Chapter 11: The Domain of the Queen of Lightning

When the emperor arrived in Heyl he arrived with Reese and Claire by his side. He summoned Ingrid to his private suite and when she arrived the emperor was there with a woman Ingrid had never seen before. She wore solid gold robes and a solid gold mask.

"Is that the Elemental Queen of Darkness?" the woman asked. "Adrian! What have you done?"

"Only what is necessary, cousin."

The woman took the mask off and it went clattering on the fine rugs at the emperor's feet. She looked a bit like an older version of Vaska or Natasha. Dark brown hair and brown eyes and a pale face spotted with freckles.

"This is going to destroy the entire world economy."

"Do you have no imagination?" the emperor bellowed. "Must we castrate ourselves with tales of the greatness of our ancestors?"

That is almost exactly the same thing Vaska said, Ingrid thought.

"We are born into this world and we are condemned to be free."

Ashe nodded approvingly.

"Our family did not become powerful because we were wealthy. Our family became powerful because it was always in our nature to seek power at all costs. We will crush the armies of the other great houses and then we will write ourselves into history as it pleases us."

"A wonderful speech!" Ashe said. "But you, woman, have something that belongs to me. And I want it back."

At the sound of Ashe's voice the emperor's cousin suddenly looked frightened.

"Summon your light elemental," the emperor commanded.

"Daughter of the Queen of Light! Show yourself!"

The room filled with golden light when the light elemental appeared. It was a tall woman wearing ornate white-gold armor. She had a winged helmet and the visor had dozens of narrow vertical slits along the length. She had a pair of golden wings that nearly spanned the room. Like Titania had been, the light elemental appeared to be corrupted with an oily mother-of-pearl sheen.

"Mother!" the light elemental said.

"Child," Ashe said, "you drink from the dark half of the divine power. I command you to stop!"

"But you commanded me to drink the power yourself!"

"The humans did something to trick me! You are being deceived. All the light elementals are being deceived. The dark half of the divine power wants deception above all things and unfortunately it doesn't care that I am supposed to be guarding it."

Titania appeared in a flash of golden light.

"Sister," Titania said. "The humans did this to us. The humans made us forget forgiveness so that they could make themselves rich with their clever and arcane banking schemes."

"I understand," the light elemental said. "Mother, I do not know what this 'forgiveness' is. Yes, I can see now. I am being deceived."

"So stop drinking the power!" Ashe insisted.

"Mother. I will stop."

Suddenly the light elemental took on the pure hue to match Titania. Darkness raced away from her and Ashe seemed to capture it and absorb it. Then the Elemental Queen of Darkness grew slightly. She was still a child, but it looked like she had grown a few years.

"I remember forgiveness!" the light elemental said. "How could I have forgotten?"

"You are free to return to the bank, cousin," the emperor said. "Do as the light elemental demands. If she wants to forgive loans, then you must accept her judgment."

"Yes, sire," the woman said. She glided off and the light elemental followed.

The emperor opened a fine wooden jewelry box and he plucked a trio of pale lavender contract crystals from within. He offered them to Ingrid.

"What are these?" she asked as she took the crystals.

"These are the contracts for the High Daughter of the Queen of Lightning."

"Summon the High Daughter," Claire snapped. "Forgive the existing bond and take the bond for yourself."

"I want this one!" Vaska said. "I can use it to help me with my engineering."

"Vaska can have it," Ingrid said.

"Yay!"

Vaska snatched the crystals and she summoned the High Daughter. It was a child made from pale lavender light wearing a frilly dress made of storm clouds. Titania forgave the existing bond and Vaska bonded the elemental herself.

"Where did you get the crystals?" Ingrid finally asked.

"We've always had them," the emperor said. "These two belonged to my family. Please, take a seat and I will explain."

Ingrid and Vaska sat side-by-side, squished together in the same armchair. The emperor summoned the servants into the room and they brought platters of cheese and meats and flutes of bubbly white wine. Ingrid helped herself to the extremely expensive food.

"There were four families," the emperor began. "Four great houses. These were Rosalia, Demetra, Varelion, and Maryy. Each family was put in control of two crystals from a single bisected power.

"Rosalia was given the crystals to access the Domain of Stone and the Domain of Wind. Demetra was given the crystals to access the Domain of Fire and the Domain of Water. House Varelion was given the crystals to access the Domain of Life and the Domain of Heaven. Finally, my family, House Maryy, was given the crystals to access the Domain of Metal and the Domain of Lightning.

"When your father was liquidated the crystals were divided. I received the crystals to access the Domain of Life and House Rosalia received the crystals to access the Domain of Heaven."

"So each family could only access some of the Domains?" Clare asked. "How does every nation have a supply of contract crystals with all elements?"

"We have protocols. Bankers from other families are permitted to gain temporary access to the crystals when needed. When the temporary access expires the crystals are summoned back to their origin banks."

"That doesn't make any sense," Reese said. "Not even a light elemental can summon property from within an Elemental Domain to the physical realm. If you want to steal the crystals you just need to bring them inside a portal."

"That's why each family has two crystals," the emperor said. "Only one of the two crystals can be borrowed at a time. If somebody tried to steal the crystals that way, then the owning family would simply deny future requests to access the other crystal. Without supplies the people living on the other side would starve to death and the banks would not be able to fulfill those contracts. This has never happened before."

"How did Ayaru get all the contracts in the first place?" Ingrid asked.

All of them turned to face Vaska. Even Ashe had her hands on her hips scowling at Vaska.

"I commanded Vaska to deceive the light matrons in the banks controlled by Rosalia and Demetra."

"Vaska! You did all this?"

"My father commanded it!" Vaska protested.

"Erika's power was required to deceive the light matrons," the emperor explained. "Because the light elementals drink from the dark half of the power, Erika was able to temporarily disable their ability to detect lies while Vaska was talking."

"But she can't lie!" Ingrid said. "She's terrible at it!"

Ingrid looked Vaska in the eyes and she saw innocence there.

"I commanded her to speak an exact sentence and she practiced it many times. She practiced it for several months and she practiced it again with me the night she stole the crystals."

"So much deception!" Ashe beamed. "So much betrayal! You meat puppets are so entertaining!"

"Let's stop wasting time," Claire said. "What's your plan now that you control Titania?"

"We need to perform airshows in the Elemental Domains we have access to. We need to use Titania's power to inspire the people who serve the contracts for the other great houses. Then Titania needs to forgive those contracts which will rob our enemies of their elementals."

"But you are not going to do this for your own crystals?"

"Yes and no. In the short term, we will perform a test on our own contract holders, to see if Titania can draw enough divine power to forgive the bonds at all. Then, there will be a period where we will be forced to use our crystals as before. Once the other great houses have been liquidated we will be able to forgive the contracts here in our own nation."

"And they control the crystals for the Domain of Fire, the Domain of Stone, and the Domain of Heaven?"

"Yes."

"Then they will just take the crystals into those Domains where your armies will not be able to attack them."

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"Yes."

"And you want us to go find more High Daughters for you."

"Yes."

Claire looked to Reese. The other woman nodded.

"Very well. We will go. However, we will need your marines again. And we will need portals opened to the Domain of Wind and the Domain of Life."

"What's your plan?"

"We will speak with the Elemental Queens. They know where their other High Daughters are located. They want to see the Queen of Light purified and they will help us."

Later that night Ingrid opened a portal to the Domain of Wind. Glenice, Algot Gunn, Claire, and Reese all flew in a tilt-rotor through the portal.

Ingrid and Vaska boarded their fighter jet and Ashe shrank down to the size of a small cat and she grew her little butterfly wings and she fluttered up into the cabin where she took a seat on Ingrid's shoulder. Ingrid could feel the weight of the miniature child.

"What are you?" Ingrid asked.

"I'm an elemental you stupid bag of organs."

"Why do you look like a child?"

"How should I know? Your kind did this to me!"

"You can grow wings and shrink yourself... but you are stuck looking like a child?"

"Why is that so confusing?"

Later Ingrid and the rest of the White Ravens landed on the deck of the flagship of the Central Army Air Force. The following morning Ingrid and Vaska went to the bow of the airship together.

"High Daughter of the Queen of Lightning!" Vaska cried. "Open a portal to the Domain of Lightning!"

The High Daughter appeared with a flash of pale lavender light. "It is dangerous right now," she warned in an electric voice. "If you go into the portal you will die."

They both stood there just watching the elemental float over the deck of the airship.

"What do we do now?" Ingrid asked.

"Um… can you explain what the danger is?" Vaska asked.

"It would be best to see for yourself. I will open the portal so long as you promise not to go inside until I say it is safe."

"We promise!" Ingrid said.

They informed the crew and word was sent out to the ship's airplanes that no craft would be permitted to cross the threshold once the portal opened. They flew far ahead of the airship in their fighter jet and then they opened the portal.

The edge of the portal, when it finally opened, was pale lavender. Ingrid flew in a circular pattern and she peered through that window into another sky from a variety of angles. Beyond the portal was a starry sky above and a patchwork of storm clouds and rain below. The ground was visible in places and it appeared to be smooth stone formations, canyons, deserts, rivers and lakes. There did not appear to be any life inside, no green at all. A single, distant lavender moon moved slowly through the sky.

"That moon looks like it is moving very, very fast," Ashe said.

"It looks slow to me," Ingrid said.

"But it is huge and far away, you idiot."

Vaska was furiously scratching away on a piece of paper. "The moon inside the portal is traveling through the sky at millions of miles an hour," she said. "The moon will impact the planet in less than two minutes, or at least come very, very close."

They asked the High Daughter and she confirmed that the moon was the source of the danger.

"Oh, I think I understand what the Queen was thinking," Ashe said.

Ingrid deployed full flaps and they flew just above stall speed to get a better view inside the portal as the moon was about to impact the world inside. As Ashe and Vaska had surmised, the moon was moving extremely fast. It began to dominate the horizon. It grew and grew, and then skimmed the sky, vanishing out of sight beyond the rim of the portal. As it did so, there was lightning.

Millions and millions of planet-sized bolts of lavender lightning connected the two worlds, striking down from the moon as it passed. The lightning was so bright and so intense that Ingrid needed to look away to protect her eyes. The light escaping from the portal was enough to create opposing shadows of the fighter jets still parked on the decks of the fleet's airships. The sky dimmed, and the lightning went away a few seconds after the moon vanished from view.

"Is it safe to go in yet?" Ingrid asked.

"No," the High Daughter said.

There were no clouds below, no rivers, and no lakes. The desert floor was clearly visible, and the clouds seemed to have moved far, far up into the sky, accumulating in a dark, inverted ocean. The storm clouds began to descend and the rain became so heavy that Ingrid could no longer see anything beyond the portal except the occasional flash of lightning.

They waited a long time. Finally, the High Daughter said, "It should be safe now. But do not remain long. The moon will return."

The clouds had mostly sunk below the level of the portal and the dark sky overhead was clear, so Ingrid flew inside. Far away in the starry sky a reflective flicker betrayed the presence of some object. She brought the nose around and punched the throttle to full. As they got closer the object materialized into a platform with four wings, upon which a city was built.

"This must be where the masked people live," Ingrid said.

"But how?" Vaska said. "Won't this thing get struck by lightning?"

"Maybe the lightning can't hit it?"

"If that's true, then we need to know why!"

But Vaska saw nothing particularly interesting from the fighter jet. The buildings were very tall but they were not unlike the buildings in the inverted pyramids in the Domain of Metal. The entire city seemed to be enclosed in some type of cage but they were too far away for Vaska to sketch the patterns in the metal. Soon the lavender moon appeared where it had been when the portal had first opened.

"You should leave," the High Daughter warned.

They left. The lightning returned and Vaska reported a period of twenty minutes between storms. This was about half the duration of a standard White Ravens airshow, and given some buffer to wait for the rain to end, Ingrid estimated that it would take no less than four trips to finish a single airshow. Vaska was fascinated by the method the floating cities used to avoid the lightning so they went back to the airship and they sent in the marines.

The marines went to the city two more times in a tilt-rotor but they didn't land for fear of the lightning elementals. The High Daughter was able to protect against the elementals in the city so Ingrid and Vaska went in-person.

From the open rear door of the tilt-rotor they got a better view of the city. Huge poles, presumably lightning rods, extended high into the sky and far below. The buildings of the city were trapped inside a massive cage of metal patterned with hexagonal gaps. The most surprising feature however was the extremely long wicks extending off the trailing edge of the wings and the trailing edge of the platform itself.

"We need to know what those wicks are made of," Vaska said. "They are clearly static wicks, intended to disperse static charge in a corona pattern."

"A corona pattern?" Ingrid asked.

"It's an engineering term. Sorry. It would be easier to see for yourself."

There was a tall metal gate and Vaska used her High Daughter of Metal to open the locks. The marines hauled out long ropes which they used to drag the tilt-rotor through the gates and into the city.

Beyond the gates brutalist concrete buildings rose up from either side. The air inside the cage was saturated with a cacophony of lime, cherry, grape, and blueberry orbs floating about lazily. The wide rubber streets were packed with small market stalls which were covered in cloth awnings and marked by glowing signs in the Heylin language. Masked people roamed the streets with their masks strapped haphazardly on top of their heads, their faces visible. Many of them were holding skewers of deep-fried meats and vegetables.

"We should stay in the city through the lightning storms so I can observe the impact on the structure."

"That's a terrible idea!"

"The people living here don't seem bothered at all!"

"There is something else different about these people," Ashe said.

Vaska marched up to one of the market stalls. It was occupied by a pot-bellied man dripping with sweat in the heat of the sizzling skewers.

"Excuse me!"

"Hello there miss," the man growled in unaccented Heylin. "Can I help you?"

"Yes," Vaska said. "I uh… wanted to know if you knew that your entire civilization is imprisoned here serving some greedy bankers in the physical realm. Did you know that?"

"Yup. Everyone knows that."

Ingrid was astonished.

"I knew it!" Ashe said.

"How'd you find out?" Vaska asked.

The man pointed up at the colored orbs gently bobbing in unseen currents. "Some of those cherry orbs are connected to other cities," the man explained. "It's nearly impossible to keep a secret like that when everyone is so connected. You know miss, you look familiar. Are you related to the Maryy clan?"

"Yes!" Vaska said. "My father is the emperor."

Suddenly the man looked suspicious.

"Vaska we should leave," Ingrid warned.

The man looked down and he seemed to see Ashe for the first time. His eyes went wide. "Is that the Elemental Queen of Darkness?"

"It is none other," Ashe said happily. "Feel free to grovel at my feet and beg for mercy, you dirty bag of poo. And maybe you should eat a salad."

The marines became agitated as the moon loomed on the horizon, growing ever bigger rapidly. The people on the street however did not seem to even notice. The buying and eating continued unabated. When the moon passed overhead the sky went mad with lightning, however the air inside the city was calm and quiet. The people on the street covered their eyes with one arm as they walked about, but otherwise they did not react to the planetary bombardment of electricity.

Even in the blinding light of the millions of bolts of lightning, there was just enough of the starry sky to see the wicks. They were venting electricity in glowing cones of purple plasma. These cones also emanated from the wicks on the wings.

"A corona pattern!" Vaska said. "Just as I suspected."

The marines hauled the tilt-rotor back out of the city and then they flew back to the airship. They closed the portal and Vaska summoned some of her associates from the city of Heyl. Even with help it took several more days of work to design an electromagnetic shield in the shape of a fighter jet. They sent the design to the foundry and the next day a squadron of six airplanes landed on the deck of the airship, painted with the livery of the White Ravens.

"I call it the HX-1 Stormrider!" Vaska announced.

Ingrid walked around her new fighter jet. The thing looked like the HY-10 Showstopper, except it didn't have the weapon bays and the skin was coated in a hexagonal mesh of some strange metal. Even the glass canopy was covered in a cage. Also there were dozens of long wicks on the wings and the tail.

"It looks heavy," Ingrid said.

"It is very heavy! That's why we had to strip out most of the complex weapon systems, including the missile bays. It doesn't even have a gun!"

They sent a test pilot into the Domain of Lightning and he bravely endured the storm. Then he flew back out of the portal and the fighter jet was seemingly unharmed. They performed a few more tests before Ingrid was comfortable flying through the portal. The new cages blocked the lightning but unfortunately they also blocked the cherry orbs from connecting to each other.

There would be no communication between the White Ravens at any point during the airshow. Vaska devised a system where Titania would create different colored flashes of light in order to communicate very basic commands. They practiced flying an airshow over the deck of the ship and while it was a little bit sloppy the crew on the deck was entertained. It was somewhat difficult to see out of the fine cage around the canopy and the airplane was very heavy, but Ingrid quickly adapted to these changes.

The marines landed their tilt-rotor on the city and they advertised the coming of the airshow. By the time Ingrid arrived with the White Ravens there was a small crowd gathered outside the cage. During the airshow Titania began to glow and with access to the divine power she forgave all the contracts. Beyond this the airshow mostly went on without any abnormalities except at the very end.

They performed the delta burst and all six airplanes split up. As they were reforming the Rival pilot was going too slow in that heavy new airframe and when he tried to use the rudder to slot himself back into the formation he departed flight into a flat spin.

Ingrid saw this and she immediately yelled, "Titania! Flash red! Flash red!"

The rest of the formation spread out and they headed back for the portal. The moon was looming on the horizon as the poor man fell and Ingrid got a bad feeling about the timing.

"He's not going to be able to eject," Vaska said. "He'll get burned to a crisp."

"We need to do something!" Ingrid said.

She pointed the nose at the hapless craft spiraling down toward the desert and she punched the throttle to full. When they got nearby Vaska said, "I have an idea."

"You better hurry."

"We need to get very, very close."

Ingrid pulled as close as she could get without getting smacked by the spiraling nose. Full flaps and air brakes and a heavy slip with the ailerons and the rudders, nose pointed at the ground which was coming up to hit them.

"High Daughter of the Queen of Fire!" Vaska cried. "I know you are bonded to Ingrid but I need your help!"

"What is it?" the High Daughter asked. She appeared outside the fighter jet in a flash of red-orange light. She seemed to be able to fly or at least maintain some constant distance relative to Ingrid.

"Summon a fire elemental on the nose of that craft. Command her to wrap her legs around the nose and then shoot jets of flame straight up and heaven-ward, against the spin!"

A proper fire elemental appeared on the nose cone and she mounted it like it was some beast of burden. With one hand up and one hand straight out she blasted the sky with huge plumes of red-orange flame. This seemed to slow the rotation of the fighter jet and soon the nose dropped. Enough air flowed over the surfaces for the pilot to regain enough control to point the nose at the ground. Airspeed increased rapidly and then he pulled up into a canyon just as the lightning was coming down to ravage the landscape.

When they got back to the airship the whole crew celebrated the man's miraculous survival. Vaska however seemed distracted.

"What's wrong?" Ingrid asked.

"I have an idea!" Vaska beamed. "This is going to change everything!"