THE REFORGED TRILOGY: BOOK 3 — HAMMER OF TIME
Chapter 12: What Falling is For
“Our duties to our families are a model for our place in the rest of the world.”
– Cendra Hallos, Sunjarran consul (48 PA)
Xia was on the Blue Phoenix when Maeve returned, but Panna wasn’t with her. The Arcadian girl was still in Gharib, talking to the other fairies they had found.
“Panna said she would call later,” Xia told Maeve.
“Her loss,” Duaal said with a shrug. “Kessa’s invited us to dinner.”
“How is Baliend?” Xia asked.
“We’ll find out tonight. Gripper, put that over here.”
Duaal pointed to a relatively uncluttered corner of the cargo bay and Gripper set down the heavy canister of phennomethylln with a grunt. It was about the size of a small barrel, with handles welded to each side and a red nozzle on the top.
Maeve looked outside. It was swiftly growing dark and the night was cooling. The Arcadians were returning to the Blue Phoenix, one by one and then in small groups. They lowered their wings and bowed their heads to Maeve as they came inside before going to their scattered blankets.
“It hardly seems fair that we go to dinner while they have only a spoonful of beans and nutrient injections,” Maeve said.
“No, it doesn’t,” Duaal agreed. “But hey, going hungry ourselves won’t help. And you said you want to coo over the baby. What else can we do? We have no money.”
Logan stood at the top of the lowered cargo ramp, arms crossed and watching the sky as the stars began to flicker against the violet evening sky. He turned back to the Blue Phoenix.
“What about that?” he asked.
Maeve looked back to where Logan was pointing — the canister of phenno. Xia and Gripper looked, too.
“What about it?” Duaal asked, frowning. “Xyn always gives us a fresh batch when we come to Stray. What about it?”
“That’s a very expensive gift,” Logan said. “You could get at least a thousand cenmarks for that much phennomethylln.”
“Not enough money to found a kingdom, but it is enough to eat for a while,” Maeve agreed.
“You want me to sell our phenno?” Duaal asked. “What about the Blue Phoenix?”
“You’re not planning on diving into another star anytime soon, are you?” Logan asked him.
“Well, no…”
“We have to sell it,” Maeve said. She sighed and then gave Duaal a smile. “I am sorry for your loss, captain, but I thank you for saving my people.”
Duaal scowled at her for a long moment and looked as though he might start shouting at Maeve… But at last, the young mage laughed.
“You really are turning into a little queen,” he said. “Fine, I’ll sell the phenno. I assume that sooner is better than later?”
“They are hungry,” Maeve answered. She gestured around the hold. “Our dinner can wait.”
Gripper nodded and then checked his pockets until he found his com.
“I’ll call Blue and let her know we’re running late,” Gripper said. He began delicately pressing the tiny buttons. Tiny compared to his huge claws, at least. “I think that will be alright. She wasn’t sure she could get dinner ready in time, anyway.”
“Where the hells do we sell phenno, anyway?” Duaal asked. “I have no idea where to start.”
“I do,” Logan said.
“You do?” Duaal asked. “But you are… were a bounty hunter. Phenno is highly illegal. Weren’t you sort of on the other side of the black market?”
Logan nodded. “I was, yes. But I’ve hunted smugglers by letting them think that I had phenno or other illegal items to sell. And I’ve actually used it a couple of times, so I’m familiar with both buying and selling.”
“Xyn sells it, too,” Xia pointed out.
“So let’s make sure we’re not going to be competing with him,” Duaal said. “This stuff was a present and I don’t want to get on his bad side.”
Logan spent the next few hours on the mainstream. Eventually, he gave Duaal a list of names and com frequencies. Duaal scanned the datadex and whistled.
“Head out to dinner,” he told the rest of his crew. “I’m probably going to be on this until late.”
“You’ve grown into a captain far better than I have any kind of queen,” Maeve said.
Duaal flushed. It hadn’t been so long since he and the princess were petty enemies that compliments came easily to either of them. But Maeve had to admit to herself that she would have been lost without Duaal.
“Maybe,” Duaal said. “Just save me some food, alright?”
Maeve, Logan, Gripper and Xia covered themselves with hoods and scarves and set out toward Gharib. They passed several more Arcadians, the fairies on their way back to the Blue Phoenix. Those that saw Maeve sang out a respectful greeting to their queen, but didn’t ask her business.
At the edge of the dusty landing crescent, they made their way through a neat line of huge Starwind haulers and into the city. Taxis lined the crescent’s edge with drivers leaning out of their doors and hawking their rides to the passing travelers, but Maeve and her friends didn’t have the money to rent one. So they walked through the shadow-steeped sandstone of Gharib to the address that Kessa had given them.
Two hours after they planned to arrive, they finally stood on the low concrete porch of a small brown house. Gripper knocked on the door. In a shocking display of impish humor, Kessa had not told her mate about the visit. When Vyron spotted Logan outside, the Dailon man shouted in terror and tried to slam the door shut. But Gripper’s hand was in the way and the door only bounced off his thick knuckles. The Arboran leapt back, groaning and cradling his injured hand. Vyron had fallen to the floor and stared up at the rest of them.
“Maeve?” he asked, black eyes wide. “Xia? What are you doing here? Why is Coldhand with you?”
Logan stepped into the door and extended his hand to Vyron.
“That’s a long story,” Logan told him. “But I’m not here for you or your family.”
Vyron didn’t look at all certain about this confounding change to the order of the universe. He stood on his own and invited them inside. Vyron had cut off his glossy black ponytail — probably uncomfortable in the Stray heat, Maeve guessed — and wore his hair cut close to his head. But when Gripper asked Vyron about it, the Dailon grimaced and touched his temple.
“Baliend is a bit of a hair puller,” he said. “You’ll want to watch out, Maeve.”
Vyron’s house was small and inexpensive, but brightly lit and cheerful. Kessa was waiting for them in the kitchen, giggling as she cut up a loaf of bread. Vyron scowled at his wife.
“Very funny, dear,” he said. “At least I know why we needed so many eggs.”
Kessa hugged Xia and thanked the Ixthian for coming.
“Where’s Duaal?” she asked.
“Just finishing up some business,” Xia told her. “We’re selling off the phenno.”
“Selling phennomethylln?” Vyron asked. He took over slicing the bread so Kessa could pour glasses of pink-tinged lemonade for everyone. “Xyn won’t like that.”
“We’ve already called him about it,” Gripper said. “Mixer knows it’s just a one-time thing.”
“We need the money,” Maeve told them with a dismissive flip of her wings. She had been quite patient, Maeve thought, and now she wanted to see the baby. “Where is Baliend?”
“Oh, he’s asleep in his room,” Kessa said.
The disappointment must have shown on Maeve’s face. Vyron shared a look with Kessa and then turned to the Arcadian.
“It’s about time for him to eat again. Do you want to get him?” he asked. “He’ll probably need a diaper change, though.”
“It would be my honor,” Maeve said sincerely.
Xia and Kessa giggled, but Maeve didn’t think there was anything disapproving in their laughter. Vyron pointed down a narrow hallway to a closed door painted in blue and yellow stars.
“May I help?”
The question came from Logan. Xia’s eyes turned a surprised orange and Gripper’s mouth hung open in surprise. Vyron looked nervous, but Kessa smiled at the Prian.
“Sure,” she said. “Baliend’s kind of a handful when he wakes up. I’m sure Maeve could use the help.”
Logan nodded. He and Maeve made their way down the hall to the star-studded door and stepped quietly inside. The bedroom on the other side was barely lit by a small nightlight shaped like a seashell that was out of place on dry, sandy Stray. Baliend lay asleep in a tiny bed, tightly swaddled in a blanket to keep him from falling out. His fine hair had darkened from its snowy white to a dark jet color, just like his parents.
“He has grown so much,” Maeve whispered. She crouched and stroked the baby’s soft, fine hair. “I wonder if he is talking yet.”
Quiet and gentle though she tried to be, Baliend’s large obsidian eyes popped open. He yawned impressively, displaying lavender gums with a couple of small white teeth winking in the nightlight. Baliend burbled at Maeve so adorably that it took her several moments to realize she was holding her breath against the smell. The infant Dailon squirmed in his blanket.
Maeve had no idea what to do. She squinted around the nursery for something that looked like diapers. Were those them, the rolled-up bundles of… paper?
But Logan had already unwound Baliend from his blankets and carried him to a changing table. The boy’s tiny blue face screwed up in indignant infant fury and he began to cry. Logan placed an illonium fingertip very carefully between Baliend’s lips. The baby bit once on the cold metal and continued to cry.
“Do you–?”
Maeve began to ask if Logan wanted her to try, but her hunter’s expression was intent and Maeve’s heart skipped. She knew that look. Logan was planning, weighing the tactics of his next move.
“Tumble down baby,” he sang.
The words came haltingly, but his voice was strong and smooth. There was something bright and sweet there, too. Logan sang like no Arcadian man. His voice was thicker and deeper and had some tone, somehow, of the stone and ice of his homeworld.
“Tumble down baby
From the cold clouds
Finding your wings
Is what falling is for…”
By the middle of the second verse, Baliend had stopped crying. He regarded Logan with large, serious black eyes but made no more fuss over his diaper change. Logan cleaned his hands with a clear gel that smelled sharply of chemicals and picked up the now-clean Baliend.
“Where did you learn so much about children? I thought that you had no siblings,” Maeve said as she took Baliend. She cradled the baby against her chest. He was heavier than she expected. “Your song sounded almost Arcadian.”
“It’s a Prian lullaby,” Logan answered. He smoothed Baliend’s hair, which had been ruffled during the change. “My mother used to sing it. My parents had two daughters before me. I’m just the only one who lived past my first year. Infant mortality is high on Prianus. But there were plenty of children in our building and I needed to make some colour.”
“So you… cared for them?” Maeve asked. The idea was insanity. Logan Coldhand had been a baby-sitter.
“No. I rented them out as cheap labor,” Logan answered.
Maeve looked up from Baliend’s round blue face just in time to catch the last of her hunter’s quick smile. She laughed and stood up on her toes to kiss him. The baby was warm and slightly squirming between them.
Kessa and Vyron were just outside the door when they emerged, hovering protectively. Maeve handed Baliend back to his mother and assured her that he had behaved perfectly. They returned to the kitchen and Logan helped Kessa wrestle Baliend into a high chair at the dinner table.
Duaal arrived just in time to eat, stamping the dust out of his boots and grinning happily at Vyron and Kessa. The Blue Phoenix’s young captain swept into the dining room and sat with a flourish.
“Smells delicious,” he said, winking at Vyron. “I can’t wait to eat. Maeve, Ferris called in after you left. He’s planning your first speech here in three days. There’s something else he wants to talk to you about, but he wouldn’t tell me what it was.”
“Speech?” Vyron asked.
“Gripper and Xia told us a lbit of what’s been going on while you were taking care of Baliend,” Kessa said. The baby cooed at the sound of his own name and threw his milk cup on the floor. Kessa jumped to her feet with a sigh and gave chase as it rolled away.
“They said you’re making yourself queen of the fairies?” Vyron asked skeptically, as though he didn’t quite trust his understanding of the situation.
Duaal nodded. “To compete with Xartasia and keep the Arcadians out of her Devourers’ claws.”
“Devourers?” Kessa asked. She returned the bottle to Baliend, who took one drink and dropped it again. “What?”
Xia sighed. “Of course you didn’t hear about that. It happened on Prianus.”
Vyron and Kessa were full of questions. Maeve and the rest took turns answering while the rest filled their plates with roasted ham and minnas and leafy green jouk. They told Vyron and Kessa about the events of Prianus, the Waygate and Gavriel’s death, arguing with the Alliance on Tynerion and again on Mir, then the final decision to take on the problem of Xartasia themselves.
“So now you’ve got a ship full of fairies?” Kessa asked. “Did you have any trouble getting out to Stray with that many people and no weapons?”
“No,” Gripper said. “Is that strange?”
Vyron shrugged.
“I don’t know,” he said. “The galaxy is a big place.”
“But there have been attacks in extra-system space,” Kessa told them. “Pirates, they’re saying on the mainstream.”
“Pirates,” Xia hissed with shocking anger. “My shiny silver ass.”
Gripper choked on a sip of purple juice at that and blushed furiously. Maeve was more than a little surprised to hear such language from the gentle and cultured doctor, too. She blinked at Xia and was not the only one. The Ixthian put a hand over her mouth.
“Sorry,” she said. “Not in front of the baby.”
“That’s alright,” Kessa assured her. “It’s not like he can understand yet.”
Baliend wasn’t paying attention to the adults at all. Instead, he intently smeared mashed minnas on his face, making starchy white paint on his round blue cheeks. He stuck out his tongue at Duaal, who did the same.
“It’s the Devourers out there,” Xia said. “I’d bet my license on it.”
“And I would bet mine — if I still had it — that Arcadians are vanishing nearby with each attack,” Logan added. “But that won’t make it onto the mainstream.”
Vyron rubbed his jaw and looked at the Prian. The news that Logan Coldhand was no longer a bounty hunter had rocked him and the Dailon father was clearly still struggling to keep up.
“What are you going to do now?” Vyron asked.
“Now we need to build a fairy kingdom,” Duaal answered. “How many Arcadians are there on Stray?”
“Nine thousand?” Vyron said. “Maybe ten?”
“That’s enough to get started.” Logan turned in his chair to look at Maeve sitting beside him. “There’s another Arcadian that I think we should bring here. His name is Ballad.”
“The one you met on Prianus? We just got to Stray!” Duaal said. “We can’t just pack everyone up again and head to the other side of the Alliance. It’s a five-week flight from here!”
“No,” agreed Logan. “We need to stay on Stray. I’ll send word to Prianus. And money to make the flight, if we can get it. Ballad will want to bring his gang and his family with him.”
“We can loan it to you,” Kessa offered quickly.
“Kes, are you sure?” Vyron asked.
“We wouldn’t be here without him and Maeve and Tiberius,” Kessa answered. She enfolded one of Vyron’s hands in hers. “Come on. It’s just money. We can always make more.”
“You’re right, Kes,” Vyron agreed. He kissed his wife and then stood up to get Baliend some more milk.
Gripper cleared his throat and then tentatively held up one big hand. “Um, Talon–”
“Is that what you’re calling me now?” Logan asked.
“I’m trying it out.”
“That’s the model of my gun.”
“Yeah,” Gripper admitted. “That’s where I got it.”
“You can’t call me that. Coldhand is an assumed name. Just keep using that.”
“Nah,” said the Arboran. “It isn’t really you anymore.”
“It isn’t?” Logan arched an eyebrow at Gripper.
“I’ll figure something out. How are we going to get a message to your friend? I don’t think I saw a single mainstream terminal in that whole part of Pylos.”
“Not many Arcadians even know how to use your computers,” Maeve said.
Logan frowned thoughtfully and then nodded. “I know who can get the message to Ballad. If he’s willing to let me give it to him.”
Ballad Avadain felt eyes on him.
The dark Prian night was deep and cold, and the midnight chill sliced through even the thick leather of his jacket like a nanoknife. Ballad shivered and surveyed the narrow, crooked streets of Pylos. There were Arcadians and humans below, all bundled up in coats and scarves against the cold. The season was well into summer now, but there was still sleet mixed in with the rain that spattered across Ballad’s shoulders and soaked into his feathers.
But the shiver that ran down his spine had nothing to do with the weather. Someone was watching him.
Ballad spread his wings, leapt from the crumbling cornice and soared into the darkness. Lamps jutted up from the cracked sidewalk, but only one in ten glowed through the clinging gray fog. He landed on the concrete and searched the street. The crowds were thinning for the night as everyone went home. Ballad stuffed his hands into the pockets of his jacket and found the fibersteel straps hidden there. He slid his hands through the flexible metal and felt a bit better with them on, but still uneasy.
A shape in dark clothes stepped out of the shadows and stalked purposefully toward Ballad. It was a human man, broad across the shoulders but not much taller than the young Arcadian.
Ballad leapt in with a pair of punches, trying to drive the interloper back. The human shuffled aside with deceptive speed, stepping into the flickering light of a streetlamp. He was Prian, but older than most Ballad had ever seen, with a heavily lined face and no hair left. He stepped inside another punch and jabbed two gnarled fingers into Ballad’s bicep. The Arcadian pulled back, wincing. He kicked at the Prian’s knee. Fighting such an old man made Ballad more than a little uncomfortable, but the human had swiftly proven himself an able warrior.
The Prian melted back and then back again, forcing Ballad to reach for him. When he did, the human grabbed one wrist, twisted and yanked Ballad down to his knees on the cracked and jagged sidewalk.
“Ballad Avadain?” the man asked, not even out of breath.
“What are you doing in my piece of Pylos?” Ballad asked. He writhed, but couldn’t break the old Prian’s grip.
“My name is Arctan. I’m carrying a message for you.”
Vorus released Ballad’s wrist and the young Arcadian jumped back, rubbing his wounded hand.
“Arctan Vorus? You were Jocasta’s teacher. It’s an honor to meet you.” Ballad extended his hand hesitantly. “Wish I could say this is the first time this happened. Who’s your message from?”
Vorus shook the fairy’s offered hand firmly. His palm was rough and dry. “Another old student of mine. He says you’ve already met.”
Ballad grinned. “Yes, we have. What does Logan Coldhand got to tell me?”
“He says that your queen needs you, Ballad. She summons you to Stray.”
