The Mirror of the Moon (Revenant Wyrd Book 2) Read online

  When Davis Hulen stepped out onto the dais before the large covered object, Jovian realized at once that even if they had been standing at the back of the crowd it would have been hard to miss him. Not only was his physical presence overwhelming, but the wyrd that came from him was also considerable.

  As a sorcerer, Davis Hulen looked to be in his mid twenties, though the power emanating from him suggested an age much older. His shaved head sported stubble in dark shades, though not as dark as Maeven’s. While his long willowy frame on most people would suggest frailty, on Davis it suggested a supple grace and wiry strength. He was tall, much taller than most people Jovian was used to, ranging well over six feet tall, with a slightly larger than normal nose.

  In his hands he carried a cane, more for show than any practical use, unless it concealed a knife. In the other he carried a strange canister that shimmered and glowed with yellow and black wyrd. The canister he sat on the podium, and then he cleared his throat. The crowds would not have any problem hearing him for his voice was projected over the gathering by some kind of wyrd.

  “Good evening,” he said. His voice captured a lazy drawl, yet with a deepness that suggested the strength his body only hinted at. “I assume you are all here to see the unveiling of my newest venture?”

  “Of course we are, you lack wit,” Grace scoffed to herself. “Why else would we be gathered in front of it?”

  “I call it an air ship; this particular one has been named Siren’s Song,” Davis’ voice echoed into the din, each wyrded word carrying well over the crowd. “The reason for this name becomes obvious when one realizes that it runs off nothing more than currents of air, harnessed by wyrd to travel where only birds have gone before!”

  “But how does it work?” Grace shouted over the rest of the people.

  “I am getting to that, my patient lady.” Davis smiled his winning smile at Grace, and like always she felt the flutter in her chest, though she would never concede that. “One would think it would take a lot of wyrd, and rest assured it does, though by combining air wyrd with liquid crystal, one of the greatest catalysts for wyrd, you will find it doesn’t take as much as previously thought.”

  He held up a crystal canister as big as his forearm. Within the canister could be seen swirling light, opalescent and yellow like sunlight in the dead of night. “It took me many years to figure out the exact combination of air wyrd and crystal that would work, and it was by sheer luck that I tried liquid crystal it was then that I realized the air in the liquid crystal canister created a type of air that is lighter than normal air. It was this gas,” Davis continued holding the canister higher, “that once filled into the large balloon hooked to the ship made flight possible.”

  Grace rolled her eyes and leaned closer to Jovian. “This is where he will pat his back about his discovery and make it sound all so simple really.”

  And he did. For the next hour or so he talked about his life up to the discovery, how he came up with the idea, and the extensive training he had in air wyrd. Finally he came back to the canister he had been holding for the whole time. Jovian wondered if the speech was rehearsed, for it didn’t seem to flow in any form that made much cohesive sense.

  “… So you insert this canister into its proper receptacle and voila—air ship! It is simple really. This canister is designed to influence the air around it so that minimal wyrd is needed from the sorcerer on board, but rest assured a wyrder that is adept at air will be needed to make such flight possible, for now.” He ended with a flourish, making Maeven and Jovian smile at Grace’s prediction.

  “But why would a sorcerer be needed on board if the canister does all the work?” a reporter with the Fairview Gazette asked.

  “I didn’t say that the canister does all the work, my lady,” Davis said with a winning smile. “A sorcerer would be the only person that would be able to repair the wyrd within the canister if something were to happen during flight, plus we need to have some way of steering the air ship. Though it looks like a normal boat, it is not. Instead of being hauled through the ocean with wind, we need wyrd on our side to influence that wind to carry us in the direction of our choosing.”

  “You said there was a balloon, but I don’t see anything,” Jovian spoke up. “All I see are sails.”

  “Ah, that is only because the balloon has not yet been inflated; that will happen once the canister is in place. See, this canister will filter air through it and into the balloon, filling it with the lighter air that will make the flight possible. Before you ask, it is wyrd that keeps it tethered down when flight needs to be prolonged.

  “See, the main problem we had when first taking flight was with the consistency of the air at flying height. Air is lighter the higher you go, so it makes breathing hard. After a few of the crew passed out from lack of proper breathing air, it was decided that a safe flying distance be observed. Thus we can’t fly as high as we would like at the time being, but I am sure given proper equipment it will make flying among the clouds much easier.” Before the reporter could say anything more Davis cut in. “A demonstration, if you would prefer, though at this time I am not able to take any passengers with me. The Board of Wyrding has its regulations, and they have yet to inspect my pride and joy.”

  “Who isn’t going to want to see a demonstration?” Grace asked breezily of Jovian and Maeven. But her words were not heard by Jovian who was all eyes for the Air Ship. The large canvas was pulled back with a thread of wyrd directed from Davis. It looked nothing more than huge oceanic ship come to rest in the middle of Saint Ismaidry’s Festival equipped with rigging and sails (though Jovian now knew those sails were really the deflated balloon), which was strange enough as ships were not something most people in the Great Realms were accustomed to seeing, for they were not close to any oceans.

  Davis slipped into a hatch on the bottom part of the ship, and once secured it was only a matter of time before the canister was in place and the ship was taking flight. The interim was filled with the crew on deck yelling commands and busying themselves with the balloon so that it would not contract a tear once the canister was installed and the canvas began filling with air. The platform that the ship sat on to ensure that it stayed erect grunted with the labors of those onboard.

  Finally someone yelled “okay” and there was a whooshing sound of air as the balloon began to inflate. The effort was rewarded with gasps and applause alike from those below watching the achievement on dreams.

  Grace could not help her clapping with everyone else, tears misting her eyes.

  It took a lot longer than Jovian would have thought for the balloon to fill with the wyrded air. Eventually the entire balloon was filled, and with a resounding pop the last of the crevices filled with air, and the crowd stared in awe at the massive balloon that floated above the ship some three times the size of the considerable ship.

  Davis then appeared on the deck and waved to them all, and with his appearance the crowd went wild once more with cheers and clapping.

  “So this is it?” Dalah sighed. “It should be me in there with him, flying off into the dawn.”

  “Now, now, dear,” Grace said clapping her friend encouragingly on the shoulder. “You both will live until your heads are removed; with that kind of life anything is possible.”

  Dalah scowled and turned to watch the ship slowly lift off the ground with the sound of crunching gravel at first, and then once removed from the earth there was no sound at all, not even the sound of the wyrded air that had filled the balloon moments before.

  And with clapping, cheers, and whistles, Dalah’s long time heartthrob went soaring off into the night, the massive balloon blotting out the light of the moon for a time. Then finally it passed far enough beyond their sights that the Siren’s Song was nothing more than memory.

  “Did you see the size of that thing?” Angelica asked, fanning herself rigorously from more than just the heat of the pressing crowd.

  “Yes, child, we were all here,” Grace said. D
espite her own glee at the air ship, she was torn. It shouldn’t be, she argued with herself. Humans weren’t meant to fly, and no matter how old she got she would still think that.

  “It is amazing,” Angelica gushed. “I can’t believe some of the things we have seen! I have read of some of the stuff we have come across, but others seem like tales from a book. Flying ships! Wow!” It was obvious from the way she gesticulated that Angelica was running out of words, but Jovian knew exactly what she meant. They had beheld some extraordinary wonders their time on the road, some things Jovian never thought possible, like the air ship, for instance.

  As Grace had silently predicted, the conversations about the air ship did indeed last all night, intermittent with their stops at other wonders. However, they were not the only people that engaged in incessant gossip about the Siren’s Song, or Davis’ cameo. Everywhere they went someone was saying something about it, and each time Grace heard the tale it only seemed to grow taller.

  “Soon they will forget that it was even an air ship at all that he left on,” Grace said, snapping her fan open in irritation as she futilely tried to cool herself. “Before long they will be saying that he took flight on a wyrm that he single-handedly called out of the Otherworld!” Dalah smiled her agreement. “It seems he managed it again, doesn’t it?” Grace directed to Dalah.

  “That it does; he has a way with a crowd,” she observed.

  They had missed the opening rituals of this night of the Saint Ismaidry Festival, but when people were not talking of the Siren’s Song they were chatting about the singing and the dancing that had happened.

  “You really should see it sometime,” Dalah was saying to them as they pressed through the throngs of people. “The festival grounds are open all week long, but at night is when the real festivities take place. The night is started off in homage to Saint Ismaidry, normally with a song in her praise by a diva of Realm renowned, and then dancing takes place, but it is more than a dance; it is almost like a moving prayer.” Dalah shivered. “Sometimes it is almost like the Goddess herself is moving the people, or at least present among us.”

  It was while listening to Dalah’s pleasant conversation that Jovian happened to look up just at the right time and saw someone he thought he knew, someone they all thought was dead. With a gasp he placed the dark façade almost immediately.

  Did you see that? Jovian asked Angelica.

  See what?

  I think the Tall Stranger is here, he replied, and just then he saw the black top hat through the crowd one more time. The feeling of bugs slithering up his legs came to him like they had when they first encountered the Tall Stranger in the Ravine of Aaridnay. However, this time the feeling was different, not like it was actually happening, but as if he was remembering the way it had felt the first time he came in contact with him.

  I don’t see anything, she responded, craning her head this way and that trying to see what Jovian was looking at.

  He is here, I know he is!

  I believe you, Jovian, but …

  Don’t you feel him? he asked desperately.

  A look of concentration came over Angelica’s face and then she sighed, shaking her head. No. The fan once more began to beat a weak breeze against her hot skin, but this time Jovian suspected it was more in frustration than any need to be cool.

  Just keep your eyes open then, Jovian urged. I know that he is here!

  Okay.

  And though Jovian knew what he saw, the night passed without incident, and without another sight of the Tall Stranger. Whether he was mocking them or if he had merely slipped up left Jovian uncertain, but Jovian now knew that they could not relax.

  Despite his apprehension at seeing what he thought was the Tall Stranger, Jovian had a good time. He shared in countless new experiences, and he explored shops housing so many nice trinkets that he wanted to buy everything he could afford. If he had been home, or if it had been a festival in Meedesville, he surely would have. Instead he settled on purchasing one thing for his father, and that was a statuette of a silver wolf howling at a moon that was not present in the work of art.

  It wasn’t until they shut the door of their suite after bidding Dalah goodnight in the Reception Hall that any of them truly realized how tired they were. With a quick check on Joya, Grace yawned widely and stated that they should all get to bed. The wine Jovian had consumed at the festival was doing its job as wine normally does, and with a nod of agreement he made his way shakily to his room, but he was followed by Maeven

  “Do you think the others know?” Jovian asked as he walked to his bed and began arranging his things. He could feel Maeven behind him, the presence of the other man was like a fire.

  It had only happened once along the way, Jovian thought he was releasing stress, but his attraction to the man couldn’t be ignored. The things Maeven did with his body ….

  “You tell me,” Maeven said standing in the doorway, one leg casually propped up against his other knee. The spirit of fun and discourse was still in his blood from the heady experience of the festival. “No,” Maeven said finally, fidgeting with the doorknob in a display of nerves that no one had ever seen in Maeven. “But why would it matter?”

  “Close the door,” Jovian said finally, and as the door shut resolutely it was in perfect timing with the first boom of green fireworks into the night sky, illuminating Jovian’s room with glowing light.

  Afterward, the light of the fireworks bathing their sweaty bodies in warm tones, Jovian couldn’t help thinking he could get used to this. He kissed Maeven one last time, and fell asleep wrapped in his lovers arms.

  “Do you need anything?” Jovian asked Angelica as she situated herself on the couch.

  “How about some white willow bark?” she offered, her head pounding from all the wine she had drank the night before.

  “I have some of that; it is in a pot on the table,” Grace said, indicating that more than Angelica had needed pain relief that morning. With a grunt, Angelica looked toward the table trying to decide if it was worth the effort to get up. With a scoff, Grace brought some over and sat it beside her.

  “Thanks,” Angelica said, relieved. “What are you going to the market for today?”

  “Dalah wants to show us around some more. Are you sure that you are not feeling well enough to go?” Maeven asked.

  “I am sure,” she grunted and lay back on the sofa. A few moments later she groaned when a knock came to their door.

  “That would be Dalah,” Grace informed them.

  “So we will be back and we will bring you something to eat and maybe some coffee from this great café we will be stopping at,” Grace said and Jovian looked at Angelica with longing to stay behind written in every line of his face.

  Ha ha, have fun with them, Angelica teased him.

  Bitch, he scowled.

  Now that isn’t nice, Jovian! she scolded.

  You know what isn’t nice? he asked rhetorically, and before she could ask what, he sent a loud clapping noise through their link that made the pain in her head thunder to near blinding proportions.

  Jerk, she moaned and she got the impression of laughter down their link as they walked out of the room. Angelica was not sure how long it was after they had left before the knocking came to her door, but it succeeded in waking her from a doze where her head had finally stopped pounding.

  She pushed herself off the sofa and made her way to the door.

  She wasn’t in pain any longer, but she was still groggy from the over-dosage of white willow bark Grace had given her. Angelica pulled her white dressing robe around her tighter and belted it loosely; it was most likely Rama coming to check on her on Dalah’s orders, but when she opened the door she realized too late her mistake.

  The Tall Stranger, if it was at all possible, looked worse than Angelica had remembered him looking upon their first meeting. With a gasp she took an involuntary step back into the room, which gained him entrance.

  “Don’t worry,” he said an
d closed the door behind him. Listening to his voice gave her the same feeling that coming in contact with his wyrd for the first time did; she felt as though insects crawled over her. “I can’t use my wyrd against you for someone has stolen it from me.”

  JOVE! she screamed down her link to her brother, but he must have been too far away from her for she could not feel his presence, only the link.

  The first punch caught her by surprise and sent fire through her jaw. She stumbled back and almost fell into the divan. Quickly she regained her footing and took a defensive stance, which only made the Tall Stranger laugh.

  “Don’t think this will be easy for you,” he told her matter-of-factly. “I am a skilled fighter.”

  “So am I,” Angelica said and took a swing at him, but the Tall Stranger easily ducked away from, kneeing her in the stomach as he sidestepped, effectively pushing her off balance and knocking the wind out of her.

  An elbow to the back of the head sent her mind swimming, and her body crashing to the floor.

  “I told you this would not be easy,” he straddled Angelica and, gripping her hair in his fist, pounded her head off the wooden floor twice. Blood flooded her mouth and drizzled out her nose even as darkness formed in splotches at the edge of her vision.

  He lifted Angelica by her hair from the floor and threw her face-first into the wall. Angelica stumbled, arms reeling as she tried to gain her footing again, but it was in vain. The darkness at the edge of her vision became more than splotches, and soon it was not only invading her vision, but her muscles as well. She stumbled into a table near the door. The unlit lamp and other trinkets on the table smashed on the wooden floor and oil soaked into the Balageshian rug.

  Blackness came to her for a time before she was enveloped in warmth and the smell of lavender. Strong yet pliant arms lifted her and sat her on something soft, yielding, and when she forced her eyes open it was to look into the warm encouraging face of Rama.

  The attendant cupped her hands before her face and Angelica could feel the gathering of wyrd. She had never thought that sorcerers were as prominent as they were here in Fairview, but she was being proven wrong.