drummers, the frost demons marched in rows. Kama reached for Lorrine's hand. Lorrine trembled, just a tiny bit. Not much reassurance in a trembling hand. But the contact still helped.
The frost demons were beautiful, in an ungainly sort of way. They had a terribly awkward gait, but they looked like a clear geode come to life. Their skins were coated in crystals which somehow looked alive. They caught and magnified the light which surrounded the army as a whole and produced an extra haze of light around each of them, filled with rainbow glints.
The army marched towards them. Other than looking freakish, terrifying, and beautiful, they made no overtly hostile moves. Lorrine and Kama had a whispered conference and decided to stand their ground. The army came so close they could feel the ground shaking with each thundering footstep and drumbeat. Then the djinn at the front held up an arm. The drummers produced a roll, then a final crashing boom!
The army halted.
"Hail, Queen Stormrider! I am Atothka, the commander of your army. What are your commands?"
"Um, Kama?"
"Yes, Lorrine?"
"What the thtock is happening here?"
"I'm not sure, Lorrine. In fact, I have no clue at all."
Then Lorrine gasped and dropped Kama's hand. "Those frost demons! Oh, how horrible!" She ran forward, past the djinn and the trolls, directly up to one of the frost demons.
Kama shook her head. Sometimes Lorra did the oddest things. . . But at least a being that called her Queen didn't seem likely to harm her. So she moved forward herself, followed by her cloud of ashantri.
"Why do you call me Queen?" she asked, when she'd gotten as close to the djinn as felt comfortable. She could feel a kind of cool breeze coming from his lower cloud.
"Because you, our Golden Lyrebird, are the direct descendant of the line of Harmuth. You are the first of your kind to stand on these shores in centuries. And you are a Stormrider, the most powerful mage of all. You are the Queen."
Then Lorrine came away from the demons, anger in her stride and her snapping eyes.
"Kama. I know why the shadows tried to kill me when they saw the mark of Biao Tanu."
"Why? They wouldn't tell me."
"See the bindings on those poor frost demons? And on the trolls, and even on this poor djinn. Hello, djinn."
"I hadn't looked." Kama switched her mindset to one in which she could see energies and looked around her. Every being simply crawled with a kind of greenish, blackish web of binding energy, and every being likewise bore the mark of Biao Tanu.
"Djinn. Are you a follower of Biao Tanu?"
Atothka looked at Lorrine with a desperate, sad appeal in his eyes. He billowed as he tried to respond in speech, or to nod, or anything. But other than his dark, expressive eyes, the djinn could say nothing.
"That's it, see, Kama? These poor creatures are held here against their wills. Can you release them? He did call you Queen, after all."
"I can most certainly try."
Kama surveyed the beings in front of her. Part of her wanted to leave the trolls bound by their spells. Bound trolls wouldn't hurt her. But she knew that would be a terrible thing. Ancient binding spells that held through who knew how many ages were just plain evil, and she refused to be evil.
So she gathered up her mage powers, called on her new familiar hive, and began testing the bonds of her army.
To her surprise, the ancient spell released almost immediately, on her third test. Perhaps it was so old it had gotten fragile? Whatever the reason, it dispersed.
Immediately, a vast howl went up. The rock trolls threw back their heads and howled as they faded from existence. One of them stayed, though, looking at her with its big ugly face. She rather suspected the trolls were dead, now that she looked more closely. This one had the glowing, semi-transparent look of a ghost.
She turned her attention to the frost demons, and could scarcely believe her eyes. They were capering and cavorting about, clearly in an ecstasy of joy.
"Thank you, my Queen!" Atothka the djinn bellowed, swooping forward and grabbing Lorrine by the hands, swinging her around in a bizarre dance move. "And thanks to you, paladin of my goddess!"
He released Lorrine and flung himself into an exuberant series of acrobatic flips, corkscrews, and loops.
"By all the holies," Lorrine said, trying to recover both balance and composure. "What just happened?"
"I released them from their binding spell."
"You have got to tell me about this. When did you become a mage?"
"It's all because of you. Now hush, I'll tell you later, when we're not in the middle of some strange shared dream. I think this sparkling fellow has something to say to us."
One of the frost demons approached them, shooting glittering bits of light off his crystalline skin.
"Thank you, paladin," he said. "And thank you, savior. I am Gnarsh, and I am the leader of the glim that stand here before you. I have come to offer you our services. Many of us fled with the removal of our bonds, it is true, but many of us remain. And out of gratitude, and the feeling that you are worthy, unlike your ancestors, we will remain here and do your bidding."
"The glim?" Kama looked at Gnarsh curiously. "Is that what you call yourselves? My people call you frost demons."
Gnarsh shrugged. "None of you humans has ever asked any of us what we truly are. In fact, I suspect most of your kind believe us deaf and dumb, with barely enough wit to follow commands."
"And yet, here you are, speaking as well as any other educated being. Well. What do we do now?"
At that point, the djinn zipped up to join them, his lower cloud pulsating like human lungs after a long race.
"My apologies for my undignified behavior," he said. "I have been constrained for far too long."
"No fear, Atothka, we understand that your joy needed an outlet," Kama said graciously.
"Indeed. And now, I am undecided. I would like to return to my people. But I would also like to see what happens with you now, Queen. . . I'm sorry, but we have not been properly introduced. May I have the gift of your names?"
"Oh! Of course. I am Kama, and this is Lorrine."
Atothka bowed to them both, then straightened and looked at Lorrine.
"I wish to thank you again, paladin Lorrine. It has been long since any of us have felt the touch of our goddess. As her representative, you have brought much joy and healing."
"Thanks," Lorrine said awkwardly. She shifted on her feet, tucked an errant strand of hair behind her ear. "I hardly feel as if I've done anything."
"You spotted the spell, and pleaded with Queen Kama to free us. That is enough."
"Atothka," Kama said, looking at everyone around her, even the sad-eyed troll hovering on the fringes of the conversation, "you keep calling me Queen, and yet, I know nothing of this place, or anything at all about its history beyond what an instructor of mine taught me. There is nothing here, other than you folk who were bound to service. What is the point of being the Queen of nothing?"
"That is not within my power to answer, I am afraid."
Atothka billowed, and his gaze shifted back and forth, back and forth.
"What's on your mind, Atothka?" Lorrine asked. "You look uncomfortable.
"It is the height of bad manners to mention such a thing," the djinn said, looking away. His eyes fell on the troll. "Gumpa, you remain. What are your plans for the future?"
"Stay," the troll said, in a voice like rocks groaning. "Help build."
"Thank you," Kama said to the troll. She felt immensely proud of herself that her voice sounded neither fearful, nor disgusted, addressing such a terrifying and downright gross creature. Perhaps there was more to them than it seemed on the surface. She hadn't known even a few minutes ago that trolls could speak.
"Atothka, please, tell us what's bothering you," Lorrine pressed on, ignoring the troll. "No need to worry about rudeness. We've never dealt with your kind before, and have no knowledge of the correct manners, so you can't possibly offend us."
/> The djinn started to protest, then sighed, glowing eyes downcast. "It has been five hundred and forty-three annums since my-all of our-last meal."
"Goodness!" Kama felt her eyes open wide in pure shock. "You poor creatures! How are you still alive? What do you eat? And how do we go about feeding you?"
"Plants," the troll groaned. "Need plants."
Plants? Who would ever guess trolls could be vegetarian. . .
Many of the glim moved closer, looking desperate. "Sunlight! We eat light! We have been locked away in this darkness for so long, we hardly feel alive anymore!"
"And I eat the most uncomfortable thing of all," Atothka confessed, drooping. "Spiritual essence, produced by living beings. Such as yourselves. It does not harm those who feed me, but it is beyond rude to take without permission."
"So that's it. By all means, you have our permission," Lorrine said, not even needing to consult with Kama. After all, she felt very safe making the offer to a being who bore the mark of her own goddess. Pretty weird, that, being able to see a glowing white rune smack in the middle of the forehead of all these ancient beings. No wonder people could identify her so easily as belonging to Biao Tanu. Would she have accepted the goddess's protection if she'd known she'd get such a glaringly obvious mark? Probably. She had no desire to fall prey to anyone else with a damn controlling artifact. "Kama? Let's let these people go outside and eat, shall we?"
"Of course! We should be out there already. Come on, people, move. Out, out, out!"
She made shooing motions at the remains of the bound army, and everyone creaked and groaned into a motion much more