City of the Lost

9 Varia’s Flight

Shortly after the meeting ended in the courtyard of Iyesta’s lair, Varia stepped out of her hiding place and slid quietly away on the evening breeze. No one noticed her go but the two metallic dragons on guard who had grown very uneasy and wary.

The owl sensed the coming of the storm when she was halfway back to the Citadel. She had planned to meet Linsha in her room, so when she felt the wind pick up and her feathers detected the abrupt change in the pressure of the air, she hurried to the Citadel to take shelter from the coming storm and wait for Linsha.

While the storm raged, the owl paced back and forth on her perch, her “ear” feathers rigid on her head, her entire body extended to its full length. Tremendous claps of thunder rocked the fortress that made her flap her wings and screech in pain.

Where was Linsha? she asked herself again and again. Why hasn’t Linsha come back?

Lightning flared through the cracks in the shutter then went out, and this time the thunder followed a few seconds later. The rain eased from a torrential downpour to a steady fall, and the wind dropped to merely blustery. The storm was moving east, away from the Missing City toward the Silvanesti Forest and the open ocean beyond.

Varia sat on her perch and drooped. She felt utterly drained and exhausted. She decided to take a nap while she waited for Linsha. Surely the Lady Knight would be back soon. She pulled her head and body into a warm, compact ball and slept.

When the owl woke, the light of a clear dawn shone through the window slit and voices rang in the inner ward. Her first thought was of Linsha, and when Varia saw her friend had not yet come into the room, she tugged open the shutter, stepped to the sill, and flew out over the castle.

She immediately saw the noise in the ward was made by Knights preparing to leave, not by those newly arrived as she hoped. Tilting her head down, Varia listened carefully to their shouts and orders. To her dismay, she caught the name Sir Morrec and the words, “in the street” and “all dead.” Sir Remmik strode out of the main hall and mounted a horse saddled and ready for him. A single centaur stood impatiently by the gatehouse waiting for the Knights.

Varia followed the Solamnics out of the castle at a casual distance. They all were accustomed to seeing her fly about, but this morning she wanted to be discreet. Her eyes followed them along the road while she wheeled slowly through the rain-washed breeze. Then her eyes lifted to the skyline of the Missing City and she let out a squawk.

Instead of the familiar translucent images of towers, buildings, and graceful walls overlaying a more solid copy, Varia saw only the real buildings and beyond them where the citizens of the Missing City had not built, the ruins of Gal Tra’kalas lay exposed like the crumbling bones of an ancient grave. The mirage was gone and in its place was a disheveled, storm-battered city, looking undressed and vulnerable and very much in need of help.

Varia stared across the city rooftops, expecting to see the dragons out, lending their strength to the rescue effort, but she did not see any of them. Something about that deeply disturbed the already worried owl. This absence was not like Iyesta and the others. They were very conscientious about the city and its inhabitants. Unless an emergency or dire threat had arisen, they would have been out to help clean out the rubble and find survivors. Maybe one of them was with Linsha and Sir Morrec.

But that hope was shattered when the Knights rode into a section of the ancient city where the weathered ruins were all that remained. From her height above the muddy plains Varia saw another centaur and the bodies on the ground. Linsha’s auburn curls were easy to indentify even from the air.

Varia’s shrill screech of dismay shivered on the morning breeze. She flew to an old scrub holly growing in the slight shelter of a shattered chimney. It was the only cover near the scene she could find. She wanted to fly straight to the bodies, but although she recognized the young horseman who brought Linsha back to the Citadel several days ago, she did not know him and she did not want to risk exposing herself. It was safer to let them think she was only a pet.

Grief stricken, she scanned the bodies and looked for any sign of life. The corpses remained ominously still, and the flies had begun to gather. She remained silent and motionless, virtually invisible in her shaded hiding place. She watched the Knights arrive and examine the bodies.

All at once her “ears” popped upright, and she stretched forward on her talons. Linsha moved. She was alive! Varia wanted to sing with delight.

Then her joy turned to rage. That vile man. Sir Remmik, that self-centered, close-minded, despot who had created his own private army and now had control of it. Just once Varia wished she could change into an eagle and fly out to tear that man’s eyes from his skull. How dare he accuse Linsha.

Trembling, she watched the Knights load their dead onto a wagon and prepare to leave. Her estimation of the leggy, young centaur rose higher when he offered to carry Linsha back to the castle.

She trailed the Knights and their prisoner back to the Citadel. There was no chance to talk to Linsha or even signal her in some way, and the owl could only watch in frustrated silence as the Lady Knight was hurried away to the prison cells under the castle. She knew Sir Remmik’s personality well enough to guess what he was trying to do. Without some firm evidence, Linsha would find it very difficult to fight his charges. She would need help.

The sound of the door closing behind Linsha had barely died before Varia shot out of her watching place and flew like a hawk toward the distant lair of the great brass. Iyesta had to know about this. Iyesta would help.

When she arrived at the dragon’s lair, Varia winged into the courtyard where the great double doors led into the throne room. Two of the three brass triplets usually stood on either side of the doors, but this morning there were no dragons, neither brass nor gold nor silver, and the great bronze doors hung open to an empty throne room. A large group of city people, militia, and Iyesta’s own guards had gathered to talk to Iyesta. They milled around in confusion, their voices raised in loud questions no one could answer and orders no one could hear. It was total chaos.

Varia spotted several acquaintances and friends of Linsha’s, considered them, and set them aside. They did not have the authority to deal with Sir Remmik and the Solamnics nor any knowledge of the massacre. She needed the dragon.

Plagued by uncertainty, she sat in a tree and waited to see if the buckskin centaur would appear. It wasn’t long before she saw him galloping up the road to the palace. He had wasted no time getting there. She watched as the look on his face changed from fiery determination to surprise and dismay when he saw the crowd milling about the courtyard and no sign of the dragons. He finally spotted an older centaur he knew and hurried over. The two began a heated conversation.

Good. Let the word spread. Sir Morrec was admired in the City, and his murder would not go over well in some circles. A cry would go up for justice, the assassins would be found, and Linsha would be freed.

Or would she? What if the assassins weren’t found? Linsha’s first trial had taken weeks to put together and eventually fell apart. But that was in Sancrist, the seat of Solamnic power. This was a distant outpost on the edge of the world. What if Sir Remmik rushed a trial through a makeshift council before the real killers were discovered? The Missing City was a long way from Sancrist, and Solamnic law allowed a Knight of Sir Remmik’s rank to convene a council in times of need. Sir Remmik would have no qualms declaring an emergency after a massacre of Knights and the chaos caused by the monstrous storm of the night before. He could have Linsha condemned and hanged before anyone knew what happened.

Varia launched herself out of the tree. She needed Iyesta, and she needed the brass now. Only the dragonlord could demand that Sir Remmik make a proper investigation of the killing. She would just have to go look for Iyesta herself. Maybe during her search she would be lucky and find a band of murderous-looking brigands who were fleeing the Missing City after ambushing a troop of Solamnic Knights. Bigger coincidences happened.

The owl began her search on the west side of the city where she remembered Iyesta had one entrance to the labyrinth. She made methodical sweeps east and west, then north and south from the beaches and bluffs of the coast to Scorpion Wadi, from the devastated harbor to Sinking Wells, over the Citadel and beyond to the fields and grasslands that lay between Mirage and the Silvanesti Forest. She flew over the village of Mem-Thon where the tribespeople struggled to rebuild their homes damaged by the storm, and still there was no indication of any metallic dragon, gold, silver, or brass.

At last, weary and wing-sore, Varia risked the evening wind off the sea and flew across the water back toward Mirage. After the night’s storm, the day’s weather had been delightfully warm and pleasant, and now the sun, setting across the vast southern continent, lit the waters ahead of her with a golden path.

Because of the sun in her eyes, she did not see at first the distant ship, moving slowly along the coastline where the land rose in high bluffs at the water’s edge. She had nearly passed by it, when a sail flapped loose and fluttered down the mast. The motion of the sail caught the edge of the owl’s broad vision. She swiveled her head sideways and saw the dark ship slip through the shadows cast by the bluffs. She almost disregarded it—ships were not rare in the south Courrain Ocean—until the ship made the turn around a headland and sailed into a small bay.

Varia followed it out of curiosity. The bay was uninhabited, but it was sometimes used as an anchoring site for ships wishing to stop for the night. There could be ships there in need of assistance after the storm.

The sun dipped below the horizon, and its light drained from the land. Varia’s sight, good in daylight, improved in the dusky evening. She had no trouble seeing the fleet of ships anchored in the bay.

She slowed her flight in surprise. No one in this region had that many ships. There had to be nearly sixty of various lengths, most of them long, swift oceangoing vessels with oars and sails. They did not have the black coloration of ships belonging to the Knights of Neraka, and they flew no flags, so whose were they?

Varia caught a wind current and rode it toward shore to give any observers the impression that she was a mere owl out looking for an evening meal. As she passed over the ships, she carefully studied all she could see.

Those ships had suffered damage from the storm. Some had lost masts, some listed at their anchors, and two had been towed to shore for repairs. If the fleet had been at sea when the storm struck, it was logical to assume some ships had been scattered, some had sunk, and perhaps some were limping to another shore. But damaged as the fleet was, Varia recognized an armed force when she saw one. Thunder had his army to the west and now this fleet approached Mirage from the east. It was easy to assume they were not coming to open trade negotiations. Was there a connection between the blue and this force?

It would be several days, Varia reasoned, before the fleet made its repairs and reassembled itself. She supposed it was possible the ships would not move on the Missing City, but she did not want to take that chance.

The moment Varia flew over land and the twilight hid her from view, she turned west toward Mirage and flew as fast as her wings would carry her. Her heart beat like a hummingbird’s. Those ships! She had to warn Linsha. The woman’s premonition of danger had been all too valid. First the storm, the ambush, and now this.