Melody of Mana

It took hours to go over my story in full, but I didn't complain. The interviewer was a kindly looking old scribe who spoke to me very sparingly as we sat in the dining hall. He asked me to go over the story in full and let me speak, writing everything down. I did notice him making some points here and there on the paper, places to clarify.

Father arrived about halfway through and after hugging me sat down nearby. He seemed to have a lot he wanted to say, but was for the moment holding his tongue and letting the debrief go.

"I used a variant of the portals in a spell form to redirect Rooke's attack, and it killed him. After a bit of clean-up we returned here," I finished.

"Thank you, I do have a few questions, things that need clarification if you don't mind too much."

"Certainly."

"Let us start at the most important. Did you happen to see your compatriot Selene? I would assume she was in the same prison, but confirmation would be useful."

My stomach dropped as I thought about that. "She was taken?" I asked.

"Yes," the old man said.

"I-I didn't realize... I heard screaming in the prison after I was awoken, but I didn't know..." 'I didn't know they were torturing her.' I let the last bit hang, unwilling to think about it, about that horrible sound coming from her, about how. "I left her," I could feel the blood leaving my skin as I said it.

"We're going to get her back," father said, placing his hand on my shoulder. "We're going to go there and kill those bastards and get her back."

I looked over and saw the look in his eyes. I'd seen him angry, and I'd seen him when he was taking command. What I saw now was a black hatred, and even though it wasn't directed at me I still felt afraid of him in that moment.

"To that end dear, we need to know everything you do about this town. The name and location would be a good place to start, as well as anything you can remember about the people there or the layout of the prison." The scribe seemed to want to bring me back to the task at hand, the task I could help with most immediately.

"I never heard a name, and didn't see much about the prison."

I spent the next several hours repeating everything I could remember, and drawing poor maps where I could. They wanted the details I knew, but some were coming from the man brought in by Emperor Durin. He'd also been getting debriefed, but somewhere else.

I spent three days in recovery while things came together. The fortress was alive with action as teams were being brought in and moved about for the impending attack in Ice's End. They were drilling, and making sure that they all knew their part in the plan before it was to go off. I spent most of this time trying to give an explanation to another bard of how to use the portal spell, without being able to explain space-time in any manner that would make sense without a lot of background.

When he finally managed to make a portal I was reminded of my own first attempt, except it was even poorer. The poor guy made something the size of a quarter that left a smear across the room as he passed out. It was sad, because my understanding was that he had a massive amount of mana.

I was high on the mana front, but by no means the highest in the kingdom. No, most of my ability was the simple fact that I specialized far more than the average bard. While they could do more than I could, I could do what I did best, a trade-off, but one that I was quite happy with.

"Hmm, not sure here. You might try spending a lot of time going through the set-up portals to get a feel for it, or it might just take practice."

"Oh come on, that was just sad. Something is really wrong," he said, pointing at the smear that was still slowly disappearing.

"Not much worse than my first try. I got one about the size of an apple before I fell over. Had a monster of a headache too." They hadn't asked about when or where I'd first developed this, since I was willing to take on a student.

He sighed. "I think it's the visualization then. The idea of all the area between as something like stretchy pudding is just weird."

"Mmm," I said sagely. "Nothing for it but practice then. Maybe get on the portal building team? Not sure if that would help a bard, but you can try it if you can get permission."

We had to use a bard of course, because the wizard they'd sent to try and learn the technique had utterly failed. He'd spent hours grilling me for information I just didn't know or wouldn't give, and then spent more in meditation only to end up with a headache and a failed spell. There was discussion that this might be an exclusive bardic magic, since I could clearly do it, and a new student was brought in.

I liked the idea of teaching, but teaching this grated. I knew a lot more than I could comfortably tell them, and so it was like holding myself back. I wasn't just watching this man struggle, but letting it happen knowing that I could help him overcome his issues.

Eventually I looked down at my hand. The lost one was still slow in coming back, and I was missing fingers even now. A priest would have been optimal for this kind of work, but there weren't any here. This place was still secret, and since no priest associated with any army or nation we couldn't bring them in. Eventually that secrecy would fail to some degree, since a lot of people now knew about it, but it was being maintained for as long as it could be.

After the lesson I returned to my rooms to get ready for my afternoon. There were a few letters that dad had seen fit to bring me the day after my return. A pair from Ulanion, the first dated to when I was supposed to return, asking me to contact him at my convenience. The second was dated a few days later once the information of the kidnapping had been made public, and said much the same, along with a hope that it would reach me in good health. There was also one from work that had been sent while I was still away as well, asking me to have a written report ready when I returned.

Dad had expected me to demand to return home as soon as possible, but I had other plans. I didn't know if there were spies in Lithere, and if so, if they would try to take me hostage again. If either of those were so going back there, or even letting too many people know that I had made it back was a bad idea. So I'd requested to stay at the fortress for the time being. That request had been met with quick approval by both my father, and the staff responsible for it.

My other requests were not as easy. Mother had to be told that I was safe, but wouldn't be coming home. I wished my father good luck on that one. I also requested Ulanion to be moved to the fortress for the time being. I wanted someone for company and with all the soldiers being moved around, this shouldn't be an issue. If nothing else they could write him off as being assigned by father as my bodyguard or something. That had led to a lot of displeasure on father's part, but he'd let it happen. He and my brother were both going to be attacking Ice's End, and if something happened here while a large part of Durin's forces were otherwise occupied skilled archers would be a boon.

The knock on my door came just after noon.

"Why hello there," I said to the familiar elven man as I opened the door.

"You know," he said. "I was not expecting you to have me ordered to come here because you needed an, ahem, 'bodyguard and boyfriend.' to help you."

"You did ask me to contact you at my earliest convenience did you not?" I asked.

"Fair enough, and it is good to see you." He smiled and shook his head.

I looked him over briefly, and found that he was much the same as he had been. He looked a little more comfortable in the less formal version of military garb, but other then that was still himself. I also noticed he had a thin book with him.

He did the same to me, but zeroed in on my hand, eyes clearly focusing on it.

"Things did not go according to plan," I explained.

"Are you okay?" He asked, looking concerned.

"I will be. I found a room we can use to talk. It's nice and has a lovely view of the gardens."

We walked quietly. The whole place was busy, and while the halls weren't crowded it seemed best not to disturb others. Soon enough though we reached our destination and I led the way in.

"Okay, why is there such a big empty room here?" He asked as he looked around the place, it was huge, and had windows all along the inner side that faced down on the green courtyard.

"This place wasn't designed as a fortress," I told him.

"Really?" He looked surprised by that.

"Well, not just a fortress. It was supposed to be a school. This would probably have been one of the classrooms."

He took a while to process that. "The portals then..."

"To bring and take home students would be my guess," I explained.

"I would have loved to have seen such a place."

"Me too, but I still like it as it is. Emperor Durin may not be perfect, but he's doing a lot of good, really a lot." Then I shrugged, and changed the subject. "But enough about that, what's with the book?"

He chuckled. "Well, I knew I couldn't trade letters with you for awhile so I made you something." He put down the little volume and opened it to the first page.

I recognized it immediately, it was Lithere, as seen from the high end of the main street in some kind of charcoal. It looked down on the skyline and you could make out many of the cities major buildings. It looked almost like a photo.

"You drew this?"

"I thought you might like to see the city as I did, and I took up a bit of sketching so I could show people what I saw when I was scouting. It's not the work of an expert or anything, but I thought you might like it." He smiled nervously and I was reminded once again how elves had a very skewed idea of what 'skilled' meant.

I carefully flipped a few more pages. The school, a market, a scene of a sunrise that I heavily suspected was from the restaurant he'd taken me to breakfast at.

"I love it," I said quietly. "Thank you. This is something bright out of that..." I didn't really have the right words.

"Do you wish to talk about it?" He asked.

"Let's sit."

There were a few benches pushed back against one wall and we settled on one. I began haltingly at first, and skipped the beginning, but I talked. I talked and talked, letting words the words flow without worrying about how accurate they were, or if someone could get the information they needed, I just let loose the stream. My feelings and fears, and hopes, the terror when I realized I'd been captured, the savage glee as I watched my trap close upon the men trying to hunt me down.

He listened to all of it. He didn't interrupt, or ask questions, or seek clarification, he just listened. One arm wrapped around me loosely he held me as I let loose my story, the few times I stopped I saw his eyes, his attention to it all. Once I'd finished he just sat there, waiting for me to be ready.

"What do you think?" I finally asked, after having sat still for a long while.

"That there are some men I'd really like to kill. Sadly I have a more important job to take care of at the moment."

I pulled myself up and kissed him, it just felt right.