Richard Tuttle - Sapphire of the Fairies

Tanya laughed and turned to see Garthshaking his head and grinning. The atmosphere of the campsiteturned to one of enthusiasm and the Rangers spent the rest of themorning roaming the orchard and observing the way the fairieslived. Individual fairy guides were assigned to each Ranger toanswer their questions and explain the ways of the fairies to thehumans.

Excitement spread through the orchardas the fairies learned of the journey to Kantor to recover theCrown of Light. Fairy families brought their children out to seethe humans, especially Arik who was treated with awe and respectabove the other Rangers. Fairies started coming up to the Rangersto offer good luck charms or supplies for the journey and all ofthe Rangers’ spare clothing disappeared and was returned later,freshly washed and mended where mending was needed.

Queen Mita presented each Ranger with asmall sapphire bar to pin on their blacksuits to signify theirunity with the fairies of the Sagina Universe. Arik noticed aneighth sapphire bar that was much smaller than the rest, butdismissed it as another group of fairies came along to introducetheir children to the Bringer. Prince Midge’s words came back toArik and he smiled as he thought of his irrational fear of being anoutcast because of his branding.

Eventually, the Rangers broke from thepandemonium and returned to their campsite for the midday meal. Themeal was quiet as each Ranger pondered the strange people who hadopened their homes and heart to the humans. The smiles on the facesof the Rangers proved it was a beneficial experience.

Tanya moved and sat down next toKalina. “Did you really attend Prince Oscar’s wedding?” Tanyaasked.

“Yes,” Kalina answered as shewatched Tanya with her peripheral vision.

“You must have been friendswith Prince Oscar to have been invited to his wedding,” Tanyaprobed.

“He was not Prince Oscarthen,” Kalina remembered. “He was Duke Dalek at the time and he hadmany friends.”

“You must have met many of theother guests as well,” Tanya continued. “I understand AlexanderTork and Jenneva were in the wedding. Did you get to meetthem?”

“Ah, yes,” Kalina nodded. “Theyoung Lieutenant who was best man and the beautiful woman whoaccompanied him. Of course I remember them. Who could forget such afine looking couple? There was always such a crowd around them thatmost people couldn’t get close. And all that attention with so manyother celebrities present. They were a special couple.”

Garth stepped up behind Kalina and puthis hands on her shoulders. “Kalina, there are some things we needto discuss with Queen Mita and I would prefer to do that sooner,rather than later,” interrupted Garth. “Tanya, I’m afraid ourlittle session for this afternoon will have to wait for anothertime. I hope you don’t mind, but the opportunity to speak with theQueen of the Fairies is not one to be wasted. Why don’t youorganize the practice rounds for this afternoon and make itsomething that will entertain the fairy watchers as well as providea good workout for the Rangers?”

Kalina quickly rose with a smile toTanya and escorted Garth towards the Father Tree. Tanya bit her lipand wondered if she could beat Arik with a staff.

The rest of the day was spent inpractice and the Rangers took pride in showing off their skills.Tanya made sure that the practice rounds included archery, swords,staffs, knives, and of course, Lanoirian Stars. The archeryimpressed the fairies the most and they marveled at the accuracy ofArik’s longbow. Each of the Rangers was given an ovation after eachperformance and soon the warriors started trying to outdo theperformance directly before theirs.

Niki, however, felt left out. Kalinahad disappeared with Garth and she did not possess any demonstrablewarrior skills. Halfway through the practice sessions, Nikiwandered off into the orchard. Before she got very far, she raninto Garth and Kalina returning to the campsite and they corralledher into returning with them.

When the practice sessions were over, along parade of fairies swarmed into the campsite and spread longstrips of cloth along the ground. Family after family came andplaced a food dish on the strips until there were several longlines of small dishes from end to end. Queen Mita explained thatthis was a traditional sendoff for an army marching to war and theRangers were being honored as a fairy army.

The servings were extremely small, butthe potpourri of tastes was exciting. No one was sure what theywere eating, and even the explanations of the fairy host did notoften clarify the dish, but each was savored as a delicacy. Tedithought with amusement that while there were only seven Rangersmarching off to war, they probably devoured the equivalent of awhole fairy army during the festival.

Toward the end of the festivities thefairy crowd roared with approval and suddenly parted as a smallblacksuited fairy marched towards the seated Rangers. With a leapand a fluttering of wings, Prince Midge landed on Arik’s upraisedknee and posed in his miniature version of a Ranger blacksuit,complete with pouches and pockets and wide leather belt. The onlydeviation from the Rangers’ uniforms was the holes in the back toaccommodate the fairy’s wings. Pinned to the shoulder of Midge’suniform was the small sapphire pin that Arik had seenearlier.

The fairy festival lasted into thedarkness, but the Rangers still chose to leave before first light.When the fairy village learned the Rangers were setting out ontheir journey, the entire village assembled with thousands of tinyfairy lanterns and lined the path out of the orchards, singing asong about a coming battle and the glorious fairy army. Arik tookthe lead with Midge perched upon his shoulder talking nonstop intohis ear. Midge told Arik that he was witnessing the proper sendofffor a fairy army marching off to war and signified that it was thegreatest honor, which could be bestowed on anyone leaving the fairyvillage. After leaving the orchard and waving farewell to thefairies, the Rangers angled southward to pick up the trail that ranalong the Black River and followed it westward.

The terrain grew less mountainous eachday as they headed downstream towards the western coast of what hadbeen Cordonia. Kantor lay at the mouth of the Black River and wasthe capital of Cordonia before the Collapse. The only major townbetween the fairy village and Kantor was Paso and the Rangers gaveit a wide berth, keeping well to the north side of theriver.

When they got within a day’s ride ofKantor, a large mountain loomed over the flat coastal terrain.Garth recognized it as the mountain that he mentioned to the groupduring their discussion of Kantor, the mountain that had replacedthe Presidential Palace. For the first time on their journey, theRangers began to see other travelers. Most of them had been on thesouth side of the Black River and were ignored, but occasionallythey passed travelers on the north side and drew strange looksbecause of their blacksuits. Midge usually hid in one of Arik’spockets whenever anyone got close.

When they got close enough to see thewalls of Kantor, they started to see roving army patrols andavoided them. Garth suspected that there were not many armed groupsof travelers in the area and the soldiers would want to know whothey were and where they were going. The questions would have to beanswered sooner or later, but Garth hoped to enter the city withoutincident.

They arrived at the city gates late inthe day and were immediately surrounded by several dozen soldiers.An officer approached Tedi, who was in the lead, and started askingquestions. Garth immediately rode to the front of the group andassumed the leadership position for the Rangers.

“Officer,” Garth greeted, “weseek entrance to your fine city and wish to do sopeacefully.”