Excerpt from Alexan’s First Journal, Tour of the Shining Lands.

No other group gets quite as much hate as Goblins for the most part, but there is one exception that I've seen. The disrespect Goblins get for their obvious multi-racial nature comes from all corners and all lands. It is no wonder that Goblins often congregate into free cities that exist at the edges of civilization. Find yourself a distant land at the edge of a country's influence and it isn’t uncommon to find a village made up of half-bloods and their full-blood parents.

Humans are a bit odd in that pairing with a goblin tends to result in children who display only one of their goblin parent’s bloodlines combined with that of a Human. But how Humans combine with goblins is hardly the most remarkable way in which they are unique when it comes to childbearing.

Which is why it makes sense that the Greater Elementals who greatly value their traditions hate Humans more than they hate Goblins. That changes depending on which race though. Somehow it seems about right that the Lume despise us the most, while the Erlkin are the most open to Human companionship, relatively speaking.

Unnamed Talkarn

Layessa was about the same age as Easil, a Gnome just a bit past her prime years. She had a bright smile with a scattering of freckles on her cheeks. Most unusually, her left eye was a pale silver and her right eye was a reddish amber. She'd tied her blonde hair back into a tail to keep it orderly and out of her eyes.

Like all Gnomes, her eyes reflected her seed. She was a rare type, a Gnome with two elements, fire and light.

"So healer Leez received a message from Meyla in the Heart about Tal’s escape, at the same time you and Nolsa took off," Layessa explained to Easil. "Leez passed on the message, and we had a group of gnomes set up a listening enchantment. It was unfortunate that we didn't catch you before you left."

Tal was busy wrapping the meat butchered from the winghound in giant leaves and tying up the bundles with twine. He wasn't participating in the conversation much, just listening.

Easil frowned as he helped Layessa inspect the contents of her pack. He shook his head as he replied. "The chances of hearing anything were quite slim though, how did you know we wouldn't be hiding where you couldn't hear us? Or even that we would give ourselves away?"

"We didn't really, we were hoping. Were you in the roots still we would have been out of luck, but we could have found you in the Trunk."

"Who is 'we', is what I am wondering," Nolsa said, cutting into the conversation. She was packing a tattered old pack found in the hut. She and Tal had split some of the supplies so that he didn't have to pack his rucksack full. Easil and Layessa could walk, but riding in the pack would make escapes easier.

Layessa ducked her head and smiled sheepishly. "We Gnomes have our own leaders, they just don't normally like to shake the branch. What I wonder is how Meyla knew."

Tal pushed the wrapped meat into his sack, followed by more foraged foodstuffs. He smiled as he gave Layessa a bit of a non-answer, "someone whispering from the shadows told Meyla, and I'm happy for it."

Nolsa was the first to close the repaired backpack. Tal was right behind her, putting his broken pauldron in the top of the rucksack to give the Gnomes somewhere solid to stand. The wooden armor wasn’t so useful without the railing to hold onto. He flipped the rucksack on its side and started strapping down the damaged kite Layessa had flown in on. A few of the spars had snapped during the rought landing and subsequent attack from the marten, but they could fix that with some downtime.

“That’s not fair,” Layessa told Tal. “There is a lot being asked of everyone right now with you running away.”

Tal frowned and the feeling of guilt started bubbling up in his gut. “Elder Darisen uses the excuse of there being a shadow that wants to free the sealed one. He’s lying, sort of. The shadow is the Sentinel of the seal. It’s there to protect the chosen like me.”

“So it’s half-truths Darisen is using to lead us around by the nose,” Layessa said, nodding with acceptance. “That makes more sense than anything else.”

“You’re not afraid of what’s outside?” Tal asked.

“Some are, but I am not and the Gnomes leaders are not. This world in a bubble is too small for us Gnomes,” Layessa said with a little smile. She flipped the bag up and buckled the top closed. “I’m ready to go.”

Nolsa tightened the pull string on hers and pulled it onto her back. “As am I.”

There were five branches leading off the first limb to adjacent branches. Two went one way, two went the other and one went straight up. The way straight up didn't look at all promising, so that wasn't on the table. They picked the farthest branch going clockwise around the tree.

They didn’t pick it because it was the farthest or because of its size. They picked it because it had the most foliage. The trek to get to that limb and to cross it wasn’t the worst, not like climb to get onto the first limb, but it was still a respectable hike.

The view into the shadows underneath was pretty alarming though. With his eyes used to the dim light, Tal could barely see the jagged rocks below, along with the small patch of roots from which they’d come.

They didn’t talk while crossing the gap between limbs. It was from here that their voices would carry the furthest. And they didn’t want to distract Easil.

To make his life easier, Nolsa had given him one of the pits to use, and he’d chosen to use it for his enhanced hearing.

It was hardly perfect. Easil had impressed Tal with everything done thus far, but Easil clearly wasn’t happy now that they were in the open.

“Sound bounces,” Easil had told Tal the day before. “In such a wide space, I often only know something is in the distance, I could only begin to tell you where it’s going to come from. I might not even be able to tell if it’s moving towards us, if the sound bounces the wrong way.” He'd remained quiet for a moment before complaining, "The tunnels are much easier. There's a natural limit on where the sounds are coming from."

So the hike continued in silence. It wasn't until they were into the next limb that anyone dared to speak.

“Aside from the small critters, I can’t hear anything else around,” Easil told them as they pushed through the heaviest foliage of the Limb. This limb of the Hollow Home was thicker in both the diameter of the branch itself and all the greenery growing from it. The extra cover would make them harder to see, and muffle anything they said.

They weren’t interested in staying one limb over from the corpse they’d left behind. This branch of the tree was the halfway point of today’s travel.

“Layessa, it occurs to me that I haven’t had a chance to tell you about Alamia,” Nolsa whispered.

Layessa hesitated for a long moment. She had heard this exact phrase enough times to know exactly what was happening. “No, I don’t suppose I have. Who have you shared the stories with so far?”

“Mostly Tal,” Nolsa replied.

“With Tal?” Layessa’s surprise was understandable.

“The stories have… been most… entertaining.” Tal added, almost stuttering as he suddenly had to remember the almost ritual phrase. He didn’t realize Nolsa was going to start sharing with Layessa as well, but he should have been ready.

“Oh,” Layessa said.

Tal turned his head. He could see Layessa out of the corner of his eye, sitting in his rucksack and staring at Nolsa. Nolsa was staring back, her hands holding the straps of her tattered backpack. Tal turned his head to look forward, but he could feel the long look the two ladies were sharing. The tension of it was thick in the air.

“How old is Alamia?” Layessa asked carefully.

Nolsa didn’t hesitate. “A little younger than Tal. She will soon hit her sixteenth year.”

"Sixteen.” Layessa repeated. She remained silent for several long moments. “Well, tell me more. What brought… Alamia to mind?” Layessa finally asked.

“The kite,” Nolsa answered.

“The kite?” Layessa replied with surprise.

“Alamia is a free spirit, she always liked the kites,” Tal jumped in. He felt awkward doing so, but he had to stay involved in the storytelling.

Nolsa smoothly picked up where Tal left off. “Indeed, she was always a little jealous and pouty on the odd occasion a gnome messenger jumped on a kite to talk to one of the other villages. The festivals were almost worse, but at least then she could distract herself elsewhere.”

“But she was often quick to spot when a kite was coming into Lisnail,” added Tal.

“Did she ever talk to one of the messengers?” Layessa asked. “I can’t imagine that would have made it better.”

Nolsa contined to whisper as she replied. “She did. Alamia was disappointed to find out only wind aspected could use the kites on a regular basis, and even then, only the best.”

“I was always better with sound than with wind,” Easil whispered with longing. “I could only ever play with them during the festival of chimes.”

“Me as well,” Layessa sighed. “And always with someone supporting me from below since I don’t have wind at all. That practice was good enough to get me down here at least. But not without my own chime wand and a gem fruit pit with a tracking spell.”

Nolsa giggled, “We’re going to have to be careful mentioning how you joined us Layessa. She’ll be jealous to find out they let someone without wind use a kite by themselves.”

“Fair,” Layessa replied with humour in her voice, but that laughter quickly died off. “But the Elder Gnomes wanted someone who could fight, so they sent me instead. The result? I went and crashed the kite.”

“Alamia would almost certainly have crashed it too,” Tal said with his own quiet laugh. “But don’t tell her I said that either.”

The trip to the third limb had remained peaceful. Only a few small critters dared show themselves, and the only large thing was a grumbling far in the distance.

Like the first tree limb, this one had grown right into the wall of rock surrounding the depths of the tree. And like the first, a hut had been built where the main limb met the rock face. The building was old and decrepit, much like the first, but the roof was intact. Mostly. There were patches were the wood shingles had broken away to leave holes in the roof, and in some places the planks of the walls had dried out and come loose.

But while this house certainly made a nesting spot for a variety of smaller critters, there was nothing big here that wanted to make a meal of them.

They’d looked around for activity, found nothing, and settled in.

Now Tal was helping cook.

“You’re wandering again,” Layessa sighed, “Keep it steady. Hotter… bit more… good. Hold it there.”

Tal unclenched his jaw and did his best to hold the heat.

He sat before the pot, char wand in hand as he maintained the fireball heating their supper. There was no wood under this pot, only his aether kept the fire going. The heat of the fire was warm on his face and he could feel a trickle of sweat running down his temple.

“Good, good,” Layessa commented from where she was stirring the pot on her tall stool. Her proximity to the fire and the pot had her sweating as well.

Tal hadn’t realized being on the run would mean his aether lessons would only intensify. He’d mused on what it would be like to run and hide during his imprisonment of course, although he’d had a hard time imagining even getting away.

Having his mana burn cleaned up had been a lesson in itself of course. One he’d even enjoyed. The lesson that is. Being mana burnt wasn't an experience he wanted to repeat.

“Don’t wander, bring it back up,” Layessa brought him back to his task.

Tal fed more aether through the wand in his hand, adding a bit more mana to the orb of fire and concentrating on pulling the loose strands of the spell back together. It was good practice for him. Tal was good at pushing aether, although he wasn’t sure how he compared to other Humans. He’d never met one after all. His problem here was being only marginally familiar with the way fire mana worked.

He’d worked with dark mana lots, and there was lots to work with in the tree. Aside from that he’d used some fire and dabbled with wind and water. Each of them felt different.

Dark mana was heavy and a bit sticky. It was a bit harder to push around after converting raw aether and if Tal didn’t have the right idea in mind when forming his spells, it tended to stick to the mistake. It was sometimes easier to start over rather than trying to force his spell to mold itself to a new purpose.

Fire mana loved to change. It flickered and jumped and was full of life. It was exhilarating to channel, but painful at the same time. One of the first things Tal had done with fire mana was infuse a bit of it into his hand. The fire mana had burned even as it rippled with excitement and power. The problem was that it was much harder to maintain a fire spell since it naturally wanted to escape.

Wind enjoyed changing just as much as fire, but was even harder to hold onto. Like dark mana, Tal had to come at it with a solid intent. If he had the wrong idea, it would escape before he could fix it. Wind mana made him feel light and floaty, the very opposite to dark mana when infused into his flesh.

Water mana he’d barely even touched, but it felt a bit like dark mana in how it would seep into him as he used it. It felt natural to use, flowing much like Tal imagined it. But completed spells felt heavy in the way that Tal felt heavy when he was running as fast as he could. Tal hadn’t had a chance to try infusing it, or much else for that matter.

“Hmmm.” Tal grunted as he felt the orb start to leak once again. He was sweating even harder as he struggled to keep it going.

“Try spinning it,” Layessa suggested.

Tal looked up to her in surprise.

“It works for all elements but earth and light,” Layessa said. She smiled and tilted her head, looking up and to the side. “It works best for water, but fire also holds better if you add motion to it.”

“I’m not really good with moving mana,” Tal admitted.

“Nonsense. You have to move it to put it where you want it,” Layessa laughed. The laugh was friendly, Layessa was enjoying herself. “It does take a shift in mindset, fortunately, fire mana is easier to play with in this manner. Quite different from dark mana that acts like glue.”

Tal nodded and shifted the position of his wand. He’d been pushing mana into the center of the orb all this time. If he wanted it to spin, it made sense to push mana into the side. He willed it to spin, like a top. Or a coin. Tal seized on that image. Spin the coin fast enough and it looked like a ball.

The ball of fire began to spin. It also started heating up, the center of it turning brighter. Tal could feel it generating a breeze as it pulled in the air around him.

“Not too much now,” Layessa warned. “It can get away from you, only give it a little.”

Tal eased on the amount of mana he’d started pushing. Layessa watched closely, giving him little verbal nudges for “more,” or “less,” as he played with it.

“That’s good, hold it spin right there,” Layessa finally said, her approval clear in her voice.”

“Yeah, that’s much easier,” Tal admitted. Suspending the orb above the pit and against the pot was one thing, still taking concentration and a bit of mana to maintain, but having the ball spin was much easier than holding it in place. He still had to put some effort into holding it together, but this was much better.

“Thank you Layessa,” Nolsa commented from the table where she’d been watching. “Fire was never my strong suit.”

“Now now, you’re better than most without a seed,” Layessa argued.

Tal could hear the pleasure in Nolsa’s voice as she spoke. “Yes, but having a chance to learn from more than one teacher is a good opportunity for him.”

“Fair,” Layessa nodded. “And it is nice to teach someone new too. I’m happy to help while I can.”

“I appreciate it,” Tal said. It took him a moment, concentrating on the orb of fire as he was. “Too bad it can’t last.”

“True, but that’s for later, for now let’s enjoy ourselves while we can.” Layessa said, ending the gloomy talk.

Tal nodded and left the conversation there. He had a fire to tend.

End Chapter