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  When she had been unable to find her parents after she finished exploring the city, she had been terrified. With tears streaming down her face she had been unable to keep in, she had wandered the streets of Shalilayo searching for her parents. Several very ugly men had tried to beckon her into a small alley, or doorway in the apartment buildings that were attached to the larger shop buildings lining the street, but she had moved quickly away from them even as some of the women passing through the street shook their heads warningly at her. For the next month, she discovered that large cities were anything but grand. On her second day walking the streets on an empty stomach, she had watched a darkly garbed man stick a knife in the back of another finely dressed man while the street was relatively empty, pulling him back into the narrow alley that he had stepped out of. She had screamed when it happened, running the other direction as fast as her legs could carry her. Rounding a corner, she had run into an enormous pair of legs, causing her to rebound onto the hard pavement. Looking up at the giant that she had run into, she had gasped in surprise. In front of her was one of the most beautiful women that she had ever seen. True, she was larger than any man she had ever seen, but she was proportioned perfectly, with her long black-trousered legs meeting a slim waist. Her white blouse seemed to glow it was so white. Her long blonde hair spilled down her shoulders to mid back. Her eyes made Morindessa gasp again; they were deep lavender with slitted pupils like a cat. The irises seemed much larger as well.

  The giantess had reached down and lifted her until she was dangling in the air at eye length, looking her up and down with pursed lips, pausing to study her face. Her gaze was so strong that Morindessa had felt a tingle go through her body as those peculiar eyes scrutinized her.

  "Are you lost?" the beautiful titan had asked in a gentle tone.

  The gentle tone had been enough to make Morindessa begin weeping again. With tears streaming down her face, she nodded. "I didn't mean to," she said between sobs, "I ju- just wanted t- to see th- the city."

  "What is your name?” the lady asked quietly, her eyes full of compassion.

  "Mor- Morindessa,” she sobbed. Suddenly she felt a wave of well-being pass through her. Slowly, her sobbing had subsided. Looking into the cat-like eyes of the giantess, Morindessa knew that she could trust this person. "What's yours?"

  "Riah," she answered, smiling encouragingly down at her. Pulling Morindessa into a close embrace, she whispered into her ear, "And don't you worry. We'll find your parents."

  "What in the two moons is that?” a harsh voice demanded behind her, and Morindessa had twisted in Riah’s arms to look back at the darkly garbed man that she had seen knife the other man in the street.

  Sucking in air, Morindessa's grip tightened around Riah’s neck until she must have been choking her. However hard she tried, she could not get the scream out that was trying to emerge. The black-clad nightmare was glaring at her with murder in his eyes.

  "She is lost, and in my care until I can find her parents," Riah replied firmly. "Relax father. She is something that is necessary."

  Far from relaxed, the man's eyes blazed, his mouth twisting in distaste. But he said nothing more, turning and walking down the street.

  So had begun her training in the finer arts of theft, murder, stealth and fighting. Riah had begun teaching her, while the black clad man whose name she had never learned stated from the outset that he would not teach her anything. Riah seemed to know which buttons to push however. All it took was a technique being shown somewhat imperfectly, and he was there to show them how they were doing it wrong, and how to do it the right way. They had spent ten years in the city, leaving occasionally for visits to some of the neighboring cities where Riah and her father would meet with various people whose identity she had never discovered. Riah had always been like an older sister to her, giving her advice about men, teaching her how to deal with her father's black disposition, and protecting her until she had learned to protect herself. In those ten years, Morindessa had come to love Riah more than she would have loved any sister. Oddly enough, she had even come to love Riah’s father, in a rather distant manner. She had woken up one morning in a small house that they were living at in the merchant's district of Shalilayo to a small note that she could recite to this day.

  Morindessa,

  We must leave you now. I do not know if we will ever see you again. If there were any other option, I would take you with us. I love you like the daughter that I could never have and hope that you do well.

  Riah

  It had been signed in a scrawl that was barely legible, and there were tearstains on the letter. Morindessa had never seen either of them again. She often wondered what happened to them. At first, she had felt betrayed, thinking that she had done something to drive them away. It was not until years later that she was able to realize the secret life that they had lived was much different from other people. There was something dangerous in their lives of which she was unaware. It would be even years later that she realized the compassion that Riah had shown her that day in the streets. Many women had looked longingly after her that first day, as if they wished there were something they could do, but their own lives had kept them from reaching out to her.

  As Morindessa watched the soldiers begin passing her with Ferrich, she was suddenly reminded of the day that Riah had rescued her from the streets and taught her to use the gifts that she had been born with. Ferrich’s face was white with fear, and his hands were trembling slightly. His eyes stared into empty space, wide with apprehension as if he could see something that none of the other people in the street could see. Morindessa felt as if a lead ball had been dropped into her stomach. Ferrich was an innocent. She had a feeling that something very bad was about to happen to him.

  Before she knew what she was doing, Morindessa was moving toward Captain Kerns, who was leading the guard detachment. She planted herself in front of him with her hands on her hips, her expression coolly imperious. He raised his hand slightly and the column of soldiers came to a halt.

  "I must ask you to stand aside, my lady," Captain Kerns commanded in a firm voice. "I have orders from the king to take whatever measures are necessary to ensure that this man is delivered immediately. I would not want any harm to come to you." The threat was barely veiled; confirming Morindessa's suspicions that something unpleasant was about to happen to Ferrich.

  "I am afraid the plans have changed, Captain Kerns." Studying the soldiers that were watching the interruption with the interest of men who were very bored, Morindessa reached out with her yar and began readying several surprises for them. As she did so, Ferrich jerked out of his stupor, stared at her in shock, and began studying what she was doing. She realized suddenly that he could see what she was doing, though from the perplexed frown on his face, he did not know what it was she was doing. "I have been sent to release him.” Riah had always told her to avoid outright lying if possible.

  "Sent by whom?" Captain Kerns demanded with a frown.

  "Why don't we just call it a higher power than either of us, and leave it at that Captain?" she replied with a pleasant smile, "That way no one needs to get their hands dirty."

  "Is that so?" Kerns asked with an upraised eyebrow, "You are that dangerous, are you?"

  In the flash of a second his sword was out of its sheath and striking at her head. She did not bother moving until his sword was almost upon her. Leaning back at lightning speed so that she was just beyond the point where the tip of his sword would pass, she brought her foot up in a swift kick, connecting just below his ear. He collapsed in a heap, twitching slightly on the cobbled ground.

  The other soldiers stood in stunned silence for a moment before clawing for their sword hilts. Morindessa set the last web of her yar down into the complex arrangement that she had created beneath the ear of each of the soldiers, causing a small concussive detonation of sound to explode right behind their heads. At once, twenty soldiers fell limply to the ground with a clatter of weapons and armor. />
  The square around them had begun emptying as people realized that someone was practicing the Arcane Arts. Amid shouts of fear, Morindessa seized Ferrich’s hand and dragged him after her. He was staring in shock at the limp soldiers around him, an almost wondering expression on his face. He stumbled into a shambling run as she dragged him through the streets toward the North gates.

  "Where are we going?” he panted, his face red from exertion that his body was unused to. His calves were burning from the climb from the Pit.

  "We have to leave the city," Morindessa told him shortly. "The king will be sending more soldiers after us."

  Ferrich reached out and grabbed her shoulder lightly, "Why did you do that? Why did you help me?" His puzzled expression reminded her that the nobles never did anything unless it benefited them.

  "Because once I knew a little eight-year-old girl that was in trouble," she replied slowly, looking around them for any sign of pursuit. "Someone stopped and rescued that little girl and gave her a life that she never could have had otherwise. I am merely repaying the debt." She turned back to him, "We must hurry. The king will have the gates closed soon."

  "Where are we going?" he asked curiously, hurrying to follow.

  "To a place that a friend of mine once told me about," she replied over her shoulder. "It's called Chasel Ri’ Aven."

  Chapter 13

  Twilight descended over Laketown, a small port town near the northern tip of Lake Magnus. The two moons that courted each other across the night sky were both full, a phenomenon that only occurred once every eleven centuries. The mammoth lake glowed with an ethereal light as it mirrored the lunar luminescence. In the eerie light, a slim, dark-cloaked figure carried a large pack and moved slowly toward the lake on the outskirts of the town.

  Seranova paused as she reached the lakeshore, setting the bulky pack of equipment on the ground next to her. Peering cautiously back toward the village of Laketown, she watched for any sign that someone had followed her. After several minutes of sitting perfectly still, listening for any snap of a branch or rustle of leaves, she turned to her pack and began unloading the contents. She was not very worried about someone following her on this night, but she had always believed that a little caution went a long way toward a long life. The local villagers were a superstitious lot and among other things, believed that the full moons portended evil deeds. This night, they had locked themselves in their homes.

  The contents of her pack were almost as odd as their owner. The first thing to come out was a perfectly round log that had a hole sticking through the side of it. Next came two slabs of Prenium that were shaped to fit onto human feet. It took some effort to pull the Prenium away from the other objects. Prenium was attracted to everything, the way that magnets were attracted to each other. It was also the heaviest material on the planet. If the villagers knew that she owned the precious ore that only nobles could afford, they would have dragged her before a magistrate in a heartbeat. After the odd-shaped Prenium came what appeared to be a long hose, made from bamboo and sheep bladder. She attached the hose to the hole in the side of the log and pulled it through until it stuck out the other side. She continued pulling the hose out of the pack long after the pack should have been empty, as if there were a bottomless pit inside of it. When the end of the hose finally emerged, she had over a hundred feet of semi-flexible pipe drawn out along the shore. Walking back to her pack, she sat down and removed her sandals, which she replaced with the Prenium slabs that she strapped to her bare feet. Reaching into her pack once more, she rummaged for a moment before pulling out a handful of what appeared to be crushed herbs. Tossing her head back, she brought the herbs to her mouth and swallowed quickly, grimacing at the fishy taste.

  Still sitting on the shore, she stretched to reach behind her where the log sat with the top six inches of the hose sticking out, and pulled it over to the water's edge. Standing up, she pulled the long cloak off her, revealing an odd array of small weighted bags that hung from her waist, empty except for the bottom section that she had lined with Prenium to make the bags sink. She remained clothed in trousers that she had cut off above the knee and a coat in which she had sewn small bubbles of sheep’s bladder, making small air pockets throughout the lining. She struggled into the water, straining to lift her Prenium-weighted feet. Pulling the end of the hose over to her mouth, she fitted it through a headband that she strapped around her head which held the hose in place. Setting the log into the water so that the other end of hose was pointing into the air, she slowly made her way down the shore, cringing slightly from the cold water and preparing for the immediate drop that she knew lay within a span of the shoreline. A moment later, she was plunging down into the depths of Lake Magnus like a rock, with the hose trailing off the edge of the shore and following her down.

  As she descended deeper into the depths of the black lake, she felt the pressure build around her skull as the weight of the water all around her tried to crush her. A few moments later, her feet thumped on the bottom of the lake, causing a small cloud of silt to swirl up around her. She stood on the lake bottom for several minutes, waiting for the herb mixture that she had made to take effect, enabling her to see in the pitch black around her. Slowly, the lake bottom began to glow a light yellow color. The fish swimming around her appeared to glow with a greenish tinge, giving her the impression that she was drifting in the night sky amidst the stars and other celestial bodies.

  She had spent the last fifteen years exploring the depths of Lake Magnus, from the time that she had invented her first underwater breathing tube. From the time that she was old enough to talk, the other villagers had regarded her as odd. She always had strange ideas and she did not show proper respect for the men in the village, scorning those that pressed their interest too far. Many of them had gone to her parents to try to force her into a marriage, but her father had adamantly refused any such demands. Seranova had been the rising star of her father’s life, greater than any son that he could have had. He saw past the traditions and superstitions they had been raised in. He saw into her heart that overflowed with eagerness when a new idea was introduced to her and took as much or more pride in her discoveries as he would have a son. Her mother had also raised her with the belief that there was nothing she could not figure out if she put her mind to it. They did not worry that she had not married as she reached her twenty-fifth year, just telling her that there were more important things in some people's life than marriage. She had certainly never given marriage a second thought. It would mean an end to her exploring, an end to her inventions and a life of boredom raising children, something that gave her nightmares just thinking about.

  Bringing herself back to the present, Seranova realized that her Everglow-enhanced vision had finally taken full effect. Taking a moment to get her bearings, she began clanking away from where the bank dropped far above her. It was said that the lake had formed after an enormous earthquake had shaken the continent two thousand years ago, causing a small mountain range to rise out of the ground far to the South. Where the lake was now, had been a flat grassland with small villages scattered across it. When the earthquake struck, the ground had caved in for a two hundred mile stretch, fifty miles wide, revealing the giant body of water, now called Lake Magnus. As a lake, it was unique. Most lakes increased in depth the closer that you came to the middle, being formed in the low basins of valleys by rivers that fed one end while exiting the other end. Lake Magnus was a sheer drop from the bank all the way to the bottom, never changing depth from the center to the shore. Seranova knew that after dropping for fifty feet, the lake continued under the bank further than she could see. She also knew that it was much more than an underground cavern that had filled with water. Under the silt that had built up on the bottom was a material that she had never seen, as hard as the Prenium that she wore strapped to her feet. She had found a fortune in antiques from the ancient civilization, her bottomless pack being one of her most treasured.

  Stepping over
some of the rubble that had collapsed from above when the earthquake struck, Seranova paused as a small, blue-glowing object caught her eye. Pulling several broken pieces of brick from around it, she pulled it free with a grunt into her mouthpiece. Brushing the silt from it, she saw it was a small statue of a man with wings, the fact that he was a man being obvious from the lack of clothes. As she touched it, a white glow emanated from it, blinding her. She could tell by its weight that it was made from Prenium, but she was not prepared for the bright light that appeared when she touched it. She knew the Prenium objects she had amassed thus far would glow in the dark for hours after being in the light, but she had never seen one that began glowing on its own, or with the bright intensity this one did. Fascinated, she tried to see into the statue to detect where the light emanated from. As she studied it, she began feeling a tingling along her spine that ran into her arms and legs and almost burned. Dropping it suddenly, she stepped back with a loud clank of her heavy sandals. Immediately the hot, tingling sensation and the intense light both ceased, leaving her blind in the sudden change back to her Everglow sight. Cautiously, she reached out and laid a finger on it. Light flooded the depths once again, and the tingling sensation slowly returned. Snatching her hand back, she thought for a moment before wrapping her hand in one of the weighted bags that hung at her waist and reaching forward to touch it once more. Nothing happened. Giving herself a satisfied nod, she scooped the statue into the bag.

  As she turned around, she realized that her Everglow vision was not returning. The bright flash must have done something to ruin it. Heart pumping, she breathed heavily through the air hose as she began blindly making her way back to where she had dropped into the lake. Reaching out with her hands, she felt for the rope that she left hanging from the bank with a rock tied to it. After several minutes of fumbling in the dark, she risked touching the statue again, just long enough to get her bearings and find the rope. Once again, light bloomed from her bag, illuminating everything around her. After a moment, she spotted the rope several paces to her right, and stomped over to it, removing her finger from the statue. In the blackness that followed, she clipped her Prenium sandals onto the rope, untying it from the rock that held it. Once her sandals were secured to the rope, she loosened the straps and slid her feet out of them. The air pockets in her coat helped to counter the weight in her bags and the objects that she carried, but she still had to use the rope to pull herself up to the bank.