be in one of the towers or the floaters, to be far enough from the core of the Etherium not to overdose on aether, and still close enough to grow up big and strong. And still get natural air and sun, which it couldn’t underground. That…doesn’t narrow it down as much as you’d hope.” She glanced out her window at the crowded Moon Etherium sky.

“It has to be somewhere Fallen owns,” Miro added. “Or it wouldn’t be in her possession and my father’s bargain with her would be out of force.”

“Ah! Good point.” Ardent finished her meal, then conjured a new surface beside her, and dispatched a few messages. “I’ll ask around, see if I can find out what properties are known to be under her control. But she could’ve made a private deal for a deed, and not registered it. Which she might have, given that she wants to keep the creature and her ownership of it a secret.” She tapped a blunt-tipped finger against the notebook. “The food requirements are interesting. Do you know what plant type it hatched from?”

Miro nodded, swallowing curry-soaked bread. “Yes. Cacao tree.”    

“Mmm, now, that’s convenient.” Ardent twisted about in her chair, and summoned a glamour to show the entirety of the Moon Etherium.

“Convenient?”

“Because there’s already an aethcacao cultivar.”

Miro leaned back. “So Fallen wouldn’t have to splice together her own hybrid before the phoenix rose died.”

“Mm-hmm. And, even better, there’s only a few fey who grow it. Three farmers, if memory serves and they’re all still operating.” Ardent walked through her illusory three-dimensional map to examine the north slopes of the Etherium’s crater-valley. “Looks like the farms are still there. You can only grow it on the slopes, in real soil and sun, and the northwest slopes get the best exposure. Needs just the right amount of raw aether for that magic-chocolate flavor. The aethcacao farms are almost as manual as barbarian farms.”

Miro rose to join her by the map, watching as she pointed to miniature slopes dotted with green trees, fruit nearly invisible beneath their leaves. “You think Fallen will have bought from them.”

“Yup.” She turned to him with a grin. “Wanna go visit some chocolate farms and see if they’ve had any new customers lately?”

He offered his hand. “It would be my pleasure, my lady.”

Ardent took it, but she hesitated rather than leaving.

“My lady?” Miro asked. Her large fingers curled around his hand, thumb tracing over his wrist. It was a slight gesture, to feel so sensual, to make his pulse race. “Is there…something else?”

“Yeah. Kinda. Um.” She rubbed one brown hand over her face, still holding onto him. “Right. So this is a pretty safe place. It’s mine, it’s warded, nobody should be able to get through the door or port in without me letting them.”

“You’re not thinking to leave me here because it’s safe?”

“No…well, I hadn’t been…” She giggled as he narrowed his eyes at her. “No, I won’t leave you here. Although it is tempting. But I don’t want you running around the Moon Etherium completely vulnerable if we get separated. I want to at least forge a teleport connection for you to here, so you can port here on your own. And give you a farspeaker device, since you can’t summon one.”

“I am certainly amenable to this.”

“Right. But I’m not much at enchanting and while I know it’s possible to make stuff like that by using aether efficiently I only know a few people who know how and I don’t know what it would cost or how long it’d take but I’m pretty sure I could do it if I…” Ardent spoke in one long breathless rush until she trailed off abruptly.

“Channeled power from me?” In some way, her obvious uncertainty made it easier for Miro to feign equanimity. As if she were nervous enough for both of them. Although it wasn’t nervousness that he felt at all. It was excitement. Longing. Both of which were inappropriate to the situation, and less intelligible than Ardent’s nerves.    

“Yes. That.” Ardent covered her face with her hand.

“That sounds very rational and practical.” Which it did, Miro reminded himself. “Shall we begin? I had best sit for this.” She nodded, face still in her hand, looking adorably embarrassed. He withdrew his hand from hers and moved to a seat on one of the sofas, reasoning he’d be less likely to fall off of that than a dining chair.


Don’t want to wait until the next post to read more? Buy The Moon Etherium now! Or check out the author’s other books: A Rational Arrangement and Further Arrangements.

Control (15/80)

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Ardent was worried about Miro. He looked like he was taking things well, but this had to be rough for him. The sight of Jinokimijin all but naked and in blight-ridden chains, for the love of Justice, infuriated her. Not to mention that “adolescent girl” could not have been Jinokimijin’s choice of bodies. What was the Queen doing, permitting this vicious performance? It was one thing to acknowledge “I can’t save an individual from a bad deal they willingly entered” and another to showcase the most blatant and insulting trappings of slavery in the Moon Etherium’s most august institution. This was a travesty.

At the moment, the Court was hearing a storyteller’s request for an endorsement of a project that required more aether and more participants than a single fey could muster. The power of the Queen, Skein of the Absolute, was very different from that of a mortal government. The use of force did not work on fey individuals. An ordinary fey, even a barbarian, was immortal, nearly invulnerable, and all but impossible to imprison. Even fey possessions in an Etherium were generally much easier to safeguard than to harm. Crimes like assault and murder effectively didn’t exist. Theft in an Etherium did happen, but it was rare, in part because, except in the case of art, it was easier to make something new with aether than it was to take someone else’s creation.

The Queen did have power beyond the symbolic: she held the Heart of the Etherium, which replenished aether throughout the Etherium. The Heart did so automatically; it was not within the Queen’s power to withhold aether from the Etherium. But the structure and presence of the Queen and her High Court ensured that the Heart functioned smoothly and reliably. The most concrete power the Queen possessed was the ability to exile a Moon Host fey. Even that could not be used easily: it required the consent of a majority of the High Court. The Heart also empowered her to affiliate a willing subject with the Moon Host, but since a fey could do the affiliation ritual on their own, this ability was only ceremonial.

Its technical role aside, the High Court was more a social/cultural construct than a legal one. As a body, they wielded considerable influence, able to amplify or to ostracize, and the majority of the citizenry would follow suit. Members of the Moon Host did pay an annual tithe, but it was inconsequential by comparison with mortal taxes: a voucher for five hours of labor per year. The fey economy, such as it was, was backed by promises of labor. The crown issued generic feymin and feyour tokens as currency, secured by the crown’s supply of actual vouchers. Very few fey had minutes worth exactly a feymin, but the system worked no more badly than mortal standards based on precious metals.

The storyteller speaking now, a giant serpent with feathered wings and a fanned tail like a peacock’s, was fortunate to have received an audience. The time before the court alone would raise their importance in the eyes of the Moon Host. Their presentation was compelling, too. Ardent had missed the first half of their story and was distracted by her seething anger at Fallen’s treatment of her prisoner, and the High Court’s tacit acceptance thereof, but even so, she was drawn into the thread of the tale the coatl spun by glamour and voice. It was a retelling of the founding of the Moon Etherium, and how the Moon Etherium had wrested free of the Sun Etherium’s control almost six hundred years ago. Well-trodden ground, but Ardent liked the choice of protagonists: two families from the Sun Host who had come as colonists to the Moon Etherium, and the way their loyalties divided between their new home and the Sun King.

At the conclusion of the coatl’s presentation, the court hushed, all eyes on Queen Skein of the Absolute as they awaited her reaction. She was silent for a long time, and finally spoke. “Wisdom Draught, you have long been a favorite artist of Our realm. It is with no small regret that We inform you that We cannot endorse your current project. We look forward to your next proposal, and trust it will be more to Our…tastes.” Draught looked stricken as she waved them off. A tiny messenger fairy from Diamond of Winter swooped to the queen’s ear and whispered to her.

Ardent suppressed a scowl, wondering at the undertones of that rejection. She’d been unhappy with the Moon Etherium when she renounced it formally fourteen years ago, and her feelings about the Moon Host had long been mixed. She’d actually left the Etherium once before, for a couple of decades a century ago, and returned the first time at Skein’s request. She’d still respected Skein of the Absolute, even at her second departure. What happened to you, Skein?

The Queen nodded to her adjunct. Diamond of Winter drew itself up, a tall, heavyset glittering abstract of a humanoid figure, as if sculpted of cut glass. “The Crown welcomes Ardent Sojourner of the barbarian village Try Again to present her petition, and her companion, to the High Court of the Moon Etherium.” The courtiers assembled buzzed with sudden curiosity: those who hadn’t seen her enter recognized her name. And everyone could tell she hadn’t been kept waiting long, which surprised Ardent herself.

Ardent squared her shoulders and ascended the strange, barely existent stairs of the Great Hall, trusting Miro to follow in her footsteps. She stopped ten paces before and below the crescent throne. The queen turned her gaze upon them, and the moon illuminated them with the brilliance of stage floodlights. Ardent dropped to one knee and bowed her head; behind her, Miro did the same. “Your majesty, thank you for this audience. I come before the Court with my servant, Prince Mirohirokon of the Sun Host. If it pleases your majesty, I request my reinstatement in your majesty’s Etherium.”

The surprised murmuring around them intensified. Ardent waited with her head still down.

“It pleases Us to see you returned to Our Etherium, Ardent Sojourner,” the Queen said. “Please, rise.” Ardent stood. Miro remained kneeling, and Ardent nearly cued him to stand when she realized his grasp of etiquette was better: the queen hadn’t addressed him. “You are the second in recent days to come before us with a Sun Host member.” The queen didn’t turn her head, but the eyes of many went to Fallen and the enslaved fey at her feet. Fallen was watching Ardent with narrowed eyes. “You do not seek Moon affiliation for him?”

Ardent gave a mirthless smile. “If it pleases your majesty, he’s of more use to me in Sun Host.”

Skein of the Absolute watched her, appraising, for a long moment. Ardent cultivated a bland expression and awaited the next question. “We would know how you came by this prince, Ardent Sojourner.”    

“Well,” she drawled, “Happens one of his parents had gotten into a deal with Shadow of Fallen Scent. Prince Mirohirokon was not real happy with how it turned out. For some reason.” Ardent looked pointedly at Fallen and Jinokimijin. The latter had a worried look on her delicate girl’s face. “The prince came to me, pretty desperate for help. He wanted me to intercede for Disgraced Jinokimijin, and offered a gamble for it: if he beat me at Turns, I’d help him, and if I won, he’d serve me.”

“At Turns? You thought you could beat Ardent Sojourner at Turns, little prince?”

Mirohirokon flushed, still kneeling with head bowed. “It may be that poor choices run in my family line.”

“It may be that he thought he had an edge,” Ardent offered, kindly. Everything they’d said so far was true, including the game of Turns. Which Ardent had taken a massive handicap in, and lost, before they made the ‘deal’ which hinged upon its outcome. “But…well, here we are.” She smirked.

The Queen’s silver eyes were on her again. Ardent expected her to ask more questions: why did that bring you back? Why would the power of a Sun Host channel tempt you to return, when the power of a position in my High Court could not convince you to stay? Ardent had answers prepared for those, too. But instead, the Queen steepled her fingers. “We are pleased to welcome you back as affiliate of Our Moon Host, Ardent Sojourner. But We are concerned at the presence of two Sun Host affiliates in Our midst, and their potential as spies, or as a source of conflict in Our realm. Shadow of Fallen Scent has demonstrated that her servant is under her complete control.” A negligent gesture towards the pair on her left. “Are you able to do the same, Ardent Sojourner?” The Moon Queen circled a finger in the air, and a trace of glamour conjured a leashed collar in its wake. In a moment, it faded away in a sparkle of stars.

Ardent stared at her, disbelieving. You aren’t just tolerating that humiliation. You’re demanding it. Fury made blood roar in her ears; it was all she could do to keep it contained, to keep herself from lashing out. Servitude was one thing; she could understand the utility behind wanting servants, even if she disapproved. But degradation? In the name of Justice, what possible point could there to be to this?

The queen met her gaze, calm, unmoved, as if her suggestion was reasonable and not an unnecessary insult to not only Mirohirokon, but to his entire Etherium. “Is something amiss, Ardent Sojourner?” The queen’s eyes slid past her. “Surely you are in no position to object, Prince Mirohirokon?”

“Your majesty? Why would I object?” Miro’s voice tone was honestly perplexed, with no trace of dissembling, sarcasm, or resentment. “Your majesty honors me with this opportunity to prove my devotion to my new mistress and my willingness to fulfill my bargain. I thank you for your kindness.”

Ardent pivoted to him as he spoke. Laying it on a bit thick, aren’t you? But he spoke with such conviction, as if he truly were honored. They were committed to this story already, and Ardent’s hesitance was only weakening their position. “Rise,” she told him, voice harsher than she intended, “and accept your chains.” Ardent shaped a plain collar of white gold between her hands as Miro stood. His brown eyes lifted to hers, for just a moment, and she could see nothing in them but a perfect trust, an inappropriate serenity. He bowed his head, meekly. Ardent closed the collar around his neck, a seamless metal circle he had no magic to remove. She drew her hand back, holding him leashed, feeling sick with helpless anger.

“Thank you, mistress,” Miro said, softly. “May I beg permission to speak?”

“Granted.” Ardent had no idea what else he had planned. Is this enough? she wanted to snarl at the Moon Queen.

“If I may beg your majesty’s indulgence?” Miro turned to the throne, but kept his head bowed.

“Go ahead,” the Moon Queen said, curious.

Miro knelt again. “By aether, by Justice, by Love, by Family, by Duty, by Truth, by Persistence: I give my oath and loyalty to you, Ardent Sojourner, without reservation. I swear to serve you in all ways, and in turn to act only in the best interests of the Moon Etherium and all her lawful inhabitants.” Ardent listened, shocked speechless, appalled by the thoroughness of the oath, the sweeping breadth of power he was granting her over him. He recited it two more times, giving it a binding weight the whole court could sense.

The satyress clenched her fingers around Miro’s chain to stop them from shaking. The entire court was stunned and silent, amazed. Ardent turned to the throne, and glimpsed Jinokimijin’s expression of unadulterated horror, terrified for her son in a way she had not been even for herself. Ardent met the Moon Queen’s gaze. “Is your majesty satisfied with the extent of my control?”

A smile formed on dark blue lips. “We are.”


Don’t want to wait until the next post to read more? Buy The Moon Etherium now! Or check out the author’s other books: A Rational Arrangement and Further Arrangements.