Chapter One...

So this is my entire chapter one. The same thing I said last time applies to this new post as well. You steal it, I kill you. Happy reading!

CHAPTER ONE
Of all those who came to Ival Nue from Earth, only one fell from the sky. While the others had traveled with a charm or spell about them, which opened a realm-gate and allowed them passage, the woman had merely a stone. Amethystine and small and uncut by jeweler’s hands, it was set into a silver pendant and strung on a fine silver chain. It was one of Ival Nue’s great treasures, though after three hundred years away from that land’s mana-rich air, it had lost much of the power besides realm-passage it possessed.

The woman appeared above the sunken islands of Valendar, where the old realm-gates now laid dormant, on the eve of the weeklong Celebration of Harvest. She was unconscious even before she began to fall. The stone around her neck whipped in the wind, cracking against her chin and jaw, making little lines of blood as she fell headfirst towards Falhast River. She flew, her arms outstretched, her legs beneath the folds of her skirts smacking against each other in the wind’s currents. From five hundred feet she fell, and if not for the mana entering into her system, absorbing into her blood, the impact of soft flesh on lotic river would have killed her. The surge of magical energies, alien to her system, made her like stone, impervious while it gathered in her body.

The water of Falhast River was ice cold at this time of year, just before the land hardened and the killing frost came, but she knew nothing of cold or pain. Nor did she feel the calloused hands that grasped at her long sleeves and pulled her aboard a small river lighter, where she was laid flat atop a large wooden crate, or those that carried her gently onto the galleon from which the lighter had been launched. As they boarded, one of the deck hands rang the vesper bell, signaling the shift change from day to evening crew.

“She fell from the sky, she did, not twenty feet afore our boat, sir,” said the man who was the largest of the three that came aboard. He was heavy-laden with bags and crates of goods from the lighter.

“Aye, she did sir," said the shortest, skinniest, of them. He also carried goods from their evening raid. “A right sylph from up cloudways.”

“Set her in my cabin, please, Captain,” said the speaker to the third man, who was medium-sized and carrying the girl. “Graystock, send for Harrigan to bring our prisoner up from the hold.” The speaker had empery over the ship, even over its captain, Kalfast Vannelth, and though his hauteur often annoyed the crew, if the captain did as he asked, so did they.

“What think you Milord?” asked Mr. Vannelth, setting the woman on the bed in the corner of the dark cabin. The boy closed the door behind them.

“Sylphs are not but legend, Mr. Vannelth. She is something, certainly, but a maid of legendry is most unlikely.” The boy had moved to the desk, which shared a wall with the bed’s headboard, where he lit the three candles atop it, bringing a dim yellow light into that corner of the cabin.

“Her skin is on fire,” said Mr. Vannelth, laying her limp arm across her stomach and covering her with one of the blankets folded at the end of the bed. “She was pulled from the frozen river, she should not be feverish.”

“We must wait for the acolyte’s judgment. His master is the Healer Prophet; he will be able to help her.”

The speaker, called, Guynruul, knelt beside the unconscious woman. Sylphidine indeed she was, a pleasing bone structure and pale of complexion, a stark contrast to his and Kalfast’s deep olive skin tone, though perhaps it was her hair, tightly curled from the effect of the water, and flaming orange-red, that set her apart. In the dusk outside, she had not seemed so strange, but by the candlelight, her foreignness was apparent.

The young woman was dressed elegantly in a gown of flowing mazarine satin, with a decorative edging of silver. The fabric was torn and imperfectly sewn in places suggesting it was very old, rather than that it had been distressed by the stones of the riverbed. Caught around the sleeves of the gown, which had already begun to dry beneath the warmth of the down blanket, were a few strands of riverweed, browned and broken from the riverbed as the cold had killed it. These Kalfast untangled and dropped to the floor.

“She looks to be a noblewoman,” said Mr. Vannelth. He studied her as Guynruul did. “Her gown is very fine and I have never seen such exquisite features.”

“Indeed, but from which family, I cannot be certain. Her garment suggests one of the houses of Azadiirachtha, but of centuries ago. That has been out of fashion in the court at least that long.”

“We would know her, too, if she was a courtier of the King Lands.”

“True. Perhaps a lordling’s daughter from Vernalis, fallen from an airship?”

“It is possible, but Vernalis’ lords are mostly of the Ivernna. Her hair and skin are wrong for that race, which we share. Indeed, were she not breathing, I would have thought she had been dead some time to turn such a shade of white.”

“Her hair, at least, is wrong for any race. I have never seen its like. Nor have I seen a stone like the one she wears since before my exile,” said Guynruul. He reached out to touch the pendant, but the sound of Harrigan’s heavy footsteps on the deck outside stopped him. “Enter,” he called, even before Harrigan knocked.

Harrigan, the large, hairy prison warden that stood in the doorway, was a man of few words. He rarely required them to keep his prisoners in line, and when he was given a brave sort to guard, one of his low, guttural growls usually finished the job his terrifying look had begun. The smaller man he pushed before him, ripped and carved with wrinkles, head shaved like an ascetic, his wrists shackled behind his back with chains and cuffs that weighed almost more than he was able to keep lifted, looked unafraid. The old man, who was dressed simply in mahogany-colored robes that almost matched the shade of his skin, glanced quickly at the woman, and he kept the small smile that wanted to curl his lips in triumph from revealing what he had just won. The warden shoved him into the small cabin, and he stumbled without his arms for balance, and had to catch himself hard with his chest on the post at the foot of the bed. He righted himself, regaining his balance and his dignity.

“Acolyte of Magna’ari," began Guynruul, “you see before you a woman dying who I would like to see not dying the near future. As a man of healing, you are oath-bound by your prophet to help her. Are you equipped to perform the healing?”

“Of course, young master, if the brute over there brought my vials he confiscated up with us.” Harrigan handed the mass of glass vials, each containing a distinct liquid or powder, to Guynruul, who needed both hands to accommodate them all.

“Which do you need?”

“The field serum, the clear one with the yellow liquid. And I will need use of my hands.” The acolyte spoke in the accent of Illien Kroul, where his order had begun, prolonging his r’s and l’s.

“Very well, but you will remain shackled in some fashion. At the first sign of trickery, you will be executed, the girl and the price on your head be damned.”

“A strict policy, young master.”

“In effect out of necessity, I assure you.”

The acolyte nodded and allowed Harrigan to realign his hands in front of his body and shackle them again. He moved to the girl without another word; he touched her hand, then her face, then the pendant at her throat, where his hand lingered a moment.

“This must not be removed till she has healed completely. It is all that keeps her alive now. My vial please.”

Guynruul placed the field serum in the old man’s hand. He shook it gently; the thick amber fluid coated the inside walls of it. He twisted the lid open and applied a small amount of the contents to the young woman’s forehead and drew in the puddle a pattern of healing: concentric circles and a cross through them that extended down to the bridge of her nose.

The field serum took an instant effect, seeping into her skin, mixing with her blood, circulating swiftly through her system. The acolyte knelt beside her, mumbling some ancient enchantment beneath his breath so only he and she could hear it. When finally he had finished, a full five minutes later, he stood and turned to Guynruul and Kalfast, who had been watching intently from the darkness of the wall on the other side of the cabin.

“The serum will calm the mana-fever,” he said, “and my spell has mended some injuries and an illness she carried here with her. The mana-fever, though, will last at least a day, calmed or not. She will need constant care.”

“Mana-fever? There has not been a case of mana-fever in Ival Nue in three centuries. Not since…”

“Since the last of the Earthfolk passed through the realm-gates,” finished the acolyte for him. “You see for yourself she looks unlike anyone born of this world. We are of the Ivernna and the Emhla and she is of a race unknown to this land since the days of often-passage.”

“How did she get through? Though we sail near it, the Valendar Skerry is sunk, the realm-gates sealed and hidden…”

“The jewel that protects her life while she is in mana-fever is what granted her passage. It is an ancient stone from before the realm-gates were opened. She seems a great mystery, does she not, young master?”

“Yes, quite.” Guynruul was becoming annoyed at the way the old man addressed him. “Harrigan, take him back to the hold. If he speaks, you may poke at him with your sword.” Harrigan took the acolyte’s vials back from Guynruul and faced his prisoner with a wide, happy grin, excited by the prospect of physical violence. He took hold of the old man and pushed him quickly from the cabin. Mr. Vannelth shut the door and turned to Guynruul.

“I have a suspicion of him, Milord,” he said. “His being captured just as his services are needed aboard the ship seems too great a coincidence.”

“I agree. What is your decision, Captain? What shall we do with him?”

“We will return him to his order at Illien Kroul and let them sort him out. Once we have our money, he will be of no further trouble to us.”

“Aye. And what are we to do with the girl?”

“We might leave her with the temple at Menziesii when we make port. They can surely find some use for her.”

“I am not certain she would be suited for a nunnery. I do not believe they would take her in. She looks strange and would draw unwanted attention.”

Kalfast paused a moment, and a solution occurred to him. “I could ask The Book. She will have some proper advice.”

“That old hag has lost the gift, Kalfast. I would not trust her word.”

“We may have to Milord.”

“And what do we do with the girl if The Book can offer us nothing?”

“Then, Milord, we take her with us to Thetred. My sister lives alone there and could do with a companion, I think. Kesserley is a gifted herbalist, too, and the girl would be well taken-care-of.”

“Think you not the girl might be dangerous? The threat the Earthfolk posed in the past is the reason the realm-gates were sealed in the first place.”

“Look at her, Milord. She is so small and thin and was obviously ill and injured. I doubt she is dangerous. I would not have suggested sending her to my sister if I thought otherwise.”

Guynruul nodded, conceding his point. “Kesserley would be willing to be so-burdened, then?”

“Since her husband passed she has been in want of a companion and a person to look after. She will be delighted at the prospect.” Mr. Vannelth knew the deep sorrow of his sister; her husband had been his closest friend and a great champion of the hunt in Thetred.

“I will leave arrangements to you then, Captain.”

“I shall send one of my kestrels ahead to give word of our arrival so that a bed may be prepared for the girl.”

“Very good. Send your kestrel, then return to watch her tonight. I know your raid was long and tomorrow will be long for you as well, but I have no skill in this and tonight will be the night she is worst off.”

“Of course, Milord. I shall return directly.”

Mr. Vannelth bowed once and left the cabin for his own. Guynruul sighed and stared at the girl, and hoped, for his own sake, she would recover and he could be rid of her. It was his belief that girls who fell from the sky were more trouble than they were worth, no matter how beautiful they happened to be. Especially girls from a realm that had been sealed off for three centuries.



P.S. Sorry about all the spaces in between paragraphs, but I don't feel like coding indents. *Smiles at her own laziness*