My student had asked me a question that had left me chuckling at first, but the more I thought about it the more curious I became.
What is the difference between the risen race and the old races?
I had set down my quill and regarded him. This boy with dirt on his knees and questions in his eyes that most men twice his age never thought to ask. He had waited patiently for my answer.
And as I pondered this, I realized it was a question rarely asked, and the answer was not as straightforward as one might think. The old races, as legend had it, were the first of all races. But what did that truly mean? Were they the first to arrive, or the first to be created? The humans, for instance, had always claimed to be the only original inhabitants of the world, but what proof did they possess beyond their own telling? The elves if any still remain deep with in thier forest, keep their own councils and share nothing with us. While the dwarves just focused on the now only caring for their mental and gold.
The risen races, on the other hand, had records of their rise. They remembered what it was to be something else. Even the old kings had spoken of the differences between the various risen races, especially those they had waged war with. I had read accounts from the Northern Campaigns that describe the harpies of that age as something barely recognizable compared to what they have become.
As I thought about it, I began to realize that the difference between a risen and old race could simply come down to origin and the ability to evolve. The harpies, for example though once a savage, mindless beast. Had adapted to their environment in ways that allowed them to survive and grow. Developing new forms, mutations, and a level of intelligence that could only be described as frightening. I have seen sketches from the Second Age, and what they showed were simple creatures. Now the harpies who hunts the eastern passes today possesses something in thier eyes that was not there five hundred years ago.
The boy had shifted on his stool, and I realized I had been silent too long.
"In all honesty," I said, "this is a question I will continue to ponder. And to think it came from one so young."
The boy had smiled that disarming smile of his and asked if I would write it down. So that others might ponder too.
I couldn't help but smile.
Truly, I have a very inquisitive student.
—Excerpt from the private note of Philip the Mad Sage
---
High above the forest floor, a towering tree stood against the sky like a spear driven into the earth by some ancient god. Its massive trunk wide enough that twenty men linking hands could not circle it bore the scars of a thousand winters, and its roots delved deeper than any dwarf-hall. Frost and snow cascaded from the grey heavens, kissing its dark green leaves, and the wind moved through its branches with a sound like old voices whispering.
The tree had stood here before the first human king drew breath. Before the old races named themselves lords of anything. It would stand long after the last of them had faded into memory.
Yet the whispers were interrupted by the sound of wings.
The harpy emerged from the tree line, crimson eyes piercing the gloom, her body a strange marriage of woman and bird that should not have been beautiful but was. Brown feathers lay sleek against her form, still dusted with the snow of the outer world. She flew hard and fast, her wings cutting the air with purpose.
As she landed before the massive trunk, the tree seemed to shudder. Not from wind. Not from age. The shudder came from within, deep as a heartbeat. A section of bark the size of a gate rippled, twisted, and became a doorway. Warm light bled through the crack.
The harpy did not hesitate. She flew through, and the doorway closed behind her.
---
The tunnels within were not tunnels as men understood them. They were passages carved by growth rather than tool, the wood twisting in spirals that would have meant nothing to an outsider but spoke clear directions to those born here. Roots formed handholds where needed. Fungus glowed faintly on the walls, pale blues and greens that cast just enough light to fly by. The air smelled of living wood and something deeper, older, that might have been the tree's own breath.
The harpy took turn after turn, her wings brushing against walls worn smooth by countless passages before her. She did not slow. Could not slow. The weight of what she carried pressed against her chest like a second heart beating too fast.
Finally, a light ahead that was not fungus-glow. This was the gold of sun on leaves, the silver of open sky, the impossible warmth of a realm that existed apart from the frozen world she had left behind.
She burst through the final passage and into the Lumen Gentium
---
It was a realm of beauty and wonder, suspended in the branches of trees so vast they could not be comprehended all at once. Harpies of every color filled the air, greens and blues and reds and browns, feathers flashing in the eternal light of this place. They wove through the sky in patterns that looked like chaos but were something else entirely. A dance. A language. A greeting to the day that never ended here.
Below, the forest floor was visible only as a distant suggestion. A carpet of green so far down that falling would take the time of a full breath and then some. Above, the canopy opened to a sky that held no sun but was luminous nonetheless, as though the light came from everywhere at once.
Little harpies, hatchlings just recently gone through their first molt, flew higher than they should, weaving through the throng of their elders. They screeched with the particular joy of creatures who have never known true fear, then folded their wings and dropped in dives that made this brown-feathered messenger's heart clench. She remembered such dives. Remembered when the world had been nothing but air and the laughter of her sisters.
That had been before she knew what lurked beyond the Aerie's walls.
She flew on.
---
The Spire Tree rose at the heart of the Aerie, taller than its kin by half again, its trunk wrapped in spiraling platforms and nested chambers. Guards circled its heights, not the colorful variety that filled the lower air, but harpies of a different sort. Their feathers were dark, their bodies scarred, their eyes holding the flat attention of those who have learned that peace is a luxury only the strong can afford.
They watched her approach but did not challenge. She was expected. Or at least, her return was.
She landed on the highest platform, where the air grew thin and cold even in this protected realm. Two guards blocked the entrance to the Queen's chamber. Devilish-looking creatures whose presence pressed against the skin. One opened her beak to speak, but the messenger called out before she could.
"Lyra, returning from the outer world. The Queen knows I come."
The guards exchanged a glance. Then they stepped aside.
Lyra waddled awkwardly past them and entered the grand chamber. She had been gone for what felt like an eternity. The weight of her mission bore down on her light body until she felt she might sink through the floor.
---
The chamber opened before her, vast and high, carved from the living tree but shaped into something more than nature intended. The walls curved inward like the inside of a shell, and openings on three sides to let in the sky and the distant sounds of the lower class below. The floor was polished wood, dark with age, scattered with feathers shed by generations of those who had stood here before her.
Other harpies filled the space, high-status females from the great families, their plumage immaculate, their eyes sharp. They parted as Lyra entered, some with contempt curling their lips, others with eyes downcast in deference to her rank. She felt their gazes on her, crawling across her feathers, judging the wear of her journey, the wild look she knew must be in her eyes.
The air was thick with the scent of bosom flower. A rare bloom that grew only here, in this chamber, nurtured by the presence of the one who ruled them all. Its fragrance was heavy, sweet, almost suffocating. Lyra had always hated it.
At the far end of the chamber, upon a throne of twisted vines and feathers that seemed to grow from the tree itself, a figure reclined.
The first mother. The bringer of order. The herald of Doom.
The Queen of Harpies.
---
Queen Zephyrine was beautiful in the way that fire is beautiful. Dangerous to look upon, impossible to ignore. Her plumage held the colors of twilight: deep indigo shot through with silver that moved like living creatures when she shifted. Her face was fine-boned, sharp, with eyes the color of molten gold that saw everything and forgave nothing. She wore no crown. She needed none.
Those golden eyes fixed on Lyra as she approached, and Lyra felt the full weight of them. The Queen missed nothing, not the weariness in Lyra's wings, not the snow still melting from her feathers, not the tremor in her talons as she crossed the floor.
Lyra prostrated herself before the throne, her wings folding against her sides, her forehead pressing to the cool wood. She could feel the eyes of every harpy in the chamber on her back. Could hear her own heartbeat thudding in her ears.
"My Queen," she whispered, and was appalled at how small her voice sounded. "I have returned from the mission you gave me."
Silence. The Queen let it stretch, let the weight of it build, let Lyra feel every passing heartbeat as a small eternity.
"Rise, little one," Zephyrine said at last. Her voice was soft, musical, and cold as the depths of the eastern sea. "I sense you bring grave news."
Lyra rose on shaking legs. She met her Queen's eyes because to look away would be disrespectful. "The... my Queen... it is as you feared."
She paused. It was a small thing, that pause barely a breath, but she used it to gauge. To see if the Queen's expression would shift, would give anything away.
It did not.
The Queen stared deeply into her, willing her to speak, and Lyra knew there was no delaying further.
"The Grey Ones have broken free from the Black Tower's watch."
---
The chamber erupted.
Lyra had expected murmurs, perhaps a few sharp intakes of breath. What she got was a wave of sound that crashed against her from all side. Harpies who had spent decades cultivating perfect composure lost it all at once. They muttered, they shrieked, they turned to one another with eyes gone wide and wild. The Grey Ones. Free. After all this time. After all the blood spent to cage them.
"The Black Towers have stood for eight hundred years," someone hissed. "They cannot have fallen."
"The watch was eternal," another said, her voice cracking. "The old queens swore it."
"The old queens are dead," a third replied, "and their oaths died with them."
Tension thickened until Lyra felt she could reach out and touch it. The high-status harpies who had looked at her with contempt moments ago now looked at her with something else entirely. Fear, perhaps. Or the beginning of understanding that things was much worse than they thought.
The Queen's expression did not change.
Her eyes, however, those molten gold eyes seemed to flash with a fierce, burning light. It was there and gone in an instant, but Lyra saw it. And in that flash, she saw something she had never seen in her Queen before.
Not fear. Never fear.
But something like the moment before a storm breaks.
"I see," Zephyrine said, and her voice cut through the chaos. The chamber fell silent instantly. "Then it is as I have foreseen. The time of reckoning draws near, and we must prepare for war."
War.
The word hung in the air like the first note of a song that would end in discord.
The assembly broke into full-throated chatter once more, but Lyra barely heard it. She stood frozen before the throne, a shiver running down her spine that had nothing to do with cold. She was about to witness something momentous. She knew it with the same certainty she knew the beat of her own wings. Something that would change the course of their history forever.
And she had been the one to bring the news that started it.
------
The mender's tent smelled of crushed herbs and the faint, iron tang of old blood. It was a smell Femi had come to know well in his time with the Krags. The smell of sweaty bodies pushed past their limits, of wounds bound and hopes thrown to the wind. The pain of broken bones.
Ooo the broken bones.
His broken hand and arm pulsed at the thought of their circumstanc. Which only created a sickening ache that pulsed with each heartbeat.
An elderly Krag female worked on him in silence. She must have been new because Femi was sure he had never seen her before.
Did they sack the old one. From what Varga had told him, the old med was the reason he was still alive. He hasn't even found the time to give him thanks for keeping him in one piece. Femi could only sigh at the thought of the old Krag wondering the forest while holding a job application form.
As the new med worked on him, Femi couldn't help but notice her fingers. Which were as gnarled as tree roots and yet they moved with surprising gentleness as she massaged his arm then splinted and bound it. She hummed while she worked, which was strange , because that seemed like something a krag didn't do.
Maybe an old habit, Femi guessed. For soothing dieing patients. Or perhaps one of their many song for the dead warriors.....
I rebuke those evil thoughts. Femi declared in his mind as it began to go to bad places.
Suddenly, the tent flap opened, letting in a sliver of cold wind that reminded Femi he was currently shirtless. His brown fur left with out aid, provided some warmth, but not enough for the cutting cold air.
Varga followed the wind inside.
She paused at the entrance, letting her eyes adjust to the dim light. She surveyed the tent with the calm, thorough attention she brought to everything, noting the position of the supplies, the mender's movements, the state of Femi's bandages. Only when she had satisfied herself that nothing was amiss did she dismiss the mender with a nod.
The old female krag gathered her things and departed without a word. Varga waited until the flap fell shut behind her, then crossed to a stool beside the cot. She sat heavily, her weight settling with a small grunt.
Silence.
"He planned this," Femi said. His voice came out hoarse. "Didn't he."
It was not a question.
Varga's frowed a little. She reached out and placed her hands on his shoulder. She quietly checked the tightness of his bandages with practiced fingers, before speaking.
"Of course he did. The moment their party was spotted three days out, Arieus knew why they'd come. Drug'wag children were simply a means of testing his boundaries."
"So he used me as a scapegoat."
Varga sighed.
"He tested your worth." She said her voice holding no emotion. "You have shown that you are more capable than what he expected and so used this opportunity to test you himself." She paused to finish adding a few more bandages to his arm.
"He wanted to see if their current would break you." She reached for a skin hanging from the tent pole and poured a cup of bitter-smelling liquid. "Drink. It will dull the pain and prevent fever."
Femi was pissed. He really wanted to curse and argue, to rail against the casual manipulation of his life and body, but he was too tired and the pain in is arm was really bad.
He could only sigh and took the cup and drank.
The liquid was vile, herbs he couldn't name, mixed with something that burned going down. He grimaced, but kept drinking until the cup was empty.
"And what was all that at the end?" he asked, handing the cup back with his good arm." The part about being a warrior of the band,
Varga's lips quirked a small, rare movement that on anyone else might have been called a smile.
"An agreement with Arieus, you could say. One that helps cement your place within the band."
"An agreement."
"An agreement."
She offered nothing more. Femi knew better than to ask. Varga gave information when she chose. Plus he was suddenly to tired to try
I hope this woman didn't sell my soul to that mad war chief, Femi thought. The draught was already working, pulling at the edges of his consciousness, making his thoughts feel thick and slow.
He let his head fall back against the hide pillow and stared at the canvas above. The day's events replayed in his mind. The choices he'd made, the fight, the moments when death had breathed against his neck and then, for reasons he still didn't fully understand, had withdrawn.
Why had he risked himself like that? For these people? For a over size discounted hulk, who saw him as a tool?
Why was he risking his life in this evil forest at all? For the malicious plans of a very obviously malicious entity?
Was this really the best he could have done with this life?
"He won't thank you," Varga said. Her voice came from somewhere far away, or perhaps he was the one far away. It was hard to tell with the darkness pulling him under. "Neither will he apologize."
Femi forced his eyes open. Varga sat silhouetted against the tent wall, the light behind her turning her edges to gold.
"Think of it as his acknowledgement of your skill."
"Acknowledgement?" Femi muttered. The word came out thick, slurred.
Varga stood. Her silhouette blocked the light from the tent's entrance, and for a moment she looked like something carved from darkness a figure from the old stories of dark spirits stealing the clothes you hang outside in the night.
"The War Chief does not keep useless things," she said. "You should know that by now."
She turned toward the entrance, and Femi thought she would leave without another word. That would be like her.
But she paused at the flap.
"Don't let it bother you too much," she said. She did not turn around. "You have proved your worth time and time again. I, Varga, the truth seeker can attest to that."
She looked over her shoulder. In the dim light filtering through the canvas, her smile was strange to see. It transformed her face, made her look younger, softer...and..
"Sleep," she said. "We have work to do, and I won't wait for your bones to mend."
The tent flap fell shut behind her.
Femi stared at the canvas above. The last of his will beaten down, but he held onto consciousness for one more breath. Just long enough to think:
Well. At least I'm doing something right.
Then the darkness took him, and he knew no more.
---
The throne room emptied slowly, the last of the high-status harpies departing in clusters of hushed, urgent conversation. Their voices faded into the distance, carried away on wings that would spread the news through every nest and aerie in the realm before the day was out. The Grey Ones are free. The Queen calls for war.
Lyra lingered near the entrance, unsure whether she was dismissed or expected to remain. The Queen had not looked at her since delivering that final word. She had simply turned away, facing the open sky through the chamber's eastern gap, and had not moved since.
The last guard departed. The final echo of wings faded. Silence settled over the throne room.
Lyra shifted her weight from talon to talon. She should go. She should find her own nest, tend her own feathers, try to sleep despite the visions that would surely plague her. But her feet would not move.
"The Grey Ones," the Queen said, without turning. "What did you see?"
Lyra startled. "My Queen?"
"When you delivered your report, you omitted something." Zephyrine's voice was calm, conversational almost. "I would know what it was."
Lyra's heart seized. She had thought herself careful. Had thought her pause too brief to note, her expression too carefully controlled to read. But the Queen saw everything. The Queen always saw everything.
"There was... a shape, my Queen." Lyra's voice came out smaller than she wanted. "At the edge of the Black Tower's shadow. Before I turned back. I saw... I thought I saw..."
"Saw what?"
"A figure. Standing where no figure should stand." Lyra swallowed. "It watched me, my Queen. It did not move. It did not blink. It simply... watched. And I knew, in that moment, that it wanted me to see it."
For a long moment, the Queen did not respond. Then, slowly, she turned.
Her expression had not changed,the same regal calm, the same impossible beauty, but something in her eyes had shifted. Something that made Lyra's blood run cold.
"You did well to return," Zephyrine said. "And well to tell me. Go now. Rest. You will be called when you are needed."
Lyra bowed and withdrew, her heart pounding. She did not look back. She did not want to see what might be written on her Queen's face now.