“Here are your escorts,” the Queen Ransomed said, smiling warmly at them.
“For as long as you need us, and I’m very curious who you are to pull so many strings,” said the tallest of these newest arrivals, a goldish-gray Pelted female with incisive hazel eyes.
They had gathered at the palace’s private landing pad because the vessel conveying him offworld was capable of atmospheric landings. A handsome ship, though—Qora was distracted by its curved surfaces and burnished metal flanks, and had to remind himself to pay attention to the crew. He didn’t anticipate keeping company with them long, but the Queen Ransomed thought highly of them, which was at least worthy of investigation.
“This,” the Queen said of the second female, who was now standing alongside her after embracing her, “is Laniis. My first friend among aliens. I also give you to my former Knife, who served me well in that capacity before he became the Liaison. So you see, you go with both Chatcaavan and Alliance allies into your venture.”
“My venture is merely delivery to my homeworld,” Qora said dryly.
“Like a mysterious package?” said the first female, ears twitching forth. “Fair enough. We’ll get you there and see what happens next.”
“That’s what we do,” said Laniis. “A lot of seeing what happens next.” She studied Qora with interest before offering her palm. “I haven’t met many Faulfenza.”
“I am Qora Paunene Zela.”
“This is the captain of the UAV Silhouette, Meryl Osgood. She’s in charge of our hold… that’s our Fleet Investigation Agency team.”
Qora glanced at the dragon standing near the captain, a short blue-gray male with unusually dark eyes for one of his kind. “Is the Knife also part of the team?”
“I am the Liaison,” the dragon said. “There is a new Knife now, and I am not he. But yes. I am… an attaché. From the Empire. An observer. I serve my Queen.” He bowed to her. “It is good to see you looking so well, Breath of the Living Air.”
“And to see you in good spirits,” the Queen said before addressing Qora. “These people were a great aid to us during the events leading into the war and throughout it. I trust your safety to them, and am grateful the Alliance was willing to assign them to your errand.” She held out her hands, and Qora took them, feeling a rush of fondness. He had met many Others by now, some so evil his skin prickled with instinctive revulsion at the memory of them. But the Queen had been a blossom born from the ashes of a cruel and twisted society, and he had seen nothing in her but goodness. They had lived through a great deal together, on the pirate base and beyond. He regretted this parting.
“Thank you,” he said. “I enjoyed my visit.”
“Did you?” She smiled. “I can hope. And perhaps, you will return with more to show us.”
“I will be certain to,” Qora replied, because if he was sure of anything, it was that he would be back to unriddle an Other who could speak in the God’s tongue.
“Well,” Osgood said after the Queen departed, taking her guards with her. “I suppose we should be getting on.” She grinned, showing pointed teeth. “I’ve never seen Qufiil.”
“It is worth seeing,” Qora said. “You’re welcome.”
* * *
His minders were to be the Queen’s friend and former guard, he saw. Self-appointed? Or chosen by their captain, or the Queen Ransomed? He wondered, but was too amused to ask and potentially disrupt their plans. He liked the juxtaposition of the small, furry female with her small, scaly friend. That they were friends was obvious, and unlikely. Nor was he the only one who found it so, because when he met the remainder of the crew, small cues betrayed their feelings about the relationship. Unlike Qora, they had had time to accustom themselves to their Chatcaavan addition, but he caught the stray glance or expression that made clear how bemusing they found Laniis and the Liaison.
In keeping with her nature, for she was of the species that loved languages and involved itself in first contacts, Laniis wanted to know everything about him, the Faulfenza, Qufiil. In keeping with his nature, Qora told her very little. Her frustrations made her crewmates laugh, which made her laugh, and he liked her for her willingness to be teased, and not to allow her disappointment to turn into resentment. For his part, he did what he did best, and observed… and mostly what he observed was that this was a very well-knit group of seven people—even the dragon—and they had the dangerous air of Other military personnel. Naturally, for he could not imagine what else would have satisfied the Queen Ransomed, in terms of guaranteeing the safety of one wayward Faulfenzair Eye.
It was hard to wait. He had spent some ninety years of his life on and off scoutships, but he hadn’t internalized distances—hadn’t needed to, because the point of those scouting missions had been exploratory, and one was cognizant most acutely of one’s company and how long one was away from Qufiil, not how far one had trekked. This ship was traveling at a good pace, or so the human had told him, but even so the trip from the Throneworld to Qufiil, directly, would take almost a month. A month!
“We can go faster if we have to,” she’d finished. “But this is already faster than most civilian ships will cruise.”
Faulza above. A month traveling, just to bring news to the WorldDancer and OverDancer. What would happen in that time?
He was too agitated to do more than observe the crew; when he was among them, he spent most of his time speaking very little and smiling and divulging nothing. What else? They were dropping him off at Qufiil, and that would be the last he saw of them. Though he thought, as the end of the trip drew nigh, that he would regret it. He liked this quick, small ship with its elegant lines and well-cared for bones… and he liked the crew, who filled its corridors with their camaraderie and the evidence of years of friendship and trust. It reminded him, inevitably, of the Willseeker, and he tried not to dwell too long on that.
* * *
“Oh,” Laniis breathed. “I didn’t think it would look like that.”
“That curtain of fire is sure dramatic,” drawled the tall furred male sitting in the navigator’s seat. Na’er, that one was called, with the long ears and properly shaped muzzle.
“Natural?” asked the Liaison, peering toward Qora.
“Yes,” Qora said, and before the dragon could relax, added, “And no, of course, not at all.”
The captain snorted, but she was smiling.
“Do we get shore leave?” asked the human at another station, hopeful. That was Shanelle, whose wildly curled hair had gone from magenta to tan in the few days he’d known her.
“If you really want it, I’ll ask,” said the captain. “But they had to shift the Mediger scale down an entire step to accommodate this place. It won’t pancake you, but it won’t be a walk in the park, either.”
The dragon glanced at Laniis quizzically, causing the latter to say, “The Mediger Scale is how we measure a planet’s gravity. From zero to nine, with most habitable planets between two and six.”
“That’s the Shelby range,” the human added. “The planets good for colonization.”
“Qufiil’s not good for colonization,” the captain said. “Not by our standards, anyway. It’s our new number nine.”
“Yet you are comfortable on this ship?” the Liaison asked Qora.
Qora wrinkled his muzzle to the eyes, and by now the crew had enough experience anticipating his typical responses to laugh or roll their eyes. The male at navigation said, “Wait, let me handle this one. ‘Don’t I look comfortable?’ How’d I do?”
“Very good,” Qora said. “You may make my quips for me in the future, if we find ourselves together again.”
“That might be the first leading statement we’ve heard from him!” the human exclaimed.
“Are you kidding?” Na’er huffed. “Every statement he makes is a leading statement. They just never go anywhere.”
Qora guffawed, delighted. “Truly, I will miss you all.”
“I didn’t get a chance to learn a single word of Faulfenzair,” Laniis lamented.
The human bumped the smaller female with an elbow. “You can use the u-banks, you know.”
“It’s not the same as learning from a native. Witness how inaccurate the original Chatcaavan database was!”
“Then I will teach you one word,” Qora said.
“I bet it’s goodbye,” Na’er said.
The human smirked. “Won’t take that bet.”
“Say iizi,” Qora said to the small, furred female.
Her shoulders eased from their excited tension. “That’s it? Iizi?”
“Even I can say that one, and humans are supposed to be bad at this. Easy!”
“What’s it mean?” Osgood wondered.
“It is food,” Qora said. “So you can ask for something to eat when you take your shore leave. You will like it. It is made with flower petal meal.”
“Flower… petal… meal? How do you make meal from flower petals?”
“Ah, that was good,” the captain said to Qora. “She’ll be thinking about that for hours. Also, Shanelle, you should have taken the bet.”
“You eat flowers?” the dragon asked.
Qora lifted his brow ridges. “You don’t?”
* * *
The Faulfenza had not had Pad technology prior to their encounter with the Pelted, and had not incorporated it into their way of living despite the near two centuries since signing the treaty. Their homeworld had none of the security consciousness of the Eldritch planet, where the Pads were set to pull incoming transmissions to preset nodes… no receiving stations with guards, no ceremony at all. The contrast was striking as he stepped over the Silhouette’s Pad and onto the ground outside Oolen’s place-of-meeting, with the perfume of the harvest riding heavily on the breeze. Qora paused to orient himself not just in the proper direction, but to the world’s weight, and the taste of its air in his mouth, and the slant and warmth of the light. It had been years since he’d last stepped foot on-world… not since the Willseeker’s last return home, and that had been years past. His long absences had never struck him as strange; he’d grown up in space, and spent as much of his life in orbit or abroad as he had on Qufiil’s surface. He’d always thought of himself as a creature of outer space. Why, then, did being home pierce his heart with this poignancy? So powerfully that he squared his shoulders and raised his chin against surrendering to it?
But he was being approached. Not, naturally, by guards: what Faulfenza would feel the need? They were just two of his people, the sun glossing their pelts, with their contrasting colors: black and red and cream and gray. It surprised him that they were so clearly there to receive him, in fact, but they were. Stopping before him, the nearest said, “Qora Paunene Zela? The WorldDancer is expecting you.”
“Yes,” he said, because of the many reasons she would be. “Lead me to her.”
* * *
Jan Naula, who presided over the more technological of the two planets comprising Qufiil, was awaiting him in one of the arcades. The vista framed by those columns was a long field burnished by the approaching autumn, promising bountiful harvests and cooler air. Qora had forgotten how vibrant Qufiil’s palette was, when the Eldritch world was all nuanced tints, like inks diluted in water. Against that bronzed jade backdrop, Jan-ai burned white… because she was also an Eye of the God. He’d known from worldcasts of her, but it was one thing to know and another to confront, to breathe the same air, to perceive that here was another of the rare, God-touched senses.
He couldn’t help himself. “I hope you know why I’m here.”
Her nose wrinkled, just a little rumple near the eye. Such a slight smile, but at least she’d found the joke funny. “Yes.”
Was it still a joke? He paused.
She gestured toward a monopteros at the end of the arcade. “Shall we?”
“Of course, WorldDancer.”
His coming really had been anticipated, because two facing chairs and a table had been set out, with a pitcher and cups. Qora wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting of the place-of-meeting, and wondered if habituation to Eldritch and Chatcaavan palaces had changed him. But he liked the open air, and the way the fragrance of the tisane mingled with that of the sun-heated grasses just beyond the stone floor. He liked the stillness created by the roof, which made the space feel private though it wasn’t. At least, not technically. In practice, they were alone, and he felt it acutely when they halted.
“Sit, Qora-ai.”
He eased onto the nearest of the two chairs. “I don’t know that I’ve earned respect from the WorldDancer.”
Another of those slight smiles. “Shall I make you uncomfortable by saying ‘not yet’?” At his expression, she chuckled. “Be at ease, Qora.”
He tried, but his shoulders kept trying to contract toward his neck. Smoothing his hands over his knees, he said, “I’m not sure how I should start, having never reported to someone of your prominence.”
“I regularly listen to, and attempt to resolve, conflicts as small as one family’s quarrel.” She reached toward the pitcher, a simple thing of glazed blue clay. “You have been too long among Others, to care about such things.”
“Even a Faulfenzair might respect his elders.”
That earned him another chuckle. “Fairly said. Tell me what sent you racing home, Qora. I assume it is Faulza’s errand.”
Qora couldn’t help his shudder, and a hand lit on his wrist. When he raised his head, the cool eyes of the WorldDancer were on his. “Breathe,” she said. “And then speak.”
“I went…” Another breath, and he couldn’t make it enter his lungs smoothly. His ribcage kept shivering. “I went to the throneworld of the Chatcaavan Empire. Because it amused me to think I might give its supreme ruler the gift of our shape. You know they change shape? Of course you do.” He managed a smile, though his muzzle’s top felt stiff. “Have you seen depictions of him?”
“I have seen recordings,” she said. “He is imposing, for such a small person.”
“Yes. And you know… he is colored like a Voice.” Qora forced himself to continue. “The coloring persisted into his borrowed Faulfenzair shape. He looked like a Voice. And… he Danced.”
Jan-ai leaned back slightly. “What did he say?”
Qora recited the words, exactly. He could not forget them, even separated from the sight of them by weeks, even having seen them solely once. Once had been enough. When the last word left his mouth, the cavern of it felt burnt, dry and tender, as if he had been swallowing flames.
A cup was pushed into his limp hand, and he grasped it to keep it from falling on his lap. “Drink,” said the WorldDancer, and he obeyed. The lukewarm tisane soothed him. He had done it—he had delivered his message to the highest authority of the Faulfenza. Now it was for greater powers to decide how to act on that information. Now he could leave matters in a more capable hand—
Jan-ai said, “It is time. You must find Daqan.”
His reverie shattered. “I’m sorry?”
“It’s time for Daqan to return. I’m not sure where he is, but you’ll find him for me, Qora, and bring him here.”
He stammered, “Daqan? The previous Voice? Isn’t he…”
“Dead?” Jan-ai smiled faintly. “No, merely abroad.”
“Abroad!”
His shock did not ruffle the WorldDancer’s composure. She had, he thought numbly, the calm he’d believed himself cocooned in, and was only now realizing had been complacency. He was an Eye of the God who knew himself to be where he should be at any given moment… why shouldn’t he be unmoved by the tribulations of life? And surely if he’d survived capture by pirates, enslavement, and war, he could congratulate himself on that calm being real. But it hadn’t been, had it? He could face every external perturbation with equanimity because what else could one expect of Others? They were violent and terrible. It was not until he was confronted with shocks closer to home, and his heart, that he knew it had all been a comfortable lie. He was as helpless as any of the Others he’d watched struggle.
“Abroad,” Jan-ai repeated. “The third messiah’s Voice left after we signed the treaty with the Alliance, with the intent of visiting the places Zafiil spoke of to us, as her intimates. She saw several planets on her journeys.”
Had he known that? Only in abstract. One learned the Scrolls, but somehow he hadn’t made the connection between the third FireBorn’s speaking of Others and the fact that she must have met them, personally. That she’d been an Emissary, like Paudii, one of the seekers who’d captained a scoutship. He had followed her path… unintentionally, to be sure, because it hadn’t been his plan. Not originally, anyway. And he was certainly the last person he would have chosen to befriend aliens on behalf of the Faulfenza, given his original misgivings about them. “Why me, Jan-ai? Surely there are other people you can send, people with a better idea where to look….”
“But no one knows where he is,” Jan-ai said. “And you are the person I want to send. You’re also the person, coincidentally, who has a vessel at his disposal. One with a varied crew of Others who can fill in the gaps of our knowledge, and escort you to whatever planet he might be on. Zafiil’s journeys took her mostly to the border, you know.”
He didn’t, obviously. But what he did was: “That was why you arranged the ship with the Queen Ransomed. This ship, filled with Other intelligence agents.”
The WorldDancer’s smile was broader now, almost, but not quite, a grin. “There’s no hiding from another Eye, I see.”
“It’s real, then,” he said. “The Dance was a true Dance. I taught an Other shapeshifter to mimic our shape and he spoke prophecy.” Another breath, and again he was shaking. “I’m going to see the Golden Age.”
“Yes,” Jan-ai said.
“Does that make the Chatcaavan Emperor the next Voice of the Faulfenza?”
She smiled again, gentler. “Go and find out, Qora.”
* * *
“So you’re back,” Na’er said.
“I wouldn’t want to be predictable,” Qora answered, easing to a seat in the ship’s conference room. He still liked the ship. He was glad, because he was going to be spending an indeterminate amount of time in it.
Laniis, filing into the room, awarded him a sunny smile. “I went to your Hearth. And I asked for iizi!”
He couldn’t help returning the smile, though his muzzle had not yet loosened. The memory of his interview with Jan-ai was persisting in an unsettling way. “Did you like it?”
“It was a lot like flatbread,” Laniis replied, fluffy tail swishing. “Yes, I liked it.”
The Liaison, who’d entered behind her, examined him with his enormous, draconic eyes. “You are staying?”
“He’s coming, more like,” Na’er said, twisting toward the door as Osgood entered. “Right, captain?”
“Right,” said Osgood, who gave Qora a good looking-at. “We’ve got our marching orders, and I assume you do too. Or at least, I hope you do, because I have no idea where we’re going. ‘Assist the Faulfenzair national’ was the extent of my mission packet.”
“Ohhh, we’re getting into another one of those, are we,” Na’er said.
“Since we’re exactly the kind of people Fleet sends to get into those kinds of missions… indeed, we are. So… Qora-alet?”
“I… I am supposed to retrieve one of my people who has gone missing,” Qora said.
“I hope you have more than that to go on,” muttered the data analyst, Patrick, a quiet type with a bicolored pelt.
“My WorldDancer tells me he might have tried a city of dragons and water, with boats and canals,” Qora said. “Some refugee work was done there. And… he has a ship, or at least, he left with a ship. An Alliance ship.”
“One of our ships?” Osgood picked up a slate and looked at him attentively. “When was this?”
Qora stretched his fingers beneath the tabletop. “Some hundred and seventy of your years ago.”
“We’re looking for someone who’s been missing for nearly two hundred years?” Shanelle, the human, said, incredulous. “Is he still alive?”
“Yes,” Qora said.
“I can’t imagine he’s still using the same ship,” Na’er said. “But Patrick and I can do a lookup, if you know anything about it.”
“Only the name,” Qora said. “The Slipstream.”
“Only a name. And not a rare one.” Na’er shook his head. “That’s going to take a while.”
Anxiety tried to close his throat. The feeling that he was where he should be didn’t matter as much as it should have when set against the possibility of disappointing the WorldDancer and failing in what could be one of the most important tasks of his generation. “Do you think you can do it?”
“If anyone can, we can,” Osgood said. “I’ll stake my life on it. And have in the past.” She grinned at her crew, provoking a set of matching smiles.
“Will it take long? My errand is urgent.”
“It’ll take as long as it takes,” Na’er said. “So maybe it’s for the best we have another lead to follow up on.” He met his captain’s gaze, resigned. “We just can’t get away from the place, can we.”
“Doesn’t seem it.” She rose from her chair. “Let’s get moving, ariisen.”
“Then… you know where we’re going?” Qora couldn’t stop himself from asking. What good an aura of mystery in the face of this far greater one?
“Che zuchek,” the Liaison said, wide-eyed. “I have never seen it.”
“You’re going to see it now,” Osgood said. “We’re going back to Sharsenne.”
As the meeting dispersed, Qora said to Laniis, “Should I ask?”
“About our history with Sharsenne?” the smaller female sighed, then chuckled. “There’s an abbey there that’s responsible for the work with the refugees you mentioned. We went there to help arrange for the flight of the palace’s civilians just before the war. We had to walk!”
Na’er grinned, pausing to lean against the doorframe. “But the food was good.”
“The food was good,” Laniis agreed. “But the walk was terrible. And I bet we’re going to have to make it again.”
“Che zuchek!” the Liaison murmured. “I have heard stories of its beauty.”