Harbinger

26: TRIGGER THE TRAP

Tristan had just finished up piecing together a solid fake identity when he noticed a hush falling over the camp. He had been only vaguely aware of the low murmur of voices as the troops worked around the cabin he occupied. But now the warriors had all gone silent. Tristan lifted his head and listened intently. The high whine of a speeding hoverbike was growing louder as it raced toward them.

“We’re getting company!” Lucien called out in English. “One of the Eyes! Remember, I don’t want them to know about your mission.”

Tristan stuffed the iPad and all the papers back into the messenger bag. With his work hidden away, he pulled on his demon mask and went out to greet the incoming rider.

“I have what I need,” Tristan said, adjusting his mask. He handed back Lucien’s messenger bag. “Are you sure it’s one of our little sisters?”

Lucien took the bag and handed it to one of his trusted underlings. “No one else would ride at that speed.”

True, while they weren’t that far from Pittsburgh, they were in virgin forest. There were nothing more than deer trails through the thick forest bracken and fallen branches.

They had had five little sisters: Adele, Bethany, Chloe, Danni, and Felicie. Chloe was dead. Which of the four was coming? He hadn’t seen any of them since they graduated from college. He hoped it was Bethany. She was his favorite. He was afraid, though, that something horrible had happened to sweet little Bethany.

A few years back, he’d been suddenly forbidden to even mention his younger sisters. He had thought it had been in reaction to his mother having dreams of stolen children. In hindsight, the nightmares had been triggered by the birth of the twins, but he had assumed that his mother’s gift had uncovered the truth about the Eyes.

Since he’d arrived on Elfhome, he had caught guarded references to the girls — no, women, as they were no longer young. All except Bethany. If she’d ever been in Pittsburgh, all traces of her had been wiped out. He suspected now that the sudden silence on Earth hadn’t been about his mother’s dreams but something that his father had done. Something that his father didn’t want to be known by his mother and perhaps the other Eyes, and maybe even Tristan himself.

What had their father done to Bethany?

He pushed the question out of his mind, focusing instead on the sound of the hoverbike. It was most likely to be Danni, who worked closest to Lucien. She had been the one who forced Lucien into transforming Boo. She was also the one most likely to oppose any plan of recapturing Lucien’s lost love.

“Our baby sisters can’t read minds,” Lucien murmured even as the whine of the engine grew louder, “but I’ve found it’s best not to think of things you don’t want them to know about. Thoughts are the precursor of actions. When you create a plan, it’s as if you’ve set up vibrations in the likely outcome to your actions. The Eyes sense those vibrations, just like sharks can detect the trashing of a swimmer.”

In other words, Tristan should clear his head of any plans he had for tracking down Boo.

What was safe to think about? What possibly could have happened to Bethany? Probably not.

The hoverbike roared through camp, ten feet up and going close to a hundred miles per hour. It slammed into an insane turn to spiral upward even as it braked hard. The woman on the bike was wearing camo coveralls, a green helmet, and an assault rifle strapped across her back. Danni wouldn’t be caught dead in camo. It was Adele.

Once her forward momentum was at zero, Adele floated back down to land beside Tristan.

“Oh, look at you!” She killed the hoverbike’s engine. “You’re still so tiny! Have you grown at all since I left New York?”

“I’m bigger.” Tristan resisted the urge to stand up straighter. Humans used to say it to him all the time. He’d forgotten how annoying it was. At least now it didn’t make him cry because he knew that one day he would eventually grow up.

She threw back her head and laughed. She sounded like Lucien when she laughed like that. She picked Tristan up, spun him around, and then gave his head a hard knuckle rub.

“Ow!” Tristan cried.

“You’re hurting him,” Lucien said. “Leave him be. You might be seen.”

“I won’t. You know that I know that I won’t,” Adele said.

Tristan glanced about and saw that she was right. They were screened on all sides by the cabins.

“What are you doing here?” Lucien said.

“Pffft.” She pulled off her helmet, revealing that she had buzzcut her hair to a military crop. Their father wouldn’t be pleased; he had a thing about long hair. Her pale blond hair had started to gray already. Chloe’s picture in the paper had looked so much like their mother that it hurt. Adele never had the same polished style; she looked like she could be a long-lost, chain-smoking biker aunt. “I need to talk to our glorious god-emperor father. It was easier to come here than to head out cross-country for a mei and hope to catch Heaven’s Blessing.”

During his thousands of years exiled on Earth, their father had used many false names. Adele had used his true name, the one he had been known by when he ruled all of Elfhome.

“He’s coming here?” Lucien pointed at the ground at his feet littered with gnawed bones.

Adele posed dramatically, the back of her right hand pressed to her forehead, her eyes closed. “So I have foreseen!” She threw her hands up to spin in a circle. “Oh, my God! Sunshine! It feels so good to get out of that cave! I’ve been stuck there in the dark for forever!”

“Stuck?” Tristan asked. “Why were you stuck in a cave?”

“Because Heaven’s Blessing wanted me to see what was happening on Earth! It was one of those tiny, tiny spyholes between worlds. I’ve been stuffed inside a small cave, waiting for some useful vision to hit me, and praying that a family of raccoons wouldn’t show up wanting to den for the winter. Do you have any candy? I’m dying for chocolate.”

“Who has never grown up?” Lucien rooted through his satchel to pull out a plastic bag filled with individually wrapped chocolate truffles. It surprised Tristan that Lucien had candy with him, considering how light they were traveling. Had his brother “seen” that Adele would show up? Or was the candy just a side product of Lucien’s excessive sweet tooth? Lucien held out the bag but pulled it back just before Adele took any. “What did you see?”

“Oh, don’t be like that.” Adele pouted.

“Once they’re gone, they’re gone.” Lucien rustled the bag. “We won’t see chocolate from Earth until the war is won.”

Adele snorted. “I know you’ve got an entire warehouse of food stocked up with things like that.”

“For me and the people that make me happy,” Lucien said.

“Fine.” Adele promised to share information by reaching out and twiddling her fingers. “I might as well tell you. Heaven’s Blessing won’t give me a private audience, so my news will be common knowledge in about an hour.”

Lucien dipped the bag forward and she grabbed a big handful of the truffles.

“You’re his heir now,” she continued, unwrapping the first truffle. “As much as the immortal god-emperor Heaven’s Blessing needs a heir.”

Lucien’s eyes went wide and then he pulled his mask down over his face. “Yves is dead?”

Adele popped the truffle in her mouth. “Uh-huh.”

“What happened to him?” Tristan asked.

“Hm?” Adele shrugged, eyes closed, focusing on the taste of the chocolate. “So good.”

“Adele,” Lucien said sternly. It seemed even more menacing when coming from behind his demonic-looking mask.

Adele spread her hands to indicate she had no idea, then unwrapped another truffle. “Sometimes the visions are crystal clear and sometimes they’re all weird, dreamy things, like being naked at school or trying to take a final for a class you forgot that you signed up for. I can’t make heads or tail of it — there were these giant birds and a talking dog and lots and lots of mice, but Yves definitely ended up under a ton of rocks. I think there was a cave-in. I’m not sure, but I think the tengu Nestlings were buried with him.”

Tristan had always assumed that he would be glad if Yves died; the male had been cold and distant and often cruel to him. In his heart of hearts, though, he must have always loved his older half brother despite all that. It hurt to know Yves was dead.

Lucien stood silent, looking skyward as if gazing at something written there. After a minute, he murmured, “I see. Yves was supposed to be here to oversee this part. Father must have decided that I didn’t have enough experience. He’s not waiting at Shikaakwa like we planned.”

“Or Fefe saw something go wrong,” Adele said around a mouthful of chocolate.

Lucien turned sharply to her. “Like what? Have the rebels turned back from the trap?”

Adele snorted as she unwrapped her last truffle. “I’ve been tuned into a different wavelength for days. I only checked to see where Heaven’s Blessing was going to be, not why. That would be a whole lot harder for me. It’s always worst to be first. Heaven’s Blessing had all the kinks ironed out by the time he got to tweaking Fefe. That’s why she’s with him and I’ve been stuck in a cave.”

Adele popped the chocolate into her mouth.

“Please see what you can find out,” Lucien said.

“Fine. I will.” She pulled out the red ribbon of the intanyai seyosa caste and tied it as a blindfold over her eyes.

Their father’s servants had tried to train the Eyes but there was much they didn’t know or couldn’t remember. Why a red ribbon? Was it just symbolic or was there a reason it needed to be red? None of the elves at the mansion had known. They left it to the Eyes to determine what worked best for them and the girls had adopted the caste’s badge of power.

Adele liked to move her hands while “seeing” in graceful dance-like motions. It reminded Tristan of hula. She swayed in place, languidly moving her hands. She hummed softly to herself. He couldn’t recognize the tune.

“The sun is setting.” Adele traced the arc of a setting sun with her right hand, dipping down into the west. She elegantly raised her left hand. “The radiance is fading. The dawn will bring a new world. Heaven’s Blessing stands poised to take back what was…”

Adele went still. Slowly she cocked her head.

“What is it?” Lucien said.

“The moon is waning. It’s full of mice, nibbling away at the cheese?” Adele cocked her head the other way. “It’s making the moon’s orbit wonky and it might fall?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Lucien said.

Adele tore off her blindfold and stuffed the red fabric back into her pocket. “It’s the damn giant birds and talking dog and lots and lots of mice again. I don’t understand. They were on Earth. How are they here too? They’re running all over the place, ruining everything.”

“Ruining everything?” Lucien echoed. “They going to stop us from using the device?”

“I don’t…I don’t know. It’s all weird and wiggly. Most people have one or two paths of action that you can see but this is thousands of paths, all crisscrossing, moving so fast its blurry. I can’t tell if the mice are supposed to represent one person I’ve never met or a group of people.”

“If they were on Earth first, then they’re probably human,” Tristan said. “Maybe it’s agents like the NSA pair or maybe it’s a corporation.”

“Danni sent a strike team to take out Midas,” Lucien said. “If they are your mice, then they should not be a problem much longer.”

This was news to Tristan. Who or what was Midas? He didn’t want to ask and betray to Adele how little he knew about the current plans. He would need to ask Lucien privately, if the day allowed.

Adele took out the blindfold and ran the piece of fabric through her fingers as if she were considering donning it again. “I shouldn’t be seeing the mice if Danni has already taken steps to eliminate them. Their impact on our plans is still massive. Fefe must have seen our rodent infestation and warned Heaven’s Blessing.”

“Here they come,” Lucien said.

Tristan pulled on his oni mask even as he scanned the forest around them. He could sense no movement. Both Adele and Lucien were gazing upward.

He wasn’t sure how Lucien sensed their father’s arrival. One moment the sky over them was gray with rain clouds. The next it was filled with a massive gossamer airship. The displaced air boomed loudly as it washed the briny scent of the gossamer down over them.

“What in the world?” Tristan gasped. “Did that gossamer just teleport?”

“It was my ‘welcome home’ present to Father. A bit of a flex to show him what I can do.”

Tristan stared upward, stunned by the achievement. How in the world had Lucien managed that? When did he do it? The shimmering, nearly transparent gossamer seemed too large for being less than three decades old but it couldn’t be older. Or could it? Had Lucien spell-worked an adult gossamer? The gondola was lavish imperial red with gleaming gold trim. There were black Elvish runes on the bow that spelled out “Heaven’s Light,” which was a play on Lucien’s name.

What did Tristan have to offer their father? Nothing as impressive as this. His last major feat had been ferreting out the Chosen bloodline, but that had all been rendered moot. They were on the cusp of a new world order. He might desperately need Lucien’s protection. He’d been growing hesitant about finding Boo. To keep Lucien’s good will, though, Tristan might have to swallow the sense of wrong that he had gotten about the entire mess. For better or worse, the girl was now an important game piece in the war. If their father managed to find Haven and kill the rest of the Chosen bloodline, she would be the lynchpin to controlling the tengu Flock. She was young and had been meticulously sheltered in Lucien’s care. She wouldn’t be able to rule the Flock alone. Someone would take control of her; it might as well be Lucien. He, at least, loved her.

Mooring lines were cast down and made fast to anchors that Tristan hadn’t noticed before. He drifted back. Now was not the time to catch his father’s attention. The war had not gone well in the last two months. The news of Yves’ death was going to hit hard.

I shouldn’t be so terrified of the man that gave me life.

But his father wasn’t a man. He was an ancient being that was ruthless and ambitious. He’d proved over and over again that he’d use his own flesh and blood to achieve his goals. How many of his children had he put in the grave? As his father’s people had briefed Lucien on the incoming Harbingers, it became clear that he and his brother were not his father’s first brood. There had been countless half brothers and half sisters born long ago. All the others had died in their father’s service. Yves had been the only survivor, but now even he was gone.

It was clear now why Lucien had been careful to make himself so valuable to their father.

The metal elevator descended from the gondola.

Father had given up his human clothes, returning to his rich purple imperial robes. They were hand embroidered with red orchids. He wore a duster of red fairy silk with the shimmer of protective spells carefully painted in silver. His hair was no longer carefully contained in a discreet braid but flowed down his shoulders like gleaming white silk, a testament to his health and vitality. It had been something carefully beaten into Tristan after he had left his mother’s care: hair was a badge of honor. He was to wear it as long as possible despite his covert missions.

It wasn’t until Tristan came to Elfhome, and had been told their true history, that he realized why his father was so focused on long hair. His father had been born a sickly albino with extremely weak eyesight. If he had not been the firstborn child of a powerful female, he would have been cast aside, perhaps even drowned as an infant. Instead he’d been painstakingly spell-worked to be perfect in every way that magic could make him. It was said that a hundred thousand slaves had been blinded so that spells could be developed to allow him to see and, more importantly, he would not pass the weakness on to the royal bloodline. His father’s eyes were no longer the light pink color that they had been at birth but a striking amber color flecked with vivid red. It was like looking into the heart of a bonfire.

Tens of thousands of years, though, had not erased his father’s shame of being flawed at birth.

His father stepped off the elevator as if he already ruled the world. He swept his fiery gaze over Lucien and Tristan to focus on Adele. “Where is my son?”

He said it as if he had only one.

“Forgiveness.” Adele bowed low. “Yves is dead. He was killed in a landslide while still on Earth.”

His father took the blow with only a slight tightening of the muscles of his face. He lifted his right hand slightly.

Felicie ghosted forward from behind their father. She styled herself after Pure Radiance, dressed in a flowing gown of white fairy silk with a red ribbon tied over her eyes. She had even painted her fingernails a frosted white. Her white hair spilled down her back almost to her knees. She walked as if gliding on air. She looked decades younger than Adele instead of just being a few hours’ difference in age. “This explains why Yves was absent from my visions. His death is not unexpected. It does not require us to change our plans.”

“The Harbingers took the bait.” Lucien spoke without removing his mask. “They are moving into position to attack the eastern camps. The Fire Clan accompanies them. As expected, none of the wood sprites are part of the rebel forces. Danni is orchestrating the collection of them.”

Felicie waved lazily as if dismissing what Lucien said. “Something has stirred the changeling. Neither she nor her cousin is in place. Danni has tracked the cousin but the changeling will evade her — as she is wont to do. Our strike on Midas is also uncertain — someone is meddling in our efforts.”

Tristan wished he knew who or what Midas was. It reminded him again of how little he’d been involved in the overall battle plan. Most of what he knew, he’d gleaned from careful observation.

“Mice,” Adele whispered. “Most likely.”

If anyone else heard her complaint, they ignored it.

“I can deploy my little brother to investigate,” Lucien said. “He can go into the city without a second glance from anyone.”

It made a good cover story to explain Tristan’s absence as he searched for Boo.

Heaven’s Blessing flicked his hand, allowing the venture.

Lucien nodded his acknowledgment, only a slight loosing of his hands to indicate his excitement.

Tristan was glad he had on the oni mask so that he didn’t need to control his face. He wasn’t sure what emotion he should have displayed. Excitement for Lucien? Eagerness for their father? Cool disinterest for the Eyes?

Lucien was updating their father. “Turtle Creek was no longer viable. The levels of magic here are suitable. The platform was not damaged by Malice or the rebels. We have made the needed preparations.”

By saying “we” instead of “I,” Lucien shared the credit with him despite the fact that Tristan hadn’t done anything. It was a safe gift considering Lucien’s spellcasting prowess.

“Let us proceed,” Heaven’s Blessing said.

Tristan had been working out a cover identity longer than he realized. While he’d been searching city records for a child that the Kryskills wouldn’t know but could verify existed, Lucien and his most trusted people had taken the wooden covers off the massive white marble casting circle, and cleaned the stone until it gleamed. There was no need to check the power levels of the fiutana; the flow of magic was so strong that it was visible to the naked eye.

Lucien had traced out the complex transformation spell, most likely similar to the one he’d used to transform his beloved Boo from human to tengu. At its center were connection points that would interlock with the spell tracings on the nactka’s shell.

Heaven’s Blessing took off his duster and handed it to Felicie. He walked out onto the casting circle, his bootsteps loud on the stone. He said nothing but nodded at what he saw. “Put the nactka into place.”

Lucien took the large egg-like nactka out of its bag and carried it to the center of the spell. He turned it slightly, eyeing the spell tracings, until he was sure it was perfectly aligned, and then set it into place. With the nactka in place, he added the blood taken from Jewel Tear while she had been drugged.

“Thousands of years I’ve worked and planned and waited for this day,” their father said. “I had a palace grander than anything Earth has ever seen. An empire that stretched from the shores of the Great Western Ocean to the islands off the coast of the Far East Sea. The idiots burned it all to the ground and then squabbled over the cinders. We will take it back and rebuild to the grandeur that it once was. We start now.”

Heaven’s Blessing spoke the initiation word, activating the spell. The outer shell of the spell took form and rose up to rotate clockwise. A second and third shell shimmered into being as Heaven’s Blessing triggered the limiters. They canted up to spin counterclockwise at 45- and 135-degree angles. The magic grew dense, a visible shimmer. The power spread inward, activating segment after segment, spiraling inward toward the nactka.

The last shell encircled the nactka, waiting for the final parameters.

Heaven’s Blessing raised his hand and spoke: “Nota. Kirat. Naerat. Dashavat.”

With each parameter command, the interlock activated at a cardinal point on the nactka. After the last, it sat there pulsing with potential.

With a quiet, pleased smile, Heaven’s Blessing spoke the last command.

The spell activated in a blinding flash and a blast of warm wind that sent the dead leaves swirling away. Tristan felt the power wash over him, backed by the full strength of the fiutana. The fine hairs on his arms rose.

“It is done,” their father said. “The domana will fall and we will take the Westernlands. Once we have this bastion secure, we will take Winter Court.”