Dear reader,
The big fantasy book news from the last month all has to do with the annual Hugo Awards. Last year they happened in China, but some emails were recently leaked showing that the nominations were influenced by consideration of the ideology of the host nation. Controversial!
News to me also is that ‘romantasy’ (romance combined with fantasy) is now being discussed as a genre in its own right. Your romantasy exemplar authors would be Sarah J. Mass and Rebecca Yarros. SAGA OF THE JEWELS does have some (albeit very slow-burn) elements of romance in it, so I am wondering if I can cheekily piggyback on this label myself…
What I’ve been reading
One of the books I’ve read since my last newsletter is COLD IRON, the first fantasy by historical novelist Miles (Christian) Cameron. It was fun, with fantastic worldbuilding, if a bit ‘male’ and thinly sketched, for me. My slightly longer review here.
What Jo’s been reading
Some of the books that Jo’s read since I last wrote are the rest of the ensemble-cast multi-POV steampunk noblebright KETTY JAY series by Chris Wooding. She had already read RETRIBUTION FALLS and THE BLACK LUNHG CAPTAIN and she went and finished THE IRON JACKAL and THE ACE OF SKULLS. I have read these too and agree with her that they are absolutely awesome: fun, full of heart, meticulously clever plotting, vibrant three-dimensional characters, humour, emotion, and a hopeful core. This newsletter sometimes becomes the Chris Wooding Appreciation Society newsletter, but I’m ok with that… Recommended!
In other news…
Jo had her first book traditionally published! And by Bloomsbury, no less! This is her Cambridge (UK) Theology PhD thesis, now published as a hardback and an ebook. She wrote it while simultaneously training to be and then working as an Anglican vicar (that’s ‘cleric’ for you fantasy fans) and putting up with an unstable husband, and in the course of writing it had two bouts of hyperemesis gravidarum and gave birth to two children! She then passed her viva voce exam for it with no corrections!
If you don’t know, Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a 20th-century German theologian who was imprisoned and executed by the Nazis for his involvement in a plot to assassinate Hitler. ‘Polyphony’ is a musical term to do with multiple mutually complementary melodies in a piece of music and a ‘pneumatology’ is a conceptual system for talking about the Holy Spirit, the third person in God, in Christianity.
If that doesn’t convince you to buy this book (or at least ask your local academic institution to buy it), then nothing will I don’t know what will! An absolute steal currently on sale for £76.50 in hardback or £61.50 for the ebook!
That’s all for this month, though as ever do check out the indie fantasy book sale of the month and this month’s SAGA OF THE JEWELS episode below or on the podcast.
TTFN,
Faenon / Luke
Your indie fantasy FREE ARC book promotion for this month:
Click here or the picture below \/
Now, on with the Saga…
Need to catch up? The WHOLE of Book One (Episodes 1 to 21) is available bundled together as a FREE AUDIOBOOK here.
Previously on Saga of the Jewels…
The life of seventeen-year-old RYN, bookish son of a wealthy landowner, changes forever when his hometown is destroyed by the EMPIRE and everyone he has ever known is killed. Ryn discovers that the Empire are seeking TWELVE PRIMEVAL JEWELS which grant the power to manipulate different elements, and that his father had been hiding the FIRE RUBY. He sets out to take revenge on the Imperial General who killed his family and retrieve the Fire Ruby, and along the way meets NUTHEA the lightning-slinging princess, SAGAR the swaggering skypirate, ELRANN the tomboy engineer, CID the wizened old healer, and VISH the poppy-seed-addicted bounty hunter. Together the adventurers decide to find all of the Jewels in order to stop the EMPEROR from finding them first and taking over the world. They have thus far succeeded in retrieving the Fire Ruby, now borne by Ryn, and the Lightning Crystal, now borne by Nuthea. They now find themselves traveling by airship to the distant land of FARR in order to seek out the next Jewel of which they have become aware, the EARTH EMERALD…
SAGA OF THE JEWELS EPISODE 24: THE CROSSROADS OF THE EAST
Ryn stood at the rail of Wanderlust’s maindeck and looked out onto the sea of clouds.
The clouds were thick here, on their fourth day of travel, allegedly somewhere over Farr and nearing Shun-Pei every moment. Interlacing strands of white and grey dashed past beneath the ship, mostly obscuring the pale blue of the Farrian sky.
Just occasionally, he imagined for a brief moment jumping over the rail and into them.
Sorrow still weighed down Ryn’s heart. It had helped, forgiving Nuthea, General Vorr, and himself, for everything that had happened. Even killing Vorr had helped, in a way, though it had been the forgiveness that had really helped him, in the end...
But in his dreams he still saw the faces of his parents, his friends, the other people of his hometown. The dreams were less vivid and, damn it, he was even beginning to forget exactly what their faces looked like. But he imagined them anew each night in the dreams and in the flashbacks that still came to him unbidden throughout the day. He heard their screams, felt the heat from the burning wood of the houses of Cleasor, saw Vorr’s sword sliding out of his mother’s chest…
And in forgiving, then accidentally killing Vorr, he had lost the goal that had been driving him forwards for the past however many months. With Vorr forgiven and dead, Ryn had found he no longer had a purpose.
In his previous life, as he had come to think of it, he had had a clear enough purpose: Finish school, take over the farm from Dad, marry Carlotia, read books and go exploring in the woods on Seventhdays.
It had been a trivial purpose, perhaps, but it had been his purpose. And after finding and killing Vorr, the person who had taken it away from him, it remained unavailable for him to return to.
The emptiness between his ribs ached.
Sometimes it was tempting to want to escape from the flashbacks. Sometimes the sadness was so thick and heavy that it was tempting to want just to be free from that too. Forever.
But there was something that held him back, that stopped him from throwing himself over the rail into oblivion.
What?
Of course, he knew what it was, really. But at times like this, left to his own devices, looking out over the ship’s rail onto the sky below, he had to deliberately call it to mind and hold on to it.
What was keeping him going now was that he had a new purpose.
His new purpose was to find the rest of the Primeval Jewels with this crazy collection of miscreants. His new purpose was to find the rest of the Primeval Jewels in order to keep them from the Emperor of Morekemia and stop what happened to him and his hometown from happening to anyone else. His new purpose was to find the rest of the Primeval Jewels and see if the ‘legend’ was true, to see if when they were all gathered together they could be used to bring back his mother, his father and his hometown.
Oh, and of course, his new purpose was also somehow to get Nuthea to fall in love with him. Carlotia had only been a crush, after all. Nuthea was a golden-haired princess who could sling lightning, and whenever she spoke to him lightning struck Ryn’s heart too.
Mother. Father. Hometown. Found Vorr. Got Vorr. Forgave Vorr. Killed Vorr. Stay with Nuthea. Win Nuthea’s heart. Find the Jewels. Protect the world. Try to bring back my mother, father, hometown.
That was a pretty long list. He wasn’t sure that he would be able to keep reciting it in his head at that length. He would have to work on an abbreviated version.
But the thing was, he realised, looking down into that rushing sea of cloud, while he did have a new purpose, at the same time he had to choose it. Each day, each hour, each minute, each moment.
It didn’t just come to him automatically, like the purpose of finding and killing Vorr which had come to him each morning bright and hot and angry like the fire that had leapt from his hands and consumed the Imperial soldier in Cleasor after he had first touched the Ruby.
Instead, moment by moment, he found himself faced by a choice: throw himself over the rail into sorrow, despair, and death, or choose his purpose.
And sometimes it felt hard to choose it by himself. So sometimes, just sometimes, he had started to dare to reach out for help in achieving this purpose, though he hadn’t yet told anyone else about this.
One God, Ryn prayed as his eyes scanned the clouds, help me in this purpose. Help me to find the Jewels. Help me to—
“We’re here!” shouted Nuthea, running up onto the deck in a lilac dress. “We’ve reached Shun-Pei!”
Ryn’s stomach lurched as the ship immediately began to descend. Nuthea must have been down in the viewing bubble and already told Sagar over the speaking tube.
She joined him at the rail as they punctured the topmost cloud layer. Cold and white and moisture washed over them for a few moments, obscuring their vision, and Ryn almost put his hand out to hold onto Nuthea’s arm, suddenly fearing that he was going to pitch over the rail into the clouds by accident.
But then Wanderlust came out the bottom of the cloud layer and the light changed from bright and golden to grey and faded, filtered by the clouds above.
And then they saw it.
Green, jagged mountains rose to greet them in the grey below the clouds, but one mountain rose higher and greater than all of them.
One mountain thrust out of the earth twice as tall as its nearest neighbours.
And this mountain seemed to be covered in hundreds of smaller mountains which dotted it in layers; myriad spikes reaching upwards from its surface.
As they flew in closer, Ryn saw that the spikes were actually buildings with pointed roofs. Not hundreds, but thousands, perhaps millions of them.
“There she is,” said Elrann, joining them at the rail with Cid and Vish. “Shun-Pei; ‘the Crossroads of the East’.”
Ryn could see now why the mountain-city was called a Crossroads. Hundreds of other airships flew towards the mountain, or took off from it. Their own ship was coming in from particularly high up above the cloud layer, but as they came lower Sagar had to steer a path through the other airships to avoid collision.
Most bore blimps like their own, but there were other styles of ship Ryn had never seen before: ships with great spinning blades holding them aloft; ships with no outside deck where the hull seemed to be built into the blimp itself; ships with only single small baskets for a hull suspended underneath gigantic, colourful balloons.
Sagar took Wanderlust down further still, joining a stream of inbound ships that seemed to be heading for the base of the mountain.
As they drew closer, Ryn saw that the mountain was actually arranged in concentric circles, the base layer being the largest, progressing upwards in smaller and smaller layers. This was no purely natural feature. The mountain was either man-made, or it had been shaped by some sort of human design, with what kind of power he could only guess at.
Lower still, and now Ryn could see the tiny dots of people moving to and fro between the mini-mountains, the pointed buildings, swarming in what must be the streets around them. There were too many to count.
Shun-Pei wasn’t so much a city as an enormous ant-hill.
They reached an airfield and did some manoeuvring and at last Sagar set Wanderlust down. The thrum of the turbines ceased and they touched down.
Ryn breathed a sigh of relief, and noticed Cid doing so too. It had been a long time in the sky.
At once they were beset upon by all manner of street-sellers and peddlers, just as they had been those months ago when they had landed in Ast.
Only this time, there were a lot more of them.
“Carry your luggage?”
“Where are you staying?”
“Rat on a stick?”
“Come with me; I will show you the best inn in the lower circles.”
“Best deal for a pull-cart. You stick with me.”
“How much for your ship? She’s a beauty.”
“Rat on a stick? It’s good!”
The words came from men and women of all different colours and shapes, but Ryn observed that the majority of them had tan skin and eyelids that were slightly taut, like they had been pulled to each side. He assumed that these must be the native Farrians, born here before the advent of steam travel a hundred years ago.
“I take you to massage parlour, hmm? Sexy sexy!”
“No, no, you want a hot bath, I can see it. Come with me.”
“These rats on a stick are really good!”
“Tour of the city for six gold pieces.”
“Need to refuel? I’ve got you covered.”
“How much for the purple-haired boy? I’ll give you a good price.”
“You sure you don’t want a rat on a stick?”
“NO THANK YOU!” shouted Nuthea at the top of her lungs.
Ryn half expected her to produce a little flourish of lightning to underscore her refusal, but on this occasion she held back.
The street-peddlers fell quiet for a moment even without it, miraculously.
“That’s better,” said Nuthea, nodding and peering down at them like a Queen addressing her court. “We do not require any of your services just now. We seek an audience with the Governor of Farr.”
The street-peddlers were quiet for a moment.
Then they burst out laughing, erupting into a chorus of guffaws, giggles, shoulder slaps and belly shakes.
“What is so funny?” Nuthea asked, turning to Cid and screwing up her forehead.
The old man stroked his beard. “It would appear that getting an audience with the Governor of Farr may not be so easy…”
Once the street sellers had calmed down, they moved on to the next airship that had just landed. If nothing else, Nuthea’s request had served to get rid of them, at least.
Something slammed onto the maindeck. Sagar had vaulted down from where he had been steering the ship up on the forecastle, not bothering to use the steps.
“Well, princess,” he said, “it looks like we’re going to have to go and find this ‘Governor’ guy by ourselves. Let me lock up here and then we can make our way.”
They climbed down the handholds from the ship to the dirt floor below, taking only some coin which Cid kept in the common purse, as they had eaten lunch together relatively recently. Cid and Elrann reported that the Governor resided in the structure at the top of the city, so they began their trek up the mountain to try to see them.
It took a long time to walk together up to the top circle of the city. Their path consisted of finding the road that led from the airfield to the main road that wound its way round the lower circle, until they got to the place where it led up the massive ramp to the next circle. They proceeded in this way, progressing upwards through the circles of the mountain-city by finding the road that led to the next level each time.
As they walked, Ryn couldn’t help from staring at the people they passed. Many of them were tan, tight-lidded Farrians, but there were also people with very dark skin; people with slightly less dark skin like Vish’s; very pale people with white eyes; people with hair that was black, brown, blonde, red, blue, green, purple or white; men with long bushy beards that came down to their feet; men with no facial- or head-hair to speak of; women in long flowing elaborate floral dresses; women in tunics and trousers; men and women wearing nothing much at all; children of all colours and kinds scampering around underfoot; single or conjoined parents trying to catch or control them.
The world is so vast, Ryn thought. And there are so many people in it, each with their own dreams, desires, hopes, fears, sorrows, each with their own story. And I am just one more person in it. Who am I to think that I could have any special significance? Who am I to think that I could do anything ‘great’?
With each new circle they ascended to, the earthen streets became a little cleaner and clearer and calmer, the hangings decorating the pointed dwellings became a little more opulent, and the people walking the streets became a little more polite and—apparently—wealthy. Their clothes were smarter and the jewellery at their fingers and throats glittered. Although Shun-Pei was the tallest mountain in this range, it must still not be particularly tall, Ryn judged, because there was still no snow on it.
To get onto the third-last circle, of ten, they had to queue.
A Farrian official flanked by two enormous but seemingly unarmed shaven-headed guards in green robes was inspecting people, sometimes turning them away if they didn’t meet whatever criteria he was assessing them by.
It was fortunate that they had been kitted out with new clothes (even changes of clothes!) in Manolia. Ryn was wearing a smart shirt and wool breeches. Nuthea wore her lilac dress with the purple sash. Sagar wore his high-collared brown leather skysailors’ jacket, as ever, but now with a much cleaner undershirt. Elrann looked particularly impressive in her new yellow-dyed overalls. The Manolians really did love the colour of gold. Cid was smart in a close-fitting grey tunic and cloak. Vish was the only exception, still wearing his usual black outfit which covered everything except for his eyes, but he looked pretty smart at the worst of times anyway.
When they got to the front of the queue the official gave the party a quick look over and let them in straight away.
When they got to the entrance to the second-last circle, things weren’t so easy.
The queue for this circle was much shorter, and ended in front of another Farrian official, this one flanked by four large Farrian guards in green-robed uniforms. The guards all had shaved heads. None of these carried weapons either, but they gave off the impression that they didn’t need to.
The official was short and spindly and had a face like a mule, with a patchy moustache above his overbite.
“State your business, foreigners,” the official snapped when they got to the front of the queue.
Nuthea spoke for them. “We seek an audience with the Governor.”
“Ha! What are you really here for?”
“Just what she said, butt-pimple,” said Sagar.
Nuthea facepalmed.
The guards rumbled and took a half step forward.
Ryn thought he had better intervene. “Apologies for my friend’s rudeness,” he said, ignoring Sagar when he said “I’m not your friend.” “We’ve had a very long flight. But we really are looking to talk with your ruler.”
“That’s right,” Nuthea joined him. “I am Princess Nutheanna Kaleutheanna of the Queendom of Manolia, and my companions and I seek an audience with the Governor of Farr.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” said the official. “We don’t have time for jokes. Next!”
“No!” protested Nuthea. “I’m serious! Why don’t you believe me? Look, let me prove to you that I’m a member of the Manolian royal family.”
Nuthea held out her hand, palm up.
Ryn expected some lightning to leap from it, or crackle around it, or at least for some sparks to jump off it.
Nothing happened.
“That’s strange…” said Nuthea, holding her hand up to her face to inspect it like a piece of broken equipment.
“Move along please,” said the official irritably. “Take your jokes somewhere else, we’re very busy here.”
“But you don’t understand…” said Nuthea. “I am Jewel-touched...”
“Move along now or I will have you forcibly removed from the premises.”
Nuthea turned to her side. “Ryn, as I’m having some temporary difficulties, would you do the honours?”
It took him a moment to realise what she meant. “Oh. Sure.” He stepped forward and held out his own hand, willing fire. To his relief, but not surprise, an orange flame appeared, hovering above his own palm. Thankfully whatever was inhibiting Nuthea didn’t seem to be a problem for him. Maybe she was just really tired from the journey.
The official’s thin eyebrows climbed his forehead. “Ah. I see,” he said, his gaze finding the fire, then darting quickly around the courtyard. “Put it away, boy, or you’ll cause a disturbance.”
Ryn allowed the fire to disappear.
“Manolia, you said?” the official asked.
“Yes,” said Nuthea. “I am a royal emissary from Manolia. Ryn here is from Efstan; Sagar from Imfis; Elrann from Zerlan; Cid from Erm; and Vish is from Aibar. We are here to talk to the Governor about some matters pertaining to the Primeval Jewels, as just evidenced to you by my companion Ryn. We have flown a long way to get here, and we have important news for your Governor concerning these Jewels and the Empire of Morekemia. May we have an audience with him?”
The official sighed. “You had better come with me.”
He beckoned, turned, and led them at last through the entryway of the huge earthen structure that stood behind him, the mountain on top of the mountain.
The building was windowless, but rather than being lit by torches it was lit by amber bars. It really was like walking into a giant anthill that had been colonised by humans. The walls were largely bare, but adorned at intervals with hangings like those that decorated many of the houses in the city below, only these were even more intricate in design. The Farrians had a very particular art style, of painting in earthy colours like browns, reds and greens, but with meticulous attention to detail in subtle brush strokes.
The hangings depicted various green-robed figures passing through the motions of different complex, elaborate poses. Sometimes there was more than one figure and the poses interacted with one another. Whether they were meant to be dancing or fighting, Ryn could not work out. On some of the hangings the figures carried weapons—swords or staves or whips or clubs, pretty much every weapon imaginable, some he didn’t know the names of—but on most of them they didn’t.
They wound their way down a series of passages and up staircases, passing rooms in which more officials sat at round tables holding forth with each other, or in which others sat at rows of desks and poured over reams of paper. The whole place was a hub of activity, but it was a focused, disciplined kind of activity entirely undertaken by native Farrians, in contrast to the chaos of buying and selling and arriving and departing undertaken by both Farrians and travellers from all over Mid in the city outside.
Eventually they came to a large, circular chamber where the high ceiling sloped inwards to a single point far above their heads.
They had reached the peak of the mountain upon the mountain, Ryn realised.
He couldn’t help comparing the chamber of the Governor of Farr to Nuthea’s mother’s throne room in Orma. Aside from the fact that each was a large room, the two couldn’t be more different. Instead of a throne on a raised dais at the back of the room, the Governor sat at a wide wooden desk in the centre of it. Instead of rows of chairs, only two wooden chairs were positioned in front of the desk. Instead of being flanked by guards on either side, only one guard stood at the entrance to the chamber to let them in, another unarmed hulk of a man with a bald head and a smiling face, dressed in the green robes that seemed to be the uniform here. The whole place reminded Ryn more of the office of the clerk in the Healing House in Nont where he had first met Cid than of the palace of the ruler of a country.
The man who Ryn assumed was the Governor of Farr stood up at his desk as the official walked them over to it. A squat, rotund man in a brown robe, clean-shaven with an expression like a constipated bulldog. Not a crown, nor a circlet, but a large, cylindrical brown hat sat atop his head.
“What is the meaning of this?” the Governor barked. “This is highly irregular!”
“I’m sorry, Lord Governor,” squeaked the official as he led them in. “But these foreigners have something important to tell you.”
“What could they possibly have to tell me that’s important? I’m in the middle of my morning auditing!”
Nuthea spoke up. “Governor, I apologise for the unusual and unannounced nature of my visit, but the news I bring is sensitive. My name is Princess Nutheanna Kaleutheanna and I am an emissary from the Matriarchy of Manolia. I come bearing news of the Primeval Jewels.”
The Governor had opened his mouth to speak again, but now he paused a moment and his frown deepened, suspicion wrinkling up his fat forehead. “What do you know of the Primeval Jewels?” he said much more quietly.
“We know that they exist, we know that we have two of them, and most importantly we know that the Emperor of Morekemia has learned of their existence and has begun to look for them. We also know that you have one of them.”
“Ah.” The Governor sat back down in his chair. He looked up at the official who had brought them in. “Leave us, Yal.”
“But Lord Governor—” the official began in protest.
“Leave us!” the Governor barked.
“Yes, Lord Governor,” said Yal, and left. The guard in green closed the doors after him and stood in front of them.
The Governor of Farr spoke more slowly now. “First of all, do you have any proof of what you claim? I suppose you must have in order to have been granted entrance to see me.”
“Ryn?” invited Nuthea.
Ryn stepped forward and showed a flame on his hand again.
“Alright, alright!” said the Governor. “Put it away, boy! You might cause an accident.” He sighed. “Well, that shows you are Jewel-touched, at least. But what of the Emperor in the West?”
“He has learned of the Jewels,” said Nuthea without pausing. “He desires them, and has been moving to seize them, wherever he can find trace of them.”
The Governor nodded. “Yes, that does explain reports we have been receiving of goings on in the West. Thank you for the warning, Manolian. You may leave me now.”
“Hang on!” said Sagar. “Aren’t you going to hear what we want?”
“What you ‘want’? You are in no position to be making demands of me.”
“Forgive my companion’s rashness, Governor,” said Nuthea, “but it is true that we did not just come here to give you information, but to make a request.”
“Well, spit it out then. What is it?”
Nuthea hesitated very slightly. “The six of us are seeking to gather the Jewels together, to protect them from the Emperor. We would ask that you give us the Earth Emerald to look after for safekeeping.”
“Ah. I see. Well, the problem in that case would be that we don’t have it.”
“What?!” said Nuthea, breaking character from that of a calm, composed negotiator to play the part of a flustered only-child.
The Governor shrugged, making a triple chin for a moment. “We do not have the Earth Emerald. Well, that is to say, it is in Farr, but it is not in our possession.”
“Where is it then?”
“Why would you think that you have the right to know?!”
“Lord Governor, I respect your concern for your own country’s interests, but I cannot impress upon you the seriousness of this matter enough. There is an ancient Oneist prophecy which states that if the Primeval Jewels are all gathered together, astonishing power will be unleashed. The Emperor of Morekemia has been operating according to a policy of aggressive expansion of late, and were he to obtain all twelve of the Jewels there is no telling what havoc he would be able to wreak upon the world. He could enslave the whole of Mid under the banner of the Empire.”
“Young lady, I am not a Oneist. I worship Eto, god of the earth. I have never heard of this prophecy before. Why should I have any reason to believe it?”
“Well…” started Nuthea, but then abruptly ran out of steam. “Um…” She didn’t appear to know how to handle people who didn’t believe in the One and in Oneism.
Cid took over for her. “Lord Governor, that is entirely understandable, but you must concede that even if this prophecy does not turn out to be true”—Huh? Ryn thought. Did Cid just say that?—“the Jewels are still extremely powerful ancient artefacts. When the Empire had just one Jewel, for a time, they were able to invade an entire continent and steal a second Jewel before my companions and I fought them and took them back. It would be a terrible thing for any more of the Jewels to fall into the hands of the Empire, whatever the full extent of the power they bestow.”
The Governor raised an eyebrow at Cid. “That is a more persuasive case, old man, but I still see no reason to turn the Earth Emerald over to you. Anyway, you seem to be doing pretty well for yourselves, if you already have two Jewels.” He said this last with a sardonic sting in his voice. “Why should I trust you? How do I know that you are not seeking to do the same as the Emperor of Morekemia?”
“He does have a point…” Ryn whispered to Nuthea. He could see where the Farrian Governor was coming from. They had never really cleared up what they would do with the Jewels themselves if they collected them all, apart from keeping them away from the Emperor. Nuthea had been vague about that. Maybe she secretly harboured dreams of using them to resurrect her deceased family, like Ryn did, too...
“Shhh,” Nuthea chided him irritably out of the corner of her mouth. “We’ve been over this, Ryn…” She spoke to the Governor again. “Our motives are pure,” she announced confidently. “My...my mother was killed by the Empire in their pursuit of the Jewels. Both of Ryn here’s parents were killed by them. We only seek the Jewels so that we may keep them from the Emperor and prevent others from coming to the same harm that our families did.”
The Governor narrowed his eyes at the princess. A ponderous noise escaped his mouth. “And what of the rest of you? You’re a bit of a ragtag bunch, aren’t you?”
Cid stepped up. “I, like the Princess, am a dedicated Oneist and a Healer. I believe in the Oneist legend of the Jewels and I believe it is of paramount importance that they are found.”
“What about the rest of you?” the Governor asked, glancing down the line.
Sagar shrugged. “I’m just the pilot. I’m only flying them around in exchange for being paid with gold, gemstones and beautiful women. You wouldn’t happen to have any of those knocking around here, would you?”
“No. Not for you, anyway.”
“Damn.”
“I’m the engineer,” said Elrann. “I hooked up with these guys when Imfis, where I was living, got invaded.”
The Governor’s gaze fell on Vish.
“Vish, say something!” whispered Nuthea.
“What?” The Shadowfinger blinked with surprise; his mind had been somewhere far away. “Oh. I suppose I am their bodyguard. They pay me too, with other things…”
“Well, this is all highly suspect,” said the Governor. “I am amazed that you have even been able to obtain two Jewels at all. How have you?”
“Um,” said Nuthea, “well… My country were already in possession of the Lightning Crystal…” It glittered where she held it up for a moment on its chain. “I inherited it from my mother. Though we did have to win it back from an Imperial General after he stole it. And Ryn was given the Fire Ruby by his father. Show him, Ryn.”
Ryn held up his left hand, where the Fire Ruby sat on its ring around his middle finger.
“Though that was stolen,” Nuthea continued, “by the same Imperial General, so we had to get that back too. Ryn did that really, with his flame projection powers. But the rest of us helped fight off the Imperials. Captain Sagar here actually has wind projection powers, since he was given a fragment of the Wind Shell by...um...his father. Show him, Sagar.”
Sagar obliged happily, holding out an open palm in front of himself as Ryn had. A gust of air rushed upwards from the floor around him, making his jacket and ponytail flap for a moment.
“And as well as being a pilot, Sagar is also a highly skilled swordfighter. And Grandfather Cid has already mentioned that he is a Healer. And Lady Elrann, as well as being an engineer, is highly proficient with pistols and whip. And, um, Shadowfinger Vish was once, um, a Shadowfinger…”
“What?!” said the Governor. “One of the elite bounty-hunter assassins of the Empire?!
“Um. Yes.”
The Governor held up a palm. “Don’t worry, I’m quite capable of defending myself.”
Ryn turned his head. The guard by the door had started forward, but now reluctantly resumed his original position, his smile replaced by a tightly-clenched jaw.
“How did you end up traveling with this party?” the Governor said to Vish.
“They made me a better offer than the Empire,” Vish said matter-of-factly.
“Oh?”
“They keep me supplied with poppy seed. The Healer keeps them in his bag.”
Ryn assumed that this would seal the Governor’s disapproval and that the man was about to dismiss them again, even more forcefully this time. But instead of shouting them out of his audience chamber, the Governor went quiet again, then made another pondering noise.
“Hmmm. You do seem to have some talents after all.” He put his fingers to his lips for a moment, and rubbed them, apparently in thought. After a while he said, seemingly to himself, “Defeating an Imperial General and winning back two Jewels is quite impressive, I suppose. Maybe there is some sense in trying to reclaim the Earth Emerald, especially if there is a chance of you actually doing it…”
“Lord Governor,” said Nuthea, “where is the Earth Emerald?”
“Hm? Well, if you’re going to have a go at retrieving it, I suppose you do need to know where it is. It was placed by my predecessor in the Shrine to Eto, the earth god.”
“Well, that’s not too much of a problem,” said Ryn. “We can just go and retrieve it from there for you.”
The Governor gave Ryn a withering look. “He placed it there so that nobody would be able to retrieve it. The Shrine to Eto is a labyrinthine temple now filled with traps, obstacles and monsters.”
“Ah.”
“That’s nothing we can’t handle!” spoke up Sagar. He counted their feats off on his fingers. “As a team we’ve already successfully escaped from an invasion, infiltrated the Imperial ranks, fought off an Imperial battalion, and defeated an Imperial general. Four of us are jewel-touched. And all of us are deadly fighters. Well, most of us,” he corrected himself, looking sideways at Ryn.
The Governor tapped his lips. “Are you sure? Are you telling me that you are really prepared to attempt to enter the Shrine to Eto and retrieve the Earth Emerald yourselves? Facing the prospect of vicious monsters, deadly traps, and the high likelihood of injury and death?”
“We have no other choice,” said Nuthea. “Either we do it or, sooner or later, the Empire will be here doing the same thing.”
“Huld!” the Governor shouted suddenly.
“Pardon?” said Nuthea. “What would you like us to hold?”
“My Lord Governor,” said the soldier who had been standing guard at the door, now appearing alongside the companions, at the end of the line next to Vish. It hadn’t been a command; it was a name.
“Huld,” said the Governor, “I want you to take these six foreigners to the Shrine to Eto and bring the Earth Emerald back from there with them.”
“I live to serve, Lord Governor.”
“Woah!” said Sagar, instantly protesting. “We never agreed to that! Why do we need to take a bald Farrian along with us? We can do it just fine by ourselves!”
“Why do you think; you loose-tongued Imfisi?” snapped the Governor. “You will need a Farrian guide both to lead you to the Shrine and to help you navigate it. And nobody is better suited to helping you in your task than Huld. He is my best monk. He is extremely well trained in the fighting arts. He will be able both to guide you to the Shrine to Eto and to assist you in retrieving the Emerald. I trust him implicitly.”
Ryn looked at the soldier. No...the Governor had said monk. The man’s massive smile was back on his face again. It was so wide it pushed his cheeks up into his already narrow eyes, making them look as though they were shut.
“Hello,” said Huld, in a controlled, polite voice.
“Er, hello,” said Ryn.
“Good,” said the Governor, apparently seeing this as some kind of successful assimilation of Huld to the group. “That’s settled then. Huld will assist you in retrieving the Earth Emerald. I have some matters I will need to discuss with him now. You will leave at first light tomorrow.”
The Crossroads of the East