In Arcadia

Chapter Fourteen

A girl called Rose was dancing with a tiny flying sea serpent in the fountain on Porphery Mountain. The sea serpent was blue and silver, with trailing scalloped fins. The girl strongly resembled a slightly-older Ys: an interesting choice given how very different the two girls were. Deciding the name was a compliment, Laura waved until the girl splashed over, the serpent disappearing from view.

"Look, Unna Laura." Rose-Lira held out her hand to display an Ouroboros brand in the centre of her palm. "Its name is Nimenny. I’m splashing because Nimenny likes it."

"That was quick!" Lira had obviously had no trouble with her first teszen. "Mine was very grumpy, and doesn’t seem to like anything at all."

"You sound very funny, Unna Laura. Isn’t it strange how our voices come out all different from how we’ve said them?" Lira was looking about. "I don’t see your friend. Isn’t he coming?"

"I’m a little early," Laura said, hiding a smile at the unabashed curiosity. "I’m glad you’re here. He’s bringing his daughters for me to meet, and now I won’t feel quite so outnumbered."

"How many daughters?"

"Two. You’ve met them before: they came to your Mum and Dad’s wedding. Allidi and Haelin."

Rose-Lira’s head came up, her eyes round. "Is your friend Tsur Selkie?"

"That’s right."

Lira’s amazed delight turned to suspicion. "His daughters are Kalrani."

"They are," Laura agreed readily. "I’m a little nervous to meet them, really."

"Why?"

"They’re both Sight Sight talents. And…let’s just say I want to make a good first impression."

Laura’s strategy worked: Lira was diverted back to the fascinating discovery that Unna Laura had a special friend.

"Why do you need to meet them in this game? They live in Pandora."

"They’re visiting Meziath at the moment. Gidds travels a lot, and the game lets me spend a little more time with him. Besides, I like games."

Laura spotted Ruvord-Gidds then, and raised a hand in greeting. With him were a pair of girls who stood almost equal to him in height—like Lira they’d chosen the upper age limit allowed for minors playing the game—but not closely resembling his Ruvord. Named Dakal and Zenneth, they were long-limbed, elegant and graceful, and gazed at her with cool interest.

Laura had not been able to avoid fretting over meeting Gidds' daughters, not least because their Sight Sight meant any nerves, minor irritations, and false enthusiasms would not necessarily be private. She had decided the most she could do was be forthright and friendly, and hope for the best.

Because it mattered whether they liked her. It would matter to Gidds. It mattered to Laura.

Wondering how much of this was clear to the girls through the filter of the game, she smiled at them and said hello. "You’ll have to tell me which is Allidi and which Haelin, I’m afraid."

"I’m Allidi," said Zenneth.

Dakal said: "Haelin," and then looked from Gidds to Laura: "Should we use our proper names or the game names when talking to each other?"

"The game names when other people are around, I guess," Laura said. "Though I gather so many people pretend to be Cass and her family any slips of the tongue are likely to be dismissed."

"I met one who was being me," Lira said. "She didn’t sound like me at all, but a few people seemed to believe her." From the face Lira made, it had not been a complimentary impersonation.

"Li—Rose has already contracted with her first teszen," Laura told the others. "If you’ve collected a mission for us, Ruvord, we’re all ready to set out."

Gidds nodded. "We’ll be taking the airship to Mris."

"I know where the docking platform is," Haelin said, shedding cool reserve to bounce a little.

"Then lead the way," Gidds told her, hanging back as she obeyed so that he could walk with Laura.

"Hello," she said quietly.

He brushed the back of her hand with his fingers. Such a small thing to leave Laura glowing with outright pleasure, simply because he wanted to greet her with that touch even though it would give him vertigo.

"What are you doing in Meziath?" Lira asked, trailing the sisters with a certain amount of reluctance.

"Looking," Haelin replied.

"We’re touring all the towns on the teleport network," Allidi added, carefully polite. "In one of them, perhaps, we’ll keep a house to go to during longer holidays."

"Oh, a summer house," Lira said. "Cassandra talks about getting one of those every winter, though she hasn’t yet."

"What would it be called when it’s winter where the house is?" Allidi asked.

Lira shrugged, and three pairs of eyes immediately turned to Laura. Sight Sight need to know in triplicate. Mildly amused, Laura explained the difference between a house you visited to get away from the heat of summer, and a holiday house—that presumably would be located where it was summer during Arcadia’s winter.

"So Cassandra is using the word wrong?" Allidi asked.

"I suspect deliberately changing the meaning," Laura said. "Do you like Meziath?"

"Yes," said Allidi.

"No," Haelin said, glanced at her father, and continued: "It’s not terrible, but I don’t like being at the bottom of the trees."

"Everything feels a little loomed-over there, doesn’t it?" Laura said.

"Like standing with grown-ups," Haelin said absently, then pointed. "Look, the airship’s already at the dock. Let’s run!"

They ran, an effortless thing in the game, although their avatars still took on plummy hues and panted. Laura laughed as they flung themselves aboard the gondola just as the mooring ropes were cast loose, and cheered Lira, who was last to make the leap.

"Well done," she said, hugging the girl. "Even in the game it’s still scary jumping a gap like that."

"I would have fallen a long way," Lira said, gazing interestedly over the railing of the gondola. "What is Mris?"

"An island a little closer to the main point of damage," Gidds told her and—since Lira obviously hadn’t spent any time on the game’s backstory—explained how a strange object had fallen from the sky and struck the island of Ramara, and a burning miasma had rapidly spread, fracturing the land so that most of the island had vanished beneath in-rushing water. Mris was starting to see small spots of this corruption.

There were other passengers, most of whom directed only disinterested glances their way, but one pair listened to Gidds' explanation as attentively as Lira. Laura smiled at the way he shifted so that they would be able to hear him more easily.

The trip between islands was barely long enough for Gidds to set out the basics, and then they were spilling out of the gondola onto a mooring platform above a walled town, clattering down wooden stairs, and heading straight out into orchards.

Laura, as ever, thoroughly enjoyed the chance for a scenic walk and this was particularly lovely: long rows of trees, the sweet-sharp scent of fruit ripening in sunshine, and strange drooping…were they insects or birds? White gossamer puffs of down that could well be dandelion seeds, except that they would whir off whenever anyone strayed too close. She was glad to see Allidi and Haelin drop some of their formality and join Lira in trying to get close enough to see one properly. Gidds caught at Laura’s fingers again, and she smiled at him, knowing he was pleased.

"Do you think they have a teszen, Unna—Angharad?" Lira asked, trotting back. "But we’re not hunting new teszen at the moment, right?"

"I expect if we met one we could ask it to lend us its power," Laura said. "But no, we’re here to find damage to the island and try to repair it. Look for…" She paused, and then pointed in the direction that the downy puffs had fled. "I think what we’re looking for might well be over there."

The puffs had gathered in great numbers around a collection of grey dimples that interrupted the neat grass stripes separating the rows of trees. The puffs perched in branches, or spiralled in small clouds above each dimple, and although the air smelled sulphurous, it wasn’t until Laura was standing nearly on the rim of the nearest that she understood that they must be attracted by the rising heat.

"It’s called grey scar," Allidi told Lira, pointing to watermelon-sized pocks spreading from the edge of the dimples. "We should be able to close the little ones on our own, but we’ll have to work together to get the bigger holes to go away."

"Nimenny knows what to do," Lira said confidently, and proved it by holding her hands out toward the nearest pock mark and conjuring a swirl of water. In moments the grey-black patch had been erased, smoothed out to the healthy brown of rich, fertile earth.

Laura, who now had two novels' worth of backstory to draw upon, concentrated on the paw print branded onto her wrist, and asked the kirr-tut teszen to lend its strength. All the teszen were aligned to a series of elemental wheels—a combination of the typical water strong against fire and weak against ice configuration, but intersecting with sharp and fast and silk and other complexities. A kirr-tut was aligned to bone/fast, and when Laura asked for aid it flickered into existence and seemed to fill in a pockmark by scratching surrounding dirt into it.

The larger dimples of the grey scar were not so easily dealt with, since they required carefully timed elemental combinations, and reacted to attempts to close them with little jolts of force and gusts of rotten-egg miasma that had to be shielded against, blown away or dodged.

It was a tricky form of combat, and far harder to master than clicking through skill buttons, but it was not too long before the last of the dimples closed over, and only healthy earth remained.

"We did it!" Lira cheered, then sat down. "I feel tired even though I’m really just lying down."

"That took a lot of concentration," Laura agreed. "I think we scared all the puff balls away, too."

"What is this?" Haelin asked, using the toe of her boot to expose a dully-glinting object buried in the soil.

"Melted glass, perhaps?" Laura suggested. "I know you’re supposed to get crafting materials as a reward for repairing damage."

Haelin nudged to expose it further, then picked up an elaborately whorled blue-green object that resembled a blown-glass decanter.

"Musical instrument?" Lira suggested. "Like a horn to blow through?"

"Dzo, there’s something…" Allidi began.

Dzo'—short for 'dzozen'—was an equivalent of 'dad, and she turned to Gidds, who responded with a nod, and his brief smile.

"Too hasty," he told Haelin. "It is a trap, not a reward. I can feel it waiting to trigger."

"Don’t try to put it down," Allidi added. "I think that’s what sets it off."

"Not crafting material?" Haelin shot Laura a reproachful glance.

"I wasn’t warned of traps at the Hall of the Weaver," Gidds said, ignoring a sudden jut to Haelin’s lower lip. "Is there any mention in the books you’ve been reading, Laura?"

"Nothing. I think I’ll ask Julian—he’s been playing a lot more than I have."

Laura: Hey kiddo. In Red Exchange, what do you do with weird bits of glass left behind when you clear grey scar?

Julian: Gems, Mum. Get them made into necklaces and they’ll boost your teszen’s strength.

Laura: Not gems. Something like a vase or a glass horn.

Julian: ! Is it kind of bruise-coloured? Send me a screenie.

Laura obediently emailed him an image of Dakal and her whorl of glass.

Julian: Star Claw! OMFG, Mum, where are you? Give me your map coordinates.

Laura: So demanding. So unexplainy.

It was surely Laura’s imagination that brought her Julian’s exasperated cry all the way from his bedroom. She read the detailed response that followed, and then told Haelin: "You’ve thrown Julian into a welter of excitement. This is apparently a rare item that will trigger a major event. Still, unfortunately, a trap. He says to not give it to anyone else, or leave the immediate area. Both will trigger it."

"What kind of event?" Haelin asked, brightening.

"The corruption will try to make a serious incursion on Mris. In the form of…" She paused, then read: "…tentacles of ultimate doom. When it appears, players will come frantically running from all the islands, because if it’s not beaten back, Mris will start to break apart. Being first on site gives the greatest chance of gaining some very nice rewards. Julian’s guild—ah, band—is asking very nicely for us to tell them where we are, and for you try to hold off triggering the event until most of them are here."

Haelin was a psychic psychic, and had spent several years training to fight semi-real monsters, but she was still a youngster who plainly found the idea of sending a wave of players running most gratifying.

"If they can help me not get killed that would be good, too," she said.

"All right," Laura said, and relayed the map coordinates. "Julian says it will only be a few minutes—few joden—before the first of them reach us, but it will be at least a quarter-kasse before there will be enough of the band here to start. The best thing to do is to stay very still."

"So we just stand around?" Haelin asked, more in token protest than annoyance.

"We were ready for a break anyway," Gidds told her. "Go to the bathroom if you need to—we will probably be very busy in a few minutes."

"Dzo." A whole world’s dignity and reproach in a single syllable.

Lira, who had been idly poking the fresh dirt where the Star Claw had been uncovered, said: "Does Julian have a secret name as well, Unna Laura?"

"Alexander." Anticipating Sight Sight this time, Laura went on to explain middle names once again.

"May I ask you a question about your family name, Tsa Devlin?" Allidi asked, in her calm, direct way. "I’m not certain if it is an impolite question in Earth culture."

Laura nodded, and was not surprised to be asked whether Devlin was her own family name. Muina, Tare and Kolar were all matrilineal, and she could see where Allidi might be confused. Laura was only glad Gidds had explained a little about his own family’s situation, allowing Laura to avoid awkward return questions.

"Devlin is Cass' father’s family name. I kept it in part because having the same family name is less confusing for schools." Laura grinned. "And because Cass objected strongly when I suggested she and Julian could swap to my family name."

"Why?" Lira asked, very interested. "What is it?"

"Jiglea." She pronounced it Jeg-lee-ah, as her father had. "Originally from a country called Romania. The problem being that English speakers, reading it, would pronounce it jiggly, which is, ah, duni, in Muinan."

Three pairs of eyes widened. Gidds kept his response to a barely audible: "Ah."

"They used to call us the Jiggly Sisters, when we were at school," Laura said. Which had been far more apposite for Sue and Bet, but Laura had hated it just as much.

"Cassandra Duni," Lira said reverently.

"Lira Duni," Haelin offered, and produced a flicker-smile the very image of her father’s.

"No."

Lira’s response held more than a hint of thunderstorm, so Laura reached for a quick diversion.

"Did Cass ever mention what selkie means on Earth?"

Sudden, fixed attention was answer enough, but before Laura could go on there was a shout from above.

A half-dozen golden birds swooped low, and a cluster of people leapt to the ground. None of these were Julian’s Space Ninja, but one was Corezzy, whom Laura was particularly interested in meeting. The avatar, at least, was that of a young man in a blue Adonis mould.

"Thanks for waiting!" said another player, an equally muscular young woman called Tzatch. "I’m leader of the Sky Wing." She nodded generally to Laura’s group, then went on directly to Dakal. "It’ll be a few joden before enough of us are here. I can talk you through some strategies, but chances are high you’ll get caught by the emergence whatever we do."

"It seems pretty harsh to have something like this lying around the new player areas," Laura commented.

"It’s a lucky find, really it is," Corezzy put in. "The person who triggers the Star Claw—well, there’s only been two before in the game, but each time the trigger got a powerful teszen out of it. And it made the teszen who fought the corruption node stronger, which explains why we all came scrambling here."

"What would happen if I just threw it as far as I could?" Haelin asked.

"No-one’s tried that, yet. You can if you want, but I don’t think it will help."

Laura was not surprised to receive a channel request from Gidds, and when she accepted she found all three Selkies in channel.

"We will be extremely distracted without an explanation," Gidds said.

"What happens if the need-to-know aspect of Sight Sight triggers and you can’t get an answer?" Laura asked, curious.

"Nightmares," Haelin said. "And feeling cross, and not being able to settle. And seeing things that remind you of it everywhere. Sometimes the answer puts itself together. Sometimes it itches for years."

"Sounds frustrating," Laura said, bringing Lira into the channel because she could see Rose frowning at her. She mightn’t have Sights, but Lira was very socially intuitive.

"This is a seal," Laura continued, showing them an underwater sequence from one of the documentaries Cass had spent the last few years translating.

"Tedan," Lira said. "They sometimes come out onto rocks near Kalasa."

Another animal that could be found on both worlds? But the Kalasan tedan would be in a freshwater habitat. And now was not time for further distraction.

"Selkies are mythological beings that are seals in the ocean, and shed their skin on land to assume a human form," Laura said briskly. "I can look to see if I have a selkie tale among the books I brought with me, and translate it for you. There are quite a few different traditions, but they tend to be quietly tragic stories."

And quite a lot of them involved some seriously problematic consent issues, which Laura wished she’d thought about before using the name as a diversion. She’d talk to Gidds about that first.

Fortunately Sight Sight seemed to be satisfied for the moment, as Allidi politely thanked her, and Haelin went back to asking Tzatch questions about surviving the Star Claw.

In short order nearly four dozen members of the Sky Wing band gathered—Julian’s Space Ninja arriving and offering a wave and a second glance at Rose. Tzatch, clearly an experienced guild leader, briskly divided her band members into groups with designated tasks and alternate roles for when the plan inevitably falls into the sea.

This settled, she turned back to Laura’s small group, but only to shrug. "Every little bit of damage counts, but your defences are all at baby levels. It’s up to you how much you want to mix in, but—well, we’ll revive you once it’s over."

At least it wasn’t a permadeath game. Laura glanced at Gidds to see how he was taking relegation to the sidelines, but found Ruvord surveying arrangements with a clinical air. He noticed her gaze and produced his flicker-smile before turning to Haelin.

"It will be very boring if I am caught for the whole time, Dzo," Haelin said.

"We will observe from a safe distance, and then focus on assisting you."

"When you throw the Star Claw, run in the other direction," Allidi advised.

Gidds nodded his agreement, then led Laura, Allidi and Lira along the neat rows of trees so that they could watch without their view being blocked.

Sky Wing had arranged themselves similarly, leaving Haelin-Dakal standing alone, looking very small but entirely self-possessed. At nine, she could only have been training as a Kalrani for a few years, but the Setari program was extremely intensive and disciplined, and Sight Sight talents definitely tended toward confidence.

Did being Gidds' daughter help, or simply add pressure?

Haelin certainly maintained her cool when Tzatch gave the signal. She swung her arm, hurled the Star Claw in the direction of the main cluster of Sky Wing, and then dashed directly toward her father.

The whorled glass horn spun end to end and—Laura was watching closely—stretched and changed shape as it did so. Haelin, although she moved at the maximum speed the game would allow, had no chance to escape the expanding twists and whorls.

Purple and shimmering, the Star Claw bloomed and grew, opening into something similar to a sea anemone or a cactus dahlia: hundreds of narrow petal tentacles curving up and around a protected centre. That, no doubt, would be where Haelin’s Dakal would be.

"I can’t even see," Haelin said, still in the channel where they’d been discussing names.

"Trying to fight your way out might earn you upgrades for your teszen, though," Laura pointed out. "You certainly can’t miss from the inside."

"Wouldn’t miss anyway," Haelin grumped, but without real annoyance.

"Move further back," Gidds said, and they retreated as the petals grew ever-larger, the ground sinking beneath them, and the nearest trees tumbling sideways.

Members of Sky Wing were already attacking the bruised starburst of a flower, but Laura was not surprised to see their initial efforts have no visible impact. An encounter designed to be a game-wide event would likely require enormous numbers of players. Tzatch clearly knew this, and was merely testing possible strategies.

Veteran of more than a few large, imaginary battles, Laura guessed the Star Claw would likely phase through vulnerabilities—most likely connected to the elemental wheels—but there was no obvious signal such as a colour change to indicate the shift. She asked Gidds if he could see anything.

"It’s definitely changing vulnerabilities," he said. "There doesn’t appear to be a visual signal."

"Nimenny can tell," Lira said, shifting her weight from foot to foot, then added over the interface channel. "It doesn’t hurt to be stuck in there, does it?"

"No." Haelin’s response was brief, dismissive. But then, in a slightly altered tone, she added: "I’m in a jelly bubble. I think it works like a shield. I guess I’d just exit the game if it hurt."

Laura glanced at Gidds, and he gave her the faintest nod. That had been a deliberate choice to reassure, then. Only nine, Haelin had still recognised and effortlessly responded to the anxiety that lay behind the question of a girl who had once been cruelly trapped.

Sight Sight. So helpful, so disconcerting.

And so very much a factor in her future. She sent Gidds a direct message.

Laura: You look like you’re enjoying yourself. I was worried that things like this would feel too much like the massive ionoth attacks to you.

His flicker-smile made an appearance.

Gidds: In part it’s because there are so many excited players. Even though they’re not physically here, it’s impacting Place and Sight Sight. The combat doesn’t bother me—simulations without injuries are merely challenges.

Laura: I’m glad.

Gidds: Would you like to come with us next week? A two-family outing?

Laura hesitated, glancing at Allidi.

Gidds: They will enjoy a larger group.

Laura wondered, but expected it was worth trying. Cass would be off on a visit to her in-laws, but mixing Julian and Sue with Allidi and Haelin would be a significant step, while being less awkwardly Sight Sight Duo faces off with potential Wicked Step-mum.

But first, a rescue.