Prologue

The Astrum Evestigatus telescope had been in orbit for less than a week when the first evidence of a complete solar system around Epsilon Eridanus was gathered. Scientists had long known of one planet about the size of Jupiter in orbit around the distant star, but the new telescope showed a set of seven planets, four of which appeared to be solid. Further study and enhancement of the images showed several planets with moons and rings, and a sizable asteroid belt.

The similarities between the Epsilon Eridanus System and our own Solar System had not gone unnoticed by the public, and within days mass hysteria gripped the planet.

People proclaimed everything from the end of the world to the discovery of Planet Vulcan. Masses flocked to churches and synagogues, and several passenger airlines sold advance tickets for the first commercial flight. Meanwhile, NASA launched the Explorer III space probe across the galaxy at near the speed of light, announcing to the public that it would fly through the Eridanus System about twenty years later.

Twenty years passed. Though new pictures of the Eridanus System were gathered by the Evestigatus and other telescopes, the public found newer and better things to occupy their minds. New discoveries were made, and the end of the world was proclaimed several times over again by various groups. Following several manned voyages to Mars, a group of hearty pilgrims established Offworld Colony Mars-Alpha, more popularly called ‘The Little Red City that Could.’ Scientists on Earth, bored with human cloning, had moved on to things like human freezing. The cryogenic stasis chamber, so popularly depicted in science fiction for nearly a century, came into being, and millions of the world’s terminally ill and their clones had comforted themselves with the thought of a possible cure somewhere off in the distant future.

Explorer followed its course across the galaxy and arrived at the outer edge of the Eridan System almost exactly when NASA predicted. The small probe spent the next three years taking a long spiral orbit around the star, studying each planet in detail, and began transmitting the data. When it had completed its task, Explorer took up a stable orbit between the first and second planets and waited. Another year passed before the first of the signals reached Earth.

Twenty-four years after its launch, NASA scientists began to study the data streams from the Explorer probe. The next year was mostly uneventful, with images of the outer three gas planets, though a new generation now was able to spread rumors and speculation while their parents were reminded that the world had indeed not ended. Interest picked up considerably, public and scientist alike, when the first data of the inner planets began to arrive.

The eyes of the world immediately focused on the fourth planet of the Eridan System, named Eridan-4 by NASA, and Vulcan by many others. Explorer had sent back a series of amazing pictures of swirling white clouds, vast blue oceans, and several land masses covered in green, all surrounded by a brilliant set of ice rings. A spectrograph of the planet’s atmosphere showed a mixture of nitrogen and oxygen, and thermal scans showed an average of six degrees Celsius on the dark side and thirty-four on the light. The planet was determined to be about eighty-five percent of the Earth’s size and one-hundred-ten percent of its mass, with days roughly nineteen hours long.

It was decided that Eridan-4 could easily support human life, and could just as easily already be supporting some other kind of animal life. Instantly, religious groups were asking God for guidance, and religious cults were committing mass suicide to avoid the end of the world. Some factions decided that the three million human clones living on Earth were actually aliens and began attacking them. Along with rising church attendance came rising life insurance rates and rising firearms sales, though that never made the news.

Those who had purchased tickets aboard the first commercial passenger flight regretted that United Airlines was no longer in business.

Explorer had been programmed to broadcast a message of greeting as it passed by each planet, using frequencies based on mathematical constants. The message was similar to that of the Voyager I, II, and III probes, containing everything from pictures of fishing boats to the human anatomy to Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto. The probe was also programmed to listen for any type of response to this message and send that back to Earth as well. In three years’ worth of data, no response to the Explorer greeting had been received, leading scientists to believe Eridan-4 to be either uninhabited or inhabited but undeveloped.

Human arrogance would not allow for the possibility of a developed culture who were simply not listening.

Confident in the success of the Luna and Mars colonies, it was not long before NASA had drawn up the plans for a manned mission to Eridan-4. Designs were made for a spaceship not much larger than the Explorer probe, with room for a cockpit, a small laboratory, a tiny living space, and the newest generation of cryogenic chambers for the crew. NASA named its creation U.S.S. Pathfinder, but when their mailboxes, email, and phone lines were immediately overrun with appeals that it be christened Enterprise, they agreed to change the name. Enterprise contained over four million electronic components, all made in Japan and assembled in the United States by the lowest bidder. The skin of the ship was formed out of a new carbon poly-fiber thought to be virtually indestructible, and the usual heat-resistant tiles were added to the underside for entry into the alien atmosphere.

While the contractors spent five years and 600 billion dollars bringing the Enterprise to life, NASA consulted the United States government and the United Nations on its crew selection.

However, much to the dismay of the U.N. and many nations around the world, President Nichols insisted on an all-American crew, saying any nation that wished to do so could spend its own money and send its own spaceship. A panel of specialized psychologists helped define the search criteria for crew candidates; NASA quickly short-listed four military pilots, three astronauts, seven field biologists, three linguists, and two doctors. After many intense evaluation sessions, the final crew was chosen.

Captain John Stewart of the 84th Airborne, from St. Louis, Missouri, was selected as mission commander and pilot. At age twenty-eight, he was considered by many to be the best pilot alive, having logged considerable hours in both the X-12 Stingray and the highly classified XV-2 Mantis. He was even rumored to have flown a twentieth-century F-18 Hornet, though that claim has never been substantiated. After the disaster the Air Force had experienced with its fleet of Unmanned Z-80 Assault Aircraft during the Indian-Pakistani missile crisis, Stewart had been among the first human pilots to take to the skies in sixty years with the task of shooting down the rogue Z-80s.

His war-hero status and rugged good looks made him an instant success with the public, and he received several hundred marriage proposals from admiring single women around the country, who apparently did not realize that his selection for the mission would require him to leave the country for quite some time.

Dr. David Whitmore, age fifty-five, from Boston, Massachusetts, was selected as a mission specialist of medicine and biology. After practicing at Boston General for ten years, Whitmore had devoted his time to researching microbiology, bacterial and viral diseases, and had become one of the nation’s leading experts in the field. When he began to notice the first wrinkles on his face and gray hairs on his head, he turned his attentions to the ailments of old age, including the changing chemical dependencies in the human brain. His research won him the Nobel Prize, and allowed millions of the elderly to be removed from their cryo-stasis, cured of Alzheimer’s Disease. He turned his celebrity status into something of a money-making gambit when he began using his name to market age-defying cosmetics. If one could argue the ethics of his decision, there could be no argument about his success when the profits began to roll in, and he was elevated to the status of the super wealthy within a year’s time. There was some discussion by the NASA selection board whether Whitmore’s commercial image would lend credibility to the mission or detract from it, but there was no denying that the man was still a genius.

Selection of the third and final crew member took NASA a little more time, partially because of her age and partially because several board members did not feel there would be a genuine need for her talents. In the end, however, twenty-four-year-old Anna Petrova from Austin, Texas, was selected as mission specialist of language and culture. With a Russian scientist for a father and a pure-blooded Texan for a mother, Anna had always been a bit of a cultural oddity, somehow managing to combine a cowgirl attitude with a Russian standard of excellence in everything she did. She possessed the uncanny ability to pick up a new language in the time it took to have a couple of drinks, and could speak fluently within a couple of days. Though this ability was certainly of use in her doctoral work at Concordia, it was of considerably more use in her work with the CIA. There is no record of the two years she spent as a non-official cover officer, or her activities, but it was rumored later that she had assassinated both the leader of the Chechen Revolt and the President-Elect of Columbia without so much as breaking a nail. Her selection might have been either helped or hindered had NASA had been aware that Petrova knew nine ways to kill a man with her bare hands.

With the Enterprise nearing the final stages of its construction, the crew began a rigorous training schedule. They learned about the ship’s systems and about the mission priorities with NASA Rules and Regulations constantly being emphasized. The mission was outlined in five major stages: orbit, landing, exploration, contact, and a final stage labeled commander’s eyes only.

No one seriously expected to get past stage three, and even stage two was in doubt. Only after studying the planet’s surface from low orbit for several months would the decision be made to proceed with a landing. It was entirely possible that they would simply circle the planet several times and then make the twenty-year trip back to Earth.

Assuming they did make a landing, the crew was expected to find animal life on Eridan-4, and was prepared in every possible way to deal with any alien wildlife they might encounter, though it was really anyone’s guess what type of wildlife that would be. Dr. Whitmore used quite a bit of his free time during this period to study certain aspects of zoology that might be relevant to an alien environment. The crew was taught about the common markings and behaviors of different predators, parasites, and scavengers, in order to distinguish them from more docile and theoretically harmless animals. They learned about different types of poisons and venoms, and certain plant leaves and roots which can be used as antidotes. Though no one really knew what to expect, many scientists believed that nature should follow roughly the same rules of adaptation, evolution, and survival regardless of which side of the galaxy it was found.

In the remote eventuality that there was intelligent life to be found on Eridan-4, Anna Petrova was given the somewhat honorary title of ‘Ambassador of Earth,’ and given a lengthy set of protocols to follow during any meetings or negotiations. She found it slightly absurd to consider making alliances with a people no one even knew existed, or asking them to deal only with the United States in future contacts with Earth, not the Korean Republic or Pakistan. Nevertheless, she studied the list in detail, hoping she would never have cause to read it when she came out of stasis on the far side of the galaxy.

Even more remote was the possibility that the intelligent life inhabiting the planet would be hostile, having perhaps already made an alliance with the Koreans, or maybe the Klingons, but Commander Stewart was still briefed in full on mission stage five, should the need arise. NASA had been forced to agree to this stage being added to the mission outline, but it had been designed by the Pentagon. The entire crew was aware of the small armory locker on board the Enterprise, with weapons designed for self-defense as well as hunting, should it become necessary, in virtually any environment; everything from semi-automatic handguns to tasers to bows and arrows were provided.

The crew was also aware of the small cyanide capsules they were to take should the unthinkable happen, though there was never any mention of what the unthinkable might be. However, only a few top Pentagon officials and Commander Stewart knew about the six tactical warheads hidden within the bulkheads of the ship which could be used to permanently remove any threat a hostile civilization on Eridan-4 might provide. The Pentagon believed in being prepared.

Another year passed, and its end found the Enterprise fully tested and the crew fully trained. The crew was put in cryo-stasis aboard the ship, and the U.S.S. Enterprise was launched on its maiden voyage to Epsilon Eridanus. Twenty-three more years passed on Earth, and everyone who knew the crew members grew older. Some of them died. Details of the mission were passed on to the next generation at NASA and rumors of the mission were passed on to the next generation of the public. The Fourth World War broke out between Israel and the Middle Eastern Alliance. The European Union and later the United States joined with the Israelis to form the Allied Powers, though the Swiss remained stubbornly neutral, and casualties numbered in the billions. Earth’s skies turned black. It was in the midst of all this that NASA received a signal.

Murphy’s Law states that anything which is allowed to go wrong will go wrong. Occam’s Razor states that when faced with multiple explanations, the simplest is the best. Combining the two gives a law first stated by NASA Flight Director Harrison: “some damn simple thing always goes wrong, and when it does, no one can figure out why.” Harrison’s Law can be applied in many situations, but when he spoke those words, he was thinking of the chaos on the control room floor after multiple master alarm signals from Enterprise had been received.

For all the planning and preparation that went into the mission, an eighty-cent fuse buried in a six-hundred-billion-dollar electronic maze had shorted out as the ship entered the Epsilon Eridan System.

Multiple redundant backups and failsafes for flight, guidance, and life support had been fried in one one-hundredth of a second, triggering the alarm signals. NASA had the ability to send return signals to wake the crew and then guide them through the manual overrides, but by the time the alarm signals reached Earth, the Enterprise had been flying blind for three years, with only Sir Isaac Newton in the pilot seat. From the information NASA was able to gather before the signal disappeared entirely, the ship had been roughly aligned to achieve orbit around Eridan-4 when the short occurred, but without guidance or flight controls, that orbit would hardly be stable.

NASA immediately sent the override signals back to the Enterprise, but they knew by the time the signal reached the ship, it would have been on its own for six years. It had most likely either drifted away into space or fallen to a fiery finish in the planet’s atmosphere with the crew helplessly frozen, doomed to their fate. In either event, NASA never received a return transmission of any kind from the U.S.S. Enterprise. The names of John Stewart, David Whitmore, and Anna Petrova were added to the thirty-seven names on the Astronaut Memorial, and flags were flown at half-staff.

The war had finished. People grew old, and people died. Science made discoveries, and technology made advancements. NASA, however, grew much more cautious in the wake of the disastrous mission to Eridan-4.

New telescopes were built, and probes were launched, but there was no serious talk of another manned mission outside our own solar system for many generations to come. Thus, the crew of the Enterprise passed out of all knowledge and eventually all memory.

Chapter 1

“Pardon, pardon, miliana. You asked to be awakened when the shoreline came into sight.”

Jaide Lei nodded to the handsome attendant who had just roused her from a most pleasant dream. Though his age could not have been more than fourteen, he was well built, and she allowed herself an appraising glance at his backside as he turned back to the small airship’s cabin. She realized that this was the first time she had been addressed by her royal title since she left for Lorakis University at the beginning of the last term. After almost a full year studying at the academy as a commoner, with peers instead of subjects, the adjustment back to her old life would take several weeks.

With the cool breeze sweeping through her silver-blond hair, Jaide rose from the seat in which she had been curled peacefully for the last three hours and stepped over to the bamboo handrail. Looking over the side of the small airship, squinting a little in the late afternoon sun, she could see the northern edge of the Menadin Sea behind and the treetops of the dark Khokuri Forest slipping by below. The wooden deck creaked a little as it rocked gently to and fro, and the motion of the flapping wings sent little wisps of wind tugging at Jaide’s clothing and playing through her silky hair. Jaide reflected that she would not have been able to sleep as well if the ship had been of the two-winged variety, which were faster than those with four wings, but not nearly as smooth. Aside from the wind and creaking wood, the ship’s small engine chugging beneath the floorboards was the only other sound to be heard. The warm breeze was clear and sweet, and the small plume of sulfurous smoke billowing behind the ship gave a barely discernable odor.

Jaide had, that very morning, packed up her small dormitory room and carted everything she had owned while on the Southern continent through a maze of walkways to the large airship landing platform. Exhausted, she had fallen asleep immediately after boarding her flight home, and had been sleeping intermittently the rest of the day. And thus, she found herself standing in the rapidly warming breeze still dressed in the style of clothing typical of the Southern continent: a style to which she had never quite grown accustomed. She considered the silky material strange to the touch when compared with the leathers and grass fibers popularly worn in the North; the billowing, robe-like construction of the garments simply covered far too much of her skin to be pleasing.

With a final glance down at herself, she decided not to wait until she arrived back at the palace to change into her old clothing. She let go of the handrail and turned towards the opening which led below deck.

Dropping lightly onto the curved surface of the ship’s cargo area, Jaide quickly located her bags - not a difficult task, she decided, since she was the only passenger aboard - and pulled out several articles of clothing much more to her liking. With a quick glance around, she stripped off the silky robes and cotton undergarments, leaving herself nude and feeling already much more at ease than she ever had during the past term. For a moment, she allowed her small fingers to caress her bare skin. She touched her breasts, gently squeezing each nipple, and felt her body tremble slightly. One moment turned into two, and she lightly ran the palms of her hands along her flat stomach down to the curve of her hips. Two moments became three, and her fingers found their way between her legs, feeling the soft, freshly shaved skin.

Then three became ten as she put her fingers inside herself and began to massage away all her cares and troubles from the past year. Soon, she would be home; she would be herself again. Her orgasm came and went with gritted teeth and a stifled scream, and when her vision cleared she found herself on her hands and knees on the floor, panting slightly.

Before she had a chance to get carried away again, Jaide stood and pulled on the grass-fiber skirt she had retrieved from her bag, snugly covering her hips and leaving her thighs nicely bare. The top, made of the same material and equally brief in its design, gave her a little trouble since she had not worn such a garment in almost a year. Yet after a few failed attempts, she had fastened the straps, and then rummaged in the bag again until she found her leather sandals. Feeling more like herself every minute, she pulled out several small pieces of jewelry; a silver bracelet and necklace, another silver piece which she used to fasten back her hair, and her ring which bore the crest of the Hai Lei, her father’s house.

“Hey...”

“What the...”

“What in God’s name is that?!?!”

“ ... holy shit!”

The frightened shouts came from the deck above, piercing the calm air and causing Jaide to jump violently. She had finished with her clothing and had just put the bag back in its place, and barely had time to react to the first shout when she was tossed against the far wall of the cargo hold. The ship’s timbers twisted and complained noisily as the ship banked very suddenly and sharply to port. Jaide found most of the cargo had been tossed against the wall with her. The chorus of frightened shouts continued from above, but whether they were arguing or agreeing, Jaide could not tell. Dazed, she knew only that something must be very wrong, and her pulse began to race. She was pinned against the curved wall of the ship by what seemed to be a mountain of bags - “are these all my bags?” she muttered - that had come pouring on top of her as the ship tilted further and further to the side.

It occurred to Jaide that the ship must be almost sideways in the air, as she lay on her back against one wall, looking up at the opposite wall. Beads of sweat appeared on her forehead, and her fingers clenched into fists. She could feel the adrenaline course through her veins, and knew more and more each second that something terrible must be happening. But what terrible thing that was, she had no idea. She was completely helpless, and no one was coming to rescue her. From above, or rather from the side by that point, the incoherent shouts became screams, the sounds blending with the rending of wood. Some part of Jaide’s mind wondered whether the ship would first fall and crash into the forest below, or if the stresses would tear the small vessel to pieces in midair. As she considered this, she also realized that the screams had faded away. The crew on the deck above must have fallen, probably to their deaths.

It was then that Jaide became aware of a new sound, a kind of rushing, wailing roar that drowned out every other sound. The roar became louder and louder, and the temperature seemed to rise with it. The beads of sweat on her forehead became a torrent, and her heart pounded harder and faster against her ribs every second. Jaide then began to wonder if she might be burned to death before the ship even had a chance to crash and be torn to bits. It seemed equally likely that her heart might leap straight out of her chest if given the chance. The ship had tilted so far to the side by this point that it was almost upside down in the air, still falling rapidly.

Then, it happened. Jaide could never recall later exactly what had happened, only that there was an enormous, explosive crashing sound, a searing blast of heat and air had washed over her as she lay helpless in the belly of the ship, which suddenly and violently twisted and tumbled in the air, timbers groaning and snapping all around her.

And then nothing. The world went black, and Jaide’s dreams were filled with terrible visions of wind and fire and darkness.

Jaide woke with the sun in her eyes. How long she had been unconscious she had no way of knowing, but she guessed it had not been more than a day. She squinted against the glare and winced at the pain in her neck. After several cautious movements, she decided nothing was broken, though she could not begin to imagine how that was possible. As she rose from the ground and tried to shake the thickness out of her head, vivid images of the crash came flooding back. Still, she had no clear memory of how she ended up lying on the ground outside...

And then she realized it. She was outside the ship. The pain in her neck began to move up to the base of her skull, and already her temples were starting to throb. She was dazed, tired, and hungry. Feeling totally defeated and completely helpless, she sank to her knees and slipped back into unconsciousness.

... she was standing in a crowd ... faces she didn’t recognize, except ... there was her brother, Iordan ... they were talking, to her or at her in muddled voices ... the world started to twist, she couldn’t understand what they were saying ... everything was turning gray ... getting loud, louder, louder ... things got further away and everything was turning misty ... noises and a drum ... then came the wind again, and the giant fire, flames sweeping across ... taking the crowd away ... what ... what...

“ ... what?” Jaide woke with a start and shook her head to banish the last remnants of her dream.

Still tired and hungry, she at least felt more in control than she had before. Judging by the angle of the sun streaking down through the upper limbs of the forest overhead, it was sometime late in the afternoon, and turning toward evening. Massive trees pushed their roots up all around her feet and thrust their mighty trunks up to the sky, their great canopy hiding all but a hint of deep blue above and casting the floor beneath in shadow. Twisted tangles of smaller green plants and vines hugged the open places on the ground in a kind of leafy carpet, sprinkled liberally with thorns and bright flowers.

Carried on the warm breeze came the chirps of insects, the songs of birds, and the rustlings of various unseen furry things in the underbrush.

It crossed her mind that this section of the forest, though technically part of her father’s land, was rarely visited by his loyal subjects. Several bands of savage wild men were known to inhabit the forest, but they were nomadic, and Jaide hoped she would not have the ill fortune to come across any while she was there alone and helpless. The chances of that happening were favorably very slim, as the forest itself was extensive, spanning the entire gap between the Northern shore of the Menadin, the Western edges of the Wastes of Ninev, and the Southern foothills of the Mahlners; all told about twenty thousand hectares. The sheer size of the forest made it unlikely that she would come across any wild men, but it also made for a very long and tiring journey to reach her father’s civilized lands. Another thought crept into the back of her mind: that it was very likely she would be discovered by a pack of wild hunting dogs, or worse. But she pushed that thought away for the moment.

Jaide finally rose to her feet, stretching her limbs and testing her joints to make sure everything still worked. Suitably amazed that she seemed to have survived what felt like Hell with little more than a scratch, she began to look about for some sign of the ship and its crew. She found several charred splinters tangled in the brush at her feet almost immediately, several more a few paces away to her left. After several long minutes of searching, stepping carefully through the twisted mass of thorns and briars, she began to find larger pieces of the ship’s timbers and lashings. Several more minutes later, she realized that the ship had not come down in one piece, but in many small pieces, which were scattered all around her. When she had finally located the bulk of the wreckage, she also came across other articles from the ship, including one of its wings and part of the engine, which smelled rather strongly of sulfur.

Twilight moved in, almost as another shadow among the trees, and the sun began to hide itself below the horizon.

Yet a ray of sunshine flashed across Jaide’s weary face when she made her most promising discovery thus far.

Hanging from a low limb by one of its straps was one of her bags, still intact.

“Well, good there you are,” she said to the bag bemusedly, with a half-cocked grin. “Get down here at once and give me some food.” She waited a beat, as if the bag might actually obey her and leap from the tree branch of its own accord, and then went about the task of climbing up to get it. Though all of the trees in that part of the forest were enormous, both in girth and height, Jaide was a natural climber. Like all those who inhabit the wooded areas, she had always lived in and among the trees, and climbing was learned sometimes before walking. Her small fingers expertly gripped the rough bark and the toned muscles in her arms flexed as she pulled herself lightly up the trunk to the lowest branch. Perched atop the limb, she jumped effortlessly to the next limb and then swung over to the one which held her bag. She easily snagged the strap with the outstretched fingers of her free hand and pulled the object free from its hold. Then she dropped to the ground.

“Oh, shit!” she cried out, “damned thorn!” Dropping from the tree had been easy and her landing would have been beautifully light had not a small array of ugly thorns pierced her feet. Jaide winced as the pain shot up her legs and she fell onto her side, only to feel the flesh of her shoulder torn by yet another set of bristles.

Tears formed on her cheeks as she pulled herself upright. Wincing again and biting her lip, she plucked the thorns from her body, ignoring the blood while she tore strips off the plant growing beside her and tied them around her arm and feet. She always considered it strange that the same plant provided both the thorns to tear flesh and the soothing aloe leaves to mend it.

Without getting up or moving, Jaide opened her bag and pulled out a small loaf of bread wrapped in soy cloth and tore herself a small hunk to stave off the pangs in her stomach.

“Well, girl,” she spoke to herself as she would never speak to anyone else: chewing greedily on a mouthful of bread, “you’ve really got yourself into something, haven’t you? You’re supposed to be back at the palace by now, soaking in the bath, being pampered by your servant girls, drinking wine, and then dancing later...”

She chewed thoughtfully for a moment, then spoke again to her bag, “I suppose I could dance with you.” When she received no reply, she tore off another hunk from the loaf and set in on it. With her mouth full again, Jaide looked about in the deepening twilight and, by the slimmest of chances, happened to catch a gleam off in the distance through the trees.

It was not the light of any fire; it was closer to a reflection of the sky, but it did not look like water.

Jaide knew there was a large river coursing through the forest, and many smaller streams feeding into it from many different directions. There may indeed have been a stream over in the direction of the gleaming light, but it did not sparkle or shimmer. It was a brighter reflection than water would be expected to give anyway; but what it could be Jaide had no idea.

She swallowed the bread she had in her mouth and put the remainder back in the bag, which she threw over her shoulder, and rose to her feet. Limping rather than walking, she gradually made her way through the brambles towards the rapidly disappearing gleam. The hush of evening began to set in as insects stopped their chirping and birds ended their songs, and the only sounds which came to Jaide’s ears were those of her feet in the underbrush and of her own breathing and heartbeat. Wincing with each step, she tried to ignore the pain, and edged closer and closer to the object of her curiosity. What she found was something of which she had never even dreamed.

Jaide gasped in amazement as she entered a small clearing with just enough light left to see. There, in the middle of a proud stand of trees trunks, was a large crater in the floor of the forest. Dirt was mounded up all around, and it seemed that the vines and bramble that had grown there were thrown out, adding to the sense of disorder. In the center of the crater-obviously the thing that made the crater-was a large object clearly not of this world. It was enormous, easily large enough to fit several fully grown men inside with room to move around. The surface was shiny, if battered, and was obviously the thing which had gleamed and caught Jaide’s eye.

In total awe, Jaide climbed up the mounded dirt and slid down into the crater, coming to rest with her palms against the smooth surface. It was smoother and harder than wood, but was clearly not stone; it had the gleam of silver in its surface, but in such high quality and quantity?-she quickly dismissed that possibility as well. She jumped, startled, as an owl’s cry broke the night stillness, and then she began to slowly circle the object. Wondering at its purpose, it dawned on her that the large, flat protrusions on either side of the object bore a resemblance to airship wings, though these seemed to be fixed in place and unable to flap. She could not see how the thing might fly with such wings, but it seemed possible that the thing had flown somehow. Then her eyes opened wide when she realized that, if this thing could indeed fly, it may have been the very thing which caused her own airship to meet its fiery end.

“What are you?” she asked, not sure whether to expect an answer, and continued her circle around the strange object. It was not a uniform color; there were small patches here and there made of a different material, and in several places there appeared to be some kind of design. One such design that caught her eye was a rectangle of blue with white star shapes sprinkled across it, inside of a larger rectangle with a series of red stripes on a white background. Near these markings were several other which looked like writing, though it was a language Jaide, nor anyone else alive, had ever seen.

At one point, a panel which had once laid flat against the object’s surface had been roughly torn away and crumpled, leaving an opening about the size of a doorway. Jaide ran her fingers along the damaged panel, feeling its strength. She knew that she could never bend the thing such as it was with her bare hands, and she doubted whether even the strongest man on the planet would do any better; yet there it was, bent and broken as if it were nothing more than an old piece of parchment. What strength it would take to cause such damage, she could not even fathom. Jaide stepped cautiously up to the opening left by the torn panel, and peered inside. What she saw was possibly even more amazing than that which she had seen already.

Though the light was rapidly disappearing, she could just make out the lines of what looked like a small room, about the right height for a man to stand upright, as if it were intended to be some sort of flying house.

She tried to imagine what kind of people would be capable of building such a thing, and the thought scared her. Curiosity eventually overcame her fright - she had already come so far - and she stepped through the opening to see the strange object’s interior. One whole side of the room was hopelessly smashed, and it looked as though debris from that side had been thrown out across the entire interior, creating a scene of total chaos. Jaide could make out several tables and chairs, except most of the tables were not flat and the chairs were all fixed in place. Then, there were other panels all over the walls that had some strange and mysterious purpose. Though there seemed to be no moving parts anywhere, there was an endless supply of red and green lights; little pinpoints of light that were not any type of reflection, but rather were actually shining out from behind the panels. Some of these were blinking and others seemed to change patterns in what appeared a random fashion.

Further inside, there were storage compartments with their lids thrown open and their contents spilled out.

Jaide did not recognize any of the items she saw strewn about the floor, but they mostly appeared to be made of the same types of hard, strong material. Some of these items even had little lights on them, like smaller versions of whatever was built into the walls. Finally, she found something she recognized as a bed, though it too was made differently than any bed she had ever slept in. After counting three beds and one odd upright container with a short snakelike hose coming out of one end, she began to move up the other wall back towards the way she had entered.

About a third of the way back, she found three cylindrical shapes that puzzled her. She glanced towards the three chairs she had seen before, and back at the three beds, and then again at the three cylinders, and decided this thing must have been made for three people to live in. The cylinders were interesting because the bottom two were broken and a chalky powder would spill out of the breaks when she touched the surface.

Beside each of these cylinders was a large red light that did not blink. But the light next to the undamaged cylinder was green, and it was blinking rapidly. Curiosity again overcame all apprehension, and Jaide reached out with a finger to touch the blinking light. When her finger made contact, however, she drew it back as if she had been burned. The light changed from blinking green to red, and a loud hiss emanated from the cylinder with a rush of cold air.

Jaide backed away, glancing toward the opening to make sure she was still able to exit the object if the need arose, and looked back at the cylinder. The light continued to blink for about a minute, and all the while a billowing, gray smoke poured out onto the floor. Then, just as suddenly as it had started, the smoke stopped, the sounds ceased, and the light turned to a solid, unblinking green. Jaide leaned her head almost imperceptibly closer, waiting to see what would happen next; the surface of the cylinder clicked and lifted up as if on cue. As more smoke poured out through the newly opened crack, Jaide became aware that the cylinder was not a solid gray color as she had thought, but was actually transparent, made of some other new material which could be seen through. Then in shock, she realized as she looked through the surface of the cylinder that there was a soft light coming from inside, and she could see a figure inside. Laying down. Unconscious.

Stepping closer, all her previous anxiety forgotten, she took in the exotic features of the female form lying before her. The woman was young, no more than twenty, with an extremely beautiful face. Jaide glanced up and down the body, noticing the shape of her hips and the outline of her breasts beneath some sort of garment. But the thing that really attracted her attention was the woman’s hair. Hair dark as night. In her lifetime, Jaide had seen just about every shade of hair color imaginable, from a bright golden-blonde to her own silvery blonde. Never once had she thought she might see a woman with black hair; it was simply unheard of. The eyebrows matched the woman’s hair color; Jaide wondered for a moment whether the rest of the woman’s hair would match as well.

Her thoughts were interrupted when she saw the woman’s eyes blink. Just one blink, but then Jaide also perceived a slight rise and fall of the woman’s chest, pushing out against the material of the garment she was wearing. Not knowing what else to do, Jaide simply watched in amazement as the woman slowly gained consciousness. The woman blinked some more and coughed several times, then began to move and stretch, trying to shake off a heavy sleep. Then, a look of shock passed over her face as she turned her head and saw Jaide standing before her for the first time. Still inside the transparent cylinder, she propped herself up on an elbow and gazed about the dimly lit wreckage in bewilderment.

Then she spoke. The strange woman looked directly into Jaide’s eyes and spoke to her, lifting open the cylinder and swinging her legs out over the side as she did. It was a language unlike any Jaide had ever heard before, familiar as she might be with the languages and customs of the traveling messengers that gained her father’s audience. Not only were the words strange, but the voice as well: it seemed to lack the light, musical quality Jaide was so used to hearing, but still seemed soft and gentle. Eyes wide in fear and amazement, Jaide backed slowly away as the woman lowered herself to the floor and stretched several more times.

The woman began moving around the small enclosure, taking in the damage all around and speaking quietly to herself the entire time. Visibly distressed by what she saw, she appeared to be at a loss, and kept turning about and running her hand helplessly through her strikingly black hair. When she realized at last that the two remaining cylinders, each presumably containing another person, had been destroyed, the reality of what had happened must have hit home, and she dropped to her knees with her head in her hands.

Then she began to cry.

Jaide had been watching in nervous fascination as the woman rediscovered the condition of her strange flying house, but when the soft sobbing sounds reached her ears, she gathered the courage to approach the beautiful stranger. She recalled her own feelings some hours before when she had herself awakened from a crash and found everything destroyed. Cautiously, she took several steps forward from the corner in which she had been crouching, and placed a hand on the woman’s shoulder. She may have been a stranger in every sense of the word; she may have been in possession of a wealth of technology which Jaide could not begin to fathom; she may well have been sent by one of her father’s enemies such as the Hai Krun; Jaide did not know any of the answers, but at that moment she saw nothing more and nothing less in the woman kneeling before her than another human being in need of comfort.

“I’m sorry,” she said simply, not knowing what else to offer. The woman lifted her head and turned her eyes towards Jaide and spoke again. Jaide realized with yet another shock that the woman’s eyes were brown.

“I’m sorry,” came the reply. It was not really expressed as a sentiment or a statement or a question. The woman spoke these words in a light, song-like quality before slipping back into the flat tone she had used before as she spoke several more words which Jaide could not understand. A beat passed before Jaide realized that the woman had simply been mimicking the words without knowing their meaning.

“Are you alright?” Jaide asked without thinking. She kneeled down beside the woman so their eyes would be on the same level, something she never would have done had she been back in her father’s court among his subjects. She shook her head as if to erase her question, and then began again. “I know you don’t understand what I’m saying, but I’m sorry about those other two,” she gestured to the damaged cylinders, “and about all this.”

The woman nodded, understanding the ideas if not the words. Yet something about the brown eyes staring into her own told Jaide that this woman might be understanding the words as well. She glanced around in the dim light for a moment, and then fixed her gaze back on Jaide and made a gesture as if she wanted more. It took Jaide another moment to understand that the woman wanted to hear more of her speech.

“Alright,” Jaide began again. “My name is Jaide,” she said, placing her palm against her chest. “I was on my way home when your flying house flew into my airship and we both crashed. I think everybody else is dead, so the two of us are on our own out here for God knows how long.” As she went on, Jaide spoke less to the woman who was hanging on every word, and more to herself. As she did, her own reality began to set in and her speech faltered. “So ... we’re out in the middle of the fucking forest ... wild men and dogs all over ready to kill us and rape us ... or eat us ... or both ... it’s like a ten-day walk out of here in any direction if we don’t get killed first...” To her own amazement, Jaide found she was crying. She had not cried since her stepmother died five years before. Crying was not fit for the seventeen-year-old daughter of the Lord of the Hai Lei. Yet, the tears rolled down her cheeks. She felt utterly defeated and helpless.

The woman shifted her position and pulled Jaide into a comforting embrace, with one hand gently running through the silky strands of silvery hair. If Jaide had been told just hours earlier that she would find herself sobbing on the shoulder of a strange dark-haired woman, she would have sent the teller away without so much as a second thought, so inconceivable was the notion. But one more impossibility in a day that had been filled with impossible things seemed to be the only thing that fit at the moment. When both women had at last finished crying, they stood from their kneeling positions, Jaide still with her hand on the other’s shoulder.

“What is your name?” Jaide asked, not knowing whether to expect an answer.

“You are Jaide?” the woman asked. Jaide nodded, surprised not only at the words, but that the accent matched her own exactly. “My name is Anna.”

“Can you understand me?” Jaide had been certain just a few moments ago that the woman could not, yet she had just spoken to her and received a reply.

“I can understand,” Anna replied, this time with an added gesture to indicate she could understand pieces of what was said, but did not know how to put that idea into words.

“Where are you from?” Jaide tried a more difficult question, but this time received only a puzzled look in response. “From,” she repeated, “A place. I came from the South,” she pointed to the South, “and I’m going back home,” she pointed North. “What place are you from?”

“I came from...” came the answer, but instead of speaking the last word, she pointed upwards.

“The stars?” Jaide took in a sharp breath. Was this woman telling her she came from another world? It seemed to fit with everything she had seen and heard thus far, but to have some form of confirmation made it both more real and more far-fetched.

As Jaide was wondering about the implications, Anna had turned to open a container of some kind embedded in the wall. She produced and unfurled a roll of parchment which Jaide recognized as an astronomer’s star chart, but one that was unlike any at Lorakis University. Anna looked into Jaide’s eyes as she pointed and said, “Here.”

Jaide looked, then followed the woman’s fingertip as it traversed the gridlines, coming to rest on another star on the opposite side of the parchment. In amazement, Jaide stared back into the big brown eyes as she heard the words, “I am from here.”

Chapter 2

A cool breeze stirred the underbrush growing around massive trees on the forest floor. Huddled in the lower limbs of one of those trees, beneath an inconspicuous bundle of branches, imperceptible to even the most discerning eye, two young women lay together sleeping. As they had done the previous four nights, Jaide lay on her side in the crook of the branches while Anna cuddled up behind and draped an arm across her slim waist. The youngest of the pair, with her silvery hair, had grown to take comfort in the presence of her strange dark-haired partner. Exhausted after the past days of hiking through the tangles and brambles of the forest towards her father’s civilized lands, she snuggled back against the warm body behind her, marveled for a second at the quality of the shelter Anna had constructed with nothing more than branches and leaves, and then drifted back into darkness. For the present, her dreams were pleasant, and the hellish nightmare she had after the crash did not return to haunt her.

Since their meeting five days before, Jaide had been impressed several times over by Anna and her seemingly endless talents. The woman from the stars had learned to speak with frightening quickness, and by the end of their second day could carry on normal conversation. Her speech became so fluent, in fact, that Jaide had to remind herself several times that her companion was indeed not of this world. Her manners and disposition would do credit to a member of any royal house, and her intuitive grasp of a foreign culture spoke of an intelligence that was at once both incredibly sharp and delicate.

Beyond that, she had proven herself to be cool and composed even after her world had literally crashed down around her. Accepting the decision to make the journey to the North, she had supplied Jaide and herself with equipment and packs unlike anything the princess had ever seen. Between them, they carried over twenty kilos of food and supplies away from the crash site, trusting they would be able to replenish their water supply in the damp environment. Each was also armed with a variety of weapons of Anna’s choosing, though she showed considerable dismay upon discovering that some of the weapons-she had used the words ‘fire’ and ‘arm‘-in her supply had been damaged.

She claimed to have never before been in a forest like that one, but still seemed to know all the little tricks necessary for survival even better than the native princess.

Anna had also shown sense enough to shed the strange blue garment she had been wearing in favor of some of Jaide’s extra clothing made of natural grass fibers. While both tighter fitting and more revealing, the brief skirts and tops were also perfect for the damp lower forest climate in which the pair would be living for the foreseeable future. Material woven from grass fibers kept heat and sweat away from the body much better than the cotton garments worn in the South, and was much less likely to catch and snag on the forest brambles. Jaide, in turn, left her leather thong sandals behind, replaced by a set of alien footwear which comfortably covered her entire feet and made the long walk much easier.

The two had quickly become friends. Their ages were only three years apart - Anna said by her measurements there was actually four years’ difference - and their personalities blended nicely together. They spent much of their hiking time discussing common interests and experiences, which were surprisingly many considering their origins. However, Anna became distinctly less talkative whenever the subject turned to the differences between their two worlds, talking a little about governments and nations and cultures, but saying almost nothing about the differences in technology. Jaide could not tell whether her companion was trying to keep her engaged by holding the conversation on their common ground, or if she simply did not know the words to express the things that could be told. She would have, of course, been fascinated to hear about the marvels which she was certain Anna’s world possessed, but did not press the issue for fear of straining a new and very strange friendship.

And so they slept. Their fifth night together passed uneventfully, save for the occasional breeze which rustled their shelter. Whenever that happened, Jaide would shiver a little and Anna would pull her a little closer, though neither of them was conscious of it. Persephone, the blue moon, and Pallas, the white moon, traversed the blackness above on their nightly chase, bathing the branches all around in an eerie pale glow and reflecting off sections of the great ice-rings above as they passed. Stars shone out all around and constellations danced about in the night sky. The outline of the water goddess smiled down at the sleeping women as she drifted above them and over the horizon. An hour before the first stab of dawn, the sun splashed the ice-rings in the Eastern sky in the dazzling display that marked the beginning of a new day for all the forest creatures. Insect chirps and bird calls rang out in the tree branches, and small rustlings spread throughout the underbrush as the world emerged from its slumber.

“Good morning,” said a silky voice in Jaide’s ear.

“Good morning to you,” Jaide said in reply, squeezing her eyes tightly shut and stretching her arms above her head.

She sat up on the limb and looked around, still surprised at how well concealed they were inside the shelter her companion had built. “How did you sleep?” she asked, turning to face the brown eyes.

“Better than I expected. I can sleep just fine on the ground, but sleeping on tree branches is still new for me.”

“I know, but you’ll get used to it. It’s the only way we’re going to be safe.”

“I know.” A beat passed. “So is it breakfast time?” Anna asked with a crooked grin, and both women laughed at their shared joke.

The first morning, Jaide had spent twenty puzzled minutes trying to figure out why the dark-haired stranger kept using the words for ‘break’ and ‘fast.’ When she finally realized it was a reference to a morning meal, she grew even more confused, trying to understand why anyone would be asking for food so early in the day. It took longer still for Anna to explain that most humans on her world typically ate three main meals every day, to Jaide’s wide-eyed fascination. By the time each woman fully understood the other, a full hour had passed in which they had been neither eating nor walking. The humor they found in the situation was perhaps more out of a sense that even the simplest ideas had at first seemed impossible to express - even with Anna’s keen grasp of the language - than it was out of anything truly amusing. Still, it was the first real experience they had shared, and that made it seem special.

“No, silly. Breakfast can wait until lunch.” The idea of giving names to different meals was something else Jaide found rather astonishing, and her mention of ‘lunch’ brought out another, smaller round of chuckles.

“OK. Well, if you’ll get the packs, I need to go pee, and then we can leave.”

“Hey! Get your own bag. I need to pee too.”

It was less than a quarter of an hour after they had awakened, still before the sun had broached the horizon, when the two women had donned their packs and struck out for a new day’s hike. By the time the shadows receded from their early dawn angles and the heat began to wash off the ground below, the princess and the stranger had put another three leagues between themselves and the abandoned crash site. Amid the forest sounds and their own footfalls, the lilting, song-like sound of their voices carried across the breeze.

“ ... wait, what’s your father’s name again?” It was nearly the tenth time Anna had interrupted Jaide’s story for some sort of clarification, and for some reason the princess did not even consider how she would have treated such behavior had she been speaking with one of her subjects. With Anna, the interruptions did not seem a discourtesy.

“ ... Iosoan. Anyway, he’s been ruling for twenty-eight years. As long as I’ve been alive, there’s been peace between the great houses, but before I was born there was a terrible war. My father became a great lord very young, during the war, and under him the Hai Lei became the most powerful house. There were many great battles before the fighting was over, but he was able to divide and scatter the other armies and bring the war to an end. All the subjects of all the houses are in his debt even today for the peace so many take for granted.”

Anna had been listening, fascinated. She seemed at several points about to interrupt the story again, but held her tongue in check. Perhaps the dark-haired alien had been comparing the history she was hearing with the history of her own world, but she said nothing presently and let the storyteller continue her tale.

“One of the alliances he made that helped the war to be over was when he married my mother, Psiolia.”

“Psiolia,” Anna repeated softly, under her breath, as she had done with every new name. Jaide did not even have to pause this time.

“She was a princess from the Hai Menadin under the sea. She gave birth to my brother, Iordan, and then six years later to me...” Jaide’s voice trailed off.

“Is she pretty?”

“... I’ve never met her. She died just after I was born.” Jaide had stopped walking and turned her face away, but found gentle fingers turning her face back up. She looked into Anna’s brown eyes and saw a kind of sympathy in those eyes she had never before seen. “I’ve never talked about her before, not even with my father.”

“I’m sorry.” Anna wiped the corner of Jaide’s eye with a thumb and brushed the silver hair out of her face. “If you ever want to talk about her, I’ll listen.”

“Thank you, but...”

“... not yet.”

Jaide nodded in agreement and Anna nodded back in understanding. The pair clasped their hands together briefly and gazed into each other’s eyes a moment longer. Then, dropping their hands back to their sides, they began walking again. With the sun high overhead and the heat now at its highest, the two young women traveled for a while in silence. Each was glad for the other’s presence, and each knew that the sentiment did not need to be stated.

Neither traveler knew how far they had gone when, at the same time, they each suddenly felt that something was wrong. The little tinglings in the spine and the little hairs on the back of the neck first alerted them, a warning sign which by itself would have been nothing. But then they stopped and realized that while they had been walking the sounds of the forest had stopped. There were no bird calls and no rustlings in the bushes. The insects had not stopped, and had actually seemed to grow louder in the near silence, but those were the only sounds to be heard other than the hammering of their own hearts.

It was Jaide who spotted it first, mostly because she knew what she was looking for. It was the thing she had been afraid of finding in the forest all along. It was the reason they slept in the trees at night rather than on the ground. Anna saw the princess stiffen and slowly turned to look where she was looking. Standing between the tree trunks about fifty yards away was a large, ugly, and very angry-looking dog. Its teeth were bared and, though it made no noise or movement, there could be no mistaking its intentions. It was one of the wild hunting dogs that roam the southern regions of the forest. Villagers and city folk of the Hai Lei do not normally live in fear of the dogs, since dogs stayed away from inhabited areas; but they also know not to venture alone into the vicious animals’ hunting grounds.

Anna may not have heard the stories about what those giant beasts would do to the human prey they caught, but she made no hesitation when her friend yelled out.

“Run!” Jaide shouted. And they ran. From behind they could hear leaves crunch and brush tear as the beast leapt into pursuit. “We need ... to ... up ... a tree,” she panted out between breaths.

“I can’t climb that fast,” came Anna’s response, who wasn’t out of breath at all.

“ ... then ... what...”

The two women were running as fast as their feet would take them, but they were both encumbered by their packs. The packs had not been overbearing while they were walking, but to run in such a thing was another matter entirely.

Frames squeaked and buckles clinked as two sets of feet pounded through the underbrush. Neither of them seriously thought they could outrun the ugly brute closing in from behind. Jaide knew it would kill them, but she did not think even for a second to swing up a tree to safety and leave her new friend to such a fate.

Jaide had not looked back and had barely glanced to the side. Her breath was coming in gasps, and her vision began to close in like a tunnel. She knew Anna was running beside her - seemingly with much less difficulty - but could not concentrate on much else besides that. So when, in a blur, Anna stopped running and threw her pack to the ground, it took Jaide an extra moment to realize what had happened. She turned back to find the dark-haired alien had thrown down her entire pack except for one of the weapons, which she recognized as a bow and arrows.

Anna stood coolly with the beast rapidly approaching. She strung the bow - which Jaide noticed was not made of wood, but some other curious material - and notched the arrow while the beast grew ever closer. Its teeth were still bared, and its paws made a terrible thrashing sound as it bounded forward. Though it seemed almost to happen in slow motion, little more than a second passed from the time Anna first grasped the bow from her pack to the time she loosed the arrow. The shaft flew as if the fires of Hell itself were behind it, and the beast fell to the ground just under five yards away with an arrow almost completely buried in its forehead.

The stillness in the air seemed too thick even to cut, and Jaide stood with her heart ringing in her ears, almost unable to believe her eyes. Anna walked up to the giant dog and, with a foot against its black muzzle, she ripped the arrow from its head and bent to clean it in the grass. It was only when she stood up to face the princess that she realized their mistake: dogs hunt in packs.

Eight more dogs were standing in a similar, if more aggressive, posture to the one which now lay dead. It appeared the first animal had been trying to drive them straight into the pack, and had almost succeeded. Only about forty yards separated the two women from eight sets of sharp fangs.

“Oh ... Anna! What now?” Jaide’s shaky voice asked, slicing through the silence.

“Just stay behind me,” came Anna’s reply with almost no tremor. She stood facing the new threat and re-notched the arrow. As Jaide scooted back behind her friend and newfound protector, Anna stole a glance at her full quiver of arrows, and then returned her gaze to the ugly, snarling pack.

With a speed Jaide had not thought possible, it began. Anna loosed her first arrow and notched the second before it had even reached its mark. The dogs leapt to attack against the volley. Seemingly no time separated the arrows as they flew from Anna’s bow, and four animals lay dead on the ground with twenty yards left to go. As the pack closed in, two more fell, but the last two had almost reached their quarry. Jaide opened her mouth in a scream as she watched two enormous beasts rise up almost on top of the dark-haired archer, but the scream died on her lips.

At such close range, Anna’s arrow buried itself completely inside the first dog, and it fell less than a yard away. The second beast was right behind, leaping over the fallen body to maul the young woman, but found itself somehow swatted away. Anna was actually using the bow itself as a weapon while she reached for a final arrow. She first knocked the beast down from its pounce, then away as it came at her from the side, and then again, this time flipping the beast over on its back. She jammed her foot down on the bottom of the dog’s head, notched the arrow, and sent the shaft through the ugly head and partway into the ground.

The silence after it was over lasted only a matter of seconds before a screeching chorus of bird cries rang out across the still air, causing both women to jump. Jaide stood in place, frozen between horror and disbelief. Everything had happened so quickly that the images were still flashing before her eyes. The heat washing off the ground carried with it the stench of the nine dead monsters surrounding them; their skin and their dying breath smelled unpleasantly foul.

Anna studies her companion’s face for a moment, and then silently goes about the gruesome task of removing her spent arrows from the carcasses. When she has finished, she gathers everything back together and retrieves the pack she had thrown aside a few moments before, and then, taking Jaide gently by the arm, she leads her out away from the dead animals.

She takes the stunned woman out to a reasonable distance and then the two sit down beneath one particularly large tree.

“Are you alright?” Anna queries with a concerned tone.

“I’m alright,” comes the soft reply. “At least I am now...” she looks up into the brown eyes, “... thanks to you.”

Anna merely blushes in response.

“Seriously, that was fucking amazing,” the princess begins again after a pause. “With the running and all those arrows ... and then you fought the thing off with your bare hands...” Jaide continues to gush with shining eyes.

“Well...” Anna offers, a little uncomfortable with her newly acquired hero status. “... it wasn’t really anything that great.”

“Are you kidding? You totally kick ass. I’ve seen some of the best archers in the world and I’ve never seen anyone shoot like that...” her voice trails off as she considers the things she has just said. “I mean ... does everyone on your world know how to do the things you do?”

“No, not most people,” Anna says with a soft shake of her head, “I was one of my government’s ... ahh ... secret soldiers and I’ve spent a lot of time learning how to fight with different weapons.”

“Secret soldiers? What do you mean?”

“I was kept secret from the ... ahh ... the common people, even the things that I did. There were only a few important leaders who even knew I existed. I went and did things and fought battles that needed to be kept secret, and no one ever found out about them.”

“So, were you like an assassin?” Jaide asks, not terribly comfortable with that idea.

“Well ... yes, sometimes. I was also a thief and a liar. I guess that doesn’t sound very good when I say it that way - it doesn’t even sound good to me - but you have to understand that what I did was to keep my people safe.”

“I know. I know that assassins are a necessary part of politics. My father has several, but I’ve never met any before...”

“I don’t kill for fun or anything.”

“No, I know. I guess ... I guess I’ve never really wanted to think about that stuff before.”

“I understand. Most people never do.”

The pair drifted into silence for a while, letting the renewed sounds of the forest fill in the gap. They sat under the tree and shared part of a bread loaf from Jaide’s pack and had their fill of wild elderberries from a nearby bush. By the time they had risen and set off, the shadows had again begun to grow long. The afternoon passed without incident, and they added nearly six more leagues to their progress before they were once more forced to halt and prepare for the night.

After hoisting their packs up into an appropriate tree, Anna set about making the new shelter. That night, Jaide lent a more observant eye to the construction process and even assisted at several points, bending branches and tying strips of bark. Seeing Anna’s performance that day left her with the feeling, however unjustified, that her royal blood might not be enough to make her a valuable member of their two-person expedition, that she would have to become more useful or risk being left behind to fend for herself. It was just a feeling, and Jaide knew Anna would never abandon her - or anyone else for that matter - but she did think it was about time she shouldered the load for a while after her partner had done so much.

As such, when the two women at last laid down for the night, Jaide decided that she should be the one to put her arm around Anna’s waist and hold her close whenever a cool breeze blew through the shelter. And so she was surprised when, after she laid herself down on her side facing her dark-haired friend, Anna laid down facing her instead of away as she had expected.

“I was going to put my arm around you tonight,” Jaide offered.

“Sounds good to me, sweetie.”

“Aren’t you going to turn over?” The brown eyes were still open, looking straight into hers. She reached out and placed a hand on Anna’s bare shoulder, unconsciously feeling the grass-fiber strap of the top between her fingers. Instead of turning over and snuggling back against her, Anna scooted forward a little and placed a hand of her own against the flesh of Jaide’s waist.

“Only if you want me to.”

“That way I can put my arm around you,” Jaide said, becoming less sure of herself.

“We can put our arms around each other,” came the reply, with Anna sliding her body closer still.

Rather than offer any verbal response, Jaide simply slid her own body forward to close the remaining distance. The two women pulled each other into a gentle embrace so each had her fingers pressed into the bare skin of the other’s back.

Their knees bumped together several times as they adjusted position, and they ended up with their legs slightly intertwined. Anna’s head was resting on Jaide’s shoulder, and Jaide had her face buried against Anna’s smooth neck. A breeze blew through and they each shivered, pulling the other closer.

“It’s been so long...”

Jaide heard the whispered voice, so quiet it was barely audible, but was unsure of its meaning. The meaning became more clear when, a moment later, the young dark-haired woman gently but deliberately pushed her hips forward against her own.

She felt Anna’s hands on her back pulling her closer yet, and the hands started to move across her bare skin. The princess found her heart was hammering in her chest and her breath seemed to be caught somewhere in her throat. She jumped a little when one of the hands slid down from the small of her back in a smooth curve and came to rest on the back of her thigh.

As Anna pulled against the thigh, bringing the leg higher up against her body, Jaide realized that the strange and beautiful alien beside her was breathing just as raggedly, and she could feel her heart beating just as hard.

Again, Jaide felt pressure against her groin as Anna pushed her hips forward. This time, Jaide responded by pushing back.

The motion between their hips turned from a gentle push into a steady rhythm as the two women began to let their hands roam freely across the other’s skin. They moved together for several long, uncounted moments when Anna lifted her head from its place on her friend’s shoulder and looked into her eyes. Both the blue eyes and the brown eyes were glazed over with a lust neither had before experienced, and as they continued the motion they had established, their faces slowly came together and their lips touched.

The first kiss between the silver-haired princess and the black-haired alien lasted the smallest fraction of a second as their lips came softly together, but then came almost violently apart. Two sets of eyes flew open and for a moment they paused in their movements. The shock they had both felt, the energy, the sensuality, the charge in that kiss was beyond anything for which either woman was prepared. When the shock wore off, however, the two women resumed the motion of their hips and hands, and commenced their second kiss. If the shock was gone, the energy was even stronger that time. Jaide found that her lips had somehow opened and that Anna’s tongue had entered her mouth. Their tongues and hands played while the tension between them grew with each passing moment.

Neither woman knew exactly when it happened, but the kiss stopped and each lay looking into the other’s eyes and panting into the other’s open mouth, the hips moving together at ever-increasing speed. The orgasms came to each woman at long last and remained for several moments, eventually fading and leaving the pair clinging tightly to one another.

Jaide tried to speak but stopped when Anna put a finger to her lips.

“Don’t talk now, just sleep,” Anna told her. She put her head back on Jaide’s shoulder, and Jaide her face against Anna’s neck. They held each other close and occasionally shivered against the night breeze as they drifted together into sleep. Pese and Packe chased each other across the sky while the water goddess smiled down upon them yet again.

The two young women sleeping peacefully in the lower limbs of the tree, hidden completely from view, passed yet another night in the forest safe from danger.

When the next day broke, the women untangled themselves and rose without speaking of the night before. They gathered their things and began the day’s walk. They passed the time making idle conversation, though each woman’s manner seemed noticeably more shy.

“ ... so on your world you have dogs as well?”

“Yes.”

“And you keep them as pets?”

“Yes,” Anna laughed, “lots of people do. But most of those dogs are much smaller and they don’t bite you.”

“Or try to kill you and eat you.”

“Right.”

“How small are they?”

“They come in all kinds of sizes and colors. The biggest ones are about this big,” Anna held out her arms, “and the smallest are like this,” she moved her hands closer together.

“That’s the same size as the bread loaf in my pack!” Jaide cried out in disbelief. After being hunted by a pack of nine enormous wild dogs, it was hard for her to imagine a miniature version of the same animal being used as a pet.

“Yeah, about that size,” Anna laughed again.

They carried on as they walked, their song-like voices carrying across the breeze and splashing off the tree trunks all around. Though they talked and laughed as they had done the previous five days, their voices carried more of a tremor, and their laughs were more hesitant. Every time their eyes met, their cheeks would flush, and they would quickly look away.

As the women went on through the morning, a new sound began to grow; a kind of mild roar off in the distance. Each step they took brought the sound closer and made the volume louder; by noon, it was becoming the dominant sound, even over the ever-present insect chirps.

“Is there a river ahead?” asked Anna.

“I’m sure there is somewhere. There are creeks and small rivers all over this part of the forest.”

“This sounds pretty big.”

“I know. I think that’s the sound of the Black River. It runs all the way across the forest from the Mahlners to the Menadin. There’s no way to get north without crossing it.”

“Is it big?”

“We’ll have to swim.”

“Alright.”

“ ... I should tell you...” Jaide hesitated.

“What?”

“Well ... I’ve never swam across the Black River before. No one has. At least not this part.”

“Why not?” Anna stopped walking and waited for the answer.

“Because it’s supposed to be filled with snakes and crocodiles,” Jaide offered with a sheepish grin.

“Ahh. And we’re going to swim across.”

“We have to.”

“How wide?”

“Maybe fifty yards.”

“Fifty yards with snakes and crocodiles? When were you going to tell me?” Anna’s question was not unkind.

“Now. I didn’t want to tell you before you decided to come with me in case you would change your mind. Besides, there’s nowhere else to go. It’s farther to the sea, and we’d run into pirates that way.”

“Alright,” Anna said after studying her companion for a moment, “fifty yards with snakes and crocodiles it is.”

It was another half hour before the women reached the southern bank of the Black River, which was not black in color as its name suggested, but thick green. Here and there across its surface were the visible hints of water snakes swimming in the rough current. The tree branches along its banks were low and draped heavily with mosses, as were the slippery boulders beside and in the river. Several snakes were in view, lying in the sun on the mossy boulders and regarding the travelers with unblinking eyes. Even the air seemed thick and wet. Anna slapped at her leg as an ugly insect came to investigate.

“Well,” said Jaide, “this is it.”

“I can see why you wouldn’t want to tell me about this,” said Anna, but there was a twinkle in her eye.

“I’m sorry, I should have told you before we got all the way out here...”

“Hey, it’s okay. We’re here now and we’re going to cross it.”

One of the snakes nearby shook itself and slithered off its rock into the inky green water as if to voice its disagreement with Anna’s statement.

Jaide made the swim first. She dropped her pack on the southern bank and carried with her the end of a length of rope.

It was obvious from the disturbances in the water behind her that several water snakes would have liked to try out their fangs in her flesh, but she swam quickly with sure, strong strokes and leapt out of the water on the opposite bank without trouble. She tied her end tightly around a solid tree trunk and Anna tied off the other, employing yet another useful trick to remove the slack from the length across the river. Together, the women moved the packs across using the rope to keep them out of the water. Once both packs were safely on the northern bank and Jaide had pulled in the rope, Anna stepped up to the bank for her swim.

With almost no splash, Anna entered the river and with powerful strokes began to propel herself through the water. She could immediately feel thrashings in the water all around her as several snakes changed directions to give chase.

After her first breath was spent, she rose to the surface and saw she had traversed twenty of the fifty yards. Her second breath carried her twenty yards more. With only ten yards left to go, she took her final breath and was preparing to leap out onto the riverbank when she heard a scream.

Anna thrust her head above the water, less than five yards from the bank, to see what had caused her friend to scream, when she first felt the pain. She saw Jaide on the bank looking at her in horror. From deep in her left thigh came a sharp, burning pain. The pain started to spread and her leg cramped beyond use. Anna reached down to grab the leg underwater and took in a mouthful of mossy water. She coughed and struggled, but her leg was starting to go numb and her vision began to turn black. Spluttering, Anna had the vague sensation that she was being bitten again, but the sensation disappeared when she lost consciousness under the water.

Jaide had seen the snake coming; it was one of the largest snakes that could be found in a river of that size, and also one of the fastest. While Anna had been out-swimming most of the snakes, the big one had come from behind and caught up with her just before she had been about to exit the river. She knew the venom would cause paralysis within a matter of seconds, and then the snakes would all gather around to begin their meal. Without any thought for her own safety, Jaide leapt back into the river and dragged her friend by the wrist up onto the riverbank. The snakes followed, but she was able to half drag, half carry the unconscious woman away from the water to relative safety.

She spent the next four hours using every technique she had ever learned to try to bring Anna back from the edge of death. Crushing roots and tearing strips of bark and leaves left her hands aching, and yet she continued administering the remedies she had concocted. Sucking the poison out of Anna’s thigh and both calves left a bitter mix of acrid venom and blood in her mouth, and still she kept it up until she was sure the excess venom had been removed. Jaide spent the hours feverishly working, and hoping against hope that the dose of venom Anna’s body had already absorbed had not been lethal. Then, just as the sun cast its final shadow for the day and sank below the horizon, Jaide’s efforts were rewarded. The brown eyes blinked.

Chapter 3

Darrak Krun, still an impressive figure in his early forties, raised an agitated eyebrow at the nervous messenger standing before him. On the dais at the north end of his great hall, the lord of the Hai Krun had listened to the words from a throne made of the finest bone and deerskin without moving or speaking. His toe had not tapped impatiently against the cold stone tiles, nor had his hands tightened their grip against the leather arms of his chair. Yet the eyebrow had steadily risen above his steely-blue glare and it was obvious to those present that he had not the ear for the royal message being recited. Darrak, though he could have silenced the boy at any point, did not speak until the message had been delivered in its entirety. He had not kept his throne through impatience or imprudence, and he knew the value of listening even to the things he did not want to hear.

“I gave you specific instructions...” he began when the boy had at last closed his mouth and bowed his head. There was ice in his voice.

“My lord!” the boy cried, lifting his head. “They made me come! They told me it was urgent, even though I tried to explain your instructions to me, I...” The boy’s voice died on his lips, silenced by a look, and he hastily returned his head to its proper bowed position.

“I know you tried. I know that you would not have been so stupid not to. That is why you’ll not be beaten.” Darrak saw the boy’s shoulders slump a little at these words, as though he had been holding his breath. He continued, “Now I will tell you once more so you can be exactly sure what is required of you.” A new edge came into the man’s voice as he straightened up on his throne. “I do not care about news from the Senate. I don’t want any word from the mountain men in the North or the blasted sea people in the South. If I hear so much as another peep out of you about a fucking fireball from the sky, I’ll have you castrated and your balls fed to you on a goddamn fork!”

“Yes, lord,” the frightened boy muttered, edging backwards as the words echoed about the stone room.

“I want you to go back to Nineveh. I want you to wait for Barrad to return, and I don’t want to see your ugly face here again until you’re certain that blasted Iosoan has sent his armies away from the cities!”

“Yes, lord,” came the reply as the boy leapt to his feet and ran out of the room as though for his life.

The room was silent after the messenger had departed, save for the creak of Darrak’s throne as he slumped back. He dropped his head into his hand and massaged his temples, locks of straw-colored hair falling over his face. The stillness in the room seemed almost to have a presence of its own as the court waited. At long last, a solitary figure approached the enthroned man; a figure who possessed the same striking features as his father.

“My lord,” began Duain with a short but courteous bow. “Are we going to discuss the plans which...”

“Yes, my son,” Darrak interrupted. “We will retire to my private council chamber.” To a young page standing to the side, he said, “Have Captain Burke report to me at once,” and the boy ran off to do as bid. To the remainder of those gathered in his great hall, he stood and announced, “I will receive no more visitors today. Those who seek my audience may do so in the morning and stay in the lodges tonight. I shall leave my man here,” he nodded to the burly head servant, “to attend to any matters which require immediate attention. That is all.”

With that, people began to shuffle and mill around, most trying to leave but a few moving to the place where the servant was waiting. Darrak and Duain moved off to the left side of the dais where a rear doorway led back to the private part of the palace, down a long stone hallway, lit by torches and hung with antlers. The two men walked with sure, strong steps, their muscled arms swinging easily at their sides, their sandals making hollow sounds against the stone floor. They passed several hallways and large rooms, turning left or right several times, and climbing a tall spiral staircase made of thick blocks of granite.

When they had finally arrived at the council chamber, they entered and closed the door. Darrak took his seat behind a large desk with a polished wooden surface and stone feet carved in the shape of a bear’s paws. He sank back in his chair, his upper body disappearing from the dim circle of torchlight so that only his clasped knuckles were visible in his lap. His son, Duain, took his accustomed seat to the left of the desk; not in front as one who comes before the great lord, yet not behind the desk either. Duain sat more starkly upright in his smaller chair, and the torch cast sharply defined shadows against his chiseled, hawk-like face and through his shoulder-length, straw-colored hair. Anyone who entered the room at that moment in the presence of both father and son would have needed fortitude indeed if he expected any more than a whisper or squeak to escape his lips.

A moment passed before either man spoke.

“Father, we are close,” Duain began. “Our armies have been training in secret for more than a year now. You have but to say the word, and I’ll begin my march into the forest.”

“Patience, my son. Let us not discuss my army,” Darrak placed a slight emphasis on the word ‘my,’ casting a meaningful glance from the depth of the shadows, “until the captain arrives. For now, tell me what you know about our pirate friends.”

“Yes, father. We know that Barrad has received all our messages so far, and he is in complete agreement with our plans,”

Duain said, even though his father already knew this. “The pirates have recently been raiding the smaller villages of the Hai Lei, not just taking slaves but also attacking the villagers. So far, Iosoan has done nothing. It could be either because he does not know or he is hoping the attacks will stop on their own.”

“No, Iosoan knows everything that happens within his borders; you can count on that.”

“Father, the raids have been only on the very smallest of villages on the far Eastern edge of his fief, almost on the border of the Wastes. It’s possible he does not know if there have been no survivors and no messages.”

“It is possible.” A beat.

“Whether he knows now is of no consequence. When Barrad begins to raid the larger villages, Iosoan will surely know, and when the raids continue, he will have no choice but to send his army to deal with the pirates.”

“I agree with you on that. He may be a lover of peace, but when put to it, he will fight if he feels it necessary. We have, therefore, to make him feel it necessary.”

“Yes, father. Barrad has discussed new techniques he will employ to inflict damage and humiliation even beyond what he has already been doing. This will surely draw our enemy out of his precious palace into the forest.”

“I’ve heard something about these techniques. Tell me more.”

“Our pirate friend has taken time to create some new weapons he’ll use in his raids. I have seen one myself. The beauty of the design is the simplicity. They are but large wooden clubs, each tipped with the teeth of the marguar. A blow cast with such a club will not kill a man outright but leave him to die slowly and painfully. The death comes eventually either from loss of blood or from the poison in the teeth.”

“That sounds like exactly the thing we need, my son. The use of such a weapon against his own people will surely draw Iosoan out of his sanctuary and leave his cities empty.”

“My lord,” called a voice from the closed door. “The captain is reporting as ordered.”

“He may enter,” answered Darrak from the shadow.

The door creaked slightly as it opened and closed, admitting a single figure dressed in the standard Hai Krun military uniform. His leather sash was polished to a shine and adorned with seven bone rings to mark his status among the troops.

The blood-red Hai Krun dragon on the breast of his tunic gleamed angrily in the flickering torchlight.

He strode three paces into the room once the door had been shut and stood with his hands clasped behind his back in the traditional formal stance for one who is awaiting orders.

“Captain Burke,” said Darrak, only his knuckles visible. “Please, take a seat.”

The captain moved to do as bade, hiding any apprehension he was feeling very well. He stepped around the leather-bound chair positioned in front of the large desk and backed down into it. Obviously pleased that he had been asked to a council meeting, then asked to sit, he was doing a marvelous job of hiding his personal feelings and remaining focused on the task at hand. The chair squeaked a little as he settled his weight, and then he sat, anxious to find the purpose of his summons.

“My son tells me that the training is nearing completion,” the great lord said to his captain.

“Not nearing, my lord. Done,” the captain answered with obvious pride. “All squads have completed the courses with excellent results and have performed beyond all expectation in training. Your army is ready at your command.”

“We will see how they perform against the army of the Hai Lei. Don’t forget that he once bested the combined forces of three great houses.”

“That fact has been foremost in our training, my lord. Our allegiance with the pirates will solve that problem and leave our armies easy access to their capital.”

“The best-laid plan may still fall short of perfection,” said Darrak, quoting Somoni. “Be sure that you do not fall short. Do not underestimate our adversaries.”

“My lord, we will not fail.”

“Father,” Duain cut in, “I have been curious for some time. How do you plan to deal with the Hai Consul once they receive word of the invasion?”

“I have already dealt with the Hai Consul, my son. Now, you must concentrate on your task. Later, all will become clear.

Now let us discuss our next phase; please, Captain, continue your report.”

“Yes, Lord. As you know, we have designed our training schedules in shifts to make it difficult for any of Iosoan’s spies to count our true number. We have, at present, an army five thousand strong which has spent the past year training for this campaign. Our current estimates of their numbers are under three thousand.”

“Remind me, Captain, how you have finally divided the troops. Was it three thousand for the forest?”

“That’s right. Three thousand for the forest and two thousand for the empty cities. Those numbers will more than overwhelm the Hai Lei in both places.”

“Very well. Duain, you will lead the party which takes their capital,” the prince nodded, “and Captain Burke will lead the war party in the forest. We have, then, but to wait for word that our pirate allies have done their job.”

---

While the dark voices of dark men rolled round the dark room, in another palace many leagues distant, the delighted squeals of a young girl rang out. This palace, nestled between the upper foothills of the Mahlners and the Northern edge of the Khokuri forest, was constructed almost entirely of wood in contrast to Darrak Krun’s stone monster. It was the palace of Iosoan Lei in his capital city of Iordantan. Built to welcome his guests and subjects rather than to intimidate them, the air in and around the sprawling complex seemed both lighter and more open. Windows were larger and more frequent, and the shades were kept back even at night. From every building flew the green banner of the Hai Lei and from every village came streams of the happy and lighthearted, eager to visit the city of their great lord.

The squeals echoing down the hallways in the palace might have been from any young girl’s overexcited playfulness, but any one of the palace residents would have known otherwise. It was no great secret that was going on in the prince’s bedchamber. But to say everyone knew would leave the wrong impression. Rather, nobody so much as paused to listen or give the matter a second thought. In truth, the only three people who really cared about the source of the squeals were the same three currently inside the room from which they came.

Iordan, the powerfully built, silver-haired prince, was nude in his canopied bed. Kneeling beside him was Mia, his eleven-year-old servant, running her hands across his muscled shoulders and humming softly and happily to herself.

Beneath him, writhing her lithe body sensuously, was his twelve-year-old servant, Mikka. She was his obvious favorite, though he did his best to treat them both equally. Iordan had personally selected the two young servant girls for his chambers a year before, and though their sleeping chamber was a separate room off of his own, the bed in that chamber had not been used once. Though the girls’ combined ages did not equal his own, nor their combined weight, they both performed marvelously in their services to him, and he in turn made sure to take care of them.

As the prince thrust into the small body beneath him, the door to his chamber opened, and another servant girl stepped inside.

“My lord prince,” she said, “The lord Iosoan requires your presence in his council chamber at your ... ahh ... earliest possible convenience.” Her eyes were cast down, not out of either shame or fear, but because she felt it would be impolite for her to watch when she had not been invited.

“Thank you, Sara,” the prince answered between thrusts. “Tell him I’ll be down in a quarter hour.”

“Very good, my lord.” She bowed and turned to leave.

“Sara,” called the prince as he felt an insistent touch on his shoulder and remembered the other girl kneeling beside him. “Better make it half an hour.”

“Yes, lord.”

Three quarters of an hour later, the prince Iordan entered the council chamber, still smoothing his cotton tunic. He had never liked cotton and was glad that formal dress was necessary only for council meetings and other such events. After the affair was over, he planned to change immediately back into the more comfortable grass-fiber clothing which Mia and Mikka were busy preparing for him. He glanced around the room, already filled with his father’s advisors, messengers, and captains.

“Ahh, my son,” a great voice bellowed out. Iosoan Lei was seated at the head of the gathered court, still every bit the legendary war-maker and peace-giver he had been in his youth. With a chest like a barrel and a magnificent mane of flowing silver hair, his sharp eyes missed nothing, and his presence filled a room in a way that few mortal men are able.

“It is a great honor for us to be graced with your presence at...”

“Father...” Iordan interrupted with mock indignance. The twinkle in the eyes of both father and son told any who watched that the playful exchange was a typical occurrence between them. “I had matters which required my personal attention.”

“Yes, I’m quite sure of that.” Then, clearing his throat, Iosoan glanced about the room and said, “Well, it seems time we bring this meeting to order.” A round of mumbled agreements circled the room as the prince took his seat at his father’s left. “Very good,” the great lord continued. “The first order of business is the new session of the Consul Hai, which begins in a few weeks. I have in mind several possible candidates for our senator, and I would like to know your feelings on each of them. Bann first.”

“Bann is a natural statesman, my lord,” said the chubby advisor on Iosoan’s right. “He’d do well in the senate and represent you very well.”

“Ahh, yes, he’ll do well,” said a slight, balding man from the far side of the circle, “but I think it’s more likely that he’ll do well for himself. He never did strike me as the type of man who could put the nation’s good ahead of his own.”

“You think he’d be subject to bribery?” asked Iosoan.

“I think it unlikely, my lord,” answered a third man, “but possible. Bann’s price may be exceedingly high, but he does have a price. One with enough wealth could rightly buy him off.”

“Don’t misunderstand, lord. We don’t think him a traitor,” said the balding man. “He’d not do anything outright against your highness, but his greed could be manipulated easily by men who have little to lose. He would bear watching.”

“My spies are stretched thin enough keeping eyes on those blasted pirates on our West border and the Hai Krun on our East,” rumbled the great lord. “I cannot afford also to turn eyes to the North to watch a corrupt senator,” he sighed.

“No, Bann is out. Next, Drake.”

“Drake is a weasel,” piped a voice, bringing a round of chuckles from the group at Simi Drake’s thin face and long nose.