Chapter 4: The Domain of the Queen of Wind

There was a pink electric orb in a glass box on one of Vaska's tables beside a pile of engineering diagrams, and Ingrid knew it to be one of the lesser lightning elementals. Vaska called it a "cherry orb" and within the sphere there were tendrils of pink lightning connecting the center to the foggy outer surface. In the night it began to pulse and when Vaska tapped the box a voice said, "We need to talk."

"Who is that?" Ingrid asked.

"It's my father," Vaska said.

"You are with your lover?" the voice asked. "Go somewhere private."

"Yes father."

Vaska left and she did not return for a few hours. At first Ingrid waited for her anxiously. Later she donned a bathrobe and stalked the female officer's quarters asking around for Vaska. None of the other women had seen her and eventually Ingrid found Glenice. Ingrid explained the situation and Glenice said, "You should be weary of that man. He is the most powerful man in the Heylin Empire and he is also extremely dangerous."

"What should I do?"

"Stop asking around for Vaska and get some sleep."

It was long after midnight before Vaska returned and she flopped over on the bed exhausted. She slept very deeply. In the morning Ingrid tried various methods of forcing Vaska to wake up and none of them worked. It was like she was dead except she was still breathing. Ingrid called the medics and Vaska was taken to the medical bay and the ship's surgeon fussed over her for a little bit. The man told Ingrid that Vaska was perfectly healthy and Ingrid knew he was lying. The nurses hauled Vaska back to the bedroom and Ingrid waited.

Vaska finally woke up later in the morning.

"Where did you go?" Ingrid asked.

"I cannot say."

"Why?"

"Because my father commanded my silence."

"I couldn't wake you up!"

"That's because I exhausted my spiritual energy."

"What's that?"

Vaska sighed. "Using an elemental isn't free. That energy needs to come from somewhere. In my case my bond with Erika drains my spiritual energy. I was forced to… go somewhere to get more."

"Where did you go?"

"I was dreaming."

"But you said you went somewhere."

"It's hard to explain. You would need to have an elemental of your own."

"What about the contract crystals? Those can be used to summon elementals and I never feel exhausted after using them. I can fly all day without stopping."

"That's because somebody else is using their spiritual energy to power the elemental. The person who holds the bond with the elemental you are summoning."

"So wait, there are people out there who spend all day exhausted so that we can use these contracts?"

"Yes. That's what the word 'contract' means."

"So where are those people?"

"In the banks I guess. Somewhere."

Later in the day the captain summoned Ingrid to the command deck. The deck officers stood silently regarding long consoles covered entirely with glowing beige gauges. One wall was lined entirely with round portholes. There were many brass tubes which ended in flowery horns and there were two telescopes mounted on shiny black poles and there was a large black steering wheel like the ones which might be found on old wooden ships.

The captain was standing by a porthole looking out. He pointed and Ingrid looked. There was a two-seater fighter jet on the deck and it looked a little different from the trainers. Sleeker, with a slight angle to the cabin and the canopy. The horizontal stabilizer was quite a bit larger than normal and the air intake on the belly of the craft was the largest Ingrid had ever seen before.

"Ensign Varelion."

"Yes captain!"

"You are promoted to Lieutenant Junior Grade. That down there is your new fighter jet. That man by the landing gear is your crew chief. Your orders are to test the new aircraft we just received from the Heylin Empire. I want a report on my desk before sundown."

"Yes captain!"

"Dismissed!"

With her new marks of rank she went down to the deck to meet with her crew chief. He was standing beside a tall elemental that appeared to be made entirely out of liquid metal, a mercurial blob with a distinctly feminine shape. The man held up a blueberry orb and suddenly a tiny bolt of bluish lightning shot out and struck the elemental. Then the elemental flowed into the metal wing of the fighter jet and vanished.

The man saw Ingrid and he saluted. "Lieutenant!"

"What's your name?"

"Chief Master Sergeant Jack Vail," the man barked.

"How long until she can fly?"

"Just doing some precautionary checks. We can have her ready to fly in fifteen minutes."

During that fifteen minutes Glenice arrived on the deck and Vaska was with her. Vaska was dressed in her lab coat and she carried a writing board and a pen and a leather satchel.

"What are you doing here?" Ingrid asked.

"I'm going flying with you!" Vaska said.

"I highly recommend against this," Glenice said.

"I'm the engineer who designed the major changes to this airplane. I am the most qualified person on this airship to advise Ingrid as she flies."

"I predict that the engine is going to explode. Then when you try to open the canopy to jump out the metal will be melted and the canopy won't open. Even if you break the glass your heaven elemental won't be able to save you and your pretty little ass will end up impaled on a cactus."

"Nonsense. Ingrid, you are an officer and this is your airplane. You get to decide if it's safe to fly with me."

"I wouldn't mind flying with you Vaska," Ingrid said. "What's the worst that could happen?"

Glenice rolled her eyes and stomped off.

"So what's different about this fighter jet?"

"I was hoping you would ask. Introducing the HY-7 Dodger! It's the first aerodynamically unstable airplane in the world, as far as I know."

"Aerodynamically unstable? Isn't that a bad thing?"

Vaska reached into her satchel and she produced a handful of blueberry orbs. "I've trained these lesser lightning elementals to create the illusion of three-axis control. They automatically adjust the pitch of the elevator to simulate aerodynamic stability when flying normally, but during a dogfight you'll be able to yank the nose around violently."

Ingrid reassessed that oversized horizontal stabilizer and she could see the benefit of such a feature on a fighter jet.

The maintenance crew loaded the wings with a full complement of ice-two and dark-three missiles, four of each, and a full barrel of ammunition for the ship's cannon. Ingrid took the front seat and Vaska climbed in back. Startup was relatively standard with the exception that the blueberry orbs needed to be slotted in the control column.

Ingrid felt an uncanny sense of doom as she drove the airplane to line up for takeoff. But the takeoff went well and the nose didn't feel heavy at all. Once she was airborne Vaska listed off a few maneuvers and Ingrid performed them all in turn. Within the wind elemental's sound bubble Ingrid could hear Vaska's pen scratching away.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

In the previous months the airship had waffled back and forth between the eastern and western coasts, just along the border with Ayaru, but at present the airship was not too far from Wave Crest. As Ingrid ascended high into the sky her hometown appeared in the distance as a perfect gray grid squished up against the ocean.

She imagined an opponent in a two-circle dogfight and she kept her eye on where her opponent would be and she held the fighter's lift vector pointed at that invisible foe as the dogfight developed. The nose moved easily and Ingrid estimated that the next time she practiced circles with Glenice she would kick the other woman's butt.

When she was satisfied that she would have won the dogfight she leveled off low to the ground. Only about seven thousand feet up over the border peaks and one of the volcanos to the north was taller than her altitude. She was about halfway between the airship and Wave Crest when the sky in the three rear-view mirrors exploded with turquoise light.

"Oh no," Vaska said.

"What is it?" Ingrid asked.

"What are the chances?"

Ingrid yanked the nose around to face the source of the light. It was a huge ring, at least two thousand feet wide, a bird's nest of violent turquoise tipped on edge. The center of the ring began as a transparent window into the horizon beyond but by degrees it was filled with undulations of cloudy turquoise. Finally this surface too cracked and shattered revealing a hole beyond which Ingrid could see into another sky.

"I think that's a portal," Vaska said.

"A portal?"

"An opening. A path to one of the Elemental Domains. From the color I'm guessing that's a portal to the Domain of the Queen of Wind."

"Souls!" one of the shadow hunters announced. "Souls! Shall we hunt them?"

"What kind of souls?" Ingrid asked.

"I think they're shooting at us," Vaska warned.

"How do you know?"

"Erika told me. You should defend."

Ingrid flipped the fighter jet upside down and she pulled very hard. Her vision started to narrow and turn gray. With the nose pointed straight at the ground she rolled so that the canopy was facing the massive portal. She could see the long white streaks of the missiles coming toward her and she could barely see the arrowhead-shaped fighter jets coming out of the portal.

"I think they're shooting at us," Ingrid said helpfully.

She had flown out over a frozen lake and that perfect plane was rising to smash into her fighter jet. She pulled up hard and skimmed just a few hundred feet over the lake. The fighter was flying tremendously fast and Ingrid craned her neck and she saw the parabolic arc of the missiles and the abrupt end of the misty streams where they each ran out of fuel.

Ingrid smashed the stick and tipped the fighter jet up on edge. Then she pulled as hard as she could to make a long arc over the frozen lake. Whatever missiles were following her kept going straight and they ran into the lake. There was a voracious cracking sound and plumes of water and fire exploded upward and the whole surface of the lake seemed to undulate with crumbling snow and wintery black water.

The portal was behind her and she did not know if any of the fighter jets had followed her. Her first thought was of getting Vaska back to the airship but even that might not be safe. The sudden appearance of a portal to another sky was not something the Air Navy had trained for. She decided the safest thing to do would be to stay out over the ocean and lob missiles at anything coming out of the portal.

Then the cabin was filled with a gentle copper-white color which etched strange rainbows on the inside of the glass canopy. Ingrid stared uncomprehendingly at her own arms which were the source of the light. The fractal fractures of gold in her skin were glowing. Then pain. Ingrid screamed.

"What's wrong?" Vaska asked.

Ingrid could not think. Every single nerve in her body was burning. The intense pain drowned out all other sensations. Some part of her was still able to fly the fighter jet perhaps through pure muscle memory, and her eyes acknowledged the gray snowfields of Taisia and the blue ocean and the milky horizon, but she was long gone. Lost in a pain that exterminated all concepts of identity and left nothing except itself.

A few moments later it vanished. There was a flash of golden light in the cabin and a little fairy-like creature appeared above the instrument panels. At first Ingird thought it was Erika but it was not. Instead it was a girl-child made entirely out of ghostly golden light, coated with an oily, mother-of-pearl sheen. She had crimson hair that was so long that it fell down past her bare toes. Upon her head she wore a golden crown.

"Mother has sent me," the little elemental said. Her child-like voice was crystalline and delicate. It gave Ingrid the impression of distant wind chimes.

"What are you?" Ingrid gasped.

"I am Titania, First High Daughter of the Elemental Queen of Light. I alone have the power to claim the contracts with other High Daughters. I alone have the power to close the portals. You must help me."

"Vaska? Do you see her?"

"I see her. It's really her! It's Titania!"

"What are you doing here?" Ingrid asked.

"This is a crisis. Someone has stolen the contracts with the High Daughters. Mother seeks to resolve the crisis but she needs a mortal to bond with me."

Ingrid scanned the sky. There was nothing. Whatever fighter jets had come out of the portal had continued on toward the airship. They had fired off a few missiles at her and they must have assumed that she would not be able to dodge them.

"You are among those who have been branded to speak only truth," Titania continued. "You were flying here in this capable craft. Mother was satisfied with you and she commanded me to bond with you. I do not need your consent for this bond. I command you to close the portal."

"How?" Ingrid asked.

"Go inside the portal and find the man who holds the contracts. Kill him and take the contracts. Then use the contracts to command the High Daughter to close the portals she has created."

Ingrid looped around the portal in a long arc. Through the dark glassy opening in space another world awaited. The sky beyond was black with turquoise clouds in the space where stars would have been. There was a single, massive turquoise moon looming on a distant horizon marred with great vortexes of spinning sand. Ingrid pointed the nose of the fighter jet at the center of the portal and she punched the throttle to full.

As Ingrid flew through the portal the nose of her fighter began to twitch and the airframe began to shudder. The airspeed indicator began to wobble chaotically. Wind and sand buffeted the glass canopy and it sounded like a hailstorm.

"We're losing power!" Vaska said. "Daughter of the Queen of Wind! Create a barrier against the sand!"

The buffeting ceased and the sky was mostly quiet. Far below the alien landscape was composed of juxtapositions of roiling ocean and rolling sand dunes. Massive waves beat relentlessly against the land and seawater spilled over the sand dunes and they darkened and hardened when the water retreated. Nothing as far as the eye could see except those two colors, glaring white sands and dark turquoise water. At some unfathomable distance there were stone pillars as big as the sky and wind beyond ages had eroded them into impossible shapes.

"I think the air here is all the same density," Vaska said.

Streaks of white smoke lanced out from some unseen fighter jet but they diverted and went away. More missiles shot out but once again they seemed to change direction inexplicably.

"It must be strong wind to deflect a missile," Ingrid said.

"No, that's not physically possible," Vaska said. "If the wind was that strong it would tear this airplane to pieces."

"Those devices are dangerous," Titania said. "There are shadow hunters riding those devices. But the shadow cannot hunt the light. I have distracted the hunters and they have gone away."

"You can block dark-three missiles?" Vaska asked excitedly.

"Any child of the Queen of Light can do this."

"Ingrid! You can just sit back and lob missiles at them from far away and they won't be able to fight back." She laughed maniacally. "We'll be invincible!"

"Souls!"

"How many?" Ingrid asked.

"Three."

"Missiles one through three. Pick a soul and hunt them!" Ingrid pulled the trigger three times and with each pull she said "Dark-three!" The missiles rocketed off the rails and they went off into the distance toward unseen targets. The white smoke trails began to bend downward and Ingrid knew the enemy pilots would be defending. But it was too little, too late. One by one the fighters exploded and they fell out of the sky with long plumes of black smoke.

Ingrid flew straight ahead searching for more enemies. Very far away there was a small turquoise star moving along the horizon, as if circling in place. As they got closer the last of the shadow hunters announced, "Souls ahead! Lots and lots of souls!"

"How many?" Vaska asked.

"Ten souls at least. Which one shall I hunt?"

"How is that possible? A fighter jet cannot hold ten people."

"Maybe it's a different type of airplane?" Ingrid said. "Maybe like one of the transports the higher-ups use to fly between airships."

"In that case it wouldn't matter," Vaska said. "Just pick a soul at random."

"I have one picked! It looks delicious!"

"Dark-three," Ingrid said as she pulled the trigger.

The missile went out and by then they were close enough to see the silhouette of the fighter jet against the huge turquoise moon. The missile ran out of fuel and the white smoke abruptly stopped but it was close enough to navigate without power. It should have hit but it didn't. The fighter jet released a fish-gill pattern of smoke from its tail and then there was an explosion behind the fighter jet. Way behind the fighter jet, back in the fish-gills.

"Target destroyed," the white hunter reported.

"Um…" Vaska said. "No it's not."

Indeed the fighter jet kept on flying. Ingrid was out of dark-three missiles so she gave chase to pull herself in range and use the ice-two missiles. They used a type of water elemental, specifically an ice elemental, to track the fire elemental in the engine. They just could not be used at long range like the shadow hunters.

As they got closer Titania said, "That's it! That man has the crystal!"

The other pilot must have sensed the danger because he turned and fled. He flew a fighter jet that was quite a bit larger than Ingrid's and it had two engines and two vertical stabilizers. Ingrid armed an ice-two missile and she fired it. The missile lanced out in chase but as it got close more fish-gill patterns appeared behind the craft, this time shining bright orange like tiny sunbursts. The missile diverted at the last second and chased one of the little orange lights instead of the fighter jet.

"That fighter jet is ejecting fire elementals!" Vaska said. "Genius!"

"Now is not the time," Ingrid growled.

Ingrid continued to chase and the other pilot, not wanting to have Ingrid directly behind him, began to arc heaven-ward into a two-circle dogfight. Ingrid pulled up on edge and kept the lift vector pointed directly at that arrowhead. The angle was sufficient to use ice-two missiles but Ingrid didn't shoot. She just followed him nose-to-tail.

"I think you can yank him into the gunsight," Vaska said. "Remember this thing is aerodynamically unstable. He won't expect it."

"That will cost a lot of airspeed," Ingrid said.

"But you might just kill him outright."

"I'll try."

She waited, patiently allowing the two-circle to develop naturally, until she saw the other pilot wobble in the wind slightly. Then she pulled hard on the stick, cashing out energy in exchange for a good angle. "Ice-two! Ice-two! Ice-two!"

All three missiles rocketed off toward the other pilot and once again that fish-gill pattern of smoke appeared from the tail. This time one of the three missiles happened to track one of the two engines. It exploded just behind the canopy and this ripped both the wings off the enemy fighter jet. The tube-like body jostled about, nose pitching violently in every direction, derelict and broken and spewing black smoke through the sky as it fell.

The turquoise star plummeted down into the airy depths and Ingrid chased it. When they got close Titania said, "I've claimed the contract." Then with a flash of golden light three crystals appeared before Ingrid's chest, fixed to that point relative to her body and traveling as she traveled. Each crystal was shaped like a teardrop and they were colored pure turquoise without hints of umber. They clattered down on the aluminum floor of the cabin.

"Summon the High Daughter," Titania said. "Command her to close the portals."

"But we are still inside!" Vaska protested.

"Then leave first."

They did leave. Once they were outside the Domain of the Queen of Wind Ingrid summoned the High Daughter. Like Erika and Titania the High Daughter was a child with a frilly dress and long hair and bare feet. She appeared to be holding some type of flute. The portal shimmered and broke apart and then vanished completely. The High Daughter reported that far away in Ayaru the second portal also closed.

When they made it back to the airship it was damaged but all the enemy fighters had been shot down. In the days that followed the crew began to whisper about the "Ghost of Taisia," who went into another sky alone, scored four combat kills, stole the contract crystal, and closed the portal. This was quickly shortened, and soon the entire crew had given her a new name.

Ingrid, the Lady Ghost.